Ibn al-Qayyim’s Kitāb al-Rūḥ 131
al-Biqāʿī’s epitome, known as Sirr al-rūḥ (The Secret of the Soul). The
Hyderabad editor disagrees, apparently (he does not tell us) because
there are no internal grounds for questioning the authenticity of Ibn
al-Qayyim’s authorship. Instead he suggests that al-Biqāʿī merely add-
ed the preface.
Note also the remarks about the title in this learned footnote: Ibn al-
Qayyim gave the book no title. Eventually, it became known as Kitāb
al-Rūḥ simply because that seemed to the most appropriate title, given
the book’s contents. Sirr al-rūḥ is not an epitome, according to the
writer of this erudite note, but rather the title suggested, unsuccessfully
as it turns out, by al-Biqāʿī. In fact, as we shall see, Ibn al-Qayyim men-
tions more than one title because, as we shall claim, parts of the book
were originally intended as independent essays.^20
There are other difficulties as well with the anonymous preface. Its
author states that this is the first book devoted to the topic of rūḥ, but
this seems not to be the case. For example, Ibn al-Qayyim himself cites
early on p. 35 a Kitāb al-Nafs wal-rūḥ by Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥāfiẓ.
Of the manuscripts that I have seen, only the copy in Vienna dis-
plays the preface found in the printed edition.^21 Two of the Escorial
manuscripts, nos. 699 and 1592, as well as the copy found at Leiden,
have an introduction written in the first person. It purports to be from
the pen of Ibn al-Qayyim himself, for all that I can tell, it indeed is. I
publish the Arabic text and an English translation as the final section
of this study.
Beyond the standard pious remarks of belief and devotion, Ibn al-
Qayyim’s preface contains only a citation, interspersed with occasional
explanations and expansions, from Sūrat al-Muʾminūn (Koran 23:12–
14), which describes the formation of the human being. In fact the very
same verses are cited, along with much the same commentary, in the
introduction to Ibn al-Qayyim’s Tuḥfat al-mawdūd.^22
20 Nonetheless, the Hyderabad printing carries a very long title, beginning: Kitāb
al-Rūḥ fī al-kalām ʿalā arwāḥ al-amwāt ... Some manuscripts well have title
pages displaying a longish title; in general, we have not paid attention to these in
this study.
21 This manuscript has a heavily annotated title page which, however, is quite
damaged, and I have not reaped any information from it for the present study.
In fact, the Vienna copy has more marginalia and corrections than the others,
and for that reason alone it would repay further study.
22 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad: Tuḥfat al-mawdūd, ed. by
Muḥammad ʿAlī Abū al-ʿAbbās, Cairo 1988, p. 10.
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