E-Book Content
Spiritual Purification in Islam The life and works of al-Muh.a-sibı- Gavin Picken Routledge Sufi Series Spiritual Purification in Islam Purification of the soul is a principle that is central to understanding Islamic spirituality but despite this, relatively little has been written explicitly in the Islamic tradition regarding this discrete method of spiritual purification. This book examines the work of a scholar of this discipline, al-Hārith al-Muḥāsibī, who lived and worked during the classical Islamic period under the Abbāsids. Although al-Muḥāsibī was well known for his skills in many disciplines, including the Qur’ān, Prophetic narration and scholastic theology, it is his mastery in the field of Islamic spirituality and moral psychology for which he is best remembered. Assessing the extent to which the political, social and economic factors played a part in his life and work, Gavin Picken provides a comprehensive overview of his work and its great significance in the development of Islamic spirituality. Reconstructing his life in chronological order and providing the most comprehensive appraisal of his works to date, it explores a facet of al-Muḥāsibī’s teaching which as yet has not been studied, namely his understanding, concept and methodology regarding the purification of the soul within the Islamic paradigm. As such, it will be of great interest not only to researchers and students of Sufism but also to scholars of comparative spirituality and mysticism. Gavin Picken is Lecturer in Islamic Studies and Arabic at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on the evolution of Islamic intellectual history in the formative period and he has published a number of articles in the areas of Islamic jurisprudence, theology, and Islamic spirituality and mysticism. Routledge Sufi series General Editor: Ian Richard Netton Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Exeter The Routledge Sufi Series provides short introductions to a variety of facets of the subject, which are accessible both to the general reader and the student and scholar in the field. Each book will be either a synthesis of existing knowledge or a distinct contribution to, and extension of, knowledge of the particular topic. The two major underlying principles of the Series are sound scholarship and readability. PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED BY CURZON Al-Hallaj Herbert I. W. Mason Beyond Faith and Infidelity The Sufi poetry and teaching of Mahmud Shabistari Leonard Lewisohn Ruzbihan Baqli Mysticism and the rhetoric of sainthood in Persian Sufism Carl W. Ernst Abdullah Ansari of Herat An early Sufi master A.G. Ravan Farhadi The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism Bernd Radtke and John O’Kane Suhrawardi and the School of Illumination Mehdi Amin Razavi Persian Sufi Poetry An introduction to the mystical use of classical poems J.T.P. de Bruijn Aziz Nasafi Lloyd Ridgeon Sufis and Anti-Sufis The defence, rethinking and rejection of Sufism in the modern world Elizabeth Sirriyeh Sufi Ritual The parallel universe Ian Richard Netton Divine Love in Islamic Mysticism The teachings of al-Ghâzalî and al-Dabbâgh Binyamin Abrahamov Striving for Divine Union Spiritual exercises for Suhrawardi Sufis Qamar-ul Huda Revelation, Intellectual Intuition and Reason in the Philosophy of Mulla Sadra An analysis of the al-hikmah al-‘arshiyyah Zailan Moris PUBLISHED BY ROUTLEDGE 1. Muslim Saints of South Asia The eleventh to fifteenth centuries Anna Suvorova 2. A Psychology of Early Sufi Sama Listening and altered states Kenneth S. Avery 3. Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus ‘Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi, 1941–1731 Elizabeth Sirriyeh 4. Early Mystics in Turkish Literature Mehmed Fuad Koprulu Translated, Edited and with an Introduction by Gary Leiser and Robert Dankoff 5. Indian Sufism since the Seventeenth Century Saints, bo