Читать книгу The Kashf al-mahjúb: The oldest Persian treatise on Súfiism онлайн

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Although he was a Sunní and a Ḥanafite, al-Hujwírí, like many Ṣúfís before and after him, managed to reconcile his theology with an advanced type of mysticism, in which the theory of “annihilation” (faná) holds a dominant place, but he scarcely goes to such extreme lengths as would justify us in calling him a pantheist. He strenuously resists and pronounces heretical the doctrine that human personality can be merged and extinguished in the being of God. He compares annihilation to burning by fire, which transmutes the quality of all things to its own quality, but leaves their essence unchanged. He agrees with his spiritual director, al-Khuttalí, in adopting the theory of Junayd that “sobriety” in the mystical acceptation of the term is preferable to “intoxication”. He warns his readers often and emphatically that no Ṣúfís, not even those who have attained the highest degree of holiness, are exempt from the obligation of obeying the religious law. In other points, such as the excitation of ecstasy by music and singing, and the use of erotic symbolism in poetry, his judgment is more or less cautious. He defends al-Ḥalláj from the charge of being a magician, and asserts that his sayings are pantheistic only in appearance, but condemns his doctrines as unsound. It is clear that he is anxious to represent Ṣúfiism as the true interpretation of Islam, and it is equally certain that the interpretation is incompatible with the text.^[10] Notwithstanding the homage which he pays to the Prophet we cannot separate al-Hujwírí, as regards the essential principles of his teaching, from his older and younger contemporaries, Abú Sa`íd b. Abi ´l-Khayr and `Abdalláh Anṣárí.^[11] These three mystics developed the distinctively Persian theosophy which is revealed in full-blown splendour by Faríd al-dín `Aṭṭár and Jalál al-dín Rúmí.