Books by Nathan Hofer
After the fall of the Fatimid Empire in 1171 and the emergence of a new Sunni polity under the Ay... more After the fall of the Fatimid Empire in 1171 and the emergence of a new Sunni polity under the Ayyubids, Sufism came to extraordinary prominence in Egypt. The state founded and funded hospices to attract foreign Sufis to Egypt; local charismatic Sufi masters appeared throughout Upper and Lower Egypt; organized Sufi brotherhoods emerged in the urban centers of Cairo and Alexandria; and even Jews took up the doctrines and practices of the Sufis. By the middle of the Mamluk period in the fourteenth century, Sufism had clearly become massively popular. How and why did this happen? This book is the first to address these issues directly, surveying the articulations of authority and strategies of legitimation of several different Sufi collectivities from this period. The book adopts an agentival approach, arguing that the production and popularization of Sufism during this period was the result of deliberate and variegated Sufi performances of authority and communal outreach in Egypt. It was the institutionalization of Sufi thought and praxis during the formative period (i.e. the ninth and tenth centuries) that authorized and facilitated this production. The book also emphasizes the role Ayyubid and Mamluk state policies played in different articulations of Sufi authority and production of several Sufi cultures.
Papers by Nathan Hofer
Saintly Spheres and Islamic Landscapes, 2020
The title basically captures what this chapter is about.
Handbook of Sufi Studies: Sufi Institutions, 2020
A brief history of Sufi endowments and their importance for the development of Sufism.
Handbook of Sufi Studies: Sufi Institutions, 2020
A short history of Sufi ribāṭs.
Encyclopaedia of Islam THREE, 2018
Muslim-Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period Jews in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates (1171–1517), 2017
This essay challenges the still prevalent historiographical trope of the decline of the Jewish co... more This essay challenges the still prevalent historiographical trope of the decline of the Jewish communities under Muslim rule in the later Middle Ages. The essay critiques the ideological underpinnings of this notion of decline and then offers an alternative historiography based on Arabic prosopographical texts from Mamluk Syria.
A study of Abraham Maimonides' program for training prophetic bodies as he elaborates it in in th... more A study of Abraham Maimonides' program for training prophetic bodies as he elaborates it in in the Kifāyat al-ʿĀbidīn, with special attention to the ways in which his approach to the 'meanings of the commandments' breaks from earlier rabbinic tradition by relying on Sufi concepts of the self and prophecy.
Journal of Islamic Studies 28.1 (2017): 28-67
Modern historians typically narrate a seamless history of Sufism in Egypt that begins with Dhū l-... more Modern historians typically narrate a seamless history of Sufism in Egypt that begins with Dhū l-Nūn al-Miṣrī (d. 245/859), continues through the Ayyubid, Mamluk, and Ottoman eras, and extends up to the present day. However, that smooth narrative arc obscures a glaring lacuna in the medieval and contemporary historiography: Sufism during the 200 years of Shiʿi Fatimid rule (358–567/969–1171). In this article I address that lacuna from two directions. First, I demonstrate that there were Sufis in Fatimid Egypt and reconstruct the broad historical contours of the movement. Second, I argue that early Sufi historians created the lacuna by ignoring Fatimid Egypt because of their ideological commitment to the construction of a normative Sunni Sufism. This ideological construction was taken up nearly whole cloth by subsequent Sufi authors through the Mamluk and Ottoman periods and then, in turn, by modern historians.
In 969/1173, Saladin endowed a khānqāh in Cairo for the use of foreign Sufis arriving in that cit... more In 969/1173, Saladin endowed a khānqāh in Cairo for the use of foreign Sufis arriving in that city. This khānqāh, known as the Saʿīd al-Suʿadāʾ, also included a stipendiary position for a "Chief Sufi" (shaykh al-shuyūkh), who would direct the day-to-day operations of the khānqāh and guide the Sufis who lived there. However, virtually nothing is known about the origins and development of this elite position. In this article I reconstruct the roster of individuals who held the office of Chief Sufi in Egypt between 969/1173 and 724/1325, when the office of Chief Sufi was moved to a new khānqāh outside Cairo.
In this article, I take the theme of other people's scriptures in a slightly different direction ... more In this article, I take the theme of other people's scriptures in a slightly different direction by highlighting a case in which an instance of scriptural engagement is characterized by a notable absence rather than explicit presence. I examine the work of David ben Joshua Maimonides, a medieval Jewish author who engaged with and quoted from Muslim Sufi texts. However, in the process of writing David systematically removed references to the Qurʾān and obscured the identity of his Sufi interlocutors, a process which scholars often describe as "judaization." However, this descriptive use of judaization often functions to obscure the complicated negotiations between an author and his or her sources. In this case, I pose judaization as an analytical problem. I argue that David left his knowing readers clues in the text that hint at the Sufi provenance of many of his ideas. The removal of qurʾānic material and the obfuscation of his Sufi sources were actually part of a clear and deliberate rhetorical strategy meant both to subvert his Sufi texts and to bolster his claims about the relationship between Sufism, biblical Judaism, and the revivification of prophecy among the Jews.
The Spanish kabbalist Abraham Abulafijia (d. 1291) wrote three Hebrew commentaries on the Guide fo... more The Spanish kabbalist Abraham Abulafijia (d. 1291) wrote three Hebrew commentaries on the Guide for the Perplexed of Moses Maimonides (d. 1204). Abulafijia's third and fijinal commentary, Sitrey Torah (The Mysteries of the Torah), is an uncovering and extended treatment of 36 "secrets" that he believed to be hidden within the text of the Guide. In this article I investigate the specifijicities of Abulafijia's mystical hermeneutic as he applies it to the Guide and how this mystical system is made to fijit with Maimonides' neoplatonic philosophy. I argue that Abulafijia's commentary is not actually a mystical text in and of itself. Rather, he intends the mystical text to be generated within the mind of the reader, who is meant to join experientially the text of the Guide with Abulafijia's commentary. The result is a paradoxical disclosure of secrets in which the linguistic mysteries must be disclosed discursively before they can become experiential mysteries to be disclosed mystically. Such a conception might offfer scholars a new way of thinking about what constitutes a mystical text as well as problematizing the ways in which we categorize and analyze the "mystical."
Book Reviews by Nathan Hofer
Talks by Nathan Hofer
A conversation with Kristian Petersen about my book on the popularization of Sufism in Ayyubid an... more A conversation with Kristian Petersen about my book on the popularization of Sufism in Ayyubid and early Mamluk Egypt.
A summary and presentation of my research delivered at the John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congr... more A summary and presentation of my research delivered at the John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, 15 January 2015
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Books by Nathan Hofer
Papers by Nathan Hofer
Book Reviews by Nathan Hofer
Talks by Nathan Hofer