Islamic Esotericism

The pseudo-Aristotelian Hermetica (hereafter PsAH) are a group of texts surviving in Arabic that claim to record conversations between Aristotle and Alexander the Great. In these conversations, Aristotle instructs Alexander about the cosmos, the comingto-be of everything in it, and astral magic-more precisely, talismanry, rituals for attracting the spiritual and planetary forces of the cosmos, the creation of amulets, and extensive astrological rules. The purpose of the instruction is to support Alexander's military career and personal life. Aristotle claims to have received this knowledge from Hermes Trismegistus. There are very few studies dedicated to these fascinating and influential texts; therefore, this article offers a preliminary study of the PsAH that introduces the texts and their contexts systematically.

Truth melteth like snow in the hands of him whose soul melteth not like snow in the hands of Truth."-Sheikh Ahmed 'Al-Alawī One is constantly reminded that the world is becoming smaller and smaller, yet can the same be said or assumed of the collective psyche as fundamentalism in all its forms, even the most subtle and unsuspecting of all-secularism-finding its zenith in modernism and its most recent amalgamation postmodernism are increasingly on the upsurge operating as a globalizing plague. Xenophobia has become another hallmark of the sign of the times; perhaps one of its most destructive elements is its mass apparatuses for spinning and injecting false ideas into the mind of the collectivity. Dr. William Stoddart spares no effort in delineating how the original purity of each religion can be found, and easily demonstrated, in its revealed Scriptures, and also how, since each religion in due course becomes anchored in, and identified with, a large cohort of humanity, it inevitably, with the passage of time, undergoes progressive decline. Since the horrific events of 9/11, which fundamentally changed the face of the world, no issue is more urgent than the understanding, in depth, of the various religions, and in particular of Christianity and Islam.

This paper aims to understand how the Qur’an prescribes relations between humans and animals. I discuss the Qur’anic epistemologies of morality and bring them into conversation with esoteric claims of hypernomian versus baseline morality. Various Sufi scholars consider morality to be tiered, with taqlīd serving as a baseline. This paper will argue why treatment of animals beyond what is required might be considered hypernomian and not antinomian. I seek to negate the association of hypernomian moral decisions such as vegetarianism with sacrilege by arguing why they are an extension of, and not in defiance to, shari’a morality. I reference similar delineations of that which is permitted versus that which is preferred, such as in the case of qisas and remittance. This paper will also necessarily deliberate on the meaning (or meanings) of taqwā, and how it relates to human ethical formation. 
On the level of the problematic, this paper will engage with interpretations of Genesis and the role of man as khilafa of the world, as well as the epistemological and circumstantial significances of sacrifice, personhood, dominion, property and custodianship.

Magic is given a prestigious place in Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (“The epistles of the Brethren of Purity”). It is the subject of the concluding epistle, wherein the principal themes of the entire encyclopedia are brought together—the vital powers of the cosmos and its emanationist scheme, salvation, the in telligibility of nature, and the compatibility of philosophy and revelation. Mastering this knowledge gives power to humans over nature and, most importantly, actualizes their potential for spiritual enlightenment, the ultimate magical act and the real goal of the sage. Yet, this epistle is understudied...

In recent years, we have witnessed an efflorescence of research on Islamic esoteric traditions and occult thought. Such scholarly activity established that occultism is a part of Islamic intellectual history that cannot be overlooked; rather it illuminates an essential aspect of the way people thought about the hidden, the extraordinary, and their potential for partaking in the divine and wondrous. Occult beliefs are embedded in philosophical, scientific, and religious discourses and in this chapter I consider the adaptations and modifications of the metaphysical elements that underpinned occult practices in medieval Islam (eighth to thirteenth centuries), particularly in their relation to the ways whereby nature and the divine were perceived and experienced. I argue that medieval Islamic occult philosophy distinguished the practices it supported from forbidden siḥr or sorcery by identifying legitimate conditions of acquiring power based on two paradigms: association with natural philosophy, and/or an affiliation with mysticism. A shift of emphasis occurred in the medieval period: from the eighth to the eleventh centuries, legitimisation of occult practices derived mainly from natural philosophy, stressing causation and knowledge of signs as the core principles of magical efficacy. Towards the thirteenth century occult practices began to derive their justifications from Sufi doctrines. In the first case, by and large, magic was deemed natural as it functioned according to a causality proven empirically and understood rationally; however, later, the power of extraordinary acts, including magic, became the prerogative of mystics achieved through non-rationalised revelation and contact with the divine, all of which undermined natural causality and transformed the signs from indicators of natural links to tokens of God and supernatural agents that mediate between Him and the mystic.

Traduction intégrale annotée d’Ibn Taymiyya, « Fetwa sur les Fāṭimides » (« Majmū‘ al-fatāwā », t. XXXV, p. 120-144), avec plusieurs corrections du texte arabe et, dans les notes, la traduction d’extraits d’al-Ghazālī, « Faḍā'iḥ al-bāṭiniyya ».

The Arabic original of the ninth-century pseudo-Platonic Kitāb al-Nawāmīs (The Book of Sacred Secrets) has not been discovered save for fragments from Paris arabe 2577 ff. 104-5, containing only three chapters.  Through a Latin translation completed in twelfth-century Spain we have access to a fuller version of the work. One of the titles given to this translation is the Liber Vaccae (The Book of the Cow) derived from its most notorious experiments that involve the gruesome slaughtering and mutilation of a cow to magically produce a rational animal or bees.  The work contains recipes or experiments for causing extraordinary transformations such as splitting the moon in half, causing the appearance of incredible giants, and prestidigitation. Recent scholarly research on the Liber Vaccae has focused mostly on its reception in medieval and early modern Europe.  This article explores the Indo-Arabic tradition to which Kitāb al-Nawāmīs belonged by associating it with a cluster of related works: Kitāb al-Tajmīʿ (The Book of Assembling) attributed to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (c. 721-815), Ġāyat al-Ḥakīm (The Goal of the Wise) of  Maslama al-Qurtubī (d. 964), Kitāb al-Sumūm (The Book of Poisons) by Ibn Waḥshiyya (fl. 10th century), and finally ʿUyūn al-Ḥaqāʾiq wa Īḏāḥ al-Ṭarāʾiq (The Quiddities of Truths and the Explication of Paths) of Abu al-Qāsim al-ʿIrāqī (d. c. 1260) . The first two texts have been studied in relation to the Liber Vaccae by David Pingree, MaaikeVan der Lugt, Sophie Page, and William Newman; their findings will be re-evaluated under the light of the aforementioned texts of Ibn Waḥshiyya and al-ʿIrāqī which offer new links that inform us further about the prevalence and influence of the ideas contained in Kitāb al-Nawāmīs.

ʿAbdallāh ibn Sabaʾ is a figure generally regarded as Islam's first heretic by Sunnī scholars and also vilified by Shīʿī scholars. In this article an anonymous, esoteric work known as Umm al-Kitāb is examined as it contains an exceptional narrative that adopts a strikingly sympathetic approach to Ibn Sabaʾ. It is also argued that the work's unique take on the Ibn Sabaʾ legend sheds considerable light on the date and elusive provenance of this early Shīʿī text.

This article addresses a desideratum in Islamic intellectual history concerning apocalyptic eschatology. I propose to focus on the Islamic revelatory genre par excellence known as jafr which as a textual tradition comprises the fusion of eschatology and esotericism. As a case study, I have chosen to examine an Ottoman apocalypse known as The Tree of Nu'mān Concerning the Ottoman Empire (al-Shajara al-nu'māniyya fi al-dawla al-'uthmāniyya). This complex revelatory text was composed at some point in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century and was pseudepigraphically attributed to Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240), the "Great Doctor" (al-shaykh al-akbar) of Sufism. Importantly, The Tree of Nu'mān shows us that eschatological predictions were central to bolstering Ottoman imperial claims to universal sovereignty, this being an historical phenomenon that permeated Islamic dynasties following the collapse of the central Abbasid Caliphate in 1258. More specifically, end-of-times tractates like The Tree of Nu'mān highlight the reliance of revelatory propaganda on the esoteric sciences of lettrism (ʿilm al-ḥurūf) and astrology (ʿilm al-falak). With these two esoteric pillars, I argue that Pseudo-Ibn al-ʿArabī secured the validity and appeal of his pseudepigraphic apocalypse. A further important contribution of this essay is a new, critical definition of jafr that expands on previous scholarly attempts at understanding this immanently Islamic eschatological genre.

In Islamic mysticism and theurgy, the Seven Seals represent in graphic form the Greatest Name of God; in Jewish Kabbalah, the Seals bear individual Divine Names which collectively form a “Great Name.” We review and compare the primary interpretations and secondary associations for each Seal in Islam and Judaism, from which it is clear that the two traditions have developed largely independent understandings of the individual symbols. Nevertheless, points of convergence – such as the interpretation of the fourth Seal as a ladder and an ascent to/of goodness – do exist. Conversely, the attributes of the third Islamic and seventh Jewish Seals have a surprising amount in common. Collectively, the Seals have been linked via word- and letter-counting to key affirmations of each religion: the Islamic ones to the Shahāda, the Jewish ones to Psalm 46:7,11. In contrast to the Islamic Seals, individual correspondences are rarely given for the Jewish Seals and are inconsistent across sources. Kabbalistic amulets are more likely to employ the Names of the Seals than their symbols, and when present the latter are often much degraded; in contrast, Islamic talismans make frequent use of the symbol series. In Islamic magic, the Seven Seals are associated with the seven Ṭahaṭīl Names, which exhibit possible similarities to the Names of the Seals in Kabbalah. Intriguing overlaps of the Jewish Seal Names with Egyptian mythology and Vedic Sanskrit are explored, but ultimately it is thought more likely that the  seven Names derive from the Names of God’s fingers and eyes (five plus two, respectively) in the Shīʿūr Qōmah of the Hekhalot literature. Fittingly, exegesis of the Seals in both Judaism and Islam contains general themes of hands/fingers and sight/blindness.

I explore the presence of zahir and batin as guiding design principles of the Aljaferia-- an eleventh-century fortified palace of the Taifa Kings of Saragossa. By way of introduction, the paper also examines Taifa architecture in the historical lineage of Andalusian Umayyad architecture. It explores the presence of early speculative thought and philosophy in al-Andalus and examines the Treatise on Contemplation by Ibn Masarra alongside the visual details of the Aljaferia.

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http://correspondencesjournal.com/volume-7/issue-1/
1) Liana Saif. What is Islamic Esotericism?
2) W. Sasson Chahanovich. Ottoman Eschatological Esotericism: Introducing Jafr in Ps. Ibn al-ʿArabī’s The Tree of Nuʿmān (al-Shajarah al-nuʿmāniyyah)
61–108
3) Keith Cantú. Islamic Esotericism in the Bengali Bāul Songs of Lālan Fakir, 109–165
4) Michael Muhammad Knight. “I am Sorry, Mr. White Man, These are Secrets that You are Not Permitted to Learn”: The Supreme Wisdom Lessons and Problem Book
167–200
5) Biko Gray. The Traumatic Mysticism of Othered Others: Blackness, Islam, and Esotericism in the Five Percenters
201–237
6) Francesco Piraino. Esotericisation and De-esotericisation of Sufism: The Aḥmadiyya-Idrīsiyya Shādhiliyya in Italy, 239–276
7) Mark Sedgwick. Islamic and Western Esotericism
277–299
109–165

This concise text was composed by Shaykh Abd’l-Qaadir ibn Musfata on Monday, the 29th of Rabi’l-Akhir in the year 1243 A.H. (November 19th, 1827). He composed it at the age of 24 during the rule of Sultan Muhammad Bello. The Ma`arifaat’l-Haqq is an commentary upon a Fulde` poem composed by his maternal grandfather, Shehu Uthman ibn Fuduye`, which delineated the eight gates to direct experiential knowledge of Allah ta`ala. It was a famous poem recited on the tongue of many of his disciples. Ten years after the death of the Shehu, Shaykh Abd’l-Qaadir ibn Mustafa composed this text explaining the meaning of this Fulde` song and demonstrating his own level of achievements in the science of spiritual unveiling. This was a nine months after the death of his chief spiritual guide Shaykh Muhammad Sanbu ibn Shehu Uthman ibn Fuduye` who died on Wednesday night the 25th of Muharram in the year 1242 A.H. In the title of the text Ma`arifaat’l-Haqq (Direct Knowledge of the Absolute Being), the author utilizes a well known technical term among the mutasawwifeen referring to knowledge and comprehension in all its facets. It is for this reason, the author used the plural form rather than the singular ma`arifa. The singular form when it is unqualified usually refers to knowledge which is the direct result of spiritual discipline and unveiling. However, Shaykh Abd’l-Qaadir delineates that the latter form of comprehension is not the only means to direct knowledge of Allah ta`ala. He gives eight gates to knowledge of Allah

This article investigates the role of magic in the confessional identity of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā as it is articulated in the 52nd epistle on magic, and informed by the rest of their Rasāʾil (Epistles). To achieve this, the author revisits the long scholarly tradition of speculation about their denominational commitment that has seen them affiliated one way or the other to Ismailism, seeing its esoteric foundations as the platform onto which their magic and astrology were cultivated. Rather this article argues that the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ aimed with their Rasāʾil to establish an anti-sectarian religio-political reform that they refer to as the Third Way. Its strategy comprises: reconciling revelation and philosophy; valuing the message of religions other than Islam (Christianity, Judaism, Brahmans, and Sabians); and addressing some Shiʿa specific practices and doctrines which it scrutinizes. The Ikhwān mitigate the doctrinal boundaries between Shiʿism and other denominations by adopting a more equable position which is consonant with Zaydi and Ibadi attitudes toward the contentious issues of imamate, caliphate, and wilāya/walāya. So, the Ikhwān see magic as the conceptual and practical pivot of the Third Way, since it is the culmination of philosophy and revelation, becoming a suitable concept to signify the self-enlightenment of the accountable imam achieved through knowledge of the Divine and Nature and the abandonment of physical attachment, which constitute the only conditions of legitimacy. It is also an appropriate tool for regulating state guardianship and sublimating the temporal state itself into a sacred city instead of investing sacral power into a single person.

Настоящая монография, подготовленная коллективом отечественных востоковедов, охватывает широкий круг проблем, связанных с историей арабского и исламского мира в Средние века. Отдельные части книги посвящены событийной истории, праву, культуре и экономике. Затрагиваемая проблематика анализируется на примерах отдельных показательных эпизодов. Особое место уделено бытовавшим в исламском мире представлениям о Европе, в частности о славянах. Несмотря на характер книги как научного исследования, она предназначена не только специалистам, но и широкому кругу читателей. ББК Т3(539=А)я43 А-79 ББК Т3(539=А)я43 А-79

The term ghulūww is commonly translated as “extremism” or “exaggeration” and denotes certain religious and doctrinal views which could be classed as exceeding the bounds of ‘proper’ belief with those holding these extreme views being called ghulāt (sing. ghāli) or “exaggerators”. The ghulāt tended to be associated with certain beliefs deemed ‘deviant’ or ‘heretical’ enough so that they were, in some cases, viewed as falling beyond the pale of Muslim orthodoxy and Islam.

The purpose of this paper will be to illustrate the evolutionary nature of this concept, whilst also surveying certain doctrines associated with the ghulāt.

In recent years, the field of "Western esotericism" has been confronted by problems related to the cultural and regional demarcations it has adopted. This field is based on a longue durée narrative that underplays non-"Western" currents, including ones which, through appropriation or reactions to them, constituted major sources for it. One of the most immediate arguments against the use of the qualifier "Western" and an essentialized "West" is European en-tanglements with Islamdom. This article tackles the ambiguous place given to Islam in the narrative of "Western esotericism" and the wider intellectual and historical complex that feeds the exclusionary tendencies expressed by the "Western" in "Western esotericism." It begins by providing a historical background of the West versus East divide in order to grasp the genealogy of the discourse and locate the problems resulting from an esotericism labelled as "Western." Two major components of this narrative within which Islam is usually evoked are then highlighted: first, the sanitization of orientalist perspectives , and, second, the reliance on perennialist sources, especially the writings of Henry Corbin. Finally, the article recommends, on one level, a reflective global approach that takes into account the agency of non-Western actors in the globalization of values and concepts in modern and pre-modern eras, thus allowing us to engage in more suitable comparative practices in the study of esotericism. On another level, I have argued elsewhere that an Islamic esoteri-cism (bāṭiniyya) has a long history dating back to the ninth century at least, based on principles, epistemological paradigms, and social orientations, conceptualized and negotiated (Saif, 2019). I demonstrated there, as I do here, that this esotericism had-and still has-connections with the currents discussed in the study of "Western esotericism," especially through the Traditionalists and Sufism.

This brief monograph is a close examination of the chapter dealing with the occult “science of letters and names” (ʿilm al-ḥurūf wa-l-asmāʾ) in the sixth faṣl of Ibn Khaldūn’s (d. 808/1406) famous al-Muqaddimah. It is argued that his views on this Sufi occult discourse are best understood in light of a rising tide of interest in lettrism, other occult disciplines, and millenarianism among the learned classes of eighth/fourteenth century Cairo, especially at the court of his patron, the Mamluk sultan al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Barqūq. On the basis of multiple recensions of the work, the text is approached as one that the author adapted over time according to his shifting personal situation and contentions with various interlocutors. Particular attention is paid to Süleymaniye MS Damad Ibrahim 863, the recension prepared for donation to Barqūq’s sultanal library. A critical edition of the chapter on lettrism as it appears in that manuscript is included, as well as a new translation of the chapter.

86 pages.
ISBN 978-3-86893-290-4.
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Nearly two dozen excavated Tibetan manuscripts from Dunhuang, Turfan, and Mazār Tāgh bear witness to the prevalence of a specific tradition of dice divination in Tibet. Largely dating to the ninth century, these manuscripts constitute a crucial part of the material culture of dice divination; another important part is the dice that are characteristic of this tradition. Known in Sanskrit as pāśaka-s, they are rectangular four-sided dice, and they have been found at archeological sites ranging in time and space from Mohenjo-Daro to Khotan to Egypt.
From the first studies of early Tibetan divination texts inaugurated by A.H. Francke, scholars have emphasized the comparative and cross-cultural analysis of this method of divination. Such comparisons initially drew on the Runic Turkic Irk Bitiq, the Sanskrit Pāśakakevalī and the Bower Manuscript, and in more recent times have explored possible connections with Islamic traditions preserved in books known in Arabic as Kitāb al-Fāl and in Persian as Fāl-namāh and with Chinese traditions preserved among the Dunhuang manuscripts.
The present contribution approaches this method of dice divination not through the mutable elements of poetics, and ideas of fate, luck, and fortune, which are open to adaptation to the social, aesthetic, and religious norms of various divining communities. Rather, it approaches this method of divination through a series of numbers that constitute its “bones,” or defining elements. These include the four faces of a die; the symbols on each face; the number of omens one should receive (often three); the number of divination omens in a divination book (sixty-four); and the numerical probability of receiving a good, bad, or mixed divination. In the process of examining these numbers and comparing them across traditions, the analysis clarifies the relationship between certain traditions and offers some tentative remarks about transmission.

In this article I will analyse the Sufi order Aḥmadiyya-Idrīsiyya Shādhiliyya based in Milan, established by Abd al-Wahid Pallavicini in the 1980s. This is one of the most important Sufi orders in Italy, and it is engaged in interreligious dialogue activities and institutional relations with Italian political actors. I will argue that this Sufi order has experienced a process of esotericisation, “Western”-style, in the sense that: 1) it was shaped by the “forms of thought” of the French esotericist René Guénon; 2) following Hanegraaff’s and von Stuckrad’s definitions, it embodies both a rejected
and an absolute knowledge; and 3) it is characterised by a sectarian organisational structure, which has distanced it from other Islamic communities. Starting from the 2010s, this Sufi order has been living through a process of “de-esotericisation,” following the same sense outlined before, in that the absolute knowledge is gradually opening up to other forms of esoteric knowledge and the sectarian dimensions are gradually fading, allowing a dialogue with other Islamic communities.

Few fields of academic research are surrounded by so many misunderstandings and misconceptions as the study of Western esotericism. For twenty years now, the Centre for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (University of Amsterdam) has been at the forefront of international scholarship in this domain. This anniversary volume seeks to make the modern study of Western esotericism known beyond specialist circles, while addressing a range of misconceptions, biases, and prejudices that still tend to surround it. Thirty major scholars in the field respond to questions about a wide range of unfamiliar ideas, traditions, practices, problems, and personalities that are central to this area of research. By challenging many taken-for-granted assumptions about religion, science, philosophy, and the arts, this volume demonstrates why the academic study of esotericism leads us to reconsider much that we thought we knew about the story of Western culture.

Authors: Egil Asprem, Justine M. Bakker, Tessel M. Bauduin, Henrik Bogdan, Jean-Pierre Brach, Roelof van den Broek, Dylan M. Burns, Allison P. Coudert, Antoine Faivre, Claire Fanger, Christine Ferguson, Peter J. Forshaw, Joscelyn Godwin, Kennet Granholm, J. Christian Greer, Olav Hammer, Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Boaz Huss, Massimo Introvigne, Andreas B. Kilcher, Jeffrey J. Kripal, John MacMurphy, Mriganka Mukhopadhyay, Bernd-Christian Otto, Marco Pasi, Mark Sedgwick, Julian Strube, Gyorgy E. Szonyi, Elliot R. Wolfson, Mike A. Zuber.

Islamic Images and Ideas: Essays on Sacred Symbolism, edited by John Andrew Morrow, is a collection of twenty-four essays written by a wide range of scholars and academics and has a clear objective, as stated in the Acknowledgements, which is to demonstrate a ‘vision of unity as opposed to division, peace as opposed to conflict, and harmony as opposed to discord.’ The essays are produced from the Sunni, Shi'i (or ‘Shi’ite’, as most authors in this volume appear to prefer) and Sufi traditions in an attempt to show that ‘differences in interpretation are not detrimental or damaging to Islam.’ Even so, the Acknowledgements opens with a statement which, from an academic perspective, could be said to be somewhat value-laden and subjective: that the image of Islam
has been tarnished by ‘misguided Muslims’.

In this essay we will present two texts from the Sufi literature that may contribute to the study of Islamic practice. The only existing extensive translations of writings concerning the
spiritual meaning of ritual prayer in Islam being those of a chapter of the Ihyā’ ‘ulūm al-dīn of al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) by M. Holland and of the al-Futūhāt al-Makkiyya of Ibn al-‘Arabī, the purpose is to enrich the doctrinal spectrum of the subject and to show that the interpretations of Salāh are in fact developments of its original meanings as they appear in the Qur’ān and in the Hadith literature. The essay hops thus to contribute to the debate concerning the genuine Islamic origin of Muslim spirituality such as it has been initiated by such scholars as L. Massignon and P. Nwyia in the fields of terminology and hermeneutics respectively. We do certainly not pretend to treat this subject in an exhaustive way, the objective being rather to highlight that Islamic practice far from constitutes a closed system of predefined norms devoid of any interpretative potential, but, on the contrary, represents a dynamic reference which has never ceased to inspire Muslim thought in a creative way.
The introductory part of this paper will be treating the fundamental ideas as to what constitutes the significance of ritual prayer in the Qur’ān and secondly in the sayings of the Prophet. Without getting too much into details, our main concern will be to develop further some key issues highlighted in the article of The Encyclopedia of Islam. The second and main part begins with an extract from a contemporary fiqh treatise, introducing the presentation of a selection of extracts from the writings of two illustrious Sufi authors which, despite of their interest, have not yet been translated. The texts of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892) and of Aḥmad Ibn ‘Ajība (d. 1224/1809) have been chosen, because of their originality and secondly because of the historical and geographic distance that separates them, which shows thus that interpreting Islamic practice has never ceased to preoccupy Muslim thinkers of any cultural background

Letters to the Editor-An Exchange on Tradition and Sufism 9 "On a formalist level, the so-called fundamentalist movements are an attempt at fostering a 'universal Islam' based on a literal, formal interpretation of the religion, claiming to restore the religion to its full universal horizon beyond sectarian and 'innovative' deviations or accretions. At the other end of the spectrum, the last decades have seen the development, particularly in the West, of a neo-Sufism that has argued for the severance of Sufism from its Islamic framework, thereby advocating a full development of its universal scope. Both movements, as contrary as they may appear on the level of their immediate positions, reflect in fact the type of reversal of principles that Guénon had in view when describing the way in which 'counter-spirituality' would present itself as a return to authentic tradition." [