PUBLICATIONS OF THE ISRAEL ACADEMY

OF SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

SECTION OF HUMANITIES

STUDIES IN HONOR OF SHAUL SHAKED

STUDIES IN THE HUMANITIES
 STUDIES IN HONOR OF
SHAUL SHAKED

Edited by

Yohanan Friedmann
AND

Etan Kohlberg

JERUSALEM 2019

THE ISRAEL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

 Copy editing: Gila Brand and Deborah Greniman
Preparation for press: Deborah Greniman
Production: Yehuda Greenbaum

ISBN 978‒965‒208‒232‒9

©
The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2019
Typesetting by Irit Nahum
Printed in Israel at Ayalon Printing, Jerusalem
 CONTENTS

Foreword 7

Michael Shenkar
The Scholarly Oeuvre of Shaul Shaked, 1
Shaul Shaked and the Study of Zoroastrianism 9

Ofir Haim
The Scholarly Oeuvre of Shaul Shaked, 2
Shaul Shaked and the Study of Judeo-Persian 15

Yuval Harari
The Scholarly Oeuvre of Shaul Shaked, 3
Shaul Shaked on Jewish Magic 19

Moshe Idel
From Iran to Qumran and Beyond: On the Evil Thought of God 29

Gideon Bohak
Babylonian Jewish Magic in Late Antiquity: Beyond the
Incantation Bowls 70

Geoffrey Herman
Holy Relics in Mata Meḥasya: Christians and Jews after the
Muslim Conquest of Babylonia 123

Sara Sviri
Questions and Answers: A Literary Dialogue between
al-Ḥakῑm al-Tirmidhῑ and Ibn al-ꜤArabῑ 141

Julia Rubanovich
The Medieval Persian Author on Guard: In Defense of
Authorship 158

Shaul Shaked: Principal Publications 176

Contributors to This Volume 195

 Foreword
The present volume is based on lectures delivered at a symposium
organized by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities on the
occasion of the eightieth birthday of Professor Shaul Shaked, who be-
came a Member of the Academy in 1986. The editors are grateful to the
participants for their innovative contributions to the event and to the
ensuing book.
Special thanks are due to Gila Brand for her first round of editing, to
Deborah Greniman, Senior Editor of English-Language Publications at
the Academy, for her painstaking, dedicated and professional editorial
work, to Irit Nahum for her expert typesetting and to Yehuda Green-
baum of the Academy’s Publications Department for overseeing the
book’s production.

Yohanan Friedmann
Etan Kohlberg
Jerusalem, December 2018

7
 Questions and Answers
A Literary Dialogue between
al-Ḥakῑm al-Tirmidhῑ and Ibn al-ꜤArabῑ

Sara Sviri

My respect and admiration for Shaul Shaked and my gratitude to him

go back a very long way. He was the supervisor for my Ph.D. thesis on
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, and years later I learned that I had been his first
doctoral supervisee. Along the passage of time, acquaintance and work,
I also learned about Shaul Shaked’s interest in Ibn al-ꜤArabī’s elaborate
Ṣūfī philosophy. His taking me on as his supervisee all these years ago
relates, perhaps, to his erstwhile interest in Islamic mysticism, before
he moved on to explore other fields, in particular his groundbreaking
work on magic in late antiquity.
In what follows I shall present a literary dialogue between two
remarkable mystics whose imprint on Islamic mysticism has been great
and enduring: Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (= ḤT, d. ca. 900) and Ibn al-ꜤArabī
(= IꜤA, d. 1240). This is a ‘virtual’ literary dialogue, as, temporally, a gap
of over three centuries separates the two. The dialogue is built upon a
set of a hundred and fifty-five questions (= the ‘questionnaire’) set down
in the ninth century by ḤT, a Muslim mystic from the central-Asian
town of Tirmidh on the shores of the Oxus River.1 The questionnaire is
included in ḤT’s magnum opus ‘The Way of the Friends of God’ (Sīrat
al-awliyā ), also known as ‘The Seal of the Friends of God’ (Kitāb
Khatm/khātam al-awliyā ).2

1 Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī belongs to a period and place in which the term ṣūfī had
not yet been established as the conventional designation for a Muslim mystic.
The sobriquet ḥakīm may be understood in the sense of ‘sage’ or ‘theosophist,’
namely, one who pursues wisdom and the knowledge of the divine realm
through visions and revelations; see also note 6 below.
2 This work, long thought lost, has been edited twice, by Othmān I. Yaḥyā
(= ḤT, Kitāb khatm al-awliyā ) and by Bernd Radtke (= ḤT, Kitāb sīrat
al-awliyā ). Unless otherwise noted, subsequent references are to Radtke’s
edition. For ḤT’s questions, see Sīrat al-awliyā , pp. 20–29, §40; on ḤT, see
Sviri, ‘Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī.’

141
142 SARA SVIRI

ḤT himself did not offer answers to the questions in his

‘questionnaire.’ His intention, rather, was to devise a challenging
quiz addressed to those claiming to have attained high spiritual states,
namely, the ranks of ‘God’s friends’ (awliyā allāh), who, to show for
it, pretentiously impart esoteric knowledge: ‘If you are empty of what
we have mentioned and blind with regard to the knowledge thereof,’ he
remonstrates, ‘what business do you have to enter this gateway, only to
muddy its pure water!’3 By refraining from appending answers to his
questions, ḤT obviously wished to deny those he rebuked any external
informative sustenance. His ‘questionnaire’ is not part of a didactic
program to be rehearsed and regurgitated through learning; the answers
to his questions must become known by ‘spiritual’ means, through
revelation.4 Some three hundred years later, however, ḤT’s challenge
was taken up by the thirteenth-century Andalusian mystic Ibn al-ꜤArabī.
In his own magnum opus, ‘The Meccan Revelations’ (al-Futūḥāt al-
makkiyya), IꜤA unhesitatingly offered his own elaborate answers.5
The ‘questionnaire’ is not the only literary tract that singles ḤT out
from his contemporaries. His autobiography, ‘The Beginning of the
Affair’ (Buduww sha n), is also quite exceptional – short, but replete
with intimate anecdotes concerning his quest, his dreams in the course
of it and his mystical experiences, the lonely periods he endured, the
harsh ascetical practices he took up during the preparatory stages of his
path, and his wife’s dreams, her own mystical experiences and the close
relationship he developed with her through careful noting them down.
He occasionally cites her utterances in Persian, apparently their native
language, which makes this probably one of the earliest documents
after the Muslim conquests in which the Persian language is present,
before its subsequent revival. This feature, incidentally, testifies to the
authenticity of ḤT’s account.
Significantly for the delineation of the formative period of Islamic
mysticism, ḤT, although he sees himself as a ‘mystic’ – namely, as one
who has attained esoteric knowledge (maꜤrifa) by means of revelation
(kashf) and inspiration (ilhām) – does not see himself as ṣūfī; rather, ṣūfī,

3 See ḤT, Sīrat al-awliyā , p. 29, §42.

4 Cf. ḤT’s rebuke: ‘Is there a greater offence than that of him who collects the
words of the Friends verbatim only to muddle them up and make them into
stories?’ – ibid.
5 See Ibn al-ꜤArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya (ed. Beirut), III, Chap. 73, pp. 70–
246. Unless otherwise noted, subsequent references are to this edition.
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 143

for him, is a pejorative tag for itinerant ascetics who use their austere
practices and ragged appearance to show off and gain public sympathy
and esteem.6 Indeed, in later Ṣūfī compilations, ḤT is not always included
in the fold.7 Nevertheless, his teaching on God’s Friends (awliyā
allāh) – the teaching that underlies the ‘questionnaire’ – was endorsed,
taught and elaborated upon by most (if not all) subsequent Ṣūfī adepts,
and themes concerning the holy man (walīy allāh) in the Ṣūfī tradition
can hardly be approached without reference to it, particularly as
developed in Sīrat al-awliyā .
Two more elements worth mentioning in this short presentation are
ḤT’s radical ideas concerning language (a word/name bears an intrinsic
relatedness to its meaning),8 and, as will transpire from what follows,
his concern with cosmological structures and cosmogonic processes
and their significance for the phenomenology of God’s Friends.
Comparative analyses of these themes may detect echoes of late antique
esoteric traditions, but these are not easy to deconstruct and identify
with precision.9 In any case, it can be affirmed that they do not stem
from the Hellenistic philosophical tradition, in either its Aristotelian or
its neo-Platonic garb.10
Indeed, ḤT was no philosopher; some may refer to him as a
‘theosophist,’ that is, someone whose esoteric knowledge stems from
revelations or theophanies.11 Based on his visionary illumination, he
outlined a mystical system in which human anthropology is seen in
analogy to ‘cosmic geography’ – and in this he foreshadows IꜤA. ḤT
refers to the ‘localities’ positioned in this ‘cosmic geography’ by way

6 For the distinction between ṣūfī as the conventional term for a Muslim mystic,
established in the classical Ṣūfī compilations of the tenth century onwards, and
the earlier, pre-compilatory use of this term, see Sviri, ‘Sufism: Reconsidering
Terms.’
7 ḤT’s reception in the classical Ṣūfī tradition seems equivocal: He is absent
altogether from al-Sarrāj’s Kitāb al-lumaꜤ. In al-Sulamī’s Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya,
which does have an entry on him, JaꜤfar al-Khuldī (in his own entry) is quoted
as saying, intriguingly: ‘I do not consider him as one of the ṣūfīs’; ibid., p. 454,
s.v. ‘JaꜤfar al-Khuldī.’
8 For more on this, see Sviri, ‘Words of Power.’
9 See, e.g., Sviri, ‘Emergence of the Holy Man.’
10 Cf. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, p. 56, and Abrahamov, Ibn
al-ꜤArabī, p. 5. Schimmel’s attribution of the title al-ḥakīm to Hellenistic
philosophy should be seriously reconsidered and revised.
11 See, e.g., Radtke, Drei Schriften, “Einleitug,” p. 32; also idem, ‘Theosophie
(Ḥikma) und Philosophie (Falsafa).’
144 SARA SVIRI

of traditional terms such as ‘the lower heaven’ (al-samā al-dunyā),

‘the house of power’ (bayt al-Ꜥizza), ‘the inhabited house’ (al-bayt al-
maꜤmūr), ‘the upper realms’ (Ꜥilliyyūn) or ‘the Throne’ (al-Ꜥarsh). For
him, however, these do not derive from an eschatological teaching
concerning the lives of the souls in the afterlife, but from a mystical
envisioning of the elevated localities (maḥāll, manāzil) in which
the friends of God are positioned according to their ranks (darajāt,
marātib), during their lifetime in this world.12
As for Ibn al-ꜤArabī, he was born in 1164 in al-Andalus, in the
western regions of the Islamic world, and is reckoned one of the most
influential mystical philosophers in the Ṣūfī tradition. As with ḤT,
there are those who refer to IꜤA as a ‘theosophist’ (ḥakīm) and to his
revelations as ‘theophanies’ (tajalliyāt).13 Although, unlike al-Tirmidhī,
he does identify himself as ṣūfī, he has an axe to grind with the great
Ṣūfīs of the past, among them al-Junayd, al-Ḥallāj and al-Ghazālī.14
But he has some early role models, too, among them Abū Yazīd al-
Bisṭāmī, Abū SaIīd al-Kharrāz, Sahl al-Tustarī, Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī and
al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī. IꜤA’s expansive mystical outlook, to which it is
hard to do justice in a brief summary, is based on a universal, multi-
dimensional cosmology, in which human and sublime hierarchical
strata are seamlessly interwoven: The one cannot be sustained without
the other. In bridging between the realms, the awliyā play a central
role. Among IꜤA’s many writings, two works became most prominent:
‘The Gemstones of Wisdom’ (Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam) and ‘The Meccan
Revelations’ (al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya). Chapter 73 of the latter includes
IꜤA’s abovementioned answers to ḤT’s questions.
Chapter 73 is a pivotal chapter of the Futūḥāt, and one of the densest
and longest. It deals, in one way or another, with the awliyā , who, after
the cessation of Prophecy with the death of Muḥammad, make up the
spiritual elite of humankind. Its intriguing title can roughly be translated
as: ‘On the mystical knowledge of the number of secrets which the
contemplator attains while [in a state of] direct facing (muqābala)
and while [in a state of] digression (inḥirāf), and the measure of his

12 See, e.g., ḤT, Sīrat al-awliyā , pp. 17–18, §35; also idem, Nawādir al-uṣūl (ed.
Cairo), II, Chap. 242, pp. 319–326, esp. p. 322.
13 See, e.g., Corbin, Creative Imagination, pp. 184ff et passim; also Addas, Quest
for the Red Sulphur, p. 105 et passim.
14 See Abrahamov, Ibn al-ꜤArabī.
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 145

digression from direct facing.’15 IꜤA alludes in it to an essential aspect

of ‘friendship with God’ (wilāya): the ability of the awliyā to grasp
God by transcending the implicit dichotomy, not to say dualism, that
may be inferred from God’s polar attributes (e.g., Merciful, raḥmān, vs.
Vehement, dhū al-shidda). Such transcendence is the Friends’ ‘direct
facing’ (muqābala). Their ranks, or nearness to God, are determined
by the measure of their direct vision of God as a ‘Coincidence of
Opposites.’ The ‘perfect man’ (al-kāmil) is he who holds the opposites
together.16
As is his custom, IꜤA pithily packs into his titles compound notions
and ideas which require voluminous elaborations. The unraveling of
these dense titles is at times facilitated – and at others obfuscated – by
the verses that follow them. Attentive reading of the Proem to Chapter
73 discloses the recurring motif of ‘number’ (Ꜥadad), as IꜤA tirelessly
marks the numerical quantities of entities that make up the human and

15 See IꜤA, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya (ed. Beirut), III, Chap. 73, p. 3: Fī

maꜤrifat Ꜥadad mā yuḥṣalu min al-asrār lil-mushāhid Ꜥinda ’l-muqābala wal-
inḥirāf wa-Ꜥalā kam yanḥarifu min al-muqābala. I am grateful to Dr. Salman
Bashier for reading this work with me. According to my understanding of
Bashier’s reading, muqābala relates to the ability of the Perfect Man (al-insān
al-kāmil) to face and hold in unison God’s polar attributes, while inḥirāf relates
to digression from such direct facing. Thus, he who attains perfect muqābala
can hold together the apparent contradiction between relating to God’s total
transcendence (tanzīh) and relating to Him in anthropomorphic terms (tash-
bīh). Indeed, a few paragraphs after the Proem at the beginning of the chapter,
IꜤA writes: ‘In your heart and in your worship, you are required to face these
two relations; do not deviate from them, if you are perfect’ (wa-anta ’l-maṭlūb
bil-tawajjuh bi-qalbika wa-bi-Ꜥibādatika ilā hātayni ’l-nisbatayni fa-lā
taꜤdilu Ꜥanhumā in kunta kāmilan, ibid., p. 6). Furthermore, ‘muqābala or in-
ḥirāf, both are in respect of the Divine imaginary descent (al-tanazzul al-ilāhī
al-khayālī), expressed in the Prophet’s saying: “Worship God as if you see
Him”; this is muqābala towards the Worshipped. Digression (inḥirāf) from it
is either by upholding God’s transcendence (tanzīh) – this is the digression of
the theologians (inḥirāf al-mutakallimīn); or by restricted anthropomorphism
(tashbīh maḥdūd) – this is the digression of the anthropomorphists (inḥirāf
al-mujassimīn). The perfect ones are those who hold both things together
(wal-kummal hum ahl al-qawl bil-amrayn).’ Ibid.
16 See ibid., p. 6: ‫ ;والكامل هو الجامع بين هاتين النسبتين‬and cf. ibid., I, Chap. 24, p. 447:
‘Pertaining to this, Abū SaꜤīd al-Kharrāz said: “God is only known by being the
conjoiner of opposites (mā Ꜥurifa allāh illā bi-jamꜤihi bayna al-ḍiddayn)”; then
he recited, “He is the First and the Last, the Outer and the Inner” [Q. 57:3].’
Many references to Abū SaꜤīd and this dictum are scattered throughout IꜤA’s
works.
146 SARA SVIRI

heavenly universes. His quantitative references, in the Proem and in the

rest of the chapter, point to the letters of the alphabet, Qur ānic sūras,
celestial spheres, angels, geographical zones, prophets and, last but
not least, the awliyā , as he calculates the sum total of the varieties
of holy men and women who make up the spiritual hierarchy. Rather
than shedding light on the title, the Proem remains a veritable riddle,
reminding one of the compact, enigmatic style of, say, the Hebrew
“Book of Creation” (Sefer Yetsira), which also revolves, among other
things, around the notion of numbers and counting (sefira).17
In his detailed account of the categories of people who make up
the spiritual hierarchy, IꜤA, basing himself on references culled from
canonical literature, deals at length with the different types and ranks of
holy men and women (awliyā ). All of them, in one capacity or another,
are representatives (nuwwāb) of the four ever-living messengers (rusul)
without whom the world (al-dunyā) cannot subsist: Idrīs, Ilyās, ꜤĪsā and
al-Khaḍir. These four messengers (sic!), comprising one ‘Pole’ (quṭb),
two Imāms and one ‘Stake’ (watad),18 comprise a mostly invisible
spiritual company that inhabits the highest echelons of the human
hierarchy and binds the worlds together. The awliyā , knowingly or
unknowingly, are guided and protected by the four. IꜤA analyzes their
typological attributes in detail and, like ḤT before him, locates them
on the ‘cosmic map.’19 Obviously, such attention to the mapping of the
spiritual hierarchy is something that IꜤA shares with ḤT.20
What, then, is IꜤA’s indebtedness to ḤT, and what is the relevance
of ḤT’s implicit teaching in the ‘questionnaire’ to Chapter 73 of the
Futūḥāt? In a clear statement, at the end of his long account (67 pages
in the 1994 edition) of the categories of awliyā , IꜤA explicitly refers to
ḤT’s ‘questionnaire’ and proclaims his intent to offer answers to all of
its 155 questions:

17 Some other similarities to Sefer yetsira can be discerned, but this requires a
separate study.
18 For discussions concerning these and other terms pertaining to the ever-present
spiritual hierarchy, see, e.g., Massignon, Essay on the Origins, p. 92; Schimmel,
Mystical Dimension of Islam, pp. 199ff; and Karamustafa, Sufism, p. 42.
19 See al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya (ed. Beirut), III, pp. 8ff et passim.
20 For IꜤA’s indebtedness to ḤT’s radical teaching in Khātam al-awliyā see, e.g.,
Chodkiweicz, Seal of the Saints; also Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, pp. 76,
78.
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 147

In respect of the false claims (daꜤāwiya) which, formerly and cur-

rently, have been widely articulated in this [Ṣūfī] path, the Imām, the
possessor of perfect mystical perception (ṣāḥib al-dhawq al-tāmm),
Muḥammad ibn ꜤAlī al-Tirmidhī al-Ḥakīm, isolated (jarrada) one
hundred and fifty-five questions [for the sake of] examination and
testing (tamḥīṣ wa-ikhtibār). The answers to these questions are
known only to those who have attained them by means of mystical
perception and experience (dhawqan wa-shirban); for they cannot be
attained by mental reflection (al-naẓar al-fikri) or by logical require-
ments (ḍarūrāt al-Ꜥuqūl). They can only be attained by means of di-
vine revelation on an invisible plane in one manifestation or another
(fa-lam yabqa illā an yakūna ḥuṣūluhā Ꜥan tajallin ilāhiyyin fī ḥaḍra
ghaybiyya bi-maẓhar min al-maẓāhir). … This section of this book
seeks to clarify and explain these questions (wa-hādhā al-bāb min
hādhā al-kitāb mimmā yaṭlubu īḍāḥ tilka al-masā il wa-sharḥahā).21

And, indeed, in the following 175 pages, IꜤA diligently engages in an-
swering ḤT’s questions one by one.22 We shall confine ourselves to the
first three (or four – see below) questions, in the hope that they will
suffice as pointers to the typological affinity between the two mystics
as well as to their shared original perspectives concerning the awliyā .
In itself, this is a remarkable occurrence of ‘intertextuality’ in
the field of Islamic mystical writings, not only because of the sheer
curiosity of a correspondence that bridges three centuries, but because
it affords us insight into the multifaceted nature of Islamic mystical
wisdom. With respect to ḤT in particular, such insight may help us
delineate with greater finesse the varieties of early teachings during the
formative period of Islamic mysticism. Typologically speaking, IꜤA
could certainly have found in ḤT a like-minded mystic, or theosophist
(ḥakīm), whose mystical perception (dhawq) stemmed – as did his
own – from genuine divine revelation (fatḥ, kashf, tajallī). By means
of such perception, both ḤT and IꜤA penetrated the mysteries not only

21 IꜤA, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya (ed. Beirut), III, pp. 70–71; see also ibid., p. 28
(towards the end of §76 in IꜤA’s classification): ‘After all this, I shall mention
the questions which pertain to this topic and to the Friends; questions the
answers to which in total only the Perfect Friend knows (lā yaꜤrifuhā bil-
majmūꜤ illā al-walīy al-kāmil). The Imām Muḥammad ibn ꜤAlī al-Tirmidhī al-
Ḥakīm is he who had alerted attention (nabbaha Ꜥalā) to these questions and
had asked them as a test for the pretentious ones (ikhtibār an li-ahl al-daꜤwā).’
22 Ibid., pp. 71–246.
148 SARA SVIRI

of the human psyche and heart, but also of the transcendent hierarchy
of the awliyā . This hierarchy, according to both of them, exists, had
existed and will continue to exist at every point and moment throughout
human history; it does not pertain to the afterlife alone. Positioned
in specific localities (manāzil, marātib, maḥāll) within the celestial
geography, the ubiquitous existence of the awliyā upholds ‘this
world’ (al-dunyā) and belongs to it. Thus, though both ḤT and IꜤA do
not exclude eschatological themes concerning the afterlife from their
teachings, their main concern is with the binding together of the two
seemingly separated worlds.
The first question that ḤT formulates in Sīrat al-awliyā concerns
the number of the stations of the Friends of God.23 For both visionaries,
number represents order, hierarchy and relationship, and it signifies
the correspondence and relationship between the different strata
(manāzil) in the cosmic order. Thus, for example, a few passages before
commencing his answers, IꜤA writes: ‘Generally speaking, for each
thing in the world that is defined by a number, there exists an equivalent
number of God’s men by whom God protects this thing.’24 Phenomena
in this scheme are, therefore, not isolated or disconnected; neither are
they regarded in terms of genera or species alone. Each thing counts
and is protected in its own right, and the protectors are God’s men,
precisely those about whom ḤT asks. Hierarchy and order thus also
entail service, accomplishment of a certain function in the vast gamut
of phenomena. This is worship, Ꜥubūdiyya, in its strictest sense.
In the same passage, IꜤA goes on to say: ‘In this chapter we have
[so far] mentioned the men who are defined at all times by a specific
number. Let us mention [now] those who are not defined at all times
by a specific number, whose number rather increases or decreases.’25

23 Note that in Yaḥyā’s edition (ḤT, Kitāb khatm al-awliyā ), the order of the
questions concurs with that found in the Futūḥāt – the first question being
about the number of the awliyā and the second about the position of their
stations (ayna manāzil al-awliyā ); in Radtke’s edition (ḤT, Kitāb sīrat al-awli�-
yā ), however, the order is reversed – first the where, then the number. Note,
too, that IꜤA refers to ḤT’s book by the title given by Yaḥyā, Khatm al-awliyā ,
rather than that given by Radtke, Sīrat al-awliyā ; see, e.g., al-Futūḥāt al-mak-
kiyya (ed. Beirut), I, Chap. 24, p. 447.
24 IꜤA, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya (ed. Beirut), III, p. 28: wa-bil-jumla fa-mā min
amr maḥṣūr fī al-Ꜥālam fī Ꜥadad mā illā wa-li-llāh rijāl bi-Ꜥadadihi fī kull zamān
yaḥfaẓu allāh bihim dhālika al-amr.
25 Ibid.: wa-qad dhakarnā min al-rijāl al-maḥṣūrīn fī kull zamān fī Ꜥadad mā
alladhīna lā yakhlū al-zamān Ꜥanhum … fal-nadhkur min rijāl allāh alladhī-
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 149
For example, there must always be three hundred men who follow
the model (literally: ‘the heart’) of Adam (thalāthumi a nafs Ꜥalā qalb
Ādam Ꜥalayhi al-salām fī kull zamān lā yazīdūna wa-lā yanquṣūna).26
The same goes for the ever-present group of forty people who follow
the model of Noah, and so on.27 As for those who are present at all times
but do not have a specific number, among them are, for example, the
malāmiyya – the people of blame; the fuqarā – those who own nothing;
the ṣūfiyya – the Ṣūfīs, those who possess excellent virtues (makārim
al-akhlāq); the zuhhād – those who turn their back on worldly things;
and so on.28
The detailed listing of the many groups and ranks of God’s men finally
leads to the section of the answers proper. To the first of ḤT’s questions,
‘What is the number of the stations of the Friends’ (kam Ꜥadad manāzil
al-awliyā ), IꜤA offers a rather prodigious number in response, followed
by the complex mathematical calculations by which it is derived.
According to him, ‘the [total] number of the spiritual stations attained
by the awliyā in the realms of mystical knowledge (fī Ꜥl-maꜤārif) is two
hundred and forty-eight thousand.’29 What is at stake here is not the
unlikelihood of such a number and the associated calculations being
part of ḤT’s ‘vision,’ but the ‘theophanic’ method that such a doctrine
requires and the epistemological authority by which it is expounded
by both ḤT and IꜤA – an authority that overrides traditional dogmas,
conventional formulae and philosophical doctrines.
ḤT’s second question is: ‘Where are the stations of the people of
proximity?’ (ayna manāzil ahl al-qurba).30 Having challenged his
readers with an unanswered question regarding the quantity of the
spiritual stations, ḤT moves on to intriguing them with a question
concerning space – cosmic space. Clueless, his readers are left to ponder
ḤT’s question about the where of the people of ‘proximity’ (qurba),
perhaps in reference to their positioning vis-à-vis God’s presence.

na lā yakhtaṣṣūna bi-Ꜥadad khāṣṣ yathbutu lahum fī kull zamān bal yazīdūna

wa-yanquṣūna.
26 IꜤA explains that ‘to follow the model (Ꜥalā qalb) of an elevated personality’
means ‘to turn about in the realms of divine knowledge in the way in which
that personality turned about (yataqallabūna fī al-maꜤārif al-ilāhiyya taqallub
dhālika al-shakhṣ),’ ibid., p. 15.
27 Ibid., p. 16.
28 Ibid., pp. 28ff.
29 Ibid., pp. 71ff.
30 Following the order in Yaḥyā’s edition; see above, note 23.
150 SARA SVIRI

Had the readers been able to glimpse IꜤA’s answer, they would have
learnt that the elevated station of the ‘people of proximity is what
allows them to conjoin their earthly lives with the hereafter (wa-Ꜥlam
anna manzil ahl al-qurba yuꜤṭīhim ittiṣāl ḥayātihim bil-ākhira),31 and
that in this location (maqām), humans (al-bashar) meet the angelic
retinue (al-mala al-aꜤlā).’32 In his answer, IꜤA refers several times to
al-Khaḍir, the ever-living messenger, which probably suggests that this
location, to him, is the space in which the elevated ones – also called
al-muqarrabūn, which, by the way, can also relate to a class of angels
(as in Q. 4:172) – travel to and fro beyond the limits of the two worlds,
beyond life and death.
The third question, which may be combined with the fourth, invokes
a curious expression. ḤT asks about a special category of holy men who
have surpassed a space which he names Ꜥasākir (armies, hosts, troops,
camps). What is this space? But first, how, precisely, is the question
formulated? For the conscientious philologist, a textual quandary
presents itself, for there are three different readings at our disposal:
In Radtke’s edition, the text reads wa-ayna alladhīna jāzū al-Ꜥasākir:
‘Where are those who went beyond the camps?’ Yaḥyā’s edition reads
jāwazū, which, semantically, amounts more or less to the same thing.
However, IꜤA seems to have read inna alladhīna ḥāzū al-Ꜥasākir bi-ayy
shay in ḥāzū?: ‘Those who have attained the camps, by what have they
attained them?’ That this must have been his reading is corroborated
by his use of the infinitive form ḥiyāza in the question he goes on to
ask: wa-mā maꜤnā ḥiyāzatihim lahum: ‘what is the meaning of their
attaining them?’ IꜤA’s reading is upheld not only by the 1414/1994
Beirut edition of the Futūḥāt, but also by the Cairo critical edition of
1408/1988, edited by none other than Othmān Yaḥyā – the editor of
ḤT’s Khatm al-awliyā .33 Indeed, orthographically, it is easy to confuse
Arabic ‫( ج‬j) and ‫( ح‬ḥ), and, semantically, both ‘go beyond’ and ‘attain’
are reasonable in the context of a question about something reached at
or even surpassed. We can therefore accept either of these readings as
asking about the whereabouts of those elevated ones who have reached,
or gone beyond, or attained, the ‘camps’ (Ꜥasākir).
But what does ḤT mean by ‘camps’? IꜤA seems as puzzled as we
modern readers may be. He starts his answer by claiming, somewhat

31 IꜤA, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya (ed. Beirut), III, p. 74.

32 Ibid., p. 73.
33 IꜤA, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya (ed. Yaḥyā), XII, p. 69.
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 151

apologetically, that ‘since the enquirer has sent off his question with
no lexical definition or contextual evidence, the one who answers has
to resort to the meaning applied to it in his own vocabulary.’34 Then,
searching for its meaning in conventional lexical usages, he concludes
that Ꜥasākir refers to ‘actions committed with exertion, determination
and strenuous efforts’ (shadā id al-aꜤmāl wal-Ꜥaẓā im wal-mujāhadāt).
The semantic field of this word, therefore, appears to be strength,
force and power (shidda), which IꜤA associates with the divine name
of the King (al-malik). And since, according to him, ‘those who have
attained the Ꜥasākir, attained them by assimilating to the divine name
“the King,”’ therefore they, too, may be associated with what pertains
to Kingship and be thus referred to as ‘tremendous’ (shadīd).35 Holy
men, apparently, assimilate not only with a divine space but also with
the divine name that pertains to it.
IꜤA goes on to explain the term in conjunction with Qur ānic verses
which, although they do not provide any reference for Ꜥasākir, do refer
to the notion of God’s armies by a different term, junūd: for example,
Q. 74:31 (wamā yaꜤlamu junūda rabbika illā huwa), and Q. 37:173
(wa-inna jundanā lahum al-ghālibūn). IꜤA identifies these divine
armies with, among others, the terrible wind, al-rīḥ al-Ꜥaqīm, that
destroyed the tribe of ꜤĀd (Q. 51:41), the stone-throwing birds, which,
according to traditional exegesis, had helped the Quraysh warriors ward
off the Ethiopian army that invaded Mecca in the year of the Prophet
Muḥammad’s birth (Q. 105:3–4: wa-arsala Ꜥalayhim ṭayr an abābīl
tarmīhim bi-ḥijāratin min sijjīl). These armies (Ꜥasākir) operate, he
explains, only by God’s direct command; they are His helpers in His
combat against offenders, transgressors and reprobates.
Those of the spiritual hierarchy who attain this tremendous space
assimilate with the mighty name of the King and thereby acquire the
power to face the adversaries with force, be they God’s adversaries or
the adversaries of their coreligionists and associates. Imbued with the
power of that space, which ḤT had named Ꜥasākir, and with the name
al-Malik, they themselves become empowered and perform forceful
acts. The Ꜥasākir, therefore, are also the mighty helpers from among the
awliyā who represent and execute God’s kingly designs. Finally, IꜤA

34 IꜤA, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya (ed. Beirut), III, p. 74.

35 Ibid.: fa-ḥāza hā ulā i al-Ꜥasākira bil-takhalluq bi-smihi al-malik, fa-inna
al-malik huwa alladhī yūṣafu bi-annahu yaḥūzu al-asākira, wal-malik maꜤnāhu
ayḍ an al-shadīd.
152 SARA SVIRI

implies that when these ‘helpers’ accomplish their combative function

in this mighty position, they attain the divine names in toto: ‘When
they accomplish this, they attain God’s “camps,” which are His names,
for His names are His camps.’36 Thus, inspired by ḤT’s question, IꜤA’s
answer takes us via lexical and Qur ānic references (shawāhid) on a
linguistic and literary tour that elucidates his own cosmic vision of a
dynamic, militant aspect of the Divine Kingship, in which elevated holy
men who have assimilated with the divine names perform mighty acts
in the worlds above and below.
Let us now go back to the originator of this question. The notion of
divine armies referred to as Ꜥasākir or junūd also occurs in other works
by ḤT. I shall adduce a few passages that refer explicitly to the Ꜥasākir
and may assist us in clarifying its sense in the context of ḤT’s vision of
this position in the ladder of spiritual hierarchy.
For ḤT, spiritual attainments, first and foremost, are associated with
and conditioned by the perfecting of ethical and psychological qualities,
and with the process by which the seeker after truth succeeds in abating
the power of his ‘self’ (nafs) and allowing his ‘heart’ (qalb) to become
the center of his quest for spiritual perfection. In this process, the
sincere seeker, the would-be waliyy, becomes increasingly convinced
of his inherent failings and helplessness. Such conviction arises from
scrupulous and dispassionate self-observation, which becomes the
hallmark of the distinction that ḤT makes between two types of awliyā :
the lesser ones, whom he names ṣādiqūn, versus the truly elevated
ones, whom he names ṣiddīqūn. The first lot, in spite of their diligence
and exertion, remain within the domain of the ‘self.’ They rely on their
own efforts (jahd, mujāhada) and good deeds (aꜤmāl al-birr) and are
oblivious to the hidden dangers inherent in the nafs. For the nafs – what
in modern parlance we might call ‘ego’ – ascribes everything, including
effort and good deeds, to itself. Consequently, according to ḤT, the
ṣādīqūn cannot reach the highest ranks of the spiritual hierarchy. These
are reserved for the ṣiddīqūn alone, those who relinquish the efforts of
the self when they realize that without God’s help and mercy they will
forever be left prey to its mischief. In Sīrat al-awliyā , a few passages
after the end of his questionnaire, ḤT describes the state of the waliyy
who is rescued by God’s mercy from being trapped in the confines of
the nafs and lifted up to a very high position in God’s proximity:

36 Ibid, p. 75: fa-idhā taḥaqqaqū dhālika ḥāzū Ꜥasākir al-ḥaqq allatī hiya
asmā uhu subḥānahu idh asmā uhu taꜤālā Ꜥasākiruhu.
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 153

When God looks at him and has mercy on him, He lifts him up in
the blink of an eye from the position of the ‘sincere just ones’ (min
maḥall al-ṣādiqīn) to the position of the ‘eminent holy ones’ (ilā
maḥall al-ṣiddīqīn); from ‘the house of power’ (bayt al-Ꜥizza) in ‘the
lower heaven’ (al-samā al-dunyā) to ‘the camps around the Throne’
(al-Ꜥasākir ḥawla al-Ꜥarsh).37

In this and similar passages, ḤT sheds some light on the mysterious

Ꜥasākir. He associates them with the rank of those who have attained an
extraordinarily high position ‘around God’s Throne.’ The camps around
the Throne are attained by the ṣiddīqūn alone, in contradistinction to
those who remain in the lesser regions of ‘the house of power’ in ‘the
lower heaven.’ Note again that ḤT’s vision applies to the living awliyā .
This is no afterlife reward, but the attainment of the eminent men of
God during their lifetime.
Digressing for a moment to IꜤA’s answer to the third-cum-fourth
question, one may wonder to what extent IꜤA had or did not have
access to ḤT’s entire corpus – beyond the questionnaire. As the above
and similar passages show, ḤT himself might have relieved him of
the perplexity to which he admits at the beginning of his answer (see
above). Fortunately for us modern readers, databases of Arabic sources
reveal some helpful references by which we may follow and encode
ḤT’s idiosyncratic use of Ꜥaskar/Ꜥasākir. The following are culled from
his Ḥadīth compilation, ‘The Rare or Precious Traditions’ (Nawādir
al-uṣūl).38 Here is what we find, e.g., in Chapter (aṣl) 275, entitled
‘God’s Worshippers Are Rescued by Four Things’ (Ghiyāth al-Ꜥibād
fī arbaꜤin):

When their limbs become invigorated to fulfill God’s commands

and their selves become obedient and submissive to God, then,
when they turn to the Qur ān, they make the [invocation] bismi allāh
al-raḥmān al-raḥīm (‘in the name of God the Compassionate and
Merciful’) their knowledge of the Qur ān’s ‘camp’ (Ꜥaskar). For the
Qur ān is counted as (bi-manzilat) an army (jund) and a camp [of
warriors] (Ꜥaskar) in which there are all kinds of weapons, battle

37 ḤT, Sīrat al-awliyā (ed. Radtke), §45, pp. 31–32.

38 I refer to the two editions available to me – neither of which is the critical
edition: the Istanbul edition of 1294/1877 (incidentally, this volume was given
to me years ago by Shaul Shaked) and the Cairo edition of 1408/1988.
154 SARA SVIRI

tools and provisions by which to fight the Inclination (al-hawā), the

Self (al-nafs) and the Adversary (al-Ꜥaduww), in order to destroy
their stratagems (makāyid).39

In the same vein as IꜤA’s aforementioned analysis of the term Ꜥasākir,

we detect here a recognition of the martial aspect of the spiritual quest.
But the vision of the Qur ān as part of these divine armies also entails a
sense of the help and succor provided by God’s armies to the seeker in
his battle with his inner, personal adversaries. As we have seen, for ḤT,
divine help and succor are essential to the ‘attainment’ of the awliyā .
A second passage takes us back to ḤT’s cosmic geography and
offers an additional perspective on the position of the ṣiddīqūn therein.
In Chapter 245 of Nawādir al-uṣūl, entitled ‘Seeking Protection from
Hypocrisy’ (al-taꜤawwudh min al-nifāq), ḤT writes:

Inasmuch as [the worshipper in the act of prayer] may throw an ex-

ternal glance at his place among creatures, he may also throw his
inner glance at the rank which has been ordained for him (ilā al-ma-
qām alladhī ruttiba lahu), if he is one of the people of rank (in kāna
min ahl al-martaba) …. The ranks of the ṣiddīqūn, according to their
classes, are within the [bounds of God’s] Throne (al-ṣiddīqūn marā-
tibuhum min al-Ꜥarsh Ꜥalā aṣnāfihim): a camp under the Throne (Ꜥas-
kar dūna al-Ꜥarsh), a camp on the Throne (wa-Ꜥaskar Ꜥalā al-Ꜥarsh)
and a camp in the Kingship (wa-Ꜥaskar fī al-malakūt). The choicest
ones are positioned in front of Him in the Kingdom of Kingdoms
(wal-khāṣṣa fī mulk al-mulk bayna yadayhi),40 and this is where the
glances of their hearts abide (fa-abṣār qulūbihim hunāka).41

Our pursuit of ḤT’s Ꜥasākir allows us, finally, to draw a more complete
map of the celestial regions where the awliyā reside. Indeed, for both
ḤT and IꜤA, the celestial realms are filled with holy men – some lesser,
some greater. There is hierarchy wherever one looks. The lesser awliyā ,
the ṣādiqūn, occupy the lower ranges of the celestial realm, such as ‘the
house of power’ in ‘the lower heaven.’ Above them is the abode of the
greater awliyā , the ṣiddīqūn. They, too, are arranged in ranks according

39 Ed. Istanbul, p. 401 = ed. Cairo, II, p. 578.

ʿ
40 For I A’s acknowledgement of ḤT’s originality in devising the concept of mulk
al-mulk, see al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya (ed. Beirut), I, Chap. 24, p. 444.
41 Ed. Istanbul, pp. 317–318 = ed. Cairo, II, p. 346.
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 155

to their various classes – a hierarchy within the hierarchy, as it were.

But whatever their class, the ṣiddīqūn belong to God’s armies, orga-
nized in camps on the peripheries of the divine Throne: some beneath
it, some upon it and some even farther beyond, in the very proximity of
God, in the Kingdom of Kingdoms.

Conclusion
According to both ḤT and IꜤA, human beings, analogously with cos-
mic geography, exhibit a hierarchical structure built on the principle
of spiritual excellence. The two structures – human anthropology and
cosmic geography – are not only analogous, they are intertwined. The
greater the human perfection, the higher the position of its bearer on the
cosmic ladder. Cosmic-spiritual geography is to be distinguished from
eschatological geography. Though the notions of paradise and hell, re-
ward and punishment, the afterlife and this lowly life – part and parcel
as they are of the Islamic creed – are not dismissed, the teaching of the
spiritual hierarchy barely engages with them. It engages, rather, with
spiritual attainments and the cosmic positions they merit, realized by
certain exemplary men and women during their earthly lives. 
ḤT spoke in questions; IꜤA speaks with answers. Needless to
say, the latter are IꜤA’s and reflect his own ‘theosophy,’ which is not
necessarily ḤT’s. Would ḤT concur with IꜤA’s answers? A search for
ḤT’s possible answers, derived from a purposeful reading of his many
writings – as we did regarding the Ꜥasākir – may yield different ones.
Nevertheless, rather than reflecting dependence of the later writer on
the earlier one, the unilateral ‘dialogue’ between them highlights the
conceptual correspondence between two like-minded mystics who,
although widely separated in time and inspired by different sources,
invite us to place them together within a special typology of Islamic
mysticism. A fuller literary and historical comparison may show the
differences between the two sages, but it cannot obscure the similar
tenor of their perspectives. This similarity allows us to identify within
the Ṣūfī tradition, from its early phases, a specific type of theophanic,
revelatory mysticism, focused on the nexus and analogy of cosmic and
spiritual hierarchies and revealed in the countless phenomena that make
up the seen and unseen multiverses within which we live.
156 SARA SVIRI

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