The Salimiyya, ascetics and non-Sufi mystical theologians of Basra active in the third and fourth... more The Salimiyya, ascetics and non-Sufi mystical theologians of Basra active in the third and fourth Hijri centuries, left contradictory traces in Muslim biographical, mystical, and polemical literature. Most sources quoting those who were identified as "Salimiyya" characterize them as mystics at one with the emerging Sufi tradition. One key Hanbali text, al-Mu‘tamad fi usul al-din of Ibn al-Farra’ (d. 458 AH/1066 CE), preserves a polemic against the Salimiyya and refutes eighteen theses attributed to them. Contemporary scholarship has not given a satisfactory explanation of Ibn al-Farra’s refutation of the Salimiyya, treating it as a theological controversy while ignoring the political dimension that is always present in polemics. This paper argues that Ibn al-Farra’ uses the Salimiyya theses to indirectly criticize his rationalist and esotericist opponents and to deflect the charge of anthropomorphism away from the Hanbali school of theology. The Salimiyya serve as a “pseudo-Other” in the manner that Gnostic Christians were of rhetorical use to emergent Orthodox Christianity in late antiquity.
The Salimiyya, ascetics and non-Sufi mystical theologians of Basra active in the third and fourth... more The Salimiyya, ascetics and non-Sufi mystical theologians of Basra active in the third and fourth Hijri centuries, left contradictory traces in Muslim biographical, mystical, and polemical literature. Most sources quoting those who were identified as “Salimiyya” characterize them as mystics at one with the emerging Sufi tradition. One key Hanbali text, al-Mu‘tamad fi usul al-din of Ibn al-Farra’ (d. 458 AH/1066 CE), preserves a polemic against the Salimiyya and refutes eighteen theses attributed to them. Contemporary scholarship has not given a satisfactory explanation of Ibn al-Farra’s refutation of the Salimiyya, treating it as a theological controversy while ignoring the political dimension that is always present in polemics. This paper argues that Ibn al- Farra’ uses the Salimiyya theses to indirectly criticize his rationalist and esotericist opponents and to deflect the charge of anthropomorphism away from the Hanbali school of theology. The Salimiyya serve as a “pseudo-Other” in the manner that Gnostic Christians were of rhetorical use to emergent Orthodox Christianity in late antiquity.
The Kitāb al-ḥikam of Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh (d. 720/1309) presents a spirituality whose goal is wuṣūl i... more The Kitāb al-ḥikam of Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh (d. 720/1309) presents a spirituality whose goal is wuṣūl ilá Allāh, "arrival unto God." As a collection of aphorisms, the Kitāb al-ḥikam has little internal structure: the attentive reader himself provides the structure from his religious background, mystical experience, and repeated re-readings. The commentators Ibn ʿAbbād (d. 792/1390), Zarrūq (d. 899/1494), and Ibn ʿAjībah (d. 1224/1809) reconstruct the author's unique expression of core sources from its constituent threads, making the commented-upon work a microcosm of Islam wherein the whole is visible through each portion. Observations on the aphorisms and commentary dealing with wuṣūl, translated herein, will illustrate these hypotheses.
The Salimiyya, ascetics and non-Sufi mystical theologians of Basra active in the third and fourth... more The Salimiyya, ascetics and non-Sufi mystical theologians of Basra active in the third and fourth Hijri centuries, left contradictory traces in Muslim biographical, mystical, and polemical literature. Most sources quoting those who were identified as "Salimiyya" characterize them as mystics at one with the emerging Sufi tradition. One key Hanbali text, al-Mu‘tamad fi usul al-din of Ibn al-Farra’ (d. 458 AH/1066 CE), preserves a polemic against the Salimiyya and refutes eighteen theses attributed to them. Contemporary scholarship has not given a satisfactory explanation of Ibn al-Farra’s refutation of the Salimiyya, treating it as a theological controversy while ignoring the political dimension that is always present in polemics. This paper argues that Ibn al-Farra’ uses the Salimiyya theses to indirectly criticize his rationalist and esotericist opponents and to deflect the charge of anthropomorphism away from the Hanbali school of theology. The Salimiyya serve as a “pseudo-Other” in the manner that Gnostic Christians were of rhetorical use to emergent Orthodox Christianity in late antiquity.
The Salimiyya, ascetics and non-Sufi mystical theologians of Basra active in the third and fourth... more The Salimiyya, ascetics and non-Sufi mystical theologians of Basra active in the third and fourth Hijri centuries, left contradictory traces in Muslim biographical, mystical, and polemical literature. Most sources quoting those who were identified as “Salimiyya” characterize them as mystics at one with the emerging Sufi tradition. One key Hanbali text, al-Mu‘tamad fi usul al-din of Ibn al-Farra’ (d. 458 AH/1066 CE), preserves a polemic against the Salimiyya and refutes eighteen theses attributed to them. Contemporary scholarship has not given a satisfactory explanation of Ibn al-Farra’s refutation of the Salimiyya, treating it as a theological controversy while ignoring the political dimension that is always present in polemics. This paper argues that Ibn al- Farra’ uses the Salimiyya theses to indirectly criticize his rationalist and esotericist opponents and to deflect the charge of anthropomorphism away from the Hanbali school of theology. The Salimiyya serve as a “pseudo-Other” in the manner that Gnostic Christians were of rhetorical use to emergent Orthodox Christianity in late antiquity.
The Kitāb al-ḥikam of Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh (d. 720/1309) presents a spirituality whose goal is wuṣūl i... more The Kitāb al-ḥikam of Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh (d. 720/1309) presents a spirituality whose goal is wuṣūl ilá Allāh, "arrival unto God." As a collection of aphorisms, the Kitāb al-ḥikam has little internal structure: the attentive reader himself provides the structure from his religious background, mystical experience, and repeated re-readings. The commentators Ibn ʿAbbād (d. 792/1390), Zarrūq (d. 899/1494), and Ibn ʿAjībah (d. 1224/1809) reconstruct the author's unique expression of core sources from its constituent threads, making the commented-upon work a microcosm of Islam wherein the whole is visible through each portion. Observations on the aphorisms and commentary dealing with wuṣūl, translated herein, will illustrate these hypotheses.
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