Early Islamic Mystics (Contd...)

The actual transition from asceticism to true love mysticism in Islam is documented in the spiritual theory of one of the first great female Sufis, Rabi'ah al - 'Adawiyah (d. 801). Sold into slavery as a child, she was eventually freed because of the depth of her piety. Rabi'ah's focus was not on asceticism as an end itself, but rather on its ability to help foster a loving relationship with God. Asceticism was only one of the means necessary for the attainment of union; to make the ascetic practices themselves the goal, and not intimacy with the beloved, was, in her, estimation, a distortion of the Sufi path.

The love Rabi'ah nurtured was completely altruistic; neither fear of Hell nor desire for paradise were allowed to divert her gaze from the Beloved. Rabi'ah's vision of altruistic love (mahabb'ah) and mystical intimacy (uns) are preserved in beautiful prayers and poems attributed to her. These represent some of the earliest aesthetic expressions of mystical experience in Islam.

DHU al-NUN al-MISRI

A number of early Sufis such as Rabi'ah evinced a sophistication of aesthetic expression and theoretical speculation that laid a solid foundation for later work by Sufi mystics. Pivotal figures such as Dhu al-Nun al-Misri were poetic stylists and theoreticians. Although complete text of his mystical writings has survived, many of his logia, prayers, and poems have been preserved by later writers. He was master of the epigram and an accomplished poetic stylist in Arabic. The full force of his literary talent comes to light , however in his prayers.

The child of Nubian parents , Dhu al-Nun was born in Upper Egypt at the end of the eight century. While many of the factual details of his life are often indistinguishable from pious fiction , a reliable kernel of historical data emerges. Although he lived in Cairo, Dhu al-Nun traveled extensively, and during one of his sojourns in Baghdad, he ran afoul of the caliph al-Mutawakkil (r.847-861). The confrontation was sparked by his refusal to accept Mu'tazili doctrine of the createdness of the Qur'an. For his act of defiance , Dhu al-Nun was imprisoned; during his heresy trial, however, he so affected the caliph with his apologia for the Sufi life that al-Mutawakkil released him unharmed.

The preserved sayings of Dhu al-Nun attest to the profundity of his mystical insight and to the skill with which he developed terminology and structures to analyze the mystical life. He excelled at elucidating the nuances of the various stages (maqamat) and states (ahwal) encountered by the mystic along the Sufi path. To him is attributed the first construction of a coherent theory of ma'rifah , spiritual gnosis, which he contrasts with 'ilm, the more traditional path of discursive reason.

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