Perspectives on Early Islamic Mysticism

Sara Sviri is Professor Emerita at the Department of Arabic and the Department of Comparative Religions of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She had also taught at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London and at The Institute of Jewish Studies, University of Oxford. Her fields of study include Islamic mysticism, mystical philosophy, comparative aspects of Early Islam, the formative period of Islamic mysticism, Medieval Jewish mysticism and the mystical wisdom of Ibn al-ʿArabī. Her book The Taste of Hidden Things: Images on the Sufi Path was published in 1997. Her comprehensive Sufi Anthology was published in Hebrew in 2008. The Arabic version of the Anthology came out in Beirut by Manshūrāt al-jamal (2016).

• Introduction: perspectives on Early Islamic Mysticism – the world of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and his contemporariesPart I Asceticism and mysticism (zuhd and taṣawwuf) 1. ‘Sufism’: reconsidering terms, definitions and processes2. Zuhd in Islamic mysticism: conduct and attitude 3. "Wa-rahbāniyyatan ibtadaʿūhā": monasticism and asceticism – false and sincerePart II Schools and teachers 4. Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and the Malāmatīs of Nīshāpūr 5. Teachers and disciples in Baghdād and Nīshāpūr 6. Facing hostility in Transoxiana: Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl Part III Polarity 7. Between fear and hope: coincidence of opposites in Islamic mysticism 8. The self (nafs) and her transformation 9. Faces of al-Ḥaqq: the name and the named Part IV The Spiritual Hierarchy 10. Wilāya: contemplating friendship with God 11. Myrtle and holy men: echoes of ancient traditions in a woman’s dream Part V Language and Hermeneutics 12. The power of words: mystical linguistics in al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī13. The Countless Faces of Understanding: Istinbāṭ, listening and exegesisBibliography