Beyond Death: The Mystical Teachings of 'Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadhani.

• Author: Seyed-Gohrab, Asghar
• Position: Book review

Beyond Death: The Mystical Teachings of 'Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadhani. By FIROOZEH PAPAN-MATIN. Islamic History and Civilization, vol. 75. Leiden: BRILL, 2010. Pp. x + 242. $150.

Monographs on the Persian mystic Hamadani (al-Hamadhani) are few in Western languages, and Papan-Matin's study is therefore a welcome contribution to the literature of Islamic mysticism, especially for its fresh approach and original perceptions that examine the notion of mystical death in Hamadani's teaching.

The book is organized into six chapters. Beginning with a succinct description of Hamadani's lineage, life, and death at the age of thirty-five, Papan-Matin then gives a helpful exposition of his works. Although several books are attributed to Hamadani, his unorthodox ideology is chiefly presented in his Tamhidat, his personal letters, and his Shakwa, which is a personal defense against heresy.

Chapter two (pp. 46-74) deals with the notion of death as longing for the homeland, explaining Hamadani's view on the emancipation of the soul from material existence within a philosophical context. This is a lucid discussion enhanced by additional commentary on Plato's Apologia, Avicenna's Recitals, and Socrates on the way of death. The chapter ends with an elaboration on al-Suhrawardi's (Qissat al-ghurba al-gharbiyya (Tale of the Occidental Exile).

Having presented the philosophical dimension of mystical death and how the soul longs to return to the homeland, in chapter three (pp. 75-132) Papan-Matin elaborates on the union with the Beloved, which requires the utter annihilation of one's own self. The author's discussion covers a wide range of subjects, which to my knowledge have not been as extensively discussed in previous studies in English. For instance, concerning Hamadani's use of the first verse of sura 38, "Sad, by the Qur'an, full of dhikr," in which the author links the fourteenth letter of the Arabic alphabet to China and China becomes the mystic's heart, a "place of serenity where all the clutter, false images, attachments, and distractions, are cleared, so that the visage of the beloved can come into view" (p. 105), Papan-Matin shows how Hamadani introduces China as a spiritual geography to depict "a transfused state of consciousness" (p. 102). In his view, the mystical traveler "carries the image of God within himself" but he needs to find Him in the heart in the same way that an exile finds his way back to his homeland. In addition to this fascinating...