Die Nahrung der Herzen: Abu Talib al-Makkis Qut al-qulub, vol. 20, Chapter 32.

• Author: Bowering, Gerhard

The second volume of Richard Gramlich's excellent and meticulous German translation of the Qut al-qulub displays the same high standards of scholarship that have been praised in the review of the first volume (see JAOS 115 [1995]: 555-56). This second volume includes the extraordinarily long chapter thirty-two of the Qut al-qulub, which constitutes about one third of the whole work and presents Makki's principal ascetic and mystical ideas. The key idea of the chapter is Makki's concept of "certitude" (yaqin), as divided into both its roots, the way stations or "stages" (maqam, pl. maqamat), and its branches, the conditions or "states" (hal; pl. ahwal). In Makki's view, certitude is the unity of knowledge and faith captured in the vision of God. Expressed paradoxically, it is the moment when divine omnipotence engulfs human wisdom, or captured in one of Makki's images, it is beholding God's face in the light of the mirror, as the mirror itself disappears. The mystic reaches the goal of certitude by passing through the nine stages of repentance (tawba), patience (sabr), gratitude (sukr), hope (raja), fear (kawf), renunciation (zuhd), trust (tawakkul), contentment (rida) and love (mahabba), and acquires in each stage the corresponding state as a firm and permanent attitude. All stages are...