Ibn Hafif as-Sirazi und seine Schrift zur Novizenerziehung (Kitab al-iqtisad): Biographische Studien, Edition und Ubersetzung.

• Author: Melchert, Christopher
• Position: Reviews of Books - Book Review

Ibn Hafif as-Sirazi und seine Schrift zur Novizenerziehung (Kitab al-iqtisad): Biographische Studien, Edition und Ubersetzung. By FLORIAN SOBIEROJ. Beiruter Texte und Studien, vol. 57. Beirut: FRANZ STEINER VERLAG, 1998. Pp. ix + 500.

Ibn Khafif (d. 371/982) was an important Sufi of Shiraz. According to Louis Massignon, he occupied the honorable one-thousandth place in Sulami's Tarikh al-sufiyah. Besides the usual entries in biographical dictionaries, there also survives a life in Persian translation. Yet Ibn Khafif has been something of a puzzle until now. Jean-Claude Vadet concluded his biography in E[I.sub.2] with an extraordinary admission:

The life and doctrine of Ibn Khafif are part of a group of wider questions which have not yet been sufficiently answered. These are: (1) The opposition between the Djunaydism of Baghdad and the practical mysticism of Persia and Khurasan in the 3rd/9th century ... (2) This opposition was not unconnected with the growing Ash'arism and Zahirism: at the time of Ibn Khafif these were the two militant and opposing wings of Shafi'ism, particularly that of 'Irak, with which the school of al-Djunayd finally became integrated. (3) It is only when these first two questions have been answered that Ibn Khafif's rather ambiguous attitude to Halladjism would be better understood, and with it perhaps the internal evolution of this doctrine, at least in Fars. Sobieroj addresses each of these questions and, if he does not quite settle them all by himself, he certainly moves our understanding to a higher, more secure level.

Sobieroj begins with annotated listings of the sources, primary and secondary, and of Ibn Khafif's authorities in hadith and Sufism. He goes on to detailed surveys of where Ibn Khafif travelled in his youth, with particular attention to the scene in Shiraz itself, then of transmitters from Ibn Khafif. Finally, we have chapters on Ibn Khafif between ahl al-hadith and the Ash'ariyah, Ibn Khafif's Sufidoctrine, and his written works, succeeded by a translation of his K. al-Iqtisad, of which an edition of the Arabic, based on two manuscripts, is appended.

As for the first of Vadet's questions, he obviously posed it without the benefit of Jacqueline Chabbi's trailblazing articles, especially "Remarques sur le developpement historique des mouvements ascetiques et mystiques au Khurasan" (Studia Islamica 46 [1977]: 5-72). Chabbi shows clearly how the new Iraqi Sufism agreed very well with some Eastern...