ABSTRACT
It is now generally accepted that during the Mamluk period Sufism in Egypt and Syria was largely integrated into the life of Muslim communities. Geoffroy’s exhaustive work on Sufism in the late Mamluk and early Ottoman periods makes it amply clear that fiqh and tasawwuf intermingled and that Sufi scholarship was gradually gaining ground and embraced by the ulema as well as the political rulers. 1 As Geoffroy and others point out, it is in a scholar such as Suyuti (849–911/1445–1505), himself a Shadhili, 2 that this development is manifested. Thus, concerning the theological concept of the ‘supreme name’ (al-ism al-a‘zam) the Egyptian savant goes so far as to give Sufi writings priority over other interpretations. Elsewhere, in a special fatwa entitled Amal al-fikr fi fadl al-dhikr Suyuti considers dhikr, the Sufi ritual of invocation, 3 superior to other forms of worship; ‘unveiling’ (kashf) 4 is preferable to vision through dreams (ru’ya). 5 Geoffroy sees in Suyuti’s al-Hawi lil-fatawi another step in the evolving relationship between Sufism and Islamic culture in general, in that for the first time the former features as a recognized branch of knowledge and queries about Sufi matters are regarded as equal to those dealing with juristic issues. Michael Winter argued quite some time ago that Sufism influenced Egyptian ‘Ulama’ in the early Ottoman period and that some of the most distinguished men of letters then were practising Sufis. In Syria as well, many high-ranking ulema became followers of Sidi Ali b. Maymun, the originally Moroccan, important propagator of Sufism in Syria. 6 Geoffroy lists several men who combined shari‘a and haqiqa, that is, conventional legal learning and the Sufi gift of experiencing ‘true reality’. 7 This, one should note, did not start in Ottoman time. My reading of Mamluk sources has taught me that the association of fiqh and tasawwuf in the careers of many learned individuals was a widespread phenomenon in the fifteenth century CE and possibly earlier. It certainly merits a systematic study of the rich biographical data.
