ABSTRACT
The Qur'an lies at the heart of Muslim spirituality, and provides the fount and wellspring for its doctrines and practices. The polyvocality of Muslim scripture would itself generate many of the debates that would animate the intellectual culture of Sufism, and beyond that, the various competing theologies of Islam. The Qur'anic foundations of Sufi piety and thought are perhaps most clearly discernable in the arena of ethics. We are now in a better position to move to a closer and more focused analysis of the intersection between the Qur'an, Sufism and ethics. The mystical quest in so far as it entails the ascent of the soul to God requires, from the perspective of the Sufis themselves—reverential as they were toward the sacred foundations of their faith—conformity to the Qur'an, the inlibration of Islam. The most elaborate inquiries by the Sufis into the cultivation of the virtues took place within the pages of their manuals devoted to the “states” and “stations”.
