ABSTRACT
The present chapter 1 summarizes the development of intellectual Sufism in al-Andalus from the Umayyad Emirate and Caliphate to the late Almohad period. Intellectual Sufism in al-Andalus evolved from a purely ascetic background linked to milieus of traditionists, and progressively incorporated different influences such as ascetic Sufism (which at the time was regarded as a purely eastern strand), Neoplatonic ontologies, mainly through the Rasāʾil of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Ashʿari theology, and at a later stage, metaphysical terminology, particularly of an Avicennian tenor. From a proto-Sufi ascetic background later assimilating ascetic Sufism, Andalusi intellectual Sufism was the result of incorporating two major developments: iʿtibārism, a strand distinct for its methodology, blending Neoplatonic ontologies and Qurʾanic symbolic hermeneutics; and the “wujūdī turn”, which identified God with wujūd, where wujūd should be understood in its philosophical technical sense. A picture of the development of intellectual Sufism in al-Andalus would not be complete without considering the socio-political contexts of the process and bidirectional influences between the Maghreb and al-Andalus. The present chapter covers precedents such as Ibn Masarra or the Bāṭinī Maslama ibn Qāsim al-Qurṭubī, and major milestones in Andalusi intellectual Sufism, such as Ibn Barrajān, Ibn al-ʿArīf, Ibn Qasī, al-Ḥarrālī, Ibn ʿArabī and the Shūdhiyya with Ibn Dahhāq and Ibn Sabʿīn.
