ABSTRACT
This chapter explores ‘conduct’ and ‘attitude’ as the dual facets of the ascetical temperament. Alongside voluntary, harsh ‘conduct’ implying denial of the world, zuhd could also signify an ‘attitude’ of disregard for the world and detachment from its values. As conduct, zuhd manifests in conspicuous self-imposed acts of renunciation and withdrawal; as attitude, it is an inner disregard of possessions and esteem. Attitude poses psychological difficulties, since the ‘self’ (nafs), with which one identifies, relies on and hungers after these things. Hence, programmes for training the self (riyāḍāt al-nafs) were developed and taught from early on. Significantly, ‘training’ (riyāḍa) is the Arabic equivalent of the Greek askēsis, from which ‘asceticism’ derives. An example of a sought after ‘attitude’ is qiṣar al-amal, ‘curtailing hope’. For mystics, unlike pious ascetics, this encompassed even the hope for reward and the fear of punishment in the afterlife. Some mystics went so far as abandoning the ‘illusory’ conviction that God’s proximity can be attained by means of wilful efforts. Hence, paradoxically, they advocated abstention from zuhd – al-zuhd fī ‘l-zuhd.
