‘Abd Al-Karīm Al-Jīlī’s Sufi View of Other Religions

Abstract

The Maghreb Review, Vol. 43, 2, 2018 © The Maghreb Review 2018 This publication is printed on FSC Mix paper from responsible sources ‘ABD AL-KARĪM AL-JĪLĪ’S SUFI VIEW OF OTHER RELIGIONS† FITZROY MORRISSEY* Sufism is often presented as the tolerant face of Islam,1 and Sufis as being more open to religious pluralism than non-Sufi Muslims.2 This idea seems to be rooted in the emphasis placed by 19th -century (predominantly British) orientalists on the non-Islamic origins of Sufism and the Sufis’ lack of attachment to Islam and adherence to the Sharī‘ah.3 It remains prevalent in recent academic studies, works for a more general audience, and media discussions about Sufism.4 In this context, the works of Ibn ‘Arabī (d. 1240) are † Although this paper is not a philosophical paper, we feel that it usefully complements other papers in this issue. * Oxford University I am grateful to Ron Nettler for his comments on a draft of this article, which is intended as part of a larger investigation into the relationship between Sufism and modern ideas such as religious pluralism. 1 For the history and various significations of tolerance as a concept, see Rainer Forst, Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, s.v. ‘Toleration’; Yves Charles Zarka, Franck Lessay and John Rogers (eds), Les fondements philosophiques de la tolerance, in 3 vols (Presses Universitaires de France, 2002). 2 The pluralist position in the broadest is: ‘There is no one true religion and, therefore, no one, and only one, path to eternal existence with God.’ David Basinger, Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, s.v. ‘Religious Diversity (Pluralism). See also the definition of the Christian theorist of religious pluralism John Hick: ‘In its broadest terms, [religious pluralism] is the belief that no one religion has a monopoly of the truth or of the life that leads to salvation.’ John Hick, ‘Religious Pluralism and Islam’, a lecture delivered to the Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought, Tehran, Feb 2005, retrieved via http://www.johnhick.org.uk/ article11.html on 19/1/18. For the now-common tripartite scheme of exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism, see Alan Race, Christians and Religious Pluralism (Orbis Books, 1982). 3 See Carl Ernst, Sufism: An Introduction to the Mystical Tradition of Islam (Shambhala, 2011), pp. 8–18; Linda Subrand, ‘Orientalism and Sufism: an overview’, Orientalism Revisited: Art, Land and Voyage, ed I.R. Netton (Routledge, 2013), pp. 98–114; Mark Sedgwick, Western Sufism: From the Abbasids to the New Age (Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 102–113. See also Robert Irwin’s comments on the 19th-century Dutch orientalist Snouch Hurgronje’s interest in the ‘latitudinarianism of the local [South East Asian] versions of Sufism’. Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and their Enemies (Penguin, 2007), p. 200. As Alexander Knysh has recently argued, this orientalist depiction of Sufism may itself be at least partially derived from (medieval and modern, Sufi and non-Sufi) Muslim writers. See Alexander Knysh, Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism (Princeton University Press, 2018), p. 4. 4 See e.g. Josef van Ess, ‘Tolerance and Pluralism in Islam’, The Religion of the Other: Essays in Honour of Mohamed Talbi, ed M. Ben-Madani (Maghreb Publications, 2013), pp. 27–32, 31: ‘Open advocacy of tolerance and praise of pluralism can be found, as is well known, in Islamic mysticism.’ For this idea in popular writing, see e.g. Stephan Schwartz, The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony (Doubleday Books, 2008); and in the media, see e.g. William Dalrymple ‘Gateway of the Heart’, The Guardian (30 Oct 2004) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/30/religion.uk2, retrieved 10 Aug 2017. The issue of the tolerance of Sufism re-entered public debate after the attack on a Sufi-affiliated 176 FITZROY MORRISSEY regularly cited as a model, in both Western academic scholarship and modern Islamic reformist thought.5 In particular, modern commentators often cite as evidence for Ibn ‘Arabī’s open-minded attitude towards other religious traditions a famous poem from Tarjumān al-ashwāq in which he declares: My heart has become capable of every form; it is a pasture for gazelles...