Abstract
This chapter explains how to read Qushayrī’s Grammar of Hearts through providing a textual analysis of 20 of the 60 sections in the text, including background ideas necessary for understanding this “spiritual grammar.” Qushayrī, like Gerson, takes as his starting point an assumption of his reader’s familiarity with Arabic grammar. As such, he does not dwell on linguistic niceties or details, for they are not his concern. He rather invokes grammatical terms, concepts, and phenomena familiar to his reader in order to proceed to spiritual matters. Like the foundational grammatical text of the Arabic linguistic tradition, Sībawayhi’s famous Kitāb, Qushayrī’s Grammar of Hearts combines prescriptive and descriptive grammar for the purpose of developing Sufi “grammatical competence” among his readers. Ever the shaykh in both the pedagogical and spiritual dimensions, Qushayrī is a “spiritual faṣīḥ” and wants his students to become similarly adept in the grammar of ultimate reality.
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