Repentance and the Return to God: Tawba in Early Sufism (By Atif Khalil)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Repentance and the Return to God: Tawba in Early Sufism by Atif Khalil Shankar Nair (bio) Repentance and the Return to God: Tawba in Early Sufism Atif Khalil Albany: State University of New York Press, 2018. 272 Pages. A number of recent studies have expanded the literature on Sufism's "early" or "formative" period (roughly eighth to eleventh centuries CE) in significant ways. Most of these new monographs have continued to adopt the effective but well-trodden model of focusing upon a single chosen figure.1 Alternatively, we find works striving to refine or reimagine the grand historical development and periodization of Sufism across several centuries and multiple geographical and socio-political contexts.2 Only a select few studies, however, have sought to examine the early period through the lens of a chosen concept. (And, even when the organizing unit of analysis has been a concept, studies have again often featured a single Sufi figure,3 as opposed to foregrounding conceptual development across authors over time.) Into this under-explored terrain steps Atif Khalil's remarkable work Repentance and the Return to God, an erudite and comprehensive inquiry into early Sufi reflections on the concept of tawba (usually translated as "repentance," but more on this below). Khalil vividly exemplifies the insightful intellectual fruits such an approach can yield–thus [End Page 102] joining a small but exceptional group of important concept- and theme-driven studies to address the early period4 - while also affording the additional benefit of a sustained inquiry into Sufi ethical virtues, religious praxis, and "spiritual psychology" (p. 5). Extended examinations of these latter topics are surprisingly uncommon, despite the common acknowledgment that the Sufi virtues and their methodical cultivation occupy the bulk of early Sufi writing. As Khalil effectively demonstrates, tawba inhabits a central and foundational role therein. In his introduction, Khalil frames the project as an inquiry into a phenomenon global in scope, namely, the age-old experience of the awareness of sin and humankind's varied attempts to rectify it, but a phenomenon of course particular to the Islamic tradition as well. Although tawba is mentioned in the Qur'ān "eighty-seven times spread out over sixty-nine verses" (p. 26), while the Prophet Muḥammad went so far as to declare himself "the prophet of repentance [tawba]" (p. 2), nonetheless, tawba had only been the subject of a handful of articles prior to Khalil's monograph. Repentance and the Return to God thus marks the first book-length treatment of Islamic notions of repentance, while also adopting a distinctive focus on early Sufism. Khalil divides the book into two parts consisting of seven chapters: part one furnishes an analysis of the semantic range of the term "tawba" as treated in the authoritative works of classical Arabic lexicography (chapter 1) and the Qur'ān (chapter 2); part two (chapters 3–7) examines early Sufi notions of tawba across an astonishing array of authors, texts, and textual genres. Indeed, Khalil has managed to examine perhaps every major early Sufi author to treat tawba in their writings, alongside several lesser-known figures and figures from later periods, in addition to a substantial array of Sufi elders whose hagiographical memorialization became associated with occasions of exemplary repentance. This lengthy list of authors and texts taken up in the book is only one of the many hallmarks of Khalil's impressively comprehensive pursuit of the inquiry. Chapter 1 outlines the semantics of the term tawba as treated in classical Arabic lexicographical works. Khalil emphasizes that, while "repentance" stands as the most adequate translation available, this English word misses out on crucial features of the Arabic term. "Repentance" successfully conveys a certain emotional dimension of tawba, as lexicographers frequently invoke the ḥadīth "regret is [a sign of] tawba" (al-nadam tawba) (p. 15) to explain the "regret, remorse, contrition, and sorrow" (p. 21) that characterizes the concept. However, the English word fails to capture the primary semantic sense of tawba, namely, that of a "(re)turn," a "reorientation," or a "turning towards" God. Also crucial is God's own capacity to perform tawba, as when He "turns" His face toward a human being out of mercy...