Christopher Melchert
Ba?ran Origins of Classical Sufism
History is largely about rooting out anachronisms. One that bedevils the
history of Sufism is an unsurprising tendency to project later forms backward.
Our idea of who was a Sufi in the ninth century tends to come from the
?abaq?t al-??f?ya? of the Nays?b?ran
al-Sulam? (d. 412/1021) and a few other books, some dependent on his.
Sulam? begins his first generation with notices of al-Fu?ayl ibn ?Iy??
(d. Mecca, 187/803), Ibr?h?m ibn Adham (d. al-G?az?ra, 163/779–80?), ??
l-N?n (d. G??za, 246/ 861?), Bi?r al-??f? (d. Baghdad, 227/841?), Sar? al-Saqa??
(d. Baghdad, 253/867?), and al-Mu??sib? (d. Baghdad?, 243/857–58) – the usual
big names for the late eighth century and, mainly, early ninth.
Massignon ’s lineage of Sufism (leading up to al-?all?g?)
stays almost entirely within this line, and indeed I have no serious quarrel
with it as a lineage of classical G?unayd? Sufism.
Der Islam, Walter de Gruyter
Print ISSN: 0021-1818
Volume: 82, 12/2005
Pages: 221 - 240
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