Show description

There are also reminders of the sin of practising a false kind of Sufism, for example by being mindful of other than God, indulging in asceticism and worship night and day, but out of a preoccupation with self and not with the Lord. Similarly, one may be devoted to the service of a spiritual guide to such an extent that God is ultimately neglected. NÁbulusÎ ends with the exhortation to his readers to reform themselves inwardly, for then God will reform them outwardly. His treatment of repentance is inevitably closely linked to his understanding of sin and, as with other topics, he discusses it first with reference to the Sharοa.

11. Wuq×f-i qalbÎ (heart pause). 9 TÁj al-dÎn’s branch of the Naqshabandiyya is sometimes referred to as the TÁjiyya. However, despite the apparent strong TÁjÎ influence on him, ¿Abd al-GhanÎ al-NÁbulusÎ does not trace his spiritual genealogy through a TÁjÎ chain (silsila). The list of masters, that he records many years later, goes back via Ab× Sa¿Îd al-BalkhÎ through a central Asian line to the dominating figure of KhwÁja ‘Ubayd AllÁh AËrÁr (d. 10 He was the disciple of Ya¿q×b CharkhÎ (d. 1447), who constitutes the usual final link before BahÁ’ al-dÎn Naqshband and the line of the earliest masters back to GhijduwÁnÎ.

He mentions in particular the prominent sixteenth-century Sufi shaykhs ¿AlÎ b. 45 ¿AlÎ, who came from Morocco to Syria, is recorded as having regarded the eastern Islamic lands as far more corrupt than the Maghrib. 46 According to one author of the period, ‘It is generally agreed that ¿AlÎ attacked Shaykh al-IslÁm TaqÎ al-dÎn b. ’47 NÁbulusÎ, for his part, is usually lenient towards other Sunni Muslims, with the exception of those who actively criticise him and his fellow Sufi scholars. 48 His information on them is by no means reliable.