Aḥmad Zarrūq was one of the best known Sufi scholars of fifteenth-century Maghreb. A native of Morocco and adherent of the still young Shādhiliyya order, he travelled across the region and gained adherents, some of whom established a sub-branch of the Shādhiliyya named after him. He died in Tripolitania, now Libya, where the Zarrūqiyya order gained a foothold, and he was buried in the town of Misrata in Libya. He recently gained undeserved notoriety when Saudi-affiliated Salafi militants demolished and set fire to his grave during the conflicts in that region.
The text published here is an introduction to the tenets of Sufism, written in the form of qawāʿid, that is to say, short statements summing up basic principles, which are then expounded on in the accompanying text. This is a well-known type of literature in the teaching of jurisprudence (fiqh), and the author underlines the connection by stating that his aim in this work is to show the connections between Sufism and the Sharīʿa. He cites from the jurisprudent Mālik ibn Anas that whoever takes up Sufism without fiqh becomes a heretic, and whoever takes up fiqh without Sufism becomes a degenerate. The first is a heretic, says Zarrūq, because he then believes in predeterminism, the second a degenerate because he approaches law without a sincere yearning, i.e. for God.
The connection between the two fields is so central that the editor calls this a work of “judicial Sufism”. While the common understanding is that the earlier contentions between law and mysticism had been laid to rest with the eleventh-century al-Ghazālī, it thus appeared still to be necessary four centuries later to emphasize that the two must be combined. That Zarrūq, to support his claim, cites Mālik – who lived centuries before Ghazālī – is interesting. The editor notes that the quote is otherwise attributed to the later author al-Kāzrūnī. The need to bolster the argument with Mālik, whose madhhab was dominant in the Maghreb, may indicate that there was still some resistance to the acceptance of Sufism among some legal scholars, or vice versa among Sufis, in the region.
Zarruq’s Qawāʿid is a well-known work and has been published in Arabic several times, but this is the first scholarly translation into English. A previous translation was made as a PhD thesis by the late Zaineb Istrabadi in 1988, but it was never published. The present translation by Ghulam Shams-ur-Rehman is based on a new edition that he made for his own PhD in Exeter in 2009, and is based on seven main manuscripts, to which he could add another recently discovered. The published work here only contains the translation into English, with copious editorial footnotes, as well as an introduction and very useful summary of the main points of the text.
The existing manuscripts vary greatly in length, from 32 to 257 pages, and were given different titles. It may be, the editor suggests, that some of these variations came from the author himself, and that the work did not have a fixed length in his lifetime, as he was in the habit of rewriting his books and giving them new titles. As presented here, the work is divided into 17 chapters, each about five pages long in translation and containing between ten and twenty qawāʾid rules. An appendix summarizes 44 additional rules from a variant manuscript.
Among the topics covered are the methods for achieving iḥsān, “spiritual virtue” and tazkiya, “purification of the soul”. Central here is the role of teacher or shaykh, the ritual litanies of dhikr taught within the order, and practices such as khalwa (seclusion). While all orders lead to the same goal, the Shādhiliyya order is the best. Thus, the Foundations works indeed as a primer in Sufi thought and practice, clearly intended for the literate novice, as well as an argumentation against opponents. Its language is simple and straightforward, without the more involved esoteric thought often found in other early works on Sufism. It does, however, also address topics more relevant to legal discussions, thus it presents the hierarchy of competence in developing (legal) opinions from taqlīd (the translator suggests “blind affirmation”, or perhaps “acceptance without evaluating the evidence”), over iqtidāʾ (emulation of an established scholar) to ijtihād (independent judgement). The former is “disgraceful” and will “bring ridicule” on those who practise it, while emulation is acceptable, and there is no indication of any “gates to ijtihād” being closed. However, the importance of the madhhab, school of law, is emphasized. The author advises a middle road and warns against the works of both Ibn al-Jawzī and Ibn ʿArabī.
In the introduction, the translator provides a summary of Zarrūq’s life and the impact of his work. Among these are capsule biographies of his major students, as well as copious lists of medieval and later scholars who were in one form or another associated with the Zarrūqiyya order. While the aim of these lists is clearly to underline the importance of Zarrūq and his work, they will also be very useful to anyone working on network analysis, in particular of Sufi and other Islamic scholars of late medieval and early modern Maghreb, and even beyond, as far as Shāh Walī Allāh of India and Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb of Arabia. Even today, new centres studying Zarrūq are being set up in North America and South Africa, the author informs us.
The language of the translation is clear and straightforward, considering its mystical topic. The text provides a fascinating glimpse into how Sufism was conceived and taught in late medieval Maghreb. It can even today be used not just as a scholarly text with its meticulous and copious annotations, but could even be given as an introduction to non-specialists to what Sufism really means from within the tradition. It is highly recommended.
