Waḥdat al-Wujūd and the Binary of al-Ḥaqq wa al-Khalq

Probably the most controversial component of Ibn ʿArabī’s mysticism is the idea of waḥdat al-wujūd,Footnote ¹³ which, unlike wilāya and khatm al-wilāya (sainthood and the sealing of the sainthood) as well as al-insān al-kāmil (the Perfect Man) is newly created by him. While the first part, waḥda, indicates the basic sense of the first Islamic principle or tawḥīd and is as old as Islam, the second part, or wujūd, and discussions around it entered later and are relevant to the development of philosophy, “which is often defined as the study of wujūd.”Footnote ¹⁴ We know that it was Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī (d. 673/1274), and not Ibn ʿArabī, who originally coined the term waḥdat al-wujūd (or waḥda wujūdih, “one oneness of His being”) and used it “in at least two passages, [though] he does not use it as an independent technical term.”Footnote ¹⁵ The expression “Oneness of Being” (waḥda) had been employed by Sufis prior to Ibn ʿArabī and his school,Footnote ¹⁶ though his innovation rests in his capacity to assimilate “dominant ideas while re-creating them in subtle yet significantly different ways.”Footnote ¹⁷ By doing so, he shifts the borders of the established tradition on tawḥīd and reconstitutes new possibilities for explaining and understanding the first and the most important Islamic principle.

The idea explains two things: Oneness of the divine Essence and multiplicity of its self-manifestations. Wujūd never becomes plural and multiple but reflects itself in diverse appearances. Using Islamic sacred sources (the Qurʾān and the ḥadīth) on divine names and attributes, Ibn ʿArabī attempts to reconcile the unity of dhāt with the multiplicity of His reflections through these names.Footnote ¹⁸ As William Chittick points out, waḥdat al-wujūd has primarily been a solution, elucidating “a delicate balance” between the two existences, God and the world, and explaining how His existence should be understood through the world. However, since the latter is neither Him nor different from Him (He/not He), He manifests Himself or has the world know Him through His names and attributes.Footnote ¹⁹

Ibn ʿArabī “frequently discusses wujūd … [which] can be described as possessing the attribute of oneness or unity (employing such terms as waḥda, waḥdāniyya, and aḥadiyya).”Footnote ²⁰ When he discusses wujūd, he not only refers to God or “the nature of wujūd’s oneness,” but also to “affirming the reality of multiplicity,”Footnote ²¹ and hence his basic teachings go back to the divine names and attributes, which are frequently mentioned in the Qurʾān. The binary of al-Ḥaqq wa al-khalq, which indicates that Reality is one in His Essence (jāmiʿ li kull-i shayiʾ fī nafsihī), is usually expressed through the theological concepts of tanzīh (incomparability) and tashbīh (similarity). The former declares that God is not comparable with anything He has created and therefore is nonmanifest, but at the same time He is manifest or similar to created things, and He manifests Himself by the means of names and attributes.Footnote ²²

For al-Aḥsāʾī and all other Ibn ʿArabī detractors, waḥdat al-wujūd violates the classic Islamic teachings on monotheism summarized in the principle of creatio ex nihilo.Footnote ²³ As Izutsu argues, the term nihil for Ibn ʿArabī “is not a total unconditional ‘non-existence,’ but ‘non-existence’ in the particular sense of something being as yet non-existent as an empirical or phenomenal thing.”Footnote ²⁴ In other words, nihil still means existence; but existence on the level of intelligibles or “in the Consciousness of God.”Footnote ²⁵ However, as we will observe in the following, al-Aḥsāʾī was not intrigued by Ibn ʿArabī’s odd interpretation of tawḥīd and instead shaped his text around criticizing Ibn ʿArabī for what he believed to be his divergence from the true teachings of Islam.

Unlike al-Aḥsāʾī and other jurist-theologians like him, Shīʿa-minded Iranian Sufis showed ample interest in Ibn ʿArabī, and, as history proves, his theoretical mysticism (ʿirfān-i naẓarī) has been the subject of lively discussion by them since they first encountered it in the seventh century. Pioneers such as ʿAbdul Razzāq Kāshānī (also Qāshānī, d. 730/1330) were followed by future generations of Shīʿī scholars who read and interpreted Ibn ʿArabī’s key texts, particularly al-Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam. Along with commentaries and glosses on his works, every element of his mysticism was assimilated by his Shīʿī peers and incorporated into their context. This process of Shīʿatization was so complete that after seven centuries it is difficult to distinguish between Ibn ʿArabī’s idea of waḥdat al-wujūd, or his doctrines of wilāya and khatm al-wilāya and those of his Shīʿī readers. The culmination of this synthesis is the Ṣadrīan ḥikma (otherwise ḥikmat) in which his theoretical mysticism is integrated into the philosophical system of Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī known as Mullā Ṣadrā (1045/1635–36?).Footnote ²⁶ Therefore, by the time al-Aḥsāʾī was developing his fierce attack against the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī, ʿirfān-i naẓarī had already been well merged into the intellectual life of the Iranian Sufis and ḥakīms of the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

Contextualizing Shaykhīsm in the Intellectual life of Nineteenth Century Iran

The vibrancy and diversity of intellectual life under the Qajars has captured the attention of various modern scholars. Shaykhīsm is particularly interesting for many reasons, including its considerable messianism, its rich esotericism, the position of its founder Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī in the philosophical milieu of eighteenth and nineteenth century Iran, its diversification into different branches after the death of the second leader, Sayyid Kāẓim Rashtī (d. 1259/1843), and last but not least, the emergence of the Bābī movement.

Thanks to the scholarly contributions of Henry Corbin, Abbas Amanat, Mangol Bayat and more recently Denis Hermann, Idris Samawi Hamid and Armin Eschraghi, we know much about this multi-dimensional school, its fundamental tenets and its leaders. At stake was the ultimate issue of true knowledge or maʿrifah, who was to hold it and how this maʿrifah was obtainable.Footnote ²⁷ The Shaykhī school, first and foremost, wanted to identify itself as the holder of an alternative guidance based upon true, intuitive knowledge and esoteric cognition coming from the imāms, and that is why it took an opposite stance against the inquiry-bound knowledge of the Uṣūlī school. Its claim of esotericism, however, has less to do with a non-literal interpretation of the Book and the ḥadīth but, rather, more to do with obtaining knowledge from the source: the imāms and their teachings. Al-Aḥsāʾī and his successors laid claim to the accessibility of true knowledge coming from the Fourteen Illuminated and, by doing so, opposed the Uṣūlī definition of ijtihād and the authority of the mujtahids.

However, other esoteric tendencies of the past including Sufism, Ismāʿīlīsm and the Akhbārī school also culminated in Shaykhīsm; the Akhbārī school placed particular emphasis on the necessity of the existence of a continuous gate in the time of the occultation.Footnote ²⁸ The necessity of having a gate/human mediator as the bearer of the charismatic leadership when the imām is absent was an inseparable part of the messianic aspirations and yearnings of the nineteenth century. The Shaykhī school, from this perspective, was the inheritor of all “the mystical and theosophic traditions of the past,”Footnote ²⁹ which had then resurfaced. Mangol Bayat’s analysis of the Ismāʿīlī/Sufi root of al-Aḥsāʾī’s esotericism resembles Amanat’s, though she somewhat exaggerates the taking over of “the traditional Sufi ideas of Perfect Men whose existence sustain the world,”Footnote ³⁰ as well as the mixture of Perfect Men with “the Ismaili notion of hujjat.”Footnote ³¹ While for Amanat past esotericism acts as a general inspiration for the Shaykhī leaders, Bayat’s outlook stems from her teleological approach according to which Shaykhīsm is to be evaluated in terms of the purposes it serves, e.g. opposition to hierocracy as a heterodox movement, rather than the causes through which it has arisen. Shaykhīsm, according to Bayat, is but the bearer and the true inheritor of the Sufi and Ismāʿīlī antagonism and pursues the same purpose, e.g. to oppose the mainstream jurisdictional school as well as the political establishment of the time. Hence, from this viewpoint, it is not hard to identify terms such as ḥujja and/or Perfect Man as exclusively Sufi/Ismāʿīlī terms.

Space does not permit detailed analysis of the non-mystical genesis of these terms. Furthermore, Islamic sacred sources contain numerous references to al-insān al-kāmil and ḥujja, upon which classic Shīʿī discourse, which is neither Sufi nor Ismāʿīlī, has been shaped.Footnote ³² Additionally, Bayat’s emphasis on the Ismāʿīlī and the Sufi background of the Shaykhī worldview suffers from another inadequacy, which is stripping Shaykhīsm of its independent identity and binding its existence to other discourses. Nonetheless, as history proves, Shīʿī jurist-theologians, who traditionally lacked esoteric interests and belong to orthodoxy, correspondingly shared this terminology, which itself is indicative of the fact that their usage was not confined to mystico-esoteric trends. This said, it is more reasonable to hold that ideas such as the Perfect Man and ḥujja were in circulation from the formative period of Twelver Shīʿīsm, and were used and interpreted by any individual or school that wanted to lay claim to spiritual leadership and immediate access to gnosis.Footnote ³³

Eighteenth century political instability and the limitations of the emerging Qajar state, moreover, had empowered the Uṣūlī ʿulemā. Many other Iranians, weary and suspicious of the rectitude and functionality of the Uṣūlī apparatus, found recourse in Shaykhī teachings, which were representative of the esoteric knowledge and messianic yearnings of the time. However, in spite of its energetic messianism and rich esotericism, the Shaykhī school could not “leave a permanent mark [and], the general current of Uṣūlī orthodoxy, then in full spate, was powerful enough to be unaffected by any outburst of dissent.”Footnote ³⁴ Finally, and as a result of their rocky and uncomfortable relationship with the Uṣūlīs, the Shaykhīs gradually developed a new and distinct identity and hence “increasingly were perceived as a new school of thought within Twelver Shiʿism.”Footnote ³⁵ Even though al-Aḥsāʾī was a student of a number of Uṣūlī ʿulemā during his residence in ʿAtabāt and had permission from the imāms to narrate the aḥādīth,Footnote ³⁶ the clash between them “inevitably led to a polarization within the scholastic establishment between the supporters of Shaykh Aḥmad and his detractors.”Footnote ³⁷

The Uṣūlīs displayed the same hostility toward al-Aḥsāʾī’s immediate successor, Kāim Rashtī, who had “managed to establish himself as a respected theologian vis-à-vis other ulama as well as the Ottoman authorities in Karbalāʾ.”Footnote ³⁸ As a result of severe opposition from the ʿulemā of Karbala, he spent most of his early years “after his mentor’s death writing apologetic tracts, proving his own and Aḥsāʾi’s orthodoxy.”Footnote ³⁹ Furthermore, he had to appear at an inquisition into his defense of his master’s opinion on resurrection. Finally, there was a decree against him issued by the ʿulemā of Karbala “denouncing him as an unbeliever.”Footnote ⁴⁰ Amir-Moezzi uses the binary of defensive–offensive to describe the nature of the relationship between Shaykhīsm and its Uṣūlī foe. According to him, as a reaction to the constant attacks of the Uṣūlīs, the Shaykhī ʿulemā “have always had to be on the defensive; still in identifying certain ʿulamā as enemies of the hidden Imam and inviting the faithful to practice tabarrā against them, they were adopting a position that could be called offensive.”Footnote ⁴¹

Al-Aḥsāʾī, who had been treated with censorship, intolerance and antagonism by the Uṣūlīs, now and in line with numerous other anti-Ibn ʿArabī figures who emerged before him, expressed the same opposition and hostility towards Ibn ʿArabī and his school. For him, Ibn ʿArabī and his school were the enemies of the imāms and by his antagonism, he in fact invited believers to practice tabarrā against Ibn ʿArabī. As will be observed in the following, this discourse is as old as Ibn ʿArabī, and probably in terms of its geographical scope and vastness, one cannot find any analogous cause that could have unified so many scholars from the westernmost and easternmost corners of the Muslim world around one end.

Risālat al-Rashtīyah and al-Aḥsāʾī’s Reading of Theoretical Mysticism

Al-Aḥsāʾī wrote Risālat al-Rashtīyah in 1226/1811 to answer the questions of a certain Mullā ʿAlī Ibn al-Mīrzā Khān al-Jīlānī al-Rashtī on several issues, primarily his teachings, which laid the foundation for the Shaykhī creeds. The year of the completion of the text, as well as the name of the questioner are the only information that we have about the risāla. Due to a lack of sufficient information about Jīlānī Rashtī, we can only guess that he might have been a relative of (even a brother to?) Mīrzā Ḥabībullāh Ibn Mīrzā Muḥammad Khān al-Jīlānī al-Rashtī (d. 1312/1894), the Uṣūlī scholar of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Besides, if the year 1226 is correct, then the risāla must have been completed in ʿAtabāt, because al-Aḥsāʾī resided there at that time. Introducing himself as the marjaʿ li ulil albāb (the source of emulation for the people of the hearts) “to help believers achieve assurance and certainty,”Footnote ⁴² al-Aḥsāʾī discusses a wide variety of issues, including ʿirfān, Sufism and Ibn ʿArabī’s teachings. To my knowledge, this is the one and only independent risāla critical of Ibn ʿArabī. Risālat al-Rashtīyah is a long text, consisting of some 148 pages and is published in the eighth volume of al-Aḥsāʾī’s magnum opus, Javāmiʿ al-Kalim.

Before moving forward with our analysis of the risāla, the situation of mysticism in Iran of the nineteenth century merits our attention. The risāla was written at the time when the two Shīʿa Sufi movements of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, namely the Niʿmat Allāhī and Dhahabī orders, were enjoying popularity and relative security after the clerical encounter of the Safavid era.Footnote ⁴³ A third, less important group, Khāksār, was the fruit of the marriage between the “two existing qalandar groups, namely the Ḥaydariyya and the Jalāliyya.”Footnote ⁴⁴ Although the emergence and the growth of these three Sufi movements predated the early Qajar era, they all had a revival at the time under investigation.Footnote ⁴⁵ Niʿmat Allāhī Sufism not only survived the opposition of the Uṣūlī ʿulemā between 1800 and 1850, but also subsequently grew and developed under celebrated masters such as Ṣafī ʿAlī Shāh (d. 1316/1899).Footnote ⁴⁶ The culmination of this bloody acrimony was the arrest, torture and murder of Mīr ʿAbdul Ḥamīd Dakanī, known as Maʿṣūm ʿAlī Shāh (d. 1212/1801), in Kermanshah by the order of the Uṣūlī faqīh Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī (or Bihbahānī Kirmānshāhī, d. 1216/1805) who was hailed as the Sufi-kush (Sufi Killer).Footnote ⁴⁷ Although, the later splitting of Niʿmat Allāhīyah into further branches should rather be regarded as an indication of its vitality and dynamism.

The Dhahabī order had been revived under the leadership of Quṭb al-Dīn Nayrīzī (d. 1173/1759), “the thirty-second in line from the Prophet,”Footnote ⁴⁸ who by writing prose and poetic works as well as traveling widely throughout Iran and Iraq, “ultimately brought about the survival and, apparently, the revival of the Dhahabiyya ṭarīqa in Iran.”Footnote ⁴⁹ Like Niʿmat Allāhī, the Dhahabī Sufism was also inspired by the mysticism of Ibn ʿArabī,Footnote ⁵⁰ blended in a Shīʿa aura. The Dhahabī ṭarīqa was popular among prominent members of the Shīʿī ʿulemā, such as Shaykh Murtaḍā Anṣārī (d. 1281/1864) as well as Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥussayn Shīrāzī (d. 1312/1894), known as ṣāḥib-i fatwā, who were among the “devoted disciples” of Abu al-Qāsim Shīrāzī (d. 1286/1869), known as Rāz.Footnote ⁵¹ The Dhahabīs of the nineteenth century, unlike their Niʿmat Allāhī peers, adopted a conservative stance toward the modernization process.Footnote ⁵²

Interestingly, al-Aḥsāʾī, who always tends to portray himself as an advocate of pristine Shīʿīsm and the headstrong opponent of Sufism, had been the disciple of the Dhahabī master, Shaykh Quṭb al-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī Dhahabī (or Dhahabī Shīrāzī) (d. 1173/1759), and had studied Ibn ʿArabī’s al-Futūḥāt al-Makkīyah (Meccan Revelations) with him.Footnote ⁵³ Probably it was the royalist and conservative orientation of the Dhahabī Sufism, perfectly matched with the aloof and apolitical nature of al-Aḥsāʾī, that made Dhahabīya attractive to him. There is also historical evidence showing that he had been a devotee of the abovementioned Quṭb al-Dīn Nayrīzī (d. 1173/1759), the Dhahabī Quṭb of the twelfth century.Footnote ⁵⁴ Sayyid Wakīlī finds striking similarities between the Dhahabī idea of the wilāyat al-juzʾīyyat al-Qamarīyya of the non-illuminated saint (walī-ya ghayr-i maʿṣūm), i.e. the wilāya of the Dhahabī shaykh on one hand, and the Shaykhī ideas of the Perfect Shīʿa (or the Shaykhī reading of the Sufi idea of the Perfect Man, also nāṭiq-i wāḥid) as well as qurāʾi ẓāhirah (visible towns) on the other.Footnote ⁵⁵

Al-Aḥsāʾī does not directly discuss the Perfect Man, though the office of imamate and the idea of nāṭiq-i wāḥid are both referents of the Sufi concept of al-Insān al-Kāmil. While on the other hand, we know that the Perfect Man is one of the pillars of Ibn ʿArabī’s mysticism, though its genesis goes back to Jewish and Christian traditions prior to the formation of Sufism.Footnote ⁵⁶ Ibn ʿArabī considers the Perfect Man on two entirely different levels: cosmic or Man as microcosm and individual level; or on an ontological and anthropological level respectively.Footnote ⁵⁷ Despite al-Aḥsāʾī’s efforts to keep his teachings free of any Sufi coloring, the Shaykhī description of the cosmic role of the Perfect Shīʿa, both as the culmination of divine characteristics (wujūd/ousia) and the inheritor of the temporal presence of the imām who is now absent (wilāya/parousia),Footnote ⁵⁸ demonstrates bold similarities with the mystical discourse of the Perfect Man.

However, al-Aḥsāʾī’s interest in Dhahabī Sufism was obviously replaced by what Todd Lawson calls “a quasi-populist mystical interpretation of standard Twelver Shiʾism which served as a powerful alternative to what was becoming a disturbing interest in more purely Sufi doctrine,”Footnote ⁵⁹ including both Dhahabī and Niʿmat Allāhī Sufism. Examining the reasons of al-Aḥsāʾī’s discursive turn from popular Sufism to “mystical interpretation” is beyond the scope and purpose of this research. However, this move enabled him to adopt an obstinate, anti-Sufi stance in Risālat al-Rashtīyah. One of the main concerns of the risāla is clarification of the term mutaṣawwafah (lit. pretentions of Sufism), fake Sufis and their claims. The risāla starts with “the Title of the Word of Inquirer asking about Mutaṣawwafah and the Explanations of the Author about it,” and gradually not only becomes an anti-Sufi text, but also a manifesto wherein al-Aḥsāʾī draws the boundaries of his creed against Sufism, particularly the teachings of Ibn ʿArabī. However, alongside al-Aḥsāʾī’s main concern, i.e. portraying himself as the advocate of true Islam coming from the teachings of the imāms and by doing so discrediting Ibn ʿArabī’s deviation from it, one can find another motivation for composing Risālat al-Rashtīyah.

Contextualizing the Risāla indicates that the author wanted to be part of the campaign, the episteme of his time, which had been revolving around the definition of Sufism and Sufi practices as opposed to correct mysticism or ʿirfān. The dispute has a long history, dating back to the pre-Safavid era, when Shīʿī philosophers and theosophists accepted the theoretical aspects of Sufism and tolerated Sufis, but at the same time avoided the name ṣūfī. As Anzali, Pourjavady and Newman, among others, have discussed, scholars of this time preferred to identify themselves with ʿirfān (gnosis), and avoid using taṣawwuf, which had negative connotations.Footnote ⁶⁰

Al-Aḥsāʾī argues that offering some clarifications on mutaṣawwafah is “wājib al-ʿaynīyah” (social duty) and needs to be conducted for the sake of “warning the ignorant and guiding the astray” (lit. tanbīh al-ghāfilīn wa irshād al-mustarshidīn).Footnote ⁶¹ Al-Aḥsāʾī has several problems with this position, chief among them the Sufi’s opposition to the path of the imāms; despite having received the taʾwīl of the word of God, which supposedly was to open their eyes to the Truth. Mutaṣawwafah was determined to oppose the teachings of the imāms because their leaders explicitly asked them to deviate from their path and join the madhhab of Sunna and jimāʿa and set it as a condition for being a Sufi.Footnote ⁶² In another words, Sufism equates to Sunnism, because a Twelver Shīʿī can only be ʿārif (lit. cognizant) of the esoteric meaning of the teachings of the imāms and not the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī. Sufis, al-Aḥsāʾī asserts, not only assimilate ḥaqq with bāṭil, which is an “accursed tree” (lit. shajarat al-malʿūna in its Qurʾānīc usage),Footnote ⁶³ but also “are endowed with the faculty [lit. quwwah] of sin and evil doing.”Footnote ⁶⁴ Mutaṣawwafah’s claims need to be refuted because they are cursed and wrong due to their original disposition (lit. faṭrah), which was created into wrongdoing since ʿālam-i dharr, and that is why there is no chance of salvation for them.Footnote ⁶⁵ According to this outlook, mutaṣawwafah are capable of sinning and incapable of abandoning sin, therefore any chance of forgiveness and redemption is impossible for them. Furthermore, since every prophet has an enemy who is a Satan in human form, Mumīt al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabīFootnote ⁶⁶ is the enemy of the Prophet of Islam, a Satan among people, who leads believers astray.Footnote ⁶⁷

Al-Aḥsāʾī’s hatred toward Ibn ʿArabī is reminiscent of Aḥmad ibn Taymīyyah’s (d. 728/1328) treatment of both Ibn ʿArabī and Ibn Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325) in his book Minhāj al-Sunnat al-Nabawīyyah fī Naqdh Kalām al-Shīʿa wa al-Qadarīyyah (The Righteous Path of the Prophetic Tradition in Refuting the Ideas of [Twelver] Shīʿīsm and of Qadarīyyah).Footnote ⁶⁸ Al-Aḥsāʾī was perhaps familiar with Ibn Taymīyyah’s refutations of the mystical philosophy of al-Shaykh al-Akbar; both his arguments and his tone share striking similarities with those of his predecessor. Furthermore, the term “Mumīt al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī” is an imitation of the title “People of Impurity” (lit. ahl al-nijāsah), which had been coined and used by Ibn Taymīyyah to refer to Ibn Muṭahar al-Ḥillī. Given this, it seems that anti-Ibn ʿArabī discourse was a unifying factor, bringing together these puritans, both Shīʿī and Sunni, against the heterodoxy of the allegedly most erring mystic of Islamic culture.Footnote ⁶⁹

Nonetheless, Ibn Taymīyyah “looked favorably upon al-Futūḥāt [and certainly not the Fuṣūṣ, on the basis of which he criticizes Ibn ʿArabī] and considered its reading to be a spiritually beneficial exercise.”Footnote ⁷⁰ It is not clear, however, whether al-Aḥsāʾī was well acquainted with the writings of Ibn ʿArabī, particularly al-Futūḥāt and the Fuṣūṣ, the main books for which other Ibn ʿArabī detractors attacked him. In the entire Risāla, he mentions al-Futūḥāt only once,Footnote ⁷¹ when pillorying Ibn ʿArabī’s arguments on awlīyā, and he never mentions the Fuṣūṣ.Footnote ⁷²

It seems that al-Aḥsāʾī goes further than Ibn Taymīyyah, who looked favorably on al-Futūḥāt, was a Sufi, and “was a faithful follower of al-Ghazali, who also sought to rid Sufism of its elitist tenor and to play down its esoteric metaphysics.”Footnote ⁷³ Al-Aḥsāʾī, on the other hand, is totally antagonistic, with a black and white approach, in his treatment of Sufism, and unlike other Ibn ʿArabī critics who had ample familiarity with the Fuṣūṣ, he seems to have a superficial acquaintance with it based on hearsay.

Al-Aḥsāʾī accuses Ibn ʿArabī of turning away from God’s mercy, having pride and egocentrism, evil doing and misleading people.Footnote ⁷⁴ He is not alone in his confusion about the idea of waḥdat al-wujūd, as figures such as ʿAlāʾ al-Dawlah Simnānī (d. 736/1336) had also come up with a counterargument called waḥdat al-Shuhūd in reply to Ibn ʿArabī and ʿAbdul Razzāq Kāshānī (also Qāshānī, d. 730/1330), one of the first adherents of Ibn ʿArabī in Iran. Al-Aḥsāʾī’s critiques of waḥdat al-wujūd recall the objections of Simnānī.Footnote ⁷⁵ After bringing a Prophetic ḥadīth to assert that waḥdat al-wujūd is one of those “great wrongs” (lit. al-manākir al-ʿaẓīmah)Footnote ⁷⁶ that has greatly damaged his Sunna, al-Aḥsāʾī argues that “this accursed man [Ibn ʿArabī] identifies himself with Allah and states that man’s existence is the same as divine existence.”Footnote ⁷⁷ After Mumīt al-Dīn came Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1045/1640) and his student Mullā Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī (d. 1090/1680), who also embraced waḥdat al-wujūd and incorporated it into their philosophy.Footnote ⁷⁸

Al-Aḥsāʾī demonizes Ibn ʿArabī and is particularly uncomfortable with his inverted interpretation of the classic doctrine of tawḥīd, which is crystalized in waḥdat al-wujūd. Tawḥīd as taught by the imāms was turned on its head by Ibn ʿArabī, who replaced its hierarchical modulation with mumkin al-wujūd. In another spin, mumkin al-wujūd is replaced wājib al-wujūd. Al-Aḥsāʾī holds that according to Ibn ʿArabī, God and the cosmos are identical, and therefore Ibn ʿArabī is wrong when he calls himself His eye,Footnote ⁷⁹ or corresponds ʿilm al-llāh (lit. divine knowledge) to ʿilm al-nāss (lit. temporal knowledge) in a way different from the teachings of the imāms. As a result, Ibn ʿArabī deprives the deity of His authority and power (lit. ikhtīyār) and equates Him with His creatures.Footnote ⁸⁰ In other words, His deprivation of His authority is a result of Him becoming maʿlūm rather than being ʿālim.Footnote ⁸¹ According to Ibn ʿArabī’s teachings, this is due to ʿilm al-llāh following ʿilm al-nāss, because He sees with Ibn ʿArabī’s eyes. Deprivation of God from His ikhtīyār results in attributing ikhtīyār to mumkin al-wujūd and therefore originating His authority from the authority of mumkins; this is how His ʿilm becomes dependent on His creatures’ knowledge.Footnote ⁸²

Regarding mysticism, al-Aḥsāʾī’s critiques are typical and are reminiscent of his predecessor, Ibn Taymīyyah. The nature of Ibn Taymīyyah’s objections, the harsh tone of his language, and of course, his confusion about waḥdat al-wujūd, are similar to those of al-Aḥsāʾī. However, Ibn Taymīyyah’s problem with Akbarīan mysticism was more philosophical,Footnote ⁸³ while al-Aḥsāʾī’s indictments against Ibn ʿArabī have an epistemological quality. Furthermore, unlike Ibn Taymīyyah, al-Aḥsāʾī was neither a Sufi nor a philosopher, and by the extensive use of the “mystic” (ʿārif) in his risāla, he refers to the cognizance of the teachings of the imāms as the main source of maʿrifah, which was damaged by Ibn ʿArabī and his followers. In al-Aḥsāʾī’s view, the teachings of the imāms about tawḥīd and the relationship of God and ʿabd are simple and clear: since His Essence always remains unknown from and inaccessible to people, the Deity shows Himself through His names and attributes.

It seems that al-Aḥsāʾī had difficulty understanding waḥdat al-wujūd. The concept is a complex notion of the differences between oneness or unity on one hand and multiplicity on the other, entailed in ways that not only defy but also subvert the simple, hierarchical idea of the classic tawḥīd in Islam; although it has brought about the labeling of his mysticism as badʿa (heresy/innovation), corrupt beliefs and void claims (al-iʿtiqādāt al-fāsidah wa daʿāwī bāṭilah).Footnote ⁸⁴ Furthermore, al-Aḥsāʾī, in line with the dominant anti-Sufi tradition of his time, makes an othering discourse which ultimately excludes and marginalizes Sufis by calling them “Naṣārā aw Majūs of this community.”Footnote ⁸⁵ He also claims that Sufis “desire to extinguish the Light of God [with their mouths], but God completes His Light, though the disbelievers (kuffār) be averse.”Footnote ⁸⁶ Al-Aḥsāʾī’s discourse is built upon a number of fabricated ḥadīth reports, which are deployed to claim that the imāms and their teachings are against Sufis and denounce them.

Incredulous of the conventional way of authentication of the chain of ḥadīth, i.e. ʿilm-i rijāl, and like any other Akhbārī-inclined scholar, al-Aḥsāʾī instead holds that the “supra-sensual” encounter of the initiate with the imām (in dreams) provides him with a “spiritual intuition” (dhawq),Footnote ⁸⁷ that can help him grasp the authenticity or inauthenticity of a tradition.Footnote ⁸⁸ Maintaining that every tradition, as long as it does not contradict the fundamentals of the faith, is potentially authentic, al-Aḥsāʾī not only abandons ʿilm-i rijāl, but also invites us to respect the integrity of the traditions that have come down to us from the imāms without taking into account the chains of transmitters or any other criteria.Footnote ⁸⁹ Therefore, it is not surprising that one of his sources is Ḥadīqat al-Shīʿa of Muqaddas (otherwise Muḥaqqiq) Ardibīlī (d. 993/1585), whose ḥadīth authentication has been widely questioned by modern scholars.Footnote ⁹⁰ Furthermore, it is even doubtful whether the book was written by Ardibīlī.

Anzali and Babayan call him “pseudo-Ardabili,”Footnote ⁹¹ and they believe that the book played an important role in substantiating “the claim that the imams took an active stand against the Sufis of their time,”Footnote ⁹² and by doing so, inaugurated “a second wave of polemics,” which also included “attacks against sufis.”Footnote ⁹³ Ḥadīqat al-Shīʿa also provided some Sufis such as Muḥammad Maʿṣūm ʿAlī Shāh-i Shīrāzī (d. 1344/1926) with a “point of departure in his defense of Sufism.”Footnote ⁹⁴

We are now able to examine the image of ʿirfān as intended by al-Aḥsāʾī vis-à-vis the mainstream Sufism of his time as passed down from Ibn ʿArabī. In the Shaykhī narrative of ʿirfān, with a strong tendency to be different, distinguished and elect, knowledge of the meaning (al-maʿrifat al-maʿnā) is the first criterion in defining mysticism.Footnote ⁹⁵ Second, although ʿārif (cognizant) is singled out in ʿilm, he looks like the masses (ʿawām) in the way he behaves and dresses, because this outward/exoteric similarity and regularity is to cover the inward distinctiveness. Likening the bodies of Sufis to those of animals (due to their differences from human physiology), al-Aḥsāʾī argues that ʿārif must instead make the effort to assimilate himself into society, because the duality of body/ẓāhir and soul/bāṭin must correspond.Footnote ⁹⁶ The true ʿārif should avoid “the exotic garments of wandering Sufis,”Footnote ⁹⁷ because the inward is more significant than the outward.Footnote ⁹⁸ Pertinent to this is the significance of practice, which is doing what the imāms recommended us to do. Therefore, since ʿilm is not iktisābī, but a gift from God to whomever He wants, a believer must open his heart to Him and to the imāms’ teachings to be able to receive light and practice in the path of the Prophet.Footnote ⁹⁹

The Shaykhī Alternative

In different places, particularly in Sharḥ Zīyārat al-Jāmiʿa and briefly in the text under consideration, “Risālat al-Rashtīyah,” al-Aḥsāʾī discusses the office of qurāʾi ẓāhirah (lit. visible towns), both as a level of being and of knowledge. It is not clear how al-Aḥsāʾī came up with this interpretation of the Qurʾānīc term qurāʾi ẓāhirah in verse eighteen of the sūrah of Sabaʾ (Sheba), stating that “And We set between them and the towns that We had blessed towns easily seen.”Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Furthermore, in Sharḥ al-Zīyārat he quotes the fifth imām, al-Bāqir’s interpretation of this verse, where al-Bāqir refers to awṣīyā of the prophets, among other groups, as the visible towns. Al-Aḥsāʾī explains that awṣīyā are rusul and naqala (lit. transmitters) of the cause of the imāms and the fuqahā and the assistants of His faith.Footnote ¹⁰¹ These people, i.e. Shīʿī jurists, are adherents of the faith and assist it in different ways such as transmitting ḥadīth, disseminating the message of the imāms by teaching and illuminating the hearts of people.Footnote ¹⁰² Moreover, they are eligible to receive absolute obedience from people because they have been raised to eminence by their closeness to the imāms.Footnote ¹⁰³

In the following, al-Aḥsāʾī uses qurāʾi ẓāhirah to refer to the Shīʿī ʿulemā as signposts (lit. adilla) on the pathway of the love of God (lit. adilla al-ṭarīq al-muʾaddī ilā muḥabbat al-llāh),Footnote ¹⁰⁴ intermediating between the blessed towns, i.e. the imāms (ilā qurāʾi al-latī bāraknā) and believers. Furthermore, these “aʾimat al-ẓāhirūn al-muṭahharūn” (lit. the apparent, immune leaders)Footnote ¹⁰⁵ or the Shīʿī ʿulemā, are presumed to be obeyed and are destined to be located on the path to the imāms who are inaccessible to believers.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ While al-Aḥsāʾī never clarifies what he means by the Shīʿī ʿulemā, he honors them with the virtue of purity (lit. ṭahārah) similar to the imāms. By Shīʿī ʿulemā did he mean the Shaykhī ʿulemā? This question is left to his successors, particularly Sayyid Kāẓim al-Rashtī (d. 1258/1843) and Muḥammad Karīm [Khān] Kirmānī, to discuss in a more nuanced way.

Al-Rashtī in Ḥujjat-i Bālighah explains that the gnosis of the Shīʿī ʿulemā or “the People of the Rightness” (ahl al-ḥaqq)Footnote ¹⁰⁷ and their station makes the fourth pillar of the Shaykhī School, rukn-i rābiʿ, which is the fourth station of gnosis,Footnote ¹⁰⁸ and the fourth principle of the faith, standing after tawḥīd, prophethood and imamate. Thus, the office of the rukn-i rābiʿ was invented to create a bridge between the wilāya of the imām—which, like divinity itself is unreachable by man—and people. However, it was probably the third Shaykhī leader, Muḥammad Karīm [Khān] Kirmānī, who elaborated on the term rukn-i rābiʿ and placed it at the heart of the Shaykhī school. In the fourth volume of his voluminous Irshād al-ʿAwām (The Guidance of Masses), Kirmānī argues that the perfect Shīʿa is not only the intermediary between the Unseen (hidden imām) and people, but also the source of the emanation of life (lit. fayḍ-i ḥayāt) for them, and therefore gnosis of his existence is the necessary principle of the Faith.Footnote ¹⁰⁹

However, although “Shīʿī ʿulemā” could be treated as a replacement for the faqīh in the Uṣūlī tradition, the term seems to hold a broader usage when al-Aḥsāʾī suggests his own definition of ʿirfān and monopolizes it in the Shaykhī creed.Footnote ¹¹⁰ Therefore, Qurāʾi ẓāhirah, i.e. the Shaykhī ʿulemā, are the true ʿārifs who represent the teachings of the khawāṣṣ (the Shīʿī Elect) and disseminate the message of the imāms, while the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī is the school of ʿawām (masses), even though the way Sufis dress and behave seems to be different from the masses. It is an ʿāmmī school because it is based on the false akhbār and aḥādīth of the imāms, accepted by the masses.Footnote ¹¹¹

There is another reason for a school to be honored as khāṣṣah: to be secretive and hidden inwardly, while outwardly to be as similar and close to the masses as possible.Footnote ¹¹² He calls the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī “madhhab al-ʿāmmah of shayāṭīn al-ins” (lit. the Ordinary School of Human Demons),Footnote ¹¹³ which has nothing to do with the teachings of the imāms. Alternatively, the school of khawāṣṣ, i.e. the Shaykhī school, should be regarded as the true successor of the wilāya of the Fourteen Illuminated ones. Verifying the borders of his school as representative of Twelver Shīʿīsm, al-Aḥsāʾī maintains that “our school is the one that unveils [lit. kashf] the true meaning of the sayings and intentions of the Prophet and of the imams.”Footnote ¹¹⁴ Mujāhadayah ahl al-ḥaqq (lit. the effort of the people of the truth) or the correct maʿrifah stands against the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī.Footnote ¹¹⁵

Monopolizing knowledge of the meaning of the teachings of the imāms in the hands of the qurāʾi ẓāhirah is the first step in identifying Shaykhīsm as the sole inheritor of Imāmī Shīʿīsm. What comes next is the definition of ijtihād and religious authority in a pro-Akhbārī way. In his magnum opus, Sharḥ-i Zīyārat-i Jāmiʿiy-i Kabīrah, al-Aḥsāʾī argues that fuqahā are adherents of the faith, as they spread the message of the imāms and their ḥadīth by teaching (taʿlīm), assisting (imdād) and watching believers so that they do not go astray.Footnote ¹¹⁶ Moreover, they are eligible to have the absolute obedience of Shīʿas, because they have been raised to eminency by their closeness to the imāms.Footnote ¹¹⁷ In al-Aḥsāʾī’s view, the eminency of the fuqahā comes from teaching, helping and guiding other believers, as well as from transmitting the message of the imāms rather than conducting ijtihād by using rational and transmitted sources.Footnote ¹¹⁸

Al-Aḥsāʾī redefines the term “jurists” by highlighting the role of ʿulemā in spreading the message of the imāms, and not extracting juridical edicts and injunctions, using ʿaql and even non-rational, transmitted sources. This definition also rejects ẓann (conjecture) as the main characteristic of the Uṣūlī ijtihad. Footnote ¹¹⁹ Therefore, as previously noted, the term jurist cannot be understood as faqīh in the conventional Uṣūlī sense, but is translated according to the Shaykhī terminology, as visible town and/or shakhṣ-i thaqa (lit. trustworthy man). Having faith in this elite is the fourth religious principle of the Shaykhī creed, known as rukn-i rābiʿ, after tawḥīd, nubuwwa and imamate.Footnote ¹²⁰

Moreover, the centrality of ʿaql in conducting ijtihād is a Uṣūlī characteristic of the notion of ijtihād. By adopting an anti-rational approach, al-Aḥsāʾī in fact identifies himself with the Akhbārī discourse. Furthermore, his emphasis on the recurring dreams of the imāms shows that by setting himself apart from his Uṣūlī peers, al-Aḥsāʾī intends to bring an alternative to Uṣūlīsm, to its definition of ijtihād and to the role of fuqahā. Following him, the entire Shaykhī apparatus took a pro-Akhbārī position on ijtihād, taqlīd and the role of mujtahids in the community.Footnote ¹²¹ Hermann argues that in this case, the Shaykhī ʿulemā appeared “to be the heir of” the Akhbārī movement at a time when it was “in decline following the success it had during the twelfth/eighteenth century.”Footnote ¹²²

Al-Aḥsāʾī’s definition of ijtihād, which was later adopted as the sole and dominant definition of the term in Shaykhīsm, also contrasts with that of Ibn ʿArabī. In his brilliant study on Ibn ʿArabī’s conception of ijtihād, Samer Dajani shows how the “Akbari madhhab of jurisprudence”Footnote ¹²³ and particularly the notion of ijtihād originates from the theory of wilāya and khatm al-wilāya, as well as that of the office of afrād. Footnote ¹²⁴ As we observed earlier, Ibn ʿArabī was greatly inspired by Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī in his theory of both wilāya and ijtihād. Tirmidhī’s sophisticated theory of wilāya, like that of most of his contemporaries, was a hierarchical theory in origin, based on the distinction between normal walīs (or saints in Dajani’s word) and the Elect, i.e. muḥaddathūn.Footnote ¹²⁵ The Elect “were just below the prophets in rank, and shared a greater portion of prophethood than the other believers”Footnote ¹²⁶ and, not unlike other walīs, “possessed clairvoyance and inspiration, but … also received Heavenly Speech which could give them certain knowledge. This certain knowledge provided them with a greater understanding of the Sharīʿa.”Footnote ¹²⁷ Their ijtihād has nothing to do with any rational effort or qiyās (lit. analogical reasoning), as was prevalent in other Sunni juridical schools, but is instead a function of inspiration. Be that as it may, the inspired ijtihād of the Elect in Tirmidhī’s theory was famously the main inspirer of Ibn ʿArabī’s conception of wilāya and ijtihād.Footnote ¹²⁸

The main reason Tirmidhī and later Ibn ʿArabī took an opposite stance to the deployment of ʿaql and/or analogical reasoning in the process of ijtihād was this belief that jurists must take their knowledge directly from the original source, not through the intermediary.Footnote ¹²⁹ Direct inspiration or kashf, which is only accessible to the Elect, gives them the opportunity to penetrate wisdom (ḥikmat al-bālighah) and to go to the origin, as the only way to do ijtihād.Footnote ¹³⁰ Meanwhile, there exists another reason why Ibn ʿArabī takes an opposite stance on analogical reasoning. As Dajani points out, although the service to the Sharīʿa is central to Ibn ʿArabī’s mission, to him this service is inseparable from God’s mercy, love and generosity. For Ibn ʿArabī, “every silence on the part of the Lawgiver was intentional,” and hence “those matters that were not addressed by the revealed sources were ‘forgiven’ as a mercy from God, and there will be no reward or punishment attached to them.”Footnote ¹³¹ Briefly, reasoning in the form of an act of legislation through the process of ijtihād “detracted from one’s state of servitude to God, because it was God who was the Lawgiver.”Footnote ¹³²

It is exactly due to God’s mercy that Tirmidhī/Ibn ʿArabī’s ijtihād is pluralistic: there is no disagreement and there is no need for such a thing because “different opinions could be correct at one and the same time.”Footnote ¹³³ As Dajani asserts, for Tirmidhī and later for Ibn ʿArabī, “the true fiqh” does not belong to one group but to people of wisdom (ahl al-ḥikma)Footnote ¹³⁴ with opposing positions on juridical issues.Footnote ¹³⁵ This general image of Tirmidhī’s conception of ijtihād, which was later adopted by Ibn ʿArabī, contrasts with that of al-Aḥsāʾī. Although al-Aḥsāʾī and Ibn ʿArabī both use the term kashf for the same reason—to go to the source (either inspirationFootnote ¹³⁶ or the unseen/imām)—their results are different. The latter ends in a legal pluralism with its inherent openness, designating room to any jurisdictional voice, while the former results in the exclusionist maktab (lit. school) of the Savior Sect (firqayah nājīyah), or the school of the khawāṣṣ (lit. the Elect, or the Shaykhī ʿulemā). Moreover, although in both “the Akbari madhab”Footnote ¹³⁷ and Shaykhīsm only the Elect is eligible to come to juridical judgments, the juridical school of Ibn ʿArabī is not limited to the confines of any Sunni legalism. Furthermore, faqīhs can contradict each other after going back to the source, and the source was available to all the imāms of the Sunni legal schools. Consequently, due to their different interpretations of the source, they have reached contradictory outlooks that are all valid.Footnote ¹³⁸

Our discussion of the Shaykhī conception of mysticism and its differences from the Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī would be incomplete without discussing, albeit briefly, the general influence of Akbarīan mysticism on the Shaykhī School. By “general influence” I mean the very common impact of Akbarīan terminology and philosophy on Shaykhī thought, mainly in areas such as tajallī (lit. manifestation/theophany). The word tajallī goes back to the story of Moses on Mt. Sinai in the Qurʾān: tajallā lil-jabal “and when his Lord manifested Himself to the mountain.”Footnote ¹³⁹ Although no research on the history of its usage exists, “the passage is enough to show that [it] is completely appropriate in any discussion of how God manifests Himself to human beings.”Footnote ¹⁴⁰ For Ibn ʿArabī, everything and particularly divine names and attributes are the manifestations of the Deity, but for al-Aḥsāʾī, imām/walī, who is kalimat al-llāh with a face toward people and a face toward the Deity, is regarded as His theophany.Footnote ¹⁴¹

As the walī, the donor of all benefits as well as the swords of revenge,Footnote ¹⁴² and shāhid (witness of contemplation) from God to people, the imām is His manifestation in this world. The imām is also His luminous light, and the holder of the column of light (ʿamūd min a-nūr), through which he can watch people and see their actions.Footnote ¹⁴³ Al-Aḥsāʾī’s outlook corresponds with what Amir-Moezzi calls “Shīʿī humanism,” which in fact is “an expression of human dignity from the Shīʿī perspective.”Footnote ¹⁴⁴ Narrating a meditation from the sixth imām, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq stating that “in the whole of His creation, the human form is the greatest proof of God,”Footnote ¹⁴⁵ Amir-Moezzi concludes that although the concept of theophany has been influenced by the teachings of Ibn ʿArabī to rescue “the unity of the created being and of the being of the Creator,”Footnote ¹⁴⁶ it finds its utmost expression in the Shīʿa (and similarly Shaykhī) tradition.

While al-Aḥsāʾī draws upon the language of Ibn ʿArabī, his configuration of this Qurʾānīc term, tajallī, is different. In al-Aḥsāʾī’s conception of manifestation, ʿirfān is replaced by kalām and imāms are substitutes for divine names. However, since the imām is inaccessible, the Shaykhī ʿulemā, who are gifted with the attributes of infallibility and purity (ʿiṣmat and ṭahārah) and whose gnosis makes the fourth pillar of the Shaykhī creed after tawḥīd, nubuwwa and imamate, are regarded as the true bearers of the charisma of the imāms. Therefore, the Qurʾanīc term of tajallī as a signifier finds a new signified in Shaykhīsm, different from the mystical connotations of Ibn ʿArabī and his school.

Al-Aḥsāʾī also became involved in another philosophical skirmish, this time with the ḥakīms of the School of Tehran,Footnote ¹⁴⁷ chiefly the students of Āqā Muḥammad Bīdābādī (d. 1198/1783–88). Al-Aḥsāʾī’s critiques of Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophy in generalFootnote ¹⁴⁸ and of Sharḥ al-Mashāʾir (Commentary on the Metaphysical Organa) in particular, triggered the altercation. I find the term “interdiscursive dialogue” more functional and illustrative, because al-Aḥsāʾī’s relationship with these philosophers was more complicated than his relatively straightforward and direct relationship with Ibn ʿArabī. Putting aside al-Aḥsāʾī’s critiques of Ṣadrā, his juridical inclination toward the Akhbārī school could be regarded as the second reason for this dispute.

In addition to his discipleship to Sayyid Quṭb al-Dīn Muḥammad Nayrīzī Shīrazī (d. 1173/1758), al-Aḥsāʾī was also a classmate of various prominent ḥakīms of his time, including Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdī Baḥr al-ʿUlūm (d. 1212/1797), Mullā Miḥrāb Gīlānī (d. 1217/1802), and Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī (d. 1246/1831).Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Frequenting the same circles, however, did not prevent figures such as Sayyid Aḥmad Ardakānī Yazdī (d. 1245/1830), Shaykh Mullā Aḥmad Ardakānī Shīrāzī (d. 1240/1825), Mullā ʿAlī Akbar Izhihʾī Iṣfahānī (d. 1232/1817) and Mullā Shaykh Muḥammad Kādhim Astarābādī Hāʾirī (d. 1238/1823) from attacking him because of his juridical perspective.Footnote ¹⁵⁰