Of Piety and Heresy is a major contribution to the literature on mediaeval Persian Sufism. It focuses on a seldom studied theme: antinomianism within the Sufi tradition. In particular, it investigates the views of the towering intellectual and Sufi, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad Ghazzālī (d. 1111). The author, Ali-Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, is a well-known and well-published professor of Islamic and Persian Studies at Utrecht University.

The book commences by highlighting the religious and intellectual dynamics of Ghazzālī’s time. The author argues that it was the very diversity of denominational and intellectual affiliation that caused Ghazzālī’s crisis when, in 1095, he resigned from his teaching position at the Niẓāmiyya College in Baghdad. This crisis was the manifestation of doubt and uncertainty about the best way to achieve certainty and faith in God. The Seljuk domains included scholastic theologians, Shī‘as, Ismā‘īlīs, philosophers, freethinkers, and various shades of Sufis, who all pursued the truth in different fashions. In this chapter, the author offers little that is new, but he summarises the existing state of scholarship with confidence, and he paints a convincing picture.

Chapter two investigates the “bitter uncertainty”; that is, it studies the antinomian intellectual positions with which Ghazzālī struggled. Here, Seyed-Gohrab addresses the work of the “freethinking” of ‘Umar Khayyam, and again, he writes with confidence, having authored several works related to Khayyam’s quatrains.

The third chapter on Ghazzālī and antinomianism includes a very interesting discussion on the presence of Qalandars (antinomian Sufis) in Persian society. Seyed-Gohrab argues that although there is no emic literature by the Qalandars, from the eleventh century onwards, Persian literature (prose and poetry) included references to the tropes associated with the Qalandars. The inclusion of such tropes would only have made sense to the readers of such works if the Qalandars did indeed exist as a recognised social entity.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters of the book are its beating heart. Chapter four includes a discussion of a brief, but formal fatwa from Ghazzālī, which considers those whom he calls ibāḥatiyān – the freethinkers, antinomians, and extremist Sufis. The significance of this fatwa is that it demonstrates that these groups had infiltrated all sectors of society; they were present in the court, among the Sufis, and among the lesser respected classes who frequented the taverns and brothels. Chapter five follows similar lines but presents a discussion of Ghazzālī’s longer treatise of 1106 on the ibāḥatiyān. (Chapter six is a translation of this treatise). The intriguing point in this discussion concerns how Ghazzālī, as a Sufi, is prepared to criticise and condemn Sufi perspectives with which he does not agree. It is unfortunate that he does not mention the names of individuals or groups in his writings. It would indeed be very interesting to know precisely what he thought of Ḥallāj (d. 922), who uttered “Anā al-ḥaqq!” (I am the Truth). The difficulty faced by all academics and Seyed-Gohrab is that “we do not know much about these groups and the sources are scanty” (p. 127). Seyed-Gohrab witnesses a “fanatical Ghazzālī, utterly pitiless in his judgement” (p. 123) in these works, for essentially the type of Sufism to which he adhered was based squarely upon a literal understanding of the sharī‘a. The appendix consists of the Persian text discussed in chapter six. This “fanaticism” may explain why Ghazzālī has never been held in such esteem by sympathisers of Sufism: indeed, he is considered a second-class Sufi, perhaps even third-rank might be a generous description of him as a Sufi.

The book is to be recommended to researchers and students of Sufism, and it should be situated in the literature from the likes of Ibn Jawzī (d. 1201), whose Talbīs Iblīs similarly criticises Sufi excesses. These kinds of works suggest that “freethinking” or alternative forms of Islam were prevalent in the Middle East or that “normative” Sunni Islam was far from dominant in society. As one might expect from a scholar as scrupulously careful and erudite as Seyed-Gohrab, the book is well-written; the contextualisation is excellent, and the discussions and argumentation are convincing. The transliteration is consistent, and the translations do not feel excessively wordy. This volume is necessary reading for anyone with an interest in the development of mediaeval Islamic or Sufi thought, or the intellectual trajectory of Ghazzālī.