Introduction
Sometime in the ninth/fifteenth century, the prolific Mamluk scholar al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) felt compelled to compose a tract entitled The Report Demonstrating the Existence of the Poles, the Substitutes and the Pegs, having heard “that some ignoramuses deny what is well known through the authority of the saints about the existence of al-abdāl (substitutes) […]”.Footnote 1 One surmises that these unnamed ignoramuses were the few scholars who, starting in the sixth/twelfth century, included traditions about the abdāl and other saints in their works on spurious and fabricated hadith. This attack on abdāl had culminated with Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), who disputed the existence of the saintly hierarchy on more than one occasion. In their defence of this Muslim saintly hierarchy, al-Suyūṭī and other scholars consistently turned to the case of the abdāl as they were the only type of saint attested in a hadith.
For al-Suyūṭī and his peers, al-abdāl (alternatively budalāʾ, sing. badīl/badal) of the hadith tradition were typically 40 saints associated with a place, Syria. In some circles, their disappearance was said to herald the end times as they were tasked with the protection of the world from calamity. Generally, the mystery behind their name, derived from the verb “to substitute”, was explained as a reference to the fact that, whenever one of them died, another would immediately replace him or her.Footnote 2
This article aims to disentangle the threads of meaning that constituted the concept of abdāl by examining three main moments in its long history. First, the article explores the hitherto unstudied hadith material about these saints. The emphasis on the Sufi cosmological associations of the abdāl in secondary literature is put into perspective by refocusing on this pre-Sufi iteration of the abdāl.Footnote 3 I argue that the concept originated in hadith circles as part of a tradition with a specific purported historical context, the showdown between the Syrians and Iraqis at the Battle of Ṣiffīn (37/657). The gradual loss of this context went hand-in-hand with the emergence of the mystical saintly abdāl. Second, the emergence of the abdāl of the Sufis marked their insertion into a saintly hierarchy and their mutation away from the abdāl of the hadith. Whereas al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s treatment of the abdāl was partially informed by the hadith, the abdāl of Ibn ʿArabī and his heirs are part of a cosmologically anchored hierarchy. Third, as (monistic) Sufism with its saints and their karāmāt penetrated all elements of Mamluk society, the boundary between the abdāl of the traditionists and of the mystics became porous. The debate alluded to above was in fact a feature of a time when these two conceptions of the abdāl collided. This paper concludes with an examination of the ensuing debate, which as will be seen, was marked by a focus on the hadith tradition on the abdāl.
Firsts: abdāl of the hadith corpus
Abdāl make their first appearance in the hadith corpus of the second/eighth century, namely in Ibn al-Mubārak's (d.181/787) Kitāb al-Jihād.Footnote 4 Ibn al-Mubārak, a militant-ascetic and scholar, listed a tradition in which ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (r. 35–40/656–661) forbade one of his followers to curse the people of Syria. The reason for such a prohibition is the presence of al-abdāl in this province. The report, referred to henceforth as the ʿAlī-abdāl hadith, goes as follows:
“I heard Ibn al-Mubārak who transmitted from Maʿmar (d. 153/770) from al-Zuhrī (d. 124/742), he said: Ṣafwān b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Ṣafwān (d. 81–90/700–709) told me that a man said on the Day of Ṣiffīn ‘God curse the people of Syria’ to which ʿAlī replied ‘Do not curse all of the people of Syria for there are among them a group that dislike what you are witnessing and among them are the abdāl’.”Footnote 5
While this hadith is not the only one on the abdāl in the early corpus, the contention is that it represents one of the earliest traditions on abdāl, if not the earliest.Footnote 6 Moreover, this tradition becomes the locus and proof text for the existence of this exclusively Syrian type of saint. Accordingly, this tradition's transmitters, text and development are key to understanding the origin and subsequent development of the abdāl.
In Ibn al-Mubārak's recension, the ʿAlī-abdāl tradition is clearly embedded in a specific historical context. The occasion of ʿAlī’s pronouncement, we are told, was the infamous Battle of Ṣiffīn. ʿAlī is presented as singling out some members of ahl al-Shām as undeserving of being cursed: those opposed to the conflict and the abdāl. The question is then the identity of these two groups. This is especially salient given that, unlike later iterations of the hadith, this version does not provide any ancillary information elucidating the identity of these abdāl. An exploration of late second/eighth and third/ninth century reports will help shed light on the connection between the conflict at Ṣiffīn, dissent and the abdāl, thereby sketching elements of their earliest identity.
Context and parallels
The Battle of Ṣiffīn pitted the caliph ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and his followers against the governor of Syria, Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān (d. 60/680) and his supporters near the city of Raqqa by the Euphrates. Fought over the legitimacy of ʿAlī’s caliphate in the aftermath of his predecessor's murder, the battle itself was inconclusive. In fact, the gates of civil war first opened by the murder of ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (r. 23–35/644–656) will only close, albeit temporarily, with the accession of Muʿāwiya to the caliphate in 40/661.Footnote 7 The battle, or the series of skirmishes, represented the high point of a propaganda war between the warring camps that intensified in its aftermath and helped draw sharper lines between them. The tradition on al-abdāl is part and parcel of a war of words that accompanied the battles between the followers of ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya.
Alī’s camp and the cursing of the Syrians
The crux of the ʿAlī-abdāl report is the fact that some of ʿAlī’s followers cursed (laʿn, sabb and shatm) the Syrians. While the animosity between the two camps is well established, a number of accounts from both the Sunni and Shiite traditions echo the report under discussion, meaning the presence of elements in ʿAlī’s camp at Ṣiffīn who were cursing the Syrians and ʿAlī’s opposition to it. In a Kufan Shiite report in Naṣr b. Muzāḥim's (d. 212/827) Waqʿat Ṣiffīn, which closely parallels the ʿAlī-abdāl tradition, we learn that two ʿAlī loyalists, Ḥujr b. ʿAdī (d. 51/671) and ʿAmr b. al-Ḥamiq (d. 51/671), were proclaiming their disavowal (barāʾa) of the actions of the Syrians and cursing them (laʿn).Footnote 8 When news of this reached ʿAlī, he had them brought to him and ordered them to desist. The two men protested, proclaiming the legitimacy of their grievances against the Syrians, with which ʿAlī agreed. He nonetheless argued that he did not wish for his followers to be “vilifiers” and “imprecators”, suggesting they criticize their actions rather than curse them.Footnote 9
Both the ʿAlī-abdāl report and Ibn Muzāḥim's account state that during the Battle of Ṣiffīn followers of ʿAlī cursed the Syrians, an act ʿAlī disliked. The noteworthy difference between the Sunni–Syrian and Shiite–Kufan rendering is in the naming of the pro-ʿAlī imprecators in the latter. Our sources portray both men as having persisted in the practice of cursing the Syrians even after Muʿāwiya took the caliphate, initially prompting the governor Ziyād b. Abīhi (d. 53/673) to deliver a threatening sermon deploring their behaviour.Footnote 10 As a result of their continued agitation, Muʿāwiya ordered the killing of the two men along with a group of their followers. Ḥujr b. ʿAdī was captured and executed, making him the first martyr of Shiism. ʿAmr b. al-Ḥamiq was also caught and decapitated. His head was paraded on a spear and then sent to Muʿāwiya in Damascus. This would become something of a grisly tradition and later sources would consider him the “first whose severed head was dispatched to a ruler in Islam”.Footnote 11
The exchange of curses between the camps of ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya was not restricted to the above-mentioned incident: hurling curses and imprecations at each other is a theme common in Sunni and Shiite accounts of the first civil war. In fact, despite ʿAlī’s supposed prohibition of cursing, he is said to have cursed Muʿāwiya and his supporters as part of the practice of supplication (qunūt) during prayer in the aftermath of the failed arbitration (taḥkīm).Footnote 12 Muʿāwiya retaliated by doing the same.Footnote 13 In addition to cursing during prayer, Muʿāwiya's partisans and appointees continued to curse ʿAlī after the latter's death, a practice that continued into Umayyad times. Both of Muʿāwiya's governors over Kufa al-Mughīra b. Shuʿba (d. 50/670–1) and Ziyād b. Abīhi cursed ʿAlī and his followers from the pulpit. Al-Mughīra b. Shuʿba consistently cursed ʿUthmān's killers and criticized ʿAlī throughout his seven years as governor of Kufa. Similarly, Ziyād b. Abīhi coupled in his sermons and speeches the lauding of ʿUthmān with imprecations against his killers. It is clear that the ʿAlī-abdāl report, like the report in Waqʿat Ṣiffīn, was concerned with the cursing exchanged between the two camps and ʿAlī’s rejection of it.Footnote 14 This aspect of the report will be glossed over and it will ultimately be repurposed to prove the existence of the abdāl.
Syrian dissenters and defectors
Another important element in the ʿAlī-abdāl report is the fact that ʿAlī singled out those Syrians who disagreed with Muʿāwiya as undeserving of curse. The presence of dissenters in the camp of Muʿāwiya and in the Syrian province is a little-explored aspect of the first Civil War that tore the nascent Muslim empire apart. This omission is partially the product of the view that, unlike their rivals, the Syrians were united in their loyalty to Muʿāwiya, this unity being one of the factors in Muʿāwiya's ultimate victory. Muʿāwiya's success notwithstanding, a careful examination of sources from both sides of the conflict reveals that dissenters, alluded to in this tradition, did indeed exist in Muʿāwiya's camp.
One of the better-known cases of initial dissent in Muʿāwiya's camp is that of the governor of Hims, Shuraḥbīl b. al-Simṭ (d. 36–40/656–661), a major player in Syrian politics. Shuraḥbīl was a veteran of the Ridda wars, the Battle of al-Qādisiyya and the conquest of Syria, including Hims. Most sources agree on his initial misgivings towards the legitimacy of Muʿāwiya's claims. Naṣr b. Muzāḥim preserves accounts of Muʿāwiya's worry and efforts to convince him of ʿAlī’s guilt in the murder of ʿUthmān.Footnote 15 According to this narrative, relying on the backing of Shuraḥbīl's kinsmen and ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ’s wily machinations, Muʿāwiya prevailed over him. Subsequently, the governor of Hims canvassed the cities of his district, rallying its people to Muʿāwiya's cause. Nonetheless, these appeals did not sway the entirety of his district: a group of ascetics in Hims (nussāk Ḥimṣ) refused to heed Shuraḥbīl's call. This group chose to keep to their houses and answered Shuraḥbīl's appeal by stating “our houses and our mosques are our graves”.Footnote 16
Similarly, the ascetic Abū Muslim al-Khawlānī led a group of Quran reciters (qurrāʾ) from the city of Hims to Damascus to dissuade Muʿāwiya from heading to fight ʿAlī.Footnote 17 Having been convinced that Muʿāwiya was merely seeking the handing over of ʿUthmān's killers, Abū Muslim travelled to Iraq to negotiate with ʿAlī the surrender of the guilty. Ultimately, the embassy failed. Abū Muslim was confronted by ʿAlī’s followers, who collectively declared themselves to be the murderers of the caliph. Abū Muslim returned to Syria.Footnote 18
While the examples of Shuraḥbīl, Abū Muslim, the ascetics and Quran reciters of Hims illustrate the case of Syrians who at one point or other had qualms about Muʿāwiya's campaign, an examination of the sources reveals the presence of some going further and defecting outright to ʿAlī’s side. One of those ascetics from Hims, who refused to join Muʿāwiya, was a nephew of Shuraḥbīl from the Bāriq tribe. This unnamed young ascetic attempted to dissuade his uncle from joining Muʿāwiya. Having failed, he eventually defected to ʿAlī’s camp, joined him in Kufa and swore the oath of allegiance to the caliph. The implication in the sources is that this young defector was not alone, for we are told that he was among “those who joined ʿAlī from the people of Syria”.Footnote 19 As the Battle of Ṣiffīn waged on, defections continued. Zayd b.ʿAbd al-Khawlānī, an Egyptian who originally went to Muʿāwiya's court and carried the banner of the Khawlān, eventually defected to ʿAlī’s camp.Footnote 20 Similarly, on the fifth day of fighting, a certain Abū Shimr b. Abraha b. Ṣabāḥ al-Ḥimyarī joined ʿAlī with a group of qurrāʾ al-Shām.Footnote 21
A Damascene called Abū ʿUthmān b. Sanna is also said to be “one of those who joined ʿAlī”.Footnote 22 In this case also, Abū ʿUthmān b. Sanna appears to be part of a group of Syrians who went out to ʿAlī and joined him. ʿAlī, we are told, favoured these Syrians over the Iraqis and would always address them when he held court (kān yakhuṣṣuhum bi-majlisihi fī ḥadīthihi dūn ahl al-ʿIrāq).Footnote 23 Moreover, Ibn Sanna appears to have been a witness to and transmitter of the abdāl report. Ibn Sanna is the direct link between these Syrian defectors and ʿAlī’s utterance, a connection lost to all those who have examined the abdāl reports.Footnote 24 These men went beyond mere dissent and shifted allegiance, raising the question as to whether the defectors were the abdāl intended by ʿAlī, keeping in mind that “to change” or “switch” is at the root of the word “abdāl”.
Apocalypse and the abdāl: Defectors?
As noted above, the abdāl tradition under consideration refers to two groups: dissenters within the Syrian camp and the abdāl. Having identified the presence of a small number of dissenters and defectors who have been forgotten, the question is whether we can understand the term abdāl as another reference to a pro-ʿAlī group of Syrian defectors who thereby acquired the moniker abdāl or “substitutes” with the sense of “changing” sides or allegiance.
The examination of the occurrence of al-abdāl in the apocalyptic hadith corpus demonstrates the likelihood of this proposition. The abdāl appear in two clusters of traditions pitting against each other two pairs of apocalyptic rivals: the Sufyānī and al-ʿĀʾidh on the one hand and the Sufyānī and the Mahdī on the other. In both clusters, the abdāl feature as a group which defects from the camp of the Sufyānī, the Umayyad Syrian rival of the Mahdī. Nuʿaym b. Ḥammād (d. 227/842), for example, preserves a report about a messianic figure arising in the Hijaz called al-ʿĀʾidh (the seeker of asylum) who will lead against the Sufyānī an army of 12,000 that includes the abdāl.Footnote 25 Al-ʿĀʾidh and the abdāl appear also in a report in the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd (d. 275/889).Footnote 26 In this case, the context is fleshed out: it is a dispute after the death of a caliph when a man fleeing from Medina to Mecca is given the oath of allegiance. A Syrian army sent against him is swallowed up, after which the abdāl of Syria and the ʿaṣāʾib of Iraq join him and pledge their allegiance.Footnote 27 The term ʿaṣāʾib is usually understood as a referent to troops from the army of Iraq. In contrast, Madelung and others render the term abdāl as “righteous men”. However, it is clear that the abdāl here are a group in the Syrian army that defects from the camp of their leader the Sufyānī.
Similarly, in Shiite tradition the abdāl appear as a group who defect to the right side of an armed conflict. Shiite apocalyptic tradition speaks of a group of Syrians who will leave the army of the Sufyānī and join that of the Mahdī during a confrontation between the two camps at Marj ʿAdhrāʾ in Syria.Footnote 28 This event is referred to as yawm al-ibdāl. The major point here is that in the Shiite tradition, the abdāl are also a Syrian group that joins the just cause of the ʿAlids.Footnote 29 The righteousness of the cause the abdāl join might have played a role in the eventual transformation of the abdāl into saintly figures. However, what filters through both the Shiite and Sunni apocalyptic tradition is that the abdāl are elements mostly of ahl al-Shām that defect to the “right” side of a military conflict pitting a Syrian figure against his righteous opponents.
The general tenor of the apocalyptic reports, combined with the understanding that the ʿaṣāʾib are bands from Iraq, makes one wonder whether we should also understand the abdāl as a militant-cum-pious group from Syria similar to the ideal embodied by the qurrāʾ of Hims and later by Ibn al-Mubārak and Abū Isḥāq al-Fazārī. It is noteworthy for example that the abdāl report appears in Ibn al-Mubārak's Kitāb al-Jihād rather than his Kitāb al-Zuhd as one would expect, suggesting that the tradition is primarily understood in a military context. The early military aspect of the abdāl is also alluded to in the above-mentioned apocalyptic traditions.
In the context of these reports, meaning the late second/early third century – and earlier if one accepts that the traditions were put in circulation during the time of the events they refer to – there are no indications that the term al-abdāl was a referent to ascetics or pious men. The context rather hints that the abdāl of Syria were men who defected and elected to join a righteous cause. One should thus, at the very least, not assume that at this point Ibn al-Mubārak and his contemporaries understood the term as a reference to particularly righteous people and definitely not as a reference to the saintly figures. Al-abdāl were, however, about to be redefined.
Forgetting Ṣiffīn: the dehistoricization of a tradition
As we move into the third/ninth century, we find that this tradition gradually begins to shed its “historical” context, and hence the association between the abdāl and events of the Battle of Ṣiffīn. ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 211/827) lists a variant of the ʿAlī-Abdāl tradition in his Muṣannaf.Footnote 30 First, ʿAbd al-Razzāq's narration exhibits back growth in the isnād when compared to the narration of Ibn al-Mubārak. This first instance in the back growth of the isnād was through the insertion of ʿAbd Allāh b. Ṣafwān (d. 73/692), a contemporary of ʿAlī and Ibn al-Zubayr. In the earlier narration, the ultimate source of the tradition was his son Ṣafwān b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Ṣafwān.Footnote 31 More important though for our purposes is the fact that the body of this narration diverges in a few key places. While the Battle of Ṣiffīn remains the locus of the event, in this narration, ʿAlī’s utterance is limited to the abdāl and does not include the reference to the Syrians opposed to Muʿāwiya. ʿAlī merely states that the reason not to curse Syrians is the presence of the abdāl in Syria. Furthermore, conceivably for emphasis, ʿAlī repeats his pronouncement three times: “for in it are the abdāl, for in it are the abdāl, for in it are the abdāl”.
Nonetheless, despite the aforementioned changes, this version does not identify al-abdāl or their function. This is especially important given that ʿAbd al-Razzāq preserves a tradition on saints that states: “there will remain in my community seven who whenever they supplicate God, He responds and through whom you are given victory and rain”.Footnote 32 He does not connect it to the abdāl tradition as will be seen in later sources.
By the time the hadith on the abdāl appears in the Musnad of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), the dehistoricization of the tradition progresses and a drastically different narration concerning the abdāl is in circulation:
Abū al-Mughīra (d. 212/827), heard from Ṣafwān, from Shurayḥ (d. after 100/718) said: the people of Syria were mentioned in the presence of ʿAlī when he was in Iraq. They said to him: curse them. He replied: I will not for I have heard the prophet say: al-abdāl are in Syria. They are forty men every time one of them dies he is replaced with another. Through them, you are given rain, you vanquish your enemies and affliction is averted from the people of Syria.Footnote 33
The first alteration to be noted here is that the authority proving the existence of abdāl in Syria is no longer ʿAlī but rather Muḥammad. In Ibn Ḥanbal's recension, ʿAlī is merely acting according to words he received from the Prophet. Moreover, the locale where ʿAlī made the statement is obfuscated. In this narration, the Battle of Ṣiffīn is replaced by the generic reference to Iraq, thereby setting the stage for the next development in the dehistoricization of the tradition. Moreover, the abdāl concept is clarified; while the earlier narration, as we saw, provided no information as to the meaning of the word, this narration elaborates both their number and their function. This provides the reader with what will become the main characteristics of the abdāl and will distinguish them from more generic saints. In Ibn Ḥanbal's report, the number of abdāl is set at 40. Moreover, their function is clearly stated: they exist to intercede for the people of Syria functioning as a means for God to water their crops, to grant them victory against their enemies and protect them from affliction. With this hadith, al-abdāl develop into the Syrian saints familiar to al-Suyūṭī.
The absence of a mention of Ṣiffīn and the context of ʿAlī’s purported statement on the abdāl enables the development of a competing tradition:
On the authority of Shahr b. Ḥawshab (d. 112/730): When Egypt was conquered, they cursed the people of Syria (sabbū ahl al-Shām) so ʿAwf b. Mālik (d. 73/692) stuck out his head from behind his shield and said: “people of Egypt, I am ʿAwf b. Mālik. Do not curse the people of Syria for I have heard the prophet say: Among them are the abdāl, through whom you receive victory and bounty”.Footnote 34
This report provides a new context for the utterance. It is not clear who cursed the Syrians and why they were the subject of curses. ʿAlī and Ṣiffīn are replaced by the companion ʿAwf b. Mālik and the conquest of Egypt. This report did not, however, gain the popularity of the ʿAlī-abdāl report. By the time al-Suyūṭī compiled his tract on the abdāl, he was able to compile thirteen variants of it with Syrian, Kufan and Egyptian chains of transmission. Significantly, none of these reports preserves the context of Ibn al-Mubārak's rendition: the Battle of Ṣiffīn.
The new abdāl
As the memory of the Battle of Ṣiffīn faded, the identity of the abdāl was becoming a subject of debate. When asked about them, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal is said to have replied: “If they are not aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth [in other words his own sect] then I do not know”.Footnote 35 In the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd, we are told that for a person to qualify as one of the abdāl, he has to be from the mawālī.Footnote 36 In other reports, it is mentioned that this type of saint had to be a pious childless man. The ubiquity of the abdāl theme is reflected by the Baghdad traditionist Abū Bakr Ibn Abī al-Dunyā’s (d. 281/894) inclusion of nine hadiths on the abdāl in his Kitāb al-Awliyā’. Overall, these reports are concerned with their number and characteristics (ṣifat al-abdāl). One of these hadiths claims that the abdāl came into being after Noah's flood and have been actively protecting humanity from calamity. The hadith traditions on abdāl circulating in learned circles beyond those specialized in hadith also reflected the discussion of the identity and the role of the abdāl.Footnote 37 The popularity of the abdāl question meant that they appeared in al-Jāḥiẓ’s Kitāb al-Tarbīʿ wa-al-tadwīr, a polythematic ironic conversation on contemporary questions. Al-Jāḥiz's treatment of abdāl addressed two aspects, their location and ethnicity. Al-Jāhiẓ asks whether the abdāl are to be found in Baysān or al-ʿArj (both towns in Syria) or are scattered, whether they are Arabs, mawālī or a mixture.Footnote 38
Despite the presence of some variants in the hadith reports, the majority identified Syria as the abode of the abdāl.Footnote 39 Nonetheless, hadith scholars' application of the saintly status was wildly inconsistent. In the biographical literature such as al-Maʿrifa wa-al-tārīkh and Kitāb al-Jarḥ wa-al-taʿdīl, we find individuals hailing from the eastern and central Islamic lands as well as Syria identified as abdāl. Men such as Ayyūb b. al-Najjār (d. 181–90/797–806) and Idrīs b. Yaḥyā al-Khawlānī (d. 211/826) who hailed from Iraq and Egypt were considered abdāl alongside Syrians such as Muḥammad b. al-Awzāʿī and al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Sakūnī, residents of Beirut and Hims respectively.Footnote 40 Unlike what the hadith tradition seems to imply, practically the abdāl were not solely inhabitants of Syria.Footnote 41
Al-Abdāl and the mystics
As seen above, the abdāl and some of their basic characteristics had already been in circulation in widely differing circles, from the traditionist to the literary. In the late third/ninth century, the abdāl also appear in mystical literature. In its earliest mystical iterations, the term al-abdāl and its derivatives were used as a generic referent for a saint (walī).Footnote 42 These terms, however, would gradually acquire a technical dimension among mystics, denoting a specific kind of saint with special functions and placement in the saintly hierarchy. The abdāl of the mystics will markedly differ from those of the hadith folk.
Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, al-abdāl as the People of the House
The Khurasanian theosophist and mystic al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (d. between 295–300/905–10) would make a seminal contribution to the development of the concept of abdāl in mystical thought. His writings represent a radical re-articulation of the concept established and the first iteration of their placement within a vertical hierarchy of saints.Footnote 43
Al-Tirmidhī comments on the abdāl in a number of his writings. Scattered throughout his Sīrat al-awliyāʾ we find references to a category of saints that can be identified as the abdāl. Al-Tirmidhī occasionally employs the term “ṣiddīqūn” (truthful men) to describe what is clearly the same phenomenon. In one case, he states that “whenever one of them [ṣiddīqūn] dies, another follows him and occupies his position”, making it clear these ṣiddīqūn are the abdāl. He also occasionally refers to them as the “forty” (al-arbaʿūn). The identity of these forty as the abdāl is confirmed in his Jawāb kitāb min al-Rayy, where al-Tirmidhī addresses a question on the identity of the 40 whom he calls al-budalāʾ.Footnote 44
It is in Sīrat al-awliyāʾ and to a lesser extent in his autobiography that al-Tirmidhī locates the abdāl in the nascent hierarchy of saints. Al-Tirmidhī positions them at the apex of his hierarchy. Among the friends of God, they dwell beyond the seventh heaven by the throne of God.Footnote 45 They are among the noble saints (al-kirām) that reside in the Well-Appointed House (al-bayt al-maʿmūr). Moreover, for al-Tirmidhī, there is a gradation in the stations within the abdāl cohort. Indeed, he clearly saw himself as one of the highest ranking among them.Footnote 46
Despite the abdāl's acquisition of a cosmic dimension at the hands of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, one of the overlooked features of his contribution to the mystics' conception of the abdāl is that it remains partially informed by the hadith tradition. In his Nawādir al-uṣūl fī aḥādith al-rasūl, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī discusses the abdāl in a section entirely dedicated to them.Footnote 47 In this section, he lists and analyses five hadiths about their number and functions. The first two traditions provide contradictory information on their number, which he harmonizes by arguing that the abdāl are 40 in number overall, 30 of whom follow in the footsteps of Abraham.
It is also in al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s Nawādir that we find one of the most remarkable treatments of al-abdāl. He argues that the prophetic references to the people of the house (ahl al-bayt), generally understood to mean the prophet's family, should instead be understood as a reference to his companions.Footnote 48 He states that when the Prophet mentions the people of his house (ahl al-bayt) what he means is his successors who follow in his footsteps. He then mentions a tradition in which the earth is reported to have complained to God upon the conclusion of the prophetic period. God responded that he will place on earth 40 righteous men, whenever one of them dies another will succeed him. These 40 men are the abdāl. What is of interest is that in this scheme, these 40 saintly figures are a replication through history of the first 40 Muslims, the sābiqūn. The correspondence between the abdāl and the Companions of the Prophet is borne out by al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s identification of Bilal as one of the abdāl.Footnote 49
Al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s treatment of the abdāl remains partially rooted in and grows out of the hadith tradition. Nonetheless, it does constitute another step that will take these saints further from their original context in the Battle of Ṣiffīn. In fact, it will be noted that despite resorting to the hadith, with al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī the abdāl of the mystics, although still 40 in number, loose any association with Syria.
Sahl al-Tustarī and the Quranic abdāl
Another of our windows into the earliest mystical adaptation of the abdāl appears in the exegesis of Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896), a compilation by al-Tustarī’s students of his opinions from the late third/ninth century.Footnote 50 This work provides the first Quranic localization of the abdāl. In the exegesis of Quran 10: 62, the locus classicus of the concept of awliyā’, a discussion between al-Tustarī and a student bifurcates into a discussion of the characteristics of true believers (muʾmin?n) in Quran 8: 4. According to Sahl, the four habits of abstaining from food, seclusion from people, staying up at night for prayer, and silence, transform ordinary pious people into abdāl.Footnote 51 Subsequently, al-Tustarī’s interlocutor asks him about the origin of the term al-abdāl. He answers that it is derived from the fact that they change from state to state and from “knowledge” to “knowledge”. As a result, when compared to the poles (awtād), the abdāl have attained a lesser station. Al-Tustarī also identifies the party of God (Ḥizb Allāh) in Quran 58: 22 with the abdāl.Footnote 52 It is clear that in al-Tustarī’s conceptualization al-abdāl is part of a nascent saintly hierarchy. Whether these abdāl share characteristics with those of the hadith tradition, however, is unclear.
Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī and the legacy of al-Ḥakīm: the abdāl as the Ṣaḥāba
One of al-Tirmidhī’s original contributions is his conceptualization of the abdāl as a reiteration of the Companions of the Prophet. Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996) takes up the idea in Qūt al-qulūb. While, as we saw above, al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s works intimate that the abdāl are a reiteration of the first 40 Muslims and the true People of the House (ahl al-bayt), Abū Ṭālib makes this correspondence more explicit. In Abū Ṭālib's conceptualization, the entirety of the saintly hierarchy is a reflection of the first Muslim generation. The Pole (qutb) is a substitute of the first caliph Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, who is separated from the Prophet Muḥammad only by the rank of prophethood. He is the leader of the Three (athāfī, tripod), who in turn are substitutes for the three caliphs ʿUmar, ʿUthmān and ʿAlī. The seven are a reiteration of the seven Companions of the Prophet promised paradise. The 313 abdāl are a reiteration of the Emigrants and Helpers who participated in the Battle of Badr (al-Badriyyin).Footnote 53 The articulation of a complete saintly cosmography that reiterates the first generation of Muslims seems to be unique to Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī. While al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī in his Khatm al-awliyāʾ hints at the correspondence between Abū Bakr, ʿUmar and Bilāl and elements of the saintly hierarchy, he does not spell its details in the same fashion as Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī.
In terms of the geography of the abdāl, like al-Tirmidhī, nothing in Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī’s discussion indicates that he viewed the abdāl as the purview of the Syrian community. On the contrary, there are statements suggesting that although he thought of them as a geographically bound group of saints, they were not bound to the Syrian sacred space. He reports that the abdāl are hidden and live at the ends of the earth. Their self-imposed exile is motivated by their enmity towards the religious establishment: the abdāl cannot endure seeing the contemporary ʿulamāʾ and cannot bear listening to them due to their deep ignorance of God. In Abū Ṭālib's vision, most of them reside at the fringes of the Muslim world, in India, Africa and non-Muslim lands. The connection between al-abdāl and Muslim lands only materializes through the daily circumambulation of the Kaʿba by one of them.Footnote 54
Al-Abdāl of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī and Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī foreshadow the abdāl of Ibn ʿArabī in so much as they feature in a hierarchy. Moreover, the abdāl of al-Ḥakīm and Abū Ṭālib, like those of Ibn ʿArabī, as we shall see, were not bound to the Syrian space. However, what distinguishes Abū Ṭālib's conception of the abdāl from al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s is that the latter's remained more or less informed by the hadith. In the same vein as Abū Ṭālib, Ibn ʿArabī will not make any explicit references to the hadith corpus surrounding al-abdāl.
Ibn ʿArabī’s abdāl
The few times al-abdāl appear in scholarly literature, they do so in the context of Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240)’s much-studied saintly hierarchy. The Andalusian mystic offers the first systematic conceptualization of abdāl within the saintly hierarchy; a conceptualization that departs in numerous instances from abdāl of the hadith. In Ibn ʿArabī’s system, abdāl are seven. The number 40 popularized in hadith circles belongs to another type of saint, the Rajabiyyūn, who are often mistaken for the abdāl. The Rajabiyyūn, as their name indicates, are 40 saints endowed with saintly abilities akin to those of abdāl for the duration of the month of Rajab. On the other hand, the true abdāl are seven in number, one assigned for each of the climes. Hence, in this case, they are not bound to Syria but rather have a geographically delimited earthly realm under their care.Footnote 55 Following established Islamic geographic patterns, each of the climes and hence each of the abdāl corresponds to one of the seven heavens. The seven have knowledge of the secrets God deposited in the planets. Additionally, they receive assistance (madad) from a designated prophet.Footnote 56
Specifics on the connections between these abdāl, climes, prophets and celestial bodies appear in chapter 198 of al-Futūḥāt al-makiyya. Ibn ʿArabī tells his reader that the first of the abdāl assigned to the first clime follows in the footsteps of Abraham, receives his decree from the seventh heaven, and its planet (kawkab) watches over his clime.Footnote 57 The remaining abdāl and corresponding climes follow in the footsteps of Mūsā [Moses] and Hārūn [Aaron] who watch over the second clime, Yaḥyā [John] the third, Yūsuf [Joseph] the fifth, al-Masīḥ [Jesus] watches over the sixth and Adam the seventh. The fourth of the abdāl occupies the middle position in the hierarchy and receives full sovereignty (al-amr wa-al-nahy) from the fourth heaven, the heart of all stars (aflāk). In this case, the fourth follows in the footsteps of Idrīs, one of the four pillars (awtād).Footnote 58
Ultimately, the Akbarian saintly hierarchy, including the number, placement and function of the abdāl is adopted quasi verbatim by the heirs of Ibn ʿArabī, the likes of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī (d. 973/1565) in al-Yawāqīt wa-al-jawāhir,Footnote 59 al-Munāwī (d. 1031/1622) in his Irghām Footnote 60 and al-Nabhānī (d. 1350/1932) in his Jāmiʿ karāmāt al-awliyāʾ.Footnote 61 With Ibn ʿArabī, al-abdāl have ranged far from their origin in a purported cryptic statement by ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib in the heat of the Battle of Ṣiffīn.
Syria's abdāl
While mystics gave a cosmic element to the abdāl, the abdāl as resident-saints of Syria were preserved and popularized in the context of the hadith-based merit (faḍāʾil) literature. The abdāl and their deployment in the Syrian sacred space abandoned in the mystical tradition becomes enshrined in works of faḍāʾil from as early as the fifth/eleventh century. Al-Rabaʿī (d. 444/1052–53), the author of the earliest surviving Faḍāʾil al-Shām work, includes a section on the hadiths about “Damascus as the richest city in abdāl and ascetics”. In this section, al-Rabaʿī lists four hadiths on the topic. One is a statement by the Prophet predicting that Damascus will be the city most abundant in abdāl, ascetics and mosques. Two others are concerned with apportioning a number of al-abdāl to Syrian cities: Damascus, Hims and Baysān.Footnote 62 The traditions about the abdāl being exclusively a Syrian phenomenon also appear in Faḍāʾil Bayt al-Maqdis wa-al-Khalīl wa-faḍāʾil al-Shām of Ibn al-Murajjā (d. 490s/1096)Footnote 63 and Faḍāʾil al-Shām of al-Samʿānī (d. 562/1166).Footnote 64
The centrality of al-abdāl to the Islamic discourse on Syria is epitomized by Ibn ʿAsākir's treatment of the topic in two sections of his magnum opus Tārīkh madīnat Dimashq: he devotes a section to the traditions stating that Syria is the home of al-abdāl and another to forbidding the cursing of the people of Syria.Footnote 65 Subsequently, most works on the “Merits” of Syria include a mention of the presence of the abdāl in Syria as a proof of the sanctity of this land.Footnote 66
“Place does not sanctify a person”:Footnote 67 critiques of the abdāl
The beginnings of a critique of the abdāl emerges with Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201), who includes some of the reports on al-abdāl in his book on fabricated hadith, al-Mawḍūʿāt.Footnote 68 He classifies the abdāl traditions through the companions Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿUmar, Abū Hurayra and Anas b. Mālik as forged. He did not, however, include the ʿAlī-abdāl tradition in this work.
The rise of a “monistic” trend in the Sufi tradition to which al-abdāl of Ibn ʿArabī and his successors belonged, accompanied by the increasing popularity and elite patronage of Sufi brotherhoods and saints, gave rise to an intense polemic against the Akbarian legacy and monistic Sufism as early as the seventh/thirteenth century. Consequently, there emerged a debate on the authenticity of both the saintly system and some of the traditions connected to them. The Ayyubid-era hadith specialist Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 643/1245) would respond in a fatwa to two questions regarding the existence of saints who follow in the footsteps of the Prophet (ʿalā qadam Muḥammad) and of the saintly hierarchy including abdāl. The purported question behind the fatwa, and the fatwa itself, reveal unease with these saints. Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ writes that neither of these claims are substantiated by sound traditions, but nonetheless singles out the ʿAlī-abdāl hadith as the strongest report on abdāl (aqwā mā rawaynāh fīhim). Despite the weakness of the hadith corpus on the abdāl, he notes that the consensus of the scholars and the pious (ṣulaḥāʾ) authenticates their existence. This is in contrast to the pole (quṭb) and other members of the hierarchy; their existence is unsubstantiated save for the claim of some of the masters of Sufism (mashāyikh al-ṭarīqa). The ʿulamāʾ, the “group that will protect truth until judgement day” (wa-lā tazāl ṭāʾifa min al-umma ẓāhira ʿalā al-ḥaqq ilā an taqūm al-sāʿa), and not the mystics, are the arbiters of the truth regarding al-abdāl.Footnote 69
The first scholar said to devote a treatise to a critique of the traditions on abdāl and other elements of the Sufi hierarchy is the firebrand preacher and Syrian scholar known to posterity as sulṭān al-ʿulamāʾ ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām (d. 660/1262). The treatise is not extant,Footnote 70 therefore we can only gauge its content from a fleeting remark by al-Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī (d. 1205/1790) who mentions this treatise in his massive dictionary Tāj al-ʿarūs under the entry for al-abdāl. There al-Zabīdī specifies that Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām was particularly opposed to the idea that God preserves the earth through them.Footnote 71 The extent and nature of Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām's critique, however, remains unknown.Footnote 72
The task of a systematic critique of the abdāl and associated saints was subsequently taken up by the Hanbali reformer Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) whose oeuvre is much better known. Ibn Taymiyya dealt with the issue of the saintly hierarchy in two treatises.Footnote 73 In these two cases, Ibn Taymiyya states that the authentication of the saintly hierarchy can only be arrived at through one of four sources: the Quran, Sunna, widely attested consensus of the first three generations (ijmāʿ mutawātir min al-qurūn al-thalātha) and rational proof (burhān ʿaqlī). He starts by condemning the entire saintly hierarchy noting that the ranks of al-ghawth of Mecca, the four awtād, the seven aqtāb, the 40 abdāl and the three hundred nujabāʾ are not attested in the Quran nor hadith with a sound or even weak chain. His harshest criticism is reserved for the use of the term ghawth, one of the attributes of God, as a referent to a saint. He compares the ghawth to the Shiite concept of the infallible imam and the hierarchy of saints to those adopted by Ismailis and Nusayris. As for the abdāl, Ibn Taymiyya acknowledges the existence of a Syrian hadith pointing out that it is narrated with a broken chain attributed to ʿAlī and raised to the Prophet. This tradition is the only marginally acceptable evidence for the usage of the term abdāl by the early generation of Muslims. However, other terms such as the pole and succour (ghawth) are innovations of later scholars.
Having acknowledged the use of the term abdāl by the first generation, Ibn Taymiyya argues, based on “rational proof”, that the hadith about the Syrian abdāl is unlikely to be prophetic (al-ashbah annah laysa min kalām al-nabī). He notes that prior to the Muslim conquest Syria and Iraq were the abode of infidels, while true belief was confined to the Hijaz and Yemen. Thereby, it would have been impossible for the Prophet to consider Syria the abode of the abdāl.Footnote 74
Even with the more acceptable term al-abdāl, Ibn Taymiyya took particular issue with their being confined to a specific place (lā lahum makān muʿayyan min al-amkina) and number (laysa li-awliyāʾ Allāh ʿadadun maḥṣūr tatasāwā fīh al-azmina).Footnote 75 His proof against such association is in the change in the locale and number of believers in Mecca and Medina before and after the emigration of the Prophet. He notes a similar fluctuation after the spread of Islam and the passing of the three virtuous generations (al-qurūn al-thalātha al-fāḍila). Similarly, in the “Fatwā fī al-ghawth”, Ibn Taymiyya explores the ebb and flow in the numbers of believers starting with Abraham and Sarah, going through Noah, Moses and reaching the time of Muhammad and the Islamic conquests.Footnote 76
Ibn Taymiyya again explicitly refuses to associate between a specific locality and abdāl in his al-Radd ʿalā al-Ikhnāʾiyya. He notes disapprovingly that the association of specific places with saints leads to the adoration (taʿẓīm) of places such as Mount Lebanon where common people impute the presence of the 40 abdāl. Footnote 77 Although he acknowledges that Syria had been the recipient of many traditions extolling its merits, the province could not have been home to 40 abdāl during the caliphate of ʿAlī. Despite the presence of pious men in Syria, others who never resided there, such as ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and Saʿd b. Abī Waqqās, were worthier of the title of abdāl than were the Syrians. If the abdāl are the best of the community, they cannot be present exclusively in Syria. To bolster his argument further, he also notes that the salaf had identified a number of non-Syrians as abdāl.Footnote 78
Ibn Taymiyya claims that previous scholars had understood the abdāl in one of three ways: as successors to the prophets, as men who are replaced whenever one of them dies, or those who have replaced their misdeeds with good deeds. Interestingly, Ibn Taymiyya argues for the first meaning, pointing out a connection to the well-known hadith “scholars are the heirs of the prophets”. Following in the footsteps of Ibn Ḥanbal, Ibn Taymiyya suggests al-abdāl are most likely the scholars.Footnote 79 Ultimately, Ibn Taymiyya sought to rid the term al-abdāl of its associations with a place and a number and to reduce it to a term interchangeable with awliyāʾ. For this scholar, the abdāl were pious men, most likely the ʿulamāʾ, who had no association with Syria or the number 40. Finally, it is to be noted that Ibn Taymiyya will remain the only scholar to question the authenticity of the ʿAlī-abdāl hadith.
The opposition to the idea of a hierarchy appears sporadically after Ibn Taymiyya, especially in collections of fabricated hadith. None of those opposed to it, however, argued as systematically as Ibn Tyamiyya did. For example, Ibn Taymiyya's student Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350) declares in his al-Manār al-munīf fī al-ṣaḥīḥ wa-al-ḍaʿīf that all of the prophetic hadiths about the various types of saints are false (bāṭil), the most acceptable being the ʿAlī-abdāl report narrated by Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal. Nonetheless, this report is not “sound” (ṣaḥīḥ) due to the break in the chain of transmission (munqaṭiʿ).Footnote 80
Neither the critics nor the defenders of abdāl and the saintly hierarchy addressed Ibn Taymiyya's arguments. The majority of responses fell within the same general pattern, an argument for or against the soundness of the traditions about al-abdāl. For example, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Zarkashī (d. 794/1391–92) in his al-Laʾāliʾ al-manthūra fī al-aḥādīth al-mashhūra cites a hadith on abdāl and states that two of the transmitters of this particular hadith were weak.Footnote 81 Nonetheless, the author does not refute the very existence of the abdāl. In fact, he states that the assertions made to invalidate these traditions are prejudiced; in al-Zarkashī’s estimation, despite the presence of different opinions on some of the men in the isnād, the report is sound according to a group of leading scholars “jamāʿa min al-aʿimma”.Footnote 82
In the same vein, the extraordinarily prolific al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) who, as mentioned in the introduction, composed a treatise on the topic, merely collects hadiths on abdāl attributed to 15 companions purportedly to authenticate the hierarchy. The rationale behind the treatise is made clear in his al-Nukat al-badīʿāt ʿalā al-mawḍūʿāt. He states that the number of reports on abdāl was such that it reached the threshold of massive semantic corroboration (al-tawātur al-maʿnawī), thereby authenticating the tradition.Footnote 83
Al-Suyūṭī’s peer and arch-rival, al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497) similarly wrote a treatise on the abdāl entitled Naẓm al-laʾāl fī ḥadīth al-abdāl. Footnote 84 While the treatise does not survive, we can surmise its content from al-Sakhāwī’s surviving opinion on the matter in his al-Maqāṣid al-ḥasana.Footnote 85 In his view, the soundest report is again the ʿAlī-abdāl hadith via Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, given the trustworthiness of all its transmitters. Additionally, al-Sakhāwī adduces other evidence to argue for the strength of the hadith. First, some had seen the Prophet in a dream in which he pointed towards Syria when asked about the location of the abdāl. Second, great imams such as al-Shāfiʿī and al-Bukhārī described some men as being of abdāl. Third, a number of elevated (marfūʿ) and interrupted (mawqūf) reports also buttress the abdāl’s authenticity. What differentiates al-Suyūṭī’s and al-Sakhāwī’s treatment of the abdāl does not lie in their conclusions but rather their methods. Both scholars were ultimately defending the concept of the abdāl. Al-Suyūṭī harnessed the concept of tawātur to authenticate the tradition, while al-Sakhāwī resorted to multiple methods available in the late hadith scholar's toolbox, including the use of dreams.
While the interest of later scholars in abdāl is epitomized by al-Suyūṭī’s work, the most novel and comprehensive treatment of the abdāl is contained in the Egyptian polymath al-Munāwī’s (d. 1031/1622) Fayḍ al-qadīr, a commentary on al-Suyūṭī’s al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaghīr.Footnote 86 Al-Munāwī’s discussion of al-abdāl takes as its starting point the ten hadiths on al-abdāl cited in al-Jāmiʿ, followed by a commentary weaving the mystical and hadith tradition on the topic. For instance, for the hadith on the 30 abdāl who follow in the footsteps of Abraham, he brings the commentary tradition on Ibn ʿArabī’s Fuṣūṣ to bear on his interpretation. He similarly relies on al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Abū Madyan (d. 594/1198), al-Shādhilī (d. 656/1258) and al-Mursī (d. 686/1287) on the one hand, and Abū Dāwūd, al-Suyūṭī and al-Sakhāwī on the other. Al-Munāwī then builds on these previous interpretations of these reports adding his own layer of commentary. To illustrate, on the question of whether the abdāl leave an image of themselves “as a substitute” in a locality when they depart it, al-Munāwī connects this phenomenon to the existence of a realm between the physical and spiritual (ʿālam al-mithāl). Moreover, he argues that this ability to leave behind an image of themselves is comparable to abilities the Jinn possess. Alternatively, he suggests that it might be a feature of the saint's “earth folding” ability (ṭayy al-arḍ).Footnote 87 Accordingly, al-Munāwī’s treatment of the abdāl in Fayḍ al-qadīr represents a confluence of the hadith and Sufi tradition on abdāl, something that had not taken place in this fashion since al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s work.Footnote 88
Furthermore, unlike his predecessors, al-Munāwī addresses directly some of the challenges Ibn Taymiyya posed to this tradition. Al-Munāwī clarifies that al-Suyūṭī had included in the Jāmiʿ all of the recensions of the hadiths on the abdāl, although that was not his habit in this book, in order to show the invalidity of Ibn Taymiyya's claim, namely, that the word al-abdāl does not occur in a sound or weak hadith but only in an “interrupted” hadith. Al-Munāwī concludes that this claim proved Ibn Taymiyya's rashness (tahawwur) and recklessness (mujāzafa), wishing the scholar had denied the soundness of the reports rather than denying the existence of the term altogether. What is worse is that Ibn Taymiyya accused of lying those who argued for the authenticity of the term (laytah nafā al-riwāya bal nafā al-wujūd wa-kadhdhaba man iddaʿā al-wurūd). Al-Munāwī concludes that although one had to admit that all of these reports are weak, it cannot be denied that a weak hadith is strengthened by the multiplicity of its transmissions and the proliferation of its transmitters (mukharrij). In al-Munāwī’s opinion, only someone ignorant in the science of hadith or an obstinate fanatic would deny it. He believed Ibn Taymiyya was of the latter type.Footnote 89
The debate over abdāl did not end with al-Munāwī, but continued to be of interest to Muslim scholars into the fourteenth/twentieth century. Al-Manīnī (d. 1172/1758),Footnote 90 Murṭaḍā al-Zabīdī (d. 1205/1790),Footnote 91 Ibn ʿĀbdīn (d. 1343/1925),Footnote 92 and al-KattānīFootnote 93 wrote in defence of abdāl, while al-Amīr al-Sanʿānī (d. 1182/1768)Footnote 94 and Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1354/1935)Footnote 95 followed in the footsteps of Ibn Taymiyya. The nature of the debate on the existence of the saintly hierarchy is well illustrated by an anecdote in one of Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī’s (d. 974/1567) Fatāwā. In the course of arguing for the existence of the saintly hierarchy, Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī tells us that the subject of the “pole […], the substitutes and others” arose during a study session with his teacher Muḥammad al-Juwaynī. The shaykh vigorously rejected the existence of such a hierarchy and the authenticity of any related traditions. The young Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī attempted to defend both, only to be rebuked even more coarsely by his teacher. Having unsuccessfully resorted to the authority of the Sufi ʿAfīf al-Dīn al-Yāfiʿī (d. 768/1367) and the precedent of other respected scholars, the pupil could only keep quiet and nurse the hope that the great Abū Yaḥyā Zakariyyāʾ al-Anṣārī (d. 926/1520) would avenge him. Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī did not have to wait long. In a meeting between the two scholars, the pupil asked Zakariyyāʾ al-Anṣārī what he thought of the matter of the pole and other saints, making sure to report al-Juwaynī’s vehement denial. What took place afterwards, however, was not much of a debate but rather a process through which Zakariyyāʾ al-Anṣārī chastened Muḥammad al-Juwaynī and pressed him to admit their existence. Duly mortified, al-Juwaynī stated: “I believe, accept and repent”.Footnote 96
Conclusion
This paper has argued that the concept of the abdāl first saw the light in hadith literature. At its origins, the concept was embedded in a specific historical moment, the Battle of Ṣiffīn, one of the most traumatic events of early Islamic history. Those abdāl were Syrian men who elected to be on ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib's side. Further, the examination of hadith literature allowed us to trace how, in the process of transmission, it gradually shed its historical context. The association with the Battle of Ṣiffīn was lost and the abdāl became saints specific to Syria, a horizontal deployment of sacrality and a geographically delineated manifestation of God's friends. These were the abdāl of the traditionists. The loss of context also made way for the abdāl of the mystics. For the likes of al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī, Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī and Ibn ʿArabī, these friends of God were incorporated in a vertical heavenly hierarchy stretching from the lowest heaven to the throne of God. Finally, in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods, as Sufism, the saints and their miracles permeated all elements of society, so did the abdāl and the saintly hierarchy, leading to a questioning of their authenticity. Ibn Taymiyya penned the most thorough critique of the saintly hierarchy, casting doubt on both the text and transmission of the most widely accepted abdāl hadith. In response, Mamluk and Ottoman scholars resorted to proving the authenticity of the abdāl hadith, focusing their defence on bolstering its transmission history. The journey of the abdāl did not end with this debate. Today, as before, the abdāl have re-emerged in the Sunni discourse, again in the purview of Syria. As the Syrian civil war rages, the abdāl have made their appearance again. As apocalyptic prophecies of the first centuries fuel interpretations of the conflict, both the Syrian Free Army Front and Hezbollah formed brigades of abdāl al-Shām in a re-enactment of these End of Days scenarios.
