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58 al-kim al-tirmidh Studies The mystical milieu. fi’s erotic spiritu- Parvz Ahr, Kilk-i khayl-angz. Farhang-i ality, in Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), Hafiz and jmi-i Dvn-i fi, Tehran 1372sh/1993; the religion of love in classical Persian poetry (New Souâd Ayada, La médiation paradoxale Y...

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58 Studies Parvz Ahr, Kilk-i khayl-angz. Farhang-i jmi-i Dvn-i fi, Tehran 1372sh/1993; Souâd Ayada, La médiation paradoxale de la poésie. Le Dvn de Hâfez, in Souâd Ayada, L’Islam des théophanies. Une religion à l’épreuve de l’art (Paris 2010), 213–38; Souâd Ayada, Hâfez, poète et philosophe, Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger 137 (2012), 61–76, http://www.cairn.info/revue -philosophique, accessed 27 June 2017; Michael Barry, fi’s romantic imagery and language of love. The allegory of drunkenness and the theophany of the Beloved in sixteenth-century illustrations of Hâfiz, in Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), Hafiz and the religion of love in classical Persian poetry. Iran and the Persianate world (London and New York 2010), 213–26; Edward G. Browne, fi of Shrz (Shamsu’d-Dn Muammad), in Edward G. Browne, A literary history of Persia (repr. Cambridge 1969), 3:271–319; Dominic Parvaz Brookshaw, Mytho-political remakings of Ferdowsi’s Jamshid in the lyric poetry of Injuid and Mozaffarid Shiraz, Iranian Studies 48/3 (2015), 463–87; Reza Feyz, L’amour, l’amant, l’aimé. Langage profane et sens sacré chez Hâfiz, Luqmân 5 (1988), 115–20; Charles-Henri de Fouchécour, Hâfez de Chiraz. Le Divân. Œuvre lyrique d’un spirituel en Perse au xive siècle. Introduction, traduction du persan et commentaires, Paris 2006; Michael Glünz and J. Christoph Bürgel (eds.), Intoxication, earthly and heavenly. Seven studies on the poet Hafis of Shiraz, Bern and Berlin 1991; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Divan d’Orient et d’Occident = West-östlicher Divan, trans. Laurent Cassagnau, Paris 2012; Kvs asanl, Chashm-i khurshd (“Spring of the sun”). Bz-khwân-i zindig, andish va sukhan-i fi-i Shrz (“Rereading of the life, thought, and speech of fi”), Shiraz 1385sh/2006 Gilbert Lazard, Le langage symbolique du ghazal, in Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (ed.), Convegno Internationale sulla Poesia di Hâfez (1976) (Rome 1978), 50–71; Yves Lepesqueur, Hâfez contre les puritains, Atelier du Roman 79 (2014), 135–44; Franklin Lewis, Hafez, viii, Hafez and Rendi, EIr; Franklin Lewis, Hafez, ix, Hafez and music, EIr; Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), Hafiz and the religion of love in classical Persian poetry, London and New York 2010; Leonard Lewisohn, Prolegomenon to the study of fi, pt. 1, Socio-historical and literary contexts. fi in Shrz, pt. 2,

al-kim al-tirmidh The mystical milieu. fi’s erotic spirituality, in Leonard Lewisohn (ed.), Hafiz and the religion of love in classical Persian poetry (New York 2010), 3–73; Parvin Loloi, Hâfiz, master of Persian poetry. A critical bibliography. English translations since the eighteenth century, London and New York 2004; Daniela Meneghini Correale The ghazals of Hafez. Concordance and vocabulary, Rome 1988; Julie Scott Meisami, The ghazal as fiction. Implied speakers and implied audience in Hafiz’s ghazals, in Michael Glünz and J. Christoph Bürgel (eds.), Intoxication, earthly and heavenly. Seven studies on the poet Hafiz of Shiraz (Bern and Berlin 1991), 89–103; Muammad Mun, fi-i shrn-sukhan, ed. Mahdukht Mun, 2 vols., Tehran 1369sh/1990; Mihrdd Nknm, Kitbshins-i fi, Shiraz 1381sh/2002; Stefano Pellò and Gianroberto Scarcia (eds.), Canzoniere / âfe, Milan 2005; Narallh Prjavd (ed.), Dar bra-yi fi, Tehran 1365sh/1986; Francis Richard, Nasr alSoltâni, Nasir al-Din Mozahheb et la bibliothèque d’Ebrâhim Soltân à Shirâz, Studia Iranica 30/1 (2001), 87–104; Jan Rypka, fi, the ghazal at its summit, in Jan Rypka, History of Iranian literature (Dordrecht 1968), 263–71; Carlo Saccone (ed.), Hafez. Il libro del coppiere, Milan and Trento 1998; Mahndukht adqiyn, Farhang-i vzhinamy-i fi, Tehran 1366sh/1987; Zahra ShamsYadolahi, Le retentissement de la poésie de Hâfez en France. Réception et traduction, Uppsala 2002; Geoffrey Squires (trans.), Hafez. Translations and interpretations of the ghazals, Oxford OH 2014; Hamid Tafazoli, Hafez, xi, Translations of Hafez in German, EIr; G. M. Wickens, fi, EI2; Ehsan Yarshater et al., Hafez, EIr. Charles-Henri de Fouchécour

al-kim al-Tirmidh Al-akm al-Tirmidh (“The Sage of Termez,” d. probably 298/910), is considered the most productive mystic author of his time, although some major aspects of his thought remain too little known. His full name, Ab Abdallh Muammad b. Al b. al-asan b. Bashr, indicates that

al-kim al-tirmidh his paternal ancestors were Muslim for at least three generations. He was born between 205/820 and 210/825, in Termez (Ar., Tirmidh), a commercial town in the old province of Khursn (in present-day Uzbekistan), on the border with Afghanistan. The most reliable information suggests 298/910 as his date of death, at more than ninety years old (Ibn ajar, 5:310). Every year his mausoleum attracts throngs of pilgrims, which have increased since Uzbekistan became independent in 1991. The mausoleum is one of the monumental complexes of mediaeval Termez, which was built on the remains of an ancient city whose foundation dates back at least to the period of Alexander’s conquests (fourththird centuries B.C.E.). It was usually part of the province of Bactria and part of M War al-Nahr (lit., the country beyond the river river), located as it was on the right bank of the Amu Darya (Gk., Oxus; Ar., Jayn) at the confluence with the Surkhan (Uzbek, Surxondaryo) Darya, in present-day southern Uzbekistan. 1. His life in his cultural and religious environment In his autobiography, Bad shan Ab Abdallh Muammad al-akm al-Tirmidh (“The beginning of the journey of the sage Ab Abdallh Muammad al-Tirmidh”), al-Tirmidh describes his spiritual progress and elevation in the degrees of sainthood. This major source states that, while a child, his father had taught him the Prophetic tradition (adth, Sunna) and “personal opinion” (ray), which apparently refers to the juridical method of Ab anfa (d. 150/767). During a pilgrimage to Mecca at the age of twenty-seven al-Tirmidh attained repentance (tawba), the first stage of his spiritual journey. It required that he devote his entire life to

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God. After a stay in Basra to complete his education, he returned to his hometown, where he sought in vain a master to guide him in his mystical quest. After numerous fasts and prayers, he finally gained access to the “words of the masters of knowledge” through a book of the Syrian ascetic and mystic Amad b. im al-Ank (d. c.220/835), probably Daw d al-qulb wa-marifat himam al-nafs wa-adabih (“The healing of the heart and the knowledge of the soul’s aspirations and manners”). Thus he began to see his spiritual ascent reflected in several dreams. In the first two, he received the good news (bushr) of his membership in the elite of the saints, “those seized by God” (majdhbn), whose degree falls just below that of the prophet Muammad himself. While at that stage, he met persons with whom he could “invoke God and humbly pray until dawn.” At about that time he found himself a victim of persecution that can be dated approximately through his allusion to “a discord in our land and insurrection with the result that all those who had done me harm and slandered me in the city . . . fled and became exiles” (al-Tirmidh, Bad shan, 19–20, trans. Radtke and O’Kane, 22). According to most researchers, this refers to the affrids, a dynasty of doctrinaire rulers of Tirmidh between 257/871 and 261/875 (al-Juysh, 171), who were strongly attached to Sunn orthodoxy and fought Shism on the orders of the Abbsid caliphate (Laoust, 134). Al-Tirmidh was accused of spreading “beliefs that had never even crossed his mind” (al-Tirmidh, Bad shan, 20) and was ordered to the court of Balkh to face three charges: talking about love, innovating in religious matters, and claiming to be a prophet. This tribulation resulted in a humiliation of his “carnal soul” (nafs)

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that he never managed to achieve by other means. Full of joy and gratitude, he describes the illuminative experience that followed this adversity. One night he was walking alone in the countryside: “It was as if something happened in my heart, and I felt filled with happiness. . . . Even the barking of dogs that were chasing me brought me solace. . . . It seemed to me that the sky, the planets, and the moon were close to the earth” (al-Tirmidh, Bad shan, 19). After al-Tirmidh’s rehabilitation, his teaching gained popularity and won him many followers, a development he saw as evidence of his spiritual progress, happiness being, in his view, a more difficult test than suffering, because of the sense of laxity that it sometimes induces in its possessor. At that point, his autobiography leaves the visible world and focuses on the dreams of some of his companions, especially his wife, through which he receives confirmation of his elevation to the highest degree of sainthood (walya). The date, which he considered the acme of his existence, is so important that he singles it out for mention, the only such reference in all his writings: “(It was) a Saturday, in the last ten days of Dh l-Qada (the eleventh month of the lunar year) in 269(/883).” At dawn that day, his wife informed him that she saw his accession to the rank of the forty saints who “support the earth” (al-Tirmidh, Bad shan, 31). Some hagiographers have suggested that he had to undergo another wave of persecutions towards the end of his life and had to seek refuge at Balkh, where the anaf jurists protected him, according to al-Subk (d. 756/1355; abaqt, 245)—a madrasa teacher in Damascus and khab at the Umayyad Mosque, and later a q and official—and the Egyptian religious scholar, official, and historian Ibn ajar

al-kim al-tirmidh (d. 853/1449) (Lisn, 5:308). At this time, he seems to have been accused of teaching that certain saints might be superior to prophets. Al-Tirmidh’s expectation of broadmindedness on the part of his fellow citizens might be explained by the rich culture of the region at that time and by its religious pluralism. Buddhism was no longer officially practised because of the drastic measures adopted by the first Muslim conquerors, which are described by al-Narshakh (d. c.244/859) (Tarkh, 73), the first known historian in Central Asia, but it had left remarkable monuments, such as the great centre of Kara-Tepe, on the site of Old Termez. On the other hand, the testimony of al-Muqaddas (d. 381/991), the Arab geographer from Jerusalem (Asan, 323), suggests that Zoroastrianism, tolerated in the Abbsid empire, was still broadly represented in the region, and Manichaeism, although not very active, may still have had some followers. Christianity and Judaism were widely represented, especially by their heterodox branches, such as the Nestorians who had found refuge in this part of Khursn. Many Muslim groups considered seditious by the Abbsid regime had settled at Tirmidh, especially the Jahmiyya (believers in absolute predestination) and various groups of partisans of Al (Sha). Sunn Islam was prosperous and represented by many famous scholars, such as the famous adth collector Muammad b. s al-Tirmidh (d. 279/892). 2. Al-Tirmidh and the pre-eminent spiritual movements of his time Al-Tirmidh met representatives of the major Khursn ascetic-mystical groups of his time, such as the Malmatiyya (the

al-kim al-tirmidh people of blame), whose principle of concealment of one’s true spiritual state has been compared by Marijan Molé to the Syriac Shituta (the total abnegation by some Syriac Nestorian mystics of the self and a cloaking of their charisms under a blameworthy appearance; Molé, 20–1). He suggested that, by engaging, as did their Christian predecessors, in reprehensible actions such as the consumption of wine and a disregard for religious obligations, they escaped the adulation of their contemporaries and freed themselves of any sense of personal merit. In an attempt to avoid ostentation, they earned their living through trade, which was the major activity of middle-class urban Muslims at the time. They neither proselytised nor travelled to preach but tried to overcome their selfish ego or carnal soul (nafs) through the practice of (self-)blame (malma). Al-Tirmidh, who shared with them a sedentary lifestyle and sought to humiliate his nafs, corresponded with two of their most famous representatives, Muammad b. al-Fal al-Balkh (d. 319/931) and Ab Uthmn al-r (or al-Nsbr, d. 298/910). In his letters (Durr, fols. 15b-17b, 66a-69a, 140b-141b), he advises them not to try to thwart the wiles of their carnal soul before having reached a state of totally disinterested sincerity (idq) and not to preoccupy themselves too much with self-blame. He expressed the concern that, by focusing attention on his ego, the mystic may become distracted from his heart’s quest for closeness with God. Self-knowledge traps the mystic in his own limitations and should be annihilated by the knowledge of God, which vivifies the heart and combats the weaknesses of his “carnal soul.” Unlike “the people of blame,” the Karrmiyya, who were itinerant preach-

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ers, went from one khnaq (f lodge) to another, displaying their feats of piety and worship to the crowds and revealing to everyone the most intimate details of their spiritual journey. Al-Tirmidh devotes a section of his famous Khatm al-awliy (“The Seal of the Friends of God (or Saints)”) to the unfortunate experience of one of their most famous representatives, Yaya b. Mudh al-Rz (d. 257/871), known for his love poems to God. Despite his overall negative attitude to the Karrmiyya, al-Tirmidh acknowledged the validity of several of their theological concepts and practices and thus can be said to have adopted the position of arbitrator, inviting his readers to follow what seemed to him the best attitudes in every asceticmystical trend while warning against any excess that might impede one’s progress on the spiritual path. He also associated with the f Amad b. Khiruya (d. 240/854) and the wandering ascetic Ab Turb al-Nakhshab (d. 245/859), both from Khursn, whose names, like his, were associated with spiritual chivalry (futuwwa). These mystics advocated one’s unlimited dedication to his spiritual brothers, accompanied by discretion and selflessness. Futuwwa apparently represented merely a sort of virtuous behaviour and was not unique to any specific order, group, or organisation. Some scholars have suggested, on the basis of his nickname, that al-Tirmidh was part of a group of ukam (sages). According to the testimonies of the exegete, hagiographer, and theorist from Nshpr al-Sulam (d. 412/1021) (abaqt, 131) and the Central Asian scholar, f manualist, and hagiographer al-Qushayr (d. 465/1072) (Risla, 18), the first man of religion who was granted the title of akm was Sar Ab Manr b.

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Ammr (d. 225/839), a preacher mentioned by al-Tirmidh in his Kitb al-furq (“Terminological variations,” chap. 122). The title was then attributed to one of the founders of mysticism in Khursn, tim al-Asamm (d. 237/851), and later to the renowned Persian gnostic from Balkh, who lived in Tirmidh and was a disciple of al-Tirmidh, Ab Bakr al-Warrq (d. 294/907) (al-Sulam, abaqt, 226), and to one of his contemporaries, Shh al-Kirmn (d. 300/912), a disciple of Ab Turb al-Nakhshab. Nothing in this information, however, confirms the hypothesis that the ukam were a specific group of philosophers or sages influenced by Hellenistic culture. It seems rather that they were individuals linked by a common experience of spiritual direction. This is confirmed by the declaration of al-Tirmidh that the title of akm corresponds to the degree of knowledge possessed by some mystical guides (al-Tirmidh, Ilm, fol. 213; Durr, fol. 160a). The upper grade of this class, Supreme Wisdom (ikmat al-ikma), belongs to the most advanced saints, the majdhbn, who are capable of leading their disciples into proximity with God, without discourse and simply through the example of their way of life. This constitutes the “highest wisdom” or “quintessence of wisdom” that is the epitome of selfless sincerity (idq al-idq) (al-Tirmidh, Amthl, 87). Moreover, al-Tirmidh never mentions philosophy per se, although he does mention some Neoplatonic themes that he may have received through various intermediaries. On the other hand, it is certain that, as the famous Baghdad compiler of f writings and f biographer Jafar al-Khuld (d. 348/959) claimed (al-Sulam, abaqt, 434), al-Tirmidh was not a f, that is,

al-kim al-tirmidh an ascetic recognisable in public by his patched woollen garment (khirqa). Furthermore, he almost never used the words f and taawwuf. Al-Tirmidh’s attachment to Sunnism, on the other hand, is beyond doubt, despite the fact that he always evokes with great respect Al and his family. Citing this fact, Henry Corbin suggested that he may have appropriated the Sh concept of imma (which holds that the Imm—who must be a descendant of Al, cousin of the Prophet, and of his daughter Fima—is the closest friend of God, the only true spiritual guide, and the centre of light in the world) in order to establish his doctrine of sainthood (Corbin, 273–4). This view is questionable, because it is difficult to determine when key words such as “the Seal of Sainthood” first appeared and who was the first to use them, al-Tirmidh or his contemporaries amongst Sh scholars. 3. The classification of al-Tirmidh’s writings The corpus of al-Tirmidh’s Arabic writings is unusually large for his time, especially in view of the fact that most of his peers left only oral teachings that were disseminated by their disciples and collected by hagiographers. His complete bibliography was first published by Osman Yahya (Yahya, 3:411–72) updated by Khlid Zahr (2013), who also lists the main studies on his thought in akm Khursn wa-ans al-zamn (“The sage of Khursn, an intimate companion across time”). He mentions sixty-two editions and 108 titles, a significant number of these texts comprising questions (masil) assembled in collections such as al-Durr al-maknn (“The hidden pearl”), but only a few—especially Nawdir al-ul (“The unusual principles”), Khatm al-awliy, and

al-kim al-tirmidh Ilal al-ubdiyyt (“The reasons for canonical rites”)—appear to have been known to al-Tirmidh’s contemporaries. Al-Tirmidh’s oeuvre can be divided into six parts: Qurnic exegesis, prophetic Tradition, jurisprudence, terminology, anthropology, and the theory of sainthood. 1) A tafsr (Qurn commentary) that is considered lost (al-ujwir, 141). Comments on individual verses abound also in his other works, especially al-Durr al-maknn. Inserted into the main text, they serve as evidence or argument and do not constitute a conventional linear commentary. Al-aml min al-Kitb wa-lSunna (“The book of parables drawn from the Qurn and Sunna”) contains the mystical explanation of symbols, images, and parables taken from the sacred texts. 2) The Prophetic tradition is represented by a collection of rare adths, Nawdir al-ul, which contains 391 chapters. Some traditions recounted by al-Tirmidh are apparently unique to him. For this reason, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350), a disciple of the famous Iraqi-born theologian, anbal scholar, and anti-f polemicist Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), took issue with another of his texts, al-Itiyt (“The book of precaution...