Sulūk and the Way of Return: A Thematic Analysis of Ibn ʿAjībah’s Īqāẓ al-Himam Kindle Edition

This book thematically analyses Ibn ʿAjībah’s (d. 1224/1809) commentary on the Aphorisms (Ḥikam) of IbnʿAṭāʾAllāh (d. 709/1309), entitled Īqāẓ al-Himam fī Sharḥ al-Ḥikam (The Awakening of Spiritual Aspirations in the Commentary of the Ḥikam). The analysis uses Toshihiko Izutsu’s methodology of semantic analysis to read and thematically parse the Īqāẓ into core thematic content under the analytic categories of teleology, ontology, soteriology and epistemology. Collectively these analytic categories encompass the notion of the ‘origin and the return’ (al-mabdaʾ wa al-maʿād), being a comprehensive way of looking at the subject of spiritual wayfaring (sulūk).The book fills two significant gaps within western academic literature on Islamic spirituality. Firstly, it demonstrates an effective and rigorous method for reading and studying Sufi texts in the form of semantic analysis. Secondly, by performing such an analysis on a commentary of the Ḥikam, the book highlights the role of how a commentarial tradition within Sufism can clarify meanings of otherwise terse source texts. In doing so, it demonstrates the pedagogical importance of structural textual correspondence, and the need for a continuity of spiritual lineage within Sufi literature as evidenced through the case study of the Īqāẓ. Read more