The idea of tashabbuh in sufi communities and literature of the late 6th/12th and early 7th/13th century in Baghdad

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to focus attention on the role of the mutashabbih within the active life of ribāṭ in sixth/twelfth and early seventh/thirteenth century Sufism of late Abbasid Baghdad with its basic source being Abū Ḥafṣ al-Suhrawardī´s ʻAwārif al-maʼārif. Other concepts and groups are also analyzed such as qalandariyya, majḏhūbs, takalluf, which is the semblance of ecstasy during samāʻ, and the ambiguous status of khādim. The broad category khādim, according to al-Suhrawardī seems to have included types of affiliation and function in Sufi collective life that went beyond the specific position of the khādim as a senior disciple of a particular Sheikḥ. The infinitive form khidma would probably have implied categories ranging from a transitory affiliation motivated by some expenditure on the Sufis, through a more robust one in which the same title might designate those who occasionally visited resident Sufis and participated in one or more of their rituals, and on to actual residence of such “servants” in the ribāṭ. Al-Suhrawardī tashabbuhtheory is based on the essential purpose of creating a popular Sufi system open to one and all, with an inherent dynamic that leads ultimately to the rank of Sheik-hood (mashyakha).