Before Sufism by Christopher Melchert

Author:Christopher Melchert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Published: 2020-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Against outward austerity

Hadith literature includes many warnings against collecting knowledge for the wrong reasons but not disdain for knowledge itself.1210 Disdain for outward austerity itself, not just its combination with inward avarice, seems to have appeared in about the last quarter of the eighth century. The habit of projecting back all wisdom to the earliest authorities of course interferes with our dating any such development. For example, the early qur’anic commentator al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn Muzāḥim (d. 106/724−5?) reportedly disliked musk. He was told that Muḥammad’s Companions had perfumed themselves but said, ‘We know more than they did.’1211 Does this reveal the arrogance of the Followers, presuming themselves better than the Companions? Or does it document just the hostility of the tenth-century Muʿtazili, Abū al-Qāsim al-Balkhī (d. 319/931?), from whom it is known to us as part of a polemic against the probity of eighth-century traditionists? Of course, it may go back to any time between al-Ḍaḥḥāk and Abū al-Qāsim, too.

Similarly, Farqad al-Sabakhī was reported to Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī (Kufan, d. 96/714) as not eating meat or such-and-such. Ibrāhīm protested, ‘The Companions of Muḥammad were better than he. They ate meat, clarified butter (samn), and such-and-such and such-and-such.’1212 Farqad is more often opposed to al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. One example has been cited already, about clothing. Al-Ḥasan once asked Farqad, ‘Do you like khabīṣ (a sweet)?’ He said, ‘No, by God: I like neither it nor anyone else who likes it.’ Al-Ḥasan said, ‘Is he mad? Is he mad?’1213 The effect is to make Farqad a representative of excessive outward austerity—obviously excessive for going beyond what the Companions had practised.

Some discomfort with the renunciation of an earlier generation is indicated by a report that ʿAwn ibn ʿAbd Allāh (Kufan, d. bef. 120/737−8) quoted the Companion ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd as saying, ‘The servant does not achieve true faith till he reaches his summit (or maturity; dhirwah). He has not reached his summit until he prefers poverty to riches, prefers humility to prominence, and considers alike the one praising him and the one blaming him.’ Then he commented, ‘ʿAbd Allāh’s companions interpreted this as, “until he prefers poverty with lawfulness to riches with illicitness, prefers humility in obedience to God to prominence in disobedience to God, and considers alike the one truthfully praising him and the one truthfully blaming him.”’1214 Somebody thought that Ibn Masʿūd’s definitions went too far. The attribution to Ibn Masʿūd is questionable, partly because similar statements are attributed to the Companion Muʿādh ibn Jabal (d. 18/639−40),1215 more because such considerations seem unlikely so early in the conquest period. The comment should then be from one of the transmitters between ʿAwn and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, namely al-Masʿūdī (ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh, d. 160/ 776−7?) or Yazīd (ibn Hārūn, d. 206/821−2). At any rate, the interpretation clearly betrays uneasiness with the apparent disparagement of riches in themselves and indignation at being slandered.

Sufyān al-Thawrī (Kufan, d. 161/777?) is often quoted in favour of innerworldly renunciation; that is, renunciation as an inward attitude of detachment not needing to be matched by outward austerity.

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