تجربة الوصول الصوفي في تنظير أبي بكر الكلاباذي (ت: 380/990): نموذج لبنية الخطاب وإشكالات المقاربة في مؤلفات القرن الميلادي العاشر

If we closely examine al-Kalabadhi’s treatment of the highest mystic state of arrival (wusul), we come across an interesting Sufi discourse that should be differentiated from other contemporary or non contemporary Sufi manuals. Although al-Kalabadhi attempted to cope with the theoretical system of thought that had been developed by the Sufis since the beginning of the third/ninth century, he avoided any detailed treatment of the final destination of the Sufi path, i.e. the state of wusul. Textual occurrences in which the state of wusul was tackled in al- Kalabadhi’s work, al-Taʿarruf li-madhhab ahl al-tasawwuf, show the following: 1. Al-Kalabadhi places the knowledge of God (maʿrifa) among the highest stages in the Sufi route of ascent. The rank of fanẚ (extinction) comes before maʿrifa, and the state of unification (tawhid) comes after it. This means that the theoretical content of tawhid was extended by the early Sufi authors in such a way that it became a synonym for witnessing God in the heart. It became, therefore, one manifestation of the state of wusul. 2. Al-Kalabadhi devotes the longest chapter in his work to the treatment of fanẚ and baqẚ (subsistence). He cultivates the idea of the mystic infallibility of the knowers of God (ʿismat al-ʿarifin) according to which the ṣufi who attains fanẚ is protected against returning to his previous lower states. Achieving fanẚ, in al-Kalabadhi’s view, does not imply a total renunciation of the world, but, contrarily, motivates the ṣufi to practice the Muslim principle of “ordering the virtuous and forbidding the wrong” (al-amr bi-l-maʿruf wa-l-nahi ʿan al-munkar) in public. 3. Unlike his successor al-Qushari, al-Kalabadhi excludes the concept of divine love from his treatment of wusul. 4. Al- Kalabadhi does not impose a long period of hard ascetic austerities as a condition for obtaining wusul. Knowledge of God and achieving wusul could be granted by grace to one who did not seek it at all. I believe that this idea remained marginal in the Sufi theoretical system until the seventh/thirteenth century, whereas the influential Sufi theoretician Abu Hafs al-Suhrawardi (d. 632/1234) attempted to consolidate the concept of jadhb (lit. direct attraction) and the position of majdhub (a person who is effortlessly attracted to God).