A Sufi Itinerary of Tenth Century Nishapur Based on a Treatise by Ab
Abd al-Ra
m
n al-Sulam
University of Georgia
Kenneth Honerkamp, University of Georgia, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Religion, Peabody Hall 1625, Athens, GA 30602, e-mail: hnrkmp{at}uga.edu
Among the extant works of the well-known Sufi biographer Ab
Abd al-Ra
m
n al-Sulam
(d. 412/1021) is Masalat darajt al-
diqn fi l-taawwuf (the Stations of the Righteous). This treatise begins with a question about the three paths of Islamic mysticism: the Malmatiyya, the Sufis and the Path of Love. Al-Sulam's response presents the three as facets of an integral whole, each reflecting stages on a quest for knowledge. The treatise is set out as an itinerary through increasingly subtle stations of experiential knowledge of divine reality; as such it represents a prototype of this genre of Islamic literature. Central to the itinerary are the origins and epistemological foundations of Islamic sainthood (walya).
In this paper I rely upon a new critical edition of the text updated from an hitherto unused manuscript that supplies a serious lacuna in the earlier edition. I focus on al-Sulam's exposition of the stations of marifa, his multiple references to walya, the concealed and revealed saints, and the Pole (Qu
b), in order to establish a framework for a Sufi epistemology founded upon a hierarchy of subtle degrees of marifa. I present translations from the text that emphasize the central role in al-Sulam's teachings of the principles of the Malmatiyya of Nishapur.
Masalat darajt al-adiqn affords us the opportunity to encounter al-Sulam in a rarely perceived theoretical context—as the mystic, mentor, teacher and transmitter of the spiritual tradition of his home city of Nishapur, the Malmatiyya. Moreover, al-Sulam's detailed exposition of the stations of marifa elevates that tradition from one seen as a spiritual tendency based upon a pessimistic view of human nature to a school of mystical theology.