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373 Pages
The Mystics of al-Andalus
The twelfth century CE was a watershed moment for mysticism in the Muslim West. In al-Andalus, the pioneers of this mystical tradition, the Mu'tabirtin or “Contemplators,” championed a symbiotic reading of Muslim scriptural sources alongside Neoplatonized cosmological doctrines. Ibn Barrajan of Seville was most responsible for shaping this new intellectual approach to the Qur’an and Hadith in the Muslim West, and is the focus of Yousef Casewit’s book. Ibn Barrajan’s extensive commentaries on the divine names and the Qur'an stress the significance of God’s signs in nature, the Arabic Bible as a means of interpreting Muslim scripture, and the mystical “crossing” (i’tibdr) from the visible to the unseen. With an examination of the understudied writings of both Ibn Barrajan and his contemporaries, Ibn al-‘Arif and Ibn Qasi, as well as the wider sociopolitical and scholarly context of al-Andalus, this book will appeal to researchers of the medieval Islamic world and the history of Sufism in the Muslim West.
Yousef Casewit is Assistant Professor of Qur’anic Studies at the University of Chicago. He was formerly a Humanities Research Fellow at New York University, Abu Dhabi. He is the co-editor (with Gerhard Bowering) of A OQur’adn Commentary by Ibn Barrajan of Seville (2016).
Acknowledgments
According to a well-known hadith, “He who has not thanked others has not thanked God.” First and foremost, I wish to express my profound gratitude to my former advisor and dissertation director Professor Gerhard Bowering who introduced me to Ibn Barrajan and discovered many of his manuscripts. B6éwering’s continuous encouragement, steadfast dedication, gentle mentorship, assiduous feedback, humility, and unfailing support — both academic and otherwise — over the years have kept this study and its author afloat.
Through his example, I have come to appreciate the beauty and subtlety of the scholarly ideal, and I am honored to be his student. I also wish to express my immense gratitude to Professor Frank Griffel for his support, thought-provoking comments, and constructive feedback over the years. A sincere thanks to Professor Beatrice Gruendler as well for her refined literary touch. I also owe a heartfelt thanks to Professor William Chittick. Certain key parts of this study would have gone amiss had it not been for our long conversations about Ibn ‘Arabi and Ibn Barrajan over cups of unsweetened Japanese green tea. I cherish his profound wisdom, kind generosity, piercing wit, and warm hospitality. Last but certainly not least, I am immensely indebted to my esteemed instructors from my undergraduate days for their foundational guidance and continued support. “And excellence (fadI) is owed to the predecessor in all cases” (wal fadlu li'l sabiq fi kulli hal).
In speaking of fad/, I must also acknowledge the immense generosity of several institutions and centers that have assisted me over the years. I owe tremendous gratitude to Yale University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Macmillan Center for supporting my years of doctoral research upon which much of this study is based. The timely completion of this work was also facilitated by the generous support of New York University Abu Dhabi’s (NYUAD) Humanities Research Fellowship Program in 2015-2016. I am particularly grateful to NYUAD’s Professor Reindert Falkenburg for his trust and encouragement, and to Alexandra-Lleana Sandu-Pieleanu as well as Manal Demaghlatrous for their continuous assistance and kindness. I also thank the American Institute of Maghrib Studies (AIMS) for awarding me a Multi-Country Manuscript Research Grant (Turkey, Morocco, Mauritania) for the year of 2010-2011.
During my research year in Mauritania I accrued debts to many erudites. I wish to express my appreciation to the scholars at the Madrasa of al-Nubbaghiyya (mabdara) for their extraordinary nomadic hospitality and awesome learned company. In particular, my deepest gratitude goes to two inspiring and radiant Shaykhs, Muhammad Fal (Shaykh ’Bah) and Shaykh al-Mukhtar Ould Hammada. I also thank my dear friend and colleague, Abubakar Sadiq Abdulkadir, whose loyal friendship and tolerable cooking sustained me during our intensive quest for knowledge (talab al- ‘ilm) in West Africa.
I am grateful to my two anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments and to Issam Eido, Mohammed Rustom, and Aydogan Kars for their insightful feedback. A special thanks to Joseph Young for his editorial assistance. I am also indebted to several colleagues including Denis Gril, Vincent Cornell, ‘Abd al-Rahim al-‘Alami, Jawad Qureshi, Samuel Ross, Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Hussein Abdulsater, Matteo Di Giovanni, Mareike Koertner, Oludamini Ogunnaike, Ryan Brizendine, Bilal Orfali, Munjed Murad, Martin Nguyen, Justin Stearns, Omer Bajwa, Rose Deighton, and Faris Casewit for their support and feedback.
Most of all, my love and gratitude goes to my dear family: to my mother, Fatima Jane Casewit, for her presence, love, and support; and to my father Daoud Stephen Casewit for his love, guidance, and diligent editorial assistance; and to my beloved brothers and sisters. A very warm and special regards to Arshad Patel and Maha Chishti for their love, steadfastness, and beauty of soul; to Noora for her kindness; to my fishing partners Iydin and Ibrahim; and to Zayaan for her extraordinary help with the girls. I thank Winnie Regala for her help on the home front. Last but not least, I am grateful to my inspiring wife, Maliha Chishti, for her forbearance and unconditional love, and our two early-rising daughters, Ayla and Hanan (a.k.a., crouching tiger, hidden dragon) for putting up with the yearly intercontinental moves and the continuous requests for bousas.
Wal hamdu Iv’ Llahi ‘ala ni‘amihi 'llati la tubsd.
Notes on the Text
The Arabic transliteration system employed throughout this book follows a slightly modified version of the system recommended by the International Journal of Middle East Studies. Proper nouns as well as technical Arabic words that are now common in English, such as Qur’an, hadith, jihad are fully transliterated. I rely on a slight modification of the transliteration system used by Encyclopaedia Iranica for the rare transliterations of Persian words.
Both hijri and Common Era dates are provided in the form hijri/CE Thus, Ibn Barrajan died in 536/1141. References in the footnotes are short, and consist usually of the author’s surname and a shortened title of his/her work. A handful of works are referred to by other abbreviations which are listed in the next section. Encyclopedia articles are cited in the footnotes as: Abridged Name of Encyclopaedia, “Title of Article,” (Author). For example: El’, “Abi Madyan,” (D. Gril). Manuscripts (sing. MS, pl. MSS) are cited as Abridged Title of Manuscript, Place, MS Library Collection and Number (Number of Folios; hijri date of copying). For example: Sharh, Istanbul, MS Topkap1 Ahmet III 1495 (257 ff.; 595 h).
Translations of the Qur’an rely considerably upon S. H. Nasr’s The Study Quran (New York, 2015) and A. J. Arberry’s The Koran Interpreted, 2 vols. (London, 1955). Formulaic invocations of blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad and/or his family and Companions are often omitted from the English translations for the sake of brevity.
Introduction
The most common misconception about the history of Andalusi mysticism is that it is popular and therefore well-studied. While the extraordinary impact of this tradition upon Islamic thought as a whole is widely acknowledged, only its prominent fourth-/tenth- and seventh-/ thirteenth-century representatives have received some of the attention they deserve. Broadly speaking, modern scholarship has accounted for Muhammad b. Masarra al-Jabali’s (d. 319/931) surviving mysticophilosophical treatises, as well as the central corpus of writings penned by “The Greatest Master” (al-shaykh al-akbar) Muhyi al-Din b. ‘Arabi (d. 637/1240).
However, much of the formative early sixth-/twelfthcentury period remains terra incognita. We are a long way from a nuanced appreciation of the ways in which figures such as Ibn Barrajan (d. 536/1141), Ibn al-‘Arif (d. 536/1141) and Ibn Qasi (d. 546/1151) contributed to Andalusi mystical thought and provided a link between the early Masarri tradition and later elaborations of Ibn ‘Arabi. These middle-term scholars played a formative role in developing the Andalusi mystical tradition, but are largely forgotten, eclipsed, and assessed through Ibn ‘Arabi’s interpretive lens in both medieval and modern sources.
What doctrines did they espouse? In what ways did the teachings of Andalusis like Ibn Masarra, as well as Eastern scholars like Abi Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111) bear upon them? To what extent did they impact Ibn ‘Arabi and his contemporaries? How did they perceive their own place within the Islamic scholarly tradition? And how did they self-identify vis-a-vis the broader Arabic Sufi tradition in the Eastern heartlands of Islam? Such questions have rarely been posed, and even less have been answered.’
This study of the formative sixth-/twelfth-century period of Andalusi mysticism, which focuses in particular on Ibn Barrajan’s writings, is intended as a contribution to the ongoing reassessment of the intellectual developments of the late al-Murabitin period in al-Andalus. It also affords a reevaluation and corrective of certain uncharted and misunderstood religious tendencies during this period. First, this study corrects the assertion by some that the formative Andalusi mystical tradition was a backward version of the classical Sufism of the East. It also corrects the notion that this tradition was a passive fertile soil into which Ghazali’s encyclopedic “Revival of the Religious Sciences” (Ibya’ ‘ulm al-din) and Sufism were implanted. Eastern Sufi and renunciant literature written by figures like Ghazali, Muhasibi (d. 243/857), Tustari (d. 283/896), and Makki (d. 386/996), as well as Ash‘ari theology and certain elements of philosophy, did inform the writings of Andalusi mystics during the formative period, but to a much lesser degree than has been assumed.
Rather, champions of Andalusi mysticism espoused a symbiosis of Quranic teachings and Sunni Hadith with the Neoplatonizing treatises of the Brethren of Purity (Ikbwdan al-Safa), the writings of Ibn Masarra, and, through indirect contact, Fatimi Isma‘ili cosmological doctrines circulating in the intellectual milieu of al-Andalus. As such, exponents of this symbiotic mystical discourse were more interested in cosmology, the science of letters, cyclical notions of time, and the principle of associative correspondence between heaven and earth than in Sufi wayfaring, ethics, and the psychology of the soul.
Al-Andalus was home to an indigenous mysticophilosophical tradition that was distinct from the Arabic Sufi tradition that developed in the central and eastern lands of Islam. This typological distinctiveness is confirmed by the self-image that Ibn Barrajan, Ibn Qasi, and to a certain extent Ibn al-‘Arif had of their own place within the Islamic tradition, as well as their near-total neglect of Ghazali and the broader body of Sufi writings. They tended to keep Sufism (tasawwuf) at arm’s length, and rarely employed the term. As a case in point, Ibn Barrajan spoke of Eastern Sufism only in the third person.
That is, he described them as a distinct group of pietists who developed their own set of terminology. He admired Sufis for codifying the ethical teachings and spiritual states and stations of the renunciants (zubhdd), but saw Sufis as being less mystically and philosophically inclined than the Andalusi tradition to which he belonged. He considered Sufism to be an intensely pious, behaviorally and ethically oriented, individualistic pursuit of self-purification. Their divisions and subdivisions of the virtues, states (sing. bal), and stations (sing. maqam) were of little interest to him, for he preferred to focus on the crossing or penetration (‘ibra) into the unseen world (ghayb) through signs of God in physical existence.
The Andalusi mystics of the formative early sixth/twelfth century, and especially Ibn Barrajan, self-identified as “Mu'‘tabirin,” or “Contemplatives” (lit. practitioners of i‘tibdr, or the Masarran ‘ibra “crossing” into the unseen). Although the term Mu ‘tabir is rooted in the Qur’an (Q. 3:13, 12:111, 16:66, 59:2) and is not the exclusive property of Ibn Masarra and his followers, it is a designation that they most often identified with and that captured their shared mystical orientation. The Mu'‘tabirin, moreover, proclaimed theirs to be an Abrahamic approach, since Abraham (Q. 6:74—-79) arrived at knowledge of divine unity by contemplating God’s signs in creation, thereby embodying Ibn Masarra’s mysticophilosophical quest for certainty (yagin). Ibn Masarra proclaimed the intellect’s (‘aql) ability to ascend to the highest divine mysteries without taking recourse to revelatory knowledge, and his writings served as an important source of inspiration for the Mu‘tabirin. Although Ibn Masarra was persecuted and accused of heresy, his resilient ideas continued to resurface and evolve through the teachings of various Andalusi mystics over the next 200 years, only to receive their fullest elaborations in the early sixth/twelfth century. After the collapse of the al-Murabitin dynasty in the mid-sixth/twelfth century and the rise of the pro-Ghazalian al-Muwahhidin regime, the teachings of the Mu‘tabirin were absorbed into the broader nascent Sufi tradition across the Muslim West. These teachings were resynthesized in the voluminous works of seventh-/thirteenth-century philosophical mystics such as Ibn ‘Arabi, Harrali (d. 638/1241), Ibn Sab‘in (d. 668/1270), Shushtari (d. 667/ 1269), and Tilimsani (d. 690/1291). Notably, these figures all settled and died in the East, and their teachings left an indelible mark on Islamic thought. With the rise of Sufi biographical compilations in the Maghrib around the same period, the representatives of the Mu‘tabirtn tradition were subsumed under the generic category of “Sufi” and lost their group identity. Given that the Mu'tabirin self-identified with a different epistemological category, I refrain from describing them as “Sufi,” and instead I employ the term mystic (i.e., one who is interested in the mysteries of the unseen world) or simply Mu‘tabir (singular of Mu‘ tabirtn).
Thus, the full-fledged “Sufi tradition” of the Muslim West, which arose as a distinct and institutionalized movement in the seventh/thirteenth century, was neither imported from the East nor grew steadily out of the renunciant tradition. Instead, “Sufism” comprised two major branches that hark back, in the case of al-Andalus, to the early third-/ninth-century Andalusi Umayyad period. The first is the praxis-oriented, intensely devotional, renunciantory quest for the divine embodied by the renunciant tradition of Seville, as well as later figures such as Aba Madyan (d. 593/ 1197), Shadhili (d. 656/1258), Jazuli (d. 869/1465), Zarriq (d. 898/ 1493), and others. This tradition of “juridical Sufism” represents a continuation of the early renunciant tradition of al-Andalus, with an added layer of inspiration drawn from Ghazali’s teachings in particular, and the Eastern Arabic Sufi tradition at large.
The second branch of the Western Sufi tradition was more philosophically inclined and controversial. This trend was — and saw itself as — a distinctive mystical tradition which evolved parallel to the first and drew comparatively little inspiration from Ghazali and the Eastern Arabic Sufi tradition. It harks back to the teachings of Ibn Masarra, which were forced underground periodically between the fourth/tenth to the fifth/eleventh centuries, then reemerged as a fully developed mystical philosophy with Ibn Barrajan and his peers in the formative early sixth/ twelfth century, and finally reached their pinnacle with the much more elaborate writings of Ibn ‘Arabi and his likeminded peers in the seventh/ thirteenth century.
In the broadest terms, therefore, appreciating the nuance and complexity of the formative Andalusi period inevitably complicates the historiography of medieval Islam, which posits a division between periphery and center: the “Marginal Muslim West” (the Maghrib) and the “Middle” Eastern heartlands (the Mashriq). Building on previous theoretical studies,* my suggestion is that medieval Islam was polycentric. AlAndalus, at least as far as the history of mysticism is concerned, was its own productive “center” and the flow of mystical teachings between East and West was thoroughly bidirectional. In other words, Andalusi mysticism was not provincial but rather a world unto itself. Its luminaries drew just as much from their own local traditions as they did from the works of Easterners. Far from being an intellectually peripheral site of learning that passively adopted Eastern influences, the Andalusi mystical tradition both gave and received. Its intellectual distinctiveness and, one might even venture to say intellectual autonomy during the sixth/twelfth century vis-a-vis parallel trends in the Arab East is evidenced by a close reading of its written output.
IBN BARRAJAN AT THE FOREFRONT OF THE MU TABIRUN TRADITION
By far the most preeminent, influential, and prolific mystic of the formative period was Ibn Barrajan of Seville, whose full name was Abi alHakam ‘Abd al-Salam b. ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Abi al-Rijal Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Rahmaan al-Lakhmi al-Ifriqi al-Ishbili (d. 536/1141). He stood at the forefront of the Mu '‘tabirin tradition, and marked the culmination of the sixth-/twelfth-century nexus of a broad range of intellectual undercurrents. He was, by admission of his own contemporaries, the most prominent, prolific, and senior Andalusi mystic of his day. He even earned the honorific title “The Ghazali of al-Andalus” in his own lifetime. This honorific has often been misread by scholars as a sign of Ibn Barrajan’s intellectual indebtedness to Ghazali. In reality, this title simply denotes that, like his great Persian counterpart, Ibn Barrajan was regarded by his peers in al-Andalus as the supreme embodiment of the Islamic mystical ideal combined with law-abiding orthodoxy.
The astounding breadth and depth of Ibn Barrajan’s knowledge shines through every page of his works. One of the most remarkable features of his oeuvre as a whole is his ability to seamlessly assimilate and draw from various fields of learning to enrich his own teachings. He crafted his vision of the Qur’an and Hadith with a broad array of unnamed sources that formed part and parcel of his inherited worldview. In venturing into other fields of learning, Ibn Barrajan displayed a high degree of intellectual independence (that of a “mujtahid,” or independent legal thinker, to use a juridical term) and was not merely synthesizing other authors’ works. Notwithstanding differences in emphasis and scholarly approach among early sixth-/twelfth-century Andalusi mystics, Ibn Barrajan’s influence and the breadth of his scholarly achievements afford a unique window into the religious and mystical tendencies of this formative period as a whole. The bulk of this study will thus be devoted to analyzing and contextualizing his teachings in relation to his peers and the broader Andalusi context.
It would be no exaggeration to state that Ibn Barrajan’s entire scholarly pursuit was driven by a singular purpose: a desire to attain absolute certainty (yagin) of the realities of the hereafter. Ibn Barrajan sought to realize the supreme goal and essence of all revealed religion, which he sometimes called the “Paradise of Certainty” (jannat al-yagin) wherein the realities of the hereafter are concretely experienced in this world. He taught that the key to reaching this sublime state is to undertake “the crossing from the visible into the unseen” (al-‘ibra min al-shahid ila al-gha ib). That is, the human being can experience a concrete foretaste of celestial realities of the hereafter by training the intellect, soul, and body to traverse from the visible dimension of existence to the unseen world. Ibn Barrajan praised those who acquired this empirical knowledge of the self as Mu'‘tabiran, literally, “Undertakers of the Crossing,” or simply “Contemplators.”
Ibn Barrajan’s epistemology of certainty occupies the bulk of his writings. He promoted i tibdr as a means of both undercutting and broadening the religious polemics of his day. For him, this contemplative ascent was a way of out the endless legalistic particularisms of Maliki jurists; the “chains of transmission” or isndd-centered epistemology of Hadith scholars; the anti-intellectualism promoted by al-Murabitin theological literalists; the excessive transcendentalism of Ash‘ari theologians; the far-fetched abstractions of the Aristotelian philosophers; as well as perceived esoterist (batini) deviations of Fatimi Isma‘ilis who trumped the divine law.
However, while Ibn Barrajan was hailed as the “Ghazali of alAndalus,” he and his namesake differ tremendously in approach and output. In sharp contrast to Ghazali, who mastered philosophy (falsafa), theology (kaldm), jurisprudence (figh), and other Islamic sciences with an eye to engaging each discipline at its own level and buttressing his spiritualizing vision of Islam, Ibn Barrajan had little interest in proving his mastery of the formal intellectual and religious sciences. While he wielded a certain command of these fields of learning, Ibn Barrajan never sought to directly confront nor engage in what he perceived as futile juridical, theological, or philosophical arguments. Characteristically, he perceived all branches of learning, including the transmitted (naqiz) and intellectual ( ‘aq/z) sciences of Islam, as well as other bodies of knowledge such as medicine, and speculations about cycles of time and determination (dawd ir al-taqdir), as points of ascension into the unseen. In his last work, he summarized his epistemology of certainty in statements such as: The path is one, the way straight, the calling one. Those who are called upon are many: some are called from nearby (Q. 50:41), others from afar. And God prevails over His affair!?
For Ibn Barrajan, undertaking the ‘ibra was an all-consuming quest for the divine in everything. It was an act that surpassed conventional faith in the hereafter. He reminded his readers that the Arabic word for faith (iman) itself entails a conviction and certainty (amn) that goes beyond abstract belief. That is, the supreme goal of religion is a concrete realization of the presence of higher realities in this world, as seen through God’s signs (a@yat Allah) in the cosmos, the Qur’an, and in the human being. For the true Mu'tabir, realities of the hereafter are concretely experienced in this life. For instance, Ibn Barrajan insisted that the idea of traversing the thin bridge over hell (strat) on Judgment Day should be experienced here and now, for the believer builds his bridge by his actions and spiritual states. Or again, quenching one’s thirst at the Prophet’s Pond (awd) can be done in the herebelow by clinging to the guidance of revelation, and the sweetness of the beatific vision (al-ru’ya al-karima) is anticipated by God’s exclusive signs in the world, like sun and moon. Thus, Ibn Barrajan saw God’s associative signs in the universe, revelation, and man as open passageways into the next world which are accessible to every believer, provided he or she has mastered the art of deciphering the grace (baraka) and wisdom (bikma) behind them.
Ibn Barrajan’s writings, which have been largely passed over in silence by modern scholars, or even dismissed as the derivative and preliminary thoughts of a secondary figure, deserve to be studied closely. At first glance, his oeuvre appears to be a work-in-progress, a loosely drafted stream of reflections, lacking the richness of Ibn ‘Arabi’s expositions and the clarity of Ghazali’s “Revival of the Religious Sciences” (Ibya’ ‘uliim al-din). Indeed, many scholars have made this point. A closer look at his ideas, however, reveal an outstanding, internally coherent, and original thinker who challenged the predominant religious discourse of his day, and whose unique hermeneutics and cosmological vision were absorbed by later codifiers of the Philosophical-Sufi tradition. But the richness, eclecticism, and subtlety of Ibn Barrajan’s teachings are easily overlooked by the hasty reader for two reasons. First, he usually dictated his works orally and quite unsystematically. Second, he never cited his sources or named his intellectual opponents. Ibn Barrajan perhaps felt compelled by the intellectually rigid sixth-/twelfth-century Maliki milieu to write with cautionary discretion and to conceal his intellectual affiliations and agenda. Moreover, he wanted his writings to appeal to a broad readership. Thus, names of his teachers and sources are deliberately omitted; his criticisms of other figures and groups are usually expressed in the third person; and he avoided terminological markers from works of Sufism, theology (kaldm), the Brethren of Purity, and Isma ‘ili writings. Rather than locating himself within a particular school of thought, he found reference for his ideas in Qur’anic verses, Hadith, Biblical passages, and sayings of the Companions, and expressed them in ad hoc fashion.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Scholars of Islamic thought of the Iberian Peninsula have yet to develop a clear understanding of Ibn Barrajan’s worldview for the simple reason that his works have up to recent years remained scattered in manuscript libraries.* Fortunately, a number of Arabic text editions of Ibn Barrajan’s works began to appear just as this current study was being prepared. The main thrust of secondary literature on Ibn Barrajan remains biographical. These newer scholarly inquiries, most recently by Bellver and Kiiciik, have refined our understanding of the important status which Ibn Barrajan enjoyed among his contemporaries in sixth-/twelfth-century al-Andalus, as well as his role in shaping and disseminating mysticism in the region. However, such scholarly inquiries are noticeably dependent upon the patchy and often-conflicting data furnished by the medieval biographical sources. Ibn Barrajan’s own works have yet to be analyzed as a whole. The over-dependence on biographical literature is problematic because the image of mysticism portrayed by biographers such as Ibn Bashkuwal (d. 578/1183) and Ibn al-Abbar (d. 638/1260) during the fifth to seventh-/eleventh to thirteenth-centuries in which Ibn Barrajan lived do not accurately reflect the actual unfolding of this tradition at the time. That is, the biographers distorted Ibn Barrajan’s self-understanding of his own place within the Islamic tradition.°
Aside from biographical studies, many researchers who have dealt with Ibn Barrajan’s thought have tendered largely unsubstantiated conjectures based on a very brief perusal of his works, or on contextual inferences from studies of his contemporaries, Ibn al-‘Arif and Ibn Qasi, and the history of the al-Murabitin persecutions of mystics and theologians during the sixth/twelfth century. Asin Palacios, who first intuited that Ibn Barrajan was influenced by the doctrines of Ibn Masarra, was remarkably accurate in his assessment but was unable to substantiate his claim textually. In the wake of Asin Palacios, scholars like Gharmini, Faure, Bell, and most recently Kiigik echoed Goldziher’s narrative, which portrays Ibn Barrajan as a receiver and propagator of Ghazali’s ideas in alAndalus.’ Others, in particular Gril and Bellver, have advanced our understanding of our author on his own grounds, but they have yet to take Ibn Barrajan’s works and teachings into account as a whole.
Aside from important and commendable editorial groundwork undertaken by Arab researchers, scholarship on Ibn Barrajan in Arabic secondary literature is generally poor and entangled in modern Athari/ Salafi versus Ash‘ari/Sufi polemics. Arab authors who have written about Ibn Barrajan and the spread of Ash‘arism in the Maghrib, such as al-Qari, Ihnana, and Hosni, have provided very informative insights on the period in general, and on Ibn Barrajan’s biography and Quranic hermeneutics in particular. However, these studies are guided by a prescriptive analysis of the tradition and are hampered by an unrelenting anachronistic attempt at reassuring the reader that Ibn Barrajan was an orthodox Sunni (Ab! al-sunna wa-l-jamd‘a) however defined by the modern author.
OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS
Chapter 1 analyzes the complex and multilayered factors that set Andalusi mysticism in motion from the early third/ninth century to the sixth/twelfth century. These include the longstanding and popular Andalusi tradition of renunciation; the early mysticophilosophical school of Ibn Masarra (d. 319/931) which had an enduring influence in later periods; the absorption of the broader body of Sunni Hadith and legal theory (usil al-fiqh) during the Umayyad and Ta’ifa period; polarizing epistemological rivalries over the miracles of saints (kardmdt al-awliya’) and the legitimacy of mystics’ claims to esoteric knowledge by means of inner purification; and the burning of Ghazali’s monumental “Revival of the Religious Sciences” (Ibya’ ‘ulm al-din).
Chapter 2 intervenes in the historiography of al-Andalus by challenging long-held assumptions about Ibn Barrajan and his peers’ intellectual indebtedness to Ghazali in the early sixth/twelfth century and by positing the existence of a self-consciously distinctive Mu‘tabirin mystical tradition with pronounced cosmological and occult leanings. This chapter demonstrates, based on the contents and chronology of Ibn Barrajan’s works, that Ibn Barrajan was already an established author and a respected mystic before Ghazali’s writings were even introduced into al-Andalus. Ghazali’s influence on Ibn al-‘Arif and Ibn Qasi is also negligible, as evidenced by a close analysis of their life and writings. I argue that the transition to institutionalized “Sufism” in al-Andalus and North Africa thus took place approximately fifty years after the death of Ibn Barrajan and his peers, that is, at the turn of the sixth/twelfth to seventh/thirteenth century. This transition from an indigenous Andalusi mystical tradition — the Mu'‘tabirain —- to an institutionalized pan-Sunni tariga Sufism was cemented by the self-consciously Sufi tariga movement of Abi Madyan as well as the North African Sufi hagiographers like Tadili’s (d. 627/1230-1) Tashawwuf ila rijal abl al-tasawwuf.
Building on and supplementing previous biographical examinations of Ibn Barrajan, Chapter 3 analyzes Ibn Barrajan’s life and works based upon not only the medieval biographies but also his own multivolume written corpus. Of special significance are Ibn Barrajan’s early years, ancestral origins, formative education, the implications of his misunderstood epithet “Ghazali of al-Andalus,” his retreat from the city of Seville, and the scholarly output of his students. This chapter also features a discussion of Ibn Barrajan’s political views on Muslim rulership, endtimes, his summoning to Marrakesh for trial, and the obscure circumstances surrounding his incarceration and death.
For such a major figure in Islamic thought, it is surprising that the exact number, sequence, contents, and titles of Ibn Barrajan’s works are a source of confusion in a large number of medieval and modern sources, which Chapter 4 explores. Ibn Barrajan articulated his teachings in four main works, of which only three have survived in full. The first, “The Guidebook to the Paths of Guidance” (al-Irshdd ila subul al-rashad), survives only partially in the Mamlik scholar Zarkashi’s Burhan and appears to be somewhat different in tone from his later works. The Irshad seeks to demonstrate the concordance or mutual overlap (mu ‘adada) between the Qur’an and the Sunna by showing how each of the ahadith narrated by Muslim in his Sahih align in meaning with the Qur’an. Ibn Barrajan’s second work, “A Commentary on the Beautiful Names of God” (Sharh asma Allah al-busnda), is a voluminous commentary on the divine names. Each of the names receives a linguistic explanation, followed by a doctrinal analysis guided by the ubiquitous principle of ‘bra, and finally a practical word of spiritual advice (ta ‘abbud, lit. practice of servanthood) in light of the divine name. The Sharh was enormously influential in al-Andalus and set the trend for a number of subsequent commentaries by other authors. The third work, “Alerting Intellects to Meditation on the Wise Book and Recognition of the Signs and the Tremendous Tiding [of Judgment Day]” (Tanbih al-afham ila tadabbur al-kitab al-hakim wa-ta ‘arruf al-ayat wa-l-naba’ al-‘azim) is Ibn Barrajan’s major commentary, which was supplemented by his final work, “Wisdom Deciphered, the Unseen Discovered” (Idah al-hikma biabkam al-‘ibra, lit. “Deciphering Wisdom Through the Properties of the Crossing”). These two commentaries consist of Ibn Barrajan’s freeflowing reflections on the divine Word. Remarkably, his entire body of surviving writings features very little doctrinal evolution, and can (or should) be read from beginning to end as a compositional whole.
Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 respectively address Ibn Barrajan’s cosmology, Qur anic hermeneutics, usage of the Bible as doctrinal proof-text, and his conception of cyclical time and divine decree. Chapter 4 lies at the heart of this book since his cosmological doctrines profoundly shape his approach to the Qur’an and spiritual practices. Ibn Barrajan’s cosmological doctrines, moreover, foreground Ibn ‘Arabi’s worldview to a remarkable degree and mark one of the earliest extensive engagements with the Neoplatonizing teachings of the Brethren of Purity in Sunni mysticism. This chapter begins with an analysis of the idea of the Universal Servant (al- ‘abd al-kulli), from which everything in existence unfolds. The Universal Servant, which anticipates Ibn ‘Arabi’s doctrine of the Perfect Man (al-insan al-kamil), is an allcomprehensive reality that is neither divine nor part of creation. The world and man derive their form (s#ra) and existence (wujitd) from the reality of the Universal Servant. Since the Universal Servant is also equated with the symbolism of the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mabfiuz), it also stands as the source of divine revelation. From the Universal Servant comes Ibn Barrajan’s principle of associative correspondence between the universe as a composite whole, man as an individual, and the Qur’an as a sonoral revelation.
This chapter also examines Ibn Barrajan’s famous concept of “The Reality Upon Which Creation Is Created” (al-baqq al-makhligq bibi al-khalq, HMBK), which marks the sum-total of God’s presence in the world through His signs (dydt) and traces (athdr). HMBK anticipates God’s full disclosure on Judgment Day, which he refers to as “The Clear Reality” (al-haqq al-mubin) and as “The Real to Whom Is the Return” (al-baqq alladhi ilayhi al-masir). Following the doctrine of HMBK, I turn to Ibn Barrajan’s ontology, which stresses the hierarchical multilayeredness and fundamental oneness of existence (wujitd). Ibn Barrajan anchors his ontology by drawing on Qur’anic references to the “hidden object” (khab’) of existence which reveals itself in the hereafter, as well as in the Hadith-inspired notion of the “Two Breaths” (al-fayhan) of heaven and hell from which the spring’s cool breezes and summer’s heat waves issue. Occasionally, Ibn Barrajan resorts to philosophical discussions of Imaginal existence (al-wujid al-mithali) to explain the continuous nature of existence in a world of becoming and decay. These discussions anticipate the notion of Imaginal existence (al-wujid al-khayali) in later SufiPhilosophical works. Finally, I examine Ibn Barrajan’s discussions of the signs of God (ayat Allah), and especially sun, moon, and water, which present open passageways into the unseen world for the believer to behold.
Ibn Barrajan’s major Qur’an commentary is one of the most important exegetical works produced in the Muslim West, which I examine in Chapter 6. It differs markedly in approach, organizational pattern, and doctrinal orientation from previous tafsirs in the region. He advocated an unprecedented hermeneutic of total immersion into the universe of the Qur’an and signs in nature, and his approach to interpreting the Qur'an is remarkably aligned with his cosmology. Virtually all of his Qur’anic technical terms, exegetical opinions, and hermeneutical doctrines are anchored in a literal reading of the Qur’an, are worked out within his cosmological scheme, and expressed in the language of differentiation (tafsil) and nondifferentiation (ijmal). Ibn Barrajan goes squarely against the Sunni tafsir tradition in almost each of his main hermeneutical doctrines.
This chapter is built around three parts that define Ibn Barrajan’s hermeneutics, namely harmony, hierarchy, and hegemony of the Qur’an. Section I examines Ibn Barrajan’s vision of the Qur’an as a harmonious, coherent, and unambiguous text. Ibn Barrajan rejects any notion of Quranic ambiguity (ishtibah) and proclaims that ambiguity lies in the eye of the reader, not in revelation. Consequently, his approach to the Qur’an is governed by the principle of nazm, that is, the compositional harmony and structural orderliness of the Qur'an. His engagement with this theme also marks one of the earliest extensive engagements by a Quranic exegete with this topic. Ibn Barrajan stressed the doctrine of nazm in his writings since he saw the Qur’an and the universe as two copies of each other: two complementary beings (wujiudan). In his vision of things, the Two Beings derive their respective forms from the Universal Servant (al- ‘abd al-kulli). Thus Ibn Barrajan believed that every Qur’anic verse (aya) is divinely placed in the revealed book for a specific purpose, just as every particle of creation is placed with a purpose in creation and reflects God in a specific way. The doctrine of nazgm has many consequences for Ibn Barrajan’s Qur’anic hermeneutics. He held each of the Quranic siras to be structured around a specific theme. Ibn Barrajan was also a staunch opponent of the doctrine abrogation (naskh) of Qur’anic verses by others. He reasoned that since every verse of the Qur’an is located in a specific position by God, two verses can only abrogate one another if the abrogated (mansiikh) verse is followed by an adjacent abrogating (ndsikh) verse.
Section II analyses Ibn Barrajan’s conception of the Qur’an as a multilayered revelation, which contains both verses that are “allencompassing” (mujmal) and others that are “differentiated” (mufassal). Ibn Barrajan conceived of the Qur’an as containing two layers. The first, which he called the Supreme Qur’an (al-qur’an al-‘azim), comprises the holistic, or all-comprehensive (mujmal), verses that engulf the entire meaning of the revelation. From the Supreme Qur’an emerge the differentiated verses (aydat mufassala), which Ibn Barrajan identified as the Exalted Qur’an (al-qur’an al-‘aziz). Moreover, certain suras, like 1 and 2, are also held by Ibn Barrajan to embrace the Qur’an’s message as a whole. Ibn Barrajan defines the so-called mubkamdat and mutashabibat verses not as “clear” or “unambiguous” verses in contrast to the “ambiguous” verses. Rejecting any ambiguity, he identifies the former as “compact/fixed” (mubkam) verses that are sunk in the Preserved Tablet, like roots sunk in the soil of nonmanifestation. The mutashabibdat verses, for their part, are mutually resembling, or “consimilar” (rather than confused), verses and constitute the bulk of the revelation.
Section III examines the primacy of the Qur’an in Ibn Barrajan’s scholarly approach. Ibn Barrajan saw the Qur’an as the yardstick against which all other bodies of knowledge, from weak Hadith to Biblical material, are to be assessed. This hermeneutical principle is expansive, since it allows for the author to integrate any wisdom literature that he deems to complement the Qur’ an: it is never used to exclude texts from his interpretive framework. This section thus examines Ibn Barrajan’s use of the Qur’an to explain itself, as well as his use of weak Hadith to shed light on Qur’anic teachings.Ibn Barrajan was surprisingly liberal in his usage of Biblical material to bolster his Qur’anic and mystical teachings, as shown in Chapter 7. He drew primarily from Genesis and the Book of Matthew, quoting Biblical passages on par with Hadith. This chapter explores the various techniques he used to reconcile perceived scriptural incongruities, and offers a comparison between Ibn Barrajan and Ibn Hazm’s (d. 456/ 1064) engagement with the Bible.
The final chapter sheds light on the author’s understanding of i ‘tibar, cycles of time, the divine command, and future predictions, which are a direct application of his cosmological and hermeneutical teachings. I examine the central idea of i‘tibar, the “crossing” into the invisible realm, with a comparison to Ibn Masarra’s i tibar. The crossing is at once an intellectual act of contemplating the heavens with the eye of correspondence, as well as a spiritual practice of anticipating the realities of the hereafter through their presence in this world.
The ‘bra in Ibn Barrajan’s works has far-reaching consequences. If it is possible to have access to the unseen realities of the hereafter, he reasons that the lines of demarcation that separate the visible from the unseen are much less rigid than they appear. Ibn Barrajan pushes the boundaries of the unseen, arguing that the unseen world (‘alam alghayb) is a relative category. Most radically, he advocates for the permissibility of peering into the future. This chapter ends with an analysis of Ibn Barrajan’s famous Jerusalem prediction, in which he accurately prognosticates the Muslim recapture of Jerusalem from the Crusaders in the year 583/1187 by applying his understanding of the cyclical nature of time and divine determination (dawd ‘ir al-taqdir) to the opening verses of stra 30 (Rum).
THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT: THE RISE AND DEMISE OF THE AL-MURABITUN DYNASTY
The life of Ibn Barrajan and his peers span approximately from mid-fifth /eleventh century to the early sixth/twelfth century, paralleling closely the historical rise and demise of the al-Murdabitin regime (r.454-541/1062-1147). The writings, life circumstances, and political views of these figures were molded by the ethnically stratified, economically challenged, and tension-ridden society of al-Andalus. Therefore a brief historical survey is indispensable here, in anticipation of Chapters 1-2, which examine the rise of these figures to prominence in al-Andalus.
The story of the al-Murabitin is intimately linked to the so-called td ifa period when al-Andalus broke up into dozens of competing regional principalities (mulik al-tawa if). The ta ifa kings rose to power after the collapse of the illustrious Umayyad Caliphate, a regime that had asserted control over large segments of the Iberian Peninsula from the mid-second/eighth century to fifth/eleventh century. The forces which gave rise to the td ifas were diverse. In many cases, td ifas were founded by community leaders with recognized social influence, or by former members of the civil and military structures of Umayyad authority, and sometimes even opportunistic governors or judges (sing. ga@di) driven by personal ambition. Typically, it was the leading members of longestablished aristocratic families with strong ties to the Umayyad dynasty who stepped in to fill the political vacuum.® One of the most important of these families were the Banu ‘Abbad, who claimed Seville as their capital. The ta’ifa of Seville provided refuge for Ibn Barrajan’s North African Lakhmi grandfather, and it is here that our author grew up. The ta ifa of Seville was founded by Muhammad b. Isma‘il ‘Abbad (d. 433/1041), a judge (qadi) who assumed political leadership and established himself as ruler of the Banu ‘Abbad. As a Lakhmi Arab, his clan wielded both political and religious supremacy in Seville up to the alMurabittin conquest. The cohesive and centralized polity which he founded enjoyed an agrarian economy which surpassed the maritime economies of the coastal cities. By the fifth/eleventh century, the Banu ‘Abbad came close to annexing the entire southwestern regions of alAndalus.?
The td ’ifas represented a fragmented prolongation of Umayyad authority rather than a new model of political authority. In the absence of a unifying caliph, the emirs assumed authoritative titles and symbols, oversaw the continuation of important socioeconomic institutions, and patronized the outstanding scholarly and artistic achievements of the fifth/ eleventh century.'° At the same time, the td’ifas were also internally divisive and often found themselves militarily, economically, politically, and ideologically threatened by the northern and northwestern Christian kingdoms of Aragon and Castile.'* The td ifas’ imposition of noncanonical taxes (maghdrim) on their disgruntled subjects to fund northern military campaigns (jihdd) or to pay annual tributes (Sp. parias) to Christian rulers enraged religious scholars and tax-paying commoners alike. Meanwhile, the Christian Reconquista of the Peninsula was in full swing. In 477/1085, Toledo, the ancient capital of the Visigoths at the heart of Iberia, fell to King Alfonso VI. This defeat was symbolically, psychologically, and militarily devastating and rendered the td ifas ever more vulnerable to attack.” The fall of Toledo was a rude awakening that reminded Andalusis of their urgent need for a strong central authority. It is in this context that the powerful al-Murabitin were summoned to al-Andalus by both jurists and ¢d fa rulers.'?
The ta ‘ifas were failed states because they were unable to fill the power vacuum which resulted from the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate. The Umayyads came to represent a yardstick of measurement for the political failures and successes of every Muslim regime that attempted to control al-Andalus. Only they were able to assert religiopolitical supremacy over the tension-ridden tribal society of Umayyad Spain, garnering enough authority to pose as Caliphs (k/alifa) of all Muslims in the fourth/ tenth century on par with the ‘Abbasids and Fatimids. The Umayyad downfall left a profound political vacuum known as the “imamate crisis,” which was expressed not only in the very structure of the ta ifas, but also in tempestuous political debates over the qualifications and candidacy for Muslim leadership (imdma). This crisis of authority outlasted the ta ifas themselves, and beset Andalusi and North African regimes and scholars for centuries. '*
Numerous unworkable solutions were tendered in the td ifa period. The powerful Banu ‘Abbad in Seville where Ibn Barrajan’s family settled, for instance, retained a fictional association with the phony Umayyad Caliph Hisham II al-Mu’ayyad whom they themselves drummed up.'° At the same time, the Bani Hammad, a prominent ruling family in Malaga with claims to a noble Idrisi lineage stretching back to the Prophet Muhammad, asserted themselves as possessors of caliphal authority.'© Various regional kings also boasted increasingly grandiose titles of rulership.'” When the al-Murabitin emirs rose to power, they adopted the compromise title of Commander of Muslims (instead of the caliphal title Commander of Believers, amir al-mu’minin, which was reserved for the ‘Abbasids), upheld a nominal allegiance to the ‘Abbasi Caliph in Baghdad, and bolstered their own religious legitimacy by sponsoring Maliki jurists.
Andalusi scholars were in equal disagreement as to how the authority crisis could be resolved. The Zahiri scholar Ibn Hazm (d. 456/1064), for instance, served as vizier to two pretenders in Valencia and Cordoba, for he was convinced that the caliph had to be Arab, Qurayshi, Umayyad, anti-Shi‘l, devoted to the service of God, and a non-ally of Christians and Jews, especially with regard to their incorporation into governmental positions.'* The Maliki jurist Abi al-Walid al-Baji (d. 474/1081), for his part, held that an unjust sultan was preferable to political disunity and civil strife (fitna).'° Radical millenarianists like Ibn Qasi revolted against the ruling power and proclaimed themselves as Mahdi. The renunciant and mystic Isma‘il al-Ru‘ayni (d. 432/1040), for his part, collected the alms (zakat) from his community of followers, whereas Abt ‘Umar al-Talamanki (d. 429/1037) and Ibn Barrajan proclaimed that virtue and moral excellence (fadila), not genealogical lineage, should be the criteria for choosing an imam of the community.”°
It is in this shaky context that the al-Murabittin were summoned to Spain. A Sanhaja Berber dynasty that burst out of the deep southern Saharan stretches of present-day Mauritania, Mali, and Rio de Oro (alsdgiya al-bamra’), they conquered first the Maghrib and established their capital in Marrakesh. As they gained ground in North Africa, the beleaguered td ifa ruler of Badajoz ‘Umar al-Mutawakkil b. alAftas summoned the military forces of the emir Yusuf b. Tashufin (r. 453-500/1061-1107) to al-Andalus to halt the increasingly militant attacks of Alfonso VI. Appeals of enlistment were also addressed to the al-Murabittin by al-Mu‘tamid b. ‘Abbad of Seville and Ibn Buluqqin
(r. 465-482/1073-1090) of Granada.”! After consulting with jurists of Fez,”” Ytsuf’s Sanhaja forces overwhelmed Alfonso VI’s Castilian troops in a northbound push and defeated them at the battle of Sagrajas (Zallaqa) in 478/1086. They recovered Lisbon and Santarem, put an end to the paria tribute taxes, then returned to Marrakesh.’? But things soon got worse. Once again, Andalusi scholars and the general populace grew weary of the td ’ifas’ petty factionalism and their inability to halt Christian advancement, and sent letters of appeal to Marrakesh pleading for a second intervention.** In 483/1090, the illustrious emir sought to put an end to the continual disputes of the ta ’ifas and their concessions with the Christian monarchs. Backed yet again by a fatwa which not only permitted but obliged emir Yusuf to invade the dissolute, pariapaying regional tyrants, he proceeded to dethrone every td ifa and established Cordoba as capital of his Andalusi protectorate.*°
The al-Murabitin annexation of al-Andalus was welcomed by locals. It was carried out in collaboration with the clerical class on both sides of the Straits. The pragmatic Andalusi judges (sing. gadi) generally favored a strong, religiously rigorous central authority,”° and turned against their weakened patrons in support of the foreign North African intervention.
The desert monarchs held sway over their Andalusi protectorate from the second-half of the fifth/eleventh century to the first-half of the sixth/ twelfth century, and were overthrown by the al-Muwahhidin revolutionaries in 539/1145, only three years after Ibn Barrajan’s death. Their position in al-Andalus was validated by their military strength and religious rigor. This meant that they were expected to consolidate the shrinking northern and northwestern borders, “re-Islamicize” the Peninsula by abolishing maligned noncanonical taxes (gat ‘ al-maghdarim), and bolstering the power of local Maliki judges.?* The Emir of the Muslims also asserted religious orthodoxy by denigrating “good-old” Umayyad culture and paying a symbolic tribute to the ‘Abbasid Sunni Caliph in Baghdad. Andalusis enjoyed several decades of economic prosperity under their new Berber protectors. There were also initial military successes, including the victory at Uclés in 502/1108. But even at their peak, the nomadic Berber dynasty was never quite at home in al-Andalus. Despite the alMurabittn’s military prowess, they had no experience in the long-distance administration of a vast, urban-based, and loosely connected AraboIslamic empire. They outsourced day-to-day bureaucratic management of al-Andalus to local officials whose authority they reinforced by their military presence. This bifurcation of administrative power structure resulted in fractious tensions. For in contrast to their earlier Khariji-like tribal egalitarianism, emir ‘Ali b. Yisuf’s third-generation al-Murabitan troops evolved into a warrior aristocracy who were becoming increasingly softened by the plentiful luxuries of Iberia. Removed from desert life, they lost their combative edge, discipline, and endurance. All they retained of their rugged homeland was an obstinate group solidarity (‘asabiyya), which, in the context of the refined urban Andalusi society, proved detrimental. Rather than earning the abiding loyalty of native administrators and aristocracies by integrating Andalusis into the new elite, they excluded new tribal elements from their caste. They went so far as to limit the very name Murdabitiin to the founding Lamttna, Massifa, and Gudala tribes, and entrusted key posts to their clansmen. In early sixth-/ twelfth-century Seville, only the “true” al-Murabitin were afforded the prestige of donning the awe-inspiring dark mouth-veil (lithdm) of the desert monarchs.” Thus, despite their initial reception as saviors of al-Andalus, the al-Murabitin were soon perceived as a military dictatorship of uncouth Berbers. The sophisticated and “high-maintenance” Andalusis, for their part, soon began to look back nostalgically at the good-old-td ifa- days, and expressed their longing for that golden age in prose and poetry.
By the second-half of ‘Ali b. Yasuf’s reign, meeting Andalusi expectations of military defense, peace, low taxes, and economic prosperity became increasingly challenging. Replenishing troops from the far-off Sahara for service in the borders of ddr al-islam against Christian aggression was logistically difficult and financially expensive. The emir tried to keep pace with his father’s aggressive jihad, and even instituted positive economic reforms in the region. But in 512/1108, Alfonso I of Aragon, “El Batallador” (The Warrior) captured Saragossa with support from the crusading nobles of southern France and the blessings of Pope Gelasius II. Worse still, ‘Ali was at a disadvantage. For in 515/1121, the alMuwabhidin messianic ideologue Ibn Taimart (d. ca. 522/1128) led a Masmida revolt in the Sis mountains of southern Morocco. This revolt put the al-Murabitin on the defensive and they could only afford to fund a defensive line of forts along the northern Andalusi borders.
In order to maintain the jihad, the al-Murabitin levied noncanonical taxes (maghdrim), from which they initially had promised to liberate Andalusis.°° In accordance with Qur’anic injunctions, Muslims in principle are only obliged to pay the zakat, while non-Muslims were to pay a poll tax (jizya). But conversions to Islam had diminished the state revenue, and the al-Murabitin, like their predecessors, were forced to impose religiously unsanctioned maghdrim, such as land tax (khardj) customs dues, upon Muslim and non-Muslim merchants alike. This juridically condemned policy was so odious to the Muslim-majority populace that the regime hired third-party Christian mercenaries to exact these taxes.’' Many scholars, including Ibn Barrajan, voiced their opposition to these taxes in their writings and fatwds. Moreover, the general political and socioeconomic corruption triggered a series of revolts in the provinces. By 525/1131, Andalusi opposition to the al-Murabitin was so strong that Sayf al-Dawla b. Hid broke away from the al-Murabitin and forged an alliance with Alfonso VII.
‘Ali b. Yasuf’s competent but ill-fated successor Tashufin b. ‘Ali held on to the reigns of power for only two years, from 537-539/1143-1145. Al-Muwahhidin rebellions led by ‘Abd al-Mu’min b. ‘Ali raged between Fez and Tlemcen. The rebels formed a military ring south of Marrakesh which obstructed communication lines between the capital and the Sahara. Tashufin b. ‘Ali was killed in Wahran in 539/1145, and in 541/ 1147 ‘Abd al-Mu’min captured the capital city of Marrakesh. In alAndalus, an insurmountable revolt shook the capital of Cordoba in 538/ 1143, after which most of al-Andalus reservedly acknowledged the alMuwabhidin. In 543/1148, the last of the al-Murabitin governors in the western Andalusi provinces, Yahya b. Ghaniya al-Massifi, died. However, Muhammad b. Ghaniya, an al-Murabitin claimant, established the Bant Ghaniyya dynasty in Palma which held sway over the Balearic Islands until 582/1187.
This summary of the political history of the al-Murabittn in Iberia provides the context against which the originality and significance of Ibn Barrajan’s scholarly contributions can be fully appreciated in Chapters 1 and 2. The decline of the al-Murabitin marked a key transitional phase of Andalusi history and molded many of the religious, social, and political positions that Ibn Barrajan adopted in his writings. Religiously, for instance, his teachings were developed and articulated in the shadow of the state-sponsored Maliki jurists (fugahd’) and judges (quddat) who gained enormous influence under the al-Murabitin. Ibn Barrajan very often preached and wrote in response to the predominant religious discourse of these powerful scholars, a discourse which he indirectly sought to challenge, mold, and broaden. At a social level, Ibn Barrajan’s withdrawal into the backlands of Seville marked not only his physical, but also sociopolitical and intellectual distancing from the mainstream religious discourse and structures of power. Instead of subjecting himself to the scrutiny of jurists, he preferred to live in free solitude as a munqabid ora renunciant “retreater” (munqabidun, lit. “those who withdraw from the political sphere”), avoiding both roles of social leadership and popular ascendancy, and shunning all forms of political cooperation with the state. Finally, Ibn Barrajan’s cynical and sometimes millenarian politics and expectations of end-times surface in his later works in response to the grave failures of the al-Murabitin to secure peace and prosperity for Andalusis. His poignant criticisms of the regime for failing to defend its northern borders from Christian encroachment, levying noncannonical taxes (maghdrim) from Andalusis, and cooperating with non-Muslim politicians speaks of the political climate of his day.
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