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This translation of the most ancient and celebrated Persian treatise on Ṣúfiism will, I hope, be found useful not only by the small number of students familiar with the subject at first hand, but also by many readers who, without being Orientalists themselves, are interested in the general history of mysticism and may wish to compare or contrast the diverse yet similar manifestations of the mystical spirit in Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam. The origin of Ṣúfiism and its relation to these great religions cannot properly be considered here, and I dismiss such questions the more readily because I intend to deal with them on another occasion. It is now my duty to give some account of the author of the Kashf al-Maḥjúb, and to indicate the character of his work.

Abu ´l-Ḥasan `Alí b. `Uthmán b. `Alí al-Ghaznawí al-Jullábí al-Hujwírí<sup>[1]</sup> was a native of Ghazna in Afghanistan.<sup>[2]</sup> Of his life very little is known beyond what he relates incidentally in the Kashf al-Maḥjúb. He studied Ṣúfiism under Abu ´l-Faḍl Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Khuttalí<sup>[3]</sup> (p. 166), who was a pupil of Abu ´l-Ḥasan al-Ḥuṣrí (ob. 371 A.H.), and under Abu ´l-`Abbás Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Ashqání or al-Shaqání^[4] (p. 168). He also received instruction from Abu ´l-Qásim Gurgání^[5] (p. 169) and Khwája Muẕaffar^[6] (p. 170), and he mentions a great number of Shaykhs whom he had met and conversed with in the course of his wanderings. He travelled far and wide through the Muḥammadan empire from Syria to Turkistán and from the Indus to the Caspian Sea. Among the countries and places which he visited were Ádharbáyaján (pp. 57 and 410), the tomb of Báyazíd at Bisṭám (p. 68), Damascus, Ramla, and Bayt al-Jinn in Syria (pp. 94, 167, 343), Ṭús and Uzkand (p. 234), the tomb of Abú Sa`íd b. Abi ´l-Khayr at Mihna (p. 235), Merv (p. 401), and the Jabal al-Buttam to the east of Samarcand (p. 407). He seems to have settled for a time in `Iráq, where he ran deeply into debt (p. 345). It may be inferred from a passage on p. 364 that he had a short and unpleasant experience of married life. Finally, according to the Riyáḍ al-Awliyá, he went to reside at Lahore and ended his days in that city. His own statement, however, shows that he was taken there as a prisoner against his will (p. 91), and that in composing the Kashf al-Maḥjúb he was inconvenienced by the loss of the books which he had left at Ghazna. The date of his death is given as 456 A.H. (1063-4 A.D.) or 464 A.H. (1071-2 A.D.), but it is likely that he survived Abu ´l-Qásim al-Qushayrí, who died in 465 A.H. (1072 A.D.). Rieu’s observation (Cat. of the Persian MSS. in the British Museum, i, 343) that the author classes Qushayrí with the Ṣúfís who had passed away before the time at which he was writing, is not quite accurate. The author says (p. 161): “Some of those whom I shall mention in this chapter are already deceased, and some are still living.” But of the ten Ṣúfís in question only one, namely, Abu ´l-Qásim Gurgání, is referred to in terms which leave no doubt that he was alive when the author wrote. In the Safínat al-Awliyá, No. 71, it is stated that Abu ´l-Qásim Gurgání died in 450 A.H. If this date were correct, the Kashf al-Maḥjúb must have been written at least fifteen years before Qushayrí’s death. On the other hand, my MS. of the Shadharát al-Dhahab records the death of Abu ´l-Qásim Gurgání under the year 469 A.H., a date which appears to me more probable, and in that case the statement that the author survived Qushayrí may be accepted, although the evidence on which it rests is mainly negative, for we cannot lay much stress on the fact that Qushayrí’s name is sometimes followed by the Moslem equivalent for “of blessed memory”. I conjecture, then, that the author died between 465 and 469 A.H.^[7] His birth may be placed in the last decade of the tenth or the first decade of the eleventh century of our era, and he must have been in the prime of youth when Sultan Maḥmúd died in 421 A.H. (1030 A.D.). The Risála-i Abdáliyya,^[8] a fifteenth century treatise on the Muḥammadan saints by Ya`qúb b. `Uthmán al-Ghaznawí, contains an anecdote, for which it would be hazardous to claim any historical value, to the effect that al-Hujwírí once argued in Maḥmúd’s presence with an Indian philosopher and utterly discomfited him by an exhibition of miraculous powers. Be that as it may, he was venerated as a saint long after his death, and his tomb at Lahore was being visited by pilgrims when Bakhtáwar Khán wrote the Riyáḍ al-Awliyá in the latter half of the seventeenth century.

In the introduction to the Kashf al-Maḥjúb al-Hujwírí complains that two of his former works had been given to the public by persons who erased his name from the title-page, and pretended that they themselves were the authors. In order to guard against the repetition of this fraud, he has inserted his own name in many passages of the present work. His writings, to which he has occasion to refer in the Kashf al-Maḥjúb, are—

1. A díwán (p. 2).

2. Minháj al-dín, on the method of Ṣúfiism (p. 2). It comprised a detailed account of the Ahl-i Ṣuffa (p. 80) and a full biography of Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj (p. 153).

3. Asrár al-khiraq wa ´l-ma´únát, on the patched frocks of the Ṣúfís (p. 56).

4. Kitáb-i faná ú baqá, composed “in the vanity and rashness of youth” (p. 60).

5. A work, of which the title is not mentioned, in explanation of the sayings of Ḥusayn b. Manṣúr al-Ḥalláj (p. 153).

6. Kitáb al-bayán li-ahl al-`iyán, on union with God (p. 259).

7. Baḥr al-qulúb (p. 259).

8. Al-Ri`áyat li-ḥuqúq Allah, on the Divine unity (p. 280).

9. A work, of which the title is not mentioned, on faith (p. 286).

None of these books has been preserved.

The Kashf al-Maḥjúb,^[9] which belongs to the later years of the author’s life, and, partly at any rate, to the period of his residence in Lahore, was written in reply to certain questions addressed to him by a fellow-townsman, Abú Sa`íd al-Hujwírí. Its object is to set forth a complete system of Ṣúfiism, not to put together a great number of sayings by different Shaykhs, but to discuss and expound the doctrines and practices of the Ṣúfís. The author’s attitude throughout is that of a teacher instructing a pupil. Even the biographical section of the work (pp. 70-175) is largely expository. Before stating his own view the author generally examines the current opinions on the same topic and refutes them if necessary. The discussion of mystical problems and controversies is enlivened by many illustrations drawn from his personal experience. In this respect the Kashf al-Maḥjúb is more interesting than the Risála of Qushayrí, which is so valuable as a collection of sayings, anecdotes, and definitions, but which follows a somewhat formal and academic method on the orthodox lines. No one can read the present work without detecting, behind the scholastic terminology, a truly Persian flavour of philosophical speculation.

Although he was a Sunní and a Ḥanafite, al-Hujwírí, like many Ṣúfís before and after him, managed to reconcile his theology with an advanced type of mysticism, in which the theory of “annihilation” (faná) holds a dominant place, but he scarcely goes to such extreme lengths as would justify us in calling him a pantheist. He strenuously resists and pronounces heretical the doctrine that human personality can be merged and extinguished in the being of God. He compares annihilation to burning by fire, which transmutes the quality of all things to its own quality, but leaves their essence unchanged. He agrees with his spiritual director, al-Khuttalí, in adopting the theory of Junayd that “sobriety” in the mystical acceptation of the term is preferable to “intoxication”. He warns his readers often and emphatically that no Ṣúfís, not even those who have attained the highest degree of holiness, are exempt from the obligation of obeying the religious law. In other points, such as the excitation of ecstasy by music and singing, and the use of erotic symbolism in poetry, his judgment is more or less cautious. He defends al-Ḥalláj from the charge of being a magician, and asserts that his sayings are pantheistic only in appearance, but condemns his doctrines as unsound. It is clear that he is anxious to represent Ṣúfiism as the true interpretation of Islam, and it is equally certain that the interpretation is incompatible with the text.^[10] Notwithstanding the homage which he pays to the Prophet we cannot separate al-Hujwírí, as regards the essential principles of his teaching, from his older and younger contemporaries, Abú Sa`íd b. Abi ´l-Khayr and `Abdalláh Anṣárí.^[11] These three mystics developed the distinctively Persian theosophy which is revealed in full-blown splendour by Faríd al-dín `Aṭṭár and Jalál al-dín Rúmí.

The most remarkable chapter in the Kashf al-Maḥjúb is the fourteenth, “Concerning the Doctrines held by the different sects of Ṣúfís,” in which the author enumerates twelve mystical schools and explains the special doctrine of each.^[12] So far as I know, he is the first writer to do this. Only one of the schools mentioned by him, namely, that of the Malámatís, seems to be noticed in earlier books on Ṣúfiism; such brief references to the other schools as occur in later books, for example in the Tadhkirat al-Awliyá, are probably made on his authority. The question may be asked, “Did these schools really exist, or were they invented by al-Hujwírí in his desire to systematize the theory of Ṣúfiism?” I see no adequate ground at present for the latter hypothesis, which involves the assumption that al-Hujwírí made precise statements that he must have known to be false. It is very likely, however, that in his account of the special doctrines which he attributes to the founder of each school he has often expressed his own views upon the subject at issue and has confused them with the original doctrine. The existence of these schools and doctrines, though lacking further corroboration,^[13] does not seem to me incredible; on the contrary, it accords with what happened in the case of the Mu`tazilites and other Muḥammadan schismatics. Certain doctrines were produced and elaborated by well-known Shaykhs, who published them in the form of tracts or were content to lecture on them until, by a familiar process, the new doctrine became the pre-eminent feature of a particular school. Other schools might then accept or reject it. In some instances sharp controversy arose, and the novel teaching gained so little approval that it was confined to the school of its author or was embraced only by a small minority of the Ṣúfí brotherhood. More frequently it would, in the course of time, be drawn into the common stock and reduced to its proper level. Dr. Goldziher has observed that Ṣúfiism cannot be regarded as a regularly organized sect within Islam, and that its dogmas cannot be compiled into a regular system.^[14] That is perfectly true, but after allowing for all divergences there remains a fairly definite body of doctrine which is held in common by Ṣúfís of many different shades and is the result of gradual agglomeration from many different minds.

It is probable that oral tradition was the main source from which al-Hujwírí derived the materials for his work. Of extant treatises on Ṣúfiism he mentions by name only the Kitáb al-Luma` by Abú Naṣr al-Sarráj, who died in 377 or 378 A.H. This book is written in Arabic and is the oldest specimen of its class. Through the kindness of Mr. A. G. Ellis, who has recently acquired the sole copy that is at present known to Orientalists, I have been able to verify the reading of a passage quoted by al-Hujwírí (p. 341), and to assure myself that he was well acquainted with his predecessor’s work. The arrangement of the Kashf al-Maḥjúb is partially based on that of the Kitáb al-Luma`, the two books resemble each other in their general plan, and some details of the former are evidently borrowed from the latter. Al-Hujwírí refers in his notice of Ma`rúf al-Karkhí (p. 114) to the biographies of Ṣúfís compiled by Abú `Abd al-Raḥmán al-Sulamí and Abu ´l-Qásim al-Qushayrí. Although he does not give the titles, he is presumably referring to Sulamí’s ṭabaqát Al-ṣúfiyya and Qushayrí’s Risála.^[15] The Kashf al-Maḥjúb contains a Persian rendering of some passages in the Risála of Qushayrí, with whom al-Hujwírí seems to have been personally acquainted. A citation from `Abdalláh Anṣárí occurs on p. 26.

Manuscripts of the Kashf al-Maḥjúb are preserved in several European libraries.^[16] It has been lithographed at Lahore, and Professor Schukovski of St. Petersburg is now, as I understand, engaged in preparing a critical text. The Lahore edition is inaccurate, especially in the spelling of names, but most of its mistakes are easy to emend, and the text agrees closely with two MSS. in the Library of the India Office (Nos. 1773 and 1774 in Ethé’s Catalogue), with which I have compared it. I have also consulted a good MS. in the British Museum (Rieu’s Catalogue, i, 342). The following abbreviations are used: L. to denote the Lahore edition, I. to denote the India Office MS. 1773 (early seventeenth century), J. to denote the India Office MS. 1774 (late seventeenth century), and B. to denote the British Museum MS. Or. 219 (early seventeenth century). In my translation I have, of course, corrected the Lahore text where necessary. While the doubtful passages are few in number, there are, I confess, many places in which a considerable effort is required in order to grasp the author’s meaning and follow his argument. The logic of a Persian Ṣúfí must sometimes appear to European readers curiously illogical. Other obstacles might have been removed by means of annotation, but this expedient, if adopted consistently, would have swollen the volume to a formidable size.

The English version is nearly complete, and nothing of importance has been omitted, though I have not hesitated to abridge when opportunity offered. Arabists will remark an occasional discrepancy between the Arabic sayings printed in italics and the translations accompanying them: this is due to my having translated, not the original Arabic, but the Persian paraphrase given by al-Hujwírí.

Reynold A. Nicholson.

KASHF AL-MAḤJÚB.