Iqtidāʾ al-ġāfil bi-htidāʾ al-ʿāqil

Bibliotheca Islamica (BI) is the Orient-Institut Beirut’s platform for the critical edition of mainly Arabic texts. The series dates back to 1929, when Hellmut Ritter edited the Kitāb Maqālat al-islamīyīn wa-ḫtilāf al-muṣallīn of Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Ašʿarī, a seminal text on dogmatic positions in the early Islamic period. Since then, the OIB has published more than fifty titles in this series.

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"Iqtida al- afil bi-htida al-aqil" is the work of Qu b al-Din Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Qas allani. Born in Cairo in 614/1217 to an Andalusian family, he studied and worked mostly in Mecca where he died in 686/1287. He was a renowned Shafi'i and Maliki jurist as well as a famous Sufi master. He is best known for his attacks on monadic Sufism, in particular Ibn Sabin who died in Mecca 668 or 669 / between 1269 and 1271.
The edited text is a polemical refutation of contemporary Sufi practices, which in Qas allan's eyes contradicted the true nature of tasawwuf.
The edition of the text is based on three manuscripts, one from Damascus, two from Istanbul. It was prepared by Dr Ahmad Gomaa Abd al-Hamid, who is a researcher at al-Azhar University in Cairo. He holds a doctorate in editing and manuscript sciences from the Institute of Arab Research and Studies (IARS) of the Arab League. Currently he works on a project editing the collected works on tasawwuf by al-Suyuti, of which two volumes have been published.