Bāyazīd: The Life and Teachings of the Mystic Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī (d. ca. 234/848)

Annabel Keeler is an Affiliated Researcher at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge. She works in the field of Sufi exegesis as well as the formative period of Islamic mysticism. Her published works include: Sufi Hermeneutics: The Qur’an Commentary of Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī, The Spirit and the Letter: Approaches to the Esoteric Interpretation of the Qurʾan, and a translation of Tafsīr al-Tustarī.

Preface

Acknowledgments

Notes on Transliteration



Introduction



Part1 Bāyazīd’s Life and His Speech



1 Bāyazīd’s Life and his Teachers

 1 Family Background in Basṭām

 2 Bāyazīd’s Education and his Teachers

 3 Bāyazīd as Spiritual Master in Basṭām: Veneration and Censure



2 Bāyazīd’s Disciples and Associates

 1 Bāyazīd’s Close Disciples

 2 Other Associates of Bāyazīd



3 The Question of Bāyazīd’s Dates



4 The Speech of Bāyazīd

 1 The Corpus of Bāyazīd’s Sayings

 2 Modes of Expression in the Speech of Bāyazīd



Part2 The Teachings of Bāyazīd, Fundamentals



5 The Path and Its Pitfalls

 1 Spiritual Psychology in Third-/Ninth-Century Mysticism

 2 Bāyazīd’s Understanding of the Make-Up of the Human Being

 3 Pitfalls of the Path



6 On Some Pillars and Tenets of Islam

 1 Observing the Obligatory Practices

 2 The Hajj

 3 Messengers of God and the Prophet

 4 Paradise and Hell



7 What Bāyazīd Says about God

 1 God, His Names and Attributes

 2 Divine Transcendence and Inaccessibility

 3 Intimacy

 4 Awareness of God versus Heedlessness

 5 Nothing but Him



Part3 Further Dimensions of the Spiritual Path



8 Spiritual Virtues, States, and Stations

 1 Poverty

 2 Submission to the Divine Will

 3 Complete Trust in God

 4 Humility versus Arrogance

 5 Mindfulness of God (taqwā) and Veracity (ṣidq)

 6 Annihilation (fanāʾ) and Subsistence (baqāʾ)

 7 Unification (jamʿ) and Separation (tafriqa)



9 Knowledge and Love

 1 Knowledge

 2 Love



10 Absence and Presence, Veils and Mirrors

 1 Absence (ghayba) and Presence (ḥudūr)

 2 Veils and Veiling

 3 Mirrors



Part4 Bāyazīd as Spiritual Master and in the Community



11 Bāyazīd as Spiritual Master

 1 Bāyazīd’s Homilies and Counsel to His Disciples

 2 Explanation of the Path for Others

 3 Female Disciples of Bāyazīd



12 Bāyazīd in the Wider Community

 1 Different Paths among the Muslims

 2 Bāyazīd under Censure: Challenges and Critiques

 3 Critique and Corrective

 4 Bāyazīd and his Zoroastrian Neighbours



Part5 Bāyazīd’s Autobiographical Accounts



13 Bāyazīd’s Accounts of His Spiritual Journey

 1 The Beginning of the Path and the Struggle with the Nafs

 2 Becoming Free of Self

 3 Descriptions of the Whole Journey



14 Spiritual Peregrination, Flight, and the Miʿrāj



15 The Longer Miʿrāj Narratives



Part6 Controversy, Paradox, and Contradiction



16 Shaṭḥ, Paradox, and the Paradoxical

 1 Definitions and Translations of the Shatḥ

 2 Ecstatic Utterances of Bāyazīd

 3 Paradoxes and the Paradoxical

 4 A Few Other Controversial Sayings



17 Apparent Contradictions

 1 Bāyazīd and “Miracles”

 2 The Sense of Pride (iftikhār) versus the Acknowledgement of Neediness (iftiqār)



Part7 After Bāyazīd



18 The Impact and Influence of Bāyazīd on Islamic Mysticism

 1 Early Responses to Bāyazid

 2 Later Responses to the Shaṭḥiyyāt

 3 Bāyazīd’s Wider Corpus in Sufi Literature

 4 Bāyazid among Love Mystics

 5 ʿAṭṭār and Rūmī

 6 Ibn ʿArabī

 7 Influence versus Appropriation

 8 Abū l-Ḥasan Kharaqānī

 9 A Glimpse at Bāyazīd’s Literary Influence



Conclusion & Closing Remarks



Bibliography

Index of People and Places

Index of Subjects and Terms