Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:52:20.441Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 28 - Mysticism

from Part III - Spiritual and Intellectual History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2021

Phillip I. Lieberman
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
Get access

Summary

In the thirteenth century, Judaism and Islam gave birth to two monumental works which had a lasting impact on their respective mystical systems: within Judaism and the Kabbalistic tradition it was the Zohar, the Book of Splendor, “which was destined to overshadow all other documents of Kabbalist literature by the success and the fame it achieved and the influence it gradually exerted.” According to Yehuda Liebes, who has studied the method and process of its compilation and the identity of those who participated in this process, the Zohar seems to have been compiled by “the mid-thirteenth-century circle of ‘Gnostic Kabbalists’ in Castile.” Within the Muslim mystical tradition, it was the work of the Andalusian born Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240), in particular his Meccan Revelations (al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya), in which “he was to express in writing that vast range of esoteric knowledge, which, until his time, had been transmitted orally or by way of allusions only.” That these two thirteenth-century mystical works, which mark turning points in the history of Jewish and Islamic mystical traditions, were conceived within such temporal and spatial proximity is thought-provoking. The fact that both were compiled by mystics of Spanish origins raises the question of possible common roots. Indeed, although Kabbalah, geographically and temporally speaking, relates to post-Andalusian Jewish history, when one adds up the literary testimonies stemming from the tenth century onward, it appears that the question of Kabbalistic origins should be viewed with an Andalusian prehistory in mind. In spite of clear differences between the two – the Zohar was compiled in Aramaic in the later part of the thirteenth century within a Jewish circle from the north of Spain living under Christian rule; the Meccan Revelations was written in Arabic in the earlier part of that same century by an Andalusian Muslim (albeit after having left al-Andalus for the eastern Muslim world) – both the Zohar and the Meccan Revelations mark the culmination of an intellectual, mystically inclined process, which, for Andalusian Jews and Muslims alike, had started approximately two centuries before, that is, in the tenth century, when certain teachings were brought to al-Andalus from the East and inspired there a growing interest in the mystical dimension of the religious life.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Select Bibliography

Addas, Claude. Quest for the Red Sulphur. The Life of Ibn ʿArabī, trans. Kingsley, Peter (Cambridge, 1993).Google Scholar
Altmann, Alexander, and Stern, Samuel M.. Isaac Israeli: A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century (London, 1958).Google Scholar
Asín Palacios, Miguel. The Mystical Philosophy of Ibn Masarra and His Followers, trans. Douglas, Elmer H. and Yoder, Howard W. (Leiden, 1978).Google Scholar
Baḥya Ibn Paqūda, . The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart, ed. and trans. Mansoor, Menahem (London, 1973).Google Scholar
Corbin, Henry. Creative Imagination in the Ṣūfism of Ibn ʿArabī, trans. Manheim, Ralph (Princeton, 1969).Google Scholar
de Smet, Daniel. “Les bibliothèques ismaéliennes et la question du néoplatonisme ismaélien,” in D’Ancona, Cristina, ed., The Libraries of the Neoplatonists (Leiden, 2007), 481–92.Google Scholar
Ebstein, Michael. Mysticism and Philosophy in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra, Ibn al-ʿArabī and the Ismāʿīlī Tradition (Leiden, 2014).Google Scholar
Goitein, S. D.Abraham Maimonides and His Pietist Circle,” in Altmann, Alexander, ed., Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge, MA, 1967), 145–64.Google Scholar
Goldreich, Amos. “The Theology of the Iyyun Circle and a Possible Source of the Term ‘Aḥdut Shava,’” in Dan, Joseph, ed., The Beginnings of Jewish Mysticism in Medieval Europe, Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 6 (1987), 141–56.Google Scholar
Judah Halevi, . Al-Kitāb al-Khazarī: The Book of Refutation and Proof on the Despised Faith, ed. Baneth, David H. and Ben-Shammai, Haggai (Jerusalem, 1977).Google Scholar
Lobel, Diana. Between Mysticism and Philosophy: Sufi Language of Religious Experience in Judah Ha-Levi’s Kuzari (Albany, 2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lobel, Diana. A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue: Philosophy and Mysticism in Baḥya ibn Paqūda’s Duties of the Heart (Philadelphia, 2007).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pines, Shlomo. “Shiʿite Terms and Conceptions in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2 (1980), 165251.Google Scholar
Stroumsa, Sarah, and Sviri, Sara. “The Beginnings of Mystical Philosophy in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra and his Epistle on Contemplation,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 36 (2009), 201–53.Google Scholar
Sviri, Sara. “The Emergence of Pre-Kabbalistic Spirituality in Spain: The Case of Baḥya ibn Paqūda and Judah Halevi,” Donaire 6 (1996), 7884.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×