The Social and Theoretical Dimensions of Sainthood in Early Islam: Al-Tirmidhiís Gnoseology and the Foundations of Sufi Social Praxis.

Abstract

This dissertation offers new perspectives on al-Tirmidhi’s contribution to the Sufi doctrine of sainthood and to the development of early Islamic mysticism. Included in this study is codicological work that presents al-Tirmidhi’s Kitab al-Hikma for the first time in print. The first chapter introduces al-Tirmidhi’s social and political context and how this context played an important factor in shaping al-Tirmidhi’s doctrine of sainthood. Al-Tirmidhi’s doctrine of sainthood casts the Sunni ulama as the true representatives of Islamic religious authority, as embodied in the saints who are counted as coming from their ranks. Al-Tirmidhi’s doctrine of sainthood also incorporates aspects of various discourse streams within his learned context. The discourse streams addressed in this study are: Hellenism, early Hanafi/Murji’i theology and Islamic mysticism. Within Hellenism we find that al-Tirmidhi focuses on Pythagorean wisdom as one aspect of his gnoseology that serves to frame the non-dual quality of saintly knowledge. Al-Tirmidhi’s Hanafi theological background leads him to expand sainthood to all Muslims while restricting it in practice to the scholarly class of ulama. Islamic mysticism is a discourse stream that also informs al-Tirmidhi’s gnoseology and doctrine of sainthood through al-Muhasibī’s ‘asceticism of the soul’, an approach adopted by al-Tirmidhi and applied to his process of mystical development. Al-Tirmidhi’s doctrine of sainthood played a pivotal role in providing a Khurasanian structure to Islamic mysticism in the later form that Sufism would take. The seal of sainthood and the idea that there will always be a constant presence of saints in the world are aspects of al-Tirmidhi’s doctrine of sainthood that provide an optimistic alternative to the world outlook of Tradionalists. Ibn Arabi further refines and develops al-Tirmidhi’s doctrine of sainthood in his Fusus al-Hikam. Other mystics such as the eponyms of the Shadhili Ṭariqa developed al-Tirmidhi’s concept of wisdom as a practical tool for the education of aspirants upon the Sufi path. This dissertation presents al-Tirmidhi’s doctrine of sainthood in light of new methodological approaches and textual research that has important implications for how we understand early Islamic mysticism.