A. Knysh

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor;

St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg

E‑mail: alknysh@umich.edu

Tasting, Drinking and Quenching Thirst: From Mystical Experience to Mystical Gnoseology

Abstract. The Sufi term “tasting” (dhawq) and its semantic cognates “drinking” (shirb / shurb) and “quenching of thirst” (riyy) appear frequently in the Sufi writings of the ninth — eleventh centuries AD to denote a mystical experience of the true reality of God and the divine creation. Originally referring primarily to the mystic's psychological or somatic state (hal), in later Sufi literature and oral teachings, especially in the writings of Ibn al‑‘Arabi (560—638 / 1165—1240), these concepts acquire metaphysical and cosmological connotations and are construed as being shared by both God and his elect servants, that is, Sufi “gnostics” (‘arifun bi‑Allah). Consequently, they become an important part of not just the Sufi cosmology, but also of Sufi gnoseology conceived by later Sufis as the only true knowledge about the Divine Absolute and its manifestation in the entities and phenomena of the material universe. This semantic shift reflects the wider process of Sufism's transformation from a mystical psychology to a mystical philosophy with its distinctive psychology, epistemology, cosmology and soteriology.

Keywords: Sufism, mystical psychology, mystical metaphysics, mystical epistemology, Ibn al‑‘Arabi

DOI: 10.31250/1238-5018-2020-26-2-37-43

References

• Abrahamov, B. (2015), Ibn al‑‘Arabi's Fusus al‑hikam. An Annotated Translation of the “Bezels of Wisdom”, London & New York: Routledge.
• Chittick, W. (1989), The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al‑‘Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Chittick, W. (1998), The Self‑Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al‑‘Arabi's Cosmology, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Dagli, C. K. (trans.) (2004), The Ringstones of Wisdom: Fusus al‑hikam / Ibn al‑ʻArabi, trans., introd., and glosses, Chicago: Great Books of the Islamic World.
• Ergin, N. & Johnson, W. (trans.) (2006), The Forbidden Rumi: The Suppressed Poems of Rumi on Love, Heresy, and Intoxication, Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions.
• Homerin, T. E. (2001), ‘Umar Ibn al‑Farid: Sufi Verse, Saintly Life, New York and Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
• Homerin, T. E. (2011), Passion Before Me, My Fate Behind: Ibn al‑Farid and the Poetry of Recollection, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Ibn ‘Arabi (1946), Fusus al‑hikam [“The Ringstones of Wisdom”], ed. and annotated by Abu al‑‘Ala (or ‘Ila) ‘Afifi, Beirut: Dar al‑kitab al‑‘arabi.
• Ibn al‑‘Arabi (1968), al‑Futuhat al‑makkiyya [The Meccan Revelations], Beirut: Dar Sadir.
• al‑Kalabadhi (1991), Kitab al‑ta‘arruf li‑madhhab ahl al‑tasawwuf  [The Doctrine of the Sufis], trans. by A. J. Arberry, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Knysh, A. (1999), Ibn ‘Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
• Knysh, A. (2010), Islamic Mysticism: A Short History, 2nd ed., Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill.
• Knysh, A. (2017), Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
• Massignon, L. (1997), Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, trans. from the French with an introduction by B. Clark, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
• Nicholson, R. A. (trans.) (1911), The Kashf al‑Mahjub. The Oldest Persian Treatise on Sufism by ‘Ali b. ‘Uthman al‑Jullabi al‑Hujwiri, Leiden: E. J. Brill.
• Nicholson, R. A. (ed.) (1914), The Kitab al‑Luma‘ fi al‑Tasawwuf [The Book of the Essentials of Sufism], Leiden: Brill & London: Luzac.
• Nicholson, R. A. (1989), Mystics of Islam, London: Arcana.
• Orfali, B. & Saab, N. (eds.) (2012), Sufism, Black and White: A Critical Edition of Kitab al‑Bayad wa‑l‑Sawad by Abu l‑Hasan al‑Sirjani, Leiden & Boston: E. J. Brill.
• al‑Qushayri (2007), Al‑Qushayri's Epistle on Sufism, trans. by A. Knysh, Reading: Garnet.
• Ritter, H. (2003), The Ocean of the Soul: Man, the World and God in the Stories of Farid al‑Din ‘Attar, trans. by J. O'Kane with editorial assistance by B. Radtke, Leiden & Boston: E. J. Brill.
• Saab, N. (2018), “Intoxication in Sufism”, EI3, [Online] Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573‑3912_ei3_COM_32500 [Accessed 07.04.2020].
• Strotman, L. (2014), “Data Ganj Bakhsh, shrine of”, EI³, [Online] Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573‑3912_ei3_COM_27729 [Accessed 07.05.2020].

Received by the Editorial Board: 21.02.2020