Abdal Hakim Murad - The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology

262 Toby Mayer
as he first tried to systematise the key Sufi concept of the state (h _
al) and
station (maqam) on the path to God. 17 Some of the great early Sufis were
to be found at the ‘Abbadan complex, such as the aforementioned Bishr
al-H _
afı, Sarı al-Saqat _
ı(d.865) and Sahl al-Tustarı (d.896).
Tustarı, a thinker of great importance in the history of Sufi thought,
had been attracted to the community by its then head, a little-known
figure by the name of Abu H _
abıb H _
amza ibn ‘Abd Allah al-‘Abbadanı.
He alone, Tustarı found, could answer the spiritual problem which had
convulsed his life from his early teens. This, if Ibn ‘Arabı is to be
believed, 18 was the problem of the ‘‘prostration of the heart’’. Tustarı
had become aware that his heart, his inner consciousness, was also in
prostration to God, like his physical body in the formal prayer (s _
alat).
Unlike his body in the s _
alat, however, Tustarı’s heart refused to return
to the stipulated standing position (qiyam). Only ‘Abbadanı couldconfirm
for him that it was perfectly correct for the heart of the mystic to be
rendered prostrate, and never to recover. It was also in seclusion at
‘Abbadan that Tustarı had the mysterious formative experience of his
spiritual novitiate – his visions of God’s ‘‘Supreme Name’’ (ism Allah
al-a‘z _
am) filling the nocturnal sky. 19
The noteworthy point about the Bakriyya is that it was as much a
theological school as a spiritual movement. Moreover, the group’s theology
was moulded in opposition to the rationalist Mu‘tazila and their
influence in Basra. In other words, it was a self-consciously Sunnı theology
which in certain respects foreshadowed Ash‘arism. 20 The movement
called the Salimiyya, presently engendered by Tustarı through his
disciple Muh _
ammad ibn Salim and the latter’s son Abu’l-H _
asan Ah _
mad
ibn Salim, was very similar. The Salimiyya was one of the major Sufi
movements of the late ninth century, but it is sometimes referred to in
Muslim doxographical works as a theological (kalam) school. For
instance, Baghdadı’s Distinction between the Sects (al-Farq bayn
al-firaq) refers to the Salimiyya as a band of kalam scholars in Basra. 21
Theologically, the Salimiyya’s doctrines, like those of the Bakriyya, were
opposed to Mu‘tazilism. The movement was indeed broadly linked with
the radical anti-Mu‘tazilite perspective known to its enemies as the
h _
ashwiyya (approximately: the ‘‘stuffing-ists’’, i.e. the outspoken literalists).
The h _
ashwı perspective was formalised, above all, within
H _
anbalism and it is significant that the Salimiyya sought refuge in the
metropolis of Baghdad inside the H _
anbalite quarter. The major contemporary
H _
anbalite scholar Abu Muh _
ammad al-Barbaharı (d.941) had
in fact been a disciple of Tustarı. 22 An important proposition of the
Salimiyya suggestive of an ethos analogous to that of H _
anbalism is that
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