Sufis and Sharīʿa: The Forgotten School of Mercy - Paperback

by Samer Dajani (Author)

This book highlights a number of the major Sufi figures whose writings on legal theory were strongly shaped by their Sufism, showing how they belonged to the same tradition and developed each other's ideas. The book focuses in particular on Ibn ʿArabī, giving a detailed analysis of his legal thought and revealing his influence on a number of major Sufi figures all the way up to the 19th century. Other key figures whose influence is explored are al-Tirmidhī, al-Shaʿrānī and Ibn Idrīs. This is the first study to give a full picture of the role that Sufi thought played in the revivalist Islamic movements of the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries.
This book is not about Sufism. It is about the nature of the Sharīʿa. In the first three centuries of Islam, many scholars believed that juristic differences were rooted in the Sharīʿa's inherent flexibility. As this pluralistic attitude began to disappear, a number of Sufis defended and developed this idea through the centuries. They aimed to preserve the leniency and simplicity of the Sharīʿa against the complications and restrictions created by many jurists.

Back Jacket

Establishes the existence of an important school of Sufi thought developed by Ibn ʿArabī This book is not about Sufism. It is about the nature of the Sharīʿa. In the first three centuries of Islam, many scholars believed that juristic differences were rooted in the Sharīʿa's inherent flexibility. As this pluralistic attitude began to disappear, a number of Sufis defended and developed this idea through the centuries. They aimed to preserve the leniency and simplicity of the Sharīʿa against the complications and restrictions created by many jurists. This book highlights a number of the major Sufi figures whose writings on legal theory were strongly shaped by their Sufism, showing how they belonged to the same tradition and developed each other's ideas. The book focuses in particular on Ibn ʿArabī, giving a detailed analysis of his legal thought and revealing his influence on a number of major Sufi figures all the way up to the 19th century. Other key figures whose influence is explored are al-Tirmidhī, al-Shaʿrānī and Ibn Idrīs. This is the first study to give a full picture of the role that Sufi thought played in the revivalist Islamic movements of the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries. Samer Dajani is an independent researcher in Islamic Studies. He mainly studies the different methodologies of the Sunni schools of jurisprudence, as well as broader theories on legal diversity and the nature of the Sharīʿa. He completed this work as a Research Fellow at the Cambridge Muslim College and was recently a lecturer at the Muslim College, London.

Author Biography

Dr Samer Dajani gained his PhD in Near and Middle Eastern Studies from SOAS in 2015, before spending a year as a Research Fellow at the Cambridge Muslim College and then working as a lecturer in both Sufism and Modern Islamic Thought at the Muslim College in Ealing, London until 2020. He then stopped teaching to focus on a major new research project, and has given talks on selected subjects from this research at The University of Cambridge, The University of Exeter, SOAS and the annual BRAIS Conference. His publications include 'Ibn ʿArabī and the Theory of a Flexible Sharīʿa', in the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society (2018), 'The Centrality of Ibn ʿArabī in Popular Ḥadīth Chains', in the Journal of the Muhyid-din Ibn ʿArabi Society (2017) and a 2013 book, Reassurance for the Seeker: A Biography and Translation of Ṣāliḥ al-Jaʿfarī's al-Fawāiʾd al-Jaʿfariyya, a Commentary on Forty Prophetic Traditions.