What Is Islamic Esotericism?: Liana Saif

Introduction Correspondences 7, no.
1 (2019): 1–59
Special Issue: Islamic Esotericism
What is Islamic Esotericism?*

Liana Saif
[email protected]
Introduction
In the last few years, attention to Islamic forms of esotericism has become more
pronounced in the field of Western esotericism as a repercussion of the prob-
lematisation of its implied regional and cultural demarcations, and also as an
effect of the promotion of global perspectives. The instability of “West” and
“Western” as regional and cultural categories and the question of their useful-
ness have been discussed by many scholars, involving a rethinking of the para-
digms of comparison between Western and Islamic esotericisms.1 However, the
fruitfulness of a comparative endeavour is stipulated by a preliminary outlining
of Islamic esotericism, which has not been systematically undertaken yet. There-
fore, this article aims to prepare the grounds for more discerning comparative
1. Asprem, “Beyond the West,” 3–33; Granholm, “Locating the West,” 17–36; and Pasi,
“Oriental Kabbalah,” 151–66.
* I am grateful to Mark Sedgwick for supporting this special issue, and this article in p
articular,
and for all the members of the European Network of the Study of Islam and Esotericism
whose engagement with the ideas in this article has been constructive and illuminating. I am
also indebted to Wouter Hanegraaff for making it possible for me to be involved in discus-
sions and events, formal and informal, within the University of Amsterdam’s “Western Esote-
ricism” program, ESSWE and related events. This has been a primary incentive for writing this
article, in order for me to participate most fruitfully in the field. I would like to acknowledge
Alexander Knysh and Michael Bergunder for reviewing drafts of this article, a generosity that
helped me refine my arguments, methods, and sources. I would also like to extend my gratitude
to Aren Roukema and Allan Kilner-Johnson for their enthusiasm for this special issue and their
patience, in addition to everyone involved in the journal. I am thankful for Julian Strube’s
valuable comments and invaluable support. Finally, I have received incredible encouragement
from Rosalie Basten for which I am forever grateful.
© 2019 Liana Saif.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Published by Correspondences: Journal for the Study of Esotericism.
1
Saif / Correspondences 7, no. 1 (2019): 1–59
approaches by setting up a theoretical framework for what can be called Islamic

esotericism based on etymological and historical justifications. I propose assessing
any Islamic esoteric current according to two epistemological paradigms; namely,
intellectual or revelatory approaches to hidden phenomena (natural, celestial and
divine), which intersect with social orientations perceived in personal and/or com-
munal pieties. Special attention will be given to two periods when the concept of
bāṭiniyya, translatable as esotericism, was catalysed. The first is between the tenth
and thirteenth centuries, a period that witnessed a paradigm shift due to the devel-
opment and institutionalisation of Sufism, which challenged intellectual and phil-
osophical investigation of hidden realities, instead touting revelation as the only
true way. The second is the early to mid- twentieth century when the term ésotérisme
islamique emerged in the Traditionalist milieu. The chronological jump is justified
here by, first, admitting that as a medievalist primarily, I have been analysing con-
ceptions and the epistemes under which they were formulated as they manifest in
texts from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries, but also as they were reformulated
and negotiated in texts from later periods. These influential medieval conceptions
had a career of reception and were reconstituted according to new social, political
and intellectual developments and geographical settings. Nevertheless, this article is
in the big picture an invitation to explore the various forms of Islamic esotericism
in different periods and regions. It does not pretend to be a complete survey.
From a genealogical perspective, the Traditionalists came up with the term
“Islamic esotericism,” adopting and negotiating esoteric ideas from Islamic his-
torical sources, including medieval ones. The Traditionalist conceptualisation
drew on and became part of a history of reformulation and reconstitution of
similar concerns revolving around bāṭin as esoteric and bāṭiniyya as esotericism
that began in the medieval period. The objective of my own “interference”
in this historical discourse is to begin creating a theoretically and historically
legitimate platform for the study of Islamic esotericism based on a theoretical
blueprint that is open for revision by the studies that it may inspire.
© 2019 Liana Saif.

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Before I delve into what Islamic esotericism is, I will highlight what it is not
by looking at the ways that Islam has been discussed in the discourse of Western
esotericism, which has successfully achieved what this article is aiming for, becom-
ing a field. It is also important to do so since Islam is often the first to be called
upon in the problematisation of Western esotericism as an academic construct and
as a historical movement that, in various currents, embraced or reacted to the “East”
generally, and Islam especially. I highlight the reduction of Islamic e sotericism to
a perennialist view of Sufism and Illuminationist philosophy, and then propose a
perspective, preparatory to comparative endeavours, that is conscious of the areas
of entanglement between Western esotericism and Islamic esotericism.
I. The Globalisation of Esotericism and Islam
The debate of globalising esotericism often begins with pointing out the con-
spicuous absence of other cultures and societies in the narrative of Western
esotericism as formulated in the seminal works of Antoine Faivre, especially
Access to Western Esotericism. The cause of this is his belief that esotericism is a
Western phenomenon that took formal shape in the Renaissance.2 He is wary of
any notion of a universal esotericism that may result from a religionist attitude;
that is the meta-empirical perspective of the believer which contrasts with the
methodological agnosticism of the scholar.3 He stresses, “to be sure, there is per-
haps ‘some esotericism’ in other cultural terrains (e.g. ancient Egypt, Far East,
Amerindian civilisations, etc.), and the temptation to apprehend a ‘universal’
esotericism, to seek out its probable invariants is understandable.”4
Naturally then, Faivre does not say much about “Islamic esotericism” real
or imagined. Nevertheless, in the bibliographical guide a small section is in-
cluded entitled “esotericism and Islam” where he lists authorities on “Arab
2. Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, 3.

3. For the application of this in the definition of esotericism see Hanegraaff, “Empirical
Methods in the Study of Western Esotericism,” 99–129.
© 2019 Liana Saif.

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esotericism.” This bibliography comprises seven works by Henry Corbin, four

by Mohammad Amir-Moezzi, and works by William Chittick, Seyyed H ossein
Nasr, Pierre Lory, Fuat Sezgin and Manfred Ullmann. The prominence of
Corbin and the inclusion of Chittick and Nasr is indicative of an adherence
to a “Westernist” attitude, since these authors represented in their works a
form of universalism directed and influenced by Western Traditionalist and
perennialist perspectives.5 This is explicit in Faivre’s discussion of “imagination
and mediation,” the third out of four primary criteria of Western esotericism.
Without delving into the oft-discussed problematics of his criteria, it is worth
noting that Faivre references Henry Corbin’s concept of mundus imaginalis, which
he describes as “an Arabic influence (Avicenna, Sohravardi, Ibn Arabi) [that]
was able to exert a determinative influence here in the West.”6 The three men-
tioned here are the Muslim “sweethearts” of perennial philosophy. As will be
later shown, this is a persistent reduction of Islamic esotericism. Furthermore,
in a note on Corbin, Faivre writes, “In this area, H. Corbin is the principal
reference author. Reading his works not only allows us into Shiite esotericism,
but also helps us to better understand Judeo-Christian esotericism, especially
since the author himself never missed the opportunity to establish discerning
connections. All of his work should be cited.”7 Despite the above-mentioned
reductionism, credit must be given to Faivre’s implicit invitation to look at
Islamic esotericism as the other side of the story of Western esotericism, some-
thing that is often overlooked by his critics as we shall see below.
Accepting Western esotericism as “a modern scholarly construct,” without
denying any reality to the field,8 Wouter Hanegraaff echoes Faivre when he admits
5. Knysh, Sufism, 39; Ernst, “Traditionalism, the Perennial Philosophy, and Islamic Studies,”
176–81; Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 157. Corbin and Chittick did so in the context of
Eranos (for its perennial commitment see Hakl, Eranos, 221, 254; Sedgwick, Western Sufism,
20–35; Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 153–57.
6. Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, 12–13.
8. Hanegraaff, A Guide for the Perplexed, 3–4.
© 2019 Liana Saif.

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that “Western esotericism must have its parallels in the East. The logical result
of such a perspective is that the study of ‘esotericism’ turns into a form of com-
parative religious studies that seeks to discover the universalia of ‘inner’ religion
world-wide.” The religionist model and its resulting notion of “general world-wide
‘esotericism’” cannot coincide with the study of Western esotericism from the re-
ligious studies perspective that rejects that model. It seems, then, that an academic
global study of Islamic esotericism is caught between a pestle and a mortar, reli-
gionism and non-existence. Though Hanegraaff stresses “the importance of inter-
confessional exchange and ‘discursive transfer’ across cultures,” he adds that “the
point should not be exaggerated. It still remains the case that Jewish and Islamic
forms of ‘esotericism’ have emerged and developed as largely self-contained and
relatively autonomous traditions, accessible during most of their histories only to
pious Jews and Muslims within their own respective communities.”9
When it comes to Islam, this last claim has not been, and really cannot be,
substantiated by any systematic study; there are no programs that are dedicated
to the study of Islamic esotericism. More significantly, the very idea of “self-con-
tained” traditions is problematic, when we consider the movement and trans-
lation of texts (Indian, Persian, Greek, Byzantine, etc.) in the Islamicate world,
the movement of people (al-Andalus), and military expansion (Mongols, Turkic
peoples, etc.). Moreover, to be part of esoterology it is not necessary, as this arti-
cle will show, to reduce the conversation to discursive transfer. Nevertheless, the
bypassing of the medieval period in the dominant grand narratives of Western es-
otericism, particularly as articulated in the works of Faivre, still diverted attention
away from the cross-cultural transfer of ideas and practices that are central to the
conceptualisation of Western esotericism, such as “gnosis,” the nature of semio-
logical world-views, and occult philosophy.10 This article will show that Islamic
esotericism (ar. bāṭiniyya) can exist independently from Western esotericism as
9. Hanegraaff, A Guide for the Perplexed, 15.

10. Saif, The Arabic Influences, passim.
© 2019 Liana Saif.

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modern heuristic construct, yet its inclusion, though not exclusively, in the study
of Western esotericism is extremely fruitful because of its entanglement with the
historical currents that are being expressed by and negotiated within the construct.
Hanegraaff revisits the problem of West-centric perspectives in “The
Globalisation of Esotericism.” He argues for a historically inherent “global”
aspect to Western esotericism since from its conception in the early modern pe-
riod, it resulted from an ahistorical view of the universal function of religions
as maps for the same Truth.11 Hanegraaff argues that this inherent “global-
ist” tendency of Western esotericism was also part and parcel of early modern
Protestant polemics that contributed to the conceptualisation of e sotericism as
welcoming “pagan” heresies. In a way, this was continued by the E nlightenment
thinkers’ opposition to “superstition” and its association with esotericism.
He sees this as “our first instance of the globalization of ‘esotericism’ — al-
though that particular term was not yet used at the time, and the valuation
was still wholly negative.”12 Furthermore, according to Hanegraaff, the global-
isation of esotericism is evident in the nineteenth century, when “magic” and
“occult” were reclaimed by “a new class of enthusiasts and practitioners as
positive and superior human endeavours, encountered everywhere around the
globe.”13 What Hanegraaff addresses here is the universalistic tendencies in the
conceptualisation of Western esotericism by opponents and proponents. In
reality, the former weaponised “paganism” and later “superstition” as tools
for othering all those around the world who did not subscribe to the protes-
tant ideology and European rationality respectively. The latter exoticised “the
rest” of the world to reclaim authenticity for themselves. Such a universalism
cannot be understood as globalisation. A globalist approach rejects traditional
geographic units (“areas” and “civilisations”), and calls attention to zones of
interaction which can be geographical but also chronological: where and when
11. Hanegraaff, “The Globalisation of Western Esotericism,” 57.

12. Hanegraaff, “The Globalisation of Western Esotericism,” 64–66.
© 2019 Liana Saif.

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intellectual exchanges occurred and perhaps even contributed to the (re)shaping

of global trends. Universalism in its positive or negative form whitewashes cul-
tural variants and historical-political contexts; globalisation emphasises them
and sheds light on the networks of association and reference between them.14
Notwithstanding this, as Hanegraaff emphasises in his article, a cultural and
geographical expansion of the meaning of Western in Western esotericism is
underway and the conversation is opening up.15
Inviting experts on Islamic contexts will enrich the conversation and we will
be able to effectively witness the motion of currents that not only demonstrates
exchanges of ideas but the ways whereby these exchanges become strategies of
identity formation. “East” and “West” are always shifting in boundary and
meaning, especially in the case of the Islamic and Christian ecumenes. Their
identities are in part fashioned relative to one another; therefore, to set any
cultural and religious borders is difficult.16 The interaction between them as
powers competing for centuries over the legitimization of one version of the
Abrahamic message, and proclaiming one religious narrative, allowed them to
occupy common yet contested conceptual, ideological and geographical terrains,
and esotericism is in there somewhere. Therefore, Hanegraaff is correct in point-
ing out that this has “highly sensitive political implications: you cannot think
about the nature of ‘the West’ for very long — in fact, you probably cannot think
about it at all — without coming face to face with the painful but unavoidable
legacy of Western imperialism, colonialism, orientalism, racism, and so on.”17
These issues and their repercussions are crucial for the historical appraisal of West-
ern and Islamic esotericisms which Hangeraaff and others are demanding.18
14. Hanegraaff, “The Globalisation of Western Esotericism,” 57–58.

16. The case of medieval Spain: Tiezen (ed.), Christian Identity amid Islam; Tiezen, Cross Veneration
in the Medieval Islamic World; The case of Czech identity: Lisy-Wagner, Islam, Christianity and the
Making of Czech Identity.
18. It must be made clear, that Wouter Hanegraaff has personally invited me to take part in several
© 2019 Liana Saif.

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Rejecting the singularisation of “Western” and “non-Western,” Kennet

Granholm’s tactic is to divert the conversation from “how the esoteric has
been othered” to “othering as an integral element of esoteric discourse itself.”19
Here he views the romanticisation of the esoteric Other as a type of “positive
orientalism” which is contrasted with a “standard orientalism” that creates an
exotic — perhaps exoteric — Other whose morals and manners are at odds with
high European values.20 According to Granholm, this began with what John
Walbridge, followed by Hanegraaff and Dylan Burns, refers to as “Platonic
Orientalism”: the fascination for an exoticised version of ancient Persia, Egypt
and Chaldea among Platonic and Pythagorean philosophers,21 which continued
in The Theosophical Society’s veneration of non-Western culture, particularly
India. It was interrupted by nineteenth-century occultist movements that cul-
tivated a Western tradition in opposition to the Theosophical Society. Never-
theless, “positive orientalism” is gleaned in Traditionalism and its followers
who embraced Islam and Orthodox Christianity. It is still present in the New
Age fascination with “Eastern Wisdom.”22 However, it was the nineteenth- and
twentieth-century occultist movements that introduced the term “Western.”
Granholm proceeds to show how late-modern societal processes of globalisa-
tion, detraditionalisation, increased pluralism and post-secular re-enchantment
further complicate the already problematic issue of what is to be placed under
the “Western” banner, concluding that it is best to avoid employing it as essen-
tially as it has been in the field.23
events, and has been keen, as are the organisers and members of ESSWE, to have Esotericism in
Islam represented in the field. The European Network for the Study of Islamic Esotericism has
been recently established by Mark Sedgwick, and I am one of the founding members.
19. Granholm, “Locating the West,” 22.
21. Walbridge, The Wisdom of the Mystic East 5–8; Hanegraaff, Rejected Knowledge, 12–16; Burns,
“The Chaldean Oracles of Zoroaster,” 158–79.
22. Granholm, “Locating the West,” 23–24.
© 2019 Liana Saif.

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Granholm provides a useful outline of the forms of othering adopted by

Western esotericists. It remains, however, unclear how “positive orientalism”
challenges the qualifier. The sacralisation of the Orient is not an inclusive
gesture, rather it is a product of the European imagination of the Orient as
a mythologised land of mystery, secrets, and wisdom. Moreover, to qualify it
as “positive” is precarious, since it overpasses real ideological topographies.
Historically, Western esotericism has been largely dismissive of local vari-
ances of lived religions. It sees in them a degeneration of an apocryphal pro-
jection of a pure Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, etc.24 In at least its colonial
manifestations, this esoteric orientalism demoted the beliefs, convictions,
and practices of the majority of people, often deeming them superstitious
and irrational, part of an “Islam” construed as a spiritually bereft “religion.”
It perceived v aluable expressions of esotericism in limited circles such as Sufi
elites and poets, by generating apocryphal histories of ancient religions —
prominently Persian, Chaldean, and Egyptian — that permeate the air of the
Orient. At best it was something that inspired literary and visual motifs; at
worst, it contributed to the dehumanisation of real people and marginalisa-
tion of their own esoteric practices such as popular tasawwuf.25 Granholm is
indirectly alluding to the two trends of Orientalist engagement with esoteric
currents that have been posited by Alexander Knysh in relation to Sufism.
Knysh distinguishes between arm-chair academics who were mainly philol-
ogists and translators more attentive to classical Sufi texts, and a pragmatic
colonial administrative power that focused on the social aspect of Sufism.
The former were more empathetic with their subjects and the latter were less
so if one follows Edward Burke III’s analysis. However, Knysh and others
such as Linda Sijbrand have emphasised that the separation should not be
exaggerated and they provide examples of such ambiguity. 26
24. In the case of the Theosophical Society and Sufism, see Sedgwick, Western Sufism, 144.
25. Sijbrand, “Orientalism and Sufism,” 99–101 ; Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions, 20.
26. Sijbrand, “Orientalism and Sufism,” 1–5, 98; Knysh, Sufism: A New History, 5–7; Burke III, “The
© 2019 Liana Saif.

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Kocku von Stuckrad is resolutely critical of the exclusion of Jewish and

Islamic esoteric “traditions” from the grand narrative of Western esotericism
and denounces its bypassing of antiquity and the medieval period. In this he
directly challenges Faivre.27 The latter responds to this critique by insisting that
the exclusion was a methodological choice rather than a deliberate diminishing
of the importance of these traditions. Instead he chose to deal with an “ occident
visited by Judaism and Islam.” He intended to leave the study of Islamic “eso-
tericism” — whether or not it is, or can be, called this — to the e xperts, in order
to avoid any universalism.28 In his response to this defence, von Stuckrad right-
ly points out the problematic idea of a West merely “visited” by Judaism and
Islam, citing also the entanglement of Christian/European identity with Islam
and Judaism.29 However, Faivre’s call for the experts to speak about Islamic
esoteric experiences is fair; especially since, as he points out, von Stuckrad’s own
treatment of the subject is very limited and hardly contributes to the expansion
of the narrative.30 It confuses more than illuminates. First, he exemplifies the
Islamic tradition with Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī (1154–1191) almost exclusively,
attributing to him “the establishment of a philosophical system that integrated
rational modes of demonstration with experiential modes of gaining truth, the
latter being itself part of a demonstrable system of interpretation.”31 This is
not unique to Suhrawardī and was developed by thinkers before him. Islamic
philosophy and mysticism has been characterised by a tension between syllogis-
tic-intellectual and experiential-revelatory modes of knowledge.32 Furthermore,
in a study that calls for considering the contribution of the Islamic “tradition”
in Western esotericism, von Stuckrad does not sufficiently demonstrate how this
Sociology of Islam: the French Tradition,” 155; Knysh, ‘Historiography of Sufi Studies,” 118–19.
27. von Stuckrad, Locations of Knowledge, 19.
28. Faivre “Kocku von Stuckrad et la notion d’ésotérisme,» 208.
29. von Stuckrad, Locations of Knowledge, 19–20 .
30. Hanegraaff, “Review of Locations of Knowledge,” 71–72.
31. von Stuckrad, Locations of Knowledge, 83–88, esp. 88.
32. Saif, “From Ġāyat al-ḥakīm,” 297–45.
© 2019 Liana Saif.

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supposedly Suhrawardian way of thinking influenced European esotericism, and

what kind of important role the Islamic circles played in the conceptualisation
of philosophia perennis and its influence on European discourses.33 If the intention
is to confirm the existence of an Islamic esotericism, then choosing Suhrawardī
is emblematic of its reduction to the perennialist characterisation à la Corbin.34
In comparative work between Islamic and Western esotericisms it is not nec-
essarily the best strategy to re-designate the qualifiers “Western” and “European”
that have become determinate of the comparative structure. First, this would
ignore the fact that “Western esotericism” is itself a historical designation devel-
oped in the nineteenth century. As Julian Strube demonstrates, n ineteenth-century
French esotericists constructed an “occidental esotericism” to dissociate them-
selves from the Eastern esotericism of the Theosophical Society.35 However, as
Michael B ergunder writes, “this re-designation would also ignore the most im-
portant fact, that is that nowadays these general terms are used globally. It is not
solely in the possession of ‘Europe’ or the ‘West’ to (re)claim them exclusively.”36
In reality, “East” and “West” are identifications that are constantly shifting
and changing based primarily on political and economic aspirations of different
groups at certain periods of time. For example, in the eighth and ninth c enturies,
Islamic cultures of “the East” were identifying themselves as of the “West” in
relation to India, the tantric bloc, and China when trade with these areas was
heavy.37 Interacting with Buddhism, Hinduism and Z oroastrianism had an or-
ganic influence on Islamic culture and its religious and esoteric practices, and
this same political and economic aspiration created channels of entanglement
33. von Stuckrad, Locations of Knowledge, 25–26. For a study on the influence of Medieval Islamic
philosophers, astrologers, and occultists on European occult and esoteric philosophies, see Saif,
The Arabic Influences, passim.
34. Walbridge, The Wisdom of the Mystic East, 8, 13, 110; Walbridge, The Leaven of the Ancients,
9–10, 223–25; see also the review of this work by Gutas, “Essay-Review,” 303–9.
35. Strube, “Occultist Identity Formations,” 568–95.
36. Bergunder, “What is Esotericism?,” 39.
37. Elverskog, Buddhism and Islam, 11–12, 26–27, 32–33, 59–60.
© 2019 Liana Saif.

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that reached Europe and the US. As another example, Muslims of al-Andalus
were viewed as part of al-maghreb, meaning “the West,” and the Muslim cultures
of Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Persia were called al-mashriq, “the East.”38 Therefore,
“West” and “Western” have their place; however, to use them we must be aware
of the power structures that have placed these orientations on the map. In other
words, using these qualifiers in our research must reflect the cultural, political,
and economic orientations of the actors, groups, and regions we are analysing.
In our case, the cross-cultural complex that is “esotericism” is historically and
ideologically real, as this article demonstrates, and the dust from the polyphoni-
cally entangled political, cultural and intellectual currents that play a part in the
formation and d estabilisation of identities and discourses of power has never settled.
Thus, the argument for an entangled history of esotericism is also a solution to
navigating the dichotomy of Western vs Islamic and West vs East. Islam as a limita-
tion of East immediately implies that the Islamic experience is geographically con-
tained there. What about African-American Islam and its esoteric experience? What
about European experiences of Islamic esotericism, Western Sufism for example?
Of equal significance is the process of Western esotericisation of Islamic traditions
such as Sufism. With a global perspective, we can still critically retain the prototype
of “West” for the feasibility of comparison as argued above and look at the experi-
ences of Islam as culture and religion in Europe, America and elsewhere.39
Matthew Melvin-Koushki, aiming to de-orientalise the conversation on
Islamicate occult sciences, calls for the un-Easting of Islam and the recogni-
tion of “Islam as equally the West,” which naturally results in rescuing the
Islamicate early modern period from the decline narrative that sees it as an in-
tellectually/scientifically bereft period, coinciding with the rise of Europe and
its intellectual reinvention. Indeed, it is in the Islamicate early modern period
that great scientific activity was imperially patronised and utilised, at the centre
38. Lopez Lazaro, “The Rise and Global Significance of the First ‘West’.”
39. Bergunder, “Comparison in the Maelstrom of Historicity,” 34–52.
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12
of which were the occult sciences.40 He describes the “Arabo-Latin” traditions

“as the two parallel and equally powerful philosophical-philological trajectories
that together defined early modern Western—i.e., Hellenic-Abrahamic, Islamo-
Judeo-Christian, west of South India [my italics]—intellectual history.”41 Melvin-
Koushki’s framework is a geo-political one; namely, early modern Islamicate
Persian, Chingizid and Ottoman imperial ideologies.42 His “de-orientalisation”
is a fruitful tactic for destabilising categories and beginning to see often-ignored
historical, intellectual, and political entanglements, especially in the construc-
tion of scientific modernity. However, it can potentially exclude and orientalise
Islamic esoteric experiences and currents to the “East” of South India, which
must not be overlooked and whose own philosophical-philological trajectories
are deeply entangled with regions “west of South India.”
So it seems that historical and theoretical (re)formulations have led to the
emergence of “Western” “esotericism” that is a heuristic construct, and “West-
ern esotericism” as a historical movement. To begin to understand what could
be called Islamic esotericism in an effective way that allows for future compar-
ison, I propose that we invest in the academic capital of the theoretical con-
struct and simultaneously look for a historical discourse, gleaned from textual
evidence, which we could call Islamic esotericism.
II: A Note on the Islamic Studies Perspective
From the perspective of Islamic Studies, the use of “esoteric” and “esotericism”
has been, for the most part, unreflective. In a recent article Feras Hamza highlights
the problematics of this usage. Focusing on the context of Qur’anic exegesis,
around which most of the discussion revolves, he points out that the term has
been used mostly in relation to Sufism and Shīʿa Islam without a satisfactory
40. Melvin-Koushki, “De-orienting the Study of Islamicate Occultism,” 287–96.

41. Melvin-Koushki, “Taḥqīq vs. Taqlīd,” 193.
42. Melvin-Koushki, “Early Modern Islamicate Empire,” 355.
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13
explanation of why these terms are used in connection with the wider Shīʿī exeget-
ical literature and Sufism. He traces the genealogy of this tendency to Eliade and
Corbin, explaining that this has been justified by the use of the binary of esoteric
vs exoteric in their texts, and relates it to Shīʿī and Sufi traditions of taʾwīl that were
driven by political expedience in a persecutory environment requiring discretion.
Furthermore, the binary “esoteric” vs. “exoteric” has been used in a semantically
asymmetrical way: “esoteric” contrasting with “exoteric,” which is more firmly de-
fined by Islamicists as grammatical and lexicographical engagement with the text.
43
Hamza also points out that inferring the meaning of these terms from the field
of Western esotericism risks ignoring political and cultural specifics.44
Hamza’s analysis of the ambiguity of the “esoteric” in Islamic Studies is a
necessary step towards outlining “Islamic Esotericism” from the Islamic Studies
perspective. Hamza does not attempt this in his article as his focus is the genre
of tafsīr (exegesis) and contemporary usage of the term and its arbitrariness.
However, this very focus has the tendency to reduce the discussion to texts and
statements only. In challenging the usage in tafsīr studies, he asks, “What makes
a commentary esoteric?” and, “Is the ‘esotericism’ of a particular passage of
Qur’anic commentary, or, indeed, of an entire tafsīr, located in some structural,
linguistic, or rhetorical device?”45 Indeed, as he contends, just because exegetes
mention the bāṭin in their tafsīr, it does not mean they are committed to an
esoteric content. However, texts and passages are not essentially esoteric, and
“esotericism” is not entirely identifiable textually. Texts cannot be isolated from
the epistemes under which they were written. The question should not be how
esoteric a text is, but what it says about a way of knowing that can be described
as esoteric, justified by historical currents and records beyond just commentar-
ies on the Qur’an. This cannot be achieved without delving into historical defi-
43. Hamza, “Locating the ‘Esoteric’ in Islamic Studies,” 358, 360–62; Keeler and Rizvi, eds., The Spirit
and the Letter; Morris, “Ibn ‘Arabi’s ‘Esotericism’,” 37–64; Lory, “Aspects de l’ésotérisme chiite,” 279–98.
44. Hamza, “Locating the ‘Esoteric’,” 358.
45. Hamza, “Locating the ‘Esoteric’ ,” 364.
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nitions of “esoteric” and “esotericism” in Islamic sources and the emergence of

the latter term in the Traditionalist milieu as discussed in the next sections. This
also cannot be done without admission of our epistemological background as
scholars postulating a construct to understand historical evidence.
The problematisation of the esoteric–exoteric dichotomy in Islamic Studies,
particularly in Sufism, was also recently taken up by Simon Sorgenfrei. He
rightly rejects the view of Islamic esotericism as being exclusively represented by
Sufism, but in the process, he seems to reject the possibility that Sufism can be
part of Islamic esotericism at all. For him, the label “esoteric” has been used to
denote secrecy, elitism, rejected knowledge, and lack of adherence to exoteric or
religious duties. To demonstrate, he gives the example of Naqshbandi-Mujaddi-
di, whose “mystical experiences and esoteric practices are not, however, meant
to take priority over ordinary religious duties (farḍ) or what might be deemed
the exoteric dimension of Islam. ‘Correct dogmatic affirmation remains a
prerequisite to embarking on the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi path’.” 46 His rejection
of the dichotomy is the result of an adherence to another binary, orthodoxy vs
heterodoxy, replaced here by esodoxy and exodoxy, which is equally problemat-
ic.47 As we shall see below, Islamic esotericism functions in relation to a negotiat-
ed adherence to Law. This relationship was, and is, never so clear-cut; therefore,
to use adherence to the Law as a criterion for being non-esoteric is misleading.
Furthermore, Sorgenfrei argues that the understanding of Sufism as Islamic
esotericism is the result of particularities in the study of Western esotericism
and some of its modern Islamic depictions. This is due to several factors: first,
the suffix -ism in both esotericism and Sufism confers, according to Sorgenfrei,
a name to something that does not exist and therefore Islamic esotericism is
merely a transferal of this problem.48 Second, the orientalists’ subsumed Sufism/
taṣawwuf under the universalist category of mysticism rendering it an ahistorical
46. Sorgenfrei, “Hidden or Forbidden,” 150–51.

48. Sorgenfrei, “Hidden or Forbidden,” 153.
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construct which was strengthened by the Traditionalist perennial view.49 Finally,

the condemnation of Sufism for its esoteric occupation by the early twenti-
eth-century Muslim reform movements of Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī (d. 1897),
Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1905) and Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935), and the
Muslim Brotherhood preserved the invented dichotomy.50 Hence, Sorgenfrei
seeks to demonstrate that Islamic esotericism and Sufism do not reflect the
historical realities of taṣawwuf. He is right in that these points show that Sufism
and Islamic esotericism meant different things to different people and served
different political purposes; however, it is not clear why this excludes S ufism/
taṣawwuf from being investigated as a current of an Islamic esotericism by a
genealogical perspective that includes all the actors he cites. For examples, why
isn’t the Traditionalist take considered historical? This ambiguity is exacerbated
by the fact that it is not clear what Sorgenfrei understands by “esoteric” beyond
bāṭin as teachings on inner dimensions, in opposition to “exoteric.”51 Lacking in
the studies of Sorgenfrei and Hamza is a look at whether a construct similar to
“esotericism” existed in earlier sources, what it means, and what are the epistemes
under which it was constructed. This will be dealt with in the following section.
An important discussion of Islamic esotericism is found in the PhD the-
sis of Noah Gardiner, entitled “Esotericism in a Manuscript Culture: Aḥmad
al-Būnī and His Readers through the Mamlūk Period.” Here, esotericism is a term
Gardiner uses to frame his study of the works of the occultist Aḥmad al-Būnī
(lived as late as 1225) and their circulation in late Ayyūbid and Mamlūk exclu-
sive communities and networks that maintain discretion of knowledge and the
elitism of its Sufi and occultist producers-readers (khawaṣṣ). He writes, “the distin-
guishing characteristic of ‘Islamic esotericism(s)’ is that these social attitudes and
practices are allied to theories of Qurʾānic hermeneutics which hold that the holy
text conceals bāṭin (hidden) meanings unavailable except to initiates of the given

51. Sorgenfrei, “Hidden or Forbidden,” 145.
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esotericist community.”52 Gardiner associates the term with kitmān (concealment)

and taqīyah (caution) which were practices of discretion of early Shīʿa.
As shall be shown in what follows, Qur’anic hermeneutics is seen as one,
but not the only, principle of Islamic esotericism. However, the aspect of dis-
cretion recedes in the latter part of the fourteenth century, giving way to what
Gardiner refers to as “post-esotericist” occult sciences, particularly ʿilm al-ḥurūf
(the science of letters, letterology). This shift becomes largely responsible for
their efflorescence. 53 Matthew Melvin-Koushki picks this up and argues for
“de-esotericisation” of the occult sciences and their utilisation in imperial
Timurid and Ottoman agendas.54 Gardiner and Melvin-Koushki, thus, deploy
the term esotericism to refer to the social discretion of a certain group of
knowledge producers, which includes Sufis and occult scientists. T he fluctuation
of the importance or urgency of discretion means that it cannot be deemed a
defining trait of Islamic esotericism — bāṭiniyya — as a construct with a histor-
ical genealogy, as shown in this article, though it is necessary to define and
understand certain esoteric currents in specific periods and regions. It is for this
reason that secrecy is not considered a primary principle of Islamic esotericism,
in this article and others in this volume.
I conclude this section by highlighting the peculiarity of the way in which
the esoteric and exoteric binary is envisaged in relation to Islamic philosophy
in general, in order to understand the bigger place of bāṭiniyya in Islam. Here I
refer to the late Naṣr Ḥāmid Abū Zayd (1943–2010).
In his Falsafat al-taʾwīl (‘The Philosophy of Taʾwīl’), Abū Zayd reconsiders and
rejects the deeply set separation of taʾwīl (interpretation) and tafsīr (explanation
or exegesis). For both orientalists and people of tradition (salafis, traditional-
ists, ẓāhirīs), tafsīr is perceived as an objective act of interpreting the Qur’anic
text that assumes the interpreter’s (mufassir) ability to transcend his/her own
52. Gardiner, “Esotericism in Manuscript Culture,” 54–55, 60.

53. Gardiner, “Esotericism in Manuscript Culture,” 56.
54. Melvin-Koushki, “De-orienting the Study of Islamicate Occultism,” 287–90.
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historical and cultural framework. As a result, the text is good for every age,
place, and person. Tafsīr thus unpacks the ẓāhir. In contrast, taʾwīl of the bāṭin
is a subjective act that challenges the perceived ‘truth’ of tafsīr and triggers an
anxiety about the relevance of the revealed words. Often, the subjective m ethod
of taʾwīl is seen as reliant on foreign elements, mainly Greek, that colour the
lens of the interpreter (muʾawwil). Abū Zayd calls for moving beyond this anach-
ronistic distinction between taʾwīl and tafsīr and instead understanding them
as one multi-modal method on the basis of the fact that the interpreter in
her relationship with the text cannot act outside her historical dimension, so
that objectivity is never achievable. In the bigger picture, this allows us to bet-
ter appreciate Islamic philosophy beyond just the study of its foreign sourc-
es, mainly Greek, (the “philosophy” in Islamic philosophy). Orientalists and
traditionalists have denied Islam’s capability of producing philosophy due to
this unmalleable imposition of categories. As Abū Zayd points out, “taʾwīl is a
philosophical method that aligns existence and text.”55 It enables us to establish
the link between historical contemplations of the nature of reality and text thus
placing Islamic esotericism, which is based on this alignment, at the heart of the
Islamicate intellectual and mystical endeavour, past and present, in all its shifts.
Islamic esotericism is thus a type of content generated from this alignment, as
I hope the following pages will demonstrate.
III: “Bāṭiniyya”
It has become generally accepted to use “esoteric” and “exoteric” to translate bāṭin
and ẓāhir respectively. According to Ibn Manẓūr’s Lisān al-ʿarab (The Language of
the Arabs), completed in 1290, bāṭin can signify the interior of things. Bāṭin and
ẓāhir are among the names of Allah. Furthermore, each verse of the Qur’an is de-
scribed as having a meaning that is bāṭin (concealed and requiring interpretation)
and ẓāhir (manifest). This is derived from a popular ḥadīth (transmitted prophetic
55. Abū Zayd, Falsafat al-taʾwīl, 11–12, further discussion found in 13–16.
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saying) often cited in support of an esoteric hermeneutics: “The Prophet of God

said ‘the Qur’an was revealed over seven letters, to each verse an exterior (ẓāhir)
and an interior (bāṭin)’.”56 As Mark Sedgwick points out in his contribution to
this special issue, the word ghayb shares the sense of something hidden with the
term bāṭin; nevertheless, the latter denotes knowledge developed by a discourse
generated by exegesis, whereas the former refers to realities such as the world of
angels and the afterlife, and these are not esoteric ideas but realities, whose precise
natures are known only by God, which all Muslims must believe.57
Al-bāṭin is also used to describe “that which is veiled from the sight and
imagination of people.”58 In this way it is close to the Greek adjective eso-
teros (ἐσώτερος, α, ον), meaning “inner,” and “the part that is within.” It is
well known that Lucian uses it to describe some of Aristotle’s teachings and
it was used to describe the secret doctrines of Pythagoras. Samuel Johnson’s
eighteenth-century Dictionary of the English Language defines ‘esoterick’ as “[Lat.
esotericus, inward] secret; mysterious. A term applied to the double doctrine of
the ancient philosophers; the publick, or exoterick; the secret, or esoterick. The
first was that which they openly professed and taught to the world; the latter
was confined to a small number of chosen disciples.”59
“Bāṭiniyya,” moreover, could be translated as “esotericism.”60 The use of this
Arabic term is historical and has reflected positive, neutral and pejorative senses,
56. Ibn Ḥibbān, al-Musnad al-saḥīḥ, 243; the non-Sufi exegete Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī (d. 923)
interpreted bāṭin as knowledge of future events that only God knows, therefore, not a h ermeneutic
direction. In contrast the mystic/esotericist Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 896) understood it as the inner
sense accessed by a spiritual elite; Zahra Sands, Ṣūfī Commentaries on the Qur’ān, 8–9.
57. Sedgwick, “Islamic and Western Esotericism,” 279–81.
58. Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab, 13:54–55; see Hanegraaff, “Esotericism,” 336.
59. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 2: under “esoterick.”
60. Amir-Moezzi, “Introduction et Remerciements,» 2. Although Amir-Moezzi considers
esotericism a suitable term to use in this collection of articles, he recognises no equivalent in
Arabic or Persian for the word “esotericism.” He also equates “esoteric” with “mystical” and
places under it the Arabic bāṭin, the Persian darūn, ʿirfān, even maʿnawī (of valuable meaning), and
rūḥānī (spiritual). This conflation invites confusion since “mystical” is itself an unstable and
ambiguous term, as are, to a degree, the words included under it if not contextualised.
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all of which pertain to esoteric exegetical practices and the occupation with hid-
den phenomena and truths. The favourable sense was sometimes adopted in relat-
ing the term to Greek wisdom. The physician Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa (1203–1270), in his
ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ (‘Sources of Reports on the Classes of Physicians’)
tells the reader that the wisdom (ḥikma) of Empedocles, which he received from
the wiseman Luqmān in Syria before settling in the lands of the Greeks, is the
foundation of the thought of the bāṭinīs who were concerned with decoding his
discourse.61 Among the bāṭinīs, he includes the Andalusian mystic Muḥammad b.
ʿAbd Allah b. Masarra (883–931) who was occupied with the letter structure of
a hypostatic emanative cosmos. The historian and geographer Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī
al-Masʿūdī, in his Murūj al-dhahab (‘The Meadows of Gold’) relates Plato’s ideas on
divine love to those of the “sufi bātinīs” (al-bāṭiniyya al-mutaṣawwifa).62
In a less favourable tone, Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Qurṭubī in his Tafsīr (exegesis
of the Qur’an), citing the imam Abū al- ʿAbbās, berates the bāṭiniyya for viewing
the general dictates of the Law (al-aḥkām al-sharʿiyya al-ʿāmma) to be applied only to prophets
and the public, but as for the awliyāʾ (saints, friends of God) and the elite crowds, they do
not have a need for these dictates. They give more prominence to what takes place in their
hearts and are directed by their prevailing thoughts. They say this is due to the purity of
their hearts from [materialistic] grime and their being clear of degradation, and so divine
sciences and divine truths are revealed to them, thus learning the secrets of [all] existents.63
In a chapter on “The Science of Exegesis” (ʿilm al-tafsīr) in Kashf al-ẓunūn, (“Dispelling

Doubts”), Ḥajjī Khalīfa (1609–1657) censures the theologian and philosopher
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1150–1210) for buttressing his interpretation of the Qur’an,
known as Mafātīḥ al-ghayb (“The Keys to the Mysterious”), with the sayings of
philosophers and sages.64 In this exegetical masterpiece, al-Rāzī acknowledges that
61. Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa, ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ, 1: 230. The Arabic Empedoclean system is in essence
neoplatonic. On the Arabic reception of Empedocles, see De Smet, Empedocles Arabus.
62. al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab, 3:309.
63. al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 11:40.
64. Ḥajjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn, 1:431–32.
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“the science of the purification of the interior” —ʿilm taṣfiyat al-bāṭin — is a branch
of human sciences that seeks “to make manifest the spiritual lights and divine
revelations.”65 For him, “the scholars of the esoteric” — ʿulamāʾ al-bāṭin — are the
sages/philosophers (al-ḥukamāʾ) whose intellects are so advanced they are capable
of comprehending what “the scholars of the e xoteric” cannot. This is mentioned
in his discussion of the mysterious d
isconnected letters found at the beginning of
29 suras and has become a characteristic concern of Sufis and mystics.66 Neverthe-
less, al-Rāzī appears inconsistent in the tone with which he discusses esotericists;
often he can be apprehensive of the exegetical practices of al-bāṭiniyya,67 yet else-
where he implies that “the sciences of the esoteric” are to be pursued after perfect-
ing “the science of the sharīʿa.”68 The fact that this appears under the title of tafsīr
and along with the general acceptance of sharīʿa as a behavioural modality that
does not necessarily negate esoteric interpretation attests to what was emphasised
earlier, namely that the separation of taʾwīl and tafsīr and the view of the esoteric
and exoteric as being mutually exclusive are orientalist and polemical inventions
that nevertheless defined nineteenth- and twentieth-century forms of Islamic eso-
tericism, as we shall see. At the core of this discourse on esoteric exegesis and its
legitimacy is navigating the spectrum of ḥaqīqa (Truth) and sharīʿa (the Law), the
attainment of the former being the ultimate objective of esotericists. In his Ṭab-
aqāt al-ṣūfiyya (“The Ranks of Sufis”), the Sufi hagiographer Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
al-Sulamī (325–412/937–1021) explicates these concepts, defining sharīʿa as “the
obligation to adhere to servitude” and ḥaqīqa as “witnessing the Divine” adding
that “every law that is not buttressed by the truth is unacceptable and every truth
not buttressed by the law is unacceptable.”69
65. al-Rāzī, Mafātiḥ al-ghayb, 1:157.

66. al-Rāzī, Mafātiḥ al-ghayb, 2:250, 3:174, 14:194.
67. al-Rāzī, Mafātiḥ al-ghayb, 2:257, 17:294; 22:10
68. al-Rāzī, Mafātiḥ al-ghayb, 21:490.
69. al-Sulamī, Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfiyya, 168.
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Returning to Ḥajjī Khalīfa, he accuses esotericists (ahl al-bāṭin, lit. people of the
esoteric) or the bāṭiniyya, such as the Sufis, of dropping the exoteric significance of
the Qur’anic verses and investing only in the esoteric meaning. As such they are
heretics (malāḥida). However, some of the muḥaqqiqīn — a term used to describe Su-
fis who attained the truth — do not veer from rectitude when they maintain that
“there are hidden allusions to subtleties that are revealed to the masters of [Sufi]
paths/conduct (sulūk) which can coincide with the intended exoteric meanings.
For this is the perfection of ‘gnosis’ (ʿirfān) and absolute faith.”70 Even the master
mystic Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240) distances himself from those bāṭiniyya who “ignore
in their ‘interiorizations’ (bawātinihim) the dictates of Law.”71 It is from this nega-
tive view of “extremist” exegesis that the term bāṭiniyya developed as a pejorative
term attacking the Ismāʿīlīs specifically, Shīʿa in general, and the Qarāmiṭa, as we
see in the works of theologian Aḥmad ibn Taymiyya (1263–1328), who also dis-
misses the exegesis of Sufis, and the jurist and historian Ibn Ḥazm (994–1064).72
It is important to stress here that these are negotiations of a construct that
existed since the early middle ages. It is historically deeper than “Western
esotericism.” The most elaborate and systematic explanation of Islamic esoteri-
cism is found in Iḥyāʾʿulūm al-dīn (“Revitalising the Sciences of Religion”) by the
theologian and mystic Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (c. 1056–1111). Here, he refers to
ʿilm al-bāṭin, the science of the esoteric (esotericism), and ahl al-bāṭin, the people
of the esoteric (esotericists). The section wherein this explanation is found is
concerned with how to teach ideology (ʿaqīda), and according to al-Ghazālī one
must be aware that the adherence to the zāhir is the most important thing to
instil because it is undoubtedly commanded, whereas the bāṭin is not. Rather,
the bāṭin can be reached by occupying oneself with spiritual discipline (riyāḍa)
70. Ḥajjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn, 1:432.

71. Ibn ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, 1:504.
72. Ibn Taymiyya, al-Ṣafadiyya, 1:2, 88; see also Ibn Taymiyya, “al-Risāla fī’l-ʿilm al-bāṭin
wa’l-ẓāhir,” 1: 230; Ibn Hazm, al-Faṣl fī al-milal, 1:165, 1:33; 4:171.
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and striving (mujāhada), to attain secrets and divine light.73 This is followed by a
question posed by a hypothetical interrogator, who ponders the contradiction
implied in positing that the religious sciences deal with ẓāhir and bāṭin; namely
that having a level that is esoteric contradicts The Law (sharʿ) since it should
not have both evident and public elements and others that are non-evident and
secret. Al-Ghazālī responds that this division is not denied by the people of true
insight and that “they are indicated by The Law itself,” citing the hadith, “The
Qur’ān has a ẓāhir and bāṭin,” and ʿAlī’s statement as he points to his chest,
“here are many sciences, if only I can find [enough people] to handle them.”74
Al-Ghazāli supports this by also quoting the esotericist Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 896):
“The scholar may obtain three sciences: the knowledge of the ẓāhir which he
grants to the people of the ẓāhir, the knowledge of bāṭin (ʿilm al-bāṭin, esotericism)
that he may only reveal to its people (ahl al-bāṭin, esotericists), and a knowledge
that is between him and God Almighty which he reveals to no one.”75
The interrogator then addresses the possible implication of the separation
of ḥaqīqa (truth) and sharīʿa (the Law). Al-Ghazālī’s answer is “whoever says that
the ḥaqīqa contradicts the sharīʿa or that the bāṭin contradicts the ẓāhir, it is closer
to apostasy (kufr) than to faith (īmān).” Then, like Faivre dealing with Western
esotericism in the twentieth century, al-Ghazālī in the twelfth provides five
criteria to Islamic esotericism:
1. The matters involved are subtle and are not easily understandable save by the spiritual
elite (khawāṣṣ), who must not divulge their findings to those who are not worthy.
2. It concerns things that prophets and righteous ones refrained from describing since
the gravity of such knowledge might be harmful to the public but not to the elite, the
way the sun can damage the eyes of bats.
3. The contemplation of a concept that can be expressed by means of allegories and
symbols to have more effect on the heart of the listener and with much greater benefit.
73. al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, 1:138–39.

74. al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ, 139.
75. al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ, 140.
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4. The perception of a thing in its generality first, then perceiving it in its details through
mystical realisation and intuition (taḥqīq and dhawq), to such a degree that the whole and
the details become one: “the first like the husk and the second like the kernel, the first
as the ẓāhir and the second as the bāṭin.”
5. Verbal language used to translate spiritual states (lisān al-muqāl, lisān al-ḥāl, literally “the
language of states”), so that those deficient in understanding only understand the ẓāhir
and those with insight into the truths can perceive the bāṭin.76
The first two criteria relate to concealment, the third to its allegorical form, the
fourth to its epistemological stance — namely its wholistic approach — and the
fifth refers to its translinguistic quality; all of which have been points of reformu-
lation and negotiation throughout the history of Islamic esotericism.
One example of such reformulation is the Ismāʿīlī tradition of taʾwīl. Beyond
the acrimony lurking behind the label bāṭinīs, the Ismāʿīlīs did not necessarily
undermine the exoteric for the esoteric. Rather, they elevated the esoteric value of
the Qur’anic text by presenting it as a text that transitions between exoteric and
esoteric realities and knowledge. For al-Ghazālī, the esoteric is supererogatory; for
the Ismāʿīlīs it is the exegetical and cosmic obligation embodied by the six proph-
ets — described as the enunciators (nāṭiqs) of the exoteric (zāhir, sharīʿa), to whom is
added al-Mahdī and the “silent ones” (ṣāmits), spiritual legatees (waṣīs) who deliver
esoteric truths to the select.77 In Asās al-taʾwīl (“The Foundation of Interpretation”)
the Ismāʿīlī jurist al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 974) expounds on the esoteric obligation
that he describes as complementing his other work, Daʿāʾim al-islām (‘The Pillars of
Islam’), concerned with exoteric obligations. From the outset, he explains that the
exoteric obligation is the first to be taught to a child and perfected. The “sense of
the bāṭin” is subtle and is perceived in codes and allusions which excite the grow-
ing child’s senses, leading them to wisdom. In support of this, al-Qāḍī cites the
Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq — “We express in one word, seven aspects”— and many verses
from the Qur’an as well as the same hadith cited by al-Ghazālī, as noted above.78
76. al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ, 140–44.

77. Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān, Asās al-taʾwīl, 40–42 ; Daftary, Ismaili Literature, 19.
78. Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān, Asās al-taʾwīl, 23–30.
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Scholars of Islam are generally hesitant to employ the term bāṭiniyya to describe
Islamic “esotericism.” This is due to inheriting its pejorative identification, with
the Ismāʿīlīs particularly. However, in addition to its etymological suitability,
historically it has not been used exclusively in this sense, as shown in this sec-
tion. Having demonstrated some historical uses, formulations, and r ethinkings,
we are justified in speaking of ʿilm al-bāṭin and bāṭiniyya as esotericism and of
bāṭinīs (or ahl al-bāṭin) as esotericists, to whom al-bāṭin, the esoteric, is the focal
point of their exegesis and wisdom.
IV. Islamic esotericism of the Traditionalists and its Impact

It is hardly surprising to find an early instance of bāṭin and ẓāhir translated as
“esoteric” and “exoteric” in an article written by J. Leyden “On the Rosheniah
Sect, and its Founder Báyezid Ansárí” published in 1812 in the Journal of Asiatic
Researches. The Rocheniyya are described as a heretical sect that, despite having
been suppressed, held meetings at night in Peshawar. Its founder began as a Sufi
but “diverged wider and wider from the pale of Islam.”79 He would first convince
his followers or aspirants to renounce sharīʿa (religious laws of conduct) in order
to embark on the path to perfection (in the Sufi sense, ṭarīqa), then he would
prevail upon them to discard the ṭarīqa as a formal Sufi method in order to
properly attain ḥaqīqa, that is Truth.80 The author of one of Leyden’s sources, the
Afghani Akhu’n Derwe’zeh, reminds his reader, that “it is expressly stated in the
fundamental books of religion, that whoever asserts the sheri’at and hak’ik’at, the
exoteric and the esoteric doctrines of the law, to be at variance, is an infidel.”81
This is similar, almost word for word, to al-Ghazālī’s statement discussed above.
As shown earlier, the correlation between bātin/ḥaqīqa and ẓāhir/sharīʿa is
enunciated in taʾwīl discourse and Sufi doctrines. It became the nexus of what in
the early twentieth century was understood and termed as “Islamic esotericism”
79. Leyden, “On the Rosheniah Sect,” 364, 373. I am grateful to Julian Strube for referring me to this.
80. Leyden, “On the Rosheniah Sect,” 374–75.
81. Leyden, “On the Rosheniah Sect,” 376
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in Europe. The French Sufi and developer of Traditionalism, René Guénon

(1886–1951) was the first to speak of “l’ésotérisme islamique” and it certainly
became closely associated with his ideas about Sufism.82 In a treatise entitled
“Islamic Esoterism,” Guénon begins his exposition with the above correlations:
Of all the traditional doctrines, perhaps Islamic doctrine most clearly distinguishes the
two complementary parts, which can be labelled exoterism and esoterism. In Arabic
terminology, these are the sharīʿah, literally “the great way,” common to all, and the
ḥaqīqah, literally “the inward truth,” reserved to an elite . . . esoterism comprises not only
ḥaqīqah, but also the specific means for reaching it, and taken as a whole, these means are
called the ṭarīqah, the “way” or “path” leading from the sharīʿah to the ḥaqīqah.83
Therefore, for Guénon esotericism is the same as taṣawwuf (Sufism). His construction
of Islamic esotericism is probably the result of his belief in a rift between the pri-
mordial tradition of the Orient and the spiritually bereft Occident.84 For Guénon,
Islamic esotericism is a pure self-evolving tradition without “foreign” borrowings,
while simultaneously being universal in the sense that all kinds of traditions and
ṭuruq (paths) lead to the Truth.85 Though he was initiated into the Shādhiliyya
Arabiyya by Ivan Aguéli in 1910–1911, evidence lacks of an exclusive adherence to
Islam before the 1930s. After his initiation, he and Aguéli were involved in Taoist
and Masonic initiations.86 Nevertheless, the rootedness of Islamic esotericism in
scriptural exegesis which is the foundation of esotericism in Islam, and the privilege
of the Arabic language in the esoteric exegetical exercises essential to Sufism, meant
that Guénon ultimately chose Islam and Sufism as his personal tools for navigating
the quest for the universal truth.87 For Guénon, Islamic esotericism, similar to all
esotericisms and different from Christian “mysticism,” is active and initiatory. The
esoteric aspiration is buttressed by the pursuit of “traditional sciences”: alchemy,
astrology, the science of letters (ʿilm al-ḥurūf), numerology, and jafr. Guénon stress-
es the principle of “symbolic correspondences” applied in these sciences, which
82. Valsan, “Islam et la Fonction de René Guénon,» 14, 40.

83. Guénon, “Islamic Esoterism,” 1.
84. Sedgwick, Western Sufism, 173; Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 25–26.
85. Guénon, “Islamic Esoterism,” 1–2, 4.
86. Sedgwick, Western Sufism, 155.
87. Guénon, “Islamic Esoterism,” 4–5.
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“translate the same truths into the languages proper to different orders of reality,
united among themselves by the law of universal analogy.” By their application,
the initiatic process reproduces in all its phases the c osmological process itself. As a
result, the material sense of alchemy is rejected, and astrology is described as “a cos-
mological science” rather than a “divining art.”88 The science of jafr “exhibits all the
rigor of an exact and mathematical science.” Modernity has eclipsed such sciences
in the West despite their existence in the medieval period and antiquity.89 In anoth-
er article entitled “The Influence of the Islamic Civilisation in the West,” Guénon
rues how the esoteric or traditional sciences are unknown to modern Westerners:
The Europe of our day no longer has anything that might recall these sciences; beyond
this, the West is ignorant of the true knowledge represented by esoterism and its related
sciences, although in the Middle Ages it was completely otherwise; and in this sphere,
too, Islamic influence appeared in a most luminous and evident way.90
Therefore, Guénon’s Islamic esotericism must be understood against the

background of Western esotericism’s negotiation of the crisis of modernity and
the post-Enlightenment destabilisation of the relationship of science and religion;
as elaborated in his other works such as The Crisis of the Modern World.91 Islamic
“esoteric” sciences afford Guénon an ideation of science enmeshed in religion,
Islam imagined here; such sciences not only function on the level of “reality” as
other exact sciences, but they sublimate awareness to the level of the macrocosm.
Furthermore, Guénon’s Islamic esotericism shifts the emphasis within “orien-
tal esotericism” — logically generated from the aforementioned nineteenth-cen-
tury construction of an “occidental esotericism” — from Hindu and Buddhist
traditions to Sufism. Thus, Islamic esotericism in this Guénonian/Traditionalist
form is an inextricable development of the history of Western esotericism.
Traditionalist construction of Islamic esotericism is also represented by Frith-
jof Schuon (1907–1998), who, following the recommendation of Guénon, was ini-
88. Guénon, “Islamic Esoterism,” 7

89. Guénon, “Islamic Esoterism,” 6–7.
90. Guénon, “The Influence of Islamic Civilisation in the West,” in Insights, 42.
91. Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 25–28.
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tiated into Sufism by Shaykh Aḥmad al-ʿAlawī in 1933 and founded the Maryam-
iyya path.92 Schuon’s universalist application of Islamic esotericism is even more
pronounced than Guénon. When he was 25, before receiving initiation, he wrote,
Is the Nirvana of Mecca different from the Nirvana of Benares simply because it is
called fanā’ and not nirvāna? Either we are esotericists and metaphysicians who transcend
forms . . . and do not distinguish between Allāh and Brahman, or else we are exotericists,
“theologians,” or at best mystics, who consequently live in forms like fish in water and
who do make a distinction between Mecca and Benares.93
Later when he was 74, his attitude remained unchanged,

Our ṭarīqah is not a ṭarīqah like the others. . . . Our point of departure is the quest after
esotericism and not after a particular religion — after the total Truth, not a sentimental
mythology. To renounce and forget the religion of our [Christian] forefathers simply to
immerse ourselves in another religion . . . could never be our perspective.94
For Schuon, sharīʿa, the extrinsic aspect of religion, colours metaphysical truth
(ḥaqīqa) — i.e. esotericism, which itself is universal and thus uncoloured.95
In Islamic esotericism, esotericism comes first, Islam second, which is to be
distinguished from “esoteric Islam,” thus reversing the order.96 Elsewhere,
he speaks of two esotericisms: strict, which is based on a particular ideology
“linked to speculations offered de facto by traditional sources;” and universal,
which “springs from the truly crucial elements of religion,” and these two are
interconnected. The former, however, is connectable to the various degrees of
the esoteric hermeneutics of the Qur’an itself.97 Despite his universalism, the
rootedness of Islamic esotericism in exegesis necessitates the interconnection,
for he considers speaking of an esotericism not linked to a form as absurd, thus:
92. Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 86–87.

93. Cited in Cutsinger, “Introduction,” xxix.
94. Cutsinger, “Introduction,” xxix.
95. Schuon, “Two Esotericisms,” 17.
96. Schuon, The Book of Keys, No. 1008, “Islamic Esotericism and Esoteric Islam”; Schuon, “The
Quintessential Esoterism of Islam,” 102.
97. Schuon, “Two Esotericisms,” 18–19.
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Islamic esoterism will never reject the fundamentals of Islam, even if it happens inciden-
tally to contradict some particular exoteric position or interpretation; we can say that
Sufism is orthodox thrice over, first because it takes wing from the Islamic form and not
from anywhere else, secondly because its realisations and doctrines correspond to truth
not to error, and thirdly because it always remains linked to Islam.98
In addition to the universalist characteristic of Islamic esotericism and its exe-

getical basis, Schuon and Guénon employ it as an identity marker. For the for-
mer, embracing esotericism — Islamic in this case — is on the one hand a resusci-
tation of what the West once “worshipped” but in the modern age has “burnt,”
and, on the other hand, is an elevation of the “worldliness of E asterners” and
their excesses in body and soul. He laments “that it would be a mistake to
conclude that the West possesses nothing in this respect and has everything to
learn from the East. . . . Grosso modo, the West possesses everything essential, but
it does not wish to hear of it, and in this consists its drama and absurdity.”99
Guénon and Schuon thus cemented a Traditionalist and perennialist view of
Sufism under the term “Islamic esotericism.” This view has become influential to
such a degree that many non-Traditionalist scholars who became key authorities on
Islamic esotericism and ‘spirituality’ wrote in similar terms. This is especially true of
Henry Corbin, who is often described as a Traditionalist, despite his rejection of it.
For Corbin, Islamic esotericism refers to Islam’s interior world.100 Whereas
Guénon and Schuon apply it to Sufism, Corbin almost categorically refers it to
Shīʿī esotericism, which he envisaged to be a Persian achievement.101 Corbin rejects
the identification of Islamic “spirituality” with Sunnī Islam and Sufism, for Shīʿī
esotericism and spirituality outrank (déborder) those of Sufism.102 This is reminiscent
of the moment Alexander Wilder, a close associate of Blavatsky, cites Sir William
Jones (1746–1794), who identified Sufism as “The primeval religion of Iran.”103
98. Schuon, Understanding Islam, 167.

99. Schuon, “Two Esotericisms,” 20–21.
100. Corbin, En Islam iranien, xiv
101. Corbin, En Islam iranien, 186–218, also see i, xiv.
102. Corbin, En Islam iranien, iii.
103. Sedgwick, Western Sufism, 144–45.
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There are three reasons for this conceptualisation of Islamic esotericism. The
first is doctrinal: the association of esoteric interpretation of the Qur’an is firm-
ly understood in Twelver Shīʿism and Ismāʿīlism to be knowledge stemming
from the imams whose doctrines represent the bāṭin truth, while the Prophets’
revelations constitute the ẓāhir form of religion. The second is the historical
unease with, and sometimes hostility to, Sunnī Sufis in the Iranian Shīʿī milieu,
which contrasted what it perceived as low, fake and malevolent taṣawwuf with
a more philosophical, mystical, and inward-looking ʿirfān, often translated as
“gnosis.”104 The third reason is theoretical: the approach in the study of Islamic
religious movements that adopts the binary of orthodoxy vs heterodoxy; for the
most part, anachronistic colonial criteria imposed on the ideological systems of
the colonised. The binary has proven to be tenacious:
Orthodoxy Heterodoxy
Sunnī Islam Shīʿa Islam
traditionalists rationalists
scripturalists Sufis
Sufism ʿirfān
revelation philosophy
From this table one is able to see the over-simplification of the ideological
topography of Islamic doctrine. Relevant to our case, pitting a scripturalist Islam
against the hermeneutic methods of Sufis, rationalists, philosophers and Shīʿa
gnostics was associated with “non-Islamic” influences.105 In the case of Corbin,
it is these influences — Zoroastrian for example — in the “heterodoxy” of Shīʿa
Islam and its philosophical gnosis that elevated it over Sunnī Islam and Sufism.
Despite problematising the dichotomy itself, John Taylor tries in a 1967 article to
promote a history of Islam that is sympathetic to “heterodox” “sects.” There he
104. Knysh, A New History, 36–38.

105. Knysh, “‘Orthodoxy’ and ‘Heresy’ in Medieval Islam,” 48–67.
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raises, among others, Corbin for sharing “the experiences and expressions of es-
p
oteric spirituality,” thus situating them as heterodoxy.106 Corbin worked within a
scholarly paradigm in which these dichotomies were entrenched, thus naturally
what appears as non-conventional hermeneutics (esotericism) was aligned with
what he perceived as heterodox religion (Shīʿa Islam).107 Interestingly, Seyyed
Hossein Nasr, the Iranian philosopher and Traditionalist, on whom Corbin had
a big impact and vice versa, viewed Sufism and ʿirfān as forms of spirituality that
make up Islamic esotericism.108 This is likely the result of his direct affinity with
the esotericism of Traditionalists such as Guénon and Schuon.
The same cannot be said about Mircea Eliade (1921–1986), also of a
Traditionalist inclination. In the third volume of his A History of Religious Ideas,
he discusses Islamic “mystical traditions” and views Sunnī Islam as exclusively ex-
oteric: “it is characterized first of all by the importance accorded to a literalist in-
terpretation of the Qur’an and the tradition, and by the primary role of the Law,
the sharīʿat.”109 Sunnī Islam has developed its theology around the conviction of
the existence of one “spiritual reality” which, according to Eliade, means that
“it would be difficult to develop a spiritual exegesis of the Revelation by passing
from the exoteric meaning to the esoteric.”110 Esoteric hermeneutics that reveal
ḥaqīqa are exclusive to Shīʿa Islam, which he describes as “the Gnosis of Islam.”111
The main source of this assertion and the rest of the discussion is Corbin.
106. Taylor, “An Approach to the Emergence of Heterodoxy,” 200.

107. Knysh asserts, “Thus, such distinctly Christian concepts as ”orthodoxy” and ”heresy” fos-
ter a tendency to disregard the intrinsic pluralism and complexity characteristic of the religious
life of the Muslim community, leaving aside significant and sometimes critical ”nuances.” In
order to escape these shortcomings, one should try to let Islamic tradition speak on its own
terms, to let it communicate its own concerns, its own ways of articulation and interpretation
of religious phenomena” (Knysh, “ ‘Orthodoxy’ and ‘Heresy’,” 62–63). Several other scho-
lars have problematised the use of this dichotomy; for example, see Wilson, “The Failure of
Nomenclature,” 169–94; Yıldırım, “Sunni Orthodoxy vs Shiʿte Heterdoxy?,” 287–307; Langer
and Simon, “The Dynamics of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy,” 273–88.
108. Abaza, “A Note on Henry Corbin,” 95–96; Nasr, Islamic Philosophy, 37–40.
109. Eliade, A History, 113.
110. Eliade, A History, 114–15.
111. Eliade, A History, 116–17.
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Notwithstanding this, Eliade concedes that Sufism represents the most well-
known “mystical dimensions of Islam, and one of the most important tradi-
tions of Islamic esotericism.”112 For Eliade, however, Sufism is distinct from
Sunnī Islam, with the former maintaining an esoteric dimension. The “unorth-
odox” nature of the esoteric dimensions of Shīʿa Islam, Sufism, and Kabbalah
made them amenable to “foreign conceptions (above all, Gnostic and Iranian).”
However, he explains that “what one must account for in each case is not the
fact in itself, and in particular the borrowing of foreign spiritual ideas and
methods, but their reinterpretation and articulation within the systems that
have assimilated them,” that is esoteric exegesis and taʾwīl.113 In this case, the
imams of Shīʿa Islam facilitated the revelation of the true sense of the Qur’an;
furthermore, the esoteric comprehension of the Qur’an is after all “specific
to Shīʿism.” He then asserts that Shīʿi esotericism in fact saturated Sufism.114
In Eliade, then, we can discern Traditionalism’s privileging of the latter and
Corbin’s partiality to the former.
In conclusion, the term “Islamic esotericism” originated in the early twen-
tieth century, describing a construct developed by Traditionalists, as well as
non-Traditionalists who had links to them on a personal or intellectual level.
It is centred on the artificial separation between bāṭin and ẓāhir, and, as a result
between ḥaqīqa and sharīʿa. Traditionalists Islamicised universalist and peren-
nial philosophies that permeated the Western esoteric world-view in earlier
centuries. They sought to challenge the narratives that privilege modernity, its
development from the Renaissance, and the bypassing of the medieval period
and Islam. This “Islamic tradition” was Sufism par excellence to the establishers
of Traditionalism, especially Guénon and Schuon. However, this Sufism was,
theoretically at least, exfoliated to reveal a universal and ahistorical essence of
Truth and the paths (ṭuruq) leading to it. Initiation into Sufism served as a ges-

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ture of consolidation rather than a commitment in the exclusive sense. Once

Islamic esotericism was espoused with a kind of Persianophilia, it came to be
Shīʿi-oriented, as we see in Corbin and Eliade. In a way, the early T
raditionalists’
approach to Sufism seems to have dispensed with a denominational specifi-
cation due to their ahistorical and even romanticised view. It was historians
affiliated with the Traditionalists who introduced the denominational element,
whether it was the result of academic nuancing or personal bias. In any case, the
Traditionalist packaging of Islamic spiritual traditions has proved to be influ-
ential to this day and, to a large degree, has determined the style of their appro-
priation in the West and reabsorption in many parts of the Middle East today.
V: Paradigms and Orientation of Islamic Esotericism
To establish Islamic esotericism as a responsible methodological construct for

the study of historical and contemporary currents, after recognizing its histor-
ical reality, a self-conscious systematic outline of its features is presented here,
agreeing with Feras Hamza that
one possible way forward for arriving at an Islamic Studies definition of Muslim
esotericism would be to combine the historical record with a typology that would not
fall into the trap of Faivre’s de-historicization of the concept. In the case of Islamic
Studies, one is better placed to come up with such a definition, since Muslim “esoteric
phenomena” could be connected through a direct historical record and thus justifiably
be studied typologically given the common cultural setting.115
Admitting that setting criteria for this reformulation will make us direct actors in
this discourse like al-Ghazālī and Faivre, this section seeks to construct a prelimi-
nary framework for the study of Islamic esotericism in terms of epistemological par-
adigms (revelatory vs intellectual) and social orientations (personal vs communal).
Beginning with orientations of Islamic esotericism, of great relevance to our
investigation is Marshall Hodgson’s The Venture of Islam, particularly his discus-
115. Hamza, “Locating the ‘Esoteric’,” 356.
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33
sion of Muslim personal piety — “a person’s spiritual d evotion” — which reacted

against the glitz and glamour of the court and splendours of high culture, seeking
the ultimate cosmic reality. One way this desire manifested was within religious
communities and organisations that responded to these tendencies with distinc-
tive styles of piety. Taking on “ritual” and “myths” or narratives within these
structures, the spiritual incentive found itself situated relative to social, intellec-
tual and political realities.116 From the late seventh century to the middle of the
tenth — “The High Caliphal Period” — Islam as a religious allegiance was expand-
ing rapidly, subsuming creatively different backgrounds, which contributed to
the character of pious communities. Hodgson highlights two trends in that peri-
od, which he calls “mystical” and “kerygmatic.” Concerning the former Hodgson
describes “the mystical component in personal piety, when objective ultimacy
is sought in subjective inward awareness, in maturing selfhood: exploring or con-
trolling his consciousness, the person may penetrate into or through his self to
find ever more comprehensive meanings in the environment.” The other trend,
however, reflects historical consciousness; in other words, a kerygmatic character
comes to be when the symbolic/mythic/ritualistic component of personal piety,
which articulates natural and cultural environment as cosmos, becomes sought in
datable events “in history with its positive moral commitments.”117 In this early
period, unlike the kerygmatic trend, the mystical was not yet dominant.
Distrust of the court and its opulence fostered a populism that comple-
mented a “sharʿī spirit” which put trust in practical morality consistent with
the Qur’an, regulated community life, and informed its idealisation. This was
found in both Sunnī and Shīʿī communities.118 Here Hodgson implicitly asso-
ciates non-sharʿī spirit with esotericism. I prefer to use “beyond-sharʿī,” as this
extension of piety does not necessarily mean a complete departure from the
Law, as I have demonstrated in the previous sections. Nevertheless, according to
116. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 359–61.

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Hodgson, the first group to challenge the Shīʿī sharʿī spirit are the eighth-century
Ghulāt — literally, “extremists” — who deified their contemporary imams, often
via leaders who viewed themselves as their representatives, and were generally
more concerned with inner symbolism and metaphorical interpretation than
with legal applications, and believed in the transmigration of souls.119
Hodgson identifies so-called non-sharʿī movements within Shīʿa Islam as
“kerygmatic esotericism,” a term which reflects members’ commitment to a vi-
sion of history according to which privilege is given to a designated imamate,
forming the basis for a sectarian society. Their esoteric outlook is anchored in
an “imamology” according to which secret and hidden wisdom is preserved and
transmitted by imams whose very ontological reality embodies the esoteric truths
of the Qur’an that are concealed under Muḥammad’s exoteric sharīʿa, yet consoli-
date one true historical community. To this should be added the necessity for dis-
cretion for the sake of protecting the community and its guide, which involves a
socio-political dimension in the esoteric dimensions of Shīʿī faith.120 The associat-
ed millenarian hopes particularly encourage an esoteric mind-set.121 In this milieu,
the Ismāʿīlīs have been most successful. The centrality and prominence of esoteric
interests to the piety of Ismāʿīlīs has earned them the historical title al-Bāṭiniyya.
Their esotericism is represented by the role of the imams to whom secrets of
the Qur’an and the Cosmos are confided. It is also oriented towards the cyclical
movements of human history that ultimately deliver salvation to the true historic
community, gives importance to numerical parallelism, and a Neoplatonic hier-
archal cosmic structure that is reworked into a Prophetic/Imamic cosmology.122
Within the Jamāʿī-Sunnī fold, the less historically-oriented mystical m
ovement
is considered here to be Sufism. Sufism, according to H odgson, was associated
with the Ḥadīth folk rather than the Muʿtazila, most of them being Jamāʿī
119. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 370; Asatryan, Controversies in Formative Shi‘i Islam.
120. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, “Introduction et Remerciements,” 3–7.
122. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 378–83; Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy in al-Andalus, 45–51.
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35
Sunnī. In the first generations of Islam it was a form of ascetic personal piety
(zuhd), and until the tenth century it was arguably a minority movement. Its
flourishing and institutionalisation in the eleventh and twelfth centuries caused
it to dominate “the inner life of Islam.”123 Sufism insisted on the incommuni-
cable nature of the inner mystical experience since the revelation of hidden and
ultimate truths is revelatory and experiential and never rational.124 In that way,
the rational theology of the Muʿtazila is at odds with Sufism. For Hodgson then,
Sufism represented a non-kerygmatic Jamāʿī esotericism that contrasts with the
Kerygmatic “Bāṭinī piety” in the Shīʿī milieu, especially the Ismāʿīlīs.125
Hodgson’s framing of Islamic esotericism as a consequence of the evolu-
tion of Islamic forms of piety is very illuminating and affords us a much
needed historical perspective that is not found in Pierre Riffard’s dubious
classification of Islamic esoteric trends, seen through a universalist lens that
includes ambiguous concepts such as “prehistoric esotericism,” “primitive es-
otericism,” and “Muhammedan esotericism” that are somehow distinct from
other I slamic forms such as those of Twelver Shīʿism and others.126 However, his
terms are problematic. “Kerygmatic” is a Christian theological term referring
to apostolic preaching which is based on a perceived historical narrative of the
life of Jesus Christ.127 I suggest replacing it with “collective.” “Mystical,” in the
way Hodgson uses it, implies that the communal esoteric ideas and practices
cannot be “ mystical” and the term itself carries many ambiguities. I replace it
with “personal.” These orientations must be understood as a spectrum of epis-
temological tendencies rather than as mutually exclusive.
The biggest shortcoming of Hodgson’s categorisation of kerygmatic and
mystical esotericism — respectively represented by Ismāʿīlism and Sufism — is

124. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 395.
126. Riffard, L’Ésotérisme, 164–66, 186.
127. Lewis, “Kerygmatic Theology,” https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470670606.wbecc0752.
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36
its marginalisation of philosophical and intellectual esoteric forms which are

seen later as developing, almost exclusively, only in Shīʿi ʿirfān. It resulted from
the way whereby Hodgson begins his discussion of Jamāʿī piety as a contest be-
tween Muʿtazalite rational theology and the textualism of the Ḥadīth folk. The
Muʿtazila, active in Baghdad and Basra, were epistemologically in opposition
to the textual piety and the “sharʿism” of the Ḥadīth folk, who were exponents
of religious authority based on the transmitted reports about the Prophet. The
Muʿtazila were concerned with doctrinal speculation through intellectualising
belief. Their rational theology was occupied with divine justice and free will,
the createdness of the Qur’an as a result of absolute divine unity, and the met-
aphorical interpretation of the passages of the Qur’an that give Him physical
attributes.128 Indeed, there was no esoteric orientation in the Muʿtazila, at least
explicitly, and the Sufis may have found more resonance in the Ḥadīth folk;
nevertheless, Muʿtazilite hermeneutics was congenial to forms that explored
the bāṭin of the Qur’an, the natural world, and the cosmos intellectually.129
If we allow Hodgson’s view of the Muʿtazila’s orientation as non-esoteric yet
kerygmatic, “in which the historical development of the Islamic Ummah played
a major role,” their influence on Islamic philosophy and, by extension, phil-
osophical/intellectual forms of esotericism falls through the cracks.130 Natural
philosophers of the medieval period cannot be easily fitted as exponents of
Hodgson’s “kerygmatic” or “mystical” esotericisms since their confessional
backgrounds are subordinated to philosophy even when they are expressed.
Thus, I introduce here two paradigms of Islamic esotericism: revelatory eso-
tericism and intellectual esotericism. We shall first look at the latter, as it is
overlooked in the usual discussions on Islamic esotericism.131

129. For the Muʿtazila’s ascetic trends, see Aidinli, “Ascetic and Devotional Elements,” 174–89.
131. Saif, “From Ġāyat al-ḥakīm to Šams al-maʿārif,” passim.
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The earliest to systematically exhibit an intellectual form of esotericism is the

tenth-century secret brotherhood known as Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, active in Iraq.132 Ibn
Taymiyya counts them among the heretical bāṭinīs for attributing philosophical
explications to revelation.133 Their Epistles is an encyclopaedia of physical, meta-
physical, divine and occult sciences with the ultimate objective of reaching the
bāṭin through the ẓāhir, the cause through the effect, God through His creation,
by means of the intellect. The success of this endeavour is conditioned and
sustained by purification of the soul and sublimation of its intellectual faculty,
which witnesses hidden and divine truths.134 They explain that dīn (“religion”)
is twofold: exoteric manifest (ẓāhir jaliyy), and esoteric hidden (bāṭin khafiyy). The
public benefits from the first, which comprises obligations and traditions. The
second is that of the khawāṣṣ, meaning the select or elite, who investigate “the
secrets of religion and the interior (bawāṭin) of hidden things, and its concealed
secrets that are not touched save by the ones purified from the filth of desire.” The
italicised sentences reference verse 79 of sura 56. The elite are engaged in an
exegesis that aims to unpack “the allusions [made] by the people of the Divine
Secrets (aṣḥāb al-nawāmīs) in their symbols and subtle signs whose meanings are
derived from the angels. [They seek to know] their interpretation and the truth
of their significance placed in the Torah, the Bible, al-Zabūr (the book of David),
al-Furqān (The Qur’an), and the books of the prophets.” They thus come to know
the birth of the universe, the creation of the heavens and earth in seven days, the
angels’ prostration to Adam, Lucifer’s rebellion, and other events and phenom-
ena mentioned in these holy books.135 This knowledge is directly revealed to the
prophets, but for the rest their attainment is only possible through wisdom and
132. Their confessional identity is debated but largely thought to be affiliated to Ismāʿīlism.
In a recently published article, I challenge this hypothesis. Saif, “Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s Religious
Reform and Magic,” 34–68.
133. Ibn Taymiyya, al-Ṣafadiyya, 1: 2–3.
134. Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, 2:179–80; 3:174, 439.
135. Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, 3: 511–2.
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philosophy, both words contained in the Arabic ḥikma. The Ikhwān contend
that the Qur’an’s “hidden and esoteric interpretation” is comprehended intellec-
tually; once realised the elite achieve a high rank close to the prophets. Through
this esoteric knowledge is the way to God.136 We read:
The best among humankind are those of intellect (ʿuqalāʾ), and the finest among those of
intellect are the people of knowledge (al-ʿulamāʾ). The highest among the people of knowl-
edge and most sublime in station are the prophets, followed in rank by the sage philoso-
phers (al-falāsifa al-ḥukamāʾ). Both teams agree that all things are caused and that the Creator
— Sublime, Mighty, and Hallowed — is their cause, perfector, creator, and completor.137
The proximity of philosophers to prophets is reflected in the proximity of

the esoteric realities of nature and the cosmos to the esoteric meanings of the
Qur’an. The esoteric dimension of nature is to a large degree known through the
occult sciences to which many sections are dedicated in the Epistles, including
the last epistle on magic.138 Ultimately, however, natural philosophy — which
subsumes the occult sciences — and divine wisdom are sister salvific sciences.139
Esoteric reading of texts and/as nature and the connection to the occult
sciences is discernible in the famous magic treatise known as Ghāyat al-ḥakīm
(“The Goal of the Sage”), known in the Latin world as the Picatrix. Its author,
the Andalusian Maslama al-Qurṭubī (d. 964), like the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ by whom
he is deeply influenced and even sometimes quotes almost verbatim, views all
natural phenomena including the planets and human beings to have a ẓāhir
physical aspect and a bāṭin spiritual one. As microcosm, the human encom-
passes esoteric and exoteric realities and through the rational soul can gain
knowledge of them.140 Intellectual esotericism, or bāṭinism, is expressed in the
following quotation; though long, it is worth citing in full:
136. Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, 4: 69, 138.

137. Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, 4: 124.
138. Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. On Magic I; Saif, “Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s Religious
Reform and Magic,” 26–36; Saif, “A Study on Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s Epistle on Magic, the Longer
Version (52b).”
139. Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil, 1:41, 328–29.
140. al-Qurṭubī, Picatrix, 42–43.
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The form of the universal human is enclosed in the form of the individual human and
it is the simple [counterpart] of it and of its matter. The form of the individual human is
enclosed in the body and it is the simple [counterpart] of it. The form of the body is the
composite statue and husk of the form of the individual human. The form of the indi-
vidual human is the composite statue and the husk of the form of the universal human.
The form of the universal human is the statue and husk of the form of the universal soul.
The universal soul is the statue and husk of the universal intellect. The universal intellect
is the statue and husk of the light from which the intellect was created, and light is the
prime matter of the universal intellect. The same [is found] in all that is beneath it. The
highest is always the prime matter of what is beneath it and is simple in comparison. What
is beneath is always the form of what is above and composite compared to it. The human,
truly, is the pneumatic and composite form used [in the creation] of [celestial] bodies
that are attached [to them] by nature. Whoever wants to learn this truly must be virtuous,
pure in mind and body from filth, and [then] he shall see and witness this in an authentic
revelation. . . . On this, Plato, excellent in sciences and advanced in virtue, based his book
entitled Timaeus wherein he greatly elaborated on the forms and explicated this purpose;
but he shrouded [his] words and obscured them, in the manner in which philosophers
treat their wisdom, in order to protect and preserve it from the ignorant. So did Proclus.
To them, obscurity (ghumūḍ) in science is making concepts so subtle until they are hid-
den (takhfā) and become so obscure [to the point] that the extractor [of concepts] from
obscurity would require contemplation, careful consideration, and thorough examina-
tion in order to distinguish them among all manifest and clear things they mixed with.
For sciences are [divided into] two parts: some of it is clear and manifest and some
of it is concealed and hidden (khafiyy bāṭin). The concealed and hidden is the obscure
(ghāmiḍ). The obscure concept needs either syllogisms and propositions that lead him
(the seeker) to the obscure [concept], or study, inference, contemplation and thorough
consideration until this concept makes itself known to him, and the intended [meaning]
is thus clarified, what has been closed to him opens, and he attains his desire. Inference
is [achieved] through many things: one of them is tracing the absent from the witness, or
the origin from the branch by means of a common concept, or to build opinion based
on accepted and approved statements from an approved individual or approved com-
pany, leading to a result through which the desired concept appears. Generally, to tread
a path to knowledge, one [must] extend one’s gaze all along this route, and with this
gaze he shall obtain the essences of existents and their degrees will become elucidated.141
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For Maslama al-Qurṭubī, the path to enlightenment is one of knowledge d irected

by the human intellect, which is the analogue of the universal intellect that medi-
ates between the world of multiplication and that of divine simplicity. The celestial
world, known through astrology, is an essential step towards encountering the di-
vine light. Progress in this path is conditioned upon self-purification. The universe
is not only ontologically linked to our very being but epistemologically accessible.
The knowability of universal divine truths is ascertained by Plato, Plotinus, and all
the philosophers cited in the Ghāya. Nevertheless, their words too have exoteric and
esoteric meaning as they engaged in ighmāḍ (to make obscure) since esoteric realities
are accessible to the very few people of intellect. Just as the revelation of hidden
truths is based on a discursive process of intellection — effects to causes, existents to
God — so is the attainment of the esoteric meaning of philosophical texts.
Prophets and imams are completely absent in this narrative of epistemolog-
ical and ontological ascent. However, in a chapter that departs from the style
of the Ghāya, Maslama al-Qurṭubī refers to “The Treasured Book” (al-Kitāb al-
makhzūn) by a certain Jaʿfar al-Baṣrī, who assigns a planet to each sura of the
Qur’an. He claims that from this division one is able to extract “the treasured
name that God deposits in the hearts of the awliyāʾ and the ʿuqalāʾ ‘gnostics’
(ʿārifīn).”142 Interestingly, this refers to the greatest name of Allah that cannot be
known save by God’s Friends — al-awliyāʾ — a term which refers to Sufi saints —
and ārifīn — meaning those who experience divine revelation. The greatest name
is also a concept that developed within Sufi thought. Al-Qurṭubī’s knowledge
of Sufism is further demonstrated by his reference to the science of letters that
was developed within Sufi and non-Sufi mystic milieus.143 He speaks of the cen-
trality of letters to the practice of the Friends of God, including the mysterious
letters — al-muqaṭṭaʿāt — at the beginning of 29 suras.144
142. al-Qurṭubī, Picatrix, 169.

143. Knysh, Sufism, 53–57; Lory, “Soufisme et sciences occultes,” 186–89; Ebstein and Sviri,
“The So-Called Risālat al-ḥurūf,” 227.
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Al-Qurṭubī discusses the esoteric and exoteric levels of the Qur’an in the same
chapter. For him esoteric exegesis remains a discursive process of intellection:
A code is a form of speech that is not [expressing] something manifest but has a mean-
ingful interior (bāṭin maʿnawī). Therefore, it is, in general, an expression with two aspects:
announced and hidden, for the sake of a benefit (or an insight (ḥikma without the
definitive)). This is why the Qur’ān is said to have an exterior (ẓāhir) and an interior
(bāṭin). . . . Being manifest (ẓuhūr) or being hidden (al-buṭūn) is [to be understood] in re-
lation to perceptions; this why God the Exalted is Concealed ( if he is sought with the
senses and the treasure house of the imagination, and Manifest if he is sought through
the treasure house of the intellect by way of inference (istidlāl). So, when it is said that
He is hidden with regards to sensory perception then He is manifest; being manifest by
means of the intellect, He is mysterious (ghāmiḍ).145
The Qur’an has an interior (bāṭin) and exterior (ẓāhir), echoing God’s attributes/divine
names as Concealed (al-Bāṭin) and Manifest (al-Ẓāhir). God’s concealed nature, like the
Qur’an, nature and the universe, is hidden to the senses but becomes manifest by the
realisation of the intellect (idrāk al-ʿaql). Also expressed here is the correlative concept
of codification and obfuscation that we saw in the criteria of al-Ghazālī’ and others.
Despite being a departure from the tone of the text, these references should
not be surprising. In al-Andalus at that time a mystical tradition was developing
centred on esoteric exegesis and the science of letters, exemplified by the thought
of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allah b. Masarra (883–931) who wrote Kitāb al-ḥurūf (“On
letters”). It is a “private science between the heart of a human being and his Lord”
according to which letters are the foundations of creation. The cosmos can be
revealed to the soul and heart of an individual by approaching the letters, names,
and muqaṭṭaʿāt as symbols representing cosmological and cosmogonical principles
that encapsulate God’s direct powers of creation and generation.146
The difference between the thought of Maslama al-Qurṭubī and Ibn Masarra
should not be exaggerated. They were active during a transitional period in the
history of Islamic mysticism just before the solidification and formalisation of
145. Clemente, “Edición Crítica de la Risālat al-Iʿtibār,” 170.

146. Clemente, “Edición Crítica del K. Jawāṣṣ al-Ḣurūf,” 61–63.
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Sufism.147 So, Ibn Masarra commences his Kitāb al-Iʿtibār (“On Contemplation”)
by extolling the intellect’s capacity:
You have mentioned, God have mercy on you, that you have read in some books that he
who infers by contemplation (al-mustadill bi al-iʿtibār) [beginning] from the lower world to
the higher finds nothing but that which the prophets indicated from the higher to the
lower. I sought to verify and exemplify this. Know, may God grant you and us success,
that the first [thing to elucidate in] this is that God — Mighty and Sublime — created
for his servants intellects that are light, from His light, so that they perceive (li yabṣirū)
with them His authority and know his power, witnessing of God what He bears witness
to Himself and what the angels and people of knowledge among his creation witness of
Him. Then God, Mighty and Sublime, made the heavens and earth, he created signs that
indicate Him and signify His divinity and beautiful attributes. For the entire world is a
book whose letters make up its speech read by people of insight (mustabṣirūn).
Ibn Masarra refers to several passages from the Qur’ān to verify this including:
“They contemplate (yatafakkarūn) the creation of the heavens and the earth,
[saying], “Our Lord, You did not create this aimlessly” (Q. 3: 191).148 The rest
of the treatise is concerned with the process of intellection that reveals “esoteric
matters” (al-umūr al-bāṭina),149 such as the nature of the hypostatic universe, the
Throne, the Pedestal, the seven heavens, divine attributes, etc. This intellection
is an engagement that involves a spiritual ascent (taraqqī).150 Ibn Masarra believes
that ancient philosophers were occupied with this process of reflection that re-
veals the nature of the creator from the created, yet it was without rectitude of
intention (niyya mustaqīma) and so they were led astray.151
Maslama al-Qurṭubī was known as a bāṭinī, an esotericist,152 but no writings
akin to those of Ibn Masarra are known to have been written by him. Ibn
147. Stroumsa, “Ibn Masarra,” 97–112; Stroumsa and Sviri, “The Beginnings of Mystical
Philosophy in al-Andalus,” 201–53.
148. Clemente “Edición Crítica de la Risālat al-Iʿtibār,” 90.
150. Clemente “Edición Crítica de la Risālat al-Iʿtibār,” 92, 100.
152. Fierro, “Bāṭinism in al-Andalus,” 91–92, 103; Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy, 26, esp. n78.
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43
asarra’s discourse is more God-centric, whereas al-Qurṭubī’s is rather star-cen-

M
tric. The former cites the Qur’an consistently and his own vocabulary is more
devotional and Qur’anic. Al-Qurṭubī studied in Basra where he came into con-
tact with more mystics, but there the pull was stronger toward the intellectual
esotericism that he knew intimately from the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, who were crucial
to the development of his worldview.153
The dissonance between intellectual and revelatory esotericisms is encap-
sulated in a letter written by the mystic Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240) to the prom-
inent theologian and philosopher Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1150–1210). The Sufi
milieu did not think highly of al-Rāzī, who at some point of his life pursued
a mystical path. The anecdote goes that he was initiated into the Kubrawī path
though was unable to renounce his book learning for experiential knowledge.154
Al-Suhrawardī did, in fact, send a letter to al-Rāzī enjoining him to immerse
himself in inner life. So did Ibn ʿArabī, written in an encouraging and loving
tone. The Great Master denies the ability to know God through intellectual
reflection, allowing only knowledge through revelation (kashf) of divine truths:
A person with lofty aspirations (al-himma) should not waste his life with contingent
things (muḥdathāt) and their exposition, lest his share from his Lord escape him. He
should also free himself from the authority of his reflection (fikr), for reflection can
only know from its own point of reference; but the truth that is sought after is not that.
Knowledge of God is contrary to knowledge of God’s existence. For the intellect knows
God insofar as He is existent and by way of negation (salb), not affirmation (ithbāt). . . .
God (great and glorious) is too exalted to be known by the intellect’s [powers of] reflec-
tion and rational consideration (naẓar). An intelligent person should empty his heart of
reflection when he wants to know God by way of witnessing (mushāhada). The one with
high aspiration should not learn this [kind of knowledge] from the world of imagina-
tion (ʿālam al-khayāl), which contains embodied lights (al-anwār al-mutajassada) that point
to meanings beyond them. For imagination causes intellectual meanings.155
153. Fierro, “Bāṭinism in al-Andalus,” 88.

154. Rustom, “Ibn ʿArabī’s Letter,” 114–16.
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Therefore, searching for God through understanding effects and causes is futile.
Only contemplation in the spiritual path can lead to Him.156 This is a response
to al-Rāzī’s intellectual and philosophical tendencies in his interpretation of the
Qur’an, which was criticised by Ḥajjī Khalīfa as demonstrated earlier. In Mafātiḥ
al-ghayb, al-Rāzī stresses that the rational faculty is able to perceive both exterior/
exoteric and interior/esoteric levels of existence, the Qur’an itself, even God and all
his actions.157 The response to the intellectual search for true meaning involved un-
derplaying discursive knowledge, causality and its Aristotelian underpinnings, and
over-emphasising prophetic and lettrist reworkings of the Neoplatonic hypostases.158
This exchange demonstrates the contested claim to truth between natural
philosophers and mystics that became more pronounced with the development
and institutionalisation of Sufism in the twelfth century.159 Both groups were
concerned with comprehending the hidden, though the epistemological foun-
dations of this process were debated. Awareness of the Divine and the percep-
tion of the entirety of the cosmos as God’s shadow shuns logical deductions of
causes — an intellectual engagement — and instead exhorts the adept to engage
in soul-immersive exercises that result in revelations — localised in the heart —
about the verities of the higher and lower worlds.
Furthermore, in addition to the paradigms and orientation discussed here,
and based on analysing the way the term bāṭiniyya was understood and used
in addition to these paradigms and orientations, we can begin to see four
principles of Islamic esotericism:
1. Exegetical principle: Islamic esotericism is pivoted on Qur’anic exegesis.
2. Epistemological principle: Intellectual or revelatory reception, hidden natural and

157. al-Rāzī, Mafātiḥ al-ghayb, 23:381; See also Almond, “The Shackles of Reason,” 22–38; for
more on negotiating reason, inspiration, intuition in al-Fārābi, Ibn Sīnā, al-Kirmānī, al-Gha-
zālī, al-Suhrawardī, Najm al-Dīn Kubrā and others see, Lawson, ed., Reason and Inspiration in Islam.
158. For this kind of reworking see, Ibn ʿArabī, al-Tadbīrat , 21–26. For the impact of this shift
of emphasis on Islamicate occult sciences, see Saif, “From Ġāyat al-ḥakīm to Šams al-maʿārif.”
159. Knysh, Islamic Mysticism, 6–7; Melchert, “Origins and Early Sufism,” 12–13.
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celestial phenomena, the Divine realm, and the nature of Qur’an.

3. Social principle: personal or collective salvific investment through the enlightenment
and perfection of the human soul and/or the restitution of a community.
4. Trans-linguistic principle that demands the use symbols and allegory.
For the sake of demonstration, we can look at the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm and Rasāʾil
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and conclude that their esotericism is intellectual as shown ear-
lier, but that they differ in their social orientations. The Ikhwān message is
explicitly collective as they frame their esoteric philosophy as a concern among
themselves as “jamāʿa” who will guide the entire umma (Muslim community)
towards its own sacralisation and sublimation into a utopia in which the in-
dividual and the collective and the intellectual and experiential are aligned.160
It is important here to emphasise that according to this scheme two things
usually associated with “esotericism” are not considered essential to it: discreet
social presence and the occult sciences. Concerning the former, despite the
claims of concealment of bāṭini knowledge, social discretion was not consistent
historically among various esoteric groups. As for the occult sciences, despite
having been practiced in some groups, as in the case of the science of letters
among some Sufis, they are also not a criterion. In the early modern period
(15th — 17th century), after the Mongol conquest of Asia, the occult sciences,
especially the science of letters and jafr, were at the heart of an explicit scientific
activity that aimed to secure the imperial power of the Safavids, the Mughals
and the Ottomans.161 For Melvin-Koushki the open utilisation of the occult
sciences as imperial tools in these empires “de-esotericised” them in accordance
with a social meaning, as noted above. Nevertheless, the politicisation and pro-
nounced Pythagoreanism of the early modern occult sciences are still reminis-
cent of their medieval Abbasid phase, spurred by the so-called Graeco-Arabic
160. Saif, “Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ’s Religious Reform and Magic,” passim.

161. Melvin-Koushki, “Early Modern Islamicate Empire,” 356–62; Melvin-Koushki, “Astrology,
Lettrism, Geomancy,” 142–50, Şen, “Reading the Stars,” 557–608; Lelic, “Physiognomy (‘ilm
i-firāsat) and Ottoman Statecraft,” 609–46.
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46
Islamic Esotericism
Ex
revelatory
l
cia
eg
eti
So
cal
collective personal
intellectual
Epistemological
translation movement that stimulated thinking of the universe, the heavens,

and human beings as knowable natural/celestial phenomena. However, an in-
depth study on the characteristics of Islamic early modern esotericism, in the
way it is defined in this article, is yet to be undertaken.
Another aspect that is potentially fruitful to investigate in the future is the
extent to which Islamic esotericism is “rejected knowledge,” a notion that was
developed by Wouter Hanegraaff, understanding it as the most defining feature
of Western esotericism. Accordingly, Western esotericism becomes a “container
concept” of currents and traditions from the early modern to the modern period
that were renounced by various institutions from the Church to Academia.162 Is
such a criterion applicable to the history of Islamic esotericism? This is a question
worthy of investigation considering the different regulatory set-ups in the Islami-
cate world, the lack of a central authority like the Church, and the non-existence
of a comparable systematic project of censorship. It is also interesting to see how
colonial and post-colonial criteria of rejection and censorship were exported to
162. Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy, passim. For a response on this criterion, see Pasi,
“The Problems of Rejected Knowledge,” 201–2.
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47
the Islamicate world, how they were internalised and possibly subjected to new
and old forms of esotericism. These issues are beyond the scope of this article.
Conclusion
To answer the question “what is Islamic esotericism?” required first examining

the dialogue of esotericism’s globalisation that has resulted from the problema-
tisation of geographical and cultural categories in the field of Western esoteri-
cism. This theoretical and methodological re-examination led to a debate about
the ontology of Western esotericism itself — whether it is a heuristic construct
or a historical phenomenon. The arguments of this article rest on esotericism
being both in the sense that real historical currents are analysed according to
an ever-shifting conception. It is never transcendental since it is determined by
particular and historical actors — from Renaissance humanists to Faivre and
Hanegraaff, who ultimately legitimised a successful and important field.
I sought in this article to demonstrate the possibility of speaking about
Islamic esotericism in similar terms. I looked first at the emergence of the
term and concept “Islamic esotericism” in the Traditionalist works of Guénon,
Schuon, Corbin, Nasr, and Mircea Eliade, in order to pinpoint its historicity
and its entanglement with Western esotericism. The Traditionalist conceptual-
isation of Islamic esotericism was centred on a universalist version of Sufism
or a Persophiliac ʿirfān. However, due to its existence within the boundaries of
Western esotericism, the Traditionalist take was adopted in the representation
of Islam within the field. To understand it as part of the narrative of Islamic
esotericism, it is not enough to rely on its own claims; one must relate it to a
broader historical discourse about bāṭin and bāṭiniyya, esoteric and esotericism.
Generally speaking, the historical discussion of Islamic esotericism and its le-
gitimacy hinged on the bāṭinīs’ adherence or departure from the sharīʿa, according
to which it measured the esoteric exegetical approaches of philosophers, Sufis,
Shīʿa and Ismāʿīlīs. Furthermore, the juxtaposition of ẓāhir as sharīʿa and bāṭin as
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48
ḥaqīqa became an essential trope in the writings of the Traditionalists. However,

to be able to identify Islamic esoteric currents, past, present, and future, this
article posited two epistemological paradigms, based on the debate that emerged
in the late medieval period between mystics and philosophers, contesting the
ways hidden truths are reached; by revelation or by intellection. These paradigms
were complemented by orientations of Islamic esotericism referred to here as the
collective and personal orientations. The former is oriented towards a historical
legitimisation of a community, and the latter is oriented towards the self. These
should be thought of as tendencies since they are not necessarily contradictive.
Based on the proposed paradigms, orientations and principles of Islamic
esotericism, we see Shīʿī esotericism/ʿirfān (intellectual and kerygmatic), Ismāʿīli
bāṭiniyya (intellectual and kerygmatic), Sufism (revelatory and personal), and
Traditionalist Islamic esotericism (intellectual and personal) as currents of Is-
lamic esotericism. Thus, both intellectual and revelatory modes of knowledge
reception can be treated as paradigms of Islamic esotericism.
We must, however, be aware of the layers of interdependence and crosspolli-
nation among these currents; for example, some Muslim mystics and Sufis, such
as al-Suhrawardī and al-Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111), adopted a philosophi-
cal approach, and Sufi devotion was not always categorically antithetical to Shīʿa
Islam.163 Moreover, the list is expandable by future research that is supported by
a cross-disciplinary approach within both Islamic studies and Western esoteri-
cism studies, allowing researchers to explore understudied topics and texts.
The intellectual vs revelatory paradigms are relevant to the post-Enlighten-
ment tensions between science and religion. Rationality became the condition
of legitimate and valid intellection, and revelation was shifted into the domain
of ir- or non-rationality depending on the inclination of the observer and/or
participant. This invites us to consider how Islamic esoteric currents of that
163. For examples, see Dakake, “Conceptions of a Spiritual Elect,” 327–44, and several other
articles in this volume; Rizvi, “A Sufi Theology fit for a Shīʿī King,” 83–98; Daftary, Ismailis in
Medieval Muslim Societies, 187–95; Rustom, “Philosophical Sufism,” 399–411.
© 2019 Liana Saif.

49
period negotiated these shifts. This may include contemporary neo-Islamic eso-
tericism that forged an alliance with Western esoteric traditions like occultism,
spiritualism and the New Age.164
In the special issue in which this article appears, specific groups are discussed
that have either been bāṭinised, have adopted, that is, an esotericism inherent to
the Islamic religious experience, or that have adopted Western esotericist frame-
works, and it is often the case that bāṭinism itself attracts Western esotericist
ideas and vice-versa. The former can be seen in Keith Cantu’s discussion of the
Fakir Bauls, who are inclined toward a personal orientation with a revelatory
paradigm; it is also reflected in the communal/revelatory esotericism of pseu-
do-Ibn al-ʿArabī’s The Tree of Nuʿmān (al-Šaǧarah al-nuʿmāniyyah) analysed by Sasson
Chahanovich. The westernisation of Islamic esotericism can be seen in F rancesco
Piraino’s discussion of the Aḥmadiyya-Idrīsiyya Shādhiliyya in Italy, who are in-
clined toward a personal orientation with an intellectual paradigm. Similarly,
Michael Muhammad Knight highlights the influence of occultism and other
Western esoteric groups on the Nation of Islam, communal in orientation with
an intellectual paradigm. As emphasized in this article, these associations should
be understood as strong inclinations rather than definitive, intractable traits. At
times, a clear picture cannot be drawn based on these orientations and paradigms;
this is made clear by Biko Gray’s discussion of the traumatic mysticism of the
Five Percenters. In his article he rejects the dichotomies and concepts that have
determined the discussion of mysticism, esotericism, spirituality, transcendence,
etc. since they do not have a place in the physical and metaphysical violence of
the Middle Passage, which produced “undifferentiation” that itself is at the centre
of the Five Percenters ideology. Although we can consider the Five Percenters to
have a communal orientation, the paradigms of their belief system, which “can-
not be gleaned from the darkness,” are neither revelatory nor intellectual.
164. For example, see Doostdar, The Iranian Metaphysicals. Research on New Religious M
ovements
in Turkey is carried out at the Orient-Institute Istanbul, led by Alexandre Toumarkine.
© 2019 Liana Saif.

50
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Introduction Correspondences 7, no.

What is Islamic Esotericism?*

© 2019 Liana Saif.

approaches by setting up a theoretical framework for what can be called Islamic

© 2019 Liana Saif.

I. The Globalisation of Esotericism and Islam

2. Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, 3.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

esotericism.” This bibliography comprises seven works by Henry Corbin, four

© 2019 Liana Saif.

9. Hanegraaff, A Guide for the Perplexed, 15.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

11. Hanegraaff, “The Globalisation of Western Esotericism,” 57.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

intellectual exchanges occurred and perhaps even contributed to the (re)shaping

14. Hanegraaff, “The Globalisation of Western Esotericism,” 57–58.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

Rejecting the singularisation of “Western” and “non-Western,” Kennet

© 2019 Liana Saif.

Granholm provides a useful outline of the forms of othering adopted by

© 2019 Liana Saif.

Kocku von Stuckrad is resolutely critical of the exclusion of Jewish and

© 2019 Liana Saif.

supposedly Suhrawardian way of thinking influenced European esotericism, and

© 2019 Liana Saif.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

of which were the occult sciences.40 He describes the “Arabo-Latin” traditions

II: A Note on the Islamic Studies Perspective

40. Melvin-Koushki, “De-orienting the Study of Islamicate Occultism,” 287–96.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

nitions of “esoteric” and “esotericism” in Islamic sources and the emergence of

46. Sorgenfrei, “Hidden or Forbidden,” 150–51.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

construct which was strengthened by the Traditionalist perennial view.49 ­Finally,

49. Sorgenfrei, “Hidden or Forbidden,” 154–55.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

esotericist community.”52 Gardiner associates the term with kitmān (concealment)

52. Gardiner, “Esotericism in Manuscript Culture,” 54–55, 60.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

55. Abū Zayd, Falsafat al-taʾwīl, 11–12, further discussion found in 13–16.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

saying) often cited in support of an esoteric hermeneutics: “The Prophet of God

© 2019 Liana Saif.

In a chapter on “The Science of Exegesis” (ʿilm al-tafsīr) in Kashf al-ẓunūn, ­(“Dispelling

© 2019 Liana Saif.

65. al-Rāzī, Mafātiḥ al-ghayb, 1:157.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

70. Ḥajjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn, 1:432.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

73. al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, 1:138–39.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

76. al-Ghazālī, Iḥyāʾ, 140–44.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

IV. Islamic esotericism of the Traditionalists and its Impact

© 2019 Liana Saif.

in Europe. The French Sufi and developer of Traditionalism, René Guénon

82. Valsan, “Islam et la Fonction de René Guénon,» 14, 40.

© 2019 Liana Saif.

construct which was strengthened by the Traditionalist perennial view.49 Finally,

In a chapter on “The Science of Exegesis” (ʿilm al-tafsīr) in Kashf al-ẓunūn, (“Dispelling

sion of Muslim personal piety — “a person’s spiritual d evotion” — which reacted

For Maslama al-Qurṭubī, the path to enlightenment is one of knowledge d irected

asarra’s discourse is more God-centric, whereas al-Qurṭubī’s is rather star-cen-