The archetypal Sunnī scholar : law, theology, and mysticism in the synthesis of al-Bājūrī

Considers the work of nineteenth-century theologian Ibrahim al-Bajuri and contests the notion of intellectual decline in Islamic thought from the thirteenth through nineteenth centuries. Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1: Al-Bājūrī’s Life and Scholarship Al-Bājūrī’s Teachers and Students A Traditional Shaykh al-Azhar in an Era of Attempted Reform Al-Bājūrī’s Character Al-Bājūrī’s Works Chronological List of al-Bājūrī’s Completed Works Unfinished Works Al-Bājūrī’s Commentaries and Their Predecessors Al-Bājūrī’s Literary Sources and the Commentary Tradition 2: Al-Bājūrī’s View of Religion and Method in the Egyptian Milieu The Archetype and Method Authority and Authenticity: Ijāza, Idhn, Isnād, and Ijtihād The Harmony of Reason and Revelation Sharī ̔a Compliant Spirituality The Gabrielian Paradigm: Al-Bājūrī’s View of the Three Dimensions of Islam Islām: Law Īmān: Belief Iḥsān: Spiritual Excellence The Ijmā ̔–Ikhtilāf Spectrum The Egyptian Milieu The Shāfi ̔ī School in Egypt Ash ̔arī Thought and the Egyptian Madrasas Sufism in Egypt 3: Al-Bājūrī in Dialogue with His Archetypal Predecessors Al-Bājūrī’s Theological Predecessors Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī Al-Taftazānī Al-Laqānī Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Sanūsī Al-Bājūrī’s Predecessors in Law The Minhāj Group: Al-Nawawī and al-Rāfi ̔ī Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī and Shams al-Dīn al-Ramlī The Taḥrīr Group Zakariyya al-Anṣārī The Abū Shuja ̔ Group The Tanbīh Group Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī Later Scholars Al-Bājūrī’s Sufi Predecessors Al-Sha ̔rānī Ibn Taymiyya The Independent Jurist–Theologian–Sufis and Their Affiliations Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī 4: Al-Bājūrī’s Legal, Theological, and Mystical Thought Al-Bājūrī on Law: Ijtihād and Taqlīd Ijtihād Taqlīd Following Another Madhhab Al-Bājūrī on Sufism: Its Goals, Methods, and Explanations or Exclamations Definition and Goals of Sufism The Ten Points of Departure for the Science of Sufism (al-mabādī l- ̔ashara) Al-Bājūrī on the Methods of Sufism Bid ̔a (Innovation) Explanations of the Unexplainable: The Problematic Sayings of the Sufis Al-Bājūrī on the Rational Sciences Al-Bājūrī on Ta ̓wīl, Tafwīḍ, and Ẓāhir The Permissibility of Manṭiq Al-Bājūrī on Kalām Opponents to al-Bājūrī’s Kalām 5: Legacy and Conclusion Al-Bājūrī’s Legacy Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index This is a rare study of a late premodern Islamic thinker, Ibrahim al- Bājūrī, a nineteenth-century scholar and rector of Cairo's al-Azhar University. Aaron Spevack explores al- Bājūrī's legal, theological, and mystical thought, highlighting its originality and vibrancy in relation to the millennium of scholarship that preceded and informed it, and also detailing its continuing legacy. The book makes a case for the normativity of the Gabrielian Paradigm, the study of law, rational theology, and Sufism, in the person of al- Bājūrī. Soon after his death in 1860, this typical pattern of scholarship would face significant challenges from modernists, reformers, and fundamentalists. Spevack challenges beliefs that rational theology, syllogistic logic, and Sufism were not part of the predominant conception of orthodox scholarship and shows this scholarly archetype has not disappeared as an ideal. In addition, the book contests prevailing beliefs in academic and Muslim circles about intellectual decline from the thirteenth through nineteenth centuries