Anṣārī Haravī / Šaykh al-Islām

Anṣārī/ Šaykh al-Islām

(d. 481/1089)

Traditionist/Commentator on the Qur’an/Polemicist/Spiritual Master

Abū Ismāʿīl ʿAbd-Allāh ibn Muḥammad Anṣārī Haravī (also known as Ḫwājah ʿAbd-Allāh Anṣārī or Šaykh al-Islām) was born in Herat in 396/1005. Anṣārī spent the early years of his life gaining a profound knowledge of the traditional Islamic sciences as well as Hanbalite doctrine. In his late twenties (ca. 423/1031), during a second failed attempt to make the pilgrimage, Anṣārī met the Sufi Abūʾl Ḥasan al-Ḫirkānī, which proved to have a decisive affect on his future spiritual and intellectual development. For the remainder of his life, it would be the dual passions of Hanbalism and Sufism that would guide much of his life’s intellectual path: he remained both “uncompromisingly faithful to the Hanbalite doctrine which he always defended with ardor” and “a spiritual master very much aware of Sufi tradition but always personal in his judgments”.

For a fair portion of his life, he seemed to be constantly involved in arguments and disputations with other theologians, always defending the traditionist viewpoint on the basis of the Sunna and Qurʾān against both Ashʿarites and Muʿtazilites alike. The outcome of such disputations usually depended on the religio-political atmosphere of the day and the willingness of those in power to strongly come down in favor of one group of theologians or the other. Consequently, there was a time in Anṣārī’s life when he was exiled, imprisoned, and sentenced to death for his beliefs while at a later stage he was eminently praised and awarded robes of honor for holding those very same viewpoints. By the end of his life, however, such activity tapered off. Though renown and revered for his oratory skills, when Anṣārī’s helath began to wane he started setting down his ideas and beliefs in writing at the insistence of his disciples. Anṣārī composed several works, among them: Kitāb manāzil al-saʾerīn (Book of Intinerants), on the ten stages of the soul’s journey toward God, and, Tabaqāt al-Ṣūfīya (Generation of Sufis), a work containing biographical information, anecdotes, and maxims on the Sufis that preceded Anṣārī as well as some of his own judgments. Anṣārī died in 481/1089.

Munājāt

Munājāt is a “rief Sufi tract in rhymed prose”.

Ṣad maydān (=Kitāb-i ṣad maydān) (completed ca. 448/1056–57)

Kitāb-i ṣad maydān (The Book of A Hundred Fields) are “notes taken by a disciple during Anṣārī’s gatherings in 448/1056–7. In connection with Koran 3:29-31, the master makes an exposition of the spiritual itinerary in a hundred small chapters. The advance towards God coincides with the growing of love, which is first rightness (rasti), then intoxication (masti), and finally annihilation (nisti)”.