Al-Ghazali of Al-Andalus Ibn Barrajan Ma PDF

“Al-Ghazālī of al-Andalus”: Ibn Barrajān, Mahdism, and the
Emergence of Learned Sufism on the Iberian Peninsula

José Bellver
University of Barcelona
Although Ibn Barrajān (d. 536/1141) was one of the foremost Sufi masters in al-
Andalus, he remains a controversial figure. He is mainly known for an accurate
prediction of the Muslim capture of Jerusalem on 583/1187, for his close rela-
tionship with the other leading Andalusian Sufi master of his time, Ibn al-ʿArīf
(d. 536/1141), and for his obscure death. Ibn Barrajān is not mentioned in Ibn
Bashkuwāl’s Ṣila—the main source for study of the Andalusian ulema of this
time—and as a result has been taken to be an outsider among the Andalusian
ulema, one who threatened the theological and political establishment. However,
this image is distorted by the socio-political context of the time and by the pau-
city of our references. The aim of this article is to shed light on the figure of Ibn
Barrajān from a historical point of view so as to improve our understanding of the
role played by Sufism in Mahdist movements and in the political changes in the
Islamic West during the sixth/twelfth century.
introduction
While preparing the introduction to a paper on Ibn Barrajān’s prediction of the Muslim
capture of Jerusalem in which I intended to summarize the biography of this Andalusian Sufi
master from the Almoravid period, I could not help feeling that our historical view of him—
as a rebellious Mahdist leader who challenged the political authority of the Almoravids—was
at odds with the quietist and pious Sufi that resonates in his works. The aim of this article is
thus to reconsider the historical data we have about Ibn Barrajān (d. 536/1141), one of the
foremost Sufis on the Iberian peninsula, whose volume and range of works ensured that he
was known in an day already as “al-Ghazālī of al-Andalus.” Today, however, he remains a
little-known, controversial figure whose writings have yet to be studied in depth.
Ibn Barrajān’s life ran parallel to the Almoravid dominion over al-Andalus (1091–1145).
He is mainly known for an accurate prediction of the Muslim capture of Jerusalem in
583/1187, for his close relationship with the other prominent Andalusian Sufi master of
his time, Ibn al-ʿArīf (d. 536/1141), and for his obscure death after being summoned, along
with Ibn al-ʿArīf, by the Almoravid sultan ʿAlī b. Yūsuf b. Tāshufīn (d. 537/1143), shortly
before the revolt of the Murīdūn in the Algarve (539/1144) led by Ibn Qasī (d. 546/1151)
and the ascent to power of the Almohads. Ibn Barrajān is referred to in a few sources as
imām and it has been alleged that in some 130 villages the Friday sermons were read in
Author’s note: I am most thankful to Maribel Fierro and James W. Morris for reading a first draft of this paper
and making extremely valuable suggestions; the comments by the anonymous reviewers and the editor, to whom I
express my gratitude, were equally very helpful. I am also indebted to the Department of Theology at Boston Col-
lege where I wrote most of this paper during my Beatriu de Pinós postdoctoral stay. This article has been prepared
as part of the research program “La evolución de la ciencia en la sociedad de al-Andalus desde la Alta Edad Media
al pre-Renacimiento y su repercusión en las culturas europeas y árabes (siglos X–XV),” sponsored by the Spanish
Ministry of Education and Science (FFI2008–00234/FILO) and FEDER.
Journal of the American Oriental Society 133.4 (2013) 659

660 Journal of the American Oriental Society 133.4 (2013)
his name rather than in that of the sultan. These textual references within the context of the
revolt of the Murīdūn shortly after his death, along with his having been summoned by the
sultan, his trial, imprisonment, and death, have sketched a picture of a political activist, a
self-proclaimed imām, and a rebellious Mahdī who challenged the political and religious
authority of his time and was eventually executed for this insubordination. 1
Ibn Barrajān’s summons and death took place against a background of political, eco-
nomic, and military crisis in al-Andalus caused by the Christian advance onto the peninsula
and accentuating the decline of the Almoravids during the first half of the sixth/twelfth
century. Due to Almoravid passivity in the face of the Christian threat, the Andalusian popu-
lation sought the leadership of members of the judiciary, the fuqahāʾ.
Since the fall of the Umayyads in 422/1031 and the political instability of the mulūk
al-ṭawāʾif that followed, local power in Andalusian cities tended to concentrate around lin-
eages of important families whose members in many cases inherited posts in the judiciary.
These elites were mostly supported by the local population. At different times, and partic-
ularly during the crisis following the fall of the Almoravids (shortly after Ibn Barrajān’s
death), judges stepped into the power vacuum and ruled over local populations. Hence in
order to understand the events that surrounded Ibn Barrajān’s summons and imprisonment,
we should bear in mind that the power structure in al-Andalus was not only linked to the
Almoravid elite of governors and the military, but also to the power of the judiciary concen-
trated around local lineages with the endorsement of religious authority.
The aim of this article is to reconsider the historical data that we have about Ibn Barrajān
in order to debunk the currently accepted view of him as a scholar on the margins and a
rebellious political contender, since a careful reading of the sources shows this not to be
the case. I propose that the events surrounding Ibn Barrajān were a result of religious—
not political—tensions brought about by the emergence of a class of learned Sufis whose
increasing numbers of disciples were seen as a threat by the judiciary. With the spiritual and
religious authority he had acquired, Ibn Barrajān came to personify in the Islamic West of
his day an equivalent role to that of al-Ghazālī in the Islamic East. These tensions resulted in
Ibn Barrajān’s being tried for and found guilty of bidʿa; as a mubtadiʿ he was omitted from
the most important biographical work of his day, Ibn Bashkuwāl’s al-Ṣila, which erroneously
fostered the impression that he was a minor scholar, leading to a mistaken reputation to this
very day.
ibn barrajān in historiographical sources

The treatment of Ibn Barrajān in historiographical sources has changed over time, which
has caused considerable confusion regarding his role in history. The source that is chron-
ologically closest to his lifetime—the biographical dictionary al-Ṣila (the main source for
our knowledge of the Andalusian ulema of this period)—is silent about him. Its author, Ibn
Bashkuwāl (d. 578/1183), was in his late thirties at the time of Ibn Barrajān’s death and
although he wrote his biographical dictionary under both the Almoravids and the Almohads,
1. There are other cases of important Sufis being summoned for questioning by the political authority or accused
of seeking power. Abū Madyan (d. 594/1198), for instance, was summoned and died on his way to answer a number
of accusations, and Abū l-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī (d. 656/1258) was accused of being a Fāṭimid pretender. Nevertheless,
their reputations have not suffered in the same way as that of Ibn Barrajān. For Abū Madyan, see Vincent J. Cornell,
The Way of Abū Madyan: Doctrinal and Poetic Works of Abū Madyan Shuʿayb al-Ḥusayn al-Anṣārī (Cambridge,
1996), 15. For Abū l-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī, see Vincent J. Cornell, Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroc-
can Sufism (Austin, 1998), 149.
Bellver: “Al-Ghazālī of al-Andalus” 661
he makes no reference to Ibn Barrajān. There is no evidence that Ibn Bashkuwāl had a
negative view of Sufism as such; among many other indications of his (generally speaking)
favorable attitude, he included an entry on Ibn al-ʿArīf praising his piety. Ibn Bashkuwāl’s
silence regarding Ibn Barrajān has led some scholars to suggest that Ibn Barrajān was such a
minor scholar in al-Andalus that he did not deserve mention in the most complete biographi-
cal dictionary of his time.
In the seventh century a.h., the picture of Ibn Barrajān in historiographical sources begins
to change, once the prediction of the Muslim capture of Jerusalem was fulfilled. During this
period Ibn Barrajān’s reputation and those of others who suffered under the Almoravids were
restored by the Almohads, who tended to support Sufis even though they did not entirely
trust them; and the sources of this period are generally sympathetic toward Ibn Barrajān
and Sufism. Even though these historiographical sources are among those closest to Ibn
Barrajān’s time, none describes him as an imām in a political sense or as a contender for
political authority, and none indicates a violent death or execution, although mention is made
that he was summoned, judged, and imprisoned on allegedly religious grounds. The reason
given for his having been summoned was the fuqahāʾ’s growing envy of Ibn al-ʿArīf. These
sources include biographical dictionaries by al-Tādilī, Ibn al-Abbār, Ibn al-Zubayr, and Ibn
ʿAbd al-Malik al-Marrākushī. There are notices of Ibn Barrajān in other biographical diction-
aries of this period, but most rely on Ibn al-Abbār.
The first mention of Ibn Barrajān in a biographical dictionary in this period was by
Yūsuf al-Tādilī (d. 627 or 628/1229 or 1230) in al-Tashawwuf ilā rijāl al-taṣawwuf writ-
ten ca. 617/1220, 2 some eighty years after Ibn Barrajān’s death and some fifty years after
Ibn Bashkuwāl completed al-Ṣila in 564/1169. Al-Tashawwuf is a biographical dictionary
devoted to Maghribi Sufi masters of the fifth and sixth centuries a.h., and is thus sympathetic
to Sufism. Al-Tādilī does not include an entry on Ibn Barrajān himself, but he mentions
Ibn Barrajān’s burial in the biographical notice of the Moroccan Sufi master Ibn Ḥirzihim
(d. 559/1164), who played an important role in the events subsequent to Ibn Barrajān’s death.
The first biographical notice completely devoted to Ibn Barrajān is found in Ibn al-Abbār’s
(d. 658/1260) Takmila li-kitāb al-Ṣila, a work begun in 631/1233, one century after Ibn
Barrajān’s death. 3 This is a classic biography in the Islamic tradition, with plain references to
teachers, students, and works. There is no reference to the events surrounding Ibn Barrajān’s
death or to any political interest of his. Later biographical dictionaries quote from this biog-
raphy extensively. Ibn al-Abbār supplies additional information about Ibn Barrajān in the
biographies of some of his students and disciples. In particular, Ibn al-Abbār’s biography of
Ibn al-ʿArīf—in his dictionary of Abū ʿAlī al-Ṣadafī’s students 4—provides some explanation
regarding the summoning of Ibn Barrajān and Ibn al-ʿArīf to Marrakesh.
This second period is completed with biographies by Ibn al-Zubayr (d. 708/1308) 5 and
Ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Marrākushī (d. 703/1303), although the latter is only extant through
Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī’s Lisān al-mīzān. 6 Ibn al-Zubayr is extremely sympathetic to Ibn
Barrajān. However, his biography is mostly drawn from reading Ibn Barrajān’s works and
provides little additional information. Ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Marrākushī provides an account
2. Ed. A. Toufic (Rabat, 1984), 156 (no. 41), 168–170 (no. 51).
3. Ed. F. Codera (Madrid, 1887), 2: 559 (no. 1588), 645 (no. 1797). The work appeared under his father’s name,
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Rijāl Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Entry no. 1588 was taken from MS Escorial, while
no. 1797 was taken from MS Alger.
4. Ibn al-Abbār, Muʿjam fī aṣḥāb al-qāḍī al-imām Abī ʿAlī al-Ṣadafī, ed. F. Codera (Madrid, 1886), 19 (no. 14).
5. Ibn al-Zubayr, Ṣilat al-ṣila, ed. E. Lévi-Provençal (Rabat, 1938), 31–33 (no. 45).
6. Ed. ʿA. F. Abū Ghudda (Aleppo, 2002), 5: 173–74 (no. 4761).
of Ibn Barrajān’s summons, trial, death, and burial, but no reference is made to his being a
contender for political authority.
The perception of Ibn Barrajān begins to change in the seventh century a.h., with Ibn
Taymiyya’s (d. 728/1328) polemics against the waḥdat al-wujūd strand of Sufism. Ibn Tay
miyya raised some concerns about Ibn Barrajān by linking him to supporters of the doctrine
in which God is both transcendent and immanent, such as Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī (d. 386/996)
and the alleged Sālimiyya. Even though Ibn Taymiyya’s opinion of Ibn Barrajān was not
entirely negative, these concerns were later voiced by other scholars, such as al-ʿAllāma Ṣāliḥ
b. Mahdī al-Maqbalī (d. 1108/1696), and underlie the current negative view of Ibn Barrajān.
Ibn Taymiyya’s student al-Dhahabī (d. 748/1348) also belongs to this period: he states
that Ibn Barrajān and Ibn al-ʿArīf were summoned and imprisoned because ʿAlī b. Yūsuf
b. Tāshufīn feared that, like Ibn Tūmart of the Almohads (d. 524/1130), they were rebelling
against him. 7 To my knowledge this is the first statement to the effect that Ibn Barrajān was
imprisoned—not only summoned—for political rather than religious reasons.
The last period begins in the tenth century a.h. with al-Shaʿrānī (d. 973/1565). Aiming
to extol the Sufis in opposition to the jurists, al-Shaʿrānī states that Ibn Barrajān was con-
sidered an imām by the people; arousing envy as a result, Ibn Barrajān was brought before
the sultan and killed. 8 This statement is the basis of the later scholarly view of Ibn Barrajān.
The Spanish scholar Miguel Asín Palacios (d. 1944) understood al-Shaʿrānī as saying that
Ibn Barrajān was imām in 130 villages. 9 Later, the Jesuit scholar Paul Nwyia (d. 1985)
reinforced this view of Ibn Barrajān as an imām seeking political power—in his edition of
the correspondence between Ibn al-ʿArīf and Ibn Barrajān, he interpreted the expression “my
imām” addressed by Ibn al-ʿArīf to Ibn Barrajān in the light of Asín Palacios’s reading of
al-Shaʿrānī. 10 This view has now been qualified by scholars such as Denis Gril, who believes
that Ibn Barrajān’s imamate should be understood only in a spiritual sense. 11
Thus, the narrative we have of Ibn Barrajān is rather puzzling. He is regarded as a minor
scholar, yet during his lifetime he was known as “al-Ghazālī of al-Andalus”; he is seen as a
rebellious Mahdist imām, yet his closest disciple who addressed him as imāmī is respectful
of established authority. A clarification of Ibn Barrajān’s place in history is much needed in
order to understand the role of Sufism in Mahdist movements at the end of the Almoravid
period, as well as to widen our knowledge of the development of intellectual Sufism in al-
Andalus up to Ibn al-ʿArabī. In this regard it is important to ascertain whether Ibn Barrajān
was indeed a minor scholar and whether he sought political power and was executed as a
result. To address the first of these questions, I will examine the information in biographical
dictionaries in order to obtain a clearer image of him, and for the second I will try to estab-
lish a less contradictory narrative about his trial and death than the one we have at present.
7. Al-Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ (Beirut, 1984–1988), 20: 72–74 (no. 44).
8. This is to my knowledge the first acknowledgment that Ibn Barrajān was executed, appearing some four
centuries after his death.
9. Miguel Asín Palacios, Tres estudios sobre pensamiento y mística hispanomusulmanes (Madrid, 1995): 222
(originally published as “El místico Abū-l-ʿAbbās ibn al-ʿArīf de Almería y su Maḥāsin al-Maŷālis,” Boletín de la
Universidad de Madrid 3 [1931]: 441–58).
10. Paul Nwyia, “Note sur quelques fragments inédits de la correspondance d’Ibn al-ʿArīf avec Ibn Barrajān,”
Hespéris 43 (1956): 217–21; idem, “Rasāʾil Ibn al-ʿArīf ilā aṣḥāb thawrat al-murīdīn fī l-Andalus,” al-Abḥāth 27
(Beirut, 1979): 43–56.
11. Denis Gril, “La lecture supérieure du Coran,” Arabica 47 (2000): 510–22, esp. 511.
ibn barrajān’s biography

Abū l-Ḥakam ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Rijāl Muḥammad b. ʿAbd
al-Raḥmān al-Lakhmī al-Ishbīlī, 12 known as Ibn Barrajān and considered during his lifetime
to be “al-Ghazālī of al-Andalus,” 13 was one of the foremost Sufis of al-Andalus. According
to his nisba, he lived most of his life in Seville. The biographical dictionaries provide no date
of birth, but we can assume that he was born shortly before or around 450/1058 and therefore
lived until his mid-eighties. The presumed date of birth is based on the fact that the only
teacher of his of whom we have records, Abū ʿAbd Allāh b. Manẓūr, 14 with whom he studied
Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, died in Shawwāl 469/May 1077. 15 In addition, the biographical dictionar-
ies do not mention his longevity, which usually means that the person in question did not
reach ninety years of age. He was a contemporary of Ibn Manẓūr’s youngest students, such
as Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Yarbūʿ (d. 522/1128), 16 Abū Bakr Muḥammad al-ʿĀmirī
(d. 532/1138), 17 Abū l-Ḥasan Yūnus b. Mughīth (d. 532/1138), 18 and the very youngest,
Abū l-Ḥasan Shurayḥ al-Ruʿaynī (d. 539/1144). 19 Indeed, Ibn Barrajān’s age is an important
factor for understanding the events that surrounded his death.
12. Additional notices on Ibn Barrajān can be found in Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt al-aʿyān, ed. I. ʿAbbās (Beirut,
1986), 4: 230, 236–37; 7: 340; 8: 71; al-Yāfiʿī, Mirʿāt al-janān (Hyderabad, 1918), 3: 267–68; al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī
bi-l-wafayāt (Beirut, 2000), 18: 260 (no. 6994); Ibn Shākir al-Kutubī, Fawāt al-wafayāt (Būlāq, 1882), 1: 274;
al-Suyūṭī, Kitāb Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn (Leiden, 1839), 20 (no. 58); al-Shaʿrānī, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā (Cairo, 1315),
1: 15; al-Baghdādī, Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn, ed. R. Bilge and M. Kemal (Istanbul, 1951), 1: col. 570; Ibn Taghrībirdī,
al-Nujūm al-zāhira (Cairo, 1929–1956), 5: 270; Ibn al-Muwaqqit, al-Saʿāda al-abadiyya (Fes, 1918), 1: 106; Ibn
al-ʿImād, Shadharāt al-dhahab (Beirut, n.d.), 4: 113; al-Nāṣirī, al-Istiqṣā li-akhbār duwal al-maghrib al-aqṣā (Casa-
blanca, 1954–1956), 2: 68–69, 184; al-Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām (Beirut, 2002), 4: 6; Ḥajjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn (Leipzig,
1835–1858), 1: 257; 2: 344, 346; 4: 22, 24, 26; 5: 38; 7: 767, 1079–80; al-Dāwūdī, Ṭabaqāt al-mufassirīn (Cairo,
1972), 1: 300 (no. 280); A. Fauré, “Ibn Barradjān,” EI2, 3: 754–55; ʿU. R. Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-muʾallifīn (Beirut,
1993), 5: 226; Carl Brockelmann, GAL, 1: 434 (559), Supp. I, 775; I. Goldziher, “Ibn Barrağān,” Zeitschrift der
deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 68 (1914): 544–46; Purificación de la Torre, “Ibn Barraŷān,” Dicciona-
rio de autores y obras andalusies (DAOA), 1: 578–81 (no. 309). This Ibn Barrajān should not be confused with
his grandson of the same name (d. 627/1230) who excelled as a scholar of the Arabic language. See Ibn al-Abbār,
Takmila, 2: 646 (no. 1798); al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 22: 334 (no. 205).
13. Ibn al-Abbār, Muʿjam, 20.
14. Ibn Bashkuwāl, al-Ṣila, ed. I. al-Abyārī (Beirut, 1989), 3: 803–4 (no. 1208); al-Ḍabbī, Bughyat al-multamis,
ed. I. al-Abyārī (Beirut, 1989), 1: 75 (no. 28); al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 18: 389–90 (no. 190). Ibn Manẓūr and Ibn Ḥazm
(d. 456/1064) were masters of ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿArabī (d. 492/1099), father of the famous Mālikī scholar Abū Bakr
b. al-ʿArabī (d. 543/1148). In addition, Abū Bakr b. al-ʿArabī co-taught some of Ibn Barrajān’s disciples.
15. Ḥassān al-Qārī (“Ibn Barrajān al-Andalusī wa-juhūdihi fī tafsīr al-ṣūfī wa-ʿilm al-kalām,” Majallat Jāmiʿat
Dimashq li-l-ʿulūm al-iqtiṣādiyyat wa-l-qānūniyya 23 [2007]: 363–424) believes Ibn Barrajān to have been born
before or around 455/1063, that is, five years later. This would mean that Ibn Barrajān would have begun studying
Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī around the age of ten, if we assume that his time of study with Ibn Manẓūr was long enough to be
recalled by later biographers and there was a short period of inactivity before Ibn Manẓūr’s death, which I think is
late. At ten years of age Ibn Barrajān would probably have been studying the Qurʾan and qirāʾa before progressing
to ḥadīth. In fact, the youngest disciple of Ibn Manẓūr of whom we know—Abū l-Ḥasan Shurayḥ al-Ruʿaynī—was
born in 451/1059.
16. Born 444/1052-3. Ibn Bashkuwāl, al-Ṣila, 2: 444 (no. 650). He was also one of Ibn Bashkuwāl’s teachers.
17. Born 446/1054. For al-ʿĀmirī, who was a preacher in Silves and famous for his knowledge, see Ibn
Bashkuwāl, al-Ṣila, 3: 846 (no. 1289).
18. Born 447/1055. Ibn Bashkuwāl, al-Ṣila, 3: 985–86 (no. 1530). He was also one of Ibn Bashkuwāl’s teachers.
19. A leading traditionist, faqīh of the Mālikī school, and celebrated preacher of the great mosque of Seville.
Ibn Ḥazm gave him an ijāza to transmit his works on Ẓāhirī fiqh. Ibn Bashkuwāl, al-Ṣila, 1: 366–67 (no. 541).
Al-Ruʿaynī was one of Ibn Bashkuwāl’s teachers.
According to Ibn al-Abbār, 20 Ibn Barrajān’s family was from Ifrīqiya. His grandfather,
Abū Rijāl Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, moved to Seville during the reign of the second
ʿAbbādid king ʿAbbād al-Muʿtaḍid (r. 433–461/1042–1069). Ibn Barrajān himself is described
as belonging to the people of Seville although his origins were in Ifrīqiya (wa-aṣluhu min
Ifrīqiya); this can mean that either he was born in Ifrīqiya or that his family moved from there
shortly before his birth. Ibn Barrajān’s family may have emigrated to al-Andalus during a
time of hardship in Ifrīqiya known as fitnat al-ʿarab. 21 In 440/1048, al-Muʿizz Ibn Bādīs, the
Zīrid ruler and vassal to the Fāṭimids, gave up the alliance with the Fāṭimids and recognized
the ʿAbbāsids, thus establishing Sunni Islam as the official variant in the region. In response,
the Fāṭimids supported the invasion of Ifrīqiya by Arab tribes four years later, which devas-
tated the region’s agriculture and culminated with the destruction of Kairouan in 449/1057.
Ibn Barrajān preferred to live apart from people and fame, 22 and chose to reside out-
side Seville. According to Ibn al-Abbār’s entry on Ibn Barrajān’s student Ibn al-Mālaqī
(d. 574/1178-9), 23 Ibn Barrajān lived—at least during the last part of his life when Ibn
al-Mālaqī visited him—in a village (qarya) in the district (iqlīm) of al-Sharaf (Aljarafe), 24
to the west of Seville in the direction of Ṭilyāṭa 25 (present-day Tejada) in the district of
al-Baṣal. This description corresponds to the modern-day village of Albaida de Aljarafe or
Olivares, west of Seville.
Ibn al-Abbār describes Ibn Barrajān as “knowing the Qurʾanic readings and ḥadīth, thor-
oughly versed in the science of theology (kalām) and Sufism, practicing (maʿa) asceticism,
and striving in worship.” According to Ibn al-Zubayr, “he was one of the most excellent
men of the Maghrib, imām in the science of theology (kalām), in the Arabic language and
literature, knower (ʿārif) of the Qurʾanic esoteric commentary (taʾwīl) as well as the exo-
teric (tafsīr), an excellent, skilled, and penetrating grammarian, imām in whatever he men-
tioned without peer. He also had knowledge of arithmetic and geometry, and so forth. From
any science, he chose a selection and freely applied it to Sufism and esoteric science (ʿilm
al-bāṭin).” 26
Ibn Barrajān has three extant works:
1. Tafsīr Ibn Barrajān, which is known and usually catalogued as Kitāb al-Irshād or
al-Irshād fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān. 27 Ibn Barrajān’s famous prediction of the capture of Jerusalem
20. Takmila, 2: 559 (no. 1588).

21. Similar emigrations are reported during this period, although mainly to the Almeria area, because of the
fitnat al-ʿarab. Ibn Bashkuwāl, al-Ṣila, 1: 214 (no. 302); 3: 871 (no. 1332). See also Ibn Bashkuwāl, al-Ṣila, 2: 589
(no. 876) and 3: 871 (no. 1331).
22. Ibn al-Zubayr, Ṣilat al-ṣila, 33 (no. 45).
23. Ibn al-Abbār, Takmila, 2: 486 (no. 1394); Ḥassān al-Qārī, “Ibn Barrajān al-Andalusī,” 366.
24. For the location of the district of Aljarafe, see Jacinto Bosch Vilá, La Sevilla islámica 712–1248 (Seville,
1984), 333–39.
25. A village midway between Seville and Niebla, twenty miles from both. Al-Ḥimyarī, Ṣifat jazīrat al-Andalus
(Beirut, 1988), 128–29 (no. 121). Al-Yāqūt (Muʿjam al-buldān [Beirut, 1977], 4: 39) identifies it as a district of
Écija in Cordoba, which seems mistaken. A number of Ibn Barrajān’s disciples were from Niebla, while others like
Ibn al-Kharrāṭ sought refuge in Niebla when civil strife broke out between the Murīdūn and the fuqahāʾ in 540/1145.
26. Ibn al-Zubayr, Ṣilat al-ṣila, 31–33 (no. 45).
27. A critical edition of this tafsīr is currently being prepared by Yousef Casewit. Denis Gril’s study of this com-
mentary (supra, n. 11) presents a general account of Ibn Barrajān and his works and analyzes Ibn Barrajān’s spiritual
hermeneutics as revealed in his commentary to al-Fātiḥa and to the first verses of al-Baqara. Elsewhere, Gril com-
pares the hermeneutics of Ibn al-ʿArabī and Ibn Barrajān within the tradition of Sahl al-Tustarī and Ibn Masarra. See
D. Gril, “L’interprétation par transposition symbolique (iʿtibār), selon Ibn Barrajān et Ibn ʿArabī,” in Symbolisme et
herméneutique dans la pensée d’Ibn ʿArabī, ed. B. Aladdin (Damascus, 2007), 147–61. Ḥassān al-Qārī (supra, n. 15)
by Muslims in 583/1187 is found in the commentary to the beginning of al-Rūm. 28 Because

of this prediction, his tafsīr came to be considered as being based mainly upon the science
of letters (ʿilm al-ḥurūf) or astrology (tanjīm) and he himself therefore as a hermetic bāṭinī.
2. A second Qurʾanic commentary, Īḍāḥ al-ḥikma, which is frequently confused with the
previous tafsīr. 29 In the commentary of the initial verses of al-Rūm, Ibn Barrajān states that
he has treated their content previously, which may mean that Īḍāḥ al-ḥikma was written after
the aforementioned tafsīr. Muḥyī l-Dīn b. al-ʿArabī refers to this commentary; 30 however, on
at least one occasion he refers to Īḍāḥ al-ḥikma when in fact he means Tafsīr Ibn Barrajān, 31
so he may be confusing the two.
3. Sharḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, in which Ibn Barrajān cites his Kitāb al-Irshād at least
three times. 32
There are references to other works ascribed to Ibn Barrajān. Carl Brockelmann reports a
Tanbīh al-afhām ilā tadabbur al-kitāb wa-l-taʿarruf ʿalā l-āyāt wa-l-nabaʾ al-ʿaẓīm, 33 which
is another version of Tafsīr Ibn Barrajān, 34 and Ibn al-Zubayr mentions a Kitāb al-Irshād
in which Ibn Barrajān tries to demonstrate the concurrence between Qurʾanic verses and
Prophetic traditions drawn from Muslim. 35 This latter work as described does not appear to
have survived.
As noted above, Ibn Barrajān cites a Kitāb al-Irshād in his Sharḥ asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā.
Since he states in his introduction to Tafsīr Ibn Barrajān that it was composed after his
commentary on the names of God, 36 Kitāb al-Irshād and the Tafsīr seem indeed to be differ-
ent works. This is corroborated by a marginal annotation in a copy of the Tafsīr noting the
order of composition of his works: Kitāb al-Irshād is first, followed by Sharḥ Asmāʾ Allāh
al-ḥusnā, followed by the Tafsīr. 37 Īḍāḥ al-ḥikma may thus be his last work, as a follow-up
to his first tafsīr.
Finally, in addition to these works there is a reference to a work entitled ʿAyn al-yaqīn.
The reference is found in al-ʿAlam al-shāmikh fī īthār al-ḥaqq ʿalā l-ābāʾ wa-l-mashāʾikh
by the Yemeni scholar Ṣāliḥ b. Mahdī al-Maqbalī, 38 who reprints a fatwa by Ibn Khaldūn
(d. 808/1406) in which this work by Ibn Barrajān, among others, is condemned to fire. This
describes the Tafsīr’s methodology as based on a close reading of the Qurʾan and ḥadīth. He aims to correct the gen-
eral view of Ibn Barrajān as a bāṭinī Sufi and to place him inside the boundaries of the mainstream Islamic tradition.
28. See José Bellver, “Ibn Barraǧān and Ibn ʿArabī on the Prediction of the Capture of Jerusalem in 583/1187
by Saladin,” Arabica 61 (2013), forthcoming.
29. For a preliminary description of this tafsīr, see Amina González-Costa, “Un ejemplo de hermenéutica
sufí del Corán en al-Andalus: El comentario coránico Īḍāḥ al-ḥikma de Ibn Barraŷān (m. 536/1141) de Sevilla,”
in Historia del Sufismo en al-Andalus, ed. A. González-Costa and G. López-Anguita (Cordoba, 2009), 41–65.
González-Costa is currently preparing an edition.
30. Ibid., 55–56.
31. Ibn al-ʿArabī, Mawāqiʿ al-nujūm (Sidon, 2004), 132, where he traces the prediction of the conquest of Jeru-
salem to Īḍāḥ al-ḥikma. Ibn al-ʿArabī wrote Mawāqiʿ al-nujūm in 595/1199, five years after his first sojourn with
ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Mahdawī, with whom he studied Ibn Barrajān’s tafsīr. This may mean that Ibn Barrajān’s first and
major commentary catalogued as al-Irshād was known under the name of Īḍāḥ al-ḥikma, as otherwise Ibn al-ʿArabī
would not have mistaken it. This may help explain why Īḍāḥ al-ḥikma seems more widespread than the number of
extant mss. would suggest.
32. Ibn Barrajān, Sharḥ Asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, ed. Purificación de la Torre (Madrid, 2000).
33. MS Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek BSB-Hss Cod. Arab. 83. Only the second volume of a two-volume set is
extant, now published, ed. Muḥammad al-ʿAdlūnī (Casablanca, 2011).
34. Gril made this point in his study (supra, n. 11), 512.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid., 513–14. The copy is MS Carullah 51 M.
38. Ed. Cairo, 1328h, 500.
same fatwa without mention of Ibn Barrajān’s ʿAyn al-yaqīn, however, is also found in earlier
authors such as Burhān al-Dīn Ibrāhīm al-Biqāʿī (d. 885/1480). 39 Hence, this reference may
be a later addition by al-Maqbalī himself or by a copyist after Ibn Khaldūn. Be that as it may,
since the other works mentioned in the fatwa are among the most important written by their
authors, 40 ʿAyn al-yaqīn may refer, if not a misattribution, 41 to one of the most important
works by Ibn Barrajān.
ibn barrajān, an outsider?

The fact that Ibn Bashkuwāl did not include Ibn Barrajān in his biographical dictionary—
or even mention him—has fostered the impression among scholars and researchers that Ibn
Barrajān did not belong among the religious scholars of his time, or even that he was a par-
venu in the Andalusian tradition of religious scholars because of his North African origins, 42
in short, that he was an isolated and minor figure. Ibn Barrajān did choose to live a discreet
life, keeping his distance from the pageantry of the class of religious scholars of his time and
shunning celebrity and fame, but does this quiet lifestyle equate with not taking part in the
system of transmission of religious knowledge of his time?
Ibn Bashkuwāl’s biographical dictionary, al-Ṣila, is the main source for our knowledge of
the ulema of his time and was extensively quoted by later biographical dictionaries; thus we
know this period mainly through Ibn Bashkuwāl’s eyes. The fact that he omits Ibn Barrajān
can be seen either as the consequence of the latter’s outsider status or as a deliberate attempt
to ignore him. Let us consider the possibility that he was an isolated and minor figure.
We have very little information on Ibn Barrajān’s life, but we can posit from the wide
range of sciences in which he was skilled that he must have studied with a considerable num-
ber of teachers, probably in different Andalusian cities. 43 Only one of his teachers is known
to us, however: Ibn Manẓūr, mentioned above, who belonged to the important Banū Manẓūr
family of scholars and qāḍīs initially based in Seville. 44 On a riḥla to the East he studied
with the Mālikī Ashʿarī scholar Abū Dharr al-Harawī (d. 430/1038). 45 Being an Ashʿarī,
Abū Dharr al-Harawī probably supported what may have appeared to religious scholars in
al-Andalus as rationalist positions. 46 Through Ibn Manẓūr, Ibn Barrajān may have known of
views based on the science of uṣūl al-dīn, which were innovative in the very conservative
milieu of Andalusian fuqahāʾ. 47
39. Al-Biqāʿī, Maṣraʿ al-taṣawwuf wa-huwa kitābān: Tanbīh al-ghabī ilā takfīr Ibn ʿArabī wa-taḥdhīr al-ʿibād
min ahli l-ʿinād bi-bidʿati l-ittiḥād, ed. ʿA. R. al-Wakīl (Cairo, 1953), 167. Although al-Biqāʿī makes no reference to
ʿAyn al-yaqīn by Ibn Barrajān, the editor supplies it by citing al-Maqbalī.
40. Viz., Ibn al-ʿArabī’s al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, Ibn Sabʿīn’s Budd al-ʿārif, and Ibn Qasī’s Khalʿ al-naʿlayn.
41. A disciple of both Ibn Barrajān and Ibn al-ʿArīf, ʿAlī b. Khalaf b. Ghālib (d. 568/1173), wrote a Kitāb
al-yaqīn. Al-Marrākushī, al-Dhayl wa-l-takmila li-kitābay al-Mawṣūl wa-l-Ṣila, ed. I. ʿAbbās (Beirut, 1965), 5: 210.
42. Cf. D. Urvoy, Le monde des ulémas andalous du V/XIe au VII/XIIIe siècle (Geneva, 1978), 55; M. Fierro,
“Opposition to Sufism in al-Andalus,” Islamic Mysticism Contested: Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and
Polemics, ed. F. de Jong and B. Radtke (Leiden, 1999), 187.
43. Cf. P. de la Torre’s introduction to her edition of Sharḥ Asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, 34 (supra, n. 32). For the dif-
ferent fields of study that could be pursued at that time in Seville, see D. Urvoy, Le monde des ulémas andalous, 55.
44. For the Banū Manẓūr family, see María Luisa Ávila, “Los Banū Manẓūr al-Qaysī,” in Familias andalusíes:
Estudios onomástico-biográficos de al-Andalus, ed. M. Marín and J. Zanón (Madrid, 1992), 5: 23–37.
45. Jonathan Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim (Leiden, 2007), 121.
46. Ibid., 143.
47. Ibn Barrajān was proficient in kalām and had knowledge of arithmetic and geometry. This background is
unusual for a religious scholar of that time in al-Andalus, to which Ibn Barrajān added a hermeneutic approach.
Even though Ibn Manẓūr had few students, those he had were the most important scholars
and religious authorities of his time in Seville and Cordoba. 48 In addition, he was important
enough to attract students from Cordoba in a period in which Seville was not yet an impor-
tant scholarly center. Three of Ibn Manẓūr’s youngest students—Yūnus b. Mughīth, ʿAbd
Allāh b. Yarbūʿ, and Shurayḥ al-Ruʿaynī—shared a similar pattern in terms of their teachers.
On the basis of this pattern, Ibn Barrajān’s possible teachers were the renowned traditionists
Abū ʿAlī al-Ghassānī al-Jayyānī (d. 498/1105) 49 and ʿAbd al-Malik b. Sirāj (d. 489/1096), 50
both from Cordoba, and ʿAbd Allāh b. Khazraj al-Lakhmī (d. 478/1086) 51 from Seville,
since he was proficient in the disciplines they taught. It is less likely that the traditionist Abū
l-Qāsim Ḥātim b. Muḥammad (d. 469/1077) 52 from Cordoba was. Obviously Ibn Barrajān’s
three co-students had many more teachers, but no more coincidences are reported.
As for those who influenced him on the Sufi path, we find similarities with Ibn Masarra
(d. 319/931) 53—for instance, the equivalent concept of symbolic transposition (iʿtibār),
which plays a key role in their hermeneutics 54—so his influence can be presumed. Ibn
al-ʿArabī usually cites Ibn Masarra together with Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896) 55 when discuss-
ing the concept of al-ḥaqq al-makhlūq bihi al-khalq, which was first used by Ibn Barrajān
and which, according to Ibn al-ʿArabī, mirrors Sahl al-Tustarī’s concept of ʿadl (‘justice’). 56
48. D. Urvoy, Le monde des ulémas andalous, 172–77. In addition to Abū l-Ḥasan Shurayḥ and Abū l-Ḥasan
Ibn Mughīth, the main authority of this period was Abū Bakr b. al-ʿArabī, who was a disciple of Abū ʿAbd Allāh
b. Manẓūr through his father.
49. Ibn Bashkuwāl describes him as the principal transmitter of ḥadīth of his time in Cordoba (raʾīs
al-muḥaddithīn fī Qurṭuba) and as being well versed in Arabic language and poetry. Ibn Bashkuwāl, al-Ṣila, 1: 233–
35 (no. 333); al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 20: 148–51 (no. 77).
50. He is described as the imām of Arabic language—mainly lexicography—and literature in al-Andalus, hav-
ing no rival. Ibn Bashkuwāl, al-Ṣila, 2: 530–32 (no. 780); al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 20: 133–34 (no. 70). Al-Ghassānī
and Ibn Sirāj were the teachers of Yūnus b. Mughīth and ʿAbd Allāh b. Yarbūʿ. They also gave written permission
(ijāzāt) to Shurayḥ al-Ruʿaynī to transmit their works.
51. He was the teacher of Shurayḥ al-Ruʿaynī and ʿAbd Allāh b. Yarbūʿ, and excelled in the knowledge of
ḥadīth, history, and Mālikī fiqh. Ibn Bashkuwāl, al-Ṣila, 2: 433 (no. 631); al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 18: 488–89 (no. 251).
52. The teacher of Ibn Mughīth and Ibn Yarbūʿ, but since he died in the same year as Ibn Manẓūr, Ibn Barrajān
was probably too young to attend his classes in Cordoba. Ibn Bashkuwāl, al-Ṣila, 1: 253–55 (no. 358); al-Dhahabī,
Siyar, 18: 336–67 (no. 157).
53. For Ibn Masarra, see Miguel Asín Palacios, Ibn Masarra y su escuela: Orígenes de la filosofía hispano
musulmana (Madrid, 1914); Claude Addas, “Andalusī Mysticism and the Rise of Ibn ʿArabī,” in The Legacy of
Muslim Spain, ed. S. K. Jayyusi (Leiden, 1992), 913–19; Emilio Tornero, “Noticia sobre la publicación de obras
inéditas de Ibn Masarra,” al-Qanṭara 14 (1993): 47–64; L. E. Goodman, “Ibn Masarrah,” in History of Islamic Phi-
losophy, ed. S. H. Nasr and O. Leaman (London, 1996), 277–93; Sarah Stroumsa, “Ibn Masarra and the Beginnings
of Mystical Thought in al-Andalus,” in Mystical Approaches to God, ed. P. Schäfer (Oldenburg, 2006), 97–112.
54. For the iʿtibārī tradition in al-Andalus ranging from Ibn Masarra to Ibn Barrajān and Ibn al-ʿArabī, see Denis
Gril, “L’interprétation par transposition symbolique,” 147–61. Gril shows the continuity between Ibn Masarra’s and
Ibn Barrajān’s hermeneutics.
55. In Kitāb Khawāṣṣ al-ḥurūf Ibn Masarra cites Sahl al-Tustarī’s Risālat al-ḥurūf. For the former work, see
Muḥammad Kamāl Ibrāhīm Jaʿfar, Min qaḍāyā l-fikr al-islāmī: Dirāsa wa-nuṣūṣ (Cairo, 1978), 311–44; Pilar Gar-
rido, “Edición crítica del ‘K. jawāṣṣ al-ḥurūf’ de Ibn Masarra,” al-Andalus-Magreb: Estudios árabes e islámicos 14
(2007): 51–89. For Sahl al-Tustarī’s Risālat al-ḥurūf, see Muḥammad Kamāl Ibrāhīm Jaʿfar, Min al-turāth al-ṣūfī
li-Sahl b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Tustarī (Cairo, 1974), 1: 366–75; Pilar Garrido Clemente, “El ‘Tratado de las letras (Risālat
al-ḥurūf)’ del sufí Sahl al-Tustarī,” Anuario de estudios filológicos 29 (2006): 87–100, esp. 89, where she posits
that Ibn Masarra was inspired by Sahl al-Tustarī. Later Muslim authors also acknowledged the relationship between
the two. See al-Qurṭubī, al-Asnā fī sharḥ Asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā (Beirut, 2008), 83, where the two works on ḥurūf
are quoted together. For Ibn Masarra’s Risālat al-iʿtibār, see Muḥammad Kamāl Ibrāhīm Jaʿfar, Min qaḍāyā al-fikr
al-islāmī, 346–60; J. Kenny, “Ibn-Masarra: His Risāla al-iʿtibār,” Orita: Ibadan Journal of Religious Studies 34
(2002): 1–26.
56. Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya (Cairo, 1329/1911), 2: 60, 104; 3: 77.
In fact, if we disregard the category of traditionists, Sahl al-Tustarī is one of only two later
authorities who are quoted by name in Ibn Barrajān’s Sharḥ Asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā—the
other being Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya (d. 185/801). 57 In addition, the Ḥanbalī Ibn Taymiyya
emphasizes Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī’s (d. 386/996) influence upon Ibn Barrajān, although this
may only be based on his personal impression obtained by reading their works. 58 Abū Ṭālib
al-Makkī was a disciple of the Sufi traditionist Abū Saʿīd b. al-Aʿrābī (d. 341/952-3), who
played an important role in the development of Sufism in al-Andalus. 59 In short, in spite of
the paucity of references, the later authors seem to have considered Ibn Barrajān as being
indirectly related in different ways to Sahl al-Tustarī and his followers.
Ibn Barrajān was both a Sufi master and a teacher of religious sciences. Although bio-
graphical dictionaries, and particularly Ibn al-Abbār’s Takmila, mention some of his students,
it cannot be determined whether they were also his disciples, of whom we know mainly
from the reports of the events surrounding his death and from Ibn al-ʿArīf’s correspondence.
According to Ibn al-Zubayr, his students were among the most exalted and noble people of
his time. 60 Some of his students were particularly important as, for instance, the renowned
traditionist and Sufi of the sixth/twelfth century ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Azdī al-Ishbīlī, known as
Ibn al-Kharrāṭ (d. 581/1185). 61 The prominence of teachers of other students, such as the
traditionist and historian Abū l-Qāsim al-Qanṭarī (d. 561/1166) from Silves 62 and the Mālikī
faqīh Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Khalīl al-Qaysī (d. 570/1174) from Niebla, 63 testifies
to Ibn Barrajān’s being among the main teachers of his time. Ibn Khalīl al-Qaysī is described
as long-lived (muʿammar, i.e., probably at least ninety). Since he was Ibn Barrajān’s stu-
dent and transmitted his works, it is likely that this is the Ibn Khalīl from Niebla whom Ibn
al-ʿArabī refers to as one of the greatest masters in the Maghrib and the master of Ibn Qasī,
under whose guidance Ibn Qasī obtained his unveilings (kashf). 64 In addition to these stu-
dents, the wealthy faqīh and preacher ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mālaqī (d. 574/1178-9) from Malaga
is also known to us as Ibn Barrajān’s student. 65
57. Ibn Barrajān, Sharḥ Asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, 267.

58. Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿat al-fatāwā, ed. A. al-Bāz and ʿĀ. al-Jazzār (al-Manṣūra, 1997), 2: 182; 5: 81, 142,
289.
59. See Manuela Marín, “Abū Saʿīd ibn al-Aʿrābī et le développement du ṣūfisme dans al-Andalus,” Revue du
monde musulman et la Méditerranée 63–64 (1992): 28–38.
60. Ibn al-Zubayr, Ṣilat al-ṣila, 33 (no. 45).
61. Ibn al-Kharrāṭ was one of the youngest of Ibn Barrajān’s students. He wrote compendiums on ḥadīth and
ascetic literature. During Ibn Qasī’s rebellion, he moved to Niebla and to Bejaya where he had a close relationship
with the Sufi master Abū Madyan. Ibn al-Kharrāṭ was one of Muḥyī l-Dīn Ibn al-ʿArabī’s teachers, although prob-
ably only through correspondence. Hence he became an important link between Ibn Barrajān and both Abū Madyan
and Ibn al-ʿArabī. For Ibn al-Kharrāṭ, see Ibn al-Abbār, Takmila, 2: 647–48 (no. 1805); al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 21: 198
(no. 99). For his relationship with Abū Madyan, see al-Ghubrīnī, ʿUnwān al-dirāya (Algiers, 1970), 73 (no. 5); Ibn
Qunfudh al-Qusanṭīnī, Uns al-faqīr wa-ʿizz al-ḥaqīr, ed. M. El Fasi and A. Faure (Rabat, 1965), 34–35.
62. He was also a student of al-ʿĀmirī and Ibn Mughīth; and while in Seville a student of the qāḍī Abū Bakr b.
al-ʿArabī and Ibn Bashkuwāl alongside Ibn Barrajān. Hence Ibn Bashkuwāl ought to have known Ibn Barrajān. See
Ibn al-Abbār, Takmila, 1: 216 (no. 734); al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 20: 455 (no. 291).
63. Ibn Khalīl had important teachers, such as Abū ʿAlī al-Ghassānī (d. 498/1105), qāḍī Abū Bakr b. al-ʿArabī,
Ibn Rushd al-Jadd (d. 520/1126), and Abū ʿAlī al-Ṣadafī (d. 514/1120). For Ibn Khalīl, see Ibn al-Abbār, Takmila,
1: 233 (no. 764); al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 20: 517 (no. 330).
64. This information was reported to Ibn al-ʿArabī (al-Futūḥāt al-makiyya, 1: 136) in Tunis by Ibn Qasī’s son.
Ibn Khalīl lived in Fes and died in Marrakesh.
65. For whom, see Ibn al-Abbār, Takmila, 2: 486 (no. 1394); al-Dhahabī, Taʾrīkh al-islām (Beirut, 1987), 40:
150 (no. 119); al-Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām, 4: 123.
Ibn Barrajān was the Sufi master of probably the two foremost mystics of their time in
al-Andalus: 66 Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. al-ʿArīf 67 and Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Khalaf b. Ghālib
(d. 568/1173). 68
Ibn al-ʿArīf (d. 536/1141), who was born in Ceuta though his family moved to Almeria
where he lived most of his life, is well known for his Maḥāsin al-majālis 69 in which he
described the stations on the spiritual path, recasting and expanding al-Anṣārī’s Manāzil
al-sayrīn. 70 Although Asín Palacios considered Ibn al-ʿArīf to be Ibn Barrajān’s Sufi mas-
ter, Paul Nwyia inverted this relationship in his edition of letters from Ibn al-ʿArīf to Ibn
Barrajān since Ibn al-ʿArīf addressed Ibn Barrajān with shaykhī (‘my master’) and imāmī
(‘my imam’). 71 It can be argued that the use of such terms is merely a sign of respect and
does not imply a master–disciple relationship, in which case Ibn al-ʿArīf might be expected
to address other people in the correspondence collected by his disciple Abū Bakr ʿAtīq b.
Muʾmin (d. 548/1156) in similar terms, but this is not so. In fact, the way in which Ibn
al-ʿArīf addresses Ibn Barrajān is exceptional, and he takes great care with the terms he uses
as signs of respect in every situation. Moreover, Ibn Muʾmin has arranged Ibn al-ʿArīf’s cor-
respondence according to a clear pattern of closeness and importance, beginning with his
letters to Ibn Barrajān—the only one he addresses as his shaykh and imām—followed by
his close friend, disciple, or even co-disciple Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Khalaf b. Ghālib, his other
disciples or co-disciples, and ending with people with whom he has no particular spiritual
ties, such as Ibn Qasī and Ibn Mundhir. The last set of letters is addressed to Ibn Muʾmin, his
disciple; as a sign of humility from the editor it diverges from the aforementioned pattern.
The pattern evinces the spiritual link between Ibn al-ʿArīf and Ibn Barrajān, whose relation-
ship is also clear from Ibn al-Abbār’s Muʿjam, which underlines Ibn Barrajān’s preeminence
(shufūf) over Ibn al-ʿArīf. 72
Ibn al-ʿArīf belonged to a class of learned Sufis 73 who were proficient traditionists, among
whom his master, Ibn Barrajān, also belonged. He was raised in a context that was fully
acquainted with al-Ghazālī’s views. 74 Ibn al-ʿArīf studied with al-Ṣadafī and, according to
66. He was also the master of, inter alia, ʿAbd al-Ghafūr al-Sakūnī (d. after 540/1145) from Niebla. See Ibn al-
Zubayr, Ṣilat al-ṣila, 33 (no. 45) and 37–38 (no. 52); M. Fierro, “Opposition to Sufism,” 190.
67. Ibn al-Abbār, Muʿjam, 18–22 (no. 14); Ibn Bashkuwāl, Ṣila, 1: 136–37 (no. 176); al-Tādilī, Tashawwuf,
118–23 (no. 18); ʿAbbās b. Ibrāhīm, al-Iʿlām bi-man ḥalla marrākush wa-aghmāt min al-aʿlām (Rabat, 1974),
1: 5–24; al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 20: 111–14 (no. 68); ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. Manṣūr, Aʿlām al-maghrib (Rabat, 1983), 3:
231ff. See also J. Lirola, “Ibn al-ʿArīf,” Diccionario de autores y obras andalusies, 1: 469–76 (no. 245).
68. Ibn al-Abbār, Takmila, 2: 672 (no. 1870); al-Marrākushī, al-Dhayl wa-l-takmila, 5: 208–12, no. 415;
al-Tādilī, Tashawwuf, 228 (no. 81).
69. Ed. Asín Palacios (Paris, 1933).
70. See Bruno Halff, “Le Maḥāsin al-mağalis d’Ibn al-ʿArīf et l’oeuvre du soufi ḥanbalite al-Anṣārī,” Revue des
études islamiques 39 (1971): 321–35.
71. Paul Nwyia, “Rasāʾil Ibn al-ʿArīf,” 43–56. For the collection of Ibn al-ʿArīf’s correspondence by his disciple
Ibn Muʾmin, compiled from MS Rabat Hassania 1562, see Ibn al-ʿArīf, Miftāḥ al-saʿādat wa-taḥqīq ṭarīq al-saʿāda,
ed. ʿI. ʿA. L. Dandash (Beirut, 1993).
72. Ibn al-Abbār, Muʿjam, 19 (no. 14).
73. According to al-Dhahabī, he wore the khirqa and entered the Sufi path with Abū Bakr b. Buryāl (d. 502/1108),
the last disciple of al-Ṭalamankī (d. 429/1037).
74. In addition to the Sevillian Abū Bakr b. al-ʿArabī and his father ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿArabī, the two other
Andalusian students of al-Ghazālī either came from or settled in Almeria. The Sufi and Qurʾan reciter Abū l-Qāsim
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Balawī (d. 545/1150-1), born near Guadix, studied with al-Ghazālī and received permission from
him to transmit his works. After his riḥla, he settled in Almeria and was appointed leader of the prayer and preacher
at the great mosque. This important position shows the wide acceptance of al-Ghazālī’s writings and of Sufism in
general in Almeria at that time. In turn, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Khulānī of Almeria, known as al-Balaghī
(d. 515/1121), also undertook a riḥla and studied with al-Ghazālī. Both students of al-Ghazālī must have been in
Ibn Bashkuwāl, with a group of his own teachers, which probably includes some or all of
Ibn Manẓūr’s students, to which group Abū Bakr b. al-ʿArabī may be added. Ibn Bashkuwāl
spoke highly of his piety and asceticism and indicated that they had exchanged written per-
missions to transmit their works, which included his Ṣila, on Ibn al-ʿArīf’s initiative. Ibn
al-ʿArīf became famous and was an influential figure who attracted a large number of dis-
ciples in the Sufi path from all over al-Andalus.
Ibn Barrajān’s other disciple, Abū l-Ḥasan b. Khalaf b. Ghālib from Silves, was also one
of Ibn al-ʿArīf’s most beloved disciples in the Sufi path, although they were almost the same
age. He was a Sufi and a traditionist who spent some time with Ibn Barrajān before moving
to northern Morocco. In Fez he was the teacher of Abū Madyan, to whom he transmitted
the Sunan of al-Tirmidhī; 75 he finally settled in Ketama, the present-day Ksar el Kebir, in
northern Morocco. Ibn Ghālib probably played an important role in the transmission of Ibn
Barrajān’s works to Abū Madyan and his school in addition to Ibn al-Kharrāṭ, who was a
student of both Ibn Ghālib and Ibn Barrajān. It is said that Ibn Ghālib reached the degree of
watad in the spiritual Sufi hierarchy. 76
In addition to his direct disciples, Ibn Barrajān, along with Ibn al-ʿArīf, had a wide spiri-
tual authority over the Sufi circles of northern Morocco, enjoying high respect and esteem.
This is shown in episodes reported in the biographies of two of Abū Madyan’s masters. 77
In short, Ibn Barrajān was an important figure for a number of reasons: the depth and
thorough scholarship of his works; the high esteem in which his only known teacher was
held; his companions, who were among the most learned men in Cordoba and Seville; and
his students and disciples, who were among the most famous ḥadīth scholars and Sufis of
their time. Even though his absence in Ibn Bashkuwāl’s biographical dictionary may suggest
that he was not well known, he was by no means a minor figure in the scholarly circles of his
time, especially in light of his being considered “al-Ghazālī of al-Andalus.”
ibn barrajān, a political activist?

Some authors have regarded Ibn Barrajān as a “political activist,” 78 a valuable member
of the revolt of the Murīdūn 79 and Mahdist rebellious movements. As noted above, he was
said to have been imām in 130 villages and it was because of this that he was summoned by
the sultan in Marrakesh and executed for his rebellious activities. 80 However, some scholars
have doubted any involvement in politics on his part. 81
As for the evidence in favor of his being a political activist, there is his summons in
536/1141 from the Almoravid sultan ʿAlī b. Yūsuf b. Tāshufīn in Marrakesh, along with Ibn
close touch with the qāḍī of Almeria, Abū l-Ḥasan al-Barjī (d. 509/1115), who in turn is well known for being the
first qāḍī in al-Andalus to oppose the burning of al-Ghazālī’s writings ordered in 503/1109 by Abū ʿAbd Allāh b.
Ḥamdīn, qāḍī of Cordoba (d. 508/1114). In addition, al-Barjī was one of Ibn al-ʿArīf’s teachers. For al-Balawī, see
Ibn al-Abbār, Takmila, 2: 562–63 (no. 1597). For al-Balaghī, see Ibn Bashkuwāl, Ṣila, 3: 834–35 (no. 1270). For
al-Barjī, see M. Fierro, “Opposition to Sufism,” 186.
75. Ibn Qunfudh al-Qusanṭīnī, Uns al-faqīr, 14, 26; Cornell, The Way of Abū Madyan, 5–6.
76. On the night of Ibn Ghālib’s death, his disciple ʿAbd al-Jalīl b. Mūsā saw written in the sky that a “support”
(watad, pl. awtād; lit. tent peg) had disappeared. See al-Marrākushī, al-Dhayl wa-l-takmila, 5: 211.
77. These were the malāmatī Sufis Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Daqqāq (fl. first half of sixth century/twelfth century)
and Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī Ibn Ḥirzihim. For these episodes, see al-Tādilī, Tashawwuf, 156 (no. 41) and 168–70 (no. 51).
78. See, for instance, Cornell, Realm of the Saint, 20.
79. Vincent Lagardère, “La tarīqa et la révolte des Murīdūn en 539 H/1144 en Andalus,” Revue de l’Occident
musulman et de la Méditerranée 35 (1983): 157–70.
80. Cornell, Realm of the Saint, 25–26 and n. 96.
81. Cf. Gril, “La lecture supérieure du Coran,” 511.
al-ʿArīf and Abū Bakr al-Mayūrqī, and his death shortly afterwards, raising the possibility
that he was executed. Second, Ibn Barrajān’s imprisonment and death took place in a context
of social turmoil; indeed, Ibn Qasī’s revolt against the Almoravid ruling power broke out in
the Algarve shortly after Ibn Barrajān’s death. Ibn Qasī considered himself a Sufi and met
Ibn al-ʿArīf, and can therefore be linked, indirectly at least, to Ibn Barrajān. This allows for
the possibility that Ibn Barrajān was a Sufi activist and an inspirer of the revolts that broke
out after his death. Finally, some later sources, such as al-Shaʿrānī, present him as an imām
with considerable authority. In addition, Ibn al-ʿArīf addresses Ibn Barrajān as his imām,
which some authors have interpreted as an indication of political authority. 82
Was it likely that he was involved in Mahdist movements or had any doctrine regarding
the coming of the Mahdī? The correspondence between Ibn al-ʿArīf and Ibn Qasī makes
clear that Ibn Qasī was not a disciple of Ibn al-ʿArīf, and it has been shown that Ibn Qasī’s
views were already established before the beginning of their correspondence. 83 In addition,
the style of their correspondence does not resemble that between a master and a disciple, so
no mastery of Ibn al-ʿArīf over Ibn Qasī can be presumed. 84 There is also a letter from Ibn
al-ʿArīf to Ibn Mundhir—Ibn Qasī’s disciple and lieutenant in the revolt of the Murīdūn—in
which Ibn al-ʿArīf strongly discourages any attempt at rebellion against the established rul-
ing power while awaiting the advent of a Mahdī. 85 In general, then, Ibn al-ʿArīf seems to
have exerted little if any influence over Ibn Qasī, and is most unlikely to have inspired or
participated in the revolt of the Murīdūn. In view of his spiritual links with Ibn al-ʿArīf, Ibn
Barrajān’s position regarding the revolt of the Murīdūn was probably the same as that of his
disciple.
As for whether Ibn Barrajān had any doctrine regarding the coming of the Mahdī, 86 there
is an illuminating allusion to the Mahdī in his famous prediction of the capture of Jerusalem
by Muslims, found in Tafsīr Ibn Barrajān. 87 Ibn Barrajān devises a process of alternate
victories of Muslims and Christians (rūm) over the centuries in order to gain control of the
region of Jerusalem. This process will come to an end with the final victory of the Muslims
over the Christians, which victory will be led by the Mahdī, to whom he also refers as the
Just Imam (al-imām al-ʿadl). The coming of the Mahdī must thus fulfill certain cyclical
conditions that were to be met in 583/1187, sixty-one years after Ibn Barrajān wrote his
prediction in 522/1128. This does not mean that Ibn Barrajān openly stated that the Mahdī
will appear in 583/1187, but he considered it to be perfectly probable. Thus, though Ibn
Barrajān had Mahdist doctrines, he expected the Mahdī not in his own time but some sixty
years later. Moreover, his Mahdism, at least as it appears in this text, was focused on the
Christian advance on Jerusalem and might have been motivated by the ongoing pressure
82. Cornell, Realm of the Saint, 20.

83. Addas, “Andalusī Mysticism,” 923.
84. David Goodrich also does not find any influence of Ibn al-ʿArīf’s Maḥāsin al-majālis on Ibn Qasī’s Khalʿ
al-naʿlayn. He also underlines that Ibn al-ʿArabī does not refer to Ibn Qasī being influenced by Ibn Barrajān or Ibn
al-ʿArīf, bearing in mind that he knew in depth their works. See David R. Goodrich, “A ‘Sufi’ Revolt in Portugal: Ibn
Qasī and His ‘Kitāb Khalʿ al-Naʿlayn’ (Arabic Text)” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia Univ., 1978), 17.
85. Addas, “Andalusī Mysticism,” 923; Paul Nwyia, “Rasāʾil Ibn al-ʿArīf,” 43–56.
86. I do not aim to explore this topic exhaustively since two of his major works remain unedited. For an account
of Messianic movements in al-Andalus, see Maribel Fierro, “Doctrinas y movimientos de tipo mesiánico en al-
Andalus,” in Milenarismos y milenaristas en la Europa medieval: IX Semana de Estudios Medievales, Nájera,
1998, ed. J. Ignacio de la Iglesia Duarte (Logroño, 1999), 159–76. For the Mahdist movements in the Maghrib, see
Garcia-Arenal, “La conjonction”; eadem, Messianism and Puritanical Reform: Mahdis of the Muslim West, tr. M.
Beagles (Leiden, 2006).
87. MS Reisulkuttab 31, f. 96b; MS Šehid Ali Paša 73, f. 321b.
from Christians on the Iberian peninsula rather than on reform of the Islamic community. He
would have dismissed contemporary Mahdist movements, such as those of Ibn Qasī and the
Almohads, as idle.
Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that the famous discussion between Ibn al-ʿArabī
and his master Abū l-ʿAbbās al-ʿUryabī about the identity of the person whose appearance
was foretold by the Prophet (i.e., the Mahdī), which led to Ibn al-ʿArabī’s first encounter with
Khiḍr must have taken place shortly before 583/1187. 88 Ibn al-ʿArabī was around twenty
years old when he met Abū l-ʿAbbās—that is, ca. 580/1185—and he states that this discus-
sion took place at the beginning of their relationship. 89 This confirms the concerns that arose
shortly before the year 583/1187, and hence is clearly linked with Ibn Barrajān’s prediction
of the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem and the possible appearance of the Mahdī in that year. 90
A second point is the description of Ibn Barrajān as an imām. This term is extensively used
in contemporary texts, such as Ibn Bashkuwāl’s al-Ṣila, to refer to the most learned person
in a particular science, the man whom others should follow. In the textual sources in which
Ibn Barrajān is addressed as imām there are two contexts that allow for a political meaning:
when Ibn al-ʿArīf addresses him with this term in a personal letter and when al-Shaʿrānī notes
that he was followed as imām. Let us consider both.
According to some, Ibn al-ʿArīf addressed Ibn Barrajān by letter as the “Supreme Guide of
those who lead souls to the ways of salvation [and] the imām who possesses the benediction
of Muḥammad as his legitimate representative.” 91 However, this address is Nwyia’s inter-
pretation and should not be quoted as Ibn al-ʿArīf’s words. 92 Nwyia based his interpretation
on one of Ibn al-ʿArīf’s letters to Ibn Barrajān that he found in a manuscript belonging to Si
Ben Souda. This same letter is included in Ibn al-ʿArīf’s Miftāḥ al-saʿāda. 93
The gist and intention of this letter is fully spiritual, since it deals with the perplexity
caused in Ibn al-ʿArīf by souls inebriated by the love of the world, overcome by passions, and
with hardened hearts blind to the contemplation of the hereafter; the expressions that have
given rise to a political interpretation are peripheral to the gist of the letter and are placed
in the complimentary sections. Therefore, a worldly political interpretation of the ways in
which Ibn alʿArīf addresses Ibn Barrajān in the complimentary sections seems to clash with
the otherworldly spiritual topic of the letter.
Nwyia’s understanding of Ibn Barrajān as “supreme guide” in a political sense is mainly
based on the word imām and the expression mutaqaddimī taslīman appearing in the com-
plimentary sections of this letter. As to this latter expression, Nwyia renders it (or a similar
one, since there may be differences between the manuscripts) as “le Guide à qui je témoigne
soumission de foi,” while I translate it as “the one preceding me in surrender.” There is room
for different interpretations of the expression mutaqaddimī taslīman, but Nwyia’s seems to
me unlikely. Be that as it may, if—following Nwyia—this expression means that Ibn al-ʿArīf
asserts his surrender to Ibn Barrajān, in the context of Sufism this is more likely to be an
88. Al-Futūḥāt al-makiyya, 1: 186.

89. For this event, see Claude Addas, Quest for the Red Sulphur: The Life of Ibn ʿArabī, tr. P. Kingsley (Cam-
bridge, 1993), 62–64.
90. There was a major eruption of Mahdism in the Islamic West after 583/1187. See Garcia-Arenal, “La con-
jonction,” 237.
91. Nwyia, “Note sur quelques fragments inédits,” 220; Cornell, Realm of the Saint, 20.
92. This quotation erroneously ascribed to Ibn al-ʿArīf has shaped the perception later scholars have of Ibn
Barrajān. See, e.g., Ken Garden, “Al-Ghazālī’s Contested Revival: Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn and Its Critics in Khorasan and
the Maghrib” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Chicago, 2005), 219–20.
93. A translation is appended to this article.
expression of Ibn al-ʿArīf’s fully spiritual allegiance (bayʿa) to Ibn Barrajān without any
need to look for political connotations.
Nwyia’s interpretation of this letter is deeply rooted in his preconception of what the
term imām meant to Ibn al-ʿArīf. Although Nwyia reverses Asín Palacios’s vision of the
relationship between Ibn Barrajān and Ibn al-ʿArīf, he is still deeply influenced by Asín’s
interpretation of al-Shaʿrānī’s reference. 94 Thus the key point is to ascertain how Ibn al-ʿArīf
understood the term imām.
I believe the idea that Ibn al-ʿArīf understood imām in a political sense can be dismissed,
as this would contradict his general approach to political authority. In addition to his explicit
disapproval of rebellion against the established ruling power, his position towards the ruling
authority, which he considers appointed by God, is one of respect, as evidenced in Miftāḥ
al-saʿāda. 95
If we rule out a political interpretation for Ibn al-ʿArīf’s use of the term imām when he
addresses Ibn Barrajān, how then does he use it? In one of his letters he lists the causes for
committing reproachable errors regarding the law and sciences. One of these causes is arbi-
trariness (istibdād), which he understands as “reliance on oneself before attaining the degree
of imamate (darajat al-imāma) in knowledge (ʿilm) or practice (ʿamal)”; the imām is thus
one who has attained sufficient competence to be able to rely on his own judgment. 96 Since
what defines an imām is his competence to rely on his own judgment, nothing prevents the
existence of multiple imāms at any particular time and place. In another letter Ibn al-ʿArīf
equates the imamate (imāma) to teaching (taʿlīm). 97 In his interpretation of the final part of
Q 3:79—“Be ye faithful servants of the Lord by virtue of your constant teaching (tuʿallimūna)
of the Scripture and of your constant study thereof” (Pickthall)—he notes that tuʿallimūna
can also be read as form I (taʿlamūna) ‘you know’, and points out that both teaching and
knowing have precedence over studying from books alone, as studying comes after teaching
(and knowing) in this verse. He then equates teaching to the imamate and contrasts the duo of
sage (ʿālim) and imām—i.e., the one who teaches—to those who learn only from books. The
reference to Ibn Barrajān as Ibn al-ʿArīf’s imām might therefore be understood in this sense,
of one who has attained sufficient competence in matters dealing with knowledge or reli-
gious and spiritual practice so as to be able to teach and interpret the sources of the tradition
based on his sound judgment and knowledge. In support of this, there is to my knowledge
no reference in Ibn al-ʿArīf’s works to the use of the term imām in a political sense or even
as a spiritual guide in the sense understood in Shiʿism. In fact, when Ibn al-ʿArīf refers to a
political contender, he uses the term mahdī, as in his letter to Ibn Mundhir.
Ibn Barrajān is also addressed as imām in al-Shaʿrānī’s al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā, and this time
it may involve a political sense. Al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā is a late source with a distinct hagio-
graphical and apologetic purpose, a defense of the great figures in Sufism against the ulema.
From a historical point of view, al-Shaʿrānī’s work is barely reliable. When al-Shaʿrānī enu-
merates jurists’ attacks on Sufis in his introduction, he links Ibn Barrajān with Ibn Qasī and
states that both were recognized as imāms. The text is as follows:
94. See n. 9, supra.

95. Ibn al-ʿArīf, Miftāḥ al-saʿāda, 33–35, where Dandash lists the few instances of Ibn al-ʿArīf’s attitude toward
political authority, e.g., “The worst kinds of censure (inkār) are two: [First,] censure of the sultan, since he is the
Proof (ḥujja) of God [on earth] [and the] second [worst] censure is of those in a lower rank criticizing those above
them in knowledge or [spiritual] state (ḥāl).” Ibid., 170.
96. Ibid., 90. See also p. 92, for the same concept.
97. Ibid., 134–35.
They [who deny the exalted spiritual rank of the saints (awliyāʾ)] killed Imām Abū l-Qāsim b.
Qasī, Ibn Barrajān, al-Khawlī, 98 and al-Marjānī 99 for being considered imāms by the people and
being imitated to the point that envy of them grew. So they bore witness that they were infidels,
although they did not kill them. Instead they acted against them with a stratagem (ḥīla) by telling
the sultan that in some 130 villages (bilād) the sermons of the Friday prayers were performed
in Ibn Barrajān’s name. So he was sent [to the sultan] to be killed; and his entire group was
killed. 100
The Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā does not actually suggest that Ibn Barrajān was recognized as imām
in 130 villages; the assertion that the Friday sermons were performed in his name in some
130 villages was a machination or a trick (ḥīla) of the jurists, and should not be taken as
a representation of the truth. Moreover, it is difficult to believe that the sultan would have
been unaware of the fact that so many villages were not performing the Friday prayers in his
name; this would have been considered a revolt, and it would have been recorded in detail
in later sources. In addition, there are some striking historical inaccuracies: for instance, Ibn
Qasī was not executed by the ruling power but by his followers. Overall, the general impres-
sion is that al-Shaʿrānī is confusing the summons of Ibn Barrajān to Marrakesh with the
revolt of the Murīdūn led by Ibn Qasī in an account of the events aimed to extol the Sufis.
In any case, al-Shaʿrānī’s text does not provide grounds for the claim that Ibn Barrajān was
recognized as an imām in 130 villages.
Ibn Barrajān was indeed held in high esteem in Sufi circles, as was Ibn al-ʿArīf, as we have
seen from the anecdotes of Abū Madyan’s masters. However, other than al-Shaʿrānī, none of
the textual sources alludes to Ibn Barrajān having a large or growing number of followers,
unlike Ibn al-ʿArīf, 101 although the relationship between the two is well established. This
may suggest that Ibn al-ʿArīf played a more public role as spiritual master and counselor
than Ibn Barrajān, who remained in a more closed inner circle, which would square with
Ibn al-Zubayr’s reference to Ibn Barrajān’s reserved character. In short, there is not enough
textual basis to assert that Ibn Barrajān was widely regarded and followed as an imām, even
in the spiritual sense, or that he led a wide socio-political movement despite his fame in Sufi
circles. Nevertheless, he exerted an important spiritual authority over a number of people,
such as Ibn al-ʿArīf, who in turn exerted spiritual authority over an increasing number of
followers.
The final reason for concluding that Ibn Barrajān was not a political activist is his age. He
was in his mid-eighties when he was summoned to the sultan, which makes him an unlikely
active rebel or contender for any kind of political authority.
ibn barrajān’s death

At the end of 535 or the beginning of 536/1141, the Almoravid sultan ʿAlī b. Yūsuf
b. Tāshufīn summoned Ibn Barrajān from Seville, Ibn al-ʿArīf from Almeria, and Abū Bakr
98. Probably the Shāfiʿī jurist and Sufi Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Khawlī (d. 545/1150-1), who had a great many com-
panions. See al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā (Cairo, 1964), 6: 159–60 (no. 674); Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī
l-taʾrīkh (Beirut, 2003), 9: 368.
99. The renowned Tunisian Sufi master Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Marjānī (d. 699/1299), for whom see
al-Shaʿrānī, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā, 1: 172; al-Dhahabī, Taʾrīkh al-islām, 52: 465–66 (no. 760); al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī
bi-l-wafayāt, 17: 320 (no. 6465).
100. Al-Shaʿrānī, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā, 1: 15.
101. Ibn al-ʿArīf’s growing following is well attested in contemporary sources such as Ibn Bashkuwāl’s al-Ṣila.
See Ibn al-Abbār, Muʿjam, 19 (no. 14); Ibn Bashkuwāl, Ṣila, 1: 137; al-Tādilī, Tashawwuf, 118.
al-Mayūrqī from Granada 102 to his presence in Marrakesh. According to al-Tādilī, the qāḍī
Ibn Aswad (d. 536/1142) 103 in Almeria discredited Ibn al-ʿArīf before the sultan and made
him so fearful of Ibn al-ʿArīf that he summoned him with Ibn Barrajān and al-Mayūrqī. 104
Al-Tādilī notes that Ibn Aswad ordered Ibn al-ʿArīf to be placed in fetters during the sea
crossing to Ceuta. There a messenger from the sultan gave him a safe-conduct, freed him,
and escorted him to Marrakesh, where the sultan honored him and allowed him to go back
to Almeria. He died on his way home, some say from illness, while others—according to
al-Tādilī, but dismissed by Ibn al-Abbār—say he was poisoned by Ibn Aswad. In addition,
al-Tādilī states that when the sultan heard that Ibn al-ʿArīf had been poisoned by Ibn Aswad,
he ordered that Ibn Aswad be poisoned in return. Whatever the case, Ibn Aswad died the
same year.
There are also two different versions regarding al-Mayūrqī. According to Ibn al-Abbār,
when he was about to be summoned to Marrakesh, he escaped to Bejaya; 105 according to Ibn
al-Khaṭīb, he was summoned to Marrakesh where he was questioned and condemned to be
whipped and imprisoned; upon his release, he first went back to al-Andalus and then to Alge-
ria. 106 He died shortly afterwards, in 537/1143.
As for Ibn Barrajān, there are two detailed accounts of these events. One is found in
al-Tādilī’s biographical entry on Ibn Ḥirzihim, which is the closest source to the events:
When Abū l-Ḥakam b. Barrajān was summoned from Cordoba to His Excellency [the sultan] in
Marrakesh, he was questioned about some matters for which he had been rebuked (ʿībat ʿalayhi).
He answered based on what was supported by interpretation of the sacred sources (taʾwīl) and
thus distanced himself from the criticism he was forced to answer. Abū l-Ḥakam said: “By God,
I am not going to live, nor is the one who has summoned me—that is, the sultan—going to live
for long after my death.” Abū l-Ḥakam died and the sultan ordered [his corpse] to be thrown onto
the dump without funeral prayers, imitating in this what the jurists (fuqahāʾ) had said.
A black man, who was in Ibn Ḥirzihim’s service and who attended his meetings, went to Ibn
Ḥirzihim’s house and reported to Abū l-Ḥasan [b. Ḥirzihim] what the sultan had ordered regard-
ing Abū l-Ḥakam [b. Barrajān]. Abū l-Ḥasan told him: “If you want to sell your soul to God, do
what I tell you.” He answered: “Order me and I will do what you want me to do.” Ibn Ḥirzihim
said: “Go and claim throughout the markets and streets of Marrakesh, ‘Ibn Ḥirzihim says to you:
Attend the funeral prayers for the excellent shaykh, the ascetic jurist, Abū l-Ḥakam b. Barrajān.
The one who is able to attend and does not, may the curse of God fall upon him.’” [The servant]
did as he was ordered. When the news reached the sultan’s ears, he said: “The one who knows
his excellence and does not attend his funeral, may the curse of God fall upon him.” 107
The second significant account of his death, although it has attracted little attention, is
found in Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī’s Lisān al-mīzān, which quotes al-Marrākushī’s al-Dhayl
wa-l-takmila li-kitābay al-Mawṣūl wa-l-Ṣila. 108 Only parts of al-Dhayl wa-l-takmila have
survived, and Ibn Barrajān’s entry is not among them. The text in Lisān al-mīzān reads as
follows:
102. For Abū Bakr Muḥammad al-Mayūrqī, a pious Ẓāhirī scholar with ascetic tendencies, see Ibn al-Abbār,
Muʿjam, 139 (no. 123) and Takmila, 1: 173 (no. 608); al-Marrākushī, al-Dhayl wa-l-takmila, 6: 169–70, no. 452; Ibn
al-Khaṭīb, al-Ikhāṭa fī akhbār Gharnāṭa (Cairo, 1973), 3: 190.
103. For Ibn Aswad, see Ibn al-Abbār, Muʿjam, 126 (no. 116); Ibn Bashkuwāl, al-Ṣila, 3: 849 (no. 1294). One
of the teachers with whom he studied the longest was Abū Bakr al-Ṭurṭūshī.
104. Al-Tādilī, Tashawwuf, 118–22 (no. 18).
105. Ibn al-Abbār, Muʿjam, 139 (no. 123).
106. Ibn al-Khaṭīb, al-Ikhāṭa, 3: 190.
107. Al-Tādilī, Tashawwuf, 170 (no. 51).
108. Al-ʿAsqalānī, Lisān al-mīzān, 5: 173–74 (no. 4761).
Ibn ʿAbd al-Malik [al-Marrākushī] in his Dhayl al-Ṣila li-Ibn Bashkuwāl said: [Ibn Barrajān]
was falsely accused before [the sultan] ʿAlī b. Yūsuf b. Tāshufīn. So [the sultan] summoned Ibn
Barrajān to Marrakesh. On his arrival, [Ibn Barrajān] said: “I am only going to live for a short
time, and he who summoned me will outlive me only for a short time as well.” An examining
committee (majlis munāẓara) was convened and they laid before him the different matters they
condemned. [Ibn Barrajān] answered based on accepted interpretations (makhārij muḥtamala),
but they were not satisfied with [his answers] since they did not understand the meaning of what
he said. They affirmed in the sultan’s presence that [Ibn Barrajān] was introducing innovations
[in religious matters]. [Ibn Barrajān] fell ill some days later and died in the month of Muḥarram,
while ʿAlī b. Yūsuf died after him in Rajab of the year [5]37. Since he had been told [by Ibn
Barrajān] that he was going to die, [the sultan] ordered that his corpse be thrown onto the dump
without [funeral] prayers and without burial, in accordance with what he had determined fol-
lowing the calumnies of the jurists against [Ibn Barrajān]. But someone from among the people
of excellence, upon hearing of [Ibn Barrajān’s] death, sent a black servant to publicly proclaim
in the markets: “Attend the funeral of this man.” So the squares were filled with people. They
performed the ritual washing of his body, offered the funeral prayers, and buried him.
Neither of these two texts references a Sufi uprising or fear of one like that of the Almo-
hads. 109 Instead, Ibn Barrajān was condemned for committing bidʿa. He defended himself
by using arguments relying (iḥtimāl) on interpretation of the sacred sources (taʾwīl). In the
context of bidʿa, the term taʾwīl is a technical one. If an opinion was obtained through taʾwīl
and was seen as being heterodox, it would not usually lead to a sentence of zandaqa ‘heresy’
but to bidʿa, innovation in religious matters. 110 Hence the reference to taʾwīl has a legal
significance as well.
The fact that Ibn Bashkuwāl excluded Ibn Barrajān from al-Ṣila strongly supports the
argument that Ibn Barrajān was condemned for bidʿa. Since Ibn Barrajān was a major scholar
of his time, as the import of his works shows, in normal circumstances he would have been
included in a biographical dictionary. There were many links between Ibn Barrajān and Ibn
Bashkuwāl. They had some students in common, and although Ibn Bashkuwāl does not name
Ibn Barrajān as his teacher, it makes sense to believe that Ibn Bashkuwāl would have known
him or even been his student, just as he was a student of all of Ibn Manẓūr’s other students in
Cordoba and Seville. His omission is also not for reasons of al-Ṣila being completed before
or very shortly after Ibn Barrajān’s death: it was completed during or shortly after 564/1169,
the date of the last death recorded, long after the Almoravids had disappeared. Perhaps he
was omitted for political reasons or because of his imprisonment. However, we know of
no political pressure that Ibn Bashkuwāl was under to withhold an entry on Ibn Barrajān—
whose fellow prisoner, Ibn al-ʿArīf, was included—and Ibn Bashkuwāl included other ulema
who had been imprisoned and had had political difficulties, such as his teacher Abū Bakr b.
al-ʿArabī. It would seem therefore that the most plausible reason for Ibn Barrajān’s absence in
al-Ṣila is his condemnation for religious matters and probably for bidʿa, although we do not
have any account of his books being burned. Indeed, exclusion from biographical dictionar-
ies was a common practice in such cases. 111
109. Ken Garden, following al-Dhahabī, links the arrest of Ibn Barrajān and Ibn al-ʿArīf to ʿAlī b. Yūsuf b.
Tāshufīn’s fear of a revolt by Sufi groups like that of Ibn Tūmart. See Garden, “Al-Ghazālī’s Contested Revival,”
208–20; and al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 20: 72–74 (no. 44).
110. See Maribel Fierro, “El castigo de los herejes y su relación con formas de poder político y religioso en
al-Andalus (ss. II/VIII-VII/XIII),” in El cuerpo derrotado: Cómo trataban musulmanes y cristianos a los enemigos
vencidos. Península Ibérica, ss. VIII-XIII, ed. M. Fierro and F. García-Fitz (Madrid, 2008), 283–316, esp. 312 n. 69.
111. Maribel Fierro, “Religious Dissension in al-Andalus: Ways of Exclusion and Inclusion,”al-Qanṭara 22
(2001): 482.
Even though we cannot be absolutely certain of the cause of Ibn Barrajān’s death, it is
doubtful that he was executed. His advanced age makes it unlikely; in fact it is more plau-
sible that at that age the hardship of his journey to Marrakesh, possibly in chains, at the
height of summer, and his ensuing imprisonment, arguably in very tough conditions, would
have caused his death. Indeed, al-Marrākushī’s text in Lisān al-mīzān suggests that after a
few days of imprisonment Ibn Barrajān fell ill and died. We recall the case of Abū Madyan,
also in his mid-eighties, who died of old age and illness on his way to Marrakesh after being
summoned by the Almohad sultan to answer a number of suspicions and accusations. 112
According to Andalusian and Maghribi custom, had Ibn Barrajān been executed for a
religious matter, it would have been by crucifixion, although the actual legal punishment
was beheading. We know that al-Mayūrqī was lashed, at least according to Ibn al-Khaṭīb.
Had Ibn Barrajān died from beheading, crucifixion, or lashing, we would be aware of it, as
his corpse, thrown onto the dump, was ritually washed by the population of Marrakesh, who
later performed the funeral prayers and buried him. It is unlikely that any signs of violence
inflicted on him would have passed unnoticed during the washing of his corpse. Al-Tādilī,
who was fully acquainted with Abū Madyan’s disciples and willing to extol the Sufis against
the jurists, as in his report of Ibn al-ʿArīf’s death, would have pointed it out. The fact that we
do not have any account of a violent death after such a popular burial suggests that he was
not executed. In addition, the earliest sources do not mention any reports or any suspicion
of a violent death, only death by illness. Thus an execution seems unlikely. However, this
may mean little since in view of his advanced age and the hardship of imprisonment, those
judging him would have known that a prison sentence would most probably have meant that
death would be imminent.
ibn barrajān’s doctrines motivating his conviction

It is difficult to ascertain which doctrines based on his taʾwīl might have motivated his
conviction as they were not reported in the account. Later biographical texts claim that he
was falsely accused and that the examining committee did not understand what he intended
to say. One possibility is the link with al-Ghazālī, whose doctrines were condemned in the
Islamic West; after all, Ibn Barrajān was considered “al-Ghazālī of al-Andalus” and Qāḍī
ʿIyāḍ issued his fatwa to burn al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ shortly after Ibn Barrajān was summoned
to Marrakesh. 113
The Mālikī fuqahāʾ in the Islamic West criticized different points of what they took to be
al-Ghazālī’s position in his Iḥyāʾ. First, they believed that al-Ghazālī held the opinion that
the purification of the soul through deeds grants knowledge of God and, therefore, God does
not freely bestow knowledge. 114 Second, as a consequence of the previous statement, proph-
ecy can be obtained through effort by purifying one’s own soul; in other words, prophets are
112. Cornell, The Way of Abū Madyan, 15.

113. Ibn Barrajān and al-Ghazālī shared some common features. They were roughly the same age (al-Ghazālī
was born in 447 h) and both were learned Sufis who wrote commentaries on the names of God. In the later tradition,
this comparison can be seen as complimentary to Ibn Barrajān, although during the time of the Almoravids it could
have meant quite the opposite. For a discussion of the various refutations of al-Ghazālī in the Islamic West, see
Delfina Serrano, “Why Did the Scholars of al-Andalus Distrust al-Ghazālī? Ibn Rushd al-Jadd’s Fatwā on Awliyāʾ
Allāh,” Der Islam 83 (2006): 137–56.
114. For this criticism, see, e.g., Abū Bakr b. al-ʿArabī, al-ʿAwāṣim min al-qawāṣim, ed. ʿA. Ṭālibī (Cairo, 1997),
23–24, according to whom al-Ghazālī supported the notion that knowledge is only to be achieved through purifica-
tion. See Frank Griffel, Al-Ghazālī’s Philosophical Theology (New York, 2009), 67–70.
not appointed by God and are like any other person. 115 And third, since al-Ghazālī placed
the awliyāʾ second to the Prophet in the rank of knowledge and al-Qushayrī identified the
awliyāʾ with the Sufis—i.e., those who gain knowledge through purification—this would
give the Sufis a position of preeminence over the scholars, which posed a particular threat to
traditional religious authority and to political authority as well. 116
Ibn Barrajān explicitly denied the most important theological point criticized in
al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ in the Islamic West—that knowledge of God could be gained through
effort in the purification of one’s heart, which could be interpreted as suggesting that proph-
ecy can be gained through effort. In his commentary on God’s name al-Ṭayyib, he states:
Know that purification (taṭyīb) of bad qualities of character (khubth khalqī) cannot be acquired.
This only applies to God—exalted may He be, the One without associate—since it is at the
root of the manufacture and the composition of [the different elements of ] the constitution [of
human beings], while the servant cannot change the constitution. Only God can improve it [. . .].
However, He—glorified and exalted may He be—does not create an illness without providing a
medicine and does not shut a door without finding a key for it [. . .] and the key for this lock is
supplication [in addition to] imploration, resignation, the detachment from [one’s] strength and
power, and waiting for the opening and release from God [. . .]. And you do not know when the
fulfillment of your petition will take place. 117
Even though Ibn Barrajān asserts God’s preeminence in freely bestowing His mercy upon
His servant, he holds nonetheless that God provides the means necessary for the servant
to overcome with his effort every particular spiritual situation by asking for God’s mercy,
which is to some extent close to al-Ghazālī’s position—at least as it was understood in the
Islamic West—according to which effort grants knowledge of God. As to the position Ibn
Barrajān grants to the awliyāʾ, he sees those in the highest ranks as intermediaries between
the prophets and the believers: “Nearness to God (wilāya) originates (tanshaʾu) among the
generations of the chosen (muṣṭafīn) to the point that it reaches prophecy (nubuwwa), the
mission of messengers (risāla), the most intimate friendship (khilla), and the utmost love;
and then [it reaches] the highest rank of intercession and the most exalted degree. The most
elevated people among the close intimates (awliyāʾ) are the link (waṣl) between the prophets
and the believers.” 118
Some other criticisms raised by later authors may help us figure out additional motiva-
tions for his conviction. Ibn Taymiyya links him with the Sālimiyya—the alleged followers
of Sahl al-Tustarī in Baṣra—and accuses him of belonging to those who understand God as
both transcendent and immanent and thus defending a doctrine that Ibn Taymiyya says is
close to incarnation (ḥulūl). 119 He also mentions Ibn Barrajān on the occasion of his criticism
of al-Ghazālī’s concept of takhalluq, which Ibn Barrajān renames taʿabbud in his commen-
115. This is one of al-Ṭurṭūshī’s main criticisms. See al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 19: 494–96 (no. 285) and particularly
p. 495 for his linking of al-Ghazālī with those who were accused of believing that prophecy could be acquired (ikta-
saba) through purification. For a summary of al-Māzarī and al-Ṭurṭūshī’s criticisms of al-Ghazālī and al-Subkī’s
answer, see al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā, 6: 240–58. For al-Ghazālī’s theory of prophecy, see Frank
Griffel, “Al-Ġazālī’s Concept of Prophecy: The Introduction of Avicennan Psychology into Ašʿarite Theology,”
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 14 (2004): 101–44.
116. For an analysis of the fatwa issued by the Mālikī jurist Ibn Rushd al-Jadd on this point, see Serrano, “Why
Did the Scholars of al-Andalus Distrust al-Ghazali?” 137–56.
117. Ibn Barrajān, Sharḥ Asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, 142–43. See also p. 218 for a similar statement on knowledge
understood through purification (taṭahhur) in the measure of one’s effort, although bestowed by God’s mercy.
118. Ibid., 488.
119. Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿat al-fatāwā, 2: 299/182; 5: 485/289.
tary to the names of God—that is, the adoption of God’s attributes by the believer, although
in the Sufi view attributes only applicable to God are excluded.
Other authors, such as Abū Shāma al-Muqaddasī, criticized Ibn Barrajān’s doctrine of
temporal cycles on which he based his prediction of the conquest of Jerusalem. 120 This doc-
trine was confused with astrology, although Ibn Barrajān took it from the Qurʾan and it bore
no relationship to astrology of any kind. Abū Shāma particularly criticizes Ibn Barrajān’s
commentary to the verse “the Night of Might is better (khayr) than 1,000 months” (Q 97:3)
found in his Tafsīr. Abū Shāma attributes to Ibn Barrajān the idea that if the time of the
descent of the Qurʾan were known, the time of its ascent would also be known. However, Ibn
Barrajān does not say this; he says that this time remains unknown since the period (mudda)
related to the word “better” (khayr) in the verse is unknown. 121
The Mālikī faqīh al-Ḥaṣṣār criticized Abū Bakr b. al-ʿArabī for introducing names of
God that were not obtained either from the Qurʾan or the Sunna in his commentary on the
names of God, al-Amad al-aqṣā. 122 According to al-Ḥaṣṣār, Abū Bakr b. al-ʿArabī followed
Ibn Barrajān’s Sharḥ Asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā. Al-Qurṭubī, who himself quotes Ibn Barrajān in
many instances in his al-Asnā fī sharḥ Asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, defended both scholars by giv-
ing some examples of names found in the Sunna or names not literally found in the Qurʾan
and Sunna but easily derived from them. 123 These are thus potentially controversial topics
that could have left Ibn Barrajān open to accusations of bidʿa.
conclusion
The story of Ibn Barrajān’s trial and death reflects the complex situation of Sufism in
al-Andalus during the final years of Almoravid rule.
Ibn Barrajān’s works suggest that Sufism had reached a substantial degree of maturity
during his lifetime in al-Andalus. The importance of his works, the depth of his doctrines,
the books quoted, his practical advice regarding the path, and his spiritual creativity through
the aid of his symbolic transposition (iʿtibār), as, for instance, in the development of the
doctrine of the creative Truth (al-ḥaqq al-makhlūq bihi al-khalq), show that he was firmly
established in a long-standing but at the same time innovative tradition in al-Andalus. Except
for the fact that there were no great Sufi authors in al-Andalus prior to him (if one accepts
that Ibn Masarra was not a Sufi author), nothing in his works suggests that Sufism was in its
early stages in his homeland at that time. All in all, it appears that Sufism must already have
been present for a relatively long time in al-Andalus.
This presence came to a head in Andalusian society with Ibn Barrajān and particularly
with Ibn al-ʿArīf, who threatened the existing balance in religious authority in al-Andalus.
With Ibn Barrajān and Ibn al-ʿArīf, along with others such as Abū ʿAbd Allāh b. Khalīl,
Sufism was no longer a movement supported only by low-profile groups; it was now fol-
lowed by members of the class of the ulema. Ibn Barrajān and Ibn al-ʿArīf embody the
emergence of Sufism among the learned and the emergence of learned Sufism in al-Andalus.
Moreover, Sufism was gaining respect among the Almoravid ruling powers and the popu-
lation, at least in the Maghrib. This is evidenced by Ibn Ḥirzihim being the teacher of the
Almoravid sultan ʿAlī b. Yūsuf b. Tāshufīn and by the events that surrounded Ibn al-ʿArīf
120. Abū Shāma al-Muqaddasī, ʿUyūn al-rawḍatayn fī akhbār al-dawlatayn al-nūriyya wa-l-ṣalāḥiyya, ed.
A. Baysūmī (Damascus, 1991), 2: 107–8.
121. MS Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek BSB-Hss Cod. Arab. 83, f. 229b.
122. Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Ḥaṣṣār (d. 611/1224). See Ibn al-Abbār, Takmila, 2: 686 (no. 1918).
123. Al-Qurṭubī cites “Ibn al-Ḥaṣṣār.” Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾān (Beirut, 2006), 9: 394–95.
and Ibn Barrajān’s summons and deaths: the sultan’s warmth towards Ibn al-ʿArīf, and Ibn
Ḥirzihim’s appeal to the population concerning Ibn Barrajān’s burial, on the basis of his own
spiritual authority.
Nonetheless, ʿAlī b. Yūsuf b. Tāshufīn had shown weakness toward the Andalusian class
of the fuqahāʾ and the judiciary, 124 which shaped the Andalusian power structure around
local lineages. Bearing in mind this weakness and also Ibn Barrajān’s profile and old age,
his being summoned and imprisoned were probably the result of the growing tensions pro-
duced by the shifting of religious authority from transmitted knowledge to purity of heart and
intimacy with God rather than the result of his leading or inspiring a Sufi uprising against
the Almoravids, as was the case with Ibn Qasī. All the same, the ongoing editing of Ibn
Barrajān’s works will help to clarify the role of this important figure in Andalusian Sufism.
translation of ibn al-ʿarīf’s letter to ibn barrajān 125

God be the intimate friend and protector of the faqīh, the imām Abū l-Ḥakam [ibn Barrajān],
my master (shaykh) and my senior (kabīr) [in age; as spiritual figure?] and may the mercy
and the benediction of God be upon him.
From the one learning from him, the one eager of knowing what is with him, the weak
servant of God, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad [ibn al-ʿArīf ].
In the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the Most-Merciful; and the benediction and peace
of God upon Muḥammad, His Messenger. May peace, God’s mercy, and blessings be upon
you.
O, my God! Unite the essential reality (ḥaqīqa) of the existence (wujūd) of the master
(shaykh)—my imām and my senior (kabīr)—with the existence of the essential reality of
the knowledge (maʿrifa) of You and the acquaintance (taʿarruf) with You; make him a guide
(zimām) of those who are signs in the paths leading to the purification of souls and an imām
of those principals who are banners (aʿlām) in the guidance to salvation; and bless him and
through him with the benediction which begins and ends in Muḥammad, may God’s bless-
ings be upon him.
I was concerned with receiving a letter from the master—my only one in consideration
(wāḥidī naẓaran), the one preceding me in surrender (mutaqaddimī taslīman) and in being
held in high estimation (wa-muʿtabaran) 126—since the bearer of arguments to be listened
to from me is moving him to interpose a separation between (ḥāla bayna) [my] soul and its
desire and to bring shame on it [i.e., on my soul] from its Lord (mawlā). For this reason,
[my master’s] supplication, letter, writing, and information were received bringing love and
affection to me.
All this is part of the signs (āthār) I asked [God]—exalted be His name—and it was not
His very Essence (ʿayn) [that I asked]. So I was expecting one of His allusions regarding
knowledge or practice.
124. Viz., ʿAlī b. Yūsuf b. Ibn Tāshufīn’s letter to his governor al-Zubayr b. ʿUmar reproaching his attitude
toward the qāḍī Abū Bakr b. Aswad and warning him against the power of the judiciary in al-Andalus. The qāḍī
Ibn Aswad was the one who accused Ibn al-ʿArīf before the sultan. See M. Muʾnis, “Sabʿ wathāʾiq jadīda ʿan dawlat
al-murābiṭīn,” Revista del Instituto egipcio de estudios islámicos 2 (1954): 55–84, esp. 71.
125. Ibn al-ʿArīf, Miftāḥ al-saʿāda, 109–10. Differences of translation from Nwyia’s version may partially arise
from differences in the base manuscripts. My translation is based on Dandash’s edition (supra, n. 71).
126. If we read muʿtabir instead of muʿtabar, it can be translated as “the one preceding me [. . .] as interpreter,”
that is, the one who precedes me in exerting the symbolic transposition (iʿtibār).
And the explanation in a detailed and general manner of one point is obscure to me: [this
point is] how to treat a drunk or how to treat him when his inebriety overcomes him, when
his friend is inattentive and his claimer is awakened.
O, my God! Such is the perplexity caused by a weak one with no excuse, an existence
upon which no power is exerted through regulations. And [this perplexity is such] except for
a misled and weak one.
O, my God! Cover with Your veil the one with overflowing inebriety caused by the love of
the world, the one whose inner reality is dead with regard to the contemplation of the visions
of the Hereafter. He has no Lord taking over him except You, while every wild beast he finds
stays with him for a long time and his passions overcome him.
And when Your generosity draws him to You, the vile aspects of his being draw him from
You; so have mercy and pay no attention to what You know [of us] and open a hardened heart
with the keys of solicitude, so that we can look at You and be ashamed before You.
And you—my imām—imbued with the veneration deserved by your white hair, remember
me when you lie down to rest with Whom you lie down, so that the One you have loved for
me loves you.
And may the eternal ever-recurring peace, God’s mercy, and blessings be upon you.

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“Al-Ghazālī of al-Andalus”: Ibn Barrajān, Mahdism, and the

Emergence of Learned Sufism on the Iberian Peninsula

Journal of the American Oriental Society 133.4 (2013) 659

ibn barrajān in historiographical sources

ibn barrajān’s biography

20. Takmila, 2: 559 (no. 1588).

by Muslims in 583/1187 is found in the commentary to the beginning of al-Rūm. 28 Because

ibn barrajān, an outsider?

57. Ibn Barrajān, Sharḥ Asmāʾ Allāh al-ḥusnā, 267.

ibn barrajān, a political activist?

82. Cornell, Realm of the Saint, 20.

88. Al-Futūḥāt al-makiyya, 1: 186.

94. See n. 9, supra.

ibn barrajān’s death

ibn barrajān’s doctrines motivating his conviction

112. Cornell, The Way of Abū Madyan, 15.

translation of ibn al-ʿarīf’s letter to ibn barrajān 125

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