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The Wiley Blackwell
Companion to Islamic
Spirituality
Edited by
Vincent J. Cornell and Bruce B. Lawrence

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cornell, Vincent J., editor. | Lawrence, Bruce B., editor.
Title: The Wiley Blackwell companion to Islamic spirituality / edited by Vincent J. Cornell and Bruce B. Lawrence.
Description: 1. | Hoboken : John Wiley & Sons, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2021061391 (print) | LCCN 2021061392 (ebook) | ISBN 9780470674208 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781118529393 (pdf) | ISBN 9781118529409 (epub) | ISBN 9781118533789 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Spiritual life--Islam. | Sufism.
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LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021061391
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Contents
List of Contributors ix
General Introduction xi
Part I Expressive Dimensions of Islamic Spirituality

Introduction to Part I
Vincent J. Cornell
IA The Spirituality of Words and Letters
1 The Spirituality of the Qurʾān23
Bruce B. Lawrence
2 The Spirituality of Hadith 44
Abbas Barzegar
3 The Spirituality of Invocations and Litanies in Islam 61
Kenneth Lee Honerkamp
4 The Many Spirits of the Islamic Past 74
Shahzad Bashir
5 Translating Sainthood in Islamic Hagiography 91
Vincent J. Cornell
IB The Spirituality of Places and Spaces
6 The Spiritual Meaning of Mecca, the Ka‘ba, and the Ḥajj113
Gordon D. Newby
7 The Spiritual Meaning of Medina 130
Daoud Stephen Casewit
vi
CONTENTS

8 Jerusalem in Islamic Spirituality 147

Brannon Wheeler
9 The Spirituality of the Sufi Shrine 165
Carl W. Ernst
IC The Spirituality of People and Human Relations
10 The Spiritual Meaning of Muḥammad and the Prophets of Islam 183
Ali A. Allawi
11 The Spiritual Meaning of Devotion to the Shī‘ī Imams 202
Abdulaziz Sachedina
12 Spirituality and Gender in Islam 217
Sa‘diyya Shaikh
13 Spirituality and Social Justice in Islam 234
Mustafa Gokhan Sahin
Part II Performative Dimensions of Islamic Spirituality

Introduction to Part II
Bruce B. Lawrence
IIA Devotional Practices in Islam
14 The Spirituality of Prayer in Islam 263
Hugh Talat Halman
15 The Spirituality of Qurʾān Recitation 277
Pieternella van Doorn-Harder
16 Ascetic Spirituality in Islam 297
Rkia Elaroui Cornell
17 The Spirituality of the Sufi Path 316
William C. Chittick
IIB Spirituality in Literature, Poetry, and the Visual Arts
18 Narrating Transcendence in the Modern Novel 333
miriam cooke
19 The Spirituality of Arab Islamic Poetry 352
Muhsin al-Musawi
20 The Spirituality of Persian Islamic Poetry 372
Franklin D. Lewis
21 Islamic Spirituality in English Translation 395
Michael Beard
22 Islamic Spirituality and the Visual Arts 412
Stefan Sperl
CONTENTS vii
IIC Spirituality in Music, Song, and Cinema

23 Spirituality in Art Musics of the Islamic World 435
Ali Jihad Racy
24 The Spirituality of Qawwali: Lyrics and Ritual in the Sufi
Music of South Asia 454
Scott Kugle
25 One Light: Cinema and Islamic Spirituality 476
Negar Mottahedeh
IID Islamic Spirituality in the Anthropocene Age
26 Islamic Spirituality and the Internet 497
Gary R. Bunt
27 The Islamic Spirituality of HipHop 515
Michael Muhammad Knight
28 Ibn Taymiyya and the Case for a Salafism of Mercy 531
Yahya M. Michot
Index545
List of Contributors
Ali A. Allawi. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Iraq

Abbas Barzegar. Independent Scholar, Atlanta, Georgia
Shahzad Bashir. Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Humanities and Professor of History
and Religious Studies at Brown University
Michael Beard. Emeritus Professor of English at the University of North Dakota
Gary R. Bunt. Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David
Daoud Stephen Casewit. President of the American Islamic College, Chicago
William C. Chittick. Distinguished Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies at
Stony Brook University
miriam cooke. Braxton Craven Professor of Arab Cultures Emerita at Duke University
Rkia Elaroui Cornell. Professor of Pedagogy and Coordinator of the Arabic Program
at Emory University
Vincent J. Cornell. Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies at
Emory University
Pieternella van Doorn-Harder. Professor of the Study of Religions at Wake Forest
University and Center for Islamic Theology (CIT), Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Carl W. Ernst. William R. Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at
the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
x
List of Contributors
Hugh Talat Halman. Associate Professor of Religion at Central Michigan University

Kenneth Lee Honerkamp. Professor of Religion at the University of Georgia, Athens
Michael Muhammad Knight. Assistant Professor in Religion and Cultural Studies at
the University of Central Florida
Scott Kugle. Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies at
Emory University
Bruce B. Lawrence. Marcus Family Professor of the Humanities and Professor of
Islamic Studies Emeritus, Duke University
Franklin D. Lewis. Associate Professor of Persian Literature and Chair of the
Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago
Yahya M. Michot. Professor Emeritus at Hartford International University for Religion
and Peace
Negar Mottahedeh. Professor in the Program of Literature at Duke University
Muhsin al-Musawi. Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at Columbia
University
Gordon D. Newby. The Goodrich C. White Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern and
South Asian Studies at Emory University
Ali Jihad Racy. Distinguished Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of
California, Los Angeles
Abdulaziz Sachedina. Professor and Endowed IIIT Chair in Islamic Studies at George
Mason University
Mustafa Gokhan Sahin. Independent Scholar, Atlanta, Georgia
Sa‘diyya Shaikh. Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the
University of Cape Town
Stefan Sperl. Emeritus Professor of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at School of
Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Brannon Wheeler. Distinguished Professor of History and Politics and Director of the
Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the United States Naval Academy
General Introduction
Over the last fifty years, and especially since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and the
terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001, literally hundreds of books on Islam
and the Islamic world have appeared in print in European languages, including
numerous introductions to Islam. Yet most Americans and Europeans remain largely
uninformed about Islam. In the third decade of the twenty-first century, scholars of
Islam in the Americas and Europe still feel the need to humanize Muslims, to demon-
strate that Muslims are rational human beings, their beliefs worthy of consideration.
The situation is the same—or perhaps even worse—with regard to Islamic spiritu-
ality. Apart from the field of Sufism, no aspect of Islamic thought and practice has been
more overlooked in studies of Islam than spirituality. Because of creedal and secular
prejudices that have persisted for centuries, the religion of Islam (much like Judaism)
has been regarded as traditionalistic or legalistic but not deeply spiritual. As such, it is
often described as a “nomocentric” or law-centered religion, in which adherence to the
Sharī‘a is seen as the central criterion of faith (see Pill 2014). Adding to this problem is
the fact that proofs of Islam’s alleged obsession with legalism can be found among
today’s Muslims in the doctrines of the Taliban in Afghanistan, among Wahhabi-
inspired extremist groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS, and in a political Islam that advo-
cates the creation of a more socially conscious “Sharī‘a state.” As a result, Islam is
widely seen to embody three traits that are antithetical to liberal notions of free expres-
sion: political authoritarianism, paternalistic traditionalism, and soulless legalism.
As Edward W. Said observed, the view of the Middle East and the Islamic world in the
West is based on the notion of exteriority, reducing complex cultural phenomena to ste-
reotypical “essences” (Said 1994, 20–21). Yet the spirituality of Muslims is as much a
matter of interiority as exteriority. Because spiritual feelings cannot be seen, they
cannot be empirically observed, measured, and subjected to regimes of control. If Islam
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality, First Edition. Edited by Vincent J. Cornell
and Bruce B. Lawrence.
© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
xii
is exteriorized as a set of rules and regulations that determine outward forms of

behavior, it becomes easy to separate the interior aspects of Islam, such as different
types of theology and spirituality, from Islam’s supposed “essence.” However, as the
recent turn toward religious emotivism and identity politics have demonstrated, a reli-
gion without theology is a religion without a brain and a religion without spirituality is
a religion without a heart.
This collection of essays affirms that far from being a secondary element, spirituality
is integral to all that is Islam. Despite the common belief among both modernist and
traditionalist Muslims that spirituality is other-worldly, we argue that spirituality is not
oppositional or antagonistic to life in this world but instead is part of its larger—indeed,
its largest—compass. From our perspective, Islamic spirituality is, above all, about
transformation—the transformation of matter into spirit, death into life, sorrow into
joy. Spiritual exemplars have underscored that the ultimate goal of spirituality is to
transform human consciousness. This may be achieved through many kinds of acts,
from specially designed prayers and invocations to the most common daily activities. As
the Sufi Abū al-Qāsim al-Junayd of Baghdad (d. 910 CE) stated, those who are grounded
in the Truth do not permit their feet to take a single step forward or their limbs to make
the slightest movement unless such an act is a point of spiritual departure. They feel this
way because they wish to reach a state in which “the name of God is on their lips and
their minds are constantly upon God” (Abdel-Kader 1976, 140).
Junayd’s teaching reminds us that spirituality is not only about transformation as a
moment of change. It is also about retaining what has been transformed. As the Qur’ān
states in regard to its use as a form of dhikr, the spiritual recollection of God, “We have
revealed the dhikr, and verily We shall keep it preserved” (Q 15 : 9). Retaining a spiritual
orientation means adopting it for oneself, and so to some degree, spirituality has to be
involved with matter, just as life is bracketed by death, and joy is paired with sorrow.
Seeming opposites do not always become antagonistic contraries; sometimes they
announce agonistic dyads that facilitate deeper understanding through conflicts that
are discovered upon deeper inspection to be more apparent than real.
From the Antagonist to the Agonist
Here the language of medicine helps clarify our project. For the medical researcher, an
agonist is not the same as an antagonist: rather, an agonist is a substance that is perceived
by the body to be another substance and thus stimulates a reaction; as such, it is differ-
ent from an antagonist, which blocks action on all levels. By contrast, an agonist blocks
action only on one level while promoting it on another. Spirituality has a similar
function and thus is similarly suffused with agonistic pairs of concepts. “Matter” and
“spirit” is such an agonistic pair. Spirit does not always act against matter because
sometimes it may also act through matter. In a similar way, life does not erase death;
rather, it echoes death as its companion, just as a shadow does with light. Joy and sor-
row too, are part of the agonistic spectrum of human emotions; for sorrow can be the
harbinger—both a symbol and a catalyst—of ultimate joy.
General Introduction xiii
The legal and spiritual approaches to Islam constitute another such agonistic pair.
Among Sufis, the sometimes tense relationship between these approaches is often por-
trayed as a dialectic between the Law of God as expressed in His rules and regulations
(al-Sharī‘a) and the inner truth or spirit of Islam (al-Ḥaqīqa). However, not all Muslims
see these two poles as oppositional or antagonistic. For the Andalusian Sufi master ‘Alī
Ṣāliḥ al-Andalusī (d. ca. 1508 CE), spirituality and the Sharī‘a are not oppositional but
complementary and interdependent. As he explains, “He who is ignorant of God’s
spiritual graces (laṭā’if) is ignorant of God Himself. He who is ignorant of God is also
ignorant of divine guidance and the laws (aḥkām) of God. He who is ignorant of the
laws of God is virtually an unbeliever” (Cornell 1998, 214).
Similarly, for another Andalusian spiritual master, the philosopher and mystic ‘Abd
al-Ḥaqq ibn Sab‘īn (d. 1271 CE)—a contemporary of St Thomas Aquinas—the recollection
of God through remembrance (dhikr) is both the subject of God’s Law (mawḍū‘ al-Sharī‘a)
and a predicate of the Divine Reality (ma‘mūl al-Ḥaqīqa). He goes on to explain: “The essence
of remembrance depends on nearness to God, yet it is also the means of intimacy with Him,
as well as spiritual bliss and the worship of both the heart and the body. In sum, all types of
it are good; transaction in it is a delight and effort for its sake is its own reward. Allāh is the
beginning and the end of it. Its outer aspect (ẓāhir) is the search for God, and its inner aspect
(bāṭin) is the glory of divine selfhood” (Badawī 1956, 151, Arabic text).
Among the conceptual challenges that we have faced in putting together the present
volume, nearly all relate to clarifying the agonistic rather than the antagonistic relation-
ship between seeming contraries. Consider space and time. Space is not just out there, in
the vast cosmos expanding billions of light years from earth; it is also within us, intrinsic
to the smallest gene or chromosome of each person’s DNA. Nor is time neatly divisible
into past or future. Between yesterday and tomorrow there is a today that is so full of
promise that the spiritual person must become, in the words of a well-known Sufi meta-
phor, the “owner” or “master” of her time (ṣāḥib al-waqt). Here, the concept of time refers
to the moment that fulfills the person, not only dividing past from future but also
combining the two. To call on Abū al-Qāsim al-Junayd once again for explanation, in this
state of agonistic time, the person “is wholly present. In other words, he existed and then
was lost, and was lost and then existed. He was as if he had never been and never was as
he used to be. Then he was not as he had been before. Now he is himself, after he was not
truly himself. He now exists in another existence, after first having existed lost to himself ”
(Abdel-Kader 1976, 51–52, Arabic text).
The agonistic notion of time described by Junayd was also understood by the
American philosopher George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), the “father” of the disci-
pline of social psychology. At the end of his career he formulated a radical “Philosophy
of the Present,” which denied the objective reality of the past and the future for the sake
of an agonistic here-and-now. For Mead, past and future have no real existence; rather,
they are imagined projections of what he termed the “specious present,” which we con-
stantly revise (in respect to the past) and “provise” (in respect to the future), as we
attempt to respond to the demands of the time in which we actually live. Mead’s descrip-
tion of the specious present is so congruent with Islamic thought that it could almost
have been written by a Sufi like Junayd:
xiv

That which marks a present is its becoming and disappearing. While the flash of the meteor
is passing in our own specious present, it is all there, if only for a fraction of a minute ….
Existence involves non-existence; it does take place. The [actual] world is a world of events
(Mead 2001, 35).
The touchstone of reality in Mead’s philosophy of the present is the “emergent,” the
immediate experience of the present that governs how a person revises the imagined
past and “provises” an imagined future. Similarly, for Muslim mystics such as Junayd or
Ibn Sab‘īn, the “emergent” or key experience that governs how we view the past and
shape the future is similarly immediate; however, it does not arise through our agency
but is realized through the working of the Divine Presence within us. After we return to
the fullness of the present, says Junayd, “contemplation [of past and future] is once
more restored…so that one can understand the true nature of one’s attributes through
the permanence of [divine] manifestation” (Abdel-Kader 1976, 52, Arabic text).
The Plan of This Work
The essayists in these chapters use an agonistic approach to fulfill our vision for the
volume as a whole. The mandate is to “think outside of the box” in the analysis of
particular terms, groups, or issues. The goal is to avoid manipulating the evidence in
order to privilege one view over its rivals, and at the same time to escape clandestine
dogmas, whether silent orthodoxies or overt heterodoxies. Through open inquiry, we
strive to maintain respect for all who explore or expound Islam as a spiritual trajectory
in the human search for meaning and value.
This collection of essays approaches Islamic spirituality from two related perspec-
tives: one is expressive and transactional, whereas the other is performative and trans-
formative. By “transactional” we mean the passing on of information about the texts,
people, and places that have played a major role in producing the spirituality of Islam.
The transactional perspective especially informs Part I of this volume, “Expressive
Dimensions of Islamic Spirituality.” This part begins with a section on “The Spirituality
of Words and Letters.” Words and letters both make up and inform a variety of Islamic
discourses, beginning with the Qur’ān and the traditions of the Prophet Muḥammad
(Hadith), but also include prayers, histories, and hagiographies. Though seemingly dif-
ferent, these varied forms of expression approach spirituality in interrelated ways. The
next section covers “The Spirituality of Places and Spaces.” The texts covered in the
previous section often allude to the importance of holy sites, with a focus on Mecca,
Medina, and Jerusalem. At the same time, they relate to multiple actors and holy fig-
ures, whether they are prophets, Shī‘ī Imams, or Sufi masters. This diversity is reflected
in the title of the third section, “The Spirituality of People and Human Relations.” Since
questions of gender and justice also suffuse these texts, places, and actors, a chapter on
each of them concludes this part of the volume. Part I of our introduction to Islamic
spirituality thus offers an approach to the subject that is simultaneously rational,
sequential, and accumulative. Part I moves between the basic elements of Islamic
General Introduction xv
spirituality in relating the unknown to the known, and by attempting to make sense of
texts, people, and places in discrete yet interconnected ways.
Another goal of this work is to evoke different aspects of Islamic spirituality through
its performative and transformative dimensions. Part II of the volume, “Performative
Dimensions of Islamic Spirituality,” moves the discussion from the transactional to the
transformative by putting stress on the performative dimension. Our pedagogical aim is
to provide comprehensive information that is authoritative as well as accessible to both
academics and non-academics. Here the accent on performative language is intentional
and decisive: language itself becomes the act. That which is spoken expresses but also
performs the meaning of what it is to be a spiritually motivated Muslim in a particular
time and place.
The performative and transformative aspects of spirituality include both inward and
outward expressions. Hence, the chapters in Part II focus on the performative, narra-
tive, and emotive aspects of Islamic spirituality, thus completing the second half of the
circle that was begun in Part I. In Part II, the main concern is how spirituality is mani-
fested in affect and experience. The four sections that make up this part of the volume
include the following: (1) “Devotional Practices in Islam;” (2) “Spirituality in Literature,
Poetry, and the Visual Arts;” (3) “Spirituality in Music, Song, and Cinema.” Of special
note is the conclusion. Part II concludes with a section that heralds a new beginning:
(4) “Islamic Spirituality in the Anthropocene Age.” The “Anthropocene Age” is a term
that has recently been introduced by John Green, whose book The Anthropocene Reviewed
(Green 2021), uses the term to designate the present age of ecological time, in which
human beings have profoundly reshaped our planet and its biodiversity. Since the con-
cept of the Anthropocene is agonistic rather than antagonistic, we deem it a more useful
concept for this volume than “modernity,” which for more than a century has been
used by critics both inside and outside of Islam to characterize the contemporary epis-
temological challenge to religious belief in general (see for example, Cornell 2014;
MacIntyre 1988, 361–362).
The Limits of Reason and “Binary Faith”
What is often forgotten by both critics and defenders of modernity is how unspecific and
ethnocentric this concept really is. In fact, the idea of the “modern” was not unknown
in the past and is not only a product of the West. For many centuries and in different
cultural contexts, concepts analogous to the “modern” have been used as synonyms for
the “contemporary.” Advocates of change in many periods have contrasted the
“modern” or present period with a more “traditional” past. This attitude can even be
observed in the following passage of the Qur’ān: “When it is said to them: ‘Follow what
Allāh has revealed,’ [the unbelievers] say: ‘Nay, we shall follow the ways of our fathers.’
What? Even though their fathers were devoid of wisdom and guidance?” (Q 2 : 170)
Peter Coates, a British essayist and culture-critic who is influenced by Sufi thought,
has argued that a crucial difference between today’s conception of modernity and the
concept of the modern in medieval Islam is that today’s concept is based on a linear and
xvi
progressive view of time, whereas the premodern notion of time was occasionalistic. In
other words, because most Muslims believed that God recreated the world at every
moment, every era could be seen to provide a new opportunity to contemplate and
understand the process of divine self-disclosure. In such a perspective, “modernity”
becomes just another name for the present, and today’s present is no more significant to
a timeless God than yesterday’s present. The upshot of this is that each period of time—
as Coates puts it—is merely another “theatre of manifestation in the infinity of world
process.” Paraphrasing the Sufi Muḥyiddīn Ibn ‘Arabī (d. 1240 CE), he explains the meta-
physical implications of this worldview in the following way: “God appears in the era, and
He appears as the era. According to the Hadith, ‘God is called Time,’ we are advised not to
be disappointed by time, or to curse time, for God is time. In another rendering, we are
cautioned to ‘Revile not the era for I [God] am the era’” (Coates 2002, 82–83).
Both pairs of approaches to spirituality covered in this volume also link the personal
and emotive aspects of religious experience to reason or intellect, which is expressed in
Arabic by the term ‘aql. In other words, each of these concepts depends on using the
powers of the mind—both the human mind and the divine intellect—to increase
personal awareness. Both sets of approaches also seek to transcend the conventionally
rational by exploring the supra-rational and metacognitive aspects of the faith experi-
ence, connecting mind and body in a way that Maurice Merleau Ponty (1908–1961),
Michael Polanyi (1891–1976), and other anti-Cartesian philosophers of the twentieth
century tried to elaborate. Thus, when we combine transaction and expression with
transformation and performance in this collection of essays, we do not make them
divergent but rather convergent. In spiritual life, both inward and outward forms of
belief and action are conjoined in practice, even though they may remain separate ana-
lytically. This crossing of conceptual boundaries is an exercise in what the Azeri scien-
tist Lotfi Zadeh has termed “fuzzy logic” (Zadeh 1965).
Fuzzy logic is a multivalent form of logic that seeks to overcome the limitations of
what Zadeh calls “binary faith.” Binary faith, which can be found in both religious and
secular contexts (such as materialist philosophies), is based on an “either/or” logic that
relies on the Aristotelian concepts of the Law of the Excluded Middle and the Principle
of Non-Contradiction. As a centerpiece of both religious dogmatism and religious ratio-
nalism, the effect of this logic has been to limit the scope of spirituality by constraining
its expression in the artificially imposed worlds of human reason and conventional
experience. By contrast, fuzzy logic breaks down these barriers by describing a world of
inner and outer experience that is gray instead of black and white. Neither dualistic nor
binary but triadic, it both affirms and denies, while neither affirming nor denying
anything conclusively. As Bruce Lawrence states in a recently published manifesto elab-
orating Marshall Hodgson’s (1922–1968) concept of the “Islamicate,” the point of
fuzzy logic is “not to accept binary divisions but to look for in-between spaces, alternative
players, and dimly lit options that herald a new methodology” (Lawrence 2021, 26).
Perhaps the most instructive example of binary faith in Islamic thought was the
rationalistic theology of Mu‘tazilism, which based its system of belief on a credo known
as the “Five Principles” (al-uṣūl al-khamsa). Most of the Five Principles of Mu‘tazilism are
acceptable to all Muslims, and are included in mainstream Sunni and Shī‘ī doctrines
General Introduction xvii
even today. This is especially true for the first and most important principle, divine unity
(tawḥīd). According to the Mu‘tazilī theologian Qāḍī ‘Abd al-Jabbār (d. 1025 CE),
knowledge of divine unity depends on the rational understanding that God must exist
(Martin et al. 1997, 90–115).
Reason, at once a divine gift and a human responsibility, tells us that we cannot live
forever and that we are limited in our powers and abilities. As contingent beings, we must
depend on something outside of ourselves for our creation and support. This non-contin-
gent and totally necessary being is God, who must be unlike us in every way. We die, but
God is the Living; God alone and unassisted is the Creator of all things; God is the Powerful,
but we are constantly confronted by our powerlessness. This binary view of divine and
human power is supported by four sources of evidence: the Qur’ān, the Sunna of the
Prophet Muḥammad, the consensus of the Muslim community, and reason itself, which
leads us to investigate God’s rationale for His laws in the world around us.
Another of the Five Principles of Mu‘tazilism is the concept of divine promise and
threat (al-wa‘d wa-l-wa‘īẓ). This absolutist view of divine justice is based on the premise
that whatever God promises in the Qur’ān is bound to come to pass. For some Mu‘tazilī
thinkers, God’s promise even included a predetermined date for the end of a person’s
life. They were so convinced that a person’s days were numbered that they argued that
if a murdered man were spared from being killed, he would die on the same day from
another cause. As this example demonstrates, their “either/or” logic caused them to
box in their thinking. For his part, Qāḍī ‘Abd al-Jabbār’s dogmatic belief in the divine
promise and threat caused him to reject the notion that a person could have access to
salvation through the intercession of God’s prophets and saints. Though in theory he
did not deny the concept of intercession, he drastically reduced its meaning by arguing
that it only increases the degree of virtue that a person innately possesses. Intercession
cannot save a sinner from ultimate accountability. The same type of “either/or” logic
was also applied to another of the Five Principles, commanding virtue and forbidding
evil (al-amr bi-l-ma‘rūf wa-l-nahy ‘an al-munkar). This principle was so strictly applied by
the Mu‘tazila that it inhibited the notion of divine grace. It is the same principle
prominent today in the doctrines of Wahhabism and the Taliban, even though both
groups condemn the Mu‘tazila as heretics.
For Sunni scholars, the principle of the Mu‘tazila that caused the greatest problem from
the standpoint of binary faith was the doctrine of the created Qur’ān (khalq al-Qur’ān).
This principle was related logically to the dogmatic rejection of eternal divine attributes.
The Mu‘tazila argued that God’s transcendence meant that no attributes shared by human
beings are sufficient to describe Him. However, the Qur’ān describes itself as an “Arabic
Qur’ān … in the Mother of the Book” (Q 43: 3–4); a “Noble Qur’ān, in a Hidden Book” (Q
56: 77–78); and a “Glorious Qur’ān on a Preserved Tablet” (Q 85: 21–22). For the
Mu‘tazila, these passages meant that an eternal Qur’ān was created by God as an ideal
model or paradigm of divine scripture before the creation of the world. The Qur’ān that
was revealed to the Prophet Muḥammad was a facsimile of this everlasting Qur’ān and
was sent down mainly to confirm Muḥammad’s role as the Seal of the Prophets.
Sunni scholars realized that the doctrine of the created Qur’ān potentially contained
a serious theological shortcoming. If the Qur’ān as we know it could be dated to the time
xviii
of the Prophet Muḥammad, this would mean that the text of the Qur’ān was fixed in
historical time, and thus the relevance of its teachings might be limited to the era in
which it appeared. In other words, if the Qur’ān were viewed historically as a product of
seventh-century Arabia, it would follow that its moral and social injunctions in
particular would be related to seventh-century concerns. This would imply that God’s
injunctions in the Qur’ān could be superseded if the conditions that gave rise to them
were to change. For this reason, Sunni scholars advocated an uncreated Qur’ān, one
that was not fixed in time and space. Such a Qur’ān would be truly universal. Being free
of the limitations of both culture and history, its injunctions would be valid for all peo-
ples and all historical periods, whether in seventh-century Arabia or in twenty-first
century Indonesia.
The problem is that both of these approaches to the Qur’ān—the Mu‘tazilī version
and the Sunni response—are products of “either/or” logic and binary faith. Insofar as
they embody rational thinking, they both suffer from the inevitable conundrum of
either/or logic: because their conclusions follow validly from their premises, it is impos-
sible to deduce which alternative is better. If one starts from the premise that the Qur’ān
revealed to Muḥammad is a derivative of a created archetype, it is reasonable to say that
it was created in time. If, on the other hand, one fears the consequences of treating the
Qur’ān revealed to Muḥammad as a time-bound derivative, it is reasonable to believe in
a pre-eternal Qur’ān. The consequence of this is that many of the same controversies
that raged between Sunnis and the Mu‘tazila for centuries continue and remain unre-
solved today, even though the Mu‘tazila no longer exist as a formal school of theology. Is
there no way of dealing with differences in the spiritual and theological approaches to
Islam without being caught in the dead end of binary faith?
The “Third Way” of Barzakh Logic
We believe that a way out of this dead end can be found in Lotfi Zadeh’s concept of “fuzzy
logic.” This “third-way” form of logic provides a useful means of transcending the limits
of either/or approaches to the knowledge of God. In dealing with a similar logical
problem, the French philosopher Michel Serres (1930–2019) observed that “knowledge
functions elliptically” (Serres 1997, 37). Whereas a circle has a single center in the mid-
dle, an ellipse has two possible centers, one at each end. The only way to solve the problem,
“What is the center of the ellipse?” is to find a new center—a hidden or previously unno-
ticed in-between solution—which Serres called the “third instruction” or “third-
instructed” (le tiers-instruit): “a third between two poles, shining and dark, the center,
from nowhere goes everywhere, in space and time, and from nothing, becomes multiple”
(Ibid., 41). This newly emergent “mid-place” (Fr. mi-lieu) between dialectically opposed
centers is a useful metaphor for the fuzzy logic conveyed by spiritual experience because
it reminds us of the unpredictability of what we may find.
Another way of expressing this third-way logic is to use the term barzakh logic.
Barzakh is a word of Persian origin that appears three times in the Qur’ān. As miriam
cooke observes in Chapter 18: Narrating Transcendence in the Moden Novel, two of
these references depict the barzakh as both a barrier and a bridge between sweet and
General Introduction xix
salty waters: “The confluence of the two seas (maraj al-baḥrayn), the one potable and
sweet, the other salty and bitter; and between them [God] placed a barzakh” (Q 25 : 53);
“[God] mixed the two seas so that they meet, yet between them was a barzakh that they
could not overpass” (Q 55: 19–22). Cooke goes on to draw the important conclusion
that this barzakh is “an isthmus that is both sweet and salty and neither—without over-
passing.” By contrast, the third reference to the barzakh in the Qur’ān refers to the after-
life: “When death comes to one of them, he says: My Lord! Send me back, so that I may
do good in that which I have left behind. No! It is a useless word that he speaks; and
behind them is a barzakh until the Day of Resurrection” (Q 23: 99–100).
In eschatological terms, the concept of the barzakh evokes the division between this
life and the next, between our present life in this world and a future life beyond knowing;
but barzakh is also the divide between salty and fresh water, found in the Gulf off the
coast of Bahrain. Thus, expressed most simply, the barzakh is a barrier, but at the same
time it is also a bridge. It is a barrier/bridge that moves beyond the dyad of “either/or” or
mind/body. Instead, barzakh logic confirms the deeper truth of both/and or mindbody, as
a metaphor of spiritual engagement. It might also be defined as a non-reductive, undi-
luted connection linking two realities—whether eschatological realms or bodies of
water—without reducing or diluting either. Seen in this way, barzakh is at once a concept
and a method. In our view, this concept/method is central to understanding the multiple
dimensions of Islamic spirituality. Each element of Islamic spirituality embodies, then
projects an arc of hope that is both barrier and bridge, gap and gift.
Michel Serres personifies what we have termed barzakh logic with the figure of
Hermes, who appeared in Classical times as a divine messenger and in late antiquity as
any one of a number of sages who were collectively known by the Greek epithet
Trismegistos, “Thrice-Great.” Serres also calls this figure the “Third Man,” and stresses
the importance of third-person discourse in conveying what barzakh logic represents.
Unlike the second-person pronouns, you, we, and us, which designate insiders to our
group, third-person, and demonstrative pronouns such as he, she, that, and they, desig-
nate outsiders, those who are beyond or excluded from our group. However, when
speaking to outsiders, these terms could also be used to refer to those who are within
our group. Thus, third-person terms both exclude and include. As a demonstrative, the
third person can potentially include almost anything; hence, it has a unique potential
for transcending the limitations of first- and second-person discourses because it can
create as many “thirds” as one wants. This is the point at which Serres’ concept of the
third person can best be compared to the concept of barzakh logic: when expressed in
language, the third person has the unique ability to combine the objective and the inter-
subjective, just as we have described how barzakh logic combines both mind and body
when used as a metaphor of spiritual engagement. For Serres, “the third person…
indexes the full circuit or the synthesis of knowledge and its objects” (Serres 1997, 47).
At its furthest point, the connection provided by third-person or barzakh logic points
directly to the Logos. This unique connection to the source of Being itself is the under-
lying meaning of Serres’ maxim, “Love the one who begets spirit in you” (Ibid., 50).
As noted above, the conjunction or reconnection of the mind versus body dichotomy
is an important aspect of barzakh logic, both enclosing and projecting a paradox. There
is no hyphen in the newly created term, “mindbody.” Once conjoined, it is no longer two
xx
parts but one phenomenon, a single existent: mindbody. Mindbody relies on the
conjunction of seeming opposites: this is also how the concept of the barzakh is expressed
in the Qur’ān. What is crucial is the irreducibility of the barzakh itself. It cannot be tri-
angulated to produce yet another form of disembodied abstractionism. If barzakh logic
is to prevail, it requires constant vigilance against the reflex back to either/or logic, and
in its place, a commitment to a more restrained, patient engagement with dyadic logic,
twos combined or elided, as in the concept of mindbody.
This is where the importance of barzakh logic to the promotion of new paradigms in
science or new directions in scholarship is revealed. As Bruce Lawrence states in his
book Islamicate Cosmopolitan Spirit, “A theorist does not eliminate but rather tries to
recover the ground preceding and undergirding all true science… Barzakh logic… does
not destroy or deny reason, but instead probes its frontiers, which are internal and sen-
tient as much as external and cognitive” (Lawrence 2021, 26–27).
Crucial to the task of acting as a catalyst for the creation of new paradigms is the
irreducibility of the barzakh itself. Above all, it is not coopted by either of its two extrem-
ities: one end does not, and cannot, absorb and so erase the other. At the same time,
however, these two extremities are not necessarily combined in some new third form
that utilizes them while exceeding their boundaries and setting new limits. A true bar-
zakh cannot be triangulated to produce yet another form of disembodied abstractionism.
If barzakh logic is to prevail, it requires vigilance against the reflex back to both either/
or logic and the conventional dialectic. The two parts that are conjoined do not become
one. Rather, as in the concept of mindbody, they are one, while at the same time remain-
ing two. Crucially, a sense of distinction persists even in the most intimate, ecstatic
moments of convergence.
Coextensiveness, Transactionality, and Transcendence
As is often the case, we find that the mystical thinkers of premodern Islam were already
aware of such seemingly “postmodern” concepts as barzakh logic. The “two/one-one/
two” notion of difference within unity discussed above actually goes back as far as the
“theology of arithmetic” of Pythagorean philosophy (see Iamblichus 1988). In the
Islamic Middle Period, the Iranian Sufi ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt al-Hamadānī (d. 1131 CE)
expressed much the same concept through the term al-ma‘iyya (literally, “withness”),
and in the following century Ibn Sab‘īn expressed it through what he called “dual sub-
jectivity” (al-huwa huwa). Both thinkers were faced with the same conceptual problem.
As ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt put it: “God is existent, and there is nothing with Him, nor can it be
conceived that something will be with Him. For nothing shares the rank of withness
with His existence. Thus, nothing is with God, but He is with each thing” (‘Ayn al-Quḍāt
2022, 121). ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt solved this problem by conceiving of God as coextensive with
everything, even though created things cannot be said to be coextensive with Him; in
other words, we can say that He is “with” everything yet everything cannot be said to be
“with” him. Ontologically, God’s “withness” in regard to what He creates ensures not
only the coextensiveness of existence, but also its transactionality, which ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt
General Introduction xxi
designated by the term taswīq al-wujūd (Ibid., 204 n. 127 and 133). Both of these con-
cepts can be seen as examples of what we call barzakh logic: both “withness” and the
transactional coextensiveness of existence amount to alternative ways of expressing
the logic of both/and or mindbody.
By way of contrast, Ibn Sab‘īn’s answer to the conceptual problem posed by ‘Ayn
al-Quḍāt is based on the concept of the dual subject (al-huwa huwa) in Arabic grammar.
An “accidental dual subject” is said to occur when a single noun or pronoun can refer to
two different things, such that they share a twin identity. Most commonly, this can be seen
in proverbs, similes, and semiotic analogies in literature. For example, in the Hindu epic
The Bhagavad-Gita, the figure of Krishna is an avatar of the god Vishnu. Thus, one can say
of this figure, “He is both Krishna and Vishnu.” As Ibn Sab‘īn describes the dual subject,
“it is [actually] a single subject in its essence… because everything that makes up its
constituent elements are one, either in number or in form. Thus, the dual form of the
plural can be signified by a singular pronoun. This is similar to things that can be described
as ‘one in form,’ because the dual subject appears in this situation as if it were one thing in
one respect and a second thing in another respect” (Badawī 1956, 9, Arabic text).
The concept of the dual subject is another example of barzakh logic because two dif-
ferent referents or identities are made coextensive with each other, while at the same
time remaining separate conceptually. In applying this logic to spirituality and the
feeling of God being “with” the believer in one’s soul, Ibn Sab‘īn instructs his followers
to think in the following way:
Separate [your notion of] Him from His signs [in the world]; confirm Him in His Essence as the
Necessarily Existent and relate this to the dual subject (al-huwa huwa). [That is to say,] think of
Him as the [Prime] Mover, who moves [other things] but is not moved Himself; then [think of]
the mover that moves [things] in one sense but is also moved in another; then [think of]
something that moves [other things] but does not move what is other than it in a certain
sense, because it is [logically] impossible for it to do so. Then [reflect] on what is necessitated
for everything, for [God] appears in it. Then [consider] what is necessarily “with” (ma‘a)
everything and how He [also] appears in it. So, understand! (Ibid., 10, Arabic text)
In both of the above examples, there looms an important signpost on the road to a
panoramic view of Islamic spirituality: not to erase difference but rather to acknowl-
edge its positionality. Not only is the distinction between the human self and Divine Self
pivotal for understanding the meaning of revelation, but each human self always and
everywhere exists in an ontologically subordinate yet coextensive and transactional
relationship with the Divine Self/the Ultimate/the Other/the Unseen. The notions of
both hierarchy and transactionality, which are crucial to Islamic spirituality, have
recently been framed by Shahab Ahmed in his signature work, What is Islam? The
Importance of Being Islamic. Toward the end of the book, Ahmed draws a distinction bet-
ween the human concept of social hierarchy and the more transactional notion of
divine/human epistemology in a way that is significant for both the philosophical and
the Hermetic sciences. In the concept of hierarchy, “the cosmological notion of higher
and lower Truths transposes itself logically into the corresponding social notion that
xxii
humanity and human society is composed of a hierarchy of more- and less-Truth pro-
ficient human souls, a class hierarchy constituted not by material wealth or political
power, but relative to the capacity to know Truth” (Ahmed 2015, 368).
One could say that Ahmed’s thesis expresses the way that Islamic spirituality is
broached in the essays that are included in this volume. Central to his argument is the
need to both contrast and make transactional and coextensive the concepts of the
Sharī‘a as the Law of God and the Ṭarīqa as the Way of God. (In Arabic, the terms sharī‘a
and ṭarīqa are closely related in meaning.) In Ahmed’s view, one must “conceptualize
the law in terms beyond the law itself… within a larger perspective of social and discur-
sive truth, meaning and value” (Ibid., 455). In order to accomplish this task, he s uggests
the application of a Persianate idiom: madhhab-i ‘ishq, the religion/way/methodology of
Love (Ibid., 398). With this concept, we once again come face-to-face with its original
founder, ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt al-Hamadānī (‘Ayn al-Quḍāt 2022, n. 99). As ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt indi-
cated, because the Sharī‘a has been overvalued throughout much of Islamic history in
respect to the Ṭarīqa, there needs to be recourse to a more universal notion of the Law, a
more lyrical and inclusive notion of Islam, a way of moving, going, and traveling that is
both prompted and informed by a deep passion or love for the Truth that is transcendent
on the one hand, yet transactional and immanent on the other.
Where we depart from Ahmed is in attempting to take account of the depth of conver-
gence and coextensiveness that is part of Islamic spirituality across all of its history, and
not merely in the 1300–1850 period highlighted by Ahmed. Beyond the Sharī‘a versus
Ṭarīqa dyad we can add the constant reminder of mindbody, a recognition via barzakh
logic, that two seeming opposites can and should be coextensive and transactional, each
qualifying the other without collapsing into its neighbor and putative rival. Far from
being rigid or reified, this is a movable order. It oscillates between what is evident and can
readily be seen on the one hand (known in Arabic as al-ẓāhir), and what is occluded,
secret, and often hidden on the other (al-bāṭin). These reciprocal dyads, like the public and
private spaces they signal, become twin centers of the ellipse within which Islamic spiri-
tuality flourishes. If the expressive dimension veers toward the outer word or discourse of
the tongue, the performative dimension tries to harness and channel inner experience,
the range of emotions, and the heart. Neither can exist without the other; their tandem
interplay is the stuff of Divine Presence in the drama of human and cosmic existence that
we call “the world.” As the reader enters this book, this drama will unfold in a series of
vignettes, each penned by an author adroit at listening, looking, hearing, and telling
about a certain feature of Islamic spirituality as she or he understands it.
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University Press.
‘Ayn al-Quḍāt (2022). The Essence of Reality: A Defense of Philosophical Sufism. (Edited and
Translated by Mohammed Rustom). New York: New York University Press.
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Badawī, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān (1956). Rasā'il Ibn Sab‘īn. Cairo: al-Dār al-Miṣriyya li-l-Ta’līf
wa-l-Tarjama.
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PART I
Expressive Dimensions of Islamic

Spirituality
INTRODUCTION TO PART I
Vincent J. Cornell
Human beings cannot help but speak. We always speak. Even when we cannot speak,
we invent ways to act as if we are speaking. Think of writing, think of sign language.
Even computer code is a way of speaking. What is the purpose of social media if not a
way to keep speaking to each other across space and time? The air waves are filled with
talk radio, TV talk shows, political commentary, and twenty-four-hour news channels.
Anthropologists consider speech and language as important for human development as
the ability to reason. So crucial to us is language that we pattern the genetic code on our
alphabet in order to show that it is a form of communication. The German philosopher
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) considered speech and language fundamental to
human nature: “We encounter language everywhere. Hence, it cannot surprise us that
as soon as man looks thoughtfully about himself at what he is, he quickly hits upon lan-
guage” (Heidegger 1971, 189).
Because speech is so reflexively part of human existence, our God or gods must speak
too. The first verse of the Gospel of John in the New Testament states, “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). In the
Hebrew Bible, God says to the Israelites, “If you obey My speech/words (Heb. qaval) and
keep My commandments, you will be a special treasure unto Me above all the people, for
all the earth is mine” (Exodus 19:5). In the Qur’ān, God’s creation of the world is por-
trayed as an act of divine speech: “Verily His command, if He wants something [to exist],
is to say to it (an yaqūla lahu), ‘Be!’ and it is” (Q 36: 82). The Qur’ān also affirms that
everything in the world—whether human or non-human—has a way of “speaking” or
proclaiming God’s praise: “There is not a thing that does not proclaim (yusabbiḥu) His
praise” (Q 17: 44).
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality, First Edition. Edited by Vincent J. Cornell
and Bruce B. Lawrence.
© 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2023 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
4
Vincent J. Cornell

However, the praise of God can be—and perhaps should be—parsed. As stated in the
General Introduction, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Islamic Spirituality approaches
spirituality from two perspectives: the expressive and transactional and the performa-
tive and transformative. Speech and language—including their symbolic or semiotic
aspects—are the chief means through which the expressive and transactional aspects
of Islamic spirituality are articulated. Part I of this volume is titled, “Expressive
Dimensions of Islamic Spirituality,” because speech and language are central to the
texts, places, and people that have played major roles in expressing the spirituality of
Islam. Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that speech and language are major aspects
of the performative dimension of spirituality as well. In the Introduction to Part II,
Bruce Lawrence will touch repeatedly on how important speech and language are to
performative aspects of Islamic spirituality such as prayer, Qur’ān recitation, poetry, the
spiritually-oriented novel, calligraphy, musical lyrics, the Internet, and Islamic hip hop.
Part I is divided into three sections, totaling thirteen chapters. These chapters trace
the expressive dimension of Islamic spirituality by looking at three lodestones of the
spiritual quest: The Spirituality of Words and Letters, The Spirituality of Places and
Spaces, and The Spirituality of People and Human Relations. In our approach to this
subject, the expressive does not exclude the performative but instead accents the role of
both textual and non-textual speech and language in channeling the spiritual quest
within Islam. Instead of one dimension or the other—the expressive or the performa-
tive—both dimensions of Islamic spirituality are explored in tandem, evincing a spec-
trum of connections best understood through the concept of barzakh logic, eliding yet
not collapsing or prioritizing one part over the other. Like a barzakh, the two parts of this
volume are meant to project the notion of “withness,” embracing difference without
erasing distinctiveness.
As so often happens in the essays contained in this work, an account related by Ibn
‘Arabī, who is considered the “Greatest Master” (al-Shaykh al-Akbar) of the Sufi tradi-
tion, illustrates the paradox of barzakh logic as we have described it. In al-Fuṭūḥāt al-
Makkiyya (The Meccan “Openings” or Revelations), Ibn ʿArabī states that when he was
young, his father took him to meet the famous Islamic philosopher Ibn Rushd (Lat.,
Averroës, d. 1198 CE). When the boy entered his presence, Ibn Rushd rose from his seat
and received him with great affection. According to Ibn ‘Arabī’s account,
He said to me, “Yes.” And I said, yes. It pleased him immensely that I should understand
him. Taking cognizance of what pleased him so, however, I told him, “No.” Immediately he
winced. His color changed and he doubted himself. “What do you make of the matter of
mystical unveiling [kashf] and divine emanation [fayḍ ilāhī]?” he asked. “Is it identical to
what intellectual inquiry [naẓar] offers us?” I replied, “Yes, no. Between yes and no, spirits
take flight from their matter, and heads fly from their bodies.” He turned pale, deep in
thought and trembling. He took to murmuring… for he understood my allusion. (Shaker
2012, 15)
The barzakh relationship between the speech of reason and mystical unveiling described
by Ibn ‘Arabī applies equally well to the relationship between divine and human speech
and the divine and human word. In the following chapters, we will see how words and
INTRODUCTION TO PART I 5
letters are central to Islamic spiritual expression, from the Qur’ān and the traditions of
the Prophet Muḥammad, to prayers, litanies, histories, and hagiographies. However, in
Islamic spirituality the concept of the Divine Word goes to the core of our being, the
foundation of our humanity. For the Andalusian philosopher and mystical theologian
Ibn Sabʿīn, Divine Speech is essential for the maintenance of all existence. Because
Divine Being cannot be separated from the Divine Word, God’s presence can be discerned
even in “material being (al-mādda) by virtue of the fact that He is the First Subject… In
addition, He is the ‘Book’ and the ‘Sunna,’ for everything goes back to its essential
meaning” (Badawī 1957, 34. My translation). This theological position is called panen-
theism, meaning that a trace of God can be found in everything. By stating that God is
the “Book,” Ibn Sab’īn means that He is the ultimate source of being, just as the Qur’ān
is the source of the rulings that make up the Sharī’a and the creedal understanding of
Islam. By stating that God is the “Sunna,” he means that God is the ultimate source of
existence, through which being is actualized in the world, just as the Prophetic Sunna
actualizes the teachings of the Qur’ān.
According to the Sufi Abū al-Qāsim al-Junayd, when one crosses over the barzakh
that connects the discourses of reason and spiritual unveiling, one is no longer limited
to rules laid down by reason’s edicts. Junayd describes this state as a spiritual trial (balā’),
for the seeker becomes aware that she bears the burden of two types of knowledge that
subsist together in an agonistic relationship. These are theoretical or outer knowledge
and transcendent or inner knowledge. The more the seeker develops her inner and tran-
scendent knowledge, the pain of the trial eases; her natural desires become elevated
such that the need for outward affirmation diminishes. Eventually, the seeker “opens
[herself] to the indications of the Truth through the Divine Realities and through the
state of affairs in their true colors, without need for intermediary means of under-
standing” (Abdel-Kader 1976, 52–53, Arabic text, my translation).
Throughout the chapters of Part I, there looms an important signpost on the road to
a panoramic view of Islamic spirituality: not to erase the differences between modes of
spiritual expression but rather to acknowledge their positionality. Not only is the distinc-
tion between the human self and Divine Self pivotal for understanding the meaning of
spiritual inspiration, but the human self always and everywhere exists in a subordinate
yet coextensive and transactional relationship with the Divine Self/the Ultimate/the
Other/the Unseen. In this regard, the three sections of Part I highlight three concepts as
particularly important to the expressive dimension of Islamic spirituality. These are the
Word (kalima), the Place (mawḍiʿ/ maḥall/ makān), and the Person (insān).
The Spirituality of Words and Letters
Word, Place, Person. Among these concepts, the Word comes before everything else. In
the view of Ibn Sab‘īn, everything created by God is a statement of His remembrance
because it is a “word” in God’s Book of Creation. However, in Islamic spirituality, the
universal presence of the Word is not only part of mystical experience; it pervades all
existence. In regard to this, the Qur’ān states: “Say: ‘Truth has come and falsehood has
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Vincent J. Cornell

vanished. Verily, falsehood was bound to vanish’” (Q 17: 81). The Mālikī school of juris-
prudence—one of the four “orthodox” legal schools of Sunni Islam—enumerates seven
articles of belief (al-iʿtiqādāt al-sabʿa): (1) belief in the Oneness of God; (2) belief in the
Angels of God; (3) belief in the Books of God; (4) belief in the Prophets of God; (5) belief
in the Day of Judgment; (6) belief in predestination and fate; and (7) belief in resurrec-
tion after death. Among these articles of belief, the most important is called the “True
Word” (al-kalima al-ṣādiqa). This is the first article of belief, affirming the truth of God’s
Oneness (tawḥīd). This awareness also comprises the first part of the Islamic testimony
of faith, “There is no god but God” (lā ilāha illā Allāh).
All Mālikī Muslims are expected to adhere to the Seven Articles of Belief, whether
they are Sufis, non-Sufis, or fundamentalists. For the Andalusian Sufi Abū Madyan
Shuʿayb (d. 1198 CE), the “True Word” expressed in this creed has its basis in the
creative command of God, “Be! (kun).” In his view, the Creative Command is the quin-
tessential expression of the Divine Word or Logos since it is the basis of the world that
we know. In one of his famous poems he states:
Your Command subsists between the [letters] kāf and nūn [in the word, kun],
Executed more swiftly and easily than the blink of an eye.
When You say, “Be!” [kun!] what You say has already been stated;
Hence, Your statement of it does not need to be repeated.
You were first, and nothing came before You; You were, and nothing is
Other than You; for You still remain when mortal beings die.
(Cornell 1996, 150–151, original translation revised)
In the following chapters, the significance of words and letters in Islamic spirituality are
examined in five different but interrelated contexts: Qur’ān, Hadith, Invocations and
Litanies, History, and Hagiography. In these contexts, the multiple expressions of the word
are analyzed through texts that speak to each other across boundaries, with multiple con-
notations and complementary roles. In Chapter 1, The Spirituality of the Qur’ān, Bruce B.
Lawrence begins our exploration of Islamic spirituality by focusing on the holistic value of
the Qur’ān as a revealed, recited, and enacted text. As Lawrence tells us, “The self-disclo-
sure of the Qurʾān underscores its eternity, unboundedness, and embodiment in the lives
of Muslims.” As the Sufi poet Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 1273 CE) stated, as a spiritual magnet,
the Qur’ān is “an amazingly jealous piece of magic.” Lawrence explains Rūmī’s statement
in the following way: “To approach the spirituality of the Qurʾān is to look at a mountain
through the clouds and imagine that you can count all the peaks or see more than a
fraction of its rugged beauty or describe its ineffable splendor.”
In his chapter, Lawrence provides the reader with a view of the Qur’ān from the bot-
tom to the top of the mountain. In doing so, he looks at the Noble Book from three differ-
ent viewpoints. First, he surveys the Qur’ān holistically, by scanning its chapters, verses,
and words to reflect their impact in shaping the Muslim way of life as a form of worship,
an ethos, and a world outlook. Next, he looks at how particular elements of the Qur’ān
function as a window onto the whole of the text. Finally, he looks at scholarship on the
Qur’ān as a form of spiritual exercise in itself. Throughout the chapter, he discusses the
spirituality of the Qur’ān according to four modes of expression that will be revisited
several times throughout this volume: recitation, calligraphy, interpretation, and
translation.
In Chapter 2, The Spirituality of Hadith, Abbas Barzegar examines the recorded
anecdotes, actions, and sayings of the Prophet Muḥammad, known as ḥadīth. These
accounts make up the constituent parts of the Sunna, or modus operandi of the Prophet,
and establish the religious and ethical norms of Muslim behavior. As such, they also
comprise most of the basic elements of the Sharī‘a, or Islamic law. Transmitted by var-
ious means in the first few generations of Islamic history (the era of the “Righteous
Predecessors,” al-Salaf al-Ṣāliḥ), they were then recorded in voluminous collections by
religious scholars two to three centuries later.
As Barzegar explains, although the corpus of Hadith is separated from the Qur’ān
conceptually, it is venerated by Muslims as an important form of scripture because it
constitutes the second greatest source of textual authority after the Qur’ān. Although
Hadith differs from the Qur’ān in that belief in a particular tradition is not an article of
faith, it is virtually impossible to conceive of Islam without Qur’ān and Hadith together.
Once again, we observe that the relationship between these two forms of scripture is a
barzakh: each collection of texts acts as a buffer that holds the other in place without
combining them. However, at the same time, it affirms their collective expression as cru-
cial to Islamic spirituality. For example, according to some jurists, the Qur’ān can be
judged as true because each verse has been confirmed by multiple transmitters; this is a
standard that was first applied to Hadith. Also, and perhaps more significantly, it is
through Hadith that we can best understand the reverence of Muslims for Muḥammad,
the “Seal of the Prophets” (Q 33: 40) and God’s Last Messenger. The corpus of Hadith
undergirds the pious practice of transmitting the Prophet’s words to posterity, and in
this way helps explain the declaration of his wife ‘Ā’isha that he was “a walking Qur’ān.”
In Chapter 3, The Spirituality of Invocations and Litanies in Islam, Kenneth Lee
Honerkamp provides another example of barzakh logic. He explores the elements of
devotional texts known as litanies (sing. wird) and invocations (sing. duʿā) in order to
clarify the multifaceted nature of dhikr (literally, the “remembrance” or “recollection”
of God) as a ritual practice that both encourages and perpetuates the awareness of the
divine presence. The practice of dhikr cannot be understood fully without comparing it
to the formal prayer of Islam (al-Ṣalāt, see Chapter 14, The Spirituality of Prayer in
Islam, by Hugh Talat Halman), yet it occupies an important space next to the prayer, in
that it is supplemental but also instrumental to Islamic spirituality. In most introduc-
tions to Islam, the Ṣalāt prayer would come after the Qur’ān and the Hadith in impor-
tance; however, when viewed within the hierarchy of an introspective quest for the
Truth, dhikr is the key element that undergirds all other ritual actions. In al-Risāla
al-Nūriyya (The Illuminative Epistle), a treatise on dhikr and the longest of Ibn Sabʿīn’s
spiritual essays, the remembrance of God is extolled as
the subject of the Divine Law (mawḍūʿ al-Sharīʿa) and the predicate of Reality (ma’mūl
al-Ḥaqīqa). Its essence depends on nearness to God, yet it is [itself] the means of intimacy
with Him, as well as of spiritual bliss and the worship of both the heart and the body. In
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Vincent J. Cornell

sum, all of it is good, transaction in it is a delight and effort for its sake is its own reward.
God is the beginning and the end of it. Its outer aspect is the search for Him, and its inner
aspect is [Divine] Glory. (Badawī 1957, 2. My translation)
By calling dhikr “the subject of the Divine Law” and “the predicate of Reality,” Ibn Sabʿīn
means that the remembrance of God is the basis of both the outward and the inward
aspects of Islamic religious practice. Since the Sharīʿa includes both ethics and ritual
behavior, dhikr can also be seen as the basis of all Islamic rituals, from prayer to the Ḥajj
pilgrimage. In respect to interpersonal behavior, the remembrance of God should govern
the way that Muslims see themselves in relation to others. Recalling God in His fullness
means recalling humanity in its needfulness; thus, people should treat each other as
equals because all human beings are deprived in relation to God. As Honerkamp explains
in this chapter, rather than replacing the Ṣalāt prayer, dhikr is both ancillary and essential
to Islamic spirituality; its purpose in terms of barzakh logic is to reinforce and expand the
depth of devotion that undergirds all Muslim witness to God, the One and Eternal.
The next two chapters of this section address other critical, if less evident, dimen-
sions of expressive spirituality. Although they are often overlooked as popular expres-
sions of spirituality, the broader contexts of historiography and hagiography play
important roles in shaping the way that words are understood and expressed in spiritual
contexts, whether in Qur’ān, Hadith, or Muslim devotions. In Chapter 4, The Many
Spirits of the Islamic Past, Shahzad Bashir admits the obvious: there is no single view of
Muslim history, but then he tackles the issue of multiple histories through a four-fold
trajectory that is presented as a typology: (1) narratives that privilege biography and
genealogy; (2) narratives that trace the flow of universal time; (3) narratives that map
the contours of space as a stage for human action; and (4) narratives that relate an
archetypal story that makes human realities understandable. This artful typology
reveals the past as a contested terrain that is both intensely complex and changeable
from context to context.
By exploring spirituality and the view of the past in tandem, Bashir illuminates the
relationship between Islamic religious and literary history. His aim in the chapter is “to
investigate Islamic accounts of events and transformations in the material sphere that
both inform about times gone by and are relevant for the moment in which the narra-
tive is produced.” While all historical texts that are not mythologies or legends relate
events with material causes, they also contain metaphysical presumptions that allow
for the construction of meta-narratives. The goal that Bashir sets for himself is to pro-
vide a sense for how this happens in an Islamic context. In his view,
when seen through the analytical prism of the past, Islamic spirituality appears as a meet-
ing point of multiple “spirits” that pertain both to the memory of earlier times and to the
period that is the scene of the conversation we wish to observe.
Focusing on the historiography of just a single region of the Islamic world—the city
of Herat between 1485 and 1510—he shows how the meta-narrative of Islamic
history unfolds through four different perspectives: (1) biographical-genealogical; (2)
chronological; (3) geographical; and (4) mythological. In the biographical-genealogi-

cal perspective, historical narratives utilize stories of human lives to create a temporal
progression from “then” to “now.” In the chronological perspective, narratives pre-
sent the flow of events through time as a backdrop for the unfolding of events in the
past. In the geographical perspective, narratives are anchored in a particular spatial
landscape that frames the passing of time in the form of human events. Finally, the
mythological perspective takes the story of a particular human life as a paradigm for
certain aspects of the past. Not only are these four perspectives often intermingled,
but they also reflect an underlying spiritual vision.
For example, the ṭabaqāt (“levels” or “categories”) genre of Islamic hagiography is
closely related to biography. By examining parts of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī’s (d. 1492)
Nafaḥāt al-uns (Breaths of Intimacy), Bashir demonstrates how this collective biography
of Sufi figures provides a meta-narrative of the so-called “friend of God” (walī Allāh) or
Muslim saint. In making an argument for this concept, Jāmī
touches upon a number of important issues: that friendship with God is a designation that
is justified on the basis of Qurʾān, Hadith, and Sufi authorities of the past; the types of
knowledge that the friend of God possesses; the various types of disciplined action in
Sufism… and the distinction between prophetic miracles, the miraculous acts of God’s
friends, and the deceptive magic of reprehensible individuals.
In other words, this ostensibly historical collection of narratives creates a barzakh that
not only links the material with the spiritual, but also with the metaphysical.
Bashir’s interest in hagiography as both a genre of history and an expression of spir-
ituality is explored in further detail in Chapter 5, Translating Sainthood in Islamic
Hagiography, by Vincent J. Cornell. Here Islamic hagiography is assessed according to
its name in Arabic, tarjamat al-awliyā’: literally, “the translation of the saints.” In this
chapter, Cornell argues that this medieval term for hagiography is not just a metaphor
but is instead an actual process of translation. Every hagiography to be properly under-
stood must be recognized as a translation on multiple levels. As part of his argument,
Cornell uses translation theory to show how closely the concept of translation elides
with that of interpretation: in Arabic, the word tarjama means both activities—at once
translation and interpretation. The polysemy of this term enhances our understanding
of the ways in which the literary/historical genre of hagiography “translates” saint-
hood; it promotes a sense of spirituality that provides a barzakh between the written text
and the seemingly miraculous world of the saints.
Cornell uses three “bridge concepts:” (1) translation as representation; (2) intercul-
tural translation; and (3) intersemiotic translation (the translation of symbols and their
meanings) to illustrate the nature of this barzakh. As an example, he uses an early thir-
teenth-century work of manāqib (“exploits”) literature focused on the famous Moroccan
saint “Moulay Bouʿazza,” Abū Yiʿzzā Ilānnūr (d. 1177 CE). What makes this manāqib
work particularly interesting is that it was written by a noted jurist from Sabta (modern-
day Ceuta) whose status, education, and urban Arab identity were diametrically
opposed to the background and life experiences of this poor, illiterate, and monolingual
Amazigh (i.e., Berber) saint. In the hands of its author, the translation of Abū Yiʿzzā’s
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Vincent J. Cornell

sainthood, like ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī’s translations of God’s friends in Shahzad Bashir’s
chapter, makes a strong argument for the moral and spiritual authority of the Muslim
saint. However, unlike Jāmī’s hagiography, the Moroccan work also contains interlin-
guistic translations from Amazigh to Arabic, as well as arguments and parables on reli-
gious ethics, political philosophy, and divine justice. Most importantly, there are two
“translators” in this work. The first is the author of the hagiography, who translates the
sainthood of Abū Yiʿzzā. The second is Abū Yiʿzzā himself, who, as Cornell says, “trans-
lates the ‘languages’ of different conceptual worlds: through his speech and actions he
interprets the experience of an extraordinary world where animals communicate with
human beings and where divinely bestowed miracles replace the law of cause and
effect.” In the barzakh logic of the translation of saints, all boundaries are permeable;
the mundane and supernal worlds intersect.
The Spirituality of Places and Spaces
All four chapters in the second section of Part I deal with physical places or spaces.
Chapter 6 discusses the spiritual importance of Mecca, Chapter 7 does the same with
Medina, Chapter 8 discusses Jerusalem—known in Islam as al-Quds, “The Holy”—and
Chapter 9 discusses the spirituality of the Sufi shrine. Each of these sites expresses the
concept of Place according to the Arabic term, mawḍiʿ. The root of this term—waḍaʿa—
means “to put,” “to lay out,” or “to establish.” Secondary meanings include “to create,”
“to invent,” “to locate,” and “to put down,” as with lines of text in writing. Another
term for “place” in Arabic is maḥall, as in the name of the famous monument in India,
the Tāj Maḥall, literally the “Crown Place.” Unlike the root waḍaʿa, which refers to the
act of putting or placing something in a location, ḥalla, the root of maḥall, means “to
open,” “to initiate,” “to unbind,” “to free,” and “to solve,” as in “opening up” the solu-
tion to a problem.
In Islamic spirituality, numerous places can be invoked, researched, and explained
as spiritual sites but three stand out beyond other possibilities: these are the cities of
Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. All three are true cosmopolitan sites; each of them
constitutes a citied collective; however, they also provide an opening to a cosmos that is
linked to a view of other, invisible worlds that inform and direct this world. This is also
true of the most important Sufi shrines. Major pilgrimage sites built around Sufi
shrines, such as Tanta in Egypt or Touba in Senegal, often become cities in themselves,
providing an urban space focused on the barzakh between the material and spiritual
worlds. As a barzakh, each of the spiritual places discussed in this section represents
both senses of place mentioned above. As a mawḍiʿ, each is a sacred location, what the
scholar of religion Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) called an axis mundi—a spiritual center
where the presence of the sacred is made manifest (Eliade 1957, 36–47). However,
while these physical sites can be known, monitored, and measured, according to Eliade,
their most important function is to act as a symbolic locus for another, invisible trajec-
tory, one that provides a place of spiritual opening—a maḥall—for those who can find
their way to it.
Crucially, a place of spiritual opening covers multiple directions. As a mawḍiʿ, it ori-

ents the believer in horizontal space, and as a maḥall it opens the believer up to a vertical
axis that reaches down from the supernal to the very center of one’s soul. For Ibn Sabʿīn,
the “place” (maḥall) where one remembers God corresponds to the outward holy places
of Islam in that it serves as the symbolic locus of God as the One and True Being
(al-Ḥaqq). As such, it recalls a third word for “place” in Arabic: makān. The verb kāna,
the root of makān, ultimately has to do with being and existence, as in the Qur’ānic
passage cited earlier: “Verily [God’s] command, if He wants something [to exist], is to
say to it, ‘Be!’ and it is” (kun fa-yakūn). “Being there” is the very essence of place and
highlights the fact that place is a conceptual metaphor, premised on the notion that cru-
cial memories and life-changing experiences are associated with particular places or
locations. This is one reason why sacred places are sites of spiritual inspiration.
In Chapter 6, The Spiritual Meaning of Mecca, the Kaʿba, and the Ḥajj, Gordon D.
Newby addresses how the two dimensions of the experience of space—the physical/
temporal and the spiritual/eternal—constantly interweave in Mecca, the holiest city of
Islam. Once again demonstrating the importance of barzakh logic, these two aspects of
Mecca as a place of spirituality are incomprehensible unless they are held in tension,
both prized but neither separated from nor dissolved in the other. Especially significant
in Newby’s essay is the analogical connection of Mecca to Jerusalem. “Mecca and
Jerusalem,” he observes, “are unique because of their universal character and their
centrality to the primordial spiritual narratives of Islam. With the inclusion of Medina,
Islam is unique among world religions for having three holy cities as locations for its
spiritual beginnings.” As sites of revelation, divine remembrance, and historical
memory, these three sites of the Holy, both singly and together, reflect the importance of
Word, Place, and Person in Islam.
The second half of Newby’s chapter examines the Ḥajj, the annual pilgrimage to
Mecca. Focused on the Kaʿba, this pilgrimage symbolizes the trans-historical nature of
Islam by highlighting the Prophet Abraham as the first monotheist of the Judeo-
Christian-Islamic tradition. Both Abraham and his son Ishmael loom large in the
Islamic spiritual imagination, connecting the Kaʿba to the Ḥajj and to the repatterning
of the concept of community through worship of the One God, the Hearer and Knower
of all things (Q 2: 127). In detailing the rites of the Ḥajj, Newby demonstrates how the
intersection of divine space and religious action lie at the core of what it means to be a
Muslim and what is at the center of the faith of Muslims around the world. However, he
cautions, “[A]s the Qarmatians discovered more than a thousand years ago, owning the
Kaʿba is not the same as owning Islam.” The attempt by Saudi leaders to confine Islam
to a singular vision is opposed by the pluralism of historical Islam, which is embodied in
the ancient rites centered on the Kaʿba. “When Abraham was ordered to issue the call
to come to the Kaʿba and perform the Ḥajj,” observes Newby, “this call went out to all
the world, and the answer, ‘Labayaka, Allāhuma labayk,’ was not restricted to only a few
but to all who came there in search of the divine presence.”
Just as Mecca is crucial for the spiritual orientation of Muslims in prayer and pil-
grimage, Medina draws its centrality to Islam from its enduring link to the Prophet
Muḥammad. As Daoud Stephen Casewit explains in Chapter 7, The Spiritual Meaning
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Vincent J. Cornell

of Medina, the second city of Islam is so connected to the Prophet that its original name
of Yathrib was changed to Madīnat Rasūl Allāh, the “City of the Messenger of God.”
Muslim philosophers such Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (d. 950 CE) saw the Arabic term madīna
as a translation of the Greek concept of the polis; thus, the city was called al-Madīna al-
Munawwara, the “Radiant” or “Illuminated” city, since its political organization under
the Prophet provided the paradigm for Islam as a community.
Casewit demonstrates how for Muslims the Prophet’s City is at once a setting of
sacred history, a realm of sacred geography and sacred space, and a destination for
sacred journeying. With extensive reference to Qur’ān and Hadith, he clarifies the
three-fold pattern of Medina as indissolubly linked to the Prophet Muḥammad: (1)
Medina was his refuge and base of operations during the formative period of Islam; (2)
the Prophet himself defined the contours of its spiritual topography; and (3) the tomb
of the Prophet and his memory continue to attract Muslims to visit Medina as a cap-
stone to the Ḥajj pilgrimage. “In the minds of the Muslim faithful,” says Casewit,
it is due to the enduring aura of the Prophet that the city is most famously known as
“Medina the Luminous”… Like the full moon, with which he is often compared, the Prophet
Muḥammad is infused with God’s light, and he radiates it to his beloved sanctuary.
Clustered with Mecca and Medina as the holiest of cities for Muslims is Jerusalem.
Indeed, the importance of Jerusalem is so great for Muslims that it is misleading to think
of it as “the third-holiest city in Islam,” as many Western scholars call it. As Brannon
Wheeler argues in Chapter 8, Jerusalem in Islamic Spirituality, despite the importance
of Mecca and Medina, it is hard to think of Islamic spirituality without thinking of
Jerusalem:
Jerusalem and the Holy Land hold a unique place in Islam and the Muslim imaginary.
Muslims revere Jerusalem as the site of Solomon’s Temple, a place of pilgrimage, and the
location of the Day of Judgment. It is the original direction of prayer, the place from which
the Prophet Muḥammad ascended to heaven on the Night Journey, where creation began,
and is the burial place of the biblical prophets.
All of the events and memories connected with Jerusalem link Muslims not just to
moments in their own past but to the past of the Children of Israel and early Christianity
as well. “Islamic attitudes toward Jerusalem,” explains Wheeler,
are integrally linked with the status of the city as a symbol of ancient Israel. Muslims share
their religious experience of Jerusalem with both Jews and Christians. Through beliefs and
practices Muslims orient and define themselves vis-à-vis Jerusalem in ways that allow them
both to connect with and distinguish themselves from the other revealed religions of the Bible.
The most important link between Mecca and Jerusalem is the Temple or “House of
Abraham,” a term that is also applied to the Kaʿba. This connection to Abraham and the
origins of monotheism is the key to the significance of al-Masjid al-Aqṣā’, “The Farthest
Mosque,” which was built by Muslims on the site of Solomon’s Temple, destroyed in the
Roman conquest of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The Temple Mount remained a barren waste-
land until the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 637 CE, when the Caliph ‘Umar (d. 644
CE) ordered the construction of the Aqṣā’ Mosque in memory of the Temple. The con-
nection between the Temple and the Kaʿba is further affirmed by the Prophet’s Night
Journey (al-Isrāʼ) and Ascension (al-Miʿrāj), whose twin starting points were Mecca and
Jerusalem.
As noted previously, it is a shorter step than one might think from consideration of the
three holy cities of Islam to the shrines of Sufi saints, which is the subject of Chapter 9,
The Spirituality of the Sufi Shrine, by Carl W. Ernst. Like their immediate precursors, the
tomb of the Prophet Muḥammad in Medina and the martyrium or “place of witnessing”
in Eastern Christianity, the shrines of Muslim saints link together the concepts of Word,
Place, and Person through their multiple locatedness. As both mawḍiʿ and maḥall, they
constitute another barzakh by acting as nodes of communication in a spiritual landscape
that transcends boundaries, whether geographical, terrestrial, or sensory.
Ernst begins his chapter by underscoring the remarkable persistence of devotion to
Sufi shrines, despite intense opposition from certain quarters of the Muslim community.
In his words, “Despite reformist criticism, state regulation, and outright opposition, pil-
grimage to Sufi shrines remains a constant feature of religious practice in Muslim-
majority countries.” How is one to explain this practice, a major performative element
of Islamic spirituality that continues until today? Ernst traces many examples of devo-
tion to saints and saintly sites going back to the foundational texts of Islam, including
the Qur’ān. “The fundamental concept underlying the phenomenon of Sufi shrines,”
he observes,
is the Islamic notion of sainthood, summarized in the hard to translate Arabic terms walāya
and wilāya [on these terms see Chapter 5 by Vincent J. Cornell], conveying strong associa-
tions of closeness to God, intensity of worship, and divinely bestowed authority. The Qurʼān
emphatically points to the “friend of God” (walī Allāh) as a special category of religious
virtue, which has been applied in practice most frequently to Shīʿī Imams as well as Sufi
saints [on the veneration of the Shīʿī Imams see Chapter 11 by Abdelaziz Sachedina].
By the Islamic Middle Period, the institution of the Sufi shrine was firmly established
across the Muslim world. In addition, the practice of making vows to the saint for the
fulfillment of personal needs made many shrines distribution centers for wealth in the
form of donations. Thus, Sufi shrines fulfilled a major social and collective role in Islam,
not merely as an outlet or touchstone for expressive piety.
Another important contribution that Ernst makes in his chapter is to point out that
the barzakh logic expressed in the spirituality of the Sufi shrine is based on the spiritual
presence (ḥaḍra or baraka) that emanates from the saint in the tomb. Through this
presence, visitors to the shrine are able to connect to a chain of Sufi masters going back
to the Prophet Muḥammad. Because of this, Ernst observes, “the most revealing name
of a Sufi shrine is mazār, since it means literally ‘a place that one visits.’ Indeed, the Sufi
shrine is inseparable from the ritual performance of pilgrimage.” So important is this
14
Vincent J. Cornell

enduring spiritual presence to the spirituality of Sufi sainthood that residential and
other collective structures associated with institutional Sufism were often anchored by
the tombs of saints.
The Spirituality of People and Human Relations
Islam has often been called the most radically monotheistic of world religions. Despite this
theological stance, the discussion of God in the Qur’ān fluctuates between the transcen-
dent and the immanent, the abstract and the concrete, the logical and the analogical.
Although God is not tied to place, He is Lord of both the east and the west (Q 55: 17); He
is beyond the world, yet sends rain and revives the earth (Q 29: 63); nothing is like Him,
yet his “face” abides forever (Q 55: 27). To aid in the understanding of God’s powers and
attributes, the Qur’ān uses ninety-nine terms that convey different aspects of divine
being. These are called the “Excellent (or Beautiful) Names of Allah” (Q 7: 180). Many of
the Divine Names are incorporated into personal names, such as ‘Abd al-Raḥmān
(“Servant of the Beneficent”), ‘Abd al-Jabbār (“Servant of the Overpowering”), or ‘Abd
al-‘Azīz (“Servant of the Glorious”). Nearly all of these names refer to attributes that are
shared by both God and human beings.
The fact that God and human beings share many attributes is an important aspect of
spirituality in Islam. Unlike most other words in Arabic, the term for “human being”—
insān—is generic: it includes both men and women. According to the Qur’ān, the
human being is the key to the divine plan and the beneficiary of God’s creation of the
world. In a broad sense, the use of a generic term for “human being” indicates that men
and women are spiritually equal. All human beings are faced with the same existential
and moral choices that make up the Qur’ān’s furqān or “criterion of discernment” (Q
25: 1). However, the word insān has another unusual attribute: it has two possible roots
instead of one. One root is the verb anisa, which means “to become close or intimate.”
The other root is nasiya, which means “to forget.”
Human accountability to God is epitomized in the Qur’ān by a covenant (mīthāq),
in which human beings recognize God’s mastery over the heavens and the earth
before their creation. In the most basic sense, this covenant separates the heedless
and those who assign partners to God from true believers, who maintain their trust in
God’s message (Q 33: 73). Sufis call this covenant the “Covenant of Alast,” from the
key words that describe it in the Qur’ān: “When your Lord drew forth the descendants
of the children of Adam from their loins, He made them swear upon their souls,
[saying,] ‘Am I not your Lord (alastu bi-rabbikum)?’ They said, ‘Yes, we do so testify’”
(Q 7: 172).
To fulfill the Covenant of Alast is to traverse the barzakh that reconnects the tendency
to become heedless of God with the ability to know God as True Being. This is also part
of the paradox of the human margin as denoted by the term insān. In “The Book of the
Covenant” (Kitāb al-Mīthāq), Abū al-Qāsim al-Junayd describes this barzakh by explain-
ing that the main role of the human being on earth is to act as an interlocutor of the
Divine Word. Referring to the verse cited above, he states:
When [God] called on [humanity] and they answered quickly, their answer was a gracious
and generous gift from Him; it was His answer on their behalf when He granted them their
being, their [true] function being that of interlocutors. He gave them knowledge of Him
when they were only concepts which He had conceived. He then wished it, and made them
like seeds, which He transformed at His will into human seeds and put them into the loins
of Adam. (Abdel-Kader 1976, 160–161)
Junayd’s explanation brings together the concepts of the Person and the Word, as do the
four essays in the final section of Part I. The person who trusts in God and is true to
God’s trust by not breaking the covenant in thought, word, or deed is referred to by the
Qur’ān as the vicegerent (khalīfa) of God (Q 2: 30–33). Throughout the history of
Islamic spirituality, there have been singular people, known for their sanctity, who are
the best exemplars of this role. For the most part, they have not been the people known
as khalīfa in a political sense—the caliphs of Islamic imperial history. Rather, they are
the Prophets and Imams, who sit at the top of the registers of sanctity, with Muḥammad
as the foremost prophet, and his cousin and son-in-law ‘Alī as the lodestone of piety for
Shīʿism. From time to time, there are others, such as saintly figures, who can fulfill this
role as well. Junayd describes such people in terms of the divine dispensation:
These are those whom [God] has chosen to be his friends and trustees and to be the recipi-
ents of His graciousness. He has thereby separated them from the mass of humankind
unto Himself. He has made their bodies to be of this world, their spirits of the nature of
light, their knowledge of the nature of spirit. He made their intellects bounded by the
throne of God, but their formal knowledge is bounded by the veil. He has made the highest
level of their spirits to be the nature of the unseen in the very dwelling place of the unseen,
and He has granted them access to the hidden corners of His kingdom. He is their only
refuge and with him alone do they abide. (Ibid, 160, slight changes made to translation)
The chapters of the final section of Part I all discuss the concept of the Person in Islamic
spirituality, according to the notion of vicegerency (al-khilāfa) as expressed in the
Qur’ān. The first two chapters discuss the most special persons described above:
Muḥammad and the Prophets on the one hand, and the Shīʿī Imams on the other. The
second group of two chapters describes the vicegerency in regard to its fulfillment in all
believers, focusing on two aspects of human relations that are particularly important
today—gender and social justice. Like so much in this volume, these two domains
project a barzakh: they exist as separate but parallel tracks of devotion that are not iso-
lated from, but congruent with each other.
In Chapter 10, The Spiritual Meaning of Muḥammad and the Prophets of Islam, Ali
Allawi notes how the human vicegerency of God is best exemplified in two complemen-
tary roles—the Prophet (nabī) and the Messenger (rasūl)—the former including all
divine emissaries, the latter those with a revealed text or scripture. Both Prophets and
Prophet-Messengers are integral to the spiritual life of Islam. Through their presence
they provide an essential inter-space or barzakh between the realms of the seen and
manifest—the world of matter, form, and the senses—and the realms of the unseen and
hidden, the world of inner attributes, symbolic meanings, and subtleties. As
16
Vincent J. Cornell

barzakh-figures, they are neither reducible to their “horizontal” or historical identity

nor to their “vertical” identity as intermediaries between the mundane and supernal
worlds. Although both the Qur’ān and Muslim tradition speak of the Prophets in terms
of hierarchies, their common function as interlocutors of the Divine Message renders
such hierarchies moot. Allawi quotes Ibn Sabʿīn as stating on this subject:
[One] should not try to compare the spiritual states of [the Prophets] empirically, for it is as
if you were saying, “So-and-so is worth a thousand dirhams,” only based on a [superficial]
likeness. Indeed, when taken as a whole, each one of them would need a hundred
sentences.
An important contribution of Allawi’s chapter is to highlight the concept of the “Light

of Prophecy” (al-nūr al-nabawī), which is a divine gift that is largely restricted to the
Prophets in Sunni Islam but is also extended to the Imams in Shīʿism. According to a
well-known ḥadīth, the Prophet Muḥammad said, “Oh God! Make for me a light in my
heart, a light in my body, and a light in my hair.” Allawi explains the barzakh nature of
this concept in the following way:
From a worldly perspective, the Light of Prophecy illumines the Prophets and turns them
into the quintessence of human perfectibility, for they see nothing but the actions of the
One God suffusing all existence. According to traditions in both Sunni and Shīʿī Islam, the
Light of Prophecy is a continuous stream of Divine Light that stretches from pre-eternity to
beyond time, in which all of the prophets are immersed. It reaches its culmination in the
Prophet Muḥammad, who is the Seal of the Prophets (khātam al-nabiyyīn, Q 33: 40), both
in his temporal finality and in his impeccable sanctity. It is in this sense that one should
understand the saying of the Prophet, “I was a Prophet when Adam was between water
and clay.”
Allawi also cites the Mālikī jurist al-Qāḍī ‘Iyāḍ (d. 1149 CE) in describing the Prophet
Muḥammad’s closeness to God:
The Prophet’s drawing near to his Lord and his closeness to Him is made clear by his posi-
tion, the honor of his rank, the splendor of the lights of his unitive knowledge, and his
witness of the secret of God’s unseen world and His power. To him from God came kindness,
intimacy, expansiveness, and generosity.
The same theme of closeness—which, as we have seen, is fundamental to the meaning

of the term insān—is the centerpiece of Chapter 11, The Spiritual Meaning of Devotion
to the Shīʿī Imams, by Abdulaziz Sachedina. In this chapter, the related Arabic terms
walāya and wilāya—“closeness” and “authority”—are highlighted as the basis of the
reverence given to the Imams by followers of the “Way of the People of the [Prophet’s]
House” (Madhhab Ahl al-Bayt). These two terms are also important for Sufis, with Sufi
masters venerated on the basis of their role as walī Allāh, “friend or protégé of God.”
To distinguish the Shīʿī from the Sufi interpretation of these concepts, Sachedina
relies on an additional term, ‘irfān. He explains that in scholarly works on Shīʿī mysti-
cism, ‘irfān is used to express the intellectual approach to mysticism and spirituality.
Ayatollah Khomeini’s daughter-in-law, a major intellectual in her own right, argues

that “the term ‘irfān refers most properly to ‘genuine mysticism’… or the ‘objective’
knowledge of spiritual truths possessed by those in advanced states of mystical
knowledge.” However, as Sachedina acutely observes, the distinction between
“objective” versus “subjective” spiritual experience is itself too subjective: “[It] seems to
have been created in order to catalogue the different manifestations of an ineffable spir-
ituality, one which is seen by scholars to float like an evanescent form of religiousness
across all world religions.”
Yet reason requires more than individual testimony for proof; in practice it needs to be
grounded in logic, and this is why authentic spirituality in Shīʿism is based on a specific
doctrine, “the distinctive doctrine of wilāya—the authority to demand obedience out of
love, devotion, and dedication” for the Imams as the Prophet’s descendants. However,
this love for the family of the Prophet also exists in Sunni spirituality, both Sufi and oth-
erwise. And precisely because of this overlap in loyalty and affection, Sachedina must
assert: “It is only in the Shīʿī tradition that wilāya is afforded creedal status as a continu-
ation of prophethood and is regarded as an essential element of the Islamic Testimony of
Faith (al-Shahāda).” This is so much the case that the Shīʿī Testimony of Faith includes an
additional declaration that states, “I bear witness that ‘Alī is the friend/trustee (walī) of
God.” Sachedina also discusses notable Shīʿī rituals, such as mourning practices during
the month of Muḥarram, that are connected with the martyrdom of the third Shīʿī Imam
al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Alī (d. 680 CE), who was massacred with his companions and family at
Karbala in Iraq. Other rituals include rites of visitation to the shrines of martyrs and
other holy personages, including prominent women from the family of the Prophet.
These too have Sufi parallels, which are explored by Carl Ernst in Chapter 9.
Beyond the different forms of spiritual expression—both textual doctrines and per-
formed rituals—that conjoin Sunni and Shīʿī Muslims, there is also the spiritual claim
to gender parity that is part of the meaning of the term insān. As ‘Ali Allawi observes,
Most traditional commentators and theologians have generally restricted prophecy in

Islam to men. However, the evocative depiction of Mary in the Qurʼān and her direct
encounter with the Holy Spirit (see Sūrat Maryam, Q 19) qualified her as a prophet or at
least a quasi-prophet in the view of some scholars.
In Chapter 12, Spirituality and Gender in Islam, Saʿdiyya Shaikh introduces the explo-
ration of gender and Islamic spirituality by asking a question first posed by Umm
Salama, one of the Prophet’s wives: “Does God speak only to men?” Shaikh uses her
chapter to search for an answer to the follow-up question that lies behind Umm Salama’s
query: “Am I, as a woman, fully recognized and spoken to by God?”
The thrust of her argument builds on an observation that has already been made
with respect to the term insān as a token of personhood. Since the Qur’ān asserts that
both men and women have the same ontological relation to God and the same poten-
tial for righteousness and salvation, ignoring the spiritual equality of gender impover-
ishes the spiritualty of human beings as a whole. The very existence of this issue begs
an important set of questions about the concept of the Person that Shaikh explores in
her essay:
18
Vincent J. Cornell

What is the nature of the human being in Muslim tradition? And following from this, what
does it mean to be a gendered human being? Does Islam provide notions of a universal
human essence that transcends gender? Do all men and all women share a universal male
or female essence respectively? Or rather, do men and women share certain essential attrib-
utes while differing in respect to others?
Drawing largely from the Sufi tradition, Shaikh attempts to answer these questions by
contrasting the recurrently negative attitudes toward women of Sufi men with the
spiritual practices and statements of Sufi women as detailed in hagiographic texts, which
ironically, were also written by men. Thus, in exploring the barzakh that links male and
female in Islamic thought, one has no choice but to engage the works of men. However,
Shaikh is able to escape from this double-bind by relying on a figure we have seen many
times already. This is the Andalusian Sufi Ibn ‘Arabī, who argues in his works that in
spiritual terms, men and women face the same obstacles and the same possibilities in
achieving the goal of becoming complete human beings (al-insān al-kāmil). By the end of
her chapter, Shaikh concludes that “despite diverse gender narratives… the core under-
standings of human spirituality are fundamentally egalitarian. Moreover, a feminist her-
meneutic allows one to discern deep continuities in… visions of attainment that are
comprehensively spiritual in nature with potentially powerful social implications.”
Among the “potentially powerful social implications” that Shaikh mentions is the
clarion call for justice; this topic is the subject of Chapter 13, Spirituality and Social
Justice in Islam by Mustafa Gokhan Sahin. Like Shaikh, Sahin couches his plea for jus-
tice in the Sufi universe of Ibn ‘Arabī but he also harkens back to the Hadith of Gabriel,
which calls for three stages of spiritual awareness and action: belief, surrender, and
pursuit of the good and beautiful. At the same time, he draws from the works of the
modern Turkish mystic Said Nursi (1878–1960), who follows Ibn ‘Arabī in depicting
this world as a reflection of God’s Divine Names. “If God has done what is beautiful
through his creation,” argues Sahin, then “human beings have the obligation to strive
for and practice beauty in their relationships with the Creator and the created.”
There is no end to the need for spiritual engagement in this world; hence, one must
strive through elevated conduct to implement social justice whenever and however pos-
sible, knowing that the veil of the mundane, when lifted, will reveal the reflections of
God’s Beautiful Names.
The way of spiritual and social engagement that Sahin suggests in his chapter is a
weathervane for barzakh logic, pointing to the need to practice justice in this world in the
image and with the power of God’s Beautiful Names, which evoke but do not limit the
conception of the One God in Islam. It is a heartfelt ambiguity that leaves the reader
perched on the cusp between the expressive and performative dimensions of Islamic
spirituality, which prepare the reader to go from Part I, “Expressive Dimensions of
Islamic Spirituality,” to Part 2, “Performative Dimensions of Islamic Spirituality.”
References
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Badawī, ‘Abd al-Raḥmān. (1957). al-Risāla al-Naṣīḥa aw al-Nūriyya li-Ibn Sabʿīn. Revista del
Instituto Egipcio de Estudios Islámicos de Madrid 4 (1): 1–45.
Cornell, Vincent J. (1996). The Way of Abū Madyan: Doctrinal and Poetic Works of Abū Madyan
Shu‘ayb ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Anṣārī (ca. 509/1115-16—594/1198). Cambridge: The Islamic Texts
Society.
Eliade, Mircea. (1957). The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (trans. Willard R. Trask).
Orlando and New York: Harcourt Inc.
Heidegger, Martin. (1971). Language. In: Poetry, Language, Thought (Translation and Introduction
by Albert Hofstadter). New York: Harper & Row.
Shaker, Anthony F. (2012). Thinking in the Language of Reality: Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī (1207–74 CE)
and the Mystical Philosophy of Reason. Bloomington, IN: Exlibris.
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hogy az érdemes kulcsárné granátosi kedvteléseinek gyakorlására –
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miután a (még mindig: kis) Pirók szakadatlan csavargással tartja
üstökét biztonságban. Azután az a folytos föl-fölmerülő kétely, hogy
a dolgok bekövetkező uj rendjében lesznek-e majd az illetők kellő
tekintettel a háznak régi, hű népére? Különösen pedig Kata
asszonynak az a szilárd meggyőződése, hogy a hova egyszer a
zsidók beteszik a lábukat – pedig a Hazafi már szinte mindennapos
volt a kastélyban – már annak a háznak, ha nem is épen kampesz,
de bizony nem jó lesz a vége. Mindezt pedig igen nehéz elgondolni
egy tisztes özvegynek, ki életének savát mégis csak az alatt a födél
alatt ette meg és nem akar hasonlatossá lenni se Zsuzskához, se
Sárához, a kik uton-utfélen kővel dobálják asszonyukat, a ki
kenyérrel tartja őket.
A ház nőcselédségének jelen, foglalkozás nélküli napjai e szerint
mégis bizonyos tevékenységben telnek, a mi a férfiakról
egyáltalában nem mondható. Míg Bálint mindenes reggeltől estig
vagy a korcsmában ül, vagy az istállóban alszik, a Pirók-gyerek
pedig egészen a madárfogdosás naplopó szenvedélyének adta át
magát, az öreg János, Mihály és Palkó reggeltől estig máriásoznak.
Pallérossi Pallér István ezuttal egyedüli lakója a kastélynak. Az ő
kis szobáját is veszedelemmel fenyegette ugyan a pesti építőmester
terve, mely szerint a lépcsőház részére fel kellett volna áldoztatnia;
de Béla látván, milyen rosszul esnék az öregnek a kiköltözés,
megkegyelmezett neki. Magányosan bolyong az elhagyott
szobákban s naponként kétszer megtekinti az őrizetére bizott
kulcsokat, hogy majd őszszel mindent kifogástalan rendben
adhasson át a ház visszatért fecskéinek. Kata asszony minden
reggel megkérdi tőle, hogy mi a kedves étele, s mindennap ugyanazt
a választ kapja: – Nincs ugyan mit finnyáskodnom, de (hogy így
fejezzem ki magamat) a bárányfarknak bolondja vagyok! Azután
pipára gyujt s elnézegeti a haladó munkát és ujra meg ujra bejárja a
kastély homályos folyosóit és elsötétitett szobáit, melyekben épen
olyan nagy a felfordulás, mint odalenn az udvaron. Óriási ládák,
nehéz csomagok állják lépten-nyomon utját, tele drága butorokkal,
fényes selyem-szövetekkel, pompás képekkel és csodálatos
csecsebecsékkel, melyek annak idején uj fényt fognak kölcsönözni a
régi kastélynak. A földszinti folyosót egészen eltorlaszolják az uj
faragott ajtók, melyek előtt számtalanszor megáll a kóválygó mentor
és volt rá eset, hogy valóságos könycseppet morzsolt szét gyönge
szemeiben, mikor egyszer elgondolta, hogy ime, milyen pompásan
illenek egymás mellé a féllábu gólya és a török fejet tartó vitéz, a
Pallér meg a Kálozdy-czimer! De az ő hangulatai gyorsan változnak
s az örvendetes gondolatok gyorsan készek helyet adni a
szorongásnak. A képes szálának uj, diszesebb, talán épen aranyos
borítékra váró falai üresek. A családi arczképek egy sarokban
egymásnak támasztva pihennek, míg helyüket a ragyogóbb alapon
ismét elfoglalhatják. A bujdosó Istók ez eltakart ereklyék előtt is
hosszabb állomásokat szokott tartani; felborítgatta őket és mikor
Ádámné asszonyság rideg vonásaival állt szemközt, a tisztelet
kifejezését arczán mindig valami elégedetlenség törte át, míg ezt
morogta magában:
Pipára gyujt s elnézegeti a haladó munkát…
– Ha meggondolom, hogy mindez a rettentő költekezés az én

nagyságos hugomasszony óhajtására történik, azt hiszem, hosszabb
ideig kellett volna megállapodnom vele ennek a derék dámának
képe előtt, ki a takarékosság mintaképe volt; ezzel sok bajnak elejét
vehettem volna!
De ugyan ki beszélhet itt bajról a trónusát féltő Kata asszonyon
és a félénk lelkű mentoron kivül?! Az egész világ csak irígységgel
leskelődött a függöny körül, mely a fiatal pár boldogságát elrejté
kiváncsi szemei elől s irígységgel kisérte útján, melyre a tavasz első
sugarai csalták őket, a mint annyira-mennyire visszahozták Béla régi
erejét. Az ifjú férjnek igen kevés érzéke volt az élet gyakorlati oldala
iránt s dunaszögi professzorai kitünő bizonyítványainak ellenére is
igen rossz számító volt. De mégsem igen jutott volna eszébe, hogy e
sanyarú esztendők terheivel vállain ily költséges építkezésbe fogjon
s ily drága útra induljon, ha Ilonának olyannyira szívén nem fekszik
uj családja fénye s férje egészsége. Nem ő volt az első, ki bizonyos
változáson látszott átmenni abban a perczben, melyben a
rózsaláncz utolsó szeme is megtaláltatott s kinek karjait nem érezte
olyan puha vánkosnak a férj, mint a minőnek sejtette a vőlegény.
Mikor a nászágy függönyei félrevonatnak, gyakran hullanak alá a nő
lelkéről is a csalóka sejtésnek vagy a vak ismeretlenségnek
könnyebb vagy durvább szövetű fátylai; az éjjeli mécs mindig
élesebb sugarakat vet a halvány világánál találkozók benső
vonásaira, mint a báltermek csillárainak vakító fénye. De ezek a
képek talán nagyon is erősek ahhoz a néhány szívbeli, csengő
kaczagáshoz, melylyel a szép fiatal asszony a kastély ócskaságait
kicsúfolta. Jóizűn nevetett a színehagyott butorokon, melyek korhadt
fájában ijesztgető szellemeket nyikorgatott a szorgalmasan dolgozó
szú; a mult századbeli festéseken, melyeket, ha ily kopottak és
elmosódottak nem lennének, fantasztikus tájképeikkel, csodálatos
állatseregletükkel és megfoghatatlan virágaikkal bizonyosan
szivesen venne minden muzeum; az egész ódon kolostoron,
melyben hol rabnak, hol apáczának érzi magát és mindig fázik. Az a
vén jármű is kikapta a magáét, melyben gyakorta kikocsizott s a
parasztemberek szerény köszöntgetését büszke méltósággal
fogadta; a kiszolgált jószág halálos itéletének aláírását különösen az
nap követelte fokozott erélylyel, melyen Ivánfiék ujdonatuj üveges
hintajával találkozott s úgy tetszett neki, mintha a márványarczú
báróné kicsinylő pillantást vetett volna rá. A sok tréfaszó közt
természetesen ölelés és csók is sok jutott Bélának, ki többször
megpróbálta előhozni valamit az inséges esztendőkről és üres
magtárakról. Jóllehet szerény ellenvetéseit rendesen azonnal sietett
jóvá tenni egy-egy hahotával neje gúnyosan jókedvű megjegyzései
fölött. Ilona a legártatlanabb magyarázó szóra kipirulva hallgatott el,
csöndesen leült, megszakította a beszéd fonalát s dudolni kezdett
magában, vagy kiment a szobából s hosszú, hosszú negyedórák
mulva egy kis gyöngyvirág vagy ibolya-csokorral tért vissza és
biztosította férjét, hogy: azért nem haragszik. Nos, a dolog vége –
Istóknak örökösen komor ténfergései és mindig szólni készülő
némasága daczára – az lett, hogy Hazafi rövid látogatásra kéretett,
Pestről egy építőmester érkezett, a tervek elkészültek és a
szerződések megköttettek.
Mielőtt az átalakítás munkáját megkezdték volna, Béla a kora-
tavaszi hideg estéken sokszor ült mélázva kis fészkében s a mint a
kandalló hamvadó parázsa kialudt, a régi divatú szobát mindenestül
elfoglalta a homály és csöndesség, noha a szép asszony
odatelepedett lábaihoz és meg-megszorította kezét, az égre feltünt
esti csillag nem tartotta feleslegesnek a kopott zöld függönyön
keresztül beküldeni egy szelid sugarat hozzá, hogy ne legyen
egyedül. Ilona az ilyen órákban méltán féltette a visszaeséstől s a
világért sem engedte volna meg, hogy – míg a kastély elkészül –
valami nyomorult s talán egészségtelen bérelt lakásba költözzenek.
Inkább töltsék úton azt az időt s mutogasson meg neki Béla
egyetmást, a mit maga legénykori bolyongásában élvezett. A
megrázó jelenetek sötét képeit is, melyekkel esküvőjük történetét a
szeszélyes sors összeszőtte, az idegen nap leghamarabb el fogja
halaványítani, az idegen élet hullámai legkönnyebben elmossák.
Lám dr. Kurz is azt erősíti, hogy ha a szög fejére czélzó orvosnak
sokféle körülményt tekintetbe vennie nem kellene, ő valamennyi
üdülőnek utazást javaslana. Béla elgondolkodva játszik egy
hajfürtjével, mely homlokára csüng; hol félresimítja, hol lejebb huzza,
míg a szép asszony átkarolja, egy csókkal véget vet a
szórakozottság öntudatlan bibelődésének és hizelgő hangon kérdi,
hogy: mikor csomagoltasson? Az ifjú férjnek felelni kell s miután
letett róla, hogy a rossz termést még egyszer előhozza, felel úgy, a
mint Ilona óhajtotta.
Útnak indúltak.
Béla a vén hintó kis hátsó ablakán addig nézte a régi kastélyt,
melyet szürke falával, régi kéményeivel, szűk ablakainak megszokott
sorával, töredezett márvány-lépcsőjével és kicsiny, kormos tornyával
nem fog viszontlátni soha többé, míg a nedves, reggeli légben
bolygó sötét ködök le nem bocsátották a vén lak előtt mindörökre a
függönyt, hogy a díszlet-mester, rendezők és szolgasereg
belekaphasson sürgető munkájába, mely nem közönséges
meglepetést készít a következő felvonásra. Az éjjel eső esett s nagy
cseppek ragyogtak még az ablakok alsó sarkaiban és
homályosították el üvegüket, mintha a kastély is könnyes szemekkel
búcsuznék ifjú urától, kit agg lábainál látott felnőni. Béla szótlanul
huzta magát a kocsi egyik sarkába s nejének kezét fogván,
gondolatokba mélyedt. Tagadhatatlan, hogy házaséletének rövid
hónapjai alatt új nyugtalanság vert fészket lelkében, e szerencsétlen
s a déli sivatagok ama csodálatos tavaihoz hasonló lélekben, melybe
mindenfelől összefolynak a puszták homokos vizei, de melyből aztán
nem vezeti el ezeket csöndes folyással a természet igazgató keze.
Ők visznek hírt arany-hegyekről és zöld oázokról, de az ő szavukat
nem viszik tovább partjuk homok-hullámai: vizük gyül, egyre gyül,
míg vagy útat ásva maguknak a föld gyomrába, megrengetik, vagy
kicsapván medrükből, elárasztják a vidéket. Hanem minderről csak a
sivatag tud valamit. Béla ilyen magányosan élt. Lelkébe egymásután
szakadtak be a benyomások, melyek egy szomorú kis világ
emlékeivel meg-megrezzentették; de szívének nem volt kicsorduló
csatornája. Társtalanul folytak napjai és nem volt kéz elvezetni a
sötét vizeket, melyek lelkében meggyülekeztek. Senkitől nem tudva
szivárogtak azok nyugalmának rétegei közé s készítették elő
életének katasztrófáit. Sívatag vette körül. Érezte most is, hogy a
ködfátyolképeket, melyek betegágyában megjelentek előtte s egy kis
darabot mutattak neki a régi égből, az élet újra szertefujta. Ilona
össze-összerázkódott a kocsiban, a mint férje keze egyre hidegült s
Béla olyan véghetetlen ürt érzett maga körül, mint mikor erős főfájás
alkalmával úgy tetszik, hogy egy nagy puszta közepén állunk,
melyen szakadatlanul zúg a szél. Mikor abban a nagy karszékben
várta a papot, ki életét Ilonáéval összekösse s az elkövetkező percz
komoly szava felzaklatta lelkét, bizonyára nem várt megváltót, de
sejtett. A nagy rázkódások egy-két rövid napra kiragadták sivár
kétségbeeséséből s a gondolatok, melyekkel jövőjére nézett, ha nem
voltak is egy hívő gondolatai, de mindenesetre oly valakié, kinek fülei
nem lennének süketek a térítő előtt. Erős, bizonyosan igen erős nap
kellett volna hozzá, hogy a bezárkózott világ új életre nyiljék ki s
annyit már tudott, hogy Ilona szerelme nem ilyen nap. Annak a mély
szerelemnek, mely őt megváltani képes lett volna, nincs nyomora,
csak megelégedése; nincs gúnyja, csak gyöngédsége; nincs
követelése, csak ajándéka. Béla maga sem tudja, mit vesztett; de
érzi, hogy szegényebb, mint hónapokkal ezelőtt volt. Ráveti szemeit
fiatal nejére. Milyen szép! Átkarolja és megcsókolja. Milyen szép! De
nem gondol többé a jövőre mellette.
Útja a szép asszony oldalán semmiesetre sem volt kellemetlen;
de kevés olyan napja volt, melyet egy-egy rövidke visszatetszés, futó
elkomorodás, vagy apró csalódás ne szakított volna meg. Igaz, hogy
rendkivül érzékeny is volt; minden pillanatban kész némán behuzni
csigaszarvait. Nejének apró és drága szeszélyei, modorának
tagadhatatlan könnyelműsége, előadásának és mozdulatainak élénk
s nem egészen gyöngéd színezése, egész viseletének bizonyos
megszokott drámaisága mind olyan tulajdon volt, melyekkel Béla
fiatal asszonyoknál még sohasem találkozott s az új, melylyel
szemközt nem tudjuk miként viselni magunkat, könnyen boszant s
mindjárt helytelennek látszik. Olaszországban jártak s a világ
legszebb tavaszát élvezték. Velenczében egy este gondolán ültek s
elmélyedve hallgattak egy dalt, mely valamelyik vén palota ablakán
röppent ki a csöndes éjbe. Béla lecsüggesztette fejét s hosszan
hosszan nézte a habok játékát a holdsugarakkal. A mint a dal már
elhangzott s az éneklő lányka is eltünt az ablakból és Béla még
mindig mozdulatlanul szögezte tekintetét a csillogó, suttogó
hullámokra, Ilona jókedvű nevetéssel azt a megjegyzést tette, hogy
úgy tetszik neki, mintha férje valami víz alatt lakó tündérbe lenne
szerelmes. Ez gondolva és mondva egészen ártatlanul volt; de Béla
mélyen elszomorodott rá s fogadójukban a kerevetre dőlve,
főfájásról panaszkodott. Viseletében nem tudta eltitkolni, hogy neje
volt az, a ki valamivel kellemetlenül érintette s Ilona – semmi
szemrehányást tenni magának nem tudván – a méltatlankodó
neheztelés hangján értesítette férjét, hogy: akkor egyedül fog a
szinházba menni. Béla nem kérte, hogy maradjon, s így soha
semmi, de semmi félreértés közöttük megmagyarázva nem lett.
Semmiesetre sem lehetett kellemes látvány a rossz esztendők által
látogatott gazdának az a kis bőrönd, mely csupa útközben vásárolt
ékszerdobozzal volt tele.
Mikor egy-egy városból távozni készültek, a vendégfogadói
számlákon kivül mindig találkoznia kellett Bélának egy sereg mással
– most ettől a hires ékszerésztől, majd attól a divatárusnőtől, kiknek
kedvéért rendesen mélyen volt kénytelen tárczájába nyulni. A
drágábbnál drágább selyemruhák készlete oly nagyra gyült, mintha
Lombardia selyembogarai egy álló esztendeig kizárólag Ilonának
szentelték volna minden munkásságukat. Ha Béla néha komorgott, a
szép asszony egymásután szedte magára új öltözékeit s
mosolyogva állt meg előtte: – Ugye szép vagyok? – kérdé öntudatos
biztosságban hatalmának legerősebb eszközében.
Így barangoltak erre-arra – sok angol távcsöve volt feléjök
irányozva, a gondolások szivesen énekeltek nekik és sok fogadóban
sokan tudakozták kilétüket, – míg beköszöntött a fürdő-idő s egy
meleg nyári napon rászálltak a magyar tengerre és Füred felé
eveztek.
XX. FEJEZET.
Balaton-Füreden
A kikötő környékén tolongott a közönség. A füredi napi

mulatságok sorozatának amaz egyik legjelentékenyebb pontjánál
voltak, mely a régi vendégeket az újonnan érkezetteknek szemtől
szembe való láthatásával és mustrálhatásával kecsegteti, sőt
ünnepélyes alkalmakkor ama nem mindennapi gyönyörűséggel is,
melyet a szállás nélkül maradt szerencsétleneknek Pontiustól
Pilátushoz való kétségbeesett lótása-futása nyujt.
Az álldogáló tömeg élénk beszélgetés, itt-ott hangos ásítozás,
nyugtalan ágaskodás, mindenekfelett pedig forró verítékcsöppek
közt várta a közeledő Himfy-t, melytől vert habok szélső gyürüi már a
parton futottak szét. Számtalan napernyő volt kifeszítve az égető
sugarak ellen, melyek a fürdőkirályi és királynéi méltóság izzó
koronáit még bőkezűbben osztogatták boldognak, boldogtalannak,
mint a hogy a hirlapi tudósítók szokták. A sétány ritkás fái maguk is
árnyékot látszottak keresni s poros és hervatag köntöseikben, a
szomjuság miatt kicserepesedett talajukból vágyakozó szemekkel
tekintettek a hűs habokra, melyekben vigan lubiczkoltak az úszók,
mintegy tisztelgő küldöttség gyanánt elibe sietvén a csobogva
közelgő gőzhajónak. A várakozó közönségen mindenesetre
észrevehető volt a csalódásnak bizonyos lehangoltsága, mikor a
tüzes ég felé meredő kémény mellett hiába kémlelték a nemzeti
szinű lobogót, mely valami nevezetesebb vendéget szokott sejtetni.
A finomabb öltözékek közül egy-kettő el is tünt az árván buslakodó
rózsák felé s a lelohadt érdeklődés táguló sorai könnyebben
nyitottak útat azoknak, kik ama meg nem érkezett nevezetes
ismeretlenen kívül valami kevésbbé nevezetes ismerőst is vártak.
Az utóbbiak között kétségkívül legfigyelemreméltóbb
mozgékonyságot fejtett ki egy fehér mellényes, fénymázas csizmájú,
bodros haju és éles szavu emberke, ki izzadt, ágaskodott, tolakodott,
meredezett és minden kitelhető módon előbb akart látni mindent,
mint a többiek. A hogy a hajó kikötött s a kiszálló hidon mozgás
támadt, egyik kezében kerek szalmakalapját, a másikban három
fehér zsebkendőt egész az óriás Almásiné válláig röpített föl s a
körülötte állóknak ki-kitörő kaczagása közt egy egész tuczat
különféle leánynevet kiabált, a legkedveskedőbb megszólításokkal a
födélzet felé, jóllehet a tuczatból – a mint maga-magát biztató
kitörései időnkint tanuskodtak róla – eddigelé egyetlenegyet sem
látott. Nagyobb siker elérésében különösen egy termetes úri ember
akadályozta, ki egy hatalmas tajtékpipával minduntalan elibe került s
széles vállaival az egész kilátást elzárta előle.
– Szabad instálnom, tekintetes úr, – esenkedett a fürge emberke,
– ha el méltóztatnék emelni egy keveset ezt a pipát! A szegény
leányaim bizonyosan eltévednek ebben a szörnyűséges vásárban itt,
ha rám nem találnak. (A szalmakalap és zsebkendők megint
felrepülnek.) Sára, Judit, Eszter, Minka, Fáni lelkeim hol vagytok? (A
füstölő szerszám újra útban van.) Csak ezt a pipát instálnám egy
keveskét!
A pipa félrehuzódott, de egyszerre két kalapfályolt rántott
magával.
– Az istenért, Vincze bácsi! Jaj a kalapom! – sikoltottak a
hölgyek.
– Pardon gráczia, szép nagyságocskáim! – szépelgett a termetes
úr, megszabadítván a veszedelemben forgott fátylakat és kialudt
pipája hamuját, az egész fölriadt közönség nagyobb
megnyugtatására, szeme közé fujván a kis embernek, ki lelkesedett
örömkiáltásokkal és kétségbeesett erőfeszítéssel furakodott egy
nyurga leánykaraván után. – Már a hol kegyetek megfordulnak, szép
hölgyeim, ott mindig készen kell lenniök a tüzi veszedelemre. De
nini, kik ezek itt? Az én páratlan szemeim nem csalhatnak! A
forradalomban tábori látcsőnek használták őket. Ezek Kálozdy
Béláék. Biz isten azok!
Csakugyan Béla és neje léptek a hidra s adtak
megszámlálhatatlan bőröndjeikre és ládáikra vonatkozólag a
megolvashatatlan hordárseregnek észben tarthatatlan sokaságú
utasításokat. Ilona pompás barna útiruhájában elbájoló szép volt s
mikor férje karján, fejét egy kissé hátravetve, kifelé haladt, a tolongó
utasok és bámészkodó vendégek önkénytelen hódolattal nyitottak
utat neki s Vincze bácsi – jóllehet igen rekedten – de teljes joggal
kiáltott fel:
– Itt a fejedelmi pár! Hozott isten Béla! ezerszer csókolom kezeit,
nagyságos asszonyom! Én vagyok a násznagy! (A folytonos tüzi
veszedelemben forgó két kisasszony egyszerre gorombán háttérbe
szoríttatik.) Hát miféle hályogos szemü kapitány volt ezen a hajón,
hogy föl nem huzatta a lobogót? Vagy kinek akarja felhuzatni, ha
Kálozdy Bélának nem? Talán a khinai császárt várjátok, vagy mi,
hé?
És egy keze alatt sürgő kis matróz-gyereket, kinek a zászló-
felhuzás kérdésében igen kevés szava lehetett, pipája szárával
kérdőleg bökött fejbe. A találkozás egy régi ismerőssel jól esett
Béláéknak is, kik rég nem hallottak semmit Karámosról s vidám
kérdezősködés közt haladtak a szállásuk felé. Vincze bácsi a nagy
tajtékszerszámot hátracsapva, a vendég-lajstrommal és életrenddel
sietett megismertetni őket.
– Már itt páratlan világ van, annyi igaz, – beszélt jóízű
hunyorgatással. No, majd megmondhatjátok, hogy láttatok-e valahol
külországon ilyen gyönyörüséges társaságot együtt, mint ez a füredi.
Azután csupa ismerős, mintha csak otthon volnánk Karámoson a
Fekete Sas-ban. No, nem épen a Fekete Sasban, hanem csak
odahaza. Az egész tónust a mi szép asszonyaink adják. Péterfiné
finom egy világi dáma, az Ivánfiné meg gyönyörüséges teremtés,
már az igaz; de jár is a sarkukban olyan gavallér-regiment, mintha
szemen válogatták volna ki őket gárdistáknak.
– Ivánfiék is itt vannak? – kérdezte Ilona.
– Itt-e? De mennyire itt vannak! Most meg hát jön melléjök
harmadiknak a hasonlíthatatlan fényességű új csillag, a nagyságos
asszony. Aztán a fiatalság! Milyen fiatalság verődött itt össze! A
Mágócsi-gyerek, a kis Ivánfi báró, – tudod az az «izés»! Gencsy
Laczi is itt kuruttyol a zsidó-pénzből, hanem úgy látszik, hogy már
igen a végét járhatja, mert szörnyen utána adta magát egy
himlőhelyes pék-kisasszonynak. De Artur, az gavallér a talpán!
– Dacsó Artur? – kérdé Béla egy kissé fojtott hangon.
– Az, Dacsó Artur, – felelt a korhely-mester. Hát ki lenne más?
Van-e több olyan Artur? Meg aztán ugyan ki a patvar győzné
elszámlálni mind, a kik úri emberek itt vagyunk! Igaz, hogy a zsidó is
hemzseg, hanem a közt is akad valamirevaló. Csak tegnap reggel is
akkora pászt mondott a kompániánkban (ott fenn vagyunk, nézd,
abban a sarokszobában) egy fiatal Mózsi, hogy gözhajóra valót
kölcsön kellett kérni neki. Adtunk gavallérosan. De azt az akasztófa-
virága Hazafi-zsidót sehogy sem tudjuk becsalni.
– Most jöttek velünk a leányai, – jegyezte meg Béla, hogy
valahogy eltérítse attól a bizonyos sarokszobától Vincze bácsit.
– Tudom, tudom, – nevetett az öreg. Láttam az egész tuczatot.
Olyan nevetség volt ott a kiszállónál, a mint a hajóra bekiabálta a
katalogust, hogy megért egy színjátékot. Hanem mi közénk semmi
áron nem lehet becsalni a vén rókát. Nohát itt lesz a szállásotok,
Béla? Talán bizony az erkély is hozzá tartozik? Hogyne, uraknak
urasan dukál. Ejnye no, hogy már itt vagyunk! Pedig egy kis titkos
beszédem is lett volna veled, Béla. Majd elvégezzük utóbb, no. Estig
nem késő. Ezerszer csókolom a kis kezeit!
Az ismerősökkel, kiket Vincze bácsi szapora nyelve elősorolt,
még az nap este felé összejöttek az új vendégek. A mint a nap
nyugodni készült, megnépesedett a tóparti sétány. A part mentében
csónakok uszkáltak, a fürdőből idehangzott a harsány játékzaj s a
sétálók zagyva csoportjai mindent megtettek, hogy tönkretegyék a
fenséges esti kép benyomását. A porondon hosszú uszályok folytak
végig, a madárdalt egy rossz czigánybanda hallgattatta el és sületlen
udvarlók folytattak kétségbeesett küzdelmet a felpiperézett
kisasszonyok és kendőzött hölgyek drága figyelmeért.
A sétány vége felé foglalt helyet az előkelők társasága. Itt volt
Ágnes is. Sárga szalmakalapját kezében tartva, nemes metszésű
arczát méltó koszoruba foglalta dús, aranyos hajfonadéka. Bár a
természetnek ahhoz a nagy és igaz mosolyához, mely a messze
víznek arany gyűrüket vető tükrén, az égnek felhőtlen kék
boltozatán, a tihanyi bércz rózsaszín világításán s alkonyi fényben
sugárzó hegyeken-erdőkön ragyogott, – bár a végetlen öröm és
őszinteség e képéhez igen kevéssel járult az egész előkelő
társaság, mégis legtöbb részt látszott venni benne Ágnes, mikor
egy-egy könnyű mosolygással rendreutasította vele szembe ülő
férjét, kit minduntalan rajta kapott, hogy őtet bámulja. Péterfiné
halavány, hideg, lilaszín, csipkés, selymes pompája mellett hanyagul
ugrándozott egy kis piros képű, serdülő grófkisasszony, czifra
papiroslepkéket dobálva fel a levegőbe, melyeket Dacsó Arturnak
kellett egy hálóval elkapkodnia. Arturon kívül még néhány fiatal úr
álldogált a hölgyek előtt, köztük a fiatal Ivánfi Gyula báró, ki a kis
Olga grófnő csapongó figyelmét izéországi kalandjainak tőle telően
folyékony előadásával óhajtja elvonni Arturtól és lepkéitől, míg bátyja
élete leghatalmasabb delejének édes bűvkörében boldogan
sütkérezik, Mágócsi pedig legfrissebb párisi történetekkel mulattatja
a selyem-bábut.
A társaságot igen kevéssé látszott érdekelni a köznapi járók-
kelők tömege, mely sürüen hullámzott előttük, valamint az a kis
komikus jelenet, mely mögöttük a tavon fölmerült, hol a Hazafi-
családnak első vízrebocsátkozási kisérlete igen rosszul üthetett ki,
mert Sára, Judit, Eszter, Minka és Fáni kisasszonyok egy himbolygó
csónakban szörnyen jajveszékeltek, míg ügyetlen lovagjaik vért
izzadva kapkodtak vízbe potyogtatott evezőik után, mi által a
veszedelmet és a sikoltozást csak növelték. Mikor az út fordulóján
Kálozdy Béla feltünt nejével, kin finom fekete háló-szövet folyt alá és
tömött hajába egy sárga thea-rózsa volt tüzve, Péterfiné rögtön
szeme elé kapta elefántcsont-nyelű lorgnonját. Azonban a következő
perczben már egész figyelmét a zajos vizi jelenet foglalta le s míg ő
osztatlan odaadással kisérte a szerencsétlen hölgyek vergődését,
Ágnes, a mint Béláékat észrevette, mosolyogva szólt oda férjének:
– Csakugyan rendkivüli szépség. Nézze csak meg jól, azonnal itt
lesznek. De Ákos, a maga unalmaskodása már mégis sok!
Ugyan mit tehetett róla a szegény báró, ha ránézve feleségén
kivül nem létezett rendkivüli szépség, és a világ tarkabarkaságaiban
két becsületes szeme annak az arczán pihent legszivesebben?! A
lepkefogdosó Arturra már nagyobb hatással voltak a közelgők.
Nemcsak valamennyi pillangót bocsátotta – a kis Olga élénk
kaczagása közt – szabadon, hanem még hálóját is leejtette s
gyorsan félrefordult, mintha valami titkolni valója lenne az arczán.
Mágócsi is megakadt kissé d’Harcourt comtesse báljának
ecsetelésében; de ezt a szünetet talán az illedelem parancsolta,
mert közönsége csak fél füllel ügyelt rá.
Béla csak akkor vette észre az előkelő társaságot, midőn már
egészen közelébe jutottak. A vidám alkony rózsaszin verőfényével
segített neki, hogy boldog arczot ölthessen, mikor kalapját
megemelte.
– Béla, – nyujtotta eléje kezét szíves barátsággal Ágnes, – Béla,
hogy vagy? Milyen pompásan nézel ki! Ugyebár nem csoda, mikor
rátaláltál a legjobb orvosra?! Nőd?
A fiatal férj bemutatta nejét, kinek arcza a rejtegetett zavar
biborában égett.
– Ez igen kedves, nagyon kedves, – sziszegte Péterfiné, vissza-
vissza tekintgetve a Balaton áldozataira. – Olga, nem mennétek
Arturral sétálni egyet? Ön marad Mágócsi? Igen kedves. Hallom,
egyenesen Olaszországból jönnek. E szerint maga szedte férje a
narancs-koszorút? Valóban, egész idyll, egész középkori idyll.
Foglaljon helyet, kedvesem.
Ilona odaült Ágnes mellé, kinek nyugodt arczán valamivel több
szívességet olvasott, mint Péterfiné ideges, örökké változó vonásain.
– Régóta időzik már Füreden a grófné? – E kérdéssel fordult,
egyet igazítva hajékén, a selyembábuhoz.
Ez azonban épen vissza volt fordulva s csak kis vártatva adta
meg a választ.
– Mit kérdez, édesem? Hogy régen vagyunk-e itt? Oh Istenem,
egy ilyen unalmas fészekben, mint ez a Füred, nincsenek is hetek,
csak esztendők. Nem tudom, igazán nem tudom, mióta; de szörnyű,
szörnyű régen. Talán még a mult században jöttünk.
– Mit kérdez édesem? Hogy régen vagyunk-e itt?
Mig az idősebb Ivánfi báró jóizüen nevetett a grófné élczén, a

fiatal Mágócsi, ki nem érzett magában kedvet Olgához csatlakozni s
az izéországi fiatal kalandor különben is sietett őt helyettesíteni,
könnyű főhajtással jegyezte meg:
– Figyelmeztetem, grófné, hogy a rózsák rövidéletüek. Nincs-e
igazam, Gyula?
– Menjenek, menjenek! – kaczagott a bábu. – Lássa, kedvesem,
az ilyen bókok nyomják ám az én vállaimat sulyos esztendők helyett.
Ha nem akar oly korán megvénülni, mint én, szívemből tanácslom,
óvakodjék tőlük. No de a kegyed férje más anyagból való. Becsülje
meg.
A megbecsülni való férj Ákos báróval mélyedt beszélgetésbe, ki
gazdasági terveinek egész sorozatát terjesztette elibe, szerényen
megjegyezve, hogy mindez nem az ő eredeti eszméje ugyan, mert
neki, tudja Isten, nem igen vannak eszméi, hanem kivitelükben meg
fogja állni a sarat.
A nők és udvarlóik kérdezősködtek, fecsegtek, bókoltak,
hiuskodtak, mig beállt az est. Ilona eleinte nagyon szótalan volt,
csaknem annyira, mint Ágnes. Bátortalannak érezte magát és ruhája
fodrait gyürve, piros ajkait harapdálva, boszankodott érte. De a hogy
Artur visszatért s a kissé duzzogó Olgát udvariatlanul cserben
hagyva, egészen hozzá szegődött, sőt hazamenet karját is nyujtotta
neki, úgy érezte, mintha már a tömjénnek közös levegőjét sziná a
selyembábuval, föllélegzett s élénken adott elő egyetmást úti
élményeiből. De Ágnes végig csöndes maradt. Könnyű, nesztelen
léptekkel haladt hazafelé férje oldalán s a mint lakásukra értek, oly
forrón és hosszan ölelte meg Ákost, hogy a jó báró szemei
örömében megteltek könnyekkel.
Ilona, mikor otthon kidobta hajából a rózsát, s egy kényelmes
karszékbe dült fáradalmait kipihenni az előkelő világ káprázatos
tartományában, új ismerőseit e megvető szavakkal jellemezte:
– Kiállhatatlan maskarák egytül-egyig! Alig birtam megtartóztatni
magamat, hogy szemükbe ne kaczagjak. A mellé a koldus grófné
mellé csak azért nem ültem, hogy szakadatlanul permetező
rizsporával tönkre ne tegye ruhámat. S láttad azt a kis fitos
comtesse-t? Úgy felduzta az orrát, mikor közibök léptünk, hogy
szinte a homlokáig ért volna, ha ugyan lenne neki homloka. Meg
aztán az a te… ugyan micsodád is neked az a kőszent báróné?
– Félig-meddig cousine-om, – felelt Béla. Nagybátyám nevelt
leánya volt.
– No, mintha csak kriptában neveltette volna eleven-holttá, –
nevetett a szép asszony. Eleinte azt hittem, van benne egy kis
szívesség. De úgy látszik, semmire sincs másra gondja, mint hogy a
ruhája össze ne gyürődjék. Pedig elég szegényes volt egy
bárónéhoz! Szivemből sajnálom a férjét. Bátran odaillenék
akármelyik muzeumba a szobrok közé. Semmi szív nincs benne.
– Csalódol, édesem; Ágnes kitünő asszony, – viszonzá Béla s
szivarra gyujtva, kitekintett az erkélyre.
Nincs kedvem hosszas rajzokat adni a fürdői életből. Ha egy
ilyen előkelő, diszes, divatos fürdőhelyen megfordulok, mindig úgy
tetszik, mintha egy nagy szinházban lennék, melynek sikerült
diszitményei a természetnek sok pompáját feltárják a közönség előtt:
sűrű erdőket, magányos hegyi utakat, csinos kéjlakokat, zordon
sziklákat, festői vizeséseket, andalító völgyeket és tisztán ragyogó
eget; de a nézőtéren fulasztó gőz van, mindenki legjobb és
legkényelmetlenebb ruhájában jelenik meg, parasztoknak öltözött
utczasihederek izetlenkednek, a czukrász fagylaltját és peszmeg
süteményeit kinálgatja, a dekorácziók csak hátterét képezik egy-két
lármás komédiás hóbortoskodásainak, melyek a közfigyelmet
lekötik, egy rossz zenekar meghatározott időközökben czinczogni
kezd s az egésznek csak kifáradás a vége. Nem, nem ott van a
természet, a hol a nagyvilág fölüdítő telepeket rendez be. A kik
menekülni akarnak, ne ide meneküljenek, mert ezek a pontok már el
vannak hódítva a természettől. A világ legfríssebb levegőjét kavargó
tömjénfüst és boszantó illatszerek rontják meg. A selyem-uszályok
még a mezőkön is port vernek. Az ég kékjével s a hegyek zöldjével
versenyre kelnek azok a szem-nem-látta csillogó szinek, melyekkel a
találékony franczia gyárosok árasztják el a világot. A csillagos
éjtszakák szent csöndességét rikoltozó hegedűk, dobogó tánczosok
és jókedvű kurjogatók zavarják. Az erdők titokteljes sötétében a
csillagokon és szentjánosbogarakon kivül piszkos olajlámpák
világítanak a nehéz fejjel hazatérők elé. A ligetek és berkek édes
dalosait csöndesebb vidékre zavarja a lárma s helyettök Hollaki Pető
direktor úr ismert társasága mutatja be a tiz esztendős párizsi
operetteket. A tejes csöbör helyett kávéház, a barátságosan körülült
tőke helyett zsongó étterem és idegen nyelven daráló pinczérek, a
szőllőlugas helyett kártyázó szoba. Nem, nem bolygatom én soká
ezt az életet, melybe nem a magam kedvéből, csak hősöm nyomát
követve jutottam. Kisérem őt tovább s miattam meg lehet elégedve
ezzel a természettel akárki!
Kálozdy Béláné minden körnek gyorsan ünnepeltjévé lett
Füreden. Attól kezdve, hogy erkélyük alatt az udvarias «hangászkar»
éjjeli zenére válogatott nótákkal megjelent, melyek közt legfőbb
szerepet a «Képeddel alszom el» játszotta; hogy ablakában Ilona
egy óriási rózsabokrétát talált, melynek tüntető kedvteléssel viselte
gondját; hogy ott mulatásuk első reggelén egész csapat fiatal lovag
hagyta hűtlenűl magára addigi választottját s várt a szép asszonyra;
a figyelem e legelső jeleitől kezdve az új királyné készséges
alattvalói egyetlen alkalmat sem mulasztottak el föltétlen hódolatuk
bemutatására. De lépteit nemcsak a könnyen hevülő ifjuság, hanem
az egész fürdői közönség folytonos érdeklődéssel kisérte, melyet
nem merek rokonszenvesnek mondani, miután nem egészen volt az,
hanem annál bámulóbb. Amaz ismeretes apró történetkéknek,
melyeknél a fürdők nedves talaja csak a gombákat termi bővebben,
s melyeknek befejezését rendesen a holnap vagy a holnapután
homálya takarja, hőse kevés kivétellel az egykori szinésznő volt.
Róla beszélt öreg és fiatal. A merre járt, ablakok nyiltak és ha leült,
az egész sétáló közönség egyszerre arra vette utját. Gazdag zsidó-
asszonyok sas-szemekkel fürkészték ruhái szabását, hogy hasonlót
rendelhessenek maguknak is. Hajdani művésztársai tiszteletteljesen
kapkodták előtte kalapjukat s Hollaki Pető direktor úr, szellemének
szokott keselyü-szárnyalásával, őt állította föl legfényesebb
bizonyságul arra, hogy: a kinek eget vivó lelkülete van, az a
művészetben a felhőkig emelkedketik. Tisztes középrendű, vidéki
asszonyságok gondosan olvasgatták öltözékeinek számát s az ezer
bajuk és a kúrára kidobott pénzük fölött való siralmas óbégatást,
melylyel egymás között a társalgást rend szerint kezdték, valami kis
ártatlanabb fajta pletyka követte, melynek tárgyalási hangja azonban
már halkabb volt, miután Ilona az előkelőségek köréhez tartozott.
Igenis, és nem lehetett senkinek legkisebb oka sem ide nem
számítani. A főranguakkal járt-kelt, mulatott, hivalkodott és
unatkozott. Ez a világ nagyon féltékeny titkaira. Ha egyik-másik
tagjának bölcsője vagy nászkoszorúja ellen kifogása van, nem
doboltatja ki panaszát az utczasarkokon, hanem tartja és vég nélkül
tartja a maga kérlelhetetlen törvényszékét, csörgeti a láthatatlan
lánczokat, hegyezi a legélesebb nyilakat és – az utczán karonfogva
jelenik meg az elitélttel. A gunyoros pillantások, sértő
figyelmetlenségek, felbiggyesztett ajkak és csipős megjegyzések a
szalonok titkai maradnak s ha a nagy szárnyas-ajtókat néha-néha
nyitva feledik is, a hétköznapi embereket ez idegen légkör nagyot
hallókká és homályosan látókká teszi. Ilonát mindenki az előkelő kör
ünnepelt, kitüntetett tagjának tartotta és senkisem látta arczán soha
azt a haragos pirt, melyet rejtegetve, sok-sok tündéri estén ablakába
könyökölt és nehéz indulattól lihegve hallgatott, mig Béla csöndesen
odament hozzá, megsimogatta haját és szeliden hivta, hogy innen
kezdve bolyongjanak többet az erdőkön, mezőkön s hagyják a
világot nélkülök forogni tengelye körül.
– Eh, – felelt Ilona fellobbanó nehezteléssel, – fusson meg az, a
ki gyöngének érzi magát a viadalban. Én szebb vagyok, mint ők s
kibirom a harczot. De te mitsem teszesz értem, mint hogy a
zsebeidet tartod, hogy a mi sértés az enyimekben nem fér el, haza
hordhasd.
– Az istenért, Ilona, – mentegetőzött félig tréfaszóval, félig
boszusan Béla, – csak nem kivánod, hogy asszonyokkal kezdjek
viaskodást, vagy mint valami modern Szigfrid fölidézzem a wormsi
vérnapokat?
De a szép asszonynak ép oly kevés kedve volt a nevetésre, mint
az erdőkön való magányos bolyongásra. Hallgatott tovább és lelke
háborgásán semmitsem tudott csillapítani a férj gyöngéden simogató
keze.
A férfiakra különben nem lehetett panasza. Valamennyi között
Dacsó Artur bánt vele a legmélyebb tisztelettel s Béla gyanakodott,
hogy az a bizonyos bokréta-óriás is tőle került. Ennek az ifju
embernek izmos és mégis hajlékony termetén, villogó sárga
szemein, sűrű és durva haján, élvetegen izgalmas vonásain, vastag
s rendesen összeszorított ajkain, féktelen tagjártatásán, egész
valóján volt valami a vadállatból. A hasonlat Péterfinétől került ki egy
csinos szalon-élcz formájában, mely szerint üdvözletet jelentett neki
egy rokonától, kivel közelebb Bécsben találkozott. Ez a rokon – egy
királytigris volt. Az a mohóság is beillett jellemző tulajdonai közé,
melylyel Ilonát Karámoson megrohanta. Nos, akkor a ketrecz vasa
kitörte egynehány fogát s ez, úgy látszik, fogott rajta.
Megváltozottnak mutatta magát. A kis Olga grófnét papiros-lepkéivel
és fitos orrával tökéletesen a faképnél hagyta, azaz Gyula báró
szíves gondjaira bízta, ki «izéinek» kibonthatatlan szálaiból olyan
szövevényes hálót font a vidám aranyos pillangó körül, melybe ez,
szegény, majd hogy bele nem bódult. Artur maga pedig Ilonának
legalázatosabb szolgája lett, hangban szerény, hűségben
tántoríthatatlan, figyelemben kifogyhatatlan, modorában
tiszteletteljes s egész viseletében kifogástalan.
A grófné már üdvözölte is a szép asszonyt, hogy a tigris-
szeliditésben még nem ismert nála nagyobb művésznőt; a lánczokat
csak tartsa kéznél. Ágnest kivéve nevettek rajta; nevetett Ilona s
kissé idegesen Béla is. Hogy a megjuhászodott vadaknak van
bizonyos varázserejük, mindenki tudja, ki a puszták ama sebzett
lábu királyának meséjét gyermekkorában elmerülve olvasgatta. A
röpke keringőkben leszakad egy-egy foszlány a ruháról, melyet a
szemfüles gyanu siet fölkapni és titkos bizonyságul mutogatni olyas
valamire, a mi az egész világ szeme láttára történt. Ilona szivesen
tánczolt Arturral s a fürdői mendemonda mohón kapkodta ruhájának
foszlányait. Azok közül, a kik Artur komoly és udvarias magatartását
látták mellette, senki sem hitte, de nem is hihette, hogy oldalán
maradjon, ha szívesen nem látják. Pedig ott maradt. Együtt
csónakáztak, együtt kocsiztak s a viszhangban, mely a kis társaság
kaczaját visszaverte, együtt szólalt meg Ilona csengő hangja és
Artur rövid, mély hahotája.

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The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to

Islamic Spirituality Vincent J. Cornell

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Hinduism Gavin Flood

Wiley Blackwell Companion to Wisdom Literature Adams

Wiley Blackwell Companion to Karl Barth Barth

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology

The Wiley Blackwell Concise Companion to the Hadith

Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Latinoax Theology 2nd

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Theology and

Vincent J. Cornell and Bruce B. Lawrence

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cover image: © Ahmed Moustafa, ‘The Attributes of Divine Perfection’ 2000CE/1420AH

Part I Expressive Dimensions of Islamic Spirituality

8 Jerusalem in Islamic Spirituality 147

Part II Performative Dimensions of Islamic Spirituality

IIC Spirituality in Music, Song, and Cinema

Ali A. Allawi. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Iraq

Hugh Talat Halman. Associate Professor of Religion at Central Michigan University

is exteriorized as a set of rules and regulations that determine outward forms of

From the Antagonist to the Agonist

The Plan of This Work

The Limits of Reason and “Binary Faith”

The “Third Way” of Barzakh Logic

Coextensiveness, Transactionality, and Transcendence

Expressive Dimensions of Islamic

The Spirituality of Words and Letters

chronological; (3) geographical; and (4) mythological. In the biographical-genealogi-

The Spirituality of Places and Spaces

Crucially, a place of spiritual opening covers multiple directions. As a mawḍiʿ, it ori-

The Spirituality of People and Human Relations

barzakh-figures, they are neither reducible to their “horizontal” or historical identity

An important contribution of Allawi’s chapter is to highlight the concept of the “Light

The same theme of closeness—which, as we have seen, is fundamental to the meaning

Ayatollah Khomeini’s daughter-in-law, a major intellectual in her own right, argues

Most traditional commentators and theologians have generally restricted prophecy in

– Ha meggondolom, hogy mindez a rettentő költekezés az én

A kikötő környékén tolongott a közönség. A füredi napi

– Mit kérdez édesem? Hogy régen vagyunk-e itt?

Mig az idősebb Ivánfi báró jóizüen nevetett a grófné élczén, a

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Part I Expressive Dimensions of Islamic Spirituality

8 Jerusalem in Islamic Spirituality 147

Part II Performative Dimensions of Islamic Spirituality

IIC Spirituality in Music, Song, and Cinema