As we have seen, he held that out of all Muslim fractions that have come into existence since the beginning of Islam, only the traditionalists continued to represent the true Ahl al-Sunna wa-al-Jamāʿa. For as he saw it, to deviate from it would be to deviate from the pure path of the righteous predecessors, the Salaf. Even when we can clearly distinguish al-Wāsiṭī’s own creative thought at work, he was, in his own mind, constantly anchored in the scholarly tradition of the Ahl al-Ḥadīth. I will argue that the common thread that connects each of the subjects under consideration is traditionalism. We will thus find that the foundations of Sufism are not only defined in terms of what constitutes the correct path, that is, ‘selfing,’ but also in terms of what leads astray from it, that is, ‘othering.’ It aims to give an overview of the polemical side of his writings, by which he intended to provide a solid argumentation against practices and doctrines that he felt will thwart the sālik’s journey.
The third section is concerned with al-Wāsiṭī’s negative definition of Sufism. These two sections very much stand together as consecutive steps that are supposed to firmly set the sālik on his path. The first of these deals with knowledge of the Prophet, the second with knowledge of God. This chapter is divided into three sections. Whatever the sālik seeks to attain through Sufism without them, or with a faulty understanding of them, will prove fruitless in his view. It is those elements that can either make or break one’s sulūk, so to speak.
#Nowhere prophet concept art full#
Although I do not mean to claim that this endeavor will convey the full spectrum of the foundations of Sufism as he envisioned it, I believe that the themes we will focus on were, in his view, essential to the further continuation on the pathway towards God.
In this chapter we commence with a study of al-Wāsiṭī’s method of sulūk by expounding upon a set of recurring elements in his writings that we may identify as its foundations.
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