Raison et “dévoilement”. Notes sur l’épistémologie soufie d’Ibn ‘Aṭā’ Allāh al-Iskandarī (m. 709/1309)

Prominent Shādhilī Sufi shaykh Ibn ‘Aṭā’ Allāh al-Iskandarī (d. 709 / 1309) played a major role in consolidating the “cooperation” between mystical and juridical dimensions of Islam in Mamluk Egypt. In his Kitāb Latā’if al-minan, drawing the biographies of his predecessors Abū l-‘Abbās al-Mursī (d. 686/1287) and Abū l-Ḥasan al-Shādhilī (d. 656/1258), he provides a full-fledged theory of sanctity (walāya) which relies primarily on epistemological grounds. Considerations about human knowledge and its connections with divine love constitute the main support for the author’s claim that the “friends of God” (awliyā’ Allāh) are the true ‘ulamā’ and thus, according to a well-known ḥadīth, the true legitimate “heirs of the Prophet”. Far from simply opposing “acquired” and “inspired” knowledge, he stresses the inner unity between different religious sciences with regard to their origin and their ultimate goal in God. He recommends a sound juridical formation as preliminary to the spiritual path, but he states that proper understanding of the Law is only possible by means of spiritual illumination, and that every science (‘ilm) ultimately relies on divine “unveiling” (kashf). In order to grasp Ibn ‘Atā’ Allah’s epistemological theories, his considerations on knowledge are analyzed on the background of the theories of previous Muslim thinkers (with special regard to Abū Ḥāmid al-GhazāIī, d. 505/1111) as well as of the complex social and intellectual networks in which the Shādhiliyya was involved at the time.