al-Mufi bi-Marifat al-Tasawwuf wa al-Sufi
- Author died
- 748 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat Dār al-‘Urūbah lil-Nashr wal-Tawzī‘
al-Mufi bi-Marifat al-Tasawwuf wa al-Sufi (The Sufficient Guide to Understanding Sufism and the Sufi) is a short treatise on the definitions, principles, and critique of Sufism authored by the Egyptian Shafi'i jurist and historian Kamal al-Din al-Adfawi (685–748 AH / 1286–1347 CE) .
Background and Content
Al-Adfawi composed the work in response to the conditions of Sufism during the Mamluk period, wherein institutionalized Sufi lodges (khanqahs) and endowments attracted individuals who adopted outward monastic dress and habits for livelihood and leisure rather than spiritual discipline . The work aims to remind readers of the foundational standards of genuine Sufism and to demonstrate how contemporary practices had drifted from them .
The author explains that the term sufi was not known in the earliest Islamic generation and that sectarian divergences and religious innovations after the year 200 AH led to shifts in the meaning and practice of Sufism . Al-Adfawi contrasts two definitions of the Sufi:
- In general religious convention, a Sufi is defined by praiseworthy moral virtues prescribed by Islamic law, turning away from worldly enticements, and focusing on the afterlife .
- In the narrower, contemporary social convention of his day, affiliation had been reduced to external formalities: wearing specific garments (such as the dalaq or farajiyyah), donning a turban with a short front tail, regularly attending the khanqah after the afternoon prayer for recitation and dhikr, not practicing despised menial crafts (such as weaving, cupping, or street sweeping), and not possessing public wealth .
Sources and Methodology
Al-Adfawi structures his exposition around classical Sufi authorities, drawing extensively from the Risalah al-Qushayriyyah of Abu al-Qasim al-Qushayri . To establish the classical understanding of the path, he cites more than twenty definitions and statements transmitted from early masters and scholarly authorities of Sufism .
Transmission and Publication
The work survived in a unique manuscript preserved in the Fatih collection at the Süleymaniye Library in Istanbul (MS 2876), written in naskh script across 18 folios with 15 lines per page . The title page bears an audition certificate (sama'), recording that the treatise was read aloud from the author's words on Monday, 18 Safar 741 AH, at the residence of his teacher, the grammarian Abu Hayyan al-Andalusi, at al-Madrasah al-Salihiyyah in Cairo . The session was documented by the traditionist Salih ibn Abd Allah al-Dimashqi al-Qaymari, who received an ijazah from both al-Adfawi and Abu Hayyan, and the text itself was reviewed by Abu Hayyan . The manuscript also carries an endowment (waqf) entry belonging to the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud I .
The text was edited by Muhammad Isa Salihiyyah, with hadith verification by Mahmud al-Arna'ut, and published in Kuwait by Maktabat Dar al-Uruba in 1408 AH / 1988 CE .
Answer updated