Article

Imam Dhahabi-From Sufism to Mysticism to Jurisprudence

Khalid RIAZ
Vice President, Silk Route Foundation, India

It comes as a strange coincidence that Mohammed Gayamaz Turkomen, commonly known as Imam Al Dhahabi was born in the year 1274, merely a year after, Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207-1273) - recognized as perhaps the greatest mystical poet of Islam. It is also said that Rumi’s poetry was inspired by the writings of Abu Said Abulkhair . This chain which originated in Mayhana with sufic thoughts, found its propagation in central Asia through Rumi’s mysticism and concluded in Al Dhahabi’s writing on various subjects including Islamic jurisprudence.

Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn `Uthman ibn Qaymaz ibn `Abd Allah, Shams al-Din Abu `Abd Allah al-Turkmani al-Diyarbakri al-Fariqi al-Dimashqi al-Dhahabi was born in Damascus on 7th October, 1274 and passed away on 5th February, 1348. He sometimes identified himself as Ibn al-Dhahabi - son of the goldsmith - in reference to his father's profession. He became an important historian, theologian, and adherent of the Shafi‘i school of jurisprudence. He had a number of students and has left a considerable body of writings on Islamic history, jurisprudence, and a compilation on Prophet’s medicine. Dr. Jan Just Witkam, Curator of Oriental Collections at Leiden University Library, Netherlands has collected five original manuscripts of some of his writings – with one of them reportedly autographed by Al Dhahabi.

In this paper we concentrate on his book Al-Kabair ("The Enormities"), his most widely circulating book. He defines an enormity as any sin entailing either a threat of punishment in the hereafter explicitly mentioned in the Qur'an or hadith, a prescribed legal penalty (hadd), or a curse by Allah or His Messenger PBUH . Al-Kabair listed seventy sins. We analyse some on these in the light of Abu Said Abulkhair and Rumi’s writings.

Sin 38 Al-Kabair: Abu Said Abulkhair said, “To abstain from religious acts is infidelity, and to perform such acts self-consciously is dualism. If ‘thou’ exists and ‘He’ exists, ‘two’ exists; and that is dualism. You must put your ‘self’ away altogether”. This sufic thought tells us to keep duality or hypocrisy out of learning. This thought is conveyed in discourse 1 by Rumi in Fihi –ma – Fihi. Rumi, after quoting a hadith of Prophet Mohammed PBUH says, “The worst of scholars are those who depend upon princes, and who revolve their life and purpose around the attention and favor of princes. Such scholars take up learning in hopes that princes will give them presents, hold them in esteem, and promote them to office. Therefore, such scholars improve themselves and pursue knowledge on account of princes…” So it is not true learning. In his book Al-Kabair, Imam Dhahabi lists “Learning knowledge of the religion for the sake of this world and concealing that knowledge” as one of the sins.

Sin 54 & 55 Al-Kabair : These sins are, “offending people and having an arrogant attitude toward them” and “Trailing one's garment in pride”. In Fihi-ma-Fihi Moulana Jalaluddin Rumi writes in discourse 6, “All evil qualities—oppression, hatred, envy, greed, mercilessness, pride—when they are within yourself, they bring no pain. When you see them in another, then you shy away and feel the pain.” Imam Dhahabi while listing these sins has actually advised us to give up our arrogance. Rumi has highlighted the pain which is caused to others by our evil qualities. And coming back to Abu Said, he had announced long back about himself, “Tell them to make way for nobody son of nobody”. Abu Said had highlighted the importance of annihilating self as a first step towards humility.

Sin 68 Al-Kabair : “Deceiving and plotting evil” is regarded a sin in Al-Kabair by Imam Dhahabi. In discourse 70 in Fihi ma-Fihi Rumi writes that if a snake has seen no human for forty years it becomes a dragon, since it has seen no one who could stop the growth of its own evil nature. It is clear that in Rumi’s opinion a human being alone is capable of reducing his evil nature. Abu Said has repeatedly told us that we shall not gossip, talk ill of others. One of his quatrain is translated here :

Conclusion
This is a humble attempt to trace linkages between Al-Dhahabi’s Turkmen origin, and his Arab upbringing which could produce volumes of learning material. An exploratory research in needed to further establish such links between Islamic literature and cultural norms of the regions.

1. Robert Abdul Hayy Dar, The Spy of the Heart (USA: Real Impressions, 2006) p.247
2. Peace be upon him
3. AHMAD Nisar, Classics and Modern Theories: Abu Said Abul Khair and Human Resources Paradigm Shift (Turkmenistan: MIRAS International Conference on Abu Said Abulkhair, 2007)
4. AHMAD Nisar, ibid
5. AHMAD Nisar, ibid