The Repose of the Spirits is a translation of one of the earliest and most comprehensive treatises on Sufism in the Persian language. Written by Ahmad Sam'ani, an expert in Islamic law from a famous Central Asian scholarly family in about the year 1135, it is one of the handful of early Sufi texts available in English and is by far the most accessible. It also may well be the longest and the most accurately translated. Ostensibly a commentary on the divine names, it avoids the abstract discourse of theological nitpicking and explains the human significance of the names with a delightful mix of Quranic verses and sayings of the Prophet and various past teachers, interspersed with original interpretations of the received wisdom. Unlike the usual books on the divine names (such as that of al-Ghazali), The Repose of the Spirits reminds the reader of the later poetical tradition, especially the work of Rumi. The prose is richly embroidered with imagery and interspersed with a great variety of Arabic and Persian poetry. What is especially remarkable is the manner in which the author speaks to his readers about their own personal situations, explaining why they are driven by a love affair with God, a God who is full of compassion and good humor, whether they know it or not. William C. Chittick's masterful new translation brings this work to an English-language audience for the first time.
William C. Chittick is SUNY Distinguished Professor at Stony Brook University, State University of New York. He is the author of several books, including Faith and Practice of Islam: Three Thirteenth Century Sufi Texts and The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-'Arabi's Cosmology.
The full name of the book translated here is The Repose of the Spirits: Explaining the Names of the All-Opening King (Rawh al-arwah fi sharh asma' al-malik al-fattah). It is the first and one of the longest commentaries on the divine names in the Persian language. It was written by Ahmad Sam'ani, who belonged to a prominent scholarly family from Merv in Central Asia and died at the young age of forty-six in the year 1140. It is a remarkable expression of Islamic spirituality and one of the most accessible books on the inner meanings of the Quran ever written.
Commentary on the divine names was a common genre in Arabic, but Sam'ani did not write in imitation of earlier scholars, who were mainly lexicologists and theologians. He avoided their abstract analyses and arid exactitude, highlighting instead the divine love that permeates all of existence. His book prefigures the poetical tradition that was to bloom with 'Attar (d. ca. 1221), Rūmi (d. 1273), and Sa'di (d. 1292). Recent research has even shown that Hafiz (d. 1390), typically considered the greatest of all Persian poets, composed scores of verses that follow The Repose of the Spirits almost verbatim. Repose offers a clear depiction of the world- view underlying the work of the poets and celebrates love with the same sensitivity to beautiful language. In contrast to the poets, however, Sam'ani grounds his text explicitly in the names of God that are the archetypes of all that exists.
It seems that no one else before Ibn 'Arabi (d. 1240)-who was born sixteen years after Sam'ani died-was able to plumb the depths of divine love and mercy with such insight. Ibn 'Arabi, however, wrote for the intellectual elite. He produced several thousand pages of highly sophisticated and erudite prose and a good deal of poetry. His opus was accessible only to those familiar with the whole range of Islamic sciences-Quran, Hadith, Arabic grammar, jurisprudence, Kalam, Sufism, and philosophy. In contrast, Sam'ani wrote in the spoken Persian of Khorasan (which is practically identical with today's literary Persian in Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia), and he addressed the general populace. He exposed the underlying message of the Islamic tradition with exceptional clarity and extraordinary subtlety.
Sam'ani's name was almost forgotten in later times, but The Repose of the Spirits was certainly being read. One of the few later scholars who did provide the author's name along with the title of his book was the Ottoman bibliophile Katip Celebi, also known as Hajji Khalifa (d. 1657), though he said nothing about the book's content. The first text on which Repose left a noticeable impression was the ten-volume Persian commentary on the Quran, Kashf al-asrar (The Unveiling of the Mysteries) by Rashid al-Din Maybudi, who lived in Maybud near Yazd in central Iran. Maybudi says that he started writing his book in the year 1126, when Sam'ani would have been thirty-two.
For privacy concerns, please view our Privacy Policy
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist