Seeing God in This World and the Otherworld: Crossing Boundaries in Sufi Commentaries on the Qurʿān

Abstract

This study has two main objectives, which are complementary and mutually inform each other. Firstly, it aims to write a history of Sufi conceptions of the hereafter from 950 to 1250 CE). Secondly, it aims to come to a better understanding of five Sufi Qurʾān commentaries hailing from the same period. As for the aspect of Sufi eschatology, the central point of interest in this study is the boundary crossing from this world to the otherworld and vice versa in the form of the vision of God. In this study I pursue the hypothesis that in the case of Sufism the boundary crossing from this world to the otherworld revolves especially, though not exclusively, around the topic of the meeting with and vision of God. In Sufi imaginations, the otherworld is, as I will suggest, primarily conceived to be the domain of meeting with God, communion with Him and vision of Him. The hereafter is thus God-centered: the enjoyments of Paradise become but mere veils to this encounter with God, while the punishment of Hell consists of being deprived from nearness to and vision of Him. Some Sufis have also considered nearness to and vision of God to be the main characteristics of the primordial Paradise inhabited by Adam. With Adam’s banishment from this primordial Paradise, humankind was deprived of these characteristics: this-worldly life then means to be deprived of His nearness and of vision of Him. For some Sufis, especially within those strands of Sufism that stress the passionate love (ʿishq) of and longing (shawq) for God, the longing for this meeting with and vision of God in the hereafter was purportedly so strong that they wished to attain it in this world. Some of the stations and states that they claimed to attain during this-worldly life thus took the form of a ‘taste’ of the otherworldly encounter with God. To support these claimed experiences, some Sufi scholars have theologically argued that God may also be seen in this world: the highest reward of Paradise is brought into the present. As for the Sufi Qurʾān commentaries, our main point of interest is the relation with contemporary ‘conventional’ strands of exegesis, and the question of genealogy and originality. Concerning the first issue, we argue that to make sense of the contents of Sufi commentaries, one has to take into account the broader milieu in which these texts were written and read, and analyze the genealogy of their ideas and systems of thought. Our interest in the issue of genealogy and originality is driven by claims in recent scholarship that the genre of tafsīr is essentially genealogical and conservative in nature. This notion clashes with the general perception of Sufi hermeneutics being determined by ‘experience’, which suggests a higher level of subjectivity and of originality. The question is to which extent the genre of Sufi tafsīr carries the same genealogical characteristics as other more conventional genres of tafsīr.