In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

I N T R O D U C T I O N You cannot hide Now that your hearing and your sight And your skin bears witness against you. —Qur'an41:22 This book discusses Islamic images of the human body from the distinct perspective of Sufi understandings of Islam. In particular,it examines the role of saints and their bodies in Sufi communities, stressing that inpremodern times saints were figures central to religious life in Islamic societies, in which they often played the role of political leaders and moral exemplars. Before providing an overview of this book's contents and argument, this introduction presents Sufism to an audience that might not be familiar with its tradition. Sufism is Islamic mysticism, comparable to the mysticalsubstreams of other religious traditions but also distinct from them in many ways. It aims not just to understand God, like theological discourse, or to obey God,like legal discourse, but also to love and be loved by God. Like the Islamic theological and legal discourses, it took some time for the Sufi mystical discourse to emerge from the crucible of the early Islamic community and develop into its mature forms. All three major discourses (theological, legal, and mystical) emerged in roughly the same era.Their advocates interacted intensely,sometimes in cooperation and sometimes in competition, yet all three are authentic human responses to the Prophet Muhammad's charismatic personality and the scriptural message that he brought, the Qur'an. They also vie with exponents of a fourth discourse, that of philosophy adopted from Hellenism that flourished under the umbrella of Islamic culture. As an Islamic discourse that centers upon love and intention, both states of the heart, Sufism aims to get beneath the skin of human existence, beneath its routine and rules. Skin, often overlooked as a bodily organ, is the largest organ in the human body, serving as the boundary between self and other, as well as an organ of sensation. The primordial human being, Adam, has a name that derives from the word for earth or dust in Hebrew. However , the same name in Arabic is linked to adim, a skin or surface.Thelinguistic logic is that dust is the surface of the earth, the skin of the earth, from which Adam was made. Adam's taking his name from the skin of the earth signifies the human materiality that blocks vision and knowledge of what is deeper inside. Sufism, as Islamic mystical discourse, tries to get beneath this skin to a deeper knowledge of human behavior.Our skins, as the children of Adam, both hide and reveal what is inside while givingthe body an appearance to the outside world. It is fitting that God, as represented speaking in the Qur'an, should criticize those who do evil and hide their real intentions by having their skins, which they thought were their safe cover, testify against them on the day of judgment.As in the quotation that heads this chapter, the Qur'an often cites the skin in criticizing those who harbor evil intentions that drive them to commit wrongs in secret and by stealth.Just as the skin conceals the human heart and allows us to express a potential deceitful appearance, on the dayof judgment, the skin (along with other parts of the body) will act against our intentions and reveal what has been hidden, as is explained in the Qur'an before the verse cited above. One day, God's enemies will be ushered toward the fire, distraught and bewildered. As they approach it, their hearing and vision and skin bears witness again them, revealing what they had been doing. They address their skins, "How can you bear witness against us?" They answer,"God has caused us to speak, as God causes all things to speak for God created you in the first instance and you revert inevitably to God!"(Q 41:19-21). As the skin talks back to its owner, we can hear the Qur'an criticizing the operations of the ego that subvert sincerity,hide our intention, and give an appearance that is false testimony or injustice to others. It is to this ethical urgency and cosmological profundity of the Qur'an that Sufis primarily respond, rather than to its far less frequent legal or governmental directives. While the Prophet Muhammad was alive, his charismatic presence and ability to speak for God through revelationsbrought Muslims into apowerfully concentrated unity. Muslims not only memorized the Qur'an and recited...

Share