The Economics of Ascetic Encounter

I would argue that “Mediterranean religion” is a functional category for a host of reasons. The common Abrahamic root of the three main faiths in medieval Mediterranean society is obvious. When compared to other bodies of water in Eurasia, such as the Indian Ocean, or even the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean is not as diverse as it is often portrayed. In few other Eurasian seas has one category of faith (Abrahamic monotheism) dominated for so many centuries. Here, however, I focus on how the category of Mediterranean religion also emerged through the conflict and interaction between Jews, Muslims, and Christians. In particular, I focus on what I call the economics of spiritual exchange. To show what I mean, I center on the Renaissance of the twelfth century, a period of highly active spiritual exchange and comparison, a period also defined by the commercial revolution.¹

The mystical experience, at least for most mystics, should have no price or comparison. It is an escape from the world of Mammon. Mystics, and especially ascetics, it would seem, boldly reject through their lifestyle the mundane acts of buying and selling. This is in contrast to the activities of the church and even the monastic groups, or tariqas in the case of Sufi orders, that survive the death of their often more austere founders. Yet I argue here that even mysticism could be shaped by the forces of economic exchange that characterize the constant movement of goods and people between what Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell called the “microregions,” or geographic areas of specialization in the Mediterranean.²

The rise of mysticism on both Latin and Maghribi shores of the western Mediterranean was a common reaction to the well-documented commercial revolution. This ascetic and mystical revolution was a Mediterranean phenomenon, not just a European one. In particular, the twelfth century saw the emergence of a pan-Mediterranean tilt toward “pragmatic mysticism.” A focus on “inner” asceticism and saintliness accommodated the spiritual needs of the merchant classes, creating an alternative to outward displays of poverty in both Muslim and Christian contexts. Godric of Finchale, for instance, lived “sixteen years as a merchant, and began to think of spending on charity, to God’s honor and service, the goods which he had so laboriously acquired.”³ While the influence of the commercial revolution on the rise of Franciscans and other Christian movements is well known, there is St. Francis’s radical asceticism and his defenestration of his father’s wealth, on the one hand, and the rise of Christian merchant saints such as St. Godric of Finchale, on the other; there has been less study of the complex relationship between commerce and mysticism in North Africa and non-European contexts during the twelfth century. The markets and ports of North Africa and Europe saw not only competition for prices but also competitive encounters between Christian and Muslim ascetics and mystics. The Sufi mystics of Tunis, for instance, declared that the Franciscans (allowed to enter after the Crusade of St. Louis) were false ascetics.

At the same time, some North Africans and Latin Christians rejected the notion that outward asceticism and poverty was the only way toward spiritual fulfillment. For instance, Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili (d. 1258), the great founder of the Shadhiliyya Order, created a complex vision of mysticism that focused on “inner” asceticism as opposed to rejection of all outward signs of wealth.⁴ Just as St. Godric and Christian merchant saints showed the way to be a saintly man of commerce, ash-Shadhili, although following an inward notion of spiritual poverty, deliberately wore newer clothes that indicated status and a comfortable level of wealth. Hemade a point not to put on the “ascetic airs” common among some previous Sufi saints and hermits. The Shadhiliyya Order was wildly successful, spreading through commercial networks all the way to Indonesia. Ash-Shadhili’s and Godric’s mystical innovation, the creation of an “accessible” form of asceticism for a growing merchant middle class, did not happen in a vacuum. In fact, this article shows evidence of encounters between both Christians and Muslims trying to determine what...