Since 2002, and now in her retirement, Sara Sviri has been affiliated as a distinguished visiting professor to the Department of Arabic and the Department of Comparative Religions at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Formerly, while residing in England, she was teaching at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London and at the University of Oxford. Her fields of study are Islamic mysticism (Sufism), mystical philosophy, mystical psychology, Judaeo-Arabic mystical writings, comparative and phenomenological aspects of Islam, the formative period of Islamic mysticism, and related topics. Papers on these topics were published in many academic publications and can be viewed on www.academia.edu. Her book The Taste of Hidden Things: Images on the Sufi Path was published in 1997 in the USA. In 2008 Tel-Aviv University Press published Sara’s extensive Sufi Anthology in Hebrew. An Arabic version of this anthology is due to come out summer 2016. Sara is currently preparing a monograph on Aspects of the Formative Period of Islamic Mysticism.

Curriculum Vitae

Mystical Teachings and Thought in Medieval Islam

Islamic mysticism is conventionally known as Sufism, but early literary sources show that: a) the name Sufi, to begin with, was applied to ‘ascetics’ (zuhhād), who were not at all mystics; b) in Medieval Islam, alongside Sufism (taṣawwuf), there existed other, non- Sufi, mystical trends. Thus, the aim of this course is to outline the development and history of the schools, centers and brotherhoods of mystical Islam; to appreciate the difference between ‘mysticism’ and ‘asceticism’; to familiarize ourselves with the psychological and ethical teachings of the mystics; to explore important authors and distinguished figures; to analyze the main themes of the mystical teachings; to acquaint ourselves with the prevalent literary genres such as hagiography, Qur’anic commentary and poetry and with the special Sufi terminology.
We shall also pay attention to mystical philosophy, which emerged under Neoplatonic influence, especially in al-Andalus. Lastly, we shall explore the links between Islamic and Judaic mystical trends as portrayed, for example, by the Jewish Egyptian Pietists, also known as the ‘House of Maimonides’.

   

Introductory Literature:

Hujwiri, Ali ibn Uthman, Kashf al-Mahjub (trans. R.A. Nicholson), London 1976.

Schimmel, Annemarie, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1975.

Sviri, Sara, “The Early Mystical Schools of Baghdad and Nishapur”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 30 (2005), 450-483

Sviri, Sara, “Sufism: Reconsidering Terms, Definitions and Processes in the Formative Period of Islamic Mysticism” in Les Maîtres Soufis et leur Disciples, eds. G. Gobillot and J-J. Thibon, IFPO, Beirut 2012, 17-34.

Karamustafa, Ahmet T., Sufism: The Formative Period. Edinburgh, Edinburgh university press, 2007.