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

Course Title: Mystical Teachings, Esoteric Wisdom and the Philosophy of Illumination in Medieval Islam

Course Description:

The course will be based on texts (mostly in Arabic) deriving primarily from the vast literature compiled by Muslim mystics, conventionally known as Sufis; from Shiʿi esoteric literature; and from the ‘philosophy of illumination’ (ḥikmat al-ishrāq). In Medieval Islam, there existed several mystical trends, Sufi and non-Sufi, but eventually Islamic mysticism has become known as Sufism (taṣawwuf). Sufi teachings will be the main focus of the course. We shall attempt to outline the development and history of the various schools, centers and brotherhoods of mystical Islam; to familiarize ourselves with the psychological and ethical teachings of the mystics and their roots in the Islamic tradition (namely, Qurʾān and Ḥadīth); to examine the means whereby mystical knowledge is acquired – ḥikma, maʿrifa, ilhām, ishrāq, kashf – vis-à-vis more conventional means referred to as taʿlīm; to explore the literary contribution of well-known authors and distinguished figures; to analyze the main themes of their mystical teachings; to study the special terminology by which Sufis articulated their teachings; to trace echoes of pre-Islamic traditions in early Sufi works; to observe the impact of Sufism on medieval mystical groups and individuals in Christianity and Judaism, as, for example, on Ramon Lull in Spain and on Jewish Pietists in medieval Andalus and Egypt.

Among the topics explored will be the following: what does ‘Sufism’ mean to the Sufis themselves; the ‘Spiritual Hierarchy’ and the ‘Divine Man’ in Sufism and Shi’ism; the distinction between ‘mysticism’ (taṣawwuf) and ‘asceticism’ (zuhd); the ‘heart’ (qalb) as the organ of mystical perception and its arch-enemy the ‘psyche’ (nafs); the map of spiritual transformation (maqāmāt wa-aḥwāl); esoteric Qurʾān commentaries; mystical philosophy and its neo-platonic roots; the Sufi Brotherhoods (ṭarīqa, pl. ṭuruq).

Introductory Literature:

Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali, The Divine Guide in Early Shiʻism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam. Trans. David Streight. Albany, State University of New York Press, 1994.

Böwering, Gerhard, The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam: The Qur’ānic Hermeneutics of the Ṣūfī Sahl At-Tustarī (D. 283/896). Berlin and New York, Walter de Gruyter, 1979.

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

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

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.