Shivan Mahendrarajah

Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies

Lent & Easter Terms 2012
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University of Cambridge | Faculty of Divinity | Paper C9: Sufism (2011/12)

Essay Topic: The origins and development of Sufism. Early Islamic mysticism and its
foundations in al-Quran and sunna.
Readings:
Nazeer el-Azma, Some Notes on the Impact of the Story of the Mirj on Sufi Literature, in
Sufism: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies, vol. 1, ed. Lloyd Ridgeon (London: Routledge,
2008), 33-43. Article also found in Muslim World 63, no. 2 (1973): 93-104.

Chabbi, Jacqueline, Remarques sur le dveloppement historique des mouvements asctiques
et mystiques au Khurasan: IIIe/IXe sicle - IVe/Xe sicle, Studia Islamica 46 (1977): 5-72.

___. Rflections sur le soufisme iranien primitif, Journal Asiatique 266 (1978): 37-55.

Knysh, Alexander, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History (Leiden: Brill, 2000).
Introduction: pp. 1-3; Ch. I: pp. 5-35; Ch. 2: pp. 36-42

Mayer, Toby, Theology and Sufism, The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic
Theology, Ed. Tim Winter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Melchert, Christoper, The Transition from Asceticism to Mysticism at the Middle of the
Ninth Century C.E., in Sufism: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies, vol. 1, ed. Lloyd
Ridgeon (London: Routledge, 2008), 44-63. Article also found in Studia Islamica 83, no. 1
(1996): 51-70.

Nicholson, R. A., A Historical Enquiry concerning the Origin and Development of Sufism,
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1906): 303-48.

Ab al-Qsim al-Qushayr, Al-Risla al-qushayriyya, eds. Abd al-alm Mamd and
Mamd b. al-Sharf (Cairo: Dr al-kutub al-hadtha, 1385/1966), pp. 17-43.

___. Al-Qushayris Epistle on Sufism: Al-Risala al-qushayriyya fi ilm al-taawwuf, tr.
Alexander D. Knysh (Reading: Garnet Publishing Ltd., 2007), 1-16 (authors introduction).

Ab Nar al-Sarrj, Kitb al-Luma f al-taawwuf, ed. R.A. Nicholson (London: Luzac,
1914).
pp. 4-41 (Arabic text: from bb al-bayn an ilm al-taawwufto kitb al-ahwl...)
pp. 1-12 (English text: editors abstract of Arabic text above)

Schimmel, Annemarie, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: Univ. of N. Carolina
Press, 1975).
Ch. 1: p. 3ff (What is Sufism?)
Ch. 2: p. 23ff (Historical Outlines of Classical Sufism)

Sells, Michael, Early Islamic Mysticism (New York: Paulist Press, 1996).
Preface (by Carl W. Ernst), pp. 1-4; Introduction, pp. 11ff
Ch. 1: pp. 29-56 (Sources of Islamic Mysticism). See esp. Quran and Miraj
Shivan Mahendrarajah
Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Lent & Easter Terms 2012
- 2 -

Abu Bakr Siraj ed-Din, The Nature and Origin of Sufism, in Sufism: Critical Concepts in
Islamic Studies, vol. 1, ed. Lloyd Ridgeon (London: Routledge, 2008), 19-32. Article also
found in Islamic Spirituality: Foundations, ed. S.H. Nasr (London: SCM Press, 1989), 223-
38.

Trimingham, J. Spencer, The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Oxford Uniersity Press, 1971)

Winter, Tim, Introduction, The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, Ed.
Tim Winter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).