Summary

of my presentation in Fs, Morocco, 15.05.2015

Maghrebi Sufismin its Global Contexts



State-reformed Sufism and Neo-classical Maghribi Sufism
some anti-philosophical thoughts on the meeting between Abdal Halim
Mahmud and Ren Gunon and on what kind of sufism has been subalternized
by this meeting.



The question I wish to tackle is the following one:

What did Abdal Halim Mahmud (1910-1978) find in the writings of Ren Gunon (1886-1951) ?

the first being an egyptian sufi scholar who actively wished to reform sufism in order for it to suit a
modern 'vie morale'1 (here modern means in line with the ideological programme of the Nahda) and
the second being a French intellectual who actively adopted sufism in the last part of his life while
trying to combine what he saw being sufism with an epistemological frame called perennialism.


I. The tariqa in wich R.Gunon entered while living in Cairo

- Sidi Salam ar Radhi and the bureaucratization of his tariqa goes along with the process of
centralization of the Egyptian State2.
- This process of subalternization divides the peasants from a new westernized bourgeoisie.
- the centrality of the divine Intellect is proper to state reformed sufism while it tries to govern or
even eradicate the devotion to the family of the Prophet.
- This process of centralization as long with its antropological changes has a name: State capitalism.
It stands against 'wujudi sufism'3.

II. How do you translate 'Insan al Kamil' and what do you mean with it? (
Does it draw Ibn 'Arabi nearer to al Ghazali or to al-Afarabi?)

- Abdal Halim Mahmud translates "homme universel" with 'insan al 'alami
but Ren Gunon thinks of "insan al kamil."4

1 'Abd al Halim Mahmoud, Al Mohasibi, Thse pour le doctorat la facult de Lettres de Paris, 1840, Librairie Orientaliste Paul
Geuthner, Paris, 1940

2 Pierre-Jean LUIZARD, Le soufisme rformiste : lexemple de trois confrries , Le Caire, Dossiers du Cedej, 1992

3 Peter Gran, Islamic Roots of Capitalism in Egypt, 1760-1840, Syracuse University press, 1998, New York; see in particular p.
96.

4 'Abd al Halim Mahmud, un soufi d'occident, al Bouraq/ Gebo, 2007, Beyrouth, Liban, p.149-150.

- Abdal Halim Mahmud uses Insan al Kamil when he tries to defend al Farabi as an authentic islamic
thinker5

- Abdal Halim Mahmud declares that al Farabi stands for the political dimension and al Ghazali
stands for the mystical-metaphysical insights but he compares al Ghazali to Kant6 wich here signifies
a good bourgeois (vie morale in French would Abdal Halim Mahmud say) and he uses the formula
"insan al kamil" (wich in sufi litterature is used to define the Prophet) inside the Al Farabi-an
paradigma.
This means that al Farabi here works (even if not openly declared) in the writings of AH Mahmud as
the one who has both the perfection of the esoteric dimension and exoteric dimension in his
teachings.

- Philippe Vallat 7has shown that al Farabi's political agenda was to propagate neo-alexandrian
philosophy as the main Science that should govern all other sciences, in particular arabic-qu'ranic
grammar. This is to say that al Farabi gives no scientific credit to the act of speech of the Qur'an.

Of course this is against what Qunawi has taught when he tried to distance himself from esoteric
philosophy and to put Ibn 'Arabi on the side of arab grammaticians, as is shown in his epistolary
exchange with Nasrdin at Tusi.

III. Some thoughts concerning transmodern non-capitalistic sufism, neo-classical maghribi
sufism .

- it is the state reformed sufism that has put in its core the divine intellect and it believes it to be
similar to the Intellect conceptualized by Ren Gunon. We have here the meeting of two different
histories around a common empty-floating signifier (Intellect). This meeting produces an
articulation of discourses that subalternizes transmodern maghribi sufism (from Qunawi to Ibrahim
Niass through Nabulusi).
- In transmodern maghribi sufism it is the devotion to the family of the Prophet and the abstract or
contemplative understanding of ' ukm ' that has led the abstract thinking of sufism.
- these are two features that are still present in maghribi sufism.
In other words:

Where western philosophy and the Nahda is looking for the plurivocity of 'being (Clemens
Brentano), our sufi authors are looking for the plurivocity of 'ukm '.

- the ukm in Qunawi8
- the ukm in Ibrahim Niasse

a brief Qur'anic commentary by Shaykh Ibrhm Niasse on the following verse 28:88 where I have the
feeling that one may find an indication of the plurivocity of ukm:

5 'Abdal Halim Mahmud, Tafkir al Falsafa fi'l Islam, Dar al Ma'arifa, Cairo, 1989, p.250-253.
6 Abdal Halim Mahmud, Al Islam wa al-'Aql, Dar al Ma'arifa, Cairo, 1988, p.85.
7 Philippe Vallat, al Farabi et l'Ecole d'Alexandire, ed. Vrin, Paris, 2004; prface de Philippe Vallat al Farabi, Epitre sur
l'Intellect, d.Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 2012.

8 Shaker, Anthony, Thinking in the language of reality, Lac-des-Iles, QC: Xlibris, 2012.

And do not invoke with Allah another deity. There is no deity except Him. Everything
will be destroyed except His Face. His is the judgement (ukm), and to Him you will be
returned.

Here Shaykh Ibrhm Niasse tells us: "

'And do not invoke with Allah another deity. There is no deity except Him. Everything will be destroyed
except His Face.' Except Him.
' His is the judgement (ukm) '. His is the decision that operates on all creatures.
'and to Him you will be returned.'
'His is the judgement (ukm)' this is the spiritual-juridic-guidance (Shari'a),
'and to Him you will be returned.' this is the Reality (aqqa).' "

Here is no place for the plurivocity of the word 'being' but a wide place for the plurivocity of the
word ' ukm '.

p.s:
On the First Intellect and the difference between Islam and other religions according to Sadr
Din Qunawi and 'Abdal Qadir al Jazairi.

From the point of view of the history of theological (where the word 'logos' and the word 'theo' have
to be decolonized and deconstructed) ideas, Sadr din Qunawi acknowledges the idea that 'Islam'
abrogates and renders vain all previous spiritualities and 'religions' (another word that should be
decolonized and deconstructed). In this framework at least, this doesn't mean that a non-muslim
can't achieve an inuitive knowledge of God, but he can do this only to the extent of his identification
with the First Intellect. It is all that happens beyond-the-first-intellect (and the very different
epistemology of the field that is beyond-the-first-intellect) that produces a differences with all the
knowledges one may gain through his identification with the First Intellect.
see: Sadr Din Qunawi, adr al-Dn al- Qnaw, I'jz al-bayn f tawl Umm al-Kitb, d. Dar al Kotob
al Ilmiyah, Beirut, 2005, p.218, 219, 223, 231, 233, 236, 250

see also 'Abdal Qadir al Jazairi on the brahmans and the monks: "Certains moines et brahmanes, ainsi
que d'autres gens adonns aux exercices de pit et au combat spirituel, en dehors des voies traces
par les prophtes, sont parvenus l'intellect premier, pensant que c'est la ralit es ralit et que
derrire elle il n'y avait plus rien. Alors, ils se sont perdus, ils ont rebrouss chemin et sont retourns
l d'o ils taient venus".
'Abdal Qadir al Jazairi, Le livre des Haltes, tome I, trans. by Michel Lagarde, Brill, Leiden, 2000-2001,
p. 226.