Chapter One
The Mediaeval Egyptian Hasidim
The term Hasid, which gives rise
to the terms hasidic and hasidism, is one of many key Jewish appellations that has undergone metamorphosis over
the centuries. Its most basic hebrew
meaning is a person who is so in love with G-d that they strive
to go the extra mile in His service—in other words: a Pietist.
In common parlance in our own day, the
term Hasid is most frequently used to indicate a Jew who follows the mesorah (tradition) of a spiritual ‘Rebbe’ and
sometimes, of his Rabbinic dynasty.
The founder or leader of such Hasidic groups is also known as its Tzaddik
(Righteous One). Most often the term Hasid is used to describe a very
religiously observant Jew who also aligns
with the Beshtian Hasidic
movement of European and Slavic Judaism in the
Ashkenazic stream. Israel Baal
Shem Tov (The ‘BeShT’ 1698-1760) sought to restore the joyful soul of meticulously observant Jewish worship
and devotion through song and
warm-heartedness, exuberance, and deep meditation. In our own day, the term Hasidic Jew
is most often applied to Haredi
(ultra-orthodox) sectarians, though Neo-Hasidism usually refers
to more moderate but nonetheless
passionate streams of devotees with an
allegiance to the Path of the Baal Shem
Tov and his successors.
In Beshtian Hasidism the leader is usually
called the Tzaddik and the
disciple is known as his Hasid.
But in the mediaeval era the
term Hasid was used
quite differently.
The
Jewish-Sufi Movement emerged in full strength during the thirteenth
century in Egypt. In those times the usage of
the terms Tzaddik and Hasid
was reversed. A person who was
meticulous in ritual religious
observance and whose actions and
manner were totally in accord with ideal Jewish ethics would be
described as a Tzaddik. It
was the pietist and the one who sought
to go deeper in observance of the Law
through increased devotional and
ascetical practice that merited the title Hasid.
The
term Hasid thus resembled the
use of the Arabic Sufi term wali (plural awliya) which
denotes one who is a “Friend”: an
intimate of the Divine and a saint.
In mediaeval Fostat (Cairo) where our Jewish-Sufi movement began, it
was a term applied to a saintly and ascetic Jew.
Such a one may have been the formal
community leader or simply a highly respected community member. Scholars have
furthermore confirmed that, in this period in Egypt, the appellation HeHasid also denoted a person who was a member of
the Jewish Sufi
confraternity.
In the late fourteenth century
the term Hasid received poetic
analysis at the start of R. David ben
Joshua Maimuni’s Jewish-Sufi manual entitled Al Murshid (Guide to
Solitude and Detachment). He actuality subtitled the work “The Correct Practice of the Path of Hasidut [Derech Ha Hasidut].”
R. David tells us that the
term hasid is derived from
hesed (kindness) and indicates
perfect grace and virtue; but he also relates it to the term hasdam [blame]
in reference to the ascetic practitioner
who despises the sensual and physical in order to seek
“solitude and illumination”. Our Tariqa regards Khalwa-Hitbodedut
[solitary retreat and solitary contemplation] to be our core discipline, and so
we are encouraged that Rabbenu David
makes such a point of connecting the term hasid to this very practice.
Franz Rosenthal illuminates the relevant
passage in the Murshid for
us as follows:
“The third derivation is
... from Hasidah “stork” which is
explained as the name of a bird which lives [ya’wa] in
deserts and solitudes, and isolates itself from other birds and appears
in the inhabited region only at a
fixed time of the year. Thus the
hasid would designate a man who is
alone unto himself [munfarid
bi-halih], who detaches himself [mutajarrid] from mankind for the
purpose of doing his work, who seeks solitude [mustawhis] far from
them and shuns them.”[i]
We have situated the birth of the Jewish-Sufi Movement in the
late-twelfth/early-thirteenth century, but it is apparent that Sufic influences
were already present in the region of old Fostat long before
this time. It should
be remembered that both the third century Desert Fathers of Christianity
and the
first century fringe
eremitic but Jewish sect known as
the Therapeutai were all based in this
same region. Both those groups were
eremitic (hermit) communities. Cross cultural inter-religious imitation
and sharing will have been active for
centuries because these movements were viewed by contemporary mystics as
having trace memories of the biblical prophetic school curriculum. It is also quite likely that these
groups will have influenced Islamic Sufis in a similar
exchange of practices—and one might reasonably posit connections between
Eastern Church liturgies, Hesychast litanies,
Islamic-Sufi Dhikr, and
Jewish Baqashot.
It is true that there
was a nascent Jewish-Sufi presence in Egypt even before the time
of the Rambam. There are also clear and
pronounced Islamic and
Sufi influences in the thought of
R. Bahya Ibn Pequda (1050-1120) and certain scholars are quick to point out the
same in the writings
of the Rambam himself (1138-1204).
If we define a "Tariqa" and "Order" as a circle of Sufis sharing a common and particular ethos and modus operandi, the first Jewish Order of Sufis (other than that of the Bnei ha Neviim) arose in the years before the arrival of the Rambam in Fostat (Old Cairo). The father in law of the Rambam's wife, R. Abraham Hananel was a member of this Jewish-Sufi Circle and scholars have suggested that both he and his daughter may have had a part in the sufic education of Abraham, the Rambam's son. (The Rambam himself was not a member of this Judeo-Sufic society of Cairene Pietists and he was actually critical of the excesses practiced by some of its members). The first named leaders of the Jewish Sufi movement were thus R. Abraham He Hasid the Dayan (d.c.1223), and R. Abraham ben Ha Rambam (1186-1237) the Rayis al Yahud (Nagid). This movement was no marginal flash in the pan, it became a clearly defined, highly popular, and ever-expanding movement that flourished throughout the Levant for (at least) three hundred years.
oooOooo
There are countless academic studies and historical accounts of the
growth of mediaeval Jewish-Sufism with its
movement being described variously as Jewish-Sufism (Fenton) Egyptian Pietism (Russ-Fishbane) and Egyptian
Hasidism (our preference). This
manual has little to add to
the current state of scholarship
and historical analysis of the movement because it is
not an academic or scientific
study. Our focus here is devotional and developmental. We are interested in our past but our Path is
much more concerned with the (Eternal) Present.
Tariqa Eliyahu members who thirst for factual and
academic knowledge about our history are therefore encouraged to study the pioneering and extensive academic and linguistic works of Professor Paul Fenton,[ii]
and the magisterial and detailed account of Rabbi
Elisha Russ-Fishbane in his book ‘Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Mediaeval Egypt’ (pub.2015). The work of Thomas Block[iii]
also provides a panoramic overview of
the Jewish-Sufi movement that has helped many of our members come
to grips with the historical and conceptual outlines.
There
are many other academic studies one
might mention, but these three
sources should well satisfy the novice's search for a factual and speculative
knowledge-base concerning the Egyptian Hasidic Path.
The purpose of this publication is to present an outline administrative system for our
members, and with it certain homiletical commentaries that we hope will serve
to (i)promote the principles of Kuntres
Maarat HaLev and (ii) bring about a spiritual renewal of the Egyptian Hasidic Movement with which it shares
a prophetic goal. Consequently
those seeking the highest levels of
scholarly and academic information
should consult (above all) the
works of
Professor Fenton and Rabbi
Russ-Fishbane and not expect to find
anything of their magisterial
detail here.
However—because this book is being written for the guidance of
new members of Tariqa Eliyahu:
people who may not have studied the history of our movement in any depth before
joining us—we will now offer a very brief
listing of some of the Movement’s leaders and authors. To this list we will add a brief commentary on the Sources of the movement's ethos.
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THE MAIMUNISThe three principal authors of the mediaeval Jewish-Sufi movement were descendants of the Rambam. We refer to them by their surname Maimuni. These three authors are Rabbenu Abraham ben Ha Rambam Maimuni (1186-1237); Rabbenu Obadyah ben Abraham Maimuni (1228-1265); and Rabbenu David ben Joshua Maimuni (1335-1414).
In addition to these three Maimuni authors we should also mention R. David ben Abraham Maimuni (d.1300). Although we do not have any record of his seforim, we know that he was both the leader of the Cairene Jewish Community (Nagid) and of the Jewish Sufis there. He also spent some time in Akko and in Safed and it is thought that this may have been instrumental in promoting the development of Judeo-Sufic liturgy and Khalwa-Hitbodedut practice throughout this part of the Galil.
Two other names of community Tzaddikim from the era deserve our special regard: the aforementioned R. Hananel (the Father in law of R. Abraham ben Ha Rambam ) and most especially: R. Abraham ibn Abi l’Rabi (d.c.1223), also known as R. Abraham HeHasid.
For the benefit of new members in our Novitiate here are some biographical sketches.
Rabbenu Abraham HeHasid [Abraham ibn Abi’l-Rabi] (d.circa 1223) was a close colleague, and possibly the teacher, of R. Abraham ben Ha Rambam. His writings are even more inclined towards mysticism and sufic practice than R. Abraham’s. Much of his literary output was identified and translated by Professor Fenton from manuscripts and fragments in the Cairo Genizah.
Rabbenu Hananel ben Samuel HaDayan (circa 1170- 1249) was the Rosh Yeshiva in Fostat and a member of its Beit Din. He may actually have been the Rosh Beit Din. When the liturgical-sufic reforms of his son in law were being attacked he supported R. Abraham wholeheartedly, an activity which caused him to go into hiding for a period. In documents from the time he is described as both a Hasid (i.e. Jewish-Sufi) and as an Ascetic....and most importantly as a “Chief of the Pietists”. He authored mystical commentaries on the Pentateuch and on the Haftarot.
Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam (1186–1237) was, like his father, the Nagid (political and religious leader) of the Egyptian Jews, a medical doctor, and a most respected halachic authority in the region and far beyond it, with his responsa reaching the Far East of Asia regularly and during his lifetime. But he was also the undisputed revolutionary leader and apologist of the Egyptian Hasidic movement. Though Moshe Rabbenu and Eliyahu HaNabi are considered our Tariqa’s Jewish-sufic progenitors— Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam is, as it were, one of our principal Masters and a highly important Murshid on our Path.
He was the author of many halachic and philosophical works but his principal legacy to our group is the Kifaya (Kitab Kifayat al-‘ābidīn) — known in Hebrew translations as HaMaspik L'Ovdei Hashem and in English translations as The Guide to Serving God (Wincelberg) or Highways to Perfection (Rosenblatt). It follows a similar literary pattern to Rabbenu Baḥya’s Islamic-Sufi inspired Duties of the Heart but has a particularly contemplative tachlit in so far as its goal is attained through a very specific kind of khalwa-hitbodedut that leads to (or is synonymous with) the acquisition of various levels of prophecy.
We only have a tiny fragment of this voluminous work and the entire concluding chapter (on contemplation and prophecy) has yet to be discovered.
For our Order, the penultimate extant chapter on Khalwa-Hitbodedut (which for him means external solitary practices or interior retreat modelled on Biblical and Sufi khalwa practice) is a primary thesis supporting our own group’s contemplative practice.
Rabbenu Obadyah ben Abraham Maimuni (1228–1265) was the son of Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam and thus the brother of Nagid David ben Abraham Maimuni. His Judeo-Sufic Treatise of the Pool (Al-Maqala Al Hawdiyya) restates his father’s opinion that Islamic-Sufi mysticism and supererogatory devotional practices were a temporarily lost tradition from the curricula of the biblical prophetic yeshivot, fortuitously maintained and preserved for our restoration by Islamic Sufism. He supported, but did not insist on, celibacy (or very late marriage) as an ascetic religious practice for his Jewish-Sufi hasidim and it is thought that he himself never married. He died (probably whilst on ritual khalwa-retreat) at the Dammuh Synagogue in the Muqattam mountains outside Cairo.
Rav David ben Joshua Maimuni (1335–c.1414) was a fifth generation descendant of the Rambam, variously referred to as David Maimuni II, or David ben Joshua. Rabbenu David Maimuni II was the author of the dynasty’s most adventurous Sufic volume, the Murshid ila al-tafarrud, known in English as The Guide to Solitude or The Guide to Detachment. It openly quotes the Quran and contains our most developed (extant) statement of a Jewish-Sufi mystical theology. It also presents a thorough defence of asceticism. Rabbenu David authored several other works that are highly relevant to our Tariqa, but at the moment they are difficult to access in either print or in translation. He had one of the most well-stocked and justifiably famous libraries (in Syria) which was visited by scholars from near and far. A library that contained many Judeo-Arabic works and also many Islamic and Islamic-Sufi texts.
A Commentary on Sources
1: The Prophetic Schools as an Inspirational Model
Many of you will know that, before my conversion to Judaism in 1992, I was once a Carmelite monk. In reforming the Carmelite Order of Christian monasticism, Teresa of Avila created detailed systems and even rules of her own yet attributed them to the legendary early "Carmelite Hermits" of the time of Eliyahu HaNabi. (There were reputedly Islamic,Jewish,and Christian hermits living in separate enclaves on Mount Carmel in mediaeval times, but she was concerned with the proposed transmission of the spirit of Elijah to her Christian group of solitaries).
The
same spiritually attributive
process is demonstrable in many of the writings of the
founders of Islamic-Sufi Orders whose lineage is
stated to originate with the
person or inner circle of the Prophet of Islam himself. Many would view Moses de Leon's Zoharic relationship
with Shimon Bar Yohai in a similar light
as these claims. This is the way of many who feel inspired to
form "new-old" religious
paths and spiritual societies, and it is certainly the way I
was following in founding Tariqa Eliyahu—specifically as a way
to promulgate and develop the specific ethos of Kuntres Maarat HaLev,
but in a focussed Sufic mode.
Abraham ben HaRambam was the administrative and spiritual generator of a new and structured phase in the development of the Egyptian Hasidic "Tariqa". By composing the Kifaya he was codifying his own personal manifesto for the way he believed that movement should develop.
His oft-stated belief was that
the Sufis had preserved a set of contemplative and paraliturgical practices that had been
originally Jewish but which had simply been forgotten. For him, these practices were not elements from the
comparatively recent
Rabbinical and Talmudic stages of Judaism—they were the lost curriculum of the biblical era Schools of
the Prophets. Abraham He
Hasid believed that this lost and
forgotten contemplative curriculum had been transmitted at Sinai. He
meant that literally and not figuratively.
Detailed
information on the ethos and
practices of the Schools of the
Prophets is minimal and is largely confined to the following : (i) that their organisation formed communities;(ii) that
they displayed a strong predilection for
musical stimulation (both instrumental and
vocal) as a contemplative aid;(iii)that they embraced the practice of
desert dwelling retreat; (iv) that their
behaviour could be somewhat wild when
they were in ecstatic mode; (v) that they had their preference for rough, simple attire, and the use of a mantle as an initiatory device; (vi) That they
believed certain (largely forgotten)
contemplative practices might lead to various levels
of prophecy; (vii) that they
believed a specific training can be given to prepare one for
this potential Divine influx.
How much of R. Abraham's work in re-forming the Order is his own imaginative and creative vision and how much can be said to be clearly derived from either Sufic practice or biblical era evidence is a task that will continue to occupy the academic scholars for an age and a half.[iv] In this context, however, one might remember that he was consistently opposed by the thought-police of those in the Jewish community of Fostat who considered his work to be heretical innovation. Their opposition was vociferous and verged on persecution for largely political reasons.
In such an environment he
clearly felt an urgent
need to justify and defend the
Jewish-Sufi position and prove
its validity within normative
Judaism––and I believe this
is the principal reason he
underlines the connection with the
biblical Bnei ha Neviim so frequently. Later Maimuni leaders of the
group were under similar pressure and
will have felt the
same need to defend the movement.
We might refer to the flight of R. David
Ben Abraham Maimuni to exile in Akko in
support of this view.
In this defensive context, it is
notable that whenever the Egyptian Pietists borrowed a concept,
term, or an entire passage from the Quran
or a later Islamic text in their writings, nine times out of ten they
found a Biblical or Talmudic example to replace or support
it. Abraham ben HaRambam stands out as being particularly
brave in making explicit the Egyptian Hasidic movement's debt to
Islamic Sufism.The most oft-quoted
passages of such defence are from
the Kifaya:
"Do not regard as unseemly our comparison
of that [the true dress of the prophets] to the conduct of the Sufis, for the
latter imitate the prophets [of Israel] and walk in their footsteps, not the
prophets in theirs." [v]
and
"We see the Sufis of Islam also profess
the discipline of mortification by combatting sleep… Observe then these
wonderful traditions and sigh with regret over how they have been transferred
from us and appeared amongst a nation other than ours whereas they have
disappeared in our midst."[vi]
2: The Influence of observed Sufi Practice
It is much easier to identify the connections between the Egyptian Pietists and Islamic Sufi practice in Cairo than it is to pinpoint the connective transmission from the Biblical Prophetic School to Islamic Sufism, but one observation is pertinent:
Each one of the elements in our projected list of Prophetic School curricular elements (stated above) was clearly both present and predominant in the Islamic Sufi movement and each one of them (with the possible exception of number iv) provided a major inspiration for both Abraham and for all the leaders of the movement in the centuries that followed.
In his Kifaya, Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam (1186–1237) states the principle that his Pietist Path (Suluk al-Khass) is a Jewish one that had been lost but rediscovered in Islamic Sufism. For example, in defending the way that he and his fellow Jewish Sufis adopted special clothing that was similar to the attire of the Islamic Sufis, he insisted:
Do not regard as unseemly our comparison of that [the true dress of the prophets] to the conduct of the Sufis, for the latter imitate the prophets [of Israel] and walk in their footsteps, not the prophets in theirs. [vii]
And using the exact and precise Sufi
terminology of khirqa,murid,and tariq from the Islamic Sufi initiation
ceremony he explains:
By casting his cloak over
[Elisha], Elijah hinted to him, as if in joyful annunciation, that his garments
and dress as well as the rest of his conduct would be like his. Thus he
announced to him the fact that Elijah’s spiritual perfection would be
transferred to him and that he [Elisha] would attain the degree which
he himself had attained. Thou art aware of the ways of the ancient saints [awliya]
of Israel, which are not or but little practised among our contemporaries, that
have now become the practice of the Sufis of Islam, “on account of the
iniquities of Israel,” namely that the master invests the novice [murid]
with a cloak [khirqah] as the latter is about to enter upon the mystical
path [tariq]. “They have taken up thine own words” (Deuteronomy
33:3). This is why we moreover take over from them and emulate them in the
wearing of sleeveless tunics and the like. [viii]
(Emphasis mine)
Then, as now, there are Jews who
want to make the communal liturgy more beautiful and more conducive to the development of individual reflection; who seek to go
the extra mile in the observance of all the ethical and ritual commandments; who (above
all) wish to develop their personal and private contemplative devotions to the
point where they may lose the self in
order to find G-d.
Increasing liturgical and devotional
intentionality was also a major part of the motivation
behind the European Hasidic movement pioneered by
the Baal Shem Tov. A similar search for a developed "interior
life" was also the impetus behind many “New Age” groups
that sprang up in the hippie 1960’s, groups which frequently looked outside
Judaism— to India and the Far East— for inspiration.
In the last seventy years or so, within
Judaism, popular kabbalistic and spirituality-based movements have burgeoned globally in response to the devotional lacuna
such people felt in many congregational and
denominational settings, and many contemporary Jewish meditational groups now exist to develop the philosophic and contemplative tools which may
hasten the promised return of ruah hakodesh and nevuah. This
is an explicit aim of our own Tariqa and one which we share with Rabbenu
Abraham’s circle.
During the mediaeval period, the Hasidim of Cairo and Northern Egypt were engaged in the same search for inspiration as all the aforementioned groups and they looked towards Islamic Sufism for
some guidance and stimulation. They
found it in abundance during the Mamluk era because at that time Islamic Sufism
was very much in the ascendant.
With its strong similarities to both
the ancient Jewish ecstatic/prophetic kabbalah, and its focus on
contemplative activity, Islamic Sufism
gave a kick-start to these pious Cairene
Jews, enabling them to take the best of what they saw and learnt from the
mystics of Islam, filter it through a strict halachic lens, and then
incorporate it into a new-old system of Jewish spiritual activity.
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Who and What were they “seeing”?—
What was it that they were observing, witnessing, and imitating in Cairo that
sparked their interest and profound admiration?
Cairo was actually the site of the Sa’id al-Su’ada (Salihiyya),
the very first major Sufi Khanqah to have been founded in Egypt (by
Saladin in 1173) and built to house three hundred sufis. Significantly, we know
that these sufis performed frequent and regular discourses and lectures in the public
spaces of Cairo. Though the second-class
status of Jews as dhimmis
would have precluded their participatory
presence in mosques, Jews may well have observed more private practices and
lectures even if that may only have been through open porticos or windows.
We know, for example that there was an Islamic-Sufi Zawiyya in the heart of the Jewish Quarter during Rabbenu
Abraham’s nagidship.
In crowded and overpopulated Cairo,
which was larger than most major European cities at this time, the houses were
often multi-storey and tightly packed and we can only surmise what educational
cross-fertilisation might have transpired in private conversations or informal
and undocumented meetings in such
close-quartered situations.
In his essay: Sufis
and Jews in Mamluk Egypt, Professor
Paul Fenton lists many of the Islamic-Sufi exemplars whose presence in Cairo
must have had a significant role in the development of the Jewish Pietist
movement in Ayyubid and Mamluk times.
Here is a concise
introductory summary of some of the personages he mentions, re-presented
here in the hope that members of our Tariqa
Eliyahu HaNabi who wish to examine such Islamic influences may use this
information to direct and focus their researches for the benefit of us all:
The poet ‘Umar Ibn al-Farid (d. 1235),
* Abu l-Ḥasan al-Shadhili
(1196-1258),
* Ahmad al-Badawi (1199-1276),
* Abū l-Abbās al-Mursī (1219–1287)
* Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari (1259-1309).
Abu l-Hasan al-Shadhili
(1196-1258)—one of the greatest Sufi Shaykhs in Egypt— was known to have
discussions with the Jews of Cairo. Though his official lodge was in Alexandria, he had a Jewish optician in Cairo and it seems
extremely likely to me that he might
have met Rabbenu Abraham (in his capacity as Leader of the Jewish community there) or other members of his circle.
Ibn Ata Allah
al-Iskandari
wrote the Miftah al-Falah,
one of the era's most popular and
profound commentaries on the
practice of Dhikr.
Some of the stellar Moslem Teachers
and Saints in the above shortlist were
the founding generators of major Sufi Orders —and their presence in
the Cairo of our spiritual predecessors must surely have been a great
inspiration to Jews seeking Sufi contact.
After all, these people and their followers were the living and local
exemplars that the Jewish Pietists
encountered (either in person or in an observing crowd) during public
ceremonies and lectures.
When the Egyptian Hasidic authors wrote of the
admiration they felt for the Sufi Way, their comments must have been
based on what they saw and read and heard. Rabbenu Abraham was not imagining
what Sufi practice was when he wrote the
Kifaya, he was living in one of its major Egyptian Sufi centres.
In
his study Judaism,
Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt,
Elisha Russ Fishbane writes:
We have direct testimony of
pietists personally observing Sufi rites in the first half of the thirteenth
century and an explicit acknowledgement of adopting similar, if not identical,
rites in their own circles. [ix]
In many instances, Sufi
terms were adopted by the pietists in their original forms, while in others
cases Hebrew terms were applied in novel ways, as with derekh roughly
supplanting taṛīqah
as a designation for the spiritual path and, most significantly, the term hasid
̣ replacing sụ̄fī as the chief appellation
of the devotee.[x]
Although Rabbenu Abraham, like Ibn
Pequda, lauded interior “solitude in the
crowd”, he also envisaged that those who were on the highest levels of
human intellectual and spiritual attainment would actually be required
to practice such total physically
isolated and secluded retreat if they were to become prophets. Though this was not not expected of all
members, it was certainly the mark of those engaged in the final Maqamat
(Station) of the Kifaya’s system, and it was a principal element in the Murshid
of Rabbenu David Maimuni II.
Rabbenu Abraham clearly refers to this
type of isolated retreat as follows:
We also see the Sufis of Islam proceed in this war against
the self to the combating of sleep, and
perhaps that practice is derived from the
statement from David: “I will not give sleep to mine eyes,nor slumber to
mine eyelids,and also from his statement: “At midnight I will rise to give
thanks to Thee” and the like. It may
furthermore be inferred from the
statement of the messenger,peace
be upon him,concerning his seclusion on the
mountain in His Presence,exalted be He: “So I fell down before the Lord, the forty days and forty nights that I fell down,” that he, peace
be upon him,was in one state during that period,by day and by night,and that
he did not sleep in the course of it, just
as he did not eat...
Observe then these
wonderful traditions and sigh with regret over how they have been transferred
from us and [have]made their
appearance... among other nations. [meaning Islam].[xi]
Though the ascetic-contemplative
practice of solitary isolation in small and
dark places is described in our own scriptures (notably in relation to
the Mosaic Cleft in the Rock,
and the
Cave of Elijah), the practice of khalwa/hitbodedut was
also a key practice of the Prophet of
Islam himself, and it became an essential hallmark devotion of the Islamic
Sufis during the eleventh and twelfth centuries— the very period
in which the Egyptian Pietists were first formulating their own ascetic
schemata.
It has actually been demonstrated that it was
also in Egypt (during the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries) that total khalwah (
under the direction of a Teacher) first became
an initiatory and often obligatory practice for Islamic-Sufis.
It is also this practice of the forty
day “arba‘īnīyah”
retreat that the famous letter from Benyamin to Hayyim ben Hananel refers.[xii]
Professor Russ-Fishbane writes:
Abraham Maimonides
explicitly referred to the Sufi practice of solitary retreat in dark places (al-khalawāt fī’l-mawādị‘ al-mudallamah ̣ ), which his colleague
Abraham ibn Abī’l-Rabī‘ {Abraham HeHasid} had praised as an original discipline
of the ancient prophets.[xiii]
The activities of the Islamic-Sufi
hermits in the Muqqatam mountains of Cairo[xiv]
would have been extremely familiar to Rabbenu Abraham’s circle—and it does not
require any stretch of the imagination to consider that some of the Pietists
would also have practised khalwah there themselves. We know that
Rabbenu Abraham’s father in law, Hananel ben Samuel—who was described by his
contemporaries as “the greatest of the Pietists”— practiced forty-day seclusion
in the mountains....and sometimes retreats of an even longer
duration. Professor Russ-Fishbane
concludes:
We can only assume that the
practice of solitary meditation, whether daily or nightly in one’s home or
undertaken on periodic “journeys” to the surrounding mountainside, was a basic
discipline common to pietists and Sufis alike in early thirteenth-century
Egypt. (See also Daniel ibn al-Māshitaḥ’s description of those
pietists and disciples of the prophets who trust in God to provide for their
needs and seclude themselves in the mountains and wilderness (inqitạ̄ ‘ al-hasidim wa-talmide
ha-nevi ̣ ’im fī’l-jibāl wa’l-barādī) in his Rectification
of Religion, in II Firk. I.3132, 69, verso.)
Further afield, in the region of the Giza Pyramids we also know that
there was a Synagogue with a Jewish Sufi retreat centre at Dammuh which is
known to have hosted both annual Jewish pilgrimages and incubatory retreats—
with what is thought to be certain rooms that acted as Pietist solitary
isolation-retreat cells. It is also taught
that Rabbenu Obadyah Maimuni died there in the Dammuh complex while on such a retreat.
oo0oo
In his Sufis and Jews in Mamluk
Egypt,[xvii] Professor Fenton reminds us that the Cairo Genizah is replete with
fragments of Islamic-Sufi texts that
might well represent the kind of material that one could find in the library of a mediaeval Jewish Pietist. He
also points out the great
significance that their very presence in
a genizah—a reposititory for “holy” texts— indicates that they were held
in the utmost respect by our Jewish Sufi forebears in Cairo.
He lists the following Islamic-Sufi
authors and texts who are represented in the
Cairo Genizah, reminding us that these are but a small proportion of that category:
* The Risala of al-Qushayri (d.1072)
* Poems by al-Hallaj (858-922)
* The Mahasin al-Majalis of the Andalusi mystic Ibn al-Arif (1088-1141)
* The Munqid min al-dalal, of al-Gazali, (1058-1111)
*The Kalimat al-tasawwuf, Raqım al quds and the Hayakil al-nur of Suhrawardī (1154-1191)
(Many
scholars have related the works of Al Gazali to those of Rabbenu
Abraham, and the Ishraqi works of Suhrawardi to many Pietist manuscripts
especially those of Rabbenu David ben Joshua Maimuni. For this reason,
perhaps these two authors should be major sources in our list for group study)
In the latter part of the Mamluk period under examination, several
nascent Sufi Orders were also represented in Cairo. Professor Fenton mentions:
*The Shadhiliyya,
*The Rifaíyya,
*The Burhaniyya
*The Qadiriyya
And
Boaz Shoshan in his Popular Culture in Medieval Cairo [xvii]adds:
*The Wafaiyya
*The Ahmadiyya
*The Qalandariyya
*The Khalwatiyya
Most scholars opine that the Shadhiliyya
and the Rifaiyya Orders were to become the regionally
predominant orders in the centuries during which the Mediaeval Jewish Pietist movement was to
spread throughout Egypt and Syria under the patronage of the Maimuni Nagidim. Al-Qinai (d.1195)
and Al-Shadhili (d.1258) were perhaps the
most important Sufi Saints in the
Northern regions of Egypt, but it was al-Shadhili whose disciples
were eventually to grow into a formal Sufi Order three generations after the
founder’s death.
These
then, are the Islamic-Sufi authors and groups who deserve our special study if we are to delve into the historical factors
and the inspirational texts which so moved Rabbenu Abraham and the Egyptian
Pietists. They believed that our very own Jewish and prophetic systems of asceticism, spiritual growth, and
contemplation were hidden there— just waiting
for us to restore and develop them anew.
May our Tariqa
Eliyahu HaNabi advance this area of study to enrich our practice of Judaism and, to borrow a phrase from the Kifaya,
in this way may our understanding of the Sufi Path become an instrument for
the rebirth of the lost curriculum of the B'nei Neviim.
"[Part of the Jewish
tradition] has been transferred to the nations among whom [the Jews] reside and
has become [re]established among the Jewish people through [the influence of]
the nations. Providence has ordained that [Jewish tradition] will disappear from
among them while they reside [among the nations], until they repent and turn in
repentance unto God, on account of which they will be delivered. In this way,
the nations will become the instrument for the rebirth of [Israel]…"
from the Kifaya of Rabbenu Abraham ben HaRambam[xviii]
oooOooo
Having provided this brief commentary on our Movement's history and its sources: in Chapter Two we will give an overview of the system and contemplative practices that its members encouraged and developed while walking the Suluk Al-Khass—The Special Path of the Jewish Sufi.
©Nachman Davies
Safed
December 8th 2025
Kislev 18,the Hilula of Abraham ben HaRambam
NOTES
[i] Rosenthal F., "A Judaeo-Arabic work under Sufic
influence" ,HUC
Annual, Vol. 15
(1940), p450
[ii] For some of these works by this pioneering and most highly respected authority on the Jewish-Sufis and their literary output: see bibliography.
[iii] Thomas Block Shalom/Salaam: A Story of a Mystical Fraternity, Fons Vitae, 2010
[iv] In one of his letters, and
speaking about certain forgotten liturgical traditions he states: "We can be considered as
having revived them after their death, because trace of them had vanished,
moreover, it could be said that we have re-created them".(*Maasei
Nissim, p. 107 see Friedman
M.A: “A Controversy for the Sake of Heaven : Studies in the Liturgical
Polemics of Abraham Maimonides and his Contemporaries" Teuda, X (1996).
The significant part of
Abraham's statement is the
admission that he was
"recreating" rather than reinstating these liturgical traditions of his
congregation and one wonders
if the
same principle might also apply to his renewal of the ways
of the Schools of
the Prophets.
[v] Rosenblatt S., The High Ways to Perfection of Abraham Maimonides, vol. II, p320 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1938
[vi Rosenblatt S., II:322
[vii] S. Rosenblatt, ed., The High Ways to Perfection of Abraham Maimonides, II, p321
[viii] Rosenblatt II: 263&foll.
[ix] (citing: Rosenblatt’s Highways: 266, ll. 4–5, 9–10, and 322, ll. 5–7)
[x] Russ-Fishbane E., Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval
Egypt, p 52
[xi] Rosenblatt 2 p322)
[xii] Russ-Fishbane,p 115
[xiii] Russ-Fishbane, 120
[xiv] These Muqqatam mountains are the same place to which the famous “Jewish addict to Sufism” had retired in permanent retreat. [recorded in a letter to David Maimuni II sometime between 1355 and 1367]
[xv]
Russ Fishbane p. 118
[xvi] Russ- Fishbane, p.113
[xvii] Paul B. Fenton, “Sufis and Jews in Mamluk Egypt,” in Stephan Conermann, ed., Muslim-Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period, Jews in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates (1171-1517),Bonn University Press, 2017, pp.41-62
[xviii] In Popular Culture in Medieval Cairo (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization),1993,Cambridge University Press.
[xix] (TS Ar. 22.12, ll. 10–16) a fragment from the lost last section of
the Kifaya quoted in Russ Fishbane p242)