Waking Visions of the Prophet and Sainthood in al-Jazūlī’s Dalā’il al-Khayrāt (Fifteenth Century) (Rachida Chih, 14 Mart 2023)

The next guest of the Nafi Baba Sufism Talks is Rachida Chih. “Waking Visions of the Prophet and Sainthood in al-Jazūlī’s Dalā’il al-Khayrāt (Fifteenth Century)” will be held on March 14, at 17:00 (GMT +3). Click here to register.

My presentation is part of a long-term research project aimed at uncovering the historical conditions and ideological foundations of the religious authority and social role of Sufis in the early modern period. Religious history rarely follows the rapid twists and upsets of political history. Instead, it unfolds over the long term, identifying the transmission, exchange, and appropriation of ideas, and of practices connected to such ideas. I consider the fifteenth century as the moment when the doctrine of the metahistorical reality of the Prophet, and of sainthood inherited through Muhammadan prophecy became established among the general populace as well as within the ranks of political élites. I propose to look at how a fifteenth-century Moroccan collection of prayers upon the Prophet which gained international popularity in the Ottoman lands, Dala’il al-Khayrat (Proofs of Good Deeds), was critical in the diffusion of a doctrinal theme that would be formalised in the scholarly circles of Medina during the seventeenth century and which would take the name of “Muhammadan path:  the waking vision of the prophet granted to the Sufis as a method of spiritual realization. This shift in the concept of sainthood underlines the temporal authority and probably unprecedented public role of Sufis at the dawn of the modern era.

Rachida CHIH is a senior research fellow at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and a member of the Center for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan, and Central Asian Studies (CETOBAC), School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS). She is an historian of Sufism in the Ottoman Arab Lands, Modern Egypt and Morocco. Her most recent published works include: ‘The Apogee and Consolidation of Sufi Teachings and Organizational Forms (1453-1683)’, in The Wiley-Blackwell History of Islam and Islamic Civilization (2018); Sufism in Ottoman Egypt: Circulation, Renewal and Authority in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (2019); “Prophetic Piety, Mysticism, and Authority in Premodern Arabic Devotional Literature: al-Jazuli's Dala'il al-Khayrat (15th Century)”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 54 (2022).