This study analyzes the contested relationship between Sufism and the Shariah and Shāh Walī Allāh’s problematic of waḥdat al-wujūd. Some Sufis describe Sufism or taṣawwuf as the inner reality of the Shariah while others see it as the inward dimension of Islam. Drawing on a variety of classical sources, Walī Allāh stresses that accepting waḥdat al-wujūd does not mean one is being less faithful to the tenets of the Shariah, as it safeguards God’s transcendence vis-à-vis the world. Walī Allāh belabors to clarify various misconceptions that bedevil it. His views on waḥdat al-wujūd are largely in alignment with that of the school of Ibn ʿArabī, although he seems to add new dimensions to it at times. He also asserts that a Sufi sage’s (ḥakīm) understanding of the term differs from that of the uninitiate. In addition, he affirms that waḥdat al-wujūd does not negate the multiplicity of the cosmos, even though wujūd is one.
Philosophers such as Charles Taylor have claimed that selfhood is a distinctly modern phenomenon, associated with inwardness, inner depths, and creativity. In this conception, selfhood is defined in terms of “radical reflexivity”, which saw its emergence with the likes of Descartes. Thus, according to Taylor, it is only with modern people that we see the appearance of selfhood and subjectivity, whereas premoderns did not have a notion of the self, because they lacked the essential conceptions of inwardness and reflexivity. The purpose of this article is to challenge and overturn the above thesis by presenting how various historical Sufi–Islamic authors placed “inwardness and reflexivity” at the center of their conceptions of the self, while emphasizing its ambivalent nature.
This study traces the notion of the internal senses in three ancient authors, namely Nemesius, Plotinus and Galen. It begins with Nemesius, and then by going backward ends with Galen. The textual evidence investigated in this study shows clearly that Galen, after acknowledging the Platonic tripartite soul, locates the various dunameis of the soul in the brain. The “localization” theory of Galen plays a crucial role in paving the way for the foundation of the internal senses, which both Plotinus and Nemesius adapted. Just as with the external senses one can locate various sense-organs in different parts of the body, viz., touch, smell, sight etc., so too with the internal senses, thanks to Galen, one is able to locate them in various organs of the body. Thus philosophers are able to explain the role of all these different (internal) senses in their account of sense-perception.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.