Crossing Over to the Unseen: Yousef Casewit on Ibn Barrajān

Ibn Barrajān's Jerusalem prediction, Idah Murat-Molla-36-197

We are delighted to speak with Yousef Casewit of the University of Chicago on the life, times, and thought of Abū al-Ḥakam ʿAbd al-Salām ibn ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn Abī al-Rijāl Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Rahmān al-Lakhmī al-Ifrīqī al-Ishbīlī, better-known as Ibn Barrajān of Seville (d. 536/1141). Ibn Barrajān was a twelfth-century Andalusian ‘mystic’ – a renunciant philosopher concerned with penetrating the unseen foundations of reality through a Qur’ānic hermeneutic applied to the world itself – whose writings and reputation would go on to influence much later Sufism, particularly via the medium of the great Andalusian sufi Ibn al-‘Arabī. But the spiritual path in Ibn Barrajān’s day and time was a much more free-form and improvisational undertaking than among the later sufis. Casewit argues for a particular stream of esoteric speculation and practice typical of al-Andalus, and also identifies several original contributions from Ibn Barrajān within that Andalusian context.

We discuss:

The basic life and times of Ibn Barrajān – where and when he lived, what was going on politically, and especially what was going on religio-politically,
His three extant works – two of Qur’ānic commentary and one on the Divine Names – and of the esoteric moves he makes within them, including:
The positing of a sub-creating or demiurgic entity known as the ‘Abd al-kullī (the ‘Servant of All’), containing all the essences which are unfolded as particulars in the world,
And an elusive spiritual practice, the i‘tibar, ‘crossing over’, a form of contemplation which might lead to insights into the divine nature latent in the creation, or might perhaps make higher claims to a more, shall we say ontological transformation of the human aspirant toward apprehension of god’s nature,
Ibn Barrajān’s relationship to the larger movement known as ‘sufism’, to his particular Andalusi sufi milieu, and his originality within both of those larger contexts,
And the undeniable fact that Ibn Barrajān predicted the retaking of Jerusalem by Saladin almost to the minute, and what we are to make of that.

Interview Bio:

Yousef Casewit is a Qur’anic studies scholar. His research interests include intellectual history of North Africa and al-Andalus, Muslim perceptions of the Bible, and medieval commentaries on the ninety-nine divine names.

He has several publications, including The Mystics of al-Andalus: Ibn Barrajān and Islamic Thought in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2017), a study on Ibn Barrajān’s life and teachings. He is also the author of a critical edition of a Qur’an commentary by Ibn Barrajān (Brill, TSQ Series, 2016). His latest publication is The Divine Names: A Mystical Theology of the Names of God in the Qur’an, a translation and critical edition of a Sufi-Philosophical commentary on the divine names by the Algerian scholar ‘Afif al-Din al-Tilimsani (d. 1291) for the Library of Arabic Literature, NYU Press.

Works Cited in this Episode:

Primary:

Ibn Barrajān: ‘The heart is alive and the pen is dead, and the shortest path that I know to unveiling is to train the soul …’. etc. is a citation from Ibn Barrajan’s commentary on the divine names, Sharh al-asma’, ed. Mazyadi, I, 101, trans. Casewit.

Secondary:

Yousef Casewit. The Mystics of al-Andalus. Ibn Barrajān and Islamic Thought in the Twelfth Century. The University Press, Cambridge, 2017.

Ignáz Goldziher. Ibn Barraǧān. ZDMG, 69:544–46, 1914.

Themes

Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, Esoteric Hermeneutics, Ibn Barrajān, Ibn Masarra, Ibn ʿArabī, Ikhwān Al-Ṣafā, Lettrism, Qur'ān, Spiritual Exercises, Tasawwuf, ʿIlm al-Ḥurūf