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Yousef Casewit Makes the Crossing

We discuss Ibn Barrajān’s expectation of the coming Mahdi and the other events of the end-times, which he looks forward to, temporally-speaking, imminently; but he also immanantises the eschaton spiritually, inasmuch as the seeker who has ‘crossed over’ has already in some sense experienced the resurrection. We treat his take on astrology and astral causation. We then consider what kind of journey this ‘crossing over’ is thought to entail; is this merely an epistemological exercise – a refinement of discernment and perception, perhaps – or are we to conceptualise it as in some sense a real ascent-journey? I bring a thought-experiment or comparative exercise to the conversation, proposing a Plotinus is to Proclus as Ibn Barrajān is to Ibn ‘Arabī relation, with regard to the construction of complex metaphysical structures and the ensuing art of writing. Casewit considers this, leading to a beautiful exposition of how Ibn Barrajān in expounding the nature of the ‘ibra does not expose the nature of the ‘ibra. We then finish with a discussion of the rôle of the esoteric in Islamicate politics of the eleventh century, from Baghdād to Cairo to Seville.

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:

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

For Recommended Reading, please see the previous episode