Amīr ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jazāʾirī (d. 1883): Mystical Hermeneutics, Theology and Metaphysics in His Kitāb al-Mawāqif (“The Book of Mystical Halts”)

Abstract

This dissertation examines the Sufi revivalist theology of Amīr ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jazāʾirī (d. 1883) through a close study of his magnum opus, Kitāb al-Mawāqif fi baʿḍ ishārāt al-Qurʾān ilā’l-asrār wa-l-maʿārif (“The Book of Mystical Halts Concerning Some Subtle Qurʾānic Allusions to The Esoteric Mysteries and Divine Truths”). Although considerable research has been conducted on ʿAbd al-Qādir’s political resistance against the French colonial invasion of Algeria, his enormous influence on nineteenth-century Sufi revivalist discourse remains understudied and poorly understood. Over the past decades, however, a small but growing niche of scholars begun to pay closer attention to ʿAbd al-Qādir’s Sufi mystical teachings. The literature on Kitāb al-Mawāqif, however, is conspicuously scarce. We only have scattered essays on some salient themes that emerge in Kitāb al-Mawāqif or the influence of Ibn ʿArabī’s (d. 1249) mystical doctrines on ʿAbd al-Qādir’s thought. As the first in-depth study of Kitāb al-Mawāqif, my dissertation fills a long-existing gap in modern scholarship. By closing examining the Sufi Qurʾānic hermeneutics, mystical theology and revivalist discourse of ʿAbd al-Qādir, I offer a deeper glimpse into his mystical universe and his unique contributions to early modern Sufi revivalist discourse. As I argue, ʿAbd al-Qādir develops his Sufi revivalist discourse against the backdrop of his critique of Ashʿarī scholastic rationalism (kalām). Rather than turning to rationalism for answers, he seeks to curb what he considers a subversive Islamic rationalism that competes rather than submits to the authority of Revelation and Sufi mystical knowledge.