Abstract

This research focuses on the pre-modern relationship between the disciplines of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and Sufism (taṣawwuf), Islamic mysticism. Essential to this relationship is the perceived tension between the different interpretations regarding the spirit and the letter of the Revealed Law (al-sharīʿa). Is the literal interpretation all we can understand from the divine law or is there another layer, a spiritual meaning to be discovered? Stuck between the Scylla of extremely rigid interpretations by some jurists and the Charybdis of the esoteric law-relinquishing Sufis, Aḥmad Zarrūq (d. 1493) offers a unique and profound solution in his development of juridical Sufism. As a prominent Mālikī jurist, theologian, and Shādhili Sufi, Zarrūq is considered one of the monumental mystics and legal scholars of fifteenth-century North Africa. Both his Sufi and his legal works and method are characterized by a systematic attempt to integrate legal rectitude within popular devotional piety, an attempt that has influenced pre-modern and modern Sunni scholars across the globe in their approach to the tension between Islamic Law and mysticism and their approach towards the reformation of Sufism.