The Immense Ocean Al-Bahr al-Madid: A Thirteenth Century Quranic Commentary on the Chapters of the All-Merciful, the Event, and Iron

by ibn 'Ajiba, Ahmad; Aresmouk, Mohamed Fouad; Fitzgerald, Michael Abdurrahman

• ISBN13: 9781891785283
• ISBN10: 1891785281
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-05-01
• Publisher: Fons Vitae

Summary

The 18th century Moroccan mystic and scholar, Ahmad ibn 'Ajiba, virtually unknown in the west before the 1967 publication of Jean-Louis Michon's Le Soufi Marocain Ibn 'Ajiba et son Mi'raj, spent six year towards the end of his life working intermittently on his single greatest work, The Immense Ocean (al-Bahr al-Madid), a complete commentary on the Holy Quran. The finished work would differ from all other previous Quranic commentaries (tafasir) by the fact that in addition to presenting the exoteric explanation for every verse, it also included esoteric commentary (ishara) which related each verse to mystic path of Islam, Sufism. The present translation is of one section from this unique and monumental work. Its intention is to provide the Anglophone reader with access not only to how the generality of educated Muslims have understood the dominant themes of these Chapters since the earliest days of Islam, but also how traditional Sufic sources have viewed these same themes in respect to the microcosm of the soul and the journey towards God. To this latter dimension, Ibn 'Ajiba adds insights arising from his own spiritual quest, that of a man who, in his early 40s, having lived the life of a scholar from a noble Tetouani family, turned away from all the rank and respect he had previously enjoyed in order to become the disciple of two of the greatest Sufic teachers of his day, Mulay al-'Arabi al-Darqawi and Muhammad al-Buzidi, and immerse himself in the rigorous spiritual training and practice that characterized their way.

Author Biography

Ahmad ibn ‘Ajiba was an 18th-century Moroccan saint in the Darqawa Sufi Islamic lineage. He was the author of numerous works, including The Autobiography of a Moroccan Sufi. Mohamed Fouad Aresmouk completed his degree in Islamic Studies and Arabic at Qadi Ayyad University in Marrakesh. He is the author of Al-Rashad Fi Zabdati Al-Awrad. Michael Abdurrahman Fitzgerald has assisted in the research and annotation for a number of works and is the cotranslator of The Invocation of God.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xii
Introduction	p. xiii
Notes to Introduction	p. xxvii
Ibn 'Aj&ibar;ba's Introduction to al-Ba&hbdot;r al-Mad&ibar;d	p. 1
Notes on the Author's Introduction	p. 4
The Chapter of the All-Merciful (S&ubar;rat al-Ra&hbdot;m&abar;n)	p. 7
Notes on the Chapter of the All-Merciful	p. 37
The Chapter of the Event (S&ubar;rat al-W&abar;qi'a)	p. 47
Notes on the Chapter of the Event	p. 79
The Chapter of Iron (S&ubar;rat al-&Hbdot;ad&ibar;d)	p. 86
Notes on the Chapter of Iron	p. 127
Bibliographical Index of persons mentioned in the text	p. 133
Index of Quranic Verses Cited	p. 149
Index of &Hbdot;ad&ibar;th Cited	p. 152
General Index	p. 155
Bibliography	p. 164
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