Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi, 1641-1731 [Paperback]

'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (1641 to1731) was the most outstanding scholarly Sufi of Ottoman Syria. He was regarded as the leading religious poet of his time and as an excellent commentator of classical Sufi texts. At the popular level, he has been read as an interpreter of symbolic dreams. Moreover, he played a crucial role in the transmission of the teachings of the Naqshabandiyya in the Ottoman Empire, and he contributed to the eighteenth-century Sufi revival via his disciples. This pioneering book analyzes important aspects of al-Nabulusi's work and places him in the historical context.Preface  Abbreviations  1. The Making of a Scholarly Saint  2. The Spiritual Song of Ibn 'Arab?  3. The Naqshaband? Recluse  4. Interpreter of True Dreams  5. Solitude in a Crowd  6. 'A New Kind of Mystical Travel Literature'  7. Last Years in Salihiyya, 1707 to 1731  Conclusion: 'The Illustrious Mystic' and 'Sultan of the Learned'  Bibliography  Index'Sirriyeh's book makes a fresh contribution to our understanding of Sufi life and thought in the pre-modern era of Islam. It provides new insights into Sufi manifestations of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and adds to the ongoing debates around the concept of Neo-Sufism .' - Itzchak Weismann, Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Volume 40 Number 2, December 2006Elizabeth Sirriyehis Senior Lecturer in Islamic Studies in the School of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Leeds. She is the author of Sufis and Anti-Sufis: the Defence, Rethinking and Rejection of Sufism in the Modern World(1999).