The Mystics of al-Andalus

Yousef Casewit is Assistant Professor of Qur'anic Studies at the University of Chicago. He was formerly an Assistant Professor of Arabic Intellectual Heritage and Culture at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, as well as a Humanities Research Fellow at New York University, Abu Dhabi. He is the co-editor of A Qur'an Commentary by Ibn Barrajān of Seville (with Gerhard Boewering, 2015).

'The book, like other works in the Cambridge Studies [in] Islamic Civilization series, effectively illustrates the picture of a polycentric Middle East and North Africa, where Cordoba and Marrakesh were deeply intertwined with developments further east in cities like Cairo and Baghdad. Casewit's contribution is productive at a theoretical level for both medieval and modern historians. … [His] monograph will undoubtedly inspire a new generation of historians to explore the manuscript libraries around the world - from Fez to Istanbul - where lost Arabic texts have been found but remain unexamined.' Ali Humayun Akhtar, The American Historical Review

• 1. The beginnings of a mystical discourse in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra, Mālikism, and the politics of an epistemological debate; 2. The rise of the Andalusī Muʿtabirūn: the influence of Ghazālī, markers of the Muʿtabirūn tradition, and the onset of institutional Sufism; 3. The life of a contemplative: Ibn Barrajān's educational formation, spiritual practices, political views, and decease; 4. The works of Ibn Barrajān: chronological sequence, manuscript tradition, and central themes; 5. The divine descent: bridging the chasm between God and creation; 6. The hermeneutics of certainty: harmony, hierarchy, and hegemony of the Qurʾān; 7. A Muslim scholar of the Bible: biblical proof-texts for Qurʾānic teachings in the exegetical works of Ibn Barrajān; 8. The human ascent: Iʿtibār, cycles of time, and future predictions.