Khargūshī, Tahdhīb al-asrār

Khargushi (d. Nishapur, 407/1016?), Tahdhīb al-asrār, is a fairly large collection of sayings in the renunciant/Sufi tradition, comprising over twice as many items as Sarrāj, al-Lumaʿ and Sulamī, T ˙ abaqāt al-sufiyya. A first printed edition appeared in 1999. Examination of the Tahdhīb confirms that Khargūshī was Shāfiʿi in law, Ashʿari in theology, but mainly a preacher devoted to piety. It also tends to confirm current common wisdom about the history of Sufism: that it developed out of the earlier renunciant tradition, that Malāmatism was a distinctive Nishapuran school of mystical piety with such affinities to Baghdadi Sufism as make it easily assimilable to it, and that Khargūshī’s time was still that of the teaching master, the training master not appearing till half a century later. Its similarities to Sarrāj, al-Lumaʿ and Abū Nuʿaym, H ˙ ilyat al-awliyā’ make both of those appear more mainstream than has sometimes been feared.