Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi

Sufi, jurist, man of letters and poet, counted among the most characteristic figures of spiritual life in Syria in the XVIII century. His full name was 'Abd al-Ghani ibn Isma'il ibn 'Abd al-Ghani ibn Isma'il al-Nabulusi; he was attached to the Qadiri and Naqshbandi paths and was regarded as a great authority on Sufi matters.

He was born in Damascus on 4 Dhu al-Hijja 1050 (17 March 1641). He belonged to an old family of scholars; the family bore the nisba al-Nabulusi because his ancestor Ibrahim ibn Isma'il had moved from Jerusalem to Nablus, stayed there for a time and then came to Damascus. His father was a well-known scholar, whom he lost at the age of twelve; he studied with him and with scholars such as Najm al-Din al-Ghazzi, the naqib al-ashraf Ibn Hamza, 'Ali al-Daghistani, Kamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Faradi, Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Ustuwani and Nur al-Din 'Ali al-Shabramallisi. At about twenty he began teaching in the Umayyad Mosque, and in this period he read the works of Ibn 'Arabi, Ibn Sab'in and 'Afif al-Din al-Tilimsani.

In 1075 (1664-65) he went to Istanbul to obtain an official post. Three months later he was appointed judge of al-Maydan in the southern part of Damascus, but he did not stay long in this office and returned to his lessons in the Umayyad Mosque. In 1091 (1680) he withdrew into seclusion in his house; during these seven years he deepened his study of the Qur'an, occupied himself with calligraphy, taught a small circle of friends and wrote his large works such as al-Hadiqa al-nadiyya, Ta'tir al-anam and Jawahir al-nusus. He then travelled to visit the tombs of saints and to perform the pilgrimage: to Lebanon (Baalbek, the Biqa') in 1100 (1688-89), the following year to Jerusalem and Hebron, in 1105 (1693) to Palestine, Egypt and the Hijaz, and in 1112 (1700) to Tripoli.

During his journey to Istanbul he took initiation at Hama from the Qadiri shaykh 'Abd al-Razzaq ibn Sharaf al-Din al-Kilani; in 1087 (1676) he received the Naqshbandi cloak from Shaykh Abu Sa'id al-Balkhi, who had come to Damascus from Bukhara.

In 1115 (1703) he was appointed professor at the Selimiye Madrasa in Damascus. He taught Qur'anic exegesis at the madrasa, Ibn 'Arabi's al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya, Fusus al-hikam and al-Tajalliyat al-ilahiyya at his house, and Bukhari's al-Sahih in the Umayyad Mosque. When the Hanafi mufti of Damascus, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-'Imadi, died, the governor 'Osman Pasha appointed him mufti in 1135 (1723), but he held the post only a few months; after negotiations with Istanbul his pupil Khalil ibn As'ad al-Bakri was appointed.

He died in Damascus on 24 Sha'ban 1143 (4 March 1731) and was buried in his house.

His Circle of Influence — Among his pupils are Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Dakdakji, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Rahman al-Ba'li known as Ibn al-Taji, Ibn Kannan, Ahmad al-Manini, Muhammad ibn Murad al-Muradi, Hamid al-'Imadi, Muhammad Amin al-Muhibbi and, above all, Qutb al-Din Mustafa al-Bakri, founder of the Bakriyya branch of the Khalwatiyya. Although he did not appear as the founder of an order, a Nabulusiyya, as a branch of the Qadiriyya to which he belonged, and an Akbariyya, because of his reliance on Ibn 'Arabi's ideas, were attributed to him.

His Poetry and Sufi Line — A large part of his Sufi works are commentaries on books representing the doctrine of the unity of being; he wrote commentaries and glosses on works of Ibn 'Arabi, 'Abd al-Karim al-Jili, Ibn al-Farid, Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi, Mulla Jami, Imam Rabbani and Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi, often trying to unite the Andalusian-Maghribi tendency with the Persian-Anatolian one. He was able to express Ibn 'Arabi's views in a form an average reader could understand. In theology he takes the Sunni approach as his basis, tries on some points to reconcile the views of al-Ash'ari and al-Maturidi, and holds that reason is not sufficient to grasp the truth, unveiling and inspiration being necessary as well. In jurisprudence he is regarded as an authority capable of independent reasoning; he saw differences among the schools as breadth and ease in religion, held it permissible among the four schools to follow one school on one question and another on another, but did not accept combining different school opinions on a single question (talfiq). In al-'Uqud al-lu'lu'iyya he defended the Mevlevis and the permissibility of sama' and musical instruments, and he also wrote on the permissibility of smoking tobacco. Besides the classical qasida he composed poems in the popular muwashshah form, and wrote some of his works in verse.

His Works — He wrote close to 300 works, some of them short treatises; Bakri 'Ala' al-Din gives information on the content, manuscripts and editions of 280 of them. Among the chief ones: al-Hadiqa al-nadiyya, a commentary on Birgivi's al-Tariqa al-Muhammadiyya; Jawahir al-nusus, a commentary on the Fusus; al-Wujud al-haqq, said to be perhaps the only Arabic book of the Ottoman period to treat the unity of being systematically; his travel accounts al-Haqiqa wa-l-majaz (Syria, Egypt and the Hijaz), al-Hadra al-unsiyya (Jerusalem) and Hullat al-dhahab al-ibriz (Baalbek and the Biqa'); a commentary on the Diwan of Ibn al-Farid; Diwan al-haqa'iq; Ta'tir al-anam on dream interpretation, his most popular work; and Dhakha'ir al-mawarith, an index of the Six Books and the Muwatta'.