Algerian sufism in the seventeenth century: between sharī‘a and haqīqa

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show that the seventeenth century Algerian ‘ulamas’ assumed an almost unanimity between sharī‘a and haqīqa. These two, in fact, have been the most difficult aspects of Islam to reconcile since the establishment of the law schools in the Islamic East including the Abbasid era. The seventeenth century, in particular, was unanimously regarded as the century of crisis regarding the relation between mysticism and Islam by the Orientalists, among whom were specialists such as Robert Brunschvicg, Louis Massignon and Jacques Berque. The author of this paper, however, claims that the seventeenth century was, in fact, far from the conflict occurring between Sufism and Sunni Islam, which began in the third century of the Hijra and reached its apogee in the tenth century of the Hijra (16th C.). In Muslim Occident (al-Maghrib al-Islamī), namely in areas such as Constantine, Tlemcen and Buna (high places of Mālikī Islam), sufis and ‘ulemas have often happened to be on good terms. In those places one could alter their religious habits or change them totally. Sometimes people would even embrace the khirqa (cardigan) of a Sufi and ‘abāa (tunic) of a faqih at once. Thus, Sufism in its quest for divine truth (haqīqa) and Sharī‘a in its quest for fairness and justice went well together in seventeenth century North Africa.