Kitab al-luma by Abu Nasr al-Sarraj pdf download

Kitab al-luma by Abu Nasr al-Sarraj

Kitab al-luma by Abu Nasr al-Sarraj

The editor says

This volume marks a further step in the tedious but indispensable task, on which I have long been engaged, of providing materials for a history of Sufism, and more especially for the study of its development in the oldest period, beginning with the second and ending with the fourth century of Islam (approximately 700 — 1000 A. D.).

 A list of the titles known to us of mystical books written during these three hundred years would occupy several pages, but the books themselves have mostly perished, although* the surviving remnant includes some important works on various branches of Sufistic theory and practice by leaders of the movement, 

for example, Harith al-Muhasibi, Husayn b. Mansur al-Hallaj, Muhammad b. c Ali al-Tirmidhi, and others whom I need not mention now. M. Louis Massignon, by his recent edition of the Kitab al-Tawasin of Hallap, has shown what valuable results might be expected from a critical examination of the early literature. 

It is certain that a series of such monographs would form the best possible foundation 

for a general survey, but in the meanwhile we have mainly to rely on more or less systematic and comprehensive treatises dealing with the lives, legends, and doctrines of the ancient Sufis. 

I am preparing and hope, as soon as may be, to publish a work on this subject derived, to a large extent, from the following sources: 

1. The Kitab al-Luma : by Abu Nasr al-Sarraj (f 378 A. H.). 

2. The Kitab al-Ta c arruf li-madhhab ahl al-Tasawwuf by 

Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi (f 380 or 390 A. H.).