Action in Ṣūfism - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Ohlander, Erik S.
Leiden
Brill
(1,344 words)
Action (ʿAmal, pl. aʿmāl ), in the Ṣūfī tradition, means "works" tradition and refers to definable religious or spiritual praxes performed in definite mystical or moral contexts. In most instances, such acts are seen to be coordinative with "knowledge" (ʿilm) , as per the oft-quoted ḥadīth , "To him who acts by what he knows, God bequeaths knowledge of what he did not know" (al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ , ed. Aḥmad ʿAṭāʾ (Beirut 1988), 10:13). As far as ʿamal is concerned, Ṣūfī discourse has generally rejected the relative separation of knowledge