Title: A Sufi-Jewish dialogue : philosophy and mysticism in Baḥya Ibn Paqūda's Duties of the heart /
Authors: Lobel, Diana
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press,
Year: 2007
Subjects: Baḥya ben Joseph ibn Paḳuda,; Baḥya ben Joseph ibn Paḳuda, Knowledge Sufism.; Jewish ethics Early works to 1800; Judaism Relations Islam; Sufism.
Abstract: "Written in Judeo-Arabic in eleventh-century Muslim Spain but quickly translated into Hebrew, Bahya Ibn Paquda's Duties of the Heart is a profound guidebook of Jewish spirituality that has enjoyed tremendous popularity and influence to the present day. Readers who know the book primarily in its Hebrew version have likely lost sight of the work's original Arabic context and its immersion in Islamic mystical literature. In A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue, Diana Lobel explores the full extent to which Duties of the Heart marks the flowering of the "Jewish-Arab symbiosis," the interpenetration of Islamic and Jewish civilizations."--Jacket.
Contents: Introduction : Baḥya's work in its Judeo-Arabic context -- Philosophical mysticism in eleventh-century Spain : Baḥya and Ibn Gabirol -- On the lookout : the exegesis of a Sufi tale -- Creation -- The One -- Speaking about God : divine attributes, biblical language, and biblical exegesis -- The contemplation of creation (iʻtibār) -- Wholehearted devotion (ikhlāṣ) : purification of unity (ikhlāṣ al-Tawḥīd), purification of intention in action (ikhlāṣ al-ʻAmal) -- Reason, law and the way of the Spirit -- The spirituality of the law -- Awareness, love, and reverence (murāqaba, maḥabba, hayba/yirʼah).