THE RELATIONS BETWEEN SUFISM AND THEOLOGY ACCORDING TO IBN AL-JAWZī

Abu’l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzī is a Muslim scholar of Baghdad who lived in 12th century. He wrote books on almost all branches of Islamic sciences. His Talbisu Iblis is especially of great importance in view of Sufism and Islamic theology. Ibn al- Jawzī witnessed both the Abbasid and the Great Seljuq Empires. He behaved in accordance with his responsibility as a scholar and as an intellectual during both reigns, and dealt closely with the moral and theological matters of the society he lived in. Ibn al- Jawzī criticized the theological views of Shiite- Bātinī groups in a period when these groups caused confusion within the Muslim society, and he defended the creed of Ahl al-Sunnah. Ibn al- Jawzī considered Sufism (tasawwuf) as a form of interpretation of Islam. However, he criticised the apparently inconsistent opinions of some Sufis in his period with Quran and Sunnah by means of his method depending on the intellect and the revelation. He never left the scholarly criteria in these critiques and never appealed to the sectarian fanaticism. Moreover, he not only criticised the Sufis in his Talbisu Iblis but also put forth suggestions concerning the methods of the Islamic sciences. I think his suggestions are beneficial in this period in which the methodologies of Islamic sciences are discussed. In this article, we will try to explain his intellectual life, his place in the history of Islamic thought and some of his critiques concerning the Sufis