Fasting in Early Sufi Literature

Abstract This article offers an analysis of conceptions of fasting in early Islamic spirituality. By drawing on the literature of Sufism, with special attention to the writings of al-Sarrāj (d. 378/988), al-Makkī (d. 386/996), al-Kharkūshī (= Khargūshī; d. 407/1016), al-Hujwīrī (d. ca. 465/1071), al-Qushayrī (d. 465/1072) and al-Sīrjānī (d. 470/1077), it thematically outlines (1) the value placed on fasting in early tradition, (2) the dangers believed to lie in the practice, and finally, (3) the need to transcend, in the final scheme of things, any attachment one may form with it, through ‘detachment from detachment’. In the process, the article aims not only to decipher and make sense of the various aphorisms and stories that make up the early literature of taṣawwuf, but also to resolve their apparent contradictions.