Abstract:

Muḥammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī (d. 1371/1952), who grew up in the late Ottoman period and relocated to Egypt for political reasons, was interested in various fields of Islamic sciences, especially ḥadīth, kalām, and fiqh and wrote many important works. Al-Kawtharī grew up in a scientific and mystical environment and established close relations with many important Ṣūfīs throughout his life. Al-Kawtharī dealt mainly with the spiritual lineage of the Ṣūfī orders and made essential contributions to the Ṣūfi literature by means of his books. He also dealt with some subjects of Ṣūfism in the comments and presentations he wrote in reviews of other works written at that time. Al-Kawtharī adopted the Sunni Ṣūfi understanding that was formed under the leadership of Ṣūfis, such as al-Junayd al-Baghdādī (d. 297/909) and grounded many of his views in this context. He stated that Ṣūfism is the only way to reach the truth today. It contains theoretical and practical perfection, includes taqwa resulting in gnosis and aims at moral maturity. Further, he expressed his views on important aspects of Ṣūfism, such as existence, human, the shaykh-disciple relationship, miracle, rābita, uwaysiyya, and tawassul..

Keywords: