Özet:

The value of knowledge cannot be deemed as fully independent from the knowledge producing person in question. Whether the Tabaqāt genre is oriented towards a general or a specific scholarly tradition, it was constructed as an integral part of a mechanism that ensured the safe inheritance of the produced knowledge from generation to generation. Sufistic Tabaqāt writing can be traced back to the third century AH. Abū Nu꜂aym al-Iṣfahānī’s work titled Ḥilyah al-awliyā’ is the most voluminous Tabaqāt book written about the Sufis containing over seven hundred biographies. This study focuses on identifying the position of Ḥilyah al-awliyā’ in Sufistic biographical writing. In this research, the comparison method was used. The aim of this study is to make clear the position of Ḥilyah al-awliyā’ among the Tabaqāt works written during the early ages of Sufism by comparing Abū ꜂Abd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī’s work Tabaqāt al-sūfiyyah written before Ḥilyah al-awliyā’, Ibn al-Jawzī’s work titled Ṣifat al- ṣafwah written after Ḥilyah al-awliyā’ and Ḥilyah al-awliyā’ with one another. The comparison is limited to Hārith al-Muḥāsibī whose biography is included in all of the three mentioned works. By centralizing Ḥilyah al-awliyā’’s text, the content of al-Muḥāsibī's biography and the course it follows were analyzed in terms of similarities and differences. An answer to the question: “Are biographical information and narratives repeating each other or are there prominent differences present?” has been sought. According to the claim of this article, Ḥilyah al-awliyā’ differs from the other two works due to its content and its indirect contribution to the debates on the legitimacy of Sufism. Ḥilyah has a more encompassing nature compared to the other two works, both because of the period it examines and its non-fragmented approach. This quality shows itself in the title of the book, the partitioning technique, and the selection of the stated narrations. The word awliya is a more common and higher value word compared to the Sufi word. It is important in terms of Sufi thought and history that the book does not neglect the parables and narrations related to a small number of people whose names could not be identified. Another remarkable aspect of the work is that it points to the generation of the Companions as the pioneers of Sufism.

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