A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue: Philosophy and Mysticism in Bahya Ibn Paquda's Duties of the Heart. By Diana Lobel

Abstract

Since Georges Vajda's classic study, La Théologie ascétique de Baḣya ibn Paqūda, appeared in 1947, very few scholars have devoted book-length works to the thought of Baḣya. Diana Lobel's A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue represents the first widely available to English-reading audiences, and this would be enough to make it a remarkable contribution. But it is the breadth and depth of Lobel's exploration that ensures the lasting importance of the work. While most approaches to Baḣya isolate and focus on either the philosophical and theological or the Sufi pietist elements of his work, Lobel identifies her task as drawing “a more complex portrait of Baḣya as an original thinker who defies easy categorization” (xi). The key to such a portrait is understanding that Baḣya the mystic and pietist cannot be isolated from Baḣya the philosopher and theologian, just as the First Gate of his Duties of the Heart cannot be divided from the rest of the work. These seemingly various aspects interpenetrate, and recognizing this allows Lobel to write with far greater richness and depth, as well as greater interpretive felicity, than many previous scholars. Understanding Baḣya as a mystic and philosopher, however, requires that the reader be willing to part with a number of well-worn pre- or misconceptions about the nature of mysticism, such that its practice would not disqualify the practitioner as a philosopher.