Islamic spiritual discipline aims to align human desire with divine law

Evidence

The fourteenth-century jurist Ibn Taymiyya, whose authority Abduh often invoked, expounded a doctrine of sufism that I think underlies Abduh’s views. According to Ibn Taymiyya the only point of spiritual discipline (the point that makes sufism essential) is to promote a convergence between human willing and the commands of God as expressed in the shari¯‘a. Thus for Ibn Taymiyya (and for Abduh) “at every stage the servant must desire to do that which has been commanded him in the shari¯‘a and avoid what has been forbidden him in the shari¯‘a. When [the mystic Abd al-Qadir] commands the servant to leave off his desiring, that pertains to those things which have been neither commanded nor forbidden.” — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1205

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the purpose of Sufi spiritual discipline within Ibn Taymiyya’s framework: convergence of human willing with shari’a commands.
• XREF: connects to: Pious Muslim self-cultivation functions as a rigorous attentional discipline. — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 57