Introduction

The account of ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī, known as al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (“the Sage of Tirmidh”) is one of the earliest surviving spiritual autobiographies in the Arabic tradition. The author was born between 820 and 830 in Tirmidh, in what is today southern Uzbekistan. He studied the religious sciences of his day but became aware of his mystical calling only while performing the pilgrimage rites in Mecca. Thereafter, he embarked on a rigorous program of prayer, austerity, and meditation, culminating in a vividly described experience of closeness to God. Unfortunately, his expressions of devotion provoked accusations of heresy similar to those leveled against his mystical contemporaries. Eventually, however, al-Tirmidhī's charisma won him a devoted following. He died sometime between 905 and 910, leaving behind a number of works that offer mystical interpretations of ḥadīth and religious law.

One of al-Tirmidhī's works, Khatm al-awliyā’ (The Seal of the Saints), helps to clarify some of the unusual features of his autobiography. In the Khatm, he explains that the soul or the self must begin by suppressing its desires and concentrating on the fulfillment of religious duties. Neither good deeds nor a reputation for piety will succeed in bringing one closer to God. Rather, the sincere seeker must attain an exemplary degree of self-control and resist all engagement with the transient world. Eventually, the seeker will find himself in a “wasteland of perplexity” and cry out to God in despair. Should He respond by carrying off the seeker's heart to a place near Him in heaven, the seeker will become a walī Allāh, an “ally” or a “friend” of God.

In keeping with al-Tirmidhī's emphasis on spiritual development rather than scholarly work or worldly rank, his autobiography passes quickly over his youth and religious training, as well as his travails at the hands of his rivals and detractors, and focuses instead on a series of dreams and visions that he construes as indicators of his spiritual status. Although he evidently believed himself to be a walī Allāh, he was reluctant to say so explicitly, preferring to let the dream-visions speak for him.^[1] Indeed, he attributes the most powerful of these visions to others, including several male companions as well as his wife. The visions are narrated in the text exactly as they were related to al-Tirmidhī, necessitating abrupt shifts from the autobiographical “I” to the first-person “I's” of the other dreamers. The increasing importance of dreams in the text leads ultimately to al-Tirmidhī's surrender of the narrative to other voices.

The most important of these voices is that of his wife, who is given no other name. Many of her dream-visions affirm her husband's high standing; others, however, deal exclusively with her own spiritual journey. In one vision, a visiting angel hands her a branch of myrtle and tells her that her husband is not yet ready to receive such a gift. In another, she is granted knowledge of the names of God. These dreams are narrated in a mixture of Arabic and Persian, the latter being the couple's native language and probably the only one al-Timidhī's wife could speak. Although al-Tirmidhī does not say so, his wife's ascent to the highest spiritual state affirms the contention that formal education is not a prerequisite for attaining mystical knowledge. It is she who reports to him that a mysterious figure called “the prince” has identified him as the leading walī of his time. And it is she who has the last word: in a series of waking visions, she learns the meaning of the sacred names of God. At this point, having given her the floor, al-Tirmidhī the narrator—if not al-Tirmidhī the man—is overshadowed by his wife and her mystical experiences.^[2]