On the Authenticity of the Mystical Treatise Tartīb al-Sulūk ascribed to Al-Qushayrī

Abstract

During the 1960s, Meier, Al-Samarrai, and Ḥasan published separate editions of a short Sufiji treatise entitled Tartīb Al-Sulūk (henceforth Tartīb), dealing with the remembrance of God (dhikr).2 All three ascribed the treatise to the well known Sufiji author Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Hawāzin al-Qushayrī (376/986-465/1072). Other prominent scholars of Sufijism, such as Massignon, Schimmel, and Gramlich, also number the Tartīb among al-Qushayrī’s writings. Massignon did so as early as 1924, thereby preceding the other publications noted above. The Tartīb is also mentioned as a work by al-Qushayrī in both editions of the Encylopaedia of Islam. Meier and Malamud regard the Tartīb as a major source for studying the development of the educational system (especially Sufiji education) in the eleventh century.