The Evolution of the Mystical Concept " Hal" until Eighth Century

Long since، the terms hal (spiritual state) and magham (mystical station) have been controversial issues among sufists and various aspects of these terms have not been elucidated properly. The confusion of these terms has triggered a number of mistakes in understanding literary texts and thus recognizing the exact meaning as well as the semantic evolution of these terms throughout history can lead to a better understanding of Sufism ideas and thoughts. By stating different ideas about the definition of these terms، the authors of educational books of Sufism have tried to propose an exact definition of them. This matter is so important that a chapter is allocated to such issues in most of Sufism educational books. In al-Loma’ of Abunasr Sarraj a clear definition of the two terms and their referents are proposed and such definition is the basis of most mystics’ definition. There are many sufists who though accept the definition، they reject determining the referents for these two concepts or they have different ideas about this issue. Even in the works of Serraj’s contemporaries such as Abutaleb Maki، Kelabadi and the sufists near to his time like Abumansoor Esfahani and Abuabdulrahman Salami the definition of these terms and their referents are not clear. Determining referent، order and scope of hal and magham are influential in the Path and Progression of the sufists to the extent that Qusheiri considers disagreement over the referents of these two terms as the cause of dispute between Iraq and Khurasan Sufism. In this regard، Hujviri considers an effective role for Hares Mahasebi. Even in seventh century، Suhrevardi has pointed to such diversity of opinions in Avaref-al-Ma’aref. By providing the sayings of Sufism’s great figures، this article tries to study the changes and fixation of the meaning of mystical term “hal” from the oldest sufist texts to the last years of eighth century.