A Study of the Principle of Saint - Ship in Attaarrof, Kashf-ul-Mahjub and Mesbah-ul-Hedaya

The noble principle of «saint–ship» is one of the most important aspects of Islamic Sufism. The prose and poetic books written by suphies emphasized that a disciple needs to follow the guidance and instructions of a wise sheikh in order to have the frightening valleys and dark ways behind him. Meanwhile it is impossible to ignore the key role of the most important Sufism prose books such as Att’aarrof, Kashf–ul–Mahjub and Mesbah-ul-Hedaya. Att’aarof is one of the primary works of Sufism which reinforced the beliefs of sufists in the very beginning of the fourth century very briefly but in as exact a way as possible and with good reasoning – this was the golden age in which Sufism was approaching its scientific and technical ultimate; Kashf-ul-Mahjub followed by Sharh-e-T’aarrof by Mostamali Bokhari is the first book written in Persian on Sufism which is considered as a work of great importance among sufist books. Also Hojviri in a complete and detailed way addresses the issues including the issue of «saint–ship» which was typical of the tassavof discussions then. Misbah-ul-Hidaya is also unique in terms of Sufism and morality among Persian works of 7th century. Examining the ideas of 3 authors regarding «saint-ship» can, to a large extent, represent the common ideas in this field during different eras, that is, fourth, fifth and seventh centuries. Studying these books can yield a good sample representing the general ideas about the issue of «saint-ship» in Islamic Sufism, since these 3 books have certainly taken advantage of their previous or contemporary works and had also influenced the works after themselves.