Treatises on Sufism and Hadith

Abu al-?asan Mu?ammad al-Bakri (898-952/1492-1545) and his son Mu?ammad ibn Abi al-?asan al-Bakri al-?iddiqi Sib? Al al-?asan (930-94/1524-86) were highly respected scholars active in Cairo and Mecca. This collection of their treatises, most edited for the first time, focuses on Sufism and ?adith, including works on theology, spiritual instruction, collections of forty ?adiths, and an early defense of the consumption of coffee.
These two volumes offer a collection of the short treatises of two influential Egyptian religious scholars of the sixteenth century. Abu al-?asan Mu?ammad al-Bakri (898-952/1492-1545) and his son Mu?ammad ibn Abi al-?asan al-Bakri al-?iddiqi Sib? Al al-?asan (930-94/1524-86), who lived between Cairo and Mecca, authored numerous texts on Sufism and ?adith. Abu al-?asan’s works include forty-eight collections of forty ?adiths, a work on voluntary poverty, an early defense of the consumption of coffee in Sufi ritual, his ?izb and his Wa?iya. Mu?ammad al-Bakri’s treatises focus on spiritual instruction, the ritual of sama?, Sufi theology, including the author’s rejection of wa?dat al-wujud, commentary on poems by Ibn al-Fari? and ?Ali Wafa, and a number of prayers, especially for the Prophet, among other topics. Together they provide insights into the religious trends current in the Arabophone provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century. Furthermore, since the Bakris were revered from West Africa to South Asia, these texts are important for the study of the early modern Islamic cosmopolis.