Shi‘ism and Sufism in Madelung’s Legacy and the Decline of Contemporary Classical Orientalism

Abstract

Abstract

Classical Orientalism began to decline with the deaths of its last great German scholars, Josef van Ess and Wilferd Madelung. Both Orientalists were interested in Shi‘ism in its various currents, although Madelung’s engagement with Shi‘ism was more extensive than that of his predecessor, van Ess. Madelung devoted particular attention to the figure of Ibn Abi Jumhur al-Ahsa’i, the Shi‘i thinker who combined Shi‘ism and Sufism through his vast intellectual legacy and his mystical interpretations of Twelver Shi‘i heritage. In this article, the reader will encounter Madelung’s final theory concerning the Islamic caliphate, which he presented shortly before his death in an article written for his friend van Ess on the occasion of the publication of a book on sects and heresiography in the Islamic tradition.

Keywords: Orientalism, Shi‘ism, Sufism, Ibn Abi Jumhur al-Ahsa’i, Madelung, Classical Orientalism.