Without claiming to be exhaustive, the present essay will introduce four great works and their authors as the main milestones of this parallel tradition, which I will refer to as the 'tradition of reconciliation', a tradition revitalised century after century, from the Ilkhanate era to the end of the Safavid dynasty. These four works are the Jāmi' al-asrār wa manba' al-anwār ('The Sum of the Secrets and the Source of Lights') by Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. after 786/1385); 4 the Kitāb al-Mujlī mir'at al-munjī fī l-kalām wa'l-ḥikmatayn wa'l-taṣawwuf ('Polishing the Mirror of the Saviour: about Theology, the Twin Wisdoms and Sufism') by Ibn Abī l-Jumhūr al-Aḥṣā'ī (d. after 906/1500-01); 5 the Majālis al-mu'minīn ('Sessions of the Believers') by Nūrullāh Shūshtarī (d. 1019/1610); 6 the Maḥbūb al-qulūb ('The Beloved of the Hearts') by Quṭb al-Dīn Ashkivarī (d. between 1088/1677 and 1095/1684). 7 Although other works could have been considered from writers such as Ḥāfiẓ Rajab Bursī (d. 813/1411) or Shams al-Dīn Lāhījī (d. 918/1512), to name but two, 8 which state in an implicit manner such a rapprochement, these four works are particularly noteworthy in that they assume explicitly the ecumenist position, are linked by close intertextual relationships, the most recent substantially plagiarising the preceding ones, and thus lend themselves to the analysis of subtle variations within a unique and single discourse. In order to put in light both the common propose of these four works and some distinctive features of each of them, I have preferred, to a linear and chronological description of the documents, setting out the main topics and arguments of this concordist line of thought across the texts.

After a brief presentation of the four authors and their works, a three-fold argumentation will thus be analysed: first a (mytho-)historical argumentation, showing the links of the original Sufi masters to the Shi'i Imams; then a conceptual argumentation, systematising the relationships between sharī'a (religious law), ṭarīqa (spiritual path) and ḥaqīqa (essential 4 Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī, La philosophie shi'ite, 1. Somme des doctrines ésotériques (Jāmi' al-asrār). 2.

Introduction

From the pre-modern eraor even sooner -to the present day, the Twelver Shi'i or Imami world has been unremittingly concerned with what one might call the 'Sufi question', a question rife with doctrinal, but also socio-political, issues: should Sufism be accepted as an essential dimension of the 'genuine' Twelver Shi'i religion, or must it be rejected for being a 'condemnable innovation' (bid'a) and/or an excrescence of Sunni Islam? It is currently said that during the reign of the Safavids in Iran (906/1501-1134/1722), the lawyers and theologians hostile to Sufism eventually prevailed and ultimately succeeded in wiping out most of the Sufi brotherhoods from their original birthplace. 1 However what is less known is that during the same period, within the Imami 'ulamā' community itself, an alternative discourse persevered which was apologist and concordist, by promoting the rapprochement, or even the union, between Sufism and Twelver Shi'ism. This discourse made the reinstatement of Sufism in 18th century Iran theoretically possible, although it was practically established by an outside decision. 2 A series of interrelated works, from the pre-modern period to the modern era, which established this pro-Sufi Shi'i discourse as an authentic intellectual and literary tradition, was transmitted to the present day in certain Sufi circles and is still considered authoritative by certain historians and thinkers. 3 reality or the truth within oneself); finally a linguistic and 'phenomenological' argumentation, showing the analogy between specific locutions pronounced respectively by Shi'i Imams and Sufis.

The tradition of reconciliation and its representatives

Ḥaydar ibn 'Alī ibn Ḥusayn al-Ḥusaynī al-Āmulī, known as Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī, born in 719/1320, 9 dead after 787/1385-86, 10 can be considered the founder of this tradition of reconciliation between Shi'ism and Sufism. 11 Member of a large family of sayyids from Āmul, in the province of Tabarestān, he belonged to a subset of the Iranian population already converted to Twelver Shi'ism before the Safavid era, and served as minister the Prince Fakhr al-Dawla Ḥasan ibn Shāh Kay-Khosraw ibn Yazdgard, who was assassinated in 750/1349. 12 According to his short autobiography, which recalls us al-Ghazālī's al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl in its apologetic tendency, 13 Ḥaydar Āmulī relinquished his mundane career probably one year before this event, at the age of thirty, donned the Sufi cloak (khirqa), took the road of Mecca in company of a Sufi master called Nūroddīn Tehrānī, and from here came back to the Shi'i sacred places ('aṭābāt) of Iraq. 14 He may have composed during this Iranian period his theological treatise Anwār al-ḥaqīqa wa aṭwār al-ṭarīqa wa asrār al-sharī'a ("the Lights of Truth, the Stations of the Path and the Mysteries of the Revealed Law"), devoted to the conceptual triad studied in the third part of this essay 15 . In Iraq, he was the pupil of Fakhr al-Muḥaqqiqīn al-Ḥillī (d. 771/1370), the son of al-'Allāma al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1326), from whom he granted an ijāza (a permission from the teacher to teach to books studied with him) in 761/1369-70, something which afforded him considerable legitimacy as a Shi'i scholar. Apparently under the command of Fakhr al-Muḥaqqiqīn, he wrote in 769/1367-68 a polemic and sectarian epistle entitled Raf' al-munāza'a wa'l-khilāf (''The Resolution of Quarrel and Dispute'') in order to justify, according to Shi'i tenets, the passive attitude of Imam 'Alī during the reigns of the three first caliphs. 16 Ḥaydar Āmulī composed most of his works during his Iraqian period, the most important of which are Jāmi' al-asrār wa manba' al-anwār, which Henry Corbin dates around 752/1351-52; his commentary of the Qur'an, or more exactly, his treatise about Qur'anic Tafsīr and Ta'wīl (respectively 'exoteric' and 'esoteric' interpretation of the Qur'an), al-Muḥīṭ al- 9 In the introduction of his Naṣṣ al-nuṣūṣ, ed. H. Corbin and O. Yahia (Tehran/Paris, 1988), and now ed. M. Bidārfar (Qumm, 1394 Sh./2015-2016), p. 537 (C-Y), 853 (B), Ḥaydar Āmulī writes that he finished it in 782/1380-1381 at the age of sixty-three. See Ḥamiya,p. 8. 10 The date of his last work, Risālat al-'ulūm al-'āliyya. See Corbin, introduction to Āmolī, La philosophie shi 'ite, p. 20. 11 Ibid., pp. 5-76;K. M. al-Shaybī, al-Ṣila bayna l-taṣawwuf wa'l-tashayyu', 2nd edition (Beirut/Bagdad/Freiberg, 2011), vol. 2, pp. 104-115. See also Hamiya, 'Irfān-i shī'ī, pp. 38-41. 12 Corbin, introduction to Āmulī, La philosophie shi'ite, p. 17. 13 Āmulī, Naṣṣ al-nuṣūṣ, pp. 535-537 (C-Y), 851-853 (B); Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl (Erreur et délivrance), ed. F. Jabre (Beirut, 1969). In both reports one can find the same claim of a split from the mundane world for a purely spiritual purpose, and the same silence on the possible political-mundane motives of this decision. 14 Corbin, introduction to Āmulī, La philosophie shi 'ite, pp. 18-23;Henry Corbin, En Islam iranien (Paris, 1971-1972), vol. 3, pp. 162-167. 15 See above, n. 4. Its composition was prior to that of the Jāmi' al-asrār's as it mentions the latter, pp. 88 and 367. 16 Raf' al-munāza'a wa l-khilāf, ed. Ḥ. Kalbāsī Ashtarī (Tehran, 1396 Sh./2017).

a'ẓam wa 'l-baḥr al-khiḍam fī ta'wīl kitāb Allāh al-'azīz al-muḥkam (''The Huge Ocean and the Abyssal Sea: an Esoteric Commentary of the Holly ad Firm Book of God''), achieved in 777/1375-76; and Naṣṣ al-nuṣūṣ fī sharḥ al-fuṣūṣ (''The Text of the Texts: a Commentary of the Bezels [of Wisdom]''), a commentary of Ibn 'Arabī's Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (''the Bezels of Wisdom'') achieved in 782/1380. Both latter books go together as Ḥaydar Āmulī was considering the Qur'an as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (al-nāzil 'alayhi) and the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam as proceeding from him (al-ṣāḍir minhu). 17 Despite the fact that Ibn 'Arabī was probably not Shi'ian issue that remains problematic -, Ḥaydar Āmulī strived to incorporate his theosophy into mainstream Twelver Shi'ism, something which can be regarded with Henry Corbin as Āmulī's foremost contribution to Islamic culture. 18 Corbin edited his Jāmi' al-asrār wa manba' al-anwār, with his Risāla Naqd al-nuqūd fī ma'rifat al-wujūd (''Criticism of the Criticisms, on the Knowledge of the Being''), under the title 'Shi'i Philosophy.' This title remains some enigmatic because of the little part of 'philosophy' in the common meaning that it contains, but takes a full meaning in posterior developments of this line of thought. 19 Actually, the Jāmi' al-asrār doesn't deal with philosophy, but with both Twelver Shi'ism and Sufism that he intends to reconcile.

At the time of Ḥaydar Āmulī, under Ilkhanate rule (656/1258 -756/1355) and post-Ilkhanate / pre-Timurid semi-anarchic interregna (756/1355 -807/140), Iran was predominantly Sunni. Nevertheless, Shi'i ideas also permeated throughout the empire, emanating from the residing Sufi brotherhoods which reminded at least nominally Sunni. The Jāmi' al-asrār was thus written during an age when Shi'as and Sufis were two minority yet powerful groups in a double process of conflicting and coalescing within a state lacking any fixed religious policy. 20 Ḥaydar Āmulī himself states that his book is addressed to Sufis and Twelver Shi'as with the aim of establishing concord amongst them, and to lead each group to its own truth, 21 respectively the esoteric part (al-bāṭin) and the exoteric one (al-ẓāhir) of the same superior Truth contained in the teachings of the Imams. 22 In other words, Ḥaydar Āmulī's endeavour is to reunite two opposing groups, in conflict only through ignorance of their fundamental kinship. His most famous and bold theory identifies the 'true Sufi' (al-ṣūfiyya alḥaqqa) with the 'real' or 'true Shi'a' (al-shī'a al-ḥaqīqiyya) in other words the 'well-tested believer' (mu'min mumtaḥan) alluded to in a famous hadith almost identically expressed by the first, fifth and sixth Imams: 'Our Cause is difficult; the only ones able to bear it are a Prophet 17 Naṣṣ al-nuṣūṣ, pp. 3 and 148 (C-Y), 3 and 216 (B). Ibn 'Arabī says that the Fuṣūṣ had been given to him in dream by the Prophet. See Ibn 'Arabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, ed. A. al-'A. 'Afīfī (Beirut, 1423/2002), pp. 47-48. 18 Corbin,En Islam iranien,vol. 3,p. 155 ; the same, Histoire de la philosophie islamique (Paris, 1986), passim. 19 See D. De Smet, 'Introduction to Part VIII: 'Philosophy and Intellectual Traditions'', in F. Daftary and G. Miskinzoda, ed., The Study of Shi'i Islam (London, 2104), pp. 545-562, and my Histoire de la sagesse et philosophie shi 'ite, pp. 731-735. 20 See J. Calmard, 'Le chiisme imamite sous les Ilkhans', in D. Aigle, ed., L'Iran face à la domination mongole (Tehran, 1997), pp. 261-292, notably p. 282; M. Gronke, 'La religion populaire en Iran mongol', in Ibid., pp. 205-230, see pp. 205-207; M. Molé, 'Les Kubrawiya entre sunnisme et shiisme aux huitième et neuvième siècles de l'hégire', Revue des Études Islamiques, 1961, pp. 61-142; A. Bausani, 'Religion under the Mongols', in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 5, The Saljuq and Mongol Periods, ed. John. A. Boyle (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 538-549. 21 Āmulī,p. 254 ;Corbin,Introduction,p. 25. 22 Ibid.,pp. 41 and 222. missioned by God, an angel of Proximity, and a faithful believer whose heart has been tested by God for faith (mu'min imtaḥana Allāhu qalbahu li l-īmān)'. 23 Muḥammad ibn 'Alī Ibn Abī l-Jumhūr al-Aḥsā'ī (d. after 904/1499), author of the second work studied here, can be seen as the continuator and propagator of this tradition of reconciliation. His birthdate is not certain, 24 nor the exact localisation of his homeland al-Aḥsā', a Shi'i region in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula or a city in Baḥrayn. [START_REF] Mowaḥḥed | Ebn Abī Jomhūr Aḥsā'ī[END_REF] However, he certainly inherited a Shi'i traditional lineage dating back to the eighth Imam. Compared to Ḥaydar Āmulī, he seems to have had a more conventional life of Shi'i medieval scholar. After he completed his scientific and religious formation in the Shi'i centres of Najaf and Karak Nūḥ in Jabal 'Āmil, he spent his life between the holy places of Iraq, the city of Ṭūs in Irānlater called Mashhad, where is the sanctuary of Imam Riḍā (d. 203/818) -, and his native country. 26 He completed his Mujlī mir'at al-munjī fī l-kalām wa'l-ḥikmatayn wa'l-taṣawwuf, 27 a supercommentary of a previous theological work, 28 in 896/1490. The explicit aim of the book is to integrate with Imami Shi'ism, on the one hand Ash'ari and Mu'tazili kalām, and on the other the philosophy of Ishrāq and Sufism. 29 Greatly borrowing the most esoteric hadiths of the Imams from Ḥaydar Āmulī's Jāmi' al-asrār, he also professed the historical and ontological affiliation of Sufism with the "True religion" that is Twelver Shi'ism.

It is particularly noteworthy that this work was written only ten years before the sheikh of the Ṣafawiyya, the young Shāh Ismā'īl, acceded to the throne in Tabriz and established Twelver Shi'ism as the official religion of Iran (906/1500-01)in other words on the eve of a new era for Shi'ism and Sufism. At the time of the Mujlī's redaction, the foremost holy places and learning centres of Shi'ism, in Iraq and Lebanon, were under Sunni Ottoman rule, and although Iran was still predominantly Sunni, Persian Sufism had to a large extent completed its 'imperceptible transition from Sunnism to Shi'ism.' 30 Thus, Ibn Abī Jumhūr is one of the last witnesses of a time during which the two movements he principally aimed to approach or to reapproach, Sufism and Twelver Shi'ism, were on an equal social and political footing. He was also the last to be able to urge reconciliation without having to defend himself from attacks launched by the Shi'i or Suni orthodox party, therefore without having to 'write between the lines', to quote Leo Strauss. It is unsettling to note that his contemporary 'Alī al-Karakī (d. 940/1534), who had been a pupil of the same theologian 'Alī ibn Hilāl al-Jazā'irī in in Jabal 'Āmil, would become the official theologian of the Shi'i Safavid State and, within this remit, eventually define an orthodoxy which marginalised the mystical and philosophical form of Shi'ism represented by Ibn Abī Jumhūr. 31 The latter's call for a spiritual 'revolution' of Shi'ism, to quote Kāmil Muṣṭafā al-Shaybī, went mostly unheard by the fuqahā' of his time. 32 Moreover, the religious policy of the clergy and the Safavids would shatter his hopes for a sacred union between Shi'ism and Sufism. Ibn Abī Jumhūr was criticized for his 'extremist Sufism' by both Muḥammad Bāqir al- Majlisī (d. 1111/1699) and his pupil Mīrzā 'Abdallāh al-Iṣbahānī Afandī, author of Riyāḍ al-'ulamā'. 33 His collection of hadiths 'Awālī al-la'ālī was particularly censured for different motives such as quoting some of its traditions from Sunni sources, comprising traditions of 'mystical flagrance' (tastashimmu al-maṭālib al-'irfāniyya), and comprising traditions peculiar to 'exaggerating' or 'extremist ' Shi'ism (ghuluww). This fact attests that Ibn Abī l-Jumhūr was sharing with Ḥaydar Āmulī both a radical Shi'i affiliation and an ambiguous ecumenist trend aiming not only to reconcile Shi'as and Sufis, but also to bring up the positions of Shi'as and Sunnis. 34 Although his works were held in esteem during the Safavid era by scholars with mystical leanings, such as Ashkivarī and Fayḍ al-Kāshānī (d. 1091/1680-1681), the Shi'i-Sufi concordist discourse would thereafter continue under persecution, in both Sunni and Shi'i circles, as the two final actors of this intellectual tradition will show nolens volens.

Sayyid Ḍiyā' al-Dīn Nūrullāh ibn al-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Ḥusaynī al-Mar'ashī al-Shūshtarī, known as Nūrullāh Shūshtarī and famous, among the Shi'as, by the title of the 'Third Martyr' (al-shāhid al-thālith), was born in 956/1549-50 in Shūshtar, during the reign of the Safavid Shāh 'Abbās I (r. 996/1588 -1038/1629), into a lineage going back to al-'Allāma al-Ḥillī. He became a faqīh and, following his grandfather's footsteps, a member of the Nūrbakhshī Sufi fraternity which had converted to Shi'ism after the messianic claim of its eponymous founder. 35 In 992/1584-85, he emigrated from Mashhad to India in order to escape from the troubles in Khurāsān, probably also with the aim to diffuse Twelver Shi'ism amongst the scholars of the Mongol court, where he shortly became an intimate of the young sovereign Shāh Akbar (r. 964 -1014 / 1556 -1605); thus, his case was different from that of many Sufis 31 Shaybī,Ṣila,vol. 2,p. 313. About the role of al-Karakī, see Arjomand, Shadow of God, pp. 133-137 and 140-142; R. J. Abisaab, Converting Persia. Religion and Power in Safavid Empire (London/New York, 2004), pp. 15-20; Newman, Safavid Iran (London/New York, 2006), s.v. 32 Shaybī,Ṣila,vol. 2,p. 319. 33 Muḥammad Bāqir al -Majlisī, Bihār al-anwār, ed. J. al-'Alawī et alii (Tehran, 1376-1405/1957-1985), vol. 0, pp. 183-184;Mīrzā 'Abdallāh al-Iṣbahānī Afandī, Riyāḍ al-'ulamā' , quoted by Muḥsin al-Amīn in A'yān al-shī'a (Beirut, 1406-1986), vol. 9, p. 434;see also al-Ḥurr al-'Āmilī, al-Risāla al-ithna'ashariyya fī'l-radd 'alā l-ṣūfiyya, ed. A. al-Jalālī (Qumm 1390Sh./2011), p. 32. 34 'Awālī al-la'ālī (Qumm, 1404/1983), preface of Ayatullāh Shihāb al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī al-Mar'ashī al-Najafī, pp. 4-5;Shaybī, Ṣila, vol. 1, p. 314;Mowaḥḥed, 'Ibn Abī Jumhūr', pp. 635-636. Even Ma'ṣūm 'Alī Shāh, in the laudative notice he devotes to him, criticizes his lack of reliability as a traditionist: see Ṭarā vol. 1,p. 249. 35 Shūshtarī,Majālis,vol. 1,introduction of the editors,vol. 3,p. 456 for the account about his grandfather 's affiliation; vol. 4, pp. 374-388, for a hyper-elogious notice on Muḥammad Nūrbakhsh and his son Shāh Qāsim. See also Zarrīnkūb, Dunbāla justujū, p. 186. among his contemporaries, going incessantly back and forth between India and Iran. 36 He served as qāḍī in Lahore, applying ijtihād and issuing fatāwā according to the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence (fiqh). After Shāh Akbar's death, in the beginning of the reign of his son, Jahāngīr (r. 1014 -1037 / 1605 -1627), Shūshtarī ceased to conceal his Shi'i faith (taqiyya), or was denounced by his adversaries for having composed, in response to a Sunni refutation, his apology of Shi'i jurisprudence entitled Iḥqāq al-ḥaqq 37 . He is said to have been the first scholar to openly profess Shi'ism in India, [START_REF] Amīn | quoting from al-Ḥurr al-'Āmilī, Amal al-'Āmil. 39 Corbin[END_REF] for which reason he fell victim to the 'tragic confrontation between the Shi'i and Sunni kalām', 39 flogged to death in 1019/1610. [START_REF]Alī Shāh, Ṭarā'iq al-ḥaqā'iq[END_REF] The main work of Shūshtarī, Majālis al-mu'minīn, was written in India around 990/1582-1583 and could also have played a role in tragic end of its author. 41 A priori it belongs to the ṭabaqāt genre, in other words 'categories' or 'generations' of illustrious men. Shūshtarī's intention was to bring together the companions of the Prophet, theologians, philosophers, princes, Sufis, poets, etc., who were secretly or notoriously Shi'as in the widest sense, as defined by the acknowledgment of the sacred right of 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib to succeed the Prophet Muḥammad. 42 The main justification of his large census is that many scholars and rulers of Islam had been forced to practice taqiyya or 'sacred concealment of the faith' in order to escape from the persecutions of the Sunni power; however, with the glorious reign of the Safavid Shāhs, the time of concealment was now over 43 . With this goal in mind, he endeavours to show, especially in the sixth majlis of the book, that the great spiritual leaders of Sufism were all Shi'as, although most of them were nominally Sunni [START_REF]This includes, among cases less contested, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī and Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-'Arabī[END_REF] . For this reason, shi'i authors of prosopographical works consider it unreliable for having 'exaggerated' its inventory, in other words to have classified as Shi'as men who were not. [START_REF] Mīrzā | Abdallāh al-Isbahānī, quoted by al-Amīn[END_REF] The aim of the book has also determined its reception by the modern scholarship: the text is still used as an historical trustable source by certain modern historians like Kāmil Muṣṭafā al-Shaybī and Seyyed Ḥossein Naṣr, while being denounced by others like Jean Calmard for its blatant bias. [START_REF] Shaybī | on the historical relations between Sufi masters and Shi'i Imams, referres to Ma'ṣūm 'Alī Shāh, Ṭarā'iq al-ḥaqā'iq[END_REF] Quṭb al-Dīn Ashkivarī, also called Bahā' al-Dīn al-Lāhījī or al-Sharīf al- Lāhījī (d. between 1088/1677 and 1095/1684), is the final and least known of our concordist authors. He had been in his youth the student of Mīr Dāmād (d. 1040/1631), then inherited from his father the office of Shayh al-islām of the district of Lāhījān, in Gīlān. This position, although containing important prerogatives in justice and economy, reflects a relatively secondary rank in the Safavid hierocracy, compared to this of the ṣadrāt which is progressively established during the Safavid period, especially in Lāhījān where the central authority faced many difficulties in applying its politics. Due to his socio-historical situation, he was a solitary philosopher and a late-comer to the 'philosophical renaissance of Safavid Iran', being active during the reign of Shāh Sulaymān (1077/1666 -1105/1694), in whose reign anti-Sufi and antiphilosophical reaction intensified. Aside from Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī (d. 1090/1679), his contemporaries included sworn opponents of philosophy and Sufism like al-Ḥurr al-'Āmilī (d. 1097/1685) and Muḥammad Bāqir al- Majlisī (d. 1111/1698-1699).

His foremost work, the Maḥbūb al-qulūb, written at the end of his life, takes resolute issue with this reactionary current. In this work appertaining to both universal history and ṭabaqāt genre, he purposes no less than to assemble all the wise men, starting from the first of them, Adam, in three discourses (maqālāt): the first covers the sages predating Islam, in particular the Greek philosophers; the second savants (physicians, translators, astrologists) but also philosophers (falāsifa) and spiritual masters (mashā'ikh) of the Islamic era; and the third the twelve Imams and twelve pre-eminent Shi'i authorities. In the second volume Ashkivarī dedicates a series of entries to 'unitarian Sufis' (al-ṣūfiyya al-muwaḥḥida). Discretely borrowing information as well as a number of allegations from Ḥaydar Āmulī, Ibn Abī Jumhūr et Nūrullāh Shūshtarī, his aim is clearly to harmonise original Sufism with esoteric Shi'ism, but without explicitly maintaining that all the Sufi masters were Shi'as. Thus Ashkivarī reactivated the tradition of reconciliation between Sufism and Shi'ism, but he did so between the lines, and with the concerns of his time: to save what could be of Sufism and philosophy in Safavid Iran. In contrast with Shūshtarī, the all-encompassing category of his encyclopaedia is not that of Shi'as, but of the sages; Sufis are not defended because they are Shi'as as such, but because they are wise, as are a priori the Greek philosophers and the Imams themselves.

These four works transmit a number of rational (ma'qūl) and traditional (manqūl) arguments defending the idea that primitive Sufism is an essential dimension of the Imami Shi'i 'True religion'. This marginal yet stubborn discourse resisted the rising tide of anti-Sufism among Shi'i scholars during the Safavid era, whose exponents included such influential figures as 'Alī al-Karakī, al-Ḥurr al-'Āmilī and Muḥammad Bāqir al- Majlisī. 47 In the following pages, I will examine the principal strategies of argumentation which inform the four works included.

The history-based argumentation: the Masters of Sufism as Disciples of the Shi'i Imams

The first strategy is historical in approach, or rather pseudo-historical or even mytho-historical. It purports to show the fundamental identity or harmony that exists between Sufism and Shi'ism through the genealogy of Sufism, and more precisely by showing the affiliation of the founding great masters of Sufism (1/7 th -3/9 th centuries) to the historical Imams. Whereas our four authors are agreed that the first Sufis were disciples of the Imams, they do not trace the origins of Sufism, and consequently of Shi'ism, to the same dates or to the same protagonists. As the historical validity of these arguments is generally rather weak, it is more rewarding to study the constants and the evolution of these different rewritings of the origins of Sufism, as of Shi'ism; if these works are not reliable for an history of Shi'ism and Sufism, they are primary materials for an 'history of the history' of both, that is to say an history of the representation of their historical origins and developments.

To Ḥaydar Āmulī 'the particular category of Shi'as designated as the initiated or "welltested" believersthe term mu'min meaning broadly "Shi'a" in the general senseis that of the Sufis.'48 He argues that if Sufis are commonly thought to be Sunni, it is because, like the Shi'as, they possess many branches, only one of which is the genuine or 'the true one.' 49 The true Shi'as, the 'believers' in the exoteric sense (ẓāhir) are the Twelvers, which excludes the Ismailis, who are 'exaggerators' (ghulāt),50 and the Zaydis; the true Sufis, who are also the true Shi'as in the esoteric sense (bāṭin), are not those who bear this name among his contemporaries, but men such as Salmān the Persian (supposed to be dead in 35/655-656 or 36/656-657), [START_REF] Levi | Salmān al-Fārisī[END_REF] Uways al-Qaranī (supposed to be dead in 37/657 at the battle of Ṣiffīn), [START_REF] Baldick | Uways al-Ḳaranī[END_REF] and the 'men of the bench' (aṣḥāb al-ṣuffa) at the time of the Prophet; then came al-Miqdād, Abū Dharr and 'Ammār, companions of 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib ; and 'after them' Kumayl ibn Ziyād al-Nakha'ī, Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī and Junayd al-Baghdādī (d. 298/911), who were 'pupils, disciples and depositaries of the secrets of the Impeccable Imams.' 53 Thus there are three classes or generations of original Sufis and true Shi'as: first the 'companions' of the Prophet (al-ṣaḥāba), followed by the 'successors' (al-tābi'ūn), who accompanied the first Imam, and finally the contemporaries and disciples of the subsequent Imams. The paradox in this picture is that the 'particular Shi'as', who are the 'true Sufis,' predate the 'Shi'as in the general sense' who are the Twelvers, since they came into being following the occultation of the twelfth Imam (260/874 for the lesser one, 329/940-41 for the greater one). It is clear that differentiating between 'Twelver Imamis' and Ismailis, Zaydis or ghulāt before the end of the 3/9 th century is near impossible, and that the boundaries between different Shi'i groups were porous during these ancient times. [START_REF] Kohlberg | On the technical meaning and the late apparition of the appellation[END_REF] It seems that in Āmulī's vision of history, for the Shi'as in the broadest sense, the true Sufis are not only a spiritual elite, but a genuine avant-garde testifying to the authentic and elemental character of Twelver Shi'ism.

The first Sufi mentioned by Ḥaydar Āmulī is Salmān the Persian, a companion of the Prophet and of the Imam 'Alī, whose social status was modest since he was a non-Arab. He is an emblematic figure of Islamic Persia. Widely recognized as the founder of Sufism, he figures in the initiatory chains of a number of Sunni brotherhoods, where he is placed as a disciple of the first Caliphe Abū Bakr. [START_REF] Della | Salmān al-Fārisī[END_REF] According to a prophetic hadith currently quoted in the Shi'i sources, he is considered as a 'member of the Holy family' (ahl al-bayt), an adoptive familiar of the Fourteen Impeccable. 56 Moreover, certain traditions accredit him with having received spiritual and secret instruction from 'Alī, to the extent that he's said to have learned the 'Supreme Name' of God (al-ism al-a'ẓam). 57 Following Salmān are Abū Dharr al-Ghifārī (d. 32/652-3), 'Ammār ibn Yāsir (d. 37/657 at the battle of Ṣiffīn) and al-Miqdād ibn Aswad (m. 33/653-4), who are chiefly known for their physical and political engagement alongside 'Alī. These four figures are among the first Muslims of humble and non-Qurayshi origin and are associated with each other in numerous Imami traditions dating back to the Prophet. 58 They are celebrated as 'pillars of Shi'ism' (arkān al-shī'a) in Imami circles, for having always fought or resisted alongside Imam 'Alī, especially in the critical times following the death of Muḥammad and the event of Saqīfa. 59 Whereas Salmān represents the esoteric face of proto-Shi'ism, the other three characters represent the exoteric, ascetic and especially militant aspect. According to a tradition of al-Kulaynī's Kāfī related to the sixth Imam: No one can assume it except a Prophet, an angel of proximity or a believer whose heart has been tested by God for faith ('abd mu'min imtaḥana allāh qalbahu li-l-īmān). Salmān became one of the knowers because he's a man from us, the People of the Holy Family (li'annahu minnā ahl al-bayt)'. 60 By identifying these 'pillars of Shi'ism' with the fathers of Sufism, Ḥaydar Āmulī purports to demonstrate the original kinship between these two movements.

In the works of the three succeeding authors, starting with Ibn Abī Jumhūr, the historical reconstructions include the same protagonists, but differ on an important point: the worthy companions of the Prophet, such as Salmān, are initiates, however they are not considered the fathers of Sufism; the particular science of Sufism goes back to certain 'successors' of the Prophet who are reputed to have sworn allegiance to 'Alī. Thus, according to Ibn Abī Jumhūr: 56 Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār (henceforth: Beirut 1403/1983), vol. 10, p. 123 ;vol. 17, p. 170 ;vol. 18, p. 19 ;vol. 22, p. 326. Āmulī, Jāmi' al-asrār, pp. 25 and 500. On this hadith, see L. Massignon, 'Salman Pak et les prémices spirituelles de l'Islam iranien', pp. 453-455. 57 Amir-Moezzi, Guide divin, p. 232, n. 478. Bursī, Mashāriq anwār al-yaqīn, p. 428, records that Salmān was the man with greatest knowledge of God (a'raf bi-llāh) because he was the man with greatest knowledge of 'Alī. 58 A whole chapter of the Biḥār al-anwār is devoted to them: vol. 22, bāb 10, pp. 315-355. 59 Shaybī,Ṣila,vol. 1,J. Robson,EI2,French ed.,vol. 1,p. 118 'ab, pp. 238-239; Āmulī, Jāmi' al-asrār, p. 34; Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, vol. 22, p. 343. 'Among the successors are Kumayl ibn Ziyād al-Nakha'ī and Ḥasan al-Baṣrī; with these two begins the science of the insiders (aṣḥāb al-bāṭin) and that of the Sufis (ahl al-taṣawwuf); and similarly Uways al-Qaranī. 61 ' These three characters are very different both in historical status and also in their relations, according to the historiography, with Sufism and Shi'ism.

Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728) is well known in Islamic and Western historiography as well. Sunni historians recognize that he was a disciple of 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, and as such he is present in the initiation chains of numerous Sufi orders. However this ascetic and author of sermons was claimed early on by all the emerging theological schools, starting with the ahl alsunna wa-l-jamā'a and the Mu'tazilites. [START_REF] Ritter | al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī[END_REF] In Shi'i early sources, he appears sometimes as a pure supporter of 'Alī and Ahl al-bayt, sometimes as a doctrinal adversary refuted but the fifth Imam. [START_REF] Majlisī | quoted from al-Ṭabarsī's Iḥtijāj[END_REF] Before Ibn Abī Jumhūr, Ḥaydar Āmulī mentioned him as well as a disciple of Imam 'Alī. 64 Ibn Khaldūn, a contemporary of Ḥaydar Āmulī, condemned these latter-day Sufis, influenced by Shi'i views, who portray Ḥasan al-Baṣrī as a Shi'a. 65 To be sure, the Sunni positions of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī are solidly established by traditionists and Sunnior pro-Sunnihistorians, and it can be noticed that Shi'i 'ulamā' tend to avoid him rather than try to claim him. [START_REF] On Ḥasan Al-Baṣrī | s Sunni positions[END_REF] His presence in Ibn Abī Jumhūr's picture of history is another sign of the ecumenist trend of this thinker. Thus did he gradually disappear from the picture of the origins of Sufism described by our authors: after Ibn Abī Jumhūr, neither Shūshtarī, nor Ashkivarī mention him in their works.

Unlike Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Uways al-Qaranī is a semi-legendary figure which pertains more to sacred history than empirical and scientific history. Within the Sufi community, there are rival claims of his affiliation to both Sunnis and Shi'as. According to prevailing Islamic tradition, the Prophet designated this Yemenite without having ever seen him, like a hidden saint or an intercessor, and urged both 'Umar and 'Alī to seek him out in order to implore God's forgiveness. 'Umar is reputed to have found him during the final year of his caliphate; their conversation is related by Farīd al-Dīn 'Aṭṭār in his Memorial of Saints (Tadhkirat al-awliyā'). [START_REF] Al-Dīn | Attār, Tadhkirat al-awliyā[END_REF] We know that, in consequence, many Sufis are named, or name themselves, Uwaysiyya, since they do not have a visible and contemporary human guide (murshid) but rather receive initiation from the 'spiritual essence' (rūḥāniyya) of a deceased saint. [START_REF] Baldick | Uwaysiyya[END_REF] Amongst our philosophers of reconciliation, Ashkivarī's treatment of Uways al-Qaranī is the most extensive and also the most significant in that he refers to him as both the first Sufi and as the first Shī'a. He derives his information from the Majālis al-mu'minīn of Shūshtarī who, for his part, did not classify Uways as a Sufi but as a believer among the immediate followers of the Prophet (az tābi'īn) 69 . While Shūshtarī was quoting 'Aṭṭār's report as a testimony of Uways's disdain towards 'Umar, [START_REF] Shūshtarī | It is notable that Shūshtarī considered also 'Aṭṭār to be a Shi'a[END_REF] Ashkivarī, in the chapter dedicated to him, completely disregards the role of 'Umar, asserting implicitly that Uways was recommended by the Prophet to the sole 'Alī and did not meet any caliph before him. Ashkivarī's rejection of 'Umar is thus more radical than that of Shūshtarī; unlike the latter, the former did not have to compromise with a Sunni milieu. The first tradition quoted by Ashkivarī describes Uways as a famous ascetic, converted to Islam during the Prophet's lifetime, who appeared for the first time in the battle of Ṣiffīn (37/657), dressed in rags and with his head shaven, in order to swear allegiance to 'Alī and fight until death for him. 71 If the woollen coat (ṣūf) is a sign that identifies Sufis, and is probably at the origin of the word 'Sufism' (taṣawwuf), and if the shaven head is associated with certain Dervish, what defines Uways as the first Sufi ontologically, far more than these exterior sign, is his explicit designation by the Prophet and his complete allegiance to the Imam, until his death.

The third key figure in this reconstruction of the common origins of Sufism and Shi'ism is Kumayl ibn Ziyād. His historicity is established, as is his affiliation to the first followers of 'Alī. He is known to the Shi'as as the Imam's closest companion and confident, an ardent combatant for his cause and also as one of the first Shi'i martyrs. Many Sufi brotherhoods, such as the Nūrbakhshiyya, who wielded great influence under the Safavids, regard him as the first link of their initiation chain, following 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib. [START_REF]referring to numerous loci of the Biḥār al-anwār. About the silsila kumayliyya, see Ma'ṣūm 'Alī Shāh[END_REF] If one asks in what regard Kumayl may be considered to be a Sufi, the reply is that according to several authoritative traditions, he received esoteric instruction from the Imam: it is first of all Shi'i spirituality that underwrites the historical Sufism of Kumayl. The evidence of this rank amongst the insiders seems to be a dialogue concerning spiritual truth (al-ḥaqīqa) between the Imam and his disciple, a dialogue that our four authors faithfully reproduce and that is typical of Shi'i esoterism. 73 'It is said that ['Ali] (...) had taken Kumayl behind him on the camel he was riding. Kumayl said: "O Prince of believers, what is Truth?" The Imam answered: "What care you about the Truth?" Kumayl said: "Am I not a companion of your Secret?" "Yes, [answered the Imam], but what spills out from me penetrates into you."' There follows a brief series of symbolic and apophatic definitions of the Truth, at the end of which the Imam cuts short his discourse and announces: 'Put out your lamp, dawn has come.' This tradition would seem to prefigure two major trends within Shi'i spirituality: the first part points towards a magical conception of the transmission of the sacred Science through the medium of the humours of the bodyhere sweat, elsewhere saliva -; the latter part develops a philosophising or spiritualistic discourse which culminates in an injunction to mystical silence. 74 Kumayl ibn Ziyād personifies the deep-rooted kinship between Sufism and Shi'ism by virtue of his spiritual initiation on the one hand, but also because he died as a martyr for 'Alī's cause at the hands of Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf, the governor of Iraq and a sworn enemy of the Shi'as. The story, as related by Shūshtarī and Ashkivarī is astonishing: appearing before Ḥajjāj, Kumayl declared he had been foretold by Imam 'Alī that his assassin would indeed be Ḥajjāj; in response Ḥajjāj accused Kumayl of having taken part in the murder of 'Uthmān, the third caliph, and ordered his decapitation. 75 The accusation made by Ḥajjāj is not contradicted, neither by Kumayl in the text (matn) nor by the reporter al-Mughīra in his account of the khabar. 76 When one is aware that the murder of 'Uthmān was at the origin of the great fitna, the rift that tore Islam apart during its early centuries, to let any degree of doubt subsist as to the responsibility of Kumayl is particularly significant: this original and most spiritual form of Shi'ism is revealed to be also the most militant, and it is this Shi'ism, as spiritual as it is political, that is at the root of Sufism. Riḍā (d. 203/818). All were individual Sufis who predated the foundation of brotherhoods, but nevertheless belonged to numerous silsilas, the tradition of which was strictly oral. Before we examine these affiliations more closely, one can already wonder why this initiation of Sufis by Imams ceases between the first and the fifth Imams, and conversely, why this transmission began again with the sixth, given that the initiation of Kumayl already included all the esoteric secrets? Our authors never answer the first question: everything is described as if Sufism went through an eclipse, a temporary occultation between Kumayl and Abū Yazīd Basṭāmī, even though Shūshtarī attempts to consider the Sufi Ibrāhīm ibn Adham (m. 160-1/777) as a disciple of the fifth Imam Muḥammad ibn 'Alī al-Bāqir (d. 115 or 119/732 or 737); 77 in modern times, Ma'ṣūm 'Alī Shāh, in his Tarā'iq al-ḥaqā'iq, contends even that Ibrāhīm ibn Adham is affiliated to the fourth Imam 'Alī ibn al-Ḥusayn (d. 92 or 95/711 or 714). 78 To our second question, a more historical answer can be outlined: following the tragedy at Karbalā', the Imami doctrine was rebuilt on new foundations by the fifth and especially the sixth Imam, Ja'far al-Ṣādiq, which would imply, according to the logic of esotericism, a new initiation, all the more 74 L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, French trans. by G-G. Granger (Paris, 1993), prop. 7, p. 112. 75 Shūshtarī,Majālis,vol. 4,p. 31 (ed. Tehran,vol. 2,p. 12); Ashkivarī,Maḥbūb,vol. 2,p. 498. 76 The relater of the hadith could be al-Mughīra ibn Sa'īd al-Ijlī (m. 119/737), one of the most famous disciples of the fifth Imam considered as ghulāt. See Abū 'Amr Muḥammad al-Kishshī, Rijāl al-Kishshī (Beirut, 1430/2009), pp. 164-167. 77 Shūshtarī, Majālis, vol. 4, p. 58 (ed. Tehran, vol. 2, p.24). 78 Ma'ṣūm 'Alī Shāh, Ṭarā'iq, vol. 2, p. 109; Shaybī, Ṣila, vol. 2, p. 472-473. This Sufi master is also said to have been affiliated to the sixth Imam Ja'far al-Ṣādiq. See Ma'ṣūm 'Alī Shāh, Ṭarā'iq, vol. 2, p. 109; Naṣr, 'Le shī'isme et le soufisme', p. 226.

Historians of Sufism and Shi'ism have stressed on many occasions that, following al-Riḍā, there is no evidence of contact between Sufis and the Shi'i Imams. 90 This fact is acknowledged but never explained by the four authors here studied. We know that the ninth imam Muḥammad ibn 'Alī al-Jawwād or al-Taqī (d. 220/835) died very young and that the following two -'Alī b. Muḥammad al-Hādī (m. 254/868) and al-Ḥasan b. 'Alī al-'Askarī (m. 260/874) -lived under house arrest in Sāmarrā'. An oral tradition, recorded by al-Shaybī, does exist, according to which Imam Riḍā transmitted the 'spiritual path' (ṭarīqa), the esoteric dimension of the religion, to Ma'rūf al-Karkhī and after him to the Sufis, while the letter, as opposed to the spirit, of the revelation (sharī'a) and its exoteric learning remained in the lineage of the Imams, starting from al-Jawwād. 91 This would imply a first schism between exoteric and esoteric Shi'ism dating back to the time of the historical Imams, and holding one of them responsible for it, although none of our authors seem ready to admit this. As for anti-Sufi Shi'as, they rely on a hadith of the tenth Imam 'Alī al-Hādī: 'All Sufis oppose us, their way is contrary to our, and they are but the Christians or the Mazdeans of this community.' 92 This hostile tradition is never mentioned by our promoters of reconciliation, not even to refute it.

As a conclusion to this first analysis, one could say that the 'historical' arguments of our authors hardly be considered so in the modern sense of the word: dates are ignored or rejected; the accounts are readily fabulous or hagiographic; moreover, Shūshtarī's paradigmatic use of the notion of taqiyya has to be considered as an 'unfalsifiable' argument in the negative sense of the term in Karl Popper's epistemology. It is conceivable that our authors were well aware of this fact and that the significance of these historical allegations resided first and foremost in their symbolism. The chronology of events remains paradoxical nevertheless, as the first 'true' Sufis and 'true' Shi'as predate not only the brotherhoods, which is undoubtedly intentional, but the emergence of Sufism and Shi'ism in the general sense. Finally, it is notable that this (pseudo-)historical argumentation is not defended with the same zeal by the four authors: the manner in which Ḥaydar Āmulī and Ibn Abī Jumhūr repeat these allegations is dogmatic, and their approach to the reconciliation of Sufism with Shi'ism, or the identification of the one with the other, is essentially conceptual. Shūshtarī argues the historical link with the most fervour, at times deliberately exaggerating the Shi'i genealogy of the Sufis. Ashkivarī is more restrained, and refrains from explicitly 'shi'itising' a number of Sufi masters to whom he pays tribute, while nevertheless affirming the affiliation of Basṭāmī to Imam Ja'far.

The conceptual argumentation: the triad of the Law, the Path and the Truth

Over and above the historical perspective, our four Shi'i authors share the same underlying theory: the convergence a priori between sharī'a, the 'revealed' Law, i.e. the exoteric part of the religion; ṭarīqa, the mystical and spiritual 'Path', term also used for 'brotherhood'; and ḥaqīqa, the spiritual 'Reality' or 'Truth', i.e. the object that the Gnostic philosophers, sometimes known as the muḥaqqiqūn, are searching for. This conjunction is based on, and introduced by, a prophetic hadith which seems not to be present in the 'classical' or 'orthodox' 90 Shaybī, Ṣila, vol. 1, p. 245 ; Naṣr, 'Le shī'isme et le soufisme', p. 226. 91 Shaybī,Ṣila,vol. 1, Ḥurr 'Āmilī, R. ithnā 'ashariyya, p. 27. collections of hadiths, be they Sunni or Shi'i, but rather to be specific of our heterodox tradition of thought: 'The Law is my speeches (aqwālī); the Path is my actions (af'ālī); the Truth is my [spiritual] states (aḥwālī).' 93 Ḥaydar Āmulī develops this conceptual triad in his Anwār al-ḥaqīqa wa aṭwār al-ṭarīqa wa asrār al-sharī'a ("the Lights of Truth, the Stations of the Path and the Mysteries of the Revealed Law"). He considers the Law, the Path and the Truth, to be three degrees of the same reality, the highest being the Truth, the medium being the Path and the lowest being the Law. The Law, he says, is true without the Path, but the Path is not true without the Law; just as the Path is true without the Truth, but the Truth is not true without the Path; because each higher level is the perfection of that below. Consequently, the people of the Truth (ahl al-ḥaqīqa) are superior to the people of the Path (ahl al-ṭarīqa) and the latters are superior to the people of the Law (ahl al-sharī'a). [START_REF] Āmulī | Asrār al-sharī'a[END_REF] In this early work, composed before that Āmulī relinquished his mundane career and donned the Sufi cloak (khirqa), he identifies the people of the Law with the jurists (al-fuqahā'), the people of the Truth with the Gnostics (al-'ārifūn) and, more surprisingly, the people of the Path with the scholars and philosophers (al-'ulamā' wa lḥukamā'), avoiding to mention openly the Sufis. For this he quotes a saying of the imam 'Alī: 'The Law is a river and the Truth is a sea. The jurists (al-fuqahā') are making circumambulations around the river, the wise (al-ḥukamā') are plunging in the sea in the search of the pearls, and the Gnostics (al-'ārifūn) are wandering on the ships of salvation (sufun alnajāt)'. From a universal perspective, he identifies the people of the Law with the community of Moses, the people of the Path with Jesus' one, and the people of the Truth with Muḥammad's one. [START_REF] Āmulī | Asrār al-sharī'a[END_REF] While emphasising the hierarchy between these three dimensions on the Revelation (shar'), Ḥaydar Āmulī and Ibn Abī Jumhūr, the latter quoting the former, both stress their harmony and complementarity, whith the implicit aim to solve the conflict between jurists, Sufis and gnostic philosophers:

Know that the exoteric Law (sharī'a), the mystical Path (ṭarīqa) and the spiritual Truth (ḥaqīqa) are synonymous terms for the single Truth, which is the Truth of the Aḥmadī Muḥammadī Revelation (ḥaqīqat al-shar' al-aḥmadī al-muḥammadī), but viewed from different standpoints and at different levels. There is, on examination, no contradiction between these standpoints and these levels. The Revelation (al-shar') is like the complete almond, which contains the shell (qishr), the kernel (lubb), and the kernel of kernels (lubb al-lubb): the shell may be likened to the Law, the kernel to the Path, the kernel of kernels to the esoteric Truth of the Innermost (alḥaqīqa al-bāṭina li-l-bāṭin), and the almond is the union of all. 96 The symbolism of the kernel and the shell refers partly to the Qur'an where the word albāb (plural of lubb) is frequently used for 'spirit' in the expression ulū l-albāb, and partly to the Theology of Pseudo-Aristotle where the shells (qushūr) appear as the material clothes of the soul. 97 The dual couple of the kernel and the shell seems to have been attributed first to Empedocles (d. around 424 BC) in Kitāb al-milal wa'l-niḥal of Shahrastānī (d. 548/1153) and is defined as follows: '[Empedocles] often expressed the body and the spirit by the shell and the kernel'; it also takes part of the doctrine of the Neo-Platonist Proclus (d. 485 AC) in the same source. 98 For what concerns the notion of 'kernel of kernels,' it is defined in the Terminology of the Sufis (Iṣṭilāḥāt al-ṣūfiyya) of 'Abd al-Razzāq al-Qāshānī (d. 730/1329-30), the famous disciple of Ibn 'Arabī, as the matter of the divine sacred Light which assists intellect so that it purifies itself from the shells. 99 To my knowledge, this symbolism is absent in the Imamī Hadith and thus shall be of philosophical and Sufi-mystical origin. 100 By taking up this symbolism in its triadic form (qishr, lubb, lubb al-lubb) and not in its dualistic one (qishr, lubb), Ḥaydar Āmulī, Ibn Abī Jumhūr and Ashkevarī after them, make it correspond to the Triad of Law, Path and Truth, and thus argues that there is an essential harmony between exoteric religion, the initiation of the Sufis, and the gnosis of the philosophers. There is here a subjacent and authentic philosophical theory. This 'preestablished harmony,' in Leibniz' terms, between sharī'a, ṭarīqa and ḥaqīqa, is justified by a conception of reality which comprises varying degrees of depth, from the material to the spiritual and from the apparent to the concealed. This conception, which distinguishes between, and articulates, both an outside and exoteric (ẓāhir) and an inside and esoteric (bāṭin) aspect in all things, is axial in the teachings of the Imams. 101 It is developed in the Shi'i philosophy which accepted and reactivated the strong influence of the Neoplatonic ideas, as it had already appeared in the Theology of Pseudo-Aristotle. 102 In the triadic scheme defended by our authors, the intelligible Truth (ḥaqīqa) functions as the dialectic synthesis of the traditional opposition between the exoteric Law (sharī'a) and the mystical Path (ṭarīqa): here the innermost dimension, that of the Truth, contains the outermost, that of the Law, and the outer facet of the innermost, that of the Path.

The Sufis have often made use of this triadic theme for defensive purposes, arguing that the initiatory Sufi Path (ṭarīqa) is the necessary link between the religious Law (sharī'a) and 96 Ibn Abī Jumhūr, Mujlī, p. 1072;Āmulī, Jāmi' al-asrār, pp. 14, 41 and 344;quoted by Ashkivarī, Maḥbūb alqulūb, vol. 2, p. 486. 97 Qur'an, e.g. 2:179, 197 and 269;3:7 and 190;Aflūṭīn 'inda l-'Arab, ed. 'A. Badawī (Cairo, 1955;Kuwait, 1977), pp. 32, 99-100. 98 Al-Imām Shahrastānī, Kitāb al-milal wa'l-niḥal, ed. M. Badran (Cairo, 1375/1956), vol. 2, p. 74 for Empedocles, p. 160 for Proclus. 99 'Abd al-Razzāq al-Qāshānī, Iṣṭilāḥāt al-ṣūfiyya, ed. 'Ā. Al-Kayālī (Beirut, 2005), p. 68. 100 The couple qishr, lubb is at least absent in the encyclopaedia of hadiths compiled by Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī at the end of the 11 th /17 th century, the famous Biḥār al-anwār. 101 M. A. Amir-Moezzi and Ch. Jambet, Qu'est-ce que le shî'isme ? (Paris, 2004), pp. 31-35. 102 Aflūṭīn 'inda l- 'Arab, p. 84. the divine Truth (ḥaqīqa). 103 However it would appear that the meaning of the terms and the general conception are different in the case of our Shi'i authors. First of all, they consider the spiritual Truth (ḥaqīqa) as the object of a direct contemplation (mushāhada) which may coincide with gnosis ('irfān), something which enable to a certain philosophy to become the ultimate science and arbitrator between the exoteric religion and the different life forms of Sufism. Example giving, Ibn Abī Jumhūr wrote:

To examination (inda l-taḥqīq), Law is the expression of assent to the speaking of the Prophets and the Messengers and action according to their obligations by conformism and obedience. Path is the expression of realisation of the acts and manners of Prophets and Messengers by the way of certitude and ornamentation. Truth is the expression of contemplation of their spiritual states and stations by the way of the faculties of unveiling and tasting, followed by their abiding by the way of the spiritual state and the ecstatic consciousness (mushāhadat aḥwālihim wa maqāmātihim kashfan wa dhawqan wa'l-qiyām bihā ḥālan wa wijdānan). 104 This system of the Law (sharī'a), the Path (ṭarīqa) and the Truth (ḥaqīqa), is related by analogy to another conceptual triad, the one of the legislative Mission (risāla), the Prophecy (nubuwwa) and the divine Alliance (walāya), the latter being identified by our authors to the exclusive dignity of the Imams in a Shi'i sense. As Ḥaydar Āmulī asserts: 'In reality, the exoteric Law is part of the necessity of the legislative Mission; the mystical Path is part of the necessity of the Prophecy; and the spiritual Truth is part of the necessity of the divine Alliance.' 105 The same thinker criticises those, including al-Shaykh al-Akbar himself, who say that the seal of the saints in the absolute meaning (khātam al-awliyā' muṭlaqan) is Jesus son of Maryam and that the seal of the saints in the determined meaning (khātam al-awliyā' muqayyadan) is Ibn 'Arabī, by asserting that the former is no one but 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib and that the latter is no one but Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, the awaited Mahdī. 106 However, the definition given for the divine Alliance does not exclude its possession by the Gnostic or the Sufi: 'The divine Alliance is the expression for the direct contemplation of His Essence, His attributes and His actions, in the loci of manifestation of His perfections (maẓāhir kamālātihi), the loci of self-disclosure of His pre-eternal and post-eternal definitional characters (majālī ta'ayyunātihi al-azaliyya wa'l-abadiyya); this is the essence of the Truth.' 107 Ibn Abī Jumhūr infers that no supporter of the Law, the Path or the Truth -it means no Shi'i faqīh, Sufi or Gnosticcan deny any other without denying the three together and thereby without being impious (kāfir). 108 Concerning the notion of ṭarīqa, it should be noticed that both Ḥaydar Āmulī and Ibn Abī Jumhūr take it in a purely spiritual meaning, that one of the inner journey through the different states (aḥwāl) or stations (maqāmāt), without its social meaning as 'brotherhood', suggesting that the social brotherhood is excluded a priori from the spiritual Path. It is this metaphoric use of the notion of ṭarīqa that will enable Ashkivarī to put forward this theory two centuries later, during a time when the Sufi brotherhoods, bearing the same name of ṭarā'iq (pl. of ṭarīqa), were publicly held in contempt.

According to Ibn Abī Jumhūr's sayings, the reason he recalls this fundamental unity is not only to protect the Sufis from serious accusations made against them, but also to protect these very accusers, the Shi'i fuqahā', against their own guilty ignorance. In the writings of Ashkivarī, composed during the reign of Shāh Sulaymān when the authority of al-Majlisī was rising, the plea of Ibn Abī Jumhūr, written two centuries earlier, seems all the more topical, something which points what one may call the historicity of concepts:

The reason for the accusation of impiety and heresy (al-kufr wa'l-zandaqa) aimed at this sect [that of the Sufis who testify to God's uniqueness], from what has been said among our [Shi'i] doctors, by Ibn Abī Jumhūr in his book al-Mujlī, is only a reflection of the ignorance of [Sufis'] principles and rules (bi-uṣūlihim wa qawānīnihim). Indeed, if [the doctors of the Law] knew the founding principles [of the Sufis], if they realized that the Law, the Path and the Truth are truly synonyms to designate a sole reality (ḥaqīqa wāḥida), that of the Revelation (ḥaqīqat al-shar'), they would not use such language, and would leave aside this intolerance (ta'aṣṣub), this polemic, this rejection and opposition, they would strip their hearts of these envious and thoughtless words, and would free their souls from the abyss of sophisms and doubt. 109 Ibn Abī Jumhūr also bestows a symbolic and spiritual meaning on the term khirqa, the coarse garment worn by the first ascetics and symbol of the spiritual initiation of the disciple by the master. The transmission of the khirqa is mentioned in ancient sources as the earliest form of initiatic lineage, dating back to the prophet Muḥammad, and constituted the 'pedestal for the edification of the Sufi orders' from the 12 th century onwards. 110 The theme of the khirqa is without doubt one in which the Shi'as recognize their own inheritance, to quote Henry Corbin. 111 S. Ḥ. Naṣr considers that the wearing and the transmission of the cloak as symbols of the spiritual teachings they have received find their origin in the Shi'i hadith of 'the Five of the Cloak' which relates how Muḥammad covered with his cloak his daughter Fāṭima, his cousin 'Alī, and their two sons al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, as well as himself. 112 Ibn Abī Jumhūr maintains that the original cloak, given to the Prophet by the archangel Gabriel during his ascent to heaven (mi'rāj), was transmitted to 'Alī on God's order, and henceforth from Imam to Imam down to Mahdī. This archetypal and transcendental cloak gave rise to three others, and three paths of initiation, transmitted from the Imams to the Sufis: from Imam Mūsā al-Kāẓim to Shaqīq al-Balkhī; from Imam Ja'far al-Ṣādiq to Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī; from Imam 'Alī al-Riḍā to Ma'rūf al-Karkhī, who initiated Sarī al-Saqatī, who in turn initiated Junayd, 'the Master of the sect of the Sufis.' 113 Following a Neoplatonic schema, Ibn Abī Jumhūr perceives the physical cloak transmitted from Sufi to Sufi as an image pertaining to the archetypal cloak held by the Imam. 114 Once more this is a dialectic of integration and overtaking of the social dimension of Sufism within Shi'i spirituality. This spiritualisation of the notion of khirqa was not however as successful as the analogous operation on the notion of ṭarīqa as seen before: the notion of khirqa will remain associated with Sufi brotherhoods, the latter remaining considered as incompatible with Twelver Shi'ism. Thus, this argument is not used by Ashkivarī within the contemporary context of extreme hostility of the Shi'i political and theological establishment towards the Sufis. This argumentation, based on the triad of Law, Path and Truth, stands side by side with a series of antinomies opposing 'true' and 'false' Shi'as, 'true' and 'false' Sufis, 'true' and 'false' savants. This antonymic schema is characteristic of Shi'i spirituality, as shown by M. A. Amir-Moezzi and C. Jambet. 115 To our four authors, the reconciliation of true Shi'ism and true Sufism necessarily implies dissociation from the forms of Shi'ism and Sufism considered to be false. These false forms of Shi'ism are Ismailism and 'exaggeration' (ghulūw), the latter notion including any and all forms of heterodoxy (anti-Sunni positions, messianism, divinisation of the Imam, pretention to the vision of God), especially those from whose our authors intend to dissociate themselves. These false forms of Sufism comprise the organisational aspect of the brotherhoods, the ṭarīqa as a social and historical institution, and antinomianism (ibāḥiyya), in other words the rejection of the obligations of Law (sharī'a) by those who claim having acquired the knowledge of the ultimate Truth (ḥaqīqa) 116 .

It is well-known that Shi'i scholars have for the major part prevented mystical schools of thought from organizing themselves into brotherhoods or congregations: probably, as Corbin affirms, because Imami Shi'ism considers itself the spiritual path; 117 and probably also because the doctors of Shi'i law, whose organization was comparable to that of a veritable clergy during the Safavid era, were intent on maintaining total hegemony over Shi'i society. It is noteworthy that while none of our defenders of reconciliation explicitly condemns the materialisation of the ṭarīqa in brotherhoods, they all, with the notable exception of Shūshtarī, denominate as 'true Sufis' -who are by this definition also 'true Shi'as'only spiritual masters who predate the foundation of the first brotherhoods. The exclusion is thus implicit.

In contrast, the explicit condemnation of licentious and antinomian Sufis was commonplace, and even a compulsory exercise for the Gnostic philosophers of Safavid Iran, the latter always being suspected of deviant sympathies. 118 The formulation of Ashkivarī is interesting in that it combines philosophical speculation with traditional arguments, from both Shi'i and Sufi authorities. Thus, he quotes Junayd in order to assert that the connection with the divine (wiṣāl) does not spare one from respecting social and cultural obligations, that knowledge of the Path (ṭarīqa) does not exempt anyone from obeying the Law (sharī'a), and that believing otherwise is tantamount to satanic imagination. Then, in his own words, Ashkivarī develops the idea that the exterior forms (ṣuwar) of the cult are the 'loci of manifestation' (maẓāhir) of the 'spiritual realities' (al-ma'ānī). The dualist schema opposing true to false is here converted into a twofold schema which articulates the apparent with the hidden, the exoteric outermost (ẓāhir) with the esoteric innermost (bāṭin). Finally, he quotes a hadith of Imam Ja'far taken from the Kitāb al-Kāfī of al-Kulaynī: 'God only approves an action made with knowledge, and only approves of knowledge with action. Thus, to him who knows God, knowledge shows the action. He who does not act has no knowledge. However, in faith, the one comes from the other.' 119 The correlation between knowledge and action is also an axial principle of philosophy or wisdom (ḥikma) in the sense of the ancient Greeks that Ashkivarī reactivates in the first part of his Maḥbūb al-qulūb. 120 It is the correlation between the apparent and the hidden, the physical action and the spiritual state of being, that appears to Ashkivarī as the common vocation of Imami Shi'ism, Sufism and philosophy. This principle of the unity of knowledge and action leads Ashkivarī to distance himself from both legalist or literalist lawyer-theologians on the one hand and from licentious or passive mystics on the other. Both criticisms echo one another: as he expresses in his notice devoted to Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (m. 587/1191), 'the murdered master' (al-shaykh al-maqtūl), just as antinomian dervishes do not deserve the title of Sufi, doctors of the law condemning rational sciences and the spiritual path usurp the title of fuqahā'. 121 Expounding an original exegesis of the last verse of the Sura al-Fātiha, Ashkivarī identifies 'those who earned [God's] anger ' (almaghḍūb 'alayhim) with Sufis discarding exoteric religious law in the name of their knowledge of spiritual truths (ḥaqā'iq), and 'those who went astray' (al-ḍāllīn) with the doctors who reject spiritual truth and esoteric science in the name of the letter of the law. 122 To conclude this second analysis, it seems that for our thinkers the transcendental unity between the Law, the Path, and the spiritual Truth implies the conciliation of Shi'ism and Sufism under the auspices of philosophical gnosis. The more the defence of this thesis appears marginalised and of little account, the more the issue becomes all important, since ultimately the survival of Sufism depends on it, as does the place of philosophy in a Shi'i state.

The linguistic argumentation: the analogy of Imam's and Sufis' 'language-games'

Our authors employ a further, and noteworthy, mode of argument. It is founded neither on traditional authority, nor indeed on rigorous conceptions, but on the similarities or the analogies between certain types of discourse, Shi'i or Sufi, which I will refer to, borrowing Ludwig Wittgenstein's expression, as 'language-games.' 123 Specifically, I will be highlighting parallels and consonances between certain particularly esoteric declarations made by the Imams and some of the most paradoxical statements of the Sufis. The first language-game pertains to certain sermons during which the Imam proclaims his own divinity and goes so far as to verbally identify himself with God, which M. A. Amir-Moezzi technically qualifies as 'theoimamosophical' sermons. 124 These declarations have played a crucial role within Shi'ism: on the one hand they may well have given rise to the branches of Shi'ism associated with 'extremism' or 'exaggeration' (ghulāt)the exaggeration residing not in what is said regarding the divine status of the Imam, but in that it is said, and hence implies a break with the discipline of the arcane, or taqiyya -; and on the other hand, the preservation or the censorship of these sermons distinguishes the Shi'as who have remained attached to this original tradition, known as the akhbārī, from the rationalist Shi'i scholars, known as the uṣūlī. The second languagegame is that of the shaṭaḥāt, or 'paradoxes of the Sufis,' those famous ecstatic utterances in which the Sufi speaks in the name of God, or God speaks through the mouth of the Sufi, and which Louis Massignon translates as 'theopathic locutions.' 125 Basṭāmī and Ḥallāj are two of their most illustrious authors. These phrases have been the object of countless condemnations, emanating from both Sunnis and Shi'as, and even from certain Sufis such as al-Hujwīrī, Ibn 'Arabī or al-Jurjānī. 126 Yet, in a bold gesture, Ḥaydar Āmulī identifies the shaṭaḥāt with the theo-imamosophical sermons of Imam 'Alī:

An individual, when he contemplates True-God (al-ḥaqq) in the light of True-God, knows only one station which is the station of his extinction within Him, called 'extinction of the knower in the known,' or 'extinction of the contemplator in the contemplated,' or 'extinction of the servant in the Lord,' etc. This can only proceed from lifting the duality of the simple point of view, the disappearance of creational multiplicity, and the vanishing of egoity which prevent true connection. As one of them [Ḥallāj] declared regarding this spiritual station (maqām): 'Between You and I, my I holds me back/ By your grace, remove my I from the interval!'. As says another: 'When poverty is perfected, he is God.' As says another [Basṭāmī]: 'Glory to you, how great is my cause!'. As says another [Ḥallāj]: 'I am True-God' ('anā l-ḥaqq). As says our guide and master, the Pole of the lords of divine unicity, the Prince of the believers, [Imam 'Alī]: 'I am the face of God, I am the flank of God, I am the hand of God, I am the proof of God, I am the First and the Last, I am the Manifest and the Concealed.' 127 For Ḥaydar Āmulī, a Shi'a first and foremost, Sufi masters and Imams are doubtless not on an equal footing: the Sufi momentarily attains identity with God at the culmination of the contemplative exercise whereas the Imam is the actual manifestation of the Science and of the Power of God. 128 The semantic and phenomenological comparison between the ecstatic verbalisations of the Sufis and the self-glorifying sermons of the Imams does not imply that they are ontologically equivalent, but suggests that, through his own effort and then only intermittently, the Sufi can say what the Imam says, the latter by virtue of his very essence. The fact remains that the interpretation proffered by Ḥaydar Āmulī with regard to these utterances, and which was subsequently echoed by Ibn Abī Jumhūr and Ashkivarī, bestow qualities on the Sufi that Imamate orthodoxy normally attributes exclusively to Imams.

Our thinkers Ḥaydar Āmulī and then Ibn Abī Jumhūr, also record certain mystical hadiths of Imam 'Alī, on the topics of love, intoxication and ecstasy. For example:

God has a potation for His friends. When they drink it, they become intoxicated. When they are intoxicated, they go into a trance. When they go into a trance, they better themselves. When they better themselves, they melt. When they melt, they purify themselves. When they purify themselves, they search. When they search, they find. When they find, they join. When they join, they connect themselves. When they connect themselves, there is no difference between them and their loved one. 129 Here also, these conceptions are frequently taxed with exaggeration (ghulūw) in Shi'i circles. 130 The analogy which this tradition suggests between esoteric Shi'ism and ecstatic or 'intoxicated' Sufism is probably the reason why it is rejected by most traditionalistssince it does not appear in the authoritative literature -, but it is probably also the reason why it is adopted by Ḥaydar Āmulī, Ibn Abī Jumhūr or even Fayḍ al-Kāshānī. It enables Ibn Abī Jumhūr to justify the ecstatic discourse of the Sufis Basṭāmī and Ḥallāj. His philosophical exegesis is reiterated word for word by Ashkivarī in his apology of Ḥallāj: 127 Āmulī,, where Āmulī traces the parallel between a sermon of Imam 'Alī addressed to Kumayl and an ecstatic speaking by Ḥallāj. Rajab Bursī, Mashāriq anwār al-yaqīn, pp. 309-321, records these sermons in extensive versions. 128 Amir-Moezzi, Guide divin, p. 314. 129 Āmulī, Jāmi' al-asrār, pp. 363-364 and 676;Anwār al-ḥaqīqa (Qumm, 1436/1394h.s./2015-16), pp. 86-87;or Asrār al-sharī'a (Tehran, 1362Sh./1983), p. 28, where Āmulī brings this tradition together with the shaṭaḥāt of the Sufis under the station of "extinction in the assumption of God's unity" (al-fanā' fī l-tawḥīd); Ibn Abī Jumhūr, Mujlī, p. 1682. Shaybī, Ṣila, vol. 1, p. 241, makes analogy with a passage of al-Ḥallāj's Kitāb al-Ṭawāsīn, ed. L. Massignon (Paris, 1913), see pp. 32-33. 130 Fayḍ Kāshānī, Kalimāt maknūna, ed. 'A. al-Ḥ. Ḥājjī Abū l-Ḥasanī (Tehran, 1390 Sh./2011), pp. 185-186, quotes these traditions from al-Mujlī. In a footnote, the editor denounces the "corruption" of these hadiths and the influence of "extremist Sufism" on Ibn Abī Jumhūr.

Ibn Jumhūr, hallowed be his secret, declared, in his book al-Mujlī, that the soul, when it is united to certain immaterial lights during certain furtive occasions and is stripped of its body, through the power of intellectual delectations and spiritual elations which adhere to it, through the intensity of the shining auroras, retires from its essence and from the conscience of its essence. The sovereign of the immaterial and intellectual lights takes hold of it and it then disappears from its own essence (tafnā 'an ḏātihā). They describe this state as 'unification' (ittiḥād). When the traveller towards God reaches this station, that the weaker light is extinguished in that which is more powerful and intense, that [traveller] is drunken from the pleasures of the victorial lights, that these immaterial lights became the loci of manifestation where rational minds unite, then this soul is in such a state that it only sees the locus of manifestation, and speaks only with the language of this locus of manifestation. Till the point where al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥallāj, who had reached this station, prayed to God and said to Him: 'O Lord, my "I" is holding me back, lift hence through your "It is I" my "it is I"!' God granted his prayer and said: 'I am True-God'. 131 For Ashkivarī, the defence of Sufi shaṭaḥāt in the name of the ascendancy of mystical states of being can justify certain forms of antinomianism. In this state of mystical intoxication, he writes, 'the pilgrim on the path of God leaves the sphere of prescription and the domain of reason (az dā'ire-ye taklif va tūr-e 'aql birūn oftād); his heart can no longer respect the seemly practices prescribed by the Saint [the Prophet]; however in this state, the abandonment of right behaviour is the right behaviour in itself (tark-e adab 'ayn-e adab bāshad ).' 132 The apparent antinomianism, on the exoteric level, could mask, on the esoteric level, an inner comprehension and a superior respect of the Law. Ashkivarī concludes with a call for tolerance with regards to the ecstatic utterings of the Sufis, quoting a verse in Persian of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī:

If men, drunk from the pure beverage of junction, express themselves, in this drunkenness and this spiritual state, in such a way that, if compared to the learned and lucid people of the schools, they might appear a wrong behaviour (sū'e adab), one must nevertheless not admonish them. In consideration of the place and the state from which they speak, one must be accepting and seek no quarrel.

Forgive him, whom You have intoxicated and then deprived, if he strays due to his drunkenness. 133 This is without a doubt our Shi'i authors' boldest defence of Sufism, for this 'intoxicated Sufism' hailed by Ḥallāj was generally abhorred by their lawyer-theologians. This is in all likelihood the reason why all four support, regardless of the overwhelming evidence, the historical affiliation of Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī to Imam Ja'far, since Basṭāmī is the father of this form of ecstatic Sufism, which reached its paroxysm with Ḥallāj. The two later thinkers of our study, Shūshtarī and Ashkivarī, are also eager to show that Ḥallāj was Shi'a. My hypothesis is that the peudo-'Shi'itisation' of these historical figures is a tactic which aims to defend ecstatic Sufism and its theopathic locutions, and this defence is itself devised in order to ultimately pave the way for the new experiences and new ecstatic utterances of the Gnostics ('urafā') like Ashkivarī's first master Mīr Dāmād. 134 It is worth noting that the specialist par excellence of the Ḥallāj dossier, Louis Massignon, classifies Ashkivarī as 'pro-Ḥallājian' and isolated in the midst of the rationalist (uṣūlī) clergy. 135 This begs the following question: could one be both pro-Ḥallājian and faqīh uṣūlī? It seems rather that this defensive stance was emblematic of the resistance of the original, non-rational and esoteric form of Sufism, against the rise in power of the rationalist uṣūlī, without ever becoming an akhbārī discourse.

Conclusion

The works of these four authors thus form a coherent intellectual system, which serves a cause both spiritual and political: the peaceable and fertile coexistence between Twelver Shi'ism, Sufism and Gnosticism. Notwithstanding the apparent repetition of the same discourse, the originality of each work in its particular historical context is apparent, both in the differing emphasis placed on particular modes of argumentation and in the development or elision of different elements of information. Whereas the first authors in this tradition of reconciliation were confident of its own true orthodoxy, later authors had progressively to come to terms with its minority status and marginality. Given subsequent history, from a contemporary perspective the reconciliation attempted by our thinkers is between the most esoteric forms of Shi'ism and Sufism, the first frequently accused of exaggeration by the Shi'as themselves, and the second equally repudiated by a great number of Sufis. In other words, and not least paradoxically, it is a synthesis of heterodoxies which has been elevated here to a veritable intellectual tradition.

Bibliography:

Main sources:

  One day, one was mentioning pious dissimulation (taqiyya) in presence of 'Alī ibn al-Ḥusayn [the fourth Imam]. He said: 'If Abū Dharr had known what was in Salmān's heart, he would have killed him, although the Messenger of God had established a pact of fraternity between them. So what do you think all the people [would have done]? The knowledge of the [true] knowers ('ilm al-'ulamā') is difficult and tough.

Following

  Kumayl, who was the last disciple of the first Imam, the next connections between Sufis and Imams made by our authors are Abū Yazīd Basṭāmī (d. 234/848 or 261/874), affiliated to the sixth imam Ja'far al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765); Shaqīq al-Balkhī (d. 194/809-810) and Bishr al-Ḥāfī (d. 226-227/841), affiliated to the seventh imam Mūsā ibn Ja'far al-Kāẓim (d. 183/799); Ma'rūf al-Karkhī (d. 200/815), affiliated to the eighth imam 'Alī ibn Mūsā al-

  ; H. Reckendorf, ''Ammār ibn Yāsir', EI2, French ed., vol. 1, p. 461; G. H. A. Juynboll, 'al-Mikdād ibn 'Amr', EI2, French ed., vol. 7, pp. 32-33. Their loyalty to 'Alī after the death of the Prophet and the "coup d'État" of Saqīfa is stressed in Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays al-Kūfī or Kitāb al-saqīfa (Beirut, s.d.), notably pp. 75-76, 81 and 128. On this book expressing the genuine Shi'i perception of history, see Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant (Paris, 2011), chapter 1, pp. 27-61; see also Maria Massi Dakake, 'Writing and Resistance: The Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Early Shi'ism', in Daftary and Miskinzoda, The Study of Sh'i Islam (London, 2014), pp. 181-201.

60 Muḥammad ibn Ya'qūb Kulaynī, Uṣūl al-Kāfī (Beirut, 1426/2005), Kitāb al-ḥujja, bāb fīmā jā'a anna ḥadīthanā ṣa'b mustaṣ

  Āmulī, Sayyid Ḥaydar. La philosophie shi'ite, 1. Somme des doctrines ésotériques (Jâmi ' alasrâr). 2. Traité de la connaissance de l'être (Fî ma'rifat al-wujûd), ed. H. Corbin and O. Yahia. Tehran -Paris: Centre de Publications Scientifiques et Culturelles et Institut Français de Recherche en Iran, 1347 Sh./1968.

Among the anti-Sufi treatises from this period: attributed to the chief of the Akhbāriyyah, Aḥmad al-Ardabīlī, Ḥadīqat al-shī'a, ed. S. Ḥasanzādeh (Qumm, 1377 Sh./1998); al-Ḥurr al-'Āmilī, al-Risālat al-ithna'ashariyya; Muḥammad Ṭāhir ibn Muḥammad Ḥusayn Qummī, Tuḥfat al-akhyār (Qumm, 1973).

Āmulī, p. 40.

Ibid., p. 41.

On ghulūw and the ghulāt (the 'exaggerators'), see M. G. S.Hodgson, 'Ghulāt', EI2, vol. 2, pp. 1119-1121; Amir-Moezzi, Guide divin, pp. 313-317.

The Defence of Sufism among Twelver Shi'i Thinkers of the early modern and modern Times: Topics and Arguments.

Mathieu Terrier (CNRS, Paris) so given that Ja'far is famous even in Sunni sources for having dispensed a large body of instruction.

Abū Yazīd Basṭāmī died on 234/848 or 261/874, yet he is unanimously presented by our authors as the disciple and the water-supplier (saqqā) of Ja'far al-Ṣādiq, who died in 148/765. This hiatus is simply never questioned by either Ḥaydar Āmulī or Ibn Abī Jumhūr. Shūshtarī is the first among our thinkers to mention the objections that can be made to this affiliation, but only in order to better refute them. These objections, apparently originally formulated by Shi'a Sufis, are corroborated by reliable dates: the traditionist Shaykh Nūr al-Dīn Abū al-Futūḥ deems it possible that Bāyazid Basṭāmī served under the eighth imam, 'Alī ibn Mūsā ibn Ja'far, and that the scribes might have made a slip of the pen; while Mīr Sayyid Sharīf, author of Sharḥ al-muwāfaq, contends that Abū Yazīd received initiation from the 'spiritual essence' (rūḥāniyya) of Imam Ja'far. 79 Shūshtarī rejects these hypotheses and affirms that Basṭāmī was effectively affiliated to the sixth Imam; to resolve the hiatus, he records from the Mu'jam al-buldān that there were two Abū Yazīds in Basṭām, 'the old one' (al-kabīr) and 'the young one' (al-saghīr), the first being the disciple of the Imam and the second who lived later and the date of whose death is known. 80 Following in the steps of Shūshtarī, Ashkivarī makes extensive use of this counter-argument, showing just how important the affiliation of Basṭām to Imam Ja'far was to him but also that the historical objections to this affiliation were too important for him to ignore. Ultimately this counter-argument was attributed to Basṭāmī himself, as Shūshtarī reports: 'Had I not found my way to our Master al-Ṣādiq, I would have died apostate. He is among the friends of God as Gabriel is among the angels, as though his point of departure was that of arrival for the seekers of Truth (al-sālikīn)'. 81 Similarly, Ashkivarī, refusing to make of Basṭāmī an insider having received initiation by the sole spiritual essence of the Imam, that is to say an Uwaysī, asserts on the authority of al-'Allāma al-Ḥillī that: 'The greatest among the sheikhs prided themselves on having served the Imams, and Abū Yazīd Basṭāmī prided himself on having served as water-supplier in the house of Ja'far al-Ṣādiq (...). This account and the others like it leave no room for allegoric interpretation (ta'bā alta'wīl)', in other words, they are to be taken at face-value. 82 I will return later to the significance of Basṭāmī for our authors, which may shed some light on their obstinacy in repeating such a problematical assertion. Regardless of what Ashkivarī might think, the meaning of this historical allegation might very well be symbolic: the described role of water-supplier suggests once more the need of a concrete, physical and 'humoral' medium for the transmission of the sacred Science of the Imam. 83 Two great Sufi masters are then presented by our authors as disciples of the seventh imam Mūsā ibn Ja'far al-Kāẓim (d. 183/799): Sḥaqīq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Balkhī (d. 194/809-810), an important link in the chain of transmission, and who, Shūshtarī argues, died as a martyr for 79 Shūshtarī, Majālis, vol. 4, p. 53-54 (ed. Tehran, vol. 2, p. 22). 80 Ibid.,vol. 4,vol. 2,p. 23). 81 Ibid.,vol. 4,p. 50 (ed. Tehran,vol. 2,p.21). Shūshtarī quoted it from a mysterious Nūr al-Dīn Ja'far al-Badakhshānī's Kitāb al-aḥbāb. 82 Ashkivarī, Maḥbūb, vol. 2 pp. 517-518, for all the historical argumentation. 83 Amir-Moezzi, Guide divin, pp. 190-195. having being accused of Shi'i heresy (beh tohmat-e rafḍ shāhed shod); [START_REF] Shūshtarī | quoting al-Ya'qūbī's Tārīkh. 85 Shūshtarī, Majālis[END_REF] and Bishr al-Ḥāfī (150-226 or 227/767-841), who repented and was converted at the hands of the Imam. While this latter account of conversion, borrowed from al-'Allāma al-Ḥillī's Manhāj al-karāma, might possess an element of historical truth, its literary and mythical character makes it somewhat difficult to believe for our rational minds, all the more so since it is neither mentioned in the great historical works, nor in the Sufi ṭabaqāt. One day, as the Imam was passing by the house of Bishr in Baghdad, he is said to have heard the sound of merriment coming from within and asked the servant: 'The master of this house, is he a free man or a slave (ḥurr aw 'abd)?' -'A free man, of course' -'You speak the truth, since had he been a slave [of God], he would have feared his master (mawlāhu).' When told about the conversation by his servant, as he was sitting at table and drinking, the master went outside barefoot, from whence his sobriquet (laqab): alḥāfī, which means 'who goes barefoot.' 85 Ma'rūf al-Karkhī, another important figure of the origins of Sufism, is presented as the gatekeeper of the eighth imam 'Alī ibn Mūsā al-Riḍā. Shūshtarī, followed by Ashkivarī, reports a popular narrative in which the Sufi master is revealed to be the operator of the Imam's theurgic powers, and the Imam is revealed to be the source of the Sufi's charisma. A merchant, asking for protection during his travels at sea, was given a talisman by the Imam to be invoked in the event of a storm. It read: 'O sea! By the right of Ma'rūf al-Karkhī, gatekeeper of 'Alī ibn Mūsā al-Riḍā, calm yourself!'. Later, as a storm was raging, the distraught trader threw the talisman into sea, and the storm immediately abated. 86 According to another tale quoted from 'Aṭṭār's Tadhkirat al-awliyā', Ma'rūf heroically defended the gate of the Imam's audience chamber against the 'exaggeration' or 'extremism' (ghulūv) of a crowd of Shi'as, and this was the cause of his death. [START_REF] Shūshtarī | Attār, Tadhkirat al-awliyā[END_REF] The symbol behind this anecdote is powerful: the Sufi is seen as the rampart of the esoteric teaching of the Imam against the extremism of his partisans claiming his divinity. Ironically, this story would itself be deemed an 'exaggeration' by the Shi'i 'ulamā', who would criticize Shūshtarī for it.

According to the same report, the teachings were transmitted from Ma'rūf al-Karkhī to Sarī al-Saqatī (d. 253/867) and from him to Junayd al-Baghdādī, 'the master of the sect of the Sufis' (shaykh al-ṭā'ifa). The latter is included among the direct disciples of the Imams, as are the previously mentioned masters, by Ḥaydar Āmulī, followed by Ibn Abī Jumhūr and Shūshtarī. [START_REF] Āmulī | [END_REF] However, Junayd is a contemporary of the final Imams, who are not credited with any links with the Sufis, and of the Minor Occultation. Moreover, he is widely considered to be Sunni, which Nūrullāh Shūshtarī explains, as can be expected, by the necessary concealment of the faith (taqiyya). 89