Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Muhammad Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, 

The Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife, Kitab dhikr 

al-mawt wa-ma badahu, Book XL of The Revival of the 

Religious Sciences, Ihya ulum al-Din. Translated by T. J. 

Winter (Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society, 1995); 

K  414  

Judgment Day

---

T. O’Shaughnessy, Muhammad’s Thoughts on Death: A 

Thematic Study of the Quranic Data (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 

1969); Jane I. Smith and Yvonne Haddad, The Islamic 

Understanding of Death and Resurrection (Albany: State 

University of New York Press, 1981).

Junayd, Abu al-Qasim ibn Muhammad 

ibn al-Junayd al-Khazzaz al-Qawariri al-

  

(unknown–910)  leading Sufi master of Baghdad 

whose “sober” understanding of mystical experience 

won acceptance among conservative Sunni scholars

Al-Junayd was from the city of b

aghdad

 during 

the age of the a

bbasid

  c

aliphate

. Although his 

writings are available today only in the form of 

letters and short treatises, he was often mentioned 

and quoted in the works of other Sufis. He had 

some knowledge of the legal sciences and it is 

reported that he was also respected by philoso-

phers and theologians. The high regard in which 

he was held is indicated by the titles given to him 

by later writers: the Sayyid of the Religious Group 

and Supreme Shaykh. His uncle was another 

famous Sufi, Sari al-Saqati (d. ca. 867), a pious 

merchant who spoke of the mutual love between 

humans and God and of the spiritual stages on the 

way to God.

Scholars have commented on the difficulties 

posed by al-Junayd’s work in terms of his obscure 

writing style, but they recognize that he was one 

of the first to speak about the challenges faced 

by Sufis in adhering to a life of 

asceticism

 and 

devotion to God. He is also remembered for his 

explanation of the relation between baqa (abiding 

in God) and fana (annihilation in God). Instead of 

accepting the idea that annihilation was the end 

of self-existence, in contrast to the “intoxicated” 

Sufis, he stated that by God’s grace, “My anni-

hilation is my abiding,” and continued to state 

paradoxically that God “annihilated me from both 

my abiding and my annihilation” (quoted in Sells 

254). Because al-Junayd’s thoughts about ecstasy 

and annihilation were considered moderate when 

compared with those of the “intoxicated” Sufis, 

Sufi tradition placed him in the forefront of the 

“sober” Sufis. He taught that annihilation had 

three stages: (1) containing the lower self through 

the performance of self-less actions; (2) cutting 

oneself off from “the sweet desserts and pleasures 

of obedience;” and (3) attaining true existence in 

God by annihilation through ecstasy. His under-

standing of the nature of affirming God’s unity 

(

tawhid

) was also an important aspect of his 

spiritual teachings. Al-Junayd held that this affir-

mation had four forms: (1) proclamation by the 

common people that God was one; (2) fulfilling 

the duties of worship and following the sharia by 

the common people; (3) abolition of hopes and 

fears by the elect so as to allow them to experience 

perfect harmony in witnessing the reality of God; 

and (4) return of the elect to the original state of 

preexistence “as one was before one was,” without 

outside attachments.

Mansur al-h

allaJ

 (d. 922) was one of al-

Junayd’s most famous disciples, but al-Junayd 

eventually rejected him because of controversial 

utterances he made while in spiritual ecstasy. His 

biographers say that al-Junayd made the pilgrim-

age to m

ecca

 30 times and that he died reciting 

the Quran. His tomb was located in western Bagh-

dad, near those of his uncle Sari al-Saqati and the 

famous 

hadith

 scholar and jurist Ahmad 

ibn

 h

an

-

bal

 (d. 855). Many Sufi tariqas (spiritual orders) 

subsequently included al-Junayd in the genealo-

gies of spiritual masters that disciples must mem-

orize when they are initiated into them.

See also  a

llah

; 

asceticism

; 

baqa

 

and

 

fana

; 

b

istami

, a

bU

 y

azid

 

al

-; 

covenant

; 

soUl

 

and

 

spirit

; 

s

UFism

; 

tariqa

.