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Medieval and Scholastic Philosophy

Medieval Mysticism: Sufism, Kabbalah, and Christian Contemplatives

The mystical currents that ran alongside scholastic rationalism in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity during the Middle Ages, each seeking a direct, experiential knowledge of the divine that formal theology and philosophical argument could not by themselves supply.

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  1. Al-Hallaj, Rabia, and the Origins of Sufi Mysticism. Ascetic piety in early Islam matured into Rabia's pure love-mysticism and Hallaj's ecstatic union.
  2. Ibn Arabi and the Doctrine of the Unity of Being. Ibn Arabi's vast mystical corpus articulated a controversial vision of all existence as one divine reality.
  3. Rumi and the Poetics of Mystical Love. Rumi's encounter with Shams-e Tabrizi transformed him into the great poet of mystical, ecstatic love.
  4. The Zohar and the Emergence of Kabbalistic Cosmology. The Zohar, surfacing in 13th-century Castile, gave Jewish mysticism its central cosmological text.
  5. Isaac Luria and the Kabbalah of Exile and Restoration. Luria's Safed circle recast Kabbalah as a cosmic drama of divine contraction, breakage, and repair.
  6. Meister Eckhart and Rhenish Christian Mysticism. Eckhart's apophatic sermons on the soul's ground shaped Rhineland mysticism and drew papal condemnation.
  7. Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich: Visionary Theology. Hildegard and Julian, visionary women writing in Latin and English, expanded medieval theology's scope.
  8. Common Structures and Divergences Across Medieval Mystical Traditions. Sufi, Kabbalistic, and Christian mystics share formal patterns of union and ascent, but diverge doctrinally.

This module continues after "Byzantine Philosophy and Greek Patristics" in the syllabus. If you haven't reviewed it yet, it may help set the context.

Key points

Visual module map

1Al-Hallaj, Rabia, and the Origins of Sufi Mysticism
2Rumi and the Poetics of Mystical Love
3Isaac Luria and the Kabbalah of Exile and Restoration
4Meister Eckhart and Rhenish Christian Mysticism
5Common Structures and Divergences Across Medieval Mystical Traditions

Alternative visual view: a simplified sequence of some of the module's key points, in their order within the syllabus.

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Further reading

Bibliography and cited sources used to create this module.

  • Scholem, G. (1941). Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York: Schocken Books.
  • Massignon, L. (1922). La Passion de Husayn ibn Mansur Hallaj. Paris: Paul Geuthner.
  • Chittick, W.C. (1989). The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination. Albany: State University of New York Press.
  • McGinn, B. (2001). The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart: The Man from Whom God Hid Nothing. New York: Crossroad Publishing.
  • Katz, S.T. (Ed.). (1978). Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Attar, F. al-Din (12th c., trans. A.J. Arberry, 1966). Muslim Saints and Mystics: Episodes from the Tadhkirat al-Awliya. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.