Annals Of Transgressive Transcendentalism: Shaykh Abu Bakr ibn Abi al-Wafa'

Shaykh Abu Bakr ibn Abi al-Wafa' was the illiterate son of an Aleppine muezzin (d. 1583). He found employment with an Ottoman official with whom he traveled to Damascus. There he met one of the Salahin (Righteous Ones) and was "attracted by God" (majdhub). When he returned to Aleppo, he left imperial employment and took to haunting ruins and burial places on the outskirts of town (literal "bewilderment").

The majdhub is a recognized social type in Muslim societies. He or she is someone who has become acutely aware of the arbitrariness of social conventions and, in order to bear witness to this insight (kashf), adopts anti-authoritarian modes of behavior. In the case of Shaykh ibn Abi al-Wafa', such behavior included extreme acts of asceticism (for instance, it is said that he extracted all of his teeth), antinomianism (he went naked in public and recited Qur'anic verses out of order), verbal "gender-bending" (referring to males as females and vice versa) and, as mentioned above, literal bewilderment (hayran).

At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, "Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot." And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. ~ Isa. 20:2 (KJV).



Deface the currency!

~ Diogenes of Sinope