Gavin Picken. Spiritual Purification in Islam: The Life and Work of al-Muḥāsib

Since Margaret Smith’s study entitled Al-Muḥāsibī: An Early Mystic of Baghdad was published almost a century ago, in 1935, there has not been any comprehensive work at least in English language, except for a few articles or encyclopedic entries, dealing with this eminent scholar in early Islam until the publication of Gavin Picken’s Spiritual Purification in Islam: The Life and Work of al-Muḥāsibī. In this outstanding contribution to the field of Islamic spirituality in European languages, Picken explored the formative period of intellectual tradition in Islam with special attention to its spiritual dimension which, throughout the centuries during the classical period played the most essential role in almost all fields of Islamic science. However, due to socio-political upheavals during the past few centuries, the spiritual constituent of Islam has been substantially reduced in various branches of Islamic science, a fact that adds the value to the significance of Picken’s much needed monograph.