Islamic Theology as a Spiritual Exercise in Morocco 1400–2000

Theology and Sufism are two of the main disciplines in the intellectual history of Islam, but the relation between them has received little scholarly attention.

This project examines the relation between the two disciplines in Morocco in the period 1400–2000 through four case studies of influential scholars belonging to the Ashʿarī school of theology and the Shādhilī order of Sufism: Aḥmad Zarrūq (d. 1493), al-Ḥasan al-Yūsī (d. 1691) Aḥmad b. ʿAjība (d. 1809), and Muḥammad b. al-Ḥabīb (d. 1972).

The method is informed by Pierre Hadot’s approach to ancient philosophy as a way of life, marked by spiritual exercises, as it seeks to show how these scholars integrated the philosophical theology of the Ashʿarī school into the ethical and spiritual exercises of Sufism.

It aims to make (1) a methodological contribution to the study of Islamic theology by applying Hadot’s approach; (2) a historical contribution to the study of these scholars by contextualising and analysing their works within the Ashʿarī-Shādhilī tradition to which they belonged, and (3) a theological contribution by showing the relevance of their integration of Ashʿarism and Sufism to contemporary theological and philosophical discussions.

The project spans three years (2025–2027), which will be spent at the universities of Uppsala and Tübingen, and it will result in a peer-reviewed monograph. Tobias Andersson will conduct all the research, utilizing his competence as both a historian and a theologian.