Study and Edition of the Risālat al-Hurūf by the Sufi Author Sahl al-Tustarī (including the translation of the section on Yā’-sīn and the passages of his Tafsīr on isolated letters)

Abstract

In 1974, Muhammad Kamāl Ŷa‘far published the first edition -valuable but deficient- of the Risālat al-Hurūf, attributed to the well-known Sufi author Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896). This article presents a new critical annotated edition of the Risāla, one of the first preserved writings on letters in Islam, which had an important influence in later authors like the Sufis Ibn Masarra of Cordoba or Ibn ‘Arabī of Murcia, who also wrote on the Science of Letters. Besides the presentation and edition of the text, the article also includes the first existing translation of the second part of the text, the section on the Koranic chapter Yā’-sīn, and the first translation of all significant extracts on the letters from Tustarī’s Tafsīr al-Qur’ān.