Sahl al-Tustarī and the Origins of Sufi Hermeneutics: Reflections on the Russian Translation of G. Böwering’s Monograph

An Essay on: Böwering, G. Misticheskoe videnie ekzistentsii v klassicheskom islame. Koranicheskaya germenevtika Sakhla Tustari [The Mystical Vision of Existence in Classical Islam. The Qur’aônic Hermeneutics of Sahl al-Tustarī], trans. by A.V. Ryzhov. Moscow: Nomos Publishing House, 2025, 182 pp. (Russian Translation)

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of Gerhard Böwering’s monograph, which is dedicated to reconstructing the hermeneutical method of one of the early Sufi ascetics and thinkers, Sahl al-Tustarī (818–896). Since its publication in 1980, this book has been considered a classic and well-founded study of al-Tustarī’s “The Great Commentary on the Qur’aôn” (Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm), one of the first Sufi collections of Qur’anic commentaries. The author focuses on two fundamental aspects of Böwering’s research: the historical-textological (an overview of al-Tustarī’s biography, his teachers and students, and an analysis of the manuscript tradition) and the conceptual (an examination of al-Tustarī’s ideas about the Primordial Covenant (mīṯāq), his anthropological constructions, and his method of reading and interpreting the Qur’an). It is shown that Böwering did not limit himself to a philological analysis of the texts but constructed a coherent hermeneutical system of al-Tustarī, and also explicated the interrelationship of concepts fundamental to early Sufism: the soul (nafs), the heart (qalb), the innermost secret (sirr), and the manifestation of God in the world (taǧallī). An assessment is given of the translation of the book, published in 2025 and prepared by A.V. Ryzhov, revealing substantive shortcomings that significantly distort the Böwering’s thought. It is concluded that the absence of minimal scholarly editing and a unified transliteration of terms, errors in the rendering of Sufi terms and proper names, as well as violations of citation rules, substantially diminish the overall quality of the publication.