Imom Buxoriy xalqaro ilmiy-tadqiqot markazi bukhari.uz
We do not have enough information at our disposal about the manuscripts of this book but we hope the investigations being carried out in our days will be fruitful in providing information about the manuscripts which have reached us. It is a great pleasure for us to state that one copy of the manuscript of “At-Ta’arruf” is preserved in the scientific library of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Acade my of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan under the code number 3154-V. In accord with the message written in the preface of the manuscript, this book was copied in 415/1025 but the scribe did not leave his name. If to take into consideration the date of al-Kalabadi’s death, this copy was written after 35 years of the author’s death. Therefore, this copy is important as earliest and rare samples of the book.
As an important source of the history of Sufism, “At-Ta’arruf” was published twice. For the first time it was published in 1933 by an English scientist Arthur John Arberry in Cairo in the “As-Saadat” publishing house and for the second time it was published again in Cairo by Abdulhakim Mahmud Taha Abdulbaqi. Structurally, as the Tashkent manuscript of this book, these editions include a preface and sixty-three chapters. However, the encyclopaedic dictionary “Islam” published in Moscow in 1991 contains information that says the book “At-Ta’arruf” consists of seventy-five chapters. Nevertheless, perhaps it is possible to compare the two publications of the book and its other manuscripts,and make consequent conclusions about the amount and number of chapters of the book.
There are some commentaries devoted to the book “At-Ta’arruf”. For instance, Sheikh al-Islam Abdullah ibn Muhammad al-Ansari al-Hiravi, al-Qazi Alauddin Ali ibn Ismail at-Tabrizi, Mullah Muhammad Aim ash-Shashi left their commentaries devoted to the description of the peculiarities of the book written by al-Kalabadi. The most important and precious of these commentaries is the one written in Persian and titled as “Nur al-muridiyn” by a well-known scientist Abu Ibrahim Ismail ibn Muhammad al-Mustamli (died in 1042).
As to the content of the book written by al-Kalabadi, the book may be structurally divided into three parts relying on the opinion of Professor Najmiddin Kamilov: 1) information about the origin and development of the theoiy of Sufism, its definition, commentaries on the terms used, in the book and well-known representatives of this trend in Islam; 2) description of the Islamic roots of Sufism and correspondence of its claims with rules and laws of Islam; 3) commentaries on the state of« Sufism, its claims and the status of this order in the system of the theory of Islam.
On the basis of the above-mentioned facts, we can assume that the book “At-Ta’arruf” written by al-Kalabadi is one of the earliest sources establishing the main principles and describing the history of Sufism. It is noteworthy to mention that a very good and charitable act has been committed by a well-known translator Ataqul Mavlanqulov and his daughter Mavluda Ataqul by translating this book into Uzbek. We assume that this translation will play an important role in studying and investigating the history of Sufism and its main principles in understanding the theoretical and social essence of this trend in Islam.
Irgash Daminov
