Abstract
This article explores the value of a voluminous and important biographical dictionary of Sufism, the Ornament of Saints and the Generations of the Pure (Ḥilyat al-Awliyā’ wa Ṭabaqāt al-Aṣfiyā’), by the famous Persian Sufi and Hadith scholar Abū Nu‘aym al-Iṣbahānī (d. 430/1038), as a source for information about slavery in medieval Islamic civilization. The article reviews prevalent theories about Abū Nu‘aym’s scholarly leanings and offers some correctives, then discusses the place of the idiom of slavery in the Near Eastern tradition of monotheism, philosophy and mysticism. It places the Islamic Sufi tradition, exemplified by the Ḥilya, in this context. Finally, the article explores the unique information provided in the Ḥilya on how both the mundane realities of slavery and its spiritual dimensions were understood in the centuries leading up to Abū Nu‘aym’s career.
