Nur al-Din al-Raniri’s Hujjat al-Siddiq li-daf al-Zindiq re-examined
G. W. J. Drewes published this philological re-examination of Nur al-Din al-Raniri’s Hujjat al-siddiq li-daf’ al-zindiq in 1974, offering a detailed critique of Syed Muhammad Naguib al-Attas’s 1966 edition and English translation of the 27-page anti-Wujudiyya tract. Working from the Arabic original, the Malay version, and the manuscript tradition, Drewes systematically corrects misreadings, mistranslations, and romanization errors without taking a doctrinal side in the famous Aceh controversy between al-Raniri and the disciples of Hamzah Fansuri and Shams al-Din.
Summary
Drewes’s intervention is motivated by what he identifies as a pressing need for reliable critical text-editions of the documents in the al-Raniri–Wujudiyya dispute, many of which exist only in manuscript or in unsatisfactory printed form. Rather than adjudicating the theological merits of the case—a task already undertaken by Kraemer, Van Nieuwenhuijze, Zoetmulder, and Al-Attas himself—Drewes confines himself to close textual and linguistic commentary on Al-Attas’s edition, proceeding page by page through the tract.
The article is divided into two main sections. The first addresses the exordium and prefatory note, where Drewes corrects Al-Attas’s rendering of the rhymed prose opening (arguing for al-dhawāt, ‘the essences or persons,’ in place of the manuscript’s corrupt al-dārāt), the author’s stated motivation for writing (identifying the singular ‘illustrious friend’ as most probably the Sultan of Aceh himself), and the summary of the tract’s content, which outlines the tenets of four groups—mutakallimūn, Sufis, philosophers, and the heretical Wujudiyyah—on the question of whether God’s Being and the being of the Universe are different or identical. The second, longer section moves through the body of the tract, correcting Al-Attas’s translations of key doctrinal passages. Among the most significant corrections: the Sufi position that wujud has a single denotation (the Essence of God) and that the Universe is ‘adam mahd (pure non-being); the distinction between the Sufi and the heretical Wujudiyyah use of the formula that God and the world are ‘one’; the meaning of faqd in Sufi terminology (absence from perception, not absolute non-being); and the settled Sufi judgement on shathiyyāt (ecstatic utterances), which permits certain expressions like Ana’l-Haqq but forbids heretical doctrines even in states of spiritual intoxication.
Throughout, Drewes draws on parallel passages in al-Raniri’s Tibyan, on al-Ghazali’s Ihya’, on Ibn ‘Arabi’s Fusus al-hikam and Futuhat, on al-Hujwiri’s Kashf al-mahjub, and on Lane’s Arabic-English Lexicon to support his emendations. He also provides a full list of romanization corrections for the Arabic quotations in Al-Attas’s text.
Key Findings
- The ‘illustrious friend’ (ba’ḍu ‘l-ajillā’i min aṣḥābinā) who commissioned the tract is identified by Drewes as most probably the Sultan of Aceh himself, successor to Sultan Iskandar Muda, based on the singular suffix in the eulogy that follows (p. 87).
- The correct reading of the corrupt word in the exordium is al-dhawāt (‘the essences, persons or things’), not al-dārāt (‘rings/circles’), al-dharrāt (‘atoms’), or al-durrāt (‘pearls’), as the word must correspond to arwāḥ in the Malay version and serve as the object of divine succour in the following line (pp. 85–86).
- The Sufi position as stated in the tract is that wujud has one denotation only—the Essence of God—and that the Universe is ‘adam mahd (pure non-being), not ‘adam al-mahd (absolute non-being); the distinction between the two formulations is terminologically significant (pp. 90–91).
- The heretical Wujudiyyah held that the formula lā ilāha illā ‘llāh means ‘I have no being save God,’ which they further interpreted as ‘God’s Being is my being,’ and that God’s Essence can be known and His qualities and dimensions are manifest as a concrete entity in space and time (pp. 94–95).
- The Sufi judgement on shathiyyāt permits ecstatic utterances such as Ana’l-Haqq (punishable by the letter of the Law but excused by the state of ghalabat al-ḥāl), but explicitly forbids heretical doctrines and any action not agreeable to God, even in states of fanā’ and spiritual intoxication; formal religious duties (taklīf) are not suspended (pp. 101–102).
- The word faqd in Sufi terminology means ‘absence from the range of perception’ (the opposite of wajada, ‘to find’), not ‘non-being’ (‘adam); the Sufis object to its equivocal use to describe the nature of things other than God (pp. 97–99).
Conclusion
Drewes’s definitive contribution is methodological rather than doctrinal: by providing a corrected textual and translational basis for the Hujjat al-siddiq, he clears the ground for future substantive interpretation of the al-Raniri–Wujudiyya controversy. His implicit argument is that the dispute cannot be properly adjudicated until the documents are established with philological rigour, and that Al-Attas’s edition, while a valuable first step, contains errors that distort the precise meaning of key theological formulations.
Context
- The primary sources consulted include the manuscript of the Hujjat al-siddiq (copyist Enchi ‘Abdulaziz), Voorhoeve’s 1955 facsimile edition with apparatus criticus, Al-Attas’s 1966 romanized text and English translation, al-Raniri’s Tibyan, and parallel passages in al-Ghazali, Ibn ‘Arabi, and al-Hujwiri.
- The article occupies a specific position in the historiography of the Aceh controversy: it follows Kraemer’s initial investigation, Van Nieuwenhuijze’s detailed study (1948), Zoetmulder’s summary (1965), and Al-Attas’s defence of Hamzah (1966), and it explicitly declines to join the doctrinal debate, instead insisting on the priority of critical text-editing.