Annihilation in the Messenger Revisited: Clarifications on a Contemporary Sufi Practice and its Precedents

Abstract:

Most accounts of the Sufi practice of annihilation in the Messenger (fanāʾ fīʾl-rasūl) have presented it as a step in the process to annihilation in God (fanāʾ fīʾllāh). However, this article will examine contemporary and classical Sufi accounts of annihilation in the Messenger (fanāʾ fīʾl-rasūl) that describe this state or station coming after the state of annihilation in God (fanāʾ fīʾllāh), constituting the beginning of the station of subsistence (al-baqāʾ). After analyzing these accounts, and the relationship between these two schemas of annihilation (annihilation in the Messenger leads to annihilation in God; annihilation in God is prior to annihilation in the Messenger), this article will conclude with an examination of some of the doctrinal implications of this alternate schema and its significance for debates surrounding the evolution and interpretation of Sufi practice and theory.