Kabbalah’s mystical framework for understanding divine emanation, cosmology, and the relationship between the human and the divine draws strong parallels with Sufism. The seminal twelfth- and thirteenth-century Sufi philosopher Ibn al-Arabi provides a letter mysticism in The Meccan Revelations. It entails that all Arabic letters have their own divine significance, described as “worlds unto their own” (Sharify-Funk, “Geometry of the Spirit,” 2016). Similarly, the earliest Kabbalistic text, the fifth-century Sefer Yetzirah, presents a cosmology in which God creates the world through the spoken Hebrew letters and the ten sefirot, each containing distinct elemental foundations. This developed into a complex worldview encapsulated by the thirteenth-century Kabbalist corpus, the Zohar, written by an unknown author in al-Andalus.
By comparing these texts, this study will explore Kabbalah’s historical development and examine its possible points of encounter and convergence with the Sufi mystical tradition in Islam. This study builds on Ronald Kiener’s suggestion that the Sufi mystic Ibn al-Arabi was influenced by Andalusian Kabbalists (Kiener, “Ibn al-Arabi and the Qabbalah: A Study of Thirteenth-Century Iberian Mysticism,” 1982). Later scholars such as Michael Ebstein provided a broader overview comparing Sufism and Kabbalah in al-Andalus (Ebstein, “Between Mythical Thought and Philosophy: Prolegomena to a Comparative Study of Jewish and Islamic Mysticism in Medieval Spain,” 2019), and in 2024, Yinon Kahan compared the Zohar to Ibn al-Arabi's work in reference to divine garments as a recurring motif (Kahan, “The Spiritual Garment in Medieval Islamic Mysticism and Kabbalah,” 2024). This paper will extend these theological considerations into the letterist traditions of both cosmological worldviews.
Letter mysticism is seen as a cosmological principle in both Kabbalah and Sufism, where the structure of language reflects the divine order of the universe, as well as parts of the human body. Ibn al-Arabi writes about the microcosmic primordial “Perfect Man” as mirroring the structure of divine reality, whereas the Zohar describes Adam Kadmon in the same fashion. The grounding of these letters in classical elements points to a shared vocabulary, conceptualization, and possibly set of traditions. By situating these mystical frameworks within the broader intellectual and religious exchanges of al-Andalus, this paper aims to illuminate how inter-religious dialogue may have influenced the development of letter mysticism in both traditions. In doing so, it highlights not only points of convergence but also the distinct theological and philosophical innovations that emerged from this cross-cultural engagement.
This study explores the intersections between Kabbalistic and Sufi mystical thought, focusing on the role of letter mysticism in both traditions. Building on Ronald Kiener’s suggestion of Ibn al-Arabi’s potential engagement with Andalusian Kabbalists, this research examines how language functions as a cosmological principle in The Meccan Revelations, the Sefer Yetzirah, and the Zohar. Both Kabbalah and Sufism view letters as vessels of divine emanation, structuring reality and reflecting the human microcosm. Ibn al-Arabi’s concept of the Perfect Man parallels the Zohar’s Adam Kadmon, suggesting shared frameworks of their mystical systems. By contextualizing these ideas within the intellectual and religious exchanges of al-Andalus, this study sheds light on the possible transmission of mystical concepts across Jewish and Islamic traditions, emphasizing both commonalities and distinct theological developments.