Companionship and Virtue in Classical Sufism

"Al-Sulami (d. 1021) was an influential early Sufi master whose works espoused the virtues of companionship as a way for believers to experience God's guidance and cultivate religious virtues. This book provides a historical reconstruction of sufi companionship in eleventh-century Khorasan, arguing that al-Sulami's concept of suhba (companisonship) envisioned the transformation of society as whole, not just the master-disciple relationship. Bringing debates in contemporary virtue ethics on the nature of friendship and friendship's role in the acquisition of virtue to bear on al-Sulami's spiritual method, the book offers an original analysis of the latter's thought that will be of interest to scholars of early Islam, Sufism as well as moral theologians interested in virtue ethics and character"--