Reveals the mystical teachings and practices of the Chishti Sufi order as taught by the ecstatic Shaykh Burhan al-Din Gharib (d. 1337) and his disciples.

“This is an extraordinary piece of scholarship. I like the constant sense of discovery that Ernst brings to his work, not only with regard to the literary archival material, which he has arrayed in painstaking detail, but also his enthusiasm about discovering new ways of seeing oral data in relationship to textual data, and textual data in relationship to ritual data.

“Reading this book has taken me far afield in my own thought, and I must end by remarking that, like the pilgrim to Khuldabad, I have come back from the experience much enriched and full of a certain spirit of renewal that I would not have imagined nor found before this trip. Eternal Garden marks a major, transformative advance in the study of institutional Sufism, especially, but not solely, in South Asia.” — Bruce B. Lawrence, Duke University

Ernst’s research, based on rare Persian manuscripts preserved in Sufi shrines in the medieval town of Khuldabad, a major center of pilgrimage in the Indian Deccan, reveals the mystical teachings and practices of the Chishti Sufi order as taught by the ecstatic Shaykh Burhan al-Din Gharib (d. 1337) and his disciples. Eternal Garden clarifies the diverse historiographical approaches found in an array of narratives. It redefines major topics in the often emotionally charged study of religion and history in South Asia, and it raises provocative theses on much-argued topics such as the basis of Islamic political power in South Asia and the alleged roles of Sufis as warriors and missionaries.

New edition, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Words of Ecstasy in Sufism is the first in-depth study in English of the import and impact of ecstatic utterances (shathiyat) in classical Islamic mysticism. It makes available an important body of mystical aphorisms and reveals not only the significance of these sayings in the Sufi tradition, but also explains their controversial impact on Islamic law and society.

This study descrives the development and interpretation of shathiyat in classical Sufism and analyzes the principal themes and rhetorical styles of these sayings, using as a basis the authoritative Commentary on Ecstatic Sayings by Ruzbihan Baqli of Shiraz. The special topic of mystical faith and infidelity receives particular emphasis as a type of ecstatic expression that self-reflectively meditates on the inadequacy of language to describe mystical experience. The social impact of ecstatic sayings is clarified by an analysis of the political causes of Sufi heresy trials (Nuri, Hallaj, and ‘Ayn al-Qudat) and the later elaboration of Sufi martyrologies. This study also examines the attitudes of Islamic legal scholars toward shathiyat, and concludes with a comparison of Sufi ecstatic expressions with other types of inspired speech.

New edition, New Delhi: Yoda Press, in preparation

Indonesian translation: Ekspresi Ekstase Dalam Sufisme. Putra Langit, 2003
Malaysia edition, Kuala Lumpur: S. Abdul Majeed & Co, 1994.