Junayd of Baghdad - Difficulties

Difficulties

There are a few other problems when encountering Junaid’s texts. Junaid believed that Sufism was a way for the elite to reach God, not the common man. “Tasawwuf,” he says, “is to purge the heart from every wish to follow the path of common men”. This further elaborates on why Junaid wrote so eloquently. Also, according to Sells, “…Junaid seems to presuppose that his hearer or reader has had the experience about which he is speaking – or, even more radically, that the hearer or reader is able to enter that experience, or some re-creation of it – at the moment of encounter with Junaid’s words”. This statement makes it seem like Junaid was writing to a specific sect of the elite that he described earlier. The elite that he refers to are the elect, or “a tightly-knit group of ‘brethren’ that Junaid designates by such phrases as ‘the choice of believers’ or ‘the pure ones.’ They play significant roles in the community of believers…”. As mentioned, Junaid has always been difficult to read for scholars because most of his writings have been lost to time. Junaid constantly uses precise words & language specific to try and describe God, the longing for Him, and the human condition. His ornate language immediately turns off most people, but Junaid had a reason for writing so cryptically. According to the Encyclopedia of Islam, Junaid found out that a letter he had written was opened by a stranger before it got to its destination: “doubtless by some zealot desirous of finding cause for impugning his orthodoxy; and to this ever-present danger must in part be attributed the deliberate preciosity which marks the writings of all the mystics of J̲unayd's period”. This constant worry about others getting a hold of his ideas caused Junaid to become very protective of his writings.