Intimate conversations (Munājayāt) and supplications (Adʿiya) in early Islamic literature: Yaḥyā ibn Muʿādh al-Rāzī (d. 258/872) and Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (d. c. 414/1023) as case studies

This article examines intimate conversations (munājayāt) and supplications (adʿiya) as a distinctive literary style within the early Islamic-Arabic tradition of the third/ninth and fourth/tenth centuries. It focuses on the invocatory writings of Yaḥyā ibn Muʿādh al-Rāzī (d. 258/872) and the supplicatory sections in Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī’s (d. c. 414/1023) al-Ishārāt al-Ilāhiyya. Juxtaposing these two types of writings and comparing them with works from early Sufi figures sheds light on the unique features of Abū Ḥayyān’s supplications. Rather than asserting a direct influence of Yaḥyā ibn Muʿādh on Abū Ḥayyān, this article situates Abū Ḥayyān within a rich intellectual environment in which Yaḥyā served as a significant influence. Both figures share a stylistic tendency towards eloquent and poetic supplications marked by self-reflective discourses. Abū Ḥayyān’s references to Yaḥyā ibn Muʿādh highlight concepts such as sincerity, suffering, love and the maintenance of a positive assumption of God. Abū Ḥayyān’s supplications diverge in their thematic focus, emphasizing human-to-human and societal relationships rather than the divine-human intimacy central to Yaḥyā’s invocations. This shift reflects a transition from an individual voice to a collective one. Abū Ḥayyān’s supplicatory passages serve as a platform for advocating social reform and criticizing aspects of the Sufi institutions.