The Self and the Soul
The Self and the Soul
This chapter reconstructs a historical interlude between Sufism and psychoanalytic psychology in postwar Egypt. It considers how we might think through the relationship between psychoanalysis and the Islamic tradition, while respecting the “ontological stakes” of the latter, namely, the belief in divine transcendence and divine discourse. The chapter addresses this question through a detailed exploration of the writings of Abu al-Wafa al-Ghunaymi al-Taftazani and his mentor Muhammad Mustafa Hilmi, both prominent Egyptian intellectuals who expounded Sufi ideas for a broader reading public, beginning in the 1940s. Situating these figures within the larger intellectual and religious context of mid-twentieth-century Egypt, this chapter explores the elective affinities between Sufism and certain strands of psychoanalysis in terms of a dialogical relationship between the self and the Other, as mediated by the unconscious.
Keywords: Sufism, psychoanalytic psychology, Abu al-Wafa al-Ghunaymi al-Taftazani, Muhammad Mustafa Hilmi, divine transcendence, divine discourse, postwar Egypt, psychoanalysis, Islamic tradition
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