Several early Sufi writers who were at pains to dissociate their discipline from the deviants that claimed allegiance to it did not have recourse to the term eba@há^ya (Kala@ba@dò^, p. 20; Qoæayr^, pp. 20-21; Abu@ Nas®r Sarra@j, pp. 2-3). The earliest and also fullest treatment of the phenomenon of pseudo-Sufi antinomianism using the term eba@há^ya is an acephalic treatise by Abu@ H®a@med GÚaza@l^ (q.v.) written in Persian, probably while he was teaching at the Nezáa@m^ya madrasa in N^æa@pu@r in 499/1105 (Pretzl, Per. tr., pp. 63-118). GÚaza@l^ describes the antinomians as the most difficult group of the misguided to redeem through proof and argumentation, for they are mere idiots, cast into the lap of Satan by lustfulness and lethargy. Many of them simply welcome the special opportunities to sin that are provided by the cover of a Sufi exterior; others, however, advance arguments which may point to doubt or confusion (æobhat) on their part. Of the eight instances of æobhat GÚaza@l^ addresses, only half—the third, fourth, fifth, and eighth—are related to a faulty understanding or practice of Sufism: those who, disappointed with their inability to rid themselves entirely of lowly characteristics completely, abandon the struggle; those who, beholding certain paranormal phenomena in the course of ascetic practice, imagine themselves to have reached the goal and therefore to be free of all need to pray; those who, having been vouchsafed certain genuine insights, believe they have transcended the law; and those who claim that the poverty essential to Sufism includes divesting oneself even of meritorious acts. The remaining four sources of antinomian error are simply four common forms of skepticism, not tied to Sufism in any way: the belief that worship is superfluous, since God does not stand in need of our prayers; the assumption that God's forgiveness is unconditional and not balanced by His wrath; the deterministic notion that worship cannot affect man's fate in the hereafter; and the straightforward denial of resurrection and judgment. GÚaza@l^ reserves his harshest condemnation for those whose antinomianism is rooted in this denial which, he remarks, "has become common in this age" (p. 23), and he proclaims their extermination to be the duty of the ruler.

Six of the eight sources of eba@há^ya listed by GÚaza@l^ are reproduced, in a somewhat different order, by the Hanbalite jurist Ebn al-Jawz^ (d. 592/1200) in his Talb^s Ebl^s (pp. 411-18). Since there is no reason to assume that Ebn al-Jawz^ knew Persian, this may indicate that GÚaza@l^'s treatise had been translated into Arabic, or that its contents had been incorporated into an Arabic work accessible to Ebn al-Jawz^. While GÚaza@l^ does not name any pseudo-Sufi group or individual guilty of antinomianism, Ebn al-Jawz^ mentions a certain Moháammad b. T®a@her al-Maqdes^ as exemplifying the trend (pp. 185-86). In his brief evocation of the Eba@há^ya, Hojv^r^ (d. 464/1071) mentions (pp. 164, 334) the Fa@res^a@n, the followers of a certain Fa@res who claimed falsely to be a disciple of H®alla@j.

In general, however, it appears that the pseudo-Sufi antinomians represented a tendency rather than a coherent school; it is in this sense that ¿Abd-al-Kar^m Sam¿a@n^ (d. 562/1166) denounces as exemplifying eba@há^ya all who deny resurrection and disregard sexual prohibitions (Keta@b al-ansa@b, GMS XX, f. 15b).

A writer as late as ¿Abd-al-Rah®ma@n Ja@m^ (d. 898/1492) defined the Eba@há^ya as a people who sought unjustifiably to assimilate themselves with the Sufis (motaæabbeh-e mobtÂel be ^æa@n) while completely lacking "the adornment of their beliefs and states" (Nafaháa@t al-ons, pp. 9-10). Gradually, however, the term eba@há^ya came to lose its particular resonance, becoming virtually interchangeable with háolu@l^ya (in-carnationism), ba@tÂen^ya (extreme esotericism), and zandaqa (heresy) in a series of epithets that were affixed to heterodox movements of all stripes.

It may finally be noted that historians of Mughal India described as Eba@háat^ya a Tantric sect of Hinduism, found especially in Orissa (I. H. Qureshi, "Iba@háat^ya," EI2 III, p. 663).

Bibliography: (For cited works not given in detail, see "Short References.") Hojv^r^, Kaæf al-maháju@b, ed. V. A. Ûukovskii, Leningrad, 1926. ¿Abd-al-Rahma@n Ja@m^, Nafah®a@t al-ons, ed. M. ¿AÚbed^, Tehran, 1370 ˆ./1991. Ebn al-Jawz^, Talb^s Ebl^s, ed. K¨ayr-al-D^n ¿Al^, Beirut, n.d. C. Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism, Albany (N.Y.), 1985, pp. 118-120. Kala@ba@dò^, al-Ta¿arrof le madòhab ahl al-tasáawwof, eds. ¿A.-H. Mahámu@d and T®. ¿Abd-al-Ba@q^ Soru@r, Cairo, 1380/1960.

W. Madelung and M. G. S. Hodgson, "Iba@háa II," EI2 III, pp. 662-63. O. Pretzl, Die Streitschrift des G˜azâl^ gegen die Iba@há^ja, in Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Abteilung, 1933:7; repr. with a Persian tr. of Pretzl's introduction by Ùang^z Pahlava@n, Zam^na-ye Èra@n-æena@s^, Tehran, 1364 ˆ./1985. Qoæayr^, al-Resa@lat al-qoæayr^ya, eds. ¿A.-H. Mahámu@d and M. ˆar^f, Cairo, 1385/1966. Najm-al-D^n Ra@z^, Mersáa@d al-¿eba@d, ed. M.- A. R^a@há^, Tehran, 1365 ˆ./1986, pp. 261, 396. Sayyed Ja¿far Sajja@d^, Farhang-e ma¿a@ref-e esla@m^, Tehran, 1366 ˆ./1987, I, p. 26. Abu@ Nasár Sarra@j, Keta@b al-loma¿ fi'l-tasáawwof, ed. R. A. Nicholson, GMS XXII. Moháammad-¿Al^ Taha@naw^, Kaææa@f esátÂela@háa@t al-fonu@n, repr., Istanbul, 1984, I, p. 114.

(HAMID ALGAR)