Scholar, mystic and visionary, Ibn 'Alwân lived through the transition from Ayyubid to Rasulid rule in thirteenth-century Yemen. He was well known in his time for his critique of the ruling elites and their governance, and left behind a substantial body of writings on Islamic mysticism, theology, law and exegesis of the Qur'an. Here Muhammad Aziz presents a comprehensive portrait of Ibn 'Alwân, delineating the religious and political background in Yemen, the development of Sufi orders, the interplay between Sufi, Shi'i and Sunni traditions, and the impact of Ibn 'Alwân on the history of Sufism and Islam. The first study of Ibn 'Alwân in English, 'Religion and Mysticism in Early Islam' is essential reading for all those interested in mysticism, early Islam, Sufism, and religion and history more generally._x000D_ _x000D_ 'Religion and Mysticism in Early Islam is unprecedented and novel and offers a great deal of original factual material about Yemeni Sufism that is not available in any Western language. The book's broad chronological and thematic scope renders it an essential introduction to the vicissitudes of Sufism in Yemen from its inception up to the present day. In furnishing such a broad and detailed panorama of intellectual, political and religious life of his native country, Dr Aziz has laid a solid factual and textual ground for the future study of Islam and Sufism in that part of Arabia.'_x000D_ _x000D_ - Alexander Knysh, Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Michigan, author of Ibn 'Arabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam (1998) and Islamic Mysticism: A Short History (2000), and section editor for Sufism for the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd edn, E.J. Brill_x000D_.