Current Projects

• Book project titled: The Early Sufis of Hamadhān: Studies, Texts, and Translations
• Abstract: Rather than viewing Sufism's formative period, from roughly the third/ninth to the sixth/twelfth centuries, as a single trajectory from a loose Baghdādī collective to a synthesis and consolidation in Nīshāpūr, this book argues for understanding it as a set of overlapping regional networks. It centers the Sufi community of Hamadhān in the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries, a city situated on a major route between Baghdād and the eastern Islamic lands. The book introduces the key figures of this community, among them Abū ʿAlī al-Qūmsānī and his disciple Jaʿfar al-Abharī, and examines two previously unedited texts: the Karāmāt Abī ʿAlī al-Qūmsānī, compiled by al-Qūmsānī's grandson, and a testament (waṣiyya) by al-Abharī that is nearly identical to the famed testament of Abū Ḥafṣ al-Suhrawardī to his son. I also include transcriptions and translations of both texts as appendices. Together, these studies show that Hamadhān's Sufis developed alongside, but separate from, contemporary Sufi activity in Nīshāpūr, with their own institutions, scholarly authorities, and communal formations.

• Book project, tentatively titled Origins of Sufism: Founding Myths and Their Afterlives
• Abstract: In this book, I trace the variegated ways that European travelers, diplomats, and scholars engaged with and, ultimately, constructed their understandings of Sufis and Sufism in light of shifting European intellectual and political circumstances. Rather than charting a single genealogy from early studies to the problematic Orientalist framings of the 19th and 20th centuries, I aim for a horizontal view of depictions of Sufis/m that complicates the notion of a single or monolithic European approach. In doing so, I identify what I call the four founding myths of early Sufism, which stemmed from predominant European beliefs about Sufis and Sufism, and I show how those myths played important historiographical roles in the histories of early Sufism written during the 19th and 20th centuries. I then demonstrate how the structural role of these myths survives and continues to influence our understandings of Sufism, even though modern scholars have critiqued and, in some cases, dismantled the myths themselves. The second part of the book uses new digital tools and unstudied texts to argue for a new approach to Sufism's formative period, pointing to Sufi communities and texts that have either been relegated to the periphery or been unknown to scholars of Sufism.

• Scholarly Editions
• I am currently preparing editions of several unedited Sufi texts from the formative period, including Abū Manṣūr al-Iṣfahānī's Shawāhid al-taṣawwuf.

Published Peer-Reviewed Articles

• Musto, Antonio. “From Trial (Miḥna) to Tribulation (Balāʾ): A New Look at Ghulām Khalīl’s (d. 275/888) Inquisition Against the Sufis,” al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā, 2024
• Abstract: The execution of al-Ḥallāj (d. 309/922) and Ghulām Khalīl’s (d. 275/888) inquisition (miḥna) against the Sufis have loomed large in the historiography of Sufism. These events are often depicted as instances of anti-Sufi prosecution that fundamentally reshaped Sufism, causing later Sufis to align it more closely with “normative” Islam. While modern scholarship has recently challenged the influence and impact attributed to al-Ḥallāj's fate, this article expands this critical perspective to Ghulām Khalīl’s miḥna, details of which are provided across numerous sources. For the first time, these narratives will be critically examined highlighting problematic aspects that call into question its historicity. More importantly, however, this article looks to the way in which Sufis themselves engaged with and presented this miḥna in texts from the third/ninth century onward. Rather than being something to be answered for or contended with, Sufis offered these narratives as examples of tribulation (balāʾ) and connected them to a wide array of Sufi concepts, including altruism (īthār), forbearance (ṣabr), gratitude (shukr), and contentment with God (riḍā), among other interpretive frames. This article revisits a core element of the historiography of early Sufism and sheds light on the place of tribulation in the “universe of meaning” of early Sufis.

• Musto, Antonio. “A New Text for the History of Sufism: Abū Manṣūr al-Iṣfahānī’s (d. 418/1027) Shawāhid al-Taṣawwuf,” Journal of Sufi Studies, Winter 2025
• Abstract: Abū Manṣūr Maʿmar b. Aḥmad al-Iṣfahānī (d. 418/1027), a Ḥanbalī scholar and Sufi, is a relatively neglected figure in the history of Sufism despite his substantial textual output. This article draws renewed attention to Abū Manṣūr by introducing the (re)discovered Shawāhid al-taṣawwuf, a text by Abū Manṣūr previously believed to be lost. Preserved in a single manuscript held at the Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, the Shawāhid al-taṣawwuf is a multigeneric text. It is at once a treatise of Sufism, a biographical dictionary of Sufi shaykhs, and an autobiographical narrative of Abū Manṣūr’s own travels to meet Sufi masters. Beyond offering new insights into Abū Manṣūr’s engagement with Sufism, the Shawāhid sheds new light on the social history of Sufism during the fourth/tenth century, revealing previously unknown figures and initiatic chains. An edition of the Shawāhid, edited by the author of the current article, is forthcoming.

Articles under revision

• Musto, Antonio. “A Window into Early Islamic Theology: al-Muḥāsibī’s (d. 243/857) Kitāb al-ʿAẓama and al-Tanbīh ʿalā Aʿmāl al-Qulūb,” Journal of Islamic Studies
• Abstract: Al-Ḥārith b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857) is primarily recognized as an early precursor to Sufism, but his role as a theologian using kalām-style argumentation against the rationalist Muʿtazila has received less attention. As a contemporary of key Muʿtazilite figures in third/ninth century Baghdād, al-Muḥāsibī's theological works, particularly Kitāb al-ʿAẓama and Kitāb al-Tanbīh ʿalā aʿmāl al-qulūb, offer significant insights into the intellectual discourse of his time. These texts provide early examples of what would later be known as the proof of mutual hindrance (dalīl al-tamānuʿ), though he does not use the term. This article explores these works, placing al-Muḥāsibī within the broader theological context of the period and examining the history of dalīl al-tamānuʿ as used by Muslims, Christians, and Jews. It also analyzes the manuscripts' content, highlighting al-Muḥāsibī’s synthesis of kalām terminology, contemplative elements, and Greek philosophical influences. The article revisits Josef van Ess’s categorization of al-Muḥāsibī’s theological proofs, noting overlaps between mutual hindrance and teleological proofs. Finally, it includes the edited Arabic text of both excerpts.