Ahmad Jām’s Social Approach to his Contemporary Religious Guilds

In the works of Shaikh Ahmad Jām (11-12 A.D), besides his attention to mystical and moral issues, he often considers the social problems. By employing content analysis method, this article tries to describe his approach towards his contemporary religious guilds. According to his works, one can distinguish three different classes in the religious community: firstly the sacred characters who are completely acceptable, such as ascetics, mystics and sages. Secondly, a group that consists of good and bad characters, such as Sufis and Dervishes. Thirdly a group that consists of hypocrites who just care about the outside elements of the religion. From this categorization, it is obvious that Shaikh Jām just preoccupied with religious community and did not pay attention to other classes of society, such as rulers and merchants. Moreover, he numerated the attributes of these classes from which one can guess his focus was on the ethics and spirituality and he did not concern about socio-political issues.