God as Absolute Existence in Ibn ʿArabī: al-Taftāzānī’s Refutations of Akbarian Metaphysics [in Persian]

Throughout Islamic intellectual history, a wide range of conceptions of God have been articulated, among which the problematic view of Ibn ʿArabī-identifying God with Absolute Existence (al-wujūd al-muṭlaq)-stands out. Numerous critiques have been leveled against this identification, but the objections of Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī are particularly notable for their originality, clarity, and lasting influence on post-classical Islamic thought. In his Sharḥ al-Maqāṣid, al-Taftāzānī formulates several arguments against Ibn ʿArabī’s conception of God, focusing on the philosophical notion of Existence. Al-Taftāzānī regards Absolute Existence as a maʿqūl thānī (secondary intelligible), a universal concept in the mind with no extra-mental reality, which is instantiated only through its particular instances in the external world. He contends that this notion of Absolute Existence cannot be identical with God (or Necessary Existence), since God is an actual entity (ḥaqīqat fī al-khārij) and not merely a mental concept. This article critically examines al-Taftāzānī’s objections, arguing that his reading is misleading and that his refutation is grounded in a conception of Absolute Existence that differs significantly from that held by Ibn ʿArabī and his followers. Having contextualized al-Taftāzānī’s objections, I have sought to reconsider and rearticulate Ibn ʿArabī’s conception of God.

Introduction

Conceptions of God remain an understudied topic in the Persian-language academic literature on Islamic philosophy. Prevailing discussions typically focus on the existence of God, rather than on the more fundamental question of what, or who, the God is whose existence is being proven. In addition to the well-known conception of God as wholly distinct from the world, Islamic intellectual history presents alternative conceptions. Among these, the view advanced by Ibn ʿArabī has proven particularly problematic and controversial. This paper explores Ibn ʿArabī’s conception of God and critically engages with Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī’s well-known refutations. The analysis is based on a close study of the primary works of both Ibn ʿArabī and al-Taftāzānī, without recourse to later interpretations or receptions of their positions. Al- Taftāzānī’s critiques of Ibn ʿArabī have become classical, forming the metaphysical foundation for much of the subsequent criticism of Akbarian thought. Prominent followers of Ibn ʿArabī— including ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī, Ḥamzah Fanārī, ʿAlī b. Aḥmad Mahāʾimī, Muḥammad b. Rasūl Barzanjī, Ibrāhīm Kūrānī, and others—considered these refutations serious enough to warrant extensive responses. This article offers a detailed study of al-Taftāzānī’s objections to Akbarian metaphysics in Persian scholarship.

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Intellectual Hijra: Thinking In and Out of the BurningHouse of the Western Academy

This essay, which is an amalgamation of two presentations given at roundtables held by the Constructive Muslim Thought Seminar at the American Academy of Religion in 2022 and 2023, attempts to describe “constructive Muslim thought” in contexts both classical and contemporary, but focuses on delineating the continuing colonial context of this academy in which we are attempting to conduct this work and the consequences thereof. I argue that contemporary constructive Muslim thought in the Euro- American Academy (and its outposts in other lands) has much to learn from the model of Black studies and argue for a model of intellectual hijra or fugitivity, in which we strive to make a home in but not of the “burning house” of our modern academy.

From one point of view, “constructive Muslim thought” is nothing new, it is as old as Islam itself, but what is new is the institutional, political, and epistemic contexts that make constructive Muslim thought emerge as such. It is this new context that has created the separation between the “constructive” and the “descriptive,” marked out the “Muslim” as other than the default, and defined the parameters of “thought.” In the Abbasid context or that of the Mali or Ottoman empires, “Constructive Muslim Thought,” in its various branches of falsafa (philosophy), adab (belles lettres), uṣūl al- fiqh (jurisprudence), history, kalām (theology), or taṣawwuf (Sufism) would simply be “thought,” or more accurately

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Philosophy of Religion in Islam: A Reader of Classical Sources

Short Biographies of the Authors of the Selected Texts

Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (Rhazes or Rhasis) (d. 313/925) was an Islamic thinker who, emulating the example of the Hellenistic physician and philosopher Galen (d. c. 216 CE), became competent first in medicine and then in philosophy to the extent that he earned the title “the Galen of the Arabs.” Like Galen, he reflected his experience in the experimental field to his views on metaphysics and natural philosophy and was therefore accused of deism (heresy). In his work al-Ṭibb al-rūḥānī (Spiritual Medicine), in which he interpreted ethics as “the treatment of the soul,” he presented an ethical thought that focused on the treatment of vices. His thoughts on the fear of death and grief in this work contain the manifestations of his Epicurean understanding of pleasure, and in this respect, it represents a different approach to the issue of death among the schools of Islamic thought.

Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 322/933–4) is one of the leading figures who systematized the theological views of the Ismāʿīlī branch of Shīʿism. He made great efforts to spread the Ismāʿīlī cause, especially through his activities in the region of Ray. In his work Aʿlām al-nubuwwa (Te Sings of Prophethood), he aimed to show the necessity of prophethood and the inadequacy of reason in obtaining the truth against the philosopher Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (d. 313/925).

Al-Ālūsī (d. 1270/1854) is an exegete known for his exegesis Rūḥ al-maʿānī (Te Spirit of Meanings). Although Rūḥ al-maʿānī is often perceived as one of the important texts of allusive (ishārī) exegesis, al-Ālūsī’s main contribution to the science of interpretation of the Qurʾān with this exegesis is his powerful summarization of the commentary-super commentary (sharḥ-ḥāshiya) literature. The issues that we encounter in approximately 80 super commentaries on al-Kashshāf (The Revealer) and 400 super commentaries on Anwār al-tanzīl (The Lights of Revelation), the majority of which were written during the Ottoman period, were largely revised by al-Ālūsī on the axis of rhetoric and subjected to a critical evaluation in accordance with his critical approach (taḥqīq).

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An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Volume 5: From the School of Shiraz to the Twentieth Century edited by S. H. Nasr and M. Aminrazavi

The volume under consideration is presented as the final element of the monumental series An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, which started in 1999 with From Zoroaster to ʿUmar Khayyām (Vol. I, Oxford University Press; republished in 2007 by I. B. Tauris), and continued with Ismaili Thought in the Classical Age (Vol. 2, Oxford University Press, 2001; Suheyl Academy, 2005; I. B. Tauris and The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2008), Philosophical Theology in the Middle Ages and Beyond (Vol. 3, I. B. Tauris and The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2010), and From the School of Illumination to Philosophical Mysticism (Vol. 4, I. B. Tauris and The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2013). With the almost 600 pages of the present volume, a quarter of century of groundbreaking research and painstaking organizational efforts by the general editor, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and his co-editor, Mehdi Aminrazavi, has come happily to an end. In bringing to completion this volume – and, with it, the colossal enterprise which it concludes – the two main editors have been assisted by a vast and qualified group of scholars, mainly but not exclusively Iranian, whose name are recorded in the List of Contributors (pp. xvii-xx) and who have mostly penned the English translations of the chosen texts.

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Reason and Revelation in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and the Ashʿarī Tradition

What is the relation of reason to revelation? How do rational truths relate to truths in scripture? Does the Quran assert theological truths (“God exists”) in the same manner as it prescribes legal commands (“wine is forbidden”)? How do the texts of the Quran and Sunna convey such truths? This article reconsiders the status of reason and revelation in the Ashʿarī-Sunnī tradition, the prevailing school of theology in the premodern Islamicate world.1 The analysis focuses on what I term the “Ashʿarī theory of evidence” (dalīl) and its underlying epistemology, which, I argue, provides the operative definitions of reason and revelation for an influen- tial line of thinkers, from Bāqillānī (d. 1013) to Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210). Rāzī provides a systematic account of the Ashʿarī approach in two influential prin- ciples defining the relation of reason to revelation (labeled P1 and P2 below).2 Put concisely, Rāzī asserts that (P1) “scriptural texts do not impart certitude whatsoever”

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Islam and the Contemporary World: Interview with Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr

In 2009, I had the honour to interview Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who is a Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, Washington, DC, as part of the ‘Muslim Heritage Interview Series’. During the interview, Nasr touched on various topics related to Islam and modernity, Sufism, spirituality, consumerism and the environment. Thirteen years had elapsed since that interview and, with so many changes having taken place across the world in this intervening period, I was keen to speak to him again on some of the core themes we discussed then and to see how things have evolved in those areas over the years. The interview with Nasr covers some rare gems and insights from his illustrious career along with the following themes -Islamic Environmentalism, Trust, Resaclarization of the Sacred Tradition, Inspirational Scholars, The Concept of al-insān al-kāmil, Impact of Covid-19, Extremist Narratives, Globalization, Saudi 2030 Vision, Iran, Social and Geo-Political Trends, Traditionalism and Modernity. I conducted the interview with Nasr at George Washington University in December 2022. I do hope that the readers find the interview both enlightening and beneficial.

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Introduction: Forms and Functions of Islamic Philosophy – Nora Jacobsen Ben Hammed

his article presents an introduction to this special issue of Intellectual History of the Islamicate World. We suggest that this collection of papers broadens the scope of Islamic philosophy by bringing new insights into diverse forms and affective experiences of philosophy. Together, these papers suggest a way of doing Islamic philosophy that is both living and communal. This issue emerges from the community formed within the Islamic Philosophy in Conversation Working Group. As such, the introduction to the collection also serves as a reminder of the necessity of support specifically for women and nonbinary academics, scholars of color, and other minoritized scholars in our field.

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Avicennian DDS: the divine essence, knowledge, and power – Davlat Dadikhuda

In the Islamic tradition, there’s a long standing controversy over the relationship between God’s attributes and His essence, giving rise to diverse theories with significant theological implications. In one respect, these views are broadly categorizable into three: A1, the doctrine of divine complexity (DDC), A2, the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS), and B, the doctrine of divine anonymity (DDA). The entry focuses on DDS, specifically explaining the Avicennian version, and defends it against some objections from some recent DDC proponents.

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Ayn al-Qudat – Muhammad U.Faruque and Mohammed Rustom (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Winter 2024 ed)

ʿAyn al-Quḍāt was a first-rate philosopher, Sufi master, theologian, legal judge, poet, and scriptural exegete. He was a highly innovative author who wrote in both Arabic and Persian, and whose ideas in so many domains, from cosmology and metaphysics to epistemology and love theory, left an indelible mark upon later Islamic thought. His writings in Persian had a lasting influence upon various Sufi figures and orders in Persia, the Ottoman Empire, and particularly India, while his Arabic writings were studied in intellectual circles throughout the Muslim east into the early modern period, and were even influential during the time of the British Raj.

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Mullā Ṣadrā – Mukhtar H Ali: Introduction

Abstract:

Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm ash-Shīrāzī (1571–1640/980–1050), popularly known as Mullā Ṣadrā, is considered the culminating figure of Islamic philosophy in Persia. Born into an aristocratic family in Shīrāz, he was given the best education from an early age in the city of his birth. He then traveled to Isfahan to study under two of the greatest scholars of his time, Mīr Muḥammad Bāqir Dāmād Astarābādī (d. 1631/1041), with whom he studied philosophy and theology, and the enigmatic sage and jurist, Shaykh Bahāʾ ad-Dīn ʿĀmilī known as Shaykh Bahāʾī (d. 1620–21/1030) with whom he studied transmitted sciences and Qurʾānic exegesis. Having mastered both intellectual and transmitted sciences, he retreated to Kahak, a village outside of Qum, Iran, where he composed his magnum opus, al-Ḥikma al-mutaʿāliya fi l-asfār al-ʿaqliyya al-arbaʿa (Transcendent Philosophy on the Four Intellectual Journeys), popularly known as al- Asfār al-arbaʿa (The Four Journeys). He composed more than fifty works, but it was in the Asfār that he formulated a comprehensive philosophical system that integrated reason, revelation, and mystical experience. Mullā Ṣadrā’s school of “Transcendent Philosophy” (al-Ḥikma al-mutaʿāliya) synthesized several major streams of Islamic thought, including scholastic theology (kalām), Avicennan (d. 1037/428) Peripatetic philosophy (mashshāʾ), Suhrawardī’s (d. 1191/587) Illuminationist philosophy (ḥikmat al-ishrāq), and the Sufism of Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240/638).

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