Review of Yousef Casewit’s The Divine Names – Arthur Schechter, Journal of Islamic and Muslim Studies

Abstract:

The near-total neglect in modern Western scholarship of ʿAfīf al-Dīn Sulaymān b. ʿAlī al-Tilimsānī (d. 690/1291) is as baffling as it is regrettable. A prolific mystical author and giſted poet, he not only studied with both the leading luminary of later Sufism Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240)and his stepson Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī (d. 673/1274) but was himself the son-in-law of the firebrand “monist” Sufi Ibn Sabʿīn (d. 669/1258). though a fellow student under Qūnawī of the renowned poet Fakhr al-Dīn al-ʿIrāqī (d. 688/1289) as well as other Ibn ʿArabian scholars such as Saʿīd al-Dīn al-Farghānī (d. 699/1300) and Muʿayyad al-Dīn al-Jandī (d. 688/1289), he also studied hadith under Imām al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277). None other than Ibn Taymiyyah (728/1328) lambasted him for disbelief while nevertheless confessing the exceptional quality of his verse. And though hailing from Morocco, he even learned Persian in Konya during the time of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (672/1273) and most likely made his personal acquaintance. Indeed, it seems incomprehensible how a figure so uniquely positioned in his world as Tilimsānī could have remained without an entire article devoted to him in the Encyclopedia of Islam