Tag Archive for: metaphysics

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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What Muslim Scholars Talk About When They Talk About Love – Marion Katz

Scholars often assume that love is a concern alien to Islamic legal discourses. However, the composition of love poetry has been a core cultural competence of elite Muslims throughout the premodern history of Islamicate societies. In fact, love was a preoccupation across disciplines and genres. This article examines a work on love by an important if controversial fourteenth-century jurist, Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymīya. Ibn Taymīya associates love with obedience to God and with solidarity among the believers. He depicts love as cognitively based; while human beings are naturally inclined to various forms of infatuation, love can be redirected to its proper objects (primarily God, the Prophet Muhammad, and other believers) through correct religious instruction. While this understanding of love may seem to contrast with the more universalistic approach popularly associated with Sufism, it resonates with recent scholarship outside of Islamic studies that demonstrates the role of love in sustaining boundaries and hierarchy.

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Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi

The human soul, whose initiation the recitals “image,” has itself the structure of a pair, formed of the practical intellect and the contemplative intellect. In its superior state, the state of intimacy with the Angel of Knowledge and Revelation, the second of these “terrestrial angels,” the contemplative in tellect, is qualified as intellectus sanctus and prophetic spirit. § 1. Between Andalusia and Iran AflatBn). Ibn ‘Arab! was to be surnamed the Platonist, the “son of Plato” (Ibn AflafUn). This clarifies certain coordinates of the spiritual topography which we are here trying to establish. Anticipating the projects of Gemistos Pletho and Marsilio Ficino, this oriental Platonism, this Zoroastrian Neoplatonism of Iran escaped the rising tide of Aristotelianism which invaded the Latin Middle Ages and for several centuries determined not only their philosophy but also their world feeling. Accordingly, when in Cordova the young Ibn t ArabI attended the funeral of Averroes, the great master of medieval Aristotelianism, the melancholy scene becomes transfigured into a symbol which we shall do well to consider attentively.

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Philosophical Sufism: An Introduction to the School of Ibn al-ʿArabī

Analyzing the intersection between Sufism and philosophy, this volume is a sweeping examination of the mystical philosophy of Muḥyī-l-Dīn Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 637/1240), one of the most influential and original thinkers of the Islamic world. This book systematically covers Ibn al-ʿArabī’s ontology, theology, epistemology, teleology, spiritual anthropology and eschatology. While philosophy uses deductive reasoning to discover the fundamental nature of existence and Sufism relies on spiritual experience, it was not until the school of Ibn al-ʿArabī that philosophy and Sufism converged into a single framework by elaborating spiritual doctrines in precise philosophical language. Contextualizing the historical development of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s school, the work draws from the earliest commentators of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s oeuvre, Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274), ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī (d. ca. 730/1330) and Dawūd al-Qayṣarī (d. 751/1350), but also draws from the medieval heirs of his doctrines Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. 787/1385), the pivotal intellectual and mystical figure of Persia who recast philosophical Sufism within the framework of Twelver Shīʿism and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492), the key figure in the dissemination of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s ideas in the Persianate world as well as the Ottoman Empire, India, China and East Asia via Central Asia. Lucidly written and comprehensive in scope, with careful treatments of the key authors, Philosophical Sufism is a highly accessible introductory text for students and researchers interested in Islam, philosophy, religion and the Middle East.

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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

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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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The Divine Roots of Human Love – William C. Chittick

Abstract:

Ibn al-‘Arabi begins his long chapter on love (mahabba) in the Futuhat al-Makkiyya – as he begins most of the book’s 560 chapters – by citing relevant Qur’anic verses and prophetic sayings (II 322.16). He points out first that love is a divine attribute, and he lists several of the Qur’anic verses in which God is the subject of the verb ‘to love’. Fourteen of these verses mention those whom God loves and another twenty­three mention those whom God does not love. In every case, the objects of God’s love or lack of love are human beings. Indeed, the Qur’an associates love only with human beings among all creatures. Hence love is a key term if we are to understand what differentiates human beings from other created things. Most other divine attributes – such as life, knowledge, desire, power, speech, generosity, justice, mercy, and wrath – have no necessary connection with the human race.

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Pripovijedanje kao filozofskapedagogija: primjer Suhrawardīja

Abstract:

Sažetak: Ovo je prijevod teksta koji tretira možda najpoznatiju simboličku pripovijest Shihāb al-Dīna Suhrawardīja (u. 587/1191), a to je njegovo djelo Āwāz-i par-i Jibrā’īl (Odjek Džibrilovog krila). Naime, među spisima Suhrawardīja, osnivača Škole prosvjetljenja i ključne ličnosti u postibnsīnāovskoj islamskoj filozofiji, nalazi se niz vizionarskih kazivanja, jer je korištenje

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A MANIFESTO on the New Character of the Language of Religion – Necmettin Şahinler Translation: Aslı Yıldırım

Abstract:

I have been thinking about the necessity for a new approach to the language of religion for quite some time now. The term “language,” as it is used here, is not meant to refer to the spoken language that allows us to communicate and understand each other in our daily lives. Rather, it is a language that can have a profound spiritual impact, offering a sense of connection and understanding. In essence, this language serves as a vehicle of truth, enabling individuals to engage with the deeper meanings and nuances of language in a way that transcends mere verbal communication. Given the definition of “the entire earth as a masjid,” it is evident that this language should transcend the limitations of a particular geography, region,
or district. Instead, it should hold a universal character that resonates with all members of the humanity, transcending the boundaries of race, color, and border. If Allah is the “Lord of all the worlds” and sent His last Messenger “as an unequalled
mercy for the worlds,” then the language of this final call/revelation must adhere to a methodology that considers the diverse realities of aforementioned realms. An ideal world can only be established through a “universal language of religion” which would have profound dimensions and should be voluntarily acknowledged by the members of mankind.

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