Here is Part Two of our seven-part series of reflections on the life, influence, and philosophical foundations of the cosmology of Shaykh Aḥmad Ibn Zayniddīn al-Aḥsāʾī. This post focuses on the writings of the Shaykh, primarily his opera majora (larger works).
Contents of the seven parts of this series:
- Life, Travels, Character and Charisma
- Works: Opera Majora and Minora
- Legacy and Influence I: Students, Close Disciples, Licensees, and Other Contemporaries
- Legacy and Influence II: Shaykhism
- Major Arcs in the Philosophy of Shaykh Aḥmad I: Preliminary Considerations
- Major Arcs in the Philosophy of Shaykh Aḥmad II: Objective Logic and Dialectics
- Major Arcs in the Philosophy of Shaykh Aḥmad III: Dialectical Metaphysics and the Project of Illuminationism.
Once again, bear with us as we work to fix some xhtml bugs. Almost there, inshāʾa Ãllāh.
UPDATE (April 19, 2015): Most xhtml bugs are now fixed, al-ḥamdu Lillāh.
In WALAYAH
SAMAWI
(see Subsection 2.1), are dated by the author. This and some scattered cross-references make it possible to do a chronological analysis of the author’s thought.
’.
/2009
, the Shaykhiyyah of Basra and Kerman published, in nine volumes, a typeset transcription from the available manuscripts of the collected works of Shaykh Aḥmad (Aḥsāʾī 2009). Appropriately, they entitled it the second edition of
(Aḥsāʾī 1856–59), a lithograph collection of over 90 works of the author published a generation after his passing by the Shaykhiyyah of Tabriz. The second edition has a number of works which were previously only available in manuscript form. Whereas the Shaykhiyyah of Tabriz published three of the largest works separately,
the second edition includes these within
proper. The most famous and largest work of the Shaykh,
, is still published separately.
(
)
al-Uṣūl
(
) in the field of
(
al-
), i.e., philosophy of law. This was penned most likely during the pre-Iran period of the Shaykh’s life, when most of his jurisprudential works were written. Many of the Shaykh’s positions on issues of fundamental philosophical importance, such as his rejection of both the
(
) of the word
’ as well as the
(
) of
’ can hardly be appreciated without reference to his underlying philosophy of language. This work is thus critical for anyone seeking an accurate understanding of certain fine points in Shaykh Aḥmad’s philosophy.
al-
(
)
consists of 12 chapters referred to as
(
’
). I have discussed its chronology in Hamid (1998, pp. 56–59), where I estimated it to have been written around 1224–25
/1809–10
. Upon further investigation, that has to be revised: Although there is room for even further research on the matter,
al-
was apparently completed sometime during the Winter of 1223–24
/1808–09
. After completing his own commentary on this work, he added seven more
(see below).
have been written by at least three students of the Shaykh: Mullā Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Naṣīr Gīlānī, Mullā Kāẓim Simnānī, and Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Shahristānī. But the most famous commentary is, of course, the one written by Shaykh Aḥmad himself (number five in this list of major works).
(
)
(February 1815
); he also completed an addendum exactly ten days later. In four volumes, this is Shaykh Aḥmad’s longest, most famous, and most controversial book. It is a commentary on a particularly long
(
), that is, a formula recited when one visits the grave of the Prophet, his daughter Fāṭimah, or one of the Twelve Imāms
. A visitation may also be read from afar by anyone seeking spiritual communion with one or more of these figures. The particular visitation commented upon by Shaykh Aḥmad is the
by the Tenth Imam ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Hādī
. Philosophically it is one of the most profound of this genre, covering various facets of the dialectics of the pristine Shīʿī cosmology and anthropology of
(
al-
). Drawing upon a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary expertise, brilliantly sewn together in a dense but consistent fabric, Shaykh Aḥmad’s massive commentary constitutes the most extensive and profound elaboration of this concept in the history of Muslim civilization.
(
)
, this work was completed in Kirmanshah on the Fifth of Rabīʿ al-Thānī, 1230
(March 1815
). It is a piercing critique of the theological epistemology of Mullā Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī, the disciple and son-in-law of Mullā Ṣadrā. The point of departure for the discussion is Mullā Muḥsin’s theory of the nature of God’s Knowledge of His creation. The perceived harshness of some of the Shaykh’s criticisms (Khwānsārī 1938, Vol. 1, p. 223) was used by some of his enemies to (falsely) claim that he had declared Mullā Muḥsin to be an unbeliever. Mullā Hādī Sabzawārī (d. 1797
/1878
) wrote a short treatise restricted to some critical remarks on a few of Shaykh Aḥmad’s introductory comments (Sabzawārī 1997, pp. 579–601).
al-
(
)
al-
. After its completion the author penned another seven observations to be appended to the original twelve.
, along with the additional seven observations, together constitute a broad overview of the philosophy of Shaykh Aḥmad. Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī, the most prominent professor of Mullā Ṣadrā’s school at that time, wrote a set of annotations on
. We will say more about this in Section 4.2.
(
)
the Shaykh makes reference to
(and vice versa); it is clear that he worked on both projects concurrently. As indicated by the title, this is a study of
, in which Mullā Ṣadrā’s presents his ontological metaphysics of existence, with applications to theology and cosmology. The commentary of Shaykh Aḥmad critiques this, and he compares and contrasts it with his own dialectical metaphysics of existence and essence and its application to problems in theology and cosmology.
This work is in some ways Shaykh Aḥmad’s most difficult work in philosophy proper.
It is also masterpiece in the art of critical commentary with lots of fresh and original contributions, such as a subtle yet incisive critique of the Aristotelian (and scholastic) logic of predication; ideas that Mullā Muḥammad Jaʿfar Lāhījānī, a student of Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī who wrote his own commentary on
, calls
(
wa
wa
).
(
)
(near the beginning of February 1821
). This is the author’s longest and most famous work after
. It is an extensive, critical commentary on
(
); a summary of the Mullā’s theology, cosmology, psychology, and eschatology. Not quite as difficult as
but no less profound and original, this commentary contains some of the most extensive discussions of eschatology to be written in Islāmic philosphy after Mullā Ṣadrā’s own section on this topic in his
.
(
) mentioned above; the short time frame in which the
appeared after the previous two books makes it very unlikely he wrote
before
. Its theme is a critique of the general practice of scholastic philosophers and theologians to define things out of existence via analytical reductionism. Here, as elsewhere, Shaykh Aḥmad identifies and drives home what Alfred North Whitehead would later call
. This work also points to the priority the Shaykh gives to objective logic over ontology, as we will discuss later (in Subsection 4.2). The first half of this work takes on scholastic theology in the tradition of Naṣīruddīn Ṭūsī and Fakhruddīn Rāzī. The second half of this book includes a critical commentary on an entire
(
) of the theology portion of Mullā Ṣadrā’s
. The
constitutes one of the best illustrations of Shaykh Aḥmad’s original and iconoclastic approach to the entire scholastic tradition of
(
) and
(
) preceding him.
. Indeed, they constitute the most complete expression of the last major philosophical school of traditional Muslim civilization, occurring as it did just prior to the onset of what we now call
.
and
, are very long and contain deep and original answers to multiple questions on mysticism, alchemy, and other Hermetic sciences: In some cases an individual answer is long enough to stand out as a book in its own right. Other works contain insightful answers to questions from his own students on difficult passages in major works such as
. A number of the points that the then contemporary
of Isfahan misunderstood or found difficult to comprehend in their perusal of, e.g., the commentaries on Mullā Ṣadrā are explained in some of the shorter treatises as well.
(
) and individual answers to questions, one can construct a veritable
of the philosophical works of the Shaykh. This
constitutes an indispensable resource in any effort to attain a profound understand of the Shaykh’s philosophical work.
by Shaykh Aḥmad in their own right.↩
This is a fantastic series! Thank you!
@abuzaynab:
You are most welcome!