116091608 ahsa i and kashani on ilm todd lawson

5/25/2018 116091608 Ahsa i and Kashani on Ilm Todd Lawson

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ORTHODOXY ANDHETERODOXY IN TWELVER

SHI ISM

Amad al-Ason Fay Kshn(the Rislat al-Ilmiyya)

for Norman Calder

Todd Lawson

Everyone translates what is transmitted to him into his ownlanguage, that is, he makes it into something of the samenature as his person.

(Shaykh Amad al-As)1

The polemical work by Amad al-As2 known as the Rislat al-ilmiyya3

is a relatively long and at times repetitive expression of Shdoctrine ofmuch interest to the history of Qajar religious thought because it comprisesnumerous issues and themes that were bound to be refracted in variousmanifestations throughout the life of the dynasty. These themes and topicsare joined in the service of a single idea, that the knowledge of God, ormore precisely, Gods knowing, is identical with His essence and as suchis completely beyond the ability of human beings to describe or discuss.

Or, in the familiar phrase from medieval Ismlphilosophical theology:God is beyond both being and nonbeing.4 Further, it is important to notethat the polemic itself is directed against Mull Musin Fay Kshn(d.1680). It has been suggested that Ass preoccupation with this topicas a pretext for refuting the ideas of Kshn is a natural outcome of hisexposure to a strong anti-ikmatmood prevailing in the Atabt duringthe time that he spent there in study with various senior mujtahids.5 Tothe extent that this is true, it would tend to present As as an ultra-orthodox Twelver Sh an unlikely identification given the reputation

he acquired in later Qajar theological circles, beginning with his excom-munication (takfir) in 1824 (123940AH) by al-Shahd al-Thlith theThird Martyr, Mull Muammad Taq Baraghn (d.1264/1847),6 andperhaps culminating in his role as the intellectual and spiritual progenitor

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of not only the heretical Bb movement but also the later and in somerespects even more scandalous Bahmovement.7 If the consolidation ofthe image of Kshn as champion of orthodoxy is partly a product ofQajar scholarship, then it may be asked to what degree this may havebeen an oblique response to Ass vehement and notorious critique of

him? And to the degree that it is, we have yet another example howevermultiplex of heresy producing orthodoxy.

Before turning directly to the Risla, it will be useful to offer a few gen-eral words on the biographies of the two antagonists. Mull Muammadibn Murta Musin Fay al-Kshn(15971680) is well known as oneof the pillars of post-Safavid Shreligious culture. He produced a num-ber of important books on Twelver doctrine and practice: the Shversionof Ghazls Iy known as the Maajjat al-bay (in eight volumes), thecollection of adth (akhbr) known as al-Wf in (three volumes in folio);the Tafsr al-f8 (in five volumes), and, further, he also produced a numberof smaller works concerned with right belief, such as Ayn al-yaqn, theaq iq and the Qurrat al-uyn, all of which more or less presentedKshnas an orthodox Sh.9 In addition, Fay Kshnwas the mostprolific student of the great Mull adr, producing two important andinfluential works on ikmat, the Kalimt-i maknna and the Ul al-marif. He was also the student of Sayyid Mjid al-Barn, the avidAkhbari scholar.10 Al-Kshns formation combined salient features of theAkhbrapproach11 to fiqh with the Sadrian approach to metaphysics and

ontology. This latter also involved a further advance in the Shdomesti-cation of the thought of Ibn Arab, a process that may be seen to havebegun as early as Maytham al-Barn(d. c.1280).12 These elements, therecan be no doubt, also combined with arqa-type Sufi influences, althoughhe did not apparently commit himself to any particular order.13 Whateverthe reality of Mull Musins true Sufi allegiances, he has become knownin later scholarship as the Ghazl of post-Safavid Twelver Shiism.14

The author of the Risla under discussion the eponymous master of theShaykhiyya, or the Kashfiyya as its adherents preferred to be designated

was Shaykh Amad b. Zayn al-dn b. Ibrhm b. Saqr b. Ibrhm b. Dghiral-As. He was born in 1166/1753 in al-Muayraf, a small village inBahrain, apparently of pure Arab lineage. His family had been followers ofthe Shversion of orthodoxy for five generations. From his early child-hood, it was clear that Shaykh Amad was strongly predisposed to the studyof religious texts and traditions. By the age of five, he could read the Qurn.During the remainder of his primary education, he studied Arabic gram-mar and became exposed to the mystical and theosophical expressions ofIbn Araband the less well known Ibn AbJumhr (d. after 906/1501),

author of the Kitb al-mujl.15 His teachers in his homeland included theDhahabSufi, Qub al-Dn Muammad Shrzthrough whom he possiblygained his first exposure to the work of Ibn Arab.16 In 1186/17723,Shaykh Amad left his home to pursue advanced religious studies in

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the Atabt shrine cities of Kimayn, Najaf, and Karbala.17 In 1209/17945, he received his first ijza from the renowned scholar SayyidMuammad Mahdi ibn Murta al-abab Bar al-Ulm (d.1212/1797), and eventually six others from various recognised teachers.18

In 1793/1212, at the age of forty-six, Shaykh Amad took up residence

in Basra, seeking refuge from the Wahhbattack on his native al-As(al-as). From this time on, Shaykh Amad remained in either the regionof Atabt or in Iran. He travelled widely and gained the respect of theIranian religious and political elite. From 1222/1807 to 1229/1813, helived mainly in Yazd. It was during this period that he was invited tovisit the ruling Qajar monarch, Fat AlShh (r.1212/17971250/1834).In 1129/1813 he moved from Yazd to Kermanshah where he lived until1232/1816. At this time he went to Mecca on pilgrimage after whichhe returned to the Atabt. He eventually moved back to Kermanshah where

he remained, except for a few visits to other Iranian centres, from1234/1818 until he departed for another pilgrimage to Mecca. It wasduring this journey that Shaykh Amad died, not far from Mecca, in1241/1826. He was buried in the Baq cemetery in Medina.19

While he was highly regarded in many learned circles during his lifetimeas the Philosopher of the Age and leading commentator on the works ofMulladr, Asmore and more became the object of scorn as the Qajarperiod continued to unfold. In addition to the takfr of al-Baraghn,one of the more frequent disparagements of his work was that he was sim-

ply not equipped to understand the challenging philosophical theories ofikmat, for if he had he certainly would not have designated the likesofadr and Fay corrupters of religion.20

It would appear from everything we know of Ass thought . . . andit is certainly not enough . . . that what others consider philosophicalsophistication our author himself would view as irreligion, an abuse ofthe holy laws of intelligence. Certainly, this is the conclusion supportedin the treatise at hand, the Rislat al-ilmiyya, the Treatise on the Problemof Gods Knowing. In contrast to the erroneous method commonly known

as ikmat, Shaykh Amad insists that he is teaching only the way ofthe sinless Imams, and this way is at the same time true philosophy orikma. The work was completed on 5 Rab al-Thn1230 AH (Tuesday17 March 1815) in Kermanshah, the city in which Ass most importantworks were composed. But As had first encountered the target ofhis commentary in the year 1228/1813 while travelling, probably fromYazd, through Isfahan on his way to Atabt to perform ziyra.21 As anindication of the kind of response Ass radical vision elicited, the illus-trious Mull HdSabzavr(d.1878) who was for a short while in 1817

his student in Isfahan,22 would much later find it necessary to composea refutation of it.23

The Risla was written in response to questions from Mrz BqirNawwb who is directly addressed throughout the text.24 Many of the

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themes and technical terms which would be explained and elaboratedthree years later in the Shar al-faw idare present here.25 The name ofMusin Fay is first mentioned by Asas that well known gnostic.26

And immediately he is stigmatised as a believer in wadat al-wujd.Throughout the text, he is earnestly and energetically presented by Shaykh

Amad as one who works mischief (fasd) in matters of religion and inone or two places even goes so far as to suggest infidelity (kufr).27 ShaykhAmads intentions are clearly enunciated. He says that after perusing thisessay by Kshn: I desired to explain its words to distinguish betweenthe bad and the good in accordance with the madhhab of the PureImams, may God bless them all.28

In the process, As identifies in no uncertain terms, others whom hesimilarly indicts: asan al-Bar, d.728 (pp. 175, 209) Rbia al-Adawiyya,d.801 (p. 175), Ab Yazd al-Bism, d.874 (p. 175) al-Ashar, d.935

(p. 209) al-Frb, d.950 (pp. 173 and 216), Ibn Sn, d.1047 (p. 216)al-Ghazl, d.1111 (pp. 209, 223), Ibn Arab, d. 1240 (generally calledMumt al-Dn passim), Ibn A Allh, d.1309 (p. 175), Abd al-Razzqal-Kshn, d.1335 (p. 177), Abd al-Karim al-Jl29 (d. between 1408 and1427) and his Kitb Insn al-Kmil (p. 162), and Mull adr, d.1640(pp. 174 and 181). These figures and their partisans (azbuhum): theSufis (p. 176, p. 189 andpassim), the Mutakallimn, and the Philosophers,represent for As the arqa bila (the School of Falsehood) andAtheists (mulidn) (p. 162) because they either hold or inspired such

ideas as wadat al-wujd(pp. 152, 162, 235, 236 and passim) and basaqqa (p. 233 and passim). Those whom Shaykh Amad approves byname, apart from the Prophet, Fima and the Imams, those who teachthe madhhab al-maumn, (p. 151, cf. madhhab al-aqq, p. 253) are veryfew: al-abris (d.1153), the Universal Master (p. 247), al-si (p. 247)from whose Mib al-mutahajjad he quotes an excerpt from the longdaily prayer And all things other than You subsist by Your command.30

It is important to ask here whether there may even have been somedesign on the part of As in selecting a culprit from virtually each

successive century of Islamic history, perhaps as a kind of negative reflec-tion of a very general and positive mujaddid motif in the broader Islamicculture.31 Whatever the case, the listing of heroes and their foes connectsour author to his community in a way recently identified as a sine quanon of Islamic orthodoxy.32 It also is quite clear from the ideas elabo-rated in this treatise, that for Shaykh Amad these figures and theirerroneous ideas are not part of a history that is in the past, but one thatis under our feet and therefore present.33

Ass critique of Falsafa is straighforward and instructive. To begin

with, he insists that he is not against philosophy, but rather is an avidstudent of it. But this is the True Philosophy of the Imams, not the teach-ings of the so-called Falsafa. He points out that there is a continuingargument between the philosophers ukam and the Traditionists on

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the definition of true philosophy ikmat. It is acknowledged that ikmatoriginated from revelation starting with the prophet Seth and was passedon to Idrs and then from one philosopher to another, presumably in pureform, until it came to Plato. Here, the philosophers split into two groups.One group, the Ishrqs, understand Plato in symbols and allusions, the

other group is the Peripatetics and they study him from the outwardmeaning of his words. These latter imagine that they are walking in hisfootsteps. The first of these was Aristotle, then his student al-Frbandafter him his student Ibn Sn. Another problem complicating the trans-misison of philosophy from this time forward is the fact that it was inGreek and translated into Arabic, and in the process of translation manyerrors crept in. He then gives examples of the three types of mistakesmade.34 His counsel to his interlocutor is:

This is the reason you should take [current] ikmatand align itwith the ikmatof the People of Ima. Then, the meaning willbe sound. If you would make their words your guide, and becomea divinely instructed follower, do not disregard their teaching byturning to the words of the ukam and the Mutakallimn andthe people of Taawwuf. Do only what They desire. It is not whatthe Sufis and the ukam want, contrary to what our author(Fay) would have us believe in his books.35

The polemical tone of the Risla is of course one of its most strikingfeatures. The other is the reliance on the akhbr of the Prophet and hisfamily. The major point being, for Shaykh Amad, that one can only sayabout God that which is stated in the Qurn or in the adth. It happens,of course, that both he and Kshn rely on similar and in some casesidentical traditions to make their respective points.36 The most prominenttradition, transmitted from the sixth Imam Jafar al-diq (d.765), is quotedseveral times throughout the Risla. Its first few lines are most important:

Our Lord, mighty and glorious, was/is/will be ever a knower, andthis knowing is his essence even though there be no object ofknowledge. When an object of knowledge comes to exist, thenthis knowing falls upon it from it [i.e., his essence].

kna rabbun azza wa jalla lim wa al-ilmu dhtuhu wa l malmfalamm wujida al-malm waqaa al-ilm minhu al al-malm37

For Shaykh Amad, a recurrent, powerful metaphor and heuristic anal-

ogy of this particular doctrine of Gods knowledge is that of the sun. Thesun, in relation to humanity, may certainly be thought ancient and pre-eternal (or sempiternal), serenely disengaged from and unencumbered bysuch worldly burdens and distractions as time and place. The light of the

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sun, thus, has ever been radiating from its essence, even though there wereno earth and no humanity upon which these rays might fall. This is exactlythe way one should understand Gods knowing. Gods knowing is the sameas his essence. Since this essence has always been (namely is azal), thenGods act of knowing has always been, even when38 there is no object of

knowledge external to the divine essence upon which this knowledge mightfall, to which it might occur (waqaa). This Isml-esque analogy runsas follows:

[The sun] is luminous in itself, even if nothing exists to reflect orreceive this luminosity. If something exists, then its rays fall uponit, but if it does not exist [the sun] is still luminous. It is notpossible to say that the sun has fallen (waqaa) from the fourthheaven to the earth. Rather, we say that the effects of the sun

are manifest upon (waqaa) this material object. The meaning ofwuq is the appearance (uhr) of [the suns] effects which areits rays (ishrq) upon the earth. And its effects are [also] otherthan it. Its effects are its acting.39

Understand what I have said to you, that knowing can exist whenthere is no object of knowledge, like the parable of the sun whichis luminous even if there is nothing for its light to fall upon (asis the case when it continues to exist at night but there is no

luminosity because of the things between it and us). This is exactlylike you who are hearing, even when there is no object of hearingor no one is speaking. Thus, to be hearing is your essence . . .This is why we say you are hearing even when there is no sound.But, we do not say that you hear [something] at a given momentwhen there is nothing for you to exercise your power of hearingover. It is the same for the sun when there is no material objectto illumine. It is still the Master of Light, but it is illuminatingnothing . . . Nonetheless, light is the essence of the sun and there-

fore one can only say that it shines . . . Briefly, it is not permittedto qualify a thing by its operational reality (wuq) or its rela-tionality (iqtirn), except when these things are in operation. Thus,the sun is only radiant upon a receiver of its radiance.40

According to As, God is simply and completely unknowable. Andwhile one doubts whether Fay Kshnwould actually disagree with thisstatement expressed thus, Shaykh Amad is rankled by several of Kshnsformulations which may be interpreted as violating the ever unknowable

essence of God. From the very beginning of the treatise, As is doggedin his pursuance of Kshns panentheism (or perhaps better, theomon-ism41), even to the extent of castigating him for citing the Quran in acorrupt fashion. Kshnopens his Risla with the words:

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Praise be to God, the knower the wise, he from whose know-ledge not even the weight of an atom is missing in all the heavensor in the earth. [Q34.3]42 And praise be upon Muhammad andthe people of his house, the Pure Ones, those who inheritedauthority from each other in unbroken succession.43

What might otherwise appear to be a purely unexceptionable statementof belief in doxological form, is seized upon by As for the purposeof demonstrating, in no uncertain terms, the corrupt nature of the partic-ular beliefs behind it. Because Gods knowing is the same as his inviolableessence, nothing at all can be said about It apart from the assertionthat It exists, and even here one must be very careful how one uses theword is.44 The problem, according to Asis whether Fay understandsthis falling upon the object of knowledge to be the actual essence or the

divine acting.45 If he says his essence then he is a kfir (fain qla dhtuhukafara). And if he says his acting he negates everything else he has said.And if he says nothing falls he gainsays the Imam, and gainsays thesaying of God.

Shaykh Amad says that the ostensive meaning of knower is anattribute referring to essential knowledge, which is identical to his essence.In Fays quoting the verse, nor fall from his knowledge the weight ofan atom, etc., if he means essential knowledge, he is wrong, because ifthat which is intended in the holy verse is essential knowing then those

objects of its knowledge that are in heaven and earth would also be init.46 This is unthinkable because there can be no connection between thedivine timeless essence and the world of generation.47 There are only twopossibilities: eternity (azal) or generation (adath):

We hold [for the purpose of argument] that these objects of know-ledge are: (1) the same as his essence without change, or (2) thesame as his essence with change, or (3) other than his essence . . .It must be though that these objects of knowledge are in time

(udth) and contingency (imkn) and there is no mediatorbetween the necessary and the generated . . .

The traditions prove this, and it is a correct position, since theobjects of knowledge are other than his essence . . . We say: Theknowledge of a thing must be commensurate with the object ofthat knowledge, or incommensurate, or connected to the objectof knowledge, or not connected, or happening to it or nothappening. It is either known or not known. If it is commensu-

rate and you mean by this that the divine essential knowledge iscommensurate with the object of knowledge, then you must alsosay that the divine essence conforms to you yourself . . . God beexalted above such a thing!

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If you say it is not in conformity, then you must say that there isno knowledge of it because it is not permitted that a knowledge beother than in conformity with the object of knowledge. For exam-ple, if the object of knowledge is long, then the knowledge is long. . . And if you say through wqi then it is necessary that thedivine essence happen to you. And this is also absurd.

The difficulty arises when there is a failure to recognise that there arein reality two types of knowing: Gods essential timeless knowing, andthe pale mimesis of this referred to as mans knowing. That it is soremoved is indicated in several traditions, among the most interesting ofwhich is the passage insisting that thinking is really a metaphor for some-thing that has no real cognate or equivalent in the Divine instance.48 Thefirst type is the knowledge that does not change, as in the Imams state-

ment: His knowledge of a thing before its existence is as His knowledgeof the same thing after its existence.49

And while the Mull himself quotes such a tradition (whose plainmeaning refutes his own position) . . . His understanding of andknowledge was/is/will be his essence is along the lines of thewadat al-wujd Sufis, namely that all created things are in andof the divine essence.50

On the other hand, Ascalls this knowing ilm rji al-wujd, or ilmimkn a potentially confusing designation. The second type, our authorcalls ilm akwn, or knowledge pertaining to the various existentiatedthings.51

In Western scholarship, it has become customary to yoke the grandintellectual topos of hermeneutics with the Shaykhiyya, and while thereis no doubt every good reason for this in many cases, one cannot helpmaking the observation in the present context that it is clear that ShaykhAmad esteems himself as performing no act of interpretation at all in

his reading of the Qurn and the adth. He is simply learning and trans-mitting the pure unchanging meaning of these texts. One is struck,therefore, by the intensity of Shaykh Amads unwavering confidence inhis own noninterpretation of the Qurn and adth so crucial and basicto his argument. The source of this certitude is experiential: the lam al-mithl, an interworld of dreams and visions with its own time and space,which is paradoxically more real than the world of normal experience.The idea of an interworld, while certainly not new with Shaykh Amad,can be considered to have reached a theological and philosophical promi-

nence (if not apotheosis) previously unknown in his writings.52 It was inthis world that Shaykh Amad received his ability to understand directlyfrom the Imams themselves. Therefore, his certitude that he understoodthe nature of Gods knowledge and knowing as perfectly as possible in

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this sub-lunar realm was utterly unshakeable, even though (or perhapsbecause) such certitude is based ultimately on the aporia of Gods absoluteunknowable essence.53

Corbin translated lam al-mithlby the Latin expression mundus imag-inalis, emphasising that the realm in question must not be considered as

merely imaginary a fantasy world. Rather, the term denotes a realmwhich is accessible only by means of the God-given, sacred faculty of imag-ination: khayl. Khaylmay be thought of as a true sixth sense, throughwhich this world, located between the world of sense perception and apurely spiritual world, may be encountered. As such, the distinction of theadjective imaginal from imaginary is most appropriate.54

We are not dealing here with irreality. The mundus imaginalis isa world of autonomous forms and images (moallaqa, in suspense,

that is, not inherent in a substratum like the color black in ablack table, but in suspense in the place of their appearance, inthe imagination, for example, like an image suspended in amirror.) It is a perfectly real world preserving all the richness anddiversity of the sensible world but in a spiritual state.55

For the Shaykhs, beginning with Shaykh Amad himself, the lam al-mithl, sometimes referred to as Hrqaly, had pre-eminent importanceas the abode of the hidden Imam, and as the place of bodily resurrec-

tion. The hidden Imam, residing in the lam al-mithl, is accessible throughthe spiritual imagination of those members of the Sh a who are capableof purifying their consciences to a degree that would allow the hiddenImam, or Qim, to appear to (or: rise up from within) them (namely,the Perfect Sha).56 Shaykh Amad attributed a great deal to severalvisions he had experienced, beginning at quite an early age. In thesevisions, either the hidden Imam, or some other member of the ahl al-baytwould appear to him. During one such vision, the Imam bestowed uponShaykh Amad twelve ijzt, one presumably from each of the Imams.57

By appealing to such experiences, Shaykh Amad made it clear that theonly religious authority he would submit to would be the Imams them-selves as opposed, say, to any marja al-taqlid of the Uls. This alsoimplied that his own knowledge, thus derived directly from the Prophetand the Imms, was qualitatively superior to that of others. Shaykh Amadwas not the only personality to make much of such experiences. Thephenomenon was common enough for those who experienced it to bedesignated by the term Uways.58

Shaykh Amad was not the only one to uphold the reality of the imag-

inal realm. Indeed, his opponent Fay Kshn has written one of theclearest and most important discussions on the topic.59 Though bothKshnand Asagree on the value of the lam al-mithl, one assumesthat there would be serious disagreements with regard to important details.

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Asdoes not directly comment on Fays version here,60 and, of course,it would be very interesting to study more closely just how the two authorsdiffered in their understanding of the topic. (For example, Fay does notseem to speak of meetings with the Imam in his version of the mundusimaginalis.) It would be most instructive to know in which ways Shaykh

Amad saw Fay as misunderstanding the ontological nature and func-tion of the Imaginal Realm, even if it seems clear that they both wouldhave to agree on certain of its eschatological qua cosmogonic functions.

The lam al-mithl is indispensable to Shaykh eschatology, in whicha corporeal resurrection is denied in favour of a complex recourse to thisseparate reality, where a resurrection of ones spiritual or subtle (laf)body, undergoes a process designated by such terminology as madandqiyma. Aswas also a scientist and we may assume that there is anemphasis here on the denial of the scientifically untenable bodily resur-

rection, which so many Muslim philosophers prior to Shaykh Amad alsofound impossible to believe.61 Shaykh Amads solution is in the form ofa sufficiently detailed and therefore appealingly possible alternative: eventhe most hard-bitten sceptic could never completely deny the logical possi-bility of the totally spiritual process which Shaykh Amad propounded.As refers briefly to the lam al-mithl in the Risla in discussing thedescent of being as a result of the dynamic between the divine acting andthe divinely-acted-upon (cf. fi l/mafl mentioned above). Here absolutebeing is the acting and delimited being is the acted-upon.62 This is precisely

the kind of discussion that betrays the strong attraction of As for theprofoundly mystical and unitive visions sometimes associated with IbnAraband his school, modulo of course certain confessional adjustments.It is doubtful that any otherwise benighted (according to As) believerin wadat al-wujdwould or could but recognise their own views in therecent accurate characterization of Ass ontology, namely: As exist-ence unfolds, the acts of becoming constitute the very acts of respondingto, yielding to, and riding the flow of existence.63

But, in fact, there may be more profit in comparing Ass thought

with that of Al al-Dawla Simnn (d.1336). Over thirty years ago,Landolt observed an intriguing similarity between the influential IranianSufi, and Amad al-As: both heavily criticised wadat al-wujd andsought to replace it with a dynamic view of the divine act (fi l), even asboth were accused of having misunderstood wadat al-wujd in the firstplace. In some ways, it is even more remarkable that both shared, asLandolt points out, similar views about a subtle body.64 It may be thatAswas directly influenced by Simnnon these characteristic subjects,but so far, evidence of such an influence has not been encountered.65 Is

it possible that both authors, one from the fourteenth the other from thenineteenth centuries were ultimately indebted to the Isml tradition fortheir ontological views? It has recently been observed that the figureswho come closest to prefiguring Simnns cosmological scheme are the

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Isml philosophers . . . as-Sijistn (d. between 386/996 and 393/1003)and . . . al-Kirmn (d.after 411/1020).66 Simnns distinctive attachmentto the family of the Prophet67 may represent nothing more than tashayyuasan. But could it be that the same theological fragrance that contributedso much to Simnns influential legacy and great popularity, contributed

to Ass fall from grace as the philosopher of the age? It was, afterall the threat of IsmlIslam that was one of the most important forma-tive factors in the birth and development of Twelver Shiism. Can therehave been an inbuilt genetic resistance in Twelver theology to such starkapophaticism?

Or is it more likely that the identical morphology of the beliefs of thetwo men functioned in different ways in their respective milieux, namelyto safeguard the utter transcendence of God who can only be thoughtof in terms of a dynamic (yet aniconic) reality as distinct from an ontic

reality: in Simnns case, from the Buddhists at the Il-khan court68; inAss case, from the ikmatphilosophersadr and Kshn? This ofcourse raises the question: what was the original function of this samephilosophy articulated by the classical Isml thinkers?

Here, it is of more than passing interest that it is possibly thanks toMusin Fay that an important source-text of Ismlphilosophical theol-ogy69 was rescued from oblivion. The Khubat al-atanjiyya, which formsmuch of the lengthy chapter on Sublimity(uluwiyya) in his Kalimt-imaknna,70 would become one of the more important objects of medita-

tion for Sayyid Kim Rasht, Shaykh Amads successor, and it would con-tinue to enrich the thought and imagery of both the Bb and Bahcorpuses. Indeed, the version of this sermon most widely available hasenjoyed countless reprintings in Twelver Shcommunities in Lebanon,71

though it tends to be dismissed asghuluww by representatives of the learnedclasses.72 And, to add further to the complexity (or perhaps the imperti-nence) of applying the enduring and somewhat alien conceptual syzygyorthodoxy/heterdoxy to the case of As, it should be mentioned thatthe contemporary editor of the Risla expends a certain amount of serious

effort in an attempt to demonstrate that our authors ideas are in perfectharmony with the teachings of the late Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini.73

The dialogue between Asand Kshnis, of course, a dialogue com-pletely controlled by our Qajar scholar, since Kshn is represented onlyby a text, and this text is mediated through the prism of Ass concernsand goals. That Ass general argument was severely condemned fifty orso years later by the most celebrated post-adr philosopher, Mull HdSabzavr (d.1872), indicates that it touched an important nerve in thegeneral body of Qajar Shiism, in both its philosophical and more purely

religious modes.74 But, it is also true that as a result of Ass critique ofFay Kshn the latter becomes more Ul, more orthodox. As ourauthor says himself in response to one of Kshns assertions that all ofthe divine attributes are existent in the essence:

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And he calls himself an Akhbr! namely, one whose viewsaccord perfectly with tradition, especially those traditions that areagreed upon (muttafaqa) and for which there is no contradictorytradition. But all of these are quite clear: the will and the purposecome from God as two generated things (adthatn) because theyare active attributes. God does not have a pre-eternal will andpurpose. Whoever claims that God, mighty and glorious, hasalways been willing and purposing is not an affirmer of the divineunity (falaysa bi-muwaid).75

As, as we know, was not the only one preoccupied with the iden-tity of the true muwaid during the late eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies. The Wahhbi threat to Sufism,ghuluww Shiism and philosophyof all kinds was not only a theological issue, but also a matter of life and

death in some regions. The ironic development is, however, that in theprocess of Shaykh Amads argument against Fay Kshn the Imamsbecome God revealed, taking the place of the God of Fay Kshn. Thereal but starkly apophatic God is removed further from contemplationthan one might have thought possible, unless of course one happens tobe a classical Ismlphilospher.

One of the results of this elevation of the Imams, an elevation that auto-matically raises the divinity incommensurately higher, is that the answer tothe question, What does it mean to be human? becomes in some ways

more interesting than it was before. The Imams, according to As andIsml thought are neither human nor divine, but a different order ofbeing, a separate and distinct species.76 The Perfect Man, in Shaykhthought is not the Prophet, contrary to a traditional Sufi teaching rooted inthe teachings of Ibn Arab77; nor is the idea represented by the Prophet andthe Imams, contrary to the common Twelver Sh adaption of thisdoctrine.78 Rather, for Shaykh Amad, the Perfect Man is the one whorecognises the spiritual and ontological dignity of these figures. It is Salmn not Muhammad who represents the prototype here.79

For Shaykh Amad there is absolutely no doubt that Kshns reli-gious vision shares much in common with Ghazls, but for As, thisis no commendation or point of honour. Though perhaps not a cardcarrying kfir, Kshn can hardly be seen as a continuer of the pureteachings of Ithn AsharShiism. Not only is Kshnderided for contin-uing the Sufi-infected distortions of true religion propagated by his masterMulladr, he is also blamed for having ignored true philosophy, namelythe teachings of the Imams. And, on the topic of Gods knowing, the trueteachings of the Imams are as straightforward and clear as they are

uncompromising.Ass effort to rescue the unknowable God of Islam from the degen-

eracies of contamination through Islams unforgivable sin, shirk, mayindeed be inspired by contemporary religious developments in Arabia. The

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terms of the argument are interchangeable, except, of course, that Aswas an avid ImmSh , and the Wahhbiyya equally avid Sunni Muslims.But the temperament is strikingly similar, however much both AsandIbn Taymiyya (d.1328) might be horrified to read this.80 The main objectof their opprobrium was none other than wadat al-wujd: existentialmonism, understood by them to violate the utterly transcendent essence(dht) of God. Asquotes as follows against those who profess wadatal-wujd: It is rather as our Imam, the Commander of the Faithful, hassaid: The created thing ends only in its likeness and the resort of thequest is only in its simulacrum. The road [to the essence] is forever blocked,and the search for it is eternally barred. 81 The question, though, iswould those who esteem themselves as professing wadat al-wujddisagreewith this adth?

It should be remembered that Fay Kshnis not the first major afavid

thinker to be pilloried by As. Mulladr Kshns mentor andfather-in-law was also the object of his purifying gaze. It was in connection withhis critique of the Arshiyya, for example, that charges of Ass lack ofphilosophical sophistication were perhaps first voiced and recorded.82 Itis obvious that his concern with Kshn is an essential part of his pro-gramme to purify the true faith from the deleterious effects of an excessiveinterest in a mysticism (yet he is profoundly mystical) gone overripe and aphilosophy (yet he is an avid philosopher) badly construed.

Shaykh Amad was held in high esteem by the clerical and the polit-

ical communities of Iran: Fat AlShh tried unsuccessfully to persuadeal-Asto live in Tehran nearer the court. And, the story is told of howthe governor of Kermanshah felt so honoured by Shaykh Amads deci-sion to visit his city that he travelled several miles out from Kermanshahfor the sole purpose of greeting the famous scholar and escorting himinto town. It may be that Shaykh Amad was so warmly welcomed bythe political and religious leaders of Iran because his views offered aquasi-populist mystical interpretation of standard Twelver Shiism whichserved as a powerful alternative to what was becoming a disturbing

interest in more purely Sufi doctrine, as propagated by the leaders of, forexample, the Nimatullh order who in turn had very cordial relationswith the Imams of the Qsim-ShhNizrIsmlcommunity.83 ShaykhAmad, as an accomplished and renowned Twelver mujtahid, would haveserved as an orthodox guarantor for the type of profoundly mystical reli-gion so at home in Iran. As the creative force behind the distinctive Qajarera religious ramifications associated with the name of the Shaykhiyya,Amad al-Aswas partly responsible for a number of influential devel-opments of the period. Included here are the several groups that continued

to be identified from the outside as Shaykh. This was, in any case, aterm of opprobrium used by opponents to evoke the spectre of the odiousand dangerous Sufism whose followers, according to the criticism, gaveto a mere shaykh the kind of devotion and obedience properly owed to

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none apart from the Prophet and the Imams. The Shaykhs for obviousreasons preferred to designate their madhhab by the name Kashfiyya(Intuitionists). Also included are the various developments associatedwith the activities of the Bb, and his so-called Letters of the Living, mostof whom had been students of Sayyid Kim Rasht(d.1844) the successorof As.84 The remarkable interpretation of the role of Fima bintal-Nabby the prodigiously talented niece of the above-mentioned al-Shhidal-Thlith, Zarrn Tj, Qurrat al-Ayn or simply hira, on the stage ofQajar religious history has left its indelible and influential traces.85 TheAzal and Bah phenomena and the reactions and responses to thesefrom both the clerical and bureaucratic cadres can be traced, without theslightest doubt, back to the work of As. How well these later reli-gious developments reflected the intentions of the leaders of the Shaykhmovement is another question, one irrelevant in the present context. Whatis not irrelevant is that the responses form something of a major motifin Qajar history (17941925/12091344). The assassination attempt onNir al-Dn Shh by Bbs, the alleged involvement of Azals in his even-tual assassination, the evolution of a separate and independent religionfrom Bb, usayn Ali Nr, Bah allh, and so on.86 Afghani and Iqbal two very different religious types were also both impressed in theirdifferent ways by these developments.87 So, the influence of Shaykh Amadal-As overflowed the banks of what might otherwise be thought a

rather parochial and arcane religious preoccupation to issue in a newreligion and a challenge to Qajar religious thought.88

The distinguishing features of the Shaykh school, as is the case withmost Muslim religious groups, are related to the manner in which spiri-tual authority is to be defined and mediated. The active controversy carriedon by the partisans of the Uls and the Akhbrs is a case in point. Thedebate was based on the question of whether ijtihd, exerting individualeffort to form an opinion, rather than wholesale acceptance of the guid-ance contained in the preserved statements of the Prophet and the Imams

(pl. akhbr), was the best way to resolve the questions of religion, whichwould of course include questions of law. Finally, the Uls, those infavor of ijtihd, won the day and for the past two hundred years thisbasic attitude toward the written sources of the Islamic religion has heldsway over most of the Shworld.

In the context of this debate, the teachings of Shaykh Amad offersomething of a compromise, or reconciliation. He had grown up in oneof the few bastions of the Akhbr approach, and his synthesis may beseen, in part, as an elaboration of this method. Through propounding a

doctrine of the niq wid (a single authoritative voice) and the PerfectSha, perhaps an echo of the Sufi idea of the Perfect Man (al-insnal-kmil), Shaykh Amad was able, at least in theory, to circumvent therestrictions imposed by either of the two above methods and arrive at

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what he considered a much less fettered and more independent positionvis--vis the reinterpretation of the raw material of the Islamic religion the Qurn and Sunna of the Prophet and the teachings of the Imamswhich were preserved in the akhbr.89 The freedom I am speaking of isexemplified in Shaykh Amads response to those who charged him withrelying upon strange and unsound adth to support his ideas. ShaykhAmad serenely responded that he could distinguish a sound adth froma weak one through its fragrance.90 Such a response is, in fact, anadamantine critique of taqld which is here not merely imitation butblind imitation, in matters religious.91

However much As might have been stigmatised by his colleaguesfor his teachings about the ascension of the Prophet and resurrection ofthe body, and however much his own gothic and architectonic hypotheses which betray a kind of philosophical horror vacui might havescandalized his fellow believers, his criticism of Fay Kshn on theproblem of Gods knowledge may be thought to reflect faithfully a strongwariness perhaps particularly among the Sha of the Atabt aboutcommon interpretations of wadat al-wujd that were seen as taintingthe otherwise laudable if not indispensable uvre of Fay Kshn.92

He just may be cursing Fay for his Sufism and corrupt philosophy to aWahhb audience (? back home). Why else would an otherwise devoutShsuch as Asmake bold to invoke the ijm of the entire Muslim

world against his opponent?93

Kshn and As appear to represent two ends of a spectrum: theone a panentheist or wadat wujd, the other perfectly orthodox. Weare, of course, immediately suspicious of such a typology. As every oneknows, Shaykh Amad was the heretic and Fay Kshn the upholderof orthodoxy. It is doubtful because of the implications of his staunchIsml-like theology that Aswould have long remained the philoso-pher of the age in Qajar times. The allergy to such permutations of

ghuluww was simply too strong, even if it frequently circulated in the

writings of both the orthodox Kshnand the heretic As.

94

It is almostas if the confession of wadat al-wujdfunctions as an anti-Ismlshib-boleth in this Twelver Sh context, even as its condemnation functionsin this time and place as a philo-Wahhb shibboleth.95

Whatever the relationship of the form and contents of the Risla mightbe to the Sitz im Leben, it is clear that it is also not only a product ofits time and place. The discussions of the exact nature of Gods knowingare as old as Islamic theology and philosophy. It has been seen that AmadAss solution to the problem shares much in common with the teach-

ings of the classical or medieval Isml philosophers and with the laterardent critic of Ibn Arab, the SunnSufi, Al al-Dawla Simnn. In thisrespect, the Risla may be thought a typical example of early Qajar hybridtheological and philosophical discourse.96

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Notes

1 Amad al-As, Shar al-arshiyya quoted in Henry Corbin, translated asSpiritual Body and Celestial Earth (N. Pearson (trans.): Princeton, 1977) 211;originally published as Terre cleste et corps de rsurrection: de lIran mazden lIran Shite (Paris, 1960).

2 Several articles by Cole (see note 4) explicate much of the Gedankenweltandthe actual thought of Aswho emerges as something of a mystic harbingerof humanism and individualism; this image could also be reflected in the workat hand. See below note 25, but see also A. Bausani Religion in Iran: fromZoroaster to Bahaullah (New York, 2000) 3406, excerpted below, note 91:originally published as Persia religiosa da Zaratustra a Bahullah (Milan,1959). Henry Corbin En Islam iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques,4 vols (Paris 19712) I, 199211 and IV, 205300 (and passim throughoutthe entire work), his earlier Lcole shaykhie en thologie shite (Paris, 1961)together with other works such as Corbin, Spiritual Body represent the earliestsustained attempt by a Western scholar to understand the Shaykh synthesis.

Corbins contribution is invaluable and indispensable, if occasionally vaguelypresentist. The most recent detailed general account frequently expressing avaluable countervailing Bah interpretation of texts and events is VahidRafati The Development of Shaykh Thought in Sh Islam (unpublishedPhD thesis: University of California Los Angeles, 1979). The most recentsustained discussion of Ass metaphysics is Idris Samawi Hamid TheMetaphysics and Cosmology of Process According to Shaykh Amad al-As:Critical edition, Translation and Analysis of Observations in Wisdom(unpublished PhD thesis: State University of New York at Buffalo, 1998);Mohammed Ali Amir-Moezzi Une absence remplie de prsences. Hermneu-tiques de lOccultation chez les Shaykhiyya (Aspects de lImamologie duodci-maine VII) BSOAS 64.1 (2001) 118 (translated into English in R. Brunnerand W. Ende (eds) The Twelver Sha in Modern Times (Leiden, 2001) 3857),is an illuminating exploration of some post-As imamological meditationsin the Shaykh school. The several works on the Shaykhya by Denis M.MacEoin are invaluable, beginning with his groundbreaking Cambridge thesis,From Shaykhism to Bbism: A Study in Charismatic Renewal in Sh Islam(unpublished PhD thesis: Cambridge University, 1979). Some of this materialhas appeared in more recent publications, all of which are highly recom-mended: Denis M. MacEoin Shaykhism EI2 IX (1996) 4035; Denis M.MacEoin Cosmogony: In Shaikhism, EIr VI, 3268; Denis M. MacEoinOrthodoxy and Heterodoxy in Nineteenth-Century Shiism: The Cases ofShaykhism and BabismJournal of the American Oriental Society 110.2 (1990)3239; Denis M. MacEoin Baraghn, Moll Moammad-Taq EIr III, 740;As, Shaikh Amad b. Zayn-al-Dn EIr I, 6749; Blsar EIr, II, 5835;Shaykhism, in L. P. Elwell-Sutton (ed.) Bibliographical Guide to Iran (Brightonand Totowa, 1983); and, finally, Denis M. MacEoin Early Shaykh Reactionsto the Bb and His Claims in M. Momen, (ed.) Studies in Bb and BahHistory volume 1 (Los Angeles, 1982) 147; Abbas Amanat Resurrection andRenewal: the Making of the Babi Movement in Iran, 18441850 (Ithaca, 1989)33105, and Todd Lawson The Qurn Commentary of Sayyid AlMuammad Shrz, the Bab (unpublished PhD thesis: McGill University,

1987)passim (forthcoming in revised form as Islamic Apocalyptic: the LiteraryBeginnings of the Babi Movement) offer various approaches and analyses ofthe general topic. In addition, see Sad Amir Arjomand The Shadow of Godand the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order and Societal Change in ShiiteIran from the Beginning to 1890 (Chicago, 1984) s.v. index Shaykhism;

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Mangol Bayat Mysticism and Dissent: Socioreligious Thought in Qajar Iran(Syracuse, 1982) 3758. Although his scholarship is frequently disparaged (e.g.by Bausani, Religion, 340 and Corbin, Islam IV, 213), one should also mentionthe even earlier works of Nicolas on the Shaykh school (see note 3). Theyare certainly not completely without value.

3 This work is most properly entitled Shar risla f lm allh. Throughout thischapter it is referred to simply as Risla reflecting the title of the most recentprinted version in Muammad Al Isbir (ed.) al-Allma al-jall Amad binZayn al-Dn al-As f d irat al-aw (Beirut, 1413/1993) 149278 which isbased on the lithograph found in Amad al-AsJawmi al-kalim, 3 volsin 2 (Tabriz, 185659) I, 166200. For a list of various manuscripts of thiswork see Moojan Momen The Works of Shaykh Amad al-As: a bibli-ography based upon Fihirist [sic] kutub Mashayikh Im [sic] of Ab al-QsimIbrhm Kirmn (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1991) 47 where its official title isRisla f Shar Rislat al-Ilm. It has been partly translated in Alphonse L. M.Nicolas Essai sur le Chkhisme IV: La Science de Dieu (Paris, 1911) iiilicorresponding to Risla, 15070, minus a few omissions and with an addi-tion or two. Nicolas typically gives no information about the text he used.Discussion illustrated with a few translated excerpts may also be found inHamid, Metaphysics and Cosmology, 16775 (cf. portions of Risla, 2058).In Muammad Musin Agh Buzrg ihrn al-Dhara il tanf al-Sha,25 vols (Qum, 1341sh) XIII, 2878 it is listed as #1046 Shar rislat al-ilmand said to have been completed in Kermanshah on the morning of Friday 8of Rab al-Thn, 1230AH. ihrn, Dhara XV, 322 #2071 locates Faysoriginal, relatively short work of 100 verses as Risla f ilm Allh tal, inthe library of al-Khwnsr and the library of Shaykh Al Kshif al-Ghi.Here the author of Dhara erroneously says that Shaykh Amads commen-

tary on it is named al-Lubb. Unfortunately, I have not had access to theoriginal of Kshns Risla and rely here on quotations from it found in thetext of Ass commentary. See also the commentary on Shaykh Amadstreatise listed at ihrn, Dhara II, 180 #667.

4 See, as one example from among many, the edition and translation of NairKhusraws (d. after 1072) Gushyish wa Rahyish: Faquir M. Hunzai Know-ledge and Liberation: A Treatise in Philosophical Theology (London, 1998)413. Although it has been mentioned and alluded to in several earlier studiesof Shaykh thought, the fascinating and important question of its exact rela-tionship with classical Isml theology remains to be fully studied andelucidated. See, in addition to Corbins observations referred to above, Wilferd

Madelung Aspects of Isml Theology: The Prophetic Chain and the Godbeyond Being in S. H. Nasr (ed.) Ism l Contributions to Islamic Culture

(Tehran, 1398/1977) 5165. It seems clear, at this stage, however, that thereare several points of agreement, beyond the above-mentioned correspondencewith regard to ontology. Amanat, Resurrection, 9, 1213, 58, 834 has drawnattention to the socio-political role of crypto-Isml communities in the riseand development of active Shaykhism and Bbism. However, similaritiesbetween Nir Khusraws Vajh-i dn and the Babs Qayym al-asm (Amanat,Resurrection, 206) have been quite overstated. The Risla under discussionwould be an excellent candidate for a thorough comparison of a more purelyphilosophical and theological nature. It is not impossible that these Isml

resonances which perhaps enhanced a perceived anti-government attitudediscussed in Juan Ricardo Cole Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsai on the Sources ofReligious Authority in Linda Walbridge (ed.) The Most Learned of the Sha(New York, 2001) 8293, esp. 91 together with the retrojected damagearising from various post-Shaykh sectarian, heretical ideas and movements

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that developed under the influence of Shaykh thought (Hamid, Metaphysicsand Cosmology, notes 5 and 7) are at least partly responsible for Asseventual and perhaps inevitable fall from grace. See also Coles other relatedarticles: Juan Ricardo Cole Casting Away the Self: The Mysticism of ShaykhAhmad al-Ahsai, in Rainer Brunner and Werner Ende (eds) The TwelverShia in Modern Times (Leiden, 2001) 2537; Juan Ricardo Cole NewPerspectives on Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani in Egypt, in Rudi Mattheeand Beth Baron (eds) Iran and Beyond: Essays in Middle Eastern History inHonor of Nikki R. Keddie (Costa Mesa, 2000) 1334; and, Juan RicardoCole The World as Text: Cosmologies of Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsai StudiaIslamica 80 (1994)14563.

5 Hamid, Metaphysics and Cosmology, 22, 3031, bases this broad charac-terization on the views of the admittedly influential Ysuf al-Barn(d.1772).See the conflicting evidence presented in Hamid, Metaphysics and Cosmology,59 and the tantalizing comments at p. 37. He does not mention any specificsources however. Leonard Lewisohn Sufism and the School of Ifahn:Taawwufand Irfn in Late Safavid Iran in L. Lewisohn (ed.) The Heritageof Sufism, Volume III: Classical Persianate Sufism: the Safavid and MughalPeriod (Oxford, 1999) 63134 (references here are to a typescript kindlyprovided by its author) 46ff., maintains just the opposite, that the major thrustof opinion on Fay has been to downplay his interest in esoterica and otherextra-orthodox pursuits (like ikmat), to produce a picture of him as thechampion of Twelver orthodoxy. See also Seyyed Hossein Nasr in MullMuammad Musin Fay al-Kshn, Ul al-marif (J. D. Ashtiyn (ed.):Mashhad, 1353) 56 of the English Preface, who maintains Kshnhas beenmisrepresented by the later Twelver scholastic tradition which saw him ashaving notcontinued the teaching of his master, Mull adr, but as having

been solely concerned with orthodox Shiism.

6 Rafati, Development of ShaykhThought, 47 and Hamid, Metaphysics andCosmology, 34. The general consensus in modern scholarship is that thistakfr was the result of a personal animus on the part of Baraghnwho, asa matter of fact, would later be assassinated by either a militant Bbor Bbsympathizer (Amanat, Resurrection, 322). Note that his honorific places himfirmly in the line of Twelver Sh orthodox martyrology. The first Shahdwas Shams al-Dn al-mil al-Jizzn (d.1384), the second was Zayn al-Dnibn Alal-milal-Juba (d.1558). See also MacEoin, Baraghn.

7 Hamid, Metaphysics and Cosmology, 525, is quite certain, building on thetheories of Jorje Gracia, specifically his Texts: Ontological Status, Identity,Author, Audience (Albany, 1996) that As suffered a kind of retroactivecondemnation as a result of the Bb and Bah audience. He offers thehypothesis that if it had not been for the Bbs and Bahs (? falsely) claiminga relationship to the teachings of the Shaykhiyya, Aswould still be esteemedby the majority of (? Iranian Sh) scholars as one of the greatest philoso-phers of his time. For a thoughtful and pertinent discussion of the complexrelationship between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, particulary in relation to theShaykhiyya vis--vis the later Bah faith, see MacEoin Orthodoxy.

8 Todd Lawson Akhbr Sh Approaches to tafsr in G. Hawting and A.Abdul-Kadir Shareef (eds) Approaches to the Quran (London, 1993) 173210,

esp. 1807.9 See below, note 60, for these works by Kshn.10 See the biographical sketch in Alusayn al-Jbir al-Fikr al-salaf ind al-

Sha al-ithna ashar (Beirut and Paris, 1977) 32666. See also E. KohlbergSome Aspects of AkhbrThought in N. Levtzion and J. Voll (eds) Eighteenth

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Century Renewal and Reform in Islam (Syracuse, 1987) 13360 for animportant nuancing of Kshns particular version of Akhbarism.

11 The complex subject of Kshns Akhbr allegiance has been most recentlybroached in Robert Gleave Two Classical Shtheories of qa in G. Hawtinget al. (eds) Studies in Islamic and Middle Eastern Texts and Traditions inMemory of Norman Calder (Oxford, 2000) 10520, Andrew J. Newman IIIFayd al-Kashani and the Rejection of the Clergy/State Alliance in L. Walbridge(ed.) The Most Learned of the Sha (New York, 2001) 3452 and ToddLawson Akhbr.

12 The most recent detailed discussion of this is Ali Oraibi Sh Renaissance:A Case Study of the Theosophical School of Bahrain in the 7th/13th century(unpublished PhD thesis: McGill University, 1992).

13 Lewisohn, Sufism, 4466 is the most thorough inquiry into the Sufism of al-Kshnavailable. See especially Lewishon, Sufism, 48ff. for a discussion ofKshns controversial Nrbakhshaffiliation, and Fays reputation in courtcircles for being an authority on Sufism and ikmat, namely: slik-i arqaynva mast-i nash atayn.

14 Lewisohn, Sufism (quoting Zarrinkb).15 See As, Risla, 226, where Shaykh Amad directly quotes Ibn AbJumhr,

specifically from his book al-Mujl, a adth on the authority of the Prophet:All existents appeared from the b of the basmala (aharat al-mawjdt minb bismillh al-ramn al-ram). As adds that this is a symbol (ramz)for the Preserved Tablet, al-law al-maf (cf. Q85.22). See Todd LawsonEbn Abi Jumhr EIr VII, 6623 where this adth is discussed and ToddLawson, The Terms Remembrance (dhikr) and Gate (bb) in the BabsCommentary on the Sura of Joseph, in M. Momen (ed.) Bbi and BahStudies in Honour of H.M. Balyuzi (Los Angeles, 1989) 56 where the influ-

ence of this tradition via the Shaykhiyya is noted in the B

bs commentaryof Qurn 12. See now, Sabine Schmidtke Theologie, Philosophie und Mystikim zwlferschiitischen Islam des 9./15. Jahrhundrets: die Gedankenwelten desIbn Abumhr al-As s (um 838/143435-nach 906/1501) (Leiden andBoston, 2000) 301, note 93, for references to other discussions of traces ofIbn AbJumhrs influence on Shaykh Amad in Chahardih, Corbin, Coleand Hamid. The similarities between several specific formulations in al-Mujlto the language of the writings of both As and Rasht are presentedin Lawson, Qurn, 67, 11820, 18991, 2056, 332. See also Rafati,Development of shaykhThought, 22 and 40.

16 Rafati, Development of ShaykhThought, 40, although he could have become

acquainted with him through the works of Ibn Ab

Jumh

r.17 MacEoin, Charismatic Renewal, 58 citing Sayyid Kim Rasht, Dall al-mutaayyarn (n.p. 1276/185960) 12.

18 For the names of those who issued the several ijzt to Shaykh Amad seeRafati, Development of ShaykhThought, 41. See also the relevant chaptersin Amanat Resurrection and MacEoin, Charismatic Renewal.

19 Rafati, Development of Shaykh Thought, 445. According to Amanat(Resurrection, 67), Ass departure from Iran and the Atabt was precip-itated by the enmity of a growing number of high-ranking Sh ulam .

20 See, for example, the remarks quoted from Mull Alal-Nrin Sayyid Musinal-Amn al-usayn al-mil Ayn al-Shi a, 11 vols (Beirut, 1406/1985) II,

591. Corbins brief response to such slanders is compelling, if not completelyconvincing (Corbin, Islam IV, 21213).21 There may have been other reasons for this visit. As says he arrived in

Isfahan, a city protected from current events, and met with its distinguishedulam , may God protect them from the changes and chances of the world

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(naw ib al-adathn). As, Risla, 150; As,Jawmi , 166. Cf. Nicolas,Essai, iv for an alternate reading.

22 M. Mohaghegh and I. Izutsu The Metaphysics of Sabzavr (New York, 1977)14. The main part of this book is a translation of a portion of his Ghuraral-far id known as the Shar-i manma, with an Introduction by Izutsu,based on the philosophers work and his autobiography, from which comes

the following comment: [As] was unrivalled in his ascetic ways, howeverhis graces [? = fa il= intellectual gifts < scholarship] were not evident tothe other scholars of Isfahan.

23 For Sabzavrs refutation, see note 74.24 Mrz Muammad Bqir ibn Muammad al-Lhj, resident of Isfahan and

later Tehran. He had held the post of vazr to Sultan Jafar Khn Zand andwas held in high esteem by Fat-AlShh who asked him to write a tafsr ofthe Qurn in Persian in a manner that had not been done before. He wroteTuhfat al-Khqn. He also wrote a shar of the Nahj al-Balgha in Persianfor Fat-AlShh. He died in in Tehran 1240. Momen, The Works, 45.

The introductory exhortation to his questioner is most interesting. Amongother things, he tells him (As, Risla, 1512) that the Sufis, the ukam andthe Theologian are not proofs (like the Imams), that they are not his Imams, andthat he must imitate the Imams directly. Not, however, the way some do throughignorance and error. Rather, his questioner should practice taqldof the Imamswith reason, so that he does not blindly follow. If the questioner protests thattheir words do not conform to reason, Shaykh Amad reponds: I say to you,their words are a divine binding reality (aqq), and your reason is a divinebinding reality (as long as you do not corrupt it with mirky knowledge) andthe correcting principles are a divine binding reality because they are all of thedivine nature upon which He fashioned mankind (firat Allh al-lat faara al-

ns

alayh) [Q30.30]. So, I do not want you to practice pure taql

d as somevainly imagine it should be practiced. Rather, read Their words as rational indi-cations [of thought and action] through your own powers of understanding,completely detached from the understanding of others. If you understand mywords, and act according to my directions you will find that what I tell you isa useful tool for solving abstruse problems. By God, this is my teaching and thatwhich should [? alone] represent me after I am gone (khalfat). Note the errorin As, Risla, 152: al-mafdfor As,Jawmi , 167 al-maqd.

25 Though there seem to be some exceptions, namely his distinctive use of theterm dufatan (all at once tout a coup) to designate the simultaneity andunicity of one aspect of cosmogonic movement (see, e.g., As, Risla, 2568;

see also Sabzavrs critique of this mentioned below, note 74) while acompanion technical term abadan riyyatan perpetual freshness (As, Risla,268) does occur in the later work (see Hamid, Metaphysics and Cosmology,175). On dafatan (sic) widatan as a key technical term in classical Ismlphilosophy, see Madelung, Aspects, 567. The essentially and deeply mysticview of time and creation issues from and is coordinated with a meditationof such adth as: kna Allh wa l shay maahu; al-n kam kna (frequentlyascribed to the third Imam, usayn, but also ascribed to Junayd. See thediscussion of this influential adth in Lawson, Qurn, 1945): God was orig-inally alone, there was no other thing with Him; He is now as He was.Shaykh Amad offers a correction of misinterpretations of this adth such

as those found in Kshn (see the discussion of a slight variant in As,Risla, 189) which led the latter to what Shaykh Amad deems the pernicious

doctrine of maiyya pre-eternal withness another misunderstanding of theintentions of the Imams (As, Risla, 227). Intimately connected with ShaykhAmads theory of space and time is the highly distinctive, mystical and

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existentially challenging reading of Q7.172 that emerges from it (e.g. As,Risla, 21415, 259, 264). This doctrine of the Covenant, which reflects thepreoccupations of an original Shiism (Mohammed Ali Amir-Moezzi The DivineGuide in Early Shiism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam (D. Streight(trans.): Albany, 1994) s.v. index mthq, first published as Le Guide divindans le shism originel (Paris, 1992)) deserves separate treatment. It seemsclear that most, if not all, elements of Ass thought revolve around it, nomatter how apparently irrelevant to this theme any given element might other-wise appear. His teaching here emerges from the Akhbrreading of the versewhich sees it as having been corrupted from its original form in which Godexplicitly designates Al as Guardian (wal) of the community. See ToddLawson A New Testament for the Safavids a paper presented at the SafavidRoundTable, Edinburgh, 1998.

26 This reading is supported throughout the text. Cf. As, Risla, 151: al-rifal-mutqin, and As, Jawmi , 166 al-rif al-muttaqan.

27 As, Risl, 181; kufr: As, Risla, 274, 275 and 276 respectively.28 As, Risla, 151. Note that the Arabic: fa-ababtu an . . . evokes (and

perhaps identifies, however unwittingly, our author with) the voice in thefamous adth quds: kuntu kanzan makhfiyan.

29 He is ridiculed by our author for his statement: nothing in the East or theWest budges even the distance of a finger-tip except through my might andpower. As, Risla, 162.

30 wa kullu shayin siwka qma bi-amrika: As, Risla, 247; also noticed inHamid, Metaphysics and Cosmology, 147.

31 For evidence of a concern among the masters of the Shaykhschool with thetheme of metaphysical (always with historical implications) symmetries of lightand dark, good and evil, see Todd Lawson Coincidentia Oppositorum in the

Qur

n Commentary of the Bab: the terms Point (nuqa), Pole (qub), Center(markaz) and the Khubat al-tatanjiya Occasional Papers in Shaykhi, Babiand Bahai Studies V.1 (January, 2001) and references. Available at www2.h-net.msu.edu/_bahai/bhpapers.htm. See also the brief but highly pertinentremarks in MacEoin, Cosmogony, 326b.

32 Norman Calder The Limits of Islamic Orthodoxy in F. Daftary (ed.)Intellectual Traditions in Islam (London, 2000) 768 where the example ofthe Bb serves as a proof case for the general thesis that the orthodoxy of ageneric work of Islamicate religious discourse (in this instance the genre istafsr) depends upon the degree to which the historical scholarly experienceof the community is acknowledged within it. This nineteen-page essay is itself

a typically learned and profound contemplation of a controversial topic inIslamic studies a choice example from the authors prematurely diminishedlegacy to his own community.

33 The phrase is Corbins (Islam I, xviiixix). See also Amir-Moezzi, Une absence.Ass discussion of time here (As, Risla, 211, 230, 2402) is centralto the problem of Gods knowledge, cosmogony, ontology and eschatologyand adumbrates the more systematic treatment in his Shar al-fawid; see thevery useful discussion in Hamid, Metaphysics and Cosmology, 2449, thoughthe author neglects to make the connection that here again there is much thatis suggestive of classical Isml thought. Cf. e.g. Hunzai, Knowledge andLiberation, 304. See Corbin, Islam IV, 2949 for a rich discussion of the

temporal and spatial in As and its homologous relationship with certain

classical Isml ideas. See also Lawson, Qurn, 23040. There is no spacehere to examine the topic fully. (See the comments above at notes 4 and 25.)While apparently uninterested in this specific problem, the recent study of theShaykhiyya by Sayyid Muammad asan l al-laghn al-Shaykhiyya

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nashaatuh wa taawwuruh wa madir dirsatuh (Beirut, 1420/1999) 3201does notice bin fragrances emanating from the school. See also MacEoin,Cosmogony, 326b327a.

34 (1) Scholars inventing that which was not in the original teaching (istinb)because they were not infallible (lays bi-mamn). In the same way doctorsof law have erred in inventing erroneous laws for the Shara; (2) errors in

translation, deriving from (a) a weak knowledge of Greek, or (b) the trans-lators general ignorance; (3) a lack of ability in the art of translation. As,Risla, 1724.

35 As, Risla, 174.36 As, Risla, 2712.37 As, Risla, 154. Cf. Muammad Bqir ibn Muammad Taq al-Majlis,

Bir al-anwr, 110 vols (Beirut, 1983) III, 21 (r.18, b. 1) and repeated atMajlis, Bir LVII, 161 (r. 96, b.1) for the full adth, with a slightly differentbeginning related as follows from Ab Abd Allh (Jafar al-diq):

I heard Ab Abd Allh say: God, mighty and glorified, has always beenour Lord and knowing his essence even though there be no object ofknowledge and hearing his essence even though there be no thing to hear,and vision his essence even though there be no thing to see and power hisessence though there be no object of power. When he generates (fa-lammadatha) [all] created things (al-ashy ), there is an object of knowledge,and so the act of his knowing happens to the object of knowing, andhearing to the heard and seeing to the seen and power to the maqdr.. . . I said: So has God always been moving? . . . Then he said: Exaltedbe God [above that]. Verily, motion is a quality of the created in actu.. . . I said: So, has God always been speaking? . . . He said: Verily speech

is a quality of the created, it is not sempiternal (azaliyya). God was/is/willbe [eternally in azaliyya] but not as a speaker.

See also As, Risla, 165, 273, 275, and passim. The tortured transla-tion here reflects an attempt to account for Ass complex and ornate theoryof time and the place of what is normally called creation in it. As, Risla,pp. 211, 230, 241, 245324 (see also above, notes 25 and 33). It should beobserved here, that for all of his vast literary output, Shaykh Amad was nopoet, unlike Fay. It is suggested that Ass natural poetic was expressedin his elaborate and baroque theology and that it was of a nature that madeit difficult to appreciate the poetry of Kshns theology.

38 Such temporal adverbs are especially difficult to render in the context.39 As, Risla, 154, not translated in the corresponding place in Nicolas, Essai,xii.

40 As, Risla, 156: wa kadhlika l takna maiyatan ill al al-qbil al-musta. It is not possible to know from the context whether or not ourauthor is influenced in his language here by the Avicennan doctrine of existenceoccuring to an essence.

41 As in Oraibi, ShRenaissance.42 The verse from which this excerpt is quoted is replete with messianic and

apocalyptic cues:

The Unbelievers say Never to us will come The Hour! Say: But mostsurely by my Lord! it will come upon you. By him who knows theunseen, from whom is not hidden the least little atom in the heavens orin the earth. Nor is there any thing less than that or greater but is inthe record perspicacious.

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43 As, Risla, 152.44 See above, notes 4 and 32 and the references to Isml theology.45 For an invaluable discussion of fi l/mafl in Shaykh Amad as delineated in

his critique of the thought of Mull adr, see Henry Corbin Moll SadrShrz (980/15721050/1640) Le Livre des Pntrations mtaphysiques(Kitb al-Mashir) Texte arabe publi avec la version persane de Badol-

Molk Mrz Emadoddawleh, traduction franaise et Annotations (Tehran andParis, 1964), reprinted (Lagrasse, France, 1981) without the Arabic and Persiantexts. The reference here is to the original edition (hereafter Pntrations), s.v.index fi land mafl; Hamid, Metaphysics and Cosmology, 17684 is useful.See also Lawson, Qurn, 11820.

46 As, Risla, 152.47 As, Risla, 153.48 Based on a adth from al-Bqir stating that thinking is a quality of creation

and God is not like that quoted As, Risla, 187.49 As, Risla, 152.50 As, Risla, 273.51 As, Risla, 155; the distinctive terminology does not seem to be derived

from Ibn AbJumhr, (see Schmidtke, Theologie, Philosophie und Mystik,37114) or for that matter Ibn Maytham (see Oraibi, Sh Renaissance). SeeHamid, Metaphysics and Cosmology, 5478 for a useful gloss. On the logicalproblems involved here, see the pertinent discussion of Nar al-Dn al-scommentary on a Rislat al-ilm by one of the teachers of the above-mentionedMaytham al-Barn, Ibn Sada (d.1274) in Oraibi, ShRenaissance, 368and 6473. This commentary, together with the original Risla, is publishedas Sharh masalat al-ilm (Mashhad, 1966) which was unavailable to me.

52 For the history of the idea, see Henry Corbin Mundus imaginalis or the Imagi-

nary and the Imaginal Spring (1972) 119. (First published in French in theCahiers internationaux de symbolisme 6 (1964) 326.); Henry Corbin Dream,Imagination and lam al-Mithl and Fazlur Rahman The Visionary Dreamin Islamic Spirituality both in G. von Grunebaum and R. Caillois (eds) TheDream and Human Society (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966) 381408 and41019 respectively; and Corbin, Spiritual Body. Historical precedents arestudied in John T. Walbridge III The Science of Mystic Lights: Qutb al-DnShrz and the Illuminationist Tradition in Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge,MA, 1992) 126ff. is an important analysis of the idea in the work Shirz(d.710/1311), whom the author describes as possibly the first Islamic philoso-pher to have made a determined effort to work out the philosophical

implications of the concept.53 See, e.g., Henry Corbin Le Paradoxe du monothisme (Paris, 1981); Corbinhas elsewhere quoted Shaykh Amads own summation of the existentialpredicament as follows:

Cest pourquoi, dit Shaykh Ahmad, cest bien vers lEssence inaccessibleque lhomme se tourne, bien qu tout jamais il ne puisse la trouver; etcependant il ne cesse de la trouver, alors mme qu tout jamais elle luireste inaccessible.

Corbin, Islam I, 194

54 Corbin, Mundus Imaginalis, 12. It is also referred to by Shaykh authorsand others as the eighth clime outside and beyond the seven regions or climesof classical geography. See, e.g., As, Risla, 246 and Corbin, SpiritualBody, passim.

55 Corbin, Visionary Dream, 4067.

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56 As, Risla, 246. The question remains open whether or not this privateappearance, as discussed by the Shaykhs (especially in the earliest days, justprior to the Shmillennium) was the only one to be expected by the Sh a,or whether the masters of the Shaykhschool also hoped for an imaginal (asdistinct from unreal) uhr of such intensity that it entailed an actual adventof the Imam on the plane of history. This raises the vexed question of the

doctrine of the Fourth Support (al-rukn al-rbi ). This term does not occur inthe Risla although it does occur in the last major work of Amad al-Ahs,As,Jawmi II, 304. For recent discussions see Amir-Moezzi, Une absence

passim; Ahmad Kazemi-Moussavi Religious Authority in Shiite Islam : fromthe Office of Mufti to the Institution of Marja (Kuala Lumpur, 1996), s.v.index rukn-i rbi; Lawson, Qurn, passim.

57 MacEoin, Orthodoxy, 327 and Cole, Sources, 867. It may be useful tomake the common-sense observation that such profound certitude is suscep-tible of being mistaken for arrogance and spiritual pride, a factor that mightalso have contributed to rejection.

58 Corbin, Islam IV, 221. The term implies unlearned knowledge and derivesfrom the name of an early Muslim, Uways al-Qaran, who never met the Prophetyet converted to Islam while living in Yemen. It may also apply to a Sufi whohas no Shaykh, or an illiterate person with unusual knowledge. See now JulianBaldick Imaginary Muslims: The Uwaysi Sufis of Central Asia (New York,1993) for a general discussion noteworthy for its complete avoidance of anyShsubject-matter, although he does devote a paragraph to Corbins concernwith the lam al-mithlin the conclusion (Baldick, Imaginary, 222).

59 Corbin, Spiritual Body, 1769 and 180221. In light of the relentless casti-gation here of Kshnby Asone is struck by the irony of Corbins linkingthem so closely in the same book.

60 Mull

Muammad Musin Fay al-K

sh

n

Kalimt-i makn

na min

ul

m ahlal-ikma wa al-marifa (Tehran, 1383/1342sh/1963) 703 (translated in Corbin,Spiritual Body, 1769). The Kalimt-i maknna is the subject of recent schol-arship: Rasl Jafariyan, Dn va siysat dar dawrah-yi afav (Qum,1370sh/1991) ch. 10; Todd Lawson The Hidden Words of Fayz Kshn inM. Szuppe et al. (eds) Actes du 4e Colloque de la Societas Iranologica Europaea,Paris, septembre 1999 in vol. 2, Cahiers de Studia Islamica (Leuven, 2002)and Shigeru Kamada Walya in Fay Kshn in T. Lawson (ed.) IslamicThought: Papers on Historiography, Sufism and Philosophy in Honor ofHermann Landolt(forthcoming). Kshns work is quoted and refuted severaltimes here by As: Risla, 1756, 181, 190, 216, 221, 248, 253. Other

works of Kshn, e.g. al-Wf and al-f, are also frequently cited by Asthroughout the Risla.

61 For references to his interest in natural science and experimentation, see Rafati,Development of Shaykh Thought, 412 and references and Hamid,Metaphysics and Cosmology, 32.

62 As, Risla, 246.63 Hamid, Metaphysics and Cosmology, 236.64 Hermann Landolt Der Briefwechsel zwischen Kshn und Simnn ber

Wadat al-Wud Der Islam 50 (1973) 2981, esp. 623. See also HermannLandolt Simnn on Wadat al-Wujd in M. Mohaghegh and H. Landolt(eds) Collected Papers on Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism (Tehran, 1971)

91114, esp. 10910. In 1985 Josef van Ess (Al-al-Dawla Semnn EIr I,774b77a) called attention to the importance of Landolts suggestive obser-

vation but, alas, to an apparently indifferent scholarly public. On the historyof the criticism of Ibn Arab, see now Alexander D. Knysh Ibn Arabi in theLater Islamic Tradition : The Making of a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam

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(Albany, 1999). Unfortunately, Knysh seems here completely uninterested inthe rich and important Shdimension of the topic.

65 Even though the original sources are now better accessible than they werethirty years ago, no one it seems has taken up Landolts original suggestionto pursue a comparative study of Simnn and the Shaykhs (Landolt, DerBriefwechsel, 63).

66 Jamal J. Elias The Throne Carrier of God: the Life and Thought of Al ad-dawlaas-Simnn (Albany, 1995) 1534. See also the similar speculation in HermannLandolts recent review of Hunzais above-mentioned translation and edition ofNir Khusraws Gushyish in Bulletin critique des Annales islamologiques 16Annales islamologiques 34 Institut franais darchologie orientale (2000) 75.

67 His veneration of the ahl al-kiswa, his spritual pedigree through the Imamsfrom Alb. Ri to the Prophet (skipping al-Hasan ibn Al!), his citation ofthe Nahj al-balgha, certainly do not need to mean more than this. Cf. HartwigCordt Die sitzungen des Al ad-dawla as-Simnn (Zurich, 1977) 2329. Thatone of his students was Shaykh Khalfa Mzandarn, the founder of theradical ShSarbadrmovement may mean nothing in this context. See alsoElias, Throne Carrier, 513. A focussed study on the question of Simnnsreal attitude to Shiism is perhaps needed. See the suggestive discussion in

Joseph van Ess, Semnn, 75 and 76. An earlier and perhaps under-appreciateddiscussion is Marijan Mol Les Kubrawiya entre sunnisme et shiisme auxhuitime et neuvime sicles de lHegire Revue des tudes islamiques 29 (1961)61142.

68 van Ess, Semnn, 76.69 Cf. Muayyad fal-Dn al-ShrzMajlis al-muayyadiyya, 2 vols (M. Ghlib

(ed.): Beirut, 1974 and 1984) I, 170ff. See also the references to Lawson andAmir-Moezzi below, note 72.

70 K

sh

n

, Kalimt-makn

na, 196205. Note the editorial warnings (on p. 196)on the soundness of the traditions quoted by Kshn.71 Rajab al-Burs Mashriq anwr al-yaqn f asrr Amr al-Muminn (Beirut,

1978).72 Todd Lawson The Dawning Places of the Lights of Certainty in the Divine

Secrets Connected with the Commander of the Faithfulby Rajab Bursi in L.Lewisohn (ed.) The Heritage of Sufism, Volume III, The Legacy of MediaevalPersian Sufism (Oxford, 1999 (first published London, 1992)) 26176. Amir-Moezzi, Divinit, 1946 and 20616. See also Henry Corbin Rajab Borsi:Les Orients des Lumieres (Paris, 1995) and Henry Corbin Itineraire dunEnsignment: Rsum des Confrences lEcole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

(Section des Sciences Religieuses) 19551979 (prsentation par Ch. Jambet:Tehran, 1993) 1044 and 1118. For the influence of this sermon and SayyidKims commentary on it in Bband Bahthought see Lawson, CoincidentiaOppositorum.

73 As, Risla, 269.74 Mull HdSabzavral-Mukamt wa al-muqwamt: radd bar Shar rislat

al-Ilm Barayn in Majma rasil (J. D. Ashtiyn (ed.): Tehran 1360sh)64975. Sabzavrs disagreements with As are many and profound andthere is no space here to outline his criticism fully. He disparages Asistheory of time and motion, symbolised by the word dufa (Sabzavr,Mukamt, 650) saying that it is at complete odds with the teaching of Mull

adra, namely arakat-i jawhariyya. He indicates in several places that Ass

insistence on there being no connection whatever between the divine essenceand everything else is wilful, tacitly accusing him of spiritual myopia (Sabzavr,Mukamt, 671 and 677). For it can correctly be said that Gods speech isof the divine essence (Sabzavr, Mukamt, 668). It is necessary to judge

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such matters according to perspective. Of course, there is truth to the asser-tion of the remoteness of the essence, but there is also truth to the assertionof its accessibility. It is important to look at such things with two eyes(Sabzavr, Mukamt, 677) and not merely one.

75 As, Risla, 206. Here Ascites a tradition from Imam al-Ri concerningthe generation of al-irda: It is not knowing ( ilm), God does not have a pre-existent irda that results in his following it. To God there is neither will norpurpose in a pre-existent state (qadma). Nay, rather these are two generatedthings. Al-Ri said: The will and the purpose are attributes of the acts.Whoever imagines that God has always been purposing and willing is not abeliever in the divine unity. Ab Abd Allh said, in answer to a related ques-tion: A purposer can only exist when there is also an object of the purpose.God has ever been knowing and powerful, then he willed.

76 Amad al-As, Shar al-faw id, ch. 10 (Hamid edition). It is puzzling whythis pivotal discussion receives such scant attention in this recent, and in manyrespects, very fine study of this important work.

77 E.g., Roger Arnaldez, al-Insn al-Kmil, EI2 III, 1239.78 Corbin, Islam, s.v. index lhomme parfait. See also Todd Lawson The Structure

of Existence in the Babs Tafsir and the Perfect Man Motif in Studia Iranica:Cahiers 11: Recurrent Patterns in Iranian Religions from Mazdaism to Sufism.Proceedings of the Round Table held in Bamberg (30th September 4thOctober 1991) (Paris, 1992) 8199.

79 Cf. Mohammed Ali Amir-Moezzi Aspects de lImamologie Duodcimaine I:Rmarques sur la Divinit de lImm Studia Iranica 25 (1996) 193216; Amir-Moezzi Divine Guide, 2959: Corbin, Islam IV, 27983. Cf., incidentally, thecontinuation of this venerable Isml topos in Bah doctrine, usayn AlNr Bahullh Kitb mustab-i qn (Hofheim-Langenhain, 1980) 501

(originally published Cairo, 1934). English translation by Shoghi EffendiRabbani The Kitb-i-qn: The Book of Certitude (Wilmette, 1970) 656. Butsee Bahullh, qn, 77 (English translation, 103) for a somewhat surprisingand apparently unequivocal attribution of humanity to the Prophet and Imamsthe most perfect manifestations of divinity.

80 There is, of course, no mention of Ibn Taymiyya in the Risla, although Asmentions disparagingly one of the several subjects of the spiritual founder ofthe Wahhbyyas wrath, Ibn A Allh (mentioned above). On the disputebetween Ibn Aa Allh and Ibn Taymiyya see Fritz Meier The Cleanest aboutPredestination: A Bit of Ibn Taymiyya Essays on Islamic Piety and Mysticism(J. OKane with B. Radtke (trans.): Leiden, 1999) 31819.

81 As, Risla, 217. Incidentally, this happens to be a suggestive and felicitousArabic paraphrase of the Greek idea contained in the word aporia (i.e. path

strewn with obstacles). The observation is not meant to suggest any kinship,genetic or otherwise, between Shaykh Amad and certain contemporary trendsin literary criticism and theory.

82 See above, the reference to Ayn at note 20 above. For an extensive andinvaluable study of this critique see Corbin, Pntrations, s.v. index Amadal-As (Shaykh). For Corbin, the accusations against Shaykh Amad arebeneath contempt. Corbin, Islam IV, 21213.

83 See Farhad Daftary The Ismls: Their History and Doctrines (Cambridge,1990) 5027 and references for a discussion of the dynamics of this rela-

tionship and insights into the religious views of Fat Ali Shh himself. SeeAmad al-AsRisla f kayfiyya al-sulk il Allh (Beirut, 1414/1993) fordistinctive interpretations of standard Sufi topics and practices such as dhikr,aba, etc. Shaykh Amads popularity, as Cole, Sources, 91, has recentlywritten, was due in large measure to his remarkable achievement: preserving

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the warm heart of Shiism amidst a welter of competing scholasticisms.However, the existence of such works as Mull Muammad Taqal- MajlisRislah tashwq al-slikn (n.p., n.d.) reminds us to be eve

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