Download PDF | (Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies, 90) Richard Todd - The Sufi Doctrine of Man_ Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī's Metaphysical Anthropology-Brill (2014).
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Introduction
Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274) was the foremost disciple of the great Andalusī mystic, Muḥyī-l-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) and played a pivotal role in disseminating his teachings. Although less famous than his master, Qūnawī has traditionally been recognised both as a key interpreter of Ibn ʿArabī’s work and as a sophisticated metaphysician in his own right. Yet for almost half a century now, since Osman Yahia’s1 and Henri Corbin’s2 respective studies on Ibn ʿArabī first brought the figure of his chief disciple to the wider attention of western scholarship, there has emerged no full-length examination of Qūnawī’s thought.3
The reasons why such a study has proved elusive may well lie, as William Chittick has suggested,4 both in the fact that Qūnawī has been overshadowed by Ibn ʿArabī, and in the famously difficult character of his works, the most important of which have often been considered even more complex than those of his master. To these very plausible factors we would add another more general consideration, namely, whatever their relative complexity, the fact remains that until quite recently only two of Qūnawī’s works had actually been edited, while the rest existed, as indeed more than half still do, in the form of long-lost lithographs or as part of the vast heritage of unedited Islamic manuscripts, to which, it may be noted, many of the works of Ibn ʿArabī himself still belong. As for the studies undertaken on Qūnawī so far, they fall into two groups: those devoted to his works and thought and those chiefly concerned with the part he played in Ibn ʿArabī’s milieu.
For the moment we shall restrict our attention to the former, as the second group will be dealt with in the chapter on Qūnawī’s life and times.5 In order, then, to underline the dearth of material on Qūnawī’s doctrines it should suffice to remark that the only studies on aspects of his thought to have been published in a western language so far have been three brief articles by William Chittick6 and Gudrun Schubert’s introduction to her edition of Qūnawī’s correspondence with Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī.7 Besides these, it is true, there exist two full-length works, though they lie outside the categories of “published” and “western” respectively. The first is Stephan Ruspoli’s unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, entitled ‘La clef du monde supra-sensible’ (Paris IV 1978), which consists of a critical edition and partial translation of Qūnawī’s Miftāḥ ghayb al-jamʿ. The second is Nihat Keklik’s Turkish monograph, Sadreddin Konevi’nin felsefesinde Allah-Kâinât ve Insan (Istanbul 1967), which was, prior to the current work, the sole full-length academic study on Qūnawī to have been published in any language.
2 Qūnawī’s Anthropology in Context With the foregoing in mind, the present work sets out to provide an analysis of one of the defining strands of Qūnawī’s thought – his anthropology, or doctrine of man.
Marked by a generally Islamic view of man’s intrinsic excellence, Ṣadr al-Dīn’s anthropology focuses not only on the nature of human beings in their earthly state and afterlife but also, and more fundamentally, on the metaphysical principles underpinning their existence and teleological end. For Qūnawī, then, as for his master before him, the study of man is grounded in a primarily metaphysical understanding of human nature. In the works of Ibn ʿArabī and his school,8 as is well known, this understanding reaches its apogee in the concept of al-insān al-kāmil or the perfect human being, conceived of as a theophanic manifestation in which God contemplates the hidden treasures of His Essence and through whom the world’s existence is sustained. “The vicegerency (khilāfa)”, says Ibn ʿArabī, “befits none save the perfect human being alone, for [God] has made his outer form from the forms and realities of the cosmos, and has made his inner form after His own image”.9
But this is not a doctrine without precedent. Indeed, for both Qūnawī and his master its roots are enshrined in the scriptures, with the Qurʾān itself affirming man’s status as the summit of creation, superior even to the angels by dint of knowledge: {And when thy Lord said to the angels, ‘I am making a vicegerent in the Earth’. They said ‘Wilt Thou set therein one who will do corruption there, and shed blood, while we proclaim Thy praise and call Thee Holy?’ He said, ‘I know that which ye know not’. And He taught Adam all of the names, then He presented them to the angels and said, ‘Tell Me the names of these, if you speak truly.’
They said, ‘Glory to Thy Transcendence! We know not save what Thou hast taught us. Thou art the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.’}10 The idea that the human being encapsulates the cosmos is one that can be found, of course, in other intellectual traditions too, most notably the Hermetic corpus, the influence of which is clearly discernible in early and medieval Islam.11 Accordingly, we find the concept of man as microcosm being echoed by different authors and schools, from the early ʿAbbasid period onwards. Such for example is the view of human nature set forth in the Sirr al-khalīqa (The Secret of Creation),12 a Hermetic work traditionally ascribed to the firstcentury Neopythagorean philosopher, Apollonius of Tyana (Ar. Bālīnās), but more probably composed by an anonymous Arab author in the ninth century c.e.: “by participating”, we are told, “in every single nature, the human being is the middle of all natures, whether intelligible or sensible”.13
And such too is the view expounded by the most celebrated Arab litterateur of his age, ʿAmr ibn Baḥr al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 869/255),14 in the following passage from his magnum opus the Kitāb al-Ḥayawān or Book of Living Things: Dost thou not know that they called the human being – for whose sake was created the heavens, the earth and all that lies between, even as the Almighty has said {He made subject to you what is in the heavens and what is in the earth, all of it from Him}15 – the ‘microcosm, son of the great cosmos’, because they found in him all the forms contained in the world: they found in him the five senses and the five objects of senseperception; they noted that he eats both grain and meat, thus combining the sustenance of beasts of burden and beasts of prey .
They called him the microcosm because they found him capable of depicting all things with his hand, and of imitating all sounds with his mouth, and because his limbs are apportioned according to the twelve signs of the zodiac and the seven planets. In him, likewise, are yellow bile, which is the product of fire; black bile, the product of earth, blood, the product of air; and phlegm, the product of water; and in harmony with his four humours were tuned the four strings [of the lute]. Wherefore, they deemed him a small cosmos (ʿālam ṣaghīr), for in him are all of the world’s parts, mixtures and natures.16 Likewise, more than a century after al-Jāḥiẓ, we find the anonymous authors of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ17 expressing the same basic idea18 in noticeably similar terms: When the ancient philosophers scrutinised this corporeal world with their eyes, perceived its phenomena with their senses, and then meditated upon its states and conditions with their intellects … they found no part thereof more perfect in structure or form, nor more closely resembling the whole than the human being: for composed as he is of a corporeal body and a spiritual soul, they found in the structural configuration of his body semblances of all that exists in the bodily world, be it the wondrous composition of its heavenly spheres, the divisions of its zodiac, the movements of its planets, the composition of its elements, the different substances of its minerals, the manifold forms of its plants, or the marvellous structures of its animals. And they found, too, in the various categories of spiritual creatures – be they angels, jinn, mankind, demons, or the souls of animals – and in their action upon the world a resemblance to the human soul and the way in which its powers flow through the structure of the body.
Hence, such aspects of human forms having become clear to them, they called the human being on that account a microcosm.19 And the same doctrine is echoed in the writings of Shihāb al-Dīn ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234),20 a Sufi master who loomed large in the Seljuq Anatolia of Qūnawī’s childhood and early youth.21 Qūnawī, then, was not the first medieval Muslim thinker to lay emphasis on the study of human nature, nor does his metaphysical doctrine of man constitute a break from the spirit of the tradition in which he wrote; but it remains significant nonetheless by dint of its breadth, complexity and lasting legacy. In order to set the scene for our analysis of his anthropology, we have endeavoured to provide at least some historical and intellectual background to our author and his thought.
In the first part of this book we therefore give a brief account of Qūnawī’s life and works and attempt to situate his writings in relation to the intellectual currents of his day, including the Sufi metaphysics of his master, as well as the Hellenistic theories adopted by the Islamic philosophers. As for the anthropological section proper, it has been founded upon an examination of all of Qūnawī’s major works, and has been structured according to the overarching scheme of man’s exitus and reditus, or existential journey. Here, however, it should be said that although on occasions we refer to other relevant sources, our prevailing concern at this stage has not been to undertake a systematic comparison between Qūnawī’s anthropology and that of his master, or indeed to provide an exhaustive account of the texts that may have informed his work, but simply to allow his treatment of this topic to emerge as clearly as possible.
3 The Political Setting The political backdrop throughout the greater part of Qūnawī’s career is that of the Seljuq Sultanate of Rūm.22 Born into the privileged class of Persian courtiers on whom the Turkic Seljuq rulers traditionally relied, Ṣadr al-Dīn’s fortunes seem to have remained tied, throughout his life, to those of the Seljuq state. Although Qūnawī’s writings contain virtually no mention of political figures or events, it seems clear from the timing of his sojourns in Syria and Egypt that the periods he spent away from Rūm were prompted in some measure at least by changes of ruler or political turmoil in his Anatolian homeland. A rump state of the Great Seljuq Empire, the Sultanate of Rūm experienced a heyday of prosperity and influence during the first half of the thirteenth century under a succession of capable leaders.
Having captured vital outlets to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, the ensuing revenue from transit trade helped fund the cultural and architectural efflorescence of the Seljuq capital, Konya.23 Noticeable, too, in this period is the generally favourable attitude of the Seljuq sultans towards Sufism, with Kaykāʾūs famously providing a haven for Ibn ʿArabī24 while his successor, Kaykūbād, offered protection to the family of Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī.25 From the 1240’s onwards the political landscape of Seljuq Anatolia would be dominated by one feature above all others: the encroaching Mongol threat from the East. In fact, since the Mongols had first started their campaigns, some twenty years earlier, against the Iranian dominions of the Khwarazmian shah, Konya and Rūm in general had been absorbing waves of refugees from Persia and Transoxania. But when, in 1242, the Mongols took Erzurum on the eastern fringe of the Seljuq lands, the Seljuq sultan, Kaykhusraw II (d. 644/1246), mustered an army and engaged the enemy at Köse Dagh on the road between Sivas and Erzincan. The ensuing battle ended in a crushing defeat for the Seljuq forces. The sultan himself fled unscathed and found refuge in Antalya.
In his absence, however, and without his knowledge, his vizier, Muhadhdhab al-Dīn (d. 644/1246), negotiated a treaty of protection with the Mongols, thus sparing the rest of the Sultanate from attack.26 For Eastern Anatolia the years that followed were a period of general instability marked by famine and infighting between rival scions of the Seljuq clan.27 Relative stability, however, was restored under the stewardship of the “Parvāna”28 or chief vizier, Muʿīn al-Dīn Sulaymān (d. 676/1277), a figure who dominated Rūm during the final years of the Mongol protectorate.29 Both a patron of mystics and a ruthless politician, the Parvāna was the de facto ruler of the protectorate for more than two decades. Finally, it seems likely that in the hope of ridding himself of his Mongol overlords he had a hand along with other Anatolian amīrs in enlisting the support of the Mamlūk sultan of Egypt, Baybars (d. 676/1277), who responded to their call and defeated the Mongol forces at the battle of Albistān in 1277. Suspecting treachery, the Mongol Ilkhān, Abaqā (d. 681/1282), had the Parvāna put to death, and shortly afterwards, despite Baybars’ victory, Eastern Anatolia was placed directly under Mongol rule.
4 The Cultural and Intellectual Climate Like the political world of the time, the cultural and intellectual environment into which Qūnawī was born was undergoing significant changes too. This is especially true of Sufism in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, a period that witnessed the emergence of the ṭarīqas or Sufi orders31 as well as important developments in doctrinal expression. Of the orders that emerged in the decades prior to Qūnawī’s birth, the Suhrawardīya in particular seems to have had a special bearing on Ṣadr al-Dīn’s first contacts with the initiatic path, as Awḥad al-Dīn al-Kirmānī (d. 636/1238),32 the master who initiated him into Sufism, was affiliated to the founder of that order, Abū-l-Najīb ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Suhrawardī (d. 563/1168).33 On the doctrinal level the Sufi metaphysics of Ibn ʿArabī – unprecedented in its breadth and sophistication – marks a key watershed in the development of Sufi thought.34
This is also a period in which mystical poetry – both in Arabic and Persian – comes to the fore as a major genre of Sufi literature:35 from the spiritual allegories of Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (d. 586/1190)36 to the finely constructed odes of Ibn al-Fāriḍ, in which the stock themes and imagery of profane wine songs and love poetry are invested, often audaciously, with spiritual symbolism.37 Finally, we should note that the early years of Mongol rule in Iran provided the setting for a minor renaissance of Avicennian philosophy at the hands of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) and his students.38 Free from the dogmatic pressures that had hindered philosophical inquiry since Ghazālī’s (d. 505/1111) famous critique of falsafa, or Arabic Aristotelianism, towards the end of the eleventh century,39 Ṭūsī penned an influential commentary on Ibn Sīnā’s (d. 428/1037) Kitāb al-ishārāt wa al-tanbīhāt, which was essentially a defence of the Avicennian tradition.40 Ṭūsī’s commentary, and indeed the ripples of this movement in general, reached Qūnawī in Seljuq Anatolia, prompting his emblematic correspondence with Naṣīr al-Dīn – an exchange to which we will refer throughout the present study.
5 Qūnawī’s Biography in Medieval Sources When setting about the task of constructing as accurate a picture as possible of Qūnawī’s life, a variety of primary sources present themselves, with differing degrees of reliability. Naturally, priority has been given to Ṣadr al-Dīn’s own testimonies. However, though his works cannot exactly be regarded as lacking in this respect, as his precise chronicle of epiphanies and intuitions would appear to be unique in the annals of Sufi literature, their rather impersonal nature means that they do not contain the kind of straightforward biographical account – ostensibly at any rate – that one finds, for instance, in the writings of Ghazālī or Ibn Sīnā. Nor, for that matter, do they contain an abundance of anecdotal material of the kind found in Ibn ʿArabī’s works. It is, however, possible to find a certain amount of biographical data in the writings of Qūnawī’s disciples. The principal sources in this connection are two works by Muʾayyid al-Dīn al-Jandī (d. 700/1300), the biographical value of which has long been recognised by students of Ibn ʿArabī, namely his commentary on the Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam and a Persian work entitled Nafthat al-rūḥ wa tuḥfat al-futūḥ. Also worthy of mention is Saʿīd al-Dīn al-Farghānī’s (d. 699/1299) Mashāriq al-darārī, a work which, though lacking in the kind of anecdotal material found in Jandī’s writings, is nonetheless of particular interest in that it includes a preface, written by Qūnawī, in which he provides details of his youthful travels and early teaching career.
Of similar importance in terms of usefulness and reliability is the data contained in the colophons of the authorised manuscripts of works by both Qūnawī and Ibn ʿArabī. This source has the additional advantage of providing a welcome measure of chronological precision. Hence, while some periods of Qūnawī’s life remain hazy or completely obscure, these records serve to bring some events, at least, sharply into focus. Another reasonably reliable store of information is to be found in the two chief chronicles of the Seljuq Sultanate of Rūm, namely Ibn Bībī’s (fl. 684/1285) al-Awāmir al-ʿalāʾīya, and Karīm al-Dīn al – Aqsarāʾī’s (fl. ca. 700/1300) Musāmarat al-akhbār wa musāyarat al-akhyār. Although the former contains little mention of Qūnawī, it is important nonetheless in that it represents the chief source of information about his father’s career at the court of the Seljuq sultan. Aqsarāʾī’s work, by contrast, provides clear confirmation of the elevated position that Qūnawī himself eventually came to occupy within the Seljuq state.
While these four categories take precedence in terms of their historical value, it is still possible to glean a significant amount of information from a number of other, less reliable types of sources. On this score, mention should be made first of all of traditional biographical dictionaries, or Ṭabaqāt, which, it has to be said, vary in terms of their usefulness depending on their author and their purview. Nevertheless, out of the many Ṭabaqāt containing notices on Qūnawī, two classic reference works in particular deserve mention here. The first is Khalīl ibn Aybak al-Ṣafadī’s (d. 764/1363) al-Wāfī bi-l-wafayāt, which has the advantage of being the earliest such source to include Qūnawī in its listings. The other is ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jāmī’s (d. 898/1492) Nafaḥāt al-uns, which, in keeping with its author’s reverence for Ibn ʿArabī’s school, contains by far the most comprehensive mention both of Qūnawī and his disciples.41 Finally, there are traditional hagiographies, or manāqib.
As a rule, the closer they were written to the time in which their respective saints lived, the greater their historical value, which is why we have chosen not to make use of the only work devoted to Qūnawī that properly falls into this genre: Muḥammad Amīn Dede’s Raghāʾib al-manāqib,42 which was composed several centuries after Qūnawī’s death, and has a typically legendary feel to it. Of considerable value, by contrast, is Shams al-Dīn Aḥmad Aflākī’s (d. 761/1360) well-known hagiography of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Rūmī (d. 672/1273), entitled Manāqib al-ʿārifīn, since despite displaying the characteristic bias of the genre, it provides, nonetheless, a vivid portrayal of the personalities and daily life of Konya during the time of the Mongol protectorate.
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