Sajjad Rizvi - The tafsīr Sūrat al-Fātiha of Jāmī and the school of Ibn 'Arabī

The Existential Breath of al-rahmän and the Munificent Grace of al-rahïm: The Taf sir

Sürat al-Fätiha of Jamï and the School of Ibn c Arab!

Sajjad H. Rizvi

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Interpretation is an act of appropriation in which the interpreter assimilates, adopts

and comprehends a text on the horizon of his or her existence. Learned Muslims

throughout the ages have sought ways in which they can assimilate the word of God

to their world and lived existence, to make sense of the word in the light of their own

experience, that is mediated and to an extent determined by their training and their

language. The venerable tafsïr traditions are rich and varied because different

thinkers and practitioners of the Islamic humanities have attempted to understand

and explicate the text through their own expertise. Within this rich array of

explanations lies the important genre of Sufi exegesis on the Qur'an. The

characteristic of this genre exemplifies 'interpretation through the self, a mode of

explicating the divine text through the encounter with the Sufi's experience of other

modalities through which the divine is manifest in this world. The Sufi approaches

the text as a multi-layered network of meanings that come to life when they trigger

responses in the soul, when they find the cognate 'switches' that God has placed in

their primordial selves. The Sufi is thus the juxtaposition of divine texts, an inscribed

text upon whose heart the revealed text is similarly inscribed, existing within the

wider cosmos that is the greater book of God. Key narrative texts attributed to the

Prophet and saints indicate this: from the text that insists that every Qur'anic aya has

an exterior (z,ahr) and interior (batn) meaning and levels of the interior that lead

from the point of commencement (hadd) to the point of rising (matlac or muttalac) to

existential understanding, to the famous wisdom saying that knowledge of God lies

in knowledge of the self {man corafa nafsahu fa-carafa rabbahu)} The quest for

understanding both key divine texts, the Qur'an and the self, begins with a dual

apperception of the basmala and the opening sura, the Fätiha of the Qur'an, and the

recognition of the self as an expiration of the breath of the Merciful (al-nafas

al-rahmäni). Intellectual traditions in classical and post-classical Islam refer to this

conglomeration as the three 'realities' {haqä°iq)\ the Sufi exegetical tradition, on the

other hand, considers them to be the three divine books that demand explanation,

interpretation and assimilation.2 At the heart of Sufi hermeneutics of the text lies an

appreciation of the homologies between the inscribed Book of God (kitäb Allah), the

The Existential Breath of al-rahman and the Munificent Grace of al-rahlm 59

book of the cosmos {kitäb äfäqi) and the book of humanity {kitâb anfusî) as

theophanies of the divine that could only be amenable and comprehensible through a

sympathy that recognised truth: the key text for this realisation was Q. 41:53, We

shall show them Our signs on the horizons (al-äfäq) and in their souls (anfusihim)

until it becomes clear to them that He is the Real. This approach provides for a

holistic hermeneutics of the text in which the boundaries of the text and the limits of

the hermeneutic circle are constantly tested and transgressed. The apparent literal

meaning of the text is the inspirational genesis of interpretation but the boundary

between text and interpretation is constantly shifting and the limits to the

interpretative enterprise constantly iterating through 'points of rising' on the

horizons of the Sufi's experience, seeking to move beyond it.

This is not the place to provide an extensive introduction to Sufi taf sir, let alone the

larger process of interpretation.3 Nor I am attempting a new explanation of Sufi

hermeneutics of the Qur'an. My opening comments are merely an attempt to

contextualise the method that I am attempting to apply to the study of a particular

Sufi exegesis from the early modern period, and my intention in this paper is rather

more humble: to introduce cAbd al-Rahmän Jâmï (d. 898/1492), a pre-eminent

poet-theologian of the school of Ibn cArabï (d. 638/1240) and a prominent

Khwäjagäm (Naqshbandï) Sufi, and demonstrate how his reading of the basmala is

an illustration of one of the key ideas of this Sufi school, namely the metaphysics of

mercy.4 The Tïmûrid 9th/15th century was a liminal period, both in the cultural and

political sense of being on the threshold of the great 'gunpowder' empires and the

cultural spheres of Safavid-Mughal-Shïbanid Central and South Asia, a boundary

that traces a limit but also reveals the possibilities of what lay beyond, and in the

religious sense in which Sunnï and Shïcï affiliations were not as rigidly demarcated

as they became after the Safavid conquest of Iran and Khurasan. Jâmï's role as

interpreter and communicator to those cultural successor spheres is critical as indeed

was his staunch Sunnism that did not fail to betray aspects of philo-Shïcism.5

Jâmï's explanation of the basmala allows one to demonstrate the inter-textual

interpretation of the three divine books as ontological facts and as executors and

recipients of divine mercy. The wider point that I wish to make is fairly clear and, I

would venture, uncontroversial: one cannot understand any aspect of the tafslr

tradition without taking into consideration both the training of the commentator and

the other intellectual disciplines in which he made contributions. Therefore one

cannot make sense of Jâmï's subtle and interesting commentary on the Fätiha

without appreciating his other works in theology and philosophy, in particular his

mystical and philosophical explanations of the nature of divine mercy.

60 Journal of Qur'anic Studies

Exegeses on this particular sura abound (one need not spend too much time perusing

catalogues of printed works or manuscripts to realise this), and Jâmï is neither a

particularly well-known nor perhaps the most significant exegete of the school of Ibn cArabï - his tafslr only covers the Fätiha and the first hizb of Sürat al-Baqara and

comprises an average of one hundred or so folios of a smallish size. One should also

point out that there is no systematic study of the exegetical tradition of the school of

Ibn cArabï and I hope that one corollary of this study may be some pointers in this

direction. But there are other reasons that obviate his choice: his commentary is the

most systematic attempt in the pre-Mughal-Safavid-Ottoman period to provide an

extensive exegesis of the metaphysics of mercy located within an explanation of the

basmala and goes far beyond two important precursors: cAbd al-Razzäq al-Käshäni

(d. 736/1336), the pre-eminent commentator and exegete of the school of Ibn c Arabi

whose Ta°wllät al-Qur°än still retains its fame as the 'tafslr of Ibn cArabi', and

Khwäja Yacqüb Charkhï (d. 851/1447) whose Persian exegesis from the Khwäjagäni

tradition Tafslr-i kaläm-i rabbonì remains popular in Naqshbandï circles and

deserves to be better known in the academic study of Sufi tafslr.6 Such a study will

provide a useful comparison from the mature period of the school to the early work

of Ibn cArabi's step-son Sadr al-Din al-Qünawi (d. 673/1274) whose own

commentary on the Fätiha, entitled Icjäz al-bayän, is a magisterial account of the

three divine books: the Qur'an, the human and the cosmos.7 Contextualising Sufi

thought is of critical significance: one should not expect writers and thinkers to

express themselves outside of time and without their intellectual and cultural

context.8 Exegetical traditions develop and change over time once new concerns,

training, and intellectual vigour impact on the exegetical process. The commentary

of Jâmï is thus of its time and signals a step within the wider scholastic turn in the

school of Ibn cArabi. However, before turning to the Qur'anic basmala and the

explication of the metaphysics of mercy, let us begin with another divine book: the

man himself - Jâmï.

c Abd al-Rahmân Jâmï and the school of Ibnc Arabi

Lovers of Persian poetry and Persian culture, not least in Central Asia and the Indian

subcontinent, do not need any introduction to Jâmï. A figure who looms like a

colossus over the cultural and intellectual heritage of the Persianate world from the

late Timürid period onwards, Jâmï's intellectual contributions are significant and

well-known. His poetry was and is popular; his many theological works became the

object of study and careful commentary in the culture of the madrasa; and his

important grammatical commentary al-Fowö°id al-Diyä°iyya on the classical

al-Käfiya of Ibn al-Häjib (d. 646/1249) was the central school-text of the madrasa

curriculum from Samarqand to Istanbul to Khayräbäd, in the seminaries of Safavid

Iran as well as in the curriculum of the Dars-i Nizämi initiated in 12th/18th century

India. A famous Persian poet, a significant figure at the Timürid court of Herat and


a subtle and learned theologian, he was a major figure of the 9ώ/15ώ century in the

Islamic East and had a lasting influence on Persianate Islam in particular. A number

of modern studies have been devoted to him in Persian (and even in Arabic) but

there remains very little written on him in European languages, at least in the last

half-century or so. This neglect of a major post-classical figure of the Islamicate

and Persianate world is, unfortunately, only too representative of the state of

research in Islamic and Persian studies.

Nur al-Dïn (originally cImäd al-Din) cAbd al-Rahmän ibn Nizäm al-Dïn Ahmad ibn

Shams al-Dïn Muhammad Dashtï,11 whose affiliation name {nisba) and pen-name

was Jâmï, was born in Kharjird in the district of Jam near Herat in Eastern Khurasan,

present-day Afghanistan, on 23 Shacbän 817 (7 November 1414). The sources on his

life are numerous and because of his central role and function at the Timürid court of

Herat, it is possible to construct a detailed biography.12 First, his own works provide

extensive evidence for his life. His theological and philosophical works were often

commissioned or dedicated to significant figures (including rulers), dated and

located. His biographical works, such as his major compendium of Sufi

hagiographies Nafahät al-uns min hazarät al-quds, commissioned by his friend Mir cAlï-Shïr Navâ°ï (d. 907/1501) and completed in 883/1478 provides examples of his

interactions with contemporary Sufis.13 His poetry is replete with dates, allusions and

addresses to patrons and friends. His first major poetical work, the first in a series of

seven masnaviyyöt collectively entitled Haft awrang, silsilat al-zahab (The Golden

Chain') was dedicated to the ruler of Herat, the Timürid sultan Husayn Bäyqarä (d.

911/1506), around 875/1470. His second poetic epic, Saloman u Absäl, was

dedicated in 885/1480 to the Äq-Quyünlü ruler Yacqüb (d. 896/1490). The third epic

entitled Tuhfat al-Ahrär ('Gift for the Free'/'Gift for Ahrär') was dedicated in the

following year to Khwäja cUbayd Allah Ahrär (d. 896/1490) and the Khwäjagäni

Sufi order. The fourth, entitled Subhat al-abrär ('The Rosary of the Pious'), dated

887/1482, continued the taste for Sufi themes and was also dedicated to Bäyqarä.

The fifth, Yüsufu Zulaykhä, took up the Qur'anic story of Joseph, embellishing it

with tropes from the Sufi tradition; completed in 888/1483 and dedicated to Bäyqarä;

this remains perhaps the most famous of all his works. The sixth masnavl, Laylä u

Majnün, retold the old Bedouin story of doomed lovers and was completed in

889/1484. The final instalment of the heptad recounted another famous myth, the

Alexander romance Khiradnäma-yi Iskandar and was completed in 890/1485 for his

patron Bäyqarä. The Haft awrang is a major source for his intellectual biography,

and provides numerous citations of his friends, patrons and disciples, and allows us

to understand how Jâmï used poetry to popularise ideas that he expresses elsewhere

in prose works. His other collections of poetry, the three dlvän-hä of his ghazaliyyät

and other poetic compositions are rather neatly entitled Fätihat al-shabäb

('Commencement of Youth', completed in 884/1479), Wäsitat al-ciqd ('Midlife',

completed in 894/1489) and Khätimat al-hayät ('Culmination of Life', completed in


895/1490). Poetic expressions are an important category of source material for the

construction of biography, often neglected by students of intellectual and cultural

history. Given the significance of Timürid Herat as a cultural centre, Jämi's literary

and intellectual contributions are all the more striking.

Jämi's correspondence {munsha°ät) with prominent figures of the time, not least the

major proto-Naqshbandi/Khwäjagäni Sufi master cUbayd Allah Ahrär, and the

courtier Mir c Alï-Shïr Navä°i, is well-preserved and became a model for epistolatory

literature in Central Asia and India in the early modern period. The second cluster

of sources on his life are the earliest poetic tazjcirät that stress the significance of

Jâmï as a poet whose style was often regarded nostalgically in the modern period as

the last vestige of the greatness of the classical tradition, soon to be diluted and

corrupted by the new obscurantist, un-aesthetic and 'difficult' sabk-i hindi.

The third set of sources includes historical and hagiographical accounts of those who

met or knew him.17 Perhaps most prominent on this list is the continuation {takmila)

of his Nafahät al-uns by his student and disciple cAbd al-Ghafur Lari (d. 912/1507)

which was written shortly after his death some time around 900/1494 on the request

of his son Ziyä° al-Dïn Yüsuf.18 His prominent disciple and friend, the courtier cAlï-Shïr NaväDi wrote Khamsat al-mutahayyirln in Chaghatay Turkic about the

circle of Jâmï, and included a brief notice in his poetical tazjcira, Majälis al-naßyis,

also written in Chaghatay Turkic.19 His praise for his friend and mentor is

appropriately hyperbolic: 'as long as the world is, its inhabitants will not be unaware 20

of the results of the luminous mind of this great personage.' Other testimonies

include the Bäburnäma, the memoirs of the Timürid prince and the first Mughal

emperor of India, Bäbur (d. 937/1530), who described Jâmï as a foremost scholar of

Herat at the court of Sultan Husayn Bäyqarä: 'In esoteric and exoteric knowledge,

there was no one like him at that time. His fame is such that it is beyond the need of

description.'21 The famous historian Khvänd Mir (d. 941/1534), who was born in

Herat, described his influence in Habib al-siyar, stating that 'the rays of his perfect

learning light up the world like the sun, and his innumerable works in every category

are too well known to need introduction'.22 Hyperbolic praise was also heaped upon

him by contemporary historians of Herat such as Mucïn al-Dïn Muhammad Isfizäri

(d. 899/1493^) and Sayyid Asïl al-Dïn cAbd Allah Väciz (d. 883/1478-9).23 Within

the Sufi tradition, an important memoir from what was becoming the Naqshbandï

tradition is the hagiographical Maqämät-i Jäml by his disciple cAbd al-Vasic

Bäkharzi (d. 909/1504), which provides an extended hagiography that stresses the

miraculous nature of Jämi's intellectual and spiritual abilities.24 A more sober Sufi

prosopography that focuses on the mystics of Herat is the Majälis al-cushshäq of

Amir Kamäl al-Dïn Husayn Gäzurgähi, a confidant of Sultan Husayn Bäyqarä.25 The

most important Sufi source is that of Jämi's hamzulf0Ali Safi Käshifi (d. 939/1532-

3) in his major study of the nascent Naqshbandï order Rashahät-i cayn al-hayät.

The Existential Breath of al-rahmän and the Munificent Grace of al-rahlm 63

Finally, from the poetical tazkira genre is the famous account of his contemporary

Dawlatshäh Samarqandi (d. 890/1494) in his renowned Tazkira-yi shucarä\

completed in 892/1487, closely followed by a younger contemporary, the Safavid

prince and sometime governor of Herat in the early 10ώ/16ώ century, Säm Mïrza,

who wrote his Tuhfa-yi Säml around 957/1550, about the time when Jämi's works,

poetic and prosaic were becoming famous and starting to be copied in manuscripts

around the Persianate world.27 Dawlatshäh is the first source to mention Jämi's

exegesis, which he claims was taking up much of his time then and hence was in

progress: we know that he never completed the task. cAlï Safì and later Säm Mïrza

follow Dawlatshäh in discussing the exegesis and stating that it was incomplete,

beginning with the exegesis of the Fätiha and culminating with the exegesis of aya

40 of Sürat al-Baqara, roughly the first hizb of one juz° (one-thirtieth) of the Qur'an.

This state of incompletion does not necessarily suggest that Jâmï had any intention

of writing a complete exegesis; his earlier contemporary Husayn Väciz-i Käshifi

(d. 910/1505), cAlï Safi's father, wrote two exegeses, one complete and the other 28

mainly focused on the Fätiha.

Jämi's family was originally from Dasht, a neighbourhood in Isfahan, and it was his

grandfather Shams al-Dïn Muhammad who migrated to the environs of Herat. His

first teacher and mentor was his father Nizäm al-Dïn Ahmad, a learned man who

frequented the company of Sufis such as Bahä° al-Dïn cUmar Abardihi and Fakhr

al-Dïn Lüristäni.29 From the paternal line, Jämi was a descendent of Muhammad

al-Shaybanï (d. 189/805), companion and disciple of Abu Hanifa (d. 150/765), the 30

eponymous 'founder' of the Sunnï Hanafi legal school. At an early age, the family

moved to Jam, where in 822/1419 Jâmï met Khwäja Muhammad al-Bukhäri known

as Pärsä (d. 822/1419) who was on his way to perform the Hajj.31 He later recounted

his fleeting encounter with the disciple of Naqshband:

As one had learnt that he would be passing by the town of Jam - and

according to some this was either at the end of Jumada I or the

beginning of Jumada II [822/mid-late June 1419] - my father with a

group of his friends and intimates went forth from the town to meet

him, and at that time I was barely five years old. One of those friends

told me that he carried me on his shoulders so that I could see

[Pärsä' s] luminous countenance beyond the crowd. He turned around

and bestowed upon me a sweet smile. It is now 60 years later but the

purity of his luminous countenance remains before my eyes and the

pleasure of the blessed vision of him in my heart. Through this

encounter of sincerity, belief and desire, I grew to love the

Khwäjagän.

Jâmï thus claimed that his later affiliation to the order was a result of this miraculous

look of compassion that he received from an old and dying shaykh.


A few years later, perhaps around 830/1427, the family moved to the city of Herat. There Jâmï continued his studies in the elementary subjects of language, logic and rhetoric with his father and with Mawlänä Junayd at the Madrasa-yi Bäzär-i Khüsh.33

As a teenager, he also embarked on the study of the intellectual disciplines of rational theology, philosophy and the exact sciences with Khwäja Shams al-Din Muhammad Jäjarmi and Khwäja c Ala3 al-Dïn c Ali Samarqandi, himself a student of the famous philosopher Sayyid cAlï Jurjäni (d. 822/1419).34 He proceeded to Samarqand to study the sciences, especially astronomy, with the leading thinkers of his time, Qäzizäde Rumi and cAlï Qüshji, who marvelled at the precocious and talented young man.35 (This visit may have been undertaken in 838/1435, partly with the intention of avoiding the plague then prevalent in Herat.36) In Samarqand, Jâmï

37

also continued his study of Hanafi fiqh with Fazl Allah Samarqandi. He then returned to Herat in 856/1452 and, as a trained scholar, began to teach and write

38

works. Jâmï took the Sufi way in around 857/1453, adopting as his master the Khwäjagäni shaykh Khwäja Sacd al-Dïn Kashgharï (d. 860/1456).39 This placed him in a spiritual lineage that connected him to one of the eponymous founders of the Khwäjagäni order, Khwäja Bahä° al-Dïn Muhammad al-Bukhäri, known as Naqshband (d. 791/1389), through three links: Kashgharï - his master Khwäja Nizäm al-Dïn Khämüsh (d. ca 853/1449)40 - his master Khwäja cAla3 al-Din cAttär (d. 802/1400)41

- his master Naqshband.42 After Kashgharï's death, he adopted a most prominent Khwäjagäni shaykh of his time, cUbayd Allah Ahrär, as his mentor,43 meeting him in Samarqand at the beginning of 870/1465 and again when the latter visited Herat in the same year.44

Jâmï played a pivotal role in establishing the Tariq-i Khwäjagän in Herat, assisting his master Kashgharï in his sessions at the main Friday mosque and at the Madrasa-yi Ghiyäsiyya and, after his death in 860/1456, he encouraged his successor Shams al-Dïn Muhammad Rüji (d. 904/1499) to perpetuate the line.45 Herat was thus the centre for the propagation of what became known as the Naqshbandï order. Through Jämi's links to Ahrär in Samarqand, he became a central conduit for the two main branches of the order in the pre-Mughal period. The sanctity of Herat and its surrounding part of Khuräsän and the role of the order in promoting it was amplified from 884-5/1480 when the shrine of cAlï ibn Abi Tälib was 'discovered' in Balkh. The order, and Jâmï himself, played an important role in authenticating it. He also played a political role in implementing orthodoxy and attacking heresy. When the Nurbakhshï Sufi Shäh Qäsim Fayzbakhsh (d. 919/1513^1) visited Herat on the invitation of Bäyqarä, he preached and held court; Jâmï challenged his 'heretical' ideas and, according to Bakharzï, defeated him in disputation.47

Nurbakhshï sources, naturally, present the disputation in a different light.48


Jâmï died on Friday 17 Muharram 898/9 November 1492 in Herat after an illness

lasting four days.49 His funeral and mourning ceremonies were organised by Sultan

Husayn Bäyqarä and were attended in large numbers by the elite and populace of

Herat and Khuräsän.50 He was survived by his son Ziyä3 al-Dïn Yüsuf (d. 919/1513),

for whom he had written the belles-lettrist anthology Bahäristän in 892/1486 and

al-Fawä°id al-Diyä°iyya in 897/1491, and by his disciple cAbd al-Ghafur Lari (d.

912/1507).

For our purposes, the most significant biographical detail concerning Jâmï is his

attachment to the work of Ibn cArabi and his espousal of the 'school of Ibn cArabi'.

William Chittick is perhaps the one scholar who has done the most to promote the

study of the 'school' of Ibn cArabi, although he is keen to caution the use of the

phrase: practitioners of the school were not 'mere commentators' and had clear

differences in style and content with the master.51 There is one important distinction

between the allusive, 'spiritualised intelligence' of the work of the master and the

more systematic, disseminatory and even philosophical style and content of his 52

followers. The process of creating a 'school' centred upon commentary traditions

on the twin pillars of Ibn c Arabi's doctrine, namely the F usus al-hikam and

al-Futühät al-Makkiyya, and had reached its apogee in the 10Λ/16ώ century.53 Jämi

had already provided a vigorous philosophical defence of the master's metaphysics,

in particular an exposition of his central doctrine of monorealism {wahdat al-wujüd),

the postulation that only the divine essence and its manifestations that comprise the

totality of the cosmos exist, and had written a number of commentaries and works

expounding the doctrine of the master including a partial commentary on the Qur'an.

His contribution had a lasting effect in the Islamic East, in Persianate contexts,

especially in Central Asia, Iran and the Indian subcontinent precisely because he was

seen as a spokesman for the school of Ibn c Arabi and a thinker who completed and

culminated the scholastic turn of the school.54 In fact, in Central Asia, he was seen as

a more influential and significant thinker than Ibn c Arabi himself, perhaps due to the

notoriety that the Andalusian master had acquired; about one hundred years after his

death, the poetaster cAbd al-Nabï Fakhr al-Zamanï Qazvïnï wrote:55

People of distinction regard him [Jâmï] to be the equal of Shaykh

Muhyï'1-Dïn [ibn] cArabï and the scholars of Central Asia regard him

to be his better in the science of mysticism.

In the Islamic West, and in Arab Sufi contexts, the Egyptian cAbd al-Wahhäb

al-Shacräni (d. 972-3/1565) was the main influence and populariser who focused on

the non-philosophical exposition of the doctrine; his al-Yawäqlt wa'1-jowähir

remains a masterful summation of al-Futühät al-Makkiyya.

Jämi's own engagement in the school of Ibn cArabi was extensive. The very last

work he wrote in 896/1491 was an influential Arabic commentary on the Fusils


which followed his earlier Arabic and Persian mixed commentary, completed in

863/1459, on Ibn cArabi's own summary of the Fusüs entitled Naqd al-nusüs fi

sharh naqsh al-Fusüs.51 Both are significant works but especially the former since it

was widely cited and represented his mature thought and recognition of his expertise

in the field. It reflects his deep attachment to the thought of the Andalusian master 58

and the Fusüs. In the prcemium, he wrote:

I devoted much time to its study [the Fusüs] and meditated upon it

but did not find a master who would grant me its benefit by glossing

its difficulties nor a guide who could direct his disciples to unveil its

knots. So I set forth for all its commentaries and considered them

keys to the gates of its understanding and studied them one after

another and returned to them again and again until I decided to fix my

opinion of what I had selected from them that assisted me to resolve

its explanation and sufficed me to understand its meanings. I added to

that what came to my mind in my study of it and what my states and

moments permitted.

What this passage reveals further is Jämi's understanding of the hermeneutics of the

school of Ibn cArabï. The disclosure of a text requires first and foremost the

mediation of a spiritual master initiated into the meanings of the text. Second, a text

may be understood to a certain extent through reading its commentaries. Finally, a

true disclosure of meaning only comes about on the horizon of one's experience of

the text as a result of the spiritual rank and station of the interpreter.

His Arabic treatise in philosophical theology al-Durra al-fäkhira fi tahqlq madhhab

al-Süfiyya wal-mutakallimln wa'l-hukamä3, completed in 886/1481, is an extended

rational defence of the metaphysics of Ibn cArabi aimed at philosophers, a project

that was well underway in the school.59 He also wrote a short and elegant Persian

treatise expounding the doctrine of monorealism entitled Lavä°ih, rather grandly

dedicating it to the Shïcï Qarä Quyünlü ruler of Herat, Jahänshäh (d. 872/1467), in

870/1465.60 Through his other Persian works, he popularised the thought of Ibn c Arabi and played an important role in the dissemination of his doctrine.

The Tariq-i Khwäjagän (later famous as the Naqshbandï order) is often assumed to have been hostile to the thought of Ibn cArabï mainly due to the famous critique of monorealism posited by the Naqshbandï shaykh Ahmad Sirhindï (d. 1034/1624).61

However, a number of predecessors of the order exhibited a deep attachment to the ideas of the Sufi master and it is in this context one ought to understand the role of Jâmï, a prominent master of the order, in the propagation and dissemination of the doctrine of the school of Ibn cArabï. Khwäja Muhammad Pärsä (d. 822/1419), who Jâmï met when he was a child,62 wrote an important Persian commentary on the Fusüs, and his Fasi al-khitäb is a repository of Sufi teachings from the school of Ibn

The Existential Breath of al-rahmän and the Munificent Grace of al-rahim 67

cArabi.63 Jämi's compilation of the sayings of Pärsä entitled Sukhanän-i Khwäja

Pärsä includes many sayings from the Ibn cArabi tradition.64 Jämi's own spiritual

preceptor Sacd al-Dïn Kashgharï betrayed the influence of the Sufi master as well:

his Risäla-yi tavajjuh is replete with notions from the school and demonstrates a

clear enunciation of the doctrine of monorealism:65

Know that you are absolutely non-existent and know that God alone

absolutely exists ...

You only have existence annexed through the rays from the sun of the

divine essence ...

In reality, you do not possess existence ... Only God truly is

existence.

Jämi's companion and his second spiritual mentor cUbayd Allah Ahrär had a deep

attachment to the thought of the school of Ibn c Arabi. A partial commentary on the

Fusüs is attributed to him and, when Jâmï visited him in Tashkent in 873/1469, he

sought elucidation of difficult passages in the Futühät.66 Jämi's colleague and the

spiritual successor to Kashgharï in Herat, Khwäja Shams al-Din Muhammad Rüji

(d. 904/1499) likewise had a deep affinity to the thought of Ibn cArabï.67 Jâmï

developed this tendency and thus became a major focus for the dissemination of the

doctrine of Ibn cArabï, and was consulted by his contemporaries, including the

Bahmanid vizier from the Deccan, Mahmud Gäwän (d. 889/1484), who carried out

an extensive correspondence with him on matters commercial and spiritual.68 In

matters concerning Ibn cArabï, Jâmï even went beyond sectarian differences. He sat

at the feet of the Shïcï Kubravï Sufi Sayyid Ahmad Lälä3i Darbandï (d. 912/1506) in

Tabriz in 878/1473 because he was a renowned teacher of the Fusüs, and spent time

at his khänaqäh, Darvishäbäd.69 Later when he was writing his own commentary on

the Fusüs, he had hoped to show it to Ahmad Lälä°i for his approval but never did

(or perhaps never had the opportunity).70 Jämi's attachment to the school was thus

deep, entirely representative but also complex. From the book of humanity, having

considered his life and his role within two traditions, we now turn to the book of the

cosmos as he understood it.

Existence and Mercy

The ontology of mercy is a critical theme throughout the work of Ibn cArabï.

However, for our purposes, I want to examine aspects of the doctrine of mercy that

is expounded in Fusüs al-hikam and its commentaries, in particular the commentary

of Jâmï. Focusing on the doctrine of mercy in the Fusüs as a means for elucidating

the basmala makes perfect sense; for some time now scholars have been insisting on

the deeply Qur'anic nature of the text, arranged as it is around the wisdom associated

with Qur'anic prophets.72


Before examining the metaphysics and relating it to the exegesis, one ought to point out that the earliest exegeses make it quite clear that there is a distinction between the two names of mercy in the basmala: al-rahmän is more general than al-rahlm -as the early exegete Muqätil ibn Sulaymän (d. 150/767) states, the former entails a greater and more wide-ranging compassion {ariqq), the former is the Compassionate One and the latter is the One who deigns to act compassionately.73 Thus the former name is an absolute state of the divine while the latter is a volitional state. Put in different terms, al-rahmän is an intensive proper name exclusive to God while al-rahlm is homonymously shared with others.74 The most common formulation that remains popular was to gloss that God is 'the source of mercy for the whole of His creation, and the giver of mercy for His believing servants', as Zayd ibn cAlï (d. 122/740) put it.75 Finally, it is commonly said in the exegetical tradition that God is al-rahmän in this world and al-rahlm in the afterlife.76 This is exemplified in a narration attributed to the Prophet:77

God, Mighty and Majestic, possesses 100 mercies, one of which He sent down to the earth to divide among the whole of His creation so that they might be merciful to one another and show compassion. He retained the remaining 99 for Himself to exercise over His servants on the Day of the Resurrection.

The exegeses of the school of Ibn c Arabi and the Tariq-i Khwäjagän did not broadly differ from this: Yacqüb Charkhi in his Tafslr-i kaläm-i rabbänl states that al-rahmän provides existence and sustenance to all creatures while al-rahlm gives salvation to those who deserve it.78 But what these traditions do is that they extend the meaning of mercy to include an ontological dimension. This aspect is already present in the early ta°wll of Sadr al-Dïn al-Qûnawï. He considers the role of the two names as functioning within the cosmology of the manifestation of the One in the universe. The location of the names of mercy, before and after the formula of praise for God, is an allusion to the complementarity between praise and the act of giving thanks and the reception of grace and mercy.79 Al-rahmän is the proper name that indicates the absolute being and the source of all existence, and as such acts upon all things. Mercy is existence itself and the act of being merciful is the bestowal of

80

existence. Al-rahlm is a specific name to recipients of special grace but as the particular, it is subsumed in the universal. Al-Qünawi argues that the two names engender two chains of emanative existence flowing from the One, differentiated by

81

their objects of mercy. This duality does not violate the non-duality of the godhead and the nature of reality articulated in the school of Ibnc Arabi. Mercy, like existence and many other fundamental concepts and things, is a singular reality to which we ascribe multiplicity. God's mercy is undifferentiated considered in itself; but deployed to objects of mercy, it is differentiated into the functions of al-rahmän and al-rahlm}2 The ontological turn of the school in its approach to mercy is thus


signalled early on as is the strong impression of the language of mercy from the

Fusüs.

In the following generation, this trend developed with the first major and complete

exegesis of the school. cAbd al-Razzäq al-Käshäni (d. 736/1336) in his Ta°wllät 83

al-QurDän wrote:

The Source of Mercy is the One who overflows [i.e. outpours]

existence and perfection on all things according to the requirements

of His wisdom and the ability of receptacles to accept it; this is with

respect to the origins of existence. The Giver of Mercy is the One

who overflows spiritual perfection to those specified by humanity

with respect to the culmination of existence.

This short passage illustrates three themes: the association and equivalence of

existence and mercy, the distinction between the two names expressed in the duality

of universality and particularity, and the concept that the difference between the two

names expressed two types of relationship with the One; the descending order of

existence from the One to the cosmos that brings about existence as we perceive and

experience it and the ascending order of existence that folds up that realm and

returns it to the One. The commentary of al-Käshäni's disciple Däwüd al-Qaysari

(d. 751/1350) on this phrase makes it more explicit and accessible:84

The name 'Source of Mercy' has a comprehensive rank over all

things including the other divine names ... The mercy of

being-the-source-of-mercy is a mercy common to the people of this

world and the afterlife and encompasses the believers and the

non-believers, the obedient and the disobedient with existence,

sustenance and so forth.

The name 'Giver of Mercy' also has a comprehensive scope.

[However], the mercy of being-the-giver-of-mercy is specific to those

existents to whom the command of God extends. It is perfection that

is appropriate to the ontological preparation of each one of them.

Therefore, we begin to discern the role of the exegesis in the explication of the

cosmology of the school. We can summarise the doctrinal approach in the following

manner.

Ibn cArabi's doctrine articulates three approaches to the exegesis of mercy: first, the

absolute sense of mercy as a synonym for the bestowal of existence to all things;

second, the role of mercy in the graded unfolding of the cosmos; third, the division

of mercy into four divisions of that pertaining to the divine essence and that

pertaining to the divine attributes and further into the general and the specific. This

last fourfold division can be seen as a reflection of the fact that there are four names


of mercy mentioned in the Fätiha. Ultimately, however, there are two main divisions

of mercy: the 'gratuitous gift' of mercy/existence associated with al-rahmän which

Ibn c Arabi calls imtinän, and the obligation of mercy to the spiritualised associated

with al-rahlm which the master calls wujüb. Explanation of this doctrine requires

study of the two main chapters of the Fusüs in which mercy is central: the fass on

Solomon which is described as the 'wisdom of being-the-source-of-mercy' {hikma

rahmäniyya), and the/<m on Zechariah.

First, mercy is not merely an emotive attitude or compassion {riqqat al-qalb) in

some formulations but an ontological fact of bestowing existence.85 Pathos and

emotions as human properties are attributes of imperfection or absence and cannot

be applied to God. Being merciful as a divine attribute is equivalent to the process of

giving existence. This bestowal arises because God overflows with munificence

{al-jüd), a theme common in Neoplatonic writings whether pre-Islamic or Islamic.

Existence is thus the overflowing of mercy to all things.87 Jâmï explains this

further:88

'Know that the mercy of God encompasses everything as a mercy

both in reality and in possibility' means that the mercy of God is

existence that comprehends everything, encompassing everything

with respect to the existence specific to it, and with respect to the

possible properties that follow this existence, such as knowledge and

ability, and that depend upon its preparedness for existence that

follows its existence in (divine) knowledge that precedes its existence

in reality ... There is no doubt that the overflowing is an existential

fact that demands existence, which is mercy. If it were not annexed to

mercy, wrath itself would not be realised; so it is preceded by

being-the-source-of-mercy. The absolute overflowing of existence is

mercy.

Because even the divine names and divine wrath are things, ontological facts that do

not exist in our world but exist in the mind of God, mercy extends to them and

envelops them as well. In fact, the first thing that mercy extends to is mercy itself

and that self is what the tradition calls 'the breath of the Merciful' {al-nafas on

al-rahmänl). In Chapter 198 of the Futühät, which is devoted to the concept of the

breath of the Merciful, Ibn c Arabi explains the link between mercy and the bestowal

of existence.90 'The breath of the Merciful' is the process through which existence is

manifest in the cosmos, and how one can see the process of divine mercy acting

upon itself, as it says in the Fusüs. Elsewhere, in Chapter 558, he explains how that

breath encompasses everything by bestowing existence upon all things.91

Second, mercy plays a critical role in the unfolding of the cosmos. Ibn cArabi says

The Existential Breath of al-rahman and the Munificent Graèe of al-rahim 71

Every thing seeks existence from God. Accordingly, God's mercy

extends to and covers everything. For God, by the very mercy which

He exercises upon it, accepts that thing's desire to exist and brings it

into existence. This is why we assert that the mercy of God extends to

everything both in reality and in possibility {caynan wa-hukmon).

The process of existentiation or 'the act of mercy' is as follows.93 Divine mercy acts

upon itself, pre-empting the desire for essences to come into existence and this self is

'the breath of the Source of Mercy'. This entity then acts mercifully towards the

divine names and brings forth archetypes or essences of things {acyän thäbita) in the

mind of God or in the divine names itself. At this level, the act of outpouring mercy

is called 'the most holy overflowing' {al-foyd al-aqdas). Mercy in the divine names

then acts further endowing those essences with existence such that mercy brings

forth into existence the cosmos or the things in their actual existence. This second

stage of overflowing is called 'the holy overflowing' {al-fayd al-muqaddas). The

terminology and systematic nature of the cosmogony expounded by Ibn cArabï,

central to which is the key notion of mercy, was the subject of much scholastic

vigour in the centuries after the Andalusian master.

Third, there is a fourfold division of mercy.94 The first division reflects the duality of

the two names in the basmala', the former pertains to the divine essence and the

unfolding of the breath of the Source-of-Mercy and the latter pertains to the divine

attributes and the Giver-of-Mercy. Each of these in turn has a general {cämm) and a

specific {khäss) aspect. Each of them relates to different recipients of mercy ranging

from the divine names themselves to the spiritual elite in the afterlife. For example,

the specific aspect of the mercy pertaining to the divine essence is divine providence

{al-cinäya) while the specific aspect of the mercy pertaining to the divine attributes

is the mercy of perfection bestowed upon the spiritual elite. However, the most

important aspect of the division of mercy relates to the two aspects of gratuitous gift

associated with al-rahmän and obligation associated with al-rahlm. Ibn cArabi

explains:

Mercy is of two kinds: the mercy of the gratuitous gift and the mercy

of obligation corresponding to the name al-rahmän and al-rahlm

respectively. God exercises mercy as a gratuitous gift under the name

of al-rahmän, while He obligates Himself [to requite] under the name

al-rahlm.

This kind of obligation, however, is part of the gratuitous gift and so

al-rahlm is contained within al-rahmän. God has prescribed for

Himself mercy (Q. 6:12) in such a way that mercy of this kind may be

extended to His servants in reward for the good works done by them

individually ... This kind of mercy is an obligation upon God with


which He has bound Himself towards those servants and the latter rightfully merit this kind of mercy by their good works.

c Abd al-Razzäq al-Käshäni in his Istilähät al-Süfiyya summarises the position of the master by providing definitions of the two divine names associated with mercy and of the two sub-definitions of mercy that are central to the doctrine in the Fusüs, namely bestowing grace of mercy and the necessitation of mercy {al-imtinän wa!-wujüb).9

'The Source of Mercy' {al-rahmän) is a name for God considered in the totality of the names that are in the divine presence, and from which existence flows forth bestowing perfections on all contingent beings.

'The Giver of Mercy' {al-rahlm) is a name for Him considered with respect to two flows of spiritual perfection bestowed upon the people of faith such as gnosis and unity.

'The bestowing grace of mercy' is the act of being a source of mercy {al-rahmäniyya) demanded by bounties that precede works and encompasses all things.

'The necessitation of mercy' is the act of being a giver of mercy {al-rahlmiyya) promised to the pious and the virtuous as in His saying and I shall prescribe it for those who are pious (Q. 7:156) and surely the mercy of God is close to the virtuous (Q. 7:56). [This mercy] is included within the bestowing grace because the promise of it to one who acts is pure giving.

In another work on definitions attributed to al-Käshäni entitled Latä°if al-icläm fi _ 97

ishärät ahi al-ilham, the equation of mercy and existence is made more explicit:

'The Source of Mercy' is the name for the form of divine existence and is an expression for the totality that obtains when the divine names are manifest to themselves from the interiority of the divine essence.

'Original mercy' {al-rahma al-asliyya) means existence because it [existence] is the origin of every mercy and the source of every bounty ...

'The bestowing grace of mercy', that is preceding [mercy], is so called because God bestows it freely upon creatures without their deserving it and it precedes their works which would render them deserving ...


'The necessitation of mercy' means that mercy specific to the pious

and virtuous people since God has made it incumbent upon Himself

to be merciful to them as a grace and a bestowal but not as an

obligation upon Him.

The two-fold division of mercy, divided into the free gift {al-imtinän) and obligation

{al-wujüb), is a central doctrine enshrined in the Fusüs itself and later expounded in

detail from the earliest commentary.98 It is also clear in the Futühät:

God says, 'My mercy embraces all things.' It is either a gratuitous

gift or obligatory. There are servants whom it embraces as a property

of obligation, and there are others whom it embraces as a property of

gratuitous gift. But the root is the divine gratuitous gift, bounty and

the bestowal of blessing since at first there was no engendered

existence to deserve it. Hence the very manifestation of engendered

existence derives from gratuitous gift.

While exegetes found narrative interpretations to explain the reason for the use of

two names of mercy in the divine Book, the school of Ibn cArabi constructed an

elaboration ontological and cosmological scheme that demonstrated the intimate

connection in their work and outlook between the exegetical process and the

spiritualised, speculative enterprise of explaining the cosmos. From the book of the

cosmos and its exegesis in the school of Ibn c Arabi, we therefore turn finally to the

actual divine Book and its exegesis of mercy in the work of Jâmï.

Jämi's Exegesis on the basmala

The Arabic exegesis of Jâmï is hardly attested in the secondary literature and yet 100

there are more than 40 manuscripts of it around the world. The present paper relies

upon MS India Office Islamic 842, a codex that is a majmüca of the kulliyyät

(complete non-poetical works) of Jâmï in which the exegesis of the Fätiha is

between folios 3v to 9v inclusive.101 The codex is dated Rabic 1960/February-March

1553 and is thus the second oldest copy extant.102 The exegesis, according to the

earliest witnesses, is supposed to be among Jämi's last works, partly accounting for

its rather incomplete nature. But the approach and basic interpretation provided in it

was already present in an exegetical poem 'on the meaning of the divine names

al-rahmän and al-rahlm' {matlac: hast ism-i vujüd-i haqq rahmän, ba-ictibär

al-cumüm lVl-acyän\ metre: khafif) contained in his first masnavï Silsilat al-zjahab

which dates from between 873/1468 and 877/1472, that is up to twenty years prior to

the formal (Arabic) exegesis.103 In this previous poem, he distinguishes between the

names in the following manner. Al-rahmän is the proper name of the divine being

insofar as it gives existence to all things, manifesting the Qur'anic modality of divine

mercy encompassing all things. Although it seems that the term with respect to the


attribute of mercy entails an analogy between the divine and the created, there is no

analogy: al-rahmän can only be predicated of God. This verse clarifies Jämi's

theological commitments to the Ashcari school in his rejection of any analogy

between Creator and created, as well as his adherence to the singular reality of the

divine to the exclusion of all other that he grasps from the teachings of Ibn cArabi.

Al-rahlm, on the other hand, is a more particular name. It is a proper name for God

but it represents a particular relationship of the one who makes things necessary (i.e.

gives them existence). It bestows upon seekers the portion of existence and

perfection that they require and that is appropriate to them. As a name denoting an

attribute, it does entail some form of analogy insofar as a merciful individual

responding to another's need indicates a more intensive form of that mercy enacted

by the divine.

The actual exegesis on the Fätiha formally extends this earlier commentary and

makes the metaphysics of mercy more explicit. The prœmium {khutba) already

contains within it a brief exegesis in which the question of the two aspects of mercy

is raised:104

He is the Source of Mercy {al-rahmän) through His general,

comprehensive existence {li-wujüdihi al-shämil al-cämm) and the

Giver of Mercy {al-rahlm) through His perfect and complete

munificence {li-jüdihi al-kämil al-tämm). His mercy of

being-the-source-of-mercy {rahmatihi al-rahmäniyya) is general for

all existent things, and His mercy of being-the-giver-of-mercy is

specific to whomsoever He wishes however He wishes.

Thus far, this is fairly standard and not much different to al-Käshäni. It delineates the

distinction between the two names, ascribing universality to the former and

particularity to the latter. It also demonstrates a stylistic feature that some students

have noted, namely that the prœmium of a work often indicates the genre and the

content of the work that follows the formulaic ammä bacd.m

Jâmï then goes on to say that he had considered for some time the need to write a comprehensive and complete esoteric exegesis. As we have seen above, he often states in the prœmium of his works that he perceived a need to write such a work and does not use the rather common 'response to a request' reason for writing a work. Since Jâmï was composing his taf sir towards the end of his life when he was already well known and respected, it would seem that the introductory remarks explaining the need for the work can be seen as an affirmation of his scholarly significance and credentials for writing it and also as a sign that the contents that follow are worthy of study and reflection. The exegetical order that he follows is what one expects of the genre. After the standard consideration of the importance of the Fätiha and its excellences (fadä°U), on seeking refuge {isticädha), he moves to the exegesis of the


text.1 6 As we have seen, any discussion of the doctrine of mercy in the Fätiha

requires an explanation of the two divine names in the basmala and then the two

divine names in the third aya.

Drawing on the traditions of the exegetical community, he begins his exposition of

the names in the basmala by examining their morphology and their linguistic

meaning.107 Al-rahmän follows the paradigm fa clän and acts as a name of similitude.

Al-rahlm, on the other hand, is an intensive following the paradigm fa ΊΙ, just as the

divine names, 'the Hearing' and 'the Seeing', are on the same paradigm with the

sense that God sees and hears in a manner that transcends that of human

perceivers.108 Both have as their root meaning compassion. However, for him, the

names mean more than an emotive compassion. The first name indicates an act

whose end is to bestow without conditions (the gratuitous gift of imtinän) and the

second is to bestow bounties that are intended and deserved (the volitional bestowal

of wujüb). He then presents some thoughts on the complementary nature of the two

names: the former reflects union and is more comprehensive because it encompasses

the existents of this world and the afterlife, the latter reflects separation and refers to

God's mercy to His believers in this world.109 The use of the Sufi terminology of the

school of Ibn cArabi is already striking. In this vein, he quotes the famous narration

that we encountered above, namely that that God is al-rahmän in this world and

al-rahlm in the afterlife.110 However, he complicates the interpretation by indicating

the interpénétration of the two names with respect to the realms of this world and the

next by citing the preliminary supplicatory phrase attributed to the Prophet: Ό

al-rahmän of this world and the afterlife and al-rahlm of them both ... '. He

completes his commentary on these names by referring to the views of the mystics, 112

which he endorses:

Mercy is existence, if one considers it with respect to its own

individuality [it is al-rahmän]. But if considered with respect to its

individuality and its attachments [to objects of mercy], than it is

al-rahlm.

The former is the act of existentiating mercy, but the latter, by virtue of its

attachments to other than itself, to things that in themselves are privative, is a limited

and particular relationship.

A Khwäjagäni Sufi contemporary of Jâmï uses a similar metaphysical language,

drawing explicitly on the terminology of the school, to explain the significance of

the theophanies of the two names of mercy within the cosmogonie and cosmological

scheme of the school of Ibn cArabï. Khwäja Nicmat Allah Nakhchiväni known as

Shaykh cAlvän glosses the names in the basmala in his exegesis entitled al-Fawätih

al-ilähiyya wa'l-mafätlh al-ghaybiyya which he completed in Tabriz in 902/1496:


Al-rahmän denotes the unitary essence {al-dhät al-ahadiyya) considered with respect to its manifestations upon the pages of the book of existence and their transformations into the vestments of necessity and contingency {al-wujüb wa!-imkän) and their descent from the stage of unicity to the stage of multiplicity and their being determined as individuals whether considered in the mind or existing in reality, and their taking on the colours of the worlds of being and becoming.

Thus far this name is responsible for the bestowal of existence in its different unfolding stages and manifestations. For Shaykh cAlvän, the second name is concerned with the return, the eschaton beyond space and time:

Al-rahlm denotes the unitary essence considered with respect to its unity after having become multiple and its union after its separation (jamHhä bacda tafrlqihä) and its folding after its spreading out and its raising after its falling and its abstraction after its determination.

Returning to Jâmï, the exegesis of the names in the third aya of the Fätiha reflects the real deployment of the doctrines of the school of Ibn c Arabi. Jâmï says:

God manifests Himself through the forms of the permanent archetypes by His most holy overflowing (faydihi al-aqdas). God in this consideration to the totality of His overflowing and its application is al-rahmän; with consideration to His individuating [other things] He is al-rahlm.

The order is significant as it indicates an existential order: first bestowing mental existence to the forms in the mind of God and then bringing them into actual existence. He then quotes the famous theologian and Sufi Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazäli (d. 505/1 111) from his work Jawähir al-Qur°än on the significance of the repetition of names. In the passage from Chapter Twelve on the meaning of the Fätiha, al-Ghazäli glosses the two names of mercy:115

Do you imagine that this is repetition? There is no repetition in the Qur'an, for repetition is defined as that which does not contain any additional benefit.

The repetition is not real but rather it is meaningful because the names actually mean different things in the basmala and then in the third aya. The two names of mercy are therefore not actual synonyms. The names in the aya lie between the mention of God as 'Lord of the cosmos' {rabb al-cälamln) and as 'Possessor of the Day of Judgement' {mälik yawm al-dln). The first name therefore reflects God as the One who is merciful for the creatures of the cosmos which 'He has created in the most perfect, varied and most excellent form'.116 The second name refers to God's mercy


at the end of time at the Judgement when His mercy extends to deserved bounties and favours.117 Thus the names in this context refer in the first instance to the origins of existence {al-mabda0) and in the second to the end of the cosmos {al-macäd).

Shaykh cAlvän similarly draws on the significance of the meaningful repetition of the names of mercy in the later aya by comparing the function of al-rahmän as the free and undiscriminating principle for the procession of existence, to use Neoplatonic language, and al-rahlm as the volitional instrument of the reversion of the cosmos to the One:

Al-rahmän is the principle in this world that creates by spreading the shade of its most beautiful names and lofty attributes over the mirrors of reflected non-existence including the entire cosmos, its visible and unseen parts, its befores and afters without any discrimination.

Al-rahlm is the one who reverts everything in the afterlife by folding up the heavens of the names and the earth of base nature and from whom issues the beginning and to whom is the end.

Concluding Remarks

What this brief survey of Jämi's thought and exegesis reveals is the striking difference from the short but allusive style of al-Käshäni and other Sufi exegetes. Jämi's exegesis, somewhat like that of his predecessor Charkhi, contains the standard elements of interpretive style: discussion of language, syntax and morphology, citation of authority whether in the shape of narrations or previous scholarly sources. At the same time, the exegesis goes beyond the parameters of standard exoteric commentary and exhibits the 'ontological turn' of his intellectual heritage. Significantly, the taf sir demonstrates his training as an acute thinker of the school of Ibn cArabi who uses the terminology of the school and the metaphysics of mercy that is central to the school to make sense of the divine names of mercy in the Fätiha. The exegetical act imposes upon the text not only the training of learning of the exegete steeped in his scholastic tradition but also alludes to understanding from years of his spiritual training as a practising Sufi. One would expect that further study of the remainder of the taf sir would sustain and extend this conclusion and would indicate, without a shadow of doubt, that a true and full understanding of the exegesis of a thinker like Jâmï requires not only familiarity with exegetical techniques, but also the Sufi metaphysics expounded in the text and commentaries of the Fusüs al-hikam. The deeply Qur'anic nature of that text will force students to revert to its study, after some time devoted to the Futühät, and necessitate our close reading of exegesis in the tradition of Ibn c Arabi alongside the Fusüs cycle of texts. Such a holistic reading will not only reveal the influence of exegesis upon the received text and its interpretation, but also be entirely consonant with the tradition


that did not mark clear boundaries within the hermeneutical enterprise between the

disciplines of hikma, tasawwuf and tafslr, and between the understanding of the

inscribed Book of God, the book of the cosmos and the book of humanity.

NOTES

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference on The Qur'an: Text, Interpretation and Translation, 10-12 November 2005 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. I am grateful to the participants for their valuable comments and discussion, and to Marianna Klar and Helen Blatherwick for their judicious advice. As ever, I remain responsible for the arguments advanced in this paper.

1 There is an extensive literature of citations of these texts. For some representative ones that are relevant, see Ibn cArabï, al-Futühät al-Makkiyya (4 vols. Cairo: Büläq, n.d.), vol. 2, p. 500, and vol. 3, p. 198; cf. William Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn cArabVs Metaphysics of Imagination (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 344-6; [al-Käshäni], Tafslr Ibn cArabi (2 vols. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-cIlmiyya, 2001), vol. 1, p. 24.

2 For an excellent introduction to this concept, see Sachiko Murata, The Tao of Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992).

3 For some useful surveys of Sufi tafslr and hermeneutics, consult the relevant sections in Muhammad al-Dhahabï, al-Tafslr wa'1-mufassirün (Cairo: Dar al-Macärif, 1961); Ignaz Goldziher, Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974); M. Ayâzï, al-Mufassirün: hayätuhum wa-manhajuhum (Tehran: Vizärat-i Farhang va Irshäd-i Islârnï, 1373 Sh/1994); Alan Godlas, 'Sufi tafsir: A Survey of the Genre', available at http://www.uga.edu/islam/suftaf/tafsuftoc.html; Suleyman Ateç, ¡sari tefsir okulu (Ankara: Ankara University, 1974); Paul Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique (Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1970); Gerhard Böwering, 'The QurDän Commentary of al-Sulamf in W. Hallaq and D. Little (eds), Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991), pp. 41-56; Gerhard Böwering, 'The Scriptural "Senses" in Medieval Sufi Qur°än Exegesis' in J.D. McAuliffe et al (eds), With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 346-65; various authors, art. 'Exegesis' in Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 9, pp. 116-25; Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, Falsafat al-ta3wll: diräsa fi ta°wll al-Qur3än cinda Muhyl al-Dln Ibn 'Arabi (Beirut: Dar al-Wahda, 1983); Pierre Lory, Les commentaires ésotériques du Coran après cAbd al-Razzâq al-Qâshânî (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1980).

4 On this Central Asian Sufi order, see Hamid Algar, art. 'Nakshbandiyya' in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn, vol. 7, pp. 934-6; Hamid Algar, 'Naqshbandis and Safavids' in M. Mazzaoui (ed.), Safavid Iran and her Neighbours (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2003), pp. 1-48; Marc Gaborieau, A. Popovic and T. Zarcone (eds), Naqshbandis: Cheminements et situations actuelles d'un ordre mystique musulman (Paris and Istanbul: Editions Isis, 1990); Dina LeGall, A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandis in the Ottoman World 1450-1700 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004); Jürgen Paul, Die politische und soziale Bedeutung der Naqsbandiyya in Mittelasien im 15. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991).

5 Within the guise of a study of his pilgrimage, I hope to examine this point in greater detail in a forthcoming paper.

6 cAbd al-Razzâq al-Kâshânï's tafslr has been repeatedly printed as Tafslr Ibn cArabi, most recently in two well-produced volumes fraught with errors (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-cIlmiyya, 2001). I have supplemented readings from the following Tïmurîd era MS British Library Or. 6351 entitled Ta°wllät al-Qur°än. For a study of this commentary, see Lory, Les commentaires ésotériques du Coran après cAbd ar-Razzâq al-Qâshânî. For Khwäja Yacqüb

http://www.uga.edu/islam/suftaf/tafsuftoc.html


Charkhi's Tafslr-i Kaläm-i Rabbani, I have consulted two manuscripts: MS British Museum Or. 9490 dated 960/1553, a beautifully ornate and complete work in naskhl and nastacllq; and MS India Office Islamic 754, dated 6 Jumada II1089/26 July 1678 which is in a rougher hand and has the first half of the prœmium missing. On Charkhï and his tafslr, see Hamid Algar, art. 'Carkf in Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 4, pp. 819-20; C.A. Storey, Persian Literature: A Bio-bibiographical Survey Volume I Part I (London: The Royal Asiatic Society, 1970), p. 9. There are older lithographs of the exegesis, such as the one produced in Lahore in 1331/1913, and a new partial edition has been published (Istanbul: Yildiz, 1991). Other works of Charkhï that are important for the later Naqshbandï order include Risäla-yi unsiyya, ed. and tr. M. Nadhïr Ränjhä (Lahore: Zähid Bashïr, 1983); Risala-yi Abdäliyya, ed. M. Nadhïr Ränjhä (Islamabad: Iran-Pakistan Research Institute, 1978).

7 There is no critical edition of this text nor any serious engaged studies. The standard edition was produced in Hyderabad by Osmania Oriental Publications in 1947.

8 The social and linguistic conventionalism of Quentin Skinner's approach to intellectual history appeals to me. See his collected articles on method in Visions of Politics Volume I: Regarding Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

9 The simple fact that there are numerous manuscripts in the Persianate world of this work (and even in the Dar al-Kutub and al-Azhar collections in Cairo) attests to its popularity. The Käfiya was the main grammatical text studied in Timürid Iran - see Maria Subtelny and Anas Khalidov, 'The Curriculum of Islamic Higher Learning in Timürid Iran in the Light of the Sunni Revival under Shäh-Rukh', Journal of the American Oriental Society 115 (1995), pp. 210-36, p. 226 passim. Jâmï's significance in Central Asia is attested in a number of biographical and poetical works such as Sultan Muhammad Mutribï Samarqandi (d. 1040/1631), TazJàrat al-shucarä3, ed. Asghar Jänfadä (Tehran: Mïrâs-i Maktüb, 1377 Sh/1998), p. 355, p. 425 inter alia: Mutribï refers to him using the standard honorific for an important Sufi master hazrat-i makhdüm and hazrat-i haqä°iq-panähl. On the significance of Jämi's text in India, see Jamal Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur in Nordindien. Entwicklungsgeschichte und Tendenzen am Beispiel von Lucknow (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), pp. 523-9; Abü'l-Hasanät Nadvï, Hindustan kl qadlm darsgähen (Azamgarh: n.p., 1971), pp. 92ff; G.M.D. Sufi, al-Minhaj: Being the Evolution of Curriculum in the Muslim Educational Institutions of India (New Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyyat-i Dilli, 1977), pp. 70ff; Sayyid cAbd al-Hayy, 'Dars-i Nizärnf, al-Nadwa 6 (1909), pp. 7-14. On Jämi's influence in India, see Javäd Sharîfï, 'Jâmï dar Shib-i Qärih' in Hasan Anüsha (gen. ed.), Dänishnäma-yi adab-i Farsi: dar Shib-i Qärih (4 vols. Tehran: Intishärät-i Vizärat-i Farhang va irshäd-i Islämi, 1375 Sh/1996), vol. 1, pp. 834-42; Tawfïq Subhânï, Nigähl bih tärlkh-i adab-i ßrsl dar Hind (Tehran: Intishärät-i Shürä-yi Gustarish-i Zabän va Adab-i Farsi, 1377 Sh/1998), p. 21, p. 84, p. 112, p. 121, pp. 135-8, p. 163.

10 cAli-Asghar Hikmat, Jäml (Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1320 Sh/1941) remains a classic and the basis for many later studies including A.J. Arberry's chapter in Classical Persian Literature, reprint (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1994), pp. 425-50 which is wholly derived from it. Another classic account is Edward Browne, A History of Persian Literature Volume III - Under Tatar Dominion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1924), pp. 507-48. Recent brief literary judgements include cAbd al-Husayn Zarnnküb, 'Jäml, cärifi Jäm' in Bä-kärvän-i Hilla (Tehran: Intishärät-i cIlmï, 1370 Sh/1991), pp. 287-90; cAbd al-Husayn Zarnnküb, Sayrl dar shicr-i Farsi (Tehran: Intishärät-i cIlmï, 1371 Sh/1992), pp. 98-100; Dhabïh Allah Safa, Tärlkh-i adabiyyät dar Iran (8 vols. Tehran: Intishärät-i Firdowsï, 1364 Sh/1985), vol. 4, pp. 347-68. Two recent critical studies which are excellent are: Alokhon Afsahzod, Naqd va barrasl-yi äsär va ahväl-i Jäml (Tehran: Miräs-i Maktüb, 1378 Sh/1999); Najïb Mäyil Hiravï, Jäml (Tehran: Tarh-i Naw, 1377 Sh/1998).

11 On Jâmï as 'cImäd al-Din', see Lari (d. 912/1507), Takmila-yi Nafahät al-uns, ed. cAlï-Asghar Bashïr Hiravï (Kabul: Anjuman-i Jâmï, 1343 Sh/1964), p. 39; Därä Shiküh


(d. 1659), Safinat al-awliyä3, tr. into Urdu by Muhammad cAlï Lutfì (Karachi: Nafìs Academy, 1986), p. 115; Afsahzod, Naqd va barrasl-yi äsär va ahväl-i Jäml, p. 105; Hiravï, Jäml, p. 31.

12 Professor Hamid Algar of Berkeley informs me that he is at the moment writing such a work that will provide an intellectual biography located within the cultural and historical context of the nascent Naqshbandï order in Central Asia.

13 Jämi, Nafahät al-uns, ed. M. cAbidï (Tehran: Intishärät-i Ittiläcät, 1370 Sh/1991). The work contains over 600 biographies including a fair number of his contemporaries. For a discussion of the work within the genre of Sufi hagiographies, see Jawid Mojaddedi, The Biographical Tradition in Sufism (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001), pp. 151-80.

14 On the milieu, see Maria Subtelny, 'The Poetic Circle at the Court of the Timürid Sultan Husain Baiqara and its Political Significance' (Harvard University: unpublished PhD dissertation, 1979); Terry Allen, Timurid Herat (Wiesbaden: Rickert, 1983).

15 Näma-hä va munsha3ät-i Jäml, ed. A. Urunbaev and A. Rahmanov (Tehran: Miräs-i Maktüb, 1378 Sh/1999); cf. Ahrär, Majmüca-yi Muräsalät: The Letters of Khwäja cUbayd Allah Ahrär and His Associates, ed. A. Urunbaev, tr. J. Gross with introductory material, Brill's Inner Asian Library, 5 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002). It was a key text for the training of an administrator {munshl) - see Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, 'The Making of a Munshi', Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24 (2004), pp. 61-72; various authors, 'Vïzha-yi munsha3ät', Kitäb-i mäh {tärlkh va jughräfiya) 3:8 (2000), and 5:3-4 (2002).

16 Such a literary judgement, though widely shared by Iranian critics in the 13Λ/19Λ and 14Λ/20Λ centuries, is beginning to lose favour. Most recently Paul Losensky, Welcoming Fighänl: Imitation and Poetic Individuality in the Safavid-Mughal Ghazal (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1998), has argued that in fact Jämi is a pivotal figure whose style actually prefigures the Mughal-Safavid one.

17 For a brief and usual discussion on some of these sources, see Hiravï, Jäml, pp. 310-12.

18 As cited previously, Läri, Takmila-yi Nafahät al-uns, ed. cAlï Asghar Bashïr Hiravï (Kabul: Anjuman-i Jâmï, 1343 Sh/1964).

19 Navä% Mecâlisun-Nefâyis, ed. Κ. Eraslan (2 vols. Ankara: Atatürk Kultur, Dil ve Tarih Yüksek Kurumu, Türk Dil Kurumu, 2001). The Majälis were quickly translated into Persian, of which there are three versions: the first and perhaps the most influential was translated by Muhammad Fakhrï Hiravï in 928/1521-2 as Latäyif-näma; the second was translated by Shäh Muhammad Qazvïnï for the Ottoman Sultan Selim in 927/1520 as Hasht-Bihisht; the third version was translated later in the 10Λ/16* century by Shah-cAlï and is attested in MS British Museum Add. 104.

20 Latäyif-näma in cAlï-Shïr Navä°i, Majälis al-nafäyis, Persian ed. cAlï-Asghar Hikmat (Tehran: Bank-i Milli, 1323 Sh/1944), p. 56.

21 Baburnama, tr. Wheeler M. Thackston (New York: The Modern Library, 2002), p. 212. The original Chagatay text was probably called Vaqäyic - for the full critical edition, see Bäbur-näma (Vaqäyic), ed. E.J. Mano (2 vols. Kyoto: Syokado, 1995-6), or Bäburnäma: The Chagatay Turkish Text with cAbd al-Rahlm Khän-khänän 's Persian Translation, transcription, ed. and tr. Wheeler M. Thackston (3 vols. Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations, 1993). For discussions, see Stephen Dale, 'Steppe Humanism: The Autobiographical Writings of Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur, 1483-1530', International Journal of Middle East Studies 22 (1990), pp. 37-58; and 'The Poetry and Autobiography of the Babur-nama\ Journal of Asian Studies 55 (1996), pp. 635-64.


22 Khwänd Mir, Habib al-siyar, éd. M. Dabïr-Siyaqï (4 vols. Tehran: Intishärät-i Khayyäm, 1362 Sh/1983), vol. 4, pp. 337-8; Habib ul-Siyar. The Reign of the Mongol and the Turk Part Two: Shahrukh Mirza to Shah Ismail, tr. W.M. Thackston (Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations, 1994), pp. 519-20.

23 Mucïn al-Dïn Muhammad Isfizäri, Rawzät al-jannätfi awsäfmadlnat Hirät, ed. M. Käzim Imäm (Tehran: Tehran University Press, 1338 Sh/1959), pp. 25-9; Väciz, Maqsad al-iqbäl-i sultäniyya wa-marsad al-ämäl-i Khäqäniyya, ed. Najïb Mäyil Hiravï (Tehran: Intishärät-i Bunyäd-i Farhang-i Iran, 1351 Sh/1972), pp. 101-2. Incidentally, the latter in his account of Kashgharï, Jämi's spiritual preceptor, seems to be one of the first to describe the Sufi order as Naqshbandï when he describes their spiritual way as that of the khwäjagän-i Naqshbandiyya (p. 90).

24 cAbd al-Väsic Nizämi Bäkharzi, Maqämät-i Jäml, ed. N. Mäyil Hiravï (Tehran: Nashr-i Nay, 1371 Sh/1992). '

25 Kamäl al-Dïn Husayn Gäzurgähi, Majälis al-cushshäq, ed. Ghuläm-Rizä TabätabäDi-Majd (Tehran: Intishärät-i Zarrïn, 1375 Sh/1996).

26 Fakhr al-Dïn cAlï 'Safi' Käshifi, Rashahät-i cAyn al-hayät, ed. cAlï-Asghar Mucïnïyan (2 vols. Tehran: Bunyäd-i Nikükäri-yi Nüriyäni, 1977). I have also consulted the following Naqshbandï and other Sufi sources that tend to follow the account in Rashahät:

MS India Office Islamic (British Library) 698 Rawzat al-sälikln of cAlï ibn Mahmud Abïvardï Küräni, an important early history of the order focusing on the biographies of the branch leading up to Ahrär and especially the Transoxianan Sufi cAlä° al-Din Qühistäni (d. 892/1487), a disciple of Kashgharï;

MS Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris) supplément persan 1418 Silsila-näma-yi Khwäjagän-i Naqshband of Muhammad ibn Hasan Qazvïnï, fol. 14v-16r;

MS India Office Islamic (British Library) 1426 Tärlkh-i gharlba of Abü'l-Muhsin Muhammad Bäqir ibn Muhammad CAH, dated 947/1540-1, fol. 159v-174v are on Jâmï and include an extensive account of his Hajj (fol. 164r-167v);

MS India Office Islamic (British Library) 1647 Majrna0 al-awliyä3 of Sayyid cAli-Akbar Husayni Ardistäni completed in 1043/1633 for the Mughal Emperor Shähjahän, an extensive collection of Sufi hagiographies of all orders in which the entry on Jämi is at folio 410r-413r;

and al-Kawäkib al-durriyya Calä,l-Hadä3iq al-wardiyya fi ajlä° al-säda al-Naqshbandiyya of Shaykh cAbd al-Majïd Khanï (d. 1317/1899-1900) (Damascus: Dar al-Bayrüti, 1997), pp. 464-8.

Many other Naqshbandï Mujaddidï sources from India tend to overlook Jämi as he did not take many disciples and most spiritual lineages go through the Samarqand Naqshbandis, either through Ahrär or Khwäja Ahmad Käsäni Dihbïdï (d. 948/1542). The Herat branch, associated with Jâmï and which became dominant in Tabriz, was suppressed by the Safavids; when they conquered Herat in 1510, they destroyed the tomb of Jämi - see Algar, 'Naqshbandis and Safavids', p. 25; Said Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 112-13.

27 Dawlatshäh Samarqandi, Tazjdrat al-shtfarä3, ed. Muhammad Ramazän, reprint (Tehran: Intishärät-i Khävar, 1366 Sh/1987), pp. 362-8; Säm Mirzä Safavï, TazJàra-yi Tuhfä-yi Säml, ed. Rukn al-Din Humäyün-Farrukh (Tehran: Intishärät-i cIlmi, 1347 Sh/1968), pp. 143-52.

28 The complete exegesis is Mavähib-i cAliyya yä Tafslr-i Husayni, ed. Sayyid Muhammad Rizä Jaläli Nä°ini (4 vols. Tehran: Intishärät-i Iqbäl, 1329 Sh/1950), and the shorter one on the Fätiha is Javähir al-tafsir (li-tuhfat al-Amir): tafslr adabl, cirßnl, Hurüfi, ed. Javäd cAbbasï (Tehran: Miräs-i Maktüb, 1379 Sh/2000); cf. Storey, Persian Literature, p. 10.

82 Journal of Qur' anic Studies

29 Bäkharzi, Maqämät-i Jäml, p. 49; Hiravï, Jäml, p. 32.

30 Lari, Takmila-yi Nafahät al-uns, p. 40; cAli 'Safi' Käshifi, Rashahät-i cAyn al-hayät, vol. 1, p. 334; Bäkharzi, Maqämät-i Jäml, p. 95.

31 Län, Takmila-yi Nafahät al-uns, p. 35; Bäkharzi, Maqämät-i Jäml, p. 50.

32 Jämi, Nafahät al-uns, pp. 397-8.

33 Lari, Takmila-yi Nafahät al-uns, p. 11; cAlï 'Safi' Käshifi, Rashahät-i cAyn al-hayät, vol. 1, p. 235; Bäkharzi, Maqämät-i Jäml, p. 51.

34 Lari, Takmila-yi Nafahät al-uns, p. 11; cAli 'Safi' Käshifi, Rashahät-i cAyn al-hayät, vol. 1, p. 236; Bäkharzi, Maqämät-i Jäml, p. 52; Afsahzod, Naqd va barrasl-yi äsär va ahväl-i Jäml, pp. 113-14.

35 cAli 'Safi' Käshifi, Rashahät-i cAyn al-hayät, vol. 1, pp. 236-7; Hiravï, Jäml, pp. 34-5.

36 Afsahzod, Naqd va barrasl-yi äsär va ahväl-i Jäml, p. 118; Hiravï, Jäml, p. 16.

37 Afsahzod, Naqd va barrasl-yi äsär va ahväl-i Jäml, p. 122.


39 Jämi, Nafahät al-uns, pp. 408-10; Lari, Takmila-yi Nafahät al-uns, p. 12; cAlï 'Safi' Käshifi, Rashahät-i cAyn al-hayät, vol. 1, p. 239; Hiravï, Jäml, p. 35; Afsahzod, Naqd va barrasl-yi äsär va ahväl-i Jäml, p. 129; Hamid Algar, art. 'Sacd al-Dïn Kashgharï' in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn, vol. 8, p. 704.



42 Jämi, Nafahät al-uns, pp. 389-94; Necdet Tosun, Bahaeddin Naksbend: Hayati, Görüsleri, Tarikati (Istanbul: Insan Yayinlan, 2002).

43 J.M. Rogers, art. 'Ahrär, Kväja' in Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 1, pp. 667-70; JoAnn Gross, 'Authority and Miraculous Behaviour: Reflections on Karämät Stories of Khwäja cUbaydulläh Ahrär', in L. Lewisohn (ed.), The Legacy of Medieval Persian Sufism, reprint (Oxford: Oneworld, 1999), pp. 159-71. Most early Naqshbandï biographical sources such as cAlï 'Safi' Käshifi's Rashahät-i cAyn al-hayät are mainly hagiographies of Ahrär.

44 Bäkharzi, Maqämät-i Jäml, pp. 116-17; Hiravï, Jäml, pp. 40-1.

45 Hamid Algar, 'Naqshbandis and Safavids', pp. 24-6. Jämi also wrote a work on the order: Sar-rishta-yi tarlq-i Khwäjagän, ed. cAbd al-Hayy Habïbï (Kabul: Anjuman-i Jämi, 1343 Sh/1964).

46 R.D. McChesney, Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480-1889 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 30, 34-5; cAbd al-Ghafür Lari, Tärlkhcha-yi Mazär-i Sharif, ed. Ν. Mäyil Hiravï (Kabul: Anjuman-i Tarïkh vaAdab, 1350Sh/1971).

47 Bäkharzi, Maqämät-i Jäml, pp. 191-4.

48 Qazï Nur Allah Shüstari, Majälis al-mu3minin, ed. S. Ahmad (2 vols. Tehran: Kitäbfurüshi -yi Islämiyya, 1975), vol. 2, pp. 148-9; cf. Shahzad Bashir, Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions: The Nürbakhshlya between Medieval and Modern Islam (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2003), pp. 178-86.


50 Lari, Takmila-yi Nafahät al-uns, p. 42; cAli 'Safi' Käshifi, Rashahät-i cAyn al-hayät, vol. 1, p. 282; Bäkharzi, Maqämät-i Jäml, p. 265; Khwändamir, Habib al-siyar, ed. M. Dabïr-Siyaqï (4 vols. Tehran: Kitäbkhäna-yi Khayyäm, 1333 Sh/1954), vol. 4, p. 338; Hiravï, Jäml, p. 61.


51 William Chittick, 'Ibn cArabi and His School' in S.H. Nasr (ed.), Islamic Spirituality II: Manifestations (New York: SCM Press, 1991), pp. 49-79; William Chittick, 'The School of Ibn cArabf in S.H. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds), History of Islamic Philosophy (2 vols. London: Routledge, 1996), vol. 1, pp. 510-23; James Morris, 'Ibn cArabi and His Interpreters', Journal of the American Oriental Society 106 (1986), pp. 751-2; Michel Chodkiewicz, 'The Diffusion of Ibn cArabï's Doctrine', Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn cArabi Society 9 (1991), pp. 36-57. For a discussion of the contested legacy, see Alexander Knysh, Ibn cArabi and the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), and the critical review by James Morris in Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn cArabi Society 27 (2000), pp. 75-81.

52 For some introductions and discussions of this important distinction, see James Morris, The Reflective Heart: Discovering Spiritual Intelligence in Ibn cArabi's Meccan Illuminations (Louisville: Fons Vitae, 2005); James Morris, 'Ibn cArabi's "Esotericism": The Problem of Spiritual Authority', Studia Islamica 71 (1990), pp. 37-64; James Morris, '"Except His Face ...": The Political and Aesthetic Dimensions of Ibn cArabï's Legacy', Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn cArabi Society 23 (1998), pp. 1-13; Chodkiewicz, 'The Diffusion of Ibn cArabï's Doctrine'.

53 While I will be drawing upon the Fusüs and its commentaries, which are considered internally by the tradition to be authentic works of the master, there are some who argue that the work has been corrupted by extensive interpolations. See, for example, Mahmud Ghuräb's extensively annotated edition and the preface to Sharh Fusüs al-hikam min kaläm al-Shaykh al-Akbar (Damascus: Matbacat Zayd Ibn Thäbit, 1985) - for a critical assessment, see the review by Michel Chodkiewicz in Studia Islamica 63 (1984), pp. 179-82. Interestingly, the authorship of the Futühät has never been impugned mainly because of the 71 samäcät inscribed on the famous autograph Konya manuscript of the text, and yet in comparison to the 122 commentaries and paraphrases of the Fusüs, there are barely a handful of commentaries on the Futühät and none of them can be claimed to be complete. See Michel Chodkiewicz, 'Une introduction à la lecture des Futûhât Makkiyya' in Chodkiewicz et al (eds), Les Illuminations de la Mecque (Paris: Albin Michel, 1997); Chodkiewicz, 'The Futühät Makkiyya and its commentators' in L. Lewisohn (ed.), The Heritage of Sufism II (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1999), pp. 219-32.

54 William Chittick, 'The Perfect Man as the Prototype of the Self in the Sufism of Jämi', Studia Islamica 49 (1979), pp. 139-42; William Chittick, 'Notes on Ibn al-cArabi's Influence in the Subcontinent', Muslim World 82 (1992), pp. 218-41.

55 Fakhr al-Zamäm Qazvïnï, Tazkira-yi maykhäna, ed. A. Gulchïn-Macanï (Tehran: Intishärät-i Hikmat, 1362 Sh/1983), p. 103; cf. Hiravï, Jäml, p. 279.

56 There are numerous popular printings of this text: cf. Chittick, 'Ibn cArabï and His School', p. 59; Michael Winter, Society and Religion in Early Ottoman Egypt: Studies in the Writings of cAbd al-Wahhäb al-Shacränl (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1982).

57 Jämi, Sharh Fusüs al-hikam, éd. CA. Al-Husaynï al-Darqäwi (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-cIlmiyya, 2004); Naqd al-nusüsfi Sharh naqsh al-Fusüs, ed. W. Chittick (Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1977). For Chittick's translation of the original text, see 'Ibn c Arabï's Own Summary of the Fusüs: The Imprints of the Bezels of Wisdom', Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn cArabi Society 1 (1982), pp. 30-93.

58 Jämi, Sharh Fusüs al-hikam, p. 39.

59 AI-Durra al-fäkhira, ed. Ν. Heer (Tehran: McGill Institute of Islamic Studies, 1980); The Precious Pearl, tr. N. Heer (Albany: State University Of New York Press, 1979).

60 Lavä°ih: A Treatise on Sufism, ed. and tr. E.H. Whinfield and M.M. Kazvïnï, reprint (London: The Royal Asiatic Society, 1978); Lavâyeh: Les jaillissements de lumière, ed. and tr.


Y. Richard (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1982). For a new translation and discussion by Chittick, see Sachiko Murata, Chinese Gleams of Sufi Light (Albany: State University Of New York Press, 2000), pp. 113-210. On Jahänshäh's brief hegemony over Khuräsän, see H. Roemer, 'The Successors of Timur' in P. Jackson and L. Lockhart (eds), The Cambridge History of Iran Volume 6: The Timurid and Safavid Periods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 114-16; John E. Woods, The Aqquyunlu (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 1999), pp. 74-85.

61 Muhammad cAbd al-Haqq Ansäri, Sufism and Sharlcah: A Study of Shaykh Ahmad SirhindVs Attempts to Reform Sufism (Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 1986); S.A.A. Rizvi, A History of Sufism in India (2 vols. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1983), vol. 2, pp. 208-14; but see Y. Friedmann, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindl (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1971), and Hamid Algar, 'Reflections of Ibn cArabi in early Naqshbandï tradition', Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn cArabi Society 10 (1991), pp. 45-66. Interpretation of the 'Naqshbandï reaction' which Sirhindi supposedly manifests has been tempered by David Damrel, 'The "Naqshbandï Reaction" Reconsidered' in D. Gilmartin and B. Lawrence (eds), Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2000), pp. 176-98.

62 cAli 'SafT Käshifi, Rashahät-i cAyn al-hayät, vol. 1, p. 244.

63 Sharh-i Fusüs al-hikam, ed. J. Misgarnizhäd (Tehran: Iran University Press, 1366 Sh/1987); Fasi al-khitäb, ed. J. Misgarnizhäd (Tehran: Iran University Press, 1381 Sh/2002) -I consulted MS British Museum Or. 9495, dated 909/1503^1; cf. Algar, 'Reflections of Ibn cArabi in Early Naqshbandï Tradition', pp. 46-9. It is worth noting that the attribution of the commentary to Pärsä is not uncontroversial. The text in fact seems to overlap extensively with the commentary attributed to the Kubravi Sufi Sayyid cAlï Hamadanï (d. 787/1385) - see Najib Mäyil Hiravï, 'Chahär nazar pirämün-i chahär äsär mansüb bih Sayyid cAlï Hamadanï', Danish 11 (1366 Sh/1987), pp. 90-116.

64 Edited by Marijan Mole as 'Quelques traité Naqshbandis', Farhang-i Irän-zamln 6 (1337 Sh/1958), pp. 294-303.

65 Risäla-yi tavajjuh, MS British Museum Or. 13744, 20v-22r, dating from the 12*/18Λ

century.

66 cAlï 'Safi' Käshifi, Rashahät-i cAyn al-hayät, vol. 1, pp. 249-50; Muhammad al-Rakhäwi, al-Anwär al-Qudsiyya fi manäqib al-säda al-Naqshbandiyya (Cairo: Matbacat al-Sacäda, 1344/1925), p. 152; Algar, 'Reflections of Ibn cArabî in Early Naqshbandï Tradition', p. 51; Michel Chodkiewicz, An Ocean without a Shore, tr. D. Streight (Albany: State University Of New York Press, 1993), p. 5.

67 cAlï 'Safi' Käshifi, Rashahät-i cAyn al-hayät, vol. 1, p. 351.

68 Mahmud Gawän, Riyäd al-inshä3, ed. Shaykh Chänd (Hyderabad: Osmania Oriental Publications, 1948), pp. 19-23, pp. 152-7, pp. 167-72, pp. 207-11, pp. 227-32, pp. 300-4, pp. 365-6; Näma-hä-yi dastnavlsl-yi Jäml, ed. N.M. Hiravï (Tehran: Intishärät-i cIlmï, 1367 Sh/1988), pp. 215-17, pp. 221-8, pp. 267-8, pp. 680-4; cf. K.A. Nizami, 'The Naqshbandiyyah Order', in Nasr (ed.), Islamic Spirituality II, p. 174.

69 N.M. Hiravï, 'Jämi va mashäyikh-i ShïT, Näma-yi Nigäristän 2:5 (spring 1375 Sh/1996), pp. 65-70; Ibn al-Karbalä% Rawzät al-jinän wa-jannät al-jinän, ed. J. Sultan al-QurräDi (2 vols. Tehran: Bungäh-i Tarjuma va Nashr-i Kitäb, 1349 Sh/1970), vol. 2, p. 151. Lälä°i was a disciple of Sayyid cAbd Allah Barzishäbädi (d. 872/1468) who had contested the Kubravi mantle of Khwäja Ishäq Kuttaläni with the messianic Sayyid Muhammad Nürbakhsh (d. 869/1464) and had signalled the Zahabï Shïcï turn in the Kubravi lineage - see Bashir, Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions, pp. 47-55.


70 Ibn al-Karbalä3i, Raw ¿at al-jinan wa-jannat al-jinan, vol. 2, p. 110; Hiravï, J ami, pp. 271-2.

71 See the best treatment in Toshihiko Izutsu, Sufism and Taoism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 116-40.

72 For a most recent example, see Ronald Nettler, Sufi Metaphysics and QurDanic Prophets: Ibn cArabl's Thought and Method in the Fusüs al-hikam (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2003); cf. Chodkiewicz, An Ocean without a Shore, especially Chapter Four. Ibn cArabï did write Qur'anic works: his large mainly non-extant exegesis al-Jamc wa'l-tafsll fiasrär macänl al-tanzll; icjäz al-bayan fi'l-tarjama can al-Qur°än, which has been published by Mahmud Ghuräb based on a unicum that ends in the second sura; and Ishärät al-Qur°än. Meditation upon the Qur'an is central to most of his works and hence Mahmud Ghuräb has collated exegetical passages from his various works and published them in four volumes entitled al-Rahma min al-rahmän fi tafslr wa-ishärät al-Qur°än (Damascus: Matbacat Zayd ibn Thäbit, 1989).

73 Tafslr Muqätil ibn Sulaymän, ed. A. Fand (3 vols. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-cIlmiyya, 2002), vol. l ,p. 24.

74 Jär Allah al-Zamakhshari (d. Sunnï Muctazilï, d. 538/1144), al-Kashshäf can haqä3iq al-tanzll wa-cuyün al-aqäwll (5 vols. Beirut: al-Där al-cÄlamiyya, n.d.), vol. 1, p. 41; Abu cAlï al-Fadl al-Tabrisï (Shïcï Muctazilï, d. 548/1154), Majmac al-bayän (Beirut: Mu'assasat al-Aclamï, 1995), vol. 1, p. 54; Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabätabä'i (Shicï, d. 1402/1982), al-Mlzän fi tafslr al-QurDan (20 vols. Beirut: MuDassasat al-Aclami, 1973), vol. 1, pp. 18-23.

75 Zayd ibn cAlï, Gharlb al-Qur°än, ed. Sayyid Muhammad Jawäd al-Husayni al-Jaläli (Qum: Daftar-i Tablighät-i Islämi, 1997), p. 120; cf. al-Tabarï (Sunnï, d. 311/923), The Commentary on the Qur°än, tr. J. Cooper (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 56.

76 Al-Tabrisï, Majmac al-bayän, vol. 1, p. 54; cf. M. Ayoub, The Qur'an and its Interpreters (2 vols. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), vol. 1, p. 43. For a discussion of the duality of the terms in an Ashcari work of the 6 /12th century, see Georges Anawati, 'Rahman et Rahim dans les LawamV al-bayyinat de Fakhr al-Din al-Razi' in Michael Marmura (ed.), Islamic Theology and Philosophy: Studies in Honor of George F. Hourani (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), pp. 63-77.

77 Al-Tabrisï, Majmac al-bayän, vol. 1, p. 54; cf. Ayoub, The Qur'an and its Interpreters, vol. l ,p . 44.

78 Charkhï, Tafsïr-i Kaläm-i Rabbani, MS British Museum Or. 9490, fol. 4r.

79 Qunawï, Icjäz al-bayän fi ta°wll Umm al-Qur°än (Hyderabad: Osmania Oriental Publications, 1949), p. 200.

80 Qünawi, Vjäz al-bayän, p. 205.



83 Al-Käshäni, Tafslr Ihn cArabi [siel] (2 vols. Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-cIlmiyya, 2001), vol. 1, p. 27; cf. Lory, Les commentaires ésotériques du Coran après cAbd ar-Razzâq al-Qâshânî, pp. 169-70.

84 Al-Qaysari, Sharh ta°wll al-basmala in Rasaci, ed. Mehmet Bayraktar (Kaysen: Büyükcehir Belediyesi Kultur Yayinlan, 1997), p. 199.

85 Mercy is commonly described as riqqat al-qalb in the exegetical traditions. For an example contemporary to Jâmï, see Käshifi, Javähir al-tafsir, p. 3ΊΊ.

86 On the super-abundant goodness of the Neoplatonic One and its activity, see Lloyd Gerson, Plotinus (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 2 2 ^ 1 . On the reception of the idea in early Islamic


Neoplatonism, see Cristina D'Ancona Costa, Recherches sur le Liber de Causis (Paris: Vrin, 1995).

87 Ibn cArabi, Fusüs al-hikam, ed. CA. cAfìfi (Cairo: Dar al-Macärif, 1947), p. 177; al-Käshäni, Sharh Fusüs al-hikam (Cairo, 1321/1903), p. 222.

88 Jämi, Sharh Fusüs al-hikam, pp. 421-2.

89 Ibn cArabï, Fusüs al-hikam, p. 177.

90 Ibn cArabi, al-Futühät al-Makkiyya, Büläq edition, vol. 2, p. 399; cf. William Chittick, The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn cArabVs Cosmology (Albany: State University Of New York Press, 1998), pp. 69-70.

91 Ibn cArabi, al-Futühät al-Makkiyya, Büläq edition, vol. 4, pp. 255-6; cf. Chittick, The Self-Disclosure of God, pp. 329-31.

92 Ibn cArabi, Fusüs al-hikam, p. 177; cf. Izutsu, Sufism and Taoism, p. 118.

93 Ibn cArabi, Fusüs al-hikam, p. 177; Jämi, Sharh Fusüs al-hikam, pp. 422-3.

94 Jâmï, Sharh Fusüs al-hikam, p. 425; cf. Sadr al-Dïn al-Qunawï, Kitäb al-Fukük, ed. Muhammad Khwäjavi (Tehran: Intishärät-i Mawlä, 1371 Sh/1993), pp. 270-1.

95 Ibn cArabi, Fusüs al-hikam, p. 151; Jämi, Sharh Fusüs al-hikam, p. 431; cf. Izutsu, Sufism and Taoism, p. 122.

96 cAbd al-Razzäq al-Käshäni, Istilähät al-Süfiyya, ed. A. Sprenger, reprinted in A Glossary of Sufi Technical Terms (London: The Octagon Press, 1991), pp. 146-7 (my translation).

97 cAbd al-Razzäq al-Käshäni (attr.), Lata3if al-icläm fi ishärät ahi al-ilhäm, ed. Majïd Hädizäda (Tehran: Miräth-i Maktüb, 1379 Sh/2000), pp. 292-3.

98 Sacïd al-Dïn Farghanï (d. 695/1296), Mashäriq al-darärl, ed. S.J. Äshtiyäni (Tehran: Iranian Islamic Academy of Philosophy, 1979), p. 551; Däwüd al-Qaysari, Sharh Fusüs al-hikam, ed. S.J. Äshtiyäni (Tehran: Intishärät-i cIlmï va Farhangï, 1375 Sh/1996), pp. 911-13; cf. Murata, The Tao of Islam, pp. 107-8;

99 Ibn cArabï, al-Futühät al-Makkiyya, Büläq edition, vol. 3, p. 93; cf. William Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge, p. 130.

100 Al-Fihras al-shämil li'1-turäth al-1Arabi al-Isläml al-makhtüt, culüm al-Qur3än: makhtütät al-tafslr (Amman: MuDassasat Äl al-Bayt, 1987), vol. 6, pp. 1774-9, mentions 32 and another ten or so are in Turkish libraries. It is quite possible that there are many others in India. I am currently preparing a critical edition of Jämi's exegesis on the Fätiha along with a fully annotated translation and study of the text. This will be based on five of the oldest manuscripts: (in chronological order) MS Istanbul University Library 1285, dated 958/1551; MS India Office Islamic 842, dated 960/1553; MS Istanbul University Library 2682, dated 963/1556; MS Kitäbkhäna-yi cUmüml-yi Äyat Allah al-Marcashl 6744, dating from the 10Λ/16Λ century; and MS Bratislava University Library (Basagic collection) TF 73, dated 1001/1592-3. I will supplement readings from two further manuscripts that include the remainder of his exegesis: MS Princeton (Garrett-Yahuda Collection) 1397 and 2397, both dating from the 12 /18 century. The study of Sufi exegesis and textual hermeneutics requires the availability of reliable edited texts and I hope that my work can contribute to that wider project.

101 Kulliyyät of his works (both poetical and non-poetical) seem to have been in circulation from living memory of him after his death. The earliest exemplar is MS Uzbek Oriental Academy 1331, dated 908/1502-3, but this does not contain his exegesis - see Afsahzod, Naqd va barrasl-yi äsär va ahväl-i Jamï, pp. 146-8.

102 Jämi, Tafslr al-Fätiha, fol. 9v.


103 Jâmï, Macnavl-yi Haft Awrang, ed. Alokhon Afsahzod (Tehran: Miräs-i Maktüb, 1378 Sh/1999), vol. l ,p . 144.

104 Jämi, Tafslr al-Fätiha, fol. 3v, 11. 2-3.

105 For a useful discussion, see Steven Harvey, 'The Author's Introduction as a Key to Understanding Trends in Islamic Philosophy' in R. Arnzen and J. Thielmann (eds), Words, Texts and Concepts Cruising the Mediterranean Sea (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), pp. 15-32.

106 Jâmï, Tafslr al-Fätiha, fol. 3v-5r.

107 Jämi, Tafslr al-Fätiha, fol. 6r, 11. 10-13.

108 Jâmï, Tafslr al-Fätiha, fol. 6r, 11. 21-2.


110 Jâmï, Tafslr al-Fätiha, fol. 6r, 1. 18.

111 Jâmï, Tafslr al-Fätiha, fol. 6r, 1. 19.


113 Nicmat Allah ibn Mahmud Nakhjuwanï, al-Fawätih al-ilähiyya wa'l-mafätlh al-ghaybiyya, reprint (2 vols. Cairo: Dar al-Rikäbi, 1999), vol. 1, p. 18. He may have been a disciple of Ahrär - see Algar, 'Naqshbandis and Safavids', p. 8.


115 Al-Ghazäli, Jawähir al-Qur'än, ed. R. Ridä Qabbäni (Beirut: Dar Ihyä3 al-cUlüm, 1985), p. 65; The Jewels of the Qur°än, tr. M. Abul Quasem (London: Kegan Paul International, 1983), p. 67.



118 Nakhjuwanï, al-Fawätih al-ilähiyya, vol. 1, p. 18.

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Sajjad Rizvi - The tafsīr Sūrat al-Fātiha of Jāmī and the school of Ibn 'Arabī

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