The Platonic Current
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The documented line of the Fuṣūṣ readers
One reach of the current, in close-up: who read Ibn ʿArabī's Fuṣūṣ with whom, generation by generation, as the reader's own lineage records it. The same people appear on the map above.
- Author
Ibn ʿArabī d. 638/1240
author
ʿUmar Ibn al-Fāriḍ d. 632/1235
Cairene poet, contemporary of Ibn ʿArabī; author of the Wine Ode (al-Khamriyya), read in the library with al-Būrīnī and al-Nābulusī
- Gen. 1
Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī d. 673/1274
stepson and closest disciple; the earliest manuscript (Golfetto's base) is his copy, read before the author
learned from Ibn ʿArabī (high)
Ḥasan al-Būrīnī d. 1024/1615
Born in Safed 963/1556, taught Shāfiʿī law at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus; commentator on Ibn al-Fāriḍ's Dīwān (al-Baḥr al-fāʾiḍ: grammar, rhetoric, lexicon, then the sense), printed with al-Nābulusī's notes by Rushayd al-Daḥdāḥ (Marseille 1853; Cairo 1289/1872) (TDV)
draws on ʿUmar Ibn al-Fāriḍ (high)
ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī d. 1143/1731
Damascene scholar and Sufi, "the most outstanding scholarly Sufi of Ottoman Syria" and "an excellent commentator of classical Sufi texts" (Sirriyeh); an Akbarian commentator of the Fuṣūṣ (Jawāhir al-nuṣūṣ), arguing like Ibn ʿArabī without simply repeating him, amid the polemics over Ibn ʿArabī in Damascus (Lane); his Kashf al-sirr al-ghāmiḍ on Ibn al-Fāriḍ's Dīwān supplies the notes marked (ن) in the Cairo print
draws on ʿUmar Ibn al-Fāriḍ (high) · draws on Ibn ʿArabī (high)
- Gen. 2
ʿAfīf al-Dīn al-Tilimsānī d. 690/1291
companion and disciple of al-Qūnawī
learned from Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (high)
Muʾayyad al-Dīn al-Jandī d. c. 700/1300
disciple of al-Qūnawī, under whom he read the Fuṣūṣ; author of the first full commentary
learned from Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (high)
- Gen. 3
ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Qāshānī (Kāshānī) d. 730/1330
studied the Fuṣūṣ with al-Jandī; reports a copy al-Jandī read before al-Qūnawī
learned from Muʾayyad al-Dīn al-Jandī (high)
- Gen. 4
Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī d. 751/1350
student of al-Qāshānī; his commentary became the standard in the madrasas
learned from ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Qāshānī (Kāshānī) (high)
- Gen. 5
Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Ibn Turka d. 835/1432
Timurid-era philosopher-Sufi; later, textual rather than personal link
draws on Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī (low)
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī d. 898/1492
Naqshbandī poet-scholar; drew on al-Qayṣarī and al-Qāshānī
draws on Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī (high) · draws on ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Qāshānī (Kāshānī) (high)
Muṣṭafā Bālī Zāde d. 1073/1663
Ottoman scholar; the Ottoman commentary tradition
draws on Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī (medium)
ʿAbdallāh al-Bosnawī (Abdullah Bosnevî) d. 1054/1644
Ottoman, born in Bosnia; studied in Bosnia, Istanbul and Bursa (under Hasan Kabâdûz); a leading Bayrāmī-Melāmī; travelled to Egypt, the Hajj and Damascus; died in Konya and buried beside al-Qūnawī. His Fuṣūṣ commentary is in Ottoman Turkish (TDV)
draws on Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (high) · draws on Muʾayyad al-Dīn al-Jandī (high) · draws on Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī (high)
- Gen. 6
Liu Zhi 劉智 d. after 1724
Chinese Muslim scholar of Nanjing; translated Jāmī's Lawāʾiḥ into Chinese as the Zhenjing zhaowei and cites it, with Jāmī's Ashiʿʿat al-lamaʿāt, throughout the Tianfang xingli (1704)
draws on ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (high)
- Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Ebn al-ʿArabī" (on al-Qūnawī, al-Jandī, and al-Jandī teaching the Fuṣūṣ to al-Kāšānī) ↗
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Ibn ʿArabī" ↗
- M. A. Golfetto (ed.), Ibn al-ʿArabī's Kitāb Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam wa-Khuṣūṣ al-Kalim: Edition Based on the Earliest Extant Manuscript, Brill 2024 ↗
- W. C. Chittick, "The Five Divine Presences: From al-Qūnawī to al-Qayṣarī", The Muslim World 72 (1982)
- M. Kara, "Abdullah Bosnevî", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi 1 (1988), p. 87 (life, teachers, Bayrāmī-Melāmī affiliation, burial beside al-Qūnawī, the Tecelliyât and its Būlāq 1252 and Istanbul 1290 prints) ↗
- S. Murata, "The Unity of Being in Liu Chih's 'Islamic Neoconfucianism'", Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi Society 36 (2004) ↗
- A. Özaydın, "Bûrînî", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi 6 (1992), p. 439 (life; al-Baḥr al-fāʾiḍ fī sharḥ Dīwān Ibn al-Fāriḍ, printed with al-Nābulusī's commentary by Rushayd al-Daḥdāḥ, Marseille 1853 and Cairo) ↗
- E. Sirriyeh, Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus: ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī, 1641–1731, Routledge 2005 ↗
- A. N. Lane, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī's (1641–1731) commentary on Ibn ʿArabī's Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam: an analysis and interpretation, DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 2001 ↗
Related: Themes & resonances · Atlas · Theme paths · Plato and Plotinus in Greek