About this text: Flashes of Light
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (817–898/1414–1492)
Jāmī's Persian treatise on the One Being, which Liu Zhi turned into Chinese as the Zhenjing zhaowei: Whinfield's English, flash by flash, with the places Liu Zhi cites it.
On the Platonic Current: Jāmī
30 flashes · ~55 min · published translation · 10,445 words
Whinfield & Kazvīnī, London 1906 (public domain): English and a facsimile of the Persian manuscript
Read it →Versions
6 layers, each with its licenceThe original
The Persian manuscript in facsimileE. H. Whinfield and Mīrzā Muḥammad Kazvīnī · undated manuscript (facsimile 1906)Public domain
- By
- E. H. Whinfield and Mīrzā Muḥammad Kazvīnī (reproduced in their 1906 volume) · undated manuscript (facsimile 1906)
- Source:
- Facsimile of an undated Persian manuscript of the Lawāʾiḥ, in Whinfield and Kazvīnī, Lawáʾiḥ: A Treatise on Sufism (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1906), leaves n84–n136 of the University of Toronto scan · link ↗
- In the reader:
- Linked, not transcribed
- Licence:
- Public domain (published 1906)
- Notes
- This manuscript has thirty flashes and omits the headings (Whinfield); other copies divide the text differently. No public-domain digital Persian text was found (not on Ganjoor or fa.wikisource); modern critical editions are in copyright. To do: transcribe from the facsimile, or find a public-domain print (a nineteenth-century lithograph).
- UNVERIFIED:
- The manuscript's date, copyist and holding library are not recorded in the repo.
Our edition
Whinfield's English, cleaned from the OCRscripts/chinese/build_lawaih.py · 2026-09-28Our work
- By
- scripts/chinese/build_lawaih.py (automatic cleaning) · 2026-09-28
- Source:
- scripts/chinese/build_lawaih.py, from the Internet Archive OCR (lawaih00jaamuoft djvu.txt) → app/src/data/zh/lawaih.json
- In the reader:
- The whole treatise: the opening (praise, supplications, preface) and Flashes I–XXX, each linked to its printed page (leaf = page + 5)
- Licence:
- Ours (the text is Whinfield's, public domain)
- Notes
- Cleaned automatically, not by AI: page heads, signatures, hyphenation, detached quotation marks, a short list of OCR fixes. Footnote numbers removed from the text; the notes kept with the flash on whose page they fall. Errors may remain: proofreading against the scan is to do. Quotations of Ibn ʿArabī (the Fuṣūṣ, Flashes XXVI and XXX) and al-Qūnawī's Nuṣūṣ (Flash XXVIII) are found in Whinfield's text by pattern and shown as 'in the text'.
Published translations
Whinfield and Kazvīnī's EnglishE. H. Whinfield, Mīrzā Muḥammad Kazvīnī · 1906Public domain
- By
- E. H. Whinfield (translator); Mīrzā Muḥammad Kazvīnī (translator) · 1906
- Source:
- E. H. Whinfield and Mīrzā Muḥammad Kazvīnī, Lawáʾiḥ: A Treatise on Sufism, Oriental Translation Fund n.s. 16 (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1906): English translation with notes; University of Toronto copy on archive.org · link ↗
- In the reader:
- In full, flash by flash, with Whinfield's notes
- Licence:
- Public domain (1906; Whinfield d. 1922, Kazvīnī d. 1949: US public domain by publication date)
- Notes
- Whinfield's preface argues for Plotinus's influence on Sufism (cited in the Tianfang xingli's connections).
Chittick's translation, in Murata, Chinese Gleams of Sufi LightW. C. Chittick, S. Murata · 2000Copyrighted: cited only
- By
- W. C. Chittick (translator); S. Murata (author of the volume) · 2000
- Source:
- W. C. Chittick's translation of the Lawāʾiḥ, in S. Murata, Chinese Gleams of Sufi Light (SUNY Press, 2000), beside Liu Zhi's Chinese version (the Zhenjing zhaowei)
- In the reader:
- Not shown. Its Gleam numbers give the concordance with Whinfield's flashes (Gleam N = Flash N for Gleams 1–26; Whinfield's Flash XXVI holds Gleams 26–30); the private copy was used only as an alignment aid
- Licence:
- In copyright: cited only
Liu Zhi's Chinese version, the Zhenjing zhaowei 真境昭微Liu Zhi 劉智 · c. 1720UNVERIFIED
- By
- Liu Zhi 劉智 (translator) · c. 1720
- In the reader:
- Not shown: no public-domain scan or transcription found
- Licence:
- No copy acquired
- Notes
- Searched without result: Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons (CADAL, NLC, SSID), the Internet Archive, the Japanese National Diet Library, Harvard's LibraryCloud; ctext.org's terms bar scraping and HathiTrust's catalogue was unreachable to a script. The date 'around 1720' is the reader page's. Where the Tianfang xingli cites the book (as 昭微經), those lines are shown with the flash they seem to draw on (see ai-intertext). To do: acquire it and align it flash by flash.
- UNVERIFIED:
- No edition of the Zhenjing zhaowei has been identified, so its source and licence are not recorded.
AI layers
Liu Zhi's citations of the Lawāʾiḥ, flash by flashClaude (AI), Murata, Chittick and Tu (2009) · 2026-09-28AIOur work
- By
- Claude (AI) (read Whinfield, Chittick's Gleams and Murata's English side by side; proposals); Murata, Chittick and Tu (2009) (six links named in their notes (cited)) · 2026-09-28
- Source:
- ZHAOWEI_LINKS in app/src/lib/zh.ts (shared with the Tianfang xingli); its text record, §8a step 5
- In the reader:
- The lines of Liu Zhi's Root Classic tagged 昭微經, each beside the flash it seems to draw on, with its grounding
- Licence:
- Ours; the AI proposals marked AI with a confidence, the scholars' links cited
- Made by:
- Claude (model and version not recorded), 2026-09-28 (first commit of app/src/lib/zh.ts)
- Notes
- Eleven lines: six named by S. Murata, W. C. Chittick and Tu Weiming, The Sage Learning of Liu Zhi (2009), pp. 154 n. 2, 157 nn. 28–32; four AI proposals (Flashes XXV, XXVII, XXX, XXV; medium or low); one with no confident match. Three earlier AI proposals were withdrawn. All to be checked against the Persian.
✦ marks AI that no person has reviewed yet; ✧ marks AI reviewed by a named person. Copyrighted works are cited, never shown. All sources · How texts are established
| Work / author / dates | لوایح Lawāʾiḥ · ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (817–898/1414–1492) |
| Part added | the whole treatise in Whinfield's English: opening (praise, supplications, preface) and Flashes I–XXX |
| Reader route | /read/lawaih · about /read/lawaih/about |
| Status | English only; Persian not yet transcribed; Liu Zhi's Chinese not yet acquired |
1. Witnesses
| Siglum | Witness | Kind | Licence | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wh | E. H. Whinfield and Mīrzā Muḥammad Kazvīnī, Lawáʾiḥ: A Treatise on Sufism, Oriental Translation Fund n.s. 16 (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1906): English translation with notes, and a facsimile of an undated Persian manuscript | public domain | archive.org, Univ. of Toronto copy | |
| (Ch) | W. C. Chittick's translation, in S. Murata, Chinese Gleams of Sufi Light (SUNY, 2000), with Liu Zhi's Zhenjing zhaowei | translation | in copyright: cited only | — |
2. What is shown and why
Whinfield's English, from the Internet Archive OCR, cleaned by scripts/chinese/build_lawaih.py (page heads, signatures, hyphenation, detached quotation marks, a short list of OCR fixes). Footnote numbers are removed from the text; the notes are kept with the flash on whose page they fall. Every flash links to its printed page in the scan (leaf = page + 5).
Whinfield's manuscript has thirty flashes; other copies divide the text differently (Whinfield notes that this manuscript omits the headings).
3. The Persian
The Persian is in the 1906 volume only as a manuscript facsimile (leaves n84–n136 of the scan, opening at n136). It has not been transcribed. No public-domain digital Persian text was found (not on Ganjoor or fa.wikisource); modern critical editions are in copyright.
4. Liu Zhi's Chinese, the Zhenjing zhaowei 真境昭微
Not acquired: no public-domain scan or transcription was found on Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons (CADAL, NLC, SSID), the Internet Archive, the Japanese National Diet Library, or Harvard's LibraryCloud; ctext.org's terms bar scraping and HathiTrust's catalogue was unreachable to a script. Where Liu Zhi's Tianfang xingli cites the book (as 昭微經), the lines are shown with the flash they seem to draw on, proposed by AI.
5. Connections found in the text itself
Flash XXVI and XXX quote Ibn ʿArabī ("the Shaikh", the Fuṣūṣ, Faṣṣ Shuʿayb); Flash XXVIII quotes Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī's Nuṣūṣ. These are shown as "in the text".
6. Rights
Public domain throughout. Chittick's translation is not used.
7. Open questions
- Transcribe the Persian from the facsimile, or find a public-domain print (a nineteenth-century lithograph).
- Acquire the Zhenjing zhaowei (see §4) and align it flash by flash.
- Proofread the OCR against the scan.
8. Change log
- 2026-09-28: English, notes, citation links to the Root Classic.