The Arabic version of Tusi's Nasirean ethics : with an introduction and explanatory notes /
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Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī's (d. 672/1274) Nasirean Ethics is the single most important work on philosophical ethics in the history of Islam. Translated from the original Persian into Arabic in 713/1313, the present text was primarily intended for the Arabic-speaking majority of the people in Iraq. A fine example of medieval Persian-to-Arabic translation technique, this first edition carefully reproduces Middle Arabic elements that can be found throughout the text.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004307506 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Chīn-nāma /
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Born in Macerata, Italy, in 1552, Matteo Ricci was a Catholic priest who was sent to the Jesuit representation to Macau in 1582. His assignment was to travel on to mainland China and seek to establish the first permanent Jesuit mission there. Ricci arrived in China in 1583, never to leave it again. He died there in 1610. Fluent in Chinese, he was very succesful, on good terms with people that mattered, much appreciated as a carthographer and astronomer, and given free access to the Forbidden City, which was quite exceptional. Ricci's account of his mission to China, called De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas , was published posthumously in 1615. The present work is a Persian translation of the book's first fascicle made in India by a Persian convert to Christianity from the seventeenth century. The translation is significant in that it was made at the suggestion of a Jesuit priest, most likely from missionary ambitions.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405004
9789648700350
Arbaʿīn al-ʿAlāʾī fi kalām al-ʿalī /
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In the history of Islamic literature, the 'Forty Traditions' genre goes back as far as the 3th/9th century at least and exists in all of Islam's major and minor languages. It finds its origin in the tradition saying that whoever commits forty traditions to memory will be reckoned among the jurists on Resurrection Day. Collections vary, from a simple listing of the basic teachings of Islam to more dedicated works around some specific theme, in either case with or without a commentary. There are also collections of sayings of the Prophet's son-in-law ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), from among which al-Sharīf al-Raḍī's (d. 406/1088) Nahj al-Balāgha is the most famous. The work by Yūsuf b. Āybayk published here is a Persian text in the arbaʿūn tradition but based on the Nahj al-balāgha . Dedicated to the Qaramānid ruler of Anatolia ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Beg (d. 800/1397-8), it deals mostly with ethics explained from a mystical perspective.
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1 online resource. :
9789004408135
9786002031341
Dīwān-i Ḥāfiẓ-i Shīrāzī : Kuhantarīn nuskha-yi shinākhta shuda-yi kāmil kitābat 801 hijrī /
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Ḥāfiẓ Shīrāzī (d. 791/1389) is the most popular poet of the Persianate world and the greatest lyricist of all. There is virtually no family in Iran that does not possess a copy of his divan. Many people quote from his work by heart. His poetry is often used in proverbs, and fortune-telling with his divan is common practice in all layers of society, earning him his nickname of 'Lisān al-ghayb', i.e. 'the voice of the unknown'. Ḥāfiẓ's poems combine practical wisdom with meditations on destiny while emphasizing the importance of living in the moment, today called 'mindfulness'. Despite claims to the contrary, his poetry is not mystical but definitely about the here-and-now. His favourite themes are love, wine and its effects, and the witty exposure of pretenders. This facsimile of the second oldest and completest copy of his divan from 801/1399 is the only one to posses the complete introduction by its compiler, Muḥammad Gulandām.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406469
9786002038043
Nihāyat al-marām fī dirāyat al-kalām /
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Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn al-Makkī (d. 559/1163-64) was a specialist of theology and law and the preacher ( khaṭīb ) of the Shāfi'ī congregation in Rayy of his time. Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn is, however, best known as the father of the famous theologian and critic of Avicenna (d. 428/1037), Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 606/1210), often referred to as Ibn al-Khaṭīb, certainly in his younger years. Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn studied Ashʿarī theology in Nishapur under Abu ʼl-Qāsim b. Salmān al-Anṣārī (d. 512/1118), himself a student of Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085). Besides, he also studied in Marwarūdh, hometown of the Shāfiʿī jurist al-Ḥusayn b. Masʿūd al-Farrāʾ al-Baghawī (d. 516/1122). The work of which the one remaining volume is published here is one of the largest works in early Ashʿarī theology. It gives a fine impression of the discussions around some of the main differences between the Muʿtazila and the Ashʿarīs, besides its importance as a source of his son's ideas.
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From the 1843 Leipzig edition with Persian introduction by M. Mohaghegh. :
1 online resource. :
9789004406131
9786002030535
Majālis /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī (d. 718/1319) came from a Jewish family in Hamadan. His grandfather had been a courtier of Hūlāgū Khān (r. 1256-65) while his father was a court pharmacist. Rashīd al-Dīn converted to Islam when he was about 30 years old. Trained as a physician, he started his career under the Il-khanid Abāqā Khān (r. 1265-82), rising to the rank of vizier under Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304), Öljeitü (r. 1304-16) and Abū Saʿīd Bahādur Khān (r. 1316-35) who had him executed in 718/1319. Rashīd al-Dīn is the author of the first world history ever, the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh . Besides he also wrote a considerable number of texts on many different subjects. As a promotor of learning, Rashīd al-Dīn founded a cultural complex called the Rabʿ-i Rashīdī. Among the people invited there was the author of the present series of lectures on Sufism. Held seasonally between 712/1312 and 718/1318, these lectures survive thanks to an attentive student.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406223
9786002030504
Tuḥfat al-fatā fī tafsīr sūrat Hal atā /
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One of the challenges that the Qurʾān poses to its readers is the apparent contradictions that it contains. In order for these contradictions to be removed, Muslim scholars developed a doctrine according to which one verse could be abrogated by another. Abrogation being linked to temporality, the question whether a verse was revealed in Mecca or Medina became a major point of discussion. Ghiyāth al-Dīn Dashtakī (d. 949/1542) was one of the major representatives of the School of Shiraz in philosophy and a specialist in Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophy, as well as mysticism. The present volume contains a new edition of his commentary on Sūrat al-Insān (no. 76), which is one of the suras on whose time of revelation much had already been written. In this seminal and innovative work, emphasis is given to a mystico-philosophical reading of the text, an appoach that would reach its zenith in the work of Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640)
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1 online resource. :
9789004403017
9789646781740
Kalimāt-i qiṣār-i Imām ʿAlī : Du majmūʿa: 1. Miʾat kalima - Nathr al-laʾālī, 2. Tarjuma-yi manẓūm-i Nathr al-laʾālī /
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Being the first imam of the Shīʿa, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib's (d. 40/661) statements-in any form-have always been important. In the centuries following his death, there appeared several collections of aphorisms, speeches, sermons, rulings and letters, all ascribed to him. The significance of these works was not just informative or even literary; they also had a didactic side insofar as ʿAlī was regarded as a channel for God's grace to man, it being through him that man could learn how to fulfil God's wish of obeying Him. Among these works, there are the Miʾat kalima by Baḥr b. ʿAmr al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/868-69) and the Nathr al-laʾāliʾ , probably by Faḍl b. Ḥasan Ṭabarsī (d. 548/1153). The present volume contains the facsimile editions of a well-executed 19th-century copy of both of these Arabic texts, followed by a Persian translation into poetry of part of the Nathr al-laʾāliʾ by Yār ʿAlī ʿAlānawī Tabrīzī (early 16th century)
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1 online resource. :
9789004405691
9786002030092
Taḥqīq dar majālis-i tafsīri-yi Faḍl b. Muḥibb-i Nīshābūrī wa abyāt-i Fārsi-yi ān : Ganjīnaʾī az surūdhā-yi Zāhidāna-yi Fārsī az sada-yi panjum-i hijrī /
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In Persian literature, so-called ' majālis ' (sg. majlis , 'session') works typically evoke the atmosphere of a religious gathering. In some of these gatherings, a lecturer recounted parts of the history of Islam and the lives and times of its prominent representatives. In others, his focus was on the interpretation of the Qurʾān or some other subject. Sometimes, a speaker answered questions and at others, he sermonized. An early work in this genre is a majālis text on Qurʾān interpretation by Faḍl b. Muḥibb Nīshāpūrī (d. 472/1079). Issuing from a well-educated family of Nishapur, Faḍl was known for his learning and his virtue, earning him the nicknames of ustādh ('master') and wāʿiẓ ('preacher'). The lines of poetry published here were culled from a majālis text by him, the title of which remains unknown. Testimony to his use of rhetorical means to enhance the impact of his talk, these lines of poetry are also among the earliest in their genre in Khurāsān.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406643
9786002031044
Maḥbūb al-qulūb. Volume 1 : Al-Maqāla al-thāniya fi aḥwāl ḥukamāʾ al-Islām wal-ʿulamāʾ al-aʿlām wal-udabāʾ al-kirām mimman lahum al-iʿtināʾ bi-shaʾnihim wal-iʿtibār bi-kalāmihim /...
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In the Islamic world, the writing of biographical reference works has a very long tradition. In the field of philosophy and other rational sciences such as medicine, one could, for example, mention Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn's (d. 298/910) Taʾrīkh al-aṭibbāʾ wal-ḥukamāʾ or Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa's (d. ca 668/1270) ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī taʾrīkh al-aṭibbāʾ . The present two-volume biographical dictionary of philosophers and physicians of all times thus continues a centuries-old tradition. Its author, Quṭb al-Dīn Ishkawarī Lāhijī (d. ca. 1088-95/1677-78), was a student of the great Safavi thinker and founder of the School of Isfahan in philosophy, Mīr Dāmād (d. 1041/1631). This is also obvious from his spiritually-orientated, inclusive understanding of the various actors and episodes in the history of philosophy. Written in classical Arabic, at times sprinkled with his native Persian, it distinguishes itself from earlier dictionaries in that it also contains many of the author's own philosophical opinions. 2 vols; volume 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402263
9789646781047
Minhāj al-wilāya fī sharḥ Nahj al-balāgha. Volume 2 /
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The Nahj al-balāgha is a collection of sermons, letters, testimonials, and wise sayings attributed to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), the Prophet's son-in-law, successor, and first imam of the Shīʿa. The collection was compiled by al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1088), a distinguished ʿAlid member of Baghdad's ruling elite. The Nahj al-balāgha is widely considered as a work of extraordinary literary quality, besides being an invaluable source of information on the person, opinions, and virtues of ʿAlī. Many commentaries on it were written, in Arabic and in Persian. The present, two-volume Persian commentary was written by ʿAbd al-Bāqī Ṣūfī Tabrīzī (d. 1039/1629-30), who spent most of his active life in then-Ottoman Baghdad, mystics mostly having a hard time under the Safavid ruler Shāh ʿAbbās I (r. 1587-1629). The commentary is thematically organized into twelve sections and explains the text from a variety of angles, with discussions ranging from theology and tradition to philosophy and mysticism. 2 vols; volume 2.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402515
9789646781191
Sharḥ al-Talwīḥāt al-lawḥiyya wal-ʿarshiyya. Volume 3 : al-Ilāhiyyāt /
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Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 587/1191) is arguably the most influential thinker in post-Avicennan (d. 428/1037) philosophy. He is best known as the originator of the Philosophy of Illumination, a mixture of Hellenistic, old-Iranian, and mystico-Islamic elements, further developed and transformed in the Transcendental Philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640). Suhrawardī wrote four major works on the Philosophy of Illunination: al-Talwīḥāt al-lawḥiyya wal-ʿarshiyya , al-Muqāwamāt, al-Mashāriʿ wal-muṭāraḥāt , and the Ḥikmat al-ishrāq . This was also the order in which these works had to be studied. The Talwīḥāt being an introductory course on the Philosophy of Illumination, it is not surprising that three commentaries on it were written, by ʿAllāma Ḥillī (d. 726/1326), Shams al-Dīn al-Shahrazūri (d. 687/1288), and Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284), whose commentary is published here. Ibn Kammūna was a thinker of Jewish origin who by his own declaration was self-taught in philosophy. He wrote several other important philosophical works, among them his commentary of Avicenna's Ishārāt . Volume 3, Metaphysics.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405080
9789648700718
Kitāb al-mabāḥith wal-shukūk : Nukhushtīn taʿlīqa bar al-Ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt, hamrāh bih Kitāb ʿUyūn al-masāʾil-i Fārābī wa Risāla-yi l-Asmāʾ al-mufrada-yi Kindī /...
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The Kitāb al-ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt of Avicenna (d. 428/1037) is the most influential philosophical compendium in the history of the Islamic world. Being his last major work, written towards the end of his life, the Ishārāt contains what Avicenna considered to be the gist of all there was to know in logic and philosophy. It is different from his other works in that it represents the ultimate stage of development of his philosophical method, transcending the familiar Aristotelian aporetic method of his earlier days, to culminate in an elliptical kind of discourse in which, by the use of pointers or hints, the maximum is asserted with a minimum of means. The commentary by Sharaf al-Dīn Masʿūdī (d. before 605/1208) published here in facsimile is the earliest to survive. Focussing on a limited number of questions, it is not a running commentary. Two other philosophical texts by al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) and al-Kindī (d. after 247/861) accompany it.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405745
9789648700985
Kāmil al-taʿbīr. Volume 1 : Atharī jāmiʿ bih zabān-i Fārsī dar khābguzārī va taʿbīr-i rūyā, jild-i avval alif-shīn /
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Since times immemorial man has been fascinated by his dreams. This is true of western civilization as it is true of any other civilization, including Islam. In the Qurʾān and the traditions, dreams and visions are frequently mentioned as instruments of divine guidance and instruction. This sanctification of the pre-existing oral tradition around dreams and their interpretation created room for this tradition to further develop, both in a religious and in a secular context. Dream interpretation remained unsystematized and mostly oral until Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq's (d. 260/873) Arabic translation of Artemidorus' (2nd cent. CE) Oneirocritica and Dīnawarī's al-Qādirī fi ʼl-taʿbīr (commissioned in 397/1006) that it inspired. From then onwards, a vast literature developed. The work published here is an important early text from the Persianate world, based on more than fifteen declared and other sources, most of which are lost. It is a compilatory work, with an introduction followed by an alphabetical inventory of themes. 2 vols; volume 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406612
9786002031020
Al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ fī uṣūl al-dīn /
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From the time of its foundation in 284/897, the Zaydī Imamate of Yemen was home to Muʿtazilī ideas. During the first centuries and starting with Imam al-Hādī ila ʼl-Ḥaqq (d. 298/911), Zaydī ideology included elements akin to the opinions of the Baghdad School of the Muʿtazila as founded by Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir (d. 210/825). However, in the 5-6th/11-12th centuries, we see a rise in popularity of Bahshamiyya ideas, a sub-group of the Basran School of the Muʿtazila around Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī (d. 321/933). These ideas were systematized and elaborated upon by the Zaydī theologian al-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 584/1188). Among those who resisted Bahshamī ideas to defend the teachings of the earlier imams was the jurist, theologian and author of more than 100 works, Ḥusām al-Dīn al-ʿAnsī (d. 667/1268). This volume contains a facsimile of the largest copy of al-Maḥajja al-bayḍāʾ fī uṣūl al-dīn , al-ʿAnsī's major theological handbook, covering the first four parts out of eight.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406667
9786002031051
Al-Qand fī dhikr ʿulamāʾ Samarqand /
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In the Arabic literary tradition, biographies form a class of their own and have always been widely used. Whether about a single person or about some group, their shared objective was to provide an authoritative account of someone's lineage, social or literary career, academic or religious background or affiliation, or connection to some historic event. As examples one could mention Ibn Hishām's (d. 218/834) Sīrat Muḥammad rasūli ʼllāh , Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa's (d. 668/1270) Kitāb ʿuyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ , or Nūr al-Dīn al-Ṭūkhī's (d. ca 900/1494) Quḍāt Miṣr . The author of the present work, Najm al-Dīn al-Nasafī (d. 537/1142-43), was a long-time resident of Samarqand and widely known and respected as jurist. He wrote more than 30 works, in Persian and in Arabic. The present volume contains an inventory of ḥadīth scholars bearing some connection to Samarqand. Its importance lies mainly in the many names of people, places, and books which are otherwise entirely unknown.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402614
9789646781122
Al-Ifāda fī tarīkh al-aʾimma al-sāda /
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As is well known, the main difference between the Imāmiyya and Zaydiyya branches in Shīʿī Islam is to do with the fact that the Zaydiyya-named so after their first leader Zayd b.ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn (d. 122/740)-did not unconditionally condemn the first three caliphs before ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, while to the Imāmiyya branch, all Sunnīs were infidels. But even though the Zaydīs did not consider Sunnīs generally as infidels, they regarded rebellion against Sunnī rule -unlawful to them-as a religious duty for all. The Imāmīs on the other hand, while radical in doctrine, did not have a militant attitude comparable to that of the Zaydīs. Geographically, the Zaydīs divided into a Yemeni and an Iranian branch, concentrated along the shores of the Caspian sea. The present work contains the biographies of 15 Zaydī imams, some from the Caspian, the author-Abū Ṭālib Hārūnī (d. 424/1033)-being a Zaydī scholar from that region.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404960
9789648700572
Bayān al-ḥaqāʾiq : Majmūʿa-yi hifdah riṣala /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī (d. 718/1319) came from a Jewish family in Hamadan. His grandfather had been a courtier of Hūlāgū Khān (r. 1256-65) while his father was a court pharmacist. Rashīd al-Dīn converted to Islam when he was about 30 years old. Trained as a physician, he started his career under the Il-khanid Abāqā Khān (r. 1265-82), rising to the rank of vizier under Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304), Öljeitü (r. 1304-16) and Abū Saʿīd Bahādur Khān (r. 1316-35), who had him executed for murdering his father in 718/1319. Rashīd al-Dīn was also an historian and as such he is best known for his monumental Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh , the earliest attempt at writing a world history and a major source of information on the emergence and organisation of the Mongol empire. The present work is a collection of his essays on various subjects, from theology to Qurʾān interpretation and from the perception of colours to medicine and ethics.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404946
9789648700404
Khazāʾin al-anwār wa-maʿādin al-akhbār /
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Commentaries on the Qurʾān exist almost from the time of the Prophet. Sometimes they consists of a commentary on just one verse, like Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī's (d. 1050/1640) Tafsīr āyat al-Kursī , or on one single sura, like the latter's Tafsīr sūrat Yūsuf . Sometimes a commentary focusses on verses sharing some common theme, like Fakhr al-Dīn Astarābādī's (d. 1028/1619) Tafsīr āyāt al-aḥkām , comprising all those verses from which legal rules are derived. Commentaries on the entire Qurʾān are always voluminous, like Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī's (d. 311/923) Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīl āy al-Qurʾān . Many commentaries were begun but never finished. The present work by Mīr Muḥammad Riḍā Muʾmin-i Khātūnābādī (early 12th/18th cent.) is an example of this. Planned as a complete commentary in four parts, only the first part (until the end of Sūrat al-Nisāʾ , no. 4) was finished and just the introduction and the commentary on the Fātiḥa are published here. Persian, elegant but accessible prose, ethico-mystical and literary elements.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404878
9789648700367
Kitāb al-muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn /
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Abu ʼl-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī (d. 436/1044) was the founder of the last theological school of the Muʿtazila and author of, among others, the Kitāb taṣaffuḥ al-adilla and Sharḥ al-uṣūl al-khamsa . None of his theological works survive in full, while his influential Kitāb taṣaffuḥ al-adilla , of which only fragments remain, was actually never finished. Al-Baṣrī's teachings were given a new impulse and audience through the writings of Rukn al-Dīn b. al-Maḥmūd al-Malāḥimī (d. 536/1141) of Khurāsān, where his ideas also gained support among the Shīʿa, including Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274). Al-Malāḥimī's Kitāb al-muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn , in which he relies mostly on al-Baṣrī's Kitāb taṣaffuḥ al-adilla , survives only in part. The present volume contains a new edition of this text. Thanks to the discovery of two manuscripts in Yemen it was possible to amend the first edition in places and to add a lot of new material, the text now being double in size.
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Added t.p. has: Revised and enlarged edition by Wilferd Madelung.
"Mīras̲-i Maktūb ; 236" :
1 online resource. :
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9786002030375