The Zoroastrian myth of migration from Iran and settlement in the Indian diaspora : text, translation and analysis of the 16th century Qeṣṣe-ye Sanjān 'The story of Sanjan' /
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The Qesse-ye Sanjān is the sole surviving account of the emigration of Zoroastrians from Iran to India to form the Parsi ('Persian') community. Written in Persian couplets in India in 1599 by a Zoroastrian priest, it is a work many know of, but few have actually read, let alone studied in depth. This book provides a romanised transcription from the oldest manuscripts, an elegant metrical translation, detailed commentary and, most importantly, a radical new theory of how such a text should be "read", id est not as a historical chronical but as a charter of Zoroastrian identity, foundation myth and justification of the Parsi presence in India. The book fills a lacuna that has been acutely felt for a long time.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [239]-242) and indexes. :
9789047430421 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Kitāb talkhīṣ al-Muḥaṣṣal : fī sharḥ al-Muḥaṣṣal fī ʿilm al-kalām /
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Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 606/1210) was a prominent theologian, interpreter of the Qurʾān and philosopher. He was born in Rayy where he studied theology, philosophy and law under different masters, including his father, a preacher. After his studies, he started a wandering life which took him to different cities and courts in Transoxania and Khwārazm. He finally settled in Herat where he spent the rest of his life, a wealthy and respected scholar and author of a number of seminal works. Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) was an influential philosopher, theologian, mathematician and astronomer, besides being the first director of the famous observatory at Marāghah near Tabriz as well as a man of politics. Author of a large number of scholarly works, his influential commentary on Rāzī's Muḥaṣṣal on philosophical theology is a critical appraisal of a work which Ṭūsī considered much overrated. Facsimile of the oldest known copy, dated 669/1270.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406650
9786002031006
Sharḥ al-Muqaddama fi ʼl-kalām : maʿa ʼl-Muqaddama fi ʼl-kalām, nuskha muṣawwara min majmūʿat ʿĀṭif Efendī raqm 1338/1 /
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The Imāmī scholar Abū Jaʿfar Ṭūsī (d. 459-60/1066-7) was born in Ṭūs in Khurāsān. Having completed his basic education there, he left for Baghdad, which at the time was ruled by the Shīʿī Buwayhid dynasty. In Baghdad he attended the classes of various prominent scholars, notably the leading Imāmī rationalist of his time, al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022) and his successor al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044). After the death of al-Murtaḍā, Ṭūsī, who had already made a name for himself as a thinker and a writer, became the undisputed leader of the Imāmī community. About ten years later Baghdad was invaded by the Saljuqs and Ṭūsī's house and libraries were laid to waste. Tūsī fled to Najaf where he remained until his death. Al-Muqaddima fi ʼl-kalām on concepts in theology figures among Ṭūsī's most important works. The commentary by Najīb al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī (d. 582/1186) printed in facsimile here are lecture notes, made by one of his students.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406230
9786002030658
Minhāj al-wilāya fī sharḥ Nahj al-balāgha. Volume 1 /
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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 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402492
9789646781184
Andīshahā-yi falsafī u kalāmi-yi Khwājah Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī /
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Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) was an influential philosopher, theologian, mathematician and astronomer, besides being the first director of the famous observatory at Marāghah near Tabriz as well as a man of politics. Author of a large number of scholarly works, he is especially famous for such treatises as his Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād on theology, the Zīj-i Īlkhānī on astronomy, the Ḥall mushkilāt al-Ishārāt , his influential commentary on Avicenna's (428/1037) Kitāb al-ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt on philosophy and logic, and his Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī on ethics. In Iran Ṭūsī stands in high regard and studies on him abound. There are a number of monographs on him in Persian, besides proceedings of various Ṭūsī conferences and numerous articles. It is therefore no surprise that the present work by Hānī Nuʿmān Farḥāt, originally published as Al-Khwāja Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī wa-ārāʾuhu al-falsafiyya wal-kalāmiyya (Beirut, 1406/1986), was translated into Persian. Based mostly on Arabic sources, the work focusses mainly on theology and philosophy.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405677
9789648700640
The expansion of prophetic experience : essays on historicity, contingency and plurality in religion /
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Abdulkarim Soroush is known primarily for his epistemological/hermeneutical theory, the "Contraction and Expansion of Religious Knowledge," and its application to Islamic political theory and religious pluralism. While his Reason, Freedom and Democracy in Islam applies that theory to plurality and the historicity of understanding and interpretation of religion, this book captures some of his original theories about religion itself. The Expansion of Prophetic Experience treats the historicity of the Prophet Muhammad's revelatory experience, including human and contextual influences on the genesis of the sacred Text. It presents substantial aspects of Soroush's Neo-Rationalist hermeneutical project for an Islamic reformed theology and ethics, systematically leading Islamic reformation beyond conventional projects of piecemeal adjustments to the Shariʿah or selective re-interpretations of the Qurʾān.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [345]-348) and index. :
9789047424369 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Kitāb al-tafṣīl li-jumal al-Taḥṣīl : Sharḥ Kitāb al-taḥṣīl li-muʾallifihi Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Raṣṣāṣ /
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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 very much akin to the opinions of the Baghdad School of the Muʿtazila as founded by Bishr b. al-Muʿtamir (d. 210/825). However, in the 6-7th/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), notably in his short theological summa the Kitāb al-taḥṣīl fi ʼl-tawḥīd wal-taʿdīl . This work soon gained popularity and within 30 years after his death, as three commentaries on it were written. The one whose surviving part is published here is an early witness of Yemeni Zaydī acquaintance with Ibn al-Malāḥimī's (d. 536/1141) works and anti-Bahshamī teachings.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406254
9786002030641
Sharḥ al-Taʿarruf li-madhhab al-taṣawwuf /
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The Kitāb al-taʿarruf li-madhhab al-taṣawwuf by Abū Bakr b. Isḥāq al-Kalābādhī (d. 380-85/990-995) is one of the most famous early manuals on Sufism. Written in Bukhara under the strongly orthodox Samanids, it consists of four parts: an explanation of the term ṣūfī and a listing of famous Sufis with a typology of their writings, an exposition of the Sufī creed and its conformity with orthodox Islam, an explanation of the spiritual path of the Sufi with accompanying terminology, and a description of Sufi conduct and of their special relation with God. The work saw four commentaries, the present one by Ismāʿīl Mustamlī Būkhārī (d. 434/1043) being one of them. Starting each time with a brief quotation from the original Arabic, the commentary in Persian. This is a facsimile edition of a manuscript from the Bhīravī collection in the National Archives of Pakistan, dated 473/1081. The manuscript is incomplete, with about half of the commentary missing.
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"Nuskhah bargardān bih qaṭʻ-i aṣl-i nuskhah-i khaṭṭī bih shumārah-i 207.1959. M. N. Mūzih-i Millī-i Pākistān (Karāchī), kitābat-i 473 H." :
1 online resource. :
9789004406216
9786002030634
Az nuskhahā-yi Istānbūl : Dastnivīshā-ī dar falsafah, kalām, ʿirfān /
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For those working with Islamic manuscripts the libraries of Istanbul have always been a treasure-trove. New discoveries are frequently reported and of many texts, the oldest or only copy is kept in some library in Istanbul. Since the publication of the defters of the Istanbul libraries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many more catalogues and handlists have been produced in an effort to render the immense amount of material more accessible. Even if the bulk of this work is done by Turkish specialists, foreign scholars, too, do their part. The present collection of research notes is a case in point. They describe a number of important Arabic and Persian manuscripts in philosophy, theology and mysticism selected for publication by the Written Heritage Research Centre in Tehran. Some of these manuscripts are in the hand of, or contain marginalia by, Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274), Najm al-Dīn Kātibī (d. 675/1276), and others.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406018
9786002030399
Majmūʿa-yi rasāʾil : ʿAjāʾib aḥkām Amīr al-Muʾminīn, Dhikr al-khalāʾif wa-ʿunwān al-maʿārif, Faḍl al-ʿilm, Dhakhāʾir al-ḥikma, Mukhtaṣar-i Jāvidān khirad /...
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Today most oriental manuscript collections are kept in institutional and other (semi-) public libraries. Yet many of these collections were jumpstarted with the acquisition or donation of some private collection. Even now, private collections may still yield unexpected finds. A case in point is MS Tehran, National Library, Arabic 16574. This manuscript belonged earlier and until 1423/2002 to Sayyid Muḥsin Amīn ʿĀmilī, author of the famous biographical dictionary Aʿyān al-Shīʿa , and then to his son Sayyid Ḥasan Amīn, after whose death it devolved to the National Library of Iran. Compiled in 420/1029, this manuscript contains six medium-sized classical texts in Arabic from before ca. 390/1000. From among these, special mention must be made of an abbreviated version ( mukhtaṣar ) of Ibn Miskawayh's (d. 421/1030) gnomological work in Arabic, the Jāvidān khirad . Copied while Ibn Miskawayh was still alive, this abbreviation represents the oldest sample of the original text and certainly merits consideration in any future edition.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407312
9786002031990
Al-Arbaʿīniyyāt li-Kashf anwār al-qudsiyyāt /
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In the history of Islamic literature, there is a genre called arbaʿūna ḥadīthan , in which 40 Prophetic traditions are jointly published, mostly with some kind of commentary. The genre finds its origin in the tradition saying that whoever commits forty traditions to memory will be reckoned among the jurists on Resurrection Day. Qāḍī Saʿīd Qumī (d. after 1107/1696) is a Shīʿite philosopher, jurist, physician and mystic of the Safavid period. Having been trained by some of the foremost scholars of his time, he spent most of his active life in Qum, where he divided his time between his judgeship and teaching. In imitation of the forty-traditions genre, Qāḍī Saʿīd wanted to publish a collection of fourty essays, mostly on philosophy and mysticism, as the fruit of his many years of study. In fact, he got no further than ten. Still, this does not detract from their quality, as may be judged from the present edition.
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A collection of treatises on various subjects compiled by the author. :
1 online resource. :
9789004402812
9789646781658
Bih guzīn-i ʿAlī-nāma : Kuhantarīn manẓūma-yi Shīʿi-yi Fārsī /
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Until the discovery of the Persian ʿAlī-nāma , Ibn Ḥusām's Khawarān-nāma (830/1427) was believed to be the oldest Persian epic poem involving the often wondrous exploits of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the beginnings of Shīʿism. The Khawarān-nāma takes its inspiration from Firdawsī's Shāh-nāma , but then adapted to fit the Shīʿī theme, with ʿAlī and his companions often taking the place of Rustam and other heroes. The ʿAlī-nāma , extant in one manuscript in Konya, is a much older poem on the same subject. Composed by someone using the alias of Rabīʿ, it was completed in 482/1089 in Khurāsān, just seventy years after the completion of Firdawsī's Shāh-nāma . The text is important because long before others, it acknowledges the heroes of the Shāh-nāma , some of whom were actually written into the script. Different from the edition by Omidsalar (2010), this edition only reproduces verses deemed worthy of Rabīʿ, rejecting two-thirds as the work of some unknown 'poetaster'.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405943
9786002030337
The genesis of the Bábí-Baháʼí faiths in Shíráz and Fárs /
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The Bábí and Baháʾí Faiths represent two of the most important religious movements of modern times. This book relates the story of the evolution of the Bábí-Baháʾí community, beginning with the birth of its founder, Siyyid ʾAlí-Muhammad, known as the Báb, in 1819 and then traced over the next century and a half in the city of his birth, Shíráz. Its author, Mírzá Habíbuʾlláh Afnán, was himself born in the house of the Báb, reared by the widow of the Báb, who shared with him many stories of the Báb's life, then spent nearly a year with Baháʾuʾlláh in the ʾAkka-Haifa area, and some ten years in close proximity to Baháʾuʾlláh's son ʾAbduʾl-Bahá. He served for the next half century as the hereditary custodian of the house of the Báb, and as such was uniquely qualified to tell the story of the Bábí-Baháʾí Faiths in the city of Shíráz in remarkable and moving detail.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [381]-384) and indexes. :
9789047442349 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Ḥall mushkilāt Kitāb al-ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt : Mashhūr bih Sharḥ-i Ishārāt /
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Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) was an influential philosopher, theologian, mathematician and astronomer, besides being the first director of the famous observatory at Marāghah near Tabriz as well as a man of politics. Author of a large number of scholarly works, he is especially famous for such treatises as his Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād on theology, the Zīj-i Īlkhānī on astronomy, and his Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī on ethics. The present volume contains a facsimile edition of an ancient copy of another famous work by him, the Ḥall mushkilāt al-Ishārāt , which is his influential commentary on Avicenna's (d. 428/1037) groundbreaking Kitāb al-ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt . The Ishārāt is commonly regarded as Avicenna's final statement on all there is to know in logic and philosophy. Directed at a restricted readership of trusted specialists, it was deliberately written in a terse, impenetrable style. From the many commentaries that were written on it, the one by Ṭūsī would be decisive for the later Avicennan tradition.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405721
9789648700893
Al-Risāla al-muḥīṭa : Nuskha-yi khaṭṭi-yi shumāra-yi 5389 Kitābkhāna-yi Āstān-i Quds-i Riḍawī /
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Ghiyāth al-Dīn Jamshīd Kāshānī is one of the most outstanding mathematicians and astronomers in the history of the Persianate world. The son of a physician, he was born around 790/1388 in Kashan, where he lived most of his life. Many of his writings were composed in that city, including his famous Zīj-i Khāqānī . In 824/1421 he left for Samarqand, where he played an important role in the construction of the observatory commissioned by the Timurid ruler and astronomer, Ulugh Beg (853/1449), becoming its first director. In 832/1429 he was found dead near this observatory, outside the walls of Samarqand. A violent death is suspected, probably on the order of Ulugh Beg. The present work, completed in 827/1424 in Samarqand, is about the determination of the number Pi. An innovative work of great merit, its exactness was only superseded with the publication of Ludolph van Ceulen's Van den circel in Delft, Holland, in 1596.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406179
9786002030559
Universal Science : An Introduction to Islamic Metaphysics.
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The Universal Science ( ʿIlm-i kullī ) by Mahdī Ḥāʾirī Yazdī , is a concise, but authoritative, outline of the fundamental discussions in Islamic metaphysics. For many years used as a textbook in Iran, this short text offers English readers a readily accessible, lucid, and yet deeply learned, guide through the Sadrian, Avicennan, and Illuminationist schools of thought, whilst also demonstrating how the 'living tradition' of Shīʿī philosophy engages with central ontological, epistemological, aetiological, and psychological questions. Discussions include the primacy of existence; the proper classifications of quiddity; and the manifold properties of causality and causal explanation. This is the first of the various influential works authored by this leading Shīʿah intellectual to have been translated into English from the original Persian.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004343115 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Majmūʿa-yi Rashīdiyya : Shāmil-i Kitābhā-yi Tawḍīḥāt-i Rashīdī, Miftāḥ al-tafāsīr, Sulṭāniyya, Laṭāʾif al-ḥaqāʾiq /
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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 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 four treatises published here show another side of Rashīd al-Dīn's talents as a scholar and are mostly about Qurʾān interpretation, prophethood, revelation, miracles, kingship, and notions around virtue and salvation.
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"Nuskhahʹbargardān-i nuskhah-ʾi khaṭṭī-i shumārah-i 2235, Kitābkhānah-ʾi Kakh-i Gulistān, Kitābat 706 H."
" Facsimile copy of the manuscript no. 2235, Gulistan Palace Library, copied in 706 A.H"--Added title page. :
1 online resource. :
9789004406193
9786002030627
Majmūʿa-yi āthār-i Imāmiyah : Muntakhabātī az ʿUyūn-i akhbār-i Riḍā, Amāli-yi Shaykh-i Ṣaddūq, Ṣaḥīfat al-Riḍā /
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At first glance, the collection of traditions, notes and drafts published here is just like so many other personal documents from the library of the average medieval Muslim scholar. But on closer inspection, this codex dated 580/1185 is quite interesting. The manuscript is in two different hands, one part being by a certain Abū Naʿīm al-Naʿīmi al-Bayhaqī, and the other part by the equally unknown Abu ʼl-Ḥasan al-Bayāḍī. As is evident from two study certificates ( ijāza ) contained in this manuscript, Abu ʼl-Ḥasan was a student of Abū Naʿīm. Abū Naʿīm was a native of Bayhaq and Abu ʼl-Ḥasan of Rayy. The manuscript contains mainly excerpts from Ibn Bābawayh's (d. 381/991) Amālī and ʿUyūn akhbār al-Riḍā and traditions which Abū Naʿīm himself had collected in Khurāsān. As such it contains the oldest known fragments from the Amālī , besides being a rare witness of the early Imami teaching tradition in Khurāsān, more specifically in Bayhaq and Nishapur.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406483
9786002030948
Sharḥ al-Talwīḥāt al-lawḥiyya wal-ʿarshiyya. Volume 1 : al-Mantiq /
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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 1, Logic.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405066
9789648700688
Al-Mashīkhah (Kanz al-sālikīn) : Ganjīna-yi khuṭūṭ va yādgār nāma-yi mashāhīr-i ʿilmi-yi Īrān az sāl-i 845 tā 1022 HQ /
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In the history of Islam and the Islamic world, the authentication of knowledge has always been important. Thus, the Prophetic traditions are typically introduced by chains of transmission going back from the speaker, all the way to a direct witness of the Prophet's sayings or deeds. And in scholarship, too, the ijāza or licence attesting to someone's proficiency in some subject written by an established teacher was very important as well, comparable to a modern certificate or diploma. Against this background, the booklet published here is rather unique. This is because it contains study certificates and samples of the handwriting of various scholars and religious authorities, issued to five generations of scholars from one and the same family from Yazd, starting with Najm al-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥammūʾī Yazdī (d. 885/1480) and ending with Sālik al-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥammūʾī Yazdī (duwwum) (d. after 1022/1613). Most of the texts are in Arabic, while the poetry is mostly in Persian.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407275
9786002031204