Dīwān-i Ishrāq /
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In early Islamic philosophy, poetry was regarded as a means to transmit the eternal truths of philosophy to the masses and to move them to virtuous conduct by the use of poetical syllogisms. We find this theory for the first time in the works of Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (d. 339/950). In another application, poetry was used as a didactic tool in the philosophical curriculum, like Avicenna's (d. 428/1037) Urjūza fi ʼl-manṭiq or, much later, Mullā Hādī Sabzavārī's (d. 1289/1873) Manẓūma on logic and philosophy. Finally, there are the many poems which, while philosophical in spirit, were not written to be learned by heart by others but rather from personal motives. Here we can mention some of the Persian poetry ascribed to Avicenna or the philosophical poetry of Nāṣir Khusraw (d. 481/1088). The poems in this collection by Mīr Dāmād (d. 1040/1631), a prominent member of the Isfahan School in philosophy, belong to this latter category.
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Poems :
1 online resource. :
9789004404762
9789648700190
Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i Hind u Sind u Kashmīr /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī's (d. 718/1319) Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh has been described by many as the first world history ever. Composed in Persian for the Mongol Il-khans Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304) and Öljeitü (Uljāytu, r. 1304-16), its aim was to set out the history and condition of the Mongol people, conquerors of the world (part one), followed by a description of the other peoples and nations of the world and their histories (part two). Given its unprecedented scope, Rashīd, vizier to both rulers, mobilized a whole team of specialists, informants, and collaborators to assist him in his task. Making use of written and oral sources, the part on the Mongols especially is a key source on the emergence and organisation of the Mongol empire, while the second part constitutes the first attempt ever at writing a history of the world. The section published here treats of India, Sind, and Kashmir.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404151
9789648700053
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
Tārīkh-i Būshihr /
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Born in Najaf, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Saʿādat (1865-1935) first studied in his hometown and later in Shiraz. In 1898 he went to Tehran, where he started teaching at Teachers College and also at a modern primary school. During that time there was a desire to put education on a new footing, taking inspiration from western ideas. This is how Saʿādat, whose talents in education had not gone unnoticed, was appointed to found a new school in Būshihr, Iran's main port and trading hub in the Gulf area. This school, which later came to be known as the Madrasa-yi Saʿādat, soon became a famous in the region and many of its alumni had brilliant careers. Saʿādat's history of Būshihr is the product of a methodical mind that can view things in local, regional, national and international perspective. The only history of the city that we have, it is a work of incontestable importance.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405967
9786002031358
Tarjuma-yi manẓūm-i waṣiyyat-i Imām ʿAlī (ʿalayhi al-salām) bih Imām Ḥusayn (ʿalayhi al-salām) : Kuhantarīn tarjuma-yi manẓūm-i Fārsī az kalām-i ʿAlawī /
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In Shīʿī literature, there exist several texts containing the last will ( waṣiyya ) of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, son-in-law of the Prophet and, in Shīʿism, his rightful successor. These last wishes were addressed to his sons Ḥasan and Ḥusayn and to the Muslim community at large. Transmitted through various sources, they are important insofar as each of them, in its own way, justifies the Shīʿī view on ʿAlī's succession after he was murdered in Kufa in the year 40/661. This volume contains two Persian versions-one in verse, the other in prose-of ʿAlī's last will and injunctions addressed to Ḥusayn, the third imam. The original Arabic prose text has come down to us through various ancient sources, the oldest one dating from the fourth/tenth century. The Persian translation in verse was made by the poet Sayyid Ḥasan Ghaznawī (d. 556/1161), the prose version possibly around 910/1504 by a scribe named Muʿīn al-Dīn Munshī Shīrāzi.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405653
9786002030023
Mathnawi-yi maʿnawī. Volume 4 : mujallad-i chahārum kashf al-abyāt va namāyahā /
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The founder of the Mawlawiyya order of dervishes, Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 672/1273) is the most celebrated and widely quoted mystical poet of the Persianate world. Born in Balkh in 604/1207, he was still a child when his father, a preacher, emigrated westwards with his family, moving to Malaṭya, Sivas, Akshehir, Larende and, finally, Konya. It was in Konya that Rūmī, who had also received a regular education, met the people who would give his life a decisive turn towards mysticism: first, his father's former pupil Sayyid Burhān al-Dīn Muḥaqqiq (d. 637/1239-40) and then, most of all, the celebrated mystic Shams al-Dīn Tabrīzī (d. 645/1247). Rūmī's Mathnawi-yi maʿnawī is a didactic poem inspired by his favourite student Ḥusām al-Dīn Čelebi (d. 683/1284). Composed in six fascicles ( daftar ), it took several years to complete. The edition printed here is an enhanced version of the one by Nicholson, with Nicholson's introductory essays and notes translated into Persian. 4 vols; volume 4.
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Ākhirīn taṣḥīḥ-i Raynūld A. Nīkulsūn va muqābalah-ʼi mujaddad bā nuskhah-i Qūnīyah. :
1 online resource. :
9789004406346
9786002030825
Sharḥ al-arbaʿīn /
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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. 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. The literary, mystical and philosophical explanations in the present, unfinished collection are all written from the viewpoint of the author's own, 'transcendent' metaphysics.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402157
9789646781344
Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭi-yi Fārsī u ʿArabi-yi Kitābkhāna-yi Firdawsī, Kālij Wādhām (Wadham), Dānishgāh-i Āksfūrd (majmūʿa-yi Mīnāsiyān) /
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In the western world, oriental manuscript collections are now mostly kept at universities, institutes and in national or regional libraries. Yet many of these collections were jumpstarted with the acquisition or donation of some private collection. An example is the oriental collection at Leiden University Library, which started with a legacy of around 60 oriental manuscripts by J.J. Scaliger in 1609. In fact, private collectors have always enriched library collections until this very day. The shelf marks of the oriental manuscripts in almost every major collection in the western world bear testimony to this. Dr Caro Minasian (d. 1973) was an Iranian physician and a passionate collector of oriental manuscripts. In 1968 he sold the greater part of his collection to UCLA (1507 items). In 1972 he bequeathed the remainder (959 titles) to the Ferdowsi library of Wadham College, University of Oxford. This Persian catalogue contains the first detailed description of the entire Minasian collection.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406704
9786002031136
Āthār-i Fatḥallāh Khān-i Shaybānī. Volume 2 : Jild-i duvum Zubat al-āthār, Maqālāt-i Shaybānī, Fawākih al-siḥr /
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Fatḥallāh Khān Shaybānī (d. 1308/1891) was a major poet of the Qajar era who belonged to the so-called 'return' movement, which wanted to break free from the Sabk-i Hindī or 'Indian style' in poetry, that was popular in Iran since Safavid times. Shaybānī was born in a suburb of Kashan around 1241/1825. Having completed his education there and thanks to his father's connections, he became a companion of the future Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh Qājār (r. 1264-1313/1848-96). However, due to courtly intrigues he was soon expelled, an expulsion which would last a full 35 years before relations were restored. In that period he served in various official capacities, lastly as the governor of Mashhad. Between assigments, he lived in the countryside near Natanz for around 25 years. Shaybānī's work, here published in full, is characterized by an aversion of undue embellishments, his choice of subjects, his criticism of politics and society, and his concrete suggestions for change. 2 vols; volume 2.
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1 online resource. :
9789004406391
9786002030887
Sharḥ-i akhbār u abyāt u amthāl-i ʿArabi-yi Kalīla wa Dimna : Dū sharḥ az Faḍlallāh ʿUthmān b. Muḥammad al-Isfizārī wa muʾallifī nā shinākhta /
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Throughout history, Indian culture has had the interest of the Persians. At the time of the Sasanids (3rd-7th cent. CE) for instance, Sanskrit works on astronomy were translated into Pehlavi. Centuries later, in the early ʿAbbāsid period, a number of astronomers with a Persian background used information from these very same sources in writing their own books in Arabic. Besides scientific works, spiritual and ethical texts were also translated. An example is the famous collection of animal fables called Kalila and Dimna , which go back to the lost Sanskrit Pañcatantra . An equally lost Middle Persian translation of this work was rendered into Arabic several times, but the translation by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (d. ca. 139/757) proved most influential and formed the basis of the famous Persian translation by Naṣrallāh Munshī (6th/12th cent.). On this latter translation, two Persian commentaries from the 7th/13th century survive. A critical edition of both is offered in this volume.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402751
9789646781559
Jawāhir al-akhbār : Bakhsh-i tārīkh-i Īrān az Qarāqūyūnlū tā sāl-i 984 hijri-yi qamarī /
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In medieval Persia, the munshī or court secretary belonged to a highly professional, privileged class, enjoying a comfortable income and attractive living conditions. The better one's style of writing, elegant yet concise, and the more types of document one could draft, in each case using the appropriate format and terminology, combined with the right kind of political intelligence, the higher one would rise in munshī hierarchy. Despite his high social standing, a munshī could find himself without a job overnight if he fell victim to court intrigue or if there was a change in power. The author of the universal history contained in the present volume, Būdāq Munshī Qazwīnī (d. late 10th/16th cent.), who in his lifetime worked as a scribe, secretary, local administrator, assessor, controller, and vizier, lost his job several times precisely for these reasons. Written from personal experience, the history's part on the Safavids is of special interest.
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Series taken from jacket. :
1 online resource. :
9789004402133
9789646781351
Mirʾāt al-akwān : Taḥrīr-i Sharḥ-i Hidāya-yi Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī /
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Aḥmad Ḥusaynī Ardakānī's (d. 1242/1826-7) Mirʾāt al-akwān is a Persian adaptation of Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī's (d. 1050/1640) Sharḥ al-Hidāya , a commentary on Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī's (d. ca 663/1264) seminal philosophical summa the Hidāyat al-ḥikma . The Hidāya has been of tremendous influence in the Islamic world, producing a huge commentary tradition. Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī's commentary yielded its own series of glosses and commentaries, and in India it even became a foundational text in the madrasas. Ardakānī is mostly known as a translator of religious and philosophical works. He wrote the present adaptation at the request of Muḥammad Walī Mīrzā (d. 1285/1869), a son of Fatḥ ʿAlī Shāh Qājār (d. 1249/1834). The Mirʾāt al-akwān covers just the physics and the metaphysics, leaving out the logic after the example of Shīrāzī. The metaphysics part being lost, the editor added the section on metaphysics of Ardakānī's translation of Shīrāzī's al-Mabdaʾ wal-maʿād , published earlier by him.
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1 online resource. :
9789004395312
9789004395213
Majmū'a-yi āthār-i Ḥusām al-Dīn-i Khūʾī /
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In every age and culture, royal courts have always attracted a multitude of scholars, artists and other folk seeking patronage and protection. In the Islamic world, one of these courts was that of the emirs of the Saljuqs of Rūm in Kastamonu in northern Anatolia. In the year 680/1282, Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī (d. 709-1309), a student of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) who lived in Anatolia for years, dedicated his Ikhtiyārāt to the emir of Kastamonu, Muẓaffar al-Dīn Yavlaq Arslan (d. 691/1292). This same Muẓaffar also had a secretary in his service by the name of Ḥusām al-Dīn Khūʾī (alive in 709/1309-10), a refugee from Khūy near Tabriz in Iran. Ḥusām al-Dīn is the author of a number of works, six of which are published here for the very first time: four manuals on the art of the secretary, one Arabic-Persian glossary for use at the chancellery, and finally a collection of his poetry.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402256
9789646781481
Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭi-yi Fārsi-yi Pākistān (Fihrist-i 8000 nuskha-yi khaṭṭi-yi kitābkhānahā-yi shakhṣī va dawlatī). Volume 1 : ʿUlūm-i Qurʾānī etc. /
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This catalogue of Persian manuscripts in Pakistan was compiled by the well-known specialist of Islamic manuscripts ʿĀrif Nawshāhī (1955). It can be seen as a sequel to Aḥmad Munzawī's (d. 2015) 14-volume Fihrist-i mushtarak-i nuskhahā-yi khaṭṭi-yi Fārsi-yi Pākistān (1983-1997), besides Nawshāhī's own catalogues of the Persian manuscripts in the National Archives of Pakistan and the Punjab University Library in Lahore. The catalogue published here contains information on around 8000 manuscripts in 335 collections in Pakistan, mostly in non-government and private libraries, madrasas, and monasteries. In view of the threat of decay of manuscripts in private collections due to poor storage conditions and a declining interest in the Persian language, this catalogue is both a witness and a wake-up call. In this work, Nawshāhī relies on his own research, on notes by others, until then forgotten in the archives of the Iran-Pakistan Institute of Persian Studies in Islamabad, and also on different kinds of published sources. 4 vols; volume 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004408159
9786002031426
Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i Salghariyān-i Fārs /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī's (d. 718/1319) Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh has been described by many as the first world history ever. Composed in Persian for the Mongol Il-khans Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304) and Öljeitü (Uljāytu, r. 1304-16), its aim was to set out the history and condition of the Mongol people, conquerors of the world (part one), followed by a description of the other peoples and nations of the world and their histories (part two). Given its unprecedented scope, Rashīd, vizier to both rulers, mobilized a whole team of specialists, informants, and collaborators to assist him in his task. Making use of written and oral sources, the part on the Mongols is a key source on the emergence and organisation of the Mongol empire, while the second part constitutes the first attempt ever at writing a history of the world. The section published here describes the history of the Salgharids of Fārs.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404274
9786002030047
Tuḥfat al-azhār wa-zulāl al-anhār. Volume 3 : Fī nasab abnāʾ al-aʾimma al-aṭhār ʿalayhim ṣalawāt al-malik al-ghaffār /
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In traditional societies, ancestry is an important organising principle, often determining the lives of individuals or groups from the moment that they are born. In the Arab world, nasab (pl. ansāb ) or lineage was and to some extent still is, a major factor in the distribution of wordly and religious power, while administrative positions, trades, crafts and certain offices in the world of scholarship, too, often devolved along hereditary lines. Among the Shīʿa, where blood ties with the family of the Prophet through ʿAlī and his descendants are highly regarded and a source of authority and social standing, we find a number of ansāb works that focus exclusively on the genealogy of the twelve imams. Born into a Shīʿite family of ansāb scholars in 11th/17th-century Medina, the author of the present work travelled extensively in the Shīʿa world in his search for information. The result is a voluminous work, rich in material, genealogical and historic. 3 vols. & supplement al-Rawḍ al-miʿṭār fī tashjīr Tuḥfat al-azhār ; volume 3.
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Vol. numbering from spine. :
1 online resource. :
9789004402577
9789646781207
Ustādh-i bashar : Pizhūhishhāʾī dar zindagī, rūzgār, falsafah wa ʿilm-i Khwājah Naṣīr al-Dīn-i Ṭūsī (Wīzha nāmah Khājah Naṣīr al-Dīn-i 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 known for such treatises as his Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād on theology; his Zīj-i Īlkhānī on astronomy; his commentary on Avicenna's (428/1037) Kitāb al-ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt on philosophy and logic; his Āghāz wa anjām on Ismaili eschatology; his Awṣaf-al-ashrāf on mysticism; and his Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī on ethics. In Iran Ṭūsī stands in high regard and studies on him abound. The present collection of articles was compiled with the aim of bringing a number of major publications by foreign and Iranian scholars within easy reach of the Persian reader. All the branches of Ṭūsī studies are represented: his life, times, and works, as well as his views and achievements in philosophy, theology, mysticism, and science.
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"The Institute of Ismaili Studies"--Page 4 of cover. :
1 online resource. :
9789004406025
9786002030313
Dastūr al-kātib fī taʿyīn al-marātib. Volume 1 /
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From the time that the art of writing was invented, people have been sending letters. This is true of the Sumerians who wrote on clay tablets 5.000 years ago, as it is true today in the information age. But not every letter is the same: a letter to a lover, a friend, or a business relation, each requires a different tone. In the case of official correspondence, the need for a standard is even more pressing than in industry or trade. In the medieval Islamic world with its highly developed bureaucracies, there evolved a special type of textbook in the form of manuals for secretaries. These would include general information on the secreterial trade as well as collections of sample letters. This Persian manual by Shams Munshī was completed in 767/1366 and dedicated to Sultan Uways Jalāyirī of Tabriz (d. 776/1374). Wide in scope and well organized, it was superior to anything written before it. 2 vols; volume 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004407329
9786002031273
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
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