Sadr-al-Din Moḥammad Shirazi, better known as Molla Sadra, was born in Shiraz in Iran in 1571 AD and is easily one of the most significant Islamic philosophers after Avicenna. We know very little about his early life. He was a sole child of a courtly family from Shiraz and moved first to Qazvin in 1591 AD and then to Isfahan in 1597, capitals of the Safavid dynasty to pursue his studies with two pre-eminent teachers of his time, Mir Damad and Shaikh Bahai. Molla Sadra is often described as a metaphysics revolutionary because of his unique approach to the doctrine of existence. He combined the philosophies of Avicenna and the School of Illumination of Suhrewardi with the gnostic metaphysics of the Andalusian Sufi, Ibn Arabi. He said that though existence is a singular reality, there is a vertical and horizontal hierarchy that we all are a part of; that all individuals in existence undergo motion and flux and at every instance we, and all existence, are renewed in time with the goal of achieving perfection. To Molla Sadra, philosophy was a way of life in which reflection, reading and learning were complemented by gnostic spiritual practices and exercises. He said that one cannot become a sage purely based on his own intellectual efforts, nor can one truly understand the nature of reality as an illiterate ascetic reliant solely on mystical intuition. As with most gnostics and philosophers, Mulla Sadra’s innovative thoughts were opposed by Islamic orthodoxy and he was ultimately driven away from Isfahan. A key figure of a group of thinkers which scholars such as Corbin have referred to as “School of Isfahan,” he played a major role in intellectual life during the revitalization of philosophy and later on became the most important teacher at the Khan School in his hometown of Shiraz. His main works include The Transcendent Theosophy in the Four Journeys of the Intellect, or simply Four Journeys. --------------------------------------------- Sources:
Sibuyeh who was born in 760 AD in the Fars Province of Iran, and died in Shiraz in Iran in 796/797 was an influential linguist and grammarian of the Arabic language. Sibuyeh was a nickname given to him by his mother, meaning “The scent of apples.” Though not Arab, he was the first to write on Arabic grammar and the first to explain it from a non-Arabic perspective. He traveled to Basra and studied extensively with famous scholars and grammarians, writing his famous scholarly work “al-Kitab.” Al-Kitab was the first book ever written on Arabic grammar and it seems to have been the first published book in Arabic in the form of prose rather than poetry, setting the standard for explaining Arabic grammatical structure. Sibuyeh would travel through towns and villages, sitting with locals and recording their poetry and oral history in an attempt to gather evidence for each argument made in his book. Though he died at the young age of 34, his book, al-Kitab, became one of the greatest books on Arabic grammar to have ever been written in history, so much in fact that it was called “The Quran of Grammar.” Since Sibuyeh’s death, subsequent scholars of Arabic grammar have often been compared to him. -----------------------------------------
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Mir Damad was an Iranian Gnostic philosopher and poet of the 17th century. He is the founder of the School of Isfahan and is known for his remarkable synthesis of Avicenna’s peripatetic philosophy and Suhrewardi’s Philosophy of Illumination, and for his efforts to integrate Shiism and Sufism. Born in Astarabad in Iran, he studied in the city of Mashhad, and one of his students became the renowned Sadr al-Din Shirazi, better known as Mulla Sadra, who himself was a great philosopher. Mir Damad is known as the chief architect of the Masjid Shah (Shah Mosque) in Isfahan, Iran, for which he employed highly advanced mathematical calculations. The mosque is considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its construction began in 1611 when Shah Abbas of the Safavid dynasty decided to move Iran’s capital to Isfahan, initiating a remake of this ancient city. The mosque had a four-iwan format, an architectural style that had been established when Iranian Sufi mysticism had been on the rise. The Iranians already had a rich architectural legacy and the distinct shape of the iwan was taken from earlier, pre-Islamic palace designs, such as the Palace of Ardeshir. When creating the dome, the Safavid borrowed heavily from pre-Islamic knowledge of dome building. Therefore, in Iran, Islamic architecture began to differ in style from earlier mosques such as the Umayyad Mosque. The four-iwan format took the form of a square-shaped, central courtyard with large entrances on each side, giving the impression of a gateway to the spiritual world. The blue-colored and turquoise domes of mosques began to dominate Iran’s skyline, guiding travelers from miles away to its ancient cities. ----------------------------------------------------
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Abul-Hassan Kharaqani was one of the greatest Sufi masters. He was born in 963 AD, in a village called Kharaqan, in Iran. He was a follower of the teachings of the famous Sufi Master, Bayazid Bastami. Attar, one of the most famous Iranian Sufi poets, devoted a large part of his book in “Biography of the Saints” to stories about Kharaqani. Attar referred to him as The King of Kings, Ocean of Spiritual Knowledge, Focus of Attention and Sun of the Lord. It has been said that Avicenna, Shah Mahmood of Ghazna, Naser Khosrow and Abul-Khair visited him in Kharaqan to express their deep feelings of respect and admiration toward him. His teachings influenced many renowned Sufis such as Rumi, Attar, Khajeh Abdullah Ansari and Jami. Kharaqani refused all titles and aspirations, respected all faiths and religions, and put the needs of others and service to fellow human beings before anything else. Once Sultan Mahmud sent a message to Kharaqani saying, “Quran tells us to obey God, follow his prophet and heed your ruler’s order.” Kharaqani told the messenger to tell the Sultan, “Abul-Hassan is so profoundly in love with God, that he is embarrassed for his negligence of the prophet, let alone heeding the orders of rulers.” He also used to say, “I am not a rahib (hermit). I am not a zahid (ascetic). I am not a speaker. I am not a Sufi. O God, You are One, and I am one in Your Oneness.” The book Noorul-Uloom (The Light of Science), which is believed to have been written by Kharaqani’s disciples, is dedicated to him. Only a single manuscript copy remains which is held in the British Museum. -------------------------------------------
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Abu Saeed Sijazi or Sijzi (945-1020 AD) was an astronomer, mathematician and astrologer. His last name indicates that he was a native of Sijistan, what is now called Sistan, a border region of today’s eastern Iran and southwestern Afghanistan. Sijzi wrote at least 45 geometrical and 14 astronomical treaties. He dedicated much of his work to the prince of Balkh, and Fanna Khosrow, the emir of the Buyid dynasty, who seems to have been his patron. He worked for years in the city of Shiraz in Iran making astronomical observations. He combined data from pre-Islamic material, specifically from the Iranian Sassanid dynasty era, and from the Islamic era including Harun al-Rashid’s for a book on general astrology and its history. He is best known for his correspondence with well-known scientist and philosopher, Biruni, and for proposing in the 10th century that the Earth rotates around its axis. Biruni writes about Sijzi that, “I have seen the astrolabe called Zuraqi invented by Abu Saeed Sijzi. I liked it very much and praised him a great deal, as it is based on the idea entertained by some to the effect that the motion we see is due to the Earth's movement and not to that of the sky. By my life, it is a problem difficult of solution and refutation. [...] For it is the same whether you take it that the Earth is in motion or the sky. For, in both cases, it does not affect the Astronomical Science. It is just for the physicist to see if it is possible to refute it.” -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Muhammad ibn Musa Khwarizmi was an Iranian mathematician, astronomer, astrologer and geographer. We don’t know much about his early life, though it has been said that he was born in 780 A.D. in Khorasan, right on the legendary ancient Silk Road between China and Rome. Al-Mamun—the son of the legendary Harun al-Rashid, who was made famous in the story of the Arabian Nights—created the House of Wisdom in Baghdad as a scientific research academy. It had a large and rich library and distinguished scholars of all faiths were invited to work there. Khwarizmi is one of the greatest scientific minds of the medieval period and the most important Muslim mathematician. He is called the “Father of Algebra.” Though the ancient Greek philosopher, Diophantus, is sometimes also called the “Father of Algebra,” scholars believe that the title more appropriately belongs to Khwarizmi. His work translated into Latin in the 12th century is largely concerned with methods of solving practical computational problems. It is a compilation of rules and demonstrations for finding solutions of linear and quadratic equations based on geometric arguments. Its systematic demonstrative approach distinguishes it from earlier works. Elements within the work can be traced from Babylonian mathematics of 2nd BCE through Hellenistic, Hebrew and Hindu treatises. Khwarizmi introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals to the world and compiled a set of astronomical tables based on Hindu and Greek sources. An Andalusian revision of this work was also translated into Latin. For 700 years after his death European mathematicians cited him in their works, referring to him with his Latinized name “Algorismi.” The modern word for algorithm, which is a complex mathematical formula is derived from his Latinized name and he has sometimes been called the grandfather of computer science. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Abu Saeed Abul-Khayr (967-1049) was an Iranian born in what is modern day Turkmenistan and is one of the earliest Sufi poets. He received his formal education in Islamic scholarship and Arabic literature but at the age of 23 left them for Sufism. In his poetry, he emphasized the liberation from the “I”, which he believed was the cause of human misfortune and separation from the Divine. To enter the realm of the Beloved, you required not only personal effort but divine grace and the guidance of a Sufi master. Though virtually unknown in the West, Abul-Khayr is ranked amongst Farsi speakers above the three well-known Sufi master—Sanai, Attar and Rumi. His fame spread throughout the Islamic world and to Spain. Attar even referred to him as his spiritual teacher. Abul-Khayr was a contemporary of the great philosopher and physician, Avicenna. A legend has it that upon meeting for the first time, Avicenna and Abul-Khayr meditated for three days in seclusion, exchanging mystical and philosophical ideas. After the meditation, Avicenna was asked what he thought of Abul-Khayr. Avicenna replied: “What I know, he can already see!” Abul-Khayr was asked what he thought of Avicenna and he replied: “Whatever I can see, he already knows!” Abu-Khayr spoke forcefully against extremists and religious people who forced their personal interpretation on others. Here is a section of his poem which expresses that viewpoint and is beautifully translated by author, Vraje Abramian. “Suppose you can recite a thousand holy verses from memory. What are you going to do with your ego self, the true mark of the heretic? Every time your head touches the ground in prayers, remember, this was to teach you to put down that load of ego which bars you from entering the chamber of the Beloved.” ----------------------------
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Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi is one of the greatest names in medieval medicine. He was born in the city of Ray in Iran in 865 AD. When he was young, he was interested in music but then turned his focus on to medicine, astronomy, mathematics, chemistry and philosophy. Soon, he was known as an expert in medicine, and students from distant parts of Asia came to him for treatment. Razi was a prolific author, who left more than 200 scientific contributions to his credit, most of which dealt with medicine and alchemy. A few of his works in medicine gained global fame and have been published in various languages. He wrote treatises on various conditions including colic, kidney and bladder stones and diabetes. A treatise he wrote on smallpox and measles was translated into Latin in the 18th century and became incredibly influential during a time when there was much interest in vaccination. His Comprehensive Book on Medicine, the Hawi, was translated in 1279 into Latin under the title Continens. In Europe, he was known by his Latinized name, Rhazes. About 40 of his books are in the museums of Paris, Britain, Rampur and Bankpur and Iran. Razi’s contribution greatly influenced the development of science, particularly medicine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Nasir al-Din Tusi was one of the most celebrated scholars of the 13th century. He was born in the city of Tus, in medieval Khorasan, in northeastern Iran, and died in Baghdad in 1274. He wrote about 165 titles on astronomy, ethics, history, jurisprudence, logic, mathematics, philosophy, poetry and science. Though primarily a reviver of the Peripatetic philosophical tradition of Avicenna and Farabi, he was also influenced by the ideas of Suhrewardi. He defended Avicenna from the criticisms levelled against him after his death from the direction of theology. He also met Attar of Nishapur and composed his own manual of philosophical Sufism. Between Ptolemy and Copernicus, Tusi is considered one of the most eminent astronomers of his time. He convinced Hulegu Khan, the Mongol leader, to construct an observatory in Maragheh, near Tabriz in Iran, establishing accurate astronomical tables for better astrological predictions. He made accurate tables of planetary movements, calculating the positions of planets. His famous student Sham ad-Din Bukhari was the teacher of Byzantine scholar Gregory Chioniadas, who in turn trained astronomer Manual Bryennios in Constantinople in the 1300s. In mathematics, Tusi published a sophisticated "proof" of Euclid's parallels postulate that was important for the development of non-Euclidean geometry, and he treated trigonometry as a discipline independent of astronomy, which was in many ways similar to what was accomplished later in Europe by Johannes Müller (Regiomontanus). Tusi’s major scientific writings in astronomy, including Al-Tadhkira fī ‘ilm al-hay'a, in which he reformed Ptolemaic astronomy, had an enormous influence upon late medieval Islamic astronomy as well as the work of early-modern European astronomers, including Copernicus. Today, a 60-km diameter lunar crater and planet 10269 are named after him. In Feb 2013, Google celebrated his 812th birthday with a doodle, which was accessible in its websites with Arabic language calling him al-Farsi. [Attar (1145 – 1221 AD) was a Sufi, poet and theoretician of mysticism, who had a lasting influence on Iranian poetry and Sufism. Reliable information on Attar’s life is scarce but most sources agree that he was from Nishapur, a major city of medieval Khorasan, located now in northeast Iran and that he died a violent death in the massacre which Mongols inflicted on Nishapur in 1221 AD. [1] Attar started his career as a pharmacist and his patients used to confide their troubles with him, which affected him deeply. Finally, he abandoned his pharmacy practice and traveled throughout the Middle East, getting initiated into Sufism.
With the attack of the Mongols, the invading armies burned many books, including Attar’s. However, his major masterpiece, “The Conference of the Birds,” survived, within which he shares his famous Seven Valleys of Love or the mystic path to enlightenment. His seven valleys are: The valleys of Quest, Love, Understanding, Detachment, Unity, Bewilderment, and Death. As we journey into our own souls toward self-knowledge, he said, we also journey through the heavens because at the center of our soul lies the divine itself. Attar’s works reflect the evolution in Sufi mystic thought—the idea that the body-bound soul awaits release and return to its source in the other world, which can be experienced during the present life in mystic union attainable through inward purification. The great Sufi poet, Rumi, once said about Attar that, “Attar has traversed the seven cities of Love; We are still at the turn of one street.” [2] “The Conference of the Birds” is the story of the quest for enlightenment. It is portrayed through a beautiful tale of a flock of birds and their leader, a hoopoe, the wisest of them all, who search for the legendary bird, the Simorgh. The hoopoe leads the birds, each of whom represent a human fault which prevents human kind from attaining enlightenment. After passing through the seven valleys, only 30 birds remain. [3] In the last valley they reach a mirror within which they see their own reflection. At that point the birds learn that they themselves are the Simorgh; the name Simorgh in Farsi means thirty (si) birds (morgh). And so they come to "understand that the majesty of the Beloved is like the sun that is reflected in a mirror and whoever looks into that mirror will also behold her own image." [4] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sources: [1] Attar Farid-al-Din. Encyclopedia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/attar-farid-al-din-poet [2] "Attar of Nishapur." From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. CC BY SA. [3] "The Conference of the Birds." From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. CC BY SA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conference_of_the_Birds [4] Quoted from The Conference of the Birds by Attar, p 17-18, edited and translated by Sholeh Wolpe, W. W. Norton & Co 2017. |
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