Bābā Afḍal Kāshānī, Afḍal al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ḥasan Maraqī Kāshānī, was a Persian philosopher, gnostic (ʿārif) and poet who lived in the second half of the 6th/12th and the first half of the 7th/13th century. While he is particularly renowned in Iran, his philosophical works and poetry being written in Persian, there is a dearth of information about his life.

The first mention of his name seems to be in the works of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274), who writes that he studied under one of Bābā Afḍal’s students, the mathem…