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Eschatology ( ʿilm al-maʿ ā d), religious teaching about the end of the created world and its return to the Creator. In Islam, the Qurʾān and ḥad ī th provide the outline of the stages and/or landmarks of this process, the most important of which are the grave ( al-qabr), the rising ( al-qiy ā ma), the gathering ( al-ḥashr), the questioning ( al-suʾ ā l), the path ( al-ṣir ā ṭ), the garden ( al-janna), the fire ( al-n ā r), and the ramparts ( al-aʿr ā f ). Both the resurrection and its landmarks are interpreted in multiple, sometimes incompatible, ways by different currents of Isla…

The structure of this article is as follows: 1. Life 2. Works A. Major Original Works i) En Islam iranien ii) Histoire de la philosophie islamique iii) L’Imagination créatrice dans le soufisme d’Ibn ‘Arabî iv) Corps spirituel et terre céleste: de l’Iran mazdéen à l’Iran shî‘ite v) L’Homme de lumière dans le soufisme iranien B. Editions and Translations i) Philosophical Texts ii) Sufi Texts iii) Ismaili and Twelver Imāmī Texts 3. Views and Method of Research A. Corbin as Philosopher i) Mundus imaginalis ii) Prophetic Philosophy and the Hermeneutics of the Book iii) The Image of the T…

al-Dawānī (also al-Dawwānī or Davānī) Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Asʿad Kāzarūnī Ṣiddīqī (ca. 830–908/ca. 1426 or 1427–1502), often referred to as ʿAllāma al-Dawānī or Muḥaqqiq (‘verifier’) al-Dawānī, an important intellectual figure of 9th/15th century Persia, one of the key representatives of the so-called School of Shīrāz. He was a philosopher, gnostic, theologician and logician, probably best known for his favourite concept of the ‘taste of divinisation/theosis’ ( dhawq al-ta ʾ alluh).Al-Dawānī was born in the village of Dawān (whence his nisba), near the town of…

al-Ghazālī’s Criticism of CausalityAbū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s approach to the problem is often described as ‘theistic occasionalism’ (Fakhry, 96). In Maqāla 17 of his refutation of Peripatetic (in particular, Avicennan) philosophy, the famous Tahāfut al-falāsifa, he attempted to question the existence of any causal nexus between two events or two things other than God by employing the so-called ‘custom’ ( ʿāda) theory. The theory, which partly goes back to Aristotle (Aristotle, Rhetorics, I.2.1370a, 8–9: cf. Wolfson, 548), may have been introduced into kalām by al-Ashʿarī, in or…

He was born to a wealthy clerical family in Burūjird (q.v.), his forebears being descended from the Ṭabāṭabāʾī sayyids of Iṣfahān, who trace their genealogy back to a famous Shiʿi adherent and martyr of the 3rd/9th century, Ismāʿīl al-Dībāj. One of the branches of this family appears to have settled in Burūjird in the 12th/18th century (see Burūjirdī, ʿUjāla, 128, 131). Burūjirdī’s forebears, who were generally religious scholars and marājiʿ, were related to the families of three eminent Shiʿi scholars, Muḥammad Taqī Majlisī (‘Majlisī the First’), Waḥīd Bihbahānī…

The Chahār-bāgh Madrasa is part of a large architectural ensemble, which also includes a caravanserai, stables, bazaar and mosque. Extensively restored in recent years, the caravanserai has been converted into a hotel. The bazaar which adjoins the northern side of the madrasa, the revenues from which were originally intended to support the activities of the madrasa, has also been altered and restored, and now functions as an arts and crafts bazaar (Jābirī Anṣārī, 300; Taḥwīldār, 26; Nīkzād, 34, 35).The Chahār-bāgh Madrasa is a two-storey brick and mortar structure built o…

The issue of categories has been the subject of some debate among Muslim philosophers regarding such matters as whether Aristotle himself authored the book, what precisely the categories are, the exact number of categories, and whether the Categories should be classified as a work of logic ( manṭiq) or metaphysics, or indeed as a bridge between the two disciplines.Logic and MetaphysicsAristotle’s Categories represents an attempt to systematically address the basic philosophical issues from a new perspective. As such, it provoked a discussion that lasted t…

AdditionsThe additions of the Ṣafawid EraDuring the Ṣafawid era, the congregational mosque of Burūjird was significantly expanded and its appearance completely changed. An īwān was added to the domed chamber or the central prayer hall, and the eastern and western prayer halls were connected to the main building. These prayer halls, with their generous arches, are in the architectural style of the Ṣafawid period (see Pope, ‘Report’, plate 302 B). These elegant additions created a fine harmony between the arches of the eastern and western prayer halls and the īwān itself (Siroux, 243,…

In the course of his translation, under different pretexts, from time to time al-Bundārī refers to his personal circumstances. For example, a remark he makes in the story of Qubād (see al-Bundārī, al-Shāhnāmah, 1/97) leads to the conclusion that he was brought up in Iṣfahān. It is not clear, however, how al-Ziriklī (5/134) and Jalīlī (p. 18) establish the year of his birth as 586/1190. We do not have any information about al-Bundārī’s life before his arrival in Syria in 620/1223, when, according to his own testimony, he was re…

Derivation of the Word ‘Iqlīm’The ancient Greeks used the word to refer to an area of land whose parts were all ‘inclined’ at the same angle in relation to the rays of the sun—in modern terms, to an area belonging to the same latitude. Such a definition relies on the notion that the earth is spherical (Lamb, 714).Although many Muslim geographers and lexicographers believed the word iqlīm to be an Arabicised form of the Greek word, and defined it accordingly, Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 322/934) in his book al-Zīna fī al-kalimāt al-Islāmiyya al-ʿArabiyya (p. 145) treated it as an Arabic word …

Little is known about al-Chaghmīnī’s life, and there are conflicting reports about the year of his death: Brockelmann gives it as 618/1221 (SI/865). A marginal note on a manuscript of al-Chaghmīnī’s Qānūncha held by the Forschungsbibliothek Gotha (Pertsch, 3/468), stating that he died in 745/1344, led Suter to maintain that he was a contemporary of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) or lived just after him (Suter, ‘Zur Frage’, 539–540; Iskandar, 56). Al-Baghdādī states that al-Chaghmīnī’s al-Mulakhkhaṣ fī al-hayʾa was completed in 808/1405 (al-Baghdādī, 410).There are, however…

al-Baghdādī, ʿAbd al-Qādir b. ʿUmar b. Bāyazīd b. Aḥmad (1030–1093/1621–1682), a man of letters ( adīb) and lexicologist. He was born in Baghdad and began his studies in his native city. In addition to his native Arabic, he also learnt Persian and Turkish, and when he left Baghdad he was proficient in all three languages (see al-Muḥibbī, 2/451–452; 454; al-Baghdādī, introd., 4). ʿAbd al-Qādir’s knowledge of Persian far exceeded the requirements of the madrasa curriculum, as he is known to have compiled a dictionary of Firdawsī’s Shāhnāmah and was quite familiar with works like the Akhbār-…

Saʿdī gathered material for the Būstān during his travels (see Kulliyyāt, 1977 ed., 205), some parts of the book being written before his return to Shīrāz. The work was completed in 655/1257, ‘on a blessed day between two feasts’ ( Kulliyyāt, 1977 ed., 205); apparently, a reference to the ʿĪd al-Fiṭr and ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā (Saʿdī, Būstān, ed. Yūsufī, annotation, 219). Saʿdī dedicated the work to the Salghurid atābak of Fārs, Abū Bakr b. Saʿd b. Zangī (r. 623–658/1226–1260).The Būstān is written in the mutaqārib (amphibrachic) metre, the same metre in which Firdawsī’s Shāhnāmah was composed. G…

In order to explain the meaning of the expression, first one must establish the meaning of the word daḥw. An analysis of the different usages of words derived from the root d-ḥ-w during the first centuries after the advent of Islam shows that it had several meanings: 1) to fix or fasten: although the lexicologists do not list this meaning, several examples clearly demonstrate its currency (see e.g. Naṣr b. Muzāḥim, 549; also al-Ṭabarī, Ta⁠ʾrīkh, 1/38, where the expression irsāʾ al-jibāl, lit. ‘anchoring the mountains’, is interpreted as being synonymous with daḥw al-arḍ); 2) to throw […

Barsiyān, the mosque of ( masjid-i Barsiyān), is an outstanding architectural monument of the Saljūq era and an illustration of the transformation of mosque architecture in Iran at that period. The mosque is situated in the central part of Iṣfahān district, forty-five km south-east of the city of Iṣfahān and on the north bank of the Zāyandah-rūd.In mediaeval geographical works, Barsiyān is described as one of the largest villages of the Barāʾān subdistrict. During the Ṣafawid era, owing to its now disappeared lushness and the fertility of the plain s…

Burūjird DistrictThe district consists of two parts, Markazī and Ushturīnān, seven sub-districts, and 172 inhabited locations, including two towns, Burūjird and Ushturīnān (Ministry of the Interior, 54; Statistical Centre of Iran, پانزده).According to the census of 1385 Sh./2006, there were 323,826 inhabitants in the district (Statistical Centre of Iran, 49). The district covers 2,641 square kilometres of mostly mountainous terrain (Ministry of Education, 2/1094), bordering the district of Malāyir and Nahāwand in the province…

As regards the etymological root of the word in Semitic languages, the rarely used biblical Hebrew verb dahar designates the speedy movement of a horse and rider (Brown, 187; see also Muss-Arnolt, 1/243). The Arabic dictionaries refer to the use of the root d-h-r in the same context, giving definitions such as ‘falling down’ or ‘being thrown down’ (from a horse), as well as ‘attacking’ (Ibn Manẓūr, 1/1023–1025). Some early Arab lexicographers remark that the meaning of bad fortune in the root d-h-r is derived from the principal meaning of falling. The apparent negative connot…

The first set piece battle between the Ottoman and the Ṣafawid rulers, the battle of Chāldirān was, on the one hand, the result of both immediate causes and more general conditions, and on the other, it marked the beginning of a change in attitude on the part of the newly formed Ṣafawid state towards its Western neighbour.The confrontation which took place at Chāldirān arose out of the confrontation between the Ottoman empire which was expanding eastwards into Eastern Anatolia and the newly established Ṣafawid state in Persia which drew its support a…

Bakrān, Muḥammad b. Najīb, a geographer and the author of the Jahān-nāmah (‘World Book’). Information on his life is limited to conclusions that can be inferred from his book, in which only one date is mentioned: 605/1209 (see Bakrān, ed. Borshchevskiĭ, fol. 2b, introd., 10). From the text, it would seem that the work was completed in this year during the rule of Khʷārazm-Shāh ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Tekish (or Takash, r. 596–617/1200–1220), to whom it was dedicated, as the phrase ‘if it be seen by the compassionate and providential eye of the king (may Go…

Banū Mūsā, the name applied to three brothers, Muḥammad, Aḥmad and al-Ḥasan, the sons of Mūsā b. Shākir al-Khurāsānī, sometimes also referred to as the Banū Shākir. They are important because of their foundational work in mathematical sciences, the role they played in the Graeco-Arabic translation movement, and, more generally, in the political, cultural and scientific life of the first half of the 3rd/middle of the 9th century in the ʿAbbāsid empire.BiographyThe dates of birth for the brothers are not known. The year of the death of Muḥammad, the eldest of the thr…