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Ḥabīballāh Bāghnawī (d. 995/1587), known as Mīrzā Jān, was an Ashʿarī theologian, logician, and mathematician from Bāghnaw, a district of Shiraz, in Iran. Born in about 930/1524, he studied in his hometown with Naṣr al-Bayān al-Kāzirūnī (fl. 950/1543) and with Jamāl al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Shīrāzī (d. 962/1555), who was a student of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī (d. 908/1502–3). Bāghnawī regarded himself as a student of al-Dawānī, through the intermediation of Jamāl al-Dīn Maḥmūd, and, in his writings, he referred to al-Dawānī as his master (ustādh). After completing his education, Bāghnaw…

Quṭb al-Dīn ʿ Abd al-Qādir b. Ḥamza b. Yāqūt al-Aharī (d. 657/1259–60), was a Ṣūfī and a philosopher from Ahar in Azerbaijan by whom a philosophical work titled al-Bulgha fī l-ḥikma is extant. The only known independent bio-bibliographical source on him is the Majmaʿ al-ādāb fī muʿjam al-alqāb by Ibn al-Fuwaṭī (d. 723/1318) (ed. Muḥammad al-Kāẓim (Tehran 1416/1995–96), 3:399–400 no. 2841). Ibn al-Fuwaṭī relates that al-Aharī left his home town in his youth and travelled to different regions in Khurāsān and Fārs. While he was in Herat he stud…

ʿAlī Qulī Jadīd al-Islām was an eleventh/seventeenth-century Christian convert to Islam who wrote several polemical works against Christianity and Judaism. His historical identity is not altogether clear. In his own writings he claims to have been a highly respected priest who had discovered the truth of Islam after a great deal of research and investigation, whereas independent historical evidence suggests that he was in fact an Augustinian Portuguese prior by the name of Antonio who converted to Islam in Isfahan in 1108/1696. ʿAlī Qulī wrote the following works in the field…