Between Reason and Revelation: Twin Wisdoms Reconciled

by Nasir-i Khusraw, Eric Ormsby (Translator)

This is the first English translation of the final philosophical work of the great eleventh-century Ismaili thinker, poet, and Fatimid emissary, N?sir-i Khusraw. Appointed from Cairo by command of the Fatimid Imam-caliph al-Mustansir to serve first as a d?'?, and then as the hujjat, for the entire region of Khur?s?n, he maintained his allegiance both to his mission and his Imam-caliph for the rest of his life, even when threatened and driven into exile. Writtenduring his exile in Badakhsh?n in the year 1070, N?sir-i Khusraw here develops a powerful presentation of both Aristotelian philosophy and Ismaili exegesis, or ta'w?l, and strives to show that they are ultimately in harmony. The work is presented as a learned commentary on a long philosophical poem, written in the previous century and sent to N?sir by the am?r of Badakhsh?n, 'Al? b. al-Asad, who copied the poem out in his own hand from memory and asked the poet-philosopher to explicate it. In doing so, N?sir ranges over a huge span of topics from logic and language to the nature of the physical world, from the spheres of the highest heavens to the plants and animals of the earthly realm, and, most importantly, hidden spiritual realities: the esoteric (b?tin) as well as the exoteric (z?hir) realms. He thus discusses the nature of God, the creation of human beings, and the mysteries concealed in the physical world, itself a reflection of a higher, transcendent realm.Between Reason and Revelation: Twin Wisdoms Reconciled is an annotated translation of the Persian text prepared by Henry Corbin and Mohammed Mu'?n based on the single surviving manuscript of the work, now in the Suleymaniye Mosque Library in Istanbul. It is a work of great philosophical and spiritual insight, which is also a pioneering attempt to tackle difficultintellectual problems in the Persian language; it is at once lucid and lyrical, precise and speculative. N?sirs influence has been immense as both a poet and a thinker, and the Kit?b-i J?mi' al-hikmatayn is his crowning work.

Genres: Islam, Religion, Philosophy

304 pages, ebook

First published May 8, 2012

About the author

Nasir Khusraw was born in 1004 CE, in Qubadiyan, then Greater Khorasan (near the present-day city of Balkh in Afghanistan). He was well versed in all the branches of natural science, in medicine, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, in Greek philosophy and the writings of al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina; and the interpretation of the Qur'an. He had studied Arabic, Turkish, Greek, the vernacular languages of India and Sind, and perhaps even Hebrew; he had visited Multan and Lahore, and the splendid Ghaznavid court under Sultan Mahmud, Firdousi's patron. Later on he chose Merv for his residence, and was the owner of a house and garden there.

Until A.H. 437 (1046 CE), he worked as financial secretary and revenue collector for the Seljuk sultan Toghrul Beg, or rather of his brother Jaghir Beg, the emir of Khorasan, who had conquered Merv in 1037. About this time, inspired by a heavenly voice in a dream, he abjured all the luxuries of life, and resolved upon a pilgrimage to the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina, hoping to find there the solution to his spiritual crisis.

read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasir_Kh...
in Persian: ناصر خسرو

Reviews

[Petra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moments of striking brilliance punctuated by endless fields of useless chaff. Khusraw has some truly great theological insights, including propounding the radical and thoroughgoing apophaticism that the Ismailis have become known for.

The best chapter in the work is, by far, "On the Proof of the Creator’s Existence with a Discussion of His Oneness, in Several Discourses."

This is a very long chapter, and is both an overview of various schools' positions on the nature of the divine, and a reductio ad absurdum of many of those takes.

Khusraw absolutely shreds literalists and anthropomrophists through grounding his theology in a Contingency Argument with a robust conception of divine simplicity. Unlike most he really thinks through the implications of divine simplicity.

And then there are the vast wastelands of utterly obsolete Aristotelian reasoning: the stars must be pure souls because they're so radiant, the sun revolves around the earth. Or, my personal favourite example, magnetism:

> a sticky (lazij) vapour (bukhār) which attracts only iron; this vapour is quite different from iron by its very nature, even though it clings to it; just so the moisture in the air stands opposed to cotton and paper and yet sticks to them both. When the vapour from the magnetic stone reaches the iron, it attaches to it. But since it stands in opposition to it, as soon as it reaches it, it turns about and retreats, dragging the iron with it. The proof that this is correct is that whenever bits of iron – what are called filings – come close to that stone, those bits of filings race towards it; the vapour is diffused until it gathers together the scattered filings. But if that stone is rubbed with crushed garlic it does not attract iron at all. Garlic is an obstructive substance; when one rubs it on something, it becomes a kind of skin or covering which holds the vapour back; just so, fishermen in winter rub crushed garlic on their heads and hands up to the forearms so that their pores are sealed and the vapour cannot escape; since the vapour stays confined (paykhasteh), it grows warm and the fishermen can withstand the cold water. Since that stone when rubbed with crushed garlic no longer attracts iron we know that the vapour, which was coming from the stone until now, when the holes were blocked by the garlic, has in fact been obstructed by the garlic and no longer attracts iron.