‘AZIZ-INASAFI AND THE ESSENCE-EXISTENCE DEBATE

Ibn Sina’s famous distinction between essence and existence was probably one of the most crucial events in the history of medieval philosophy both Christian and Islamic. As is well-known, various interpretations and criticisms of this distinction, particularly those offered by Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and his Eastern contemporary, Suhrawardi, strongly influenced the further developement of philosophy both in the Christian West and the Islamic East.

It is probably no longer necessary in our day to insist on the fact that the Islamic philosophical tradition, far from having received a deadly blow from the attacks of al-Ghazall as an earlier generation of scholars had taken for granted, has on the contraray not only survived, mainly thanks to Suhrawardi, but experienced a rich and culturally significant development of its own, particularly in Iran and the Shi‘ite world. The seminal works of Henry Corbin sufficiently demonstrate this fact, as do those of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Fazlur Rahman and Toshihiko Izutsu ; and a surprisingly great number of more recent studies, theses and dissertations on Suhrawardi, Mulla Sadra and other important thinkers of the later periods prove that their efforts were not in vain.

One of the major concerns of Professor Izutsu’s analysis of Islamic philosophy was to suggest that it belongs essentially to a type of “Eastern” philosophy which is ultimately based on a mystical perception of existence rather than on the distinction of essences. For Suhrawardi’s ishraqi or “oriental” philosophy, this would seem to imply that the traditional view which labels it as “essentialist” rather than “existentialist” in nature can be questioned. Of course, Izutsu himself readily admits that Suhrawardi’s sharp criticism of the distionction in concreto between essence and existence he mistakenly attributes to Ibn Slna has actually forced him into the “essentialist” position for which he was later criticised by MuHa Sadra. Yet as a mystic, Suhrawardi in fact prepared the ground precisely for Mulla Sadra’s “existentialist revolution”. Indeed, as Professor Izutsu argues, his dynamic reality of “Light” is hardly anything but Mulla Sadra’s

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“analogically graded existence”.1 In this respect, it may also be worth noting that even in his so-called Peripatetic works, Suhrawardi himself occasionally uses the term “existence” (wujud) not in the sense of a secondary intelligible, but exactly in the same way in which he speaks as an ishraqi about the Reality of “Light”.2

The present paper is not concerned directly with either Suhrawardi or Mulla Sadra but aims to make a similar argument for another creative thinker who lived during the 13 th century in Transoxiana and Iran, and who has recently been singled out as a typical representative of the “Philosophy of Essence”,3 namely, ‘Aziz-i Nasafl. Nasafi, who wrote exclusively in Persian, and in a very simple style at that, is of course much less well-known among students of Islamic philosophy than either Suhrawardi or Mulla Sadra. Students of Islamic mysticism, on the other hand, tend to regard him simply as a popularizer of Ibn ‘Arabl’s “monism” - a perception which needs qualification, as I have tried to show elsewhere,4 not only because Ibn ‘Arabl’s supposed “monism” is itself debatable, but also because Nasafl himself was actually the first to systematically distinguish between various kinds of “monism”, none of which is exactly consistent with Ibn ‘Arabl’s doctrine. Although Nasafl placed his own knowledge humbly under the “shadow” of his Sufi master Sa‘duddln-i Hamuya, who was indeed an acquaintance of Ibn ‘ArabI and Sadruddln-i Qunyawl, he was in fact an independent thinker and a scholar familiar with various intellectual traditions including medicine and philosophy. Moreover, it is certainly worth mentioning that Nasafi shows outspoken sympathies for only marginally Islamic and even frankly non-Islamic doctrines, such as certain Indian forms of “monism”, although he never leaves the magic circle of the catholicity of his own Islamic-Iranian consciousness. Not unlike the Ikhwan al-Safa or Ghazall in the Mishkat al-Anwdr, he may also be seen as a kind of phenomenologist of religious and philosophical doctrines, as he attempts in several of his works to give a systematic description of all conceivable

1.T. Izutsu, “The Fundamental Structure of Sabzawari’s Metaphysics”, in: M. Mohaghegh and T. Izutsu, eds., Sharh-i Ghurar al-Fara’id or Sharh-i Manzumah. Tehran, Wisdom of Persia Series I, 1969, 6 f. and passim. Reprinted in: The Concept and Reality o f Existence, Tokyo, 1971.

2. E. g., Talwihat in Suhrawardi, Opera Metaphysica et Mystica ed. Henricus Corbin, I, Bibliotheca Islamica 16a, Istanbul 1945, 116.

3. Parviz Morewedge, Essays in Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Mysticism, Departement of Philosophy, SUNY at Oneonta, 1995* 92-98.

4. “Le paradoxe de la ‘face de dieu’: ‘Aziz-e Nasafi (VIITXIII6 siecle) et le ‘monismeesoterique’ de ITslam”, in: Studia Iranica 25, 2 (1996) 163-192. References not suppliedhere may be found in this article. [Here : pp. 127-154].

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world-views, and to classify them according to their essential characteristics. Thus, in his as yet unpublished Kitdb-i Tamil,5 he presents the world-views of six anonymous “migrators” (salik) ranging from extreme creationism to extreme monism. Each of these says Nasafi, represents one among the “stations” of the awliya’, but none of them possesses the full truth by himself. In a somewhat similar way, he discusses in his major work, the Kashf ul-Haqayiq,6 the views of three different groups: the ahl-i sharl'at (or those adhering to the traditional body of religious Islamic knowledge), the ahl-i hikmat (or the Philosophers) and the ahl-i wahdat (or the “monists”), each of these three groups being themselves sub-divided in two. The first group consists of the Sunnis and the ShiTs, the second is divided into the traditional (i.e., Avicennian) philosophers and the dissident ones, termed ahl- i tanasukh or “transmigrationists”, whereas the two sub-groups belonging to the third group seem to correspond to two kinds of Sufis - probably the same two kinds which are sharply distinguished from each other by a much later writer studied by Professor Izutsu7 as the “ignorant” ones and the “great” ones among those Sufis who believe in “oneness of both existence and existents”. Nasafi calls them the “People of Fire” (ashab-i nar) and the “People of Light” (ashab-i nur), respectively. Both these kinds of “monists” recognize “existence” (wujud) itself as the only Reality; but the “People of Fire” are, in fact, rather a sort of pseudo-monists since they make a fundamental distinction between this unique Reality of Existence and the World, which does not really exist according to them: it has only the appearance of existence, like a fata morgana, due precisely to the unique property (khassiyyat) of true Existence which is to make appear as existent whatever is not Itself. One might therefore say that these pseudo-monists are still thinking in a way in essentialist terms since they are making of existence itself a kind of super-essence having a property, which distinguishes it from everthing else. By contrast, Nasafi’s “People of Light” do not make this difference between God and the World, Reality and Appearance, Existence and Non-existence at all. For them, the individual existents (afrad-i mawjudat) as a whole are, simply by virtue of being existent, the Reality of Existence itself. One could hardly take a more radically “exitentialist” position !

5. An edition of this work is being prepared by the author.6. Ed. A. Mahdavi Damghani, Tehran, 1344/1965.7. “The Fundamental Structure”, 127 f./Arabic text 263 ff. See also Muhammad TaqI al-

Amull, Durar al-Fawa’id (= al-Ta ‘liqa ‘ala Sharh al-Manzuma) ed. Hasan al-Mustafawi, Teheran2, 1377 h. 1., I, 87 f.

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Yet in some of his writings, Nasafi indeed appears as if he wished to advocate an “essentialist” position. This is notably the case in the collection of treatises known under the (probalby spurious) title Kitdb al-Insan al- Kamil - a collection which, in the edition of Marijan Mole,8 consists of 22 treatises plus a number of variant versions. Like most writings of Nasafi, it is arranged in a pedagogical order leading through several levels of understanding from the exoteric to the most esoteric knowledge; and it should be noted that the “essentialist” passages in question are found in treatises 11, 12 and 13 corresponding to Variants 3, 4 and 5, all of these forming part of “Volume II” of the original collection.9 We may therefore safely assume that they are concerned with an advanced but not the most advanced level of knowledge. The common subject matter of these treatises is cosmology, that is to say, the relationship between the traditional “worlds” or domains of Jabarut, Malakut and Mulk, whith Nasafi explains here in a way that reveals indeed a Neoplatonic outlook, although it is not Neoplatonism pure and simple. What is relevant for our discussion here is that Nasafi identifies the highest of these three “worlds”, Jabarut, with the domain of pure potentiality and essence (mdhiyyat, dhat), whereas both Malakut and Mulk, that is to say, both the intelligible (ma'qul) and the sensible {mahsus) “worlds”, together make up the domain of “existence” or, more precisely, “external existence” (wujud-i khariji).10 In relation to this double world of “external” or “actual” existence, the superior world of essences and potentialities is said to be a world of “non-existence” ( ‘adani), although these entities are still “true realities” (haqdyiq) and “things” (ashya). As a matter of fact, Nasafi in this context sometimes prefers the term “realities”, sometimes “things”.11 He also makes it clear that the term “thing” is preferable because it is in accordance with Qur’anic and traditional religious language, e.g., 15: 21: “There is not one thing whose treasures would not be with Us, and we only make it descend in a well- known measure”.12 Moreover, he explains that “thing” is a more comprehensive notion than “existent”, since a “thing” may be either “existent” or “non-existent”13 - a point which reveals that these entities have in reality at least as much to do with the Mu'tazili Kalam notion of “non­

8. Azizoddin Nasafi, Le Livre de I ’Homme Parfait, ed. Marijan Mole, Bibliotheque Iranienne 11, Tehran/Paris, 1962 (henceforth= Insan).

9. Insan 156-183 and 344-388.10. E.g., Insan 157 f.11. Cf.Insan 161 and 365.12. Insan 355; cd. ibid 161; 348.13. Insan 161; 172.

i

Aziz-i Nasafi and the Essence-Existence Debate 123

existent stable entity” («al-shay’ al-thabit al-ma'dum) as they do with Avicennian “essences”.14 The same thing has been said, as is well known, about Ibn ‘Arabi’s “immutable entities” or “archetypes” (al-a'yan al- thabita),15 with which Nasafi in fact identifies his super-entities explicity.16 Thus, Nasafi’s “essentialism” should be qualified, first of all, for this reason alone.

Now, as was indicated above, the doctrine just summarized does not in fact correspond to the m0st advanced level in Nasafi’s teaching. In the Kashf ul-Haqayiq, he makes this quite clear by pointing out that it is only the ahl-i hikmat, i.e., the second of the three major groups, who consider essence to be “prior” (sabiq) to existence,17 or as a “link” (wdsita) comprehensive of both existence and non-existence,18 whereas for the ahl-i wahdat, there can be no such link because existence itself has no real contrary or opposite19 and is, therefore, itself the most comprehensive entity.20 Moreover, even in those treatises of the Insan collection where Nasafi ostensibly advocates the primacy of essence over existence, he also hints at the very opposite. Right from the beginning, for example, he declares that the three realms to be discussed are actually levels of one and the same existence (maratib-i wtijud),21 and at the end, we learn that their relationship can only be one of “togetherness” or “withness” (ma ‘iyyat),22 not emanation. The first level is simply the implicit order of things ( ‘alam-i ijmdt), whereas the second and third, i.e., the intelligible and sensible worlds, are the explicit order ( ‘alam-i tafsil). Also, the changing nature of concrete existents in the lowest of all worlds does not, paradoxically, give them any lower status in reality. Quite

14. On this Kalam view, see the fundamental article by Richard M. Frank, “Al-ma‘dum wal- mawjud”, in: MIDEO 14 (1980) 185-210. On arguments for and against its Stoic origin see especially Josef van Ess, Die Erkenntnislehre des ‘Adudaddin al-Ici, Wiesbaden, 1966, 200. it should be pointed out in this context that Suhrawardi (Opera I, 200-203) strongly rejects this view, whereas Nasafi accepts it, but only as the point of view of the ahl-i hikmat, not as that of the ahl-i wahdat (see also below).

15. For a convenient survey fo the scholarly literature on this subject see Egbert Meyer, “Ein kurzer Traktat Ibn ‘Arabi’s iiber die A ‘yan at-tabita\ in: Oriens 27-28 (1981) 226-265, esp. 227 f.

16. Insan 364 f.17. Kashf 39.18. Kashf 33.19. Kashf 34.20. Kashf 30.21. Insan 159.22. Insan 316 ff. Note that Nasafi evidently takes the notion of ma ‘iyyat from Mahmud-i

Ushnuhl’s (or Shams-i Daylamls) quite unique theory of “subtle ontic space”. On this, cf. my “Sakralraum und mystischer Raum im Islam”, in: Eranos 44 (1975) 231-265, esp. 26Iff. [Here : pp. 327-355].

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to the contrary, while it must be man’s aim to see things “as they truly are” (kama hiya), that is, in their essential nature, God sees them as they actually exist, that is, evidently, as they develop over time; and it is this divine “vision” of things in their existence which constitutes God’s own supreme certitude ( ‘ayn al-yaqin; ihatat-i ‘ayni), as opposed to the lower kind of certitude ( ‘ilm al-yaqin; ihatat-i ‘ilmi) which He has of the world of “essences”.23 This latter hint, to which several others could be added, actually involves what appears to be the most characteristic doctrine of Nasafi himself: the idea that Existence itself is permanently involved in a process of self-deployment or self-disclosure, “growing” like plants from seed to flower - except that Existence as opposed to things does not actually have such a “seed” or “essence” (dhat): it is, rather, pure unfolding (inbisdt) and manifestation, and present to itself in the fully developed state of things, which is also called the “Day of Resurrection”, or “the Face of God”, or the “Perfect Man”.

This dynamic doctrine of “existence” - which in some ways seems even more radical than Mulla Sadra’s - evidently corresponds to the most esoteric level of Nasafi’s teaching. In the Kitab al-lnsan al-Kdmil, it has its place in the second-last treatise of the collection (nr. 21), just before the final treatise on “Heaven and Hell”. In the Kashf ul-Haqayiq, one version of it is said to be the doctrine of the “elite among the philosophers” (khawass-i ahl-i hikmat), but this version concerns only the two poles essence and existence, potentiality and actuality, implicit and explicit order, seed and fruit - and therefore misses the main point, namely, the expansion or unfolding of Existence itself (inbisat-i wujiid), which is called the “Soul” (nafs) of God or the “Lord” (rabb), and which is, of course, known only to the ahl-i wahdat.

The following is a translation of the relevant passage from the Kashf ul- Haqayiq:

You must know that the monists say that everything existent in the world has three levels and two forms: the levels of ‘Essence’ (dhat), ‘Face’ (wajh) and ‘Soul’ (nafs), plus the ‘generic’ (jami'a) and the ‘differentiated’ (mutafarriqa) forms. This is so because everything, whatever it be, necessarily is either in a station in which everything that is possible to appear in that thing is altogether existent in potentia, such as the egg or the seed. This station is called the level of Essence, and the form of this level is called the ‘generic’ form. Or it must be in a station in which everything that was possible to appear in that thing is altogether existent in actu, such as the

23. Insan 368 (reading ‘aynifor ghaybion line 21).

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perfect man or the perfect tree. This station is called the level of Face, and the form of this level is called the ‘differentiated’ form. And the expansion and unfolding of existence (imtidad va inbisdt-i wujiid) whithin these levels is called the level of Soul.

What is meant by ‘expansion’ is not (physical) growth, for the latter is called ‘motion of bodies’. Rather, the meaning of ‘unfolding’ is the spreading out of existence. This is what is called the level of Soul; and the difference is great between physical growth and the spreading out of existence... Expansion and unfolding of Soul within these levels is (nothing but) His (i.e., God’s) taking possession of and placing Himself on the Throne ( ‘arsh); for the levels of everything depend on the completeness (tamami) of the Throne. That is to say that the Throne is something of many kinds; and the more complete and perfect the levels, the greater and more magnificent is the Throne. This is the meaning of (the tradition that) ‘The heart of the believer is the greatest throne of God’.

This Soul is what the Founder of Religion (sahib-i sharVat) calls ‘the Lord’, for both terms have the same meaning, as is indicated by (the traditions) ‘Whoever knows his soul knows his lord’ and ‘Whoever knows the Soul knows the Lord’. And this level of Soul, which the Founder of Religion calls ‘Lord’, is above all levels. It is pure and free from opposition and confrontation, and it transcends shapes and forms. Surely the sensualists and those bound to mere imagination have no access to this level!

O Darvlsh! The meaning of ‘Lord’ and ‘Soul’ is not what the Religionists and the Philosophers thought it to be. Nor is the (correct) interpretation of the (Qur’anic terms) ‘Soul’ and ‘Lord’ the one made by the grammarians and linguistics. ‘Soul’ and ‘Lord’ are to be interpreted as the expansion and unfolding of Existence within its own levels. And the meaning of ‘Throne’ is not what the Religionists and the Philosophers believed it to be; for ‘Throne’ is to be interpreted as the completeness of the levels. As for (God’s) ‘placing Himself (on it, istiwa), it is of two kinds:

One is by way of knowledge - ‘And God embraces everything in knowledge’ (65: 12) -, the other is by way of existence (az rah-i wujiid) - for, ‘Are they not in doubt about meeting their Lord? Is He not embracing every thing?’ (41: 54). Again, His ‘placing Himself (on the Throne)’ by knowledge is of two kinds: implicit and explicit. But let us not extend our talking and miss the goal!24

24. Kashf 39 ff. the printed text has some lacunae, which have been supplied here from the MS. Tehran, Majlis 4136, 36 a-37 b.