PART 3. NEGATIVE THEOLOGIES OF THE DIVINE ESSENCE IN THIRTEENTH CENTURY SUFISM CENTURY SUFISM
B. Sufi Paths of Ismāʻīlī Apophaticism in the Thirteenth Century
Khwāja Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d.1274), one of the greatest thinkers in history, is among the most influential Ismāʻīlī scholars. Many of his works survived the Mongol destruction mainly because he aligned with the Mongols, and apparently converted to Imāmī Shī‘ism in 1256. Khwāja Naṣīr al-Dīn was born in 1201 in Ṭūs, into a Twelver Imāmī Shī‘ī family, which he would later call “the believers in, and followers of exoteric aspects of the religious law,” in his autobiography.510 His father was a well-educated Imāmī scholar: Ṭūsī’s depiction of him (as a man whose main concern was the uṣūl wa furū‘ of shāri‘ah) makes us think that he was interested in jurisprudence. On the other hand, his father had received education from his uncle, who was a student of the famous Ismā‘īlī-inclined doxographer al-Shahrastānī. In his childhood, Ṭūsī studied with a student of Bābā
Afżāl al-dīn Kāshānī (d.ca.1213), another Ismā‘īlī philosopher and a master of esotericism in Ṭūsī’s eyes, Kamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāsib (d.1242). Probably as a culmination of these manifold influences, we find Ṭūsī having left Nisābūr and living in Qūhistān among Nizārī Ismā‘īlīs around 1227 where he embraced the Nizārī Ismā‘īlī faith, and lived under the protection and friendship of the Ismā‘īlī
governor, Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥtashim (d.1257), to whom he devoted his Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī and Akhlāq-i Muḥtashimī.511 After eight productive years in Qūhistān, he was transferred to the headquarters of Nizārīs in Alamūt, where he not only wrote many books celebrating Ismā‘īlism, but he also received the honorific title
“master of creation and the chief missionary [khwāja-yi kā’ināt va sulṭān al- du‘āt],”512 and lived until its surrender to the Mongols and destruction in 1256.
These three decades that Ṭūsī spent among Nizārī Ismā‘īlīs were clearly the most productive period of his life.513 His service as the philosopher/vizier of Rukn al- Dīn after the assassination of ‘Alā’ al-Dīn Muḥammad III continued until the Ismā‘īlī surrender to Hūlāgū Khān (r.654-63/1256-65), the Īlkhānid warlord. Ṭūsī
played a curious role in the negotiations between the Nizārī Ismā‘īlīs and the Mongols, working with other scholars of the court towards a peaceful surrender.514 He was appointed as negotiator to Hūlāgū, who was preparing the conquest of Persia.515 Claiming to have been a captive amidst the Nizārīs,516 he
510 Ẓāhir-i shāri‘at rā mu‘taqīd wa muqallid budānd. (Ṭūsī 1998, p.26 (English text), p.3 (in Persian text).)
511 See Ṭūsī 1964, p.24.
512 Ṭūsī 2005, p.13, p.170 (English text), p.8, p.211 (Persian text).
513 Badakhchani in Ṭūsī 1998, p.5.
514 Dabashi 1996, p.531.
515 Daiber and Ragep 2012.
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not only survived the large scale massacre of Ismā‘īlīs, but also became the advisor of Hūlāgū, and the administrator of religious foundations, endowments [awqāf] and finances.517 Having renounced Nizārī Ismā‘īlism, he apparently re- embraced what was perceived as a “milder” form of Shī‘ism, Imāmīyyah, and served the pagan Mongol rulers until his death.
Ṭūsī’s works of this period present us with examples of Ismāʻīlī apophatic theology that negated the affirmation and negation of all divine attributes to and from God. In the cosmology presented in his Persian autobiography written in Qūhistān around 1240,518 creation emanates from the Originator via the mediation of the Divine Decree, or Word [amr-a ū yā kalima-ya ū ta‘ālā], which, in turn, is the cause of the Universal Intellect.519 The Originator, beyond the Divine Word beyond the Universal Intellect, is free from all relations including causality.520 As early as in Qūhistān, Ṭūsī mastered Ismāʻīlī negative theology, and saw its apophatic power as a unique form of celebrating God’s transcendence. His constant negation of binaries is coupled with the reminder that the apophatic God as the absolute One is even beyond the one-many, which is the unknowable creator, ultimate cause, and source of creation:
[God] is more glorious and exalted than to be the fount of two opposites, the origin of two contraries, the source of unity and plurality, the cause of the absolvement [tanzīh] and non- absolvement [lā-tanzīh] (of attributes). He is beyond any attribute by which something could be qualified, whether it be non-existent or existent, negative or positive, relative or absolute, verbal or in meaning [lafẓī yā ma‘nawī]. He is beyond, and also beyond the beyond and so forth… … [N]o one maintains such pure unity [tawḥīd-i ṣirf], such unconditioned absoluteness [tanzīh-i mahż], except the Ta‘līmiyyān [i.e., the Ismāʻīlīs].521
516 Daftary 2007, p.379.
517 Barhebraeus 1890, pp.500-501.
518 Ṭūsī 1998, p.8.
519 “The intermediary position of the divine Amr as the true ‘First Cause’ [al-‘illa al-ūlā] belongs in particular to the doctrine of Abū Ya‘qūb al-Sijistānī, whereas its identification with the imām seems to be a later development, knowledge of which we gain chiefly from Ṭūsī himself.”
(Landolt 2013, p.365.)
520 Ṭūsī 1998, p.34 (English text), p.9 (Persian text).
521 Ṭūsī 1998, p.37 (English text), p.11 (Persian text); my emphasis.
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Ṭūsī’s Ismāʻīlī masterpiece the Paradise of Submission, which was also commissioned officially for use within the Nizārī Ismā‘īlī da‘wā as late as the eighteenth century,522 negates the negative discourse in order to indicate the meta-discursive transcendence of God. Typically, Ṭūsī argues that God is too transcendent to be causally related to creation. It is not from God but rather from his command that creation receives its existence. Let alone God, the command cannot be known in its oneness as it transcends, and indeed creates, the intellect. It is manifested as the one-many source of creation, the first of which is the Universal Intellect.523 Hence, whatever these intellectual, spiritual, or bodily beings say about the emergence of things from Him is “limited with their own knowledge and vision. But in truth, He, the Exalted, is independent [munazzah] of all this.”524 In the same vein, the phrase “God is Great,” Ṭūsī
argues, is applicable from the point of view of creation, not from the perspective of God’s ipseity. “For, none except He can know the truth of His sublime ipseity.
On the basis of the latter point of view, the denial and negation [nafy va salb] of attributes is necessary.”525 The first step, “not God is Great” discursively indicates the limited human conception of divine transcendence. The second negation removes the very discursive ground of the first step. Instead of al- Sijistānī’s explicit double negation “not (not God is Great),” Ṭūsī follows the more common implicit Ismāʻīlī double negation of “God is great,” which indicates the non-discursive transcendence of an unknowable God. “‘God is Great’ means that He the transcendent [ū ta‘ālā] is too great to be described with this description, and He the transcendent is too great not to be described with this description.”526 The negation of all discursive possibilities, continues Ṭūsī, avoids ineffectualism [ta‘ṭīl] in favor of an apophatic, non-discursive positivity. Ineffectualism, or agnosticism, that is, not to know whether God “is”, is in diametrical opposition with the unknowable God.527 Unknowing, in other words, is not reducible to not
522 Badakhchani in Ṭūsī 2005, p.xiii.
523 See Ṭūsī 2005, #30-36, pp.27-29 (English translation), pp.25-29 (Persian text).
524 See Ṭūsī 2005, #30-36, p.29 (English translation), p.28 (Persian text).
525 Ṭūsī 2005, #431, p.178 (Persian text). For Badakhchani’s translation, see ibid., #431, p.143 (English translation).
526 Ṭūsī 2005, #429; my emphasis.
527 Ṭūsī 2005 #430.
While the term ta‘ṭīl mostly meant ineffectualizing God in theological texts, here Ṭūsī appeals to the term to describe what we might better call “agnosticism.”
The term attained a variety of meanings depending on the context, and had a sustained history.
According to the famous historian al-Balādhurī’s (d.892) report, ʻAlī (d.661) and ‘Ā’ishah (d.678)
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knowing. On the other hand, it is also blasphemous to mistake the latter, apophatic “God is Great” with the initial step, and to assume that the apophatic phrase contains any comparison or relationality.528 “God transcends both [the affirmation and the negation]. And he transcends this very transcendence [‘expressed’ in the previous sentence].”529
This is the manner in which al-Sijistānī’s radical statement “thanks be to God who is worshipped by ‘not’ and ‘not not’”530 becomes the standard invocation
“thanks be to God” in Ṭūsī,531 which still keeps the same apophatic spirit, in line with Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī, Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Ḥasan Ṣabbāḥ
and others. This peculiar form of apophatic theology operates via a combination of the negation of all positive and negative attributes, the utter unknowability of God within a distinct cosmology, and the rational, non-mystical self-cancellation of theological discourse. A closer look at his corpus helps to identify another dimension in Ṭūsī’s thought: the subtle play of Ismā‘īlī apophaticism with Sufism.
Imāmī Philosopher and Ismāʻīlī Sufi?
The Letters
Except for some forms of mysticism and asceticism, Ṭūsī was not opposed to Sufism. His early work the Naṣīrean Ethics, finished in 1235 in the Ismāʻīlī
stronghold in Qūhistān, holds in high esteem some ideas associated with Sufism, such as examining the ego [muḥāsabat al-nafs] that al-Kindī (d.873) had recommended,532 taming oneself via hunger,533 and the voluntary death before physical death that Ṭūsī aptly traces to Plato. “The Philosopher [Ḥakīm] Plato has said: ‘die by will, and you will live by nature!,’ while Sufistic Philosophers [ḥukamā-yi mutaṣawwifah] have put it thus: ‘die before you die!’.”534 It is
accused the Caliph ‘Uthmān (d.656) of ta‘ṭīl. The fundamental allegation of those who revolted against ‘Uthmān and murdered him was that of ta‘ṭīl ḥudūd Allāh, i.e., violating or nullifying the general spirit of Islam. (See Zaman 1988, pp.266-267.)
528 Ṭūsī 2005, #429.
529 Ṭūsī 2005, #432; my emphasis.
530 Abū Yaʻqūb al-Sijistānī in Walker 1993, p.78.
531 Ṭūsī 2005, #439-440.
532 Ṭūsī 1964, pp.121-122.
533 Ṭūsī 1964, p.168-169.
534 Ṭūsī 1964, p.138. I modified the translation “Sufistic sages” suggested by Wickens as it overlooks Ṭūsī’s appeal to the term “Ḥakīm.”
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significant that Ṭūsī describes Plato and Sufis with the same honorific term,
“Ḥakīm,” which can mean “sage” or “philosopher” depending on the context.
On the other hand, Ṭūsī’s commentary on the chapter entitled “ Stations of the Mystics” [Maqāmāt al-‘Ārifīn] in Ibn Sīnā’s Remarks and Admonitions, finished around 1246 after two decades of labor, does not show any enthusiasm in Sufism. Ṭūsī dryly points out that for Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī this chapter is the most important part of the entire Remarks and Admonitions as it explains the “Science of Sufism,” but Ṭūsī himself does not express any specific interest.535 We know that as a philosopher he is sharply critical of antinomian and ascetic forms of mysticism, and he does not hide his Aristotelian dislike of solitude, as well as the lifestyle of itinerant mendicants.536 This contempt could get violent when combined with political power. In 658/1259-1260, when a group of Qalandars introduced themselves in his court, Hūlāgū asked his advisor Ṭūsī who they were.
Ṭūsī’s reply “the excess of this world!” sufficed for a summary execution of all the Qalandars.537 Ṭūsī’s contacts with what he saw as an urban, intellectual form of
535 Ibn Sīnā and Ṭūsī 1994, Vol.4, p.47.
536
[I]nclining to isolation and loneliness … is sheer tyranny and injustice to choose loneliness and solitude, and to turn away from co-operation with the rest of mankind. … There are, however, some such who account this behavior a virtue, as with the class who isolate themselves by cleaving to their cells or by dwelling in mountain-clefts; this they call 'abstention from the world'. Another group will sit looking to other men to help them, while themselves totally blocking the road of aid; this they call 'resignation'. Then there are those who go touring from cities to cities, nowhere taking up their abode or contracting any association likely to bring about an intimate relationship: they claim to be deriving a lesson from the state of the world and regard this as a virtue. Such people, and those like them, use the provisions which others have acquired by co-operation, while giving them nothing in return or requital; they eat their sustenance and they don their clothing, but they make no payment for these things, having turned away from that which effects the ordering and the perfection of the human species. Yet since, by the fact of their solitude and loneliness, they do not bring into act the vices of those characteristics that they naturally have in potency, some shortsighted people fancy them to be persons of virtue. Such an estimation is erroneous. (Ṭūsī 1964, pp.194-195.)
537 Karamustafa 1994, p.5; emphasis mine. Ṭūsī’s strong hatred against the Qalandars was shared by prominent Sufis. In a Persian treatise titled The Idiocy of Antinomians [Ḥamāqat-i ahl-i ibāḥat], Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d.1111) advised political rulers to ruthlessly exterminate the permissivist [ibāḥī] Sufi-pretenders” [Ṣūfī-numā] who propagated antinomianism and tainted what he saw Sufism proper. Some of the issues that al-Ghazālī raised and the answers he gave were later reproduced in Ibn al-Jawzī (d.1200)’s famous Devil’s Delusion [Talbīs Iblīs]. Hence “it is certain
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Sufism become more frequent in the last eighteen years of his life. His exchange of letters with Sufis,538 particularly with the great Sufi master of his time, Ṣadr al- Dīn al-Qūnawī (d.1274) is of fundamental importance, because it indicates at least three key points, the first of which has been barely studied, while the second and third ones have completely eluded scholarly attention.
The first point is his close acquaintance with intellectual Sufism. As much as al- Qūnawī’s long letter and questions to Ṭūsī display the former’s skills in Peripatetic Philosophy, Ṭūsī’s brief analysis of al-Qūnawī’s Sufi treatise Rashl al- Bāl demonstrates Ṭūsī’s genuine knowledge of the Sufi path.539 Here Ṭūsī shows an evident respect to the Sufi master al-Qūnawī, and even gives a succinct description of the states and stations that the Sufi novice underwent.540
The second issue that the exchange of letters with al-Qūnawī brings up is Ṭūsī’s overlooked dissimulation [taqiyyah] that barely hides his still strong affiliation with Ismāʻīlism. Apparently Imāmī Ṭūsī’s theological affiliations get complicated when we read his responsa to al-Qūnawī’s challenging questions. Ṭūsī opens the responsa with a rich address to the Guide [hādī] that God sends to creation, supports via His support [‘ayyadahu bi-tā’yīdihi] and chooses as regent [nā’iban]
to the Prophet. The felicitous Guide is also the one who calls [al-dā‘ī] all creation to the most glorious path [ashraf al-ṭarīqah]. Subsequently, in stark contrast with Ṭūsī’s authoritative tone throughout the letter and with the conventions of scholarly and courtly writing, he directs these series of praises to al-Qūnawī. He continues apparently extolling the recipient of the letter, employing an Ismā‘īlī
that Ibn al-Jawzī had access to an Arabic version of al-Ghazālī’s treatise or another Arabic text that reproduced this latter’s content.” (Karamustafa 2014, p.112.) Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s violent opposition against the Qalandars should be well-informed by the authoritarian Sufi critics of antinomianism. See Karamustafa 2014.
538 One of these masters was the Kubrāwī Sufi Shams al-Dīn Kīshī (d.1295), who was a teacher of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d.1311), like Ṭūsī himself. As an interesting note, in one of his letters to Ṭūsī, Kīshī asks the difference between affirmative proposition in a negative form [mawjiba-ya ma‘dūla] and a simple negation [sāliba-ya basīṭa] (Kīshī 2011, pp.155-156). Both Kīshī‘s question and Ṭūsī’s response are concerned with logic, but the correspondence has important implications for theology as it elaborates on whether it is possible to negate a statement without affirming the presence of its subject. Ṭūsī’s response is positive. (See Ṭūsī in Kīshī 2011, pp.161-163.)
539 Chittick 1981, pp.100-101. Chittick’s article gives a good introductory analysis of the correspondence.
540 Ṭūsī and al-Qūnawī 1995, pp.89-92.
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terminology that would be excessive and unusually extravagant even for a scholar of the caliber of al-Qūnawī:
In our time, indeed, God has appointed a great teacher to this position [i.e., regency]. He is the great imām, the pole of God’s friends, the caliph of the prophets, the inviter to Truth, the guidance of creation, the heart of the nation and religion … Ibn Isḥāq [al-Qūnawī].541
Arguably, this is one of the most concrete textual examples of dissimulation that betrays Ṭūsī’s Ismāʻīlī devotion. To the best of my knowledge, this evidence has eluded the attention of Ṭūsī scholars who debate his religious convictions.
Landolt attentively questions Ṭūsī’s appeal to the “imām” in addressing al- Qūnawī, but does not suggest or hint any answer.542 Chittick also intuits that there is something unusual in these exorbitant expressions of admiration,543 especially in light of Ṭūsī’s political and scholarly reputation, his general authoritative voice in the correspondence, and his polite but critical comments on al-Qūnawī’s Sufi treatise that immediately follow the eulogy.544 To me, the tribute is indeed not intended for al-Qūnawī at all. It employs all well-known honorifics of the Ismāʻīlī imāms, and indeed, is directed towards the Ismāʻīlī
imām instead of al-Qūnawī.
The third key aspect is a culmination of the first two points: Ṭūsī’s apophatic theology in his post-Alamūt career and its blending of Sufism and Ismāʻīlism. The prominence of Ismāʻīlī thought in Ṭūsī’s post-Alamūt corpus pushes us to look at the Ismāʻīlī apophatic theology of his later writings as well. This form of apophasis continues in Ṭūsī’s theological works, even after his apparent conversion to Imāmism. In his Divisions, for example, he gives a brief overview of alternative views on the divine nature. Accordingly, the Mu‘tazilites argue that God’s attributes are neither existent nor non-existent, while Ash‘arites present the eight classical attributes as self-subsistent with God’s essence. His own view is that the appropriate way is to negate all binaries and attributes since they are inapplicable: “the ipseity of God, transcendent He is, is One from all aspects. No
541 Ṭūsī and al-Qūnawī 1995, p.94; my emphasis.
542 Landolt 2013, p.378.
543 “Ṭūsī praises al-Qūnawī and his spiritual attainments in glowing language, which one might expect from one of al-Qūnawī’s spiritual disciples, but which one is surprised to see coming from the greatest philosopher and one of the most powerful political figures of the age.” (Chittick 1981, p.101.)
544 Ṭūsī and al-Qūnawī 1995, pp.90-91.
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existing attribute can be attached to it.”545 While I discuss Ṭūsī’s apparent and much debated re-conversion from Ismāʻīlism to Imāmiyyah elsewhere, suffice it to say that Ṭūsī’s post-Alamūt writings are full of allusions to Ismāʻīlism, or even direct Arabic translations of his Persian Ismāʻīlī works. Both Sufism and Ismāʻīlism do play a fundamental and persistent role in Ṭūsī’s corpus from early on until his death in 1274.
Origin and Destination: an Ismāʻīlī Eschatology?
The prominence of Sufi themes is unexpected but quite evident in Ṭūsī’s early writings. The positive approach to urban Sufism in his Naṣīrean Ethics is manifested not only in his post-Alamūt writings. His early work in Persian on Ismāʻīlī eschatology, Origin and Destination [Āghāz va Anjām], has conspicuous Sufi elements. Here Ṭūsī writes that on the Day of Reckoning [rūz-i ḥisāb] people will be divided into three groups, all of which, in turn, are composed of three subgroups. The first group is composed of those who will directly enter Paradise.
“The people of the right side who have not committed any sin,” and “those whose books of reckoning are empty of bad deeds” are in this first group of the elect, but the foremost and highest position is reserved, quite unexpectedly, for Darvīshes.
First are the foremost [sābiqān] and the people of the greatest Height [a‘rāf], that is, those who are above reckoning and accountability. It is reported in a tradition [dar khabar ast]:
“When Darvīshes are brought to the place of reckoning [ḥisābgāh], the angels will demand their accounts. In reply they say ‘What have you given us that makes us accountable to you?’ Then the commandment of the Exalted Lord will be heard: ‘They are right, their account is not any concern of yours’.”546
While at least a verse [Q.15:92] in the Qur’ān is clear that everyone without exception will be judged, Ṭūsī is evidently following the Sufi reading of another verse, according to which it is the Darvīshes who “will be kept far from [the trial],” and the first to arrive [al-sābiqūn] in Paradise.547 The earliest prophetic traditions had many references to those who will enter the paradise without a reckoning.548 Prominent traditionists like the Ḥanbalī al-Dāraquṭnī (d.995)
545 Ṭūsī 1992, p.1.
546 Ṭūsī 2010b, pp.69-70; with my minor modification.
547 Cf. Q.21:101. Also see Q.56:10-11.
548 See Wensinck 1927, p.182.