Shīrāzī’s Life

Niazi, Kaveh

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-6999-1_3

Kaveh Niazi²

Part of the book series: Archimedes ((ARIM,volume 35))

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Abstract

This chapter examines biographical information regarding Shīrāzī, including information found in his own writings. The biographies of Ibn al-Fuwaṭī (1244–1323 C.E.), al-Dhahabī (1274–1348 C.E.), al-Sallāmī (d. 1372 C.E.), and Ibn Ḥajar al-ʻAsqalānī (1372–1449 C.E.) are compared with each other and with autobiographical passages in al-Tuḥfa al-Saʻdīya and Durrat al-Tāj to provide a coherent account of Shīrāzī’s life and career. Discussed as well are common features regarding Shīrāzī’s strategies for dedicating his works to his patrons.

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Notes

1.
Minovi, “Mulla Qutb Shirazi”; Mir, Sharḥ-i ḥal wa āsār-i ʻallamah Qutb al-Dīn Maḥmūd Ibn Masʻūd Shīrāzi, danishmand-i ʻali qadr-i qarn-i haftum, (634–710 A.H.).
2.
Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights; See also Walbridge, “The Philosophy of Qutb al-Din Shirazi.”
3.
Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 186.
4.
Minovi, “Mulla Qutb Shīrāzī,” 173.
5.
Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 186. It should be noted that in his introduction to al-Tuḥfa al-Saʻdīya, Shīrāzi only mentions the Kullīyāt, i.e., the first book of the Canon. So, while definitive proof is currently lacking, Professor Walbridge will likely be proven right, once a proper study of the al-Tuḥfa al-Saʻdīya is carried out. That a simple fact such as this remains unresolved is a telling comment on state of scholarship on Shīrāzī.
6.
Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa al-sa‘dīya fī al-ṭibb, Suleimaniya MS 3649. In addition a partial Persian translation of this text appears in Nurani’s edition of the Sharḥ ḥikmat al-ishrāq. Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī, Sharh-i Hikmat al-Ishraq-i Suhravardi, v–x.
7.
Shīrāzī, Durrat al-tāj li-ghurrat al-dabāj, kh. For the medical terms in this passage see Albucasis on Surgery and Instruments, by Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn ʻAbbās al-Zahrawī, M.S. Spink, and G.L. Lewis, Ed., (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1973), p. 212.
8.
Shīrāzī, Durrat al-tāj li-ghurrat al-dabāj, d; Minovi, “Mulla Qutb Shīrāzī,” 166.
9.
Shīrāzī, al-Tuḥfa al-sa‘dīya fī al-ṭibb, Suleimaniya MS 3649, 3r. Note this portion of the Durrat al-tāj edition that was used appears to have errors, and the Suleimaniya MS 3649 was used instead.
10.
Shīrāzī, Durrat al-tāj li-ghurrat al-dabāj, d.
11.
Shīrāzī, Durrat al-tāj li-ghurrat al-dabāj, d.
12.
Shīrāzī, Durrat al-tāj li-ghurrat al-dabāj, d.
13.
Shīrāzī, Durrat al-tāj li-ghurrat al-dabāj, d.
14.
Shīrāzī, Durrat al-tāj li-ghurrat al-dabāj, dh.
15.
Shīrāzī, Durrat al-tāj li-ghurrat al-dabāj, dh.
16.
Shīrāzī, Durrat al-tāj li-ghurrat al-dabāj, dh.
17.
Shīrāzī, Durrat al-tāj li-ghurrat al-dabāj, dh.
18.
For more information on Shīrāzī’s patron Saʻd al-Dīn Sāvajī see Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 186. In his dedication Shīrāzī invokes the name of the ruler Ghāzān, as well.
19.
Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Majmaʻ al-adab fi muʻjam al-alqāb, vol. 3, 440.
20.
M. Mohaghegh, “al- Kātibī, Nad̲j̲m al- Dīn Abu’l-Ḥasan ʻAlī b. ʻUmar,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (Brill Online, 2010), http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_SIM-4023; Bar Hebraeus, Tārīkh mukhtaṣar al-duwal (Bayrūt: al-Maṭbaʻah al-Kāthūlīkīyah lil-Ābā’ al-Yasūʻīyīn, 1890), 151; Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 11; Mudarris Razavi, Aḥwāl wa Athār-i Muḥammad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, 130.
21.
Mudarris Razavi, Aḥwāl wa Athār-i Muḥammad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, 130.
22.
Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Majmaʻ al-ādāb fī muʻjam al-alqāb, vol. 3, 441.
23.
Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Majmaʻ al-ādāb fī muʻjam al-alqāb, vol. 3, 441.
24.
Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Majmaʻ al-ādāb fī muʻjam al-alqāb, vol. 3, 441.
25.
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafāyāt al-mashāhīr wa al-aʻlām, vol. 54, 101.
26.
See Sect. 3.2 of this chapter, and Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 9.
27.
See Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 12.
28.
Minovi, “Mulla Qutb Shīrāzī,” 169. Walbridge identifies Ḍiā’ al-Dīn as a grandson of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī. See Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 12, and Mudarris Razavi, Aḥwāl wa Athār-i Muḥammad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, 40–42.
29.
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafāyāt al-mashāhīr wa al-aʻlām, vol. 54, 101; Mudarris Razavi, Aḥwāl wa āthār-i Muḥammad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, 246.
30.
Mudarris Razavi, Aḥwāl wa Athār-i Muḥammad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, 246.
31.
Mudarris Razavi, Aḥwāl wa Athār-i Muḥammad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, 71.
32.
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafāyāt al-mashāhīr wa al-aʻlām, vol. 54, 101.
33.
Rashīd al-Dīn Ṭabīb, Jāmiʻ al-tawārīkh, 717.
34.
Razavi quotes an uncited source as to the fact that Ṭūsī bequeathed his work on the Zīj-i Ilkhānī to his son Aṣīl al-Dīn and to Shīrāzī; Aḥwāl wa Athār-i Muḥammad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, 32.
35.
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafāyāt al-mashāhīr wa al-aʻlām, vol. 54, 101.
36.
Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 273–276.
37.
Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 276–291.
38.
Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 286.
39.
Mir, Sharḥ-i ḥāl wa asār-i ʻallāmah Qutb al-Dīn Mahmud Ibn Masʻud Shīrāzī, danishmand-i ʻali qadr-i qarn-i haftum, (634–710 A.H.), 69. A firm date for this work should be particularly useful in understanding the period in question.
40.
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafāyāt al-mashāhīr wa al-aʻlām, vol. 54, 101; E. Wiedemann, “Ḳuṭb al- Dīn Shīrāzī, Maḥmūd b. Masʻūd b. Muṣliḥ,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman. (Brill Online, 2010), http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_SIM-4581. Shīrāzī relates here that he studied the “Commentary on the sunna” with a certain Muḥyi al-Dīn. I have not been able to locate additional information about this figure, but he is likely the same Muḥyi al-Dīn that is referenced in the ijāza that appears at the beginning of al-Sallāmī’s discussion; see Sect. 3.4, of this chapter.
41.
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafāyāt al-mashāhīr wa al-aʻlām, vol. 54, 101.
42.
H. Fleisch, “Ibn al- Ḥādjib, Djamāl al-Dīn Abū ʻAmr ʻUthmān b. ʻUmar b. Abī Bakr al-Mālikī,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by P. Bearman. (Brill Online, 2010), http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_COM-0324; See also, Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 189.
43.
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafāyāt al-mashāhīr wa al-aʻlām, vols. 54, 101.
44.
C. Versteegh, “al- Zamakhsharī, Abu’l- Ḳāsim Maḥmūd b.ʻUmar,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (Brill Online, 2010), http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_SIM-8108; W. Madelung, “al- Zamakhsharī, Abu ’l- Ḳāsim Maḥmūd b. ʻUmar (Contributions in the fields of theology, exegesis, ḥadīth and adab).,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (Brill Online, 2010), http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_COM-1469. See also, Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 188.
45.
For a discussion of the tension between the religious sciences and the Ancient sciences in Shīrāzī’s era see, Robert Morrison, Islam and Science, The Intellectual Career of Niẓām al-Dīn al-Nīsāburī (London: Routledge, 2007).
46.
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafāyāt al-mashāhīr wa al-aʻlām, vol. 54, 102.
47.
Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʻulamā’ Baghdād al-musammá muntakhab al-mukhtār, 176; G. Vajda, “Idjāza,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by P. Bearman. (Brill Online, 2010), http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_SIM-3485.
48.
J. Robson, “al- Baghawī, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn b. Masʻūd b. Muḥ. al-Farrā’ (or Ibn al-Farrā’),” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman. (Brill Online, 2010), http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_SIM-1024.
49.
F. Rosenthal, “Ibn al- At̲h̲īr,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (Brill Online, 2010), http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_SIM-3094.
50.
In the list of works the transmission of which was sanctioned by his ijāza, Shīrāzī includes the category al-mustajāzāt, suggesting a set of works for which an ijāza was solicited by the author himself.
51.
Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʻulamā’ Baghdād al-musammá muntakhab al-mukhtār, 176.
52.
Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʻulamā’ Baghdād al-musammá muntakhab al-mukhtār, 177.
53.
Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʻulamā’ Baghdād al-musammá muntakhab al-mukhtār, 177–179.
54.
Mudarris Razavi, Aḥwāl wa āthār-i Muḥammad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, 35.
55.
Mudarris Razavi, Aḥwāl wa āthār-i Muḥammad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, 35.
56.
Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʻulamā’ Baghdād al-musammá muntakhab al-mukhtār, 177.
57.
It should be noted that in Arabic “Eagle” and “Vulture” are designated by the same word, al-nasr.
58.
Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʻulamā’ Baghdād al-musammá muntakhab al-mukhtār, 178.
59.
Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 14.
60.
Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʻulamā’ Baghdād al-musammá muntakhab al-mukhtār, 178.
61.
C. Melville, “Anatolia Under the Mongols,” in Byzantium to Turkey, 1071–1453, vol. 1, The Cambridge History of Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 73. Despite the fact that the remains of this splendid monument were under heavy repairs in the summer of 2009 during my short visit to Sivas, the quality of the stone-carving and the tile-work were a clear indication of the rather astounding level of craftsmanship that had gone into its construction. The monument as it stood in the 13th century would have been opulent, indeed. One of the extant manuscript copies of the Nihāya/Limit was apparently written at this madrasa (see Chap. 4, note 1).
62.
This work was already listed in Sect. 3.3 of this chapter. See Minovi, “Mulla Qutb Shīrāzī,” 195. See also, Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 189.
63.
Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 190; Minovi, “Mulla Qutb Shīrāzī,” 190.
64.
Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʻulamā’ Baghdād al-musammá muntakhab al-mukhtār, 178. It is clear that al-Sallāmī is quoting Ibn al-Fuwaṭī directly here, since he claims to have learned of the contents of the diplomatic letters from Shīrāzī himself.
65.
Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʻulamā’ Baghdād al-musammá muntakhab al-mukhtār, 178–179.
66.
Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʻulamā’ Baghdād al-musammá muntakhab al-mukhtār, 179.
67.
Ibn Ḥajar al-ʻAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāminah fī aʻyān al-mi’ah al-thāminah, vol. 5, 109.
68.
Ibn Ḥajar al-ʻAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāminah fī aʻyān al-mi’ah al-thāminah, vol. 5, 108.
69.
Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 17.
70.
Ibn ʻAbd al-Ẓāhir, Tashrīf al-ayyām wa-al-ʻuṣūr fī sīrat al-malik al-manṣūr, pt. 2, 6.
71.
Ibn ʻAbd al-Ẓāhir, Tashrīf al-ayyām wa-al-ʻuṣūr fī sīrat al-malik al-manṣūr, pt. 2, 16. Indeed given the great suspicion that existed between the two polities it is rather surprising that Shīrāzī was so successful in garnering his manuscripts of the Canon.
72.
Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī, Durrat al-tāj li-ghurrat al-dabāj, ch; See also Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 9.
73.
Mir, Sharḥ-i ḥal wa āsār-i ʻallāmah Qutb al-Dīn Maḥmūd ibn Masʻūd Shīrāzī, danishmand-i ʻali qadr-i qarn-i haftum, (634–710 A.H.), 19; Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 10.
74.
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafāyāt al-mashāhīr wa al-aʻlām, vol. 54, 101.
75.
Ibn Ḥajar al-ʻAsqalānī, al-Durar al-kāminah fī aʻyān al-mi’ah al-thāminah, vol. 5, 108.
76.
Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʻulamā’ Baghdād al-musammá muntakhab al-mukhtār, 179.
77.
Amitai, “Sufis and Shamans.”
78.
Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām wa-wafāyāt al-mashāhīr wa al-aʻlām, vol. 54, 101. It is conceivable that al-Dhahabī’s words depict Shīrāzī at court with a youthful Öljeitü, prior to his accession in 1304 C.E.
79.
See Sheila S. Blair, “The Mongol Capital of Sulṭānīya, ‘The Imperial’,” Iran 24 (1986): 139–151. See also Minorsky, “Sulṭānīya.” One way to interpret al-Dhahabī’s remarks is to envision Shīrāzī as a tutor for the young prince; though this is, obviously, conjectural.
80.
Walbridge, “The Philosophy of Qutb al-Din Shirazi,” 34–35.
81.
Walbridge also dates the authoring of Shīrāzī’s work Miftāḥ al-miftāḥ to the period of the purported trip to Gīlān, though it is not clear if this is based on evidence from the Miftāḥ al-miftāḥ, itself. Walbridge, “The Philosophy of Qutb al-Din Shirazi,” 33.
82.
Melville, “The Īlkhān Öljeitü’s Conquest of Gīlān (1307): Rumour and Reality,” 87.
83.
Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī, Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk, Köprülü MS 957, 1r.
84.
Shīrāzī, Durrat al-tāj li-ghurrat al-dabāj, n.
85.
Mir, Sharḥ-i ḥāl wa āsār-i ʻallāmah Qutb al-Dīn Maḥmūd Ibn Masʻūd Shīrāzī, dānishmand-i ʻālī qadr-i qarn-i haftum, (634–710 A.H.), 70.
86.
Mudarris Razavi, Aḥwāl wa Athār-i Muḥammad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, 89.
87.
Walbridge, The Science of Mystic Lights, 181.
88.
Spuler, “DJuwaynī, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Muḥammad,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman., 2010, http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_SIM-2132.
89.
Shīrāzī, Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk, Köprülü MS 957, 1r. Indeed, the colophon of Köprülü MS 956 indicates that this work was completed in the very school that was founded by Shams al-Dīn in Sīvās. See note 1, Chap. 4.
90.
Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 310.
91.
Aḥmad Tauhid, “Rūm Seljuqu daulatinin inqiraz-ile teshkil eden tawa’if muluk (ma ba’d),” Tarih ‘Uthmani Encumeni Mecmu’esi 5 (December 1910): 319; Eduard Karl Max von Zambaur, Manuel de Généalogie et de Chronologie Pour l’histoire de l’Islam (Bad Pyrmont: Orientbuchhandlung Heinz Lafaire, 1955), 148; Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 310; O. Turan, “Anatolia in the Period of the Seljuks and the Beyliks,” in The Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 266.
92.
Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 278.
93.
Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 280. See also Chap. 2, Sect. 2.3.1.
94.
Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 286–291; Melville, “Anatolia under the Mongols,” 69–71.
95.
Ibn Bībī, Akhbār-i Salājiqah-i Rūm, 337.
96.
Maḥmud ibn Muḥammad Aksarayi, Tarikh-i Salājiqah, ya, Musāmarat al-akhbār wa musāyarat al-akhyār, Majmu`ah-i tarikh-i Iran; 11; ([Tehran]: Intisharat-i Asatir, 1983), 134; Rashīd al-Dīn Ṭabīb, Jāmiʻ al-tawārīkh, 779.
97.
Though it is possible to proved an alternate reading to Ibn Bībī’s account and assume that fragment is referring to Ghīyāth al-Dīn Masʻūd as the recipient of Sīvās, Malaṭīya, and Kharberd, this reading is considerably less probable. Ghīyāth al-Dīn Masʻūd was soon to be granted, as we will see, what was practically the entire Seljuk polity.
98.
Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 332.
99.
Aksarayi, Tarikh-i Salājiqah, yā, Musāmarāt al-akhbār wa musāyarāt al-akhyār, 134.
100.
Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 333.
101.
Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, 332.
102.
Melville, “Anatolia under the Mongols,” 73.

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Niazi, K. (2014). Shīrāzī’s Life. In: Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī and the Configuration of the Heavens. Archimedes, vol 35. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6999-1_3

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