Rizvi - Mir Damad in India

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    Journal of the American Oriental Society 131.1 (2011) 9

    Mr Dmd in India: Islamic PhilosophicalTraditions and the Problem of Creation

    S H. RU E

    The history of Islamic philosophy and theology in India has yet to be properly written. Thelearned culture of the high Mughal period has increasingly attracted attention, with a focuson the role of the Dars-i Nim curriculum, devised in the eighteenth century to producecohorts of capable imperial administrators, and on the intellectual life of Delhi, Lucknow,and the Doab in the middle to late Mughal period. 1 Some have identied the signicant roleof Mr Fatullh Shrz (d. 997/1589), a philosopher trained in the school of Shrz, a stu-dent of the philosopher and sometimeadr of the afavid empire, Mr Ghiythuddn ManrDashtak (d. 949/1542), and emigrant to the court of Akbar (r. 15561605). 2 Numerousworks, both academic and popular, stress his role as the foremost philosopher and scientist ofhis time in the Persianate world, and attribute to him a series of important technological inno-vations and reforms of the administration, including the adoption of Persian as the official

    1. Jamal Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur in Nordindien: Entwicklungsgeschichte und Tendenzen am Beispielvon Lucknow (Leiden: Brill, 1997); Francis Robinson,The Ulama of Farangi-Mahall and Islamic Culture in South

    Asia (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001); Farhan Nizami, Madrasahs, Scholars, and Saints: Muslim Responses to theBritish Presence in Delhi and the Upper Doab, 18031857, Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Oxford, 1983; Margrit Pernau, ed.,The Delhi College: Traditional Elites, the Colonial State, and Education before 1857 (New Delhi: Oxford Univ.Press, 2006); Mushirul Hasan,From Pluralism to Separatism: Qasbas in Colonial Awadh (New Delhi: Oxford Univ.

    Press, 2004); idem, A Moral Reckoning: Muslim Intellectuals in Nineteenth-Century Delhi (New Delhi: OxfordUniv. Press, 2005). On the Dars-i Nim itself, see Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur in Nordindien , 52235; cf.Francis Robinson, Ottomans-Safavids-Mughals: Shared Knowledge and Connective Systems, Journal of IslamicStudies 8 (1997): 15256; idem,The Ulama of Farangi Mahall , 4850, 24851; Qamaruddn, Hindustn k dndarsghn (New Delhi: Hamdard Education Society, 1996), 34552; on pedagogical disciplines, texts, and authors,see Muft Ri Anr, Bn-yi dars-i nim ustd al-hind Mull Nimuddn Muammad Farang-Maall (Aligarh:Aligarh Muslim Univ., 1973), 25765; Jaml Amad, arakat al-ta lf bi-l-lugha al- arabiyya f l-iqlm al-shimlal-hind (Karachi: Jmi at al-Dirst al-Islmiyya, n.d.), 1722; Alf al-Ramn Qidw ,Qiym-i nim-i ta lm (Lucknow: Nim Press, 1924); Barbara Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 18601900 (Prince-ton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1982), 1645; Muhammad Umar, Islam in Northern India in the Eighteenth Century (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1993), 259305; abburramn Mahir Khayrbd,Tadhkirat al-muannifn:

    Dars-i nimiyya aur dars-i liyya aur tamm arab nibn mn shmil jumla kutub k muannifn k mukammaltadhkira (n.p: Maktaba-yi Na miyya, n.d.); Muammad anf Gangh, afar al-muailn b-avl-i muannifn,

    ya n lt-i muannifn-i dars-i nim (Deoband: anf Book Depot, 1996); Akhtar Rh,Tadhkira-yi muannifn-idars-i nim (Lahore: Maktaba-yi Ramniyya, 1978).

    2. Ramn Al,Tufat al-fual f tarjim al-kumal [Tadhkira-yi ulam -yi Hind ] (Lucknow: NawalKishore, 1333/1914), 160; Abd al-Bq Nihvand, Ma thir-i Ram , ed. M. Hidyat usayn (Calcutta: TheAsiatic Society, 1910), 2: 550; Sayyid Ghulm Al zd Bilgrm, Ma thir-i kirm , ed. M. Lyallpr (Lahore:Maktaba-yi Iy -yi Ulm-i Sharqiyya, 1971), 226, 22829; Sayyid Abdulayy al-asan, Nuzhat al-khawir wa-bahjat al-masmi wa-l-nawir (Rai Bareilly: Maktabat Dr Araft, 1992), 5: 53944; Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi,

    A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isn Ashar Sh s in India (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1986), 2: 19697;G. M. D. Su, Al-Minhj, Being the Evolution of the Curriculum in the Muslim Educational Institutions of India (Lahore: Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, 1941), 5455; M. A. Alvi and A. Rahman,Fath Allah Shirazi: A SixteenthCentury Indian Scientist (Delhi: National Institute of the Sciences of India, 1968); Sharif Husain Qasimi, Fatullhrz, in Encyclopaedia Iranica , ed. E. Yarshater (New York: dist. by Eisenbrauns, 1982); Malik, Islamische

    Gelehrtenkultur in Nordindien, 8695; cf. Zubaid Ahmad,

    The Contribution of Indo-Pakistan to Arabic Literature, from Ancient Times to 1857 (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1968), 12756.

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    language of the Mughal chancellery; he is also regarded as the main conduit for the seriousstudy of philosophy and theology in India, laying the foundations for the Dars-i Nimcurriculum, which emphasized the study of the intellectual disciplines (ulm aqliyya). It iscommon, therefore, for intellectual historians of Islamic thought in India to trace a lineage

    from Shrz (and, indeed, from theishrq Avicennan tradition that he inherited) to thefounder of the Dars-i Nim, Mull Nimuddn Sihlv Farang-Maall (d. 1161/1748). 3 It was in this early Mughal period that Islamic philosophical traditions seriously began topenetrate Indian scholarly circles. 4

    Shrz is praised in the biographical literature by friend and foe; the universal approvalreects his signicant political status at the court of Akbar. 5 His friend Ab l-Fal wrote:

    He was so learned that if all the previous books of philosophy disappeared, he could have laid anew foundation for knowledge and would not have desired what had preceded. 6

    Another contemporary and an official historian at court, Khwja Nim al-Dn AmadBakhsh (d. 1003/1594), wrote:

    He was superior to all the ulema of Persia, Iraq, and India in his knowledge of the scriptural andintellectual sciences. Among his contemporaries, he had no equal. He was an expert in the occultsciences including the preparation of talismans and white magic. 7

    Shrz did play a critical role in the dissemination of the works and teachings of thekey gures of the philosophical school of Shrz: the Dashtaks and Jalaluddn Davn (d.908/1502); it is no accident that establishing their work in the curricula of educational insti-tutions accounts for the numerous manuscript copies of their philosophical, logical, and theo-logical works in Indian libraries. 8 But, arguably, his most important legacy was bequeathing

    3. al-asan, Nuzhat al-khawir , 6: 39496; Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur in Nordindien, 8695;Anr ( Bn-yi dars-i nim , 42) presents the following important intellectual lineage for the philosophi-cal curriculum in India: Mull Muammad Nimuddn Sihlv (d. 1161/1748)his father, Mull QubuddnSihlv (d. 1121/1710)Mull Dniyl Chawrs Abd al-Salm Dw (d. 1039/1629) Abd al-Salm Lhr(d. 1037/1627)Mr Fatullh Shrz (d. 997/1589)Jamluddn Mamd ShrzJalluddn Davn(d. 1502)Muyuddn KshktrKhwja asan Shh BaqqlSharf Al Jurjn (d. 816/1413)Mubrak-Shh Bukhr (d. 740/1340)Qubuddn Rz Tatn (d. 766/1364). One could continue this lineage to Avicennain the following manner: Tatnthe eminent Shi ite theologian Allma Ibn Muahhar al-ill (d. 725/1325)histeacher, the Shi ite theologian, philosopher, and scientist Khwja Nar al-Dn Muammad s (d. 672/1274)Farduddn Dmd Nsbradruddn al-SarakhAfaluddn Umar al-Ghayln (d. after 523/1128)Abl- Abbs al-Lawkar (d. after 503/1109)Bahmanyr b. Marzubn (d. 458/1066)Avicenna (d. 428/1037). Onthis latter section of the lineage, see Ahmed al-Rahim, Avicennas Immediate Disciples: Their Lives and Works,in Avicenna and His Legacy: A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy, ed. Tzvi Langermann (Turnhout: Brepols,

    2009), 125; idem, The Twelver- Reception of Avicenna in the Mongol Period, in Before and After Avicenna,ed. David C. Reisman, with Ahmed H. al-Rahim (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 21932.4. Shrz was one of a number of students of the school of Shrz who found fame and fortune in India. Oth-

    ers included Ab l-Fat Gln (d. 997/1589), Shaykh Amad Thattav (d. 996/1588), Sayyid Inyatullh Shrz(d. 988/1580), Shaykh Muammad Yazd (d. 998/1588), Mr Murta Sharf (d. 972/1564), and Shaykh HibatullhShrz; see al-asan, Nuzhat al-khawir , 23: 1112, 2627, 22324, 293, 312, 346.

    5. Abd al-Qdir b. Malikshh Badyn, Muntakhab al-tavrkh, ed. Amad Al et al. (rpt., Tehran: Anjuman-ithr va Mafkhir-i Farhang, 1379 sh/2000), 3: 105. Cf. Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History, 2: 19697; al-asan,

    Nuzhat al-khawir , 23: 22627.6. Ab l-Fal Allm, Akbarnma (Calcutta: Biblioteca Indica at the Baptist Mission Press, 187387), 3: 401;

    cf. Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History, 2: 197.7. Nimuddn Badakhsh,abaqt-i Akbar , ed. Barun De (Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 192729), 2: 357.8. There are very few extant works of Shrz himself. One work that does suggest his introduction into India

    of the important cycle ofkalm texts around theTajrd al-i tiqd of Naruddn s is shiya al shar jaddli-l-Tajrd , MS British Library Asian and African Studies (India Office Delhi Arabic) 961a (forty ff. of eighteenth-centurynasta lq in the collected tome; as the author is not identied, the attribution is tentative). The only otherwork that I have found is Risla dar javb-i savlt-i ikmiyya va kalmiyya , MS Raza Library (Rampur) 466b

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    a curriculum that combined the study of the scriptures, the traditional religious sciences,and the intellectual sciences, laying the basis for the Dars-i Nim. The eighteenth-centuryintellectual Mr Ghulm Al (zd) Bilgrm (d. 1200/1785) claimed that Shrz was theleading teacher of the intellectual sciences in his time, and his curricular reconciliation of

    the traditional and the intellectual (manqlt , ma qlt ) was his great achievement that hetransmitted to his student Mull Abd al-Salm Lhr (d. 1037/16278), who was also aneminent Mughal jurist judging cases and teaching in Lahore. 9

    Once the taste for philosophical speculation became critical to the Indian (Sunni)madrasa ,it was the twin schools of Mull adr, particularly disseminated through the study of hisShar al-Hidya , and of Mr Dmd that dominated the intellectual curriculum of the lateMughal period. This paper is a study of the latter and the debates that arose on the nature ofGods creative agency, which were inspired by the doctrine of the perpetual incipience ofthe cosmos (udth dahr ). I will rst examine briey Mr Dmds teaching and give anoverview of his argument. I will then discuss the formation of a school of Yemeni philoso-phy in India, and, nally, analyze elements of the debate on the argument within the learnedculture of the North Indian towns loosely within the framework of the Dars-i Nim and itsLucknow and Khayrbd variants.

    Mr Muammad Bqir Dmd Astarbd was an eminent philosopher of the afavid

    period, a companion of Shh Abbs I (r. 15871629) and latershaykh al-islm of Ifahn,involved in the coronation of Shh af in January 1629. 10 Accompanying the shah to theShi ite shrine cities in Iraq, he died there in 1040/1631 and was buried in the precinct ofthe shrine of Al in Najaf. He trained a number of prominent thinkers, including the mostfamous philosopher of the afavid period, Mull adr Shrz (d. ca. 1045/1635). How-ever, it was his son-in-law, Sayyid Amad Alaw (d. ca. 1060/1650), and Mull ShamsGln (d. 1098/1687) who are best known for perpetuating his school of thought, not leasthis doctrines on the nature of existence and the thorny problem of the relationship betweenbeing and time, or rather how to reconcile the Neoplatonizing Aristotelian account of thecosmos that is an instrumental, even logical product of a Principle, an unmoved Mover, withthe Islamic and Qur anic account of a personal god who creates volitionally. A prolic, ifsomewhat obscure, philosopher, prone to an opaque and rather baroque style of writing, hewas best known for his metaphysical doctrines relating to time and creation, returning to thetopic repeatedly in his works. In particular, he was known for his theory that divine creativeagency is neither temporal in this world nor eternal in the world of immutability, but rather

    takes place in an intermediate mode of time and existence known as perpetuity (dahr ). Thisis the concept of perpetual creation orudth dahr . 11 The theory is expounded in his twomajor works. Al-Qabast (Blazing Brands orQabast aqq al-yaqn f udth al- lam ),

    (ff. 1v35v). Another important manuscript for the Avicennan tradition is MS Raza Library (Rampur) 3476 ofal-Shif of Avicenna which belonged to the Dashtak family and was brought to India by Shrz and later lodgedin the Mughal royal library from which it transferred to Rampur.

    9. Bilgrm, Ma thir-i kirm , 226, 22829; al-asan, Nuzhat al-khawir , 5: 24344.10. The best accounts are Al Awjab, Mr Dmd: Bunynguzr-i ikmat-i yamn (Tehran: at, 2004), and

    Sayyid Al Msaw-Bihbahn, akm-i Astarbd, Mr Dmd (Tehran: Tehran Univ. Press, 1998).11. For a more detailed study, see Keven A. Brown, Time, Perpetuity, and Eternity: Mr Dmds Theory of

    Perpetual Creation and the Trifold Division of Existence. An Analysis ofKitb al-Qabast: The Book of Blazing Brands, Ph.D. diss., Univ. of California, Los Angeles, 2006; Fazlur Rahman, Mr Dmds Concept ofudthdahr : A Contribution to the Study of the God-World Relationship in Safavid Iran, Journal of Near Eastern Studies39 (1980): 13951; Sajjad H. Rizvi, Between Time and Eternity: Mr Dmd on Gods Creative Agency, Journalof Islamic Studies 12 (2006): 15876.

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    which remained more popular in Iran, is notoriously obscure in some of its formulations; itwas written in a six-month period at the beginning of 1625. 12 It was extensively commentedupon and glossed by his students Sayyid Amad Alaw, Mull Shams Gln, Muammadb. Al-Ri qjn, as well as other major philosophers of the afavid and Qjr periods,

    such as q usayn Khwnsr (d. 1098/1687), Mull Al Nr (d. 1831), and Mrz Abl-asan Jilveh (d. 1896). 13 Al-Ufuq al-mubn (The Clear Horizon) was an earlier, incom-plete text, covering the totality of issues within metaphysics, which he abandoned before1025/1615, but it became a major school text in India and was glossed by members of theFirang-Maall family as well as the Khayrbd philosophers, as we shall see shortly. 14

    Dmds theory represents a conscious middle path between the medieval philosophersand theologians, an attempt by a thinker to articulate an Islamic philosophy, a propheti-cally inspired way of wisdom, as the concept of Yemeni philosophy indicated. Theolo-gians in Islam had broadly insisted that the Qur anic notion of a creator god was one whoproduced the cosmos ex nihilo in time. 15 Inspired by John Philoponuss famous attack onProclus (d. 485) and Aristotles defense of eternalism, they have asserted that not only wasthe concept of an eternal cosmos coeval with God absurd, it was also heretical; al-Ghazl(d. 505/1111) in hisTahfut al-falsifa (Incoherence of the Philosophers) anathematizedphilosophers for believing precisely this. 16 Philoponus (d. ca. 570), as a Christian, was fol-lowed by other theologians in using Aristotelian principles to deconstruct the argument foreternity. 17 His refutation relied on three premises. First, if the existence of something requiresthe pre-existence of something else, then the rst thing will not come to be without the priorexistence of the second. This was a major axiom in later Islamic metaphysics and was knownas the rule of subordination (q ida far iyya ). Second, based on sound Aristotelian science,an innite number cannot exist in actuality, nor be traversed in counting, nor be increased.The medieval rule that actual innites do not obtain was upheld. Third, something cannot

    come into being if its existence requires the pre-existence of an innite number of otherthings, one arising out of the other. From these Aristotelian premises, Philoponus deducedthat the conception of a temporally innite universe, understood as a successive causal chain,is impossible. The celestial spheres of Aristotelian theory have different periods of revolu-tion, and in any given number of years they undergo different numbers of revolutions, somelarger than others. The assumption of their motion having gone on for all eternity leads tothe conclusion that innity can be increased, even multiplied, which Aristotle, too, held tobe absurd.

    12. Msaw-Bihbahn, akm-i Astarbd , 16566.13. Sayyid Amad Alaw,Shar Kitb al-Qabast , ed. . N. Ifahn (Tehran: ISTAC, 1997), 2627.14. Abdullh Nrn published a non-critical edition of the text in Iran in 2006. mid Nj Ifahn, who

    edited Sayyid Amad AlawsShar al-Qabast , has prepared a critical edition ofal-Ufuq al-mubn, which is inpress. Despite the many manuscripts of the text in India, there is neither a lithograph nor a modern edition of thetext.

    15. For a wonderfully creative study of how Islamic intellectual traditions have shifted from an initial Qur aniccreator paradigm, see Ian Netton, Allah Transcendent: Studies in the Structure and Semiotics of Islamic Philoso-

    phy, Theology and Cosmology (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1989). The standard reference for the arguments for andagainst eternity in medieval Islam is Herbert Davidson,Proofs for Eternity, Creation, and Existence of God in

    Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1987).16. Ab mid al-Ghazl,Tahfut al-falsifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers) , ed. and tr. Michael

    Marmura (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young Univ. Press, 2000), 1246.17. On Philoponuss argument, see Richard Sorabji,Time, Creation and the Continuum (London: Duckworth,

    1983), 193231; Samuel Sambursky,The Physical World of Late Antiquity (London: Routledge, Kegan and Paul,1962), 15475.

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    Mr Dmds solution is not primarily concerned with this strand of the argument. Inu-enced by Avicenna, he was convinced by the argument that God does not create in time sincethat leads to a petitio principii; the cause of time must transcend time. Avicenna reducesthe relationship of the cosmos to the world to one of contingency (imkn) dependent on the

    Necessary Existent One (wjib al-wujd ). Further, he distinguishes three levels of temporal-ity, or rather conscious states that entities possess: zamn, dahr , andsarmad . Inal-Ta lqt ,a late work based on discussions and questions of his close students, Avicenna wrote:

    The intellect grasps three types of entities. The rst is in time ( zamn) and expressed by whenand describes mutables that have a beginning and an end, although its beginning is not its endbut necessitates it. It is in permanent ux and requires states and renewal of states. The secondis being with time and is called perpetuity (dahr ) and it surrounds time. It is the existence of theheavens with time and time isin that existence because it issues from the motion of the heavens.It is the relationship of the immutable to the mutable although ones imagination cannot grasp itbecause it sees everything in time and thinks that everything is, will be, and waspast,present, and futureand sees everything as when either in the past or the present or the future.The third is the being of the immutable with the immutable and is called eternity (sarmad ) andit surrounds perpetuity [. . .]. Perpetuity is a container of time as it surrounds it. Time is a weakexistence as it is in ux and motion. 18

    Our linguistic limitations make these notions of temporality rather difficult to grasp, espe-cially as our language makes and represents our experience and our world, which are inexora-bly tensed. These three degrees of temporality also indicate three increasingly intense modesof existence. For Avicenna, radical contingents are utterly dependent on the Necessary andare in a sense somewhat unreal or non-existent. The higher intelligible beings are more realand ultimately the Necessary is the Real. In simple terms, sensibilia are purely temporal,intelligibilia are perpetual and share in eternality, and God is eternal. The eternality of the

    cosmos is borrowed and a reection of an eternal God and His eternal agency as creator inthe higher world of intelligibles. In effect, Avicenna does not retain the neat tripartite divisionand tends to collapse the distinction between eternal and perpetual. 19 Mr Dmd insists onseparating the levels and expresses this hierarchy and how human consciousness conceivesof it inal-Qabast in the following manner:

    In existence that obtains, there are three types of containers: (1) the container (wi ) of an exis-tence that has extension and is in ux and a non-existence that is continuous and has extensionthat belong to mutable entities insofar as they are mutable in time ( zamn); (2) container of apure existence that is preceded by pure non-existence and that transcends the horizon of exten-sion and non-existence and belongs to immutables insofar as they are immutable while embrac-ing actuality is perpetuity (dahr ); (3) container of a pure Real immutable Existence absolutelydevoid of accidentality of change and transcendent above any sense of being preceded by non-existence, pure and sheer activity, is eternity (sarmad ). Just as perpetuity transcends and is morevast than time, so, too, is eternity higher, more majestic, more holy, and greater than perpetuity. 20

    Contingency is therefore dened not by what did not exist at a prior point in time butrather as being preceded by non-existence. These three levels of temporality lead to threeconceptions of existence (and, indeed, of non-existence). Before Mr Dmd, there was a

    18. Ibn Sn,al-Ta lqt , ed. A. Badaw (Cairo: al-Hay a al-Miriyya al- mma li-l-Kitb, 1974), 14142;cf. Mr Dmd,Kitb al-Qabast , ed. Mehdi Mohaghegh, Toshihiko Izutsu, and Sayyid Al Msaw-Bihbahn(Tehran: Tehran Univ. Press, 1977), 78.

    19. Mr Dmd,Kitb al-Qabast , 32629.20. Mr Dmd,Kitb al-Qabast , 7.

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    basic dichotomy: either the cosmos has a beginning in time, in which case it possessestemporal incipience (udth zamn ), or it is purely preceded by non-existence, and not bytime in which it merely logically succeeds the divine essence, in which case it possessesudth dht . God as the purely immutable existence only acts at the level of the eternal

    and interacts with immutable intellects. He does not intervene in this world of sensibilia nordoes he know the particularity of things in this world; rather, His omniscience is mediatedby an Aristotelian epistemology of essences and universals through which one knows andrecognizes particulars. This absolute alterity of the divine and His inability to intervenein the mutable and the temporal because He is neither mutable nor temporal posed a majorproblem, not least for our understanding of theodicy and the relationship between Godsknowledge and His agency.

    Mr Dmds concept of the cosmos unfolding at the level of perpetuity is thus a com-promise intended to save the face of divine agency and divine knowledge. He does not denythat there are types of contingents that have a beginning in time. But the cosmos and creationas such have a beginning in perpetuity, not in time nor in the eeting moment extensivelyglossed by Avicenna. The contingency and incipience of the world lies at the level of per-petuity, a mode of temporality that is meta-temporal yet not eternal. Just as the theologicaldoctrine of creation in time was rejected by Mr Dmd, so, too, did he want to avoid theAvicennan notion of contingency based on the priority of an essential non-existence (sibqbi-l- adam al-dht ). Inal-Qabast , which is his most extensive discussion of the problem,he presents six arguments for perpetual creation. The rst proof is based on three kinds ofcreation (udth) and non-existence and the postulation of three modes or containers ofexistence or temporality, namely, time, perpetuity, and eternity, which draw on Avicenna.The second is founded upon an analysis of the relationship between essence and existence incontingents and Mr Dmds position on the ontological priority of essence and three types

    of priority. The third examines types of posteriority. The fourth proof is scriptural corrobo-ration from the Qur an and the sayings of the Prophet and the imams. The fth is based onthe notion of pure, unqualied natures. The sixth is founded upon the continuities of time,space, and motion.

    Here I will concern myself with the rst proof, based on the twin premises of three typesof creation and the different senses of non-existence. 21 Mr Dmds solution is to allow forcontingents in this world to be preceded not by conceptual or essential non-existence butby a real non-existence (adam ar ), which is located at the level of perpetuity (dahr )and which constitutes a real contradictory for existence. 22 This is a level of ontologicalconsciousness devoid of extension or change and rather difficult for the mind to grasp, apoint repeatedly made by Mr Dmds opponents. It can only make sense if we accept MrDmds position that essences are ontologically prior (alat al-mhiyya ), meaning thatwithin the conceptual dyads that are contingents composed of existence and essence, it is thelatter that is the prior principle, and the former only obtains once the thing possesses actuali-ty. 23 Mr Dmds student, Sayyid Amad Alaw, explains the point: the everyday notion ofnon-existence considers something that is devoid of extension and matter either in this worldor in the supra-lunary world and thus it is a conceptual version that is opposed to existencefound in this world. 24 However, Mr Dmd is concerned with a real and not conceptual typeof non-existence that has neither space nor time and is beyond extension, but his solution

    21. Cf. Brown, Time, Perpetuity, and Eternity, 66149.22. Mr Dmd,Kitb al-Qabast , 22026.23. Mr Dmd,Taqwm al-mn, ed. Al Awjab (Tehran: Mrth-i Maktb, 1997), 323.24. Alaw,Shar al-Qabast , 47273.

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    allows one to insist upon the unreality of everything other than the One posited by monism,yet at the same time to affirm true plurality of contingents. Thus, contingents possess withinthemselves a temporal beginning as well as a perpetual eternality (al-udth al-zamn wa-l-azaliyya al-dahriyya ). In this sense, the concept ofudth dahr is akin to his student Mull

    adrs attempt at resolving the opposition of monism and pluralism through his dynamictwinned conception of substances in processual motion existing within a singular but gradedhierarchy of existence (araka jawhariyya , tashkk al-wujd ). At the end of the argument,Mr Dmd demonstrates that all things that are contingent (or possible in themselves) arepreceded by a real, contradictory non-existence, and this requires their actualization at thelevel of perpetuity and denies the possibility of their existence at the level of eternity whichis unique to God. 25 This is the primary achievement of his school of Yemeni philosophy.

    The school of Mr Dmd was known as the Yemeni philosophy (al-ikma al-yamniyya).

    His method involved a presentation of philosophy that existed before him primarily from theschool of Avicenna, which he labels Greek philosophy (ikma yunniyya), and then a criti-cal exposition of the position, replacing it with his improved argument which he describedas Yemeni, based on the famous saying attributed to the Prophet: Faith is Yemeni andwisdom is Yemeni (al-mn yamn wa-l-ikma yamniyya). 26 He considered all previousschools of thought (Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophy, Ash ar theology, and evenTwelver Shi ite theology) to be incomplete and unreliable in their understanding of reality.His Yemeni position is not a purely ratiocinative one and it extends knowledge and under-standing beyond the connes of discourse (bath) and reason to the non-propositional, intui-tive (dhawq), immediate, and mystically disclosed (kashf ). Often he presents his argument bystating that he will rst examine the Greek philosophical position and then move on to theYemeni one. As his primary concern is with the philosophy of theistic creation, his Yemeniphilosophy is deployed to solve the problems of time and creation.

    In Jadhavt va mawqt (Flaming Embers and Epiphanies), a thoughtful contempla-tion written in Persian (his only major work in that language) of Mosess encounter with thetheophany of the burning bush on Mount Sinai, he describes different conceptions and levelof creation:

    Causationwhich is a term for emanation, making, and bringing into existencein thedoctrine of those rooted in knowledge (rsikhn ulam ) and of the metaphysicians of Greekand of Yemeni philosophy is of four types:ibd (origination, creatio ex nihilo),ikhtir (pro-duction),un (fashioning or creation in the higher intelligible world), andtakwn (generation orcreation in the sub-lunar world). 27

    Later in the same text, he analyses the Yemeni philosophical understanding of numericalorder and the existence of Platonic numbers as rst-order emanations from the One, animportant element of the argument concerning levels of creation from the One. 28

    In one of his most important works on philosophical theology,al-ir al-mustaqm (TheStraight Path)primarily concerned with the problem of creation and, like many others, leftunnishedMr Dmd sets out what he intends to accomplish with the work:

    25. Brown, Time, Perpetuity, and Eternity, 504.26. Awjab, Mr Dmd , 97.27. Mr Dmd, Jadhavt va mavqt , ed. Al Awjab (Tehran: Mrth-i Maktb, 2001), 99.28. Mr Dmd, Jadhavt , 170.

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    The one most desirous among creation for his Lord the Self-Sufficient, Muammad b.Muammad known as Bqir Dmd al-usaynmay God make his afterlife goodpresentsto you, O brothers of mysticism, and expounds for you, O brothers of retreat and solitude, asolution to the confusion caused in you by the mass of teachers attempting to reveal the difficultrelationship between the Eternal and the incipient, and [aims] to ease its difficulties with clearthought according to the method of Greek philosophy and of Yemeni philosophy, and to inves-tigate the discourse of those expounders and make them wither with rm writing and forthrightexposition. 29

    He clearly thought that those who had written before him on the issue of creation and time,including Avicenna, had failed to convince, and he felt that he could produce a more robustargument and pin his Yemeni philosophy on the central doctrine of perpetual creation. Laterin the text, before he embarks on the main discussion of the doctrine, he distinguishes threetypes of prior non-existence based on Yemeni philosophy:

    According to what we have acquired from the mature Yemeni philosophy ripened by the facultyof the intellect, obtained through demonstrative syllogisms and divine inspirations, it appearsthat incipience has three possible meanings: The rst of them is the priority of the existence of athing by essential non-existence and this is called, according to the philosophers, essential cre-ation (udth dht ) [. . .]. The second of them is the priority of a thing by its non-existence inperpetuity and eternity that is atemporal such that the thing is non-existent in a real sense throughpure non-existence which is not qualied by continuity and its opposite. It then moves from thispure non-existence to existence and would appear to be most appropriately termed [incipience],that is, perpetual creation (udth dahr ). The third of them is the priority of the existence of thething by its non-existence in time so that its existence is preceded by an element of time, andthis is called by the theologians temporal creation (udth zamn ). 30

    The very notion of perpetual creation is directly related to his school of Yemeni philoso-

    phy. Inal-Ufuq al-mubn, the text that was so popular in India, he begins by saying that thework on the nature of the metaphysics of theistic creation is the result of what came to himfrom matured Yemeni philosophy and the pure, ecstatic philosophy of faith. 31

    The rst person to take up his school systematically in India and to engage fully and criti-cally with the theory of perpetual creation was the leading philosopher of the Mughal period,Mull Mamd Jawnpr, to whom I now turn.

    - Following upon the legacy of Mr Fatullh Shrz, Jawnpr in the Gangetic plain in

    North India became an intellectual center in the seventeenth century and was famously

    described asShrz-i Hind by the emperor Shhjahn (r. 16271658). 32

    The key gure in thisprocess was Mamd b. Muammad Frq, who was born in Vlidpr in district A amgarhin Raman 1015/1603. 33 A child prodigy, by the age of seventeen he had mastered theintellectual sciences with his maternal grandfather Shaykh Shh Muammad (d. 1032/1623)

    29. Mr Dmd,al-ir al-mustaqm f rab al-dith wa-l-qadm, ed. Al Awjab (Tehran: Mrth-i Maktb,2002), 3.

    30. Mr Dmd,al-ir al-mustaqm, 195.31. Mr Dmd, Muannaft II: al-Ufuq al-mubn , ed. Abdullh Nrn (Tehran: Anjuman-i thr va

    Mafkhir-i Farhang, 2006), 5.32. Bilgrm, Ma thir-i kirm , 12; Haz A. Ghaffar Khan, India, in History of Islamic Philosophy, vol. 1,

    ed. S. H. Nasr and O. Leaman (London: Routledge, 1996), 1059; Hasan,From Pluralism to Separatism , 24.33. Ghulm abb Subn,101 Ulam -yi Pkistn o Hind (Lahore: Ta lqt, 2002), 622 27; Sayyid Ghulm

    Al zd Bilgrm,Subat al-marjn f thr Hindustn , ed. M. Fal al-Ramn Nadw (Aligarh: Institute of

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    and a renowned philosopher in Jawnpr, Shaykh Muammad Afal Radawl (d. 1062/1652),and was already teaching philosophy by twenty. 34 Bilgrm describes him as the unique andprobably greatest of the ulema of the east (of Delhi) and as the best to combine the methodsof the Illuminationists (ishrqiyyn) and the Peripatetics (mashsh iyyn). 35

    Jawnpr was allegedly the student of Mr Findirisk (d. 1050/1640), the itinerant savantwho spent most of his life in India. At the latters behest, Jawnpr apparently stopped inIfahn on his way to theajj to study with Mr Dmd and there imbibed the ikma yamniyyahis main work,al-Shams al-bzigha , is inuenced byal-Ufuq al-mubn. 36 Bilgrm stresses thatal-Shams is a work in the tradition ofikma yamniyya. 37 Sources par-ticularly note the disagreement on the question of creation,udth dahr ; in fact, Bilgrm,among others, replicates the whole critique of Jawnpr, to which I will return later. 38

    In order to promote the new capital of Shhjahnbd as an intellectual and imperial cen-ter, Shhjahn collected around himself a coterie of intellectual gures, including Miyn Mr(d. 1045/1635), the famous Su from Lahore, the philosopher and theologian Abd al-akmSiylkt (d. 1067/1656), and Mamd Jawnpr. 39 The latter was invited to build a newobservatory in Delhi by the courtier af Khn. 40 However, as Shhjahn was soon dis-tracted by matters of statein particular the Balkh campaign in the west against the Uzbeksin 164548 for recovery of the Mughals ancestral homelandsJawnpr returned to hishometown where he established a seminary, Madrasa-yi Mamdiyya, which specializedin the study of the intellectual sciences. 41 There he designed a school text for the study anddissemination of philosophy entitledal-ikma al-bligha , on which he wrote his own com-mentaryal-Shams al-bzigha . 42 Although the text was intended to be a comprehensive ency-clopedia much akin toal-Hidya of al-Abhar and its famous commentary by Mull adrcomprising a section on logic, physics, and metaphysics, it was only the physics section thatwas ever completed. It is, in fact, one of the peculiarities of the intellectual sciences in India

    Islamic Studies, Aligarh Muslim Univ., 1972), 2: 14270; al-asan ( Nuzhat al-khawir , 5: 42931) mentions abirth year of 993 . .;GAL, 2: 554, S II: 621.

    34. See al-asan, Nuzhat al-khawir , 5: 359; Al,Tadhkira-yi ulam -yi Hind , 417; Malik, IslamischeGelehrtenkultur in Nordindien, 9899.

    35. Bilgrm,Subat al-marjn , 2: 142.36. Al Awjab (ikmat-i yamn dar Hind, yna-yi mrth 32 [2006]: 84), Robinson (Ottomans-Safavids-

    Mughals, 159), and Khan (India, 1065) cite this but do not provide any source.37. Bilgrm,Subat al-marjn , 2: 145.38. Bilgrm,Subat al-marjn , 2: 14562.39. Bilgrm,Subat al-marjn , 1: 17072. Siylkt is famed for his commentary on three major works of

    philosophical theology: the glosses of Amad al-Khayl (d. 870/1465) and Jalluddn al-Dawn (d. 907/1501) onthe creed of Najmuddn Umar al-Nasaf (d. 537/1142);Shar al-Mawqif of al-Jurjn (d. 816/1413); andawlial-anwr min mali al-anr of al-Bayw (d. 685/1286). He also wrote a gloss on the philosophical commentaryof Mr usayn Maybud onal-Hidya of al-Abhar. See al-asan, Nuzhat al-khawir , 5: 22931;GAL, 2: 550.

    40. As noted in the famous account of Jawnprs student Muammad diq Ifahnub-i diq, f. 521, andreported in al-asan, Nuzhat al-khawir , and Bilgrm,Subat al-marjn , 2: 144.

    41. For discussions on the Balkh campaign and its failures, see Jos Gommans, Mughal Warfare (London: Rout-ledge, 2002), 17987; M. Athar Ali, Mughal India: Studies in Polity, Ideas, Society and Culture (New Delhi: OxfordUniv. Press, 2006), 32733; and John F. Richards,The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 1.5: The Mughal

    Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993), 13233.42. Apart from the many manuscripts, the text was printed in lithograph in 1280/1863 in Lucknow by Nim

    Press along with the glosses of amdullh on the margins. There is no modern critical edition of the text, althoughSayyid Aql Riv Gharav in Delhi has begun one based on an autograph manuscript in the Khud Bakhsh Libraryin Patna.

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    that physics remained the focus of the philosophical curriculum well into the late nineteenthcentury. 43

    Later, Jawnpr became the tutor of Shuj , the son and would-be heir of Shhjahn, andaccompanied him to the governorate of Bengal. There he is reported to have met the Su

    shaykh Ni matullh Frzbd and to have taken over thearqa from him in 1052/1641.Prominent students of his included Ab lib Sh ista Khn, Shaykh Nruddn Jawnpr, andShaykh Abd al-Bq iddq, author of a popular commentary on the rhetoric and polemicsof Shams al-Dn Samarqand (d. 1310) entitledal-db al-bqiya . 44

    Bilgrm notes that Jawnpr had a humble style of teaching and was renowned for hisreective and thoughtful approach to learning. Contemporary biographers would note thatthere are two famous Frqs in Indian history: Sirhind known for his Su teachings andJawnpr known for his teaching of philosophy and literature. He died on 21 Rab I 1062/March 2, 1652. The popularity of his text is attested by the many manuscripts of the workavailable in Indian and Indian-sourced libraries (like the British Library). 45 It has also repeat-edly been published in lithograph from the nineteenth century on and then offset by printerssuch as Nim in Lucknow.

    Al-Shams al-bzigha and the rehearsal of philosophical dogma were later considered to besymptomatic of intellectual stagnation. The famed reformer Jamluddn al-Afghn (d. 1897)condemned the study of the text as irrelevant to the new intellectual and scientic challengesof the modern world that Muslims faced. 46 Indeed, the advent of the new learning and thenew science which came with the colonial encounter, especially after the 1857 revolt, didseem to make the Ptolemaic cosmology on which much of the metaphysics and physics werepredicated seem increasingly obsolete.

    Jawnprs critique covers various elements. 47 He begins by presenting Mr Dmdsargument, agreeing that creation cannot be temporal as the idea of priority based on temporal

    43. Al-Shams al-bzigha is one of four important original Islamic philosophical texts produced in India. Theothers areal- Urw al-wuthq , a short epitome of philosophy written by Kamluddn Sihlw (d. 1760);al- Ujlaal-n a , a most detailed excursus on metaphysics by the famous philosopher of Farang-Maall, Abd Al Baral- Ulm (d. 1810); andal-Hadiya al-sa diyya by the nineteenth-century philosopher of Delhi, Fal-i aqqKhayrbd (d. 1861). Another short text from the late nineteenth century, which is somewhat like a studentsprimer, isTaswlt al-falsifa by the Patna philosopher Ab Sa d uhr al-aqq Ambd, of which an autographcopy is MS Khud Bakhsh 2742. These texts are all commonly found in Indian library collections. For a discussionof these texts in the Dars-i Nim, see my forthcoming article, Calibrating Empires of the Mind: Natural Philoso-phy in the Dars-i nim .

    44. Cf. MS Delhi Arabic (British Library) 1550, ff. 76v169v.45. There are far too many copies ofal-Shams al-bzigha to provide a full inventory (and in the absence of a

    critical edition it is worth referring to the manuscript traditions), but here are some of the manuscripts that I haveconsulted or am aware of:

    British Library: India Office Islamic 201 (129 ff.,nasta lq-shikaste , 1129/1717), Delhi Arabic 1618 (175 ff.,nasta lq , 1263/1847), Delhi Arabic 1624 (nineteenth century?), Delhi Arabic 1672 (nineteenth century?).

    Khud Bakhsh [Bankipore] 2393 (81 ff.,nasta lq , eighteenth century), 2394 (251 ff.,nasta lq of Najaf AlRiw, 1246 . ., gold borders, inscription oflisn al-suln Mamd al-Dawla Munsh afdar Al Khn-Bahdur),2395 (134 ff.,nasta lq , nineteenth century), 2399 (gloss of Mull Nimuddn Sihlw, 107 ff.,nasta lq , nineteenthcentury), 2400 (gloss of Mull asan Lakhnaw, d. 1189/1783, 198 ff.,nasta lq , nineteenth century).

    Asiatic Society (Kolkata) Calcutta Madrasa Collection Arabic 58 (170 ff.,nasta lq , eighteenth century).Rampur Raza Library 3616 (67 ff.,nasta lq , 1251/1835), 3617 (135 ff.,nasta lq , nineteenth century), 3549

    (232 ff.,nasta lq , nineteenth century).Princeton (New Series) 379 (131 ff.,nasta lq , nineteenth century), 547 (incomplete,nasta lq of Mrz Abbs,

    1249/1834), 1845 (incomplete, nineteenth century).

    Slr Jung (Hyderabad) 80, 81.46. Charles Kurzman, ed., Modernist Islam, 18401940 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002), 1067.47. Mamd Jawnpr,al-Shams al-bzigha f shar al-ikma al-bligha , MS British Library Asian and

    African Studies (Delhi Arabic) 1618, ff. 127v135v.

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    units or temporal continuity is absurd because it requires there to be a time before time. Tem-poral non-existence that precedes existence is not a true contradictory of it. His presentationis based on aspects of Mr Dmds rst, third, and sixth proofs. 48

    First, he examines the notions of priority. Real and opposing notions of priority and

    posteriority require the conception of some continuity, whether it is real or imagined(muaqqaq aw mawhm). It is difficult for the mind to imagine continuity outside of tempo-ral units and it thus tends to make an absolute distinction between non-existence and exis-tence. But then the question arises: whence creation, because Aristotelian philosophy doesnot permit something out of nothing? 49

    Second, if perpetuity is a container beyond temporal existence and beyond both continuityand lack of continuity, then how can existence obtain in it after it was not? The absurdity ofthe situation relates to the example of a point in time and whether two bodies can obtain thesame place in the small point in time within the paradoxical need to innitely divide units oftime. Besides, non-existence cannot exist at the same point or priority as existence by deni-tion. It is even more problematic to associate that priority in which the non-existence of thecosmos is, with the priority in which the existence of God obtains. For Jawnpr, perpetuityis not a container in which God can at times be manifest and at others not be devoid ofnotions of continuity. 50 The law of non-contradiction applies to this point. Non-existencequa non-existence and existence qua existence do not possess the properties of priority andposteriority. So what arises in perpetuity? If it is the notion of a prior non-existence associ-ated with the posterior existence, then one is left with the coincidence of contradictories. Butin this objection, Jawnpr is not taking into consideration Mr Dmds position on essence,which allows for a real non-existence in perpetuity to obtain.

    Third, he moves onto the Godworld relationship. One of the theological problems withperpetual creation is that it seems to posit a class of contingents (such as the higher intellects)

    that are eternal and perpetual with God such that there is no relation of them being precededby a prior state. This seems to pose a problem for the monotheist. There cannot be a differ-ence in number for a temporal thing between its temporal existence and its occurrence inperpetuity. It makes no sense for a thing to have existence in perpetuity before its existenceafter its creation. 51 Once again, an assumption that essences are ontologically prior wouldobviate the objection. Further, he argues that if we say that God can only precede contingentseither by perpetuity or eternity, not by time, then we face a problem in their denitions. Thestate in which God is together with those contingents in perpetuity negates the possibilityof notions of priority and posteriority. Togetherness (ma iyya) cannot contain within it theidea of some being prior and posterior in the relation. We would therefore be left with a posi-tion in which we cannot affirm that God is prior to the world. 52 Here Jawnpr thinks that MrDmd is too harsh on the Peripatetic position. One possible objection to Jawnpr is that thenotion ofma iyya to some need not be monological. His contemporary, Mull adr, afterall, allows for the togetherness of God and the world as well as graded stages of priority andposteriority pertaining to the same pyramid of being.

    Finally, Jawnpr makes a comment that has since been reiterated by an Iranian phi-losopher, Jalluddn shtiyn (d. 2005), relating to the nature of causation. 53 If an effect is

    48. Jawnpr,al-Shams, ff. 127v129v.49. Jawnpr,al-Shams, ff. 129v130r.50. Jawnpr,al-Shams, f. 130v.

    51. Jawnpr,al-Shams, f. 132v.52. Jawnpr,al-Shams, ff. 133v134r.53. Sayyid Jalluddn shtiyn, ed., Muntakhabt az thr-i ukam -yi rn (Tehran: Institut Franco-Iranien,

    1971), 1: 1719.

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    dependent upon its cause, thenfollowing the rules of Aristotelian scienceit must exist ina more perfect state at the stage of the existence of its cause. Therefore, the creation cannotbe totally non-existent or possess pure non-existence at the level of eternity. This amounts toa defense of the traditional Avicennan doctrine of essential creation (udth dht ). Jawnpr

    praises the effort of the intellectually dextrous and able Mr Dmd to solve the problem,but for him it is rather simpler: the real question for believing philosophers (al-mu minnmin al-falsifa) is to reconcile the Qur anic account and sayings of the prophets and thosewho have arrived at the unseen, that is, reconciling temporalcreatio ex nihilo withudthdht . But in that they should follow al-Frb (d. 339/950), who shows Platos reconciliationof creation and emanation in hisal-Jam bayna ra yay al-akmayn . 54 For Jawnpr, thereare two senses of essential creation, one invalid because it instrumentalizes God and makescreation eternal as such and in itself with a continuity from the divine, and the other validsince it insists upon the radical contingency of creation because only God is everlasting andself-sufficient (al-bq ) and all else is perishing (hlik ). The only reason that prophets spokethe language of temporal creation was because of the need to communicate their utter depen-dence on God in simple, communicative language. It is always open for intelligent interpret-ers to make sense of the scripture as they will, even to defendudth dahr (as, indeed, MrDmd did in his fourth proof, which Jawnpr does not discuss). 55

    Jawnprs critique is representative of a school gloss and shows how traditions can beintellectually dynamic. 56 He praises the master, is fair in his evaluation, and even agrees withthe sentiment but begs to differ on specic points. The real test of an argument in philosophyis whether it is logically sound; after all, the mastery of logic that was central to the intel-lectual sciences in India precluded the easy reliance upon rhetorical argumentation. Thus,despite his remaining unconvinced by Mr Dmds solution to the problem of time andcreation, Jawnpr remained very much a follower of his school tradition. In the later debate,

    he had his own followers: Muammad Barkat Ilhbd (d. 1780) wrote a short treatise, Risla f udth al-dht , which defended Jawnprs only interpretation of the Avicennandoctrine. 57

    The school of Mr Dmd in India is primarily associated with the Khayrbd philoso-

    phers of the nineteenth century who had settled in Delhi. But this famous family was not therst to comment on these works. Around a century after Mr Dmd, an Iranian philosopherliving in India, Anwar al-Dn al-usayn, wrote a commentary entitledal-Tanwrt f sharal-mt , copies of which survive in the Raza Library in Rampur, and the former ayya

    collection (MS Arabic 67) and the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad (MS Arabic 11). 58 Another Iranian philosopher, Abd al-amd Tabrz, the author of a wonderful mystical

    54. Jawnpr,al-Shams, f. 134v; cf. Ab Nar al-Frb,al-Jam bayna ray ay al-akmayn (Lharmonie entreles opinions de Platon et dAristote) , ed. and tr. Fawz Najjr and Dominique Mallet (Damascus: Institut Fran-ais, 1999), 12650: the reconciliation is made easier because he was comparing Plato to the Neoplatonic pseudo-Aristotle of theTheologia.

    55. Jawnpr,al-Shams, ff. 135rv.56. He wrote a separate treatise on the topic related to this discussion inal-Shams: Risla f l-udth al-dahr

    (MS Raza Library, Rampur 1775, ff. 1v5r).57. For example, MS Raza Library 3620, ff. 225v231r.58. Imtiyz Al Arsh,Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Raza Library, Rampur (Rampur: Raza

    Library Trust, 196377), 4: 49495; M. Nimuddn, A Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Salar JungCollection (Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Government, 1957), 1: 8; cf. Al Awjab, ikmat-i yamn, 79.

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    work on the nature of being,al-Bawriq al-nriyya , was a student who settled in India in themiddle of the seventeenth century, as attested in his own work; no mention is made of himin the biographical dictionaries. 59 The stories of Jawnpr travelling to Ifahn to sit at thefeet of the philosopher are probably apocryphal; the rst Indian to transmit the school and to

    have studied with him was Mull abbgh of Kashmr. 60There are three lines of inuence discernable in the transmission of Mr Dmds school.First, there is the inuence ofal-Ufuq al-mubn in India, numerous manuscripts of whichsurvive in libraries. This was mediated through citations of the work in metaphysical com-mentaries on theadr , the famous commentary onal-Hidya by Mull adr Shrz.Examples include the renowned intellectual Muibbullh Bihr (d. 1119/1707) in his Musallam al- ulm , Muammad Amjad iddq Qannawj (d. 1140/1727), Q MubrakGopmw (d. 1162/1749), Muammad A lam Sandlv (d. 1198/1784), Muammad IrtiKhn Gopmw (d. 1251/1835), Barkat Amad (d. 1922), and members of the famed Luck-now Farang-Maall family, such as the founder Mull Nimuddn Sihlv (d. 1161/1748),his son Abd Al Bar al- Ulm (d. 1225/1810), Mull Muammad asan (d. 1198/1784),Walullh Anr (d. 1854), Muammad Ysuf Anr (d. 1186/1772), Abd al-alm (d.1868), and Ab l-asant Abd al-ayy (d. 1886). 61 Others who engaged critically with MrDmd were two controversial and independent Shi ite philosophers from Ghzpr in East-ern U.P., Sayyid usayn usayn Nawnehrav (d. 1855) and his son Sayyid Murta, whowrote a fascinating work Mi rj al- uql f shar Du al-mashll . 62

    Second, those who wrote onal-Ufuq al-mubn were the major philosophers of theKhayrbd school such as Fal-i Imm (d. 1824), his son Fal-i aqq (d. 1861), and hisgrandson Abd al-aqq (d. 1900). 63 The most eminent of these was Fal-i aqq, who wrotea number of important works in philosophy:al-Jins al-ghl f shar al-Jawhar al- l ;al-Hadiya al-sa diyya on physics, which was written for the Nawab Muammad Sa d Khn

    (r. 18401855) of Rampur and became a major textbook, due to its pithy nature, in Rampurand othermadrasa s devoted to the study of the intellectual sciences;al-Raw al-mujawwad f aqqat al-wujd , a short analysis of ontology; shiya al Talkh al-Shif , a gloss onhis fathers commentary on Avicennas compendium; and shiya al l-Ufuq al-mubn ,

    59. According to Brockelmann,GAL, S II: 585, this is Abd al-amd b. Mu n al-Dn b. Muammad Hshimal-Nayrz. Sayyid I jz usayn Kintr (Kashf al-ujub wa-l-astr an asm al-kutub wa-l-asfr [Calcutta: BaptistMission Press, 1911], 89, 402) gives Abd al-amd b. Mu n al-Dn b. Muammad Hshim al-Qattl al-Rif al-Tabrz. I am preparing a critical edition of this text based on four manuscripts: Delhi Arabic (British Library)1778, Khud Bakhsh 1287, Lucknow Niriyya 356 (from the microlm in the Noor Library in New Delhi, as theNiriyya is inaccessible), Asiatic Society (Kolkata) Arabic 1161.

    60. Muammad A am,Trkh-i Kashmr (Lahore, 1886), 148; Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History, 2: 215.61. al-asan, Nuzhat al-khawir , 6: 255, 25759, 281, 28485, 3045; 7: 31318;GAL, S II: 61824. On

    the Farang-Maall, see Robinson,The Ulam of Farang-Maall ; Ashfq Al, Mull Jwan k mu ir ulam (Lucknow: Maba -yi Nim, 1982); Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur in Nordindien.

    62. This work in Arabic is a wonderfully independent-minded study of philosophy and theology engaging withMull adr and Mr Dmd as well as the greatmutakallimn; it includes a thorough critique of the views of theAsh ar school as well as the famous theological compendium of the famedmujtahid of Lucknow Sayyid DildrAl Naqv Narbd (d. 1235/1820) entitledImd al-Islm . The text was published by the author in 1915 and hasbeen re-typeset by Mahd Khje-pr with an introduction by Akbar Subt and will be shortly published by the IranCulture House in New Delhi.Imd al-Islm was published in ve volumes, corresponding to the ve divisions oftheological discussion in Shi ite Islam, lithographed in Lucknow by Newal Kishore in 1902, edited by his maternalgrandson q Sayyid asan (d. 1348/1929), a leading theologian of his time.

    63. Muft Intimullh Shahb, Mawlna Fal-i aqq aur Abd al-aqq ib Khayrbd (Badyun:Maba -yi Nim, 1920); Afal aqq Qarsh, ed.,Fal-i aqq Khayrbd: k taqq mula a (Lahore: al-Faial,1992); al-asan, Nuzhat al-khawir , 7: 41215.

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    22 Journal of the American Oriental Society 131.1 (2011)

    which is most salient to us here. 64 These leading public intellectuals represented the learnedculture of the North Indian towns (qasbahs), nurtured by the Mughal empire and its successorstates and principalities, and later rened in opposition and service to the East India Com-pany and the British Raj. 65 These towns produced many a learned Sunni scholar. The salons

    of Delhi reverberated with the study of Mr Dmd led by the Khayrbds and their friendsamong the intellectual elites, such as adr al-Dn Khn zurda (d. 1868), Imm BakhshSehb (d. 1857), Muaf Khn Shfta (d. 1869), and the great Persian and Urdu poetAsadullh Khn Ghlib (d. 1869), all of whom in their own way straddled the old learningand the new, not least through their association with Delhi College, the former GhziuddnKhnmadrasa . 66 The College taught traditional philosophy alongside the idealism, roman-ticism, and rationalism of European schools of philosophy. The friends shared and correctedone anothers poetry, discussed matters of theological dispute, and debated metaphysics.Most of them had a prior training in the metaphysics of the school of Mr Dmd from Fal-iImm Khayrbd. 67 Collectively, in the post-1857 accounts of the lost glories of Delhi,they were described as the luminaries of the Delhi renaissance, both cultural and intel-lectual. 68 Before the rivalry with the new European learning, the Khayrbd stress upon therational clashed with the puritanical neo-Wahhbs and theadth-based Ramiyyamadrasa founded and controlled by the family of Shh Walullh (d. 1762). Al-Ufuq al-mubn wasthe main philosophical text in the Khayrbd curriculum, replacing theadr andal-Shamsal-bzigha , which were the main texts of the Dars-i Nim. Even during his exiled deten-tion on the Andaman Islands, Fal-i aqq is said to have continued to teach and discuss thework of Mr Dmd. Apart from the Khayrbd family, a set of glosses (ta lqt ) onal-Ufuqal-mubn was also composed by the famous philosopher of the Farang-Maall, Abd AlBar al- Ulm. 69 He also referred to the text in his own important summary of philosophy,al- Ujla al-n a ( The Benecial Illumination).

    Finally, there were those who expressed their adherence to the school of Mr Dmdthrough their commentaries onal-Shams al-bzigha . amdullh b. Shukrullh (d. 1160/1747),a well-known Shi ite scholar from one of the major qasbahs, Sandla, cites Bqir al- ulmfrom al-Qabast and Taqwm al-mn extensively. Amadullh Raaw Khayrbd(d. 1167/1753) was a well-known teacher of theadr who also wrote glosses onal-Shams.Mull Muammad asan Lakhnav (d. 1198/1784), a major philosopher of the Farang-Maall family, defended Mr Dmd against the criticisms of Jawnpr on the issue of thecreation of the world. 70 On the whole, philosophers upheld the Avicennan doctrine, but mostof the school of Mr Dmd clung to the possibility of perpetual creation as a solution to theproblem of creation.

    64. Al-Hadiya al-sa diyya is commonly found in major Indian libraries (e.g., MS Khud Bakhsh Arabic 1924),not least the autograph copy in the Raza Library in Rampur (MS Arabic 3627). It was continually printed in litho-graph in Lucknow, the rst time in 1866 by Newal Kishore Press with the gloss of his son (Raza Library ArabicPrinted Books 62) and the last time in 1912 by Amad Press, which is the copy in the British Library (14540.e.19).It was also printed in Rampur in 1902 along with the glosses of his son Abd al-aqq. There is a copy ofal-Rawal-mujawwad in Raza Library in Rampur (MS 3459, ff. 1v23r).

    65. See Hasan,From Pluralism to Separatism ; Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur in Nordindien , 10562;Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History, 2: 5253.

    66. Pernau, ed.,The Delhi College, especially chs. 4 and 5; Abd al-aqq, Marm Dill klij (Delhi: Anjuman-iTaraqq-yi Urd Hind, 1989); Muft Intimullh Shahb,Ghadar k cand ulam (Delhi: Dn Book Depot, 1979).

    67. Hasan, A Moral Reckoning, 5355.68. Hasan, A Moral Reckoning, 66.69. For example, MS Raza Library (Rampur) Arabic 3639.70. Mamd Jawnpr,al-Shams al-bzigha (Lucknow: Lodiana, 1863), 19, 185, 189 on the margins.

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    23R : Mr Dmd in India

    The signicance of the debate in India is all the more, because in Iran the concept ofudth dahr was on the whole ignored. Even Mr Dmds famous student Mull adrfailed to discuss it in his own defense of a paradoxicaludth that was both temporal in itsconstant renewal and eternal in the activity of its renewal, a position on time and creation

    that reects his doctrine of substantial motion (araka jawhariyya ). The other main students,Alaw and Gln, defended the position. Later, two philosophers engaged in the debate: qJamluddn Khwnsr (d. 1125/1713) attacked the doctrine in his set of glosses on the ontol-ogy ofal-Tajrd of Khwja Naruddn al-s, and Mull Ism l Mzandarn Khwj (d. 1173/1759) defended him by responding in his Risla ibl al-zamn al-mawhm . 71 Khwnsrs position was similar to some Indian criticisms: Mr Dmds position makeslittle sense and fails to solve the problem of creation. Khwj s response is consistent withhis understanding of existence: time is a measure of existence and not of motion; in fact,he argues that Mr Dmds position on time draws upon Ab l-Barakt al-Baghdd. 72 Sowe come full circle from the views of Avicenna and al-Baghdd through the afavid andMughal periods into the aftermath on the question of creation, which still remains elusive.

    The school of Mr Dmd is somewhat of a historical relic across the Persianate world,

    including in Iran. The dominance of Mull adr in contemporary Iranian intellectual circlesand the perception of the notorious difficulty of Mr Dmd make the teacher neglected. InIndia, the old traditions of the intellectual sciences nurtured by the Dars-i Nim are dead;the philosophy departments of the major universities, including Aligarh Muslim Universityand Jamia Millia Islamia, show no interest in Mull adr, Mr Dmd, or even Jawnpr.The reformed and revised Dars-i Nim in most Indianmadrasa s has little space for thestudy of philosophy and even if the texts, mainly theadr and al-Shams, are present, itis a mere genuection to tradition with little critical or analytical engagement. There is noattempt to rethink the issues of existence, cosmology, and psychology. The impact of thenew learning from the British period has been such that the prejudices of late nineteenth-and twentieth-century British philosophy, rather hostile to any metaphysics and seeking toextend the domain of science while whittling down the command of metaphysics, have beeninternalized. But a good deal of the nineteenth century was more creative: the Delhi renais-sance was much enamored and engaged with the oldikma traditions at the heart of whichlay Mr Dmds teaching. The new science, permeating through the translations into Urduproduced and disseminated at Fort William College and at Delhi College, posed direct chal-lenges to the old physics found inal-Shams and other texts. 73 This context makes the study

    of the debates onudth dahr all the more salient and the rise in interest indicates ways inwhich traditional education and learning made attempts to revive and make tradition relevantin a changing world.

    71. Jalluddn Davn,Sab ras il , ed. A. Tysirkn (Tehran: Mrth-i Maktb, 2002), 22937, 24183;cf. Awjab, ikmat-i yamn, 118.

    72. Davn,Sab ras il , 243.73. Consider, for example, two works written in Urdu on philosophy: Gobind Prashd ftb, ftb-i ikmat

    (Lucknow: Newal Kishore, 1971), and Sayyid Imdd Imm, Mir t al-ukam ma rf bih Guldasta-yi farhang (Patna: ub-i diq Press, 1906).

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