Renowned Sufi writer and Damascene intellectual ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1143/1731) wrote many works on religious and literary topics, including Wasāʾil al-taḥqīq wa-rasāʾil al-tawfīq (The Means of Determining the Truth and Epistles of Providential Guidance), a collection of 72 letters by al-Nābulusī and his contemporaries dating from 1675 to 1703. In a recent edition and study, Samer Akkach analyses this correspondence, showing that in his letters al-Nābulusī strove to address the fervently debated topics of his day, both those that were prevalent in intellectual circles and those that had wider social purview, such as the controversy over the consumption of coffee. Writing such missives was not an idiosyncratic or unusual practice. Rather, in doing so, al-Nābulusī was participating in a culture of correspondence common among the learned elite.Footnote 1 Roughly a century earlier, Darwīsh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Ṭāluwī (d. 1014/1605–06) had embedded many examples of similar correspondence in an extended travelogue, giving the work the title Sāniḥāt dumā al-qaṣr fī muṭāraḥāt banī al-ʿaṣr (Fleeting Thoughts of the Dolls of the Palace, on the Witty Exchanges of the Sons of the Age).Footnote 2 These are but two examples among masses of scattered evidence that correspondence among scholars provided an important forum for the exchange of ideas. At the same time, letters played crucial social and professional roles, helping scholars maintain camaraderie, seek employment opportunities, obtain positions, and foster ties among peers and among students and their teachers.Footnote 3 In recent years, scholars have discovered several texts belonging to this category of correspondence by Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-ʿĀmilī (d. 984/1576), all addressed to his teacher Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 965/1558). Both scholars were leading Twelver jurists of the sixteenth century from the region of Jabal ʿĀmil in what is now southern Lebanon.Footnote 4 Two of these texts, letter-cum-travel accounts, have been addressed elsewhere.Footnote 5 The focus of this study is the draft of a third letter, which has been discussed by the Lebanese scholar Yūsuf Ṭabājah.Footnote 6 The following study corroborates Ṭabājah's interpretation of the text, revising and expanding it in some respects and providing an English translation of the original.
Ṭabājah discovered the autograph draft of this letter by Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-ʿĀmilī in a collective manuscript (majmūʿah) in Qum, Iran, and he published an edition and analysis of the text in 2014.Footnote 7 The Iranian scholar Riḍā Mukhtārī published the same text in 2016, along with a very short presentation and photographic plates of the original manuscript.Footnote 8 Both identify it as the draft of a letter Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad wrote to his teacher Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī, who is known as al-Shahīd al-Thānī “the Second Martyr” in Twelver Shiite tradition. Ṭabājah adds that Ḥusayn wrote this draft in response to a letter that Zayn al-Dīn had sent to him, accompanied by a book he had recently authored. The text thus supplements the two travel accounts Ḥusayn sent to Zayn al-Dīn, which tell the story of the author's journey from Baalbek in Lebanon to Karbala in Iraq, and then from Iraq to Isfahan in Iran. While Mukhtārī states that the date and place of the letter's composition are not known, Ṭabājah argues that Ḥusayn must have written the letter while he was in Iraq, that the book Zayn al-Dīn had sent to Ḥusayn was the legal commentary al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah (The Splendid Garden), and that the letter dates to c. 957/1550, when Zayn al-Dīn completed that work. Ṭabājah's assessment that Ḥusayn wrote the work while he was in Iraq is correct, in my view, but the exact date of the letter and the work described therein are open to question. It is proposed here that the book was likely not al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah, but instead Tamhīd al-qawāʿid (Paving the Way to [Legal and Grammatical] Maxims), Zayn al-Dīn's work on legal hermeneutics, and that the letter dates to 958/1551.
The draft of the letter appears on a single folio, fol. 38r–v of MS 7355 in the Library of Āyat Allāh al-Marʿashī in Qum, Iran. The collective manuscript in which it was found consists of notes and copies by Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad. The draft, which does not bear a signature or a colophon, consists of two blocks of text, one of six lines and one of nine, while a note on the left-hand margin of fol. 38r in another hand announces, katabahu li-l-Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī “He wrote it to Master Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī”.Footnote 9 The text is apparently a draft, for it does not include a basmalah, a heading, or an opening salutation, nor does it include a closing statement. Analysis of the content suggests that the text comprises four paragraphs, which, Ṭabājah remarks, must have represented the bulk of the letter's import.Footnote 10 In the first paragraph, Ḥusayn informs his master that the book arrived and that he read and appreciated it. He describes the book's merits in a series of flattering statements that pun on the titles of famous works in various fields of Arabic and Islamic learning. In the second paragraph, Ḥusayn explains that he has been suffering because he misses his teacher desperately and that he harbours tremendous affection for him, yet, despite the strength of his feelings, he will not dwell on those topics. In the third paragraph, Ḥusayn confesses that he is incapable of describing his master's qualities and achievements adequately. In the fourth paragraph, he asks his teacher to pray for him in the hope that his requests might be fulfilled and that his problems might be resolved. An English translation of the text appears in the Appendix to this article.
Ḥusayn's initial reference to sayyidī wa-sanadī “my master and my support” is an unambiguous reference to Zayn al-Dīn, his teacher and companion of many years as well as his main authority in the religious sciences. Ḥusayn's only other significant Shiite teacher was al-Ḥasan b. Jaʿfar al-Karakī, who had died in 936/1530, while Ḥusayn was still in Lebanon. The phrase lammā waṣala kitāb sayyidī wa-sanadī “When the book of my master and my support arrived” suggests that the letter was a response to a previous missive from Zayn al-Dīn, along with which he had apparently sent Ḥusayn a book.Footnote 11 Even though the marginal note stating that he wrote the letter to al-Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī was not penned by Ḥusayn himself, it must be correct.
Ṭabājah deduces that Ḥusayn wrote the letter when he was in Iraq, before entering Iran, while Zayn al-Dīn was in hiding in Jabal ʿĀmil.Footnote 12 This interpretation is plausible. Zayn al-Dīn was in hiding for the last nine years of his life, 956–965/1549–58, mainly in the Lebanese town of Jizzīn. Ḥusayn must have written the letter after he parted ways with Zayn al-Dīn, for he complains of the pain of separation. They had been nearly constant companions throughout their careers, up to and including the time they had spent teaching at the Nūriyyah Madrasah in Baalbek together, in 953–955/1546–48. Ḥusayn left Baalbek just after 10 Dhū al-Ḥijjah 955/10 January 1549 and travelled to Iraq, probably arriving in February or March 1549. After residing in Iraq for nearly five years, Ḥusayn migrated to Iran in the spring of 961/1554.Footnote 13 The fact that the draft letter mentions nothing about Persia or the Safavids, even in allusive terms, suggests that Ḥusayn had not yet left Iraq when he wrote the letter. Therefore, the text probably dates to the period 956–60/1549–53.
The third paragraph suggests that Zayn al-Dīn, in his letter, had asked Ḥusayn to write an assessment of the book he had sent.Footnote 14 In my view, Ṭabājah correctly interprets the intended meaning behind this paragraph, noticing the strategy to avoid making a direct statement in Ḥusayn's insistence that he is unable to do justice to the master's qualities and achievements. It would have been presumptuous on his part to do so, given his teacher's exalted status. Ḥusayn thus adopts a humble posture towards his teacher, engaging in a type of deferential flattery.Footnote 15 The paragraph does not present general praise of Zayn al-Dīn but rather makes specific laudatory comments. The opening phrase – which reads, wa-ammā al-tanwīh bi-bayān lumʿah min mufaṣṣal mafākhirikum al-ʿaliyyah * wa-l-kashf ʿan mukhtaṣar min ṭarāʾif lawāmiʿ maʾāthirikum al-ʿulwiyyah “Regarding hinting at an exposition of one gleam from a detailed account of your sublime and glorious qualities, and revealing a summary account of entertaining anecdotes regarding your celestial deeds” – suggests that the topic had been mentioned earlier in the conversation, namely, in Zayn al-Dīn's letter. Zayn al-Dīn would obviously not have asked Ḥusayn simply to praise him, so he must have solicited Ḥusayn's opinion of the book. In his response to this request, Ḥusayn alludes to Zayn al-Dīn's work with the flattering terms mafākhir “points of pride” and maʾāthir “renowned deeds” and describes what was supposed to be his own critical appraisal of the work as a laudatory exposition. Therefore, it seems correct that Ḥusayn was responding to a request for his opinion regarding a recent book by Zayn al-Dīn. One may also interpret his response as a use of the rhetorical figure of praeteritio – pretending to “pass over” something while actually addressing it. He suggests that he is in no position to judge Zayn al-Dīn's book, but by referring repeatedly to famous works of the past, he is in fact implying that Zayn al-Dīn's work belongs among the great textbooks of the Islamic learned tradition.
Ṭabājah sees the same strategy of avoidance at play in the second paragraph, but this is incorrect in my view. Apparently, Ṭabājah takes Ḥusayn's announced decision to speak about other topics as an additional indication that he will put off giving a direct assessment of Zayn al-Dīn's work.Footnote 16 He understands Ḥusayn's use of the term dhuyūl, which ordinarily means “tails” but can also mean “sequels”, as an expression of an intention to write a commentary on Zayn al-Dīn's work.Footnote 17 Ḥusayn's statement probably means something different altogether. He is merely claiming that he has decided not to dwell on the two topics that he has just mentioned – that he is suffering a great deal from being away from his teacher and that he harbours a great deal of love and affection for him – but will move on to discuss other topics instead. The term dhuyūl does not mean commentaries here but rather the tails of one's robes. The idiomatic expression “dragging one's coat-tails” (jarr al-dhuyūl) means to follow a certain path, and refers here figuratively to the direction of the discourse in the letter.
Ṭabājah identifies the book Zayn al-Dīn sent Ḥusayn as al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah.Footnote 18 This conclusion merits reconsideration. Particularly since Ḥusayn's draft does not include an explicit reference to that work, the identification is not certain. At the outset, there appear to be three main possibilities. First, Ḥusayn's remarks might actually be an assessment or description of Zayn al-Dīn's letter itself, which could have included a substantial text. Second, they might be a description of al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah, as Ṭabājah claims. And third, they might refer to a book other than al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah.
The term kitāb in Arabic very frequently means “book”, but is also a standard term for “letter”. Ḥusayn's statement lammā waṣala kitāb sayyidī wa-sanadī could thus mean simply “When the letter of my master and support arrived …”, and his remarks about Zayn al-Dīn's work could refer to the letter itself. The main argument against this view is that Ḥusayn's draft includes an extensive series of puns based on the titles of famous books. These include such works as al-Faḍl b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabrisī's (d. 548/1154) tafsīr, Majmaʿ al-bayān (The Confluence of Eloquence); al-Fāḍil al-Miqdād al-Suyūrī's (d. 826/1423) work on Quranic law, Kanz al-ʿirfān (The Treasure of Knowledge); al-Shifāʾ (The Cure) and al-Ishārāt wa'l-tanbīhāt (Remarks and Admonitions), works on philosophy by Avicenna (d. 429/1037); Miftāḥ al-ʿulūm (Key to the Sciences) by al-Sakkākī (d. 626/1229) and al-Īḍāḥ (The Clarification) by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī (d. 739/1338), both well-known manuals of rhetoric; and many others. The titles of these works, which belong to a great variety of genres, do not reliably identify the topic of the original work, merely suggesting its value as part of the Islamic learned tradition. Ḥusayn's many punning references to book titles suggest that he was not referring to a letter but to a book. They also imply, collectively, that the work is a textbook or manual rather than a literary composition or an occasional or topical work in one of the Arabic linguistic or Islamic religious sciences.
Ṭabājah's interpretation that the book in question is al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah appears reasonable initially. It is clear from Ḥusayn's draft letter that Zayn al-Dīn had just written the book and that Ḥusayn had not seen it earlier. Ḥusayn was in Iraq c. 955–960/1549–53, and al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah fits, because the work was completed during that period. Zayn al-Dīn's al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah (The Splendid Garden), a commentary on the legal manual al-Lumʿah al-Dimashqiyyah (The Gleam from Damascus) by Muḥammad b. Makkī al-Jizzīnī, known as al-Shahīd al-Awwal “the First Martyr” (d. 786/1384), has remained a standard textbook in the Twelver Shiite legal curriculum from the sixteenth century until the present. Zayn al-Dīn began writing the work on 1 Rabīʿ 956/30 March 1549 and completed the first volume on 6 Jumādā II 956/2 July 1549. He completed the second and final volume on 21 Jumādā I 957/7 June 1550. Extant ijāzahs and manuscript colopha show that he taught al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah intensively between 956/1549 and 960/1553.Footnote 19 Zayn al-Dīn evidently viewed al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah as one of his foremost contributions to Twelver legal scholarship. It is likely that he was particularly proud of the work, and he would likely have sent a copy to Ḥusayn, his foremost student and colleague. If the work described in the letter was indeed al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah, the letter could be dated to 956/1549 or 957/1550.
Manuscript copies of al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah usually comprise two large volumes. It is certainly within the realm of possibility that Zayn al-Dīn had a relatively large two-volume work delivered to Ḥusayn in Iraq, but Ḥusayn's draft reveals nothing about the size of the work, and if it were a multiple-volume work, one might expect him to have given some indication of its size. It is also possible, however, that Zayn al-Dīn sent only the first volume, before he completed the remainder of the work.
Consideration of the language Ḥusayn uses suggests that the identification of the work as al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah may be mistaken. The specific terms Ḥusayn uses in his description fit a work devoted to rhetoric more than they do a legal manual. Legal manuals present rulings on the specific points of the law following the generally accepted order of chapters of the law and of topics within each chapter. Ḥusayn does not refer to any of the standard legal chapters, but he mentions at the outset that the work would benefit eloquent men (bulaghāʾ and fuṣaḥāʾ). This might be interpreted as general praise of a well-written work on any topic, but Ḥusayn's paragraph includes many more specific references to rhetoric: durar al-bayān “pearls of eloquent expression”; kunūz al-balāghah “treasures of rhetoric”; kashshāf li-sarāʾir badāʾiʿ al-lisān “a revelation of the mysteries of the adornments of the tongue”; bayān li-tahdhīb ʿilmayi al-maʿānī wa'l-bayān “an exposition of the orderly arrangement of the two sciences of tropes and eloquent expression”; khulāṣat ʿilm al-maʿānī “the essence of the science of tropes”; īḍāḥ li-rumūz al-balāghah “clarification of the symbols of rhetoric”. While these phrases are clearly intended to describe the book in question as extremely eloquent, they seem too specific to refer to a standard legal manual.
One must admit, though, that scholars of this period often discussed the rhetorical excellence of what appear to modern investigators to be dry, technical manuals of law and other topics in the religious sciences. For example, another of Zayn al-Dīn's students, Ibn al-ʿAwdī (d. after 970/1563), describes Zayn al-Dīn's first major legal work, Rawḍ al-jinān (Garden Meadows), a commentary on Irshād al-adhhān (The Guidance of Minds) by al-ʿAllāmah al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325), in glowing terms:
Early on in his career, he was extremely circumspect. He began working on his commentary on The Guidance but did not show it to anyone. When he had written a portion of it, without a soul having seen the text, I witnessed the master one night in a dream, standing high on a pulpit intoning a sermon the like of which had never been heard in its eloquent oratory. When I narrated my dream to him, he immediately entered the house, came out with a quire in his hand, and handed it to me. I examined it, and – to my surprise – it was the commentary on The Guidance. It included the work's well-known prologue, which grabs hold of the combined reins of brilliance and eloquence, and which is unparalleledFootnote 20 in its beautifully paired phrasing and elegant locution, especially in its example of a superb opening, which explains the topic of the book and presents the chapters of the law in the most concise phrases and the most gracefulFootnote 21 formulations. He – may God raise his level high! – said, “This is the sermon that you saw [in your dream]”, He commanded me to read the quire in secret. Whenever he finished a quire, he would bring it to me so that I could read it. The Shiites have never written the equal of this book. He interwove the text and the commentary, and he was the first among our companions to adopt this method. One large volume, containing the chapter on ritual purity and the chapter on prayer, was published. Had it been completed, the wish behind the dream would have been fulfilled, but God's wisdom most often dictates the opposite of what worshippers’ minds produce.Footnote 22
Ibn al-ʿAwdī thus boasts of the eloquence and high literary qualities of Zayn al-Dīn's legal commentary Rawḍ al-jinān. It is thus not farfetched that Ḥusayn would tout the rhetorical excellence of al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah.
If the book was not al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah, then what could it have been? Ḥusayn's descriptive terms fit a work on rhetoric most readily, but Zayn al-Dīn is not known to have written a work on rhetoric per se.Footnote 23 Moreover, it seems unlikely that he could have authored a substantial rhetorical treatise without the subsequent Twelver Shiite biographical tradition, including accounts by his direct students and his descendants, preserving any mention thereof. In other words, Zayn al-Dīn's bibliography as it is known today is probably nearly complete. Other possibilities are the other works Zayn al-Dīn authored during this same period: Tamhīd al-qawāʿid (Paving the Way to [Legal and Grammatical] Maxims), on legal hermeneutics, which he completed on 1 Muḥarram 958/9 January 1551, and al-Bidāyah fī al-dirāyah (The Beginning, on ḥadīth criticism), which he completed on 5 Dhū al-Ḥijjah 959/22 November 1552, as well as a number of short treatises on legal issues.Footnote 24 None of Ḥusayn's descriptions apply readily to a work on ḥadīth criticism, for they do not mention the Prophet, the Companions, ḥadīth transmitters, collections of ḥadīth, chains of transmission (isnāds), or any of the other technical terms associated with ḥadīth transmission. So, the work was likely not al-Bidāyah. In my view, the work Ḥusayn described was more likely Tamhīd al-qawāʿid.
Tamhīd al-qawāʿid belongs to a genre that focuses on legal maxims, pithy sayings that present legal principles. Rather than giving the ruling on a particular point of law, they apply to many distinct areas of the law, like the English legal maxims, “Possession is nine-tenths of the law”; “Ignorance of the law is no excuse”; caveat emptor, etc. Typical Islamic legal maxims include lā ḍarar wa-lā ḍirār “Do not inflict harm, and do not repay harm with reciprocal harm”; al-ḍarūrāt tubīḥu l-maḥẓūrāt “Dire needs make forbidden matters licit”, and so on.Footnote 25 One of the first major works of this type was al-Qawāʿid fī furūʿ al-Shāfiʿīyah (Legal Maxims, in the Points of Law according to the Shāfiʿīs) by Muʿīn al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Jājirmī (d. 613/1216). The genre became extremely popular among Sunni jurists in the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when such works as Qawāʿid al-aḥkām fī maṣāliḥ al-anām (The Rules Governing Legal Rulings, on the People's Welfare) by ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿAbd al-Salām (d. 660/1262) and al-Majmūʿ al-mudhhab fī qawāʿid al-madhhab (The Gilded Collection, on the Rules Governing Law according to [the Shāfiʿī] School) by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Khalīl b. Kaykaldī al-ʿAlāʾī (d. 761/1359) were produced.Footnote 26 Twelver Shiites began writing works on legal maxims in the fourteenth century. Muḥammad b. Makkī al-Jizzīnī wrote a major work in this genre, titled al-Qawāʿid wa-l-fawāʾid (Legal Maxims and Instructive Notes), probably modelled on al-ʿIzz b. ʿAbd al-Salām's Qawāʿid al-aḥkām fī maṣāliḥ al-anām. Zayn al-Dīn's work certainly belongs to the genre, but it differs somewhat from other works of qawāʿid. The book has two parts, each presenting 100 “rules” (qāʿidah, qawāʿid); the first part is devoted to rules related to uṣūl al-fiqh “jurisprudence”, or “legal hermeneutics”, while the second part is devoted to rules of grammar. Zayn al-Dīn evidently based the work on the paired works of the Shāfiʿī jurist Jamāl al-Dīn al-Isnawī (d. 772/1371), al-Tamhīd (Paving the Way), on jurisprudence, and al-Kawkab al-durrī (The Pearl-like Star), on grammar.Footnote 27 Both halves of Tamhīd al-qawāʿid focus on the hermeneutics of scriptural texts and include rhetorical topics. In the first half of the work, rules 18–92 discuss the interpretation of scriptural texts, covering many of the rubrics typically found in manuals of uṣūl al-fiqh: synonyms, technical terms, literal and figurative texts, commands and prohibitions, texts of general and particular scope, exceptions, determinate and indeterminate referents, restricted and unrestricted referents, and so on. The second half of the work treats a wide variety of grammatical topics, along with examples of the application of grammatical rules to issues of legal interpretation.Footnote 28 These fit the description of rhetorical issues somewhat better than the text of al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah, suggesting that Ḥusayn was probably referring to Tamhīd al-qawāʿid instead.
Another possible indication that the work to which Ḥusayn refers is Tamhīd al-qawāʿid is his pointed use of the term qawāʿid in the letter. He writes that the work is irshād ilā tanqīḥ qawāʿid al-mabānī “a guide to the careful revision of the rules governing constructions”, which describes very well the contents of Tamhīd al-qawāʿid, while also referring to the chief units of the text with the explicit term qawāʿid. Suggestive as well is Ḥusayn's statement that the work presents qānūn muhadhdhab li-dhawī al-nabāhah “a well-ordered law for those endowed with cleverness”, in which the term qānūn “law” is parallel to and nearly synonymous with qāʿidah “rule”. The reference to qawāʿid does not appear to refer to the contents of al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah; it makes more sense to interpret the unnamed work that Ḥusayn describes in his draft letter as Tamhīd al-qawāʿid.
If this identification is indeed correct, then Zayn al-Dīn could not have sent the work before early in the year of 958/1551. As mentioned above, Zayn al-Dīn completed Tamhīd al-qawāʿid on 1 Muḥarram 958/9 January 1551. In all likelihood he would have sent the work, and Ḥusayn would have replied, later that same year.
Other evidence that Zayn al-Dīn's Tamhīd al-qawāʿid was being propagated during this period is provided by another of his students, Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan Ibn al-ʿAwdī al-Jizzīnī (d. after 970/1563). Ibn al-ʿAwdī reports in Bughyat al-murīd (The Student's Desire), his hagiography of Zayn al-Dīn, that Tamhīd al-qawāʿid was one of his teacher's best works. He describes it as follows:
Among them [Zayn al-Dīn's works] is Tamhīd al-qawāʿid al-uṣūliyyah wa'l-ʿarabiyyah li-tafrīʿ qawāʿid al-aḥkām al-sharʿiyyah (Paving the Way to Jurisprudential and Arabic Grammatical Maxims for the Derivation of Subsidiary Legal Rulings), one volume. In it he adopted a wondrous method and followed an extraordinary and unprecedented path. He arranged it in two parts, one devoted to a summaryFootnote 29 of jurisprudential rules and to the derivation of subsidiary rulings that ensue from them, and the second devoted to a reasoned exposition of the topics of Arabic grammar and the arrangement of subsidiary rulings of the law that accord with them. In each part, he selected one hundred maxims, divided intoFootnote 30 various chapters, in addition to unparalleled introductions, instructive asides, and discussions of issues related to the attachment of subsidiary legal questions to their fundamental topics, a task which is determined by one's sacred aptitude (al-malakah al-qudsiyyah), the chief support for the solution of problems of independent legal interpretation (al-masāʾil al-ijtihādiyyah). He composed for it an index containing a splendid table from which the student may extract any question he desires.
We described this book to a certain learned Persian in Qazvin, who remarked, “So, it is like the Qawāʿid (The Book of Legal Maxims) by the Martyr”. “Even Better!”Footnote 31 we responded. When he accused us of making an outlandish claim, we remonstrated, “But the proof is right here!” We handed him the book, and he took it home with him. The next day he sent a message, asking permission to cut apart the quires and divide them up among several copyists so that they might copy them quickly. He had the book copied in just a few days, and he praised it.Footnote 32
Ibn al-ʿAwdī presents Tamhīd al-qawāʿid as one of Zayn al-Dīn's most prominent works, along with his legal works Rawḍ al-jinān, a commentary on ʿAllāmah al-Ḥillī's (d. 726/1325) Irshād al-adhhān; al-Rawḍah al-bahiyyah, a commentary on Muḥammad b. Makkī al-Jizzīnī's (d. 786/1384) al-Lumʿah al-Dimashqiyyah; and Masālik al-afhām, a commentary on al-Muḥaqqiq al-Ḥillī's (d. 676/1277) Sharāʾiʿ al-Islām fī masāʾil al-ḥalāl wa'l-ḥarām (The Laws of Islam, on Licit and Prohibited Matters).Footnote 33 The anecdote Ibn al-ʿAwdī describes took place in Qazvin, then the Safavid capital and the main centre of religious learning in the Empire. Ibn al-ʿAwdī left Jabal ʿĀmil to travel to Safavid territory on 10 Dhū al-Qaʿdah 962/26 September 1555.Footnote 34 Though it is not known how long he stayed in Iran, the interaction he describes likely took place a year or two later, during the lifetime of Zayn al-Dīn. Here he claims that Tamhīd al-qawāʿid is superior to Muḥammad b. Makkī al-Jizzīnī's work al-Qawāʿid wa'l-fawāʾid, a claim met with initial disbelief on the part of his interlocutor. Ibn al-ʿAwdī is seen here not only singing the praises of his teacher but also promoting the use of Tamhīd al-qawāʿid in particular. His description is less flowery and rhetorically extravagant than Ḥusayn's, but it is at least possible that the two are parallel in referent and intent.
The learned elite and the culture of correspondence
As Samer Akkach points out, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī divides the letters exchanged among scholars into two basic types: murāsalāt adabiyyah “literary correspondence” and murāsalāt sharʿiyyah “religious correspondence”. The former category was “of no benefit and inconsequential” in Akkach's view, while the latter category was beneficial and involved the provision of advice and guidance on religious matters. Akkach reports that students’ letters to al-Nābulusī took an inordinate amount of prose and numerous rhetorical flourishes to convey the simple message that they felt deep affection for him and missed him a great deal.Footnote 35 Ḥusayn's letters to Zayn al-Dīn – unfortunately we do not have any of the letters Zayn al-Dīn must have written to him – certainly fall into this category of “literary correspondence”. They refer to the teacher in flattering, emotional terms and stress the pain of separation from him. Ḥusayn's account of his journey to Iraq c. 956/1549 includes two substantial poems that focus on Zayn al-Dīn and describe him in highly emotional terms.Footnote 36 The letters help to maintain bonds of friendship and attachment. They are also intended to display rhetorical and compositional skill and are replete with hyperbole, paronomasia, extended metaphors, and other rhetorical figures. As Akkach notes, such letters are intended in part to entertain and in part to serve a social function.Footnote 37
The correspondence in which Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad and Zayn al-Dīn engaged was part of a complex discourse of the learned elite that embodied a number of cultural rules. In particular, three broad frames help the reader to understand the system within which Ḥusayn's letter and others like it operated. The first was what one may term the Islamic republic of letters, the second the competition for patronage, and the third the relational hierarchy of Twelver Shiite jurists.
Muhsin J. al-Musawi has argued that the post-classical age in the Islamic world was not a period of decadence but rather one of exuberant intellectual activity. The learned elite of the time managed to maintain regular communication and engage in a remarkably unified discourse over vast distances, from the Andalus to Indonesia. They prized polymathy and particularly appreciated the ability to combine learning in the Islamic religious sciences, such as law, theology, Quran, and ḥadīth, with accomplishment in the linguistic and literary sciences, such as grammar, prosody, lexicography, rhetoric, poetry, and elegant prose. They were often polyglot, using Arabic and Persian especially, but also other languages such as Turkish, in their learned discourse. They often shared substantial elements of their education, having studied the same standard textbooks, along with the same or similar commentaries, in many fields. This shared learned discourse established what al-Musawi terms the medieval Islamic republic of letters, a realm of shared ideas, concepts, experiences, disputation, and debate. Scholars who aspired to participate in this republic strove to do so by acquiring the necessary cultural capital, studying the well-known textbooks in many fields, internalizing grammatical and rhetorical traditions, engaging in commentary, debate, and disputation, and writing their own scholarly works.Footnote 38
When Ḥusayn puns repeatedly on the titles of famous works, he dramatically invokes the Islamic republic of letters. The fundamental trope of his letter is the rhetorical figure of tawjīh, the device of creating a pun by employing a technical term in its non-technical sense – to be distinguished from tawriyah, which refers to an ordinary double entendre.Footnote 39 In this case, the technical terms are book titles, which stand in metonymically for learning in general. Ḥusayn is doing more than simply flattering Zayn al-Dīn; this is clear from the particular works that he invokes. One might have expected a Twelver Shiite jurist writing to another to invoke Twelver Shiite legal works exclusively. It is true that some of the titles that Ḥusayn cites refer directly to Twelver Shiite legal manuals and other Shiite works. Unambiguously Shiite works mentioned are the Quranic commentary Majmaʿ al-bayān by Abū al-Faḍl al-Ṭabrisī and Kanz al-ʿirfān fī fiqh al-Qurʾān, by al-Fāḍil Miqdād al-Suyūrī. Of course, some ambiguity lies in many of the puns, because the referents to the titles in question are abridged and incomplete. Though they could refer to other works with similar titles, the Lumʿah Ḥusayn mentions in all likelihood is meant to invoke al-Lumʿah al-Dimashqiyyah, the famous legal manual of Muḥammad b. Makkī al-Jizzīnī, the Sarāʾir probably refers to the legal work al-Sarāʾir al-ḥāwī li-taḥrīr al-fatāwī (Hidden Secrets, Containing a Careful Revised Presentation of Legal Rulings) by Ibn Idrīs al-Ḥillī (d. c. 598/1201), and the Mabādiʾ probably refers to Mabādiʾ al-uṣūl, one of al-ʿAllāmah al-Ḥillī's works on jurisprudence or legal hermeneutics.
However, explicitly Shiite works constitute only a fraction of the titles Ḥusayn invokes. Non-Shiite works include al-Ishārāt (Remarks), al-Qānūn (The Canon), and al-Shifāʾ (The Cure), by Avicenna. Others are the exceedingly popular grammatical treatises al-Shāfiyah (The Salutary Treatise) and al-Kāfiyah (The Sufficient Treatise), both by Ibn al-Ḥājib (d. 646/1249), and al-Zamakhsharī's (d. 538/1144) grammatical compendium, al-Mufaṣṣal (The Detailed Exposition). Yet others are rhetorical texts such as the Miftāḥ, that is, Miftāḥ al-ʿulūm (The Key to the Sciences) by al-Sakkākī; al-Talkhīṣ (The Abridgement), Jalāl al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī's abridgement of Miftāḥ al-ʿulūm; al-Muṭawwal (The Longer Commentary) of Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (d. 792/1390) on the Talkhīṣ; and al-Īḍāḥ (The Clarification), also by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī. Because Ḥusayn invokes such a large constellation of general, Sunni works, when a title could refer either to a Shiite work or to a general work, the latter usually appears more probable. Thus, when Ḥusayn uses the term Tahdhīb, one might assume that this refers to the Twelver Shiite ḥadīth collection Tahdhīb al-aḥkām (The Orderly Arrangement of Legal Rulings), but here it seems more likely that it refers to Tahdhīb al-manṭiq wa-l-kalām (The Orderly Arrangement of Logic and Theology), a standard textbook of logic and theology by Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī. Or when he uses the term Tanqīḥ, it could refer to al-Miqdād al-Suyūrī's al-Tanqīḥ al-rāʾiʿ li-mukhtaṣar al-Sharāʾiʿ (The Splendid Revision of the Abridgement of The Laws), a commentary on the legal manual of al-Muḥaqqiq al-Ḥillī, but it seems more likely that he intended Tanqīḥ al-fuṣūl fī ikhtiṣār al-Maḥṣūl fī l-uṣūl (The Careful Revision of Chapters, an Abridgement of The Harvest, on Jurisprudence), a commentary by the Mālikī jurist al-Qarāfī (d. 684/1285) on the Maḥṣūl of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209), which treats legal hermeneutics, or Tanqīḥ al-uṣūl (The Revision of Jurisprudence), a Ḥanafī work on legal hermeneutics by Ṣadr al-Sharīʿah ʿUbayd Allāh b. Masʿūd al-Bukhārī (d. 747/1346–47). The term Irshād could refer to Irshād al-adhhān ilā aḥkām al-īmān (The Guidance of Minds to the Legal Rulings of Belief), a well-known book on Twelver Shiite law by al-ʿAllāmah al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325), or perhaps to Kitāb al-Irshād ilā qawāṭiʿ al-adillah fī uṣūl al-iʿtiqād (The Book of Guidance to Decisive Indicators of Fundamental Doctrines), a work on theology by Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085).
Ḥusayn also cites major works from the religious sciences that are explicitly Sunni, including both Shāfiʿī and Ḥanafī works. In theology, the term Mawāqif alludes to the famous theological work Kitāb al-Mawāqif fī ʿilm al-kalām (The Book of Stances, on the Science of Theology) by ʿAḍud al-Dīn al-Ījī (d. 756/1356), and the term Maqāṣid alludes to Maqāṣid al-ṭālibīn fī uṣūl al-dīn (The Aims of Students, on Religious Doctrine), a well-known manual of theology by Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī. Ḥusayn uses the terms Muhadhdhab and Tanbīh, referring to famous Shāfiʿī legal works by Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī. The term Minhāj calls to mind the Shāfiʿī legal manual Minhāj al-ṭālibīn (The Students’ Path) by al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277). In legal hermeneutics (uṣūl al-fiqh), Ḥusayn mentions the term Talwīḥ, in all likelihood referring to Kitāb al-Talwīḥ (The Book of Allusion), Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī's commentary on Tanqīḥ al-uṣūl (The Revision of Jurisprudence), the Ḥanafī work on legal hermeneutics by Ṣadr al-Sharīʿah mentioned above. Such citations show that the cultural framework in which Ḥusayn and his teacher viewed and presented their activities was not narrowly sectarian. They belonged to the wider Islamic republic of letters, and they had expended tremendous efforts to acquire familiarity not only with general grammatical and rhetorical works but also with the well-known works of Sunni law and theology, including those of the Shāfiʿī and Ḥanafī legal schools and the Ashʿarī theological school.
By indulging in relentless puns on book titles, Ḥusayn is sending two related messages. The first is analogical. Zayn al-Dīn merits recognition as an outstanding figure in the Islamic republic of letters, for his works are similar to and belong in the category of the other famous works invoked. The second is rhetorical. Ḥusayn exhibits great skill in creating clever allusions, displaying not only thorough knowledge of the learned tradition but also an unusually high level of mastery of Arabic grammar, lexicon, and rhetoric. The ability to use language in this way was not a basic requirement for jurists or theologians, many of whom wrote in plodding, technical language, but it demonstrated that Ḥusayn had acquired an unusually ample store of cultural capital that was highly regarded by his peers. He was not merely a passable religious official or bureaucrat; he had attained the very highest levels of educational polish, giving his learning an extra cachet. As al-Musawi points out, Arabic rhetoric constituted a crucial science underpinning the Islamic republic of letters.Footnote 40 Moreover, particularly from the fourteenth century on, double entendre emerged as the primary rhetorical device among elite poets and epistolographers, such as Ibn Nubātah (d. 768/1366), al-Ṣafadī (d. 764/1363), and Ibn Ḥijjah al-Ḥamawī (d. 837/1434).Footnote 41 Ḥusayn's text shows that he has mastered the rhetorical tradition and therefore merited a particularly exalted rank among the scholars of his age.
Ḥusayn is certainly not the only author in Islamic tradition to have used the conceit of extended punning on book titles. The fourteenth-century litterateur Ibn Abī Ḥajalah (d. 776/1375) wrote a maqāmah devoted to the book-market of Cairo, included in his work Manṭiq al-ṭayr (The Speech of Birds), in which the central rhetorical feature is the use of scores of similar puns. Maurice Pomerantz has translated and analysed this text, arguing that it stresses the centrality of books and the book market to the maintenance of society and their importance for the production of the educated elite. The maqāmah portrays the standard learned works that accomplish this task as under threat from bad books that have the potential to corrupt and undermine learned culture. This latter category includes erotic books, works on magic and the occult, popular literature such as the folk epics of ʿAntar and al-Baṭṭāl, and works on monist Sufism by Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274), and others.Footnote 42 Though Ḥusayn's text does not focus on works that ought to be excluded from learned discourse, it shares with Ibn Abī Ḥajalah's maqāmah the message that books are the foundation of elite learned culture.
A second key framework that looms in the background of Ḥusayn's letters is that of the system of patronage in the learned professions. Ḥusayn's attestations of devotion to his teacher not only express an emotional tie with a dear companion but also strengthen a crucial professional bond between the student and the teacher, parallel to the ties between clients and patrons in other contexts.Footnote 43 To a large extent, Ḥusayn owed his scholarly reputation to his relationship with Zayn al-Dīn, and his letters represent a form of service to his patron, strengthening that bond.Footnote 44 An unspoken, implied aspect of the letters is an overriding concern with success in the academic system. This success is envisaged in terms of scholarly production and reputation for posterity, but also in more practical terms including employment opportunities, regular stipends, endowed positions, and so on, even if to state this bluntly would be considered uncouth. The terms that appear explicitly have to do with ambition, recognition, rank, quality, and excellence.
Ṭabājah notes that Ḥusayn's draft letter refers several times to “goals” without specifying what they are. Ḥusayn even asks his teacher to pray that his goals be realized.Footnote 45 Ṭabājah believes that these are references to lofty spiritual or religious goals and states that Ḥusayn is determined to pursue them, despite obstacles.Footnote 46 Ṭabājah also claims that Ḥusayn was not interested in material gain, citing as an example the fact that, decades later, he left a materially successful life in Iran, apparently for good. After performing the pilgrimage to Mecca in 983/1575, he ended up in Bahrain, where he died in 984/1576.Footnote 47 This is something of an exaggeration, and it risks mischaracterizing Ḥusayn's probable motivations. While social conventions would have prevented Ḥusayn from referring to material gain in blunt terms, his goals most likely had to do with his scholarly career, including the desire for recognition both by the public and by other scholars, as well as access to patronage, positions of authority, and a stable income.
An understanding of the competition for patronage helps to explain Ḥusayn's remarks here. He was conscious of operating within a general system of competition for relatively scarce resources. Aspiring scholars endeavoured to acquire cultural capital and to use their skills, accomplishments, and connections to convert that capital into tangible wealth. The quest for financial and social success, including economic stability that could potentially last many generations, produced a system in which competition and rivalry were constant features. Competition may have enhanced intellectual production as scholars sought to outdo each other, but it had negative effects. Scholars often sought to undermine their peers, denouncing them for sin, incompetence, veniality, or heresy in order to compete with them for the favours of rulers, judges, and other high officials, or to oust them from stipendiary positions and acquire those positions for themselves. Scholars bribed officials to obtain appointments or to pass on their positions to unqualified relatives.Footnote 48 Scholars regularly complained of “enemies” and “enviers” – often unqualified rivals – as causes of setbacks, misfortune, and frustrated ambitions.Footnote 49 Against this background, it becomes evident that the goals which Ḥusayn mentions are the acquisition of adequate patronage and a stable income, rather than lofty spiritual status.
Recourse to Ḥusayn's other letters to Zayn al-Dīn helps the investigator interpret his unelaborated references to “goals” in this short draft. Ḥusayn's first letter to Zayn al-Dīn, which presents the account of his travels from Baalbek in Lebanon to Karbala in Iraq, begins the opening prayer with a reference to God's providence:
Praise be to God, Who favored movement over standing still, deposited in travel guarded mysteries that neither the eye can see nor speculation reach, and appointed for his worshipers their daily bread in regions that He has chosen for them, without their being aware: “For His practice is, when He desires a thing, to say to it, ‘Be!’ and it is.” (Q 36: 82). I praise Him for making wishes possible and hopes attainable, for providing the means to success and for removing obstacles.Footnote 50
It is both fitting and telling for Ḥusayn to invoke providence at the outset of a travel account. This passage suggests that one of the salient reasons behind Ḥusayn's trip is the desire to earn a living, or at least God's plan for him to do so. When he refers in this passage to wishes and hopes that God makes possible, one concludes that they have to do with earning a living or finding an appropriate position. Similarly, his mention of “removing obstacles” evidently refers to removing obstacles to obtaining such employment. Ḥusayn concludes this travel account with two poems, the first of which refers obliquely to the issue of employment. In its final section, Ḥusayn uses metonymy to invoke Safavid Iran: he mentions Ṭūs, referring to the shrine of the Eighth Imam ʿAlī al-Riḍā in Mashhad. Ḥusayn describes Ṭūṣ as a spring for the thirsty, suggesting that it will rescue and restore him. He adds, “There the chaste and clever one will be helped, and misery will not follow him. / He will see that the content one is held in esteem, while the greedy one is despised.”Footnote 51 These verses allude to the hope that he will be rewarded on the grounds of his learning and accomplishments, presumably by being granted opportunities and success in a scholarly career in Iran. The passage characterizes Safavid Iran as a place where scholars are rewarded fairly, in accordance with their rank in learning. The implication is that in Ottoman territory, the opposite is true.
Ḥusayn similarly refers to his ambitions in the account of his journey from Iraq to Iran. He boasts of his scholarly potential and states that he could not realize his ambitions in Lebanon or in Iraq. However, he has hopes – and reason to believe – that the environment in Safavid Iran will fulfil his desires. He reports that his enemies may, on account of envy, accuse him of having material motives, but he insists that he is not concerned with material wealth and is only concerned with scholarship.Footnote 52
Ḥusayn's other letters thus suggest that the goals he mentions and that have been frustrated have to do with his scholarly career. Certainly, Ḥusayn believed that he and his teacher were pursuing religious scholarship for their own spiritual fulfilment and for the good of society, but he was not opposed to earning a good living, and several years later he was willing to accept the position of shaykh al-islām of the Safavid capital, Qazvin, a post that must have come with substantial material rewards. In order to attain that position, he must have spent a number of years working assiduously, writing, teaching, dedicating treatises to Shah Tahmasb, and making connections with wealthy patrons and influential figures at court and elsewhere.Footnote 53
The third framework that one may detect behind Ḥusayn's letter is that of the narrower section of the learned elite in which he operated, the relational hierarchy of Twelver Shiite jurists. It is perhaps unremarkable that students of a prominent scholar engaged in spreading their teacher's influence. What is interesting in this particular case are the distances involved, Zayn al-Dīn's own reluctance to travel to Safavid Iran, and the fact that he was in hiding and presumably in grave danger during this period. In the sixteenth century, with the rise of officially Shiite states in Iran and the Deccan, Twelver Shiite scholars had established an international network that cut across political borders and included Lebanon, southern Iraq, Iran, the Hejaz, Bahrain, and India. Zayn al-Dīn's students spread his works and teachings throughout that network. He evidently chose not to enter Safavid territory, even though that would have meant personal safety, guaranteed patronage by Shah Tahmasb (1524–76), and access to lucrative positions. Nevertheless, students such as Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad and others spread Zayn al-Dīn's influence within Safavid territory, and circumstantial evidence implies that Zayn al-Dīn encouraged this. For example, Ibn al-ʿAwdī travelled to Iran not long after Zayn al-Dīn had completed a treatise on Friday prayer, on 1 Rabīʿ I 962/24 January 1555, and he must have brought the treatise with him to Iran. Not long after, c. 963/1556, Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad wrote a treatise on Friday prayer that is essentially a reworked version of his master's treatise on that subject. This contact seems to have been intentional: Zayn al-Dīn, by writing the treatise, intended to enter the ongoing Safavid debate regarding the status of Friday prayer, in support of his student, though he did not state this explicitly.Footnote 54 Similarly, Ḥusayn's treatise on ḥadīth criticism, Wuṣūl al-akhyār ilā uṣūl al-akhbār (The Path for the Elite to the Sources of Oral Reports), completed c. 961/1554, soon after Ḥusayn entered Safavid territory,Footnote 55 again resembles his teacher's treatise on the same topic, al-Bidāyah fī al-dirāyah (The Beginning, on Hadith Criticism), completed on 5 Dhū al-Ḥijjah 959/22 November 1552, very closely. One may argue also in this latter case that by writing the work, Zayn al-Dīn intended to bolster the position of Ḥusayn as a leading Twelver jurist in Iran. At the same time, Ḥusayn's teaching of Zayn al-Dīn's works and his authorship of works that upheld the same opinions augmented his teacher's reputation. The patron–client relationship worked both ways. The example of Ibn al-ʿAwdī's promotion of Tamhīd al-qawāʿid in Qazvin is similar. It is striking that the composition of these works and their delivery over tremendous distances and across political borders took place quite quickly, even at a time when Zayn al-Dīn was in danger of being arrested by the Ottoman authorities.
Ṭabājah emphasizes moral qualities that he detects in Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad's treatment of his former teacher, calling attention to Ḥusayn's loyalty and attachment to Zayn al-Dīn and to the fact that he shows him respect and affection.Footnote 56 Indeed, he stresses that in all three of the extant letters that Ḥusayn wrote to Zayn al-Dīn, he adopts a humble attitude and shows deference to his teacher, despite his own status as a scholar of some renown. This, in his view, is qimmat al-akhlāq al-islāmiyyah “the pinnacle of Islamic morals”.Footnote 57 There is some reason to be surprised at the degree of Ḥusayn's deference, given that Zayn al-Dīn was only about six years older than Ḥusayn and not a member of the preceding generation: he was born on 13 Shawwāl 911/9 March 1506, and Ḥusayn on 1 Muḥarram 918/19 March 1512. Indeed, they had studied together under most of the same teachers, in Karak Nūḥ, Damascus, and Cairo, and had read most of the same books. Nevertheless, Zayn al-Dīn was Ḥusayn's teacher and the senior scholar, and Ḥusayn's reputation rested on the fact that he was Zayn al-Dīn's student. Ḥusayn's expressions of deference to his teacher are not merely reflections of his excellent morals. Certainly, he felt sincere affection for his longtime companion and respect for his teacher, but his behaviour also adhered to the rules governing the learned profession. The deference and loyalty that he showed his teacher served to maintain the known relational hierarchy among scholars and particularly jurists. Ḥusayn recognized his teacher's superior rank, and association with his teacher enhanced his own rank, particularly since Zayn al-Dīn was arguably the foremost Twelver jurist alive after the demise of ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-ʿĀl al-Karakī in 940/1534.
This short draft letter forms part of the story of Ḥusayn's sojourn in Iraq, an extended stop in the course of his migration from Lebanon to Iran in the mid-sixteenth century. It attests to the close contact he maintained with his teacher Zayn al-Dīn despite their separation. Even though Zayn al-Dīn was living in concealment in Jabal ʿĀmil and Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad was maintaining a low profile in the Shiite shrine cities of Iraq, they continued to exchange letters and books clandestinely, presumably through contacts among pilgrims and traders. It is one small indication of the network through which Zayn al-Dīn continued to spread his influence, works, and teachings, despite the difficulties he faced during the last nine years of his life.
Appendix: Draft of Ḥusayn's letter
When the book of my master and my support arrived, I received it as a good omen and kissed it, and I cut its throat and opened it up, making it a cause of joy for my heart and a path for my eyes to follow. I perused it and found in every splendid passage (Lumʿah)Footnote 58 thereof an insight (Tabṣirah)Footnote 59 sufficient (Kāfiyah)Footnote 60 for eloquent masters and an example of guidance (Hidāyah)Footnote 61 fit to restore (Shāfiyah)Footnote 62 the banquets of brilliant orators. It encompassed so many pearls (Durar)Footnote 63 of eloquence (Bayān)Footnote 64 that it surpassed Majmaʿ al-Bayān (The Confluence of Eloquence),Footnote 65 and it showed the way to such treasures of rhetoric that it surpassed Kanz al-ʿIrfān (The Treasure of Knowledge).Footnote 66 By my life, it was a revelation (Kashshāf)Footnote 67 of the mysteries (Sarāʾir)Footnote 68 of the marvels (Badāʾiʿ)Footnote 69 of the tongue, and an exposition (Bayān)Footnote 70 of the orderly arrangement (Tahdhīb)Footnote 71 of the two sciences of poetic tropes and eloquent expression. How many indications (Ishārāt) of the cure (Shifāʾ) for the disease of the tongue-tied did it comprise?! And how many expressions of a well-ordered (Muhadhdhab)Footnote 72 law (Qānūn) for those endowed with cleverness did it contain?!Footnote 73 It was a guide (Irshād)Footnote 74 to a careful revision (Tanqīḥ)Footnote 75 of the rules (Qawāʿid)Footnote 76 of constructions (Mabānī),Footnote 77 and a clarification (Tawḍīḥ)Footnote 78 of the path (Minhāj)Footnote 79 of the essence (Khulāṣah)Footnote 80 of the science of tropes. Indeed, it was an excellent (Rāʾiq) elucidation (Īḍāḥ)Footnote 81 of the secret signs of rhetoric and a surpassing (Fāʾiq)Footnote 82 key (Miftāḥ)Footnote 83 to the gate of the quintessence (Lubāb)Footnote 84 of splendour, or a means (Wasīlah)Footnote 85 to remove misery (Kashf al-ghummah)Footnote 86 from souls, or a lamp (Miṣbāḥ)Footnote 87 that outshines the rays of suns.Footnote 88
There is no need to explain (Īḍāḥ)Footnote 89 the various types (Jumal)Footnote 90 of pain that we sufferFootnote 91 from being far away, and there is no use in bringing up (Talwīḥ)Footnote 92 a reminder (Tadhkirah)Footnote 93 of the sincere affection contained in my conscience (Sarāʾir).Footnote 94 In truth, I considered it more fitting to fold the page of discourse over the carefully penned presentation (Taḥrīr)Footnote 95 of those aims (Maqāṣid),Footnote 96 and more appropriateFootnote 97 to pass over hints (Ishārāt)Footnote 98 at a detailed account (Mufaṣṣal)Footnote 99 of those paths (Masālik).Footnote 100 I hereby remove all of that completely from the discussion at hand and set forth to drag my coattailsFootnote 101 along courses other than those two.
Regarding hinting at (Tanwīh)Footnote 102 an exposition (Bayān)Footnote 103 of the shining beam of light (Lumʿah)Footnote 104 from a detailed account (Mufaṣṣal)Footnote 105 of your sublime and glorious qualities, and a revelation (Kashf)Footnote 106 of a summary account (Mufaṣṣal)Footnote 107 of the intriguing points (Ṭarāʾif) of the shining examples (Lawāmiʿ)Footnote 108 among your celestial deeds, my tongue's abilities (Mawāqif)Footnote 109 fall short of summarizing (Talkhīṣ)Footnote 110 their mere beginnings (Mabādiʾ),Footnote 111 and the rank (Maqāmāt)Footnote 112 of my eloquence (Bayān)Footnote 113 is insufficient to spread (Nashr)Footnote 114 even a summary account (Khulāṣah)Footnote 115 thereof. No wonder ifFootnote 116 I have turned the reins aside from presenting a carefully revised (Tanqīḥ)Footnote 117 and summary report (Mujmal)Footnote 118 of them, and have chosen not to dwell on a lengthy account (Muṭawwal)Footnote 119 of those courses (Masālik).Footnote 120
And so, I beg of your efficacious (Kāfiyah)Footnote 121 benevolence and your salutary (Shāfiyah)Footnote 122 and abundant (Wāfiyah)Footnote 123 generosityFootnote 124 that you grant this supplicant the succour of your prayers, so that my requests (al-Maṭālib)Footnote 125 might be fulfilled (Taysīr)Footnote 126 and that the covering of affliction might be removed (Kashf al-Ghummah)Footnote 127 from the faces of my desires, as is the regular practice (Qānūn)Footnote 128 of God's servant on diverse (Mukhtalif)Footnote 129 occasions and as is his utmost wish (Muntahā Maṭlabihi)Footnote 130 throughout the passing moments. And in consequence, perhaps, the ascendants (Ṭawāliʿ)Footnote 131 of our goals (Maqāṣid)Footnote 132 might rise up from the points on the horizon (Maṭāliʿ)Footnote 133 that indicate an affirmative answer, and the lamps (Maṣābīḥ)Footnote 134 of hope might shine forth from the niche (Mishkāt)Footnote 135 of a favourable response.
