Reza Pourjavady’s Philosophy in Early Safavid Iran is a welcome addition to the project of recovering and presenting early modern Arabic and Persian writings in philosophy, theology, jurisprudence, and, as seems to be the case here, theosophy. The work’s primary focus is on Najm al-Dīn al-Nayrīzī, who flourished in Shiraz from the late ninth/fifteenth to the middle of the tenth/sixteenth centuries. Pourjavady briefly describes the general intellectual background prevailing in Shiraz during this period, explains how al-Nayrīzī fits into it, and provides short summaries of his writings as well as extensive excerpts from the beginnings and endings of several manuscripts in which those writings are preserved. The book, a revised version of his PhD dissertation at the Freie Universität Berlin, consists of an introduction, four chapters, an equal number of appendices, an extensive bibliography, and indices listing the relevant manuscripts as well as names and places cited.

From Pourjavady, we learn that the importance of Shiraz as a center of learning begins early in the eighth/fourteenth century due to the teaching activity there of ʿAḍūd al-Dīn al-Ījī and ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Jurjānī, both known primarily for their theological teaching. The link between that teaching and philosophy comes through the use they made of philosophical arguments in their expositions. Pourjavady traces the more focused interest in philosophy that arises in Shiraz about a century later to Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī and Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Dashtakī. The first came there as director of the religious administration and eventually became a teacher in a local madrasa. The second, born and raised in the city, built a madrasa which he named for his son and then taught in it. Common to both, doctrinal differences notwithstanding, is deep familiarity with Suhrawardī’s philosophy of illumination and Ibn al-ʿArabī’s sufism or mysticism.

In the Introduction, Pourjavady provides a succinct account of the lives and writings of al-Dawānī and al-Dashtakī as well as of four of their successors. His portraits, brief though they are, point to the political and religious turmoil of the era and pay special attention to the way it affected the religious positions taken directly or indirectly in the writings of these different thinkers. Pourjavady lists the titles of many of their works and offers general information about their content, but says little more about these writings and what they contribute to the pursuit of philosophical questions or about the methods pursued in them by these authors. It becomes apparent, nonetheless, that common to all is a focus on Avicenna’s writings, especially his Kitāb al-Ishārāt wa al-Tanbīhāt. There are also references to one or another having written about logic without indication of what author, book, or even aspect of logic was the focus of their attention. Although Pourjavady does note that al-Dashtakī had recourse to the Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam now generally regarded as having been erroneously attributed to Alfarabi, he leaves the question of its authenticity open.

Pourjavady’s presentation of Najm al-Dīn al-Nayrīzī shows that he was neither completely unknown as a thinker nor really all that well known. Accounts of him and his writings by earlier scholars such as Hellmut Ritter, Henry Corbin, Muḥammad Taqī Dānishpazhūh, and Carl Brockelmann, as well as by contemporary scholars such as John Walbridge, err, according to Pourjavady, either in what they say of his background or in the way they identify different writings by him. Those errors are corrected here, and a fuller account of al-Nayrīzī’s many writings is provided. He is presented as a student of Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Dashtakī primarily interested in dialectical theology who was also quite supportive of Twelver Shi’ism. Most important for an appreciation of his contribution to philosophy is the contention (p. 61) that al-Nayrzī discerned no tension between what is learned by the intellect (ʿaql) or received through religious tradition (naql).

Pourjavady delves no further into al-Nayrīzī’s teaching as set forth in his own writings, focusing instead on the way earlier thinkers in the Shiraz school approached the existent (mawjūd), existence (wujūd), and whatness (māhiyya) and took issue with what they presented as the positions of Alfarabi and Avicenna on these subjects. In this, he focuses primarily on the problems they discerned in speaking of existence as having whatness insofar as that approach would detract from the notion that true existence pertains only to the divinity. The position, clearly, is one that privileges religious over rational thought.

With respect to an entirely different issue, ethical or moral conduct, the same dilemma arises. The thinkers presented here, especially al-Nayrīzī, approach this subject with a view to transcending the human condition rather than accepting it with its limitations and seeking to understand the contours of good conduct for human beings engaged in daily life. Differently stated, their guides in these matters are Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī and Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī, not Aristotle—the teaching of illumination, not that of practical reason. The gap between the two approaches is enormous, and the summary Pourjavady offers of Mir Ḥusayn al-Maybudī’s rejection of the Peripatetic position (pp. 36‒37) raises many more questions than it answers. Nor does his account of what he terms al-Nayrīzī’s political thought, a sketch of princely advice (pp. 142‒145), suffice.

Hopefully, as more information about the post-Avicennan movement in philosophical or religious speculation accumulates through studies such as this, it will be possible to begin trying to understand that gap and to bridge the fundamental issues raised by these thinkers of whom we now know so little. At present, Reza Pourjavady is to be complimented for his clearly written, well-organized, and carefully presented portrait of the Shiraz school and its star pupil, Najm al-Dīn al-Nayrīzī. He casts important light on a thinker and school heretofore inadequately known or studied and advances understanding of the important movement both represent. In the process, he has demonstrated a compelling mastery of the relevant materials, especially the manuscript tradition, and an admirable ability to put them in context.