The present volume is the fine result of Reza Pourjavady's research on post-Avicennan intellectual traditions in Iran. The work “aims to show the vitality of the theological and philosophical exchanges in the later ninth/fifteenth century which extended in the early tenth/sixteenth century, i.e., the early Safavid era” (p. ix), and is a highly welcome addition to the gradually increasing number of studies on the nature and extent of the history of post-Avicennan philosophy in Iran. The work establishes the scope of philosophical activity in Iran during the stated period and demonstrates that philosophy was a subject of study and debate among scholars in various centres of learning.
The Orientalist tradition has for the most part paid little attention to philosophy after Averroes, and some historians have even thought that philosophy did not continue in any real sense in the East, and that Ghazzālī's Tahāfut al-Falāsifa, his Maqāṣid al-Falāsifa and a few other texts are more or less the end of genuine philosophical endeavour. The problem in my view is due to the paucity of serious scholarship on the texts and figures of the period. Extensive work is required to identify philosophical texts, to edit and to study them; only then will we be able to know the nature of philosophical activity in Iran. The living scholastic tradition in Iran itself, however, has always maintained that philosophy has been a subject of study in Iran uninterrupted to the present. A major figure in Western scholarship is the late French Orientalist Henry Corbin, whose multiple studies and publications in the mid-twentieth century demonstrated that philosophy not only had not died in the East, but that an extensive textual tradition in both Arabic and Persian continues in Iran after Avicenna to the modern period. Corbin's work initiated the study of texts in both Persian and Arabic, many on specific philosophical subjects in all three areas of classical philosophy – logic, physics and metaphysics. We now know that philosophy was studied and texts were written, but we need more research in order fully to ascertain its nature and especially to distinguish works on philosophy from texts by theologians who employ philosophical language and technique but whose work cannot be said to be strictly philosophical.
Pourjavady's present volume is confirmation that philosophical activity was indeed alive in many Iranian centres of learning, exemplified by Shiraz and Isfahan, and introduces the reader to a substantial number of thinkers who were engaged in thinking and writing about philosophical subjects in the three classical domains of philosophy. Significantly, we learn that the tradition cannot be defined solely as a scholastic one where the work produced is limited mainly by theology.
Pourjavady's work begins with an introduction in which he provides useful, and in many cases new, information on a number of philosophers around the tenth/sixteenth century in Shiraz. This introduction serves as a background for the type of philosophical texts and problems that were the subject of study. Ghazzali's condemnation of philosophers centred around three main problems: God's knowledge of particulars, creation and immortality. We observe that many of the philosophers of this period, as Pourjavady shows, are making serious attempts to overcome Ghazzali's views against the philosophers and try somehow to bring philosophy closer to more standard theological views. One does have to question, however, how it is justified to uphold bodily resurrection as do some of the philosophers Pourjavady examines.
The principal philosopher examined by Pourjavady is a hitherto little-known figure, Najm al-Dīn Nayrīzī, whose work covers philosophy as well as theology. Pourjavady examines Nayrīzī's life and works in general in chapter 1, “The philosopher al-Nayrīzī and general aspects of his thought”; he then defines two distinct strands of philosophy in Shiraz during the period from the late fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries. In chapter 2, “Nayrīzī and the two strands of philosophy in Shiraz”, Pourjavady is able to study technical problems in logic, most significantly the Liar Paradox, as well as several ontological problems, such as the distinction between being and existent; and mental existence. In chapter 3 “The works of Nayrīzī”, Pourjavady presents 17 texts which demonstrates the breadth of Nayrīzī's work. This chapter is useful to scholars conducting research on the nature of philosophical work in this period. With the exception of two of the 17 treatises (nos. III and IV) all are commentaries, glosses, or superglosses on previous philosophical texts by Suhrawardī, Ṭūsī, Quṭb al-Dīn Rāzī, Taftāzānī and Davvānī. It is clear that composing these types of commentaries on previous texts had become a means for engaging in philosophical discourse and analysis within a framework set by past philosophers. In chapter 4, “Nayrīzī and Suhrawardian philosophy”, Pourjavady analyses the details of how Nayrīzī has approached Suhrawardī's philosophy of illumination, agreeing with some of the arguments and refuting others, but also refining some. The significance of this chapter is that we see a philosophical approach to texts at a time when many had previously thought philosophy was severely limited by theological doctrine. What is problematic, however, in terms of philosophy as such, is Nayrīzī's ultimate theological position, which Pourjavady states thus: “Nayrīzī … believed in bodily resurrection and in his commentary on [Suhrawardī's] Alwāḥ consistently maintains this position, listing the relevant Qur'ānic affirmations” (p. 145). Pourjavady adds four appendixes, a bibliography, and two useful indexes.
This work is recommended to all scholars who are interested in learning about the nature of the development of philosophy after the classical period in Iran.
