Abdal Hakim Murad - The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology

Theology and Sufism 277
peninsula. The atmosphere of Ibn Masarra’s school is directly felt in the
followers of Shuzı of Seville, who were to be found up to Ibn ‘Arabı’s
own day. Another major speculative Sufi thinker, Ibn Sab‘ın (d. 1270),
emerged from Shuzı’s order during Ibn ‘Arabı’s lifetime. Ibn Sab‘ın’s
school was still operating in Egypt in the fourteenth century. The actual
term ‘‘unity of existence’’ in fact appears to originate with Ibn Sab‘ın,
not with Ibn ‘Arabı. 62
In this we have clear elements in speculative Sufism which fall
beyond Avicenna’s influence. Moreover, as has been said, Avicenna’s
impact on Ibn ‘Arabı himself is elusive. Nevertheless, the broadly
Avicennan character of speculative Sufism was to be strongly confirmed
after Ibn ‘Arabı’s death, due to the special strengths of his foremost
disciple S _
adr al-Dın al-Qunawı (d.1274). In an important correspondence
63 with one of Avicenna’s greatest spokesmen, Nas _
ir al-Dın al-T _
usı,
Qunawı reveals a detailed grasp of Avicenna’s work the Allusions and
Remarks (al-Isharat wa’l-tanbıhat), as well as of T _
usı’s commentary on
it. In the light of his knowledge of these texts, Qunawı puts a series of
difficult questions to T _
usı, and argues for the weakness of the rational
faculty. When T _
usı sends his replies, Qunawı writes a new treatise in
response. But it is a typical feature of dialogical engagement that the
tools and theses of the opposite party are partly accepted, and this is the
case with Qunawı too. Indeed, synthesis is to an extent Qunawı’s
explict aim, for in detailing his objective in the correspondence, he
explains that he wants to unite the knowledge yielded by philosophical
demonstration (burhan) with the fruit of mystical perception.
What begins with Qunawı, then, is the systematic formulation of
wah _
dat al-wujud as a virtually philosophical perspective. Qunawı’s
approach is transmitted through a series of direct master–disciple relations,
becoming the prevalent reading of Ibn ‘Arabı. Thus Mu’ayyad
al-Dın al-Jandı and Sa‘ıd al-Din al-Farghanı were Qunawı’s direct
disciples; ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Kashanı was Jandı’s disciple, and finally
Daud al-Qays _
arı was in turn Kashanı’s disciple. This list contains the
names of some of Ibn ‘Arabı’s greatest commentators. The ultimate
results of Qunawı’s philosophical transformation of the Unity of
Existence are clear in the important fifteenth-century Sufi thinker and
poet, ‘Abd al-Rah _
man Jamı (d.1492). Jamı‘s work The Precious Pearl
(al-Durra al-Fakhira) is an attempt to present Sufism (for which read Ibn
‘Arabı) as a superior perspective to kalam and Avicennism, and presents
Sufism’s distinctive answers to a whole series of difficult issues in the
philosophy of religion: the proof of God, God’s unity, God’s knowledge
(or ignorance) of particulars, the nature of God’s will, power and speech,
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