ʿAzīz-i Nasafī (fl. 7th/13th c.), Hierarchies, and Islamic Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

ʿAzīz-i Nasafī (fl. 7th/13th century) was one of the greatest Muslim thinkers and mystics. One of his most-read works, Maqṣad al-aqṣā (The Farthest Aim), testifies to his wide reception. It found readership not just across the Muslim world but also well into Europe. From the east to the west, in the Muslim world and beyond, Nasafī left an undisputable imprint and appealed to generations of thinkers. While Nasafī’s works are generally understudied, those who have attempted to voyage through his works have often reduced him to a popular writer whose accessible style served as a vehicle for transmitting the ideas of Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), the great master of Islamic thought.My dissertation aims to rectify this trend, arguing that Nasafī was a cosmopolitan thinker since he drew on multiple sources and traditions that an average reader may deem remotely related. To demonstrate Nasafī’s cosmopolitanism, the dissertation focuses on the topic of spiritual and cosmological hierarchy, which connects different chapters together. Throughout the dissertation, I place Nasafī’s works in conversation with sources such as those found Shiʿi Ismāʿīlī tradition, ancient Persian mythology, Islamicate occult sciences such as astrology and the science of letters or lettrism, classical Sufism, as well as the writings of his contemporaries like Ibn al-ʿArabī and Saʿd al-Dīn Ḥammuya (d. 650/1260). Nasafī witnessed some of the most catastrophic events, such as the fall of the ʿAbbāsids (656/1258) and the invasions of the Mongols. He saw the fragmentation of the Muslim world, and it was precisely in this environment that he produced his work. I argue that Nasafī aimed to unify the fragmented Muslim world by developing a cosmopolitan intellectual spirit, which allowed him, impressively, to incorporate and reconcile various intellectual strands in his work. He indeed aimed to bring all these fragments of thought into peace (ṣulḥ), and sought to usher the Muslim world into a period of intellectual peace. Nasafī’s cosmopolitan spirit in peacefully living with other intellectual traditions and receiving inspiration from them is at the centre of Nasafī’s intellectual ethos and helps us gain insight into the vibrant and cosmopolitan intellectual climate of post-classical Islam during the Persianate Mongol period.