Mulla Hadi Sabzavari

Iranian Studies, volume 44, number 4, July 2011
Sajjad H. Rizvi
Hikma muta‘aliya in Qajar Iran: Locating the Life and Work of Mulla
Hadi Sabzawari (d. 1289/1873)
The Qajar period witnessed a revival of traditional Islamic philosophy based on the
philosophical method of the Safavid sage Mulla Sadra Shirazi. This was philosophy as
a way of life, an ethical commitment born of a method that combined both rational
discourse and mystical intuition, deployed to defend the intellectual and cultural norms
of the old learning against the new European inspired centers in Qajar Iran. A
prominent figure in this process of revival was Mulla Hadi Sabzavari, who trained in
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the seminaries of Mashhad and Isfahan and became the most famous teacher of the
works of Mulla Sadra and of philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century.
This paper examines his life and intellectual and pedagogical contribution, and traces
some lines of his impact on seminarian philosophy into the twentieth century through
the many students who came to study with him in his hometown, including his
influence on modern trends within Shi‘i jurisprudence and legal theory.
This age is devoid of wisdom and suffers from a drought of the waters of the grace of
certainty (amtar al-yaqin) from the clouds of Mercy (sahab al-rahma) and from a
multitude of sins committed by those who are negligent and ignorant. The gates
of heaven [acquired by] the intellect have been barred to them, and true understand-
ing of the Lord of Heaven has been made forbidden to them as deceit has contami-
nated their love. They have forsaken the Truth for falsehoods and have become
addicted to ornamentation and affectation. They no longer traverse the land of abso-
lutes nor swim in the seas of the realities of Revelation; they have exchanged everlast-
ing, righteous deeds (al-baqiyat al-salihat)1 for partial, transient deeds (al-juz’iyat
al-dathirat) that will become obsolete. Their deeds reveal the conjectural nature of
their aims, and the purpose of their desires is self-centered and mal-intended …
When I saw philosophy, it was woven by spiders of forgetfulness, and its character
and dominance had been discarded to a corner where it languished, exiled.2
Sajjad Rizvi is Associate Professor of Islamic Intellectual History at the Institute of Arab and Islamic
Studies at the University of Exeter where he directs the Centre of Islamic Philosophy.
1
The reference is to Qur’an 18:46 (and also 19:76).
2
Hadi Sabzavari, Sharh al-manzuma: qism al-ḥikma, ed. Mas‘ud Talibi (Tehran, 1374s./1995),
I: 37–8.
ISSN 0021-0862 print/ISSN 1475-4819 online/11/040473–24
©2011 The International Society for Iranian Studies
DOI 10.1080/00210862.2011.569327
474 Rizvi
This lament for the state of philosophy in his time was written at the beginning of
his major philosophical work by the subject of this article, Mulla Hadi Sabzawari. It is
not uncommon for philosophers and thinkers in the Islamic period to lament the
intellectual lassitude and decline of their times; such a complaint provides a justifica-
tion for insisting upon their own world-historical importance and bombast. It signals a
plea for the reader and the student to take notice of the contents of what is to follow
because ignorance is cured by knowledge: the absence of philosophy and its misuse
requires a response that establishes philosophy at the heart of human, religiously com-
mitted inquiry. But in the context of the nineteenth century, the lament signified
more: it punctuated a sense of revolution, change and anguish in society. The intellec-
tual and spiritual turmoil of Qajar Iran, somewhat mirroring political uncertainties
and vagaries allowed for the flourishing both of new (and at times heterodox)
ideas; this was further exacerbated through the challenges brought on by fresh encoun-
ters with European thought and the revival of modes of traditional reasoning. The
problems of the Qajar period were exacerbated by messianic and chiliastic movements
associated with the millennium of the disappearance of the Twelfth Imam. The revival
of charismatic authority and the inflated claims of extreme social, religious and politi-
cal agents coupled with the social class divisions emerged into the Shaykhi, Babi,
Baha’i, and Ismaili revolts and upheavals of the nineteenth century. Messianism tar-
geted at the moral order of society and eschatological expectation clashed with the tra-
ditional orders in the absence of central authority and its legitimacy, and the sense of
intellectual and cultural instability heightened by new moves towards social, political
and cultural modernization, even “soft colonialism.”3 The retreat of the central politi-
cal authority and its lack of a standing army allowed the encroachment of colonial
powers leading to the major defeats at the hands of the Russians in the wars of
1805–13 and 1826–28 culminating in the humiliating Treaty of Turkmanchay.4
The advent of new learning in philosophy and science triggered a traditionalist
(even nativist) response from the ‘ulema as the class of specialists with vested interests
in the current systems of education.5 At the same time, the upheavals of the eighteenth
century had given way to relative stability in some major Iranian cities; in particular,
Isfahan had retained some of its past cultural glories. Despite the calamitous sack of
1722 at the hands of the Afghans that struck a death blow to the Safavid Empire,
3
Nikki Keddie, Roots of Revolution: An Interpretive History of Modern Iran (New Haven, CT, 1981),
40–8; idem, “Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism,” Comparative Studies in Society and
History, 4 (1962): 270; Abbas Amanat, Resurrection and Renewal: the Making of the Babi Movement
in Iran, 1844–1850 (Ithaca, NY, 1989), 29; Said A. Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden
Imam (Chicago, 1984), 14; D. MacEoin, “Charismatic Authority in Qajar Shiʿism,” in Qajar Iran,
ed. E. Bosworth and C. Hillenbrand (Edinburgh, 1983), 169; M. Bayat, Mysticism and Dissent: Sociore-
ligious Thought in Qajar Iran (Syracuse, NY, 1982).
4
Abbas Amanat, Pivot of the Universe: Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831–
1896 (London, 1997), 15–16.
5
Amanat, Pivot of the Universe, 351–405; David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran
(Ithaca, NY, 1992), 27–75; Monica Ringer, Education, Religion, and the Discourse of Cultural Reform in
Qajar Iran (Costa Mesa, CA, 2001). One of the best studies of the role of the ‘ulema in society and poli-
tics in the period remains Hamid Algar, Religion and State in Iran, 1785–1906 (Berkeley, CA, 1969).
The Life and Work of Mulla Hadi Sabzawari 475
the pursuit of knowledge and its transmission continued unabated.6 It was to this city
that students eager to study in the traditional Shi‘i seminaries, the hawza-ha-yi
‘ilmiyya, flocked.7 One of these students in the early nineteenth century was a khur-
asani, Hadi ibn Mahdi Sabzawari, who would later become the most important
traditional philosopher of the Qajar period.8 It was his training in the revived philo-
sophical tradition of Mulla Sadra (d. c. 1045/1635) and his espousal of that tradition
in his commentaries and especially in his new textbook on philosophy, Sharh ghurar
al-fara’id (Commentary on the Whites of the Pearls) better known as Sharh-i
manzuma (Commentary on the Poem), that established the intellectual hegemony
of the philosophical system known as hikma muta‘aliya (transcendent philosophy)
that dominates the hawza (at least in Iran) to this day. Hikma muta‘aliya is a philo-
sophical method that combines rational discourse and mystical intuition, and thus is
considered to be superior, on the one hand, to the mere discourse of the Avicennian
tradition and, on the other, to the mystical claims that lacked logical grounding in the
works of the Sufis.9 Sabzawari considered the critical intellectual need of his time was
for a revived philosophical tradition, one which examined reality through the twin
prisms of intellect and intuition and which posed a rigorous and religiously rooted
response to intellectual challenges in his time, a true philosophy unencumbered by
the weight of the mere rehearsal of tradition and unrestricted by the cobwebs of unim-
aginative presentation.
I contend that it was the contribution of Sabzawari to the intellectual history of the
Qajar period that established the school of Mulla Sadra, to the exclusion of other intel-
lectual trends. He was the critical link (even if not the sole one) in the transmission of
6
On the sack of Isfahan, see Willem Floor, The Afghan Occupation of Safavid Persia, 1721–1729
(Paris, 1998); Michael Axworthy, The Sword of Persia Nader Shah: From Tribal Warrior to Conquering
Tyrant (London, 2006), 17–54; Andrew Newman, Safavid Iran (London, 2006), 115–16.
7
There are now a number of studies on the functioning of the Shi‘i seminary both at the shrine cities
of Iraq and in Iran, and on the three stages of becoming a jurist: preliminaries (muqaddimat), intermedi-
ate jurisprudential training (sutuh), and advanced independent reasoning based on responses to the work
on a living model of emulation (marja‘) known as bahth (or dars) al-kharij. See Sabrina Mervin, “La quête
du savoir à Naǧaf: Les études religieuses chez les chiʿites imāmites de la fin du XIXe siècle à 1960,” Studia
Islamica, 81 (1995): 165–85; Chibli Mallat, The Renewal of Islamic Law: Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr,
Najaf and the Shi‘i International (Cambridge, 1993), 35–45; Muhammad Jawad Mughniyyah, Ma‘
‘ulama’ al-najaf al-ashraf (Beirut, 1992); Nur al-Din al-Shahrudi, Ta’rikh al-haraka al-‘ilmiyya fi
Karbala’ (Beirut, 1990); Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran
(London, 1987); M. M. J. Fischer, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution (Cambridge, MA,
1980), 12–103; Meir Litvak, Shi‘i Scholars of Nineteenth-century Iraq: The ʿUlamaʾ of Najaf and
Karbala (Cambridge, 1998); ‘Abd al-Hadi al-Fadli, Dalil al-Najaf al-ashraf (Najaf, 1966).
8
Although there is a considerable literature on Sabzawari in Persian, there is very little in European
languages. A few useful studies are: Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Renaissance in Iran: Ḥājī Mullā Hādī Sabzi-
wārī,” A History of Muslim Philosophy, ed. M. M. Sharif (Wiesbaden, 1966), II: 1543–56; Toshihiko
Izutsu, “The Fundamental Structure of Sabzawârî’s Metaphysics,” in Sabzawari, Sharh Ghurar al-
fara’id ma‘ruf bih Sharh-i Manzuma-yi hikmat: qismat-i umur-i ‘amma wa jawhar wa ‘araz,
ed. T. Izutsu and M. Mohaghegh (Tehran, 1969), 1–152; and Wahid Akhtar, “Sabzawārī’s Analysis of
Being,” Al-Tawḥīd, II, no. 1 (1984): 29–70.
9
See Sajjad Rizvi, Mullā Ṣadrā and Metaphysics: Modulation of Being (London, 2009), 21–26.
476 Rizvi
the school to the modern period. He taught the works of Mulla Sadra, commented upon
them and was instrumental in their dissemination through the lithographic publication
of the texts in the middle of the Qajar period. After providing an account of his intel-
lectual formation in Iran, I will discuss his curriculum formation, pedagogical method
and writings, giving an account of what has sometimes been described as the “school of
Khorasan” (by analogy to the famed Safavid “school of Isfahan” as defined by Henry
Corbin and Seyyed Hossein Nasr); and finally conclude with some observations of
his legacy, the parallel developments in the so-called “school of Tehran” and the per-
petuation of traditional Shi‘i philosophy in the face of the encroachment of new Euro-
pean thought in the reformed educational institutions of the late Qajar state.10
Life and Intellectual Formation
One thousand, two hundred and twelve lunar years after the migration of the Prophet
to Medina (corresponding to the year 1797–98 of the Common Era), Hadi, son of
Mahdi, was born in the town of Sabzawar (in the district of Bayhaq), a Shi‘i center
of learning some 230 kilometers west of Mashhad, the famous shrine city dedicated
to the eighth Shi‘i Imam ‘Ali b. Musa al-Rida.11 Some years later, the European tra-
velers and scholars Arthur de Gobineau and Edward Browne were to meet him at the
height of his fame. Browne famously described him as the “last great Islamic philoso-
pher” and provided the following physical description:
[He] was tall of stature, thin and of a slender frame; his complexion was dark, his
face pleasing to look upon, his speech eloquent and flowing, his manner gentle,
unobtrusive and even humble.12
10
See “Isfahan, School of,” Encylopaedia Iranica, XIV, 119–25. On the notion of the school of Isfahan
and later of Tehran, see Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present: Philosophy
in the Land of Prophecy (Albany, NY, 2006), 209–57.
11
Sabzawari’s modern biographer Ghulam-Husayn Riza-Nizhad “Nushin” argues on the basis of a
chronogram of the author in which he alludes to his year of birth with the term “gharib” that he was
born in 1212 AH—see Hakim-i Sabzawari: zindagi—athar—falsafa (Tehran, 1371s./1992), 35. An
important source is his own autobiography that was written in Sabzawar around 1280/1863–64 and pub-
lished by Qasim Ghani in Yadgar, I, no. 3 (1944): 45–47. A short introduction is Seyyed Hossein Nasr,
“Hādī Sabzavārī,” EIr. The biographical sources on his life are: Riza-quli Khan ‘Hidayat’ (d. 1871), Tadh-
kira-yi riyaz al-‘arifin (Tehran, 1316s./1937), 417–20 (Asrār-i Sabzawari); Muhammad Hasan Khan
I‘timad al-Saltana (d. 1896), Matla‘ al-shams: tarikh-i arz-i aqdas wa Mashhad-i muqaddas (Tehran,
1363s./1965), III: 984; Ma‘sum-‘Ali Shah Shirazi (d. 1926), Tara’iq al-haqa’iq, ed. M. J. Maḥjub
(Tehran, 1339s./1960), III: 465–66; Muhammad Hirz al-Din (d. 1946), Ma‘arif al-rijal fi tarajim al-
‘ulama’ wa-l-udaba’ (Qum, 1985), III, 220–23; Sayyid Muhsin al-Amin (d. 1952), A‘yan al-shi‘a,
ed. S. H. al-Amin (Beirut, 1983), X: 234; Muhammad ‘Ali Mu‘allim-i Habibabadi, Makarim al-athar
dar ahwal-i rijal-i dawra-yi Qajar (Isfahan, 1958–63), II: 450–52; Mudarris-i Tabrizi (d. 1954), Rayha-
nat al-adab (Tehran, 1326–33s./1947–54), II: 156–58; Shaykh ‘Abd Allah Ni‘ma, Falasifat al-shi‘a:
hayatuhum wa-ara’uhum (Beirut, 1961), 621; Manuchihr Saduqi ‘Suha’, Tarikh-i hukama’ wa ‘urafa’-
yi muta’akhkhirin az Sadr al-muta’allihin (Tehran, 1980), 109–55.
12
E. G. Browne, A History of Persian Literature Volume 4 (Cambridge, 1924), 411; idem, A Year
among the Persians (London, 1983), 133.
His father Mirza Mahdi ibn Muhammad Sadiq was an educated merchant and
landowner, whose interest in learning (his son later referred to him as “my noble
father”—waliduna-l-fadil) and relative wealth provided the conditions of leisure
and encouragement for the young Hadi.13 On his return from the pilgrimage to
Mecca in 1220/1805–06, his father died in Shiraz and left the young Sabzawari an
orphan at the age of eight.14 His cousin Mirza Husayn took charge of the boy as a
surrogate father and in pursuit of his education installed him around 1222/
1807–08 in Mashhad at the Madrasa-yi Hajj Hasan near the shrine to undertake
the preliminaries (muqaddimat) of his study.15 There, he shared Mirza Husayn’s quar-
ters and the latter initiated him into the study of Arabic grammar, syntax and mor-
phology, fiqh and jurisprudence and legal theory and Euclidean mathematics
(riyaziyyat) and some logic (mantiq). Mirza Husayn was both his paternal and his
maternal cousin (pisar-i ‘amm wa khala-zad). Sabzawari later gave an account of
these beginnings:
Until I was ten, I remained in Sabzawar …

The possessor of excellences, the complete savant who practiced what he knew, the
comprehensive sage, the pious and abstemious scholar, the penitent worshipper, the
“cream” of the notables (zubdat al-ashraf), who needs no introduction, the son of
my aunt, Hajj Mulla Husayn Sabzawari who had studied for years in the holy city of
Mashhad took me from Sabzawar to Mashhad. The late scholar was my teacher in
Arabic, law and jurisprudence, but, as for those disciplines to which I was myself
inclined and desirous of pursuing, namely systematic theology and philosophy
(kalam wa-falsafa), he taught me little, but he did teach me logic and some math-
ematics (mantiq wa-qalili az riyazi).16
He stayed in Mashhad for ten years and acquired a taste for mystical speculation
and philosophy.17 In 1232/1817, he returned to Sabzawar and was married. A son
Muhammad was born the following year and soon after, desiring to perform the pil-
grimage to Mecca and to undertake the study of philosophy in Isfahan, he set out
alone from Sabzavar in 1233/1818 leaving his family in the care of his cousin.18
13
Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 54; Mas‘ud Talibi, ‘Introduction’, to Sabzawari, Sharh al-
manzuma, 4.
14
Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 40. Murtaza Mudarrissi Chahardahi argues that he died in Mecca
during the Hajj—see Zindagani wa falsafa-yi Hajj Mulla Hadi Sabzawari (Tehran, 1334s./1955), 16.
15
This madrasa no longer exists but was located on the north side of the khiyaban-i haram-i mutahhar
between the Madrasa-yi Baqiriyya where Muhammad Baqir Sabzawari (d. 1683) had taught law and jur-
isprudence and the Madrasa-ye Nawwab. The western side of the Baqiriyya was next to the eastern side of
Hajj Hasan. It had some one hundred students housed in about twenty-five rooms. With the modern
expansion of the shrine complex, these two madrasas have been demolished. Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sab-
zawari, 46.
16
Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 40–41.
17
Browne and Habibabadi suggest that he only stayed in Mashhad for five years but this seems to be
incorrect—see Habibabadi, Makarim al-athar, II: 451; cf. Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 43–46.
18
Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 47.
478 Rizvi
There, he lodged and studied at the Madrasa-yi Kasa-Giran also known as the
Madrasa-yi Shamsiyya. This madrasa was founded in 1104/1692–93 by Shams al-
Din Muhammad Yazdi, after whom it was named, and was located in the neighbor-
hood of Kasa-Giran.
Isfahan was witnessing a revival of interest in philosophy and generally in the study
of the Islamic humanities and he soon became devoted to the study of the school of
Mulla Sadra. In Isfahan, he studied with major figures. In the scriptural and jurispru-
dential disciplines, he began his studies with a young scholar Shaykh Muhammad ‘Ali
Najafi (d. 1245/1829), attending his classes at the Madrasa-ye Dhu-l-Fiqar for two
years.19 Najafi was also renowned for his skill in theology and wrote marginalia on
the Shawariq al-ilham (Illuminations of Inspiration) of ‘Abd al-Razzaq Lahiji (d.
1661) and on the commentaries on the Tajrid al-I‘tiqad (Summary of Belief) of
Nasir al-Din Tusi (d. 1274).
However, Sabzawari’s main teachers in jurisprudence were famous in their time. He
himself said that he was excited by the city of knowledge that was Isfahan and within a
month of arriving he began to attend the classes of Hajji Kalbasi and Shaykh Muham-
mad Taqi.20 The former was Mulla Muhammad Ibrahim Kalbasi (or Karbasi, d. 1261/
1845).21 Kalbasi had studied in the shrine cities of Iraq with Mulla Mahdi Naraqi (d.
1209/1794), Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba’i “Bahr al-‘Ulum” (d. 1797) and Muham-
mad Baqir “Vahid” Bihbahani (d. 1791). He had also studied philosophy with the
famous sage of the later eighteenth century Aqa Muhammad Bidabadi (d. 1198/
1783) and with his contemporary Mulla Muhammad Rafi‘ Gilani. Kalbasi was the
most important jurist of his time and his works Shawari‘ al-hidaya (Paths of
Guidance) and Isharat al-usul (Pointers in Jurisprudence) in jurisprudence and
Minhaj al-hidaya (Way of Guidance) and Irshad al-mustarshidin (Directing those
in Need of Direction) on positive legal judgments became major sources of study
and reference.22
His other main teacher in jurisprudence was Shaykh Muhammad Taqi ibn ‘Abd al-
Rahim Isfahani (d. 1248/1832), an important jurist and author of Hidayat al-mustar-
shidin (Guidance of those in Need of Direction).23 He had studied in Najaf with the
eminent Shaykh Ja‘far Najafi “Kashif al-Ghita’” (d. 1227/1812).
In philosophy, he studied with two prominent teachers of the school of Mulla
Sadra: Mulla Ismail and ‘Ali Nuri. Mulla Ismail Darbkushki Isfahani (d. 1268/
1853), known as wahid al-‘ayn because he was blind in one eye, taught the major
works of Mulla Sadra such as al-Hikma al-muta‘aliya fi-l-asfar al-‘aqliyya al-arba‘a
(The Transcendent Philosophy of the Four Journeys of the Intellect) and al-Shawahid
al-rububiyya (Divine Witnessings) and al-Mabda’ wa-l-ma‘ad (The Beginning and the
19
20
21
Chahardahi, Sabzawari, 29; Mirza Abu-l-Qasim Muhammad Mahdi Kashmiri Lakhnawi, Nuju al-
sama’ (Qum, 1976), 68.
22
Hossein Modarressi Tabataba’i, An Introduction to Shīʿī Law: a Bibliographical Study (London,
1984), 93, 99.
23
Chahardahi, Sabzawari, 29. For some reason unclear to me, Riza-Nizhad does not mention him.
Return), on which he wrote marginalia (hashiya), and the theological texts of Tusi
and Lahiji.24 Mulla Ismail was a comprehensive scholar known for his piety and
Sabzawari studied with him for at least five years. He himself had been a student of
Nuri, Sabzawari’s more famous instructor.
Mulla ‘Ali ibn Jamshid Mazandarani Nuri (d. Rajab 1246/1830) was the true heir
and reviver of the school of Mulla Sadra.25 He had himself studied with Bidabadi and
hence had an intellectual genealogy stretching back to Mulla Sadra in the following
chain: Nuri—Bidabadi—Ismail Khaju’i (d. 1173/1759)—Haydar Amuli (d. 1150/
1737–38)—Muhsin Fayd Kashani (d. 1680)—Mulla Sadra. He wrote commentaries
on all the major works of Mulla Sadra, and Sabzawari studied with him for at least
three years. Along with Kalbasi, he was the reviver of the intellectual fortunes of
Isfahan and when he died his funeral prayers were led by the prominent jurist and
shaykh al-islam of the city Mulla Muhammad Baqir Shafti (d. 1260/1844).
In 1240/1824, the (in)famous Shaykh Ahmad ibn Zayn al-Din al-Ahsa’i (d. 1241/
1826),supposed founder of the controversial Shaykhi school and a philosopher highly
critical of the school of Mulla Sadra, came to Isfahan. On the advice of Nuri, Sabza-
wari attended his class for about two months.26 While he respected Ahsa’i’s piety and
reputation, he was influenced by Mulla Ismail’s hostile attack on his commentary on
the Hikma ‘Arshiyya (Wisdom of the Throne) of Mulla Sadra, and later back in Sab-
zawar, he was quite critical of the ideas of Shaykh Ahmad.27 Yet in his autobiography,
Sabzawari wrote of Ahsa’i: “He had no equal in asceticism, but he did not make a show
of his excellence and eminence before the scholars of Isfahan.”28
He remained in Isfahan for eight years and in 1242/1826–27 returned to
Mashhad to complete his study of jurisprudence.29 This was the same year that one
of his teachers in philosophy Mulla Ismail left for Tehran to teach there.30 In the
same year, he began his magnum opus, the philosophical poem Ghurar al-fara’id
known simply as manzuma (the poem), and then later its commentary which was
completed in 1261/1845. Having taught and studied in Mashhad for a further five
years, he returned to Sabzawar and then once again set out for the pilgrimage to
Mecca, returning in 1250/1834.31 The recent death of Fath ‘Ali Shah and the sub-
sequent turmoil made a quick return to Sabzawar dangerous so Sabzawari went to
Kirman and stayed at the Madrasa-yi Ma‘sumiyya for around a year. There he
24
25
26
27
For example, he defended Fayd Kashani against Ahsa’i’s criticism of his treatise on knowledge in al-
Muhakamat wa-l-muqawamat in Rasa’il-i hakim-i Sabzawari, ed. S. J. Ashtiyani (Tehran, 1376s./1997),
581–601. For a discussion of these texts, see Todd Lawson, “Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in Twelver
Shiʿism: Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī on Fayḍ Kāshānī,” Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, ed. R. Gleave
(London, 2005), 127–54.
28
Mohaghegh, “Introduction,”, to Sabzawārī, Sharh Ghurar al-fara’id, 11.
29
Browne, A Year among the Persians, 132 mentions a stay of seven years; Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sab-
zawari, 52.
30
Talibi, “Introduction,” 4; Hirz al-Din, Ma‘arif al-rijal, 220.
31
480 Rizvi
married a woman known as Bibi Kuchik Khanum who bore him two further sons,
Muhammad Ismail and ‘Abd al-Qayyum, and four daughters, Nuriyya, Zakiyya,
Safiyya and Qudsiyya.32 His time in Kirman may explain some elements of his mys-
tical inclinations and even possible Sufi affiliations. Riza-Nizhad and Ibrahimi Dinani
claim that his father-in-law Mulla Muhammad ‘Arif was his spiritual master in that
city.33 Of course, some of his students were well known Sufis and we shall return
to the question of Sabzawari and Sufism.
In 1252/1836–37, he returned to his birthplace, stopping in Mashhad on the way
to teach and perform the visitation to the shrine of the Imam where it is said that he
remained for ten months.34 Back in Sabzawar, he began to teach at the Madrasa-ye
Fasihiyya, which had been founded in 1126/1714 by a Safavid notable ‘Abd al-
Sani‘.35 From here, his fame spread and he attracted students from around the Persia-
nate world. In 1863, Comte Arthur de Gobineau (d. 1882), the French ambassador
visited him and was much impressed. In his Religions et philosophies dans l’Asie centrale
(first published in 1865), he left an important account of philosophy in Iran since
Mulla Sadra and the role of Sabzawari:
Son Excellence le Hadjy Moulla Hady, de Sebzewar, qui vit encore aujourd’hui, âgé
à peu près de soixante-dix ans. Il est tout à fait hors ligne. C’est un savant éminent,
un érudit solide, un maître accompli dans les études métaphysiques, et dans tout ce
qui tient aux hautes connaissances. Il a composé un grand nombre de commentaires
sur les œuvres diverses de Moulla Sadra. …
Ce personnage jouit en Perse d’une considération sans égale … Sa réputation de

science est tellement étendue, qu’il lui vient à Sebzewar, son lieu de naissance, où
il est rentré depuis de longues années, pour n’en plus sortir, des élèves et des audi-
teurs partis de l’Inde, de la Turquie et de l’Arabie …
Le grand mérite de Hadjy Moulla Hady est d’avoir repris l’œuvre de Moulla
Sadra. De même que celui-ci restaurait Avicenne dans la mesure possible, de
même celui-là restaure à la fois et Moulla Sadra lui-même et son auteur, usant
de toute la latitude que peut lui donner la liberté plus grande du temps où
nous vivons. Il est, en effet, bien que voilé encore, plus explicite que l’Akhound,
et se rapproche du grand maître avec une plénitude de franchise qui n’avait pas
été vue depuis des siècles. Là est la cause de l’enthousiasme qu’il excite, et pour
cette raison on ne peut nier qu’il marque un moment intéressant dans l’histoire
philosophique du pays.36
32
Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 83–84, 257; Hirz al-Din, Ma‘arif al-rijal, 220.
33
Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 82; personal interview with Prof. Ghulam Husayn Ibrahimi
Dinani at the University of Tehran on 3 January 1996.
34
Browne, A Year among the Persians, 132; Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 85–86.
35
36
Arthur de Gobineau, Religions et philosophies dans l’Asie centrale (Paris, 1933), 95–97.
At the height of his fame, he was visited by the ruler Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar on
28 Muharram 1284/1 June 1867 while the king was on a visit to the shrine at
Mashhad.37 The king was struck by his piety and poise and arranged for the
court photographer Aqa-yi Riza to make a portrait of him. He also asked the phi-
losopher to pray for him; Sabzawari, not wishing to be drawn into the ambit of
the ruler’s court, insisted that he prayed for all believers but on being pressed,
declaimed, “O God, preserve the ruler of Islam!,” an ambiguous formula that did
not name Nasir al-Din. The king also presented him with a gift of 500 tomans
but Sabzawari did not directly accept the money; instead, he distributed it among
the poor. Nevertheless, he acquiesced to a royal commission to write a short
Persian work on philosophy; this was Asrar al-hikam (The Secrets of Philosophy),
which was lithographed and distributed to scholars free of charge at the expense
of the court vizier.38
Sabzawari died at the age of 77 on 22 Dhu-l-Hajja 1289/20 February 1873 and was
buried near his house at the Darvaza-yi Nisabur. There is some dispute about the date
of his death.39 His son-in-law Sayyid Hasan stated that he died in 1290. His sons
Muhammad Ismail and ‘Abd al-Qayyum, however, mentioned late Dhu-l-Hajja

1289. Browne opts for 1295/1878 but this seems to be a confusion for the date of
the construction of his shrine built by the court vizier Mirza Yusuf Ashtiyani Mus-
tawfi al-mamalik (d. 1303/1886).40 But some date at the end of 1289 seems most
likely and is attested by a number of chronograms such as that composed by his
student Mulla Muhammad Kazim “Sirr” Sabzawari who was present at his death
and after:
“Asrar” [Sabzawari’s pen-name] has left the world such

Lament reaches up to the empyrean from the earth.
If you ask the date of his passing,
We say: “he did not die, but became more alive” (kih na-murd, zinda-tar shud =
1289).41
Contribution
Sabzawari was a prolific writer. Before discussing his works and his legacy through his
students, I want to sketch his pedagogy as expressed in his autobiography and in the
accounts of his many students.
A demanding teacher, Sabzawari divided his classes by ability. New and elementary
students were required to follow the basic program: grammar through the Alfiyya of
37
Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 259–61; Amanat, Pivot of the Universe, 416.
38
Chahardahi, Sabzawari, 15; Mohaghegh, “Introduction,” 14.
39
40
Browne, A Year among the Persians, 133; Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 265; Mohaghegh,
“Introduction,” 21.
41
482 Rizvi
Ibn Malik (d. 672/1274), logic taught with the Sharh al-matali‘ (Commentary on the
Rising Places) of al-Sharif al-Jurjani (d. 816/1413) and al-Risala al-Shamsiyya of
Dabiran Katibi Qazwini (d. 674/1276), basic Euclidean mathematics and fiqh, theol-
ogy through the Shawariq al-ilham of Lahiji and the Sharh al-hidaya of Mir Husayn
Maybudi (d. 909/1504). The foundational course in philosophy lasted eight years
based almost exclusively on the works of Mulla Sadra: this emphasis on the work of
the Safavid sage is a distinguishing factor in Sabzawari’s pedagogy. Later in life, he
divided his philosophical teaching into three: an introductory class of three hours a
day based on his own Sharh-i manzuma, an intermediate class based on the works
of Mulla Sadra, and an advanced class of higher speculation based upon Sabzawari’s
own experience.42 For those more interested in philosophical mysticism (‘irfan), he
taught the major texts of the school of Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240) namely Misbah al-uns
(Lamp of Intimacy) of Hamza Fanari (d. 1431), Matla‘ khusus al-kalim fi sharh
Fusus al-hikam (The Rising-point of the Properties of Words Commenting upon
the Ring-settings of Wisdoms) of Dawud Qaysari (d. 1350) and Tamhid al-qawa‘id
(Introduction to the Rules) of Sa’in al-Din Turka Isfahani (d. 830/1437).43 This
range of teaching reflected his own interests and ideas about pedagogy but also the
requirements of his students: some wanted an intellectual training, others wanted a
philosophical understanding of the faith and a grasp of definitions that could aid
their study of jurisprudence, and a small group were attracted to the introspective
and mystical speculation and taste. Using a Sufi motif of the law, the spiritual path
and the truth (shari‘at, tariqat, haqiqat), his son-in-law wrote that “he adorned the
law, the spiritual path and the truth with rays of wisdom and divine sparks of inspi-
ration.”44 He was generous and would support and feed the poor. He had a reputation
for piety, never forsaking the night prayer (tahajjud) and establishing mourning for
Imam Husayn in the month of Muharram. He lived in the same frugal house for
forty-five years near the Darvaza-yi Nisabur. A number of accounts describe his
ascetic way of life and contentment and lack of want (qana‘at). The following
account is provided by his son Muhammad Ismail as recounted by I‘timad al-Saltana:
The late Hajji spent the last third of the night awake in the dark engrossed in
prayer, regardless of whether it was winter, summer, autumn or spring, until
sunrise. He would then drink two cups of pure, very dark tea with twelve mithqals
[about twelve teaspoons] of sugar in each mixed in and he used to say that “I drink
this very sweet tea to keep up my strength.” He certainly had no taste or inclination
42
Talibi, “Introduction,” 4.
43
Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 96–97; Hamza Fanari, Misbah al-uns sharh Miftah al-ghayb,
ed. M. Khajawi (Tehran, 1996); Dawud Qaysari, Matla‘ khusus al-kalim fi ma‘ani Fusus al-hikam,
ed. M. H. Sa‘idi, 2 vols. (Tehran, 1995); Sa’in al-Din Turka, Tamhid al-qawa‘id, ed. S. J. Ashtiyani
(Tehran, 1976). On Sa’in al-Din, see Leonard Lewisohn, “Sufism and Theology in the Confessions of
Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Turka Iṣfahānī,” Sufism and Theology, ed. by Ayman Shihadeh (Edinburgh, 2007), 63–82,
and Sayyid ‘Ali Musawi Bihbahani, “Ahwal wa athar-i Sa’in al-Din Turka Isfahani,” Collected Papers
in Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism, ed. H. Landolt and M. Mohaghegh (Tehran, 1971), 97–132.
44
Mohaghegh, “Introduction,” 14.
to take opium or any sort of tobacco. Two hours into the day, he would go to the
madrasa and teach for four hours. He would then return home for lunch and would
eat some simple bread and drink a thin yogurt drink (dugh) made with little yogurt
… After lunch he would sleep for an hour if it were summer. He would not drink
tea in the afternoon. He would spend three to four and a half hours of the night in
prayer in the darkness and then have some supper comprising some rice and a
simple meat-less, usually spinach, soup because of his old age and lack of teeth.
For a half hour before supper, he would take a walk in the garden … He would
later sleep on a simple, hard and uncomfortable bed in the cellar.
He used to wear a simple black Mazandarani cloak (‘aba’), a green coat (qaba’) that
was tattered and patched. In winter he would wear a yellow coat and pants
(shalwar). He would wear a white ‘imama [turban] and at night a karbasi hat.
He did not have a library, just a few volumes and a beautiful, hand-crafted Isfahani
pen with which he solved the dilemmas and problems of philosophy …
He would not keep the income from his lands but distribute them to the poor.
Every year for the last ten days of Safar, he would convene mourning for Imam
Husayn and lament and wail loudly, inviting people to join him in the mourning.
One day he gave the reciter (rawza-khwan) five Qur’ans and would feed the poor
bread and abgusht (meat broth) … Every year he would fulfill his duty of paying the
zakat and khums directly into the hands of the sayyids and the needy.45
For those more mystically and spiritually inclined, these accounts sound more akin
to the “life of a saint” and one who wrought miracles and possessed spiritual qualities
(sahib-i karamat wa-maqamat). Accounts are given of his miracles: Riza-Nizhad men-
tions eleven such extraordinary events in his life and significantly after his death (a sure
sign of sanctity and spiritual power).46 These incidents cover the normal range of Sufi
miracles: supernatural knowledge, telekinesis, and spiritual healing. Some commenta-
tors have described him as a Sufi master and he certainly sought the company of
Sufis.47 One ambivalent Sufi Mulla ‘Abbas ‘Ali Kayvan-i Qazvini (d. 1938) claimed
that he was close to the Ni‘matullahi Gunabadi shaykh Sa‘adat ‘Ali Shah (d. 1289/
1872) and that Sabzawari was the true Sufi pole (qutb) of his time:
First, it is worth stressing that the sole person who bore the signs of being the qutb
(spiritual pole of his time) was Hajj Mulla Hadi. In knowledge, wisdom and piety
he had no peer and no one possessed deep knowledge like him. He lived frugally and
owned little. He was so liked that if he had ever wanted people to prostrate to him
they would have done so. He did not seek any leadership and would even shun
leading the prayer. He would not seek the company of the elites but instead
lived in seclusion, was ascetic, and would constantly beseech his Lord …
45
I‘timad al-Saltana, Matla‘ al-shams, III: 197–201; Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 111–13.
46
47
Nasr, “Sabziwārī,” 1544.
484 Rizvi
He represented a life without pretence and with simplicity, and he would not draw
attention to his own distinction nor attract people towards him. He would not pri-
vilege his children nor squander wealth. Thus his disciples of all sorts were free to
follow spiritual masters as they wished.48
It was through his association that he introduced his student Muhammad ibn
Haydar to Sa‘adat ‘Ali Shah; the student later succeeded him in the Ni‘matullahi
order as Sultan ‘Ali Shah (d. 1327/1909) and was famed for his commentary on
the Qur’an and his Walayat-nama (Treatise on Sanctity).49 It is difficult to verify
Sabzawari’s position in this Sufi order; it is undeniable that he had a close relationship
to these Sufis but that does not entail his affiliation to their spiritual lineage. Sufism
can, of course, in a Shi‘i context be seen rather negatively and it may be that he wanted
to keep his distance. ‘Irfan was acceptable (and remains so) in the hawza; tasawwuf is,
however, more problematic.50
Sabzawari wrote around forty works in Arabic and Persian. They can be divided
into four categories: marginalia on the works of Mulla Sadra, original works in phil-
osophy, commentaries on supplications and Persian literature, and works on theology.

He also composed verse under the pen-name Asrar.51 His commentaries are on the
whole based on his teaching at the Madrasa-ye Fasihiyya and included other philoso-
phical, theological, grammatical and legal texts such as Hikmat al-ishraq (The Philos-
ophy of Illumination) of Suhrawardi (d. 1191), Shawariq al-ilham of Lahiji (d. 1661),
Zubdat al-usul (The Essence of Jurisprudence) of Shaykh Baha’ al-Din ‘Amili (d.
1621), Sharh alfiyyat ibn Malik (Commentary on the Thousand Verses of Ibn
Malik) of Jalal al-Din Suyuti (d. 1505), and al-Abhath al-mufida (Beneficial Discus-
sions) of ‘Allama al-Hilli (d. 1325). None of these works has been published.
However, most of the works from the four categories have been.
Among the marginalia on the works on Mulla Sadra, Sabzawari wrote the
following:
1) Hawashi on al-Asfar al-arba‘a, the magnum opus of Mulla Sadra—this was

placed in the margins of the first lithographic printing of the Asfar in 1282/
1865.52 The modern edition from the 1950s includes five sets of marginalia
but the most recent critical edition published by the Sadra Islamic Philosophy
48
Kayvan Qazvini, Razgusha: bihin sukhan (Tehran, n.d.), 24.
49
Ma‘sum-‘Ali Shah, Tara’iq al-haqa’iq, I: 240; Mas‘ud Humayuni, Tarikh-i silsila-hā-yi tariqa-yi
Ni‘matullahi (Tehran, 1980), 132–36; Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 124; Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari,
105–7; Leonard Lewisohn, “An Introduction to the History of Modern Persian Sufism Part I: The
Niʿmatullāhi Order—persecution, revival and schism,” BSOAS, 61 (1998): 450–52; ‘Ali Tabanda
‘Mahbub-‘Ali Shah’, Khurshid-i tabanda (Tehran, 1377s./1998), 47–50; Sultan ‘Ali Shah, Bayan al-
sa‘ada fi maqamat al-‘ibada, 4 vols. (Tehran, 1344s./1965); idem, Walayatnama (Tehran, 1380s./2001).
50
Cf. Ahmad Ahmadi, “‘Irfān and taṣawwuf,” Al-Tawḥīd, 1 (1984): 63–76.
51
Diwan-i Asrar, ed. S. H. Amin (Tehran, 1993).
52
Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 140; Hirz al-Din, Ma‘arif al-rijal, 223; Chahardahi, Sabzawari,
68; Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 116.
Research Institute only reproduced the marginalia of Sabzawari, signaling its

paramount importance.
2) Hawashi on al-Mabda’ wa-l-ma‘ad—this was lithographed in 1314/1896–
97.53
3) Hawashi on al-Shawahid al-rububiyya—this marginalia on the epitome of
Sadrian philosophy was lithographed in 1286/1869 and then reprinted in the
edition of the text produced by Sayyid Jalal al-Din Ashtiyani in 1960.54 The
glosses are extensive and around the same length as the original text.
4) Hawashi on Mafatih al-ghayb (Keys to the Unseen)—these glosses on the
Qur’anic and philosophical hermeneutics of Mulla Sadra have never been pub-
lished.55 The marginalia of Sabzawari’s teacher ‘Ali Nuri are better known and
have been published in the edition of the work.56
5) Hawashi on Asrar al-ayat (Secrets of the Verses/Signs)—Ashtiyani claims that
he saw a manuscript of this but it is not mentioned by other sources and I have
not managed to find any other reference to it.57 Since the work is often associ-
ated with Mafatih al-ghayb, it would not be surprising to find Sabzawari writing
glosses upon it.
Among his original works, three stand out:
1) Al-La’ali al-muntazima (493 verses on logic) and Ghurar al-fara’id (1,039

verses on philosophy) upon both of which he later wrote a commentary
(sharh) and gloss (ta‘liqa)—this is his famous sharh-i manzuma, a major didactic
work (hence versified) and its explanation that since its publication in 1298/
1881 until well into the 1980s was the major introduction to philosophy in
the hawza.58 The work is divided mainly into three parts: a section on logic,
semantics and proof theory; al-ilahiyyat bi-l-ma‘na l-‘amm covering basic
issues of ontology; and al-ilahiyyat bi-l-ma‘na l-khass on philosophical theol-
ogy.59 I discuss this work in more detail below.
53
54
55
Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 146; Chahardahi, Sabzawari, 68; Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 116.
56
Mulla Sadra, Mafatih al-ghayb ma‘ ta‘liqat Mulla ‘Ali Nuri, ed. M. Khajawi (Tehran, 1984).
57
Sayyid Jalal al-Din Ashtiyani, “Muqaddima,” Mulla Sadra, al-Shawahid al-rububiyya fi-l-manahij al-
sulukiyya (Mashhad, 1967), cliv.
58
Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 150–55; Hirz al-Din, Ma‘arif al-rijal, 222–23; Chahardahi, Sab-
zawari, 63; Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 115. The text was supplanted by ‘Allama Tabataba’i’s Bidayat al-
hikma and Nihayat al-hikma (Qum, 1984). The former is available in an excellent translation: The
Elements of Islamic Metaphysics, trans. ‘Ali-quli Qara’i (London, 2003).
59
There are two editions of the text—one is complete in four volumes edited by Talibi with the mar-
ginal glosses of the contemporary hakim Aqa Hasan Hasanzada Amuli of Qum and published in 1995,
and another edition of the two sections on metaphysics edited by Mehdi Mohaghegh and Toshihiko
Izutsu and originally published in the 1970s by the Tehran branch of the McGill Institute of Islamic
486 Rizvi
2) Asrar al-hikam fi-l-mufattatah wa-l-mukhattatam (Secrets of Wisdom concern-

ing Openings and Closures)—this Persian work on philosophy was commis-
sioned by Nasir al-Din Shah Qajar and completed in 1286/1869.60 It was
lithographed first in 1300/1883 in Tehran with the glosses of Abu-l-Hasan
Shi‘rani and reprinted in 1972. There are two sections: metaphysics or theoreti-
cal philosophy (hikmat-i nazari) and ethics or practical philosophy (hikmat-i
‘amali). The former, comprising seven chapters, analyses philosophical theology
from discussions on the nature of being and the oneness of God to the nature of
the imamate. The latter includes four chapters on spiritual explanations of
prayer, fasting and other ritual practices. The style of the text is consistent
with Sabzawari’s mystical and poetic taste and the work is replete with quota-
tions from the Persian classics. This text played a pivotal role in the populariza-
tion of the thought of Mulla Sadra in the Qajar period.61
3) Hadi al-mudillin (Guide for the Astray)—a Persian epitome of philosophical
theology that is attributed to Sabzawari.62 According to the modern editor,
‘Ali Awjabi, the work was probably written by a student of Sabzawari and com-
pleted in 1290/1874. It examines the basic elements of Shi‘i doctrine with four
chapters on divine unity (tawhid), justice (‘adl), prophecy and the imamate
(nubuwwat wa-wilāyat), and the afterlife (ma‘ad).
The third category also contains three important works:
1) Sharh al-asma’ (Commentary on the Divine Names)—a commentary on the

famous supplication of the divine names known as Jawshan kabir which was
first lithographed in 1281/1865 along with the following commentary.63 The
supplication itself is transmitted by the third Shi‘i Imam al-Husayn ibn ‘Ali
from his father and became quite popular in the revival of Shi‘i heritage
under the Safavids, quoted in the prayer and supplication manual al-Balad
al-amin (The Secure Abode) of Ibrahim al-Kaf‘ami (d. 904/1499) and the ency-
clopedia of Shi‘i tradition Bihar al-anwar (Seas of Lights) of Muhammad Baqir
Studies—Sharh Ghurar al-fara’id ma‘ruf bih Sharh-i manzuma-yi hikmat: qismat-i umur-i ‘amma wa
jawhar wa ‘araz (Tehran, 1969); trans. T. Izutsu and M. Mohaghegh as The Metaphysics of Sabzavari
(Tehran, 1983); Sharh Ghurar al-fara’id, maqsad-i siwwum fi-l-ilahiyyat bi-l-ma‘na l-akhass,
ed. M. Mohaghegh (Tehran, 1999).
60
Asrar al-hikam, ed. H. M. Farzad (Tehran, 1982); Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 173; Hirz al-
Din, Ma‘arif al-rijal, 223; Chahardahi, Sabzawari, 68; Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 115. This work is the
basis of the assessment of Sabzawari’s contribution to philosophy in Muhammad Iqbal’s doctoral disser-
tation at Heidelberg, The Development of Metaphysics in Persia (London, 1908), 176–79.
61
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “The Metaphysics of Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī and Islamic Philosophy in Qajar
Persia,” in Qajar Iran, ed. C.E. Bosworth and C. Hillenbrand (Edinburgh, 1983), 190.
62
Hadi al-mudillin mansub bih Hajj Mulla Hadi Sabzawari, ed. ‘A. Awjabi (Tehran, 1383s./2004);
63
Sharh al-asma’, ed. N. Habibi (Tehran, 1375s./1996); Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-e Sabzavārī, 164; Hirz
al-Din, Ma‘arif al-rijal, 223; Chahardahi, Sabzawari, 68; Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 115.
Majlisi (d. 1699).64 Sabzawari completed the commentary in Jumada II 1260/

July 1844. It is an extensive philosophical and mystical meditation upon the
supplication drawing upon the school of Mulla Sadra, Neoplatonic traditions
in Islam and the rationalizing mysticism of Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240).
2) Sharh du‘a’ al-sabah of Imam ‘Ali also known as Miftah al-falah wa-misbah al-najat
fi sharh du‘a’ al-sabah (Key to Salvation and Lamp of Deliverance Commenting
upon the Supplication of the Morning) was originally composed in 1267/1851.65
3) Sharh-i asrar (Commentary of “Asrar”)—a commentary on some one hundred
or so “difficult” verses of the Mathnawi of Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1274) commis-
sioned by the Qajar prince Sultan Murad Mirza Husam al-Saltana, the governor
of Khurasan, and lithographed in 1285/1868 by Aqa Muhammad Baqir
Tihrani.66 The commentary once again allows Sabzawari to relate his learning
in the philosophical and mystical traditions to an explanation of the poetry.67
Sabzawari’s legacy did not reside merely in his works that were lithographed, copied
and distributed. More significant for the dissemination of the school of Mulla Sadra
were his students. Various sources mention between sixty-five and a hundred impor-
tant students, and another twenty-five spiritual disciples. This significant number and
the roles that they played in Qajar cultural and intellectual life attests to Sabzawari’s
importance in the period. Alongside the general body of hawza students, there are
three important groups influenced by Sabzawari. The first group were his students
who were cultural figures of the time. One example was Sayyid Ahmad Rizavi
‘Adib-i Pishavari (d. 1349/1930), a Suhravardi Sufi from India who had fled the
British repression after the revolt of 1857 to Afghanistan and then Iran and who
studied in Sabzawar for the last two years of Sabzawari’s life.68
The second group were important jurists whose years of study ushered in a para-
digm shift in jurisprudence. Perhaps the most important Shi‘i jurist of the middle
Qajar period, Shaykh Murtaza Ansari Dizfuli (d. 1864), author of the Fara’id al-
usul (Gems of Jurisprudence), studied philosophy and theology at the Madrasa-yi
Hajj Hasan with Sabzawari for two years before he moved to Najaf in 1250/
1834.69 The other outstanding jurist of the Qajar period, Akhund Muhammad
64
Al-Kaf‘ami, al-Balad al-amin (Tehran, 1963), 402; Majlisi, Bihar al-anwar (Beirut, 1982), XCI:
382–97.
65
Sharh du‘a’ al-sabah (Beirut, 1997); Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 148–49; Hirz al-Din, Ma‘arif
al-rijal, 223.
66
68; Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 115. It has been recently published: Sharh-i mathnawi, ed. M. Burujirdi,
3 vols. (Tehran, 1374–77s./1995–98).
67
For a study of this text, see John Cooper, “Rūmī and ḥikmat: Towards a reading of Sabziwārī’s com-
mentary on the Mathnawi,” in The Heritage of Persian Sufism I: Classical Persian Sufism from its Origins
to Rumi, ed. L. Lewisohn (Oxford, 1999), 409–33.
68
Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 121–22; Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 114; Munibur Rahman, “Adīb
Pīšāvarī,” EIr.
69
Chahardahi, Sabzawari, 44.
488 Rizvi
Kazim Khurasani (d. 1329/1911), a prominent constitutionalist and author of the

main hawza text in legal theory and jurisprudence of the modern period Kifayat al-
usul (The Sufficient in Jurisprudence), studied in Sabzawar for two years before he
transferred to Najaf in 1861.70 Usul al-fiqh had always been influenced by epistem-
ology and logic from the medieval period, especially in what was known as the
Shafi‘i method (al-tariqa al-shafi‘iyya) exemplified in al-Mustasfa (The Clarification)
of Ghazali (d. 1111).71 But the metaphysical shift, particularly noticeable in the pro-
cedural principles in jurisprudence (usul ‘amaliyya), was influenced by Sabzawari
which made the teaching of philosophy more acceptable in Najaf, a center of learning
traditionally hostile to philosophy.72 Shi‘i jurisprudence broadly comprises two sets of
discussions: semantic theory (mabahith al-alfaz) and procedural principles (usul ‘ama-
liyya). The latter has seen a considerable growth, complication and sophistication that
can be traced to the work of Ansari and especially Khurasani. The philosophical
impact of Khurasani, reflecting the incorporation of the school of Mulla Sadra via Sab-
zawari, was particularly mediated by his student Shaykh Muhammad Husayn Isfahani
Kumpani (d. 1361/1942) in his commentary Nihayat al-diraya fi sharh al-Kifaya
(Culmination of Study Commenting upon the Sufficient).73 For most of the medieval
period, the main textbook in jurisprudence and legal theory was Mabadi’ al-wusul ila
‘ilm al-usul (Principles for Achieving Knowledge of Jurisprudence), a short work by
‘Allama al-Hilli.74 It is almost exclusively concerned with semantics and hermeneutics
and engages in two areas of concern in Sunni jurisprudence: the nature of scholarly
consensus (ijma‘) and evaluation and adjudication of contradictory hadith reports
(tarjih). The structure and contents of Khurasani’s Kifayat al-usul are quite distinct.
The text begins with an epistemological introduction and considers categorization and
its metaphysical implication. It then progresses to discuss semantics and hermeneutics
and the nature of legal commands and prohibitions. Even in this section, there is a
more systematic appreciation that linguistic analysis involves an appreciation of the
relationship between three metaphysical realities: ideas and concepts, speech and com-
munication, and objective reality. There is also a final section on the nature of legal
reasoning (ijtihad) and the necessity to follow (taqlid) and emulate a model jurist.
Before that comes the crucial section on procedural principles namely, exemption
(al-bara’a al-asliyya), presumption of continuity (istishab), precaution (ihtiyat), and
optional choice (takhyir).75 These principles pertain to issues in the absence of scrip-
tural evidence and the inability to formulate clear rational judgments in a case.
70
Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 123; Abdol-Hadi Ha’iri, “Ākhūnd Korāsānī,” EIr, I, 732–34.
71
For a useful sketch of the history of usul al-fiqh in the Shi‘i seminary, see Sayyid Mundhir al-Hakim,
“Tatawwur al-dars al-usuli fi-l-Najaf al-ashraf,” Mawsu‘at al-Najaf al-ashraf, ed. Ja‘far al-Dujayli (Beirut,
1997), VII: 173–216.
72
Sabrina Mervin, “La quête du savoir à Najaf,” Studia Islamica, 81 (1995): 181.
73
“Al-bahth al-falsafi fi usul al-fiqh,” Mawsu‘at al-Najaf al-ashraf, VIII: 61–66; Gharawi Kumpani,
Nihayat al-diraya fi sharh al-kifaya, 6 vols. (Qum, 1998).
74
‘Allama Al-Hilli, Mabadi’ al-wusul ila ‘ilm al-usul, ed. ‘Abd al-Husayn al-Baqqal (Qum, 1983).
75
Khurasani, Kifayat al-usul (Qum, 2001), 384–495. Similarly, roughly half of Ansari’s text concerns
these procedural principles.
The third group, and most central to the perpetuation of the Sadrian legacy, were
those students who comprised the next generation of philosophers. Luminaries
included the philosopher known for his proclivity to ‘irfan Husayn-quli Hamadani
(d. 1311/1893) who later taught in Karbala and whose own disciples included the
infamous agitator Sayyid Jamal al-Din Afghani (d. 1897), Sayyid Ahmad Tihrani Kar-
bala’i (d. 1332/1914) and Sayyid ‘Ali Qazi Tabataba’i (d. 1365/1947).76 The latter
two taught the philosopher par excellence of the twentieth century Sayyid Muhammad
Husayn Tabataba’i (d. 1981) whose students Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Husayni
Tihrani (d. 1995), Shaykh Murtaza Mutahhari (d. 1979), Ayatollah Hasanzada
Amuli and Ayatollah ‘Abd Allah Javadi Amuli have since dominated the school of
Mulla Sadra in Iran.77 Another prominent student was Mirza Javad Malaki Tabrizi
(d. 1343/1924), author of Asrar al-salat (Secrets of Prayer) and teacher of ethics in
Qum where his disciples included Ayatollah Khumayni.78 A student of Sabzawari pro-
minent in Tehran later was Mirza Husayn Sabzawari, who taught at the Madrasa-yi
‘Abd Allah Khan.79
Establishing Mulla Sadra in the Curriculum
Alongside the glosses on the works of the Shirazi philosopher that were printed in the
margins of the Qajar lithographs produced in Tehran (and hence it was with the aid
and guidance of Sabzawari that students read and understood Mulla Sadra), it was
through the Asrar al-hikam and the Sharh-i manzuma that the thought of Mulla
Sadra was simplified, vernacularized and disseminated.
76
Muhammad Jarfadaqani, ‘Ulama’-yi buzurg-i shi‘a az Kulayni ta Khumayni (Qum, 1364s./1985),
295–6; Hirz al-Din, Ma‘arif al-rijal, I: 270; Tabrizi, Rayhanat al-adab, IV: 325; Suha, Tarikh-i
hukama’, 132–33; Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 134–35.
77
On Tabataba’i and his lineage, see Ayatollah Husayni-yi Tihrani, Mihr-i taban: yadnama wa musa-
hibat-i tilmidh wa ‘Allama Tabataba’i (Mashhad, 1996); Hamid Dabashi, Theology of Discontent: The
Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York, 1993), 273–323; Hamid Algar,
“ʿAllāma Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī: Philosopher, Exegete, and Gnostic,” Journal of
Islamic Studies, 17 (2006): 326–51. The spiritual lineage of Tabataba’i, which survives through his
student Husayni-yi Tihrani and his circle in Mashhad as well as his disciples in Qum, is a continuation
of the lineage of Husayn-quli Hamadani which traces back to the famous Sufi Qutb al-Din Nayrizi in the
following manner: Hamadani—Sayyid ‘Ali Shushtari (d. 1283/1866)—Sayyid Sadr al-Din al-Kashif (d.
Sha‘ban 1257/1841)—Aqa Muhammad Bidabadi (d. 1197/1783)—the Dhahabi Sufi Sayyid Qutb al-
Din Muhammad Nayrizi (d. 1173/1760)—see Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 151–3. On Nayrizi himself,
see Leonard Lewisohn, “An Introduction to the History of Modern Persian Sufism, Part II,” BSOAS,
62 (1999): 36–7; Hidayat, Riyaz al-‘arifin, 482–6; Ma‘sum-‘Ali Shah, Tara’iq al-haqa’iq, III: 97–8;
Asad Allah Khavari, Dhahabiyya: tasawwuf-i ‘ilmi wa athar-i adabi (Tehran, 1362s./1983), 297–307.
The Hamadani lineage survives in Karbala and its most prominent twentieth century figure was
Sayyid Hashim al-Haddad (d. 1984)—see Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Husayni Tihrani, Ruh-i mujarrad
(Mashhad, 1375s./1996). One of the texts of this lineage that is taught is Risala-yi sayr wa-suluk attrib-
uted to Sayyid Mahdi Tabataba’i ‘Bahr al-‘Ulum’ who was a disciple of Nayrizi (ed. H. Mustafawi,
[Tehran, 1367s./1988]).
78
Jarfadaqani, ‘Ulama’-yi buzurg-i shi‘a, 354–5; Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 133–34.
79
Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 121; Nasr, Islamic Philosophy, 246; Riza-Nizhad, Hakim-i Sabzawari, 112.
490 Rizvi
Let us consider the Sharh-i manzuma first. As one twentieth century author wrote,
“the sharh-i manzuma from its composition to the present has been the central text
for students of the intellectual disciplines (ma‘qulat).”80 While in recent years it has
been eclipsed as the preliminary text by the Bidayat al-hikma (Beginning Philosophy)
and Nihayat al-hikma (Completing Philosophy) of ‘Allama Tabataba’i, it remains the
framework for these works and has been transformed into a more exacting intermedi-
ate text to be read and digested after these two textbooks. Through some commen-
taries, it functions as a touchstone and inspiration for the development of the “new
(liberation) theology” (kalam-i jadid) pioneered by Mutahhari among others.
The text is made up of three layers. The first level is the poetic form, the dense collection
of words demanding explanation and commentary. The medieval tradition of the
madrasa often privileged short versified tests designed for memorization as a vehicle for
teaching ideas; it was a popular genre particularly in the study of Arabic grammar and mor-
phology as well as jurisprudence and creedal theology. While Sabzawari was a respected
poet in Persian, the Arabic of these verses is typical of its genre and perhaps not intended
to be the most elegant. But given that the function of the verse was ease of memorization,
this is to be expected. The second level is the commentary that expounds the sense of the
words and their connotation and significations. This was based on his own classes and the
definitive explanation of the poem, expounding on some obscurities. The third level com-
prises the later glosses that Sabzawari himself wrote on the poem and in it he expands on
some issues unresolved in the commentary. Already in his lifetime it was used as a textbook
in philosophy and soon after his death with the appearance of the lithograph it was taught
in Tehran. The first part (maqsad) on general ontology reads like a more systematic
summary of the first safar of Mulla Sadra’s Asfsr and is divided into the following
“gems” (fardas): properties of being and non-being (al-wujud wa-l-‘adam), necessity
and possibility (al-wujub wa-l-imkan), eternity and incipience (al-huduth wa-l-qidam),
actuality and potentiality (al-fi‘l wa-l-quwwa), essence and its properties (al-mahiyya
wa-lawahiquha), unity and multiplicity (al-wahda wa-l-kathra), and cause and effect
(al-‘illa wa-l-ma‘lul). The Asfar actually has three further sections on mental being, on
the intellect and on motion that are not covered separately in the Sharh-i manzuma
but that is partly because aspects of these discussions are subsumed in the existing sections;
for example, the discussion of mental being is found in the first gem on the properties of
being.81
The comprehensive character of the text mirrors earlier encyclopedic works such as
al-Shifa’ of Avicenna and the Asfar of Mulla Sadra. The preliminary part concerns
logic. But it is more than the Aristotelian or even Avicennian organon. Rather, it
draws upon semantic theory, hermeneutics and category theory. It is divided into
seven “dives” (ghaws) evoking the image of diving for pearls (la’ali): on universals
and particulars, on the isagogic predicables, on definition (ta‘rif), on propositional
80
Chahardahi, Sabzawari, 28.
81
Cf. Mulla Sadra, al-hikma al-muta‘aliya fi-l-asfar al-‘aqliyya al-arba‘a, ed. G. A‘wani and
M. Muhammadi, 3 vols. of the first safar (Tehran, 1380–83s./2001–05).
logic, on opposition and contradiction, on the syllogistic (qiyas) and on types of dem-
onstration (burhan).
The philosophical work also comprises seven parts that cover the totality of issues in
metaphysics and philosophical theology, culminating in ethics which is a distinguish-
ing feature often absent from such works in the medieval period. The first section on
ontology deals with core issues around the question of being and its properties and
constitutes the sort of speculative metaphysics that was starting to be disapproved
in Europe at his time. The second section on substance and accident deals with the
Avicennian modification of Aristotelian category theory. In this he follows Mulla
Sadra. But it is worth bearing in mind that, in effect, the metaphysical shift in
Sadrian philosophy towards focusing upon events and “acts of being-becoming”
instead of Aristotelian immutable substances made category theory redundant. Sabza-
wari did not, however, reflect upon this processual turn in philosophy. The third
section on philosophical theology concerns the nature of God and the God–human
relationship and includes a discussion of determinism and will. It is only these first
three sections that have ever been published. Section four concerns natural philosophy
or medieval physics and includes some of his stranger ideas such as the cause of earth-
quakes lying with subterranean monsters. Not surprisingly, this is the section of the
text made wholly obsolete by modern science and consequently has not be taught
for some time. The fifth section moves on to prophecy and the its features such as
miracles and oneiromancy. He also raises the question of why and how God commu-
nicates to humans. A corollary of this discussion and its extension is the exposition of
the imamate, since we are dealing with a Shi‘i philosophy. The sixth section is difficult
but critical on the nature of resurrection and the afterlife. Sabzawari extends Mulla
Sadra’s desire to prove the elusive or what had been hitherto undemonstrable,
namely the orthodox position of corporeal resurrection. Since the section on the after-
life in the Asfar was criticized for failing to adhere closely to Shi‘i doctrine, this text
provides a more grounded Shi‘i disquisition on the question. The final and in some
ways rather unique aspect of the text is a section on the “science of character traits”
(akhlaq) better known as ethics, remarkable given that by this point in the intellectual
history ethics had been broadly expunged from the philosophical tradition and was
confined to fiqh, belles-lettres, mirrors-for-princes, the akhlaq-andarz literature and
poetry.
A number of later students and scholars in the line of Sabzawari have commented,
expanded upon and translated the text.82 Over forty such works have been written.
This number attests to the significance of the work given that it was written only
150 years ago. The earliest commentaries (which have never been published) were
composed by his direct students who had benefited from directly reading the text
and they are often closer in style and taste to the original work. Probably the first
among these were the brief marginalia of the jurist Akhund Khurasani. More exten-
sive was an Arabic commentary by Sayyid Muhammad ‘Assar Tihrani (d. 1356/1937),
82
492 Rizvi
father of the renowned Sayyid Kazim ‘Assar (d. 1975).83 This work entitled Ishraqat
al-radawiyya is extant in a manuscript numbered 324 in the Astan-i Quds Library at
the shrine in Mashhad and dated 16 Jumada II 1349/8 November 1930. Another
student who wrote a gloss was Sayyid al-Atibba’ ‘Ali Mar‘ashi, the father of the
marja‘ and founder of one of the great Islamic manuscript collections, Sayyid
Shihab al-Din Mar‘ashi (d. 1990).
Popular commentaries for a wider non-hawza readership include Ja‘far Zahidi’s
three volume work Khwud-amuz-i manzuma (Teach Yourself the Poem), written
by a Mashhad university professor, an extensive multi-volume work by Sayyid
Jawad Dhihni Tihrani, and a sharh-i jadid by Manuchihr Saduqi “Suha.”84 The
most creative commentary in Persian is the Sharh-i mabsut-i manzuma (Detailed
Commentary on the Poem) penned in four volumes by Mutahhari.85 It is a critical
work that juxtaposes and engages with modern European philosophy and may be
regarded as a premier and even foundational work of kalam-i jadid. One can see
how it emerged from his theology classes at Tehran University. The roots of this
new theology lie in the Qajar period but it was formulated in the twentieth century
defending realism, rationalism and religious epistemology against materialist empiri-

cism, positivism and scientism. Mutahhari’s commentary is one of two central
works of the new theology; the other is ‘Allama Tabataba’i’s Usul-i falsafa wa
rawish-i ri’alizm (Principles of Philosophy and the Method of Realism) with the
glosses of Mutahhari.86
Another category of commentaries are glosses by teachers of philosophy in the
hawza. One set of scholia are written by the twentieth century hakim Mirza
Ahmad Ashtiyani. The glosses of Mulla Muhammad Tihrani, known as Akhund-i
Hidaji, were completed in 1346/1927.87 It is a sophisticated Avicennian commentary
that is one of the few to deal systematically with the section on logic. Perhaps the best
one volume introduction for students is Durar al-fawa’id fi sharh ghurar al-fara’id
(Beneficial Pearls: Commentary on the Whites of Pearls) of Shaykh Muhammad
Taqi Amuli.88 More recently, there is a good extensive set of glosses written by Aya-
tollah Sayyid Rida Sadr.89 Another Avicennian commentary by Ziya’ al-Din Durri is
consistently hostile. Durri was a student of Mirza Hasan Kirmanshahi (d. 1917) and
an accomplished teacher, translator and commentator upon the works of Avicenna in
83
On Sayyid Kazim ‘Assar, see the account of his daughter Shusha Guppy, The Blind Horse: Memories
of a Persian Childhood (London, 1988), especially 39–47. One collection of treatises was published in his
lifetime: Thalath rasa’il fi-l-hikmaa al-islamiyya (Tehran, 1971). Other posthumous publications include:
Majmu‘a-yi athar-i ‘Assar, ed. S. J. Ashtiyani (Tehran, 1376s./1997); Durus-i mantiq wa falsafa (Qum,
1383s./2004).
84
Two elementary paraphrases by jurists in Arabic need not detain us much: one by the late marja‘
Sayyid Muhammad Husayni Shirazi (d. 2001), and another by the London-based Sayyid Fadil Milani.
85
Murtaza Mutahhari, Sharh-i mabsut-i manzuma, 4 vols. (Tehran, 1404/1983).
86
Tabataba’i, Usul-i falsafa wa rawish-i ri’alizm, ed. with notes of Mutahhari, 4 vols. (Qum, 1368s./
1990).
87
Ta‘liqat al-Hidaji ‘ala-l-Manzuma (Tehran, 1363s./1984).
88
Shaykh Muhammad Taqi Amuli, Durar al-fawa’id fi sharh ghurar al-fara’id (Tehran, 1960).
89
Sayyid Rida Sadr, Saha’if min al-falsafa [ta‘liqa ‘ala Sharh al-manzuma] (Qum, 1379s./2000).
Tehran. Critical evaluation and modification is often rejected in the hawza; outright
attacks upon canonical authors are considered quite unacceptable. While Durri makes
some significant and telling criticisms, his tone and style jar and thus make it unlikely
for his critique to find a place in the commentary culture.
The final category of commentary I want to discuss is the philosophically mystical
or ‘irfani. The Tehrani rationalizing mystics Sayyid Abu-l-Hasan Qazwini and Sayyid
Kazim ‘Assar both wrote scholia in this vein. However, the outstanding example is the
Ta‘liqat of Mirza Mahdi Ashtiyani (d. 1952).90
Beyond the hawza, the role of the Asrar al-hikam in disseminating the philosophy of
Mulla Sadra is perhaps more critical. The style of the text is worthy of mention: it is
written in accessible prose and the demonstrative nature of the argument set forth
clearly with discursive explanations of the premises of each syllogistic argument, corro-
borated and supplemented by poetic citations and allusions to famous scriptural
sources. On numerous points, he follows the method of Mulla Sadra in the Asfar: he
first sets forth the argument in a demonstrative manner, and follows it with a discussion
of the scriptural sources that corroborate it. I want to consider two examples that rep-
resent the Shi‘i philosophy that Sabzawari and his mentor espoused. The first section
of the ontology is concerned with knowledge of the origins of being, addressing the
famed question in philosophy: why is there something rather than nothing? The first
chapter of this broaches a central issue in Islamic metaphysics: the proof for the existence
of a Creator, a God, and a Principle. Sabzawari presents five ways of establishing the exist-
ence of God: the way of the metaphysicians (hukama’-yi ilahiyyin) and their Avicennian
ontological proof for the Necessary Being (wujib al-wujud), the way of the natural phi-
losophers (hukama’-yi tabi‘iyyun) who infer from motion the existence of an Unmoved
Mover (the argument originates in Aristotle’s Physics VIII), the psychological way of the
metaphysicians which is a form of teleological proof based on the analysis of the human
soul, the way of the theologians (mutakallimin), and finally his preferred method that
derives from Mulla Sadra, namely, the way of the veracious (tariqa-yi siddiqin).91 This
final mode of proving the existence of God is preferable but also difficult to comprehend.
Sabzawari uses poetic citations to explain it, drawing upon Rumi and Firdowsi. He also
cites the famous hadith man ‘arafa nafsahu faqad-‘arafa rabbahu (whosoever knows his
self, knows his Lord) and the language that considers the cosmos to be a series of mani-
festations and disclosures of divine being at whose pinnacle is the perfect man (insan
kamil), exemplified in the person of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib.
The second case occurs in the sixth chapter on prophecy and the imamate. A central
Shi‘i concept is walayah, the intimacy, sanctity and spiritual and ontological authority
90
Mahdi Ashtiyani, Ta‘liqa bar Sharh-i manzuma-yi hikmat-i Sabzawari, ed. J. Falaturi and
M. Mohaghegh (Tehran, 1352s./1973).
91
Sabzawari, Asrar al-hikam, 36–57. The Avicennian tradition held to the three-fold division of the
ontological (philosophers), cosmological (theologians) and from motion (natural philosophers) proofs for
the existence of God that one finds mentioned in Nasir al-Din Tusi, Sharh al-isharat wa-l-tanbihat,
ed. M. Shihabi (Qum, 1375s./1996), III: 66. Sabzawari is faithful to Sadra’s language: he describes the
argument as a “way” and not as a demonstration (burhan), which is the common mode of referring to
it in modern secondary discussions.
494 Rizvi
that the Prophets and Imams possess.92 This reality arises from the divine truths
hidden within the essence and from proper recognition of the divine essence, attri-
butes and acts through vision. Being is hidden (deus absconditus) and it is only
through sanctity that it is manifest in the cosmos (deus revelatus) and then only
through the seeker’s contemplation of the transcendent that it becomes apparent.
Concomitantly, it is only those with vision who truly recognize the saints and
Imams. It is the perfect man who is the summation and loftiest degree of humanity,
of intellect, and of being after the One. Below the saint and Imam is a spiritual hier-
archy, comprising worshippers (‘abid), ascetics (zahid) and gnostics (‘arif). These
insights and the affirmation of horizontal and vertical hierarchies in existence and
within the category of sanctity is an expression of the concept of the singular but
graded reality of being (tashkik al-wujud) articulated by Mulla Sadra; this is arguably
the central doctrine of Sadrian metaphysics.
Philosophers in the Qajar Period

Sabzawari was one of the four axial philosophers of the Qajar period who represented
the major tendencies in philosophical and rational mystical speculation.93 The other
three are often cited as the pillars of the “school of Tehran”: Aqa ‘Ali “mudarris”
Zunuzi (d. 1307/1890), son of ‘Abd Allah Zunuzi (d. 1841) who was a teacher of
Mulla Sadra’s work in Isfahan, Aqa Muhammad Riza Qumshihi (d. 1306/1889),
and Mirza Sayyid Abu-l-Hasan ibn Muhammad Tabataba’i Jilwa (d. 1314/1896).94
Like Sabzawari, these three thinkers had trained in Isfahan either with ‘Ali Nuri or
with his circle of students: Zunuzi and Qumshihi had studied with Mulla Muhammad
Ja‘far Langarudi Lahiji (d. after 1255/1839), a commentator on the philosophical
epitome Kitab al-masha‘ir (Book of Ontological Inspirations) of Mulla Sadra; Qum-
shihi had also read with Mirza Hasan (d. 1306/1888), son of Nuri, as had Jilwa. From
Isfahan, Sabzawari had returned to his hometown while the other three went to
Tehran in response to the royal request: Zunuzi taught at the new Madrasa-yi
Madar-i Shah and Madrasa-yi Sipahsalar (now renamed Mutahhari), Qumshihi was
an instructor at Madrasa-yi Sadr-i A‘zam, and Jilwa resided at the Madrasa-yi Dar
al-Shifa’. They were all recipients of the Shah’s patronage in different ways and
responded to requests to write in defense of Iranian Shi‘i intellectual culture. We
92
Sabzawari, Asrar al-hikam, 372.
93
Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 45–174; Nasr, Islamic Philosophy, 239–46; ‘Ali-quli Qara’i, “Post-Ibn
Rushd Islamic philosophy in Iran,” Al-Tawḥīd, III, no. 3 (1985): 24–55. For a useful sketch of the
history of philosophy from the circle of Nuri to the later Qajar period, see Ashtiyani, “Muqaddima,”
cxxiv–cxliv.
94
Another thinker who was a student of Nuri and who later taught Qumshihi and moved to Tehran
was Sayyid Razi Larijani (d. 1270/1853–54). The Nuri circle and the study of Mulla Sadra did not die in
Isfahan after the middle of the nineteenth century but continued with Jahangir Khan Qashqa’i (d. 1328/
1910) and Mirza Rahim Arbab—see Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 84–90. Famous students in the next gen-
eration of this school included the prominent jurisprudent Diya’ al-Din ‘Iraqi (d. 1942), the jurist and
model of emulation Sayyid Husayn Burujirdi (d. 1962), and Aqa Najafi Quchani.
have already seen how Sabzawari reciprocated through his writings; Zunuzi, too, at the
request of the Shah, wrote Badayi‘ al-hikam (Wonders of Wisdom), a defense of Sadrian
philosophy against the new ideas emanating from Europe and being disseminated at the
Dar al-funun.95
Their students in Tehran perpetuated the legacy of Mulla Sadra up to the present. Qum-
shihi’s student Mirza Hashim Ashkivari Lahiji (d. 1332/1914) taught at the Sipahsalar. His
students there included two of the most significant teachers of philosophy and ‘irfan in the
twentieth century. Mirza Mahdi Ashtiyani (d. 1372/1952, who had also studied with Jilwa)
wrote an illuminating and mystically inclined marginalia on the Sharh-i manzuma as well as
an independent metaphysical treatise Asas al-tawhid (Foundation of Divine Unity).96 He
had also studied with another important student of Qumshihi and conduit for the school of
Tehran in the twentieth century, Mirza Hasan Kirmanshahi (d. 1336/1917). Ashtiyani in
turn taught a significant generation of twentieth century thinkers: Abu-l-Hasan Shi‘rani,
Murtaza Mutahhari (d. 1979), Shaykh Muhammad Taqi Ja‘fari (d. 1998), Jawad Falaturi
(b. 1926), Mahdi Ha’iri Yazdi (d. 1999), and Sayyid Jalal al-Din Ashtiyani (d. 2005).97
The other famous student of Hashim Ashkivari was Sayyid Abu-l-Hasan Rafi‘i Qazvini
(d. 1976).98 He did not publish in his lifetime but he was known as an excellent and critical
teacher of the Asfar of Mulla Sadra and the Sharh-i manzuma.99 His students included the
aforementioned Jalal al-Din Ashtiyani and Mahdi Ha’iri as well as Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the
one academic who has done most to introduce the philosophical traditions in Iran to the
academic study of Islamic philosophy.100 Zunuzi had a number of significant students
such as Aqa Muhammad Baqir Istahbanati who taught in Najaf and later in Shiraz and
95
Badayi‘ al-hikam, ed. A. Va‘izi (Tehran, 1376s./1997). The collected works of Zunuzi have been
published: Majmu‘a-yi musannafat-i hakim-i mu’assis Aqa ‘Ali Zunuzi Tihrani, ed. M. Kadivar, 3 vols.
(Tehran, 1378s./1999).
96
Mahdi Ashtiyani, Ta‘liqa bar Sharh-i manzuma-yi hikmat-i Sabzawari, ed. J. Falaturi and
M. Mohaghegh (Tehran, 1352s./1973); idem, Asas al-tawhid (Tehran, 1952).
97
Nasr, Islamic Philosophy, 247–48. Shi‘rani edited some crucial works including Asrar al-hikam of
Sabzawari and the theological treatise Kashf al-murad sharh tajrid al-I‘tiqad of ‘Allama al-Hilli (d.
1325). Ja‘fari was a prolific writer and taught at the hawza in Qum for many years as well as Tehran
University, engaging with contemporary European philosophy and theology. He is best known for his
voluminous commentaries on the Mathnawi of Rumi and the Nahj al-balagha, the famous collection
of sermons, letters and sayings of Imam ‘Ali. Mutahhari was a prominent thinker of the revolution
and professor in the theology department of Tehran University. As an ideologue, he wrote an influential
work on theodicy, ‘Adl-i ilahi, as well as important glosses and explanations on the Sharh-i manzuma and
the Usul-i falsafa of Tabataba’i. Falaturi taught in Germany for many years. Ha’iri received his doctorate
in philosophy from the University of Toronto in 1978. He has written some important analyses of
Islamic philosophy from the perspective of an Anglo-American analytical philosopher: Kavush-ha-yi
‘aql-i nazari (Tehran, 1968), Kavush-ha-yi ‘aql-i ‘amalī (Tehran, 1982), ‘Ilm-i kulli (Tehran, 1980),
Knowledge by Presence (Tehran, 1982). Ashtiyani was the most prolific of this group as an editor and
has produced far too much to mention in detail.
98
Nasr, Islamic Philosophy, 248–49.
99
Ghawsi dar bahr-i ma‘rifat, ed. Hasanzada Amuli (Tehran, 1376s./1997). The volume includes a
treatise that criticizes Mulla Sadra’s notion of intellection by union (ittihad al-‘aqil bi-l-maʿqūl).
100
Nasr also wrote a useful article on Qajar philosophy—“The Metaphysics of Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī and
Islamic philosophy in Qajar Persia,” Qajar Iran, 177–98.
496 Rizvi
whose students included the famous (recently deceased) philosopher Sayyid Jalal al-Din
Ashtiyani.101 Jilwa’s students included Sayyid Husayn Badkubihi (d. 1358/1939), who
taught philosophy in Najaf (and was one of the teachers of Tabataba’i), Aqa Muhammad
‘Ali Shahabadi (d. 1950), the famed preceptor of Ayatollah Khumayni (d. 1989) in philos-
ophy, and Akhund Muhammad Hidaji (d. 1314s./1935), commentator on the Sharh-i
manzuma of Sabzawari.102
Zunuzi was famed as a teacher of Sadrian philosophy, Jilwa was best known for his
espousal of Avicennism and critique of Mulla Sadra, while Qumshihi was primarily a
teacher of ‘irfan, rational mysticism based on the texts of the school of Ibn ‘Arabi.
However, Sabzawari dwarfed the others by his reputation and fame as well as the
depth of his learning and teaching, encompassing the core curriculum of the
madrasa, the work of Mulla Sadra, Avicennism and ‘irfan.
The success of this revival of Sadrian philosophy lay in its claim to constitute a rigorous
Shi‘i philosophy that could survive in the modern world and provide the intellectual foun-
dations for faith in the Qajar period. All of the four philosophers pursued this goal by ana-
lyzing the relationship between Being (wujud) and its perfect manifestation in walayah or
the being of the Perfect Man who encompasses and discloses the totality of the perfection of
the One.103 Walayah is the hermeneutics of being and the parousia of Being. As the pivot of
reality, the Imam as wali discloses the divine realities (al-haqa’iq al-ilahiyya).104 Just as Mulla
Sadra’s theory of the modulated but singular reality of being (tashkik al-wujud) offers an
account that reconciles our desire for a unifying discourse with our phenomenal experience
of multiplicity, so too does the modulated manner in which being is manifest in walayah
provide a spiritual hierarchy guiding humanity towards the One, at the apex of which is
the pole, the perfect man, the Imam of the Twelver Shi‘a.105
Ultimately, contemporary Shi‘i philosophy in Iran and the hegemony of Mulla Sadra
can be traced back to the Qajar period and the role played by Sabzawari in commenting
upon his works, disseminating and popularizing his ideas, and training a generation of stu-
dents who established institutions of learning and spread Sadrian philosophy in Iran, Iraq
and the Indian subcontinent. Sabzawari remained the colossal figure around and below
whom all others gravitated and were given meaning. In his thought, there is little that is
either original or unique—he merely presents critically and defends positions of Mulla
Sadra. But that is enough to ensure his significance. Pre-modern pedagogy and the
pursuit of knowledge were far less concerned than we are with imagination, creativity
and originality, and our notion of art and its function are quite distinct. There were signifi-
cant thinkers proposing alternatives to Sadrian philosophy both within an Islamic idiom
and beyond it, and yet the influence of Sabzawari was such that it dwarfed their attempts.
For his time and for his successors, it was enough that he was the living Mulla Sadra.
101
Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 157.
102
Suha, Tarikh-i hukama’, 167–69.
103
For a further examination, see Sajjad Rizvi, “Being (wujūd) and sanctity (wilāya): Two poles of
intellectual and mystical inquiry in Qajar Iran,” Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, 113–26.
104
Sabzawari, Sharh al-asma’, 552.
105
Zunuzi, Badayi‘ al-hikam, 173–83.

Mulla Hadi Sabzavari

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Iranian Studies, volume 44, number 4, July 2011

Life and Intellectual Formation

Until I was ten, I remained in Sabzawar …

Ce personnage jouit en Perse d’une considération sans égale … Sa réputation de

Muhammad Ismail and ‘Abd al-Qayyum, however, mentioned late Dhu-l-Hajja

“Asrar” [Sabzawari’s pen-name] has left the world such

osophy, commentaries on supplications and Persian literature, and works on theology.

1) Hawashi on al-Asfar al-arba‘a, the magnum opus of Mulla Sadra—this was

Research Institute only reproduced the marginalia of Sabzawari, signaling its

glosses upon it.

Among his original works, three stand out:

1) Al-La’ali al-muntazima (493 verses on logic) and Ghurar al-fara’id (1,039

2) Asrar al-hikam fi-l-mufattatah wa-l-mukhattatam (Secrets of Wisdom concern-

The third category also contains three important works:

1) Sharh al-asma’ (Commentary on the Divine Names)—a commentary on the

Majlisi (d. 1699).64 Sabzawari completed the commentary in Jumada II 1260/

Kazim Khurasani (d. 1329/1911), a prominent constitutionalist and author of the

Establishing Mulla Sadra in the Curriculum

defending realism, rationalism and religious epistemology against materialist empiri-

Philosophers in the Qajar Period

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