The Precious Pearl: Al-Jami's Al-Durrah Al-Fakhirah together with his glosses and the commentary of 'Abd al-Ghafur al-Lari

231 Pages·1979·18.519 MB·English

by  Nicholas L. Heer

NICHOLAS L. HEER
LA ILL AH A ILL A'LL AH
THE PRECIOUS PEARL
The Precious Pearl
Al-Jami’s
Al-Durrah Al-Fakhirah
together with his
Glosses
and the
Commentary
of
'Abd al-Ghafur al —Lari
Translated with an Introduction,
Notes, and Glossary
by
Nicholas Heer
State University of New York Press • Albany • 1979
Published by
State University of New York Press
Albany, New York 12246
Translation
©1979 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Composed by
Typography Services
Albany, New York 12211
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
JSml 1414-1492.
al-J5m?s al-Durrah al-f3khirah —
The precious pearl.
(Studies in Islamic philosophy and science)
“Glossary of terms”:
Bibliography: p.
1. God (Islam) 2. Sufism —Early works to 1800.
I. al-Lari, Abd al-GhafOr, d. 1506.
II. Heer, Nicholas. III. Title: al-Durrah al-fakhirah.
IV. Title: The precious pearl. V. Series.
BP166.2.J3513 297.211 78-12607
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction

1. The Author of al-Durrah al-Fdkhirah .... 1
2. Al-Jaml’s Works. 4
3. Al-Durrah al-Fdkhirah.. 5
4. ‘Abd al-Ghaftlr al-Lan, the Author of the
...
Commentaryon al-Durrah al-Fdkhirah 9
5. Other Commentaries on al-Durrah al-Fffkhirah.... 10
6. The Arabic Texts. 11
7. The Establishment of the Texts... 16
8. Notes on the Signs and Symbols Used. .. 22
Notes to the Introduction... 23
.
The Translation of a(-Jam?s al-Durrah al-Fdkhirah 31
Preface [on the Existence of the Necessary
Existent]. 33
Ramification [on the Shfi Doctrine of the
Unity of Existence]. ..... 36
Analogy. .. ■ ■ 42
On His Unity. 42
On His Attributes in General .. 43
On His Knowledge..* 44
Further Substantiation (of the SUfI Position I-....... . 49
That His Knowledge of His Essence is the Source
of His Knowledge of All Other Things. 50
CONTENTS
On His Will.....•..... 53
On His Power...* . 55
On the Question of Whether an Eternal Effect
Can Depend on a Free Agent or Not, * * * * + * ♦ * * - - . 57
On His Speech.n *, - - - 60
That Contingent Being has No Power,. 65
On the Emanation of Multiplicity from Uniiy,..,. 66
Notes to the Translation of ahDurmh ai-Fakhirak.. 73

The Translation of al-Jami's Glosses on al-Durrah

ahFdkhirah,..♦.***,**■.,... 87
Notes to the Translation of aHamTs Glosses.___ 107
'.v? The Translation of al-Lari's Commentary on
al-Durrah al-Fakhirah..**■*,,*♦.,. 113

Notes to the Translation of al-Lari5s Commentary. . . . t. 153
List of Works and Articles Cited.... 161
Glossary of Terms 17L
+ I ■!+ + ■► + +
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I should like to acknowledge my indebtedness to the follow¬
ing libraries and their curators for supplying the microfilms and
photographic copies of the manuscripts used in editing and
translating the Arabic texts: the Princeton University Library,
and especially Professor Rudolf Mach, Curator of the Robert
Garrett Collection, and Alexander P. Clark, Curator of Manu¬
scripts; the Dar al-Kutub al-Misrlyah, and in particular its
Curator of Manuscripts, the late Fu'ad Sayyid: the Institute of
Arabic Manuscripts of the Arab League, Cairo, especially the
late Rashad ‘Abd al-Muttalib; the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer
Kulturbesitz in Berlin and the head of its Tubinger Depot,
Dr. Wilhelm Virneisel; the Staatsbibliothek Preussischerkultur-
besitz in Marburg; the Oriental Department of the Leiden Uni¬
versity Library; The John Rylands Library in Manchester; the
India Office Library in London; The Asiatic Museum in Lenin¬
grad; the Dar al-Kutub al-Zahiriyah in Damascus; and the
Asiatic Society in Calcutta.
I should also like to express gratitude to my colleagues at
the University of Washington, Professor Farhat J. Ziadeh and
Professor Michael Loraine, for their valuable assistance and
helpful suggestions, and to Professor George Makdisi of the
University of Pennsylvania, who first encouraged me to under¬
take this work. My thanks are also due to Mrs. Jeanette Thomas
for typing my entire manuscript.
Finally, I should like to thank the Executive Committee of
the Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy and Science and
in particular its Secretary-Treasurer, Professor Parviz More-
wedge, for making possible the publication of this volume.
ix

INTRODUCTION
1. The Author of al-Durrah al-Fakhirah
Nur al-Dln ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad al-Jami, the author of
al-Durrah al-Fakhirah, was born in Kharjird, a town in the dis¬
trict of Jam,1 on 23 Sha ‘ban 817/1414.2 As a youth he entered
the Nizamiyah School in Herat, where he attended the class of
Junayd al-Usuli on Arabic rhetoric. Here he proved to be a
superior student, for although he had expected the class to be
studying the Mukhtasar al-Talkhis he found upon entering
,3
that the students had already advanced to the Sharh al-Miftah4
and the Mutawwal.5 He was nevertheless able to understand
these works without difficulty and to complete not only the
Mutawwal but its gloss as well. Among other scholars under
whom he studied in Herat were ‘All al-Samarqandi, a former
student of al-Sayyid al-Sharif al-Jurjam, and Shihab al-Din al-
Jajirmi, who had studied under Sa‘d al-Dln al-Taftazam.
To pursue his education further al-Jami then moved to
Samarqand, where he studied under Qadi-Zadah al-Rumi,6 the
famous astronomer at the observatory of the Tlmurid ruler,
Ulugh Beg. Here again he demonstrated his brilliance and
superior intelligence, first by winning a debate with his teacher
and later by suggesting a number of corrections and emenda¬
tions for the improvement of two of Qadl-Zadah’s most famous
works, the Sharh al-Tadhkirah,1 and the Sharh Mulakhkhas al-
Jaghmint.8 Qadl-Zadah was so impressed with his new student’s
intellectual powers that he claimed no one al-Jami’s equal had
ever crossed the Oxus into Samarqand since its founding. On
a later occasion in Herat al-Jami was asked to solve some very
abstruse astronomical problems by the learned astronomer ‘All
al-Qushjl.9 Much to al-QushjPs chagrin he was able to solve
them without any difficulty whatsoever.
i
jji*.
AL-DURRAH AL-FAKHIRAH
Al-JamPs first encounter with Sufism was at the age of five,
when he was taken by his father to see the great Naqshbandl
saint Khwajah Muhammad Parsa,10 who was then passing
through Jam on his way to Mecca to perform the pilgrimage.
Later al-Jami was himself initiated into the Naqshbandl order
by Sa‘d al-Din al-KashgharI,n whose spiritual lineage extended
back to the founder of the order, Baha' al-Din al-Naqshband,12
through Nizam al-Din Khamush,13 and *Ala' al-Din al-4Attar.14
Other Sufis with whom al-Jami associated were Fakhr al-Din
Luristanl,1- Khwajah Burhan al-Din Abu Nasr Parsa,16 Baha'
al-Din ‘Umar,17 Khwajah Shams al-Din Muhammad KusuT,18
Jalal al-Din Puranl,19 and Shams al-Din Muhammad Asad.20
A Sufi for whom al-Jami had a special regard and esteem
was his friend and contemporary Nasir al-Din ‘Ubayd Allah
al-Ahrar.21 Although al-Jami met him in person on only four
occasions, he nevertheless carried on an extensive correspon¬
dence22 with him for many years and mentioned him by name
in several of his poetical works.23
Al-JamPs later life was spent in Herat, where he enjoyed the
patronage of Sultan Husayn Bayqara, the Tlmurid ruler of
Khurasan from 873 to 911 a.h. Al-Jami was one of a number of
illustrious scholars, poets, and artists whom Sultan Husayn had
attracted to his court. Among them were the Turk! poet Mir
‘All-Shir Nawa'I, a close friend of al-Jami and the author of a
biography of him entitled Khamsat al-Mutahayyirin,24 and the
two painters Bihzad and Shah Muzaffar.25
In the middle of RabI4 al-Awwal 877, when he was sixty years
of age, al-Jami set out in a caravan for Mecca with the intention
of performing the pilgrimage. He arrived in Baghdad at the
beginning of Jumada al-Akhirah and soon thereafter travelled
to Karbala' to visit the tomb of al-Husayn. Shortly after his
return to Baghdad he was falsely accused of having ridiculed
the beliefs of the ShPites in a passage in the first daftar of his
Silsilat al-Dhahab. The reason for this accusation was that a
certain man named FathI, who had travelled with the caravan
from Herat, quarreled with some of the other caravan members
and, wishing to take revenge on them, incited the ShPite popu¬
lation of the city against the caravan. He did this by showing to
2