The Heart of Islamic Philosophy: The Quest for Self-Knowledge in the Teachings of Afdal al-Din Kashani

380 Pages·2001·26.49 MB·English

by  William C. Chittick

The Heart of Islamic Philosophy
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tHE
hEART OF
iSLAMIC
pHILOSOPHY
the quest for
self-knowloge
in the
teachings of
afdal al- din kashhani
WILLIAM C. CHITTICK
OXFORD
2OOI
OXFORD
Oxford New York
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Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 2001 by William C. Chittick
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
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without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chittick, William C.
The heart of Islamic philosophy : the quest for self-knowledge in the
teachings of Afdal al-DIn Kashani / William C. Chittick.
p. cm.
Includes indexes.
ISBN 0-19-513913-5
I. Philosophy, Islamic—Iran. 2. Sufism—Iran. 3. Baba Afdal, I3th ce
I. Title.
6743.17045 2OOO
iSi'.oy—dc2i 00-020628
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 42
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
FOR
SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR
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Preface
I set out to write this book with two goals in mind—first, to introduce the major
themes of Islamic philosophy to those unfamiliar with them, and second, to add Afdal
al-DIn KashanI to the list of Muslim philosophers who can be read in English trans-
lation. I consider it appropriate to combine these two goals under one cover because
Afdal al-DIn wrote with exceptional simplicity, clarity, and directness.
The book sprouted from seeds that were sown when I taught a graduate course
at Stony Brook in the spring of 1997 called "Neoplatonic Themes in Islamic Thought."
The course was listed in the programs of both the Department of Comparative Lit
erature and the Department of Philosophy, and it was designed to bring together
students of religious literature and the history of philosophy. Only three of the dozen
or so students attending the course had any knowledge of the Islamic languages.
About half had some familiarity with Islamic thought, especially theoretical Sufism,
and the other half had studied Greek and Western philosophy. For background read-
ing I assigned Majid Fakhry's History of Islamic Philosophy and suggested a variety
of general studies on Islamic philosophy and monographs on individual authors.
The goal of the course was to read philosophical literature in English transla-
tion and to bring out the ways in which certain themes associated with Neoplatonism
have been carried down through the centuries. We read works spanning a period of
about eight hundred years, beginning with the so-called Theology of Aristotle, which
is in fact portions of Plotinus's Enneads, and then moving on to texts from Avicenna
(Ibn SIna), Ghazall, SuhrawardI, Afdal al-DIn KashanI, Ibn al-'Arabl, and Mulla
Sadra. What I would have liked to have had available was an anthology of repre-
sentative texts translated accurately and consistently and spanning the whole his-
tory of Islamic philosophy. But we had no choice but to read translations of dispar-
ate quality with no semblance of terminological consistency.