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