Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi

Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Isḥāq b. Muḥammad b. Yūnus Qūnawī (Persian: صدر الدین قونوی‎‎) (1207-74 CE/605-73 AH) [alternatively, Qūnavī or Qūnyawī] was one of the most influential thinkers in mystical or Sufi philosophy. He played a pivotal role in the study of knowledge—or epistemology, which in his context referred specifically to the theoretical elaboration of mystical/intellectual insight. He combined a highly original mystic-thinker, Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn 'Arabī (1165-1240 CE/560-638 AH), whose arcane teachings Qūnavī codified and helped incorporate into the burgeoning pre-Ottoman intellectual tradition, on the one hand, with the logical/philosophical innovations of Ibn Sīnā (Lat., Avicenna), on the other.

Though relatively unfamiliar to Westerners, the spiritual and systematic character of Qūnawī's approach to reasoning, in the broadest sense of the term, have found fertile soil in modern-day Turkey, North Africa and Iran not to mention India, China, the Balkans and elsewhere over the centuries.

Little is known about Qūnawī's personal life. As a young boy, Ṣadr al-Dīn was adopted by Ibn 'Arabī, whose pupil he was. Of Persian descent, he nevertheless lived and taught in the city of Konya (modern-day Turkey), where he drew very close to Mawlāna Jalāl-e Dīn Rūmī and participated in the spiritual circle of that greatest of the saints.

A master of ḥadīth, people came to Konya from distant lands just to study under him. But while he was reputed for his profound understanding of the Quran and Ḥadīth, he knew the ancient Peripatetic philosophy intimately, no doubt thanks chiefly to Ibn Sīnā, who commented extensively on the works of Aristotle. However, Qūnawī himself may have studied an Arabic translation of Aristotle's "Metaphysics," being one of a handful of truly insightful, post-Avicennan critics of Aristotle, even if he was not a full-fledged commentator in the spirit of Ibn Rushd.

Qūnawī's overall influence appears more strategic than wide. Moreover, some of his students found fame. He instructed Quțb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, who went on to author a commentary, now well-known, on Suhrawardi's Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq. Another student of Qūnawī's, the Sufi poet Fakhr-al-Dīn Iraqī, was instrumental in introducing Ibn 'Arabī into the Persian language.

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