I’jaz al-bayan
Arabic Edition with an Introduction
by Sadr al-Din Qunawi, edited by Anthony F. Shaker
Hardback (Published)
(January 2025)
ISBN: 9781800505490
Price: $110.00
On back order
Sadr al-Din Qunawi (d. 1274) is arguably the most important thinker of the generation following the main founders of medieval philosophy-al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn ‘Arabi and Suhravardi-and before Mulla Sadra. Despite this, almost nothing of his writings has been translated into English though critical Arabic editions of his major writings have been published. I’jaz al-bayan, his magnum opus, explores some key questions in philosophy, among which is speech (divine and human) in the unfolding of knowing and being. In this influential work, Qunawi lays forth in detail the principles and semiological tools for interpreting the opening chapter of the Qur’an, the Fatiha. Widely known as the epitome of the Qur’an, the Fatiha was also understood to indicate the divine ‘opening’, the ‘beginning’ of being’s unfolding. Far from a mere analysis of concepts or epistemology, his philosophical ‘exegesis’ is about the self-identical unfolding of speech from the hidden secrecy of the divine source, from which flows God’s creative command, Be! The doubt that Ibn Sina expressed concerning the human capacity to know the ‘realities of things’ manifested in this unfolding-namely, the letters, words, sentences and meanings of the divine writ of being-by dint of man’s faculties was critical to Qunawi’s dynamic understanding of what a plenary knowledge of anything must be. This is an authoritative edition of the Arabic text with an Editor’s Introduction in English and Arabic explaining the mechanics and publication history behind the edition and concisely summarizing the book’s contents.
Sadr al-Din Qunawi (d. 1274) was one of the most influential thinkers in mystical or Sufi philosophy. Anthony F. Shaker (PhD, McGill University) specialises in the philosophy of the Islamic world and certain areas of German thought. He has translated four volumes from Ghazali’s Ihya’ ‘ulum al-din (Islamic Texts Society), and has authored Reintroducing Philosophy: Thinking as the Gathering of Civilization (Vernon Press, 2020), Modernity, Civilization and the Return to History (Vernon Press, 2017), and other monographs and papers in philosophy.
- By (author) Sadr al-Din Qunawi
- Edited by Anthony F. Shaker
Other Titles in this Series
The Limits of Discursive Interpretation
A Translation of Kitab i'jaz al-bayan fi tafsir Umm al-Kitab by Sadr al-Din Qunawi
Exonerating the Distinguished Jurists
Ibn Taymiyya's Raf‘ al-Malām ‘an al-A'imma al-A'lām in Translation
Reconstructing the Variant Generation Process of Hadith
Based on the Quantitative and the Isnād-cum-Matn Analysis
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