TY - JOUR TT - The Guide Book of Theoretical Tasawwuf: Content and Influences of Sadr al-Din al-Qunawī’s Miftāḥ al-ghayb AU - Gürer, Betül PY - 2017 DA - December DO - 10.18505/cuid.356917 JF - Cumhuriyet İlahiyat Dergisi JO - CUID PB - Sivas Cumhuriyet University WT - DergiPark SN - 2528-9861 SP - 883 EP - 912 VL - 21 IS - 2 KW - Nazarî tasavvuf KW - Metafizik KW - Molla Fenârî KW - Miftâḥu’l-ġayb KW - Molla Fenârî KW - Sadreddin Konevî N2 - Abstract: Thehistory of sufism entered a new process called “period of muhaqqiqs /period ofmetaphysical sufism/ tasawwuf” with Ibn al-Arabī one of the most importantintellectuals of sufi/tasawwuf thought. Ibn al-Arabī is the leading muhaqqiqsformulating the understanding of this period which is peculiar to itself with his books. However,the person who regulated theknowledge inherited from him and produced a new doctrine from it is Sadral-Din al-Qunawī. His book in which heexhibited this contribution isMiftāḥal-ghaybacceptedasan essential book by muhaqqiqsafter Qunawī and assigned to principles and orders of theoretical tasawwufthought. Because of itscomplicatedand important content, many commentaries were written on Miftāḥ al-ghayb. Thus, theoretical tasawwuf thought by thecommentators of Qunawī have taken Akbarian-Qunawian form and gained a place inTurkish-Islamic thought. In this article, characteristics of metaphysical termin history of sufism will be mentioned shortly, the content and influences ofMiftāḥal-ghaybwill be stated and theAkbarian-Qunawian movement consisting from commentators of Miftāḥ al-ghayb, which have shaped the theoretical Tasawwuf thoughtwill be introduced in general.SUMMARY: Sufism (tasawwuf), which is one of the fundamental branches of theIslamic thought like kalam and philosophy, hasgone, from the beginning to the present day, through some different periodswhich have been classified by historians of sufism according to theircharacteristics. According to this classification, having begun as a movementof ascetism (zuhd), dominated by a practical and individual leaning, sufismacquired the status of an independent scienceabout two centuries later and from the 13th century onwards, it evolved into asystem with a metaphysical and theoretical characteristic where issues ofphilosophy and kalam began to be discussed and written aboutat length. This process, which isalso called “period of muhaqqiqs (verifiers)”, assumed, in addition to itsaforesaid practical aspect, a theoretical dimension after Ghazālī especiallywith Ibn al-Arabī which aimed to arrive at the haqīqa (truth). However, it wasSadr al-Dīn al-Qunawī, who included the theoretical sufi thought, or "al-‘ilmal-ilāhī (the divine science)" in the terminology of muhaqqiqs, which hadreached its culmination with Ibn al-Arabī, in thehierarchy of formal sciences. Qunawī's contribution to both theoretical sufi thought and the school ofIbn al-Arabī (Akbariyya) took place in several different ways. One of them wasthat he contributed to an understanding of Akbarian ideas by putting in orderhis thoughts, which were in a scattered manner in the works of Ibn al-Arabī.Another was that he shaped the metaphysical thought to a great extent throughworks he wrote. At the top of these works of Qunawī is his workentitled Miftāḥ al-ghayb, which could be regarded as the handbook of the new era in the historyof sufism which emerged with Ibn al-Arabī. With its content, its method and its suggestion of new ideas which hadnot been voiced until then, Miftāḥ al-ghayb had a shapinginfluence on the history of sufism and history of Islamic thought. Miftāḥ al-ghayb, which was one of the essential texts of the new era called the period ofmuhaqqiqs, and animportant aspect of it which would help it associate with a specific period inthe history of thought was that not only did it provide information about this theoretical field but it also mentionedmethods for evaluation of this kind of information as well as sources of thisinformation and principles unique to this field. In other words, this book isin a way a method book for the field ofdoctrinarian sufism to which it belongs. Inaddition to this quality of it which arose from its content, there are two more features that render Miftāḥ al-ghayb important for the historyof sufism. The first of them is this: Qunawī determined the subject matter,principles and issues of metaphysics, which he called al-‘ilm al-ilāhī, in thisbook. With this book by Qunawī, the discipline of sufism gained a place in thehierarchy of formal sciences. The second feature of Miftāḥ al-ghayb is this: The bookhas provided a significant contribution to rendering sufism a discipline whichpossesses the quality of self-criticism because Qunawī identified some criteriain this book by which a sufi or mystic could test his knowledge. These weresome rules that helped true knowledge from void knowledge. In other words,these principles, which provided awareness about the value of the knowledgeobtained as a result of the method of contemplation (mushahada), revealed theimportance of exploratory knowledge and at the same time proved that sufism wasa system that had its own method forobtaining information.This contribution, whichQunawī made through Miftāḥ al-ghayb,i.e. itsensuring an independent place for sufism in the classification of collected(mudawwan) sciences, its proving the validity of the observation method, whichwas the sufis’ mushahada method for collecting information, and its revealingthe merit of exploratory knowledge, is among the first in the history ofsufism. By virtue of its aforementioned characteristics, Miftāḥ al-ghayb attracted considerableattention among the Ottoman intellectuals and numerous annotations were writtenwith regard to it. The only one among Qunawī's books about which variousannotations were written is Miftâḥal-ghayb. The reason forthis is that the content of Miftāḥ al-ghayb was so intensive and conciseas to need annotations and that it contains the essence of the views expressedin the other works of Qunawī. Therefore,an analysis of the content of Miftāḥal-ghayb and aninvestigation of the literature written on this book is of great significancein terms of revealing the essential dynamics of the Ottoman tradition ofscience. Miftāḥ al-ghayb hassix annotations, the annotators of six of which are known whereas theannotators of two of them are not known. The writers of the sixannotations are: Molla Fanārī, Qutb al-Dīn-zāda Izniqī, Ahmad Ilāhī,Abd Allāh Qirimī, Uthmān Fadlī Atpazārī, andAbd al-Rahmān Rahmī Bursawī. Thanks to these annotations, Akbarian ideasentered into Ottoman intellectual life and formed its basis. The Turkishthought in general and the Ottoman thought in particular evolved on the basisof these ideas and acquired its unique identity. The intellectual school which is composed of the aforementionedannotators of Miftāḥ al-ghayb and followers of Ibn Arabī is called theAkbarian school. In this school, a group which consists of annotators of Miftāḥal-ghayb and which we can call “followers of Qunawī” differs from the othermembers of the school in terms of method and style because a striking aspect ofannotations of Miftāḥ al-ghayb is that the manners by which theannotatorsapproached theissues and the contents of the works were formed on the basis of Qunawī’ssystem. The annotators focused in their books on the topics which Qunawī haddealt with and they followed Qunawī's method in their approach to the issues.Therefore, followers of Qunawī in the school differed partially from thefollowers of Ibn al-Arabī, and this school, composed of followers of Qunawī,became a school that had a method of its own. The greatest contribution in theshaping of this school undoubtedly came from Molla Fanārī because he was thefirst annotator of Miftāḥ al-ghayb and this enabled him to influence and shape the other annotations writtenafter him. Moreover, Molla Fanārī's use of principles of logic in theway he dealt with topics and in his explanations and his clarification of theissues by taking into consideration of the methods of philosophers played asignificant part in the shaping of Qunawī’s streak (school). In short, it canbe said that the Qunawī streak in the Akbarian school is a system that wasshaped by the use of Qunawī's methods and developed through Molla Fanārī'sapproach. However, it should in no way be thought that this movement is outsideof the Akbarian school by virtue of its approach and area of interest; on thecontrary, it should be noted that Qunawī streak or movement appeared within theAkbarian school and that it had qualities that were unique to it. CR - Ahmad Ilāhī. 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