An Example of the Mystical Avicennism in Ottoman Thought: Jamāl al-Khalwatī’s Interpretation of Ibn Sīnā’s Risāla ilā Abī Saʿīd ibn Abī l-Khayr

Abstract

In the face of growing scholarship on the classical period of Islamic thought, it is becoming more apparent that Ibn Sīnā owes much to the philosophical and theological traditions that precede him in matters that were once regarded as original stances of al-Sheikh al-Raʾīs. Undoubtedly, Ibn Sīnā still deserves to be regarded as a key figure who potentiated one of the turning points in Islamic thought. His influence is demonstrated by the fact that a time came, especially for Muslim theologians who represented the main theological tendencies in Muslim society, when they could not ignore his writings anymore. Al-Ghazālī’s well-known Incoherence of Philosophers was a result of this inevitable case. In this regard, Ibn Sīnā’s influential writings led the way to different interpretations of his ideas being incorporated within different traditions of Islamic thought, such as falsafa, kalām, and taṣawwuf. This article addresses a particular case in which some of his ideas, or to put it more correctly, ideas attributed to him, were conveyed in the Ottoman mystical environs, a situation that leads us to explore the concept of “mystical Avicennism.” Rather than constructing an overall theory on the influence of Ibn Sīnā in Ottoman thought, this article is a modest attempt to make sense of a text written by one of the mystical figures of Ottoman times, a sample that can be addressed in the context of the Avicennian corpus.

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