QScholar
Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi
A many-sided scholar who wrote on astronomy, mathematics, optics, medicine, philosophy and the religious sciences; an Illuminationist philosopher, pupil of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and one of the staff of the Maragha observatory. His full name is Qutb al-Din Mahmud b. Mas'ud b. Muslih al-Farisi al-Shirazi al-Shafi'i . He was born in 634 (1236) at Shiraz, into a family known for its physicians. His father Diya' al-Din Mas'ud al-Kazaruni, an eye doctor at the Muzaffari hospital in Shiraz, was a disciple of Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi. Qutb al-Din received his first lessons in religion, medicine and Sufism from his father, and at the age of ten put on the Sufi cloak from his hand. When his father died, he being fourteen, he was appointed to his post at the hospital. During this service he read Ibn Sina's al-Qanun under teachers such as his uncle Kamal al-Din Abu al-Khayr al-Kazaruni, also a physician, Shams al-Din al-Kishi and Sharaf al-Din Zaki al-Bushkani. Ten years later he left the hospital to devote himself wholly to scholarship. In the years when he began to comment on al-Qanun , in order to solve the problems of the work and improve his knowledge, he went about 658 (1260) to Maragha ; there he joined the circle of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi , studied astronomy and philosophy under him, took part in the work of the observatory then under construction and contributed to the preparation of the Zij-i Ilkhani . In 665-667 (1267-1269) he went with al-Tusi to Khurasan, where he read logic and philosophy under 'Ali b. 'Umar al-Katibi. In Isfahan, his next stop, he enjoyed the close interest of Amir Baha' al-Din Muhammad Juwayni and his son Shams al-Din Juwayni, and dedicated his astronomical work Nihayat al-idrak to Shams al-Din. After passing to Baghdad and staying a while at the Nizamiyya madrasa, he settled about 670 (1271) in Konya . He met Mawlana Jalal al-Din al-Rumi and attended the lessons of Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi. He won the esteem of the vizier Mu'in al-Din Sulayman Parwana, who appointed him qadi first of Sivas and then of Malatya; at Sivas he taught in the Gök Medrese. In 681 (1282) Hülegü's son Ahmad Tegüder sent him as envoy to the Mamluk sultan of Egypt Qalawun; during his stay in Egypt he examined commentaries on al-Qanun he had not seen before, and on his return he resided for a time in Damascus. On returning to his own country he settled in Tabriz . He cut off his relations with rulers and spent his last years living like a Sufi. He died in Tabriz on 17 Ramadan 710 (7 February 1311) and, in accordance with his will, was buried beside the qadi al-Baydawi in the Charandab cemetery . His Circle of Influence — His influence was carried on by his many pupils. His training of Kamal al-Din al-Farisi , the genius of optics who wrote the serious commentary Tanqih al-Manazir on Ibn al-Haytham's work, is counted among his greatest achievements in that field. Taj al-Din 'Ali b. 'Abd Allah al-Tabrizi, Qutb al-Din Muhammad b. Muhammad al-Buwayhi, Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi, Mahmud b. 'Abd al-Rahman al-Isfahani and 'Adud al-Din al-Iji are also named among his pupils. His commentary on al-Suhrawardi's Hikmat al-ishraq , though based on al-Shahrazuri's, soon took its place, and later generations came to know al-Suhrawardi through his eyes. The techniques of the Maragha tradition and its new planetary model were later applied successfully by Ibn al-Shatir, who reached results identical with the findings of Copernicus. The source records that his synthesis, which included the religious sciences, formed a meaningful model for the intellectual quest, beginning in Iran from the XIII century and continuing in Ottoman lands, to unite the various schools in a single system of knowledge. His Poetry and Sufi Line — He is not remembered as a poet; this section carries his scholarly and Sufi line. He belongs to the generation of thinkers who tried to revive the philosophical tradition whose authority had been shaken by al-Ghazali's criticisms; his philosophical work was guided by the basic ideas of the Ishraqiyya , systematised in the works of al-Suhrawardi. Among the philosophers influential in the four centuries between al-Suhrawardi and Mulla Sadra he is counted one of the most important figures after his teacher al-Tusi. Considering that he put on the cloak from his father's hand and studied under Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi, he is said to have united in his own person the triangle Ibn Sina – al-Suhrawardi – Ibn al-'Arabi; his Persian Durrat al-taj brought Ibn Sina's philosophy back onto the agenda together with Sufi and religious questions. He held an approach reminiscent of the Pythagoreans, regarding depth in mathematics as the mental preparation for metaphysical and gnostic inquiry. He revived optics, neglected after Ibn al-Haytham, with a new outlook: he was the first to explain correctly that the colours of the rainbow arise from the ray of light being refracted twice and reflected once in the raindrop. In his commentary on Hikmat al-ishraq he attempted to found a new physics of light, defining light as the source of all motion in the sublunary and superlunary worlds. He is known to have crossed Anatolia from end to end and in 1290 to have presented to Arghun a map of the Mediterranean based on his observations of the Anatolian coasts. At the Maragha observatory he applied al-Tusi's planetary model, which differed from Ptolemy's, to other planets, and, not fully satisfied with the results, made changes in the model. He spent his last years like a Sufi, away from rulers. His Works — Astronomy: Nihayat al-idrak fi dirayat al-aflak , completed in 680 (1281) while he was qadi of Sivas; he answered his teacher al-Tusi's objections in a treatise on this work. al-Tuhfa al-shahiyya fi al-hay'a , also written at Sivas — 'Ali Qushji wrote a short commentary on it. The Persian Ikhtiyarat-i Muzaffari , dedicated to the Chobanid bey Muzaffar al-Din Yavlak Arslan; Sharh 'ala Tadhkirat al-Nasiriyya on al-Tusi's astronomical work; Fa'altu fa-la talum , dedicated to al-Tusi's son; the Persian al-Zij al-Sultani . Medicine: al-Tuhfa al-Sa'diyya , a commentary on the first book of al-Qanun , dedicated to Ghazan Khan's vizier Sa'd al-Din; the source notes that he is also recorded as having commented on the whole of al-Qanun . Philosophy: Sharh Hikmat al-ishraq — Wadud Tabrizi wrote glosses on it in the XVI century; Sharh 'ala Kitab Rawdat al-nazir on al-Tusi's work on ontology. Religious sciences: the 40-volume commentary Fath al-mannan (most of its volumes are in the Süleymaniye Library); glosses on al-Zamakhshari's al-Kashshaf ; Sharh Mukhtasar al-Muntaha on Ibn al-Hajib's compendium of legal theory; Miftah al-Miftah on the rhetoric section of al-Sakkaki's Miftah al-'ulum . Encyclopaedic: the Persian Durrat al-taj li-ghurrat al-dibaj , composed in 705 (1305) , in five parts covering logic, philosophy, the natural sciences, geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, music and the divine sciences. The source further lists works such as Kharidat al-'aja'ib , Tabsira fi al-hay'a , Sharh al-Najat , a commentary and glosses on al-Isharat , a translation of al-Tusi's recension of Euclid and Mushkilat al-tafasir .
