Corbin
famously identified Rajab Bursī as one of the proponents of an esoteric
doctrine of walāya influenced by the
integration of the school of Ibn ʿArabī into Shiʿi metaphysics.[1]
Raḍī al-Dīn Rajab b. Muḥammad Ḥāfiẓ
al-Bursī al-Ḥillī seems to have been born in Burs, a small town between Kufa
and al-Ḥilla on the banks of the Euphrates around 743/1342,[2]
and after training in al-Ḥilla – and opposition to his ideas that he indicates
he faced there – he seems to have moved to Khurasan into the orbit of the quasi-messianic
Shiʿi-Sufi Sarbadārid dynasty, where he died perhaps in Ṭūs around 813/1411.[3]
On the title Ḥāfiẓ, opinions differ: it either refers to his mastery of ḥadīth or was part of an adopted
pen-name as a poet.[4] While
being a contemporary of the Ḥurūfī leader Faḍlallāh Astarābādī with whom he
shared an interest in lettrism and of al-Ḥasan al-Ḥillī, as well as Sayyid Ḥaydar
Āmulī with whom he shared a taste and influence of Ibn ʿArabī, there is no
evidence that he was either aware of them or that he ever cited them.
The
first person to have noticed him seems to be the tradent and prayer-manual compiler
Taqī al-Dīn Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī al-Kafʿamī [d. 905/1499-1500] in his al-Miṣbāḥ.[5]
Of course that would be no accident since he was a figure who promoted the same
conceptualisation of walāya in his
compilation that included not only texts like the ziyāra jāmiʿa and similar salutations that stressed the
supernatural status of the Imams and their return to this world, but also
occult materials on astrology and even clear cased of rafḍ such as the Duʿāʾ ṣanamay
Quraysh.[6] Like
al-Ḥillī, al-Kaʿfamī was associated with Jabal ʿĀmil and al-Ḥilla.[7]
Later in the Safavid period, Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī [d. 1091/1680] cited him in
his Kalimāt-i maknūna.[8]
Majlisī in his Biḥār al-anwār seems
to be the first to condemn his exaggeration, and his student Afandī is the
first to provide a biographical notice on him.[9]
Afandī describes him as a Sufi and a specialist in many fields, especially
lettrism (asrār al-ḥurūf).[10]
He mentions that al-Kafʿamī is the first to cite him, and that his works were
well known and appreciated in the Safavid period. He does, however, mention
that his teacher Majlisī (al-ustād)
and al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī (al-Shaykh)
accused him of exaggeration (al-ghulūw
wa-l-irtifāʿ) which is clear from his writings but that Bursī never deified
the Imams. Afandī gives the following list of his works:
1)
Mashāriq al-anwār
2)
Mashāriq al-amān fī lubāb ḥaqāʾiq al-īmān, claiming that he has a manuscript that states
it was completed in 811/1408
3)
Risāla fī dhikr al-ṣalawāt ʿalā l-rasūl
wa-l-aʾimma
4)
Ziyārat Amīr al-muʾminīn, about which Afandī says he had a manuscript
5)
Risāla lumʿa kāshifa on the meaning of the divine names and on
lettrism
6)
Lawāmiʿ anwār al-tamjīd wa jawāmiʿ asrār
al-tawḥīd
7)
Faḍāʾil Amīr al-muʾminīn
8)
Kitāb al-mawālīd
9)
Al-Durr al-thamīn on five hundred Qurʾanic verses about Amīr
al-muʾminīn
Another
student of Majlisī, Sayyid Niʿmatullāh al-Jazāʾirī [d. 1112/1700] was the first
to list his works in his anthology al-Anwār
al-nuʿmānīya. Another work of Bursī’s is a commentary on sūrat al-ikhlāṣ a rather straightforward
theological work that refutes at the end the corporealism of the divine.[11]
Bursī
wrote a number of works, the best known of which is Mashāriq anwār al-yaqīn fī ḥaqāʾiq asrār Amīr al-muʾminīn. It was –
as attested in one possibly autograph manuscript – completed 518 years after
the birth of the Mahdī in 768/1367.[12]
Afandī also mentions another manuscript that gives the date of 813/410. It
seems to have been identified already in the Safavid period as a serious work
with a Persian commentary entitled Maṭāliʿ
al-asrār written by a Shiʿi scholar in Mashhad al-Ḥasan al-Qāriʾ Sabzavārī for
Shah Sulaymān dated 1090/1680.[13]
This was part of a significant Safavid process led by the court to translate,
vernacularise and appropriate the Arabic Shiʿi corpus for the empire.[14]
Just in Iran, according to the survey conducted by Dirāyatī, there are 117
codices of the text, many of which date from the Safavid period, and even two
recensions in Persian (attested in four manuscripts further).[15]
The work is prefaced – in the standard Beirut edition – with a short praise for
God and the Imams that is probably identical to his work Lawāmiʿ anwār al-tamjīḍ wa-jawāmiʿ asrār al-tawḥīd.[16]
In the introduction, he states that despite collating the very best narrations
from the Imams (zubdat al-akhbār)
concerning the arcanum and the
esoteric doctrine of the Imams (al-amr
al-khafī, al-sirr al-khafī), he faced much opposition from those who were
jealous of him – jealous of his understanding, learning and perhaps poetic
prowess? – who found the work and opposed him, ostracised him, condemned him.[17]
His only fault was to narrate the very cream of narrations and the very
manifesto of the righteous (zubd
al-akhbār wa-zand al-akhyār). He described his opponents as those who know
nothing of religion (laysa lahum ḥaẓẓ
fī-l-dīn) and who reflected a corrupt and vulgar Shiʿism because they fail
to understand true doctrine. They took the material to some jurists (described
as ignorant apes – juhala qawmun min
al-qirada) who understood neither the intellectual nor the scriptural
disciplines and they further condemned him because, alluding to the famous
saying of Amīr al-muʾminīn, ‘people are enemies of what they are ignorant’ and
so they were incapable of separating out what was exaggerated doctrine (qawl al-ghulāt) from the arcana of the
Imams (asrār al-hudāt).[18]
He places himself in the category of those whose heart God has tested for faith
by adhering to the difficult and arduous doctrine of walāya (ṣaʿb mustaṣʿab).[19]
The
text then comprises a number of narrations on the pre-existence of the Imams,
their cosmic role, the arcana of each of the twelve Imams, the importance of a
esoteric hermeneutics to reveal the true import of the revelation, the need to
preserve and protect the arcana from those unworthy, a number of key sermons of
Amīr al-muʾminīn such as the Boast (iftikhār),
the Gulf (taṭanjīya), and a number of
Bursī’s own verses in praise of the Imams. Underlying all this is a clear
lettrist approach to the occult knowledge of the arcana.
1.
Lettrism
p. 18ff, ʿAlī as the secret of the ḥurūf
muqaṭṭaʿāt of the Qurʾān p. 124, ʿAlī is the greatest divine name p. 155,
p. 147 ʿAlī in the Qurʾān
2.
Privileges
of the Shīʿa – entering heaven p. 67 without any judgement, seeing Amīr
al-muʾminīn at death p. 142.
3.
The
disavowal of exaggeration (ghulūw) p.
69
4.
The
pre-existence of the Imams p. 122
5.
The
cosmic authority of the Imams p. 124
6.
Those
famous khuṭbas p. 162ff and containing the doctrine of rajʿa.[20]
Lawson suggested that Bursī was not concerned with the eschatology of rajʿa – however, the text suggests
otherwise. The khuṭbas themselves indicate this. But also the chapter on the
arcana of the Mahdī clarify this as well: he is messianic remnant of God, the
face of God, the redeemer, the seal of saints and the succour of the believers
of the last days.[21]
The absence of the term rajʿa does
not denote the absence of the concept.
7.
The
presence of special knowledge and rafḍ
criticism of ʿUmar – p. 103 foretelling his death cf. Jaʿfarīyān I, p. 268.
Bursī’s
doctrine of walāya wherein the agency
of the Imam as having control over the cosmos is due to his role as deus revelatus, as part of a negative
theology in which God is beyond being.[22]
He cites a long ḥadīth from Imam
al-Bāqir that includes the following:
We are the
first and we are the last. We are the foremost (al-sābiqūn). We are the intercessors. We are the logos of God (kalimat Allāh) and we are the elect of
God. We are the beloveds of God. We are the face of God (wajh Allāh). We are the trusted ones (umanāʾ) of God. We are the repositories of the revelation of God (khazanat waḥy Allāh). We are the
gatekeepers of the mystery of God (sudanat
ghayb Allāh). We are the mines of revelation. We possess the meaning of the
taʾwīl [or we are the meaning of the taʾwīl]. Gabriel descends in our signs.
The Command of God devolves to us. We are the culmination of the mystery of God
(muntahā ghayb Allāh). We are the loci of the sanctity of God (maḥāl quds Allāh). We are the lamps of
wisdom (maṣābīḥ al-ḥikma), and the
keys to mercy and the springs of bounty and the nobility of the community, and
the lords the Imams. We are the wulāt
and the guides, those who call and quench, the protectors (ḥumāt). Our love is the path of salvation, the very essence of life
– we are that path to water in this life and the hereafter, the strict way, the
Straight Path (al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm).
Whoever believes in us believes in God. Whoever rejects us rejects God. Whoever
doubts us doubts God. Whoever truly knows us knows God (man ʿarafanā ʿaraf Allāh). Whoever turns away from us turns away
from God. Whoever follows us obeys God. We are the means to God, the link to
the pleasure of God. Ours is the vicegerency, the guidance and the
impeccability.[23]
[1] Henry Corbin, Histoire de la philosophie islamique,
Paris: Gallimard, 1986, pp. 456–57; other studies on him include: Muṣṭafā Kāmil
al-Shaybī, al-Ṣila bayn al-taṣawwuf
wa-l-tashayyuʿ, Baghdad: Dār al-Andalus, 1966, II, pp. 224–56; Pierre Lory,
‘Souffrir pour le vérité selon l’ésotérisme chiite de Rajab Borsī’, in Mohammad
Ali Amir Moezzi et al (eds), Le Shīʿisme
imamate quarante ans après: Hommage à Etan Kohlberg, Turnhout: Brepols,
2009, pp. 315–23; Todd Lawson, ‘The dawning places of the lights of certainty
in the divine secrets of the commander of the faithful by Rajab Bursī (d.
1411)’, in L. Lewisohn (ed), The Heritage
of Sufism volume II: The Legacy of Medieval Persian Sufism (1150-1500),
Oxford: Oneworld, 1999, pp. 261–76.
[2] On this town and his
association, see Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam
al-buldān, I, 384; al-Ṭurayḥī, Majmaʿ
al-baḥrayn, X, p. 309; al-Burūjirdī, Ṭarāʾif
al-maqāl, II, p. 161.
[3] Mīrzā ʿAbdullāh Afandī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamāʾ wa-ḥiyāḍ al-fuḍalāʾ,
ed. Sayyid Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī, Qum: Maktabat Āyatullāh al-Marʿashī, 1981, II, pp.
304–10; al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Amal al-āmil,
II, p. 304; Mudarris Tabrīzī, Rayḥānat
al-adab, II, p. 11; Sayyid Muḥsin al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-shīʿa, Beirut, 1983, VI, p. 465. Afandī rules out the nisba relating to the Anatolian town of
Bursa, although he does cite Mīrzā Rafīʿ al-Dīn Muḥammad [Nāʾinī?] who claims
it was in his refutation of Mīr Dāmād’s Shirʿat
tasmīyat al-Mahdī. Al-Shammarī, al-Ḥayāt
al-fikrīya, pp. 163–76, 302, 315–16, 350–51.
[4] Al-Shammarī, al-Ḥayāt al-fikrīya, pp. 165–67. He
spends much time denying al-Shaybī’s position that Bursī was from Khurāsān and
hence a Persian.
[5] Ibrāhīm al-Kafʿamī, al-Miṣbāḥ, Beirut: [Qum 1984] pp. 176,
183, 316, 363–64; Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlamī, 1994, pp. 243, 315, 416, 425,
523.
[6] On al-Kafʿamī, see al-Muhājir, Jabal ʿĀmil, pp. 166, 21–212, 238.
[7] Al-Shammarī, al-Ḥayāt al-fikrīya, pp. 155–57.
[8] Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī, Kalimāt-i
maknūna, ed. ʿAlī-Riżā Aṣgharī, Tehran: Madrasa-yi ʿĀlī-yi Shahīd-i Muṭahharī,
1387 Sh/2008, p. 48 citing Mashāriq,
p. 14, p. 155 citing Mashāriq, p. 39,
p. 212 citing Mashāriq, p. 264.
[9] Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, VIII, p. 202 ???? I, p.
10??? Majlisī cites him copiously including XXVII, p. 136, p. 226, XXV, p. 23,
XXXII, p. 32, p. 385, XLVII, p. 382 inter alia.
[10] The significance of his
influence on this point in the Safavid period is indicated by Jaʿfarīyān, Siyāsat va farhang, pp. 204, 208–9.
[11] Muḥammad ʿAlī Dirāyatī,
‘Tafsīr sūrat al-ikhlāṣ-i Rajab Bursī’, Āfāq-i
nūr II, pp. 29–34.
[12] Afandī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamāʾ, II, p. 306; al-Ḥurr
al-ʿĀmilī, Amal al-āmil, II, p. 118; Lawson, ‘The dawning places’, p. 264
[13] Corbin, En islam iranien, IV, p. 212. Afandī
says that the work was in two volumes but not great as Sabzavārī was a Sufi and
not a major scholar. There are around 8 manuscripts of the text just in Iran
according to Dirāyatī, Dinā, IX, p. 714.
[14] Jaʿfarīyān, Siyāsat va farhang, II, pp. 1347–88.
[15] Dirāyatī, Dinā, IX, pp. 569–73.
[16] Rajab Bursī, Mashāriq anwār al-yaqīn fī ḥaqāʾiq asrār
Amīr al-muʾminīn, Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Aʿlamī, 1992, pp. 5–13.
[17] Bursī, Mashāriq anwār al-yaqīn, p. 14. Cf. Lawson, ‘The dawning places’,
pp. 265–66.
[18] Bursī, Mashāriq anwār al-yaqīn, p. 15.
[19] Bursī, Mashāriq anwār al-yaqīn, p. 16.
[20] Khuṭbat al-iftikhār and taṭunjīya
– Corbin, En Islam iranien, III, pp.
184-5; Lawson pp. 269-70; Lory p. 320; cf. Amir-Moezzi, ‘Remarques sur la
divinité de l’Imam’, Studia Iranica,
25 (1996), pp. 193–216.
[21] Bursī, Mashāriq anwār al-yaqīn, pp. 102–3.
[22] Corbin, En islam iranien, IV, p. 140.
[23] Bursī, Mashāriq anwār al-yaqīn, pp. 39–40; Corbin, En islam iranien, IV, p. 144.
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