A deep comprehension of his philosophy, especially his enthusiastic poetic explanations of intellect-human, death and love-God, continue to attract countless people, including many westerners, to his extraordinary thoughts despite the fact that he died over eight centuries ago. Rûmi‘s attentiveness to both the inner and outer meanings, in both his life and his writings, have caused many people to pay extra attention to him. In this respect, harmonizing both dimensions and discovering the relationship within Sufism of fıqh-ı zâhir (outer meaning) and fıqh-ı bâtın (inner meaning), which elevated him to such an exalted spiritual status, will help us to better understand him. If his inner dimensions are not comprehended, an accurate portrait of Rûmi will never emerge. This article highlights how Avicenna attempts to achieve this goal by setting his discourse within one of the most discussed topics in classical Islamic thought: the issue of divine decree and destiny (qaḍāʾ wa’l qadar).įocusing only on the external aspects of Mevlâna Jelâleddin Rûmi‘s thought world will not instill within any person the wisdom needed to understand this great Sufi master. The focus is placed on the exegesis of Qurʾān 41:11-12 and 113: Avicenna interprets these verses in a way which allows him to demonstrate that questions mainly influenced by the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic thought - such as the notion of ʿiṣyān al-mādda (the disobedience of matter) and the ontological nature of evil – are clearly ‘Islamic’ concepts, found in the source of Islamic Revelation, and perfectly reconcilable with ‘orthodox’ dictates. The following article surveys Avicenna’s view of matter and evil and explores how the philosopher employs Qurʾanic hermeneutics in order to show that his positions on the above concepts are rooted in the Qurʾanic source.

In works such as the Dānish Nāma-i and in the Kitāb al-Shifāʾ (al-Ilāhiyyāt), amongst others, Avicenna often speaks in an Aristotelian parlance about the interdependence of matter and form focusing particularly on the nature of prime and proximate matter he also discloses a Neoplatonic understanding of the nature of evil which he examines both in ontological and moral terms. 1037) was strongly influenced by Neoplatonic and Aristotelian ideas.

The metaphysical system of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) (d.

Love 3 by george herbert