Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī (d. 1350) was the pioneer of the school of Ibn al-ʿArabī in the fourteenth century. Having authored many of his works as commentaries on the classics of theoretical mysticism, such as Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam (The Bezels of Wisdom) by Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240), Tafsī r al-Basmala (The Commentary on the Basmala) by al-Kāshānī (d. 1335), and al-Qaṣī da al-Tāʾiyya (a mystical poem) by Ibn Fāriḍ (d. 1234), al-Qayṣarī can be regarded as one of the main theorists and interpreters of Islamic mysticism after the Mongol Invasion. His intellectual activities were mainly focused in Central Anatolia, Egypt, and Western Iran, and in these places, he sought to deepen his knowledge on classical Islamic sciences (Islamic theology and jurisprudence) as well as philosophical mysticism. Al-Qayṣarī is also regarded as one of the scholars who prepared the intellectual background at the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire, a fact which was evinced by his appointment as a professor in Iznik Madrasa (the first madrasa in Ottoman times) by the Sultan Orhan Gazi (r. 1323-1362). Al-Qayṣarī's writings had gained wide circulation in the Shiite intellectual communities and the Irfani (gnostic) schools in Iran, an impact
In the face of growing scholarship on the classical period of Islamic thought, it is becoming more apparent that Ibn S owes much to the philosophical and theological traditions that precede him in matters that were once regarded as original stances of al-Sheikh al-Ra s. Undoubtedly, Ibn S 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-Ghaz 's well-known Incoherence of Philosophers was a result of this inevitable case. In this regard, Ibn S 's influential writings led the way to different interpretations of his ideas being incorporated within different traditions of Islamic thought, such as falsafa, kal m, and ta awwuf. 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 S 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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