Ahmad al-Ahsa'i: Difference between revisions

'''Ahmad b. Zayn al-Dīn b. Ibrāhīm Al-Aḥsāʾī''' (احمد بن زین الدین بن ابراهیم الأحسايي), (Rajab 1166 AH-Dhi Qaʾda 1241 AH/ May 1753-June 1826), also known as ʾIhsaʾi, was a well-known [[Imamiyya]] scholar, [[philosopher]] and faqih to whom Shaykhiyya (a Shiite sect) is attributed. His practices and thoughts and his life events have brought about drastic developments in the history of Imamiyya.

The major source of ʾIhsaʾi's life is a short essay that he wrote at the request of his oldest son, Muhammad Taqi, where he talks about his early life and his own experiences. Another source is a work by his son, Abdullah, and a third one is parts of Dalil al-mutahayyirin by his pupil and successor, Sayyid Kazim Rashti, containing additional information about ʾIhsaʾi's life.

ʾIhsaʾi was born in the village Mutayrifi located in the ʾIhsaʾ area in East Saudia. According to ʾIhsaʾi, from his 4th ancestor—Daghir—on, his family was Shiite. Daghir was the first in his lineage who abandoned the Bedouin life and resided in Mutayrifi. After the migration, Daghir converted to Shiism, and all his progeny went on to believe in Shiism.  

ʾIhsaʾi migrated to Karbala and Najaf when there was an unrest in ʾIhsaʾ by the attacks of ʾAbd al-ʾAziz, the Saudi ruler. Here are his teachers in Iraq:

• Sayyid Mahdi Bahr al-ʾUlum

He was respected by his teachers. During his stay in Karbala and Najaf, he received a number of ʾijaza riwayat (permissions to narrate hadiths) from well-known scholars, such as:

• Shaykh Jaʾfar Kashif al-Ghitaʾ; he praised the scholarly character of ʾIhsaʾi in his ʾijaza when he saw two of ʾIhsaʾi's works in fiqh and kalam.

• Sayyid Mahdi Bahr al-ʾUlum

• Sayyid ʾAli Tabatabaʾi (known as the author of Riaḍ)

• Shaykh ʾAhmad Bahrani Damistani

• Shaykh Musa bn. Shaykh Jaʾfar Kashif al-Ghitaʾ

• Shaykh Husayn Al ʾUsfur

• Shaykh ʾAhmad Al ʾUsfur

• Sayyid Kazim Rashti (1212 AH-1259 AH/ 1798-1843) sought to promote the thoughts of ʾIhsaʾi after his death and became his successor.

• Mirza Hassan Gowhar—ʾIhsaʾi assigned him the duty to answer some letters.

• Hajj Muhammad ʾIbrahim Kalbasi

• Shaykh ʾAsadullah Kazimi Shushtari

• Mulla ʾAli Burghani

• Mulla ʾAli bn. Abdullah Simnani

• ʾAli bn. Darwish Kazimi

ʾIhsaʾi had two sons who were also his pupils:

• Muhammad Taqi ʾIhsaʾi

• ʾAlinaqi ʾIhsaʾi

ʾIhsaʾi was educated in ʾIhsaʾ until he was 20 years old. In 1186 AH (1772), he migrated to Karbala and Najaf. Upon the Cholera outbreak in Iraq in 1208 AH (1794), he returned to ʾIhsaʾ and after 4 years he went back to Iraq. Upon his return, he sojourned in Basra and stayed in Dhawraq near Basra until 1216 AH (1801). At this time, he had short sojourns in Basra and villages nearby.

In 1216 AH, he went to Karbala and Najaf, and then he went to Mashhad as a pilgrim—on his way, he had a stay in Yazd. People in Yazd warmly welcomed him and because of their insistence, he stayed in Yazd after his return from Mashhad. ʾIhsaʾi went to Tehran for a while at the command of Fathʾali Shah, and in 1223 AH (1808) he returned to Yazd by the permission of the Shah.

In 1229 AH (1814) ʾIhsaʾi went to Kermanshah on his way to Karbala and Najaf, and was welcomed by people. The governor of Kermanshah insisted that he stay there, and promised that he provide all the means for ʾIhsaʾi to annually travel to Iraq. The stay took about 10 years, except two years when he was on travels. He then went to Mashhad, Yazd and Kermanshah, and then to Iraq. He then departed from Iraq to Mecca, but he died near Medina.

===Visiting Fathʾali Shah===

When ʾIhsaʾi resided in Yazd, he was well-known in Iran, and Fathʾali Shah began correspondences with him, and invited him for a visit in Tehran. ʾIhsaʾi made excuses to reject the invitation. However, the Shah wrote to him if Shah comes to Yazd with his troops, lives of people in Yazd will be disturbed, and asked him to go to Tehran. Since ʾIhsaʾi was disinclined to accept the invitation, he decided to go to Basra, but people of Yazd told him that this would bring about troubles for them. Finally, ʾIhsaʾi went to Tehran to visit Shah. After a while, he returned to Yazd with the permission of Shah.  

ʾIhsaʾi died near Medina when he was travelling from Iraq to Mecca. He was buried in Baqiʾ cemetery.

The works of ʾIhsaʾi show that in addition to fiqh and other religious disciplines, he was an expert in philosophy, mathematics, natural sciences and "strange sciences" (ʾulum ghariba).  

Late in his life, ʾIhsaʾi faced the opposition of some scholars—they considered some of his views as deviations from standard Shiism and as exaggerations (ghuluw) about Imams. ʾIhsaʾi himself says that Muhammad bn. Husayn Al ʾUsfur Bahrani, whose father had given an ʾijaza to ʾIhsaʾi, rejected his views in an oral discussion.

The first explicit opposition with ʾIhsaʾi was, however, from Mulla Muhammad Taqi Burghani—an influential scholar in Qazvin. In a meeting, he discussed with ʾIhsaʾi about bodily resurrection, and made objections to his view which led to controversies among other participants. The ruler of Qazvin held a meeting to reconcile the two, but this time Burghani accused ʾIhsaʾi of blasphemy. By the circulation of the news about this accusation, ʾIhsaʾi left the city.

Burghani's accusation brought about many troubles for ʾIhsaʾi in his last travel to Karbala, and led him to abandon the city despite his intention to stay there. Meanwhile, some people accused him of exaggerations about Imams (a), and instigated the scholars of Karbala and some Ottoman leaders against him.  

  ==Defenses of ʾIhsaʾi by some Scholars==

Some people resisted such accusations to ʾIhsaʾi. For instance, Muhammad ʾIbrahim Kalbasi was fully familiar with the views of ʾIhsaʾi, and after the ʾIhsaʾi's death, he held mourning ceremonies for 3 days in Isfahan. He says: "it is bold to accuse Shaykh [ʾIhsaʾi] of inappropriate beliefs by people who do not know his views and terminologies".

==ʾIhsaʾi's Beliefs==

ʾIhsaʾi's views might be summarized in the slogan that knowledge and truths about anything can exclusively be found in prophets and Imams. Wisdom—as knowledge of the reality of everything—is compatible with both the interior (batin) of shariʾa and its exterior (zahir). He holds that reason can know the reality only if it is enlightened with Imams/ ʾAhl al-Bayt (a)—whether in theoretical knowledge or the practical one. Reasoning about religious beliefs is an obligation for anyone, but since truths are with ʾAhl al-Bayt (a), the truth of the judgments issued by reason depends on the light it receives from ʾAhl al-Bayt (a).

On the one hand, ʾIhsaʾi does not accept the position of those who rest content to the exterior or superficial meanings of shariʾa, and on the other hand, he rejects the view of those who maintain that with the interior of shraiʾa, we will not need its interior.

In his works, there are strong oppositions to ʾIbn ʾArabi's views. He also makes objections to views of Mulla Sadra and Fayd Kashani.

ʾIhsaʾi says that his appeal to ʾAhl al-Bayt (a) helped him accept only the parts of philosophical views that are not in contradiction with what he believes to be the interior of shariʾa.

The best known view of ʾIhsaʾi is the one concerning the quality of bodily resurrection. He does not accept the exterior superficial understanding of shariʾa according to which the bodily resurrection occurs with this-worldly natural body—this is in his view in contradiction with the changeability and corruptibility of the body. ʾIhsaʾi's solution is to distinguish between jism (body) and jasad (corpse). According to ʾIhsaʾi, human beings have two bodies and two corpses.

• The second body is the original and the real human body that preserves one's identity in all the worlds—from this world to barzakh to the afterlife. The body consists of the hyle (matter) and the form (mithal), and is a vehicle of the soul and the reason, and it is identical with a human person. Sometimes ʾIhsaʾi refers to this body as the "soul".

With the first blowing (nafkha), the first body is detached from the soul and is annihilated, and then after the second blowing, it will be resurrected, the second body accompanying the second corpse. The development of the human body, as described by ʾIhsaʾi, has two aspects: the real body was merged with the first body and the first corpse when it came to this world, and in the afterlife, it will be detached from both.

One objection to ʾIhsaʾi was that it cannot be reconciled with the doctrine of the bodily resurrection, as stated in the Quran, but he responds that the second body that will be resurrected is identical with our visible bodies in this world, though it is refined in such a way that will be incorruptible.  

According to ʾIhsaʾi, even the bodies of the Prophet (s) and Imams (a) will be corrupted and annihilated in the grave—he distinguishes between their apparent bodies and their original bodies that are highly delicate. Their apparent bodies are accidental to them. These bodies are just created so that people could be able to see them and have contacts with them. Hadiths concerning the survival of their bodies in the graves concern not their apparent bodies; rather they concern a body without any elemental forms, that is, the hurqaliyayi body which is only visible for other Imams (a) and not for other people.

The theory of hurqaliyayi corpses not only purports to account for the bodily resurrection, but also for miʾraj (the Prophet (s)'s journey to heavens) and the Occultation of Imam Mahdi (a).  

In his works, ʾIhsaʾi has assigned a significant role to the issues of Imamate, for example, in his extended exposition of Ziyarat al-Jamiʾa al-Kabira. He particularly focuses on the generative aspects of the position of Imamate—the Prophet (s) and Imams (a) are the greatest creatures of God and are the mediums of his grace, and they are the four causes—efficient, material, formal and teleological—of the world. In the Aristotelian and Islamic philosophies, each of these 4 types of causes is an aspect of phenomena's needs to causes. Appealing to a hadith, ʾIhsaʾi tries to show that the Prophet and Imams play the roles of all these causes.

ʾIhsaʾi has a specific view about the principality (ʾasalat) of existence (wujud) or quiddity (mahiyya). He holds to the principality of both, each being an aspect of each object. The object's existence or coming to be has two aspects: the act of God that is the existence, and the passivity of the act, which is the quiddity of the object. Thus every possible object is literally a complex out of two elements.

ʾIhsaʾi has an anthropological view in this regard. From the duality of obedience and disobedience in the human nature, he infers that both cannot be attributed to one single object. The way existence and quiddity are merged can be known by knowing the combinatory tendencies of humans and their volitional acts. The combination is such that neither of the two parts loses its effects. Just as the principality of both tendencies does not preclude the attribution of the act to the whole, the principality of both existence and quiddity does not undermine the unity of the object. Therefore, existence and quiddity are two conventions or aspects for one single object. However, the quiddity without the existence is nothing. The primary object of creation is the existence, but the existence requires quiddities in its manifestation.

ʾIhsaʾi says that God does not need any quiddity, since there is no homogeneity between God and His creatures. If they have the same sorts of existence, then God's existence would be a combination, and the unity of existence should then be ruled out. In different places, ʾIhsaʾi rejects the unity of existence (wahdat al-wujud) or pantheism, and takes it to be incompatible with monotheism.

ʾIhsaʾi has left many works in various topics. There are two bibliographies of his works: (1) Fihrist al-tasanif by Riaḍ Tahir, and (2) a chapter of Fihrist-i kitab-i mashayikh-i ʾizam by Abu al-Qassim ʾIbrahimi which is much more detailed than (1). Many of ʾIhsaʾi's works are short essays that he wrote in response to some questions; some of these were later recognized as highly significant and were published independently. ʾIhsaʾi has left over 100 essays that might be found in some printed or manuscript collections.

1. Jawamiʾ al-kilam; a collection of 92 essays as responses to some letters. Most of ʾIhsaʾi's essays might be found in this collection. The second volume of this work contains 12 long qasidas by ʾIhsaʾi as an elegy for Imam Husayn (a).

2. Hayat al-nafs fi hazira al-quds; a short book concerning the principles of beliefs that is printed both in Jamiʾ al-kilam and independently. There are two Persian translations of the book by Sayyid Kazim Rashti and Shaykh Muhammad Husayn ʾAzimabadi Hari.

3. Sharh al-ziyara al-jamiʾa al-kabira—the greatest and the best known work of ʾIhsaʾi.

4. Sharh al-ʾarshiyya—an exposition of a work by Sadr al-Din Shirazi.

5. Sharh al-mashaʾir—an exposition of a work by Sadr al-Din Shirazi.

6. Al-ʾisma wa al-rijʾa—in response to Muhammad ʾAli Mirza Dawlatshah concerning ʾisma (infallibility of the Prophet and Imams) and rijʾa (return of some believers to this world after the appearance [zuhur] of Imam Mahdi (a)).

7. Al-fawaʾid, containing 12 chapters concerning the general problems of existence, divine creation and human acts. ʾIhsaʾi himself has written an exposition for this book.

8. Majmuʾa al-rasaʾil, containing 33 essays.

9. Majmuʾa al-rasaʾil (collection of essays) regarding the Quranic disciplines. Most of these essays are by Muhammad Karim Khan Kermani, and two of them are by ʾIhsaʾi: Risala fi rasm ʾalfaz al-quran al-sharif (an essay concerning how the Quranic words should be written), and Risala fi baʾḍ ʾasrar al-tajwid (an essay concerning how the Quranic world should be pronounced).

There are many manuscripts of ʾIhsaʾi that are kept in the Saʾadat Library of Kerman, some of which have not yet been published.