Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 brill.

com/orie

Post-Classical Philosophical
Commentaries/Glosses:
Innovation in the Margins

Asad Q. Ahmed
Berkeley, CA

Abstract
This article investigates the nature of the post-classical (ca. 600–1300/1200–900) com-
mentary/gloss genre in the maʿqūlāt (rationalist disciplines). It does so by looking closely
at the process of philosophical growth in the tradition of a celebrated text on logic,
the Sullam al-ʿulūm of Muhibballāh al-Bihārī (d. 1118/1707), that inspired more than
ninety commentaries, glosses,˙ and notes in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu in the course of
two centuries. Among other things, the article concludes that, from the very beginning,
the authors of the main text and of its commentaries/glosses posited the lemmata as sites
of philosophical conflict and dispute (masāʾil)—though these lemmata were also seam-
lessly interwoven into the larger aims of philosophical works. These open spaces of philo-
sophical dialectic stood in place of a vibrant culture of debate that was responsible for
the diachronic and synchronic dynamism of post-classical philosophy. In this article, the
detailed analysis of a minor lemma and its fate in the hands of some prominent com-
mentators and glossators sheds light on the complex layers of the intertextuality of com-
mentaries and glosses, on structures of textual authority, on the nature of the self-gloss,
on the fine line between commentarial critique and defense, and on the meaning of ver-
ification (tahqīq). Finally, the technical assessment of the philosophical arguments also
reveals how˙the mode of argumentation required by the very framework of the commen-
tary/gloss genre resulted in the production of novel philosophical theories.

Keywords
Commentaries/glosses, Sullam al-ʿulūm, Fadl-i Haqq Khayrābādī, Muhibballāh al-
˙ texts,
Bihārī, post-classical Islamic philosophy, madrasa ˙ Arabo-Islamic logic˙

* This article is extracted from a chapter of a forthcoming monograph, currently under contract with

Oxford University Press, entitled, Palimpsests of Themselves: Rationalism and the Commentary/Gloss
Genre in Post-Classical Islamic Scholarship. It was first presented at The Hāshiya and Islamic Intel-
lectual History, a conference hosted by the Department of Near Eastern˙Studies, the University of
California, Berkeley. I wish to express my gratitude to the participants for their thought-provoking
questions and comments and to the Mellon Sawyer Seminars for generously funding the event.
I also thank the anonymous reviewer and Bilal Ibrahim for helpful suggestions. All remaining
errors are of course my responsibility. Asad Q. Ahmed, NES, University of California, Berkeley,
[email protected].

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/18778372-13413405

318 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

Ānkhein rōshan dil tābinda! Chacha Jān

kē liyē

Introduction
Research in the development of post-classical (ca. 600–1300/1200–900)
Islamic rationalist disciplines (maʿqūlāt) has recently picked up pace. A number
of well-formulated collaborative programs have been inaugurated1 and a small,
but important, body of literature has already appeared in print.2 The guiding
premise of almost all significant projects and publications so far has been that
technical and concentrated studies on individual themes and authors, grounded
in the close analysis of specialized texts, is the necessary preliminary step to writ-
ing the larger narratives of post-classical Islamic rationalism. It is only by plunging
deep into the technical material and by means of investment in thick descriptions
of their contents that answers to the vexed question of post-classical dynamism
and decline will emerge.
One of the fundamental tasks in grappling with the question of dynamism and
decline is to reframe it with reference to the internal workings of Muslim scholar-
ship. Given that we do not yet possess a theoretical base specific to the tradition,
it hardly makes sense to label it one way or another. For we have yet to formulate
foundational categories and notions—such as authorship, textual authority, gen-
res, disciplines, and disciplinary boundaries—within which Muslim scholarship
functioned. At this stage of research, therefore, the study of Islamic rationalism
must be local; it must be written with detailed reference to the logic of its own
technical texts and traditions, which must be analyzed with a view to the partic-
ularities of their production.3

1) Two noteworthy systematic and long-term programs of research are the Post-Classical Islamic
Philosophy Database Initiative at McGill University, http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/RASI/pipdi.html
(accessed, August 23, 2011) and the Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World at
the Freie Universität, Berlin, http://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/islamwiss/institut/Intellectual
_History_in_the_Islamicate_World/index.html (accessed, August, 23, 2011). A series of work-
shops on the topic is currently run at the University of California, Berkeley, http://nes.berkeley
.edu/MellonSawyer/index.html (accessed, June 2, 2013).
2) Some important recent work is listed on the website of the Research Unit noted in the previous

footnote.
3) A critical statement endorsing this position was articulated by George Saliba in a review article.

George Saliba, “Seeking the Origins of Modern Science?” Bulletin of the Royal Institute of Interfaith
Studies 1, no. 2 (1999) (retrieved June 11, 2010, via http://baheyeldin.com/history/george-saliba
-1.html). For an outline of some theoretical considerations for the study of post-classical Islamic
rationalism, especially with reference to curricular constraints, see also Asad Q. Ahmed, “Systematic
Growth in Sustained Error: A Case Study in the Dynamism of Post-Classical Islamic Rationalism,”
in The Islamic Scholarly Tradition: Studies in History, Law, and Thought in Honor of Professor Michael
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 319

In this article I hope to make a contribution towards the aforementioned

research program by demonstrating how the genre of commentaries and glosses
allowed for the process and growth of philosophical discourse. As has been
acknowledged for some time, in the post-classical period, a rather massive body
of the Muslim scholarly output fell within the scope of the commentary/gloss
genre. Much maligned in western scholarship as a key indicator of decline, this
mode of scholarly production remains yet to be seriously investigated on its own
terms.4 An understanding of exactly how and by what means arguments within
the commentary/gloss cycles developed will put one in a better position both to
appreciate post-classical scholarly contributions and to formulate a theoretical
framework for engaging the trajectory of Muslim intellectual discourse in terms
of its own genres of scholarly production.

Frontloading: An Overview of Some Conclusions

This article considers the following questions on the basis of a close study of two
commentaries and a gloss inspired by an apparently minor lemma of a celebrated
eleventh/seventeenth century text on logic.5

1. How do commentaries and glosses handle the philosophical argument of

the commented text?
2. How, when and why does a commentator quote another authority?
3. In what sense is a commentator an original author and an independent
investigator of ideas presented in the commented text?

Allan Cook, eds. Asad Q. Ahmed, Behnam Sadeghi, and Michael Bonner (Leiden: Brill, 2011),
343–78.
4) See, for example, W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Philosophy and Theology (Edinburgh: Edin-

burgh University Press, 1985), 134. In recent years, most scholars have begun to acknowledge that
commentaries/glosses were sites of intellectual growth. Yet the statements made to this effect require
substantiation (work simply has not been done) and the nature of such alleged growth remains
obscure. A few scholars, who work seriously on this topic, are more cautious in their endorsements,
pointing out that the genre requires sustained attention. Thus in his seminal article on post-classical
philosophical commentaries, Wisnovsky writes, “Once we have shuffled off our prejudices about
commentaries’ being inevitably dry, unoriginal and philosophically uninteresting, we can begin to
see that the post-classical Islamic period might well contain a rich lode of philosophy to be mined
by current and future researchers” (emphasis added). Robert Wisnovsky, “The Nature and Scope of
Arabic Philosophical Commentary in Post-Classical (ca. 1100–1900 AD) Islamic Intellectual His-
tory: Some Preliminary Obervations,” in Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic, and Latin
Commentaries, eds. Peter Adamson, Han Baltussen and M.W.F. Stone (London: Institute of Classi-
cal Studies, University of London, 2004), 149–91. See also Ulrich Rudolph, Islamische Philosophie
von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2004), 89 ff.
5) See next section for details about the texts.
320 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

4. Why does a commentator choose to focus on a particular part of the base

text (as opposed to another part)?
5. In what relationship does a commentary stand with other commentaries of
the same level?
6. Or in the case of a gloss, what relationship does it have with an earlier
commentary that is not part of its commentarial lineage?
7. And what use, if any, does a commentator make of works outside the disci-
pline of the commented text?

The evidence presented below suggests that the author of a lemma deliberately
presents his argument in a truncated and allusive form, so that it may serve as
a prompt for perpetuating a living philosophical dialectic. In other words, the
lemmata themselves comprise controversial masāʾil on which the author takes
philosophical positions and for which he offers only simple and terse arguments.
Thus presented, any given lemma invites informed defenders and detractors—
the commentators/glossators—to engage the text in a living diachronic and syn-
chronic debate. From the very beginning, therefore, the lemmata themselves
seem to be posited as philosophical battlegrounds.
Then from the perspective of the commentator/glossator, one may also note
that, even though a base text may imply an organic unity, it is only some of its
parts that are selected for heavy commentary; others are merely touched upon
by commentators in passing or simply left out.6 These parts and elements of
the demonstration they require are selected for comment because they already
garner global and sustained philosophical interest in the age of the commentator,
sometimes also in other disciplines and texts. Such commitments as are imported
from other works and living intellectual curiosities not only shape the way the
main text is received and passed on, but they also produce new dimensions
of philosophical discourse and fresh consequences for the larger system. The
program of commentary is, therefore, also seen to be driven by something outside
the holistic objectives of the directive base text; it is in the interest of systematic
elaboration, inter-disciplinary harmony, and scholarly dialectic that such parts
are chosen for comment. Indeed in itself the commented-upon lemma may or
may not be significant within the ambit of the foundational text taken as a whole.
Thus, as will be shown below, the systematic elaboration of a simple theological
claim of the mātin leads one of the glossators to the exciting and innovative con-
clusion that the human intellect cannot have any knowledge of extra-mentally

6)See Part III for some statistics about how much of the text studied here is engaged by leading
commentaries and glosses.
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 321

existent entities. This is a position to which the glossator is driven in the course of
his demonstration of the lemma that God has no limit and is not defined; from
other texts by this same glossator, it appears that such was also his own theologi-
cal position.7 In this particular example, commenting on a lemma also meant to
bring it in alignment with one’s own views and to use it as a site for other dis-
cussions that may have exercised the commentator and a living tradition—not
necessarily the matn as a whole—more directly; and the whole process of com-
mentary, driven by such ends, constrained one to concede and invent new philo-
sophical positions in the course of systematic demonstration. This demonstra-
tion on the contested philosophical site of the lemma meant that a commentator
often deployed additional authorities, appealed to and critiqued the network of
commentaries on the same level and those belonging to a different lineage, and
engaged disciplines extraneous to the commented text. In such complex philo-
sophical activity, commentators and glossators appear both as original and inde-
pendent authors, especially when they produce novel philosophical insights, and
also as imitative members of factions and schools.

Structure
In the body of this article, Part I introduces the matn and its commentaries/
glosses; Part II, constituting the major portion, presents the fate of a lemma of
the matn in the hands of two influential commentators. Part III presents the
culmination of the internal dialectic of the two commentaries in the work of a
later glossator. And Part IV supplies a summary analysis of the findings from the
second and third parts, focusing both on the philosophical arguments and the
mode of their production in the commentary/gloss genre.

I. The Text and Its Commentaries

The Sullam al-ʿulūm of Muhibballāh b. ʿAbd al-Shakūr al-Bihārī (d. 1119/1707),
˙
the subject of this study, was the first text on logic, bearing an original title, pro-
duced in India. In the course of the two hundred years from the time it was
penned in the late eleventh/seventeenth century, it inspired over ninety com-
mentaries, glosses, and notes in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. By the late twelfth/
eighteenth century, it had been incorporated as an advanced text in the pervasive

7)See Fadl-i Haqq Khayrābādī, al-Rawd al-majūd (Hyderabad: Mufīd al-islām, 1313 ah), 4–6.
˙ ˙position is also reported ˙in Muʿīn al-Dīn Ajmīrī, ʿIlm o maʿlūm (Karachi: Barakāt
The glossator’s
Academy, 1993), 6.
322 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

Dars-i Nizāmī madrasa curriculum of India, though, judging from the number of
˙
commentaries preceding this period, it is safe to say that it was already the focus
of scholarly attention well before this time.8
As a standard post-classical madrasa logic text, the Sullam is predictably
divided into two parts, one covering tasawwurāt and the other tasdīqāt.9 The
former comprises, in the following order, ˙ sections on noetics, epistemology,
˙ the
subject matter and necessity of logic, the four hypotheses, semiotics (with a heavy
dose of ʿilm al-ma ʿānī wa-l-bayān), the five predicables, different kinds of uni-
versals, and definitions and descriptions. In order, the latter (tasdīqāt) includes
sections on attributive and conditional propositions, quantifiers, ˙ the nature of
subject terms and predications, modalities and modal attributive propositions,
modal operations on conditionals, contradictories of propositions, conversions
of propositions, and syllogistics of attributive and conditional propositions.
These sections are followed by very brief discussions of demonstration, dialectics,
rhetoric, poetics, and sophistics. The order of a number of these sections does not
correspond exactly to classical or post-classical texts on logic. Indeed constitutive
elements of most sections represent main points of discussion in a living culture
of dispute on technical matters of logic.10

8) See Asad Q. Ahmed, “The Tradition of the Sullam al-ʿulūm of Muhibballāh al-Bihārī,” in The
Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy, eds. Khaled El-Rouayheb and Sabine ˙ Schmidtke (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
9) I use the following prints of the matn and its commentaries and glosses for this study. Note

that all prints also include commentaries and glosses used in this article. Muhibballāh al-Bihārī,
Sullam al-ʿulūm maʿa hāshiyatihi Isʿād al-fuhūm li-l-fādil Muhammad Barakatallāh ˙ al-Lakhnawī
˙
(Multan: Maktaba imdādiyya, ˙ Henceforth, reference
n.d.). ˙ ˙ page numbers of the text of the
to
Sullam and to Barakatallāh’s commentary will be to this print and both will be given as “Bihārī”.
Muhammad Hasan b. Ghulām Mustafā al-Sihālawī, Mullā Hasan maʿa hāshiyatihi al-Qawl al-aslam
˙ al-Halīm
li-ʿAbd ˙ b. Amīnallāh al-Lakhnawī
˙˙ (Lahore: Diyā˙ ʾ al-qurʾān,˙n.d.). Henceforth, reference
˙
to page numbers of the text of Hasan and ʿAbd al-Halīm’s ˙ gloss will be to this print and both will
˙ ˙
be given as “Hasan”. Fadl-i Haqq b. Fadl-i Imām Khayrābādī, Hāshiyat Mawlāna Fadl-i Haqq ʿalā
Sharh al-Sullam˙ li-l-Qā˙dī Mubārak
˙ ˙
(Lahore: Evergreen Press, ˙n.d.). Henceforth, reference
˙ ˙ to page
˙ ˙
numbers of the text of Khayrābādī will be to this print and will be given as “Khayrābādī”. Qādī
Mubārak b. Muhammad Dāʾim, Kitāb Sullam al-ʿulūm wa-hāshiyatuhu l-mashhūra bi-l-Qādī ma˙ʿa
˙
Munhiyātihi (Kazan: ˙
Al-Matbaʿ al-mulkiyya, 1887). Henceforth, reference to page numbers˙ of the
˙
text of Qādī Mubārak’s commentary will be to this print and will be given as “Mubārak”.
˙
10) The various highlights of the Sullam—such as the validity of the tasawwur-tasdīq division, the
liar paradox, the impossibility of predications on absolute unknowns,˙the correspondence ˙ theory
of truth, dependent existence, the natural universal, the place of figurative speech in logical propo-
sitions, etc.—were precisely the subject of short independent treatises in post-classical rationalism
in Muslim India. Some of these topics were also debated in public and sponsored by royal courts in
nineteenth-century India. See, for example, reports of the Munāzara-yi Rāmpūr, 1916, preserved
in the private library of Hakim Mahmūd Ahmad Barakātī, Barakat ˙ Academy, Karachi. One of the
˙
topics debated in this much-publicized˙ event ˙ in the court of the Nawwāb of Rampūr was whether
one can acquire knowledge of an extramental entity by way of a shabah, i.e., precisely the topic of
this article (see below). ˙
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 323

The allusive and packed language of the Sullam suggests that it was very likely
written as a curricular text, one whose lemmata were prompts that allowed space
for philosophical elaboration, exploration, dispute, and controlled digressions
in the teaching sessions. It is precisely because its lemmata were meant to serve
as sites of philosophical dialectic that the Sullam was absorbed quickly into the
madrasa system that thrived on a tradition of interpretative exercises centering on
a master text; and it is for this reason also that it inspired so many commentaries
and glosses. In the history of Islamic rationalist scholarship, the Sullam stands as
something of a curious text in that most of the commentaries on it are of the first
order. This of course means that the main text itself was directly read in teaching
circles in different times and places and it may lead one to the conclusion that
the interpretive tradition was horizontally expansive, but vertically sterile, so as
to obstruct diachronic philosophical growth. This hunch, in view of the com-
plex inter-textual references among commentaries of the same order that will be
evidenced below, is far from correct. In fact the evidence suggests that the entire
linear history of the tradition was deployed cumulatively and synchronically by
any given commentator/glossator.
In order to determine how the vertical and horizontal layers stood in rela-
tion to each other and contributed to interpretive growth, this article will con-
sider selections from two of the earliest commentaries that cover the same sub-
stance and that also generated the largest number of second-order glosses:11 the
Sullam Qādī Mubārak and the Sullam Mullā Hasan. The former, completed in
1143/1730, ˙ is the work of Mubārak b. Muhammad ˙ Dāʾim b. ʿAbd al-Hayy al-
˙ ˙
Gūpāmawī (d. 1162/1749), who is also the author of glosses on Tahtānī’s al-
˙ 12
Risāla al-qutbiyya, Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb al-mantiq, and Ījī’s al-Mawāqif. Com-
mentaries and˙ glosses of all these master works ˙ were included in the Dars-i
Nizāmī, as was Mubārak’s commentary on the Sullam.13 Mubārak wrote a self-
˙
commentary on his work, titled al-Munhiyāt, which was subsequently used as
a point of reference by glossators of his first-order commentary. In addition
to Mubārak’s self-commentary, at least nine glosses by the following authors

11) A rather large number of glosses were also written on the Sullam commentary of Hamdallāh b.
Shukrallāh (d. 1160/1747), but this work is restricted to the section on tasdīqāt. ˙
12) See Asad Q. Ahmed and Reza Pourjavady, “Theology in India,” in ˙ The Oxford Handbook of
Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013–); Asad Q. Ahmed,
“Logic in the Khayrābādī School of India: A Preliminary Exploration,” in Law and Tradition in
Classical Islamic Thought: Studies in Honor of Professor Hossein Modarressi, eds. Michael Cook,
Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, and Asma Sayeed (New York: Palgrave, 2013), 227–47.
13) ʿAbd al-Hayy b. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Hasanī, Nuzhat al-khawātir wa-bahjat al-masāmiʿ wa-n-
˙
nawāzir (Multan: ˙
Idāra-yi taʾlīfāt-i ashrafiyya, ˙ dating of Mubārak’s commen-
1992), 6: 255. On the
˙
tary, see Muhammad Ansārī, “Qādī Mubārak awr unkī Sharh-i Sullam,”Maʿārif, 93, no. 3 (1964):
186–98. ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
324 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

are extant: Muhammad Yūnus Lakhnawī (d.?), Muhammad Muzammil b. Fidāʾ

˙ ˙
Yūsufzāʾī (d?), Abū l-Barakāt Turāb ʿAlī b. Shajāʿat ʿAlī (1281/1864), Hāfiz Dar-
˙ ˙
rāz (d.?), Muhammad Yūsuf b. Asghar b. Abī r-Rihim b. Yaʿqūb (1286/1869),
˙ ˙ ˙
Mullā ʿIrfān Rāmpūrī (fl. ca. 1162/1749), Khalīl al-Rahmān Mustafābādī (d?),
˙ ˙˙
ʿAbd al-Rasūl Sahāranpūrī (d.?) and Fadl-i Haqq b. Fadl-i Imām Khayrābādī
14 ˙ ˙ ˙
(1277/1861). Because of its philosophical and intertextual breadth and as the
culmination of the tradition, the last of these glosses occupies center stage in the
analysis of Part III.
The Sullam Mullā Hasan was written by Muhammad Hasan b. Ghulām
˙ ˙
Mustafā b. Muhammad˙Asʿad b. Qutb al-Dīn al-Sihālawī (d. 1199 or 1209/1784
˙˙ ˙ ˙
or 1794). The author was from the Farangī Mahallī family whose fountainhead
˙
had taught Muhibballāh al-Bihārī himself. Like Qādī Mubārak, Mullā Hasan had
˙ ˙ ˙
commented on a number of works in the rationalist tradition, including curricu-
lar texts, such as al-Risāla al-qutbiyya of Tahtānī and al-Mawāqif of Ījī.15 Glosses
˙ Mīr ʿAbbās ˙
by the following authors are extant: Shushtarī (d. 13066/1889), ʿAbd
al-Halīm b. Amīnallāh b. Muhammad Akbar (d. 1285/1868), ʿImād al-Dīn al-
˙ ˙
ʿUthmānī al-Labkanī (early 13th/19th), and the aforementioned Muhammad
˙
Turāb ʿAlī.16 The two commentaries were simply known as Qādī Mubārak and
˙
Mullā Hasan and, due to their standing in the curriculum, were often bound
together˙ in the same codex.

II. Argument and Analysis: Commentaries

The aim of the study offered in this section is to document carefully the method
and process of philosophical argument in the commentary tradition of the Sul-
lam. This will serve as a backdrop to the analysis of the gloss in Part III and will
supply some details on the basis of which answers to the global questions about
the genre will be summarized in Part IV. Needless to say that the philosophical
substance of the arguments is as important as the philosophical process within
the commentary/gloss genre that produced it. In the interest of the kind of invest-
ment in details envisioned here, it stands to reason to consider only the commen-

14) Al-Hasani, Nuzha, 7: 120, 586; Markaz-i tahqīqāt-i zabān-i fārsī dar Hind, Fihrist-i nuskhahā-yi
khattī-yi˙ ʿarabī-yi kitābkhānih-yi Nadwat al-ʿulamā
˙ ʾ (Iran: Khānih-yi farhang, 1986), 518, 523;
˙˙
Shaukat Ali Khan, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts: Sufism and Asceticism, Logic, Philosophy
and Mathematics III (Tonk: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Arabic and Persian Research Institute,
1990–1), 142ff.
15) See Ahmed/Pourjavady, “Theology in India,” for a further discussion of theology works read in

the Indian madāris.

16) Al-Hasanī, Nuzha, 7:373, Muhammad Yāsīn Mazhar Siddīqī and Qāsim al-Sāmrāʾī, Fihris al-
˙ al-ʿarabiyya bi-Jāmiʿat ʿAlīgarh
makhtūtāt ˙ al-Islāmiyya˙ (London,
˙ 2002), 1: 537.
˙˙
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 325

tarial workings upon a very limited sample of the matn. I have, therefore, cho-
sen to look closely at the opening lines of the Sullam: [subhānahu] mā aʿzama
shaʾnuhu lā yuhaddu wa-lā yutasawwaru. ˙ ˙
˙ ˙

II.A.i. Lā yuhaddu in Mubārak

˙
In his first-order commentary, Mubārak explains that the statement lā yuhaddu,
in a very basic sense, may be taken as a description specifying the nature of˙ shaʾn.
This latter word is not parsed by him, though the further elaboration—that lā
yuhaddu means that no intellect can contain (lā yuhītuhu) this shaʾn because the
˙
innumerable signs and effects (āthār) in the heavens˙ and
˙ the earth are traced back
to it—suggests that Mubārak interprets it to mean the acts of God.17 He then
shifts prematurely to comment on the next expression, lā yutasawwaru, claim-
ing that the force of this is that God cannot be encompassed˙ by understand-
ing, analogy, and apprehension, because—and the following reason he claims to
borrow from Bihārī’s unpreserved self-gloss—He is mentally and extra-mentally
simple.18 Thus hadd, with reference to the acts of God, is understood as the limit
of enumeration˙ and, with reference to His nature, as definition.
Before moving on, one may already note four features of the discourse:

1. Mubārak’s commentary is not atomic, since a later part of the main text is
brought to bear on the meaning of an earlier part.
2. The commentator is drawing horizontally from the living tradition of
another commentary of the same level—the mātin’s self-commentary—to
explain his position.
3. This commentary seems to have an authoritative position in relation to
Mubārak’s, since it supplies the reason for the validity of his interpretation.
4. And the influence of the authoritative commentary has forced a subtle and
inconsistent shift in Mubārak’s interpretation, since he first read the tahdīd
as standing in relation to God’s acts and then as standing in relation to ˙God
Himself. We therefore already have, within these few lines, some sense of
the nature of the commentarial exercise and of the control that intra- and
inter-textuality had on the commentary on a given lemma.

So under the influences of a later expression within the main text and another
commentary not in Mubārak’s genealogical line, the discussion now proceeds
with an understanding of tahdīd as definition and it must now prove that
˙

17) Mubārak, 4.
18) Ibid.
326 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

definition is impossible for God. As noted above, this impossibility is posited on

the basis of the claim of another commentary that God is mentally and extra-
mentally simple. Thus Mubārak must now both show that simplicity nullifies
the possibility of definition and that God is indeed simple. Therefore, he states
that a definition requires the conceptualization of definitional parts, which must
either be necessary or contingent.19 In the former case, each part would have its
own ipseity (huwiyya) and each would be able to dispense (mustaghnin) with
the other, because an entity necessary in itself, such as God (and His necessity is
taken for granted), does not owe its ipseity to composition. Elaborating on this
point in his self-commentary, Mubārak states that an invested composite reality
(haqīqa muhassala) has parts which need (iftiqār) each other for generating the
˙
whole; this˙would
˙˙ mean not only that the whole has need of the parts, but also
that the parts themselves stand in a relation of internal dependency.20 Given this,
God as necessary in Himself, must be simple, because that which is necessary sub-
sists in itself without any hint of dependency. In the latter case, i.e., if the parts
of God are contingent, then He would be composed of parts that are essentially
corruptible; and it is impossible for an entity necessary in itself to obtain from
corruptible parts.21
Yet as it must seem clear, Mubārak has only proved that God is extramentally
simple, not that he cannot have mental parts and so a logical definition; the latter
move depends on establishing a link between extramental and mental realities.
This is something that he notices as a gap in his argument, so that, in his self-
commentary, he points out that neither mental nor extra-mental parts for God
can be conceptualized ( yutasawwaru), since Avicenna states that a definition may
be derived from extra-mental ˙ parts—e.g., a house is a roof and walls.22 Obviously,
this is neither here nor there. Mubārak does not demonstrate that, due to God’s
extra-mental simplicity, mental parts for God cannot be conceptualized; he sim-
ply rests his case for the impossibility of the definition of an extramentally simple
entity on the authority of an unhelpful reference to Avicenna.
Thus we may now note two additional phenomena associated with the com-
mentary. The first-order commentary is itself allusive and elliptical, much in the
same way as the matn; and it is therefore not surprising that it also inspired glosses
that find it to be a fertile site for philosophical disquisitions (see Part III below).
Secondly, the gaps in philosophical demonstration are in fact filled by a doctri-
nal position adopted on the authority of Avicenna. It is just that this doctrine was

19) Ibid.
20) Ibid.
21) Ibid.
22) Ibid.
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 327

implicit in the lemma and had to be made explicit in the self-gloss. To put it dif-
ferently, the lemma of the commentary anticipated the gloss in the same fashion
as the lemma of the master text anticipated the commentary.
The last set of comments on lā yuhaddu center on the impossibility of the con-
ceptualization of analyzable (tahlīlī) ˙ parts of God. God does not have parts to
˙
which He can be analyzed or into which He can be divided, because such parts
ontologically linger between potentiality and actuality. Mubārak does not make
explicit the thrust of this point any further, which, as we will see, is picked up
by his commentators. He does offer an interpretive hint for the later tradition
by stating that such parts belong to material entities;23 and he adds in his self-
commentary that measurable parts relate to matter that is capable of conjunc-
tion and separation, even if this is in mental supposition.24 God, the Necessary
in Himself, is pure actuality and is exalted above such parts; and so He cannot be
conceptualized in relation to them either. The argument is still muddled (or at
least incomplete and implicit) because it pertains to the extramental simplicity
of an entity, with no explanation of how such extramental simplicity nullifies the
possibility of mental definition.
To sum up: Mubārak comments on lā yuhaddu by suggesting initially that
˙
one may take this expression to refer to the innumerability of God’s acts. Then,
under intra- and inter-textual influence, he shifts attention to focus on tahdīd
exclusively as definition, arguing that definition must be denied of God because ˙
He is simple. This simplicity is proved with reference to God’s extra-mental exis-
tence, both insofar as He has no definitional parts from which He is composed
and insofar as He has no measureable parts to which He can be reduced. The
important link between extra-mental simplicity and the impossibility of mental
definition is not convincingly established. It appears that the gap in Mubārak’s
argument is implicitly filled in the commentary by a position adopted doctrinally
from Avicenna. This doctrine, though not helpful for the proof, is made explicit
in the self-gloss, which also responds to other prompts from the commentary. As
far as his self-gloss is concerned, it appears that it serves mainly to elaborate on
the obscure and allusive points, to supply some proofs of seemingly categorical
claims, and as a corrective to the first-order commentary. Finally, in view of what
is to come in later sections, it is worth noting that Mubārak’s text does not engage
polemically any part of the tradition known to us.25

23) Ibid.
24) Ibid.
25) A fuller summary of the observations of this and the forthcoming sections is found in Part IV.
328 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

II.A.ii. Lā yutasawwaru in Mubārak

˙
The aforementioned gap in the demonstration is never filled by Mubārak by
means of any independent argument. He simply moves on to comment on the
next phrase—lā yutasawwaru—explaining that God cannot be conceptualized
˙
because neither knowledge of His essence (al-ʿilm bi-l-kunh) nor by means of
His essence (al-ʿilm bi-kunhihi)26 is possible for man. In his self-commentary,
he unravels the cryptic statement by stating that knowledge of the first type
is acquired by means of definition; and this latter, he states, has already been
shown to be impossible. The second type of knowledge has two subdivisions—
knowledge by presence and knowledge by acquisition—both of which require
the direct awareness of a thing.27 In other words, it is the very thing that is
imprinted in the mind, but not as something that serves as an instrument (e.g.,
the definitional parts of a thing) leading to knowledge of that thing. Such kinds
of direct knowledge of God, whether it is by presence (His Self-consciousness) or
acquisition cannot exist for man.28 This of course is rather unsatisfactory as well,
because though one may fairly argue that God’s knowledge by presence belongs
only to Him as His self-awareness, it seems too much to grant a priori that the
essence of God, as acquired, but direct, knowledge, cannot be imprinted in the
mind. If such a claim is valid, this same possibility with reference to other objects
of knowledge also needs to be explored.
In his commentary, Mubārak goes some ways toward supplying a demonstra-
tion of this problematic claim. As noted above, knowledge by means of the
essence requires the presence of the object itself for the knower, not of its def-
initional components; and such direct knowledge includes knowledge by pres-
ence and acquired knowledge. Clearly, in the case of the latter, what comes to be
individuated in the intellect is not the very extra-mental object, but something
else—a shadow (zill) of this extra-mentally individuated essence. As such, the
two entities—one ˙ mentally and the other extramentally instantiated—remain
existentially distinct, though they share an essence. Yet even here it should be

26) The distinction between bi-l-kunh and bi-kunhihi seems to be specific to the Indian philosoph-
ical and logical traditions. In texts extraneous to the Indian tradition, these two expressions appear
to have the same meaning.
27) Again, this manner of thinking about the ʿilm husūlī-ʿilm hudūrī distinction, as a subcategory of

al-ʿilm bi-kunhihi, seems to be specific to the Indian˙ ˙ tradition.

˙ I˙ have not found it treated similarly
is non-Indian philosophical texts. See, for example, Heidrun Eichner, “ ‘Knowledge by Presence,’
Apperception and the Mind-Body Relationship: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and Suhrawardī as Repre-
sentatives of a Thirteenth Century Discussion,” in In the Age of Averroes: Arabic Philosophy in the
Sixth/Twelfth Century, ed. Peter Adamson (London: The Warburg Institute, 2011), 117–40.
28) Mubārak, 5.
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 329

emphasized that the mental entity is not presented as a form that is extracted
from an extra-mental existence, so as to serve as a mirror (mirʾāt) for it. It is
this shadow itself that, as it shares the essence of the extra-mentally individuated
entity, is the direct object of knowledge.29
With this ontology in place, Mubārak takes for granted the tenet that God’s
esssence, His existence, and the rest of His attributes are identical. Given this,
any mental instantiation of God’s essence will be identical to His extra-mental
instantiation. To put it differently: God’s existence is His essence (Mubārak in
fact states that His existence is essential to His essence), so that any existence
whereby He is mentally instantiated is precisely the existence whereby He is extra-
mentally instantiated. But there can be no such distinct existences in the case of
God because this would be to posit two different essentials for the same essence.
As a corollary to this point, Mubārak adds that mental and extra-mental entities,
despite sharing their essence, are distinct due to their individuation and exis-
tence. The impasse is that the existence and individuation of God are precisely
His essence, which is granted to exist extra-mentally. Given this, there can be no
mental existence or individuation for Him.
The specific proof seems to be based in a fair argument, but an aforementioned
issue still lingers—namely, the possibility of man’s inability to have real knowl-
edge of other extramental entities. For if the knowledge is via definitional parts,
then such knowledge may be said to be a mere concomitant of mental existence
and to have nothing to do with the extramental object (this is the issue of the
aforementioned gap between the mental definitional and the extramental real
parts of an essence). And if it is direct knowledge of a mentally-acquired entity,
then what occurs to the mind is only a shadow, without any demonstrated rela-
tion to the extramental entity.30 It was this aporia, so central to the demonstration
of the matn’s lemma, that exercised the tradition after Mubārak.

II.B.i. Lā yuhaddu in Mullā Hasan

˙ ˙
Mullā Hasan offers two possibilities for the subject of lā yuhaddu—either shaʾn
˙
or God. In the former case, he interprets the expression to˙ refer to a limit that
cannot be crossed; in the case of God’s acts, this must be denied. In the latter
case, it refers to an extremity, such as a point; this must also be denied, given
that God is not quantifiable.31 Thus, within just a few lines, Hasan almost clin-
˙
ically considers two points that Mubārak also cursorily considered—though it

29) Ibid.
30) Ibid.
31) Hasan, 12.
˙
330 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

is intriguing to note that these two commentaries do not share some other first-
order commentary as their common point of departure and that the two consider
the same points in distinct order. This is the first instance leading one to consider
the possibility that the Sullam Hasan was written in light of the Sullam Mubārak.
The reversed order also suggests˙ that Mubārak was a loose point of reference for
Hasan, not a commentary he engaged per se. The observation also highlights the
˙
importance of the intertextual relationship of commentaries of the same level,
i.e., those that do not stand in a vertically-expansive lineage.
Next, much like Mubārak, Hasan begins to focus on what he considers to
˙
be the real intent of the author. And here as well, the similarity of these two
first-order commentaries becomes apparent in that both refer to Bihārī’s self-
commentary, when the latter states, “Because he is mentally and extramentally
simple.”32 The important difference lies in the manner in which this expression is
used in each author—for Mubārak, it seems to be a justification of his interpreta-
tion of tahdīd as a logical definition and for Hasan it appears as an indication/hint
˙
that leads˙ him to his approach. In other words, Mubārak seeks corroboration and
Hasan guidance from this source. Thus it is clear that both ostensibly indepen-
˙
dent works are either relying on a common oral or a written interpretive tradition
of the mātin or—and this is more likely—the Sullam Hasan was written in light
of the Sullam Mubārak, a commentary of the same level, ˙ without any acknowl-
edgment of the latter. The observation that Mubārak seeks corroboration of his
view does suggest that he was a pioneer in setting an interpretive trend, rather
than following it.33
Having been led to the interpretive possibility that tahdīd is to be considered
as definition, Hasan now suddenly begins to clear his own ˙ philosophical path. In
˙
a state of heightened self-consciousness, he writes,
The explanation of [this matter] by way of verification (tahqīq), such that no
sophistry befuddles it, as far as my investigation (nazarī) has˙led [me], is that the
˙
real parts of a thing are what are included in establishing its reality, i.e., what are
included in its essence. And there is no doubt that the essence is preserved both in
mental and extramental existence. [This position] is grounded in the [doctrine] of
the obtaining of things themselves in the mind, according to the [method of ] verifi-
cation. So the parts included in reality in the essence of a thing are preserved in both
manners of existence. Thus a mutual concomitance (talāzum) between extramental
real and mental parts is established by demonstration.34

32) Ibid.
33) Ibid.
34) Hasan, 12–3.
˙
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 331

A number of points are worthy of attention. First, from a perspective of philo-

sophical procedure, it appears that Hasan is first alerted by another exegetical
˙
tradition (Mubārak) to the authorial intent, which he then proceeds to elaborate
on “by way of tahqīq” and his own nazar. This tahqīq itself requires an argument,
˙ accepted “via tahqīq”,
which is doctrinally ˙ ˙ further proof. In other words,
without
˙
the position on the preservation of the self-same essence in mental and extra-
mental instantiation is based on the obtaining of things themselves in the mind, a
doctrine on which there is no consensus by any stretch of the imagination.35 This
clearly complicates the meaning of tahqīq, which, in this second usage, does not
mean Hasan’s independent verification. ˙ Rather, it indicates reliance on a position
˙
established by his predecessors, presumably by means of a method (or by dint of
dogma) that is accepted as tahqīq. And this of course raises the important issue
˙
of whether tahqīq is an independent process, a general method, or the doctrinal
˙
position of a scholarly group. Clearly, if it is the last of these three possibilities,
then to designate something as muhaqqaq is not much more than to pick it out as
˙ fully aware of the conceptual gap in Bihārī’s
true by taqlīd.36 Second, Hasan seems
˙
presentation that was also noticed by Mubārak, viz., that the argument for the
knowledge of a thing depends on the proof of its essential preservation in both
mental and extramental instantiations. Thus it is first posited that a thing com-
prises its real parts, which constitute its essence. The next step would be to show
how these real parts are mentally and extramentally identical. Yet here Hasan
˙
moves forward in his tahqīq by doctrinally granting the validity of a particular
˙
theory of noetics; and he claims, without further comment, that this theory has
already been verified.
In all this, Hasan appears to be pulled in two different directions—he is led
˙
to the authorial intent by a tradition of exegesis not directly in line with his
own; from there he sets off to prove the alleged authorial claim by independent
reasoning; he recognizes a gap in the mātin’s argument, one that was touched on
and discussed unsatisfactorily by Mubārak; and he fills it by tahqīq, while in the
˙
process doctrinally adopting a theory which was highly controversial. This is a
prime example of how commentaries straddled the complex worlds of tradition
and innovation.

35) Various positions on the nature of knowledge and intellection are nicely summarized by Muʿīn
al-Dīn Ajmīrī, op. cit. A detailed treatment is also given by Mahdī Sharīʿatī in his introduction to his
collective edition of some works on tasawwur and tasdīq. See Risālatān fī t-tasawwur wa-t-tasdīq,
˙ al-ʿilmiyya,˙2004).
ed. Mahdī Sharīʿatī (Beirut: Dār al-kutub ˙ ˙
36) On tahqīq, see the seminal treatment in Khaled El-Rouayheb, “Opening the Gate of Verifica-

tion: The ˙Forgotten Legacy of the 17th Century,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 38
(2006): 263–81.
332 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

At this stage in the development of the argument, Hasan, as if oscillating back

˙
to a critical approach, grants a concession, and writes,
Setting aside the doctrine of the obtaining of things themselves in the mind, we
also say, with reference to the doctrine of [the obtaining of ] similitudes (al-mithāl)
in the mind, that real parts are what are included37 in the very establishing of [the
essence]. So if [the essence] is only established extramentally, then its real parts are
only extramental parts. As for the parts of the similitude, well these are not parts of
the thing, but of something other than it. In sum, by definition is meant definition
by real parts and these are identical to extramental parts and what is entailed by [the
latter].38

Much is left implicit in this argument. For perhaps realizing that his position
rests on a system that is challenged, Hasan now strengthens his case by hypo-
˙
thetically positing a competing noetics.39 He argues that if it is not things them-
selves, but their similitudes, that obtain in the mind, there would exist a disjunct
between the extramentally instantiated essence constituted of real parts and the
mentally instantiated essence. Ultimately, in this case, no real definition would
be obtained, since real definitions comprise real parts of extramental entities. If
we are to grant anything like the knowledge of an extramental entity, one and the
same essence must be said to be preserved in mental and extramental instantia-
tions.
The nature of Hasan’s argument, however, invites reflection. From the point
˙
of view of naturalized epistemology, this argument is fine. For it is presumably
based on the conviction that we do know essences with reference to their real
parts and that mental parts are real parts abstracted from extramental essences.
Yet there is some tension in the way things are presented: Hasan first posits that
˙
the mentally and extramentally instantiated parts of an essence are its real parts.
He then argues that, if it is granted that similitudes, and not extramental essences
themselves, occur in the mind, the parts that are known are not parts of the
extramentally instantiated essence, i.e., these are not the real parts. In all this, the
ontological status of mentally instantiated essences is never explicitly established;
nor, perhaps more importantly, is the possibility of philosophical skepticism
broached. To put it differently, the theory of similitude is hypothetically granted;
it is not disproved, so as to satisfy the project of bridging the gap between mental
and extramental essences; and the philosophical consequences of this concession
are not considered. Ideally, the next logical step would have been to reconsider
established noetics, something that Hasan seems quite hesitant to do, despite his
˙

37) Reading takūnu dākhilatan for yakūnu dākhilan.

38) Hasan, 13.
39) ˙ Ajmīrī and Risālatān, referenced above.
See
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 333

evident efforts at supplying independent proofs and arguments. The main project
of the matn, as articulated by the interpretive tradition on which Hasan is relying,
˙
appears to be the only thing with which he is concerned. For the position that
there can be no real definition of God can be sustained by either the doctrine of
similitudes or of things themselves obtaining in the mind. At this stage, Hasan is
˙
willing to entertain either possibility to prove the claim of the matn.
Once Hasan has established that the only possibility of a real definition is
˙
grounded in the mutual concomitance of the mentally and extramentally instan-
tiated essences, the proof of the indefinability of God is rather straightforward.
Hasan writes,
˙
An account of its negation [i.e., of the definition of God], by way of verification, is
that if the Necessary, may He be exalted, had extramental parts, these parts would
be causes of Him, the Exalted. [This is] due to the necessity that the existence of the
parts is a cause of the existence of the whole. So the whole will be an effect, posterior
to its causes.40

Next, building on this argument, Hasan outlines two possibilities. (1) The pos-
˙
teriority is either only essential or (2) essential and existential. In either case, a
thing is said to be generated—with respect it its essence, in the former, and its
existence, in the latter; and generation is a quality of contingent entities, not of
the Necessary. Given this, the Necessary cannot have real parts and so no real def-
inition either. Even at this late stage in the development of the argument, Hasan
˙
seems haunted by the issue of the link between mental and extramental existence.
Thus immediately upon supplying this proof, he writes, “Thus the sought con-
clusion is established by a conclusive proof. For one who states that the proof
necessarily leads to the nullification of extramental parts, not the mental, there
is no way to demolish the foundation of the sought conclusion.” His glossator,
ʿAbd al-Halīm explains, “As for [this proof ] according to the doctrine of the
˙
obtaining of [things] themselves [in the mind], well what requires the nullifi-
cation of extramental parts requires [also] the nullification of mental parts, due
to their mutual concomitance.” This same glossator identifies Hasan’s challenger
˙
as al-Muhaqqiq al-Sandīlī,41 who “states in his commentary on the tasawwurāt of
˙ ˙ simplicity.
the Sullam that [the argument] has no effect on [the issue of ] mental

40) Hasan, 13–4.

41) ˙ identity of this Sandīlī is unclear. He may be the aforementioned Hamdallāh, a famous
The
commentator of the Sullam, though he died almost half a century before˙Hasan and only his
commentary on the tasdīqāt has survived (indeed he may well have written on˙ only this section).
Another possibility is ˙that Sandīlī is Muhammad Aʿlam (d. 1197/1783), who is also considered the
fountainhead of the Khayrābādī tradition, ˙ within which at least some scholars were at loggerheads
with Hasan’s interpretations (see Part III below). See Ahmed, “Logic,” 234 ff.
˙
334 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

For mental parts are one (muttahida) with the whole with respect to actuality
˙ does not need them [i.e., the mental parts]
and existence, so that the composite
with respect to these two [i.e., actuality and existence]. Rather, [mental parts] are
needed only in establishing the quiddity [of a thing] and this does not nullify
essential necessity.” Presumably, the point is that Hasan has proved extramental
˙
simplicity, which entails the simplicity of mental existence. But the proof does not
extend to mental composition as regards the conceptualization of the quiddity
of a thing. The claim is that one may have mental composition with respect to a
quiddity (i.e., not the existence) of a thing and that such composition does not
nullify extramental necessity (i.e., simplicity). One can have both extramental
simple existence and a mental quiddity with non-composite parts; and the latter
of course leaves open the possibility of mental definition.42
The rest of the comments on lā yuhaddu pertain to two other proofs. The
˙ then, with respect to His essence, He
first states that if the Necessary had parts,
would be in need of the essences of these parts and, with respect to His existence,
He would be in need of their existence. This, Hasan claims, is something he has
˙
already established by way of tahqīq in one of his glosses.43 Given that the essence
˙
and existence of the Necessary are identical, this means that, with respect to His
very essence, He would not be invested with existence. This is so because His
essence now stands in need of an essential part, which, in view of the nature of
the Necessary, is nothing other than His existence. In the absence of this part,
the Necessary would be non-existent; and this is clearly a nullification of the very
notion of essential necessity.
The second proof, identified as one offered by Mubārak,44 states that if the
Necessary had parts, these would either be contingent, impossible, or necessary.

42) With some hesitation, ʿAbd al-Halim offers the counter-argument that Sandīlī may be refuted
in view of the established position ˙of the muhaqqiqūn that not a hint of need may be associated
with God. Of course Sandīlī is not concerned ˙with the mental existence of God, but with the mental
quiddity of God, arguing that such a quiddity may be mentally divided, without any effect on the
extramental necessity. Another somewhat shakily-offered argument supplied by ʿAbd al-Halīm is
that mental parts may be proved to be nullified given that, if [the mental quiddity] had˙ mental
parts, the reality of God would be a species-like reality. Such realities may be divested of specificity
and then instantiated in various modes. However, God’s specific instantiation is exactly his essence
and such essences cannot be species-like and genera-like divested (mubhama) realities. It is only
divestible realities that can have mental parts as mental quiddities. The crux of Sandīlī’s challenge
lies in his deployment of ittihādī parts, i.e., parts that are not constitutive of a whole when taken as
˙
a sum. Such parts are to be contrasted with indimāmī ones, which are distinct from the whole and
constitute it as a collection. Hasan, 14, n. 14–6.˙
43) ʿAbd al-Halīm notes that˙this is his gloss on Mīr Zāhid on the Sharh al-Mawāqif of Jurjānī. He

then offers the˙ relevant quotation from this work. Hasan, 14, n. 22. ˙
44) The source of the proof is identified by ʿAbd al- ˙ Halīm and we have of course seen it above. It
is unclear, however, if Hasan is engaging Mubārak directly˙ or falling back on an oral or written
tradition from which both ˙ are drawing. Hasan, 14, n. 29.
˙
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 335

In the first case, the corruption of the parts would mean the corruption of the
Necessary; in the second case, the composite itself would be impossible; and
in the third case, there would be a composite of several Necessaries. This is all
of course the same argument presented by Mubārak, except that he does not
mention a composition of impossible parts. Much like Mubārak, Hasan states
˙
that, in the last case, the Necessary would not be an invested reality, but a mere
matter of consideration, given that no relation of need exists for that which
is necessary. Such a relation would make a contingency out of the Necessary.
The argument is almost identical to Mubārak’s but seems to elaborate on it: for
example, the idea of “mere consideration” (amr iʿtibārī) is not expressed in the
other text as a consequence of the composition out of necessary parts; nor is it
explicitly explained that the composite would then be a contingent entity. In the
same fashion, Hasan next mentions that real composition is never understood
˙
without need. These are essential steps in the argument left implicit by Mubārak.
Thus in this short passage it appears that Hasan has again taken up the task of
˙
filling out Mubārak’s argument or of supplying a fuller version of the tradition
both are relying on (or both).
Having presented a more elaborate version of the second proof, Hasan now
˙
departs from the tradition altogether and takes a critical stance on two issues.45
He writes,
[The foregoing] account, though it satisfies the investigator, does not silence the
debater. For the multiplicity of the Necessary is false with respect to the way things
are both due to sharʿī proofs and the rational46 proofs which lie outside the interme-
diary intellects [i.e., the intellects of the philosophers], [such as the rational proofs]
of the Gnostics (ʿurafāʾ ). For they [i.e., the Gnostics] know this also by their intel-
lects in their solitude and when they pay attention [to the issue] and by the purity of
their minds. Until now, no strong demonstration has been set up against this [i.e.,
against the proof of the oneness of God] in the world of the intermediary intellects,
which are the subject of our speech. [Secondly,] the doctrine that real composi-
tion is limited to need between parts is not to be conceded. Rather, it is permissible
that there be a special relation, in the way things are, between [the parts, i.e., not a
relation of need]. The essential nature [of this relation] is unknown, [but the neces-
sary composite] is excluded by means of [this relation] from [the purview of mere]
consideration, in the sense of [mere] invention (ikhtirāʿ ) and abstraction (intizāʿ ).47

45) The critical attitude is toward Mubārak, according to ʿAbd al-Halīm. We might recall that
Mubārak was content with proving that the Necessary is simple, not˙ that He is one. Hasan, 15,
n. 8. ˙
46) In this case, ʿaqlī is not meant to be the counterpart to naqlī, i.e., transmitted knowledge. It

seems to refer to non-discursive, but scripturally-independent thought.

47) In this context, ikhtirāʿ means the invention of something in the mind that may well be unnat-

ural, e.g., an entity with the essential human nature, combined with stone. Intizāʿ is the abstraction
of a second intelligible, say the concept “up” abstracted from “sky” in relation to the earth.
336 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

Rather, the truth is that groupings compounded from distinct bodies in a location,
such as a wall, have extramental existences other than the existences of their parts,
in the sense of each single one [of their parts]. Still the status of [such] groupings is
mutually distinct, in the way things are, from the status of the parts [and] the dis-
tinction is in reality. These existences and statuses do not need someone’s abstrac-
tion or consideration. So if the existence of the Necessary were like this, no impossi-
bility [in being compounded] would follow, according to the method of the inter-
mediary intellect. [This would be so] even if the matter is the opposite of this, [as it
is] according to the statements of the sharʿ and the sacred intellects of the Gnostics.48

Hasan has set up a dichotomy between the rational proofs of the philosophers, on
˙
the one hand, and the knowledge derived by transmitted texts and Gnostic expe-
rience, on the other. The disagreement between the two sides pertains to the one-
ness of the Necessary and to His simplicity. Concerning the former case, Hasan
˙
claims that no conclusive rational philosophical demonstration of the multiplic-
ity of the Necesarry is at hand. Concerning the latter, he states that compound-
edness and necessity are not shown to be mutually exclusive by the philosophers,
because they base their arguments not on how things are in themselves, but on
mere considerations and certain assumed modalities of things. Here it is impor-
tant to note another facet of the commentary exercise, namely, that it is not suf-
ficient to give an argument for the claims of the matn that a commentator wishes
to prove; rather, a commentator must supply the correct proofs derived from the
right kind of scholarly faction.49
After reminding the reader of the earlier and correct proof against the com-
poundedness of the Necessary, Hasan polemicizes against a key element of the
˙
argument of those who hold compoundedness and necessity to be incompatible.
He explains that disproving measurable and reducible parts of God is superflu-
ous, since such parts exist only due to mental consideration—they are called parts
by way of compromise (musāmaha) and they have no bearing on the sought con-
˙
clusion. Hasan concludes this section with the comment that the intention of the
˙
mātin is to consider matters only with respect to tahqīq, not musāmaha and that,
moreover, the proof of the non-quantifiability of ˙God rests on His˙not being a
body, something that is shown to be the case either on the basis of sharʿ or proofs
that only resemble demonstration.
Again a couple of points deserve to be highlighted. First, though there are
no leanings in the matn or in Mubārak towards scriptural proofs or gnosticism,
Hasan has by now brought these elements to bear on his argument on at least
˙
two occasions. In the first case, he contrasts such proofs against the philosophical

48) Hasan, 15–6.

49) ˙
Hasan, 16. ʿAbd al-Halīm tells the reader that the reference is to the earlier proof that led to the
˙ possibility of the˙Necessary’s essential or existential posteriority. Hasan, 16, n. 7.
absurd
˙
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 337

enterprise, though he continues to engage in the latter, while supplementing it

with the former. As we will see in the next section, Khayrābādī will take up these
elements from Hasan in developing his epistemology. Secondly, Hasan draws an
˙ ˙
interesting distinction between musāmaha and tahqiq, one that further compli-
˙ ˙
cates our understanding of the latter term. In his usage, it appears that tahqīq
pertains to “real” matters, not to matters of mere consideration and invention.˙
For he writes, “They called [measurable parts] parts by way of musāmaha … for
[this demonstration related to measurable parts] has no bearing on the ˙ sought
conclusion. The speech of the author here relates to tahqīq, not musāmaha and
takhyīl.” Thus tahqīq relates to haqāʾiq, at least in this˙ usage, and not to˙ men-
˙
tal abstractions (al-umūr ˙ ʿiyya al-mahda).50 Much of this foregoing is
al-intizā
implicit polemic against Mubārak or a tradition˙ ˙ derived from him. A number
of the aforementioned new elements introduced here will be picked up by the
later tradition of the Sullam, especially and paradoxically in the generally pro-
Mubārak polemical gloss of Khayrābādī.

II.B.ii. Lā yutasawwaru in Hasan

˙ ˙
Like Mubārak, rather early in this section, Hasan draws the distinction between
˙
bi-l-kunh and bi-kunhihi. And like the former, he asserts that the falsity of the
conceptualization of God by His essence is apparent, given the preceding proof
of his simplicity, i.e., because He has been shown to have no real parts, which
are required for definition. From this point on, the discussion relates entirely to
knowledge of God by means of His essence.
Again, the argument Hasan presents is almost identical to Mubārak’s. He
˙
explains that the extramental individuation of a necessary essence precludes this
same essence, individuated as such, from being individuated in any mind.51 He
then adds that God can dispense with a creative cause ( jāʿil) because of His essen-
tial existence. However, should His essence obtain in the mind, it would indeed
be said to be individuated by the mind as its cause. And should this individuation
be identical to the extramental individuation, God would also require place as a
creative cause; alternatively, should this individuation be distinct from the extra-
mental individuation, then one individuated being—given that God’s essence is
His very existential individuation—would have two individuations.52 With the
exception of Hasan’s elaboration on the consequences of His essence obtaining in
˙
the mind, the general argument is familiar from Mubārak. Yet there is one rather

50) Hasan, 16.

51) ˙ claim seems to deny the principle of the obtaining of things themselves in the mind.
This
52) Hasan, 17.
˙
338 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

important, distinct, and seemingly minor point of interest embedded here: in the
course of demonstrating that God’s essence cannot be individuated in the mind,
Hasan suggests that the same is true of any extramentally individuated essence.
˙
He writes, “It is clear that extramental individuation precludes the individuated,
insofar as it is such, from obtaining in any mind.”53 This position, adopted in the
course of establishing the proof of God’s undefinability, has no consequences for
the issue at hand. However, it does have serious epistemological reverberations
in the Sullam tradition, as we shall see.
As observed above, Hasan generally avoids engaging any issue that has no
˙
direct bearing on the matn, i.e., the discourse on God’s undefinability. Indeed it
is an internal dialectic, one related to the main concern of the text and the proof
he has offered, that leads Hasan to comment on the following philosophically-
˙
important point. He writes that a challenger54 may state that there is no conflict
between two individuations of the same essence if one is mental and the other
extramental; the conflict exists only in cases when the two individuations are of
the same genus. The challenger’s point is to show that God can indeed have men-
tal and extramental individuations if they occur as two different types. Hasan
˙
responds that individuation refers to the setting out of a thing from all other
things. So if extramental existence individuates a thing from all others then either
(1) mental existence does not do so with respect to the same thing—and in such
a case one would not call this individuation; or (2) mental existence does supply
such individuation, so that one would have two individuations of the self-same
thing—and this is absurd.55
And here comes the crux of the matter: “The multiplicity of mental or extra-
mental individuations—or [of individuations] mixed of these two types—is
intellected only for universal natures. It is for them that distinction [from other
universal natures] occurs in the purview of an individuated [entity] by way of its
individuation from all other [entities]. This distinction is for individual [entities]
per se and for natures per accidens.”56 In other words, Hasan does not deny that
˙
there are real individuated entities in the extramental and mental worlds; it is
only that these individuations are intellected with reference to universal natures,
which in turn, appear as distinct per accidens, i.e., insofar as they exist within the
purview of individuated entities. This ultimately means that extramental objects
that can be denoted cannot be known by the intellect per se.

53) Ibid.
54) The challenger is identified by ʿAbd al-Halīm as al-Muhaqqiq al-Sandīlī, who earlier made an
˙ 20, 25, 28. ˙
appearance in a similar capacity. Hasan, 17, n.
55) Hasan, 17–8. ˙
˙
56) Hasan, 18.
˙
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 339

This is precisely the point that he addresses next. His interlocutor57 now points
out that the explanation offered above rules out the possibility of the obtaining
of extramental things themselves in the mind and this, in turn, means that there
can be no knowledge of such things. This is an extreme skeptical hypothesis and,
as such, a rather exciting development in the field.58 Hasan’s defense against the
˙
skeptical hypothesis is that extramental objects may still be known either by
means of their specific properties (i.e., not essentially) or by the obtaining of
the universal natures in the mind, along with their mental individuations. These
latter represent (mumāthil) the extramental individuations and are the source
of the disclosure/revelation (kāshif ) of the extramentally individuated entity. In
other words, it is by means of universal essences, which obtain in the mind, that
extramental objects are known.59 And they are known indirectly.
Let me sum up the development so far. Earlier, Hasan had recognized the
˙
gap between extramental real parts and mental definitional parts. The issue was
mainly whether mental definitional parts can be said to be generated by mere
mental operations on an otherwise simple reality or whether they truly reflect
real parts of extramental entitites. Hasan did not address this question directly,
˙
pointing out that, if it is things themselves that obtain in the mind, then defini-
tional parts must reflect real extramental parts; and God was thereafter proved
to be simple. The other possibility was that it is similitudes of things that obtain
in the mind; in such a case, the mental parts are not the same as the extramental
parts. Either way, the undefinability of God was maintained, but more general
theories of noetics and epistemology were not engaged.
Then, in Mubārak’s footsteps, the discourse shifted to knowledge by means
of an essence (i.e., bi-l-kunh and not bi-kunhihi), in which case, the intellect has
direct knowledge of the mentally-acquired individuated essence and not of its
definitional components. This is knowledge of a distinct mental essence that is
individuated in the mind and of course does not amount to knowledge of an
extramentally individuated thing either; it is knowledge by means of represen-
tation (mumāthala). This discussion of direct knowledge involved the internal
dialectics of the Sullam cycle in the form of a response to a challenger, who
claimed that a thing may be individuated twice, without contradiction, if these
two individuations fall under two genera. In other words, Hasan was now
˙

57) This is presumably Sandīlī again.

58) Adamson has argued that there is a strong possibility that, for Avicenna, particulars are known
by the human intellect also in a universal manner. However, the position of Avicenna presented by
him pertains to apodeictic knowledge, i.e., epistēmē. In the case under discussion here, the claim is
more general and extends to any kind of knowledge of the external world. Peter Adamson, “On
Knowledge of Particulars,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105 (2005): 257–78.
59) Hasan, 18.
˙
340 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

confronted with the possibility that God may be individuated both mentally and
extramentally, since these two types of individuations fall under different genera.
And this concession would mean that God can in fact be known with reference
to His essence, even as a simple entity. It is in refutation of this argument that
Hasan finally adopted the position that it is universal natures that are known
˙
directly and per se via their specific individuations. Each of the individuations
of the universal natures—mental and extramental—is distinct from another, so
that an extramental object is known only to the extent that it is represented by a
mental individuation.60 Having granted all this, Hasan now concedes that “the
˙
mental individuation that, in reality, represents the extramental individuation
reveals/discloses the latter, so that a way for the obtaining of things themselves [in
the mind], i.e., their universal quiddities, is preserved.” In other words, by the
end of this dialectic and in the interest of defending the theological statement of
the matn, Hasan was forced to adopt a modified noetics and epistemological the-
˙
ory. It seems that, in the end, he endorsed a theory of knowledge by mumāthala,
which, in turn, implies that extramental entities are known only per accidens via
their universal natures, i.e., insofar as the mental individuations of the natures
are known per se. This is not a skeptical epistemology, but one that certainly and
explicitly confesses a gulf between the extramental and mental individuations.
The language of “the obtaining of things themselves in the mind” is retained, but
in view of the aforementioned modifications, the mechanisim behind the knowl-
edge of extramental entitites is obscured; it is simply and cryptically expressed as
a revealing/disclosing.

III. Khayrābādī’s Gloss

One may carry out a study of the process of philosophical growth and the work-
ings of the commentary/gloss genre by looking at Khayrābādī in as much detail as
found in the foregoing discussions. However, this task cannot be accomplished
within the limits of this article, so that here I skip directly to that part of the gloss
that engages the skeptical epistemology that was foreshadowed in Hasan’s text.
˙
Indeed it is this part of Khayrābādī’s gloss that is most innovative and engaging
in its treatment of this lemma.61
Fadl-i Haqq al-Khayrābādī’s Hāshiyat Sharh Qādī Mubārak ʿalā Sullam al-
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
ʿulūm is a relatively late text and is rather exhaustive on a range of selected top-

60) Of course for Hasan no such mental representation can take place for God, since His nature is
His individuation,˙which is extramental.
61) For a fuller discussion, see Asad Q. Ahmed, Palimpsests of Themselves: Rationalism and the

Commentary/Gloss Genre in Post-Classical Islamic Scholarship (under contract, Oxford University

Press). I thank Corey Antis for a thought-provoking discussion and for suggesting the title.
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 341

ics treated in the Sullam cycle. The exploration of the expression mā aʿzama
˙
shaʾnuhu lā yuhaddu wa-lā yutasawwaru occupies almost a sixth of Khayrābādī’s
˙
gloss. As the discussion ˙
here absorbs Khayrābādī’s son ʿAbd al-Haqq in a simi-
˙
lar fashion in his commentary on Fadl-i Imām Khayrābādī’s logic work Mirqāt
˙
and was also the subject of short treatises within the Khayrābādī tradition, it is
safe to say, as noted above, that our author’s orientation can be attributed to a
living philosophical interest.62 This development may well have had its origins in
Qādī Mubārak, who devotes about a thirtieth of its total discourse to this expres-
˙ something that is still rather astounding, given that the lemma in question is
sion,
covered in only half a line of one hundred and fifty pages of Bihārī’s matn. Such
statistical observations serve as partial proofs for my claim that living debates
determined both the selection and nature of textual commentary and gloss.
Khayrābādī’s philosophical breakthrough occurs when he begins to concen-
trate fully on the vexed issue of the relation between extramental and mental
instantiations.63 He explains Mubārak’s statement that God is not conceptual-
ized either bi-l-kunh or bi-kunhihi as follows.
Knowledge by means of the essence of a thing is an expression referring to the rep-
resentation of its very essence in one who intellects. [This may happen] either by
the presence [of this essence] for him, as in the knowledge of one who intellects
himself, or by the mental obtaining [of the essence], as in [the case of ] our knowl-
edge of simple realities (haqāʾiq basīta) which themselves are represented in our
minds. So the knowledge ˙ of God by˙ means of the essence, by being present for
the knower, is something specific to God, since His essence is present for Him and
reveals [knowledge] for Him. It is impossible for anyone else to know Him by means
of the essence, because God is not present for anyone in the manner in which that
which is known is present for the knower … Representation of God in the mind is
impossible … and since the falsity of the presence of God for someone other than
Him is clear, [Mubārak] did not produce an argument to nullify it; rather he only
nullified knowledge by means of the essence by way of [an entity] obtaining [in
the mind]. And so he said, “He is not conceptualized.” [Various] sects and creeds
already agree that knowledge of Him by means of the essence does not occur, but
they differ on the possibility of its occurrence.64

From this point on, Khayrābādī presents his argument for the impossibility of
the knowledge of God by means of the essence, in the category of knowledge
that obtains (al-ʿilm bi-kunhihi al-husūlī). He explains that there are two proofs
˙ ˙

62) See Ahmed, “Logic,” 235, for some works on the nature of knowledge produced by scholars in
the Khayrābādī circle. ʿAbd al-Haqq Khayrābādī’s discussion is found in ʿAbd al-Haqq Khayrābādi,
Sharh al-Mirqāt li-Fadl-i Imām˙ Khayrābādī (Kānpūr: al-Matbaʿ al-intizāmī, nd),˙4 ff.
˙
˙ is the end of ˙the discourse on the possibility of knowledge
63) This ˙ by means of parts. From
of God
this point on, the discussion centers on al-ʿilm bi-kunhihi.
64) Khayrābādī, 14.
342 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

against such knowledge: (1) The first is that, since God’s extramental existence is
the very individuated essence of God, and since it is an individuated essence that
serves as the criterion against which the truth of any proposition about such an
essence is judged, in cases of the mental individuation of God, any proposition
about God’s extramental existence would have this mental existence as its crite-
rion. This is the case simply because God’s mental instantiation is nothing other
than His extramental instantiation; and this is problematic because the truth of
an extramental proposition would now be judged by a mental existent. (2) The
second proof is that God’s essence is the criterion against which the truth of the
necessity of His existence is judged. Thus in the case of His mental instantiation,
the mental entity would be the criterion of the necessity of His existence. How-
ever, this is problematic because the mental existent is itself in need of the mind;
so how can that which is not necessary guarantee the necessity of anything?65
These two proofs are the main line of argument adopted by Khayrābādī and
it seems that only the first was challenged in the literature. This first argument
is also presented by Mubārak in a different form and it is in defending it that
Khayrābādī extends his epistemological and noetic theory. The conclusions that
he finally reaches are rather exciting, especially within this rather elaborate and
supposedly constraining system of the commentary/gloss genre. Here is what
Khayrābādī has to say:
[Against the first proof ] is leveled a refutation by appeal to contingent essences. For
if they obtain in the mind, they will be, [while] in the mind, extramental existences.
And there is no way out of this. If one were to deny to contingent essences existent
in the external [world] the individuation [that applies to] extramental existence
[when these essences are in the mind], one must do so by demonstration. This is
one of the things we hold on to in what we adopted as a doctrine in our refutation
of the principle of the obtaining of things themselves in the mind. The truth is that,
just as the obtaining of the essence of the Necessary in the mind is impossible, so is
the obtaining of contingent essences existent among specific [extramental] entities.
Knowledge by means of the essence of a thing is not an expression of the obtaining
of the very essence in the knower or for the knower. Rather, it is an expression of
the disclosure/revelation (kashf ) of the very essence of a thing for a knower. There
is a certain difference between these two things. For the disclosure/revelation of
the very essence of a thing for a knower may be by means of a representative entity
(shabah), which obtains in the mind from [that essence]. And so it is allowed that
˙ a representative entity which reveals His very self and which obtains in the
God have
mind. The doctrine that God is elevated above representative entities because He is
one with respect to His essence issues from the absence of a difference between a
representative entity and a similitude [for those who make this claim]. That which

65) Khayrābādī, 15.

Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 343

nullifies His oneness is that He have a similitude, not that He have a representative
entity. Until now I have not stumbled upon a refutation of this possibility either
by investigation or proof. Rather, one’s reliance in this matter is to hold on to the
revelatory demonstrations to which the witnessing of the Sufis bears testimony.
For even if, with reference to the clear investigations of the philosophers, these
[revelatory demonstrations] only offer mere opinion and [mere] satisfaction [in
belief, but not certainty], they are in reality certain proofs and must be depended
upon.66

The upshot of this long discourse is rather straightforward. Like some of his
predecessors, Khayrābādī’s main concerns within the commentary/gloss genre
are to engage the lemma and to defend and refute it in the various manners
noted above; this lemma is the site of living dialectic and a prompt to stretch
one’s philosophical muscles. Yet in this final elaboration, the author explains that,
since the essence of God is identical with His extramental individuation, should
this essence exist in the mind, it would be that very extramental individuation.
Thus any propositions about the extramental God would have their truth values
conferred on them with reference to His mental individuation.
This line of argumentation leads Mubārak (and so also Khayrābādī) into a cor-
ner. Indeed as noted above, Hasan had faced the same problem and had offered
˙
solutions and concessions that are clearly assimilated by Khayrābādī. For surely, a
contingent essence existing extramentally also has its distinct individuation, one
that stands apart from the individuation it receives via mental existence. Any
proposition about the extramentally existent essence must be judged by the cri-
terion of the distinct mental existence of this essence, since the extramental indi-
viduation of this essence is something to which the intellect does not have any
access. Yet these two individuations remain distinct, i.e., the thing itself, inso-
far as it exists extramentally, does not obtain in the mind. This scenario then
is not different from the one outlined for the impossibility of one’s knowledge
of God; indeed the argument for the unknowability of God can be extended
into a philosophical skepticism regarding particular existents, so much so that
no particularly-individuated extramental entities can be said to be knowable by
any traditional theory of noetics. And if they can be known in view of the mod-
ified noetics, then God can also be known.
So it is that Khayrābādī adopts the position that the knowledge of an extra-
mental thing occurs by means of a representative entity (shabah) which reveals/
˙
discloses the thing to the mind. Knowledge of anything extramental—God or
otherwise—is this process of the disclosure/revelation of a thing by such a mental
entity; and the process seems to have no explanation in traditional philosophical
noetics. In other words, just as in the case of the knowledge of God, one must

66) Khayrābādī, 16.

344 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

accept the testimony of the Sufis as certain and demonstrative, so with reference
to extramental particulars, one must simply accept the testimony of the intellect.
Such a testimony cannot be reduced any further, as there is no demonstrative
proof of the validity of one’s knowledge of particulars. It seems the epistemolog-
ical gap between the extramental and mental worlds is not bridged—it is simply
accepted as the foundation of philosophical skepticism.

IV. Conclusions
Emerging from the thicket of the internal discourse of the commentary/gloss tra-
dition of the Sullam al-ʿulūm one observes straightaway the wide gap between
the starting and end points: the discussion had opened with a seemingly minor
phrase in the matn that claimed that God cannot be defined/has no limits and
that He cannot be conceptualized. The exploration, expansion, defense, and refu-
tation of this claim in a complex intertextual and technical tradition ultimately
resulted in the production of an extreme skeptical hypothesis: one cannot
demonstrate one’s knowledge of God or of any other extramental particular.
This is an intriguing development produced within the context of a genre that
is seemingly constraining; or perhaps we may now state that it is the very frame-
work of the exercise that forced the tradition to become gradually innovative.
But how did this innovation take place? Let me present a general assessment
first, before summarizing the findings in some detail. The philosophical growth
noted in this article is due to the diachronic and synchronic dialectic that is the
defining feature of the commentary/gloss genre. If one stands outside the tra-
dition, one gets the impression that the dialectic takes places over the course of
several decades and generations. This is of course rather obvious—for about a
century and a half separate Bihārī and Khayrābādī—and it debunks the theory
of the sterility of the commentary/gloss genre. Yet inasmuch as most contem-
porary scholars of Islamic intellectual history are inclined to grant the value of
this genre, the observation that exciting philosophical growth did take place over
time is only a demonstration of a strong hunch.
On the other hand, it is eminently more instructive to step within the tradition
and to observe exactly how philosophical transformations took place. For it is one
thing to note that Bihārī commits himself to one epistemology and Khayrābādī
to another and quite another level of understanding to determine, on the basis of
details, how and why they do so. Having plunged into the details, it should now
be apparent that the genre of commentary/gloss, even when assessed over time,
must be understood as synchronic. To step into a gloss, for example, is akin to
wandering mid-semester into a graduate seminar, in which all participants have
an understanding and memory of discussions of previous weeks. In other words,
though the arguments of the seminar develop diachronically and in multiple
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 345

directions, at each meeting, they are cumulatively and synchronically available

for the systematic treatment of various issues and themes. The commentary/gloss
genre creates a similar space and framework of cumulative philosophical dialectic
within the context of any given phrase of any given text.
With these general comments aside, for the rest of the conclusion, I offer a
summary list of those features of the genre that facilitate philosophical growth.

1. It appears that the matn and its commentaries/glosses comprise lemmata

that are chosen specifically so that they may serve as sites and prompts for
disquisitions about living philosophical issues. In other words, the larger
text consists of seamlessly interwoven philosophical masāʾil that are meant
to be engaged from the very beginning. Some self-commentaries, which fill
out arguments or suggest that the author of a master text is aware of his
lemma as a philosophical site, are further proof of this theory.
2. Of these lemmata, a commentator/glossator picks out those that are of
interest in his own time. These masāʾil are also relevant to a variety of dis-
ciplines and to the commentator’s/glossator’s own philosophical program,
so that one of his tasks is to harmonize divergent philosophical views in a
harmonious interpretation.
3. Given that such lemmata are picked, in a number of cases, the matn’s own
larger philosophical project is not treated holistically, though it is true that
its different parts may be deployed by a commentator/glossator to explain
any given point of interest.
4. The horizontal layers of the commentary/gloss stand in a complex relation-
ship of intertextuality—of defense and critique—just like the genealogi-
cally-linked vertical layers. In other words, if two commentaries are on the
same level, one may well have been written in light of the other, without
explicit acknowledgment of this fact.
5. For the purpose of the defense and critique of a matn, a commentator/glos-
sator may grant certain philosophical points (musāmaha) or present novel
interpretations and proofs if they seem innocuous to the ˙ immediate project
of commenting. Such concessions may then become central to the later tra-
dition of commentary.
6. A glossator of a certain commentary tradition may appeal to a commentary
or gloss not in his line in order to challenge the commentary in his own
line.
7. Such a commentator/glossator may also refer to arguments in his own works
in other disciplines for supplying proofs relevant to the exercise of com-
menting.
8. Certain glossators seem mainly concerned with the task of footnoting the
commented text. In other words, they make explicit the source of the
346 Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348

arguments his commentator may be advancing or critiquing or they may

make the text philologically transparent.
9. Of two otherwise competing commentaries of the same level, one may take
up and even elaborate on an argument of the other if it serves its own
philosophical project.
10. One of the tasks of commenting/glossing is to fill out ellipses in the matn’s
argument. However, the exercise is also deeply concerned with supplying
the best proof—one that preserves the economy of argument and is en-
dorsed by the right group of scholars (i.e., those in one’s own philosophical
faction). In other words, it is not sufficient that a proof in an earlier text be
correct; it must also be the right kind of proof.
11. Certain authoritative commentaries drive the interpretive exercise of later
commentators, especially when they are self-commentaries. However, it was
noted above that a commentator may well reject the self-interpretation of
the mātin. Again, this suggests that the matn was often seen as a site for
stretching one’s philosophical muscles on a living masʾala.
12. Finally—and this observation may well prove very significant as we for-
mulate frameworks for understanding post-classical intellectual history—
tahqīq appears to be much more than independent verification. In the
˙
course of tracing the arguments presented in the body of the texts, we have
seen that, even when an author claims to be doing tahqīq, he is doctrinally
˙ adoption of ideas
accepting positions of past scholars. Indeed he calls such
as doing philosophy “by way of tahqīq”. This is especially and paradoxi-
cally true in cases where the masʾala ˙ is controversial, i.e., precisely where
one would expect an entirely independent proof to be forthcoming. How-
ever, the demonstration in such cases is not entirely based on doctrinal com-
mitments either; only certain key and controversial premises are granted
as tahqīq. This gives one the impression that tahqīq straddles tradition and
˙
scholarly factionalism, on the one hand, and ˙independent reasoning and
verification, one the other, in a complex fashion. The exact manner in which
tahqīq operated in these texts, therefore, needs further investigation.67
˙

67) See El-Rouayheb, op. cit. and Robert Wisnovsky, “Avicennism and Exegetical Practice in the
Early Commentaries on the Ishārāt,” Oriens 41.3–4 (2013). The latter piece convincingly argues
for the multivalence of the term tahqīq. The meaning of tahqīq is further complicated by Hasan’s
remark above that it does not have˙to do with musāmaha or˙ takhyīl. Does this mean that ta˙hqīq is
concerned with a specific ontological category? Or perhaps˙ ˙ to a
it means that a muhaqqiq belongs
certain grade of investigators who can choose the correct position out of many˙with respect to the
realities of things, not by mere consideration, concession, or supposition? This would mean that
tahqīq is verification/investigation within the scope of a diachronic/synchronic tradition.
˙
Asad Q. Ahmed / Oriens 41 (2013) 317–348 347

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