Abstract
Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī (d. 1350) was the pioneer of the school of Ibn al-ʿArabī in the fourteenth century. Having authored many of his works as commentaries on the classics of theoretical mysticism, such as Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam (The Bezels of Wisdom) by Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240), Tafsīr al-Basmala (The Commentary on the Basmala) by al-Kāshānī (d. 1335), and al-Qaṣīda al-Tāʾiyya (a mystical poem) by Ibn Fāriḍ (d. 1234), al-Qayṣarī can be regarded as one of the main theorists and interpreters of Islamic mysticism after the Mongol Invasion. His intellectual activities were mainly focused in Central Anatolia, Egypt, and Western Iran, and in these places, he sought to deepen his knowledge on classical Islamic sciences (Islamic theology and jurisprudence) as well as philosophical mysticism. Al-Qayṣarī is also regarded as one of the scholars who prepared the intellectual background at the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire, a fact which was evinced by his appointment as a professor in Iznik Madrasa (the first madrasa in Ottoman times) by the Sultan Orhan Gazi (r. 1323–1362). Al-Qayṣarī’s writings had gained wide circulation in the Shiite intellectual communities and the Irfani (gnostic) schools in Iran, an impact which has continued till recent times, as is seen in the writings of the Iranian revolutionist, Ayatollah Khomeini (d. 1989).
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Kaya, V. (2020). Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī. In: Lagerlund, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1665-7_580
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