Majdud Sanae and “The Tanzih Chapter” from his poem “The Garden of the Truth…”

Abstract

The article contains common bio-bibliographic data about Majdud Sanai - the founder of the Persian Sufi didactic epos. It explains the mater of the poet’s birth and death dates, as well as the names, editions and commentaries to his masterpiece “The Garden of Mystery…”. A commented translation of “The Tanzih Chapter” is in appendix to the article. Hereby a part of the paper deals with the Divine incomparability concept in historical-religious context. The Sanai’s heritage introduces an early phase of the Persian Sufi thought, though tasawwuf during his lifetime was quite formed as a doctrine. The peculiarities of the Sanai’s teaching can be seen in comparison with the works by his predecessors (al-Hujviri) and later authors (Ibn al-Arabi and Mahmud Shabistari). While Ibn al-Arabi and Mahmud Shabistari try to combine methods of divine incomparability (tanzih) and comparing the God to His creatures (tashbih), Sanai, as well as an earlier Sufi shaikh, al-Hujviri, claims tashbih to be a false method of the God’s oneness (tawhid) interpretation and appeals just to tanzih as the only right method. Besides that, the comparison of the mentioned authors’ views shows, what a major step forward has made Ibn al-Arabi in his interpretation of the matters, related to the doctrine of the God’s oneness. While Sanai interprets theophany (tajalli) in the context of Divine incomparability so that it takes place just on the surface of a human heart, Ibn al-Arabi believes that every single thing is the place for theophany of the Divine names and attributes.