On The Philosophical Shi‘ism of Naṣīr ad-Dīn Ṭūsī

Abstract

The Maghreb Review, Vol. 43, 2, 2018 © The Maghreb Review 2018 This publication is printed on FSC Mix paper from responsible sources ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL SHI‘ISM OF NAṢĪR AD-DĪN ṬŪSĪ MOHAMMAD AZADPUR* I. Introduction In this essay, I want to challenge an aspect of Wilferd Madelung’s insightful interpretation of Khawja Naṣīr ad-Dīn Ṭūsī’s Nasirean Ethics in his essay, “Naṣīr ad-Dīn Ṭūsī’s Ethics: Between Philosophy, Shi‘ism, and Sufism.” Of course, I say an aspect because much of what Madelung writes in that essay is eminently reasonable. He writes of Ṭūsī’s profound interest in philosophy and his attempt to relate his philosophical acumen to the esoteric and ta‘līmī tradition of Heptatic Shi‘ism (Ismā‘īlism). He also writes of Ṭūsī’s later departure from ta‘līmī Shi‘ism, his repudiation of his earlier laudatory dedication of ethics to the Ismā‘īlī governor of Qohistān, and his claim that that dedication was “motivated by the necessity of self-preservation.”1 One cannot help but be puzzled by Ṭūsī’s relationship to Ismā‘īlism. Was he an opportunist, shaping and directing his writings towards patrons who supported him and repudiating his earlier sponsors if expediency demanded? Did he remain an Ismā’īlī but concealed it because he had to align himself with the conquering Mongols? (That may explain his failure to edit the Ismā‘īlī content of Nasirean Ethics.) Or was he always a Duodecimen Shi‘a, as evidenced by his return to that sect after his departure from the service of Muḥtasham Naṣīr ad-Dīn Abī Manṣūr, the Heptatic governor of Qohistān? It is in an attempt to sort through the complexity of Ṭūsī’s conflicting allegiances while allowing him intellectual and personal integrity that Madelung presents what I would like to challenge in this essay. Madelung argues that “there is no good reason to doubt the sincerity of Ṭūsī’s assertion in his new preamble to the Nasirean Ethics, that philosophy was unrelated to all religious schools and communities. The so-called philosophy of the Ismā‘īlīs was a fake and their devotion to the pure truth a pretense.”2 My dissent from this thesis is different from Herman Landolt’s attempt to show the philosophical relevance of Ismā‘īlism. Landolt’s argument, in “Khwāja Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Ismā‘īlism, and Ishrāqī Philosophy,” is on par with Madelung’s characterization of philosophy as abstract rational discourse. I maintain that abstract reasoning on metaphysical and cosmological issues is only an aspect of * San Francisco State University This is a revision and extension of the paper that I presented at the 2017 Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, “The Imam and the Perfect State: Peripatetic Ismā‘īlism in Nasirean Ethics.” The changes are in large part due to the queries of the participants in the session. 1 Madelung, “Naṣīr ad-Dīn Ṭūsī’s Ethics: Between Philosophy, Shi‘ism, and Sufism,” in Ethics in Islam, ed. Michael Hovanissian (Malibu, CA: Undena, 1984), 85. 2 Ibid., 88. ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL SHI‘ISM OF NAṢĪR AD-DĪN ṬŪSĪ 141 philosophy as practiced by Ṭūsī and his predecessors and does not get at the heartof the activity of philosophy. It is by examining the essential ethical activity of philosophy that we get to see more clearly the relevance of religion, especially Ismā‘īlism, for Ṭūsī’s project. II. Madelung and Landolt on Philosophy and Religion in Ṭūsī Madelung further supports his interpretation of Ṭūsī’s pragmatic alignment between Ismā‘īlism and philosophy by drawing on Ṭūsī’s deliberations on the relation between philosophical ethics and divine law. For Ṭūsī, the two share their subject matter: “the principles of beneficial works and virtuous deeds.”3 “Ethics is, however, a rational science based on universal human nature and is therefore not subject to change. The divine law, on the other hand, is, just like conventional manners and rules of custom, ‘laid down’ or posited, evidently not entirely on abstract grounds, and this is changeable with changing ages and circumstances.”4 This distinction, in...