Ṭūsī as a Young Scholar

Abstract

As far as modern scholarship is concerned, biographical studies of Ṭūsī include works by Muddaris Razawi, Muddarisi Zanjani, and Mudarris in Persian, and by Dabashi and Ragep in English. With regard to early sources, important biographical information on Ṭūsī’s life occurs in his autobiographical work Sayr wa sulūk (c. 1240 C. E.), in Fawāt al-wafayāt by Ibn Shākir al-Kutubī (d. 1361 C. E.), and in the translation by Nāṣir al-Dīn ibn ʿUmdat al-Mulk Muntakhab al-Dīn Munshī Yazdī of Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Zayd Bayhaqī’s Tatimma-yi ṣiwān al-ḥikmah (c. 1330 C. E.). There also exists a biographical entry by an unknown author, and of unknown date – but plausibly from the late 13th century – as an addendum to Shahrazūrī’s Nuzhat al-arwāḥ. In later centuries many historians provided biographical information on Ṭūsī in their works, though the majority of these appear to have occurred subsequent to the ascendance of the Safavid dynasty and the Kutub al-rijāl genre listing prominent men of learning in the shīʿa tradition. Among examples of Kutub al-rijāl with biographical material on Ṭūsī are Majālis al-muʾminīn by Shushtarī (1542–1610/11), Jāmiʻ al-ruwāt by Ardabīlī (d. 1690), Amal al-āmil by al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī (1623–24/1692–93), Naqd al-rijāl by Tafrishī (d. 17th century), Rīyāḍ al-ʿulamāʾ by ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿĪsā Afandī (d. circa 1718), Lauʾ lauʾat al-Baḥrayn by al-Baḥrānī (1695–c. 1773), and Rawḍāt al-jannāt by Khwānsārī (d. 1895). A later work with information on Ṭūsī is Maḥbūb al-quḷūb by Ishkawarī (d. 1680). This work was completed during the Safavid era, but belongs to the same genre as the Ṣiwān al-ḥikmah (see above) rather than that of the Kutub al-rijāl, as Iskhawarī’s work presents the lives of men of learning in the Greek and Islamic traditions regardless of sectarian affiliation. Among the relatively recent accounts of Ṭūsī within the Kutub al-rijāl tradition is one in Kitāb-i qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamāʾ, by Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān Tanukābunī (d. 1885). Though containing a long entry replete with anecdotes, this work can be viewed primarily as an example of a hagiographic tendency in regard to Ṭūsī’s life and the manner in which the accretion of myths and legends can effectively obscure compelling historical material.