Ḥall ul‐fuṣūṣ and its Main Tenets: A Reading into Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī's Commentary on Fuṣūṣ ul‐ḥikam

Abstract

Although it is difficult to pinpoint an exact time as to when waḥdat al‐shuhūd (the unity of witnessing) or any other relevant idea originated, a number of scholars ascertain that it was Qāḍī ʿAḍud a‐Dīn Ījī (d. 756 or 760/1355 or 56), the prominent metaphysician, mutakallim, jurist, and the poet of the eighth century1, who should be regarded as the first one who used waḥdat al‐shuhūd. Ījī was also a contemporary of the famous Kubrawī Sufi, ʿAlāʾ u‐Dawla Simnānī (d. 736/1355), who believed in waḥdat al‐shuhūd and might have taken it from Ījī. Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī (d. 786‐87/1385), who brought Islam to Kashmir through Sufism, was an indirect student of Simnānī. He paid special attention to the ʿirfān of Ibn ʿArabī by writing a commentary on the latter's al‐Fuṣūṣ ul‐ḥikam, called Ḥall u‐fuṣūṣ, which played an important role in the further merging of the teachings of al‐Shaykh al‐Akbar into Kubrawī Sufism. However, there exists a number of scholars who believe that Hamadānī's stance was somewhere in between waḥdat al‐wujūd and waḥdat al‐shuhūd.This paper is an attempt to locate Mīr Sayyid ʿAlī Hamadānī in Islamic Sufism by contextualizing him in the intellectual history of Sufism in Kashmir and beyond through focusing on his Ḥall ul‐fuṣūṣ to evaluate how he elaborated on the legacy of al‐Shaykh al‐Akbar. Pertinent to this is the study of the terms wujūd and shuhūd in the teachings of Ibn ʿArabī to understand how Hamadānī understood and used them in his mysticism.