Afdal al-Din Kashani

Afḑal al-Dīn Maraqī Kāshānī , also known as Baba Afzal , was a Persian poet and philosopher. Several dates have been suggested for his death, with the best estimate being around 1213/1214. summary (in Persian) of what is known about Baba Afzal's life and work, is written in the World Encyclopedia of Islam (Dānišnāma-i Jahān-i Islām) by the late Professor Abbas Zaryab Khoei.

Works His most universally recognized contribution to Iranian culture lies in the field of literature. The themes of these quatrains include warnings about the futility of involvement with the things of the corporeal world, the correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm, and autology (self-knowledge) as the goal of human existence.

ʿArż-nāma This is considered his magnum opus. It is the longest and most complete exposition of his philosophy that brings together all topics related to the perfection of the soul. It is divided into four “displays” (ʿarż) arranged in an ascending order according to the four kinds of things in the universe: corporeal bodies (ajsām), which are acted upon (kardahā); agents or souls, which do the acting (konandahā); concepts or known things (dānestahā); and knowers (dānandagān).

Jāvedān-nāma This comprehensive work is his most specifically Islamic treatment of his favorite themes; it is the only work of certain ascription to him outside the letters that quotes and comments on Quran and Hadith (Prophetic sayings).

Other works Madārij al-Kamāl Rāhanjām-nāma In three discourses this work explains self-knowledge as the road to human perfection. Risāla dar ʿelm u noṭq Sāz u pīrāya-yi šāhān-i purmāya Mabādī-yi mawjūdāt-i nafsānī Āyāt al-ṣaṇʿa fi’l-kašf ʿan maṭālib elāhīya sabʿa - Brief discussion in Arabic of the intellect, soul and the body.

Philosophy He wrote during a period when several figures were bridging the gaps between philosophy and Sufism. His major concern is to explain the salvific power of true knowledge, i.e., self-knowledge, or knowledge of the Self (ḏāt or huwwīyat, God Himself viewed as the center of man's being). His philosophy is an autology (, ḵhod-šenāsī). That is: "To know oneself is to know the everlasting reality that is consciousness, and to know it is to be it." His ontology is interconnected simultaneously with his epistemology, because according to him, full actualization of the potentialities of the universe can only take place through the self-awareness of human beings. This ontology can only be realized by the training of the human soul, or education in the widest sense of the term.

His view of the structure of the reality is succinctly explained in the beginning of his work Rāhanjām-nāma.

Sample Poetry A quatrain: Suppose you run the world as you like, then what?

You read life's book to the end, then what?

You have your way for hundred years—

then a hundred more, then What?

References and notes