al-Ḥillī's The Way of Nobility and Polemics in Islamic Theologies

 The second volume in the series The Collected Writings of al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī published by al-Mahdī Institute Press has just been released. I discuss the first volume, Clearing the Soul and the broader context here. 

The Way of Nobility (Minhāj al-karāma) is perhaps one of the most famous controversial and polemical texts of the post-Mongol period, inviting a rather excessive response from the famous Sunni Damascene polemicist Ibn Taymīya (d. 1328) entitled Minhāj al-sunna al-nabawīya (an English translation of an abridgement is here). Ibn Taymīya's text is much longer and although it follows the original it is refuting, it meandering and digresses and tends to conflate Shiʿi positions (Twelver, Ismaili, and so forth). al-Ḥillī's text is a relatively concise case for the imamate of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib based on scriptural sources and some elements of rational argument. 

The text is dedicated to the Mongol ruler of Iran, Öljeitü (r. 1304–1306) probably in 1311. Tariq al-Jamil discusses the text in the context of the polemic with Ibn Taymīya that followed (Minhāj al-sunna is commonly thought to have been penned in 1317). One could also read the text alongside al-Ḥillī's al-Alfayn and Nahj al-ḥaqq wa-kashf al-ṣidq which was also written at court for Öljeitü. This latter text initiated a cycle of polemics, the most recent of which is Dalāʾil al-ṣidq by Shaykh Muḥammad Ḥasan al-Muẓaffar (1883–1955) in 8 volumes. These texts are somewhat different - al-Alfayn is primarily scriptural but contains elements of logical reasoning. Nahj is more extensive and includes important corollaries on the nature of God - and provides more of the template for later Shiʿi polemics (one thinks of al-Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm of Ibn Yūnus al-Bayyāḍī al-ʿĀmilī in the 15th century). 

The text is divided into six chapters: the first on the various positions taken on the imamate and succession to the prophet (including the important corollary issue of divine justice and provision of facilitating grace - luṭf - that is so central to his theology), the second on the broad case for the Twelver Shiʿi position, the third is divided into four parts on the Shiʿi cased including rational and scriptural evidence, the fourth on the concomitance of the imamate of ʿAlī's successors, the fifth on their who do not qualify as leaders in lieu of the prophet, with  final sixth on why Abū Bakr did not qualify as the successor. The case is therefore both positive and negative (why X was not), and comprising rational and scriptural proofs and consideration of evidence. 

The Arabic text used is the edition published in 1999 by Muʾassasat ʿĀshūrāʾ in Qum and edited by ʿAbd al-Raḥīm Mubārak based on three manuscripts from the Āstān-e quds-e rażavī library in Mashhad (MS 13754), and from the library of Āyatullāh Marʿashī Najafī in Qum (MS 29 and 2523). All of these are Safavid but the aim of the series is not necessarily to produce new critical editions.  According to the Fankhā Union catalogue of manuscripts in Iran, there are 175 copies of the text but none reliably dated to before the Safavid period. The text is introduced and translated by Saiyad Nizamuddin Ahmad, who holds the Prophet Muhammad Chair of Shia Islamic Studies at Florida International University.

It is worth contextualising this polemic and its response in the following cycles:

1) The first was al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/869) and his al-Risāla al-ʿUthmānīya followed by a non-extant refutation by al-Ḥasan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī (d. c. 310/922) a full refutation by Sayyid Jamāl al-Dīn Ibn Ṭāwūs (d. 673/1274) entitled Bināʾ al-maqāla al-Fāṭimīya. 

2) The second is this text by al-Ḥillī and its refutation by Ibn Taymīya which remains the most well-known.

3) The third of al-Ḥillī's Nahj al-ḥaqq mentioned which led to a response by the litterateur and historian Faḍlallāh b. Ruzbihān al-Khunajī (d. 927/1521) to which there is the famous response of Sayyid Nūrullāh Shūshtarī (exe. 1610), Iḥqāq al-ḥaqq, published with apparatus and extensive, voluminous notes by Āyatullāh Sayyid Shihāb al-Dīn Marʿashī Najafī. I have written on it. Here is a shot of the opening of one of the British Library copies of Khunajī's Ibṭāl nah al-bāṭil:

4) The fourth is relatively well-known but also came out of the school of al-Ḥilla, namely al-Risāla al-muʿāriḍa of Yūsuf b. Makhzūm al-Aʿwar al-Wāsiṭī and its refutation by Najm al-Dīn Khiḍr al-Ḥabalrūdī and his al-Tawāḍīḥ al-anwār bi-ḥujaj al-wārida li-dafʿ shubhat al-Aʿwar completed in 839/1435. Here is a shot from the British Library MS of the text:

There are of course many others in Arabic on the imamate (in the contemporary period there are far too many which then circulate in English, Urdu and other translations) - and many more in Persian and other languages (perhaps the most famous in Persian being Tuḥfa-ye isnāʿasharīya of the Delhi scholar Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz [d. 1823] and its responses by Mīrzā Kāmil Dihlavī [d. 1810], Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī [d. 1820] and his sons in Lucknow, and of course ʿAbaqāt al-anwār of Sayyid Ḥāmid Ḥusayn Mūsavī Kintūrī [d. 1888]). 

There is little doubt that al-Ḥillī's text and the response by Ibn Taymīya remain at the heart of modern polemics. Hence the importance of having this dual text available. I hope that AMI press will also take on Nahj al-ḥaqq and al-Alfayn in the future as they are with Kashf al-murād which is al-Ḥillī's most important exposition on theology.