Abstract
Abū l-Fatḥ Muḥammad al-Shahrastānī was a Muslim theologian (mutakallim) and a historian of religions from northern Iran who lived under the last Seldjuks of Khorasan. He composed commentaries on the Qurʾān and a monumental history of religions, which remains to this day a primary source for scholars of various different fields. He taught at the Niẓāmiyya madrasa in Baghdad and was considered a Sunni scholar until modern scholarship has attempted to demonstrate that he may rather had been a crypto-Ismāʿīlī.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
al-Shahrastānī (1370–1375 H/1951–1955) Al-Milal wa-l-niḥal, 2 vols, ed. Muḥammad Fatḥ Allāh Badrān. Cairo; French trans: Gimaret D, Jolivet J, Monnot G (1986–1993) Livre des religions et des sectes, 2 vols. Louvain; Dated German trans: Theodor Haarbrücker (1850) Religionspartheien und Philosophen-Schulen. Halle; Several noncritical editions published in the Arab world; translations (in Persian and Turkish) listed by Monnot 1998 (s. v. infra). Maybe identical with the Ta’rīkh al-Ḥukamā’ mentioned in some bibliographies of Shahrastānī and believed to be lost by Monnot, 1998
al-Shahrastānī (1934) Nihāyat al-aqdām fī ‘ilm al-kalām, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume. The Summa Philosophiæ of Shahrastānī. Oxford
al-Shahrastānī (1269 H/1990) Risāla fī ‘ilm wājib al-wujūd, ed. fac-simile of a reproduction of the manuscript in M. Jalālī Nā’īnī. Majlis-i maktūb. Tehran
al-Shahrastānī (1396/1976) Muṣāra‘at al-falāsifa, ed. Mukhtār SM. Cairo; Madelung W, Meyer T (ed and Engl trans) (2001) Struggling with the philosopher. A refutation of Avicenna’s metaphysics. Ismaili Texts and Translations Series, 2. London/New York
al-Shahrastānī (1409/1368 H/1989) Mafātīḥ al-asrār wa-maṣābīḥ al-abrār, reproduction of the autograph manuscript, 2 vols. Teheran
al-Shahrastānī (1343 H/1964) Majlis al-khalq wa-l-amr, ed. Muḥammad Riḍa Jalālī Nā’īnī. Majlis-i maktūb-i Shahrastānī-i mun‘aqid dar Khwarazm. Sharḥ-i ḥāl wa āthār-i Ḥujjat al-Ḥaqq Abū al-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Karīm b. Aḥmad Shahrastānī; and from a greater number of manuscripts in his Majlis-i maktb. Tehran 1269 H/1990. It is this latest edition which was translated by Steigerwald D (1998) Majlis: Discours sur l’ordre et la création. Sainte-Foy. Maybe identical with the Qiṣṣa Mūsā wa Khiḍr mentioned by Bayhaqī in his list of Shahrastānī’s works
Main Biographical Notices on al-Shahrastānī
Bayhaqi (1935) Tatimmat Ṣiwān al-ḥikma, ed. Shafī M. Lahore; M. Kurd ‘Alī (1946) Damascus [under the title Ta’rīkh ḥukamā’ al-Islām]; Rafīq al-‘Ajam (1994) Beyrouth; Yāqūt (1993) Mu‘jam al-Udabā’, ed. ‘Abbās I. Beyrouth; Ibn Khallikān (1980) Wafayāt al-a’yān, ed. ‘Abbās I. Beyrouth; al-Dhahabī (1960–1966) al-‘Ibār fī khabar man ġabar, ed. Sayyid F, Salāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid. Kuwait; al-Subkī (1964–1976) Ṭabaqāt al-shafī‘iyya al-kubrā, ed. ‘Isā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī. Cairo; see further Monnot (1998)
Secondary Sources
Danish-Pazhuh MT (1967–1968) Da’ī al-du’āt Tāj al-Dīn Shahrastānī-i. In: Nāma-yi āstān-i quds, VII et 8, Mashhad, 1346–1347 H
Jalālī Nā’īnī MR (1964) Sharḥ-i ḥāl-o athār-i (…) Shahrastānī, Tehran 1343 Solar Hijra
Meyerhof Max (1948) ‘Ali al-Bayhaqi’s Tatimmat Ṣiwān al-Ḥikma: a biographical work on learned men of the Islam. Osiris 8:122–217
Monnot G (1998) Al-Shahrastānī. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn. t. IX, pp 214–216
Steigerwald D (1997) La pensée philosophique et théologique de Shahrastānī. Sainte-Foy
Steigerwald D (2005) Al-Shahrastani’s contribution to medieval Islamic thought. Reason and inspiration in Islam. Theology, philosophy and mysticism in Muslim thought. Essays in honour of Hermann Landolt, ed. Todd Lawson, pp 262–273
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Cottrell, E.J. (2011). al-Shahrastānī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm. In: Lagerlund, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9729-4_462
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