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NOTE XXXI. SHAYKH 'ABDU'LLAH 'ANSARI
.
163
*
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In this Anecdote (XXXVIII) two errors occur, for Avicenna acted
as Minister to Shamsu'd-Dawla ibn Falthru'd-Dawla (brother, of the
. above-mentioned M^jdu'd^-Dawla) at Hamadan, not to ''Ala'u'd JDawlj,
whom he never served in this capacity, and who, moreover, lived no? at
Ray, but at Isfahan, whither Avicenna 'went to attach himself to his
Court in 412/1011-2 on Pfce death of Shamsu'd-Dawla apd the accession
of his son Sama'u'd-Dawla. *
, , Note XXXI. The Shaykh
'Abdu'llah Ansari.
(Text, p. 84; Persian notes, pp. 255-8.)
The Shaykhu'l-Islam Abu" Isma'il 'Abdil'llah ibn Abi Mansiir Muhammad..^!-Ansari
al-Khazraji al-Hirawi traced his pedigree to Abii
Ayyub, a well-known companion of the Prophet. He was born on
Sha'ban 2, ^96 (May 4, 1006), and died towards the end of A.H. 481
(March, 1088). He was a notable traditionist and theologian, and, in
spite of his fanatical attachment to the narrow and anthropomorphic
doctrine's of the Hanbali school and his hatred of philosophers, who
stood in terror of him, was accounted a leading Jjiifi. In Persia he is
generally known as Khwaja 'Abdu'llah Ansari. In his Persian poems
and quatrains, which are highly esteemed and have been repeatedly
lithographed in Persia, he calls himself Ansari, Pir-i-Ansar, and Pir-i-
Hiri. The prayers (Mundjdt] which he composed in Persian are also
greatly admired. He used to lecture on the lives of the Saints, taking
as his text the Tabaqdtu's-Si'ifiyya of as-Sulami, and adding observations
of his own. One of his disciples took down these lectures in the
ancient language of Herat, and on this version Jami based his wellknown
Hagiography the Nafahdtu'l-Uns 1 . Ofhis numerous works there
still exist, besides those already mentioned, a condemnation of Scholastic
2
Philosophy (Dhammrfl-Kaldni) in Arabic , a less rare treatise in the same
language entitled Mandzilu's-Sd'irm ildl-Haqqi'l-Mubin, and in Persian
a tract entitled Zddu'l- l
Arifm ?
'; and another, of which extracts are
preserved 4
called the "Book ,
of Mysteries" (Kitdb-i-Asrdr).
Mirza Muhammad gives, on the authority of the historian adh-
Dhahabi, two narratives of attempts to discredit the Shaykh made by the
philosophers whom he persecuted. On one occasion, when Sultan Alp
Aislan the Saljuq^and his great Minister Nizamu'1-Mulk visited Hermit,
they alsked him why he cursed Abu'l-Hasan al-Ash'ari, whose doctrines
the Nizamu'1-Mulk* profesjed. After some hesitation he replied, "I do
not recognize al-Ash'ari; him only I curse who does not believe that
God is in .Heaven." On another occasion they produced a little copper
> image, which, as they told the King, Ansari's anthropomorphism led
him to worship, bu't he, being summoned and accused, so vehemently
denied this calumny thit the King, convinced of his innocence, dismissed
him with honour and punished his detractors.
1 See pp. 1-3 of Nassau Lees's edition of this work. Mirza Muhammad informs
me that a MS. of these lectures in their ancient original form 'exists in the Niir-i-
'UthrJaniyya Library at Constantinople, and that M. Louis Massignon shewed, him
the copy he had made of the portion referring to the celebrated Sufi al-Hallaj. I suppose
that this is the MS. (No. 2500) to which M. Massignon refers in his striking work
on the Kitdbrit-Tawdsin of al-Hallaj (Paris, 1913), p. 94, n. 4 ad calc.
'
2 Add. 27,520 of the British Museum.
3 Rieu's Pers. Cat., p. 738.
4 Ibid., p. 774.
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