Philosopher
Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani
fl. 934–971 CE
Also known as Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani, al-Sijistani
Ismaili missionary of tenth-century Persia whose Neoplatonism held that God lies beyond both being and non-being, and that a single, undivided intellect is the first thing God made.
Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani belonged to the Ismaili underground mission in the Iranian provinces of Khurasan and Sijistan in the tenth century, and later supported the Fatimid imams ruling from North Africa. Little is known of his life: he was in Baghdad in 934, just back from the pilgrimage to Mecca, wrote one of his treatises in about 971, and died some time later as a martyr. He was nicknamed “Cotton-seed”.
He drew on the Neoplatonism then current in Islamic learning, from Arabic versions of Plotinus and the Book of Causes, and kept close to Plotinus’s own doctrines, though he would have denied being a philosopher. His philosophy appears in parts of his works, interleaved with Ismaili teaching.
Key ideas
- God beyond being and non-being
- God is not a substance, not an intellect, and falls under none of the categories that apply to the created world; God is beyond both being and non-being.
- One undivided intellect
- Intellect, the first existent, was originated by God as a single whole and is the source of everything else. Against many Islamic philosophers, al-Sijistani insisted that intellect never divides: there is only one.
- The soul turned back
- Soul proceeds from intellect, and its lower side is nature, on the border of the spiritual and the physical. Religion and prophecy exist to turn the soul back towards its higher self, a recovery that advances step by step through the cycles of prophetic revelation.
- Tradition
- Arabic and Islamic
- Region
- Khurasan and Sijistan, Persia
- Schools
- Neoplatonism
- Period
- Classical Islamic
- Themes
- God
Influences
Where these links come from
- Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani drew on Plotinus. Source: Paul E. Walker, Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Key works
- The Wellsprings (Kitāb al-yanābīʿ)
- Revealing the Concealed (Kashf al-maḥjūb)
Sources
- Paul E. Walker, Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy