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Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī’s (d. 1101/1690) Akbarian Solution to the Avicennian Issue of God’s Knowledge of Particulars
Abstract
Ibn Sīnā’s theory that God knows particulars “in a universal way” has attracted considerable attention from both scholars of the traditional sciences and historians of philosophy alike. The discussion of God’s knowledge of particulars continued in the commentaries and super-commentaries on al-Ghazālī’s The Incoherence and became a subject of numerous independent treatise that discuss the issue of God’s knowledge in general and God’s knowledge of particulars specifically. These independent treatises continued under different titles such as God’s detailed (tafṣīlī) knowledge, God’s knowledge of individuals, or God’s knowledge of infinite (lā mutanāhī). In the seventeenth centaury in the Ḥijāz, the Sufi and theologian Ibrāhīm b. Ḥasan al-Kūrānī (d. 1101/1690) received a question related to the topic of God’s knowledge of particulars. Al-Kūrānī discussed this topic in several of his works, always through an Akbarian perspective and using Akbarian terms. This paper discusses al-Kūrānī’s argument for God’s knowledge of particulars and his attempt to address one of the main philosophical arguments by appeal to Ibn ʿArabī. Intellectual life in the seventeenth-century Ḥijāz, in continuity with philosophical discussions in various parts of the Islamic world, displays the impact that Ibn ʿArabī’s thought had on philosophical discussions and the great overlap that occurred between philosophy, theology, and Sufism in post-classical Islamic thought.
Discipline
Philosophy
Geographic Area
Arabian Peninsula
Sub Area
13th-18th Centuries