Abstract Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, Shiraz served as a prominent center for the production of luxury manuscripts in the eastern Islamic world. Interaction among the manuscript workshops of centers of political power led to the transfer of local characteristics from one center to another. Several manuscripts produced in Edirne and later in Istanbul, the earliest centers of Ottoman manuscript production, bear traces of the Shiraz style, and scholars have identified its influence in numerous illustrated manuscripts. This study presents an undated Kolliyāt (Compendium) of Jāmi bearing a dedicatory inscription addressed to the Ottoman sultan Bāyazid II (r. 1481–1512), held at the Süleymaniye Library (Fatih 4045), which has not been studied previously. An analysis of the manuscript reinforces the hypothesis that it was copied in Istanbul by book artists trained in the Shiraz tradition. It reveals further a late continuation of Mozaffarid and Timurid style in page layout, frontispiece design, and illumination—thereby extending investigation of the Shiraz manuscript style beyond the borders of Iran.
Abstract The Shiʿi author Rajab Borsi (d. c . 1411) has often been categorized as an extremist ( ghāli ). While he is alleged to have exhibited excessive devotion and love towards Shiʿi imams, reducing the boundaries between the imam and the divine, this paper contends that such a label requires reconsideration. The paper argues that although Borsi is accused of promoting extremist ideas in his work, his interpretation of extremism ( gholoww ) has remained unexplored. Throughout his Mashāreq al-anvār al-yaqin fi asrār amir al-moʾmenin (The Dawning-Places of the Lights of Certainty Concerning the Secrets of the Commander of the Faithful), Borsi presents a diverse array of arguments to distance his theological vision from that of extremists and delineate a clear boundary between God and the Shiʿi imams. This paper asserts that Borsi’s work should not be perceived as an isolated, exceptional, or even extremist literary creation, but rather as an outgrowth of pre-modern Islamic thought and a representative of the intellectual aspirations and imaginations of this period.
Abstract The seventh essay of Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Republic is devoted to Plato’s account of the tripartite soul and its virtues. Drawing on Plato’s description of the work of creation by the Demiurge and the younger gods in Timaeus , Proclus argues that the lower parts of the soul are images of the highest part, and that the essence of the human being is found only in the rational part of the soul. The other two parts are merely images of the rational part. In this paper, I explore Proclus’ account of how mortal psychical functioning in the spirited and appetitive parts of the human soul are supposed to image rationality. Further, I consider how the essence of a human being, shown to be the subject of calculative or discursive reasoning, is supposed by Proclus to be related to intellect.
