BAḤRĀNĪ, JAMĀL-AL-DĪN (also KAMĀL-AL-DĪN) ʿALĪ B. SOLAYMĀN SETRAWĪ, Imami scholar and philosopher inclining to mysticism of the first half of the 7th/13th century. Ḥaydar Āmolī counts him among the scholars who ranked the Sufi gnosis above all other knowledge (Jāmeʿ al-abrār wa-manbaʿ al-asrār, ed H. Corbin and O. Yaḥyā, Tehran and Paris, 1969, p. 498). Very little is known about his life. He evidently studied and taught in the town of Setra on a minor island of Bahrain, where his tomb was still known centuries after his death. His only known teacher was Kamāl-al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Saʿīd b. Saʿāda Baḥrānī, like him an Imami theologian and philosopher who was also buried in Setra. From him he transmitted Shiʿite traditions with an esnād leading back to Ṭūsī (Ebn Abī Jomhūr Aḥsāʾī, Ḡawālī al-laʾālī, ed. Mojtabā ʿErāqī, Qom, 1403/1983, I, p. 12). He also submitted to him twenty-four questions on the divine attribute of knowledge. After Ebn Saʿāda’s death he sent these questions with Ebn Saʿāda’s summary answers and his own critical remarks to Naṣīr-al-Dīn Ṭūsī, presumably after the latter’s departure from Alamūt in 654/1257. Ṭūsī’s comments on the questions and answers are extant (M.-T. Dānešpažūh, Fehrest-e Ketābḵāna-ye . . . Meškāt . . . , Tehran, 1330-35 Š./1951-56, pp. 180-81, 2561-62; Moḥammad Modarresī Zanjānī, Sargoḏašt o ʿaqāyed e Ḵᵛāja Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, Tehran, 1335 Š./1956, pp. 225-29). ʿAlī b. Solaymān was the teacher of Kamāl-al-Dīn Mīṯam b. ʿAlī Baḥrānī (d. after 681/1282). His works were transmitted by his son Ḥosayn to ʿAllāma Ḥellī.
The following of his works are known: 1. Al-Ešārāt, about the secrets of existence, prophethood, and sainthood (welāya). It seems to be the same as Ešārāt al-wāṣelīn elā ʿolūm al-ʿamyān wa tanbīhāt ahl al-ʿeyān men arbāb al-bayān, a supplement to the author’s Kašf al-asrār al-īmānīya wa hatk asrār al-ḵeṭābīya (al-Ḏarīʿa II, pp. 96, 98). ʿAlī b. Solaymān’s pupil Mīṯam Baḥrānī wrote a commentary on it (al-Ḏarīʿa XIII, p. 91; Modarres Rażawī, Aḥwāl o āṯār-e . . . Ḵᵛāja Naṣīr-al-Dīn Ṭūsī, Tehran, 1334 Š./1955, p. 114). 2. Meʿrāj al-salāma wa menhāj al-karāma, in which he explained the doctrine of an anonymous contemporary scholar on the existence of the Necessary Being (wojūd wājeb al-wojūd; Dānešpažūh, Fehrest III, p. 362). 3. Al-Nahj al-mostaqīm ʿalā ṭarīqat al-ḥakīm, a commentary on Ebn Sīnā’s mystical ʿAynīya poem on the soul. It has also been ascribed, probably falsely, to Mīṯam Baḥrānī (al-Ḏarīʿa XXIV, pp. 424-25). 4. Meftāḥ al-ḵayr fī šarḥ resālat al-ṭayr, a commentary on the introduction (dībāja) of Ebn Sīnā’s mystical Resālat al-ṭayr (al-Ḏarīʿa XXI, p. 329). 5. Qeṣṣat Salamān wa Absāl, selected from Ḥonayn b. Esḥāq’s version of the story with some omissions and additions. It has been published at the margin of Ṭūsī’s Šarḥ al-ešārāt (Tehran, 1305/1887-88, namaṭ 9) without mention of the author (Dānešpažūh, Fehrest III, pp. 260-62).
Bibliography:
Majlesī, Beḥār al-anwār, Tehran, 1376-1405/1957-85, CVII, p. 65.
Ḥorr ʿĀmelī, Amal al-āmel, ed. Sayyed Aḥmad Ḥosaynī, Baghdad, 1385/1965-66 II, p. 189.
Mīrzā ʿAbd-Allāh Effendī, Rīāż al-ʿolamāʾ, ed. Sayyed Ḥosaynī, Qom, 1401/1980-81, IV, pp. 101-02.
Yūsof Baḥrānī, Loʾloʾat al-Baḥrayn, ed. Moḥammad Ṣādeq Baḥr-al-ʿOlūm, Najaf, 1386/1966, pp. 253, 164-65.
Nūrī Ṭabarsī, Mostadrak al-wasāʾel, Tehran, 1318-21/1900-04, III, p. 462.
ʿAlī b. Ḥasan Baḥrānī, Anwār al-badrayn, Najaf, 1377/1957-58, pp. 61-62.
Aʿyān al-šīʿa XLI, p. 273.
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| بحرانی ، جمال الدین | bahrani jamal al din | bahraani jamaal aldin | bahrany jamal aldin |
(W. Madelung)
Originally Published: December 15, 1988
Last Updated: August 24, 2011
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Vol. III, Fasc. 5, p. 529
