The question of what it means to ‘exist’ or ‘be’ occupies a central place in Islamic philosophy, theology and mysticism. The roots of this inquiry into the nature of Being or Existence can be traced to Qur’anic statements, in a variety of contexts, on the relationship between God and creation. Over the centuries, philosophers, theologians and mystics developed elaborate systems grappling with the question of God’s existence and how He relates to other beings in the cosmos.
Muḥyiddīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240), widely known by the reverential title Shaykh al-Akbar (The Greatest Master), occupies a central place in Islamic intellectual tradition. One of his most influential works, the Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam (Bezels of Wisdom), resulted in a staggering number of commentaries—over 195—by his students and later followers. Owing to its intricate and often enigmatic metaphysical language, the Fuṣūṣ would have traditionally been studied under the guidance of an experienced teacher well-versed in its commentarial tradition. Among the most prominent commentators—alongside figures such as Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī, Abd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī, and Muʿayyid al-Dīn al-Jandī —the fourteenth-century thinker Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī (d. 1350) is particularly notable for his ability to untie exegetical knots in Ibn ʿArabī’s often impenetrable metaphysics.
In this paper, I will examine Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī’s engagement with prevailing theological and philosophical debates concerning the nature of Being (wujūd) as well as his role in establishing wujūd as the foundational metaphysical principle of Ibn ʿArabī’s school of thought. My analysis will be primarily centered on a close reading of his Muqaddimah (Prolegomena), widely known as Muqaddimat al-Qayṣarī, which is a part of his commentary titled Maṭlaʿ khuṣūṣ al-kilam fī maʿānī Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (A Preface of Specific Discourses about the Meanings of Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam). Qayṣarī’s Muqaddimah came to be studied as an independent text in its own right, attracting several commentaries and providing a critical gateway to access Ibn ʿArabī’s works.
Qayṣarī’s exposition of the foundational principle of wujūd (being or existence) and its relationship with other beings in the cosmos offers a vantage point for understanding and contextualizing several centuries of philosophical and theological debates on the nature of Being. Diverse intellectual currents converge in his work, preventing neat demarcations between philosophical, theological and mystical ideas. A salient example is his engagement with prominent theologians, such as Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī and Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī, on the question of the equivocal predication of existence. While Ṭūsi upholds the Peripatetic view that every existent in the world has its own unique existence which intrinsically differentiates itself from every other existent, thus allowing for existence to be predicated unequally of things, Qayṣarī refutes this view on philosophical grounds, arguing that existence is not predicated equivocally and that there is no gradation or modulation in the essence of wujūd.
A close reading of the Muqaddimah also reveals traces of intra-Akbarian debates, highlighting divergences within the commentarial tradition on Ibn ʿArabī’s works as well as dynamism within philosophical Sufism more broadly. For example, Qayṣarī purposefully diverges from his predecessor Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī’s idea of entification and divine presences (ḥadarāt). Finally, Qayṣarī’s work plays an important role in bringing clarity and precision to Ibn ʿArabi’s writings, as is evident in his discussion of the various terms employed to refer to God’s reality, such as realization (taḥaqquq), becoming (kawn), and subsistence (thubūt), in the course of which he establishes wujūd (being) as the foundational and standard category amongst other contenders.
While some scholarly work has been done on the ontological and epistemological aspects of Qayṣarī’s thought within the context of Ibn ʿArabī’s thought and philosophical Sufism in general, his profound engagement with the philosophical and theological positions of his intellectual predecessors has received relatively little scholarly attention. Scholars such as Chittick (1989), Morris (1991), and Murata (1992) have translated portions of Qayṣarī’s writings and discussed his thought in relation to the broader Akbarian tradition, there has been relatively little work focusing on Qayṣarī’s achievements as an independent thinker. Matsumoto (2000) examines the logical relationship between Qayṣarī’s concept of the oneness of being (waḥdat al-wujūd) with the Qur’anic and Sufi concepts of prophethood (nubuwwa) and sainthood (walāya); Rustom (2007) presents a biographical account of Qayṣarī’s life and his understanding of the Sufi idea of the Muhammadan reality; and Dagli (2019) provides a notable study of Qayṣarī’s metaphysics.
This paper aims to shed light on the interdisciplinary contexts—philosophical, theological, and mystical—of Qayṣarī’s thought and to highlight the intellectual-historical development of Islamic debates about the nature of God’s existence and its relationship with creation. The hope is that tracing Qayṣarī’s exposition of the nature of Being and situating it within the broader intellectual currents of his time will open avenues for philosophically and contextually sensitive explorations of ontological paradigms across Islamic and Hindu philosophical traditions.
This paper examines the fourteenth-century thinker Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī’s engagement with philosophical and theological debates about the nature of Being (wujūd) through a close reading of his Muqaddimah, the prolegomena to his influential commentary on Ibn ʿArabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam. Qayṣarī’s work offers a crucial vantage point for understanding and contextualizing several centuries of philosophical and theological debates on the nature of Being. As a pivotal figure in the Akbarian tradition of Ibn ʿArabī, Qayṣarī challenges and refines the positions of his intellectual predecessors, such as Nasīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, Suhrawardī and Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī, bringing Sufi terminology and ideas into direct conversation with philosophical concepts such as the gradation of existence (tashkīk al-wujūd). In addition to bringing an unprecedented level of clarity and systematic exposition to Ibn ʿArabī’s often impenetrable ideas, Qayṣarī’s Muqaddimah serves as an important window to broader discourses about the nature of Being in the Islamic intellectual tradition.