I’jaz Al-Bayan: Arabic Edition with an Introduction

Sadr al-Din Qunawi (d. 1274) is arguably the most important thinker of the generation following the main founders of medieval philosophy-al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn ’Arabi and Suhravardi-and before Mulla Sadra. Despite this, almost nothing of his writings has been translated into English though critical Arabic editions of his major writings have been published. I’jaz al-bayan, his magnum opus, explores some key questions in philosophy, among which is speech (divine and human) in the unfolding of knowing and being. In this influential work, Qunawi lays forth in detail the principles and semiological tools for interpreting the opening chapter of the Qur’an, the Fatiha. Widely known as the epitome of the Qur’an, the Fatiha was also understood to indicate the divine ’opening’, the ’beginning’ of being’s unfolding. Far from a mere analysis of concepts or epistemology, his philosophical ’exegesis’ is about the self-identical unfolding of speech from the hidden secrecy of the divine source, from which flows God’s creative command, Be! The doubt that Ibn Sina expressed concerning the human capacity to know the ’realities of things’ manifested in this unfolding-namely, the letters, words, sentences and meanings of the divine writ of being-by dint of man’s faculties was critical to Qunawi’s dynamic understanding of what a plenary knowledge of anything must be. This is an authoritative edition of the Arabic text with an Editor’s Introduction in English and Arabic explaining the mechanics and publication history behind the edition and concisely summarizing the book’s contents.