‘I WAS A HIDDEN TREASURE’. SOME NOTES ON A COMMENTARY ASCRIBED TO MULLĀ ADRĀ SHĪRĀZĪ: SHAR ADĪTH: ‘KUNTU KANZAN MAKHFIYYAN . . .’
Armin Eschraghi
adr al-Dīn Mu ammad ibn Ibrāhīm Shīrāzī (d. 1640), better known as ‘ adr al-Muta allihīn’ or ‘Mullā adrā’, is generally considered one of the most popular and influential thinkers of Shiite Islam.1 It is often claimed that after him the philosophical tradition of Islam ceased to produce anything original. The larger part of adrā’s voluminous oeuvre is published. His major works are available in many editions and have been commented upon. However, there are also a certain number of lesser known pieces, one of them a short commentary on a celebrated adīth qudsī. The text has been published in a compilation of philosophi- cal treatises as part of a longer collection of fawā id.2 adrā’s actual authorship of it is not certain. In the introduction to his edition I fahānī explains that it has at times also been ascribed to Mu yī al-Dīn ibn al- Arabī and Alā al-Dawla Simnānī, although, he states, it is mostly found in manuscript collections of works belong- ing or ascribed to Mullā adrā. He is reluctant to judge the matter conclusively but believes that the fact that this commentary is part of a longer collection of fawā id, which contains internal evidence of adrā’s authorship, ‘strengthens probability of its belonging to adrā.’3 Whether or not its style and contents conform to adrā’s other writings needs to be decided by experts who have intimate knowledge of his works. As shall presently be seen, the fact that a very similar passage can be found in adrā’s magnum opus might strengthen probability of his authorship.
1 There is a vast literature on Mullā adrā. For a general introduction to his life and works see D. MacEoin, ‘Mullā adrā Shīrāzī,’ in EI ²; H. Ziai, ‘Mullā adrā: his Life and Works,’ in S.H. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds.), History of Islamic Philosophy, i (London, 1996), pp. 635–42; S.H. Nasr, ‘Mullā adrā: his Teachings,’ in ibid., pp. 643–62. 2 Majmū iy-i rasā il-i falsafīy-i adru’l-Muta allihīn, ed. .N. I fahānī (Teheran, 1999), p. 356–8 (based on two manuscripts and a lithograph [Teheran, 1315]). 3 Ibid., pp. 37–8.
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Background of the ‘Hidden Treasure’-Tradition
Whatever the case, the contents of this text are interesting enough to grant it a second look. That is mainly because the adīth commented upon has a long tradition in Sufi literature and can in fact be consid- ered as one of the best known and most widely celebrated apocryphal traditions of mysticism. Its earliest known occurrence seems to be in Abdallāh An ārī’s (d. 1089) abaqāt al- ūfiyya.4 However, from the eleventh century onwards references to it multiply and there seem to be very few mystical works that do not quote it. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 1273), for example, alludes to it in his Mathnawī,5 even to an extent that Nicholson considered ‘certain motifs, such as that of the “hidden treasure”’ to be ‘overworked.’6 In his commentary on the Mathnawī Furūzānfar quotes the following from the Lu lu al-mar ū :7 Ibn Taymiyya said, this [ adīth] was not uttered by the prophet ( ), and no isnād for it, either solid or weak, is known. He was followed [in this] by al-Zarkashī and Ibn ajar. But its content is correct (wa-lākin ma nāhu a ī ) and clear and it circulates among the ūfīs.8 Its authenticity has thus been debated, not so much because of its content, but rather due to a lack of formal criteria of transmission, i.e. absence of an isnād, as well as, in other cases, due to alleged viola- tions of Arabic grammar.9 Sometimes the words are said to have been revealed to the prophet Muhammad, sometimes David is named as the addressee. But this criticism by traditional scholars hardly concerns mystics who share a large corpus of non-canonical prophetic traditions from which they quote extensively and to which they apply criteria of authenticity, different from those of traditional adīth-scholarship. Rūmī’s contem-
4 Cf. M. Afnānī, ‘Mulā a ātī dar-bāriy-i Law wa adīth-i Kuntu Kanz,’ in Safīniy-i Irfān (Darmstadt, 2001), iv, p. 162. 5 E.g. Book 1, verse 2863. 6 The Mathnawí of Jalálu’ddín Rúmí, trans. R.A. Nicholson (London, 1934), vi, p. xi. 7 This is a reference to Mu ammad ibn Khalīl al-Qāwijī’s al-Lu lu al-mar ū fī-mā qīla lā a la lahu aw bi-a lihi maw ū fi ’l- adīth. A manuscript of this work can be accessed via http://www.sahab.org/books/book.php?id=1392 [16 June 2006]. The passage here referred to is on p. 22 of that manuscript. 8 A ādīth wa-qi a -i Mathnawī (Teheran, 1376), pp. 120–21. 9 I fahānī, Majmū iy-i rasā il, p. 38 (n. 84), cf. M. Afnani, ‘Mulā a ātī,’ pp. 166–7.
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