ABSTRACT
Proceeding in accordance with a wholly exterior chronology, determined by the date of the death of the philosophers with whom we are concerned, the first to be named is Athīr al-Dīn Mufaḍḍal al-Abhārī, who died around 663/1264, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. Very little is known about his life, which he seems to have spent partly in Mosul and partly in Asia Minor. His books are few in number, but they have considerable importance in that they were used as text books and were frequently commentated. He wrote a Kitāb al-Isāgūghī, an adaptation of the Isagogue by Porphyry, which was commentated by Shams al-Dīn al-Fanārī (834/1470). His Guide to Philosophy (Hidāyat al-ḥikmah) was in three parts (logic, physics and metaphysics), and, among others, Ḥusayn al-Maybudī wrote a commentary on it in 880/1475. But the most important of all the commentaries on it, and much the most widely read in Iran, is the very personal commentary written by Mullā Ṣadrā al-Shīrāzī. Another work by al-Abhārī, the Al-Kashf al-ḥaqā'iq (The Discovery of Metaphysical Realities) reveals the philosopher's ishrāqī affinities. The work is constructed according to a plan which is the inverse of the plan most commonly utilized: first he explains logic, then metaphysics, and ends with physics. It is noteworthy in that the eschatological section of the metaphysics is a literal reproduction of certain pages written by al-Suhrawardī the Shaykh al-Ishrāq.
