Building al-Būnī’s Legend

From the fourteenth century onward, the figure of al-Būnī (d. 622/1225) became the greatest authority in the science of letters (or sīmiyāʾ). His life was not well known in the Middle Ages but some hagiographical notices concerning him circulated. The purpose of this article is to establish ʿAbd al-...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Sufi studies
Main Author: Coulon, Jean-Charles 1984- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2016
In: Journal of Sufi studies
Further subjects:B ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī al-Būnī al-Būnī hagiography hagiographie science of letters science des lettres Shams al-āfāq fī ʿilm al-ḥurūf wa-l-awfāq Shams al-āfāq fī ʿilm al-ḥurūf wa-l-awfāq Shams al-maʿārif Shams al-maʿārif sīmiyāʾ sīmiyāʾ Sufism soufisme
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Summary:From the fourteenth century onward, the figure of al-Būnī (d. 622/1225) became the greatest authority in the science of letters (or sīmiyāʾ). His life was not well known in the Middle Ages but some hagiographical notices concerning him circulated. The purpose of this article is to establish ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī’s (d. 858/1454) part in the process of building al-Būnī’s legend. Indeed, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī’s renowned Shams al-āfāq fī ʿilm al-ḥurūf wa-l-awfāq (The Sun of the Horizons: The Science of Letters and Magic Squares) established al-Būnī the premier authority in the science of letters. Although the Shams al-āfāq clearly aimed to position the science of letters in a mythical background (with biblical references, for example), it also portrayed the Sufi environment in which al-Būnī was thought to live. The biographical notices in which al-Būnī is quoted can help us to understand how al-Bisṭāmī wrote an apparently self-consistent picture of the emergence and transmission of the science of letters. Moreover, some mystical pedigrees in the Shams al-āfāq indicate that this treatise must be one of the sources of the later Shams al-maʿārif al-kubrā since they are almost identical in both texts. Thus, the Shams al-āfāq was an important stage in the diffusion of the image of the figure of al-Būnī and the works attributed to him.
ISSN:2210-5956
Contains:In: Journal of Sufi studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/22105956-12341281