Physics and Metaphysics in an Early Ottoman Madrasa: Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī on the Nature of Time

Although overshadowed by his celebrated commentaries on Ibn ʿArabī and Ibn al-Fāriḍ, Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī’s (d. 750/1351) treatise on the philosophy of time – the Nihāyat al-bayān fī dirāyat al-zamān (The Utmost Elucidation Concerning Knowledge of Time) – is a notable milestone in the history of Islamic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oriens
Main Author: Todd, Richard (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2022
In: Oriens
Further subjects:B Avicenna
B Ibn ʿArabī
B Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī
B Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī
B Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī
B Philosophy of time
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Summary:Although overshadowed by his celebrated commentaries on Ibn ʿArabī and Ibn al-Fāriḍ, Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī’s (d. 750/1351) treatise on the philosophy of time – the Nihāyat al-bayān fī dirāyat al-zamān (The Utmost Elucidation Concerning Knowledge of Time) – is a notable milestone in the history of Islamic conceptions of temporality. Composed around the start of Qayṣarī’s tenure as head of the first Ottoman madrasa, the Nihāyat al-bayān rejects the Aristotelian definition of time as the number of motion in favor of Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī’s concept of zamān as the measure of being. Challenging, likewise, portrayals of time as a flux or succession of fleeting instants, Qayṣarī propounds instead an absolutist vision of time as an integral, objectively existent whole. Qayṣarī’s reassessment of dominant medieval theories of temporality – including kalām atomism and the Neoplatonic distinction between time, perpetuity, and eternity – is thus shown to be a key early example of what was to become an abiding Ottoman interest in time and timekeeping.
ISSN:1877-8372
Contains:Enthalten in: Oriens
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/18778372-12340014