1058/1648).

1058/1648).31 Author of an Arabic and even longer Persian commentary on the Fusūs and also an authoritative commentary on the Futūhāt, Ilāhābādī also wrote independent treatises on ‘irfān. His writings emphasize intellection and sapience rather than just spiritual states which many Sufis in India as elsewhere claimed as the sole source of divine knowledge.

The significance of the works of Muhibb Allāh Ilāhābādī in the tradition of theoretical gnosis under consideration in this essay and his later influence in India are immense. He marks one of the major peaks of the School not only in India, but in the whole of the Islamic world. The central thesis of Ibn ‘Arabian gnosis, that is, wahdat alwujūd had a life of its own in India.

While certain Sufis, such as Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindī, opposed its usual interpretation, it was embraced by many Sufis including such great saints as Gīsū Dirāz and Nizām al-Dīn Awliyā’ and many of their disciples. One can hardly imagine the history of Sufism in the Subcontinent without the central role played by ‘irfān-i nazarī. Even notable Indian philosophers and theologians such as Shāh Walī Allāh (d.

1176/1762) of Delhi wrote works highly inspired by this School whose influence continued into the 14th/20th century as we see in some of the works of Mawlānā Ashraf ‘Alī Thanwī (d. 1362/1943).32 Moreover, once the philosophical School of Illumination (ishrāq) and the Transcendent Theosophy or Philosophy (al-hikmat al-muta‘āliyah) reached India, there were many interactions between these Schools and the School of ‘irfān as we also see in Persia itself. Previous…