Kamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī Kāshifī,[3][a]Persian:کمالالدین حسین بن علی سبزواری best simply known asHusayn Kashifi,Persian:مولانا حسین واعظ کاشفی was a prolificPersian[3]prose-stylist, a poet, aQuran exegete, aSufi scholar, and an astronomer of theTimurid era.Kashifi was his pen name, whereas his surnameal-Wāʿiẓ ("the preacher")[3][b] denoted his professional occupation.
He spent most of his career inHerat, where his academic activities were supported byAli-Shir Nava'i, a senior vizier in theTimurid court duringSultan Husayn Bayqara's rule, hence the reason for Kashifi to dedicate most of his works to Nava'i. He was also very close to the famous Persian poet and Sufi,Nur al-Din 'Abd al-Rahman Jami.
His famous works includeAkhlaq-e Mohseni andAnwar-e Sohaili in Persian prose, andJawaher al-Tafsir andMawaheb-e 'Aliyya which are Persiantafsirs of the Quran.
Kashifi was born inSabzevar, a city in the province ofBayhaq. He therefore often calls himselfal-Kashifi al-Bayhaqi in some of his books (cf.Jawaher al-Tafsir). "Kashifi" was hispen name (takhallus).[1] He was also known as Mawlānā Wāʿiẓ Kāshifi or simply Mullā Ḥusayn.[1] He moved toHerat in 860/1456, where he got acquainted withNur al-Din 'Abd al-Rahman Jami, the famous Persian poet of theTimurid era. Through him he was introduced toAli-Shir Nava'i, a senior official as well as writer and poet in the Timurid court.
Kashifi remained in Herat until his death in 910/1504. He was buried in Herat, in the vicinity of Jami's grave.[1]
Over the years, Kashifi has been a source of controversy between theSunnis and theShi'as. However, recent consensus both in the Persian and English academic spheres is that Kashifi was Sunni (andHanafi) inmadhhab despite indications of his pious devotion toShia Imams which is not unusual among pre-Safavid Sunni scholars.[1][2]
He was occasionally referred to as a Shi'a scholar in some sources for three reasons. First, like many other Sunni scholars ofKhorasan up until the end of the Timurid era (for instance, the famous Persian poet andSufi,Attar Nishapuri, he composed a book in praise of theAhl al-Bayt who are respected by the Sunnis and Shias alike), Kashifi composed at least two works in praise of theAhl al-Bayt and some of theShi'a Imams. Second, his birthplace,Savzevar, was traditionally a Shia center. Third, when theSafavid empire took over Herat, it promoted Kashifi as a Shi'a scholar "in order to justify their adoption of theRawżat al-šohadāʾ as a quasi-canonical text that served as the standard script used in the performance of the Shiʿite passion play".[1]
In his majortafsir work,Jawaher al-Tafsir, out of around forty tafsirs which he used as reference and which he cites, only three stand out as being Shi'a tafsirs.[4][2] The remaining sources are Sunni tafsirs.
Around thirty books in prose, poetry, tafsir, astronomy, and Islamic sciences are attributed to Kashifi. The most famous of which are:
Akhlaq-e Moheseni (Persian:اخلاق محسنی): a treatise on ethics and statecraft in forty chapters, completed in 907/1501-2 and dedicated to Solṭān-Ḥosayn.
Anwar-e Sohaili (Persian:انوار سهیلی): a prose recension of Abu’l-Maʿāli's popular animal fables,Kalīla wa-Dimna in fourteen chapters, commissioned by and dedicated to the Timurid amir Neẓām-al-Din Sheikh Aḥmad Sohayli.
Jawaher al-Tafsir le Tohfat al-Amir (Persian:جواهر التفسیر لتحفة الأمیر): A tafsir comprising the first threeSurahs of the Quran. Kashifi composed the tafsir using around 40 tafsirs in Arabic and Persian, and around 20 other treatises and books of Islamic scholars, as his reference.Tafsir al-Kabir ofAl-Razi andAl-Taysir fi al-Tafsir ofAbu Hafs Umar al-Nasafi appear to be the most cited. It is a voluminous work, and when Kashifi noticed that it was taking him too long to finish the book, he abandoned the project when he reached the fourth Surah. Instead he composed an abridged but full tafsir, calledMawaheb-e 'Aliyya.
Mawaheb-e 'Aliyya (Persian:مواهب علیه): An abridged full tafsir of the Quran. Together with Jawaher al-Tafsir, they have been viewed as popular tafsir works inAfghanistan and theIndian subcontinent over the past five centuries.
Lobb-e Lobab-e Masnawi (Persian:لب لباب مثنوی): an abridged anthology of selections from theMasnawi ofJalāl al-Din Rumi, compiled in 875/1470-71.
Rawzat al-Shuhada (Persian:روضة الشهداء): anʿAlid martyrology in ten chapters and a conclusion, which focuses largely onImam Ḥosayn and the tragic events atKarbala, composed in 908/1502-3.
Mitchell, Colin Paul (2003). "To preserve and protect: Husayn Vaciz-i Kashifi and Perso-Islamic chancellery culture".Iranian Studies.36 (4):485–508.doi:10.1080/021086032000139195.S2CID159560925.
Subtelny, Maria E. (2018). "The Works of Ḥusayn Vāʿiẓ Kāshifī as a Source for the Study of Sufism in Late 15th- and Early 16th-Century Central Asia". In DeWeese, Devin; Gross, Jo-Ann (eds.).Sufism in Central Asia: New Perspectives on Sufi Traditions, 15th-21st Centuries. Brill. pp. 98–118.ISBN978-90-04-36787-6.
Contemporary Persian and Classical Persian are the same language, but writers since 1900 are classified as contemporary. At one time, Persian was a common cultural language of much of the non-Arabic Islamic world. Today it is the official language ofIran,Tajikistan and one of the two official languages ofAfghanistan.
