Tafsīr ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī

All praise belongs to God whose arrangements1 of His [Qurʾānic] speech He has made
to be the manifestations of the beauty (ḥusn) of His attributes and the rising stars
(ṭawāliʿ)2 of His attributes [to be] the rising points (maṭāliʿ) of the light of His essence.
He has purified the channels of audition in the hearts of His elect (aṣfiyāʾ) so that the
audition may be realised. He has refreshed the sources of the sensory faculties of
comprehension in His friends (awliyāʾ) so that the beholding may be certain. He has
made their innermost hearts sensitive to [the divine] subtleties by the irradiation of rays
of love within them. He has made their spirits yearn to witness the beauty of His
countenance, [only possible] by means of their annihilation (fanāʾ); but when He cast
upon them [His] speech they found spiritual comfort in it by morning and evening.
Through that [speech] He brought them closer and closer to Him so that they became
in near communion with Him.3 Thereat He purified their souls with Its manifest aspect
(ẓāhir) so that It became like gushing water and He replenished their hearts with Its
inner aspect so that it became like a surging sea. And when they wanted to dive [into
It] to extract the pearls of its mysteries, the waters rose high above them and they were
drowned by its torrent. Yet the riverbeds of understandings continued to flow [in a
measure] commensurate with their capacities by that inundation [of His words], while
the streams of intellects flowed over into rivers [just] by the sprinkled moisture [of His
speech]. There the riverbeds exposed upon the shores dazzling gems and pearls, while
the streams caused blooming flowers and [abundant] fruits to sprout upon the banks.
With the deluge of their [the streams’] flow, hearts – standing still at their limits – set
about filling every seal and every breach, unable to number these. Souls set about
harvesting fruits and rays of light, offering thanks in their [states] of ecstasy (wajd),
fulfilling therewith their [innermost] desires. As for the innermost hearts (asrār), when
their hearing is struck by those striking verses, 4 they listen up and become aware
through these [striking verses] of the risings of [His] attributes, becoming perplexed by
their beauty upon seeing them, bewildered and confused at their self-disclosure. They
[their innermost hearts] begin to come apart until their spirits have reached their
collar-bones whereupon there rises afterwards the beautiful appearance of His enduring

1
Literally, the points or loci which distinguish Qurʾānic semantic units from one another and which
taken as a whole constitute the inimitable ‘arrangement’ (naẓm) of God’s speech. The point, it seems, is
that these semantic breaks or divisions are where the esoteric meanings are located and whence the
mystical allusions emerge.
2
The Arabic in several instances in this passage plays on the root (ṭ-l-ʿ).
3
Of course, this state of near communion is ‘salvation’, a signification already implicit in related forms for
both words: najāt and khalāṣ.
4
Cf. Q. 101, the sūra entitled al-Qāriʿa. The sense here is that of verses that have a profound effect upon
the listener, on account of their content.
countenance and that witnessing decrees the negation of their existence, obliging them
to affirm [the truth of the witnessing itself]. So glory be to Him besides Whom there is
no god, the One, Almighty. Glory be to Him Who discloses Himself in His speech, by
means of the garb of the attributes of His majesty and beauty, to His servants in the
form of the splendour of His essence and perfection. Blessings be upon the blessed tree
[sc. Muḥammad] whom He has made enunciate this speech and whom He has made its
source and origin, [being] from It, for It and to It, and peace be upon it and his family
who are the storehouses of His knowledge and mighty Book, and upon his Companions
through whom the religion [of Islam] has found itself in an impregnable sanctuary.

To wit: for a long time I was in the habit of reciting the Qurʾān, pondering its
meanings with the power of faith. Despite the observance of my litanies, my breast
remained constricted, my inner heart anxious, and my heart never [quite] expanding by
[the meanings of] these [verses]. Yet, still my Lord would not turn me away from
them, until [eventually] when I became intimate with them and [grew] fond of them, I
tasted the sweetness of their cup and I drank [from] it. Through these [meanings] I
then became a spirited soul, my breast split open, a patient mind with a joyous heart, a
secret broadened, my days and states made good, my spirit rejoicing in that triumph
seemingly continuous, [like a drink taken] by night and day.

Behind every verse would be revealed to me meanings which my tongue was incapable
of describing. Neither [my] power was sufficient to record or number them, nor [my]
strength could endure to divulge or expose them. I then remembered a report that had
come [to me] – [but] which had not aroused in me [any interest], since it was beyond
my aims and aspirations [at that time] – the saying of the unlettered (ummī), truthful,
Prophet, the most excellent blessings be upon him from every silent and [every]
speaking thing: ‘No verse of the Qurʾān has been sent down except that it has an
exterior (ẓahr) and an interior (baṭn), with every letter (ḥarf) having a limit (ḥadd), every
limit a look-out point (muṭṭalaʿ)’. I understood from this [statement] that the exterior
is exoteric exegesis (tafsīr), while the interior is esoteric interpretation (taʾwīl). The
limit is the most that the [faculties of] comprehension can attain from the significations
of the speech, while the look-out point is that [point] from the limit to which he [the
believer] rises and comes to partake in the witnessings of the Omniscient King. And
indeed it has been transmitted from the foremost, truth-affirming imam, Jaʿfar b.
Muḥammad al-Ṣādiq, peace be upon him, that he said: ‘Verily God has disclosed
Himself to His servants in His speech, but you fail to see [that]’. It is also related from
him, peace be upon him, that he fell down unconscious during prayer and when he was
2
asked about that, he said: ‘I kept repeating the verse until I [eventually] heard it from
the One Who had spoken it’.
I therefore deemed [it fit] that I should append some of what occurs to my mind at
certain times in the way of the mysteries of the interior realities and the lights of the
dawning places of the look-out points (muṭṭalaʿāt), to the exclusion of what pertains to
the exterior [aspects] and the limits (ḥudūd), since for these a defined limit [of
meanings] has been assigned.

Now, they say that he who explains (fassara) [the Qurʾān] on the basis of opinion (raʾy)
has verily become a disbeliever (kāfir), and as for [esoteric] interpretation (taʾwīl) that ‘it
neither spares nor leaves behind’,5 for it differs in accordance with the [different] states
and moments of the listener along the stages of his wayfaring (sulūk) and by the
variation of his degrees (daraja). Whenever he rises from his station (maqām) [to a
higher one], a new gate of understanding opens up for him, through which he becomes
aware of a subtle meaning pre-prepared [for him]. I thus embarked on drafting these
pages [of interpretation] to the extent to which the mind (khāṭir) might permit by way
of what has been agreed upon [as acceptable], without hovering over the plain of
exoteric exegesis nor delving into the abyss of look-out points that cannot be affirmed,
all the while respecting the arrangement and order of the scripture, but without
repeating [the exegesis] of what [verses] it reiterates or what [parts of it] resemble other
parts of it by way of style. All that does not submit to interpretation (taʾwīl) as I see it,
or does not require it, a priori has not been presented [here]. Nor do I claim to have
reached the limit [of mystical interpretation] for what I have presented, no indeed. For
the aspects of understanding cannot be confined to what I have understood. The
knowledge of God cannot be restricted to what I have come to know. Nevertheless, my
[capacity of] understanding has not ceased with what I have mentioned here. Rather,
perhaps certain [additional] aspects of [understanding] what has been written have
occurred to me, except that I became lost in all of its content. As for what can be
interpreted of those stipulations, by which, on the face of it, [only] the manifest sense is
intended,6 I only interpreted slightly so that it may be known that there is a [proper]
way to understanding such [verses] and that by this method [the meanings of] other
analogous [verses] can be inferred if one were to go beyond the explicit sense [of such
verses], for inevitably there will be an element of arbitrariness in interpreting them. The

5
Cf. Q. 74:28, where the same expression is used of the Hellfire saqar.
6
In other words, legal verses of the Qurʾān by which is intended simply that exoteric sense, the manifest
meaning.
3
mark of virtue (muruwwa) is to abandon such artificiality. Perhaps superior aspects [of
interpretation] will occur to someone other than me who is more amenable to being led
[to them]. For that is indeed an easy thing in the case of individual servants [of God]
for whom such [a thing] has [already] been facilitated. And for God, exalted be He, for
every word there are [manifold] words, the sea will be spent before they are. How then
can these [meanings] be restricted and enumerated? They constitute, rather, an
exemplum for the people of taste and ecstasy which they follow when reciting the
Qurʾān, so that what they have prepared themselves for, in the way of hidden elements
of His knowledge, are revealed to them and what they have the capacity for
[understanding], in the way of invisible elements of His Unseen, are disclosed to them.
God is Guide of the striving ones (mujāhada) unto the path of unveiling and witnessing,
and of the yearning ones unto the watering-places of the tasting (dhawq). Indeed, He is
the proprietor of realisation (taḥqīq) and through His hand comes success.

[1] al-Fātiḥa

[1:1] In the Name of God: the name of a thing is that by which it can be known. The
Names of God, exalted be He, are the [arche]typal forms (ṣuwar nawʿiyya) whose
specificities and ipseities (hūwiyya) indicate the attributes of God and His essence, and
[which indicate] by their very existence His countenance, and by their individuation His
oneness. For, these are the outward manifestations through which He can be known;
Allāh is a name for the divine essence qua essence absolutely, without taking into
consideration that it may be qualified by the attributes or indeed taking into
consideration that it may not be [so] qualified; the Compassionate, is the one who
causes existence and perfection to flow upon all [things] in the measure that [divine]
wisdom requires and to the capacity of the receiving entities (qawābil) from the outset
[of their creation]; the Merciful: (al-Raḥīm) is the one who bestows the spiritual
perfection (kamāl maʿnawī) that has been earmarked for the human species in the end
[sc. in the Hereafter]. It is for this reason that they say O [You Who are the]
Compassionate One of this world and of the Hereafter (yā raḥmān al-dunyā wa’l-
ākhira), but [say] O Merciful One of the Hereafter (raḥīm al-ākhira): the meaning then
is, in the perfect human all-encompassing form, general and specific mercy, which is the
locus of manifestation of the divine essence and the greatest truth with the totality of
attributes, I commence and I recite. It [Allāh] is the Greatest Name [of God]. It is to
this meaning that the Prophet’s (ṣlʿm) alluded when he said, ‘I have been given the sum
of all [excellent] speech [sc. The Qurʾān] and have been sent to complete the noble

4
character traits (makārim al-akhlāq). For words constitute the realities (ḥaqāʾiq) of
existents (mawjūdāt) and their concrete substances (aʿyān), just as Jesus, peace be upon
him, was called a Word from God [cf. 3:39,45]. The noble character traits are the
perfections [of these existents] and [represent] their specifities, constituting the sources
of their [the existents’] actions in their entirety, contained as they are in the
comprehensive human microcosm (kawn insānī). Herein lies a subtlety (laṭīfa), namely
that the prophets, peace be upon them, have made the letters of the alphabet analogous
to the ranks of existents (marātib al-mawjūdāt). I have found in the statements of Jesus,
peace and blessings be upon him, and of the Commander of the Believers ʿAlī [b. Abī
Ṭālib], peace be upon him, and of some Companions what indicates [the truth of] this.
In effect, that is why they say that existents were made manifest through the [letter] bāʾ
of bismillāh (In the Name of God), since it is the letter that comes after the alif which
[itself] is analogous to the Essence of God. Thus it [the bāʾ] is an allusion to the First
Intellect (al-ʿaql al-awwal), which is the first thing that God created and the one to
whom God’s statement, “I have not created anything more beloved to Me or more
noble in My eyes than you: through you I grant, through you I seize, through you I
reward and through you I chastise” is addressed [as per] the ḥadīth. [You will note that]
the uttered letters in this statement are 18,7 the written ones 19, and if the words were
separated the letters would amount to 22. The 18 are allusions denoting the 18,000
worlds. For ‘thousand’ is a complete number subsuming all the other levels of numbers,
and is as such the foundation of all [numerical] levels, higher than which there is no
number. [The letters] thus are used to denote the mothers/foundations of all worlds
(ʿawālim), namely, the world of power (ʿālam al-jabarūt), the world of the heavenly
kingdom (ʿālam al-malakūt), the throne (ʿarsh), the seat (kursī), the seven heavens, the
four elements and the three [natural] kingdoms (mawālīd),8 each of which subdivides
into its constituent parts; the 19 letters are allusions to these together with the world of
humankind, for even if this [latter] belongs in the animal world, it, on account of its
eminence (sharaf) 9 and its subsuming of both [the animal and the human] and its
comprising of existence, it constitutes another world [in its own right], one with its
own affair, a genus sui generis, with its own demonstrative proof (burhān), such as
Gabriel from among the angels where God says, and His angels… and Gabriel [Q. 2:98].

7
The 18 pronounceable letters in this statement are hamza, alif, ḥāʾ, yāʾ, bāʾ, wāw, kāf, ʿayn, dhāl, mīm,
khāʾ, lām, qāf, tāʾ, rāʾ, nūn, ṭāʾ, thāʾ.
8
Literally, ‘the three offspring’: these are the mineral, the plant and the animal (including humans).
9
Cf. Q. 17:70. According to Ibn ʿArabī, ‘Man possesses an eminence over everything in the heaven and
earth. He is God’s sought-after goal among the existent things, since it is he whom God has taken as a
locus of self-disclosure […].’ (Chittick 1989, 368).
5
The three hidden alifs, which complete the 22 [letters] upon separation, are an allusion
to the true divine world in terms of the Essence, the attributes and the acts. These then
are three worlds at the point of differentiation (tafṣīl), but one when at that of
realisation (taḥqīq). The three written ones are an allusion to the manifestation of these
worlds in the supreme human form. And on account of the veiling of the divine world
when the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, was asked about
the alif of the [letter] bāʾ, how was it that it went away, he replied, ‘Satan stole it’, and
he was commanded to elongate the bāʾ of bismillāh to compensate for its [stolen] alif, an
allusion to the veiling of the divineness of the divinity in the form of diffusional mercy
(raḥma intishāriyya) and its manifestation in human form such that only those who are
worthy will recognise it. That is why it [the alif] has not been written in. Indeed, in the
ḥadīth it is said that God, exalted be He, created Adam in his form. Thus the [divine]
Essence is veiled by the attributes, the attributes by the acts, the acts by the engendered
things (akwān) and the effects of these engendered things (āthār [kawniyya]). The one
to whom the acts are disclosed by the lifting of the veils of the engendered things, he
trusts [in God]. The one to whom the attributes are disclosed by the lifting of the veils
of the acts is satisfied and submits. The one to whom the Essence is disclosed by the
unveiling of the veils of the attributes is annihilated in the Unity and becomes an
absolute affirmer of the Unity absolutely, doing what he does and reciting what he
recites ‘in the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful’. The declaration of the
unity of the acts then precedes the declaration of the unity of the attributes and this
[the latter precedes] the declaration of the unity of the Essence. To these three he [the
Prophet], may God’s blessings be upon him, alluded when he would prostrate and say, ‘I
seek refuge in Your pardon from Your punishment, and I seek refuge in Your
satisfaction from Your wrath and I seek refuge in You from You.
[1:2] Praise be to God; Lord of all Worlds, to the end of the sūra: ‘praise’ in actions and
utterances of the moment (lisān al-ḥāl) is the manifestation (ẓuhūr) of perfections and
the actualisation (ḥuṣūl) of the ends (ghāyāt) of things, since these are opening
laudations and marvelous eulogies by the one granting them in accordance with what is
due to that [object of eulogy]. For all existents, on account of their specificity and
specific qualities and orientation towards their end-goals, and by the bringing forth of
their perfections [sc. perfected states] from the space of potentiality into actuality, are
proclaimers of [His] glory and praisers, as God, exalted be He, says: and there is not a
thing but proclaims His praise [Q. 17:44]. Their proclamation of His glory is the
declaration that He is above the need for any associate, [exalted above] the attributes of
deficiency (naqṣ) and incapacity, [and this] by their very dependence on Him and their

6
being indicators of His Oneness and His power. As for their praise [of Him], this is the
manifesting of their derivative perfections and their being the loci of the manifestation
of those attributes of majesty and beauty. His Essence is singled out [for praise] on
account of His being the principle (mabdaʾ) of all things, and [on account of] His
preservation and management of these, which constitute the very signification of [His]
lordship of all worlds. In other words [praise be] to every knowable of the knowledge of
God [being that] by which He is known, as in the case of the seal and what it seals and
the mould and what is moulded in it. The construction [of ʿālam] is in the sound plural
[ʿālamīn] because it subsumes the signification of ‘knowledge’ (ʿilm), or on account of
the prevalence [of cognizant beings in these worlds]. In the face of [His] bestowing of
good generally and specifically, that is, outward graces such as health and provision, and
inner [graces] such as gnosis (maʿrifa) and knowledge (ʿilm); and on account of His
being the ultimate end [of all things], which is the [true] signification of [His being]
master of [all] things on the Day of Judgement, since in reality the only one who will
requite will be the worshipped One, to whom all mastership returns at the time of
requital either through the rewarding of everlasting grace in place of ephemeral [grace]
upon the disengagement from this [latter] by means of renunciation and the self-
disclosures of actions upon the servant’s wrenching himself away from his actions and
the replacement of his attributes with His attributes upon effacement (maḥw) and his
subsistence (baqāʾ) through His Essence, and His gift to him of veridical [divine]
existence (wujūd ḥaqqānī),10 upon his annihilation (fanāʾ). To Him and His what-ness,
exalted be He, pre-eternally and sempiternally, as befits Him in His Essence at the
beginning stage and at the end stage and in-between the two at the stage of union
(maqām al-jamʿ), belongs all praise by the differentiated tongues, absolutely. For He is
the One praising and the One praised at [the level of] differentiation and [at the level
of] union, the Worshipper and the Worshipped, whether at the starting point and or at
the end. When He discloses Himself to His servants in His words through His
attributes, they witness Him in His greatness and resplendence and in His perfect
power and majesty, and they address Him in word and deed ascribing worship to Him
[alone] and seeking assistance from Him [alone], for they find none to be worshipped
other than Him and [find that] there is no might or power in anyone except through
Him. If they stand present [at this witnessing] their motions and their stillness would
all constitute worship of Him and through Him, and they would ‘maintain their

10
This is more than ‘real existence’ (wujūd ḥaqīqī), for it refers to al-Ḥaqq Himself, in other words,
existence within the (divine) existence of the Real.
7
prayers’ [cf. Q. 70:23], supplicating with the tongue of love witnessing as they are His
beauty from every aspect and in every aspect.
[1:6] Guide us to the straight path, in other words, fix us upon [the path of] guidance
and empower us to remain upright along the path of oneness, that is, the path of those
favoured [by You] with the special favour pertaining to [Your] Mercifulness (raḥīmiyya),
which is gnosis, love and guidance, such as the prophets, the martyrs, the truthful and
the friends (awliyāʾ) who have witnessed Him as the First and the Last, and as the
Manifest and the Hidden, and who through the witnessing of the rise of His abiding
countenance, became absent from the existence of ephemeral shadow.
[1:7] not [the path] of those against whom there is wrath, those who stop at the outward
[aspects], concealing themselves behind the veil of the Compassionate One’s favour and
that of corporeal bliss and physical taste, [stopping] short of the spiritual realities and
the bliss of the heart and the tasting through the intellect, such as the Jews. For their
call was one to outward things, such as the Gardens, the [paradisiacal] maidens and
palaces, which is why He was wrathful with them, for wrath requires banishment and
distance. To [be content to] stop at the outward aspects [of things], which are the veils
of darkness, is the ultimate in distance [from God]; nor of those who are astray, those
who stand [content] with the inner aspects, which are the luminous veils (ḥujub
nūrāniyya), and have concealed themselves behind the favour pertaining to [His]
Mercifulness to the exclusion of the favour emanating from [Him as] the
Compassionate One. They are unmindful of the manifest nature of the Truth and have
erred from the even path, and have thus been denied the witnessing of the beauty of the
Beloved in all things, as is the case with the Christians. For their call was to inner
things and to the lights of the world of the Holy, whereas the call of the
Muhammadans, the proclaimers of [God’s] oneness, was to both [the inner and the
outer] aspects, combining love for the beauty of [His] Essence with [love of His] most
beautiful attributes as attested [in the Qurʾān]: hasten to forgiveness from your Lord and a
Garden…; be wary of God and believe in His Messenger and He will give you two portions
from His mercy and He will make for you a light by which you may walk; worship God and
do not associate anything with Him. They [the Muslims] thus heeded all three calls, as is
mentioned in support of: they hope for His mercy but fear His chastisement, and they say, ‘O
our Lord, complete for us our light; they say our lord is God and then are upright and are
thus rewarded with union, according to what God, exalted be He, has informed: their
reward with their Lord shall be gardens of Eden. They will have their wage and their light;
whithersoever they turn, there is the face of God; for those who have been virtuous, theirs shall
be the fairest reward and more [Q. 10:26].

8
Sūrat al-Baqara
[2:1-2] Alif lām mīm. That Book: these three letters constitute an allusion to the
entirety of existence qua totality, because alif alludes to the essence of the one who is
the first of existence, as has been mentioned; lām [alludes] to the active intellect, called
Gabriel, who is the middle of existence receiving emanation from the principle [of
existence] and overflowing upon the end [of existence]; mīm [alludes] to Muḥammad
who is the last of existence with whom the cycle [of existence] comes full circle and [its
last] is joined to its first, which is why he [Muḥammad] is the seal. He said, ‘Verily
time has come full circle back to its form on the day when God created the heavens and
the earth’. According to one of the [pious] predecessors, ‘The lām is made up of two
alifs’, in other words, analogous to the Essence together with its attribute of knowledge,
which together constitute two of the three divine realms we have alluded to. It is thus
one of God’s Names, for each Name is made up of the Essence together with some
[particular] attribute. As for mīm, this is an allusion to the Essence together with all of
the attributes and the acts that have been veiled therein in the Muḥammadan form,
which is God’s Greatest Name, so that none knows this [Name] except the one who
knows it. Do you not know how mīm, which is the form of the Essence, is veiled by It?
Mīm has a yāʾ and the yāʾ has an alif. The mysterious aspect of the letters of the
alphabet is that there is no letter that does not contain an alif. This [explanation] is
similar to the statement that the meaning [of these letters] constitutes an oath by God,
the Knowing, the Wise. For Gabriel is the locus of manifestation of knowledge and is
thus His Name the Knowing, while Muḥammad is the locus of manifestation of
wisdom and is thus His Name the Wise. From this becomes manifest the meaning of
the statement, ‘In every one of His Names there are an infinite number of names. In the
realm of wisdom, which is the realm of cause and effect, knowledge is not complete and
is not perfected unless it is combined with the act whereupon it becomes a wisdom.
Therefore submission [to God] (islām) does not result simply by saying ‘there is no god
except God’, unless it is combined with ‘Muḥammad is the Messenger of God’. The
meaning of this verse then is: alif lām mīm, that promised Book, in other words, the
form of the all-comprehensive totality [of existence], suggested by the book of number
mysticism (jafr), that subsumes everything promised to be with the Mahdī at the end of
time.11 Only he will be able to read it as it really is. The [book of] number mysticism is
the Tablet of Decree (lawḥ al-qaḍāʾ), which is the universal intellect (ʿaql al-kull), while
the all-comprehensive is the Tablet of Determination (lawḥ al-qadar), which is the

11
This is one instance in which Kāshānī’s Shīʿism can be gleaned, since he refers to jafr and the coming
of the messianic figure of the mahdī …[expand].
9