Collected Works of Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i

Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i
Collected Works
al-A`mal al-Kamilah

     Shaykh Ahmad Al-Ahsa'i (1753-1826), a native of Eastern Arabia educated in Bahrain and the theological centers of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, spent the last twenty years of his life in Iran, mainly Yazd and Kermanshah, where he received the protection and patronage of princes of the Qajar dynasty, which had restored Shi`ism as Iran's state religion. In Iran, he became much revered by the people. He rejected an offer from Fath-`Ali Shah (r. 1798-1834) to reside in the capital, Tehran, as a royal favorite, for fear that his commitment to justice for the ordinary folk would eventually lead him into conflict with the court. Al-Ahsa'i's speculative writings constitute one of the last great flowerings of Muslim theosophy before the impact of modern European thought in the nineteenth century. Some sources say as many as a fourth of the Shi`ites of Iran followed him by the time of his death.
      See: For Shaykhism see Henri Corbin, L'École Shaykhie en Théologie Shi`ite (Tehran: Taban, 1967), idem, En Islam Iranien, 4 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1971-72), vol. 4; Mangol Bayat, Mysticism and Dissent: Socioreligious Thought in Qajar Iran (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1982), pp. 1-58. For Shaykh Ahmad himself, see A.L.M. Nicolas, Essai sur le cheikhisme, vol. 1 (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1910); Vahid Rafati, "The Development of Shaykhi Thought in Shi`i Islam," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1979); and Denis MacEoin, S.V. "Ahsa'i, Shaikh Ahmad b. Zayn al-Din," Encyclopaedia Iranica, 3 vols. - (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983 - ); Juan R. I. Cole, "The World as Text: Cosmologies of Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i," Studia Islamica 80 (1994):1-23; Juan R. I. Cole, . "Individualism and the Spiritual Path in Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i" Occasional Papers in Shaykhi, Babi and Baha'i Studies, vol. 1, no. 4 (September, 1997); and Idris Samawi Hamid, "The Metaphysics and Cosmology of Process According to Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i," (Ph.D. dissertation: State University of New York at Buffalo, 1998)..
      Web sites include: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/shaykhi.htm and http://www.alahsai.net/

Ma`rifat Kayfiyyat al-Suluk ila Allah . (Beirut: Dar al-`Alamiyyah, 1993). Selected and reprinted from a 19th century Iranian lithograph. Digitally reprinted, East Lansing, Mi.: H-Bahai, 2003.
Rasa'il al-Hikmah . (Beirut: Dar al-`Alamiyyah, 1993). Selected and reprinted from a 19th century Iranian lithograph. Digitally reprinted, East Lansing, Mi.: H-Bahai, 2001.
Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i. Risalah fi Jawab Masa'il Fath `Ali Khan Zand. In Jawami` al-Kalim, 2 vols. (Tabriz: Muhammad Taqi Nakhjavani, 1273-1276 A.H.), vol. 2, pp. 92-100. East Lansing, Mi.: H-Bahai, 2002.

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