The Influence of Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani on Mohammad Nassir-a-din Makki Hosseini, Regarding Their Epistemological Views in Tamhīdāt and Bahr al-Maani

Mohammad Nassir-a-din Makki Hosseini in his book Bahr al-Maani (The Sea of Meanings) pays considerable attention to epistemological issues. The purpose of the present article is to explain his the epistemological views and to examine the influence of Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani's Tamhīdāt on his ideas. This study has been done by using descriptive-analytical method and based on library resources. The findings show that Mohammad Makki not only in content, but also in words and phrases, has been influenced by the epistemological views of Ayn al-Quzat. Both mystics have distinguished between inward knowledge and outward knowledge, and have considered outward knowledge as the divine knowledge that mystics receive it due to their degree of unshakable faith in God. According to both of them, man can attain divine knowledge through self-knowledge and the knowing of the prophet Muhammad; but knowing the divine essence is not possible and one can only know about divine names, attributes and acts. They speak of the existence of an obstacle (hejab) in knowing God and believe that this obstacle will not be completely removed; and for some reasons such as content, human limitations and religious limitations, the inability of the audience to understand the concepts and the issue of confidentiality, the divine teachings are inexpressible. These topics are covered in more detail in Bahr al-Maani than in Tamhīdāt.