© Journal of Islamic Studies 3:1 (1992) pp.

1-14

ORAL TRANSMISSION AND THE BOOK

IN ISLAMIC EDUCATION: THE SPOKEN
AND THE WRITTEN WORD
SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR

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George Washington University, Washington, DC

The revelation of the Qur*an was auditory before becoming crystallized

in a written text. The Prophet first heard the term iqre? and only later
recited the first revealed verses on the basis of their audition. The whole
experience of the Qur'an for Muslims remains to this day first of all an
auditory experience and is only later associated with reading in the
ordinary sense of the word. There is an ever present, orally heard, and
memorized Qur'an in addition to the written version of the Sacred
Text, an auditory reality which touches the deepest chords in the souls
of the faithful, even if they are unable to read the Arabic text.
Since it is the 'Mother of Books' and also the prototype of the written
word in Islam, the oral dimension of the Qur'anic reality, combined
with the traditional significance of memory in the transmission of
knowledge, could not but affect the whole of the Islamic intellectual
tradition and educational system. It could not but enliven both the
poetic and the prose memory of the Islamic peoples, strengthen the
significance of oral transmission, and leave something of its impact
upon the very understanding of the book in the context of traditional
Islamic culture. As a result of the influence of the Qur'anic revelation
and also other factors related to the rise of the whole Islamic educational
system, the significance of the oral tradition and memory as a vehicle
for the transmission of knowledge came to complement the written
word contained in books, especially those books which became central
texts for the teaching of various schools of thought and which figured
prominently in the relationship between the traditional master (al-
ustadh) and the students (tullab).1 Such books became more than simply
1
Concerning the texts used in traditional curricula of the madrasahs and in private
circles see, for example, S. H. Nasr, 'The Traditional Texts used in the Persian
Madrasahs', in his Islamic Life and Thought (London, 1987), ch. 10; M. S. Khan, 'The
Teaching of Mathematics and Astronomy in the Educational Institutions of Medieval
2 SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR

the written text. Rather, they came to accompany and in a sense became
immersed in the spoken word, through an oral teaching transmitted
from master to student and stored in the memory of those destined to
be the recipients of the knowledge in question. Such books were not
exclusively written texts whose reality was exhausted by the words
inscribed in ink upon parchment.
The oral tradition also played a cultural role in determining which
book or books of a particular master would become texts to be discussed
in study circles and would act as a vehicle for the transmission of the

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teachings of the master in question. The oral transmission helped to
establish the authority of teachers who were to follow and it served as
the criterion with the aid of which one could distinguish one student
from another as far as his closeness to the master and understanding
of the latter's message were concerned, although naturally debates often
ensued.
This paper seeks to pursue this theme in one field, namely Islamic
philosophy {al-falsafah), and its close ally in later centuries, theoretical
gnosis (al-macrifah or al-'irfan), with which it finally merged especially
in Persia and the other eastern lands of the Islamic world. Our analysis
is based not so much upon scholarly research, as upon over twenty
years of continuous study with traditional masters in Persia in the field
of Islamic philosophy and gnosis, masters who would mention at the
beginning of their instruction that the good student must learn not only
to read correctly the black lines of the text in Arabic or Persian but
that he must also be able to read what they would call 'the white parts'
of the page or what in English would be called reading between the
lines.2 But this reading of the 'unwritten' text had to be carried out not
according to the student's individual whim and fancy, but in accordance
with the oral transmission stored in the memory of the master and
going back through generations of teachers to the original author of
the text and ultimately to the founders and major figures of the school
in question—figures who also possessed a 'vertical' and non-historical
relation with the source of that traditional school.
As far as philosophy and gnosis are concerned, there is also a factor
India', Muslim Educational Quarterly, 6, no. 3 (1989), 7-15; and the major study of G.
Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges—Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edin-
burgh, 1981), which contains a wealth of information on the use of texts in Islamic
madrasahs as well as an extensive bibliography on Islamic education including works
on the use of texts in various schools.
1
On the living tradition of Islamic philosophy in Persia see H. Corbin, 'The Force
of Traditional Philosophy in Iran Today', Studies in Comparative Religion (Winter
1968), 12-16; S. H. Nasr, Islamic Philosophy in Contemporary Persia (Salt Lake City,
1972); and T. Izutsu's introduction to The Metaphysics ofSabzavari, trans. M. Mohagh-
egh and T. Izutsu (Delmar, N.Y., 1977).
 ORAL TRANSMISSION AND THE BOOK IN ISLAMIC EDUCATION 3

of a more external order to consider. In order to avoid the criticism

and condemnation of certain exoteric 'ulama' and also the uneducated
who might misconstrue their teachings, most philosophers couched their
ideas in deliberately difficult language whose meaning they then taught
orally to their chosen students. Although there are exceptions in this
matter, as one sees in the case of Mulla Sadra, the majority of the
masters of Islamic philosophy practised this art of dissimulation through
a deliberately complicated language, the key to whose understanding
remained in the hands of those well acquainted with the oral tradition

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which alone could elucidate the meaning or the levels of meaning of
the technical vocabulary (al-istilahat).3 The significance of the oral
transmission was by no means limited to this function, but this role is
also of some importance in the total understanding of the oral tradition
and the spoken word in Islamic intellectual history and education.
Before turning to an examination of the works of individual authors,
we should note that, in the context of the traditional educational system,
knowledge of a particular figure meant and still means a penetration in
depth into the thought of the author in question rather than a study of
his thought in breadth. Today, in the modern Western method of study,
if a person wishes to master the thought of let us say a St Thomas or
for that matter Kant, he goes back to their original writings in Latin
or German and examines all their work. In fact one would not dream
of writing a serious book on a particular philosopher before reading all
his writing. In the traditional Islamic context, on the contrary, the
greatest interpreters of Ibn Slna, whose knowledge of Avicennan meta-
physics could not be matched by anyone in the West, would probably
have cast no more than a cursory eye over his metaphysical works
beyond the llahiyyat of the Shift?, the Najat, and the Ishdrat, not to
speak of the mashsha't master's numerous other writings. We have seen
traditional masters who have spent fifty years studying the Shifa' and
the Isharat, often along with numerous commentaries, and who have
3
Books dealing with these technical terms have therefore always been important and
have served as a basis for the exposition of teachers or have complemented for the
student the oral explanation of the master. That is why books such as the whole class
of al-Istilahat al-sufiyyah by 'Abd al-Razzaq KashanI and others, al-Ta'rifat by Sayyid
Sharif al-Jurjanl, Kashshaf isfilahat al-funun by al-Tuhawi, and other works on termino-
logy have been so important in the history of Sufism and Islamic philosophy. See the
still valuable studies of L. Massignon, especially his Essais sur Us origines du lexique
technique de la mystique musulmane (Paris, 1954); J. L. Michon, Le Soufi marocain
Ahmad ibn 'Ajiba et son mi'raj-Glossaire de la mystique musulmane (Paris, 1973); P.
Nwyia, Exegese coranique et langage mystique (Beirut, 1970); J. Nurbakhsh, Sufi Symbol-
ism (London, 1986-); and M. Horten, 'Philologische Untersuchungen zur islamischen
Mystik', Zeitschrift fiir Semttistik und venuandte Gebiete, 6 (1928), 57-70. Concerning
Jurjanfs Ta'rifat see G. Flugel (ed.), Definitiones Sejjid Scherif Mi... (Leipzig, 1845).
4 SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR

had an incredible understanding of Ibn Slna's ontology without having

delved into the many other works of the master dealing with the subject.
In this context it is important also to mention how in a manner that
is often mysterious, if viewed from the outside, one or two works of a
master survive and become a main text in the teaching of a particular
school accompanied by the oral transmission of his teachings, while
other works do not enjoy such a status. The reason in certain cases
such as that of Ibn STna is easy to understand while other instances are
much more difficult to explain. What distinguished the Tamhtd al-

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qawaUd of Ibn Turkah or the Kitab al-hidayah of Athlr al-Dln Abharl
from other highly qualified available texts and made the former main
items in the traditional curriculum?4 Must not the answer be sought in
the spoken word, the oral transmission which accompanied such texts,
and the reception of these teachings by immediate students of the
authors in question, students who then propagated these teachings and
established the 'privileged position' of the works in question? Surely the
oral tradition along with the special master-disciple relationship must
be considered, not to speak of intellectual and spiritual links between
scholars and philosophers of different generations and the existence of
affinities among various figures in the non-historical and atemporal
dimensions of reality which remain outside of the framework of intellec-
tual history as understood in the West today.
With these brief comments in mind, let us turn to a few of the
outstanding Islamic intellectual figures. The first major Islamic philo-
sopher, al-Kindl, certainly left his mark upon later Peripatetics but left
no work behind which came to be established as a text in the traditional
curriculum of Islamic philosophy. The towering figure of Ibn Slna in a
sense eclipsed such earlier figures as al-Kindl and Abu 1-Hasan al-'Amirl,
although al-KindT continued to be honoured in later centuries as a great
philosopher. The type of studies devoted to his writings by both Western
and modern Muslim scholars, especially since the discovery of the
manuscripts of a large number of his works in Istanbul half a century
ago,5 did not exist among those who kept the torch of mashsha't
philosophy alive in the Islamic world itself, and in fact his particular
interpretation of mashsha't philosophy did not gain acceptance among
later members of this school, namely al-Farabl, Ibn Slna, and Ibn Rushd.
4
On these little-known figures, as far as the West is concerned, see H. Corbin (with
the collaboration of S. H. Nasr and O. Yahya), Histoire de la phtlosophie islamique
(Paris, 1986), 365 ff.; Corbin, En Islam iramen, 3 (Paris, 1972), 233 ff.; and S. H. Nasr,
'Theology, Philosophy and Spirituality', in Nasr (ed.), Islamic Spirituality—Manifesta-
tions (New York, 1991), 431 ff.
1
Discovered by Massignon and published later by M. Abu Rldah as Rasa'il al-Kindi
al-falsafiyyah, 2 vols. (Cairo, 1950-3).
 ORAL TRANSMISSION AND THE BOOK IN ISLAMIC EDUCATION 5

Turning to the towering figure of al-Farabl, again one notes that such
major works of his as the Kitab al-huruf remained peripheral to the
development of most of later Islamic philosophy and its significance has
only recently been discovered as a result of the publication of its Arabic
text by M. Mahdi.4 Even al-FIrabrs greatest masterpiece of political
philosophy, Art? ahl al-madinat al-fadilah, although very influential in
the genesis and growth of Islamic political thought, did not become a
main text in the later phases of development of the Islamic philosophical
tradition. It was only his somewhat enigmatic work, the Fusus al-

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hikmah, considered by a number of modern scholars to be not by him
but by Ibn Sina,7 that has continued to be studied and taught over the
centuries, accompanied by an oral as well as a written tradition of
commentaries. It was enough to attend the teaching sessions of Mahdi
Ilahl Qumshai, one of the outstanding traditional masters of hikmah
in Persia in recent times who translated this work into Persian,8 to
realize the vast 'unwritten philosophy' and the spoken word which have
accompanied the written text attributed to al-Farabl.
With Ibn Sina the presence of the oral transmission, which has
survived for a thousand years, becomes felt more than before for anyone
who experiences the teachings of the traditional masters of mashsha't
philosophy. It is in fact a profound lesson in comparative philosophy
to juxtapose the understanding of Avicennan ontology by such tradi-
tional masters of the subject during this century as 'Allamah Ha'iri
Yazdl Mazandaranl, author of IJikmat-i Eu 'Alt, or Mahdi Hairi,' and
such Western masters of medieval philosophy as E. Gilson and H.
Wolfson.10 The difference in their treatment of the subject emanates not
only from different methodologies, but also from the existing oral
transmission in the one case and the simply written text in the other.
The oral transmission certainly did not prevent different interpretations
from being made in the Islamic world itself as one sees in the case of
Naslr al-Dln TusT and Mir Damad, or the Sadrian interpretation of Ibn
Sina made by certain followers of the school of Mulla Sadra in the
See M. Mahdi, Mfarabi's Book of Letters (Kitab al-huruf) (Beirut, 1969).
See, for example, S. Pines, 'Ibn Sina et l'auteur de la Risalat fusus fi'1-hikma", Revue
des Etudes Islamiques (1951), 122-4.
See Ilahl Qumshai, Hikmat-i ilahl khass wa 'amm, vol. 2 (Tehran, AH solar 1345).
See, for example, his Htram-i hasti ('The Pyramid of Existence") (Tehran, 1983).
10
Both Gilson and Wolfson have dealt with Avicennan ontology as expounded by
Ibn Sina himself or by later Peripatetics in several of their works, for example E. Gilson,
L'Etre et I'essence (Paris, 1948); and his Ai/icenne et le point de depart de Duns Scot
from Extrait des Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et LJtteraire du Moyen Age, 2 (1927).
As for H. A. Wolfson, see his 'Avicenna, Algazali, and Averroes on Divine Attributes',
Homaje a Millas-Vallicrosa, 2 (Barcelona, 1956), 545-71; and his 'Goichon's Three
Books on Avicenna's Philosophy", Muslim World, 31 (1941), 11-39.
6 SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR

Qajar period as against the views of a Mirza Abu'l-Hasan Jilwah." But

all of these differences remained within the matrix of the traditional
world with the presence of the oral or spoken word as well as the
written text and therefore differ from the understanding of Ibn Slna
emanating from the study of only his written words.
There is no doubt that there have been scholars in the West such as
Wolfson or Corbin who had read more of Ibn Slna than most of the
traditional Persian masters whom we came to know personally. But the
latter, who usually limited their study in depth to the Shifa' and Ishdrdt,

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with an occasional interest in the Najat, had an understanding of Ibn
Slna of a different order resulting from being immersed in an Avicennan
world in which the written and the spoken word were combined in a
unity that transcended the simply literal, historical, and grammatical
understanding of the written text. It is important to note in this context
that even the brilliant reconstruction of Ibn Slna's 'Oriental Philosophy'
by Corbin,12 based so much on the understanding of the later Islamic
philosophical tradition, must be seen as a part of the vaster world of
Avicennan ontology and cosmology dominated during later centuries
by the two basic texts of the Shifa1 and the Ishdrdt and not in isolation
from them.
Nowhere in the history of Islamic philosophy is the significance of
the oral transmission and the spoken word more evident than in the
case of Suhrawardl, the Master of Illumination (Shaykh al-ishraq),
whose masterpiece YLikmat al-ishraq13 is itself the crystallization in
written form of the spoken word received orally both 'horizontally' and
'vertically', that is both through unspecified historical sources and the
angelic pleroma of which Suhrawardl wrote so vividly.1* Later Islamic
intellectual history knew him primarily through the Hikmat al-ishraq
and to some extent the Haydkil al-nur while, in comparison, his other
writings, especially the doctrinal works al-Talwihdt, al-Muqawamdt,
and al-Mashdri' wa-l-mutdrahdt," remained more or less neglected by
11
See S. H. Nasr, 'The Metaphysics of Sadr al-DTn ShlrazJ and Islamic Philosophy in
Qajar Iran', in C. E. Bosworch and C. Hillenbrand (eds.), Qajar Iran—Political, Social
and Cultural Change 1900-1925 (Edinburgh, 1983), 177-98; and S. J. Ashtiyanfs intro-
duction to Mulla Muhammad Ja'far Lahijani, Shark risalat al-mash&'tr of Mulla Sadra
(Tehran, 1964).
" See Corbin, Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, trans. W. Trask (Irving, Texas,
1980).
13
See Suhrawardl, Oeuvres philosophiques et mystiques, vol. 2, ed. H. Corbin
(Tehran, 1977); and H. Corbin, Sohravardi, Le Livre de la sagesse orientate (Paris, 1986).
14
See S. H. Nasr, Three Muslim Sages (Delmar, N.Y., 1975), ch. II.
" Even in contemporary scholarship these works have remained relatively neglected
in comparison with the Hikmat al-ishraq, edited in its entirety by Corbin, and his
complete Persian works, edited by Nasr. Corbin edited the section of these works on
metaphysics but not those on logic and natural philosophy. See Suhrawardl, Oeuvres
 ORAL TRANSMISSION AND THE BOOK IN ISLAMIC EDUCATION 7

most later philosophers, Mulla Sadra again being an important

exception.
The whole nexus between the Hikmat al-ishraq, written so rapidly
towards the end of its author's tragic life, and the later tradition of
ishraqi philosophy relies upon oral transmission and the spoken word.
The figure who revived SuhrawardTs thought a generation later through
his masterly commentary on the Hikmat al-ishraq, namely Muhammad
Shahrazurl, had not known Suhrawardl personally.1* Yet he was bound
to the master not only by the written text of his works, but also by a

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spiritual and intellectual bond which definitely must have issued from
a living oral tradition. In reading ShahrazurFs commentary on the
Hikmat al-ishraq as well as his own masterpiece, the as yet unpublished
al-Shajarat al-ilahiyyah, one feels as if Shahrazur! had sat at the feet of
Suhrawardl for many years. What relates the two figures to each other
is not only a written text, but also the spoken word or an 'unwritten
book' which delineated the universe of ishraqi wisdom shared by both
figures. There must have been a special oral teaching which accompan-
ied the Hikmat al-ishraq surviving Suhrawardl and surfacing later in
the works of Shahrazurl and Qutb al-Dln ShIrazI and even during later
centuries in the writings of Jalal al-Dln DawanI and Mulla Sadra. How
could Mulla Sadra have written his glosses (Hashiyah) on the Hikmat
al-ishraq" without an oral tradition which linked him beyond the
written words of the text to the founder of the School of Illumination?
This continuity is what in fact characterizes an intellectual tradition
which unfolds over the centuries on the basis not only of what the
founding figure has written but also of the oral tradition which he has
left behind, a tradition which remains alive through both the 'vertical'
renewal of the tradition and the ever present oral transmission, which
in turn makes possible successive crystallizations of the doctrines and
teachings in question in written form.
The crucial role of oral tradition is also evident in the case of Ibn
'Arab! whose influence swept over the Islamic world shortly after
Suhrawardl. How different the intellectual history of at least the eastern
lands of Islam would have been if the Ibn 'Arab! of the Futuhat al-
philosophiques et mystiques, vols. 1 and 2, ed. Corbin (Tehran, 1976-7); vol. 3, ed. Nasr
(Tehran, 1977). Recently H. Ziai has turned to the study of the logic of al-Talwihat and
other neglected doctrinal works of Suhrawardl in his Knowledge and Illumination
(Atlanta, Ga., 1990).
" See H. Ziai, 'The Manuscript of al-Shajara al-llahiyya, A Philosophical Encyclope-
dia by Shams al-Oin Muhammad Shahrazuri' (in Persian), Iranshenast, 2, no. 1 (1990),
89-108.
" See H. Corbin, 'Le Theme de la resurrection chez Molla Sadra Shlrazi (1050/1640)
commentateur de Sohrawardi (587/1191)', in Studies in Mysticism and Religion Presented
to G. Scholem (Jerusalem, 1967), 71-115.
8 SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR

makkiyyah had become better known than the Ibn 'Arabl of the Fusus
al-hikam, especially as interpreted by Sadr al-Dln QunawT!18 Of course
the Futuhat was known to many authors but not as a whole. Rather,
to quote a leading authority on the Futuhat, M. Chodkiewicz, the work
served 'as an overflowing cornucopia of symbols, technical terms and
ideas from which everyone picked his choice'.1' In any case it was
providential that the Fusus seen through Sadr al-DTn's interpretation,
itself based upon the closest intimacy with Ibn cArabl, became the

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central work associated with Ibn 'Arab! and seen primarily as a text of
theoretical gnosis which had the profoundest influence upon not only
Sufism but also later Islamic philosophy and even theology, as we see
in the case of Shah Wa&allah of Delhi. Outside the circle which became
heir to the Akbarian current of Sufism, Ibn 'Arabl came to be viewed
not so much as the master of practical Sufism and the Shart'ah and fiqh
interpreted esoterically in the Futuhat, but as the metaphysician of the
Fusus seen through the eyes of Qunawl, Mu'ayyid al-Dln Jandl, 'Abd
al-Razzaq KashanI, and others.20 Even the most characteristic doctrine
associated with Ibn 'Arab!, namely wabdat al-wujud, derives from the
teachings of his disciples and the oral teachings which must have
accompanied the Fusus rather than from Ibn cArabFs own written
works. We do not know what Ibn 'Arabl taught Sadr al-Dln and others
orally, but we do know how Sadr al-Dln interpreted the written text
of the master in the light of those oral teachings and it is this which is
of significance as far as the oral teachings of Ibn cArabl are concerned.
The Ibn cArabl seen by centuries of Islamic metaphysicians and
philosophers is not the same as the Ibn 'Arab! who emerges from a
scholarly study of all his works put alongside each other and without
recourse to the oral teachings received from a living master. The whole
difference between the Ibn 'Arab! seen by KashanI, Mulla Sadra, al-
NabulusI, or Isma'Il Haqql and the one seen by modern scholars,
whether they be Westerners or Muslims, but basing themselves solely
on the extant texts, is again the spoken word, the oral tradition as it
has been transmitted over the centuries by generations of masters, some
of whom have claimed direct contact with Ibn 'Arab! in the 'invisible
" See J. Morris, 'Ibn 'Arabl and His Interpreters', Journal of the American Oriental
Society, 106 (1986), 539-51, 733-56; 107 (1987), 101-19; M. Chodkewicz et al., Les
Illuminations de La Mecque (Paris, 1988); and the major new study of W. Chimck, The
Sufi Path of Knowledge (Albany, N.Y., 1989).
" From a paper delivered at the conference on Medieval Persian Sufi Literature at
the University of London in November 1990.
20
See W. Chirtick's several studies on $adr al-Dln al-Qunawi and his students, e.g.,
'The Last Will and Testament of Ibn ' Arabl* s Foremost Disciple and Some Notes on its
Author', Sophia Perennis, 4, no. 1 (1978), 43-58; and '$adr al-Dln QunawT on the
Oneness of Being', International Philosophical Quarterly, 21 (1981), 171-84.
 ORAL TRANSMISSION AND THE BOOK IN ISLAMIC EDUCATION 9

world' ('alam al-ghayb) besides being heirs to the historical oral tradi-
tion of his school.
Whether current Western scholarship accepts the authenticity of this
oral tradition or not is of secondary significance. What is most important
is that the Islamic intellectual tradition itself has functioned with the
belief that the oral tradition is of central importance. In the case of Ibn
'Arabi, for example, such recent masters as 'Allamah Tabataba*! or
Sayyid Muhammad Kazim cAssar, with both of whom we studied gnosis
and philosophy for some twenty years,21 would insist that it was of

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little use simply to read the text of the Fusus and understand the Arabic
by oneself. Rather, it was necessary to study it with a real teacher who
could also impart to the qualified student the oral tradition which alone
can clarify the meaning of the written word. That is why in gnosis, as
in philosophy, a person who is said to have really studied the subject
is called ustad didah, literally one who has 'seen' a master, that is, one
who has benefited from the oral teachings and also the presence (hudiir)
of the master who embodies those teachings and who renews and
revives them through the very act of living their truths.
Turning to later Islamic philosophy, we see the same principles at
work as in earlier centuries. The Shark al-isharat of Naslr al-Dln TusT
caused the revival of the school of Ibn Sina. But later traditional
philosophers did not consider this work to be solely the product of the
exceptional intellectual powers of Naslr al-Dln but also the result of
the oral transmission of teachings which TusT received through several
generations of masters stretching from Ibn Sina to himself. As for the
Sharh al-isharat,11 it in turn became a main item of the later philosoph-
ical curriculum taught by generations of teachers going back to TusT
and his circle in Maraghah where he imparted oral teachings to accom-
pany this exact and exacting philosophical text.
After TusT, numerous works inspired by the Avicennan or mashsha'T
school appeared in both Arabic and Persian including the encyclopaedic
work of Qutb al-DTn Shlrazi, the Durrat al-taj. But again it was one
work, the Kitab al-hidayah of AthTr al-DTn Abharl, which became a
popular text in educational circles in Persia and was taught and com-
21
On 'Allamah Tabatabai, whose writings are gradually becoming known in the
West, see the introduction of S. H. Nasr to his Shi'tte Islam, trans, and ed. by S. H.
Nasr (Albany, N.Y., 1975). As for 'Assar, unfortunately none of his works has as yet
been translated, but some have been published in the original Persian and Arabic, for
example, Wahdat-i wujud wa bada', ed. with introduction on the author by S. J. AshtiyanT
(Tehran, AH solar 1350).
" Printed in both Tehran and Cairo (the Cairo edition edited by S. Dunya, 1960; the
Tehran edition without editor, 3 vols., AH 1378), this work has never been seriously
studied by Western scholars of Islamic philosophy, although many have drawn attention
to it.
IO SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR

mented upon by many teachers both orally and in writing. One needs
only to recall the Sharh al-hidayah of Mulla Sadra which gained so
much popularity in India that it became the main text for the teaching
of mashsha'T philosophy in the subcontinent and gradually came to be
known as Sadra. When students claimed to have studied Sadra, they
did not mean that they had studied the various works of Mulla Sadra,23
but the single text of the Sharh al-hidayah which was again accompanied
by an oral teaching. The selection of AbharPs original work in philo-
sophical circles, as well as Mulla Sadra's later commentary, was based

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not on the texts alone of these works, but on the accompanying oral
teachings and the later masters who were well versed in those teachings
and therefore chose to teach those texts rather than numerous other
works which were also available.
The same truth holds for the writings of Mir Damad, Mulla Sadra,
and later philosophers. Whether it was the Qabasat of Mir Damad or
the Asfar of Mulla Sadra, an oral teaching always accompanied the
written text.24 In the case of these later figures, the chain of transmission
of the oral teachings is much better known. For example, such an
undisputed master of the school of Mulla Sadra as Sayyid Abu'l-Hasan
Qazwlnl, with whom we again had the privilege of studying the Asfar
for many years, could trace his teachers back through the Qajar masters
of this school to Mulla Sadra himself and displayed an almost 'personal'
relation to him as if the two were not separated by four centuries of
human history. In his presence one felt that his link with Mulla Sadra
was not only the lithographed edition of the Asfar which he would hold
in his frail hands and read before expounding his commentary and
explanation. It was also a common universe of discourse and a lived
and experienced intellectual reality which he shared with the Safavid
master through the unwritten yet very much alive word, through the
spoken truth transmitted orally as well as the written text from which
he read. That was why, when he held the book before his shining eyes
and read it, the book revealed another dimension of its meaning, one
which would remain hidden if one were to turn to the text oneself
without the help of the oral teachings."
The reality of the oral tradition constitutes the reason why the line
of transmission of traditional Islamic philosophy is nearly as important
as the silsilahs of the Sufis. In the latter case a barakah and initiatory
23
See S. H. Nasr, Ma'arif-i islarrii dar jahan-i mu'asir (Tehran, AH solar 1348), ch. 8.
" On the relation between Mulla Sadra and Mir Damad see S. H. Nasr, The
Transcendent Theosopby of$adr al-Dm Shlrazi (Tehran, 1977), 32-3, 40, 41, and 45-6.
25
S. J. AshtiyanI has traced the intellectual lineage of such figures and their link with
the Safavid masters of the 'School of Isfahan' in his already cited introduction to LahTjani
and also in his introduction to Mulla Sadra, al-Shawahid al-rububiyyah (Meshed, 1967).
 ORAL TRANSMISSION AND THE BOOK IN ISLAMIC EDUCATION II

power are transmitted which alone allow the soul to ascend to the
higher levels of being, while in the former it is an oral teaching which
is the necessary concomitant to the written text, a complement without
which the text does not reveal all of its meaning save in exceptional
cases. In both instances, there is a truth to be transmitted which is not
simply discursive and which cannot be exhausted in letters and words
written upon the page, a truth which must remain in part oral to be
transmitted to those prepared to receive it.

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Although the subject of this essay is limited to the field of Islamic
philosophy, it is not possible to speak of the oral tradition and the
spoken word without saying a few words about the distinctly Sufi view
of the subject. This view was shared in part by many later Islamic
philosophers (falasifah) and by those whom we might call theosophers
(hukamay-i ilaht) whose thought is to be distinguished from what
philosophy has come to mean for the most part in the West today.
One cannot speak of the spoken word without mentioning that
primordial 'book' which is inscribed in the very substance of our being
and with which the Sufis have dealt more directly than the Islamic
philosophers. Jalal al-DTn RumI, whose Mathnawt alone consists of
six long volumes of poetry, says:
The book of the Sufi is not black lines and words,
It is none other than the whitened heart which is like snow."
In the Islamic tradition the heart is the seat of the intellect and the
instrument par excellence of original knowledge of which mental activity
is a relatively externalized reflection. True knowledge is the knowledge
of the heart, and it is here that man carries within himself the real
'book' of knowledge. This 'book' is composed of unwritten words. It
is the inner chamber wherein the spoken word in the highest sense of
the term, which means none other than the Word of God, reverberates.
This inner 'book' is not available for all to 'read', for not everyone is
able to penetrate into the inner chamber of his or her being, which is
the heart, nor possesses a purified heart as white as the snow which
has not as yet become sullied by the darkness of man's passionate soul.
Yet this inner 'book' has resonated and still resonates within the
being of certain men and women and through them has left its deepest
effect upon the intellectual life of Islam, not only in the domain of
theoretical Sufism but also in later Islamic philosophy. It manifests itself
directly in many illuminative passages of a philosopher such as Mulla
Sadra who often refers to such crucial pages of his works as tahqiqun
'arshT, that is, 'truth verified through the Throne', the Throne being
" Mathnawi, ed. R. A. Nicholson (London, 1925-40), ii. 59.
IZ SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR

not only the Transcendental Throne of God but also the heart which
is 'arsh al-rahman or Throne of the Compassionate.27
The significance of the oral tradition, its continuation over the centur-
ies, its 'vertical' renewal by certain masters of a particular school, and
the emphasis upon the memory to preserve the oral tradition are all
affected by the reality of that other inner 'book' to which RumI refers,
a 'book' whose reality has always subsisted in the firmament of Islamic
intellectual life at whose centre stands the Book, namely the Qur*an

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which is at once an oral and a written reality. One must never forget
that to know something really well and to commit the spoken word to
memory in an abiding manner is to know it by heart. It is this knowledge
by heart28 which has made possible, not only in Sufism but also in
Islamic philosophy, the continuation of an ever-renewed oral tradition
which has played such an important role in the Islamic education system
and the modality of the transmission of knowledge from teacher to
disciple over the centuries.

The oral tradition has affected the manner of reading and interpreting
the written text, its teaching and transmission, and the role of certain
texts and commentaries in the educational circles of the Islamic world.
It is even significant in the correct reading of a particular manuscript
and in the selection of manuscripts for establishing the text of a particu-
lar work. The spoken word is the key to the solution of many enigmas
concerning the continuity of certain teachings as in the already men-
tioned cases of the ishraqt school and the predominance of a particular
interpretation over others as in the case of Sadr al-Dln Qunawfs
interpretation of Ibn 'ArabT. The oral tradition also provides a direct
link between the student and a master who might have lived generations
ago, enabling the student to study the teachings in question in depth
and to concentrate on one or two works which are then penetrated
inwardly over a whole lifetime rather than to study horizontally the
text of many works written by the same master. There have been
exceptions such as Mulla Sadra, who had, in addition to oral instruction,
an encyclopaedic knowledge of earlier philosophical, theological, and
mystical works ranging from al-FarabT, al-'Amirl, and Ibn Slna to
ShahrastanI, Fakhr al-Dln RazI, Ghazzall, and Ibn 'Arabl, a knowledge
which he combined with the oral tradition.2' But usually the oral
" See, for example, his Wisdom of the Throne, trans. J. Morns (Princeton, 1981),
where he refers to such crucial sections as bastrah kashfiyyah (insight revealed to inner
vision) or qd'idah mashriqiyyah (principle from the source of illumination).
11
On the traditional significance of the heart as the seat of knowledge see F. Schuon,
L'Oed du coeur (Paris, 1974).
" See Nasr, The Transcendent Theosophy..., 69 ff.
 ORAL TRANSMISSION AND THE BOOK IN ISLAMIC EDUCATION 13

tradition and the spoken word created a different type of intellectual

ambience from the modern one, an ambience in which one or two
works surrounded by a vast oral commentary came to constitute know-
ledge in depth of the teachings of the traditional authority.
The oral tradition transformed the written book from the definitive
text which was the sole basis of the ideas to be understood to the gate
to a whole living world for which the book became the point of
departure. We recall once when studying al-lnsan al-kamil of 'Abd al-
Karlm al-Jlll with the late Mahdl Ilahl QumshaT, he read the Arabic

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text and then gave a long discourse on divine love and its manifestations
which seemed to have little connection with the outward meaning of
al-JIlfs words. When asked how these words conveyed such meanings,
he answered that one should look at these words as signs pointing to
the spiritual world and not in their usual literal meaning and as concepts
closed in upon themselves. He added that only by becoming familiar
with these words through understanding the traditional oral comment-
ary upon them would one be able to fly with their help from the earth
of literalism to the heaven of symbolism. The nexus between oral
tradition and esoteric interpretation of gnostic and philosophical texts
must not, however, detract from the outward meaning and diminish
the role of oral tradition in enabling the written text to be read correctly,
albeit outwardly. The traditional masters insist that the major texts of
Islamic thought such as the Isharat or Asfar cannot in fact be 'read'
correctly without the help of oral tradition, hence the central importance
of having studied with a master. In a sense the spoken word makes
possible the full understanding and correct 'reading' of the written text.
Much of what has been said here is of course to be found mutatis
mutandis in other traditions, such as the cabbala in Judaism, and is not
exclusive to Islam. But in Islam the oral tradition and the spoken word
have played and continue to play even to this day such a central role
that their importance must be asserted in the face of all the historicism
and positivism which have sought to reduce the reality of the Islamic
intellectual tradition to written texts and historically established influ-
ences. Historical studies and careful attention paid to the written text
do of course also possess their own validity and significance but they
cannot become exclusive and totalitarian without destroying the integ-
rity of the Islamic intellectual tradition.
Today not only are the physical remains of the Islamic book in the
form of manuscripts being destroyed in many parts of the world, but
also much of the oral tradition and the spoken word is being lost as a
result of the destruction of the traditional methods of education and
transmission. Paradoxically it is therefore necessary to put into writing
for posterity and also for the present generation much that was transmit-
14 SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR

ted until now only 'from the breast' of one person to another. But in
doing so, one should never lose sight of the great significance throughout
Islamic history of oral transmission in education and of the spoken
word as the complement of the written text. Even today, when due to
exceptional historical conditions so much is being recorded and needs
to be recorded and preserved in written form, the essence of the oral
tradition continues to survive as oral tradition, especially that primor-
dial Word which can only be heard and yet remains eternally inscribed
upon the very substance of our souls as human beings.

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