The Safavid period Syrian born jurist, theologian, mathematician and
poet Muhammad ibn al-Husayn Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-`Āmilī (d. 1030/ 1621)
has for more than two centuries been known as Shaykh Bahā'ī. He
flourished around 150 years before the establishment of the Bahā'ī
religion founded by Mīrzā Ḥusayn `Alī Nūrī (d. 1892 CE) who took the
theophanic, messianic title Bahā’u’llah or Bahā’-Allāh (= the Splendor
of God) and whose followers came to be known as ahl al-bahā’ (‘the
people of Bahā’’) and subsequently Bahā’īs.
The Shī`ī sage Shaykh Bahā’ī is perhaps most famous as a skilled
mathematician and gifted poet. His mathematical summa entitled
Khulāṣat al-ḥisāb [al-Bahā'iyya] ("Summa of Arithmetic") was first
translated into English, French and German in the early 19th
century. His better known Persian (and Arabic) anthology Kashkūl
(“Begging Bowl”), though not yet translated into English or any European
language, has been frequently printed and widely commented upon in Iran
and the Middle East.
In view of his titles al-`Āmilī or Shaykh Bahā’ī has been all but
mystically adopted by a few Iranian Bahā’ī apologists, including `Abd
al-Ḥamid Ishrāq Khavārī (d. 1972 CE). Though the central figures of the
Bābī-Bahā’ī religions make sparing mention of Bahāʾ al-Dīn
al-`Āmilī, Shaykh Bahā’ī, he has been adopted by a
certain oriental Bahā’īs as a
kind of visionary proto-Bahā’ī who became mystically aware of the secret
of that ‘Hidden’, Mightiest Name’ (al-ism al-a`ẓam) embodied in the
person of Bahā’u’llāh.
In this paper something of the life and Persian and Arabic writings of
Shaykh Bahā’ī will be sketched and some suggested links with Bahā’ī
doctrine and theology examined. Some historical aspects, for example, of
the medieval Islamic title Bahā’ al-Dīn will be explored and dimensions
of the numerological mysticism of `Abdu’l-Bahā’ (d. 1921) compared and
contrasted with the Sufi type mathematical gnosis of Shaykh Bahā’ī.
