Giuseppe Scattolin
Professor of Sufism and Islamology
With Mr. ʿAbd al-Samīʿ Salāma, editor of manuscripts at the Egyptian National Library
Tuesday February 14ᵗʰ, 2017
The commentary of al-Tilimsānī (d. 690/1291) on ʿUmar ibn al-Fāriḍ’s (d. 632/1235) poem entitled al-Tāʾiyya al-kubrā is one of the oldest commentaries of this poem, after the one by Saʿīd al-Dīn al-Farġānī (d. 699/1300). Al-Farġānī and al-Tilimsānī lived at the same period in Konya and were both disciples of Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274), the favorite disciple of Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240). This commentary therefore clarifies the beginnings of the Šuruḥ al-akbariyya series on Ibn al-Farīḍ’s dīwān.
Giuseppe Scattolin and ʿAbd al-Samīʿ Salāma edited this commentary according to the only known manuscript (Dār al-Kutub 1328 Taṣawwuf Ṭalʿat). It clearly appears from the text that al-Tilimsānī took advantage of his commentary on the Tāʾiyya al-kubrā to criticize some of al-Farġānī’s ideas, at the expense of the text of the Tāʾiyya and Ibn al-Farīḍ’s positions on Sufism.