ABŪ ḤĀMED ṢADR-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD TORKA, scholar and author of the late 7th/13th and early 8th/14th centuries, the first in a line of prominent men of the Torka-ye Eṣfahānī family. The family name refers to Abū Ḥāmed’s grandfather, described as a Turk who moved from Ḵoǰand to Isfahan.
Abū Ḥāmed corresponded with Ḵᵛāǰa Rašīd-al-dīn Fażlallāh, the vizier of the Il-khanid Ḡāzān. In one letter the latter agreed to a lowering of the taxes on the people of Isfahan, added that the new tax scales “will be applied throughout the country,” and called Abū Ḥāmed “ruler of the kingdom of knowledge and faith.” Writing again during his severe illness, Rašīd-al-dīn also sent his will, providing for the disposition of his vast property and library of 60,000 volumes.
Abū Ḥāmed dedicated to Rašīd-al-dīn a Ḥekmat-e Rašīdī. He is also said to have written a work refuting “doubts of the peripatetics” and dealing with orthodoxy, entitled Qawāʿed al-tawḥīd, which may be the same work. Examination of its contents has shown that in many places it follows the teachings of Ṣadr-al-dīn Qūnavī (d. 673/1274), Ebn al-ʿArabī’s chief disciple; and more particularly, in certain sections it summarizes passages of the first major commentary on Ebn al-ʿArabī’s Foṣūṣ al-ḥekam, that by Moʾayyed-al-dīn Jandī (q.v.; d. ca. 700/1300), a disciple of Qūnavī (Jāmī, Naqd al-noṣūṣ fī šarḥ al-foṣūṣ, ed. by W. C. Chittick, Tehran, 1356 Š./1977, p. 326, fn. 60/2-61/9). Qawāʿed al-tawḥīd was commented upon and expanded by Abū Ḥāmed’s descendent Ṣāʾen-al-dīn Torka (connected with the courts of Tīmūr and Šāhroḵ) under the title al-Tamhīd fī šarḥ qawāʿed al-tawḥīd (Tehran, 1316/1898-9; new ed. by S. J. Āštīānī, Tehran, 1355 Š./1976). Another work by Abū Ḥāmed also was dedicated to Rašīd-al-dīn: Konūz al-afrāḥ fī maʿrefat al-ašbāḥ wa’l-arwāḥ.
Bibliography:
Šahrestānī, Ketāb al-melal wa’l-neḥal, Persian tr. by Afżal-al-dīn Ṣadr Torka, ed. Sayyed Moḥammad Reżā Jalālī Nāʾīnī, Tehran, 1350 Š./1972, intro., pp. 71-72; sources for the family’s history are cited on pp. 87-88.
“Maktūb-e Ḵᵛāǰa Rašīd-al-dīn Fażlallāh be Ṣadr-al-dīn Moḥammad Torka,” ed. ʿA. Eqbāl, Yādgār 1/4, 1944-45, pp. 6-8.
(Fazlur Rahman)
Originally Published: December 15, 1983
Last Updated: July 19, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 3, p. 294
Fazlur Rahman, “ABŪ ḤĀMED TORKA,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/3, p. 294; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abu-hamed-sadr-al-din-mohammad-torka (accessed on 30 January 2014).