KOMIJĀNI ʿERĀQI, Shaikh Šehāb-al-Din Moḥammad b. Musā Bozšalluʾi (d. 1313/1895) was an Iranian Illuminationist (al-falsafa al-ešrāqiya; see ILLUMINATIONISM) philosopher, sage, and poet of the Qajar era.

Komijāni was born in 1245/1829 in Komijān, a town midway between Hamadan and Arāk. He studied religious and literary sciences under his father, Musā, a religious scholar who was the qāżi of Komijān (Komijāni, 2012, p. 104; on Musā Komijāni, see Ḥosayni Aškevari, VIII, p. 362; Dehgān, p. 218; Karimi, 2012, pp. 63-64). After his father’s death in 1263/1847, the inhabitants of Komijān urged him to perform judicial duties there for two years.

In 1265/1849, Komijāni went to Borujerd to study religion and mysticism under the supervision of Sayyed Jaʿfar Kašfi (Komijāni, 2012, p. 105). When the latter died in 1267/1851, Komijāni went to Nishapur, and he studied there for another nine years, after which he attended the lectures of Hāji Mollā Hādi Sabzavāri (d. 1289/1872) in nearby Sabzavār (Komijāni, 2012, pp. 105-6; Ṣaduqi- Sohā, p. 189).

Komijāni then moved to Isfahan, where Mir Moḥammad Ḥosayni, a sage and mystic, advised him to reside at the Nuriya madrasa to study more thoroughly the thought of Šayḵ-e Ešrāq Šehāb-al-Din Yaḥyā Sohravardi (d. 587/1191), the founder of Illuminationist philosophy (Komijāni, 2012, pp. 107-9). In 1285/1868, Komijāni met in Isfahan with the historian, translator, and author of a taḏkera, Ḥosaynqolī Khān Solṭāni Kalhor Kermānšāhi (d. 1303/1885) (Divān-Beygi, II, p. 900).

After a few years in Isfahan, Komijāni moved to the ʿAtabāt, the Shiʿite holy cities in Iraq. Finally, in 1299/1882, Komijāni returned to Kermanshah, where he began teaching philosophy and delivering sermons and lectures (Divān-Beygi, II, p. 900; Āqā-Bozorg, 2009, V, p. 286). He was also regarded as a member of the household of Ḥesām-al-Molk Ḥosayn Khan (d. 1307/1889), the governor of Kermanshah, who was the Amir Tumān of the Qarāgozlu tribe (Ṣaduqi-Sohā, p. 189; Karimi, 2012, p. 66).

During Komijāni’s residence in Kermanshah, mollās hostile to philosophy tried to excommunicate him and to have a fatwā pronouced against him, but they did not succeed because Komijāni enjoyed the support of Āqā Raḥim Jalili, the major cleric of the city (Dehgān, p. 218; Solṭāni, IV, p. 666). Komijāni died in Kermanshah in 1313/1895. Among Komijāni’s students, some are noteworthy: Reżwān, who authored a poetry collection (Dehgān, p. 218; Allāh-Dust, fols. 19-34); Mirzā Esmāʿil b. Mirzā Ḥasan Nojumi (d. 1318/1900), a sage and an Oṣuli jurisprudent (Solṭāni, I, p. 503); and Mirzā Musā Laqā, son of Moḥammad Jaʿfar Khan Moʾāfi Qazvini (Allāh-Dust, fols. 8-18).

Komijāni was given the honorific titles of Šayḵ-e Ešrāq-e Ṯāni (“the second Šayḵ-al-Ešrāq”) as well as “Ešrāq ʿAli-šāh” by Hāj Mollā Hādi Sabzavāri (Divān- Beygi, II, p. 900; Ṣaduqi, p. 189), and he called himself “Šehāb-al-Din” (Sohravardi’s honorific name; see: Komijāni, 2012, p. 103; Komijāni, MS 3882, fol. 4).

Komijāni is said to have authored many works (Divān- Beygi, II, p. 900), but only three titles are known today. The first is the lost Ešrāqiyāt, apparently a poetry collection, from which verses have been quoted indicating his eloquence (Divān-Beygi, II, pp. 900-901; Komijāni, 2012, pp. 68-69; Karimi, 2011, p. 28).

The second is the Nur al-foʾād (or Nur al-ṣadr), a Persian philosophical treatise started before 1289/1872 (the year of Ḥakim Sabzavāri’s death) but the final version of which was finished only in 1304/1887 (for the manuscripts, content, and various revisions of this work over a period of twenty years, see Āqā Bozorg, 1983, XXIV, p. 370; Ziai, 2001, pp. 765-74; Karimi, 2012, pp. 79-82; Heinz et al., pp. 180-81).

The last work is Eftetāḥiya, an Illuminationist commentary on the eftetāḥ prayer (attributed to the twelfth Shii Imām), in which Komijāni develops a philosophical perspective (Karimi, 2011, p. 29). He wrote it in 1304/1887, at a time when the governor of Isfahan, Ẓellal- Solṭān (d. 1336/1918) had given Ḥesām-al-Molk the mission of suppressing the “evildoers” of western Iran. Komijāni wished for the victory of his benefactor, Amir Tumān (Komijāni, MS 3882, fols. 5-7; Karimi 2012, p. 73; Karimi forthcoming).

Unlike most of his contemporaries, Komijāni does not rely on Mollā Ṣadra’s philosophy to understand Sohravardi’s teachings. In the third ešrāq (chapter) of Nur al-foʾād, Komijāni pays special attention to the unified theory of knowledge, a key principle of Illuminationist philosophy. He proposes an original view of physical sight (ebṣār) (Ziai, 2001, pp. 766-67). Also, unlike his master Sabzavāri, Komijāni criticizes Mollā Ṣadra’s theory of knowledge and upholds instead an Illuminationist theory of “knowledge by presence” (al-ʿelm al-ḥożūri) (Nur al-foʾād, 2012, pp. 138-52). For Komijāni, knowledge is not based on the input of sensory data and the extrapolation of universal concepts. Rather, it can be explained by three conditions: (1) a “perceiving subject” (al-mawżūʿ al-modrek), self-conscious and fully aware of its own self (thus, knowledge is based on innate principles); (2) knowable objects are part of a “continuum of luminous beings” (al-anwār al-mojarrada) and are inherently knowable (Ziai, 2001, p. 772); (3) there is an “a-temporal” relationship between the perceiving subject and the object, which takes place in an ephemeral “moment” (ān). Illuminationist philosophers call this type of knowledge “knowledge by illumination and presence” (al-ʿelm al-ešrāqi al-ḥożuri), which is activated whenever there exists a relationship of illumination between the subject and the object (see Ziai, 2001, pp. 772-73; Ziai, 2012, pp. 168-75; Ziai, in Komijāni, 2012, pp. 6-18; Karimi, 2012, pp. 73-78). Komijāni can be considered as an Illuminiationist of strict obedience. Strikingly, while he relies on Shaikh Maḥmud Šabestari (d. 720/1320) and Faḵr-al-Din ʿErāqi (d. 688/1289), he makes no references to the teachings of Ebn al-ʿArabi in his writings.

The writings of Komijāni show that in addition to the doctrines of Avicenna and Mollā Ṣadrā, which prevailed in the academic centers of Qajar Iran (for example, see Barkhah, pp. 292-95; Pourjavady, pp. 22-27), an Illuminiationist tradition was still active.