Nasir Khusraw

Nasir Khusraw was a Persian poet, traveller and Ismaʿili philosopher. A government official in Khorasan, he underwent a spiritual crisis in his forties and set out on a seven-year journey to Mecca and Fatimid Cairo, described in his Safarnama. In Cairo he joined the Ismaʿili mission and returned east as its leading figure in Khorasan. Driven into exile, he spent his last years in the mountains of Badakhshan, writing philosophical prose and poetry in Persian. In works such as Knowledge and Liberation he argued that reason and revelation agree, and that true knowledge frees the soul.

Key ideas

• Reason and revelation are in harmony, and religious law has inner meanings that reason can uncover.
• Scripture and law must be interpreted beyond their outward sense (taʾwīl) to reach their inner truth.
• Knowledge is the path by which the soul is liberated and attains its final perfection.
• The universe is created through an ordered emanation from God via Intellect and Soul.

Major works

• Knowledge and Liberation (Gushāyish va rahāyish) (11th century)
• Safarnama (journey 1046–1052)
• Provisions for Travellers (Zād al-musāfirīn) (11th century)
• Uniting the Two Wisdoms (Jāmiʿ al-ḥikmatayn) (11th century)
• Divan (11th century)

In the Book corner

• Knowledge and Liberation 11th century (exact date uncertain) · Intermediate
  A Persian treatise in thirty questions and answers by Nāṣir-i Khusraw, the eleventh-century Ismaili poet, traveller and philosopher, probably written during his…

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