This video presents a lecture by Dr Mohammad Amin Mansouri examining the intellectual relationship between ʿAzīz Nasafī’s thought and Nizari Ismaili traditions in the Persian Mongol world. Delivered as part of the Islamic History and Thought Lecture Series (IHTLS), the lecture explores how concepts of monism, spirituality, and religious identity developed across Sunni, Sufi, Shiʿi, and specifically Ismaili intellectual traditions during the Mongol and post-Mongol eras.
About the lecture
ʿAzīz Nasafī was one of the most influential Muslim thinkers of the Mongol period. His writings circulated widely across the Persianate world and later became known to European scholars through translations into Ottoman Turkish and Latin. In this lecture, Dr Mansouri examines Nasafī’s role in shaping early formulations of monism (waḥdat al-wujūd) as a distinct metaphysical and intellectual framework in Islamic thought.
Rather than presenting Nasafī simply as a transmitter of Ibn ʿArabi’s ideas, the lecture argues that he developed a broader cosmological model that drew on multiple intellectual traditions, including Nizari Ismaili sources from the AlamutFortress of the Nizari Ismailis in northern Iran, which fell to the Mongols in 654 AH/1256 CE. period. Through close philological and conceptual analysis, Dr Mansouri explores similarities between Nasafī’s writings and Ismaili texts such as Rawḍat al-taslim and Haft Bab, particularly in their shared terminology, spiritual hierarchies, and concepts of unity.
The lecture also examines how the political and intellectual fragmentation of the Mongol era shaped new forms of religious synthesis and spiritual thought. In this context, Nasafī’s writings are presented as part of a wider attempt to reconcile competing intellectual and sectarian traditions through a universalising vision of divine unity and spiritual knowledge.
The discussion is chaired by Dr Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, Associate Professor at IIS, and concludes with a conversation on intellectual exchange, post-Alamut thought, and the transmission of ideas across sectarian boundaries in medieval Islamic history.
Topics discussed in this video:
- ʿAzīz Nasafī and Islamic intellectual history
- Monism in Persian mystical traditions
- Shiʿi, Sunni, and Sufi intellectual exchange
- Nizari Ismaili thought after Alamut
- Rawḍat al-taslim and Haft Bab
- Monism and metaphysical unity
- Spiritual hierarchy in Nasafi’s writings
- The Mongol and post-Mongol Persian world
- Philological approaches to Islamic intellectual history
- Sectarian identity and cosmological kinship
- The legacy of Ibn ʿArabi in Persian thought
- Islamic mysticism and religious synthesis
