aydogan kars

Monash University, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Indigenous Studies, Faculty Member

Hacettepe University, Economics, Alumnus

Middle East Technical University, Philosophy, Alumnus

Vanderbilt University, Graduate Department of Religion, Alumnus

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Phone: (613) 9905 0050
Address: School of Philosophical, Historical, and Indigenous Studies
Menzies Building (11A), Room W616
Monash University (Clayton Campus)
VIC 3800 Australia

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Books by aydogan kars

ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī: Studies, Editions, Translations

by aydogan kars and Ashkan Bahrani اشکان بحرانی

Brill, Studies on Sufism, Volume 7 , 2021

Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī (1145-1234) is the author of a classic work of Muslim piety, a key f... more Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī (1145-1234) is the author of a classic work of Muslim piety, a key figure in the rise of institutional Sufism in the form of “orders” called “ṭarīqas,” and the influential eponym of one of these famous orders. This book presents studies, editions, and English translations of his shorter treatises that were originally penned in Arabic and Persian. Relying on global archival research, the book discovers materials that shed new light on his teachings and networks, as it traces the context, sources, and reception of his works. Carefully identifying the authentic works of ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī, the book presents significant new information on a key moment in the history of Muslim piety and mysticism.

Key terms:
Sufism, Islamic Mysticism, Arabic and Persian Manuscripts, ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī, Sufi Orders, Muslim piety, renunciation, master-disciple relationship

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Unsaying God: Negative Theology in Medieval Islam

Oxford University Press, AAR Academy Series, 2019

What cannot be said about God, and how can we speak about God by negating what we say? Travelling... more What cannot be said about God, and how can we speak about God by negating what we say? Travelling across prominent negators, denialists, ineffectualists, paradoxographers, naysayers, ignorance-pretenders, unknowers, I-don’t-knowers, and taciturns, Unsaying God: Negative Theology in Medieval Islam delves into the negative theological movements that flourished in the first seven centuries of Islam.

Kars argues that there were multiple and often competing strategies for self-negating speech in the vast field of theology. By focusing on Arabic and Persian textual sources, the book defines four distinct yet interconnected paths of negative speech formation on the nature of God that circulated in medieval the Islamic world. Expanding its scope to Jewish intellectuals, Unsaying God also demonstrates that religious boundaries were easily transgressed as scholars from diverse sectarian or religious backgrounds could adopt similar paths of negative speech on God.

This is the first book-length study of negative theology in Islam. As an introductory work, it aims to encompass vast fields of scholarship, and diverse intellectual schools and figures. Throughout, Kars demonstrates how seemingly different genres should be read in a more connected way in light of the cultural and intellectual history of Islam instead of considering them as different opposing sets of orthodoxies and heterodoxies.

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Articles by aydogan kars

Ibn al-ʿArabī between Two Renaissances: Genealogies of a Double-Truth Theory

Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations, Feb 9, 2026

This article sheds light on the influence of tenth-century Baghdad's philosophical circles -regar... more This article sheds light on the influence of tenth-century Baghdad's philosophical circles -regarded as the architects of what is known as the 'renaissance of Islam'- on Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240), and particularly on the theory of knowledge in his later work. This theory envisioned distinct spheres of inquiry, tools, purposes and methods for natural sciences and religion. The article argues that this division strongly resonates with the increasingly pronounced version of the 'double-truth theory' that shaped science and philosophy in Europe from the fifteenth century. It thereby invites a broader historical contextualization of Ibn al-ʿArabī's epistemology. On the one hand, it offers an analysis of Ibn al-ʿArabī's philosophical background that goes beyond the Brethren of Purity and extends to their rivals within the same intellectual milieu of tenth-century Baghdad. On the other hand, it calls for a prehistory of the double-truth theory that reaches beyond Averroism and European renaissance.

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The Breaths of al-Dāstānī and the Heirs of al-Bisṭāmī: Formation of Intoxicated Sufism in Persia

Journal of Sufi Studies, 2025

This paper analyzes the legacy of intoxicated Sufism, with a focus on the Sufi master Abū ʿAbd Al... more This paper analyzes the legacy of intoxicated Sufism, with a focus on the Sufi master Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad Ibn ʿAlī al-Dāstānī (d. 417/1026). Al-Dāstānī is depicted as a prominent figure among the early followers of the ecstatic mystic Bāyazīd Ṭayfūr al-Bisṭāmī (d. 234/848) in Bistam, known as the Ṭayfūriyya. Little is known, however, about the formalization of leadership and spiritual authority among the early followers of Bāyazīd, and about the connections between these early groups and the later Sufi movements, such as the Bisṭāmiyya that emerged in fourteenth-century Levant. In this paper, I argue that al-Dāstānī played a major role in the formalization of leadership among the heirs of Bāyazīd, through examining previously untapped sources that shed light on this figure and introducing an understudied Arabic treatise that narrates his teachings.

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Four Treatises of Sahlagī (d. 476/1083): Newly Recovered Sources on Early Sufism, Theology, and Traditionism

by aydogan kars and Ashkan Bahrani اشکان بحرانی

Studia Islamica, 2025

Little is known on Sahlagī (379-476/989-1083), who wrote the Book of Light [Kitāb al-Nūr] – one o... more Little is known on Sahlagī (379-476/989-1083), who wrote the Book of Light [Kitāb al-Nūr] – one of the earliest extant sources on the ecstatic Sufism of the celebrated mystic, Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī (d. 234/848). In this study, we introduce four additional works on Sufism, theology, and traditionism, all penned by Sahlagī. We argue that the hallmark of these texts is a sober Ašʿarite piety firmly located in the scholarship of the transmitted sciences rather than the ecstatic mysticism associated with his spiritual progenitor, Abū Yazīd. Through a dialogical analysis of the manuscripts of the extant works and bio-bibliographical sources, we shed light on the reception and socio-aural dissemination of these works. All five of Sahlagī’s extant works that we analyze, including his hagiography of Abū Yazīd, the Book of Light, followed the pedagogy of the transmitted sciences, and later scholars studied these texts in the same light. These study circles were initially local, and they came to be dominated by Ḥanbalīs once they arrived at the Levant in the seventh/thirteenth century.

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Knowledge and Causality in Ibn al-ʿArabī's Book of Giving, and the Buddhist Notion of Dependent Origination

by aydogan kars and Ashkan Bahrani اشکان بحرانی

Religions, 2022

This paper introduces the otherwise unstudied Arabic treatise on knowledge, the Book of Giving, p... more This paper introduces the otherwise unstudied Arabic treatise on knowledge, the Book of Giving, penned by the influential Muslim mystic, Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240). It presents a critical edition, English translation, and initial analysis of this short yet original work. It authenticates this work, situates it in Ibn al-ʿArabī's career, and analyzes its content. Combining textual scholarship and intellectual history with a comparative perspective, it discusses some outstanding features of the Book of Giving in light of Buddhism in order to provide an initial philosophical bridge between the two intellectual traditions. It argues that knowledge is presented in the Book of Giving as a causal relationship constructed in the mind. Ibn al-ʿArabī's approach to causality is one of philosophical idealism, and it contains significant parallels with the notion of dependent origination in Buddhism.

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A "Sufi" Epistle on Spiritual Poverty, and Its Authors: Authenticity, Authority, and Genre in Textual Reproduction

Journal of Islamic Studies, Jan 5, 2022

A range of widely copied Arabic works on asceticism and spiritual poverty attributed to prominent... more A range of widely copied Arabic works on asceticism and spiritual poverty attributed to prominent Muslim scholars, Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā, ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī, Yaḥyā al-Suhrawardī, Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī, and Aḥmad Zarrūq, are either identical, or contain significant overlaps. This paper analyses the content and reception of this work, and the 36 manuscripts of it available, in order to clarify the issues around its authenticity, authorship, and genre. It makes four key arguments. First, it argues that Minhāj al-Sālikīn widely attributed to al-Kubrā is not an authentic work. It is a recent ascription that invents this title and changes the creedal content of an originally longer work. Second, a shorter version of this work can be ascribed to ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī in a particular sense of pre-modern authorship. He compiled a selection from the longer work that was penned by someone else––in the same way his Irshād al-Murīdīn is mostly selections from al-Qushayrī’s Risāla. Third, different versions of the treatise are mistakenly attributed to Zarrūq, Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī, and Yaḥyā al-Suhrawardī in various publications and manuscripts. Finally, the original version was penned by one of the less-known teachers of Ibn al-ʿArabī, Abū ʿAmr ʿUthmān al-Abharī, and soon attributed to more celebrated figures. Through these later agents and their attributions, reproductions, redactions, and publications, the text came to be situated within a Sufi framework and genre. Thus, the epistle on poverty exemplifies not only the construction of "Sufism" as a genre beyond the authorial intention, but also the dispersal of the author-function typical for this genre.

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