Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi

Sadr al-Din al-Qunawi (1207 to 1274) was a Persian mystical philosopher, born in Malatya and based for most of his life in Konya, who joined the metaphysics of his stepfather and teacher Ibn Arabi to the logical methods of Avicenna. Adopted as a boy by Ibn Arabi, he was authorized to teach the whole of his master's work and became a recognized authority in hadith and Quranic exegesis, drawing students to Konya from distant lands. His philosophical importance lies in bridging demonstrative logic with mystical insight, developing what scholars have called an exegetical grammar for communicating spiritual truths, and his major work, I'jaz al-Bayan, offers a philosophically rigorous mystical reading of the opening chapter of the Quran. His students included Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi and the poet Fakhr al-Din Iraqi, through whom Ibn Arabi's ideas spread through the Persian speaking world. He is not Mulla Sadra: the two are distinct philosophers of different centuries who share only the honorific Sadr al-Din.