Mir Fendereski (

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

: میرفِنْدِرِسْکی)‎ (1562–1640) was a

philosopher, poet and mystic of the

Safavid The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly called Safavid Iran, Safavid Persia or the Safavid Empire, was one of the largest and longest-lasting Iranian empires. It was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often considered the begi ...

era. His full name is given as Mir Abulqasim Mirfendereski (

: میرابوالقاسم میرفندرسکی). He lived for a while in

Isfahan Isfahan or Esfahan ( ) is a city in the Central District (Isfahan County), Central District of Isfahan County, Isfahan province, Iran. It is the capital of the province, the county, and the district. It is located south of Tehran. The city ...

at the same time as

Mir Damad Mīr Dāmād () (c. 1561 – 1631/1632), known also as Mir Mohammad Baqer Esterabadi, or Asterabadi, was a Twelver Shia Iranian philosopher in the Neoplatonizing Islamic Peripatetic traditions of Avicenna. He was a scholar of the traditional Is ...

, spent a great part of his life in India among

yogis A yogi is a practitioner of Yoga, including a sannyasin or practitioner of meditation in Indian religions.A. K. Banerjea (2014), ''Philosophy of Gorakhnath with Goraksha-Vacana-Sangraha'', Motilal Banarsidass, , pp. xxiii, 297–299, 331 ...

and Zoroastrians, and learnt from them. He was patronized by both the

and

Mughal Mughal or Moghul may refer to: Related to the Mughal Empire * Mughal Empire of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries * Mughal dynasty * Mughal emperors * Mughal people, a social group of Central and South Asia * Mughal architecture * Mug ...

courts.Encyclopedia Iranica, "Mir Fenderski" by Sajjad. H. Rizvi
/ref> The famous Persian philosopher

Mulla Sadra Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī, more commonly known as Mullā Ṣadrā (; ; c. 1571/2 – c. 1635/40 CE / 980 – 1050 AH), was a Persians, Persian Twelver Shi'a, Shi'i Islamic philosophy, Islamic mystic, philosopher, Kalam, theologian, a ...

also studied under him.

Life

Mir Fendereski remains a mysterious and enigmatic figure whom we know very little about. He was probably born around 1562-1563 and died at the age of eighty. He gained a reputation of an

ascetic Asceticism is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures through self-discipline, self-imposed poverty, and simple living, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their pra ...

at the court of Shah Abbas in Isfahan. He is said to have journeyed through India, where he became a vegetarian and refused to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, so he would not be forced to sacrifice sheep. Mir Fendereski was trained in the works of

Avicenna Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian ...

as he taught the Avicennian medical and philosophical compendiums of al-Qanun (The Canon) and Al-Shifa (The Cure) in

Works

A number of works are attributed to him, although these have not been studied in detail. In his extensive commentary on the Persian translation of the ''

Mahabharata The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; , , ) is one of the two major Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India revered as Smriti texts in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the events and aftermath of the Kuru ...

'' (''Razm-Nama'' in Persian) and Nizam al-Din Panipati's rendition of the ''

Yoga Vasistha ''Vasishta Yoga Samhita'' (, IAST: '; also known as ''Mokṣopāya'' or ''Mokṣopāyaśāstra'', and as ''Maha-Ramayana'', ''Arsha Ramayana'', ''Vasiṣṭha Ramayana'', ''Yogavasistha-Ramayana'' and ''Jnanavasistha'', is a historically popular ...

,'' he complains about the quality of the translation, which implies that he was familiar with

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

. He was among a group of Persians at the

court to engage with Indian thought. Some of his most famous works are "Resâle Sanaie", "Resâleh dar kimiyâ" and "Šahre ketabe mahârat", in Persian language. He was also a poet and composed a long philosophical ode (qaṣida ḥekmiya) in imitation of and response to the Persian Ismaʿili thinker

Nasir Khusraw Nasir Khusraw (; 1004 – between 1072–1088) was an Isma'ili poet, philosopher, traveler, and missionary () for the Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate. Despite being one of the most prominent Isma'ili philosophers and theologians of the Fatimids and ...

. His best-known work is titled ''al-Resāla al-ṣenāʿiya'', an examination of the arts and professions within an ideal society. The importance of this treatise is that it combines a number of genres and subject areas: political and ethical thought,

mirrors for princes Mirrors for princes or mirrors of princes () constituted a literary genre of didactic political writings throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It was part of the broader speculum or mirror literature genre. The Latin term ''speculum reg ...

, metaphysics, and the critical subject of the classifications of the sciences.

Life

Works

See also

Notes

Further reading