Iʿjaz al-bayan

1274) is arguably the most important thinker of the generation following the main founders of medieval philosophy—al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, Ibn ʿArabī and Suhravardī—and before Mullā Ṣadrā. Despite this, almost nothing of his writings has been translated into English though critical Arabic editions of his major writings have been published. Iʿjāz al-bayān, his magnum opus, explores some key questions in philosophy, among which is speech (divine and human) in the unfolding of knowing and being. In this influential work, Qūnawī lays forth in detail the principles and semiological tools for interpreting the opening chapter of the Qur’ān, the Fātiḥa. Widely known as the epitome of the Qur’ān, the Fātiḥa was also understood to indicate the divine ‘opening’, the ‘beginning’ of being’s unfolding. Far from a mere analysis of concepts or epistemology, his philosophical ‘exegesis’ is about the self-identical unfolding of speech from the hidden secrecy of the divine source,