Mohsen Fayz Kashani - Life

Life

Mohsen Fayz Kashani was born in Kashan to a scholarly family renowned for its learning, Fayz started his education his father, Shah Morteza. His father owned a rich library which benefited Fayz. When he reached the age of twenty, he travelled to Isfahan for further study. However, after a year in Isfahan, he moved to Shiraz to study Hadith and Fiq (Jurisprudence) under Majid Bahrani, one of the leading Shi'ite scholars of his time. Bahrani died a few months later, and Fayz returned to Isfahan where he joined the circles of great scholar Shaikh Bahai and studied philosophy under Mir Damad. After performing the hajj, he stayed a short time before returning to Persia.

Upon his return he found a new master, Qom Molla Sadra who taught him in different disciplines. Sadra taught him for eight years, studying ascetic exercises and learning all of the sciences. Sadra gave Fayz one of his daughters to marry, they later had a son named, Muhammad Alam al-Huda, who followed in his fathers footsteps. Fayz is said to have produced works that mixed Islamic scriptual moral concerns with Aristotelian, Platonic schemas and illunminationist mysticism- a rationalist gnostic approach.(Rizvi) Some of his works brought him bad attention, he was criticized by Unlama for not using the Idjma in questioning jurisprudence, such as the legitimacy of music and the definition of impurity. One of Fayz students later blames him for encouraging his students to listen to music.(Chittick)Fayz taught at the Molla'Ábd-Allah madrasa and led Friday prayer in Isfahan. After an unknown period of time Fayz returned to Kasan where he later died in the year 1680.

Before his death, an earthquake struck the city of Sherwan in Iran. During the same year, the town of Mashad was also victim to an earthquake of high intensity. The rule at the time had happened to be traveling through Kashan and became greatly worried over the loss of life and infrastructure that had occurred. He soon began to seek answers from among those who were claimed to be the wisest in the city. Eventually he came across Mohsen Fayz Kashani and asked for an answer. Kashani is reported to have said, "There is a spate of earthquakes because of you. You may not know, but it is proven through the traditions of the Infallibles that frequent earthquakes will come when bribery is practiced in the courts of law."