Confluence of cultures: some samples from Kanz al-asrār by Ṣanhājī

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the how some ideas circulating in the Mediterranean area had a direct or indirect influence, on the work by Muḥammad ibn Saˁīd aṣ-Ṣinhāǧī entitled Kanz al-asrār wa-lawāqiḥ al-afkār, in order to put this text in his intellectual context. The author lived in the European Renaissance, when the Christian West made an impressive economic and cultural progress, together with moral and physical freedom of humankind and a liberation from spiritual and temporal guidance. This does not mean an irreligious century, precisely when Islam begun its decline. For instance, the rich intellectual movement of this epoch was reflected in the treatment of some topics by means of a particular style in the Kanz, where we can find some traces of Barocco.