Mir Fendereski

Mir Fendereski (Persian: میرفِنْدِرِسْکی)‎ (1562–1640) was an Iranian philosopher, poet and mystic of the Safavid era. His full name is given as Sayyed Mir Abulqasim Astarabadi (Persian: سید ابولقاسم استرآبادی), and he is famously known as Fendereski. He lived for a while in Isfahan at the same time as Mir Damad spent a great part of his life in India among yogis and Zoroastrians, and learnt certain things from them. He was patronized by both the Safavid and Mogul courts. The famous Persian philosopher Mulla Sadra also studied under him.

Mir Fendereski remains a mysterious and enigmatic figure about whom we know very little. He was probably born around 1562-1563 and that he died age eighty.

Mir Fendereski was trained in the works of Avicenna as he thought the Avicennian medical and philosophical compendiums of al-Qanun (The Canon) and Al-Shifa (The Cure) in Isfahan.

A number of works are attributed to him, although these have not been studied in detail. He made extensive commentary on the Persian translation of the Mahabharata (Razm-Nama in Persian) and the philosophical text of the Yoga Vaishtaha. "Resâle Sanaie", "Resâleh dar kimiyâ" and "Šahre ketabe mahârat", in Persian language, are some of his most famous works. Also, his criticism of the Persian translation of Yoga Vaishtaha indicates he was familiar with Sanskrit.

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