Mystical exegesis of the Qurʾān is one of the oldest and most complex branches of the Islamic interpretive tradition, and fanāʾ (annihilation) is one of the oldest and most debated concepts of Islamic mysticism. Rūzbihān Baqlī Shīrāzī (522–606 AH/1128–1209 AD), known as the “ecstatic master” (shaykh-i shaṭṭāḥ), holds a distinguished place among mystical commentators, since he presented a coherent set of mystical concepts (fanāʾ, baqāʾ, theophany, beauty and vision) not only in his Qurʾān commentary, ʿArāʾis al-Bayān fī Ḥaqāʾiq al-Qurʾān, but also in Sharḥ-i Shaṭḥiyyāt and ʿAbhar al-ʿĀshiqīn.

In the last decade a new trend has emerged in Western studies of Sufi Qurʾānic exegesis that places the interpretations of Sulamī, Qushayrī, Maybudī and Rūzbihān under general theories of religious experience or comparative models from religious studies. Related studies apply Katz’s constructivism, or James’s components of ineffability and transiency, directly to the analysis of fanāʾ and baqāʾ. This article asks: once Rūzbihān’s voices as commentator on the ecstatic sayings of others, as author of his own experience, and as Qurʾān exegete are distinguished, what conceptual structure of fanāʾ emerges in his interpretation of the mīqāt verse (Q. 7: 143), and how far can the theories of James, Otto and Katz explain it?

The study uses a textual-historical method. Key passages on fanāʾ are extracted from ʿArāʾis al-Bayān, Sharḥ-i Shaṭḥiyyāt and ʿAbhar al-ʿĀshiqīn and examined in the speaking position in which Rūzbihān speaks: commentator on another’s utterance, author of his own experience, or Qurʾān exegete. Three principles guide the analysis: the priority of intra-textual vocabulary over imported categories, the distinction of speaking positions, and the tracing of conceptual sequence instead of reliance on isolated phrases. None of these principles is new in itself; the contribution lies in their purposeful combination. Attribution of a passage to a speaking position rests on the convergence of several indications, not on conclusive proof, and each master’s precedence is measured against Rūzbihān’s death date (606 AH) so that earlier, contemporary and later evidence are not conflated.

Among the sources examined, only Suhrawardī (d. 587 AH) clearly precedes Rūzbihān with a multi-stage model of fanāʾ (greater fanāʾ, fanāʾ of fanāʾ, and effacement, ṭams). Najm al-Dīn Kubrā (d. 618 AH) is a contemporary, while Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, Farghānī and Pārsā lived after Rūzbihān, so their formulations show the later continuity of the idea rather than a precedent. Junayd and Qushayrī treat fanāʾ and baqāʾ mostly at the ethical and educational level.

In all three speaking positions, fanāʾ first denotes the annihilation of egoistic existence. In the preface to Sharḥ-i Shaṭḥiyyāt, Rūzbihān moves directly from annihilation to knowledge (“I became a knower”, ʿārif shudam), and in his commentary on Q. 7: 143, Moses’ swoon, his recovery (afāqa) and his declaration “I am the first of the believers” form the same sequence. Baqāʾ is thus not a mere return to the former state but a knowledge-increasing stage, and fanāʾ is the condition for the vision of divine beauty in its manifestations.

Comparison with Sulamī, Qushayrī and Maybudī on the same verse shows that loving, aesthetic language about fanāʾ is already present, sporadically, especially in Maybudī’s Kashf al-Asrār. Rūzbihān’s distinction lies in the absence of the nawbat-based layering of that work and in the orientation of Moses’ return toward the vision of beauty rather than toward an ethical and devotional return. His originality is therefore the systematization of a technical vocabulary (shāhid, tajallī, jamāl, fanāʾ, baqāʾ), not the invention of the language itself.

The contemporary theories prove only partly adequate. James’s model concentrates on the moment of experience and does not account for Rūzbihān’s voluntary spiritual discipline or his systematic effort to put the experience into language. Otto’s numinous covers part of Sufi love through its fascinating aspect, but its absolute otherness does not fit Rūzbihān, for whom divine beauty is the source of every perceptible beauty. Katz’s constructivism is methodologically close to this study, but in applications such as Coppens’s framework of “crossing boundaries”, distinctions within the tradition, for example between Bisṭāmī’s purely ontological fanāʾ and Rūzbihān’s three-stage fanāʾ, are overlooked. This critique concerns typical applications, not Katz’s foundations.

The study concludes that fanāʾ for Rūzbihān Baqlī is a multi-stage sequence of annihilation of egoistic existence, knowledge-increasing baqāʾ, and vision of divine beauty, which can be extracted from his three speaking positions and not from isolated phrases. The judgment on his originality is limited to the sources examined; a definitive verdict on the whole earlier tradition needs wider research. The same method can be applied to other Sufi commentators, such as Maybudī, by extracting their own vocabulary in its speaking contexts instead of imposing external categories.