Book by Brethren of Purity
Manuscript of the Brethren's
Kitab Ikhwan al-Safa
i.e. the "Epistles of the Brethren of Purity". Copy created in late
Safavid Iran
, dated
c.
17th century
|
Author
| Brethren of Purity
|
---|
Original title
| ????? ????? ?????? ???????? ??????
|
---|
The
Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity
(
Arabic
:
????? ????? ?????
, Ras?'il Ikhw?n al-?af?') also variously known as the
Epistles of the Brethren of Sincerity
,
Epistles of the Brethren of Purity
and
Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and Loyal Friends
is an
Islamic encyclopedia
[1]
in 52
treatises
(
ras?'il
) written by the mysterious
[2]
Brethren of Purity
of
Basra, Iraq
sometime in the second half of the 10th century
CE
(or possibly later, in the 11th century). It had a great influence on later intellectual leading lights of the Muslim world, such as
ibn Arabi
,
[3]
[4]
and was transmitted as far abroad within the
Muslim world
as
al-Andalus
.
[5]
[6]
The identity and period of the authors of the
Encyclopedia
have not been conclusively established,
[7]
though the work has been mostly linked with
Isma'ilism
.
Idris Imad al-Din
, a prominent 15th-century Isma'ili missionary in Yemen, credited the authorship of the encyclopedia to
Muhammad al-Taqi
, the
9th Isma'ili Imam
, who lived in
occultation
in the era of the
Abbasid Caliphate
at the beginning of the
Islamic Golden Age
.
[8]
Some suggest that besides Isma'ilism, the Brethren of Purity also contains elements of
Sufism
,
Mu'tazilism
,
Nusayrism
and others.
[9]
[10]
[11]
Some scholars present the work as
Sunni
Sufi.
[12]
[13]
The subject of the work is vast and ranges from mathematics, music, astronomy, and natural sciences, to ethics, politics, religion, and magic?all compiled for one, basic purpose, that learning is training for the soul and a preparation for its eventual life once freed from the body.
[14]
Turn from the sleep of negligence and the slumber of ignorance, for the world is a house of delusion and tribulations. ?
Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Sincerity
[15]
Authorship
[
edit
]
Authorship of the
Encyclopedia
is usually ascribed to the mysterious "
Brethren of Purity
" a group of unknown
[17]
scholars placed in
Basra
,
Iraq
sometime around 10th century CE .
[18]
[19]
While it is generally accepted that it was the group who authored at least the 52 rasa'il,
[20]
the authorship of the "Summary" (
al-Risalat al-Jami'a
) is uncertain; it has been ascribed to the later
Majriti
but this has been disproved by Yves Marquet (see the
Risalat al-Jami'a
section
).
Since style of the text is plain, and there are numerous ambiguities, due to language and vocabulary, often of
Persian
origin.
[21]
Some philosophers and historians such as Tawhidi,
Ibn al-Qifti
, Shahrazuri disclosed the names of those allegedly involved in the development of the work: Abu Sulayma Bisti, Muqaddasi, 'Ali ibn Harun, Zanjani, Muahmmad ibn Ahmad Narhruji, 'Awfi. All these people are according to Henry Corbin,
Ismailis
[22]
Other scholars, such as
Susanne Diwald
and
Abdul Latif Tibawi
have asserted a
Sunni
-
Sufi
nature of the work.
[12]
[13]
Further perplexities abound; the use of pronouns for the authorial "sender" of the
rasa'il
is not consistent, with the writer occasionally slipping from
third person
to first-person (for example, in Epistle 44, "The Doctrine of the Sincere Brethren").
[23]
This has led some to suggest that the
rasa'il
were not in fact written co-operatively by a group or consolidated notes from lectures and discussions, but were actually the work of a single person.
[24]
Of course, if one accepts the longer time spans proposed for the composition of the
Encyclopedia
, or the simpler possibility that each
risala
was written by a separate person, sole authorship would be impossible.
Contents
[
edit
]
The subject matter of the
Rasa'il
is vast and ranges from mathematics, music, logic, astronomy, the physical and natural sciences, as well as exploring the nature of the soul and investigating associated matters in ethics, revelation, and spirituality.
[9]
[25]
Its philosophical outlook was
Neoplatonic
and it tried to integrate
Greek philosophy
(and especially the
dialectical reasoning
and
logic
of
Aristotelianism
) with various
astrological
,
Hermetic
,
Gnostic
and
Islamic
schools of thought. Scholars have seen
Ismaili
[26]
and
Sufi
influences in the religious content, and
Mu'tazilite
acceptance of reasoning in the work.
[10]
Others, however, hold the Brethren to be "free-thinkers" who transcended sectarian divisions and were not bound by the doctrines of any specific creed.
[9]
Their unabashed
eclecticism
[27]
is fairly unusual in this period of Arabic thought, characterised by fierce theological disputes; they refused to condemn rival schools of thought or religions, instead insisting that they be examined fairly and open-mindedly for what truth they may contain:
...to shun no science, scorn any book, or to cling fanatically to no single creed. For [their] own creed encompasses all the others and comprehends all the sciences generally. This creed is the consideration of all existing things, both sensible and intelligible, from beginning to end, whether hidden or overt, manifest or obscure . . . in so far as they all derive from a single principle, a single cause, a single world, and a single Soul." - (from the
Ikhwan al-Safa
, or
Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity
; Rasa'il IV, pg 52)
[15]
In total, they cover most of the areas an educated person was expected to understand in that era. The epistles (or
"rasa'il"
) generally increase in abstractness, finally dealing with the Brethren's somewhat
pantheistic
philosophy, in which each soul is an emanation, a fragment of a universal soul with which it will reunite at death;
[28]
in turn, the universal soul will reunite with
Allah
on
Doomsday
. The epistles are intended to transmit right knowledge, leading to harmony with the universe and happiness.
Organization
[
edit
]
Organizationally, it is divided into 52
epistles
. The 52 rasa'il are subdivided into four sections, sometimes called books (indeed, some complete editions of the
Encyclopedia
are in four volumes); in order, they are: 14 on the Mathematical Sciences, 17 on the Natural Sciences, 10 on the Psychological and Rational Sciences, 11 on Theological Sciences.
[25]
The division into four sections is no accident; the number four held great importance in Neoplatonic
numerology
, being the first
square number
and for being even. Reputedly,
Pythagoras
held that a man's life was divided into four sections, much like a year was divided into four seasons. The Brethren divided mathematics itself into four sections:
arithmetic
was Pythagoras and
Nicomachus
' domain;
Ptolemy
ruled over
astronomy
with his
Almagest
;
geometry
was associated with
Euclid
, naturally; and the fourth and last division was that of
music
. The fours did not cease there- the Brethren observed that four was crucial to a
decimal
system, as
; numbers themselves were broken down into four
orders of magnitude
: the ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands; there were four winds from the four directions (north, south, east, west); medicine concerned itself with the
four humours
, and natural philosophers with the four
elements
of
Empedocles
.
Another possibility, suggested by Netton is that the veneration for four stems instead from the Brethren's great interest in the
Corpus Hermeticum
of
Hermes Trismegistus
(identified with the god
Hermes
, to whom the number four was sacred); that hermetic tradition's magical lore was the main subject of the 51st rasa'il.
Netton mentions that there are suggestions that the 52nd risalah (on talismans and magic) is a later addition to the
Encyclopedia
, because of intertextual evidence: a number of the rasa'il claim that the total of rasa'il is 51. However, the 52nd risalah itself claims to be number 51 in one area, and number 52 in another, leading to the possibility that the Brethren's attraction for the number 51 (or 17 times 3; there were 17 rasa'il on
natural sciences
) is responsible for the confusion. Seyyed Hossein Nasr suggests that the origin of the preference for 17 stemmed from the
alchemist
J?bir ibn Hayy?n
's numerological symbolism.
Risalat al-Jami'a
[
edit
]
Besides the fifty-odd epistles, there exists what claims to be overarching summary of the work, which is not counted in the 52, called "The Summary" (
al-Risalat al-Jami'a
) which exists in two versions. It has been claimed to have been the work of
Majriti
(d.
circa
1008), although Netton states Majriti could not have composed it, and that Yves Marquet concludes from a philological analysis of the vocabulary and style in his
La Philosophie des Ihwan al-Safa
(1975) that it had to have been composed at the same time as the main corpus.
Style
[
edit
]
Like conventional Arabic Islamic works, the Epistles have no lack of time-worn honorifics and quotations from the Qur'an,
[30]
but the
Encyclopedia
is also famous for some of the
didactic
fables
it sprinkled throughout the text; a particular one, the "Island of Animals" or the "Debate of Animals" (embedded within the 22nd rasa'il, titled "On How The Animals and their Kinds are Formed"), is one of the most popular animal fables in
Islam
. The fable concerns how 70 men, nearly shipwrecked, discover an island where animals ruled, and began to settle on it. They oppressed and killed the animals, who unused to such harsh treatment, complained to the King (or Shah) of
Djinns
. The King arranged a series of debates between the humans and various representatives of the animals, such as the nightingale, the bee, and the jackal. The animals nearly defeat the humans, but an Arabian ends the series by pointing out that there was one way in which humans were superior to animals and so worthy of making animals their servants: they were the only ones Allah had offered the chance of eternal life to. The King was convinced by this argument, and granted his judgement to them, but strongly cautioned them that the same Qur'an that supported them also promised them hellfire should they mistreat their animals.
Philosophy
[
edit
]
More metaphysical were the four ranks (or "spiritual principles"), which apparently were an elaboration of
Plotinus
' triad of Thought, Soul, and the One, known to the Brethren through
The Theology of Aristotle
(a version of Plotinus'
Enneads
in Arabic, modified with changes and paraphrases, and attributed to
Aristotle
);
[31]
first, the Creator (
al-B?r?
) emanated down to Universal Intellect (
al-'Aql al-Kull?
), then to Universal Soul (
al-Nafs
), and through Prime Matter (
al-Hay?l? al-?l?
), which emanated still further down through (and creating) the mundane hierarchy. The mundane hierarchy consisted of Nature (
al-Tab?'a
), the Absolute Body (
al-Jism al-Mutlaq
), the Sphere (
al-Falak
), the Four Elements (
al-Ark?n
), and the Beings of this world (
al-Muwallad?t
) in their three varieties of animals, minerals, and vegetables, for a total hierarchy of nine members. Furthermore, each member increased in subdivisions proportional to how far down in the hierarchy it was, for instance, Sphere, being number seven has the seven
planets
as its members.
The Absolute Body is also a form in Prime Matter as we explained in the Chapter on Matter. Prime Matter is a spiritual form which emanated from the Universal Soul. The Universal Soul also is a spiritual form which emanated from the Universal Intellect which is the first thing the Creator Created."
[32]
Not all Pythagorean doctrines were followed, however. The Brethren argued strenuously against
transmigration of the soul
. Since they refused to accept transmigration, then the Platonic idea that all learning is "remembrance" and that man can never attain to complete knowledge whilst shackled in his body must be false; the Brethren's stance was rather that a person
could
potentially learn everything worth knowing and avoid the snares and delusion of this sinful world, eventually attaining to Paradise, Allah, and salvation, but unless they studied wise men and wise books - like their encyclopedia, whose sole purpose was to entice men to learn its knowledge and possibly be saved - that possibility would never become an actuality. As Netton writes, "The magpie eclecticism with which they surveyed and utilized elements from the philosophies of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, and religions such as
Nestorian Christianity
,
Judaism
and
Hinduism
,
[23]
was not an early attempt at
ecumenism
or interfaith dialogue. Their accumulation of knowledge was ordered towards the sublime goal of salvation. To use their own image, they perceived their Brotherhood, to which they invited others, as a "Ship of Salvation" that would float free from the sea of matter; the Ikhwan, with their doctrines of mutual cooperation, asceticism, and righteous living, would reach the gates of Paradise in its care."
[33]
Another area in which the Brethren differed was in their conceptions of nature, in which they rejected the emanation of Forms that characterized Platonic philosophy for a quasi-Aristotelian system of
substances
:
Know, O brother, that the scholars have said that all things are of two types, substances and accidents, and that all substances are of one kind and self-existent, while accidents are of nine kinds, present in the substances, and they are attributes of them. But the Creator may not be described as either accident or substance, for He is their Creator and
efficient cause
.
[34]
The first thing which the Creator produced and called into existence is a simple, spiritual, extremely perfect and excellent substance in which the form of all things is contained. This substance is called the Intellect. From this substance proceeds a second one which in hierarchy is below the first and is called the Universal Soul (
al-nafs al-kull?yah
). From the Universal Soul proceeds another substance which is below the Soul and which is called Original Matter. The latter is transformed into the Absolute Body, that is, into Secondary Matter which has length, width and depth."
[35]
The 14th edition (EB-2:187a; 14th Ed., 1930) of the
Encyclopædia Britannica
described the mingling of Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism this way:
The materials of the work come chiefly from Aristotle, but they are conceived of in a Platonizing spirit, which places as the bond of all things a universal soul of the world with its partial or fragmentary souls."
[11]
Evolution
[
edit
]
The text in the "Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity" describes biological diversity in a manner similar to the modern day theory of evolution. The contexts of such passages are interpreted differently by scholars. The Brethren view as a proof on pre-Darwinian evolution theory also has been criticized by some scholars.
[36]
In this document some modern day scholars note that “chain of being described by the Ikhwan possess a temporal aspect which has led certain scholars to view that the authors of the Rasai’l believed in the modern theory of evolution”.
[37]
According to the Rasa’il “But individuals are in perpetual flow; they are neither definite nor preserved. The reason for the conservation of forms, genus and species in matter is fixity of their celestial cause because their efficient cause is the Universal Soul of the spheres instead of the change and continuous flux of individuals which is due to the variability of their cause”.
[38]
This statement is supporting the concept that species and individuals are not static, and that when they change it is due to a new purpose given. In the Ikhwan doctrine there are similarities between that and the theory of evolution. Both believe that “the time of existence of terrestrial plants precedes that of animals, minerals precede plants, and organism adapt to their environment”,
[39]
but asserts that everything exists for a purpose.
Muhammad Hamidullah
describes the ideas on
evolution
found in the
Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity
(
The Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa
) as follows:
"[These books] state that
God
first created
matter
and invested it with
energy
for development. Matter, therefore, adopted the form of
vapour
which assumed the shape of
water
in due time. The next stage of development was
mineral
life. Different kinds of
stones
developed in course of time. Their highest form being mirjan (
coral
). It is a stone which has in it branches like those of a
tree
. After mineral life evolves
vegetation
. The evolution of vegetation culminates with a
tree
which bears the qualities of an animal. This is the
date-palm
. It has
male
and
female
genders. It does not wither if all its branches are chopped but it dies when the head is cut off. The date-palm is therefore considered the highest among the trees and resembles the lowest among animals. Then is born the lowest of animals. It evolves into an
ape
. This is not the statement of Darwin. This is what
Ibn Maskawayh
states and this is precisely what is written in the
Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa
. The Muslim thinkers state that ape then evolved into a lower kind of a
barbarian
man
. He then became a superior
human
being. Man becomes a
saint
, a
prophet
. He evolves into a higher stage and becomes an
angel
. The one higher to angels is indeed none but God. Everything begins from Him and everything returns to Him."
[40]
English
translations of the
Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity
were available from 1812, hence this work may have had an influence on
Charles Darwin
and his inception of
Darwinism
.
[40]
However Hamidullah's "Darwin was inspired by the Epistles of the Ihkwan al-Safa" theory sounds unlikely as Charles Darwin comes from an evolutionist family with his well-known physician grandfather,
Erasmus Darwin
, author of the poem The Origin of Society on evolution, was one of the leading Enlightenment evolutionists.
[41]
Literature
[
edit
]
The 48th epistle of the
Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity
features a fictional
Arabic narrative
. It is an anecdote of a "prince who strays from his palace during his wedding feast and, drunk, spends the night in a cemetery, confusing a corpse with his bride. The story is used as a gnostic parable of the soul's
pre-existence
and return from its terrestrial
sojourn
".
[42]
Editions and translations
[
edit
]
Complete editions of the encyclopedia have been printed at least three times:
[43]
- Kit?b Ikhw?n al-?af?'
(edited by Wilayat Husayn, Bombay 1888)
- Ras?'il Ikhw?n al-?af?'
(edited by Khayr al-din al-Zarkali with introductions by T?ha ?usayn and A?mad Zak? Pasha, in 4 volumes, Cairo 1928)
- Ras?'il Ikhw?n al-?af?'
(4 volumes, Beirut: D?r ??dir 1957)
The
Encyclopedia
has been widely translated, appearing not merely in its original Arabic, but in German, English, Persian, Turkish, and Hindustani.
[4]
Although portions of the
Encyclopedia
were translated into English as early as 1812, with the Rev. T. Thomason's prose English introduction to Shaikh
Ahmad b. Muhammed Shurwan
's Arabic edition of the "Debate of Animals" published in
Calcutta
,
[24]
a complete translation of the
Encyclopedia
into
English
does not exist as of 2006, although
Friedrich Dieterici
(Professor of Arabic in Berlin) translated the first 40 of the epistles into German;
[44]
presumably, the remainder have since been translated. The "Island of Animals" have been translated several times in differing completion;
[45]
the fifth risalah, on music, has been translated into English
[46]
as have the 43rd through the 47th epistles.
[47]
As of 2021
[update]
, the first complete Arabic
critical edition
and annotated English translation of the
Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’
, with English commentaries, is being published by
Oxford University Press
in association with London's
Institute of Ismaili Studies
. The series' General Editor is
Nader El-Bizri
.
[48]
This series began in 2008 with an introductory volume of studies edited by
Nader El-Bizri
, and continued with the publication of:
[49]
- Epistle 22:
The Case of the Animals versus Man Before the King of the Jinn
(eds. trans. L. Goodman & R. McGregor)
- Epistle 5:
On Music
(ed. trans. O. Wright, 2010)
- Epistles 10?15:
On Logic
(ed. trans. C. Baffioni, 2010)
- Epistle 52a:
On Magic, Part I
(eds. trans. G. de Callatay & B. Halflants, 2011)
- Epistles 1?2:
Arithmetic and Geometry
(ed. trans. N. El-Bizri, 2012)
- Epistles 15?21:
Natural Sciences
(ed. trans. C. Baffioni, 2013)
- Epistle 4:
Geography
(ed. trans. I Sanchez and J. Montgomery, 2014)
- Epistle 3:
On "Astronomia"
(ed. trans. J. F. Ragep and T. Mimura, 2015)
- Epistles 32?36:
Sciences of the Soul and Intellect, Part I
(ed. trans. I. Poonawala, G. de Callatay, P. Walker, D. Simonowitz, 2015)
- Epistles 39?41:
Sciences of the Soul and Intellect, Part III
(2017)
- Epistles 43?45:
On Companionship and Belief
(2017)
- Epistles 6?8:
On Composition and the Arts
(Nader El-Bizri, 2018)
- Epistle 48:
The Call to God
(Abbas Hamdani and Abdallah Soufan, 2019)
- Epistles 49?51:
On God and the World
(Wilferd Madelung, 2019)
- Epistles 29?31:
On Life, Death, and Languages
(Eric Ormsby, 2021)
Both the editors' approach to the project and the quality of its English translations have been criticized.
[50]
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
"The work only professes to be an epitome, an outline; its authors lay claim to no originality, they only summarize what others have thought and discovered. What they do lay claim to is system and completeness. The work does profess to contain a
systematized
, harmonious and co-ordinated view of the universe and life, its origin and destiny, formed out of many discordant, incoherent views; and it does claim to be a 'complete account of all things' - to contain, in epitome, all that was known at the time it was written.
It refers to more profound and special treatises for fuller information on the several sciences it touches upon, but it does claim to touch on all sciences, all departments of knowledge, and to set forth their leading results. In effect, it is, by its own showing, a 'hand-encyclopedia of Arabian philosophy in the tenth century'. It is not easy to exaggerate the importance of this encyclopedia. Its value lies in its completeness, in its systematizing of the results of Persian study."
Stanley Lane-Poole
(1883), pages 190, 191.
- ^
"Having been hidden within the cloak of secrecy from its very inception, the
Rasa'il
have provided many points of contention and have been a constant source of dispute among both Muslim and Western scholars. The identification of the authors, or possibly one author, the place and time of writing and propagation of their works, the nature of the secret brotherhood the outer manifestation of which comprises the
Rasa'il
- these and many secondary questions have remained without answer." Nasr (1964), pg 25.
- ^
"It is probable that they have influenced some of the most prominent thinkers of Islam, such as al-Ghazzali (d. 1111A.D.) and Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240 A.D.)." van Reijn (1995), pg. "v".
- ^
a
b
"The
Rasa'il
were widely read by most learned men of later periods, including Ibn Sina and al-Ghazzali, have continued to be read up to our own times, and have been translated into
Persian
,
Turkish
, and
Hindustani
. From the number of manuscripts present in various libraries in the Muslim world, it must be considered among the most popular of Islamic works on learning." Nasr (1964), pg. 36
- ^
Van Reijn (1945), pg "v"
- ^
"But they produced this enormous encyclopaedia, and um, everybody read it and we know that it was widely read by mathematicians in Spain, and by philosophers in Spain. Most crucially of all, it was read by Muhyi-I-din -
Ibn al-Arabi
, er, the most famous
Sufi
that Spain produced, or indeed one of the most famous Sufis in the history of Islamic mysticism - er, he died in 1240. Er, he absorbed a lot of their ideas and he was in turn read by these ministers of the
Nasrid
monarch
Ibn al-Khatib
, and
Ibn al-Zamrak
, both of whom had strong, mystical tendencies."
Robert Irwin
;
"In the Footsteps of Muhammad"
,
transcript
of a
BBC
program
- ^
Ikhwan as-Safa'. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 25, 2007, from
Encyclopædia Britannica Online
- ^
Leaman, Oliver, ed. (2015).
"Ikhwan al-Safa'
"
.
The Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy
. Bloomsbury Publishing.
ISBN
9781472569455
. Retrieved
4 Jun
2020
– via books.google.com.
- ^
a
b
c
Brethren of Purity
, Nader El-Bizri, an article in
Medieval Islamic Civilization, an Encyclopedia
, Vol. I, p. 118-119, Routledge (New York-London, 2006). Retrieved from
[1]
Archived
2014-05-29 at the
Wayback Machine
.
- ^
a
b
"Ibn al-Qifti, giving his own view, considers the Ikhwan as followers of the school of the Mu'tazilah...Ibn Tamiyah, the
Hanbali
jurist, on the other hand, tends towards the other extreme in relating the Ikhwan to the
Nusairis
, who are as far removed from the rationalists as any group to be found in Islam." Nasr (1964), pg 26.
- ^
a
b
Isma'ili, Yezidi, Sufi.
"The Brethren Of Purity"
. Retrieved
2006-05-17
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
a
b
Rational Approach to Islam
, Gyan Publishing House, 2001, p. 159,
ISBN
9788121207256
- ^
a
b
Traditions in Contact and Change: Selected Proceedings of the XIVth Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions
, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, January 2006, p. 448,
ISBN
9780889206106
- ^
Walker, Paul E.
"E?W?N AL-?AF??"
. In
Encyclopædia Iranica
. December 15, 1998.
- ^
a
b
Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa'
, 4 volumes (
Beirut
, Dar Sadir, 1957). A complete untranslated edition of the 52 rasa'il.
- ^
Ettinghausen, Richard (1959).
"On Some Mongol Miniatures"
.
Kunst des Orients
.
3
: 44, note 3.
ISSN
0023-5393
.
- ^
Diana, Steigerwald (2015).
Imamology in Ismaili Gnosis
. New Delhi 110 002: Monahar Publishers $ Distributors. p. 141.
ISBN
978-93-5098-081-1
.
{{
cite book
}}
: CS1 maint: location (
link
)
- ^
Ikhwan al-Safa',
Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
- ^
"Not everyone accepts the contemporary evidence that gives the Brethren as inhabitants of Basra. V. A. Ivanov, in
The Alleged Founders of Ismailism
(
Bombay
, 1946), says that "I would be inclined to think that this was a kind of camouflage story being circulated by the Ismailis to avoid the book being used as a proof of their orthodoxy. [sic]". As quoted by Nasr (1964), pg 29.
- ^
Unsurprisingly, other authors have been proposed: "Between these two extremes there have been the views expressed over the centuries that the
Rasa'il
were written by
'Ali ibn Abi Talib
,
al-Ghazzali
,
Hallaj
,
Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq
, or various Isma'ili
da'i
s, or "missionaries"." Nasr (1964), pg 26
- ^
Baffioni, Carmela.
"Ikhwan al-Safa’"
,
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Summer 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), First published April 22, 2008; Retrieved May 12, 2012.
- ^
Baffioni, Carmela (2016). Zalta, Edward N. (ed.).
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Fall 2016 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.
- ^
a
b
"The Prophets and those of the Philosophers who have the right view...maintain that the body is only a prison of the soul, or a veil, an intermediary path or an isthmus...The sages of India called
Brahmins
cremate the bodies of the dead, but ignorant and cunning as they are, they do not do it for the reasons I have given. It would be proper to say that the term "sages" applies to only a few among them." van Reijn (1995), pages 24-25.
- ^
a
b
"Ikhwan as-Safa and their Rasa'il: A Critical Review of a Century and a Half of Research", by A. L. Tibawi, as published in volume 2 of
The Islamic Quarterly
in 1955; pgs. 28-46
- ^
a
b
From the introduction of
Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of the Brethren of Purity
,
Ian Richard Netton
, 1991. Edinburgh University Press,
ISBN
0-7486-0251-8
- ^
Some have claimed that the Brethren
were
Ismaili, though this may be unlikely because of their very lukewarm embrace of the
Imamate
and other aspects of Ismailian theology, in addition to the lack of solid evidence in favor of such a hypothesis.
- This is not to say that there aren't some suggestive links between the Brethren and the Isma'ili.
Heinz Halm
notes in his "The cosmology of the pre-Fatimid Isma'iliyya" (as printed in
Medieval Isma'ili History and Thought
, ed. Farhad Daftary, 1996,
ISBN
0-521-45140-X
) that the Sunni theologian
Ibn Taymiyya
(d. 1328) asserted that the doctrines of the Brethren were exactly identical to the Ismaili's in one of his
fatwas
. Halm further notes that Paul Casanova had shown that the infamous
Hashshashin
had approved of the
Encyclopedia
and that their missionaries in
Yemen
even made use of it. Other sects apparently drew upon the
Encyclopedia
as well: "The theological treatises of the
Tayyibi
Ismailis of the
Yemen
contain ample quotations from the
Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa'
, and in the
'Uyun al-akhbar
by the Yemenite
da'i
Idris 'Imad al-Din (d. 1468), Ahmad b. 'Abd Allah b. Muhammad b. Isma'il b. Ja'far al-Sadiq, the ninth imam and the second of the leaders of the Isma'ili
da'wa
residing in Salamiyya, is explicitly named as the author as the
Rasa'il
." (pg 76) Indeed, the respect of some Ismaili was great indeed, some referring to it as "a Quran after the Quran" (Nasr, 1964, pg. 26). V. A. Ivanov remarks in his
The Alleged Founders of Ismailism
(
Bombay
, 1946), that "the work is accepted by the Isma'ili as belonging to their religion, and is still regarded as esoteric..."
- But there are more reasons to reject an identification of the Brethren with Isma'ili, such as the failure of
Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani
, an extremely important Islamic theologian, to make any mention of them. And other authors agree with this: "...the well-known modern Isma'ili scholar, H. F. al-Hamdani, although emphasizing the importance of the
Rasa'il
in the Isma'ili mission in the Yemen, disclaims Isma'ili authorship of the work and instead attributes the treatises to the 'Alids." (Amusingly, V. A. Ivanov attributes sponsorship of the work to the 'Alids' enemies, the Fatimids, instead, in his
A Guide to Ismaili Literature
, London 1933) From pg 26-27 of Nasr (1964).
- From pg 8 of Tibawi: "There is sufficient evidence in the tracts themselves to prove Isma'ili sympathies. Indeed, such sympathies have long been pointed out by Muslim authors, medieval and modern, who tried to turn sympathy into actual relationship. However, the balance of evidence tends to show that such relationship was a later development. There is as yet no proof that the formation of Ikhwan as-Safa and the publication of their
Rasa'il
was an Isma'ili movement, or even a movement concerted with any of the contemporary agitation of the Shi'a." From page 9: "A glaring example of the Ikhwan's independence is their advocacy of the principle that the office of
imam
need not be hereditary, for they argue that if the desired good qualities are not found in one single person but scattered among a group, then the group and not the individual should be 'the lord of the time and the
imam
. More surprising still is the denouncement of the belief in a concealed
imam
as painful to those who hold it and the discredit of the significance of 'number seven' and those who believe in it as contrary to the Ikhwan's creed."
- Compare this extract from one of the later rasa'il Netton provides on pg 102 of his
Muslim Neoplatonists
: "Know, O Brother, that if these qualities are united simultaneously in one human being, during one of the cycles of astral conjunctions, then that person is the Delegate (
al-Mab'uth
) and the Master of the Age (
Sahib al-Zaman
) and the Imam for the people as long as he lives, If he fulfills his mission and accomplishes his allotted task, advises the community and records the revelation, codifies its interpretation and consolidates the holy law, clarifies its method and implements the traditional procedures and welds the community into one; if he does all that and then dies and passes away, those qualities will remain in the community as its heritage. If those qualities, or most of them, are united in one in his community, then he is the man suited to be his successor in his community after his death. But if it does not happen that those qualities are united in one man, but are scattered among all its members, and they speak with one voice and their hearts are united in love for each other, and they cooperate in supporting the faith, preserving the law and implementing the
sunna
, and bearing the community along the path of religion, then their dynasty will endure in this world and the outcome will be happy for them in the next."
- ^
"No one system satisfied these Brethren. They were too well acquainted with other creeds, and too well trained in the logical use of thought, to accept the common orthodox Islam which had contented the desert Arabs. Yet all other creeds and systems equally appeared open to doubt or refutation. In this confusion they found their satisfaction in an eclectic theory. All these conflicting views, they said, must be only different ways of looking at the same thing..." or "These fragments of truth were to be found in every system of faith and every method of philosophy; if men failed to detect them, the fault lay in their own imperfect intelligence - it was only the skill to read between the lines that was wanted to build up a harmonious whole out of the fragments of truth scattered about in sacred books and the writings of wise men and the mystic doctrines of saints." Stanley Lane-Poole (1883), pgs. 189, 190.
- ^
"The world in relation to Allah is like the word in relation to him who speaks it, like light, or heat or numbers to the lantern, sun, hearth or the number One. The word, light, heat and number exist by their respective sources, but without the sources could neither exist nor persist in being. The existence of the world is thus determined by that of Allah..." Nasr (1964), pg 54-55 (based on "Dieterici,
Die Lehre von der Weltseele
, R., III, 319.")
- ^
Ettinghausen, Richard (1959).
"On Some Mongol Miniatures"
.
Kunst des Orients
.
3
: 44, note 3.
ISSN
0023-5393
.
- ^
"But in spite of the anthropomorphic image of a Creator sitting on his Throne and looking down on his creation, the thought of the Sincere Brethren repeatedly breaks through the structures of traditional Islamic theology- a fact the numerous Qur'anic quotations (sometimes quite unrelated to the subject under discussion) barely disguise...." van Reijn (1945), pg
vii
- ^
"Isma'ilism developed a complex and rich theosophy which owed a great deal to Neoplatonism. In the 9th century, Greek-to-Arabic translations proliferated, first by the intermediary of Syriac then directly. The version of Plotinus' Enneads possessed by Muslims was modified with changes and paraphrases; it was wrongly attributed to Aristotle and called
Theologia
of Aristotle, since Plotinus
(Flutinus)
remained mostly unknown to the Muslims by name. This latter work played a significant role in the development of Isma‘ilism." From the
article
at the
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- ^
pg 234-235 of vol. 3,
Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa'
, 4 volumes (
Beirut
, Dar Sadir, 1957)
- ^
volume 4, pg 685-688 of the 1998 edition of
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
; ed. Edward Craig,
ISBN
0-415-18709-5
- ^
pg 41 of vol 1,
Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa'
, 4 volumes (
Beirut
, Dar Sadir, 1957)
- ^
from page 52 (whose translation is based on "Dieterici,
Die Lehre von der Weltseele
, p. 15. R., II 4f") of Nasr (1964).
- ^
Ahmed Malik, Shoaib (2019).
"Old Texts, New Masks: A Critical Review of Misreading Evolution Onto Historical Islamic Texts"
.
academia.edu
. pp. 515?518
. Retrieved
December 8,
2022
.
- ^
Nasr (1992) p71: Der Darwinisimuseim X and XI Jarhhundert (Leipzig, 1878)
- ^
See Nasr (1992) p72 wherein the text has been quoted from Carra
- ^
Iqbal, Muzaffar Islam and Science (Great Britain: MPG Books Ltd, 1988) 117
- ^
a
b
Muhammad Hamidullah
and Afzal Iqbal (1993),
The Emergence of Islam: Lectures on the Development of Islamic World-view, Intellectual Tradition and Polity
, p. 143-144. Islamic Research Institute, Islamabad.
- ^
Zirkle, Conway (April 25, 1941). "Natural Selection before the 'Origin of Species'". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.
- ^
Hamori, Andras (1971), "An Allegory from the Arabian Nights: The City of Brass",
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
,
34
(1),
Cambridge University Press
: 9?19 [18],
doi
:
10.1017/S0041977X00141540
,
S2CID
161610007
- ^
345, Hamdani
- ^
Die Philosophie der Araber im zehnten Jahrhundert
, F. Dieterici, published in
Berlin
and
Leipzig
between 1865 and 1872; bibliographic information courtesy of
The Epistles of the Sincere Brethren
, by Eric Van Reijn, 1945, Minerva Press,
ISBN
1-85863-418-0
- ^
Such as L. E. Goodman's
The Case of the Animals Versus Man Before the King of The Jinn
, in Boston 1978
- ^
van Reijn (1945) -
The epistle on music of the Ikhwan al-Safa
, Amnon Shiloah. Published by Tel-Aviv University, 1978
- ^
van Reijn (1995)
- ^
"The Institute of Ismaili Studies"
.
www.iis.ac.uk
. Archived from
the original
on 25 August 2012
. Retrieved
17 January
2022
.
- ^
"Epistles of the Brethren of Purity - Oxford University Press"
. oup.com. 2008-12-04
. Retrieved
2021-07-01
.
- ^
Guillaume de Vaulx d’Arcy (2019).
"Bulletin critique ?
The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity
, edited by the Institute of Ismaili Studies: When the edition of a book can be its destruction"
.
Melanges de l'Institut dominicain d'etudes orientales
(34): 253?330.
References
[
edit
]
- Lane-Poole, Stanley
(1966) [1883],
Studies in a Mosque
(1st ed.), Beirut: Khayat Book & Publishing Company S.A.L.
; based on Dieterici's outline and translations.
- Nasr, Seyyed Hossein
(1964),
An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines: Conceptions of nature and methods used for its study by the Ihwan Al-Safa, Al-Biruni, and Ibn Sina
, Boston, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
LCCN
64-13430
- Van Reijn, Eric (1995),
The Epistles of the Sincere Brethren: an annotated translation of Epistles 43-47
, vol. 1 (1st ed.), Minerva Press,
ISBN
1-85863-418-0
; a partial translation
- Netton, Ian Richard (1991),
Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of the Brethren of Purity
, vol. 1 (1st ed.), Edinburgh, England: Edinburgh University Press,
ISBN
0-7486-0251-8
- Ivanov, Valdimir Alekseevich
(1946),
The Alleged Founder of Ismailism.
, The Ismaili Society series; no. 1; Variation: Ismaili Society, Bombay; Ismaili Society series; no. 1., Bombay, Pub. for the Ismaili Society by Thacker, p. 197,
LCCN
48-3517
, OCLC: 385503
- Ikhwan as-Safa and their Rasa'il: A Critical Review of a Century and a Half of Research
, by A. L. Tibawi, published in volume 2 of The Islamic Quarterly in 1955
- Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa'
, vol. 4, Beirut: Dar Sadir
- Johnson-Davies, Denys (1994),
The Island of Animals / Khemir, Sabiha; (Illustrator - Ill.)
, Austin: University of Texas Press, p. 76,
ISBN
0-292-74035-2
- "Notices of some copies of the Arabic work entitled "Rasayil Ikhwam al-cafa"", written by
Aloys Sprenger
, originally published by the
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal
(in
Calcutta
) in 1848
[2]
- "Ab? ?ayyan Al-Taw??d? and The Brethren of Purity", Abbas Hamdani.
International Journal of Middle East Studies
, 9 (1978), 345-353
Further reading
[
edit
]
- (in French)
La philosophie des Ihwan al-Safa'
("The philosophy of the Brethren of Purity"), Yves Marquet, 1975. Published in
Algiers
by the Societe Nationale d'Edition et de Diffusion
- Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. The Ikhwan al-Safa' and their Rasa'il
, ed.
Nader El-Bizri
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
External links
[
edit
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