Details
Object numberMS 1482 [Handlist 5]
TitleRasā’il ikhwān al-ṣafā’
DescriptionThe Rasā’il ikhwān al-ṣafā’, or 'The Treatises of the Sincere Brethren',1 are a famous 'encyclopedia' of the natural and human sciences, well represented by manuscripts in Ismaili and non-Ismaili collections. A long-established tradition among the Ṭayyibīs claims that they were written by the second of the hidden imams, Aḥmad b. ‘Abd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Ismā‘īl b. Isma‘il, which would imply that they were composed around the middle of the 9th century, a dating that has been defended, for different reasons, in several articles by Abbas Hamdani. On the other hand, the well-known non-Ismaili author Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī states that the treatises were written by a group of people known to him personally, which would place their composition in the last quarter of the 10th century. There is still no consensus as to whether the treatises reflect a specifically Ismaili position or whether they are a non- Ismaili work adopted by the Ismailis in the Yemen. If they are of Ismaili origin then it does have to be said that they reflect a doctrinal tradition very different both from the ‘cabalistic’ ta’wīl of the oldest Ismaili writings and from the 'Neoplatonic' emanationism of the Persian school. The fact that they are not mentioned in any Ismaili texts before the Ṭayyibī schism and that the Ṭayyibī authors ascribe them to the hidden Imam Aḥmad at precisely the same time that they were vaunting the virtues of the hidden Imam al-Ṭayyib is surely no coincidence. The Yemeni authors of the 12th century were passionately concerned with hidden imams.
The 52 treatises (sing. risāla) are grouped into four sections (sing. qism). The first section deals with mathematics, astronomy, geography, ethics and logic; the second with physics, mineralogy, botany and zoology, anatomy, languages and scripts; the third with what one might call psychology; the fourth with the author's view
of the true religion, with a long final chapter on the occult sciences. The treatises were published in four typeset volumes in Bombay in 1305-1306 (1887-1889), and subsequently reprinted several times in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus, but all of the reprints appear merely to reproduce the Bombay text. The only serious attempt to study any extensive portion of the text on the basis of a critical examination of the manuscripts, with their very significant variant readings, is in Susanne Diwald's richly annotated German translation of the third
section. The pitfalls of basing wide-reaching conclusions on the published text alone (that is, directly or indirectly on the Bombay edition, and thus its effect on one single manuscript), and the utility of collating more than one manuscript, are illustrated in my contribution to Abbas Hamdani (1984).
The present manuscript consists of disordered leaves belonging to the final (fourth) section of the Rasā’il Currently, the larger part of the folios are numbered from 1 to 228, and the smaller segment from
'1a' to '32a', but this numbering is wrong. The catchwords also seem to be partially wrong, or rather altered. The earliest part of the text that I have been able to identify is on the folio now numbered 181, belonging
to risāla 5 of qism 4 (Bombay edition, vol. 4, p. 177, line 9); risāla 6 begins on the folio now numbered 185; risala 7 on folio 202; risāla 8 on folio 134; risala 9 on folio 172; risala 10 on folio '11a'; and the long final treatise (risāla 11, the treatise on divination) begins on folio '18a' to '32a', then continues on folio 1, and ends on folio 228, with a colophon. This colophon states that the manuscript was copied by Ādam b. Mullā Najm Khān b. Aḥmad with a dating formula (in very inadequate Arabic), apparently year 1125 (thus in words, but corrected to 1126, and in figures apparently 1126, though the last digit is smudged), month Jumada I, day 18, Thursday, followed by one line that has been blacked out The name of the scribe and the corrected date Thursday 18 Jumada I 1126 (31 May 1714) are repeated in the margin in a different hand.
1. For the meaning and origin of this title see the fundamental article by Goldziher (1910). I add that the usual English rendering 'Epistles of the Brethren of Purity' is doubly inadequate. First, these are not stylised as letters, but rather they are rasā’il in the classical Arabic sense of 'treatises, essays'. Second, ikhwān al-ṣafā’ means 'sincere brothers' in the same way that ahl-khayr means 'good people'. To say 'brethren of sincerity/purity' or 'people of good' is not correct English.
REFERENCES: al-Majdū‘, pp. 156-171; Goriawala (1965), nos 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (containing between them the entire work); Poonawala (1977), p. 374 (lists only the editions); Gacek (1981), no. 276; Gacek (1984), 86 1HE CATALOGUE no. 110 (7 copies of various parts); Cortese (2000), no. 44 (first half), no. 45 (extracts); Daftary (2004), pp. 166-173 (with extensive literature).
DESCRIPTION: 260 unbound leaves (currently misnumbered '1' to '228' and '1a' to '32a'), some in quires, some loose; catchwords; 22.5 x 16.5 cm (14 x 9.5 em); 14 to 16lines; black ink with rubrics in red; naskh; some marginal corrections; copied by Ādam b. Mullā Najm Khān b. Aḥmad and apparently completed (see above) on Thursday 18 Jumada I 1126 (31 May 1714); title on the wrappers.
The 52 treatises (sing. risāla) are grouped into four sections (sing. qism). The first section deals with mathematics, astronomy, geography, ethics and logic; the second with physics, mineralogy, botany and zoology, anatomy, languages and scripts; the third with what one might call psychology; the fourth with the author's view
of the true religion, with a long final chapter on the occult sciences. The treatises were published in four typeset volumes in Bombay in 1305-1306 (1887-1889), and subsequently reprinted several times in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus, but all of the reprints appear merely to reproduce the Bombay text. The only serious attempt to study any extensive portion of the text on the basis of a critical examination of the manuscripts, with their very significant variant readings, is in Susanne Diwald's richly annotated German translation of the third
section. The pitfalls of basing wide-reaching conclusions on the published text alone (that is, directly or indirectly on the Bombay edition, and thus its effect on one single manuscript), and the utility of collating more than one manuscript, are illustrated in my contribution to Abbas Hamdani (1984).
The present manuscript consists of disordered leaves belonging to the final (fourth) section of the Rasā’il Currently, the larger part of the folios are numbered from 1 to 228, and the smaller segment from
'1a' to '32a', but this numbering is wrong. The catchwords also seem to be partially wrong, or rather altered. The earliest part of the text that I have been able to identify is on the folio now numbered 181, belonging
to risāla 5 of qism 4 (Bombay edition, vol. 4, p. 177, line 9); risāla 6 begins on the folio now numbered 185; risala 7 on folio 202; risāla 8 on folio 134; risala 9 on folio 172; risala 10 on folio '11a'; and the long final treatise (risāla 11, the treatise on divination) begins on folio '18a' to '32a', then continues on folio 1, and ends on folio 228, with a colophon. This colophon states that the manuscript was copied by Ādam b. Mullā Najm Khān b. Aḥmad with a dating formula (in very inadequate Arabic), apparently year 1125 (thus in words, but corrected to 1126, and in figures apparently 1126, though the last digit is smudged), month Jumada I, day 18, Thursday, followed by one line that has been blacked out The name of the scribe and the corrected date Thursday 18 Jumada I 1126 (31 May 1714) are repeated in the margin in a different hand.
1. For the meaning and origin of this title see the fundamental article by Goldziher (1910). I add that the usual English rendering 'Epistles of the Brethren of Purity' is doubly inadequate. First, these are not stylised as letters, but rather they are rasā’il in the classical Arabic sense of 'treatises, essays'. Second, ikhwān al-ṣafā’ means 'sincere brothers' in the same way that ahl-khayr means 'good people'. To say 'brethren of sincerity/purity' or 'people of good' is not correct English.
REFERENCES: al-Majdū‘, pp. 156-171; Goriawala (1965), nos 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (containing between them the entire work); Poonawala (1977), p. 374 (lists only the editions); Gacek (1981), no. 276; Gacek (1984), 86 1HE CATALOGUE no. 110 (7 copies of various parts); Cortese (2000), no. 44 (first half), no. 45 (extracts); Daftary (2004), pp. 166-173 (with extensive literature).
DESCRIPTION: 260 unbound leaves (currently misnumbered '1' to '228' and '1a' to '32a'), some in quires, some loose; catchwords; 22.5 x 16.5 cm (14 x 9.5 em); 14 to 16lines; black ink with rubrics in red; naskh; some marginal corrections; copied by Ādam b. Mullā Najm Khān b. Aḥmad and apparently completed (see above) on Thursday 18 Jumada I 1126 (31 May 1714); title on the wrappers.
DocumentationBlois, François de. Arabic, Persian and Gujarati Manuscripts: The Hamdani Collection. London: I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2011.
Object typemanuscript