Details
Object numberMS 1483 [Handlist 9]
Titleal-Risāla al-jāmi‘a
DescriptionThe full rhyming title of this appendix (if one may call it thus) to the 'Treatises of the Sincere Brethren' is givenatthe conclusion of this copy as al-Risāla al-jāmi‘a dhāt al-fawā’id al-nāfi‘a wa’l-ḥujja al-qāṭi‘a wa’l-barāhīn al-lāmi‘a wa tāj rasā’il ikhwān al-ṣafā’ wa khullān al-wafā’, but on the label it is called simply Kitāb al-jāmi‘a. In all the recorded copies it is divided into two halves; the present copy contains the second half, beginning with the summary of the 13th treatise.
This book is in part a summary of the 52 rasā’il, but more importantly an explication of some of their esoteric implications from a more or less explicitly Ismaili perspective. The published text of the 52 rasā’il begins with a table of contents followed immediately by a summary of al-Risāla al-jāmi‘a, implying, prima facia, that the two books belong together, though I think it might be worthwhile for someone to investigate whether the summary of al-Risāla al-jāmi‘a is really found in all copies of the Rasā’il Al-Majdū‘ has an entry on al-Risāla al-jāmi‘a, quoting a large chunk from its introduction, followed immediately by the table of contents of the 52 rasā’il, up to and including the just mentioned summary of al-Risāla al-jāmi‘a. The words supplied in brackets by the editor, page 156, line 11, can be found in the copy of the Fihrist in the present collection, Ms. 1401, p. 214, where the full title of the Rasā’il is cited in its usual form. Ivanow (1963), page 20, claims that 'the Encyclopedia' (i.e. the 52 rasā’il) 'was originally called al-Jāmi‘a’ and that this has been thecause of 'much confusion', but it seems to me that the confusion is all in Ivanow's own head and results from a misunderstanding of the entry in al-Majdū‘, where al-Risāla al-jāmi‘a definitely refers to the work under discussion here, not to the 52 rasā’il.
This copy is the work of two different scribes: the second hand (a very distinctive, consistent and rather cursive hand) begins on folio 49 and continues until the end. The first hand, which is much more irregular, is responsible for folios 1b-48b (that is, the whole of the firstsix quires); folio 49a (the first page of the seventh quire) actually looks as though it is still in the first hand, but I think it more likely that the whole of the seventh quire is in the second hand, but that on the first page of the quire the copyist intentionally imitated the writing on the opposite page before reverting to his normal style of writing on the next page.
EDITIONS: ed. Jamīl Ṣalībā (Damascus, 1949); ed. Muṣṭafā Ghālib (Beirut, 1974); reprinted (Beirut, 1984).
REFERENCES: al-Majdū‘, pp. 154-156, 171; Ivanow (1933), no. 14; Ivanow (1963), no. 12; Cortese (2000), no. 46-47 (first half), 48 (second half); Cortese (2003), no. 120A (first half), 120b (second half, beginning at the same point as our copy); Daftary (2004), p. 167.
DESCRIPTION: red leather binding with tooled gilded medallions on the front and back covers (the spine is restored); 152 folios in two hands (see above), of which the last folio is blank, comprising 19 quires of8 folios each; quires 2 to 12 only are numbered in the upper left comer of their first page; catchwords (the catchwords on fols 14b and 15b do not match the first word of the next folio); 24 x 13 cm (size of the written surface varies considerably in both parts); usually 15-16 lines in both parts; black ink with rubrics in red (the last rubric is on fol. 133a; after this the places for the superscriptions have been left blank); naskh; very few marginal corrections; scribe and date not indicated; title on fol. 1a, on a label on the cover and on the spine; seals; signature of Fayḍ Allāh b. Muḥammad ‘Alī al-Hamdānī on fols 1a, 151a.
This book is in part a summary of the 52 rasā’il, but more importantly an explication of some of their esoteric implications from a more or less explicitly Ismaili perspective. The published text of the 52 rasā’il begins with a table of contents followed immediately by a summary of al-Risāla al-jāmi‘a, implying, prima facia, that the two books belong together, though I think it might be worthwhile for someone to investigate whether the summary of al-Risāla al-jāmi‘a is really found in all copies of the Rasā’il Al-Majdū‘ has an entry on al-Risāla al-jāmi‘a, quoting a large chunk from its introduction, followed immediately by the table of contents of the 52 rasā’il, up to and including the just mentioned summary of al-Risāla al-jāmi‘a. The words supplied in brackets by the editor, page 156, line 11, can be found in the copy of the Fihrist in the present collection, Ms. 1401, p. 214, where the full title of the Rasā’il is cited in its usual form. Ivanow (1963), page 20, claims that 'the Encyclopedia' (i.e. the 52 rasā’il) 'was originally called al-Jāmi‘a’ and that this has been thecause of 'much confusion', but it seems to me that the confusion is all in Ivanow's own head and results from a misunderstanding of the entry in al-Majdū‘, where al-Risāla al-jāmi‘a definitely refers to the work under discussion here, not to the 52 rasā’il.
This copy is the work of two different scribes: the second hand (a very distinctive, consistent and rather cursive hand) begins on folio 49 and continues until the end. The first hand, which is much more irregular, is responsible for folios 1b-48b (that is, the whole of the firstsix quires); folio 49a (the first page of the seventh quire) actually looks as though it is still in the first hand, but I think it more likely that the whole of the seventh quire is in the second hand, but that on the first page of the quire the copyist intentionally imitated the writing on the opposite page before reverting to his normal style of writing on the next page.
EDITIONS: ed. Jamīl Ṣalībā (Damascus, 1949); ed. Muṣṭafā Ghālib (Beirut, 1974); reprinted (Beirut, 1984).
REFERENCES: al-Majdū‘, pp. 154-156, 171; Ivanow (1933), no. 14; Ivanow (1963), no. 12; Cortese (2000), no. 46-47 (first half), 48 (second half); Cortese (2003), no. 120A (first half), 120b (second half, beginning at the same point as our copy); Daftary (2004), p. 167.
DESCRIPTION: red leather binding with tooled gilded medallions on the front and back covers (the spine is restored); 152 folios in two hands (see above), of which the last folio is blank, comprising 19 quires of8 folios each; quires 2 to 12 only are numbered in the upper left comer of their first page; catchwords (the catchwords on fols 14b and 15b do not match the first word of the next folio); 24 x 13 cm (size of the written surface varies considerably in both parts); usually 15-16 lines in both parts; black ink with rubrics in red (the last rubric is on fol. 133a; after this the places for the superscriptions have been left blank); naskh; very few marginal corrections; scribe and date not indicated; title on fol. 1a, on a label on the cover and on the spine; seals; signature of Fayḍ Allāh b. Muḥammad ‘Alī al-Hamdānī on fols 1a, 151a.
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