The Fatimid caliphs (297–567/909–1171), who were also the Ismaili Imams, reigned over a vast state stretching from North Africa (including Egypt) to Sicily, Syria and the Hijaz. Under Fatimid patronage, the arts and sciences flourished alongside Ismaili thought and literature.

An extensive trade network was centred on their capital, Cairo, facilitating cosmopolitan exchange across their caliphate, the Mediterranean and other lands. This led to innovation in the production of decorative arts, monumental building programmes, international commerce and significant intellectual exchange.

The original research of 22 scholars is here organised into four sections on aspects of Fatimid cosmopolitanism, covering religion and statecraft, the Fatimid legacy reconsidered, ceremony and symbolism and art and archaeology.

Authors: Ali Asgar Hussamuddin Alibhai, Khalil Andani, Dina Ishak Bakhoum, Daniel Beben, Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Gregory Bilotto, Anna Contadini, Delia Cortese, Farhad Daftary, Valérie Gonzalez, Shainool Jiwa, Hasan al-Khoee, Juan de Lara, Ayala Lester, Bernard O'Kane, Marcus Pilz, Stéphane Pradines, Jennifer A. Pruitt, Yossef Rapoport, Paula Sanders, Avinoam Shalem, Yasser Tabbaa, Jamel A. Velji and Paul E. Walker.
Link to Book: Institute of Ismaili Studies

Table of Contents:

I. Fatimid Religion and Statecraft

1. Ismaili Neoplatonism: The Cosmopolitan Legacy of the Fatimid Ismaili Dawa
Khalil Andani

2. Who was Nasir-i Khusraw's Patron in Yumgan? Notes on the Political Vectors of the Late Fatimid Dawa
Daniel Beben

3. The Reign of the Fatimid Imam-caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah: Historiographical Considerations
Shainool Jiwa

4. The Fatimid Kitab al-Majalis wa'l-musayarat as Responsa to Internal Controversy and External Propaganda
Hasan al-Khoee

5. (Re)-making time, (Re)-making place: Some Considerations on Early Fatimid Tawil and Sacred Space
Jamel A. Velji

6. Fatimid Public Pronouncements: Messages from a Shii Dynasty to a Cosmopolitan Empire
Paul E. Walker

II. The Fatimid Legacy Reconsidered

1. The Modern Rediscovery of the Fatimid Artistic and Architectural Legacy in Egypt
Dina Ishak Bakhoum

2. A Dynasty for All Seasons: The Fatimids in Modern and Contemporary Cosmopolitanism Discourses
Delia Cortese

3. Wladimir Ivanow and Fatimid Studies
Farhad Daftary

4. The Untold Problem of Ibn al-Haytham's Scientific Legacy in Islamic Art History
Valerie Gonzalez

5. The Fatimids and the Indian Ocean: Evidence from the Book of Curiosities
Yossef Rapoport

III. Fatimid Ceremony and Symbolism

1. The Fatimid Crescent: Understanding a Complex Religio-Political Cosmos through Lunar Symbolism
Ali Asgar Alibhai

2. The Power of Six – Astral, Solomonic and Imami Imagery in Fatimid Art
Bernard O'Kane

3. The Cosmopolitan Ecosystem of the Festival Costumes of 515/1122
Paula Sanders

4. Back to Black Background: The Rediscovery of Black Background and the Aesthetic of Darkness – A Global Visual Spectacle during the Fatimid Age
Avinoam Shalem

5. 'Displaying the Hidden: Fatimid Public Texts in Floriated Kufic' Fatimid Cosmopolitanism: History, Material Culture, Politics and Religion
Yasser Tabbaa

IV. Art and Archeology

1. A Fatimid Mermaid
Doris Behrens-Abouseif and Juan de Lara

2. 'The Work is Blessed, Unique': The Fatimid Silver Casket of Sadaqa b. Yusuf
Anna Contadini

3. Fatimid Jewellery Hoards from Palestine in the Light of the Cairo Geniza Documents
Ayala Lester

4. The Fatimid Rock Crystal Ewers – Innovation or Variation? A Historical and Iconographical Investigation
Marcus Pilz

5. Seventeen Years of Archeological Excavations in Cairo: The Ismaili capital city and Fustat during the Fatimid period
Stephane Pradines

6. Reassessing Fatimid Figuralism: Ettinghausen, Grabar and a Medieval Lustre Workshop
Jennifer A. Pruit

Description: Dr. Khalil Andani (Assistant Professor of Religion) has published a comprehensive article on Tawhid (Divine Unicity) in Islam in the St. Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. It is available online here.

In this article, Dr. Andani surveys over 10 different Muslim understandings of Tawhid including multiple Sunni, Sufi and Shi'i perspectives - Mu'tazilis, Ash'aris, Maturidis, Hanbalis, Ismailis, Philosophers (Ibn Sina), Sufis (Ibn Arabi), Twelver Shi'a, Indo-Muslim devotional literature (Ginans), and many others. There are also extensive quotations of untranslated primary sources and visual diagrams to make the knowledge accessible.

The surveyed material includes Ismaili philosophers and Da'is, Ismaili Pirs and the Ginans, the writings of Pir Shihab al-Din Shah and the religious guidance of the Aga Khan. The last part of the essay looks at the modern-day debate over intercessory prayer (istighatha) in the context of Muslims praying to the Prophet, Imams, and Saints.

Author: Dr. Khalil Andani
Link to Free Open Access Article: St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology

Description: Nahj al-Balaghah, the celebrated compendium of orations, letters, and sayings of Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 40/661) compiled by al-Sharif al-Radi (d. 406/1015), is a masterpiece of Arabic literature and Islamic wisdom studied and memorized avidly and continually for over a thousand years. Showcasing ʿAlī’s life and travails in his own words, it also transcribes his profound reflections on piety and virtue, and on just and compassionate governance. Tahera Qutbuddin’s meticulously researched critical edition based on the earliest 5th/11th-century manuscripts, with a lucid, annotated facing-page translation, brings to the modern reader the power and beauty of this influential text, and confirms the aptness of Radi’s title, “The Way of Eloquence.”

Author: Dr. Tahera Qutbuddin
Link to Free Open Access Download: Brill

“The phenomenon of spring’s equinox, known as Nawrūz in Persian, has fascinated humankind for millennia. Numerous traditions sprang up in Muslim lands to celebrate its advent. The symbolism of spring in general, and of Nawrūz in particular, can be found in Ismaili literature spanning virtually every major historical period and is present in the literary heritage of the three principal linguistic groupings: the Arabic of the Islamic heartlands, the Persian of Iranian and Central Asian traditions, and the various South Asian languages of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. Intellectual interactions with the regional environment are readily apparent in the literatures, whether the timing of the festival in the Arab world, the vivid imagery and vocabulary of South Asian traditions that draw from the symbolism of wider mystical currents in the Subcontinent, or the metres and metaphors that permeate the Persian works, indelibly rooting them to the birthplace of Nawrūz, and the conventions that sprung from it. Two prominent uniting themes permeate the three broad traditions, regardless of time period or language: vernal phenomena as metaphors for the blessing of the Imam of the time, and the sacralisation of the earth’s springtide finery by sublimating these symbols to convey knowledge of a spiritual world beyond sensory experience.” (Shafique Virani)

Author: Dr. Shafique Virani
Link to Full Chapter: Academia.edu

“For Muslims, the Qurʾan and Shariʿa (divine law) brought by the Prophet Muhammad in the early 7th century AD constitute God’s message to human-kind. Since the very beginning of Islam, they have sought to understand their true meaning. They grappled with some of the Qurʾan’s apparent contradictions. For example, which verse should be taken at face value, the one that states, “Fresh faces will look at God on the last day,” or the one that says, “Eyes do not see him”? They also tried to make sense of the seeming arbitrariness of the Shariʿa. Why pray two cycles in the dawn prayer, for example, and three in the sunset prayer? Why fast in the month of Ramadan and not, say, Safar? The Fatimid hermeneutic answered these questions by harmonizing revelation and reason through the divinely guided authoritative exposition of the living Imam, from the line of the Prophet Muhammad and his Legatee ʿAlī. In this article I draw on the collected lectures of the preeminent Fatimid scholaral-Muʾayyad fī-l-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. 470/1078) – al-Majālis al-Muʾayyadiyya – to distill and analyze the principles of Fatimid symbolic interpretation, “taʾwīl.”

No Fatimid text enumerates the principles of their hermeneutic system;these have to be inferred. Within the genre of Fatimid taʾwīl, al-Muʾayyad’s Majālis is the culmination of their taʾwīl schematics. A deep mine of Fatimid philosophy, the Majālis systematically conceptualize knowledge in the early lectures, and then reference it and build upon it throughout. A few lectures also explicate the necessity for taʾwīl. The combination of these theoretical remarks on interpretive principles with rich and varied applications makes al-Majālis al-Muʾayyadiyya the ideal source for analyzing the principles of Fatimid symbolic interpretation.

Basing my analysis on al-Muʾayyad’s Majālis, – and drawing also on the works of two major Fatimid scholars before him, al-Qāḍī al-Nuʾman (d. 363/974) and Hamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī (d. ca. 411/1021) – I delineate in this article ten interdependent principles of Fatimid taʾwīl. They are: (1) the rationality of faith; (2) the inversion of the literary perception of real and figurative; (3) the harmonization of the physical and spiritual worlds; (4) the mutual validation of the exoteric and esoteric aspects of the Shariʿa; (5) the substance of taʾwīl manifest in God’s unity, God’s call, and the system and hierarchy of spiritual ascension; (6) the concept of living history, with the stories of the Prophets reflected in Muhammad’s mission; (7) the methodology of taʾwīl, presented through scriptural evidence and rational proofs; (8) taʾwīl as the true knowledge integral to salvation; (9) the sole authority of the divinely-guided Prophet, Legatee and Imam to interpret the Qurʾan and Shariʿa; and (10) the rationale for taʾwīl.

My analysis demonstrates that al-Muʾayyad did not randomly assign esoteric meanings on a case-by-case basis. His explication of these materials is governed by a systematic hermeneutic that, as I mentioned at the outset, harmonizes reason and revelation through the divinely guided taʾwīl interpretation of the living Imam. Together, these ten principles articulate a comprehensive, coherent, and logical system of symbolic scriptural interpretation.” (Tahera Qutbuddin)

Author: Dr. Tahera Qutbuddin
Link to Full Chapter: Academia.edu

Abstract: Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. ca. 787/1385) was a significant Twelver Shiʿi philosopher. This paper argues that his work reveals major similarities with Ismaili Shiʿism in two crucial aspects: soteriology and negative theology. The first section explores several parallels between Ḥaydar Āmulī’s soteriological concept of the seven major prophets and the seven cycles of prophecy in the Ismaili tradition. The following sections demonstrate that his theorization of God’s transcendence (tanzīh) reflects Ismaili negative theology as articulated by Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī (fl. 4th/10th c.) and Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī (d. after 411/1021), two doyens of Fāṭimid Ismaili literature. Āmulī’s idea of transcendence parallels that of the Ismaili thinkers as he similarly attempts to deny the applicability of all attributes to God, even if they presumably exalt Him. Similar to Ismaili writers, Āmulī also uses the technique of double negation to express his negative theology. The final section, based on Āmulī’s Naqd al-nuqūd (The Critique of the Critiques), sheds light on a similar form of negative theology in the Akbarian school and Twelver Shiʿi thought, which helps appreciate the larger intellectual milieu in which Āmulī produced his ideas. The paper provides new evidence for significant intellectual similarities between Ismaili Shiʿism, Twelver Shiʿism, and Sufism in the period succeeding the destruction of the fortress of Alamut.

Résumé: Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī (mort vers 787/1385) était un important philosophe shiʿite duodécimain. Cet article soutient que son œuvre révèle des similitudes significatives avec le shiʿisme ismaélien dans deux aspects cruciaux : la sotériologie et la théologie négative. La première section explore plusieurs parallèles entre le concept sotériologique de Ḥaydar Āmulī des sept prophètes majeurs et les sept cycles de prophétie de la tradition ismaélienne. Les sections suivantes démontrent que sa théorisation de la transcendance de Dieu (tanzīh) reflète la théologie négative ismaélienne telle qu’elle a été articulée par Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī (4e/10e s.) et Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī (d. après 411/1021), deux doyens de la littérature ismaélienne fāṭimide. L’idée de transcendance de Āmulī est parallèle à celle des penseurs ismaéliens, car il tente pareillement de nier l’applicabilité de tous les attributs à Dieu, même s’ils l’exaltent vraisemblablement. Comme les auteurs ismaéliens, Āmulī utilise également la technique de la double négation pour exprimer sa théologie négative. La dernière section, fondée sur le Naqd al-nuqūd (La Critique des Critiques) de Āmulī, éclaire une forme similaire de théologie négative dans l’école akbarienne et la pensée shiʿite duodécimaine, ce qui permet d’apprécier le milieu intellectuel plus large dans lequel Āmulī a produit ses idées. L’article fournit de nouvelles preuves de similitudes intellectuelles significatives entre le shiʿisme ismaélien, le shiʿisme duodécimain et le soufisme dans la période qui suit la destruction de la forteresse d’Alamut.

Author: Mohammad Amin Mansouri
Link to Full Paper: Academia.edu

Abstract: In this article, I develop and test a new methodology of unearthing early Shii ḥadı̄th sources that served as the basis for the later collections of the fourth/tenth century. This method, besides answering the question of historicity, enables us to understand the dissemination of texts across times and regions. As a case-study, I examine what is alleged to have been the first Shii legal ḥadı̄th collection, a work attributed to ʿUbaydullāh b. ʿAlī al-Ḥalabī (d. c. 148/765). By comparing the reports transmitted on the authority of al-Ḥalabī in the Twelver ḥadı̄th compendium originating in Qum, al-Kulaynī's al-Kāfī, and an Ismaili legal ḥadı̄th composition, al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān's al-Īḍāḥ, composed in Qayrawān, I demonstrate that both works trace their material to an earlier Kūfan source of the second/eighth century, with each work drawing on the same material independently. A cross-regional textual analysis of later ḥadı̄th compendia, in this case composed by contemporaneous scholars, residing in different regions, affiliated to dissimilar religious persuasions, reveals the transmission of identical material; this finding contributes to our understanding of both geographical transmission of early sources and compositional arrangements of the later ḥadı̄th compendia.

Author: Dr. Kumail Rajani
Link to Full Paper: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

Abstract: The present piece focuses on the influence of Plotinus' understanding of time and eternity as articulated in Plotinus' third and fifth Enneads upon Mīr Dāmād's (d. 1631–2) conception of eternity, perpetuity, and time found in his Book of Blazing Brands (Kitab al-Qabasāt). Although Mīr Dāmād's conception of eternity, perpetuity, and time resembles that of Plotinus' cosmology and ontology, he departs from Plotinus' hypostases in establishing strict parameters for each domain. Unlike Plotinus, Mīr Dāmād argues that the realm of eternity is reserved for God alone, while the realm of Perpetuity contains the Platonic Forms. For Mīr Dāmād, the realm of time is an effect of the realm of Perpetuity and a tool for human beings to understand how to measure events in the temporal world. Unlike many other Shī'ite philosophers, Mīr Dāmād's articulation of these three cosmological realms incorporates thought found in the works of both prominent Sunni and Shī'ite scholars such as Ibn Sīnā, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghāzālī, Suhrawardī, and Naṣīr al- Dīn Ṭūsī. Although his most successful student, Mullā Ṣadrā Shirazī, had ultimately disagreed with his teach- er's cosmological doctrine, he remained influenced by the multitude of sources that his teacher had used.

Author: Syed Zaidi
Link to Full Paper: Academia.edu

“This volume advances the critical study of exegetical, doctrinal, and political authority in Shiʿi Islam. Naive dichotomies of “reason” and “esotericism” in Islamic Studies have often marginalized Shiʿi thought or impeded its understanding. The studies presented here aim to foster more exacting frameworks for interpreting the diverse modes of rationality and esotericism in Twelver and Ismaili Shiʿism and the socio-epistemic values they represent within Muslim discourse.

The volume’s contributions highlight the cross-sectarian genealogy of early Shiʿi esotericism; the rationale behind Fatimid Ismaili Quranic taʿwīl hermeneutics; the socio-political context of religious authority in nascent Twelver Shiʿism; authorial agency wielded by Imami hadith compilers; the position of esoteric Shiʿi traditions in Timurid-era Ḥilla; and Shiʿi-Sufi relations with Uṣūlī jurists in modern Iran.

Contributors: Rodrigo Adem, Alessandro Cancian, Edmund Hayes, Sajjad Rizvi, Tahera Qutbuddin, Paul Walker, George Warner” (Brill)

Link to Purchase: Brill

Abstract: Drawing from a narrative ethnography, this paper provides insight into the ways Nizari Ismaili women of Indian East African heritage constructed and performed their mutually-constitutive identities in specific networks of power and hierarchy, and the local knowledges they have produced and passed on to their children. Having lived in Mozambique during the final decades of Portuguese colonialism, the six women interviewed were exposed to contradictory and ambivalent modernizing forces amplified by postcolonial migration processes. The analysis of their biographies and caregiving repertoires involved an intersectional framing to explore the links between identities, boundaries and hierarchy, combined with a multilevel conception of ambivalence addressing the dialectic intersection between the multiple sources of ambivalence in social life. The conclusion highlights how the contradictory structures and ideologies they navigated offered them resources for producing intergenerational transformative outcomes.

Author: Dr. Susana Trovão
Link to Paper: Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs

“This is an edition of an early Shiite/Fatimid Arabic epistle that includes a controversy pertaining to several issues on Islamic law. Al-Qadi al-Nu'man (d. 363/974), the most famoust jurist of the early Fatimid period refutes the illustious Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889). In his book Adab al-Katib, Ibn Qutayba claimed that it was enough for civil servants (kuttab) to memorize a few legal formulas in order to be able to effectively do their work without the need of long dissertations on law from jurists. In the introduction to his epistle, al-Nu'man claims that without these dissertations the civil servants would not be able to apply the law correctly. Following this, al-Nu'man launches lengthy dissertations on each one of the succinct formulas listed by Ibn Qutayba. The main argument of al-Nu'man is that the only lawgivers in Islam are the prophet Muhammad and the Imams descendents of Ali (until the seventh Imam).” (Brill)

Author: Dr. Avraham Hakim
Link to Purchase: Brill

Abstract: This article studies religious arbitration from the perspective of global legal pluralism, which embraces both normative plurality and cultural diversity. In this context, the article considers that UK arbitration law regulates both commercial and religious arbitration while relying on a monist conception of arbitration. It further identifies two intertwined issues regarding cultural diversity, which find their source in this monist conception. Firstly, through the study of Jivraj v. Hashwani ([2011] UKSC 40), this article shows that the governance of religious arbitration may generate a conflict between arbitration law and equality law, the avoidance of which can require sacrificing the objectives of one or the other branch of law. The Jivraj case concerned an Ismaili arbitration clause, requiring that all arbitrators be Ismaili—a clause valid under arbitration law but potentially not under employment-equality law. To avoid such conflict, the Supreme Court reduced the scope of employment-equality law, thereby excluding self-employed persons. Secondly, based on cultural studies of law, this article shows that the conception of arbitration underlying UK arbitration law is ill-suited to make sense of Ismaili arbitration. In view of these two issues, this article argues that UK arbitration law acknowledges normative multiplicity but fails to embrace the cultural diversity entangled therewith.

Author: Dr. Sandrine Brachotte
Link to Full Paper: MDPI

“Aside from the advocacy of the particular line of imams and the sacred line-age at the base of this dynasty, the area of doctrine most characteristic of the Fatimid Ismailis concerns various notions of esoteric interpretation of scripture and religious law, all of which might be subsumed under the single Arabic term ta ʾwīl. Although often translated appropriately as “allegorical interpretation,” the range of what this word could mean, especially in the Ismaili context is far wider. Normally ta ʾwīl deals with two classes of verses in the Qurʾan, those that are admittedly ambiguous and those of fixed meaning. In Ismailism that distinction is only a beginning leading much further afield. The appeal (daʿwa) spread on their behalf insisted on the all-important distinction between the outward, literal, plain wording (the ẓāhir) of revelation and its inner, less-than-obvious meaning (the bāṭin). The latter component could and often was conceived of as an esoteric dimension, hardly accessible to ordinary worshippers because it was either difficult to find and understand or was beyond the intellectual reach of those who have failed to accept and join the system that conveys it. Commencing with the issue of Qurʾanic verses, the authorities writing for the daʿwa could and did explore ways of uncovering the esoteric dimensions of, not only scriptures, but of the very structures of the natural world, with seemingly the whole of scientific investigation brought into play. A ta ʾwīl might operate on the most mundane of objects as well as the most sacred of texts” (Paul Walker)

Author: Dr. Paul E. Walker
Link to Chapter: Reason, Esotericism, and Authority in Shiʿi Islam

Abstract: The present article aims at summarizing the history and cultural legacy of Ismāʿīlīsm, an important medieval and contemporary branch of Shīʿī Islam in Iran or, more precisely, in the Persian lands. Ismāʿīlīsm, developing gradually after 760 CE (after the death of Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, the sixth Imam of Ismāʿīlīs and Twelver Shīʿīs), maintained close cultural and religious ties with Iranian lands, appearing as early as the 9th century CE in present-day Iran and Central Asia. Since then, Ismāʿīlīsm has been present in Iranian culture, creating an interesting amalgam where Persianate cultural elements enriched the religious, philosophical, and cultural heritage of Ismāʿīlīsm. One must also note that Ismāʿīlīsm had different subgroups present in the Iranian lands such as pre-Fatimid Ismāʿīlīsm, Fatimid Ismāʿīlīsm, Qarmaṭī Ismāʿīlīsm and, last but not least, the most significant of them, Nizārī Ismāʿīlīsm (with its various offshoots in present-day Iran and Central Asia); followers of the latter are still living in some provinces of Iran. The heyday of Ismāʿīlīsm during the so-called Alamūt period of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs was undoubtedly the 11th–13th centuries CE, but Badakhshānī Ismāʿīlīs in Central Asia as well as later post-Alamūt Nizārī Ismāʿīlīsm in Iran are also of great importance.

Author: Dr. Miklós Sárközy
Link to Full Article: The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History

Abstract: This study analyzes the development of the theme of the “Light of Muḥammad” (al-nūr al-Muḥammadī) or the “Muḥammadan Reality” (al-ḥaqīqa al-Muḥammadiyya) among several Shiʿi and Sufi thinkers through the seventh/thirteenth century. These thinkers include Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 283/896), the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (early to mid 4th/10th century), the Ismaili dāʿīs Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī (d. after 361/971) and Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī (d. after 411/1020), Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) and ʿAyn al-Quḍāt (d. 526/1131), Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240), ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Shahrastānī (d. 548/1153), and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274). I argue that the “Light of Muḥammad” as a theological and metaphysical idea evolved historically through three distinct but cumulative phases of conceptualization: mytho-cosmological narrative, Neoplatonization, and ontological theophanization. Through these developments, the theological status of the Light of Muḥammad underwent a gradual but decisive shift from being reckoned as the first spiritual creation of God in the early period to being revered as the ontological self-manifestation of God in later periods.

Author: Dr. Khalil Andani
Link to Full Paper: Academia.edu

Welcome to the second edition of our weekly digest, where we showcase the top 7 articles from the past week in the field of Ismāʿīlī Studies. This curated selection highlights the most compelling and influential research, discussions, and discoveries that have captured the attention of scholars and enthusiasts alike.

Top 7 Posts

Ismaili Studies Blog

New Release: "The Book of Unveiling: Early Fatimid Ismaili Doctrine in the Kitab al-Kashf, attributed to Ja‘far b. Mansur b. al-Yaman"

Description: The Kitab al-Kashf is one of the earliest Ismaili texts to have reached the present day. Transmitted by the Tayyibi Ismaili tradition, it is composed of six treatises, most of which, as this open access study and first English translation argues, go back to the early years of the Fatimid rule…

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2 years ago · 8 likes · Editor @ Ismaili Studies

Ismaili Studies Blog

Evolving Creation: An Ismaili Muslim Interpretation of Evolution

Abstract: This article presents a constructive Shīʿī Ismaili Muslim engagement with Neo-Darwinian evolution. By drawing on Ismaili metaphysics and hermeneutics, I argue that Ismailis can affirm evolution without exceptions due to four features of contemporary and historical Ismaili thought. First, Aga Khan III (d. 1957), the 48th hereditary Ismaili Imam…

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2 years ago · Editor @ Ismaili Studies and Khalil Andani

Ismaili Studies Blog

The Bohras as Neo-Fatimids: Documentary Remains of a Fatimid Past in Gujarat

Abstract: This article traces the remains of Fāṭimid chancery documents, and the writing practices that surround them, among the Bohras of Gujarat. As Shiʿi Ismaʿilis, the Bohras consider themselves heirs of the Fāṭimid Imāmate (909–1171). Whereas other Ismaʿili communities, such as the Nizārīs, claim their genealogical link to the Fāṭimids through the …

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2 years ago · Editor @ Ismaili Studies

Ismaili Studies Blog

The Shia Ismaili Dawat in Khurasan: From its Early Beginning to the Ghaznawid Era

Abstract: This paper focuses on the rise and development of the Shi’a Isma'ili (hereafter, Isma'ili) history in Khurasan, from its earliest beginning to the end of the Ghaznawid era. It demonstrates that the Isma'ili da‘wat (summons) in Khursan has been a successful endeavour. Its success has mainly been due to the fact that the Isma'ili imams always va…

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2 years ago · Editor @ Ismaili Studies

Abstract: In his groundbreaking monograph Early Philosophical Shiism: The Ismaili Neoplatonism of Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī, Paul Walker has pointed out parallels between al-Sijistānī's Kitāb al-Maqālīd and the Longer Theology of Aristotle--an augmented version of the Theology of Aristotle preserved mainly in Judeo-Arabic manuscripts and a sixteenth-century Latin translation. This raises the question of whether it is al-Sijistānī who cites the Longer Theology, or the unknown author of the Longer Theology who cites al-Sijistānī, or whether the two rely on a common source. Walker opts for the third solution: a common source used by both al-Sijistānī and the Longer Theology. The present contribution focuses on one of the parallels between al-Sijistānī's Kitāb al-Maqālīd and the Longer Theology, demonstrates that Walker is indeed correct in postulating such a common source, and shows that this common source contained some of the most significant ideas for al-Sijistānī's Ismāʿīlī Neoplatonism: the idea that the Word (al-kalima) mediates between the Creator ("Originator," al-mubdiʿ) and the Intellect, that the Intellect is united with the Word, that the Word is "non-being" (lays), and several others. The article comments on the possible nature of this common source and on how the Longer Theology sheds light on the origins of al-Sijistānī's Ismāʿīlī Neoplatonism.

Author: Alexander Treiger
Link to Full Paper: Academia.edu

“Much scholarly attention has been paid recently to the relationships between the Safavids, and more specifically Shah ʿAbbās I (r. 996–1038 /1588–1629), and the Nuqṭavīs, a mystical and messianic movement founded by Maḥmūd Pasīkhānī (d. 830/1427). This interest is mostly due to the importance of the Safavid-Nuqṭavī connection in our understanding of the Safavid religious policies. However, many aspects of these policies, as well as issues related to the balance of political forces within the Safavid structure of power, remain insufficiently explained.

It should be noted that all existing studies relied heavily on historical sources written by non-Nuqṭavī authors, most of whom were indeed openly hostile to the Nuqṭavīs. The input of Nuqṭavī sources has been disproportionately low and is generally limited to excerpts from an unidentified Nuqṭavī treatise published by Ṣādiq Kiyā as an appendix 132to his ground-breaking monograph. To this has been added some information about Nuqṭavī doctrinal views derived from the Dabistān-i madhāhib, an Adhar-Kayvānī source composed in India in the 11th/17th century.

This almost complete dearth of information about the Nuqṭavī doctrinal positions has inevitably caused some distortion in the analysis of Safavid-Nuqṭavī relationships. First, it led to inaccurate and sometimes simply erroneous assumptions – based mainly on non-Nuqṭavī sources – regarding the theoretical basis of the Nuqṭavī ideology, as well as the confessional identity and possible political aspirations of this group. Consequently, some potentially important factors in the evaluation of the motivations of the Safavid-Nuqṭavī relationships have been overlooked. Second, hostile historical accounts have drawn scholarly attention to the negative aspect of the Safavid-Nuqṭavī relationship, namely, the rejection and persecution of the Nuqṭavīs as dangerous heretics. No serious exploration has taken place of the positive aspect of this relationship, that is, the Nuqṭavī doctrinal points that could have found favour with the Safavid rulers as politically viable ideologies.” (Orkhan Mir-Kasimov)

Author: Dr. Orkhan Mir-Kasimov
Link to Full Chapter: The Renaissance of Shiʿi Islam: Facets of Thought and Practice

Abstract: This paper draws constructively on Islamic Neoplatonic thought from the classical and contemporary Ismaili tradition to present a Muslim theodicy in metaphysical and soteriological terms. According to classical Ismaili philosophers, God directly creates a perfectly good first creation known as the First Intellect-which corresponds to the "best possible world" in modal terms and directly solves the classical problem of evil. The metaphysical root of "evil" is an ontological imperfection that exists within the Universal Soul-which is the proximate effect of the First Intellect and merely the indirect effect of God. This imperfection prompts the Universal Soul to seek perfect goodness by way of goal-oriented action; therefore, the Universal Soul strives to achieve self-perfection by creating the Cosmos. Through the Universal Soul's creative activity, its potential perfection manifests in the world as goodness, compassion, and justice, while its latent imperfection manifests as corruption, deficiency, and moral evil. The Universal Soul emanates individual souls that strive to become perfect and cleanse themselves of evil. The human soul's experience of external and internal evil facilitates its recognition of and desire for goodness and perfection-which corresponds to a soul-building theodicy. Accordingly, the medieval Ismaili philosophers and the Ismaili Imam Aga Khan III (d. 1957) explain that the natural calamities endured by human beings due to factors beyond their control present an opportunity for the human soul to purify and perfect itself spiritually. In this way, while evil must be ultimately transformed into perfection, the experience of evils provides occasions for the soul's spiritual progress.

Author: Dr. Khalil Andani
Link to Full Paper: Academia.edu

Abstract: Indo-Muslim history is hybrid. The Hindu Bhil and Kohli communities of Khebar, Sindh, are examples of this hybridity. Before Partition in 1947, when socio-cultural ambivalence was widespread, Bhils and Kohlis lived alongside Muslims. After Partition, the situation changed, and these communities suffered socio-economic isolation. Between 1964 and 1979, Bhils and Kohlis in Kebhar experienced three waves of da’wah (i.e., calling people to embrace Islam). In these waves, Ismaili missionaries targeted Patels (i.e., community headmen). In response, this group recognized the 49th Imam of Shia Ismaili Muslims as a manifestation of the dasa avatara from Hinduism. This article addresses what factors led to this recognition and how groups cross thresholds between Hinduism and Islam.

Author: Mahek Khwaja
Link to Full Paper: Journal of Sindhi Studies