The Seven Pillars of the Shari'a and the Question of Authority in Central Asian Ismaili Manuscripts: An Ismaili Esoteric Discourse
Book Chapter in "Texts, Scribes and Transmission: Manuscript Cultures of the Ismaili Communities and Beyond"
“The study of Central Asian Ismaili manuscripts is a relatively new and less explored academic area. These manuscripts rarely feature in modern Ismaili and non-Ismaili scholarly works. Most of them are collections (majmūʿa) of treatises and contain a wide variety of themes, such as the Ismaili interpretations of the sharīʿa, the Sufi-Ismaili hybrid gnostic texts, devotional poetry, religious education, and religious mythology. This chapter analyses one of the most copied treatises called the Seven Pillars of the Sharīʿa, which appears across numerous manuscripts. The presented discussions explore how the examined treatises offer an Ismaili interpretation of the pillars of the sharīʿa; in what ways they conceptualise and articulate the notion of authority and mediate it between the text and the members of the community; how the texts of the Seven Pillars of the Sharīʿa form and inform the identity of the targeted audience; and what kind of latent and manifest messages the texts convey to their audience. The chapter begins with a concise codicological analysis of the manuscripts in which the treatises are copied, followed by a discussion on the concept of taʾwīl in the Ismaili esoteric tradition, and finishes with a detailed analysis of the Seven Pillars of the Sharīʿa.” (Yahia Bazia)
Author: Dr. Yahia Bazia
Link to Full Chapter: Texts, Scribes and Transmission: Manuscript Cultures of the Ismaili Communities and Beyond