Kirmānī’s Discourse on the Imamate and its Influence

Meisami, Sayeh

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-71192-8_3

Sayeh Meisami²

215 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī’s discussion of the imamate in relation to his theory of the soul and of knowledge formation. In this respect the author makes three arguments. First, Kirmānī constructs a conceptual scheme that accommodates a rational formulation of the imamate based on Aristotelian psychology and Plotinus’ doctrine of emanation. Second, the synthetic discourse that he employs in this respect culminates in an existential narrative of the evolution of the soul through inspirational knowledge. Third, this synthetic discourse and the existential narrative reappear and resonate in the Ismaʿili texts of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, one of the major influences on the philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 79.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 99.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 109.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
Some earlier works on political philosophy by al-Kindī (d. 252/866), Sarakhsī (d. 286/899) , and Abū Zayd Balkhī (d. 322/934) are missing. Regarding Ismaʿili works in political philosophy, Patricia Crone believes that early Ismaʿili thinkers addressed the subject “independently from Fārābī.” See Patricia Crone, Medieval Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004; 2005, rpt.), 167. See also Patricia Crone, “The Ikhwan al-Safa: Between al-Kindi and al-Farabi,” in The Fortress of the Intellect: Ismaili and other Islamic Studies in Honour of Farhad Daftary, ed. Omar Alí-de-Unzaga, 189–213 (London/New York: I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2011). For Hans Daiber, Fārābī’s political philosophy was formulated under the influence of Abū Hātim Rāzī. He regards Fārābī’s work as “a unique combination of Platonic and Aristotelian elements on the basis of Ismaʿili doctrines about the imamate.” See Hans Daiber, “Political Philosophy ,” in History of Islamic Philosophy, eds. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 841–869 (London/New York: Routledge, 1996), II: 848. For a more detailed analysis of the Ismaʿili influence on Fārābī, see Hans Daiber, “The Ismaʿili Background of Fārābī’s Political Philosophy: Abū Ḥatim ar-Rāzī as the Forerunner of Fārābī,” in Gottes ist der Orient—Gottes ist der Okzident: Festschrift für Abdoljavad Falaturi zum 65 Geburtstag, ed. Udo Tworuschka, 143–150 (Cologne and Vienna, 1991).
2.
Richard Walzer, Introduction to On the Perfect State, by Abū Naṣr Fārābī, trans. Richard Walzer: al-Fārābī on the Perfect State (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1982), 21. The chapters are quoted in Ikhwaān al-Ṣafā, Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafā wa Khullān al-wafā, ed. Khayr al-Dīn Ziriklī (Cairo: 1928), IV: 182.
3.
Plato, The Republic, trans. G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis, IN: Hachette Publishing Company, 1973), 190.
4.
The influence of Fārābī on Kirmānī’s cosmology both directly and through Abū Yaʿqūb Sijistānī has been established in academic scholarship, though Kirmānī never mentions Fārābī in his works. See Daniel De Smet, “Al-Fārābī’s Influence on Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī’s Theory of Intellect and Soul,” in In the Age of Al-Fārābī: Arabic Philosophy in the Fourth-Tenth Century, ed. Peter Adamson, 131–150 (London: Warburg Institute, 2008); also see Daniel Carl Peterson, “Cosmogony and the Ten Separated Intellects in the Rāḥat al-ʿaql of Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī” (PhD Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1990). But Fārābī’s influence on Kirmānī’s imamology has not yet been investigated. Moreover, Fārābī’s affinity with Shīʿī ideology is a very controversial matter for which we do not have solid evidence. In contrast, there is a noteworthy consensus based on textual evidence over the Brethren regarding their Shīʿī tendencies, particularly over the presence of Ismaʿili ideas in al-Rasāʾil (The Epistles) and their influence on Ṭayyibī Ismaʿilis , who are said to have cited al-Rasāʾil. On another note, contemporary scholars have sought evidence for traces of influence on Fatimid works. For example, Abbas Hamdani tries to prove that the early Fatimids were aware of al-Rasāʾil and made references to it. See Abbas Hamdani, “An Early Fāṭimid Source on the Time and Authorship of the ‘Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafā,’” Arabica 26:1 (February 1979): 62–75. Parts of al-Rasāʾil have also been offered as examples of Fatimid propaganda (daʿwa). See Carmela Baffioni, “Ikhwān al-Ṣafā,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Stanford University, 2008), accessed November 17, 2015, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ikhwan-al-safa/
For a concise report of different accounts on this issue, see Godefroid DeCallataÿ, “Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ),” in Encyclopedia of Islam Three (Brill Online 2013), accessed November 17, 2015, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-3/brethren-of-purity-ikhwan-al-safa-COM_25372
5.
Abū Naṣr Fārābī, Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, trans. Richard Walzer: On the Perfect State (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1982), 238, 239.
6.
Fārābī, Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, 246; 247.
7.
Richard Walzer, Commentary on the Perfect State, by Abū Naṣr Fārābī, trans. Richard Walzer: al-Fārābī On the Perfect State (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1982), 442.
8.
On the doctrine of taʾyīd, see Abū Yaʿqūb Sijistānī, “Kitāb al-Yanābīʿ,” trans. Paul Ernest Walker: The Wellsprings of Wisdom: Complete English Translation with Commentary and Notes on the Arabic Text (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1994), 109–111. Also see Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 304; 403–494. The philosophical formulization of knowledge by inspiration for the imam seems to have passed from Ismaʿili thinkers down to later Islamic philosophers such as Mullā Ṣadrā through Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūṣī. See Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-yi taslīm, ed. and trans. S. J. Badakhchani: Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought (London: I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2005). For Mullā Ṣadrā’s use of this term, see Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, ed. Muḥammad Khājawī, 4 vols (Tehran: Pizhūhishgāh-i ʿulūm-i insānī wa muṭālaʿāt-i farhangī, 2004/1383 S.H), II: 473.
9.
According to Fuzzi Najjar, Fārābī uses Neoplatonic philosophical framework to rationalize the political sovereignty of the imam based on his divinely inspired knowledge, in contrast to the popular status of the caliph. See M. Fuzzi Najjar, “Fārābī’s Political Philosophy and Shiʿism,” Studia Islamica 14 (1961): 57–72.
10.
On this subject, see Ian Richard Netton, “Foreign Influences and Recurring Ismaʿili Motifs in the Rasāʾil of the Brethren of Purity,” in Islamic Philosophy and Theology: Critical Concepts in Islamic thought. Vol IV: Eclecticism, Illumination, and Reform, ed. Ian Richard Netton, 16–29 (London/New York: Routledge, 2007).
11.
Carmela Baffioni, “History, Language and Ideology in the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’s View of the Imamate,” in Authority, Privacy and Public Order in Islam: Proceedings of the 22nd Congress of L’Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, eds. B. Michalak-Pikulska and A. Pikulski Cracow, 17–28 (Poland: Peeters, 2006), 18; 25.
12.
Ian R. Netton, “Brotherhood versus Imāmate: Ikhwān al-Ṣafā and the Ismāʿīlīs,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2 (1980): 253–262.
13.
For a discussion of this subject, see Muḥammad Farīd Ḥijāb, al-Falsafa al-sīyāsiyya ʿinda Ikhwān al-ṣafā (Cairo: Maṭbaʿa al-hayʾat al-miṣriyya al-ʿāmma al-kitāb, 1982), 193–194.
14.
Ḥijāb, al-Falsafa al-sīyāsiyya ʿinda Ikhwān al-ṣafā, 208.
15.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines: Conceptions of Nature and Methods Used for its Study by the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, al-Bīrūnī , and Ibn Sina (London, UK: Thames and Hudson, 1964; 1978), 66. Richard Ian Netton, “The Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafā in the History of Ideas in Islam,” in Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: The Ikhwān al-Ṣafā and the Rasāʾil, an Introduction, ed. Nader al-Bizri (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2008), 133.
16.
For the intellectual dynamics in this school, see Paul E. Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism: the Ismaili Neoplatonism of Abū Yaʿqūb Sijistānī (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Also see Samuel E. Stern, “The Early Ismaʿili Missionaries in North-West in Persia and Khorasan and Transoxiana ,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 23 (1960): 56–90.
17.
See Abū Ḥatim Rāzī, Aʿlām al-nubuwwa, trans. Tarif Khalidi: The Proofs of Prophecy: A Parallel English-Arabic Text (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2011), 221. I have had to modify Khalidi’s translation of some terms for greater accuracy. This passage has also been translated by Everett K. Rowson. See Abū Ḥatim Rāzī, “Aʿlām al-nubuwwah (Signs of Prophecy),” trans. Everett K. Rowson, in An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, eds. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazavi, 2 vols (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001), II:155. In this volume, the title of Rāzī’s treatise has mistakenly been translated as “Science of Prophecy,” while it should be “Signs/Proofs (aʿlām) of Prophecy.”
18.
Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism, 14.
19.
Daiber, “Political Philosophy,” 848.
20.
Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Kitāb al-IṢlāh, ed. Ḥusām Khaḍdūr (Salamiyya, Syria: Dār al-Ghadīr, 2008).
21.
Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism, 14.
22.
In Ismaʿili literature, the executor (waṣī), whose concrete example is ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, is in charge of interpreting the divine law provided by the Prophet as the speaker or legislator. See Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 64–65.
23.
Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism, 127.
24.
It is possible to compare Sijistānī’s view of spontaneous conceptualization with Ibn Sīnā’s intellective intuition (ḥads) in his Kitāb al-Shifāʾ. See Ibn Sīnā, Avicenna’s De anima; Being the Psychological Part of Kitāb al-Shifaʾ, ed. Fazlur Rahman (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 249.
25.
Abū Yaʿqūb Sijistānī, “Kitāb al-Yanābīʿ,” trans. Latimah Parvin Peerwani: “The Book of Wellsprings,” in An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, eds. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazavi, 124–137 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001), 2:134. Paul E. Walker has translated the whole treatise. See Abū Yaʿqūb Sijistānī, Kitāb al-Yanābīʿ, trans. Paul Ernest Walker: The Wellsprings of Wisdom: Complete English Translation with Commentary and Notes on the Arabic Text (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1994).
26.
Aḥmad ibn Yaʿqūb Abū al-Fawāris, Al-Risāla fī’l-imāma, trans. Sāmī Nasīb Makārim: The Political Doctrine of the Ismāʿīlīs (Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1977), 23. I made some corrections in quoting the English translation based on the Arabic text in this volume.
27.
Ibid.
28.
For Aristotle’s psychology, see Michael Frede, “Aristotle’s Conception of the Soul,” in Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima, eds. Martha C. Nussbaum and Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, 93–107 (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1995). For the influence of Aristotle on psychology in Islamic philosophy, see Deborah Black, “Psychology,” in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, eds. Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, 308–326 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
29.
Plato, The Republic, Books VI and VII. The synthesis of Plato and Aristotle had already been carried out by Neoplatonic philosophers. It was adopted by the early Ismaʿili philosophers in favor of arguments for the necessity of divinely inspired teachers.
30.
These are two Qurʾanic terms that refer to all of creation, i.e., the macrocosm of the universe and the inner world of the souls. The verse (Q 41:53) “We shall show them our signs in every region of the earth (āfāq) and in themselves (anfus) until it becomes clear to them that this is the Truth.”
31.
Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm Naysābūrī, Ithbāt al-imāma, ed. and trans. Arzina R. Lalani: Degrees of Excellence: A Fatimid Treatise on Leadership in Islam (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 34.
32.
Naysābūrī, Ithbāt al-imāma, 62. The translator of the text is almost certain that in paragraph 49, Naysābūrī is indirectly citing Fārābī’s Taḥṣīl al-saʿāda.
33.
Naysābūrī, Ithbāt al-imāma, 62–63.
34.
Naysābūrī, Ithbāt al-imāma, 63.
35.
The members of this branch of Ismaʿilism are usually referred to as extremist Summoners (dāʿīs) who were mainly known for their deification of al-Ḥākim. According to Heinz Halm, the Drūze theology was “a bizarre conglomeration of old Ismaʿili, Neoplatonic, and extreme Shiʿite conceptions and terms.” See Heinz Halm, Shiʿism, trans. Janet Watson and Marian Hill (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 179.
36.
On the historical context of Kirmānī’s treatise, see Paul E. Walker, Introduction to al-Maṣābīḥ fī Ithbāt al-imāma, ed. and trans. Paul. E. Walker: Master of the Age: an Islamic Treatise on the Necessity of the Imamate: a Critical Edition of the Arabic Text and English Translation of Ḥamīd al-Dīn Aḥmad B. ʿAbd Allāh Kirmānī’s al-Maṣābīḥ fī Ithbāt al-imāma (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007), 14–17; Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī: Ismaili Thought in the Age of al-Ḥākim (London/New York: I. B. Tauris, 1999), 11–14. For a comparative study of Kirmānī and Naysābūrī regarding their theories of the imamate, see Paul E. Walker, “In Praise of al-Ḥākim: Greek Elements in Ismaili Writings on the Imamate,” in Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph 57 (2004): 367–392.
37.
Walker, “In Praise of al-Ḥākim,” 380–388.
38.
Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 38. The translation of the term dirāya as “perception” is problematic. The term dirāya, from the root raʾy, meaning “thought” or “vision,” should be translated as “insight,” rather than “perception,” which may connote knowledge of the physical world.
39.
Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 38–39.
40.
Ibid.
41.
Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, ed. Muḥammad Kāmil Ḥusain and Muṣṭafā Ḥilmī (Cairo: Dār al-fikr al-ʿArabīyya, 1953), 4.
42.
The Fatimid jurisprudent and judge Qādī al-Nuʿmān considers the imams as the most authoritative agents of taʾwīl because their knowledge has been inherited from the Prophet. Though he may not have formulated ʿiṣma, he believes that the knowledge of taʾwīl that the imam inherits from the Prophet is infallible as it originated in divine inspiration. In Asās al-taʾwīl he says that “divinely inspired knowledge (al-ʿilm al-taʾyīdī) and sins (maʿāṣī) do not go together.” Al-Qādī al-Nuʿmān, Asās al-taʾwīl, ed. Aref Tamer (Beirut: Manshūrāt Dār al-thiqāfa, 1960), 66. On this topic, also see Shah Bulbul, “al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān and the Concept of Bāṭin,” in Reason and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy, and Mysticism in Muslim Thought: Essays in Honour of Hermann Landolt, ed. Todd Lawson, 117–126 (London/New York: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 120–121.
43.
There is no systematic treatment of infallibility in Fatimid literature apart from the chapter in Kirmānī’s al-Maṣābīḥ. See Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 81–84. He also mentions infallibility in other works. For example, see “al-Risāla mawsūma bi Mabāsim al-bishārāt,” in Majmūʿa rasā’il al-Kirmānī, ed. Muṣtafā Ghālib, 113–133 (Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-jāmiʿiyyah li’l-dirāsāt wa’l-nashr wa’l-tawzīʿ, 1983), 22; 113; 131. The doctrine of infallibility becomes very important in the Ismaʿili works of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī and, as one might expect, in his Twelver works.
44.
Kirmānī also refers to Abū Ḥātim Rāzī as one of “the two wise men” (al-Shaykhayn) next to Abū Yaʿqūb Sijistānī. See Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 22.
45.
See Henry Corbin, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, trans. Nancy Pearson (New York: Random House, 1978). In this book, Corbin states that there is an essential affinity between Manichean gnosis and Ismaʿilism. His analysis is usually said to have used a metahistorical method that is vertical rather than horizontal. In my opinion, what he actually does is discover similarities among different discourses. As for the Persian background of Ismaʿili philosophy, early Ismaʿili thinkers such as Muḥammad Nasafī and Abū Ḥātim Rāzī addressed Persian religions in their works and tried to link Zoroastrianism to Abrahamic religions. See Shin Nomoto, “An Early Ismaili View of Other Religions: A Chapter from the Kitāb al-Iṣlāḥ by Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī,” in Reason and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought: Essays in Honour of Hermann Landolt, ed. Todd Lawson, 142–156 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005). However, Rāzī and Nasafī differed in their approaches to Zoroastrianism, and Rāzī criticized Nasafī for some of his ideas in this respect. For Kirmānī’s reading of this confrontation and his attempt to reconcile the two, see Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī, Kitāb al-Rīyāḍ, ed. Aref Tamer (Beirut: Dar-Assakafa, 1960). Also see Ismail K. Poonawala, “An Early Doctrinal Controversy in the Iranian School of Ismaʿili Thought and Its Implications,” Brill Journal of Persianate Studies 5 (2012): 17–34.
46.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 34.
47.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 40.
48.
Ḥijāb, al-Falsafa al-sīyāsiyya ʿinda Ikhwān al-ṣafā, 193–194.
49.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 69–70. For some of the terms, I use the Arabic text in Walker’s edition, 36–46.
50.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 71–79.
51.
The tradition of “the two precious things” (ḥadīth al-thaqalayn) is reported as part of the Prophet’s speech in Ghadīr Khumm in which, according to Shīʿīs, ʿAlī was appointed by the Prophet as his successor. For the political significance of the events in Ghadīr Khumm , see Abdulaziz Sachedina, “Wilaya of Imam Ali and its Theological-Juridical Implications for the Islamic Political Thought,” in Ghadīr/Ayatullah Muhammad Bāqīr al-Ṣadr, eds. Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi, Hussein Khimjee, 47–73 (Qom: Anṣariyān Publications, 2007). Also see Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, “Ghadīr Khumm,” Encyclopedia of Islam, Three (Brill Online 2013), accessed May 13, 2016, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/
52.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 79.
53.
Fārābī, Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, 241.
54.
Medieval literature by Twelver theologians include rational proofs for both the necessity of the imam’s office and his infallibility. For a few major examples of such works, see Abī Jaʿfar Tūsī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, Kitāb al-Ghayba (Najaf: Maktabat al-Ṣādiq, 1965); Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī Ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī, Risālatu’l-iʿtiqādāt, trans. Asaf Ali Asghar Fyzee: A Shiʿite Creed: A Translation of Risālatu’l-iʿtiqādāt of Muḥammad b. ʿAlī Ibn Bābawayhi al-Qummī, Known as Shaykh Ṣadūq (London; New York: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1942); Murtaḍā Sharīf, Al-Shāfī fi‘l-imāma, ed. Sayyid ʿAbd al-Zahrā al-Ḥosseinī al-Khaṭīb, 4 vols (Tehran: Muʾassisat al-Ṣādiq, 1410 A.H.); M. M. Mufīd, Kitāb al-irshād, trans. I. K. A. Howard: The Book of Guidance into the Lives of the Twelve Imams (London, UK: Balagha Books, 1981). Mufīd has been a lasting influence on the systematic rationalization of the imamate. See Martin J. McDermott, The Theology of al-Shaikh al-Mufīd (Beirut: Dar al-mashriq éditeurs, 1978).
55.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 81.
56.
Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 329.
57.
Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 438.
58.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 51–52. Kirmānī confines reward and punishment in the afterlife to those souls who have received emanation through instruction with knowledge and at will. This is similar to Fārābī’s soteriology whereby knowledge and deliberation are necessary requirements for recompense in the afterlife. See Fārābī, Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, 259–277.
59.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 53.
60.
On the soul being devoid of knowledge, see Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī, Rāḥat alʿaql, 309; “al-Risāla mawsūma bi Mabāsim al-bishārāt,” 115; al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 53.
61.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 51.
62.
Ibid.
63.
I am borrowing the term from John Keats, “Letter to George and Georgiana Keats,” Accessed January 21, 2016. http://www.mrbauld.com/keatsva.html
64.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fi ithbāt al-imāma, 81.
65.
The mainstream Ismaʿilis of the time believed in the double observance or double worship that refers to the observance of both the esoteric (bāṭin) and exoteric (ẓāhir) aspects of the religion, that is, both the spiritual and legal sides of it. This was emphasized in opposition to dissident Ismaʿilis who observed only the esoteric side of Islam and neglected the law. See Daniel De Smet, “Esotericism and exotericism,” Encyclopaedia of Islam Three, eds. Kate Fleet et al. (Brill Online, 2015), accessed May 2, 2016, http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/
66.
C.C.W. Taylor, “Politics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 233–258 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 241.
67.
For Fārābī’s organic view of happiness, see Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, 232–233.
68.
All major Shīʿī treatises on the imamate, both Ismaʿili and Twelver, cover the doctrine of the imam’s appointment. For a summary of this doctrine and sources in Twelver Shiʿism, see Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shīʿī Islam: The History and Doctrine of Twelver Shiʿism (New Haven: The Yale University Press, 1985); Lynda Clarke, “Doctrine of the Shiʿah according to the Early Shiʿi Sources” (PhD Dissertation, McGill University, 1994); Arzina R. Lalani, Early Shīʿī Thought: The Teachings of Muḥammad al-Bāqir (London/New York: I.B. Tauris, 2000), 79–83.
69.
In modern times, there have been attempts to characterize the Sunni method of consensus as democratic; yet, according to Fuzzi Najjar “attempts to reinterpret ijmāʿ in terms of modern democratic theory represent a kind of ijtihād, meritorious, yet of dubious value for the very reason that ijmāʿ is concerned with the legitimization of theological opinions, juristic interpretations and practical decisions.” Muḥammad Fuzzi Najjar, “Democracy in Islamic Political Philosophy,” Studia Islamica 51 (1981): 121.
70.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 82.
71.
Ibid.
72.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 82.
73.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 83.
74.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 85.
75.
Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī, “al-Risāla mawsūma bi Mabāsim al-bishārāt,” in Majmūʿat-rasāʾil al-Kirmānī, ed. Muṣtafā Ghālib, 113–133 (Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-jāmiʿiyyah li’l-dirāsāt wa’l-nashr wa’l-tawzīʿ, 1983), 118. The false imams (aʾimma al-ḍilāl) also appear in Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 435.
76.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 93.
77.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 97–104; 125–127. The instance of false imams given by Kirmānī also include the first three caliphs after the Prophet, Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān.
78.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 72.
79.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 80.
80.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 87. A comparison of these qualities with those of the perfect sovereigns in Fārābī’s Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila is noteworthy. Apart from all the characteristics of the “first sovereign,” which include physical, speculative, and moral perfections, the successor of the first sovereign is also distinguished by the following qualities: “(1) He will be a philosopher. (2) He will know and remember the laws and customs (and rules of conduct) with which the first sovereigns had governed the city, conforming in all his actions to all their actions. (3) He will excel in deducing a new law by analogy (qiyās) where no law of his predecessors has been recorded, following, for his deductions, the principles laid down by the first imams (al-aʾimma al-awwalīn). (4) He will be good at deliberating and be powerful in his deductions to meet new situations for which the first sovereigns could not have laid down any law. (5) He will be good in guiding the people by his speech to fulfill the laws of the first sovereigns as well as those laws which he will have deduced in conformity with their principles after their time. (6) He should be of tough physique in order to shoulder the tasks of war, mastering the serving as well as the ruling military art (al-ṣināʿa al-ḥarbiyya al-khādima w’l-raʾīsa).” Fārābī’s Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, 252–253. The characteristics of the sovereigns in Fārābī and those attributed to the Shīʿī imams have strong similarities, with the exception of being a philosopher which is not a requirement from Kirmānī’s point of view.
81.
Kirmānī, al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma, 83.
82.
The logical and philosophical rhetoric in al-Maṣābīḥ is secondary to the scriptural narratives, which include not only texts from the Qurʾan and tradition, but also biblical verses. Kirmānī quotes amply from the Qurʾan, and in several cases quotes from the Hebrew and Syriac Bibles. Biblical allusion was a tradition among Ismaʿili thinkers and seems to have had an important place in empowering their synthetic intellectual discourses. On the use of the Hebrew and Syriac Bibles in Kirmānī, see Daniel De Smet and J.M.F. Van Reeth, “Les citation bibliques dans l’oeuvres du dāʿī ismaélien Ḥamīd ad-Dīn Kirmānī,” in Law, Christianity and Modernism in Islamic Society Proceedings of the Eighteenth Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, Held at the Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, BE (September 3–9, 1996), eds. U. Vermeulen and J.M.F. Van Reeth (Leuven, NL: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1998). Also see Paul Kraus, “Hebräisch und syrische Zitate in ismāʿilitische Schriften” Der Islam 19 (1932): 243–263.
83.
Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-yi taslīm, ed. and trans. S. J. Badakhchani: Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought (London: I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2005).
84.
Naṣīr al-Dīn Tūṣī, Sayr wa Sulūk, ed. and trans. S. J. Badakhchani: Contemplation and Action: The Spiritual Autobiography of a Muslim Scholar (London: I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 1998).
85.
Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād, ed. A. M. Sulayman. Iskandariyyah: Dār al-maʿrifa al-jāmiʿiyya, 1996. For a study of this treatise, see I.K.A. Howard, “The Theology of the Imamate in the Work of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī,” in Alṣerāt: Selected Articles 1975–83, 118–125 (London: Muḥammadī Trust, 1983).
86.
Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, Risala-yi imāmat, ed. Muḥammad Taqī Dānish-Pazhūh (Tehran: Intishārāt-i dānishgāh-i Tehran, 1956/1335 S.H.). See also Scarcia B. Amoretti, “La Risālat al-imāma di Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī,” Rivista degli studi orientali 47:3/4 (1972): 247–276.
87.
Both treatises devote a major section in the beginning to philosophical issues such as creation and the nature of the soul before discussing the imamate. Moreover, in their discussion of the imamate, they both resort to theological and scriptural narratives rather than philosophical ones.
88.
For Ṭūsī’s life and works, see Hamid Dabashi, “Khawājah Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī: The Philosopher/Vizier and the Intellectual Climate of His Times,” in History of Islamic Philosophy, eds. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 2 vols (London/New York: Routledge, 1996), II: 527–584.
89.
According to Hermann Landolt, Mullā Ṣadrā is indebted to Ṭūsī for both his understanding of the soul in its evolution from body to spirit, and his eschatology. See Hermann Landolt, Introduction to Paradise of Submission by Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, ed. and trans. Seyyed Jalal Badakhshani, 1–11 (London/New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005), 11.
90.
The same synthetic character is emphasized in analysis of Ṭūsī’s writings on ethics. See Wilferd Madelung, “Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s Ethics between Philosophy, Shiʿism, and Sufīsm,” in Shiʿism, eds. Paul Lauft and Colin Turner (London/New York: Routledge, 2008), II: 69–85.
91.
Rawḍa-i taslīm has a more thorough and elaborate treatment of philosophical arguments and more explicit references to classical philosophy than Sayr wa sulūk. Scholars have often raised doubts about the authorship of Rawa-i taslīm because of its unusual style. See Muḥammad Taqī Mudarris Raḍawī, Aḥwāl wa āthār-i Khwāja Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Dānishgāh-i Tehran, 1975); Landolt, Introduction to Paradise of Submission, 3; Shafique Virani, Review of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought, ed. and trans. Seyyed Jalal Badakhchani, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 69:1 (2010): 147.
92.
Ṭūsi, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 36.
93.
Senior ranks in Ismaʿili daʿwa. Following a pre-Fatimid Ismaʿili tradition, the early Nizārī leaders were called the ḥujjas of the concealed imam and his representatives in the community and received instruction immediately from the imam himself. Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ was recognized as the imam’s ḥujja after the Nizārī-Mustaʿlī schism of 487/1094. See Farhad Daftary, “Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ and the Origins of the Nizārī Ismaʿili Movement,” in Medieval Ismaʿili History and Thought, ed. Farhad Daftary, 181–204 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 197.
94.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 36–37; 38–39 in the Arabic edition.
95.
Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī, Ḥikmat al-ishrāq, ed. and trans. John Walbridge and Hossein Ziai: The Philosophy of Illumination: A New Critical Edition of the Text of Ḥikmat al-ishrāq with English Translation (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1999), 62.
96.
In his famous commentary on Ibn Sīnā’s al-Ishārāt wa’l- tanbīhāt, Ṭūsī sometimes takes a position close to that of Suhrawardī. Hermann Landolt has an interesting article on this influence and believes that one can better understand such deviations from Ibn Sīnā in light of Ṭūsī’s Ismaʿili arguments in Sayr wa Sulūk, rather than his Illuminationist (Ishrāqī) inclinations. See Hermann Landolt, “Khawaja Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Ismaʿilism and Ishrāqī Philosophy,” in Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī: Philosophe et Savant du XIIIe Siècle, eds. N. Pourjavady and Z. Vesel, 13–30 (Tehran: Institut Français de Recherche en Iran, 2000).
97.
For Ibn Sīnā’s definition of the soul, see Ibn Sīnā, Avicenna’s De anima: Being the Psychological Part of Kitāb al-Shifaʾ, ed. Fazlur Rahman (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 39. On the meaning of perfection in Ibn Sīnā’s psychology, see Wisnovsky, Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context, 113–141.
98.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 38.
99.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 36.
100.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 26.
101.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 53.
102.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 39.
103.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 131.
104.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 132.
105.
Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql, 351 (italics mine).
106.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 131. With respect to the doctrine of the divine Command (amr), Ṭūsī follows the path of Ismaʿili philosophers before Kirmānī. Like Sijistānī, Ṭūsī believes in the ontological independence of the Word (kalima) or Command (amr). On this issue, see Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 19–22; for Sijistānī’s doctrine of the divine Command, see Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism, 81–86. In effect, even later Fatimid thinkers such as Muʾayyad fi’l-Dīn Shīrāzī (d. 470/1078) and Nāṣir-i Khusraw (d. after 469/1077) did not opt for Kirmānī’s understanding of the doctrine of divine Command. See Nāṣir-i Khusraw, “Wajh-i dīn,” ed. and trans. Faquir M. Hunzai: “The Face of Religion,” in Anthology of Ismaʿili Literature: A Shiʿi Vision of Islam, eds. Hermann Landolt, Samira Shaykh, and Kutub Kassam, 199–207 (London/New York: I.B. Tauris, 2008), 200; Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism, 19.
107.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 133.
108.
Tūṣī, Sayr wa sulūk, 30.
109.
Tūṣī, Sayr wa sulūk, 29.
110.
Tūṣī, Sayr wa sulūk, 30.
111.
Tūṣī, Sayr wa sulūk, 42.
112.
Tūṣī, Sayr wa sulūk, 44. This remark shows the Illuminationist tendency of Ṭūsī’s epistemology. The epistemic gap between subject and object was later challenged more systematically by Mullā Ṣadrā. The latter replaced mental form (al-ṣūra al-dhihniyya) with mental existence (al-wujūd al-dhihnī) , which is a higher degree of the external existence (al-wujūd al-khārijī) rather than a form or picture of it, therefore justifying knowledge of the world based on the existential unification of the knower and the known. Mullā Ṣadrā seems to have been inspired by Ṭūsī in raising this question. For Mullā Ṣadrā on the unification of the knower (al-ʿālim) and the known (al-maʿlūm) , see Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī, “Risāla fi’l-ittiḥād al-ʿāqil wa’l-maʿqūl,” in Majmūʿa-yi rasāʾil-i falsafī-i Ṣadr al-mutaʾallihīn, ed. Ḥamīd Nājī Isfahānī, 63–103 (Tehran: Ḥikmat, 2006/1385 S.H.).
113.
Ṭūṣī, Sayr wa sulūk, 44.
114.
Ṭūṣī, Sayr wa sulūk, 46.
115.
Ṭūṣī, Sayr wa sulūk, 45–46.
116.
In some of his writings, Tūsī was very sympathetic to Sufism. His respect for Sufism is apparent in his famous correspondence with his contemporary disciple of Ibn ʿArabī , Ṣadr al-Dīn Qūnawī (d. 673/1274). For example, in the context of discussing the relationship between soul and body, Qūnawī mentions those awlīyā who are capable of gaining independence from their bodies and who die a voluntary death (mawt-i ikhtyārī) . Although, Ṭūsī would not accept a complete separation between the soul and body, he still admits that the soul of the awlīyā can reach the stage of self-sufficiency, and compliments Qūnawī as being one of them. See Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Qūnawī and Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Ṭūsī, al-Murāsalāt bayna Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī wa Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, ed. Gudrun Schubert (Beirut: Commissioned by Franz Steiner Publications in Stuttgart, 1995), 120–121. Here, Ṭūsī uses the term wilāya in its Sufi sense as explained by the earliest systematic formulation of it in Gerald T. Elmore, Islamic Sainthood in the Fullness of Time: Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Book of the Fabulous Gryphon (Leiden, NL: Brill, 1999); Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Tirmidhī , Kitāb khatm al-awliyāʾ, ed. ʿUthmān Yaḥyā (Beirut: al-Maṭbaʿa al-kāthūlīkīya, 1965). For al-Tirmidhī, the saints (awlīyā) are the earthly epitomes of divine perfection who are always in the proximity of God. Just like there is a seal of prophethood that is the perfection of it, there exists a seal of sainthood (wilāya) who is the perfection of this position. The seal (khātam) of wilāya is the proof (ḥujja) of other awlīyā just as the Prophet Muhammad is the proof of other prophets (p. 422). This person is not named in the treatise but the author believes that the world will not end before he is brought forth by God as “the Resurrector by the Proof” (al-qāʾim bi’l-ḥujja) (p. 441). Here, the term “ al-qāʾim ” is significant with respect to its Shīʿī connotation and is an example of how different narratives merge. For Ṭūsī’s use of Sufi concepts and narratives, see Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, Awṣāf al-ashrāf, eds. Najīb Māyil Haravī, Ḥakīm Asvadī, and Abd al-Khāliq Ghujdavānī (Mashhad, IR: Intisārāt-i Imām, 1982).
117.
Ṭūsī, Sayr wa sulūk, 48.
118.
Fārābī, Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, 237.
119.
Ṭūsī, Sayr wa sulūk, 49.
120.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 104; 123; 124; 130. For a classic work on the theme of the perfect human (al-insān al-kāmil), see ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Ibrāhīm Jīlī, Insān al-kāmil (Cairo: Maktabat wa-maṭbaʿat Muḥammad ʿAlī Ṣubayḥ, 1953).
121.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 105; 133; 170. On the resemblance between the Sufi doctrine of the perfect human and the imamate in Shiʿism, Nasr says that “the idea of the imam as the pole of the universe and that of the Quṭb in Sufism are nearly identical,” and he cites Sayyid Ḥaydar ʿĀmulī on this relation. See Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Shiʿism and Sufism: Their Relationship in Essence and History,” Religious Studies 6:3 (September 1970): 235.
122.
Ṭūsī, Rawḍa-i taslīm, 133.
123.
The synthesis is done notably in Ḥaydar ibn ʿAlī Āmulī, Jāmiʿ al-asrār wa manbaʿ al-anwār, eds. Henry Corbin and Ismail Othmān Yaḥyā (Tehran: Anīstītū-i Īrān va Faransah, 1969). On the influence of Āmulī on later Islamic philosophy, see Henry Corbin, En Islam iranien, aspects spirituels et philosophiques, 4 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1971), IV: 72–73; Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Philosophy from its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2006), 87; “Shiʿism and Sufism,” 235.

Bibliography

Abū al-Fawāris, Aḥmad ibn Yaʿqūb. 1977. al-Risāla fī’l-imāma. Trans. Sāmī Nasīb Makārim. The Political Doctrine of the Ismāʿīlīs. Delmar: Caravan Books.
Google Scholar
Amir-Moezzi. 2013. Ghadīr Khumm. In Encyclopedia of Islam Three, eds. Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, and Everett Rowson. Brill. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/. Accessed 13 May 2016.
Amoretti, B. Scarcia. 1972. La Risālat al-imāma di Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī. Rivista degli studi orientali 47 (3/4): 247–276.
Google Scholar
Āmulī, Ḥaydar ibn ʿAlī. 1969. Jāmiʿ al-asrār wa manbaʿ al-anwār, eds. Henry Corbin and Ismail Othmān Yaḥyā. Tehran: Anīstītū-i Īrān va Faransah.
Google Scholar
Baffioni, Carmela. 2006. History, Language and Ideology in the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’s View of the Imamate. In Authority, Privacy and Public Order in Islam: Proceedings of the 22nd Congress of L’Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, eds. B. Michalak-Pikulska and A. Pikulski, 17–28. Cracow: Peeters.
Google Scholar
———. 2008. Ikhwān al-Ṣafā. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ikhwan-al-safa/. Accessed 17 Nov 2016.
Black, Deborah. 2005. Psychology. In The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, eds. Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, 308–326. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar
Bulbul, Shah. 2005. al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān and the Concept of Bāṭin. In Reason and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy, and Mysticism in Muslim Thought, ed. Todd Lawson, 117–126. London/New York: I.B. Tauris.
Google Scholar
Clarke, Lynda. 1994. Doctrine of the Shiʿah According to the Early Shiʿi Sources. PhD Dissertation, McGill University, Montreal.
Google Scholar
Corbin, Henry. 1971. En Islam iranien, aspects spirituels et philosophiques, 4 vols. Paris: Gallimard.
Google Scholar
———. 1978. The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism. Trans. Nancy Pearson. New York: Random House.
Google Scholar
Crone, Patricia. 2004. Medieval Islamic Political Thought. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; 2005 reprint.
Google Scholar
———. 2011. The Ikhwan al-Safa: Between al-Kindi and al-Farabi. In The Fortress of the Intellect: Ismaili and Other Islamic Studies in Honour of Farhad Daftary, ed. Omar Alí-de-Unzaga, 189–213. London/New York: I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies.
Google Scholar
Dabashi, Hamid. 1996. Khawājah Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī: The Philosopher/vizier and the Intellectual Climate of His Times. In History of Islamic Philosophy, eds. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 527–584, 2 vols. London/New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
Daftary, Farhad. 1996. Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ and the Origins of the Nizārī Ismaʿili Movement. In Medieval Ismaʿili History and Thought, ed. Farhad Daftary, 181–204. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar
Daiber, Hans. 1991. The Ismaili Background of Fārābī’s Political Philosophy: Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī as a Forerunner of Fārābī. In Gottes ist der Orient, Gottes ist der Okzident: Festschrift für Abdoldjavad Falaturi zum 65 Geburtstag, ed. U. Tworuschka, 143–150. Cologne/Vienna.
Google Scholar
———. 1996. Political Philosophy. In History of Islamic Philosophy, eds. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 841–869, 2 vols. London/New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
De Smet, Daniel. 2008. Al-Fārābī’s Influence on Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī’s Theory of Intellect and Soul. In In the Age of Al-Fārābī: Arabic Philosophy in the Fourth-Tenth century, ed. Peter Adamson, 131–150. London: Warburg Institute.
Google Scholar
———. 2015. Esotericism and Exotericism. In Encyclopaedia of Islam Three. Brill. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/. Accessed 20 Oct 2016.
De Smet, Daniel, and J.M.F. Van Reeth. 1998. Les citation bibliques dans l’oeuvres du dāʿī ismaélien Ḥamīd ad-Dīn Kirmānī. In Law, Christianity and Modernism in Islamic Society Proceedings of the Eighteenth Congress of the Union Européenne Des Arabisants et Islamisants, eds. U. Vermeulen and J.M.F. Van Reeth, Held at the Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, September 3, 1999. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters.
Google Scholar
DeCallataÿ, Godefroid. 2013. Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ). In Encyclopaedia of Islam Three. Brill. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/. Accessed 17 Nov 2016.
Elmore, Gerald T. 1999. Islamic Sainthood in the Fullness of Time: Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Book of the Fabulous Gryphon. Leiden: Brill.
Google Scholar
Fārābī, Abū Naṣr. 1982. Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl madīna al-fāḍila. Trans. Richard Walzer. On the Perfect State. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Google Scholar
Fred, Michael. 1995. Aristotle’s Conception of the Soul. In Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima, eds. Martha C. Nussbaum and Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, 93–107. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Google Scholar
Halm, Heinz. 1987. Shiʿism. Trans. Janet Watson and Marian Hill. New York: Columbia University Press.
Google Scholar
Hamdani, Abbas. 1979. An Early Fāṭimid Source on the Time and Authorship of the ‘Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’. Arabica 26 (1): 62–75.
Google Scholar
Ḥijāb, Muḥammad Farīd. 1982. Al-Falsafa al-sīyāsīyya ʿinda Ikhwān al-ṣafā. Cairo: Maṭbaʿa al-hayʾat al-miṣriyya al-ʿāmma al-kitāb.
Google Scholar
Howard, I.K.A. 1983. The Theology of the Imamate in the Work of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī. In Alṣerāt: Selected Articles 1975–83, 118–125. London: Muḥammadī Trust.
Google Scholar
Ibn Bābawayh, al-Qummī and Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī. 1942. Risālatu’l-iʿtiqādāt. Trans. Asaf Ali Asghar Fyzee. A Shiʿite Creed: A Translation of Risālatu’l-iʿtiqādāt of Muḥammad b. ʿAlī Ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī, Known as Shaykh Ṣadūq. London/New York: H. Milford, Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar
Ibn Sīnā. 1959. Avicenna’s De anima; Being the Psychological Part of Kitāb al-Shifā, ed. Fazlur Rahman. London: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar
Ikhwān al-Ṣafā. 1928. Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafā wa Khullān al-wafā, ed. Khayr al-Dīn Ziriklī, 4 vols. Cairo.
Google Scholar
Jīlī, ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Ibrāhīm. 1953. Insān al-kāmil. Cairo: Maktabat wa-maṭbaʿat Muḥammad ʿAlī Ṣubayḥ.
Google Scholar
Khusraw, Nāṣir. 2008. Wajh-i dīn. Trans. and ed. Faquir M. Hunzai. The Face of Religion. In Anthology of Ismaʿili Literature: A Shiʿi Vision of Islam, eds. Hermann Landolt, Samira Sheikh, and Kutub Kassam. London/New York: I.B. Tauris.
Google Scholar
Kirmānī, Ḥamīd al-Dīn. 1953. Rāḥat al- ʿaql, eds. Kāmil Husain and Muḥammad Muṣṭafā Ḥilmī. Cairo: Dār al-fikr al-ʿArabīyya.
Google Scholar
———. 1983. al-Risāla mawsūma bi Mabāsim al-bishārāt. In Majmūʿa rasā’il al-Kirmānī, ed. Muṣtafā Ghālib, 113–133. Beirut: al-Muʾassasah al-jāmiʿiyya li’l-dirāsāt wa’l-nashr wa’l-tawzīʿ.
Google Scholar
———. 1960. Kitāb al-Riyāḍ, ed. Aref Tamer. Beirut: al-Maṭbaʿat at-tijāriyya.
Google Scholar
———. 2007. al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma. Trans. and ed. Paul. E. Walker. Master of the Age: An Islamic Treatise on the Necessity of the Imamate: A Critical Edition of the Arabic Text and English Translation of Ḥamīd al-Dīn Aḥmad B. ʿAbd Allāh Kirmānī’s al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma. New York: I.B. Tauris.
Google Scholar
Kraus, Paul. 1932. Hebräisch und syrische Zitate in ismāʿilitische Schriften. Der Islam 19: 243–263.
Google Scholar
Lalani, Arzina R. 2000. Early Shīʿī Thought: The Teachings of Imam Muḥammad al-Bāqir. London/New York: I.B. Tauris.
Google Scholar
Landolt, Hermann. 2000. Khawaja Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Ismaʿilism and Ishrāqī Philosophy. In Nasīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī: Philosophe et Savant du XIIIe Siècle, eds. Nasrollah Pourjavady and Z. Vesel, 13–30. Tehran: Institut Français de Recherche en Iran.
Google Scholar
———. 2005. Introduction to Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought, by Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī. Trans. and ed. S.J. Badakhchani. London: I.B. Tauris in association with Institute of Ismaili Studies.
Google Scholar
Madelung, Wilferd. 2008. Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s Ethics Between Philosophy, Shiʿism, and Sufīsm. In Shiʿism, eds. Paul Lauft and Colin Turner, 4 vols. 69–85. London/New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
McDermott, Martin J. 1978. The Theology of al-Shaikh al-Mufīd. Beirut: Dar al-mashriq éditeurs.
Google Scholar
Momen, Moojan. 1985. An Introduction to Shīʿī Islam: The History and Doctrine of Twelver Shiʿism. New Haven: The Yale University Press.
Google Scholar
al-Mufīd, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad. 1981. Kitāb al-irshād. Trans. I.K.A. Howard. The Book of Guidance into the Lives of the Twelve Imams. London: Balagha Books.
Google Scholar
al-Murtaḍā, Sharīf. 1989. Al-Shāfī fi’l-imāma, ed. Sayyid ʿAbd al-Zahrā al-Ḥosseinī al-Khaṭīb, 4 vols. Tehran: Muʾassasa al-Ṣādiq.
Google Scholar
Najjar, Fuzzi M. 1961. Fārābī’s Political Philosophy and Shiʿism. Studia Islamica 14: 57–72.
Article Google Scholar
———. 1981. Democracy in Islamic Political Philosophy. Studia Islamica 51: 107–122.
Google Scholar
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. 1964. An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines: Conceptions of Nature and Methods Used for its Study by the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, al-Bīrūnī, and Ibn Sina. London: Thames and Hudson: 1978 reprint.
Google Scholar
———. 1970. Shiʿism and Sufism: Their Relationship in Essence and History. Religious Studies 6 (3): 229–242.
Article Google Scholar
———. 2006. Islamic Philosophy from Its Origins to the Present. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Google Scholar
Naysābūrī, Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm. 2010. Ithbāt al-imāma. Trans. and ed. Arzina R. Lalani. Degrees of Excellence. London: I.B. Tauris.
Google Scholar
Netton, Ian Richard. 1980. Brotherhood Versus Imāmate: Ikhwān al-Ṣafā and the Ismāʿīlīs. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2: 253–262.
Google Scholar
———. 2007. Foreign Influences and Recurring Ismaʿili Motifs in the Rasāʾil of the Brethren of Purity. In Islamic Philosophy and Theology: Critical Concepts in Islamic Thought. Vol IV: Eclecticism, Illumination, and Reform, ed. Ian Richard Netton, 16–29. London/New York: Routledge.
Google Scholar
———. 2008. The Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafā in the History of Ideas in Islam. In Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: The Ikhwān al-Ṣafā and the Rasāʾil, an Introduction, ed. Nader al-Bizri, 123–138. Oxford: Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies.
Google Scholar
Nomoto, Shin. 2003. An Early Ismaili View of Other Religions: A Chapter from the Kitāb al-Iṣlāḥ by Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī. In Reason and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought: Essays in Honour of Hermann Landolt, ed. Todd Lawson, 142–156. London: I.B. Tauris.
Google Scholar
al-Nuʿmān, al-Qādī. 1960. In Asās al-taʾwīl, ed. Aref Tamer. Beirut: Manshūrāt Dār al-thiqāfa.
Google Scholar
Peterson, Daniel Carl. 1990. Cosmogony and the Ten Separated Intellects in the Rāḥat al-ʿaql of Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī. PhD, University of California, Los Angeles. http://search.proquest.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/pqdtglobal/docview/303815265/abstract/62811E1B93364B9EPQ/1?accountid=14771. Accessed 10 Sept 2015 and 2 May 2016.
Plato. 1973. The Republic. Trans. G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis: Hachette Publishing Company.
Google Scholar
Poonawala, Ismail K. 2012. An Early Doctrinal Controversy in the Iranian School of Ismaʿili Thought and Its Implications. Brill Journal of Persianate Studies 5: 17–34.
Article Google Scholar
al-Qūnawī, Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq and Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Ṭūsī. 1995. al-Murāsalāt bayna Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Qūnawī wa Naṣ īr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, ed. Gudrun Schubert. Beirut: Commissioned by Franz Steiner Publications in Stuttgart.
Google Scholar
Raḍawī, Muḥammad Taqī Mudarris. 1975. Aḥwāl wa āthār-i Khwāja Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī. Tehran: Intishārāt-i Dānishgāh-i Tehran.
Google Scholar
Rāzī, Abū Ḥatim. 2001. Aʿlām al-nubuwwah. Trans. Everett K. Rowson, 140–171. In An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, eds. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazavi, 139–174, 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar
———. 2008. Kitāb al-Iṣlāḥ̣, ed. Ḥusām Khaḍḍūr. Salamiyya, Syria: Dār al-Ghadīr.
Google Scholar
———. 2011. Aʿlām al-nubuwwa. Trans. Tarif Khalidi. The Proofs of Prophecy: A Parallel English-Arabic Text. Provo: Brigham Young University Press.
Google Scholar
Sachedina, Abdulaziz. 2007. Wilaya of Imam Ali and Its Theological-Juridical Implications for the Islamic Political Thought. In Ghadīr/Ayatullah Muhammad Bāqīr al-Ṣadr, eds. Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi and Hussein Khimjee, 47–73. Qom: Ansariyan Publications.
Google Scholar
Shīrāzī, Mullā Ṣadrā. 2004. Sharḥ Uṣūl al-kāfī: Kitāb faḍl al-ʿilm wa Kitāb al-ḥujja, eds. Muḥammad Khājawī and ʿAlī Nūrī, 2nd ed, 4 vols. Tehran: Pizhūhishgāh-i ʿulūm-i insānī wa muṭālaʿāt-i farhangī.
Google Scholar
———. 2006. Risāla fi’l-ittiḥād al-ʿāqil wa’l-maʿqūl. In Majmūʿa-yi rasāʾil-i falsafa-yi Ṣadr al-Mutaʾallihīn, ed. Hamid Nājī Isfahanī, 63–103. Tehran: Ḥikmat.
Google Scholar
Sijistānī, Abū Yaʿqūb. 1994. Kitāb al-Yanābīʿ. Trans. Paul Ernest Walker. The Wellsprings of Wisdom: Complete English Translation with Commentary and Notes on the Arabic Text. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Google Scholar
———. 2001. Kitāb al-Yanābīʿ. Trans. Latimah-Parvin Peerwani. The Book of Wellsprings. In An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazavi, 124–137, 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar
Stern, Samuel E. 1960. The Early Ismaʿili Missionaries in North-West in Persia and Khorasan and Transoxiana. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 23: 56–90.
Article Google Scholar
Suhrawardī, Shihāb al-Dīn. 1999. Ḥikmat al-ishrāq. Trans. and ed. John Walbridge and Hossein Ziai. The Philosophy of Illumination: A New Critical Edition of the Text of Ḥikmat al-ishrāq with English Translation. Provo: Brigham Young University Press.
Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles C.W. 1995. Politics. In The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 233–258. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar
al-Tirmidhī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī. 1965. Kitāb khatm al-awliyāʾ, ed. ʿUthmān Yaḥyā. Beirut: al-Maṭbaʿa al-kāthūlīkīya.
Google Scholar
Ṭūsī, Abī Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan. 1965. Kitāb al-Ghayba. Najaf: Maktabat al-Ṣādiq.
Google Scholar
Ṭūsī, Naṣīr al-Dīn. 1956/1335 S.H. Risala-yi imāmat, ed. Muḥammad Taqī Dānish-Pazhūh. Tehran: Intishārāt-i dānishgāh-i Tehran.
Google Scholar
———. 1982. Awṣāf al-ashrāf, eds. Najīb Māyil Haravī, Ḥakīm Asvadī, and Abd al-Khāliq Ghujdavānī. Mashhad: Intishārāt-i Imām.
Google Scholar
———. 1998. Sayr wa sulūk. Trans. and ed. S. J. Badakhchani. Contemplation and Action: The Spiritual Autobiography of a Muslim Scholar. London: I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies.
Google Scholar
———. 2005. Rawḍa-yi taslīm. Trans. and ed. S.J. Badakhchani. Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought. London: I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies.
Google Scholar
Virani, Shafique. 2010. Review of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought. Trans. and ed. S. J. Badakhchani. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 69(1): 146–147.
Google Scholar
Walker, Paul E. 1993. Early Philosophical Shiism: The Ismaili Neoplatonism of Abū Yaʿqūb Sijistānī. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Google Scholar
———. 1999. Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī: Ismaili Thought in the Age of al-Ḥākim. London/New York: I.B. Tauris.
Google Scholar
———. 2004. In Praise of al-Ḥākim: Greek Elements in Ismaili Writings on the Imamate. Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph 57: 367–392.
Google Scholar
———. 2007. Introduction to al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāmah. Trans. and ed. Paul. E. Walker. Master of the Age: An Islamic Treatise on the Necessity of the Imamate: A Critical Edition of the Arabic Text and English Translation of Ḥamīd al-Dīn Aḥmad B. ʿAbd Allāh Kirmānī’s al-Maṣābīḥ fī ithbāt al-imāma. New York: I.B. Tauris.
Google Scholar
Walzer, Richard. 1982. Introduction to Mabādiʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila, by Abū Naṣr Fārābī. Trans. Richard Walzer. On the Perfect State, 1–17. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Google Scholar
Wisnovsky, Robert. 2003. Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context. London: Duckworth.
Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, USA
Sayeh Meisami

Authors

Sayeh Meisami
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Meisami, S. (2018). Kirmānī’s Discourse on the Imamate and its Influence. In: Knowledge and Power in the Philosophies of Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī and Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71192-8_3

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71192-8_3
Published: 24 March 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71191-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71192-8
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics