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Persian Poetry, Sufism and Ismailism: The Testimony of Khwājah Qāsim Tushtarī’s Recognizing God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2018

SHAFIQUE N. VIRANI
SHAFIQUE N. VIRANI*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Abstract

Khwājah Qāsim Tushtarī’s recently discovered Recognizing God (Maʿrifat-i Khudāy taʿālā) is one of the only texts known to have survived from the early Alamūt period of Ismaili Muslim history. This article analyses the work in the context of the “new Invitation” (daʿwat-i jadīd) to the Ismaili faith that al-Shahrastānī (d. 548/1153) tells us was inaugurated by the Fāṭimid Imam al-Mustanṣir billāh (d. 487/1094) and championed by Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ (d. 518/1124). The text emphasises that the ultimate purpose of human existence is to know God, and that the path to this knowledge is through the Imam of the Time. The concepts of the ‘true teacher’ (muʿallim-i ṣādiq) and ‘sage’ (ḥakīm) are examined and the literary culture fostered at the Ismaili fortresses, particularly Girdkūh, is explored. Significantly, the article draws attention to the position of Sanāʾī Ghaznawī (d. circa 525/1131) in Persian Ismaili literature and to the very early development of pious, devotional and homiletic poetry as well as the “mathnawī metre” in Ismaili environments, which may have helped set the stage for some of the most significant poetic achievements of mystical Islam: the writings of Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (d. circa 618/1221) and Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (d. 672/1273).

Keywords

IsmailismSufismShiismImamQāsim TushtarīSanāʾī GhaznawīJalāl al-Dīn RūmīFarīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭāṛpoetryḥikmah
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 17 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2018 

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References

1 The majority of Mūsā’s followers initially accepted the claims of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq's other son ʿAbd Allāh al-Afṭāḥ. However, his death soon after his father's demise led to their acknowledgment of Mūsā al-Kāẓim. See Hodgson, Marshall G. S., “Djaʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, (eds) Bearman, Peri J. et al. , online, 2nd edition (Leiden, 2012)Google Scholar; (originally published, 1960-2007), http://dx.doi.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_19221; Abū ʿAbd Allāh Jaʿfar ibn Aḥmad al-Aswad Ibn al-Haytham, Kitāb al-Munāẓarāt, (eds and trans) Madelung, Wilferd and Walker, Paul E., The Advent of the Fatimids: A Contemporary Shiʿi Witness (London, 2000), pp. 35-37 (ed.), pp. 90-92Google Scholar (trans.); Modarressi, Hossein, Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shīʿite Islam: Abū Jaʿfar ibn Qiba al-Rāzī and His Contribution to Imāmite Shīʿite Thought (Princeton, 1993), pp. 53ffGoogle Scholar; Daftary, Farhad, The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines (Cambridge, 1990), p. 94Google Scholar.

2 This designation was seldom used by the early sectarians themselves and was applied to them by the heresiographers. Cf. Daftary, Ismāʿīlīs, p. 93. The group was referred to by a plethora of names in the early literature. Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 485/1092), for example, mentions ten geographically specific designations: Ismāʿīlī (Aleppo and Cairo), Qarmaṭī (Baghdad, Transoxiana and Ghazna), Mubārakī (Kufa), Rāwandī and Burquʾī (Basra), Khālafī (Rayy), Muḥammirah (Jurjān), Mubayyiḍah (Syria), Saʿīdī (Maghrib), Janābī (Lahsah and Bahrain) and Bāṭinī. See al-Mulk, Niẓām, Siyar al-Mulūk or Siyāsatnāmah, (trans.) Darke, Hubert, The Book of Government or Rules for Kings, 2nd edition (London, 1978), p. 231Google Scholar. Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) mentions Bāṭiniyyah, Qarāmiṭah, Khurramiyyah or Khurramdīniyyah, Bābakiyyah, Muḥammirah, Sabʿiyyah, Ismāʿīliyyah and Taʿlīmiyyah. Cited in Henry Corbin, “The Ismāʿīlī Response to the Polemic of Ghazālī”, Chapter 4, (trans.) Morris, James, in Ismāʿīlī Contributions to Islamic Culture, (ed.) Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (Tehran, 1977), p. 74Google Scholar. The name of a branch of the community which had become particularly infamous—the Qarāmiṭah—was often applied derogatorily, and incorrectly, to the entire community. In addition, hostile historical sources frequently refer to the Ismailis abusively as malāḥida—the apostates or heretics. Various Muslim groups commonly referred to their foes by this derogatory name, but by Alamūt times it seems to have been most widely directed at the Ismailis. See Wilferd Madelung, “Mulḥid”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, (eds) Bearman et al. Mīrkhwānd, for example, states that the term was particularly applied to this community. See Muḥammad ibn Khwāndshāh Mīrkhwānd, Rawḍat al-ṣafāʾ fī sīrat al-anbiyāʾ wa'l-mulūk wa'l-khulafāʾ, (ed.) Riḍā Qulī Khān, 10 vols (Tihrān, 1338-1339 hs/1959-1960 ce), Vol. 9, p. 114; Muḥammad ibn Khwāndshāh Mīrkhwānd, Rawḍat al-ṣafāʾ fī sīrat al-anbiyāʾ wa'l-mulūk wa'l-khulafāʾ, (ed. and trans.) Jourdain, Am., Le jardin de la pureté; Contenant l'histoire des Prophètes, des Rois et des Khalifes; Par Mohammed, fils de Khavemdschah, connu sous le nom de Mirkhond, (Paris, 1813), Vol. 9, p. 155Google Scholar.

Many of these names are inaccurate, some polemical, and others are a conflation of the group under study with others that had nothing to do with it. In the early period, the community commonly referred to itself as al-daʿwat al-hādiyah, “the Rightly-Guiding Invitation”, or simply as al-daʿwah, “the Invitation”. We also find such names as ahl-i ḥaqq or ahl-i ḥaqīqat, “the people of truth”, used in Persian speaking regions; Mawlāʾī, “the partisans of the lord”, in Hunza, Gilgit and Chitral; Panjtanī, “the partisans of the five”, that is, Muḥammad, ʿAlī, Fāṭimah, al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, in parts of Central Asia; and Satpanthī, “follower of the path of truth”, Khwājah (Khojā), “the venerable”, Shamsī, “the followers of Pīr Shams” and Muʾmin (Momnā), “the faithful” in South Asia.

The name currently employed in academia—Ismāʿīliyyah—seems to have been used by the early community only occasionally. It appears to have originated with the early heresiographers, notably al-Nawbakhtī and al-Qummī. Moreover, the classification is not entirely precise. While it does give a sense that this is the community that adhered to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq's nomination of Ismāʿīl as his successor, rather than that which considered Mūsā al-Kāzim as the Imam, the historical scenario is not as clear. It must be remembered that even among the groups that eventually acknowledged Mūsā al-Kāzim as the Imam, there were those who, due to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq's explicit designation in favour of Ismāʿīl, considered him as the Imam before Mūsā. They thus had equal claim to being called Ismāʿīliyyah. It was against this lineage (and that of a transfer of the imamate from ʿAbd Allāh al-Afṭāḥ to Mūsā al-Kāẓim) that later Twelver scholars adopted the doctrine that after the case of al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, the imamate could not pass between brothers. This tradition is cited by the famous heresiographer, Nawbakhtī, among others. For a full account, see Sachedina, Abdulaziz Abdulhussein, Islamic Messianism: The Idea of Mahdi in Twelver Shi'ism, (eds) Wickens, G. M. and Savory, R. M. (Albany, New York, 1981), pp. 44-45Google Scholar.

The term ‘Ismaili’, however, has a number of advantages, not least of which is its currency in academia. Moreover, it was not rejected among the Ismailis themselves. In a riposte to al-Ghazālī’s virulent attack on the Ismailis in his Infamies of the Bāṭinīs and the Virtues of the Mustaẓhirīs (Faḍāʾiḥ al-Bāṭiniyyah wa-faḍāʾil al-Mustaẓhiriyyah), ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Walīd (d. 612/1215), the fifth dāʿī of the Mustaʿlian Ismailis, comments on the names Ghazālī ascribed to the community. With regard to the term Ismāʿīliyyah, he vaunts:

This name designates those whose [spiritual] ancestry goes back to Mawlānā Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, ibn Muḥammad al-Bāqir, ibn ʿAlī Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Taqī, ibn ʿAlī al-Murtaḍā al-Waṣī. This is our inherent name. It is our honour and our glory before all of the other branches of Islam, because we stand on the Path of the Truth, in following our guides the Imāms. We drink at an abundant fountain, and we hold firmly to the guiding lines of their walāyah. Thus they cause us to climb from rank to rank among the degrees of proximity [to God] and excellence.

Translated in Corbin, “Polemic of Ghazālī”, pp. 74-75, (romanisation modified). See also Ismail K. Poonawala, “An Ismāʿīlī Refutation of al-Ghazālī”, Paper presented at the 30th International Congress of Human Sciences in Asia and North Africa, Mexico City, August 1976, pp. 131-134.

Significantly, this name is now current in the communities that consider themselves the inheritors of the traditions of the descendants of Imam Ismāʿīl. Thus, despite the drawbacks outlined above, this term will be used.

3 Throughout this article, when the words ‘Ismaili’ and ‘Ismailism’ are used in the context of the environment after the split, the Nizārī branch of the community is meant.

4 ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAṭā-Malik Juwaynī, Taʾrīkh-i Jahāngushāy, (ed.) Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Qazwīnī, 3 vols (Leiden, 1912-1937), Vol. 3, pp. 269-270Google Scholar; ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAṭā-Malik Juwaynī, Taʾrīkh-i Jahāngushāy, (trans.) Boyle, John Andrew, The History of the World-Conqueror, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA, 1958), Vol. 2, p. 719Google Scholar.

5 Juwaynī, Jahāngushāy, Vol. 3, pp. 186-187, 269-270; Juwaynī, World-Conqueror, Vol. 2, pp. 666, 719.

6 I have examined the historical background, manuscripts and dating of this composition: see Virani, Shafique N., “Alamūt, Ismailism and Khwājah Qāsim Tushtarī’s Recognizing God”, Shii Studies Review, 2, 1-2 (2018)Google Scholar.

7 Bergne, Paul, The Birth of Tajikistan: National Identity and the Origins of the Republic (London, 2007), p. 143Google Scholar. Having been part of the Bukhara Emirate and later of Ferghanah, controlled by the Russian Empire, from 1925 the region was called the Autonomous Oblast of Gorno-Badakhshan.

8 Ivanow, Wladimir, “Ismailitica”, Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 8 (1922), p. 3Google Scholar.

9 Daftary, Farhad, The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2007), p. 29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Muḥammad Riḍā ibn Khwājah Sulṭān Ḥusayn Ghūriyānī Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attribution), Maʿdin al-asrār (Faṣl dar bayān-i shinākht-i imām), (ed.) Ivanow, Wladimir, Fasl dar Bayan-i Shinakht-i Imam (On the Recognition of the Imam), 3rd edition (Terhan, 1960)Google Scholar; Muḥammad Riḍā ibn Khwājah Sulṭān Ḥusayn Ghūriyānī Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attribution), Maʿdin al-asrār (Faṣl dar bayān-i shinākht-i imām), (ed.) Ivanow, Wladimir, Fasl Dar Bayan-i Shinakht-i Imam or On the Recognition of the Imam, 2nd edition (Leiden, 1949)Google Scholar; Muḥammad Riḍā ibn Khwājah Sulṭān Ḥusayn Ghūriyānī Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attribution), On the Recognition of the Imam (Faṣl dar bayān-i shinākht-i imām), (trans.) Ivanow, Wladimir, On the Recognition of the Imam, 2nd edition (Bombay, 1947)Google Scholar; Muḥammad Riḍā ibn Khwājah Sulṭān Ḥusayn Ghūriyānī Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attribution), “Maʿdin al-asrār (Faṣl dar bayān-i shinākht-i imām)”, (ed. and trans.) Ivanow, Wladimir, “Book on the Recognition of the Imam”, Ismailitica, Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 8, 1 (1922)Google Scholar. The attribution of the text to Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (d. after 960/1553) is Ivanow's. In his 1947 translation of the work he mentions coming into contact with “many Ismailis from Hunza, Chitral and a few from Shughnān and other districts of Badakhshān”, one of whom claimed to be familiar with this work and mentioned that the real title was Maʿdin al-ḥaqāʾiq. “His testimony,” Ivanow complains, “did not inspire much confidence, and I would hesitate to accept his statement until it is supported from reliable sources” (p. x). However, in Ivanow, Wladimir (ed.), Ismaili Literature: A Bibliographical Survey, 2nd edition (Tehran, Iran, 1963), pp. 107-108Google Scholar, he lists the title as Maʿādin al-asrār, which is the plural of the title I have come across in some manuscripts, for example an uncatalogued volume with the date Dhū’l-Qaʿdah 5, 1280 ah (=1864 ce), a copy of which is in the collection of the Research Unit of the Institute of Ismaili Studies in Khorog (formerly a unit of ITREC-Tajikistan), with the (temporary) folder number 175 and the title Maʿdin al-asrār.

11 W. L. Hanaway, “Ṣafī”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, (eds) Bearman et al., http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/s-afi-SIM_6445. As Ivanow himself notes, the reference to a certain Ḥakīm Thanāʾī, whose poetry is also quoted in the Maʿdin, is rather ambiguous: Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attribution), Shinākht-i imām—1947, p. 3. Thanāʾī’s identification as the poet of the same name (d. 996/1588), who was patronised by the Mughal emperor Jalāl al-Dīn Akbar, is possible, but speculative. For information and sources on the latter, see Rasūlī, Ruqayyah, “Thanāʾī Mashhadī”, in Dānishnāmah-yi jahān-i Islām (Tehran, 1996)Google Scholar, http://www.encyclopaediaislamica.com/madkhal2.php?sid=4280. The poem quoted in the Maʿdin, “Qaṣīdah-yi Sikandar”, cannot be from the Iskandar-nāmah of the Mughal poet, which is in the form of a mathnawī. The precise identity of this Ḥakīm Thanāʾī is therefore still an open question.

12 Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attribution), “Shinākht-i imām—1922”, pp. 6, 19 (ed.), p. 36 (trans.). (Quotation amended to render the poet's name in Latin script).

13 Ivanow, Wladimir, A Guide to Ismaili Literature (London, 1933), p. 118Google Scholar.

14 Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attribution), Shinākht-i imām—1947, p. 36; Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attribution), Shinākht-i imām—1949, p. 17.

15 Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attribution), Shinākht-i imām—1960, p. 4. Note: Dares-selam modified to Dar es Salaam.

16 For a more detailed exposition of this question, please see Virani, “Alamūt, Ismailism and Khwājah Qāsim Tushtarī’s Recognizing God”, pp. 215-216.

17 Ivanow, Ismaili Literature, p. 134.

18 Ibid., p. 140. In this regard, see Virani, “Alamūt, Ismailism and Khwājah Qāsim Tushtarī’s Recognizing God”, p. 198.

19 Poonawala, Ismail K., Biobibliography of Ismāʿīlī Literature (Malibu, 1977), p. 263Google Scholar.

20 Badakhchani, Seyyed Jalal Hosseini, “Preface”, in Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyāt, (ed.) Ḥusaynī, Sayyid Jalāl (Seyyed Jalal Hosseini) Badakhshānī (Badakhchani) (Tehran, 1395 hs/2016 ce), pp. 7-9Google Scholar.

21 Shafīʿī-Kadkanī, Muḥammad-Riḍā, “Qāʾīmiyyāt wa jāygāh-i ān dar shʿir wa adab-i Fārsī”, in Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyāt, (ed.) Sayyid Jalāl Ḥusaynī (Hosseini, Seyyed Jalal) Badakhshānī (Badakhchani) (Tehran, 1390 hs/2011 ce), pp. 19-21Google Scholar. Badakhchani, “Preface”, in Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyāt, pp. 10-11, provides the various forms of the name as they appear in different sources. For greater specificity, I have opted to include Ṣalāh al-Dīn, as attested to in Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Ṭūsī, Sayr ū sulūk, (ed. and trans.) Badakhchani, Seyyed Jalal Hosseini, Contemplation and Action: The Spiritual Autobiography of a Muslim Scholar (London, 1999), p. 6 (ed.), p. 30Google Scholar (trans), and supported not only in Ṭūsī’s other works, but also in Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh's Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh, as cited by Badakhchani. While “Kātib” is included in the name recorded in the publication of the dīwān, this form does not appear to be attested in the sources cited by Badakhchani, though Ṭūsī does refer to him as malik al-kuttāb.

22 Virani, Shafique N., The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, A Search for Salvation (New York, 2007), pp. 13, 26, 72, 87-90, 95, 120CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Abī Bakr Aḥmad al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal wa'l-niḥal, (eds) Amīr ʿAlī Muhannā and ʿAlī Ḥasan Fāʿūr (Bayrūt, 1421 ah/2001 ce), p. 228. Cf. Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm Shahrastānī, al-Milal wa'l-niḥal, (trans) Kazi, A. K. and Flynn, J. G., Muslim Sects and Divisions: The Section on Muslim Sects in Kitāb al-Milal wa'l-Niḥal (London, 1984), p. 65Google Scholar.

24 Abridged from al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal wa'l-niḥal, pp. 229-231. Cf. Shahrastānī, Muslim Sects and Divisions, pp. 165-167. All translations from Arabic, Persian and South Asian languages in this article are my own, except where indicated.

25 al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal wa'l-niḥal, pp. 231-232. Cf. Shahrastānī, Muslim Sects and Divisions, pp. 167-168; Hodgson, Marshall G. S., The Order of Assassins: The Struggle of the Early Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs against the Islamic World (New York, 1980; originally published, The Hague, 1955), p. 325Google Scholar.

26 Daftary, Farhad, Ismaili Literature: A Bibliography of Sources and Studies (London, 2004), pp. 114-115Google Scholar. Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ’s Fuṣūl was seen and paraphrased by three Persian historians of the Īlkhānid period as well, namely ʿAṭā-Malik Juwaynī, Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh and Abū’l-Qāsim Kāshānī.

27 Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Abī Bakr Aḥmad al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal wa'l-niḥal, (ed.) Sayyid Muḥammad ʿImādī (Seyyed Muhammad Emadi) Ḥāʾirī (Haeri), Tarjamah-yi kitāb al-milal wa'l-niḥal az mutarjimī-yi nāshinākhtah, nuskhah-yi bargardān-i dastnawīs-i shumārah-yi 2371-i kitābkhānah-yi Ayāṣūfiyā (Istānbūl), facsimile edition (Tehran, 1395 hs/2016 ce).

28 Shafique N. Virani, “Early Nizari Ismailism: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of Khwājah Qāsim Tushtarī’s Recognizing God”, in Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies (forthcoming).

29 Aṣl-i dīn Khudā-shināsī’st, wa farʿ ṭāʿatash. I am currently finalising a critical edition and translation of this work. The most thorough study to date is Muʿizzī, Maryam, “Bāznigarī dar rawābiṭ-i Ismāʿīliyān wa mulūk-i Nīmrūz bar pāyah-yi matanī-yi naw yāftah”, Muṭāliʿāt-i taʾrīkh-i Islām, 2, 6 (Autumn 1389 hs/[2010 ce])Google Scholar.

30 Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī Mullā Sadrā, al-Ḥikmah al-mutaʿāliyah fī asfār al-ʿaqliyyah al-arbaʿah, (ed.) Muẓaffar, Muḥammad Riḍā, 9 vols (Beirut, 1999), Vol. 3, p. 515Google Scholar. For a more complete translation of this passage and a study illustrating commonalities between the thought of Mullā Ṣadrā and Ismaili thinkers, see Sayeh Meisami, “A Critical Analysis of Discourses on Knowledge and Absolute Authority in the Works of Ḥamīd al-Dīn Kirmānī and Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī”, PhD thesis, University of Toronto, 2017. Landolt, Hermann, “Introduction”, in Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought; A New Persian Edition and English Translation of Naṣīr al-Dīn Tūsī’s Rawḍa-yi taslīm, (ed.) Badakhchani, Seyyed Jalal Hosseini (London, 2005)Google Scholar presents several insights into Ismaili influences on Ṣadrā. See also Hermann Landolt, “‘Being-Towards-Resurrection’: Mullā Ṣadrā’s Critique of Suhrawardī’s Eschatology”, in Roads to Paradise: Eschatology and Concepts of the Hereafter in Islam; Foundations and Formation of a Tradition, Reflections on the Hereafter in the Quran and Islamic Religious Thought, (eds) Günther, Sebastian, Lawson, Todd and Christian Mauder, 2 vols (Leiden, Netherlands, 2017), Vol. 1, Chapter 22Google Scholar and passim.

31 al-Qāḍī Abū Ḥanīfah ibn Muḥammad al-Nuʿmān, Taʾwīl al-daʿāʾim, (ed.) Muḥammad Ḥasan al-Aʿẓamī, 3 vols (Bayrūt, n.d.; originally published, al-Qāhirah, 1967-1972), Vol. 1, p. 79.

32 Aḥmad ibn Ḥamdān Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Aʿlām al-nubuwwah, (ed. and trans.) Khalidi, Tarif, The Proofs of Prophecy (Provo, Utah, 2011), p. 72 (ed.), p. 72Google Scholar (trans.). Khalidi compares this passage to Matthew 13:34.

33 Sayyid Suhrāb Walī Badakhshānī, Tuḥfat al-nāẓirīn (Sī ū shish ṣaḥīfah), (ed.) Hūshang (Hushang) Ujāqī (Ujaqi), Si-u shish sahifa (Thirty-six Epistles) (Tehran, 1961), p. 1Google Scholar; Sayyid Suhrāb Walī Badakhshānī, Tuḥfat al-nāẓirīn (Sī ū shish ṣaḥīfah) (Gilgit, Pakistan, 1960), p. 1Google Scholar.

34 Bū Isḥāq Quhistānī, Haft Bāb, (ed.) Ivanow, Wladimir, Haft Bab or “Seven Chapters” by Abu Ishaq Quhistani (Bombay, p. 1377 ah/1336Google Scholar hs/1957 ce [Persian cover]/1959 ce [English cover]), p. 2 (ed.), p. 1 (trans.). See also Ḥakīm Abū Muʿīn Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Zād al-musāfir, (eds) Ismāʿīl ʿImādī Ḥāʾirī and Muḥammad ʿImādī Ḥāʾirī (Tehran, 1384 hs/2005 ce), p. 22.

35 al-Dīn, Pīr Ṣadr, “Dhan dhan ājano dāḍalore ame harīvar pāyājī”, in 100 Ginānanī Chopaḍī, 4th edition, 6 vols (Mumbaī, 1990 vs/February 1934 ce), Vol. 5, p. 74Google Scholar.

36 For an exploration of this trope, see Virani, Shafique N., “Symphony of Gnosis: A Self-Definition of the Ismaili Ginān Literature”, Reason and Inspiration in Islam: Theology, Philosophy and Mysticism in Muslim Thought, (ed.) Lawson, Todd (London, 2005), Chapter 55, pp. 513-514Google Scholar.

37 Ṭūsī, Contemplation, p. 17 (ed.), p. 47 (trans.). For the role played by the Imams in the believers’ recognition of God, see Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, La religion discrète: Croyances et pratiques spirituelles dans l'Islam Shiʿite, (trans.) Karmali, Hafiz et al. , The Spirituality of Shiʿi Islam: Beliefs and Practices (London, 2011 ‒ originally published, Paris, 2006), p. 112Google Scholar.

38 A thorough examination of this concept in a variety of Muslim schools can be found in Landolt, Hermann, “Walāyah”, in Encyclopedia of Religion, (ed.) Jones, Lindsay, 2nd edition, 15 vols (Detroit, 2005), Vol. 14Google Scholar.

39 al-Qāḍī Abū Ḥanīfah ibn Muḥammad al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim al-Islām wa-dhikr al-ḥalāl wa'l-ḥarām wa'l-qaḍāyā wa'l-aḥkām, (trans.) Fyzee, Asaf Ali Asghar and Poonawala, Ismail Kurban Hussein, The Pillars of Islam: Acts of Devotion and Religious Observances, 2 vols (New Delhi, 2002), Vol. 1, p. 16Google Scholar. (Translation slightly emended).

40 Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Ṭūsī, ‘Maṭlūb al-muʾminīn’, in Shiʿi Interpretations of Islam: Three Treatises on Theology and Eschatology; A Persian Edition and English Translation of Tawallā wa tabarrā, Maṭlūb al-muʾminīn and Āghāz wa anjām of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, (ed. and trans.) Badakhchani, Seyyed Jalal Hosseini, Desideratum of the Faithful (London, 2010), p. 27 (ed.), p. 41 (trans.)Google Scholar.

41 In al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974), Daʿāʾim al-Islām wa-dhikr al-ḥalāl wa'l-ḥarām wa'l-qaḍāyā wa'l-aḥkām, (ed.) Āṣaf ibn ʿAlī Aṣghar (Asaf A. A.) Fayḍī (Fyzee), 3 vols (al-Qāhirah, 1951), Vol. 1, p. 25, the tradition is recorded as follows: man māta lā yaʿrifu imām dahrih ḥayyan māta mīta jāhiliyyah. See also footnote 2, which records that some manuscripts have ʿaṣrih in place of dahrih.

Aḥmad ibn Yaʿqūb Abū’l-Fawāris (d. circa 411/1020), al-Risālah fī’l-imāmah, (ed. and trans.) Sāmī Nasīb (Sami Nasib) Makārim (Makarem), The Political Doctrine of the Ismāʿīlīs (The Imamate): An Edition and Translation, with Introduction and Notes of Abū l-Fawāris Aḥmad ibn Yaʿqūb's ar-Risāla fī l-Imāma (Delmar, NY, 1977), p. 3 (ed.), p. 22 (trans.) gives man māta wa-lam yaʿrif imām zamānih māta mīta jāhiliyyah.

Al-Muʾayyad fī al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. 470/1078), al-Majālis al-Muʾayyadiyyah: al-miʾah al-ūlā, (ed.) Hātim Ḥamīd al-Dīn, 3 vols (Bombay, 1395 ah/1975 ce), Vol. 1, p. 110, has man māta wa-lam yaʿrif imām dahrih māta mīta jāhiliyyah.

Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Le Guide divin dans le shîʿisme originel: Aux sources de l’ésotérisme en Islam, (trans.) Streight, David, The Divine Guide in Early Shiʿism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam (Albany, 1994; originally published, Paris, 1992), p. 228 n. 671Google Scholar, provides several Twelver Shīʿī sources for this tradition (with slight variations in wording).

See also Amir-Moezzi, La religion discrète, p. 272. The tradition is well-attested in early Sunnī sources as well. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), Musnad al-Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, (ed.) Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation, 14 vols (Vaduz, Liechtenstein, 2007), Vol. 7, p. 3727, ḥadīth 17150, has man māta bi-ghayr imām māta mīta jāhiliyyah.

Muḥammad ibn Saʿd (d. 230/845) reports that ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar quoted this tradition to ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muṭīʿ in an effort to have him swear allegiance to Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah: man māta wa-lā bayʿah ʿalayh māta mīta jāhiliyyah: see Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, al-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr, (ed.) Eduard Sachau (Leiden, 1322 ah/1917 ce), p. 144.

42 An extensive background on sources for this well-known ḥadīth and its variants is provided in Ḥusayn Ṣābirī, Taʾrīkh-i firaq-i Islāmī, History of the Islamic Sects (Tehran, 1388 hs/[2009 ce]), p. 34; Friedlander, Israel, “The Heterodoxies of the Shiites in the Presentation of Ibn Hazm”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 28 (1907), pp. 6-7Google Scholar; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Abī Bakr Aḥmad al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal wa'l-niḥal, (trans.) Daniel Gimaret and Guy Monnot, Livre des religions et des sectes ([Leuven, Belgium], 1986), pp. 108-109; [Yūsuf bin Muḥammad al-Nīsābūrī] Abū Tammām, Bāb al-shayṭān min Kitāb al-shajarah, (eds and trans.) Madelung, Wilferd and Walker, Paul E., An Ismaili Heresiography: The “Bāb al-shayṭān” from Abū Tammām's Kitāb al-shajara (Leiden, 1998), pp. 7-8 (ed.), p. 27Google Scholar (trans.).

43 Abū’l-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanāʾī Ghaznawī, Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqah wa-sharīʿat al-ṭarīqah, (ed.) Muḥammad Taqī Mudarris Riḍawī, 6th edition (Tehran, 1387 hs/[2008 ce]), p. 63. Riḍawī’s edition reads chūn tū ham kunī. This should be corrected to chūn tawahhum kunī.

44 §12: this passage is somewhat corrupted in the manuscripts and has several small lacunae. It has been reconstructed using the very familiar sources for the dignitaries in the Ismaili ḥudūd-i dīn. Further details are available in my “Early Nizari Ismailism: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of Khwājah Qāsim Tushtarī’s Recognizing God”, in Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies (forthcoming).

45 A variant found solely in ms 15048, our oldest witness, adds al-hādī ilā ṭarīq al-yaqīn bar-guzīdah-yi ḥaḍrat-i rabb al-ʿālamīn, “the guide on the path of certitude, chosen by the lord of the worlds”. While these titles would more commonly be used of the Prophet or the Imam, we do find a similar expression used in the preface of the Paradise of Submission (Rawḍah-yi taslīm) for Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, who is described as khwājah-yi kāyināt wa dāʿī al-duʿāt, ikhtiyār-i mawlā al-ʿālamīn, translated by Badakhchani as “the chief missionary and master of creation, chosen by the lord of the worlds”: Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Ṭūsī and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Ḥasan-i Maḥmūd-i Kātib, Rawḍah-yi taslīm (Taṣawwurāt), (ed. and trans.) Badakhchani, Seyyed Jalal Hosseini, Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought; A New Persian Edition and English Translation of Naṣīr al-Dīn Tūsī’s Rawḍa-yi taslīm (London, 2005), p. 8 (ed.), p. 13 (trans.)Google Scholar.

46 Ibid., §3. Regarding the parallel usage of the conceptual pairs general (kullī)/specific (juzwī) and common (ʿāmm)/exclusive (khāṣṣ), see Chittick, William C., The Heart of Islamic Philosophy: The Quest for Self-Knowledge in the Teachings of Afḍal al-Dīn Kāshānī (Oxford, 2001), p. 89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Muʿīn al-Dīn ʿAlī Ḥusaynī Qāsim-i Anwār, Kulliyāt-i Qāsim-i Anwār, (ed.) Nafīsī, Saʿīd (Tehran, 1958)Google Scholar. Qāsim-i Anwār's name is found in Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attribution), Shinākht-i imām—1960, p. 13; Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attribution), Shinākht-i imām—1947, p. 29; See also Virani, Ismailis in the Middle Ages, pp. 104, 118.

48 On Sanāʾī’s “Names, pen names and epithets”, see de Bruijn, J. T. P., Of Piety and Poetry: The Interaction of Religion and Literature in the Life and Works of Ḥakīm Sanāʾī of Ghazna (Leiden, 1983), pp. 19-22Google Scholar.

49 In this regard, see Virani, “Alamūt, Ismailism and Khwājah Qāsim Tushtarī’s Recognizing God”. Another less likely identification is the contemporary ʿAlid poet, Sharaf al-Dīn Muḥammad Nāṣir. In his short mathnawī, the satirical cum panegyric Memoirs of Balkh (Kār-nāmah-yi Balkh), Sanāʾī alludes to a number of his contemporary poets, one being this Sharaf al-Dīn, whom Sanāʾī singles out for extensive praise and lauds as “the lamp of the Prophet's descendants” (shamʿ-i nabīragān-i rasūl). Sanāʾī composed an ode in his honour. One of Sharif al-Dīn's own odes is preserved in Muḥammad ʿAwfī’s (d. after 630/1233) Essences of Intellects (Lubāb al-albāb), which was apparently completed in 618/1221. It is also possible that Sharaf al-Dīn Muḥammad, the son of Raʾīs Muẓaffar, and the Sharaf al-Dīn Muḥammad Nāṣir celebrated by Sanāʾī are the same person. ʿAwfī, Muḥammad, Lubāb al-albāb, (ed.) Browne, Edward Granville, 2 vols (London, 1321 ah/1903 ce), Vol. 2, pp. 267-270Google Scholar; see also de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, pp. 56, 194, 261 n.101; Blois, François C. de, Persian Literature: Poetry ca. A.D. 1100 to 1225 (London, 1994), Vol. 5, part 2, pp. 420-421Google Scholar; Matīnī, J., “ʿAwfī, Sadīd-al-Dīn”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, (ed.) Yarshater, Ehsan, online edition (New York, 2011)Google Scholar, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/awfi-sadid-al-din, [accessed 27 May 2018]; Jawid A. Mojaddedi, “Ḥallāj, Abu'l-Muḡiṯ Ḥusayn”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica (2012), (ed.) Yarshater, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/karnama-ye-balk, [accessed 27 May 2018].

50 The latest recension of The Orchard of Reality was the unredacted version prepared shortly before 525/1131, the approximate year in which Sanāʾī is believed to have passed away. See J. T. P. de Bruijn, “Sanāʾī”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, (eds) Bearman et al., http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/sanai-SIM_6594?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopaedia-of-islam-2&s.q=sanai; J. T. P. de Bruijn, “Ḥadiqat al-ḥaqiqa wa šariʿat al-ṭariqa”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica (2012), (ed.) Yarshater, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/hadiqat-al-haqiqa-wasariat-al-tariqa, [accessed 30 May 2018]. Regarding the difficulty of establishing a precise date for Sanāʾī’s death, considerations for the most likely year and the state of the poem at the time of Sanāʾī’s passing, see de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, pp. 23-25, 81, 86.

51 This and the remainder of the paragraph are based on a composite of the narratives of Jamāl al-Dīn Abū’l-Qāsim ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī Kāshānī, Zubdat al-tawārīkh: Bakhsh-i Fāṭimiyān wa Nizāriyān, (ed.) Muḥammad Taqī Dānishpazhūh, 2nd edition (Tehran, 1366 hs/1987 ce), p. 119, and Faḍl Allāh Ṭabīb Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh: Taʾrīkh-i Ismāʿīliyān, (ed.) Muḥammad (Muhammad) Rawshan (Raushan) (Tehran, 1387 hs/2008 ce), pp. 155-156Google Scholar.

52 Muḥammad ibn Malik Shāh, commonly known as Muḥammad Tapar, was particularly active in his attacks on the Ismailis. See Daftary, Farhad, “Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ and the Origins of the Nizārī Ismaʿili Movement”, in Mediaeval Ismaʿili History and Thought, (ed.) Daftary, Farhad (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 190-191, 198-199Google Scholar. Ismaili impressions of Muḥammad Tapar are preserved in the Alamūt period text, Malik-i Sīstān, a critical edition and translation of which I am currently in an advanced stage of preparing.

53 On Dihistānī, see Clifford Edmund Bosworth, “Dehestānī, Aʿazz-al-MolkNeẓam-al-Dīn (sic) Abu'l-Maḥāsen ʿAbd-al-Jalīl b. ʿAlī”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica (2011), (ed.) Yarshater, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/dehestani-abd-al-jalil, [accessed 27 May 2018].

54 See, respectively, Rashīd al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Maybudī, Kashf al-asrār wa-ʿuddat al-abrār, maʿrūf bi-Tafsīr-i Khwājah ʿAbd Allāh Anṣārī, (ed.) ʿAlī Aṣghar Ḥikmat, 10 vols (Tehran, 1331-1339 hs/1952-1960 ce), Vol. 9, p. 300Google Scholar; and Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār, Tadhkirat al-awliyāʾ, (ed.) Muḥammad Istiʿlāmī, 2nd edition (Tehran, 2535 Shāhinshāhī/[1976 ce]), p. 151. With regard to the cited verse, and additional references to quotations of it, see Muḥammad ibn Munawwar ibn Abī Saʿd ibn Abī Ṭāhir ibn Abī Saʿīd, Asrār al-tawḥīd fī maqāmāt al-Shaykh Abī Saʿīd, (ed.) Muḥammad Riḍā Shafīʿī Kadkanī, 7th edition, 2 vols (Tehran, 1386 hs/[2007 ce]Google Scholar; originally published, 1366 hs), Vol. 2, p. 796. For an overview of the authenticity of the corpus attributed to Abū Saʿīd, and further references, see Gerhard Böwering, “Abū Saʿīd Abi'l-Ḵayr”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, (ed.) Yarshater, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abu-said-fazlallah-b, [accessed 30 May 2018]; Najib Mayel Heravi and Farzin Negahban, “Abū Saʿīd b. Abī al-Khayr”, in Encyclopaedia Islamica, (eds) Wilferd Madelung and Farhad Daftary, (Leiden, 2008), http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-islamica/abu-sa-i-d-b-abi-al-khayr-COM_0131.

55 Thiesen, Finn, A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody: With Chapters on Urdu, Karakhanidic and Ottoman Prosody (Wiesbaden, 1982), p. 95Google Scholar.

56 de Bruijn, “Ḥadiqat al-ḥaqiqa wa šariʿat al-ṭariqa”. Romanisation in passage modified.

57 de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, pp. 146, 184-185.

58 Arberry, Arthur J., Classical Persian Literature (London, 1958), p. 89Google Scholar. Romanisation modified.

59 Muḥammad-Riḍā Shafīʿī-Kadkanī, Tāziyānah-hā-yi sulūk: naqd wa taḥlīl-i chand qaṣīdah az Ḥakīm Sanāʾī, Chapter 1, 2nd edition (Tehran, 1376 hs/[1997 ce]), pp. 292-293, 299, 306-308, 317, 339-340, 347, 362, 364, 369, 420, 478, 481; Lewisohn, Leonard, “Hierocosmic Intellect and Universal Soul in a Qaṣīda by Nāṣir-i Khusraw”, Iran, 45 (2007), p. 220 n.8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, pp. 12-13, 73-74; Qāḍī Sayyid Nūr Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh Shushtarī, Majālis al-Muʾminīn, 2 vols (Tehran, 1354 hs/1975 ce), Vol. 2, pp. 77-91; ʿAbd al-Jalīl ibn Abī’l-Ḥusayn Qazwīnī-Rāzī, Kitāb al-naqḍ maʿrūf ba baʿḍ mathālib al-Nawāṣib fi naqḍ faḍāʾiḥ al-Rawāfiḍ, 2 vols (Tehran, 1358 hs/1979 ce), Vol. 1, p. 232Google Scholar; Kazuo Morimoto, “Kitāb al-naqż”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica (2015), (ed.) Yarshater, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ketab-al-naqz, [accessed 27 May 2018].

61 Sanāʾī Ghaznawī, Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqah, p. 18; de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, p. 120.

62 de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, p. 268 n.263.

63 Jafri, Syed Husain M., The Origins and Early Development of Shiʿa Islam (London, 1979), p. 53Google Scholar. The prominent Fāṭimid Ismaili luminary al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974), Sharḥ al-akhbār fī faḍāʾil al-aʾimmat al-aṭhār, (ed.) Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī al-Jalālī, 2nd ed., 3 vols (Beirut, 1427 ah/2006 ce), Vol. 1, p. 108, specifically identifies these four personalities in his description of the early Shīʿī community.

64 Ḥakīm Abū Muʿīn Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Dīwān-i ashʿār-i Ḥakīm Nāṣir-i Khusraw Qubādiyānī, (eds) Mujtabā Mīnuwī and Mahdī (Mehdi) Muḥaqqiq (Mohaghegh), reprint edition (Tehran, 1357 hs/1978 ce; originally published, Tehran, 1353 hs/1974 ce), Vol. 1, poem 242, 508.

65 de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, pp. 12-13, 35.

66 Ibid., p. 74. At the same time, he does not agree with Nūr Allāh Shustarī’s assessment of Sanāʾī as a Shīʿī. See ibid., pp. 247-248.

67 Tetley, Gillies, The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks: Poetry as a Source for Iranian History (London, 2009), p. 140Google Scholar.

68 Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh, “Ferdowsi, Abu'l-Qāsem”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica (2012), (ed.) Yarshater, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ferdowsi-i, [accessed 27 May 2018]; Farhad Daftary, “Fatimids”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica (2012), (ed.) Yarshater, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/fatimids, [accessed 27 May 2018]. I have come across a copy of a portion of an uncatalogued Persian manuscript at the Institute of Ismaili Studies containing an Ismaili prayer that prominently incorporates verses written by Firdawsī. Certain passages in the prayer suggest it may have originally been composed between the declaration of the qiyāmah, which ostensibly took place in 559/1164, and the fall of the fortress in 655/1256, while the Ismaili Imams were resident at Alamūt. The handwriting appears to be that of the aforementioned scribe Muḥammad Ḥusayn ibn Mīrzā ʿAlī, “the fashioner of ʿArabī footwear” of Sidih, who copied the Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyāt in 1101/1689. The prayer must have been scribed some time before the Dīwān, as the Imām Khalīl Allāh (r. 1082-1090/1671-1680) is mentioned as the Imam of the time. The prayer begins:

اللهم مولانا

توكلت بمولانا، توكلت بمولانا. توكل کردم و بیزارم از خویش و بدو باز گشتم.

69 de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, p. 81.

70 Abū’l-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanāʾī Ghaznawī, Makātīb-i Sanāʾī, (ed.) Aḥmad, Nadhīr (Tehran, 1379 ah/[1960 ce]), letter 16, pp. 145-149Google Scholar.

71 Sanāʾī Ghaznawī, Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqah, p. 746. See also de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, p. 81.

72 Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attribution), “Shinākht-i imām—1922”, p. 17 (ed.), p. 32 (trans.).

73 Virani, Ismailis in the Middle Ages, pp. 71-72, 145-146. The designation is found, for example, in many poems in Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Ḥasan-i Maḥmūd-i Kātib, Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyāt, (ed.) Sayyid Jalāl Ḥusaynī (Seyyed Jalal Hosseini) Badakhshānī (Badakhchani), Poems of the Resurrection (Tehran, 1390 hs/2011 ce), index, ahl-i ḥaqq, q.v. My forthcoming study on the various designations used for the Ismailis in a variety of regions, languages and time periods, portions of which have been presented at the Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (2002), and the Conference for the International Society for Iranian Studies (2012), argues that “People of Truth” is the most universal of all the names used by the Ismailis to designate their own community.

74 Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attrib.), Shinākht-i imām—1960, 13; Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud. attrib.), Shinākht-i imām—1947, p. 29. Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī goes even further in his Qitaʿāt, stating that Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī was a ḥujjah of the Imam. Muḥammad Riḍā ibn Khwājah Sulṭān Ḥusayn Ghūriyānī Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī (pseud.), Qitaʿāt in Tasnifat-i Khayr-khwah-i Herati (Works of Khayr-khwah Herati), (ed.) Ivanow, Wladimir (Tehran, 1961), p. 78Google Scholar. I am at an advanced stage in the preparation of critical editions and translations of Khayrkhwāh's Risālah and Qitaʿāt, including the hitherto unpublished twenty-seventh Qitaʿ.

75 The following discussion of Sanāʾī in the Poems of the Resurrection draws liberally from the pioneering work of Muḥammad-Riḍā Shafīʿī-Kadkanī, “Qāʾīmiyyāt wa jāygāh-i ān dar shʿir wa adab-i Fārsī”, in Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyāt, pp. 36-40.

76 Ḥasan-i Maḥmūd-i Kātib, Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyāt, p. 44.

77 Abū’l-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanāʾī Ghaznawī, Dīwān-i Ḥakīm Sanāʾī Ghaznawī bar asās-i muʿtabartarīn nuskhah-hā, (eds) Parwīz Bābāʾī and Badīʿ al-Zamān Furūzānfar (Tehran, 1381 hs/[2002 ce]), p. 58.

78 Ḥasan-i Maḥmūd-i Kātib, Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyāt, p. 50. Both the first and second editions of the Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyat read ba īn yak nuktah-yi gharrā. I have amended this to badīn yak nuktah-yi gharrā. Riḍawī’s edition has bad kardam in place of dar manzil, Sanāʾī Ghaznawī, Ḥadīqat al-ḥaqīqah.

79 Ḥasan-i Maḥmūd-i Kātib, Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyāt, poem 128, pp. 338-341.

80 Cited and translated in Ṭūsī and Ḥasan-i Maḥmūd-i Kātib, Rawḍah-yi taslīm (Taṣawwurāt), §3.

81 Ibid., pp. 213-214 (ed.), pp. 172-173 (trans.); Sanāʾī Ghaznawī, Dīwān, p. 58.

82 Saʿd al-Dīn ibn Shams al-Dīn Ḥakīm Nizārī Quhistānī, Mathnawī-yi Rūz ū Shab, (ed.) Naṣr Allāh (Nasrollah) Pūrjawādī (Pourjavady), Ruz o Shab: The Debate Between Day and Night; A Mathnavi Composed in 699/1300 (Tehran, 1385 hs/2006 ce).

83 Naṣr Allāh (Nasrollah) Pūrjawādī (Pourjavady), “Muqaddamah-yi musaḥḥih”, “Ruz o Shab: The Debate between Day and Night; A Mathnavi Composed in 699/1300”, in Mathnawī-yi rūz-ū shab: Surūdah-yi Ḥakīm Nizārī Quhistānī bih sāl-i 699, (ed.) Naṣr Allāh (Nasrollah) Pūrjawādī (Pourjavady) (Tehran, 1385 hs/2006 ce), p. 8. Pūrjawādī points out that Nizārī’s early attribution of this poem to the pen of ʿAṭṭār should make us reconsider doubts that have been raised about his authorship. Regarding these doubts, see Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār, Mukhtār-nāmah: Majmūʿah-yi rubāʿīyāt (Tehran, 1375 hs/1996 ce), pp. 22-59, as cited in Landolt, Hermann, “ʿAṭṭār, Sufism and Ismailism”, in ʿAṭṭār and the Persian Sufi Tradition: The Art of Spiritual Flight, (eds) Lewisohn, Leonard and Shackle, Christopher (London, 2006), p. 21 n.3Google Scholar. Muḥammad-Riḍā Shafīʿī-Kadkanī, Zabūr-i Pārsī: Nigāhī bih zindagī wa ghazal-hā-yi ʿAṭṭār (Tehran, 1378 hs/1999 ce), pp. 96-101. The year of composition of Azhar wa Mazhar 700/1301 found in the following verses:

muʾarrakh mī kunam īn naẓm az āghāz
kih ākhir kay az ū pardākhtam bāz
bih sāl-i haft sad az waqt-i hijrat
durūd az mā bar Aḥmad bād ū ʿitrat

Saʿd al-Dīn ibn Shams al-Dīn Ḥakīm Nizārī Quhistānī, “Azhar wa Mazhar”, 837 ah/[1434 ce]; MS 415, Российская национальная библиотека (National Library of Russia); 487 recto. A description of the manuscript is found in Dorn, Boris Andreevich, Catalogue des manuscrits et xylographes orientaux de la Bibliothèque impériale publique de St. Pétersbourg (St Petersburg, 1852), p. 365Google Scholar.

84 Ḥakīm Nizārī Quhistānī, “Azhar wa Mazhar”; MS 415; Российская национальная библиотека (National Library of Russia); 487 recto.

85 de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, p. 22.

86 Ibid., pp. 53-54.

87 Several interpretations of the term in different Muslim environments are found in Melchert, Christopher, “The Interpretation of Three Qur'anic Terms (Siyāḥa, Ḥikma and Ṣiddīq) of Special Interest to the Early Renunciants”, in The Meaning of the Word: Lexicology and Qur'anic Exegesis, (ed.) Burge, Stephen R. (Oxford, 2015), pp. 96-102Google Scholar.

88 The Ismaili concept of ummī, here left simply as “unlettered”, is explored in greater depth in Abū Naṣr Hibat Allāh ibn Abī ʿImrān Mūsā al-Muʾayyad fī’l-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, al-Majālis al-Muʾayyadiyyah: al-miʾah al-thāniyah, (ed.) Ḥātim Ḥamīd al-Dīn, 3 vols (Oxford, 1407 ah/1986 ce), Vol. 2, pp. 467-468Google Scholar; Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Zād al-musāfir, pp. 194-195. Ḥakīm Nāṣir-i Khusraw, for example, speaks of this concept in terms of the veils of the Prophet's insight being lifted, so that he could read the signs of God in creation.

89 al-Nuʿmān, Taʾwīl al-daʿāʾim, Vol. 1, pp. 70-71.

90 al-Muʾayyad fī’l-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, al-Majālis al-Muʾayyadiyyah, Vol. 2, p. 302. See also al-Muʾayyad fī’l-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, al-Majālis al-Muʼayyadiyyah, Vol. 1, p. 359.

91 Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī Mullā Sadrā, Sharḥ Uṣūl al-kāfī: Kitāb faḍl al-ʿilm wa-Kitāb al-ḥujjah, (eds) Khwājawī, Muḥammad and Nūrī, ʿAlī, 2nd edition, 4 vols (Tehran, 1383 hs/2004 ce), Vol. 2, p. 551Google Scholar. Translated in Meisami, “Discourses on Knowledge”, pp. 194-195, translation modified.

92 Ḥakīm Abū Muʿīn Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Jāmiʿ al-ḥikmatayn, (eds) Corbin, Henry and Muʿīn, Muḥammad, Kitab-e Jamiʿ al-Hikmatain: Le livre réunissant les deux sagesses; ou harmonie de la philosophie Grecque et de la théosophie Ismaélienne (Tehran, 1953), p. 16Google Scholar. Wārith-i maqām in the text should be read maqām-i wirāthat.

93 Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Dīwān-i Nāṣir-i Khusraw—Mīnuwī and Muḥaqqiq, Vol. 1, poem 170, p. 356.

94 Nāṣir al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Abī Manṣūr Muḥtasham and Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Ṭūsī, Akhlāq-i Muḥtashamī (Tehran, 1339 hs/1960 ce), pp. 1-2. I am currently preparing an English translation of this work.

95 de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, p. 22.

96 Ḥasan-i Maḥmūd-i Kātib, Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyāt, p. 218; Sanāʾī Ghaznawī, Dīwān, p. 126.

97 Sayyid Jalāl Ḥusaynī (Seyyed Jalal Hosseini) Badakhshānī (Badakhchani), “Muqaddimah-yi muṣaḥḥiḥ”, in Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyāt, (ed.) Sayyid Jalāl Ḥusaynī (Seyyed Jalal Hosseini) Badakhshānī (Badakhchani) (Tehran, 1390 hs/2011 ce), p. 10.

98 Kāshānī, Zubdat, p. 9. The same poem, with minor variations, can be found on p. 62 of the critical edition. The editor of the Zubdat provides additional references for the poetry's attribution to Sanāʾī in his notes. The third poem is also attributed to other poets, as Kadkanī notes. However, the fact that the first two poems are explicitly attributed to Sanāʾī by Kāshānī strongly suggests that he felt the third poem was also Sanāʾī’s.

99 For contemporary examples of this, refer to my study of Kāshānī’s account of Dihkhudā (Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ) and Raʾīs Muẓaffar in Virani, “Alamūt, Ismailism and Khwājah Qāsim Tushtarī’s Recognizing God”.

100 de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, pp. 68-71; Sanāʾī Ghaznawī, Makātīb-i Sanāʾī, pp. 130-136. Sanāʾī’s professional dealings and personal friendship with the poet ʿUthmān-i Mukhtārī, who introduced him to one of his relatives as “having no equal among his contemporaries”, may also deserve deeper investigation, as Mukhtārī had served at the court of the ruler of Ṭabas-i Gīlakī, the chief city of the Ismaili stronghold of Quhistān. ʿUthmān ibn Muḥammad Mukhtārī Ghaznawī, Dīwān-i ʿUthmān Mukhtārī, (ed.) Jalāl al-Dīn Humā’ī (Tehran, 1341 hs/1962 ce), pp. 7, 245, as cited in de Bruijn, Of Piety and Poetry, p. 161. In this regard see also ibid., pp. 150-151, and Tetley, The Ghaznavid and Seljuk Turks, p. 138.

101 Ṭūsī, Contemplation, p. 6 (ed.), p. 26 (trans.).

102 Landolt, Hermann, “Foreword”, in Keys to the Arcana: Shahrastānī’s Esoteric Commentary on the Quʾran; A Translation of the Commentary on Sūrah al-Fātiḥa from Muhammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Shahrastānī’s Mafātīḥ al-Asrār wa Maṣābīḥ al-Abrār, (ed.) Mayer, Toby (London, 2009)Google Scholar, provides a useful review of many of the developments of this point of view in scholarship. See also Dānishpazhūh, Muḥammad Taqī, “Dāʿī al-duʿāt Tāj al-Dīn Shahrastānah”, Nāmah-yi Āstān-i Quds, 7, 2-3 (1346 hs/1967 ce)Google Scholar; Muḥammad Taqī Dānishpazhūh, “Dāʿī al-duʿāt Tāj al-Dīn Shahrastānah”, Nāmah-yi Āstān-i Quds, 9, 4 (1347 hs/1968 ce); Diane Steigerwald, La pensée philosophique et théologique de Shahrastānī (m. 548/1153), Sainte-Foy, Québec, 1997).

103 Madelung, Wilferd and Mayer, Toby, “Introduction: Al-Shahrastānī, Ismaʿilism and Philosophy”, in Struggling with the Philosopher: A Refutation of Avicenna's Metaphysics, A New Arabic Edition and English Translation of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Shahrastānī’s Kitāb al-Muṣāraʿa (London, 2001), p. 4Google Scholar.

104 Ṭūsī, Contemplation, p. 1 (ed.), p. 23 (trans.), romanisation and translation slightly emended.

105 See Rashīd al-Dīn, Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh: Taʾrīkh-i Ismāʿīliyān, pp. 116-119; Kāshānī, Zubdat, pp. 151-155. The relevant passages are translated in Virani, “Alamūt, Ismailism and Khwājah Qāsim Tushtarī’s Recognizing God”.

106 ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī’l-taʾrīkh, (ed.) ʿAlī Shīrī (Bayrūt, 1425 ah/2004 ce), Vol. 9, p. 67Google Scholar.

107 Ż. Sajjādi, “Abu'l-ʿAlāʾ Ganjavī, Neẓām-al-Dīn Maḥmūd”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica (2011), (ed.) Yarshater, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abul-ala-ganjavi-poet, [accessed 28 May 2018].

108 Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Sajjādī, “Muqaddimah”, in Dīwān-i Khāqānī-yi Shīrwānī, (ed.) Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Sajjādī (Tehran, 1382 ah/1338 hs/[1960 ce]?), p. iiiGoogle Scholar.

109 Badīʿ al-Zamān Furūzānfar, Sukhan wa sukhanwarān, reprint ed., 2 vols (Tehran, 1369 hs/1990 ce), Vol. 2, p. 323.

110 Shafīʿī-Kadkanī, “Qāʾīmiyyāt wa jāygāh-i ān dar shʿir wa adab-i Fārsī”, in Dīwān-i qāʾimiyyāt, p. 14.

111 ʿAwfī, Lubāb al-albāb, Vol. 2, p. 33.

112 For further details and references, see Shafique N. Virani, “Ahl al-Bayt”, in Encyclopedia of Religion, (ed.) Jones.

113 Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Dīwān-i Nāṣir-i Khusraw—Mīnuwī and Muḥaqqiq, Vol. 1, poem 10, 23; Ḥakīm Abū Muʿīn Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Dīwān-i ashʿār-i Ḥakīm Abū Muʿīn Ḥamīd al-Dīn Nāṣir-i Khusraw Qubādiyānī: Ba inḍimām-i Rawshanāʾī-nāmah, Saʿādat-nāmah, wa Risālahī ba nathr dar jawāb-i nawad ū yak suʾāl, (eds) Naṣr Allāh Taqawī and Mujtabā Mīnūwī, Mahdī Suhaylī reprint edition (Tehran, 1339 hs/[1960 ce]; originally published, Tehran, 1304-1307 hs/1925-1928 ce), p. 47; de Bruijn, J. T. P., “Kesāʾi Marvazi”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica (2008)Google Scholar, (ed.) Yarshater, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kesai-marvazi-persian-poet, [accessed 28 May 2018].

114 Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Dīwān-i Nāṣir-i Khusraw—Taqawī, Mīnūwī and Taqīzadah, p. 354; Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Dīwān-i Nāṣir-i Khusraw—Mīnuwī and Muḥaqqiq, Vol. 1. See also indices, q.v. Kisāʾī. Riyāḥī, Muḥammad Amīn, “Qaṣīdah-ī az Kisāʾī Marwazī”, Yaghmā, 22, 10 (1969)Google Scholar; Riyāḥī, Muḥammad Amīn, “Pīshraw-i Nāṣir-i Khusraw”, Yaghmā, 27, 10 (1974)Google Scholar; Muḥammad Amīn Riyāḥī, “Yādnāmah-yi Nāṣir-i Khusraw”, (Mashhad, 2535 Shahinshāhī/[1355 hs]/1976 ce).

115 Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar Niẓāmī-yi ʿArūḍī-yi Samarqandī, Chahār maqālah, (eds) Qazwīnī, Muḥammad and Muʿīn, Muḥammad (Tehran, 1955), p. 97 (ed.), pp. 89-97Google Scholar (commentary), and Saʿīd Nafīsī, Taʾrīkh-i naẓm wa nathr dar Īrān wa dar zabān-i Fārsī, 2 vols (Tehran, 1344 hs/[1965 ce]), Vol. 1, pp. 26, 37-38Google Scholar; de Bruijn, “Kesāʾi Marvazi”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica. On ʿAbd al-Jalīl Rāzī, see Wilferd Madelung, “ʿAbd-Al-Jalīl Rāzī”, in Encyclopaedia Iranica (2011), (ed.) Yarshater, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abd-al-jalil-qazvini-razi-emami-shiite-scholar-12th-century, [accessed 28 May 2018].

116 Qutbuddin, Tahera, Al-Muʾayyad al-Shīrāzī and Fatimid Daʿwa Poetry: A Case of Commitment in Classical Arabic Literature (Leiden, 2005)Google Scholar, passim. See also Abū Naṣr Hibat Allāh ibn Abī ʿImrān Mūsā al-Muʾayyad fī’l-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, Dīwān, (ed.) Ḥusayn, Muḥammad Kāmil, Dīwān al-Muʾayyad fī-al-Dīn dāʿī al-duʿāt (al-Qāhirah, 1949)Google Scholar; Abū Naṣr Hibat Allāh ibn Abī ʿImrān Mūsā al-Muʾayyad fī’l-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, Dīwān, (trans.) Adra, Mohamad, Mount of Knowledge, Sword of Eloquence: Collected Poems of an Ismaili Muslim Scholar in Fatimid Egypt; A Translation from the Original Arabic of al-Mu'ayyad al-Shīrāzī’s Dīwān (London, 2011)Google Scholar.

117 The verse is recorded in the writings of ʿAwfī, Lubāb al-albāb, and Amīn Aḥmad Rāzī in Tadhkira-yi haft iqlīm, see Nafīsī, Taʾrīkh-i naẓm wa nathr dar Īrān wa dar zabān-i Fārsī, Vol. 1, pp. 264, 282, 296. Tibyāniyān, Ḥujjat Allāh, “Rūdakī”, in Dānishnāmah-yi Adab-i Fārsī: Adab-i Fārsī dar Āsyā-yi Miyānah (An Encyclopedia of Persian Literature: Persian Literature in Central Asia), (ed.) Anūshah, Ḥasan, 2nd edition, 5 vols (Tehran, 1380 hs/2001 ce), Vol. 1, pp. 460-463Google Scholar.

118 François C. de Blois, “Rūdakī”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, (eds) Bearman et al., http://referenceworks.brillonline.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/rudaki-SIM_6319?s.num=0&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopaedia-of-islam-2&s.q=rudaki.

119 Arberry, Arthur J., Sufism: An Account of the Mystics of Islam (London, 1950), p. 141Google Scholar. Diacritical marks added; “the spirit” and “his eyes” modified to “its spirit” and “its eyes”.

120 Schimmel, Annemarie, A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry (Chapel Hill, 1992), pp. 5, 31Google Scholar; Thiesen, Classical Persian Prosody, p. 203.

121 Nafīsī, Saʿīd, Muḥīṭ-i zindagī wa aḥwāl wa ashʿār-i Rūdakī, 2nd edition (Tehran, 1341 hs/[1963 ce]), p. 516Google Scholar.

122 Examples of the few surviving couplets can be seen in Saʿīd Nafīsī, Muḥīṭ-i zindagī wa-aḥwāl wa-ashʿār-i Rūdakī, 3rd edition (Tehran, [1983 ce]), pp. 532-560Google Scholar. An example from p. 532 is provided.

123 Cf. Thiesen, Classical Persian Prosody, p. 129.

124 Cf. ibid., p. 18.

125 See, for example, Wladimir Ivanow, “Sufism and Ismailism: Chiragh-Nama”, Majallā-yi Mardum-Shināsī/Revue Iranienne d'Anthropologie, 3 (1338 hs/1959 ce); Ivanow, Wladimir, “Ismailism and Sufism”, Ismaili Bulletin, 1, 12 (September 1975)Google Scholar; Henry Corbin, Trilogie Ismaélienne: 1. Abū Yaʿqūb Sejestānī: Le livre des sources (4e/10es.) 2. Sayyid-nā al-Hosayn ibn ʿAlī: Cosmogonie et eschatologie (7e/13es.) 3. Symboles choisis de la roseraie du mystère, de Mahmūd Shabestarī (8e/14es), Īrān wa Yaman: yaʿnī sih risālah-yi Ismāʿīlī (Téhéran, 1340 hs/1961 ce), p. 3; Shāh Ṭāhir al-Dakkanī (attrib.), Baʿḍī az taʾwīlāt-i gulshan-i rāz, in Trilogie Ismaélienne (ed. and trans.) Henry Corbin, Symboles choisis de la roseraie du mystère, de Mahmūd Shabestarī (8e/14es) (Téhéran, 1340 hs/1961 ce), passim.

126 See, for example, Daftary, Farhad, “Ismāʿīlī-Sufi Relations in Early Post-Alamūt and Safavid Persia”, in The Heritage of Sufism: Late Classical Persianate Sufism (1501–1750), (eds) Lewisohn, Leonard and Morgan, David, 3 vols (Oxford, 1999), Vol. 3Google Scholar; Lewisohn, Leonard, “Sufism and Ismāʿīlī Doctrine in the Persian Poetry of Nizārī Quhistānī (645-721/1247-1321)”, Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, 41 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Algar, Hamid, “The Revolt of Āghā Khān Maḥallātī and the Transference of the Ismāʿīlī Imamate to India”, Studia Islamica, 29 (1969)Google Scholar; Pourjavady, Nasrollah and Wilson, Peter Lamborn, “Ismā’īlīs and Niʿmatullāhīs”, Studia Islamica, 41 (1975)Google Scholar; Meier, Fritz, “Ismailiten und Mystik im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert”, Persica, 16 (2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Landolt, “ʿAṭṭār, Sufism and Ismailism”, in ʿAṭṭār and the Persian Sufi Tradition: The Art of Spiritual Flight.

127 Virani, Ismailis in the Middle Ages, pp. 66-68, 74, 104, 106, 142-148; Shafique N. Virani, “The Voice of Truth: Life and Works of Sayyid Nūr Muḥammad Shāh, a 15th/16th Century Ismāʿīlī Mystic”, Master's thesis, McGill University, 1995, pp. 44-50.