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Some Unknown Ismā'īlī Authors and their Works1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
When Griffini published an account of the latest acquisition of a “collection of South-Arabian MSS.” by the Ambrosian Library, Milan, the distinguished orientalist, Ignaz Goldziher, to whom oriental scholarship is indebted for his able researches on the doctrines and history of the Isma'īlīs, welcomed the news, for most of the information on the subject of the Ismā'īlīs he and his forerunners were able to communicate to us was derived either from inadequate sources or from the anti-Ismā'īlī polemical literature. Similarly, Professor Louis Massignon expressed the hope that modern scholars would throw further light on the history of the Ismā'īlīs and their doctrine by study of this literature.
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- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1933
References
page 359 note 2 ZDMG.lxix, p. 80: “Die jüngste südarabische Sammlung hat uns noch eine angenehme Überraschung bereitet. Dieselbe enthält nämlich einige Handschriften von Werken, welche der vielseitigen zaiditischen Literatur Südarabiens ganz fremd sind.”
page 359 note 3 Esquisse d'une bibliographie Qarmate, A Volume of Oriental Studies presented to E. G. Browne, 1922, p. 332.
page 360 note 1 The Dā'ī; Idrīs ‘Imādu'd-dīn al-Anf (died in a.h. 872 = a.d. 1468), the head of the Yemenite Da'wat, wrote the history of the Da'wat entitled 'Uyūnu'l-alkhbār in seven volumes, Nuzhatu'l-afkār and Raudaḍtu'l-akhbār. The former two works have been preserved in my collection and the lastnamed in the Leiden University Library No. 1972.
page 361 note 1 The highest dignitary next to the Imām in the Da'wat.
page 361 note 2 See my note on p. 128 of JRAS., January, 1932.
page 361 note 3 This correspondence is also preserved by the Da'wat of the Yemen in a book entitled as-Sijillātu'l-Mustanṣirīya, a copy of which is now in the possession of the School of Oriental Studies.
page 362 note 1 See below, pp. 375–6.
page 362 note 2 Idrīs explains that al-Mustanṣir prophesied the assassination of Lamak's master aṣ-Ṣulaiḥī.
page 362 note 3 
(Idrīs 'Imadu'd-dīn, 'Uyūnu'l-akhbar, vii, p. 103).
page 363 note 1 See my paper “The Life and Times of Queen Saiyidah Arwā the Sulaihid of the Yemen”: JRCAS. 1931, pp. 505 ff.
page 363 note 2 See note on p. 128 of JRAS., January, 1932.
page 363 note 3 After I delivered this lecture in Jerusalem, I visited the Yemen, to study the historical monuments and present conditions of the country— particularly of Ḥarāz, which was the theatre of the activities of the Sulaihids and of the Da'wat. The high peaks of the eastern side of the Mountain of Ḥarāz have been the stronghold of the Dā'ūdī Ismā'īlīs. Even to-day when the Yemen has the benefit of the strong rule of Imām Yahyā, Isma'īlīs form themselves by force of habit and circumstance into a very exclusive unit, inaccessible to all who do not belong to their group.
page 364 note 1 ZDMG. lxix, pp. 80 seq.
page 365 note 1 There also exists a bibliography (called al-Fihrist) of most of the Da'wat books by Ismā'īlī b. ‘Abdu'r-Rasūl, an Ismā'īlī author of the eleventh century a.h. My information is, however, derived from the collection of the MSS. of the late Saiyidi Muḥammad ‘Alī al-Hamdānī al-Ya'burī, which is entitled 
.
page 365 note 2 According to Ibn Ḥajar al-'Asqālam, Lisānu'l-Mīzān, p. 164 (letter 'alif, No. 523), the full name of Abū Ḥātim is Aḥmad b. Ḥammād b. Aḥmad al-Wassāmī al-Laithī.
page 366 note 1 As based on this work, Dr. Paul Kraus in his Antrittsvorlesung Rhases und die islamische Aufklärung, delivered at the University of Berlin on 25th April, 1932, explained for the first time Rhazes’ attitude towards Islam and religions.
page 366 note 2 This work is mentioned by Baghdād! in Farq, pp. 267, 277, as also by Nāṣir-i-Khusraw, in Zādu'l-Musāfirīn, Berlin, p. 276Google Scholar, but unfortunately does not exist in the collections of the Da'wat so far as I have been able to ascertain.
page 367 note 1 This work is also said to have been lost.
page 367 note 2 See below, p. 374.
page 367 note 3 Ibnu'n-Nadīm, al-Fihrist, ed. Flügel, p. 189; Idris Imādu'd-dīn, 'Uyūn, v, pp. 260–3; Griffini, , ZDMO. lxix, p. 87Google Scholar; Massignon, , Esquisse, p. 332Google Scholar. Ibnu'n-Nadim (p. 189) also mentions the name of kitāb al-Jāmi', by Abū Ḥātim, but it is not preserved.
page 367 note 4 Al-Bïruīn, , Hind, ed. Sachau, , p. 32Google Scholar; Baghdādī, , Farq, p. 267Google Scholar; Massignon, , Esquisse, p. 332Google Scholar.
page 368 note 1 Baghdādī, , Farq, p. 267Google Scholar.
page 369 note 1 For further details see Khallikan, Ibn, Wafayāt, ed. Bulaq, , p. 219Google Scholar; al-Kindi, Governors and Judges of Egypt, ed. Guest, , p. 586Google Scholar; Gottheil, , JAOS. xxvii, p. 217Google Scholar; Mr. A. A. Fyzee is preparing, as he informs me, a full study of the author, particularly the legal aspects of his writings.
page 369 note 2 The Qāḍī was a prolific writer particularly on Islamic jurisprudence. He compiled an ambitious work called īḍāh in 220 parts, as he mentions in the introductory lines of his Qaṣīdat al-Muntakhaba:—
Unfortunately this work as some others of the Qāḍī's works on theological jurisprudence, esoteric interpretation, and history have been lost. Some extracts have been preserved in mā wujida fi'l-Īḍāḥ (
). The following works on fiqhhave also been preserved: al-Ikhbār, vol. i; al- Yanbū', vol. ii; aṬ-ṭahārat; Minhāju'l-farā'iḍ al-Muntakhabain metrical form; al-Iqtiṣār; Da'ā'imu'l-Islām, two volumes; and Mukhtaṣaru'l-āthār. Chronologically speaking the Dā'ā'im and Mukhtaṣar were among the last works of the Qāḍī.
page 370 note 1 Ibn Khallikān, Wafayāt, ibid.; Dastūru'l-Munajjimīn, Paris, Bibl. Nat. Arabe 5968, f. 335a.
page 370 note 2 See below, p. 376.
page 371 note 1 'Uyūn, vi, pp. 39–40.
page 371 note 2 Leiden cod. 1971 (De Goeje).
page 371 note 3 Streitschrift des Gazālī gegen die Bāṭinijja-Sekte, p. 23, note 4.
page 371 note 4 This work has been preserved in the library of the late Aḥmad Taimur Pāshā, Cairo (
).
page 373 note 1 This Risālah is one of the collection of the thirteen Risālas called 
. The following is the list of the Risālas in the collection:—
The last two Risālas belong to two different authors, but they are included in this collection.
page 373 note 2 Kraus, Paul, Hebräische und syrische Zitate in ismā'īlitischen Schriften, Der Islam, Bd. xix (1931), p. 243 seqGoogle Scholar.
page 374 note 1 Kirmānī does not mention the name of the Dā'ī who wrote against Rhazes a polemical treatise on the subject of prophethood. Nor does Kirmānl mention the name of the work of Rhazes which was the subjectmatter of the Dā'fs discussions. But in the first chapter of his book Kirmānī quotes a long passage from the Dā'ī's work, which is identical with the refutation of Rhazes given in A'lāmu'n-Nubuwwa of Abū Ḥātim (see above, p. 366). The following chapters of al-Aqwālu'dh-Dhahabijja are devoted to the refutation of ar-Rāzī's aṭ-Ṭibbu'r-Rūḥani(preserved in Brit. Mus. Add. 25758 and analysed by de Boer, De Medicina Mentis van den arts Razi, Mededeelingen der Koninklijhe Akademie van Wettenschappen Afdeeling Letterkunde, Deel 53, Serie A, Nr. 1, Amsterdam, 1922), but the work attacked in the first chapter must be another, exceedingly heretical work of ar-Rāzi. Dr. Paul Kraus is of opinion that the book in question is Makhārīqu'l-Anbijā of ar-Rāzī. For the whole question I refer the reader to the paper prepared by Dr. Kraus.
page 374 note 2 See above, p. 367.
page 374 note 3 ZDMG. lxix, p. 86.
page 375 note 1 ZDMG. xxxiv (1880), pp. 643–674Google Scholar, and Journal Asiatique, Sér. vii, vol. xiii (1879), pp. 164–8Google Scholar.
page 375 note 2 Actes du VIe Congrès International des Orientalistes à Leiden (1886), vol. ii, pp. 169–237Google Scholar.
page 375 note 3 Literary Hist, of Persia, ii, pp. 218–246.
page 375 note 4 Introduction to Safar Nameh Ḥakīm Nāṣir-i-Khusraw, ed. Berlin, a.h. 1341.
page 376 note 1 JRAS. 1902, pp. 289–332.
page 376 note 2 Diwān-i-Qaṣā'id wa Muqaṭṭa'āt-i-Ḥakīm Nāṣir-i-Khusraw, ed. Tehran, 1304–1307, pp. 176 and 313Google Scholar.
page 376 note 3 This is the only Persian work in the collection. Al-Mu'aiyad might have brought it with him to Egypt and Lamak may have taken it to the Yemen.
page 376 note 4 See above, p. 370.
page 376 note 5 The full text of the paper is published in JRAS., January, 1932, pp. 126 seq.
page 376 note 6 Actes du XVIIIe Congrèa International des Orientalistes, Leiden, 1932, p. 221Google Scholar.
page 377 note 1 Fols. 99a–101a.
page 377 note 2 Leiden Catalogus codicum Arabicorum, ii, 1, p. 233, Paris, Bibl. Nat. No. 3329 (ancien fonds 14, 4).