Brethren of Purity

The paper studies the ideological-philosophical theory of the World Soul within the pages of "The messages of the Brethren of Purity".
The difficult situation that matured in the Abbasid caliphate in the 10th century,
which promoted religious and political groups development, was a convenient environment for the formation of a secret association of "Brethren of Purity".
The brothers, under the influence of Neoplatonic philosophy, formulated their philosophical views corresponding to Islam, apparently in accordance with the basic dogmas of Ismailism.
The philosophy of Brethren of Purity was written in the form of messages.
They were placed in one book, compiling the messages of "Rasail Ikhwan al-Safa".
Among the ideological-philosophical theories of "Ikhwan al-Safa"
Al-Nafs al-Quliya occupies a significant place. The brothers considered al-Nafs al-Quliya to be the driving force behind the "Private Soul". However, in their opinion," al-Nafs al-Quliya "had a unifying, complementary essence through which all "Private Souls" after the death of their bodies are reunited and ascended to heaven.

تصحیح مرحوم تقی بینش
موسیقی جزو علوم اصلی و روزمره مسلمانان مخصوصا ایرانیان بود
لذا نسخ خطی فراوانی در این زمینه بصورت مکتوب نگاشته شده است که به فلسفه و تاریخ و مسائل نظری آموزش موسیقی پرداخته اند!
البته موسیقی مانند دیگر دانشهای مسلمانان بیشتر بصورت غیر مکتوب و دل به دل و حال به حال منتقل می شده است!

يقدّم هذا الكتاب نتائج رسالتي الدكتورة، وهي الفرضية التاريخية بتأليف رسائل إخوان الصفا عند أحمد بن الطيب السرخسي من ناحية، والتفسير لها كنظام فلسفي يشمل العلوم والمذاهب كلها تحت منطق عددي فيثاغورسي. ء
و نُشرَ هذا الكتاب في الهيئة العامة المصرية للكتاب وسلستها "تبسيط التراث"ء

This is the table of contents and introduction to "the Polished Mirror," published by Oneworld:

Islamic philosophy and Sufism evolved as distinct yet interweaving strands of Islamic thought and practice. Despite differences, they have shared a concern with the perfection of the soul through the development of character. In The Polished Mirror, Cyrus Ali Zargar studies the ways in which, through teaching and storytelling, pre-modern Muslims lived, negotiated, and cultivated virtues. Examining the writings of philosophers, ascetics, poets, and saints, he locates virtue ethics within a dynamic moral tradition.

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the ascription to Sahl al-Tustari of an unnamed treatise on letters found in a unicum manuscript in the Chester Beatty collection no. 3168, ff. 166-174. The ascription to Sahl al-Tustari seem to us unsubstantiated. The paper includes an English translation of the unnamed epistle followed by a detailed commentary. We also offer a typology of "letter mysticism" in Islam and attempt to explain the "Tustari Andalusian Tradition".

Recent scholarship has brought important new insights into the chronology of the writing and dissemination of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ ('Epistles of the Brethren of Purity'). This new chronological perspective prompts us also to reappraise the pioneering role of the Ikhwān with regard to the problem of classifying knowledge. The first part of this paper will be devoted to this issue. We shall reexamine the tripartite division of science as purposefully designed by the Ikhwān in Epistle 7, as well as another classification in the form of an allegorical fable as found in Epistle 26, and which the Ikhwān have derived from Persian literature. The second part of our contribution will focus on the tenfold classification put forward by Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (d. 353/964), now correctly identified as the genuine author of the Ghāyat al-ḥakīm ('The Aim of the Sage') and the Rutbat al-ḥakīm ('the Scale of the Sage') and, in all likelihood, as the scholar through whom the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' were first introduced into al-Andalus.

Edited and Translated by Wilferd Madelung and Cyril V. Uy II; Carmela Baffioni; Nuha Alshaar

The Brethren of Purity, the anonymous adepts of a tenth-century esoteric fraternity based in Basra and Baghdad, hold an eminent position in the history of science and philosophy in Islam due to the wide reception and assimilation of their monumental encyclopaedia, the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. This compendium contains fifty-two epistles offering synoptic accounts of the classical sciences and philosophies of the age; divided into four classificatory parts, it treats themes in mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, and theology, in addition to didactic fables.

The texts presented here, from the section on divine and legal sciences, work towards the conclusion of the world-view of the Epistles. In Epistle 49, the Brethren of Purity utilize their usual array of sources - Islamic, Hellenic, and far beyond - in probing the entire hierarchy of existence, from the nature of God to the most basic elements. Epistle 50 describes the 'proper attitudes' towards body and soul, for the attainment of wellness in this world and the hereafter, before addressing religious and philosophical worship. Finally, in Epistle 51, the Brethren consider the arrangement of the world as a whole, restating the Pythagorean theory that all existents are analogous to numbers, knowledge of the characteristics of which is therefore necessary for understanding the world. In advance of the final epistle, on magic, the vast encyclopedic project thus comes full-circle, directing the reader back to the topic of numbers with which the corpus begins.

Early modern Christian intellectual history was heavily neopythagorean and kabbalistic in tenor, as is now widely recognized, and scholarship on the major exponents of this trend, from Nicholas of Cusa and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola to John Dee and Johannes Kepler, has burgeoned in recent decades.  Some revisionist historians have even posited the great 15th-17th-century florescence of neopythagorean-kabbalist thought as a primary driver of the so-called Scientific Revolution—essentially a mathematical revolution—and hence “scientific modernity” as such.  That the intellectual history of the contemporary Islamic world was equally heavily so, however, is only beginning to be appreciated; the greater part of Islamic neopythagoreanism remains unstudied to a shocking degree.
    To help offset this gross imbalance in the literature, patently colonialist-whiggish in origin, the present chapter introduces the New Brethren of Purity, a vast network of highly mobile thinkers responsible for the renaissance of neopythagoreanism throughout the Islamic world from the turn of the 15th century onward.  Most notably, this network explicitly identified with, and sought to revive, the neopythagorean-occultist project of the original Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ).  But unlike their anonymous and shadowy predecessors of 10th-century Iraq, whose project was somewhat marginalized by the rise to hegemony of Avicennan-illuminationist philosophy, the New Brethren of Purity were highly influential both intellectually and politically, and counted among their number some of the greatest movers and shakers of the era—with the remarkable consequence that early modern Islamic imperial ideologies (Timurid, Aqquyunlu, Safavid, Mughal, Ottoman) were far more explicitly neopythagorean-occultist than their Christian cognates, and Islamic science long more mathematical.
    For reasons of space, I focus my inquiry on the most important member of this network in the Persianate east, Ibn Turka of Isfahan (1369-1432).  This Timurid occultist’s project—strikingly similar to those of his Renaissance peers Cusanus and Pico but preceding theirs by decades—centered on the reformulation and philosophical systematization of lettrism (ʿilm al-ḥurūf), kabbalah’s coeval twin, as universal neopythagorean science; his magnum opus, the Book of Inquiries (K. al-Mafāḥiṣ), is best described as the first summa of Islamic neopythagoreanism.  Nor were the efforts of this self-styled Pythagoras redivivus in vain:  Ibn Turka’s work helped inspire both the celebrated mathematical turn in Arabic astronomy in the early 15th century—a basis for the Copernican revolution, as has recently been shown—and the thoroughgoing neopythagoreanism of Safavid philosophy, which embraced the Epistles of the first Brethren of Purity after centuries of neglect.
    Just as Christian (and Jewish) kabbalah emerged as the primary expression of neopythagoreanism in early modern Europe, in short, so too did lettrism in the vaster, wealthier and far more cosmopolitan contemporary Islamic world; and the disciples of Pythagoras dominated and shaped the philosophical-scientific discourses of Western early modernity as an Islamo-Christian whole.

This article discusses themajor scholarly developments in the study of Ismaili Muslimhistory and thought. Scholarship on the Ismailis, the second largest branch of Shi‘i Islam, once relied on hostile depictions
produced by their adversaries. With the recovery of more primary sources over the last several decades, Ismaili studies is now progressing at a rapid pace. The Ismaili movement originated from a schism in
the Imami Shi‘i community over the succession to Ja‘far al-Sadiq, the fifth Shi‘i Imam. The Ismailis
upheld the succession rights of al-Sadiq’s son and designated heir, Isma‘il, and his lineal descendants.
The earliest Ismailis directed a revolutionary da‘wah in the ninth century and established the Fatimid
Caliphate (909-1171). Ismaili doctrine during these periods evolved from a gnostic cosmology into a
Neoplatonic metaphysics. It also featured cyclical conceptions of Prophethood and Imamat and stressed
the distinction between the exoteric (zahir) and esoteric (batin) dimensions of Islam. Major scholarly
debates and thematic areas in the study of the pre-Fatimid and Fatimid periods of Ismaili history pertain
to the doctrinal character of early Imami Shi‘ism, Ismaili historiography, the origins of the earliest Ismailis,
the emergence of the Ismaili da‘wah, the earliest Ismaili conceptions of Imamat, the different facets of
Fatimid rule, the genealogy of the Fatimid Imam-Caliphs, and the philosophical dimensions of Fatimid
Ismaili thought.

Cet article met en question l'attribution d'une epitre sur les lettres de l'alphabet a Sahl al-Tustarī, un maitre soufi de grande renommee, originaire de Basra (m. 283/ 896). Il examine aussi la philosophie mystique qu'exposent cette epitre et d'autres sources, notamment la vision mystico-philosophique des lettres de l'alphabet comme etant des unites de base dans la creation selon un processus hierarchique, cosmologique et cosmogonique. L'article comprend une introduction, une traduction et un commentaire detaille de ce traite, qui est inclus dans un manuscrit unique decouvert par M. K. I. Ja'far dans le codex Chester Beatty de Dublin (no. 3168, ff. 166-174). Ja'far a attribue ce traite a Sahl al-Tustarī et lui a donne le titre Risālat al-ḥurūf (Epitre sur les lettres [de l'alphabet]). Cette epitre a ete publiee deux fois sous ce titre et ce nom d'auteur, d'abord par Ja'far, puis par Pillar Garrido, bien qu'elle apparaisse sans...

The present article reports the discovery of previously unknown quotations from the "Longer Theology of Aristotle" (LThA), preserved in Lisān al-Dīn Ibn al-Khaṭīb's (d. 776/ 1374) philosophical-mystical treatise Rawḍat al-taʿrīf bi-l-ḥubb al-sharīf (composed in Granada ca. 1366). The first of these quotations contains the famous ekstasis passage, which is not preserved in Judeo-Arabic. The second quotation has a close parallel in the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ). An analysis of these quotations provides additional evidence to the transmission of LThA in Arabic characters. The Appendix provides an up-to-date inventory of the Judeo-Arabic manuscripts of LThA, complete quire analysis of manuscripts A and C, and a table of correspondences between the unpublished "ms Fenton," Borisov's references to LThA, and modern pagination.

So far thirty of the fifty-two Epistles of the Brethren in Purity (Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ) have been edited by the Institute of Ismaili Studies. The time has come to review the project itself and ask what has already changed in the new Epistles. Unfortunately, the ambitious project of a critical edition gave birth to an inconsistent patchwork of individual editions and translations which impairs the understanding of the Rasāʾil. The precise analysis of details from both the Beirut and London editions is also the occasion to test the two theories of the Epistles: the main stream view of a syncretic doctrine resulting from a stratified redaction, and our hypothesis of a highly philosophical work written by Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī.

The parable of the "Good Zoroastrian", written in tenth-century Basra by the Brethren of Purity, teaches "to wish good to all people, whether they follow my creed or not". On the practical level, there is nothing to add to this golden rule. Theoretically speaking, however, their attitude holds true not because “all historical religions are relative”, but because the lack of coercion is implied in the dignity every person has received from the Creator.

Paper delivered at the conference “Law, Religious Pluralism and Individual Rights: Perspectives from Iraq”, Baghdad 18-19 December 2016.

Abdurrahmān Bistāmī (d. 1454) was a polymath of the fifteenth century, who emerged as a towering figure in the Ottoman lands. His scientific production covers many areas in Islamic disciplines, mainly Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology (kalām), Islamic mysticism (ṭasawwuf), and secret sciences. While the scientific activities of many Ottoman scholars were within the borders of the classical madrasa curricula, Bistāmī was unique for his profound knowledge of the occult sciences. In fact, Bistāmī is particularly well-versed in the science of letters (‘ilm al-ḥurūf), a discipline which seeks to establish secret alphabetical and numerical relations between ontological and epistemological entities. In fact, he sees the science of the letters as the crown of the sciences, maintaining that the core teaching of this secret science was carried through a lineage of the prophets till it came down to the Prophet Muḥammad and then to Muslim scholars afterwards. Bistāmī’s magnum opus is al-Fawāyiḥ al-Miskiyya fī l-Fawātiḥ al-Makkiyya (literally “Musky Fragrances in Meccan Revelations”), an encyclopedia and anthology of sciences.

An interesting figure from Islamic thought of 15th century, ʿAbd al- Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī (1380-1454) was active in the Ottoman State, though he was born in Antakya, a city under the rule of the Mam- lūk government at that time. His magnum opus, al-Fawāʾiḥ al- miskiyya, is an encyclopedic work that aims to combine all classi- cal Islamic disciplines and represents a project comparable to that of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ). The Ikhwānian doc- trine, which was seen by orthodox groups as syncretizing Bāṭinī movements, was met with severe opposition by the Ashʿarī theo- logians, including al-Ghazālī. Due to his awareness of this situa- tion, al-Bisṭāmī frequently emphasizes his dependence on the Qurʾān and Sunna, although there are many elements in his work that can be related to Bāṭinī ideas. As a consequence, al-Bisṭāmī’s take on the relationship between theology and philosophy is much more refined when compared to the philosophers who came before al-Ghazālī and ‘corrected’ according to the orthodox view (Ahl al-sunna). In this paper, I will investigate how al-Bisṭāmī maintains the Sunnī kalām stance, in spite of the fact that he adopts the Hermetic philosophical tradition.

This article briefly addresses the content of Saʿīd b. Dādhurmuz’s Risāla fī l-Nafs wa-l-rūḥ, an epistle which was written as a complementary section to the author’s Risāla fī Faḍl al-āḫira ʿalā l-dunyā (Epistle on the Superiority of the Hereafter over This World). In these epistles, the author aims to posit the superiority and substantiality of the Hereafter as opposed to the inferiority and imperfection of the worldly life. The author regards an investigation about the essence of soul/spirit (nafs/rūḥ) as a necessary task, because one cannot truly understand the issue of the Hereafter without knowing what the human soul is. Typically, Saʿīd b. Dādhurmuz attempts here an amalgamation of philosophical and religious discourses while quoting from several philosophical works available to him. Hence, after close examination, the Arabic Aristotle, Arabic Plato, al-Kindī, Miskawayh and especially the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity appear to be among his sources. Besides, a part of the Epistle on Soul and spirit which addresses certain sayings of the past prophets before Muḥammad about spirit attracts special attention.

This is an Arabic translation of the above-mentioned article. Here is the abstract as is written by  Carmela Baffioni.
The aim of this paper is to identify the position the ru'yat Allāh holds within the curriculum of sciences described by the Iḫwān al-Ṣafa'. Their concept of knowledge is first clarified. The Ihwan use the terminology of rational knowledge to describe items of faith too. But faith is only an introduction to a greater knowledge. Now: is the supreme knowledge to be considered as speculative and theoretical, or are the ḫawciṣṣ, the only ones entitled to the vision of God, eventually obliged to rely on a kind of divine “revelation” or “inspiration”? If the “vision of God” appears beyond any possible connotation of knowledge in “rational” terms, it is unclear, however, whether the Ihwan use the concepts of “revelation” and “inspiration” as a way of explaining in a theological terminology the utmost degree of human knowledge (perhaps according to the same analogical function waḥy and ilhām appear to have in Ibn Sīnā). Moreover, the qualities and moral dispositions attributed to the “Friends of God” remind us of Sufi doctrines. Consequently, the question of the relation between Sufism and imāmite theories could be re-opened: the Iḫwānian definition of the “science of the transcendent” shows that the gnoseological itinerary is not concluded even with the “vision of God.”

Résumé/Abstract Cet article met en question l'attribution d'une épître sur les lettres de l'alphabet à Sahl al-Tustarī, un maître soufi de grande renommée, originaire de Basra (m. 283/896). Il examine aussi la philosophie mystique qu'exposent cette épître et d'autres ...

Before Ṯābit b. Qurra's translation, there was a first Arabic version of Nico-machus' Introduction to arithmetic. Full of mistakes, it was revised by an anonymous student of al-Kindī. Thanks to the part that Freudenthal and Levy have edited and translated , we are now able to identify this reviser as Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī, who we also identified as the author of the Rasā᾿il Iḫwān al-Ṣafā᾿. The comparison of the gloss written by this reviser with a new fragment of Saraḫsī on one part, and with the " Epistles of the Brethren in Purity " on the other, corroborate Saraḫsī's authorship of the epistles. Furthermore, studying the misunderstandings on Nicomachus' text in this kindianised version gives a new light on al-Kindī's attempt to unify philosophy and on the specific ontology of the Brethren in Purity. Résumé. Avant celle de Ṯābit b. Qurra, l'Introduction arithmétique de Nicomaque de Gérase fit l'objet d'une première traduction fautive révisée par un élève d'al-Kindī. Grâce à la partie éditée et traduite par Freudenthal et Lévy, nous pouvons désormais identifier ce réviseur comme étant Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī, que nous avons par ailleurs reconnu comme auteur des Rasā᾿il Iḫwān al-Ṣafā᾿. La comparaison des gloses de ce réviseur d'une part avec un fragment inédit d'al-Saraḫsī et d'autre part avec les « Épîtres des Frères en Pureté » corrobore l'attribution des épîtres à al-Saraḫsī. En outre, l'étude des contresens de cette version kindisée du texte de Nicomaque nous renseigne mieux tant sur la tentative kindienne d'unifier la philosophie que sur la spécificité de l'ontologie des Frères en Pureté. La première traduction arabe de l'Introduction arithmétique de Nicomaque de Gérase constituait, au moment où Ṯābit b. Qurra s'empara du texte grec, un vé-ritable palimpseste portant la trace de multiples interventions entre lesquelles la voix de Nicomaque était devenue difficile à cerner. C'est que, outre l'empreinte du traducteur syriaque et sa conversion approximative en arabe par Ibn Bahrīz, elle contenait des corrections et des gloses inspirées par al-Kindī et introduites dans le texte par un de ses disciples resté anonyme. Cette dernière empreinte est elle-même double puisque, dans ses corrections, parfois il rapporte le commen-taire d'al-Kindī tiré de ses leçons orales sur l'ouvrage et, à d'autres moments, ce sont ses propres remarques qu'il donne. La traduction de Ṯābit à partir de la langue originale restitua sa clarté au texte.

The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa) had considerable impact on subsequent literature, having diffused into the writings of notable figures, such as the famous mystic-philosopher Ibn Arabi. Besides, the epistles’ reception in the fifth century AH have specifically attracted the attention of recent researchers, because we know that scholars such as Ghazali and Nasir Khusraw were noted to be influenced by the Epistles in certain ways. This presentation aims to shed more light on the reception of the epistles in this age, in the context of the writings of Said ibn Dadhurmuz, an interesting personality whose philosophical project was to combine all philosophical and theological discourses available to him. In the presentation, Said ibn Dadhurmuz’ usage of the epistles is shown, and his attempts to buttress and update the ideas of the Brethren of Purity are investigated.

Un navire humain fait naufrage sur l’île du roi des djinns où l’entente règne entre toutes les espèces. Les naufragés prétendent qu’ils sont les seigneurs, que les animaux sont leurs serviteurs. S’engage alors un procès dans lequel les représentants des nations humaines se succèdent pour prouver leur supériorité. Les familles animales se relaient pour les réfuter.
Telle est l’épître sur les animaux des Frères en Pureté. Une fable-fleuve, un joyau inespéré de la littérature arabe intercalé entre un traité de botanique et un traité d’anatomie. Tout à la fois divertissement et œuvre de mobilisation politique, miroir tendu au prince aussi bien qu’aux peuples, hymne de louange au Créateur, dispute théologique autour du privilège de l’homme dans la Création, allégorie du système philosophique des Frères en Pureté, le Procès animal de la domination humaine, qui connut un grand retentissement depuis les Mille et une nuits jusqu’à la Ferme des animaux d’Orwell, n’a pas fini de nous donner à penser et à débattre.
Pour restituer l’œuvre dans sa forme authentique et en offrir les clefs de lecture, il aura fallu se confronter à des manuscrits aux versions contradictoires, réaliser l’enquête historique replaçant le texte dans son contexte, et opérer l’interprétation philosophique de la fable. Car cette épopée judiciaire est aux Frères en Pureté ce qu’est la Caverne pour Platon, à savoir l’allégorie du système.

'Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafā’, Epistolele despre logică, ediție bilingvă, traducere din limba arabă clasică, studiu introductiv, note și referințe bibliografice, Polirom, Iasi, 2019..pdf

The corpus On Logic, from the Epistles of the Brethren of
Purity, marks the beginning of classic logic in the Arab
cultural area of the tenth century, systematically lays out
this group of intellectuals’ perception of the subject
matter of logic, seen as an instrument of philosophy, and
reflects one of the first phases of creation in the Arab
theoretical philosophy since the wave of translations of the
Greek philosophical texts, through a Syriac intermediary.
The volume illustrates the translation of the last five
epistles (X-XIV) in the section “The Epistles on the Mathematical <Sciences>” of the
encyclopaedia Rasā’il (“Epistles”), using the Khair ad-dīn
Az-Ziriklī edition.

This article presents the context that influenced the perception on intellect of the Brethren of Purity in the Epistles and represents a chapter of an extended research on the axiology of intellect in the Epistles. The aim of this study is to analyze some aspects of the third section of the Epistles, namely Sensibilia and Inteligibilia, on how the concept of intellect
('aql) came to be understood by the Brethren of Purity in the light of a socio-cultural background. In consideration of this, the paper proposes  a comparative analysis of the spatio-temporal hypostasis of the Epistles by focusing on the Greek sources manifested in the transcendence of divine universals of the Arab-Islamic philosophy, whose contextual basis is represented by the Greek model. Taking into consideration these aspects, I will emphasize the anterior presence of other cultures in the same space that transcended the idea of time through upcoming civilizations, by henceforth giving the example of the transmission of the Greek philosophical ideas in the interior of the community of Ḥarrān, and more precisely by the Sabians, that represented a precedent for adopting such ideas by the Brethren of Purity through adaptation to the already existent thought in the cultural substrate of Ḥarrān. This fact determined an eclecticism in the field of the promoted philosophical paradigm that had also a powerful influence on their proper perception about intellect.

Keywords: intellect ('aql), Greek thought, The Brethren of Purity (ʾIḫwān aṣ-Ṣafā’), Pitagora, Ḥarrān.