Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity

Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity
Manuscript of the Brethren's Kitab Ikhwan al-Safa i.e. the "Epistles of the Brethren of Purity". Copy created in late Safavid Iran, dated c. 17th century
AuthorBrethren of Purity
Original titleرسائل إخوان الصفاء وخِلَّان الوفاءا
LanguageArabic
SubjectPhilosophy, Science, Ethics, Religion
GenreEncyclopedia
Published10th century
Publication placeBasra, Iraq
Media typeManuscript

The Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity (Arabic: رسائل إخوان الصفا, Rasā'il Ikhwān al-ṣafā') also variously known as the Epistles of the Brethren of Sincerity, Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and Loyal Friends is an Islamic encyclopedia[1] in 52 treatises (rasā'il) written by the mysterious[2] Brethren of Purity of Basra, Iraq sometime in the second half of the 10th century CE (or possibly later, in the 11th century). It had a great influence on later intellectual leading lights of the Muslim world, such as Ibn Arabi,[3][4] and was transmitted as far abroad within the Muslim world as al-Andalus.[5][6]

The identity and period of the authors of the Encyclopedia have not been conclusively established,[7] though the work has been mostly linked with Isma'ilism. Idris Imad al-Din, a prominent 15th-century Isma'ili missionary in Yemen, credited the authorship of the encyclopedia to Muhammad al-Taqi, the 9th Isma'ili Imam, who lived in occultation in the era of the Abbasid Caliphate at the beginning of the Islamic Golden Age.[8]

Some suggest that besides Isma'ilism, the Brethren of Purity also contains elements of Sufism, Mu'tazilism, Nusayrism and others.[9][10][11] Some scholars present the work as Sunni Sufi.[12][13]

The subject of the work is vast and ranges from mathematics, music, astronomy, and natural sciences, to ethics, politics, religion, and magic—all compiled for one, basic purpose, that learning is training for the soul and a preparation for its eventual life once freed from the body.[14]

Turn from the sleep of negligence and the slumber of ignorance, for the world is a house of delusion and tribulations. – Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Sincerity[15]

  1. ^ "The work only professes to be an epitome, an outline; its authors lay claim to no originality, they only summarize what others have thought and discovered. What they do lay claim to is system and completeness. The work does profess to contain a systematized, harmonious and co-ordinated view of the universe and life, its origin and destiny, formed out of many discordant, incoherent views; and it does claim to be a 'complete account of all things' - to contain, in epitome, all that was known at the time it was written. It refers to more profound and special treatises for fuller information on the several sciences it touches upon, but it does claim to touch on all sciences, all departments of knowledge, and to set forth their leading results. In effect, it is, by its own showing, a 'hand-encyclopedia of Arabian philosophy in the tenth century'. It is not easy to exaggerate the importance of this encyclopedia. Its value lies in its completeness, in its systematizing of the results of Persian study." Stanley Lane-Poole (1883), pages 190, 191.
  2. ^ "Having been hidden within the cloak of secrecy from its very inception, the Rasa'il have provided many points of contention and have been a constant source of dispute among both Muslim and Western scholars. The identification of the authors, or possibly one author, the place and time of writing and propagation of their works, the nature of the secret brotherhood the outer manifestation of which comprises the Rasa'il - these and many secondary questions have remained without answer." Nasr (1964), pg 25.
  3. ^ "It is probable that they have influenced some of the most prominent thinkers of Islam, such as al-Ghazzali (d. 1111A.D.) and Ibn al-Arabi (d. 1240 A.D.)." van Reijn (1995), pg. "v".
  4. ^ "The Rasa'il were widely read by most learned men of later periods, including Ibn Sina and al-Ghazzali, have continued to be read up to our own times, and have been translated into Persian, Turkish, and Hindustani. From the number of manuscripts present in various libraries in the Muslim world, it must be considered among the most popular of Islamic works on learning." Nasr (1964), pg. 36
  5. ^ Van Reijn (1945), pg "v"
  6. ^ "But they produced this enormous encyclopaedia, and um, everybody read it and we know that it was widely read by mathematicians in Spain, and by philosophers in Spain. Most crucially of all, it was read by Muhyi-I-din - Ibn al-Arabi, er, the most famous Sufi that Spain produced, or indeed one of the most famous Sufis in the history of Islamic mysticism - er, he died in 1240. Er, he absorbed a lot of their ideas and he was in turn read by these ministers of the Nasrid monarch Ibn al-Khatib, and Ibn al-Zamrak, both of whom had strong, mystical tendencies." Robert Irwin; "In the Footsteps of Muhammad", transcript of a BBC program
  7. ^ Ikhwan as-Safa'. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 25, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online
  8. ^ Leaman, Oliver, ed. (2015). "Ikhwan al-Safa'". The Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781472569455. Retrieved 4 Jun 2020 – via books.google.com.
  9. ^ Brethren of Purity, Nader El-Bizri, an article in Medieval Islamic Civilization, an Encyclopedia, Vol. I, p. 118-119, Routledge (New York-London, 2006). Retrieved from [1] Archived 2014-05-29 at the Wayback Machine.
  10. ^ "Ibn al-Qifti, giving his own view, considers the Ikhwan as followers of the school of the Mu'tazilah...Ibn Tamiyah, the Hanbali jurist, on the other hand, tends towards the other extreme in relating the Ikhwan to the Nusairis, who are as far removed from the rationalists as any group to be found in Islam." Nasr (1964), pg 26.
  11. ^ Isma'ili, Yezidi, Sufi. "The Brethren Of Purity". Retrieved 2006-05-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference sunni1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference sunni2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Walker, Paul E. "EḴWĀN AL-ṢAFĀʾ". In Encyclopædia Iranica. December 15, 1998.
  15. ^ Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa', 4 volumes (Beirut, Dar Sadir, 1957). A complete untranslated edition of the 52 rasa'il.