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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
The definitions of the term ‘ālam (world) given by Muslim scholars from the tenth century onwards are as varied as the discussions on the world's shape, the aim of its existence and its reality (or irreality). Most theologians would agree that ‘ālam is ‘all that is not God’, or ‘all that exists, other than God’, thereby implying that the world is simply ‘all that is created’.
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27 Sijistānī, Abū Ya‘qūb, Kitāb al-maqālīd, MS (R) 5Google Scholar, manuscript belonging to the Hamdani collection, a photocopy of which is in the library of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, f. S3v–54r:
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30 Kirmānī, Ḥamīd al-dīn, Kitāb al-Riyād, (Beirut, 1960), 194–5Google Scholar and a reference to the passage by Madelung, W., ‘Das Irnamat in der frühen Ismailitischen Lehre’. Der Islam, XXXVII, 1961, 124Google Scholar.
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32 Rāḥat al-‘aql as a whole is devoted to showing the cosmic law of correspondences, see in particular pp. 184–5 and 279.
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34 The differentiation of the ḥudūd is hierarchical, not substantial; see in this regard Kirmānī, , Riyāḍ, 85Google Scholar.
35 Rāḥat, 134–5 where the ten ḥudūd of the world of dīn are as follows: the prophet, the wasī, the imām, bāb (gate), ḥujja (proof), dā‘ī al-balāgh (missionary of the message), dā’ī muṭlaq (missionary general), dā’ī maḥṣūr (limited missionary), ma'dhūn muṭlaq (general legate) and finally ma'dhūn maḥṣūr (limited legate).
For a short description of these ḥudūd in RĀḥat see Hamdani, , ‘Evolution’, 92–3Google Scholar and for a summary of the above passage see Makarem, S. N., ‘The philosophical significance of the Imām Ismā‘īlīsm’, Studia Islamica, XXVII, 1967, 47–8Google Scholar.
36 Rāḥat, 124, 131. For an explanation of this perspective see Madelung, , ‘Das Imamat’, 126Google Scholar. For both perspectives see Bryer, , ‘Origins’, 58Google Scholar.
37 On the correspondence between the Tenth Intellect and the Qā'im see Rāḥat, 137: on the function of the qā'im with regard to the ‘ālam al-dīn, see Ṣūrī, , Qasīda, 70Google Scholar, and Kirmānī, . Riyāḍ, 197–8 and 201–2Google Scholar. For the significance and an interpretation of the world of the qā‘im in Kirmānī, see Calderini, S., ‘Studies in Ismā‘īlī cosmology: the role of intermediary worlds, Ph.D. thesis. University of London, 1991, 82–5Google Scholar.
38 Riyāḍ, 111–12, 144.
39 Rāḥat, 21–3, 343–4. For the concept of knowledge leading to perfection see ibid., 104.
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41 Rāḥat, 106.
42 While Kirmānī, explicitly mentions in his works Ḥākim bi-amr Allāh as the imām of his time, Sijistānī's position with regard to the Fāṭimid dynasty is much more complicated; in his Kitāb al-iftikhār (wr. 961) he calls the Fāṭimids ‘the rightly guided lieutenants of the seventh imām’ Muḥammad b. Ismā‘īl. For Sijistānī's attitude towards the Fāṭimid leadership see Poonawala, I. K., ‘Al-Sijistānī and his Kitāb al-Maqālīd, in Little, D. P. (ed.), Essays on Islamic civilization (Leiden, 1976), 277Google Scholar, and Madelung, , ‘Das Imamat’, in particular, 109Google Scholar. See also the work attributed to Sijistānī, ‘Risālat tuhfat al-mustajībīn’, in Tamir, A., Khams rasā'il, 152–3Google Scholar.
43 Bryer, , ‘Origins’, 61–31 and 69–70Google Scholar; Assaad, S. I., The reign of Al-Hakim bi amr Allah (996–1021): a political study (Beirut, 1974), 86–93Google Scholar. For the functions of the dā‘ī al-du’āt see Shaban, M. A., Islamic history, vol. II (750–1055), (Cambridge, 1986), 199–200Google Scholar.
44 See in particular Lev, Y., ‘Army, regime and society in Fatimid Egypt, 358–87/968–1094’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, XIX, 1987, 340–6Google Scholar; and Peterson, D. C., ‘Cosmogony and the Ten Separated Intellects in the Rāḥat al-‘Aql of Ḥamīd al-dīn al-Kirmānī’, Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Los Angeles 1990, 235–6Google Scholar. On the dichotomy/relationship dawla-da‘wa under the Fāṭimids see the views of von Grunebaum and S. M. Stern, as well as the contrasting views of Bernard Lewis. For a summary of interpretations see Heck, G. W., ‘Cairo or Baghdad? A critical re-examination of the role of Egypt in the Fatimid dynasty's imperial design‘, Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan 1986, 72–9, 286–90Google Scholar as well as Hamdani, , Evolution, in particular 87–98Google Scholar.
45 For the ḥudūd and the divine names see Shīrāzī, fī'l-dīn, Mu'ayyad, al-Majālis al-Mu'ayyadīya, ed. al-dīn, Ḥātim Ḥāmid (Oxford, 1986), II, 416Google Scholar and Majālis (Beirut, 1984), III, 255–6Google Scholar. For the ḥudūd as intermediaries and proofs of God, see Majālis (Beirut, 1974), I, 78Google Scholar.
The indentification of the ḥudūd with the divine names or attributes is to be found almost two centuries later in the work of the Syrian scholar Qays b. Manṣūr Dādīkhī (d. between 1255 and 1257). In his Risālat al-asābī‘ (apud Tamir, A. ed., Khams rasā'il), 160, 166–8Google Scholar, Dādīkhī calls the world of ḥudūd: ‘ālam waṣfī (world of qualification) and explains that only through the ḥudūd of the terrestrial hierarchy can the divine qualities be seen.
46 Majālis, I, 204; II, 417Google Scholar.
47 Majālis, III, 60Google Scholar; each ḥadd is an imām (= the highest living ḥadd) in potentiality, similarly each human being is an angel on a potential level.
48 Majālis, IV, MS 720 in the collection of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London (see Gacek, A., A catalogue of Arabic manuscripts in the library of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, I, London, 1984, 60–2Google Scholar), f. 3b.
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53 Both authors are often referred to as sources in Ṭayyibī works: see Ḥāmidī, , Kanz, 36, 72Google Scholar etc.; Ḥāmidī, , ‘Zahr badhr al-ḥaqā'iq’, in ‘Awwā, ‘Ādil (ed.), Muntakhabāt Ismā‘īlīya (Damascus, 1958), 164 ffGoogle Scholar. For Shīrāzī's influence on Yemeni literature see Hamdani, Abbas, ‘The sīra of al-Mu'ayyad fī'l-dīn al-Shīrāzī’, Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1950, 160–1Google Scholar.
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58 ‘b., AlīWalīd, Muḥammad b., Kitāb al-dhakhīra (Beirut, 1971), 36–8Google Scholar. On the concept of emanated hierarchy in the Ismā‘īlī tradition, with special reference to Kirmānī and Ḥāmidī, see Blumenthal, D. R., ‘On the theories of ibdā and ta'thīr’, Die Welt des Islams, XX, 1980, 164–7Google Scholar. On the consequences of disobedience see Kanz, 76. For another detailed account of the drama in heaven see b., Ḥusayn ‘b., AlīWalīd, Muḥammad b.. ‘Risālat al-mabda’ wa'1-ma‘ād’, in Corbin, H., Trilogie Ismaélienne (Paris-Tehran, 1961), Arabic text, 103–8Google Scholar.
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61 ‘b., AlīWalīd, Muḥammad b., Dhakhīra, 63–4 and 75–7Google Scholar with Shirāzī, , Majālis, III, 60Google Scholar; also Kirmānī, , Rāḥat, 134–5Google Scholar and Ḥāmidī, Ḥātim, Zahr badh, 164Google Scholar. See in this regard Hamdani, . ‘Evolution’, 95–100Google Scholar.
62 For a full list of ḥdūd and their correspondence in the material world in a Ṭgayyibī work see ‘b., AlīWalīd, Muḥammad b., (d. 1215), ‘Jalā al-‘uqūl wa zubdat al-maḥṣūl’, in ‘Awwā, , Muntakhabāt, 110–11 and 130–2Google Scholar. Also b., Ḥusayn ‘b., AlīWalīd, Muḥammad b., Risālat al-mabda’ 114–15Google Scholar where is stated that all ranks are preserved and not discontinued.
63 Khusraw, Nāsir-i, ‘Shish Faṣl’, in Ivanow, W. (ed.), Six chapters or Shish Faṣl (Leiden, 1949), 28–9 and 37 (transl. 65–6 and 78)Google Scholar.
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66 See in this regard Bryer, , ‘Origins’, 241–2Google Scholar. About the implications of the proclamation of Ḥākim's divinity see Hodgson, , ‘Al-Darāzī‘, 8–14Google Scholar and Assaad, , The reign, 179–81Google Scholar.
67 See b., Ḥusayn ‘b., AlīWalīd, Muḥammad b., Risālat al-mabda’, 124Google Scholar; Khusraw, N., ‘Shish Faṣl’, 25–6Google Scholar (transl. 60–61), and Khosraw, Nāṣir-i, Gushāyish va rahāyish (Leiden, 1950), 118–19Google Scholar. For the concept of divinity of ‘Alī, for example among the Nuṣayrīs, see Moosa, M., Extremist Shiites, 324–31, 337–8Google Scholar.
68 For the concept of Qā‘im/Mahdī in Ismā‘īlism see Madelung, W., ‘al-Mahdī’, El (2nd ed.), 1237Google Scholar; Assaad, , The reign, 36–9Google Scholar; and W., Ivanow, Brief survey of the evolution of Ismailism (Leiden, 1952), 57–8Google Scholar.
69 For Mahdist expectations during Ḥākim's time see Vatikiotis, P. J., ‘Al-Hakim bi-Amrillah: the God-king idea realized‘, IC, XXIX, 1955, 1–8Google Scholar. An interpretation of Ḥākim's status as ninth imām in the last cycle of imāms inaugurated by Ismā‘īl, Muḥammad b., in Makarem, S. N., ‘Al-Ḥākim bi-amrillāh's appointment of his successors’, Al-Abḥāth, XXIII, 1970, 319–25Google Scholar.
70 For Farghānī and Ḥamza ibn ‘Alī's claims about the resurrection see Madelung, W., ‘Das Imamat’, 121–2Google Scholar and Assaad, , The reign, 176Google Scholar. On Kirmānī's response see Kirmānī, , Mabāsim, 65Google Scholar and Rāḥat, 427Google Scholar.
71 Kirmānī, , Riyāṣḍ, 197–8, 201–2Google Scholar. Also Shīrāzā, , Majālis, vol. 5Google Scholar, MS 535 in the collection of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, (cf. Gacek, p. 62), f. 138b–139a:
Also in Ṣūrī, , (d.1096), Al-qaṣīda al-Ṣūrīva, ed. Tamir, , (Damascus, 1955), 70Google Scholar. Khusraw, N., Vahj-i dīn (Tehran, 1348 A.H.S.), 152–3Google Scholar.
72 ‘Haft Bāb-i Babā Sayyidnā’ (HBBS), in Ivanow, W. (ed.), Two early Ismaili treatises (Bombay, 1933), Persian text, 11, 21, 32–3Google Scholar. The HBBS is the expression of the elaboration of the Qiyāma doctrine made by Muḥammad II (reg. 1166–1210). See Hodgson, , The order of assassins (The Hague, 1955), 279Google Scholar and ‘The Ismaili state’, in Boyle, J. A. (ed.), The Cambridge history of Iran (Cambridge, 1968), 460–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the qā‘im as the only rank remaining at the resurrection see also Ivanow, W. (ed.), Haft Bāb or Seven chapters by Abū Isḥāq Quhīstānī (16th c.), (HBAI), (Bombay, 1959), Persian text, 43–4 (transl., 44)Google Scholar.
73 HBBS, 26.
74 For tarattub as ‘immobility’ see Steingass, F., A Persian-English dictionary (London, 1977), 292Google Scholar: ‘being firm, solid; being motionless …’; cf. Lane, , Arabic-English, book I, part III, 1025Google Scholar: ‘ … stationary or motionless’. For medieval dictionaries see Ibn Manzūr, , Lisān, I, 409–10Google Scholar: (tarattub or turtub/turtab) explained as ‘thābit’ (something firm, motionless) and Zabīdī, Muḥammad Murtadā, Tāj al-‘arūs (Benghazi, 1306), I, 266Google Scholar: ‘thābit, muqīm’
The expression ahl-i tarattub has been variously translated and interpreted by scholars. Wladimir Ivanow in one of his works written in 1950 translated it ‘people of gradation’ (see Ivanow, W. (ed. and tr.), Rawḍat al-taslīm or Taṣawwurāt (Leiden, 1950, 47)Google Scholar, or ‘those who rise by the scale of ascension’ (ibid., 163). In the later work HBAI (1959), Ivanow re-interprets tarattub as ‘firmly established religious order’ (p. 014) and ahl-i tarattub as ‘the followers of religious stability’ (p. 48), or ‘the followers of firm standing’ (p. 21). Ivanow reports that tarattub is read as tartīb by the ‘Central Asian Ismā‘īlīs’ (p. 014), and contrasts its meaning of ‘order’ with the meaning of ‘disorder’ implied by taḍādd. Significantly, especially in contrast to his previous assertions, in the same passage (p. 014) he states that tarattub (or tartīb) ‘has nothing to do with the hierarchy of the dignitaries, with the ideas of martaba, rutba …’. Despite his uncertainty between tartīb and tarattub, Ivanow, throughout his translation of HBAI, stresses the meanings of stability and firmness which are more related to tarattub than to tartīb.
Corbin, Marquet and Jambet, all translate ahl-i tarattub as ‘les gens de la hiérarchie’ (Corbin, Trilogie, (34)Google Scholar; Marquet, Y., Poésie ésotérique ismaïlienne, la Tā‘iyya de ‘Āmir b. ‘Amir al-Baṣrī, (Paris, 1985), 238Google Scholar; Jambet, C., La grande résurrection d'Alamūt, Lagrasse, 1990, 132Google Scholar). Along the same lines Madelung translates ‘people of gradation’ (‘Ismā‘īliyya’, El, 2nd ed., 205Google Scholar). Hodgson, on the other hand, stresses the concept of order and translates ‘ālam-i tarattub as ‘world of order’ (Hodgson, , The order of assassins, 315Google Scholar).
75 HBBS, 31–3.
76 For the term shirk with the meaning of ‘worshipping others beside God’, and also as a polemical term see Björkman, W., ‘Shirk’, El, 1st ed.378–80Google Scholar.
77 Ṭūsī, Naṣīr al-dīn (attributed), Rawḍat al-taslīm or Taṣawwurāt, ed. and tr. by Ivanow, W. (Leiden, 1950), Persian text, 113`Google Scholar (transl.,’ 130–1) and ‘Uṣūl-i adāb’, in Berthels, A. (ed.), Panj risāle dar bayān āfāq va anfus (Moscow, 1970), Persian text, 344–7Google Scholar.
78 Taṣawwurāt, transl., 134.
79 See Hodgson, , ‘The Ismaili state’, 469–72Google Scholar.
80 Tasawwurāt, 76–7 and 99. The rehabilitation of the ahl-i tarattub is expressed in (another) work by ṭūsī, the Āghāz va Anjām where they are defined as ‘the people of the right side’, as quoted in Badakhchani, S. J. H., ‘The paradise of submission, a critical edition and study of Rawẓeh-i Taslīm …’, D.Phil, thesis, Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford University 1989, 142Google Scholar. In a rather confusing passage of Sayr va sulūk, Nasīr al-dīn Ṭūsī seems to identify the people of taratlub with the people of qiyāma, who are overcome by the people of waḥdat. See ṭūsī, Nasīr al-dīn, ‘Sayr va sulūk’, in Majmū‘ah-i rasā‘il, Intishārāt-i Dānishgāh-i Tehrān, no. 308 (Tehran, 1956), 53–4Google Scholar and corrections to this text by Dānish-Pazhūh, M. T., ‘Guftārī az khwājah birawish-i bāṭiniyān’, in Majallah-i dānishkadah-i adabiyāt-i Tehrān, III, 4, 1335/1956, 85–6Google Scholar.
81 Hirātī, Khayr Khvāh (d.1553), Kalām-i Pīr, ed. and tr. by Ivanow, W. (Bombay, 1935), 92Google Scholar, and HBAI, 18, 50.
82 Lists of hierarchical ranks and, occasionally, references to their functions are to be found in Kalām-i Pīr, 87–88, 96–99Google Scholar, and throughout the so-called Badakhshānī literature, for example Sayyid, BadakhshānīWalī, Suhrāb, Sī-u shish ṣaḥīfa (wr. 1452), (Tehran, 1961), 7–8, 25–6 and 29–31Google Scholar; Uṣūl-i adāb, 304–11Google Scholar. As for the termìnology used, there is so far only one rank which appears to have no precedents in FĀṭimid literature: mu'allim (see Kalām-i Pīr, 93Google Scholar, and Taṣawwurāt, 96–7Google Scholar). In Syrian post-Qiyāma literature there is a constant mention of ḥudūd: Dadīkhī, , Asābī, 160Google Scholar; Guyard, M. S., ‘Fragments relatifs à la doctrine des Ismaélis’, Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris, 1874), XXII, 213–4Google Scholar; b., Ḥusayn ‘Alī, b.Walīd, Muḥammad b., Maṭāli, 28–30, etcGoogle Scholar.
83 For the role of the ḥujja which in a sixteenth-century text is defined as infallible and consubstantial with the imām, see Kalām-i Pīr, 52, 94Google Scholar. For the role of the dā‘ī see Mirza, N. A., ‘The Syrian Ismā‘īlīs at the time of the Crusades’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Durham, 1963, 109Google Scholar. See also Corbin's interpretation of the ‘intériorisation’ of the ranks in post-Qiyāma literature, in Trilogie, (19).
84 See Tāmir, ‘Ārif, Ibn Sīnā fī marābi’ Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ (Beirut, 1983), 118Google Scholar. Corbin translates ‘ālam al-dīn as ‘ hiérocosmos’, explaining it as ‘le monde sacré dont la hiérarchie ésotérique constitute la structure, laquelle symbolise avec les autre univers’, Trilogie, (24).
85 See Ivanow, W., Shish Faṣl, 16Google Scholar.
86 Shirāzī, , Majālis, I, 113, 123; II, 416Google Scholar. Also in texts which are the expression of the Qiyāma doctrine dīn is obedience see ‘ālam al-dīn in HBBS, 31. For yet another definition of dīn as obedience see al-Ṣafā, Ikhwān’, Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ (Beirut, 1957), III, 486Google Scholar:
