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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
Al-Qādī al-nu'mān (d. 363/974) holds a unique position in the history of Ismā'īlī/Fāṭimid literature. He was a voluminous author and headed a family of distinguished judges; his sons and grandsons held the office of chief judge in the Fāṭimid empire in Cairo for approximately half a century, except for brief intermissions.
1 cf. introduction to al-Nu'mān's al-Urjūzat al-mukhtārah, ed. Poonawala, Ismail K., Montreal, , Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, 1970Google Scholar.
2 Khallikān, Ibn, Wafayāt al-a'yān, Cairo, 1948, v, 48–56Google Scholar; Ḥajar, Ibn, Raf al-isr 'an quḍāt Miṣr in al-Kindi, Governors and judges of Egypt, ed. Guest, Rhuvon (Gibb Memorial Series, XIX, 1912), 586–7, 589–603, 613Google Scholar. The latter work is now being edited by Ḥāmid 'Abd al-Majīd and others, Cairo, 1957–; so far two parts have appeared.
3 Fyzee, A. A. A., ‘Qāḍī an-Nu'mān: the Fatimid jurist and author’, JRAS, 1934, 1, 1–32Google Scholar. It is hereafter cited as ‘an-Nu'mān’.
4 ibid.
5 Ivanow, W., A guide to Ismaili literature, London, 1933, 37–40Google Scholar. The list of al-Nu'mān's, works is almost the same in Ismaili literature, Tehran, 1963Google Scholar, a second amplified edition of the former; see below, p. 112, on Ta'wīl al-sharī'a.
6 It is obvious from the context that al-Kirmānī did not imply by it the famous work of al-Wāqidī Cf. Kraus, P., ‘La bibliographie ismaëlienne de W. Ivanow’, REI, vi, 1932, 487Google Scholar.
7 cf. al-Hamdānī, Ḥusayn, al-Ṣulayḥīyūn, Cairo, 1955, 265Google Scholar. It is also referred to in al-Risāla al-mudhhiba, 43, see p. 112, n. 17, below.
8 Unfortunately Fyzee did not retain this classification of Idrls 'Imād al-Dīn. It has to be noted that Fyzee's classification of certain works is inaccurate. For example, both Ma'ālim al-Mahdī and al-Majālis wa 'l-musāyarāt do not deal with wa'ẓ but rather with akhbār. Al-Urjūzat al-mukhtāra as well as Kitāb al-imāma are polemical works on the imāmate and not on ḥaqā'iq. Kayfīyat al-Ṣalāt does not deal with fiqh but rather with the esoteric interpretation of invoking the blessings of God on the Prophet. Its full title is Kayfīyat al-Ṣalawāt 'alā al-nabī. Probably this book is the same as Ta'wīl al-Ṣalawāt 'alā al-nabī referred to in Ta'wīl al-da'ā'im, ed. al-A'ẓami, Muḥammad, Cairo, n.d., I, 304Google Scholar. Ḥudūd al-ma'rifa and Kitāb al-tawḥīd do not belong to the ḥaqā'iq group. The former deals with the esoteric interpretation of the Qur'ān, whereas the latter is a commentary on the sermons of 'Ali which deal with al-tawḥīd and al-imāma. Ivanow's classification of the above works in his Guide is the same as that of Fyzee. Ḥusavn, Muḥammad Kāmil also followed this classification in his edition of Kitāb al-himma, Cairo, n.d., 11–12Google Scholar.
9 
'Uyūn al-akhbār, VI, 267. Cf. Kraus, P., art. cit., 487Google Scholar. 
10 Fyzee, A. A. A., ‘The study of the literature of the Fatimid da'wa’ in Makdisi, G. (ed.), Arabic and Islamic studies in honor of H. A. R. Gibb, Leiden, 1965, 232–49Google Scholar.
11 Fyzee's statement that two works are attributed to al-Nu'mān by al-Majdū’ seems not to be correct, cf. Fyzee, , ‘an-Nu'mān’, 15Google Scholar. Minhāj al-farā'iḍ is not mentioned in the Fihrist.
12 The MS of 'Alī b. Muḥammad b. al-Walīd, Lubb al-ma'ārif in Goriawala, M. (comp.), A descriptive catalogue of the Fyzee collection of Ismā'īlī manuscripts, Bombay, 1965, no. 101Google Scholar, reads Asās al-ta'wīl.
13 
Sharḥ al-akhbār (MSS, Fyzee collection, nos. 40–5), IV, 27Google Scholar. 
14 
Al-Majālis wa 'l-musāyarāt (MS, collection of Qurbān Ḥurbān F. Poonawala), I, 142–4. The above passage is also quoted in 'Uyūn al-akhbār, VI. 38–9.
15 A list of Arabic manuscripts microfilmed from the Yemen Arab Republic, Cairo, 1967, no. 3Google Scholar. It is hereafter cited as Manuscripts from Yemen.
16 cf. al-Nu'mān, , Iftitāḥ al-da'wa, ed. al-Qāḍī, Wadād, Beirut, 1970, 119Google Scholar.
17 The names of al-Mu'izz, 'Abdān, and al-Qaddāḥ occur in the text. There is a lengthy discussion on the concept of al-Qā'im and as to when he will appear. In this context the letter of al-Mu'izz to his dā'ī in Sind, Ḥalam b. Shaybān, is also cited. (Cf. Stern, S. M., ‘Heterodox Ismā'īlism at the time of al-Mu'izz’, BSOAS, XVII, l, 1955, 10–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.) Two works of al-Nu'mān himself, Kitāb al-ma'ād (see p. 109, n. 7, above) and Ma'ālim, 〈al-Mahdī〉, are also referred to.
18 
Manuscripts from Yemen, nos. 67–8. 
19 cf. Stern, S. M., ‘Abu'l Qāsim al-Bustī and his refutation of Ismā'īlism’. JRAS, 1961, 1–2, 24Google Scholar.
20 Fyzee's statement that Khallikān, Ibn mentioned only six works of al-Nu'mān is not correct, cf. 'an-Nu'mā, 2Google Scholar. Perhaps Fyzee was misled by de Slane's translation which he used. De Slane mentions six works by their Arabic titles while translating the rest. Hence, the Arabic passage 
reads in the translation ‘He composed also a good work on the meritorious 
and disgraceful acts (committed by the Arabian tribes), and wrote a number of refutations addressed to those who contested his opinions. One of these treatises was directed against Abû Ḥanîfa (the imâm), another against Mâlik and as-Shâfi, and another against Ibn Suraij’, lbn Khallikân's Biographical dictionary, tr. de Slane, , Paris, 1843–1871, III, 566Google Scholar.
21 states, Fyzee, ‘Ibn Khallikān mentions it erroneously as al-lntiṣār’ ‘an-Xu'mān’, 20Google Scholar. The Egyptian edition of Wafayāt al-a'yān reads 
and the editor states in the footnote: 
22 
in 'Uyūn, Fyzce's list, and Ivanow's Guide and Ismaili literature does not seem to be correct. In Wafayāt it reads 
Abū 'l-'Abbās Aḥmad b. 'Umar b. Surayj was a famous Shāfi'ī scholar and polemicist of the third century of the Hijra, cf. El, second ed., article ‘Ibn Suraydj’.
23 
is mentioned by Ibn Khallikān as 
.
24 Fyzee, identifies it with 
, cf. ‘an-Nu'mān’, 20Google Scholar. Perhaps they are identical. The author of 'Uyūn, VI, 32, states: 
while Ibn Khallikān writes: 
.
25 The biography of al-Mahdi from al-Muqaffā is translated by Fagnan, E., ‘Nouveaux textes historiques relatifs à l'Afrique du Nord et à la Sicile’, in Centenario di Michele Amari, Palermo, 1910, II, 35–85Google Scholar.
26 Al-Maqi'īzī has more or less summarized from Iftitāḥ. Sometimes he quotes verbally, for example, cf. p. 41, n. 1 in Itti‘āẓ al-ḥunafā’ with Iftitāḥ, 54–8. Cf. also El, second ed., article ‘Abū 'Abd Allāh al-Shī'ī’ by S. M. Stern.
27 Ibn Ḥajar states that it was compiled both by al-Nu'mān and his son 'Alī and not by 'Abd al-'Azīz, the grandson of al-Nu'mān, as reported by Ibn Kathīr. However, the latter states in his al-Bidāya wa 'l-nihāya, Cairo, n.d., XI, 321, that it was compiled by Muḥammad b. Nu'mān.
28 Probably the same as No. 23 in Fyzee's list.
29 Probably the same as No. 6 in Fyzee's list.
