An Isma’ili perspective on the Ikhwan as-Safa

The Brethren were based in Basra (modern-day Iraq) in the 4th or 5th century AH / 10th or 11th century CE). The Rasa’il, their Encyclopædia, is a fascinating mixture of the Qur’anic, the Aristotelian and the Neoplatonic.

The Abbasid caliph Mamun (d. 218 / 833) patronized philosophy and professed Mutazalism. It was an interesting trend among the educated elite to drift towards Greek philosophy and ultimately a bulk of the contradictions raised among the Muslims in interpreting Islamic practices. When the independent philosophical trend was perceived a threat to the Islamic Shariah from liberal sciences, a knot of earnest thinkers began to flock in a house in Basra at a fixed season to reconcile the philosophy and religion. They were the Ikhwan as-Safa, possibly an agency or organ of the Isma’ili mission. They tried to evolve a new synthesis in order to save Islamic teachings from being swept away by the new flood of knowledge. And so the Encyclopædia was produced.

The identity of the compiler(s) of the Encyclopædia was concealed so skillfully that modern scholarship has spilled much ink in trying to trace the members of group. Using vivid metaphor, the members referred to themselves as “sleepers in the cave” (Rasa’il 4th). In one place they gave as their reason for hiding their secrets from the people - not fear of earthly rulers nor trouble from the common populace, but a desire to protect their God-given gifts (Rasa’il 4th). Aware that their esoteric teachings might provoke unrest they chose to remain hidden until the right day came for them to emerge from their cave and wake from their long sleep (Rasa’il 4th).

The Arabic phrase “Ikhwan as-Safa” has been variously translated by orientalists as “Brethren of Purity” (R.A. Nicholson), “The Pure Brethren” (H.A.R. Gibb), “Sincere Brethren” (W. Montgomery Watt), “Sincere Friends” (G.E. Von Grunebaum), “die lauteren Bruder” (C. Brockelmann), “die treuen Freunde” (ibid.), “die aufrichtigen Bruder und treuen Freunde” (G. Flugel), etc. The full name of the association was “Ikhwan as-Safa wa Khullan al-Wafa wa Ahl al-adl wa abna al-Hamd” (“The Brethren of Purity, the Faithful Friends, the Men of Justice and the Sons deserving praiseworthy Conduct”), a name which was apparently suggested to them by the chapter of the “Ring-Necked Dove” in Kalimah wa Dimnah (an Indian poem known in Persian as “Anvar-e Suhail” or “The Lights of Canopus” - translated from the lost original Sankskrit of the Panchatantra of Vishnu Sharma, into Persian by Husain Wa'iz al-Kashifi, who also authored the "Secrets of Qasim", offered by Antioch Gate). The story concerns a ring-dove and its companions who have become entangled in the net of a hunter seeking birds. Together, they left themselves and the ensnaring net to a nearby rat, who is gracious enough to gnaw the birds free of the net; impressed by the rat’s altruistic deed, a crow becomes the rat’s friend. Soon a tortoise and gazelle also join the company of animals. After some time, the gazelle is trapped by another net; with the aid of the others and the good rat, the gazelle is soon freed, but the tortoise fails to leave swiftly enough and is himself captured by the hunter. In the final turn of events, the gazelle repays the tortoise by serving as a decoy and distracting the hunter while the rat and the others free the tortoise. After this, the animals are designated as the “Ikwhan as-Safa”. This story is mentioned as an exemplum when the Brethren speak of mutual aid in one rasa’il, a crucial part of their system of ethics.

There are alternative explanations for the appellation “Ikhwan as-Safa”. Nicholson and Levy write on the authority of Ibn al-Qifti (d. 646 / 1248) that it is derived from the Brethren’s declaration that the Islamic Shariah in their time had become defiled with ignorance and adulterated with errors, and the only way to purify it was by means of philosophy. The relationship between “Sufi” and “safa” cannot be ignored either.

Abu Sulaiman Muhammed bin Ma’shar al-Bisti al-Maqdisi,

Abu’l-Hasan ‘Ali bin Harun az-Zanjani,

Abu Ahmad al-Mihrajani and

al-’Awfi.” (p. 3 The authorship of the Epistles of the Ikhwan-as-Safa, by Samuel Miklos Stern, published by Islamic Culture of Hyderabad in 1947).

The Catalogue of Arabic & Persian Manuscripts in Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, Patna (1994) has the following entry for the Rasa’il Ikhwan as-Safa:

“A well-known philosophical encyclopædia containing a collection of 51 treatises [there is controversy about the exact number of epistles. Some scholars claim they are 50 in number while others maintain 51 and yet others 52 or 53. However, a more authentic number is 52 and the 53rd risala is known as Jami’ i.e. the summation of the earlier rasa’il], which in about A.H. 350 were composed jointly by the following philosophers of the 4th century A.H.:-

(i) Abu Sulaiman Muhammad bin Mas’ud al Busti al Muqaddasi.

(ii) Abu Ahmad an Nahrajuri.

(iii) Abu’l Hasan ‘Ali bun Harun az Zanjani.

(iv) Abu’l Hasan ‘Ali bin Raminas al ‘Awfi.

(v) Zaid bin Rafa’a.

... The most important parts of the work with a translation were published in Leipzig, 1883-6, by Friedetich Dieterici.”.

The Ikhwan illustrate a group where the Aristotelian and the Neoplatonic clash head-on and where no attempt is made to reconcile competing and contradictory notions of God, whom the Epistles treat in both Qur’anic and Neoplatonic fashion. The final goal of the Brethren is salvation; their Brotherhood is the ship of that salvation, and they foster a spirit of asceticism and good living accompanied by ‘actual knowledge’ as aids to that longed-for salvation.

Contradictions abound in the Encyclopædia; if reasons be sought for this, it is worth remembering one theory, promulgated by AL Tibawi (1955), that the epistles are akin to the minutes taken during the deliberations of a learned society, meeting on many occasions over a period of years. This would account for both contradiction and repetition. We know from the epistles themselves that the authors urged their brothers to meet specially at set times, in closed sessions.

It is said that the members of the Ikhwan as-Safa formed a sort of Masonic Lodge, who lived in the Lower Mesopotamian river port of Basra, debating on literature, religion, philosophy and science. The association or club kept their proceedings concealed, and none were admitted.

They were classed into grades according to their moral and age, rather than elevation of soul. There were clearly no female members. Hierarchy was a major theme in their Encyclopædia, and unsurprisingly, the Brethren loosely divided themselves up into four ranks; the age guidelines would not have been firm, as for example, Jesus would have been too young if the age guidelines for the 4th rank were absolute and fixed. Compare the similar division of the Encyclopædia into four sections and the Jabirite symbolism of 4. The ranks were:

4. The “Prophets and Philosophers”- the most aspired-to; the final and highest rank of the Brethren; to become a Prophet or Philosopher a man had to be at least 50 years old. Their honorific compared them to historical luminaries such as Jesus, Socrates, or Muhammad who were also classified as Kings; this rank was the “angelic rank” (al-martabat al-malakiyya). These men would have an insight into the reality of things.

Their philosophical meetings took place three evenings each month at the start, middle and somewhere between 25th and the end of the month. Besides the usual lectures and discussions during their meetings, they would engage in some manner of liturgy reminiscent of the Harranians. “The liturgy of the first night consisted of personal oratory; that of the second of a ‘cosmic text’, read under the starry heavens facing the polar star; and that of the third night of a philosophical hymn (implying a metaphysical or metacosmic theme) which was a ‘prayer of Plato’, ‘supplication of Idris’, or ‘the secret psalm of Aristotle’.” (p. 35 of An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines: conceptions of nature and methods used for its study by the Ihwan Al-Safa, Al-Biruni, and Ibn Sina, by Prof. Seyyed Hossein Nasr; 1964, the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number (LCCN) 64-13430). They also celebrated three major feasts in the year, and both the meetings and feasts were closely related and coincided with the entry of the sun into three Zodiacal Signs of the Ram (Aries), the Scorpion (actually Cancer) and the Balance (Libra). These feasts were also co-related with the Islamic feasts of Id al-Fitr, Id al-Adha and Id al-Ghadir al-Khumm (a Shi’a tradition).

Returning to the Isma’ili hypothesis of the origin of the Encyclopædia, virtually nothing is known in detail about the Isma’ilis during the veiled era, and it seems that most of the renowned Isma’ilis had adopted taqiya (secrecy). According to Encyclopædia (Rasa’il 21st), “Know, that among us there are kings, princes, khalifs, sultans, chiefs, ministers, administrators, tax agents, treasurers, officers, chamberlains, notables, nobles, servants of kings and their military supporters. Among us too there are merchants, artisans, agriculturists and stock breeders. There are builders, landowners, the worthy and wealthy, gentlefolk and possessors of all many virtues. We also have persons of culture, of science, of piety and of virtue. We have orators, poets, eloquent persons, theologians, grammarians, tellers of tales and purveyors of lore, narrators of traditions, readers, scholars, jurists, judges, magistrates and ecstatics. Among us too there are philosophers, sages, geometers, astronomers, naturalists, physicians, diviners, soothsayers, casters of spells and enchantments, interpreters of dreams, alchemists, astrologers, and many other sorts, too many to mention.”

The Encyclopædia is concerned with all the major aspects of human life - religious, social, economic, scientific and political. The Isma’ili faith had penetrated into all walks of life. Joel Carmichael writes in “The Shaping of the Arabs” (London, 1969, p. 386) that, “The Isma’ili sect seems to have elaborated its doctrines in such a way as to attract a great part of the social discontent into its own channels and to have had immense appeal for the common people who were suffering so much from the social afflictions of the period. Beginning with the substantial peasant support and gradually infiltrating the urban workers, especially the craftsmen, with their revolutionary ideas, the Isma’ilis seem to have created some of the Islamic craft guilds.”.

The Brethren had a special interpretation of religion in general, and of Islam in particular. Their Shi'i leanings helped them to play cleverly upon the emotions of the masses. In the strict historical sense the Brethren did not belong to any sect. In fact, they sought, with the aid of Islam and Greek philosophy, to work out a spiritual doctrine which would take the place of the historical religions and which would, at the same time, suit everyone and insult nobody.

As far as we can gather from the Encyclopædia, the Brethren had no political programme. It seems, however, that some of their followers had pressed for political action to take the reins of government into their hands. The Brethren, the magnates among them, were not of this opinion; they reiterated in this connection that their sole aim was to uphold the faith and attain the bliss in the Hereafter. In the meantime they tried to acquire knowledge and be versed in theoretical sciences. They declared, further, that they intended to build up a spiritual city, a Utopia, which was not of this world, neither on the continent, nor on the high seas, nor in the air. [p. 291 A History of Muslim Philosophy Volume 1 (Pakistan Philosophical Congress, 1963)]