Ikhwanus Safa PDF

MIDÉO
Mélanges de l'Institut dominicain d'études orientales

34 | 2019
Le ḥadīṯ comme autorité du savoir
The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity Edited by the

Institute of Ismaili Studies
When the Re-Edition of a Text Can Be Its Destruction
Guillaume De Vaulx d’Arcy
Electronic version
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/mideo/3397
ISSN: 1783-1628
Publisher:
IDEO - Institut dominicain d'études orientales, IFAO - Institut français d'archéologie orientale
Printed version
Date of publication: 30 May 2019
Number of pages: 253-330
ISBN: 978-2-7247-0752-6
ISSN: 0575-1330

Electronic reference
Guillaume De Vaulx d’Arcy, « The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity Edited by the Institute of Ismaili
Studies », MIDÉO [Online], 34 | 2019, Online since 10 June 2019, connection on 03 February 2020.
URL : http://journals.openedition.org/mideo/3397
Institut Dominicain d'Études Orientales

The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity
Edited by the Institute of Ismaili Studies
When the Re-Edition of a Text Can Be Its Destruction
GUILLAUME DE VAULX D’ARCY

INSTITUT FRANÇAIS DU PROCHE-ORIENT
To Emily Cottrell and Mourad Kacimi for their support;

their impressive philological knowledge, their creative
thinking, and their friendship.
Part 1
The New Epistles of the Brethren in Purity: 1
What is Gained … and What is Lost
In 2008, the Institute of Ismaili Studies initiated the project of a critical
edition and an English translation of the Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafā. This is one of
the major works regarding Islamic philosophy in this emerging century.
Three complete editions of the text had been published before (Bombay 1887,
Cairo 1928, Beirut 1957) but none of them was based on a critical study of the
manuscripts. The Bombay edition transcribed a hidden manuscript, and the
editions of Cairo and Beirut transcribed Bombay’s edition, merely adding some
grammatical corrections. Concerning the translations, two paraphrases were
available, one in German by Dieterici, and the other in Italian by Bausani.
A partial translation in German by Diwald, and excerpts in Italian, French, and
English were made, but no complete translation appeared in any European
language. A critical edition and its translation were therefore required.
The Institute of Ismaili Studies provided all the means to accomplish this
task seriously. An impressive board with major scholars was constituted, most
1. We model our translation of Iḫwān al-Ṣafā on the expression “brethren in faith”.
MIDÉO 34 – 2019
254 Guillaume De Vaulx D’arcy
of the existing manuscripts were gathered and analyzed,2 a group of more

than twenty-five scholars was commissioned to work on the edition and the
translation with full freedom of research.
To date (December 2017), twelve volumes containing thirty of the fifty-two
epistles have been published. So, we can take a first look at the new version
of the Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafā. How should we assess it? Does it “render service to
the academic community and lay a scholarly foundation for further studies
dedicated to the Brethren’s corpus” as El Bizri asserts in the foreword of each
volume? Does the London edition offer a very different text in comparison
to the former ones? Does it solve any hermeneutic problem? Does it create
new ones? Does it even respect the nature of the text?
In this study, we will discuss the general policy of the project, analyze the
already published volumes of the series, then go back to the main manuscript,
Atif Effendi 1681, for a comparative study with the Beirut edition.
References to texts are based on the following abbreviations: the Beirut
edition: volume ‒ page (for instance, I 99); the London edition: Arabic edition
or English translation – page (for instance Arab. p. 99, or Eng. p. 99). BCB names
Bombay/Cairo/Beirut editions, considering that the second and the third are
based only on the first.
1. The Editorial Policy: Its Presupposition …

and Its Self-Realization
a. The General Non-Policy

The project was launched in 2008 in an academic context characterized
both by different interpretations of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’s philosophical doctrine,3
2. However, Mourad Kacimi noticed that an important manuscript from the Bibliothèque
Nationale du Royaume du Maroc was not taken into account: BNRM ‫ ك‬365, which is the third
oldest manuscript, for it dates from 1222 while Atif Effendi 1681 dates from 1182, and MS 5038
from the Königliche Bibliothek im Berlin from 1203. We got hold of it and analyzed it. We will
not mention it in this article, but we can say that it confirms the hypothesis on the manuscript
tradition developped below.
3. For a Šīʿa allegiance, see de Callataÿ, Ikhwan al-Safaʾ, p. XI; for a Qarmatian affiliation,
see Widengren, “The Pure Brethren and the Philosophical Structure of Their System”;
for a Muʿtazilite view, see Awa, L’esprit critique des Frères de la Pureté, p. 300‒301. G. Zaïdan,
Ed. G. Browne, Nicholson, Asín Palacios, and Ṭibāwī share this opinion. For a Sufi identity, see
Diwald, Arabische Philosophie und Wissenschaft in der Enzyklopädie, p. 21‒23; and last but not least
for an Ismailian production, see for example Abbas Hamdani, “Brethren of Purity, a Secret
The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity Edited by the Institute of Ismaili Studies 255
and by a certain doubt about the authorship of the Epistles. Indeed, their at-
tribution to the group of Basrian scholars at the end of the 10th century was
already questioned, inter alia, by Diwald or Hamdani.4 But the Institute of
Ismaili Studies seems to accept the loose consensus exposed by de Callataÿ
in his monograph which they edited as well as his allusion to a Šīʿite context,
a syncretic view, and an extended writing over more than one century.5
Unfortunately, since then, this very paradigm has been destroyed by the
same de Callataÿ in 2013 when he established the existence of the entire book
before 926,6 and by ourselves in building a new paradigm in 2014 on a very
different basis: that the Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafā was the mature work of Aḥmad b.
al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī, a philosophical system written during the years 880‒890
following a very precise Pythagorean doctrine.7
Even if the project was not based on a strong hypothesis, the loose con-
sensus influenced the editorial policy and gave the book its own statement.
This policy is exposed in the foreword written by Nader El-Bizri, the general
editor which contains:
–– A historical weak agreement on al-Tawḥīdī’s testimony: “The most
common account regarding the presumed identity of the Ikhwān is
usually related to the authority of the famed scholar Abū Ḥayyān
al-Tawḥīdī” (foreword, § 2). This testimony attributes the authorship to
the Basrian group from the end of the 10th century. It denies the unity
of thought and introduces a multiplicity of styles in the composition.
–– A hermeneutic decision characterizing the group by “their syncretic
approach” (foreword, § 6).
Society for the Establishment of the Fāṭimid Caliphate : New Evidence for the Early Dating
of their Encyclopaediaˮ, p. 81; Abbas Hamdani, “The Ikhwān al-Safāʾ: between al-Kindī and
al-Fārābī ”, p. 201. But, other Ismailian scholars like Muṣṭafā Ġālib or ʿĀrif Tāmir, and Carmela
Baffioni also, can be consulted.
4. Diwald, Arabische Philosophie und Wissenschaft in der Enzyklopädie, p. 10‒11; Hamdani,
“Abū Ḥayyan al-Tawḥīdī and the Brethren of Purity”.
5. Among many, de Callataÿ, Ikhwan al-Safa’, p. 44 and p. 75.
6. De Callataÿ, “Magia en al-Andalus: Rasāʾil Ijwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rutbat al-ḥakim y Gāyat al-ḥakim
(Picatrix)”.
7. We exposed it first in a lecture at the IDEO, then in the 9th conference of the SIHSPAI.
See de Vaulx d’Arcy, Les Épîtres des Frères en Pureté. Mathématique et philosophie, p. 13-63.
Since the book is not considered as a completely unified and systematic

work, it can be divided into many parts and partitioned among different
editors without requiring any attempt to co-ordinate their works.
b. Volume Analysis: How to Make one Book Many? …

And How to Make Many Books One?
The Institute of Ismaili Studies sent the scholars only a few pages of each
manuscript they had to edit and translate. Some complained about such
working conditions, arguing that the difficulty to determine the relationship
between the different manuscripts is “compounded since each of us is only
dealing with a small subset of the entire work” (On Astronomy, p. 16). Also,
“I only had access to the pages containing the three epistles from the respec-
tive manuscripts. Thus, any attempt to determine the filiation and genealogy
of the manuscripts in general was not possible based on partial manuscripts”
(On Companionship and Belief, p. 1). The scholars were then like the believers in
Epistle 44 (IV 16‒17): a column of strong but blind men with no guidance, they
could only lose their way. The consequence is their incapacity to determine
the genealogy of the manuscripts, to have an idea of the possible Urtext, or
to agree on a version. This also produced a certain carelessness about under-
standing the real function of the epistle in the book as a whole, by restricting
the interpretation of the text to the understanding of one part of it and thus
forgetting a basic hermeneutic law: to understand the part in the light of the
whole. So, they made one book into many.
That is the reason why we intend to take the opportunity of this review
to restore the unity of the book and reinforce the logical succession of the
epistles which is directly inherited from al-Kindī’s Epistle on the Quantity of
Aristotle’s Books, beginning with the mathematical and logical propaedeutic
method (1‒14), then physics considered as the science of bodies (15‒25), then
noetics as the science of what is not a body but is in a body (26‒31), then
metaphysics which studies what is not a body nor in a body (32‒41), and,
finally, the practical sciences.
Furthermore, and apart from a few exceptions (Epistle 32 and Epistle 52),
editors were compelled to produce one text per epistle despite the diversity
of versions that could be found in the manuscripts. For instance, the Bodleian
version, which can radically be another text, does not appear even in the
critical apparatus.8 Although the editors did not decide that one version could
represent the Urtext, they did not reproduce the diversity of the actual texts,
but each one chose particular manuscripts to build his own partial edition. The
consequence is the reduction of the many versions to an inconsistent book.
2. The Stroboscopic Epistles

Review of the Volumes
For each volume, we will begin by mentioning the peer-reviews that have
been written. We can already notice that all the reviewers share one regret,
that the Arabic text does not face the English translation but are pulled
away on both sides of the volumes. We will then concentrate our remarks on
highlighting its differences with the Beirut edition which were not even no-
ticed by many editors who ignored that the Beirut edition perhaps r epresents
the best version of the text.
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Arithmetic and

Geometry. An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of
Epistles 1‒2, edited by Nader El-Bizri, Oxford, Oxford University
Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2012.
400 p., 9.2 × 6.1 inches, 99 $. ISBN 978-0-19965-560-1
Status quaestionis
Three reviewers studied this volume. The first one, Niazi, insists on its re-
lationship with the previous English translation, and we will come back to this
below.9 The two others are very severe. Brentjes criticizes its poor scientific
quality: “El-Bizri’s lack of experience in history of mathematics in Antiquity
and Islamicate societies, as a translator of technical texts, and as an editor.
In more than one instance he has misunderstood or misinterpreted Arabic
passages and mathematical statements.”10 More specifically, she denounces
“several elementary technical mistakes in the translation of the mathematical
8. Only Baffioni recorded it in the appendix of On Logic.

9. Niazi, “Review: On Arithmetic and On Geometry”.
10. Brentjes, “Review: On Arithmetic and On Geometry”, p. 112.
content” and that “the editor more than once provides incomplete or false
historical information”.11
Clearly referring to Brentjes’ critics, Amin concentrates on another
problem:
Even aside from those mistakes which are only discernible to the eye of the ex-
pert historian, the translation and edition of both of the epistles in this volume
abound in inaccuracies: key terms are mis-transliterated […] or transliterated
inconsistently between the two parts of the text […] ; elsewhere entire para-
graphs or schematics appearing in the Arabic text have not been translated
or represented in the English part for no apparent reason […] ; at least one
paragraph appears in the English which has no corresponding equivalent in
the Arabic (i.e. the paragraph beginning ‘If the distance. . .’ on Eng. p. 141).12
Such mistakes are legion. For example, the figures drawn in Arab. p. 35 and
p. 41 are not reproduced in Eng. p. 79 and p. 83. We will give below the clue to
such odd differences between the edition and the translation.
Presentation
El-Bizri highlights the general elements of the history of mathematics
in the Islamic world (p. 2‒7). He then comments separately on both epis-
tles, “on arithmetic” and “on geometry”. Regarding the first, he translates
in contemporary formal language the arithmetical elements of Epistle 1
written in a natural language (Eng. p. 25‒29) following Goldstein’s previous
translation,13 which he mentions in the presentation (Eng. p. 29, footnote 66),
but omits in the bibliography. The other predecessors, I mean D ieterici’s
paraphrase,14 A. A.’s French translation of Epistle 1, and Sonja Brentjes’
German one, are also omitted.15 Regarding the scientific sources of the epistle,
El-Bizri gives the same importance to Euclid and Nicomachus of Gerasa and
11. Idem.
12. Amin, “Review: On Arithmetic and On Geometry”, p. 314.
13. See Goldstein, “A Treatise on the Number Theory from a Tenth-Century Arabic Source”.
He already noticed the great proximity between the Rasāʾil and Nichomachus, p. 130‒131.
14. Dieterici, Die Propaedeutik der Araber im zehnten Jahrhundert.
15. A. A., “L’Épître des Frères de la Pureté sur les Nombres”; Brentjes, “Die erste Risâla der
Rasâʾil Iḫwân al-Ṣafâʾ über elementare Zahlentheorie ‒ Ihr mathematisher Gehalt und ihre
Beziehungen zu spätantiken arithmetischen Schriften”.
refers briefly to almost all the Arab mathematicians. Actually, the decisive
book is the Introduction to Arithmetic by Nichomachus. We established that
Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī was not only the author of the Epistles but also
the “reviser” of the first Arabic version of the Introduction to A
rithmetic.16 Even
if we refuse this historical assertion, it is obvious that the Pythagorean phi-
losophy of the Epistles is based on the reading of the Introduction to Arithmetic,
and Epistle 1 uses Nichomachus’ definitions in the first part of the book.17 The
foundation of geometry in arithmetic is inherited from book 2, chapters 6‒7,
and Epistle 6 is based on book 2, chapter 21 and further on.18 Even if El-Bizri in-
vokes al-Ḫawarizmī (p. 4), he does not understand that his direct influence ap-
pears in Epistle 6, I 256-257 which reads very precisely Kitāb al-ǧabr on trade.19
El-Bizri prefers to mention late scholars such as al-Buzǧānī (d. ca.998 ce) and
al-Uqlīdisī (d. ca.980 ce) whose relation with the Epistles cannot be proved.
Regarding the relation of both epistles with the system of Iḫwān al-Ṣafā,
this is shown in Eng. p. 10‒11. El-Bizri clearly understands the importance of
arithmetic in the whole book and gives examples in Epistle 22 and 32. We fol-
low his consideration that Epistle 1 is something like the book of the method,
the logical structure of the whole book, the arithmetic sequence being the
driving engine of the system. Concerning geometry, he demonstrates else-
where that Epistle 2 is the propaedeutic to soteriology, and we demonstrate
elsewhere that its dualist structure between sensitive and rational geometry
is the model of the duality between geography and astronomy, instrumental
music and harmony, etc.20
Edition
Although El-Bizri principally used Atif Effendi 1681 for his edition, we must
welcome his systematic inclusion of the Beirut variations which he sometimes
prefers to Atif Effendi 1681 (for instance, I 57/Arab. p. 29 // Eng. p. 76‒77;
I 67/Arab. p. 48 // Eng. p. 87, footnote 20).
16. See de Vaulx d’Arcy, “Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī, réviseur de l’Introduction arithmétique
de Nicomaque de Gérase, et rédacteur des Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafā”.
17. Sonja Brentjes identified all the relations between Epistle 1 and the Introduction to A
rithmetic
in Brentjes, “Die erste Risâla…”, p. 236‒237.
18. See our translation of Epistles 1, 2 and 6 in Les Épîtres des Frères en Pureté. Mathématique et
philosophie.
19. See al-Ḫuwārizmī, al-Ǧabr wa-l-muqābala, p. 48‒49.
20. See de Vaulx d’Arcy, Les Épîtres des Frères en Pureté. Mathématique et philosophie.
‫ ‬ ‫ ‪260‬‬ ‫‪Guillaume De Vaulx D’arcy‬‬
‫‪Nevertheless, concerning Epistle 1, the difference between both the Beirut‬‬

‫‪and London editions is tenuous, dealing with insignificant details, as for in-‬‬
‫‪stance the use of “ʿilm” (Arab. p. 9) instead of “ḥikma” (I 48). The most relevant‬‬
‫‪is following:‬‬
‫‪Beirut, I 61‬‬ ‫‪London, p. 37‬‬

‫ومن أراد أن يتبيّن هذا مستقصى‬ ‫ومن أراد أن يتبيّن هذا العدد أعني زوج الزوج مستقصى‬
‫‪The precision “I mean powers of two”, in El-Bizri’s translation, is only a‬‬

‫‪reminder of the topic, the numbers that are powers of two. We also find such‬‬
‫‪a reminder two lines later in both editions. This one may then be an addition‬‬
‫‪in Atif Effendi 1681.‬‬
‫‪Concerning Epistle 2, we find more differences. Below are the meaningful‬‬
‫‪ones and their comparison:‬‬
‫‪Beirut‬‬ ‫‪London‬‬ ‫‪Correct edition‬‬

‫‪1‬‬ ‫‪I 79‬‬ ‫الأشياء الكائنات في‬ ‫‪p. 74‬‬ ‫الأشياء الكائنات في هذا العالم‬ ‫‪L‬‬
‫هذا العلم‬
‫‪2‬‬ ‫‪I 79‬‬ ‫‪Ø‬‬ ‫‪p. 74‒75‬‬ ‫وحد المنطق أنه علم يتوصل‬ ‫‪B‬‬
‫به إلى اكتساب المجهولات‬
‫من التصورات والتصديقات‬
‫بمعلومات هي مبادئ لها‬
‫‪3‬‬ ‫‪I 79‬‬ ‫ومبدأها من الجوهر‬ ‫‪p. 75‬‬ ‫ومبدأها من العقل والنفس‬ ‫‪B‬‬
‫‪4‬‬ ‫‪I 79‬‬ ‫ومبدأ هذا العلم [وهو‬ ‫‪p. 75‬‬ ‫ومبدأ هذا العلم [وهو الإلهيات]‬ ‫‪B‬‬
‫الإلهيات] من معرفة‬ ‫من معرفة ال ل��ه ع ّز وجلّ‪،‬‬
‫جوهر النفس كالملائكة‬ ‫وجوهر العقل والنفس كالملائكة‬
‫والنفوس والشياطين‬ ‫والنفوس والشياطين والجن‬
‫والجن والأرواح بلا‬ ‫والأرواح بلا أجسام‬
‫أجسام‬
‫‪5‬‬ ‫‪I 104‬‬ ‫وزهدت في السكون‬ ‫‪p. 127‬‬ ‫وزهدت في ا�لكون معه‬ ‫‪B‬‬
‫معه‬
‫‪6‬‬ ‫‪I 113‬‬ ‫على فهم كيفية تأثيرات‬ ‫‪p. 144‬‬ ‫على فهم كيفية تأثيرات‬ ‫‪L‬‬
‫الأشخاص الف�لكية‬ ‫الأشخاص الف�لكية في الأشخاص‬
‫وأصوات الموسيقى في‬ ‫السفلية الطبيعية وعلى فهم‬
‫نفوس المستمعين‬ ‫تأثيرات كيفية أصوات الموسيقى‬
‫في نفوس المستمعين‬
Please find below the explanation of our choice of the correct version:
1. Beings exist in the world, not in science.
2. This definition of logic is very different from the definition found in
Epistle 10, I 157, on categories. It may be an addition by the copyist.
3. It deals with the logical categories, the first of which is substance. See
Epistle 5, I 199: “And we demonstrated in the Epistle on Logic that sub-
stance is like the one, and the other nine categories are like the nine
units.”
4. The London edition seems to be more complete, for it adds the first
two metaphysical principles before the soul, i.e. God and the Intellect.
But, two lines later, the Beirut identification of the principle of
al-ilāhiyyāt with the substance of the soul is repeated in both editions.
This means that the topic is not metaphysics but the noetic sciences,
which are the science of the soul without a body, according to the
quoted sentence that follows al-Kindī’s Quantity of Aristotleʼs Books.
5. The present idea deals with bodies characterized by movement and
release. Atif Effendi 1681, followed by the London edition, obviously
omitted a letter.
6. Both have the same meaning, but the London edition sounds more
complete. The expression “al-ašḫāṣ al-sufliyya” appears in other places.
Translation
Surprisingly, although we find tenet differences between both editions, in
his translation of Epistle 1, El-Bizri apparently follows... the Beirut edition and
not his own edition of the text! Regarding the first difference we mentioned
(I 48/Arab. p. 9), he translates: “… become easier for students to acquire the
wisdom…” (Eng. p. 66). Regarding the second difference (I 61/Arab. p. 37),
El-Bizri translates as follows: “Whoever wishes to understand this thoroughly”
(Eng. p. 80) forgetting “I mean the powers of two”. He also did not translate
(Eng. p. 98), another addition of the London edition, I 77/Arab. p. 68:
‫بحثوا عن علم النفس وألفوا فيه ا�لكتب بقرائح قلوبهم الصافية‬
…inquired into the science of the soul with the natural talents of their pure minds
This means that the “general editor” of the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity
did not translate Epistle 1 on the basis of the London edition but on the basis
of the Beirut edition.
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Astronomia. An Arabic

Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistle 3, edited by
F. J. Ragep & Taro Mimura, Oxford, Oxford University Press in
association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2015.
368 p., 9.2 × 6.1 inches, 85 $. ISBN 978019874737621
Presentation
Ragep and Mimura consider the epistle only as an introduction to astron-
omy, and that its model is al-Qabīṣī’s Introduction to Astrology (d. 380/967).22
Through this comparison, both scholars judge that the scientific level of the
epistle is not only lower than that of al-Qabīṣī, but also that its method is
not suitable for the teaching of astronomy. So, they conclude that the aim of
the epistle has to be found elsewhere: “(The beginner they have in mind) is
someone who wishes to gain moral guidance through well-chosen examples
of astronomical knowledge” (p. 7). Astronomy would be a step on this moral
path that has to be pursued further through other sciences. We will see below
its moral relation with geography.
The choice to take al-Qabīṣī as a reference misleads interpretation of
the context. For instance, an important text on astrology (ʿilm al-aḥkām23)
(I 144/Arab. p. 111‒114) cannot be understood out of its 9th-century context.
This text presents three attitudes towards astral persons (al-ašḫāṣ al-falakiyya):
firstly, those who consider that they are signs of future events; then, those
who consider that they also have an effect on the sublunary world; and
finally, those who consider that they are nothing but rocks. These three
positions wrangled with each other in the 9th century. The first one was
Persian astrology represented by Abū Maʿšar al-Balḫī (272/886). Against him,
al-Kindī defended a judiciary astrology inspired by Ptolemy. This polemic
between the Arab and Persian astrologers is staged in the fable of animals
(Epistle 22, II 350‒351/Arab. p. 237‒238)in which the parrot mocks the Persian
astrologers, shows the uselessness of a science which is unable to give any
guidance concerning its object, and then solves the problem by praying to the
21. This epistle was previoulsy reviewed by Schmidl, “Review: On Astronomia”, and D’Ancona,
“Review: On Astronomia”.
22. Qabīṣī (356/967) and Burnett, The Introduction to Astrology, p. 18.
23. This word used for astrology is surprisingly translated “science of judgements”, but
indicates in fact the science of the divine decrees (if we wish to have a literal translation).
vertical causes. The third position is that of the naturalists (aṣḥāb al-ṭabīʿa) who
reduce everything to the four elements.24 This materialist rationality leads
to atheism and is the principle opponent against whom the Rasāʾil fights.25
In this presentation, the Epistle is never analyzed as a step in the develop-
ment of the book, although Epistle 3 cannot be understood except on the basis
of Epistle 2 which introduced space and relied on the distinction between sen-
sitive geometry and theoretical geometry, leading to the abstraction (taǧarrud)
of the forms from material support. In the same way, Epistle 3 describes the
celestial world in order to remind the reader of the future “abstraction of
the soul (taǧarrud al-nafs)” and inspire his desire to reach the upper world
(tašawwaqat nafsuhu al-ṣuʿūda) (I 137‒140/Arab. p. 84‒89). So, the method of
teaching geometry is applicable to cosmology.
Edition
Both the editors have the humility to admit: “We make no claim that we
have produced a ‘critical edition’” (p. 17). We saw before that other editors
explained their failure by their condition of work. Ragep and Mimura point
out a deeper problem: “The ambiguities regarding the textual transmission
of the Epistles” (p. xxi). They finally chose the manuscript from the Mahdavī
Collection, Tehran MS ‫ ط‬on the assumption “that such an ‘uncluttered’
witness preserves an earlier version of the text” (p. 17). Then, the variations
in other manuscripts are considered as additions and the editors “strove to
record, as far as possible, all variants from the seven manuscripts [they] used”
(p. 17). Additional chapters dealing only with technical material taken from
two other manuscripts are put in an appendix.
The end of this introduction concentrates on internal references to other
epistles. Editors conclude that Epistle 3 is then of late composition since those
epistles were already available when Epistle 3 was written. But they forget
an important point, that those very epistles also contain references showing
that Epistle 3 was already available when they were written! For instance,
Epistle 3 (I 153) refers to Epistle 5 (I 215) on the application of harmonic re-
lation to astronomy, but, at the same time, Epistle 5 (I 215) refers to Epistle 3
(I 119) on the value of the circle. This interrelationship, which we termed a
24. Crone, “Ungodly Cosmologies”, p. 115‒119.

25. We analyze this case in de Vaulx d’Arcy, “La 17e nuit d’al-Tawḥīdī : réfutation d’une
hérésie menaçante, les Épîtres des Frères en Pureté”.
“scriptural circle”,26 should have puzzled the editors. Each epistle is not an
independent treatise but an element of a pre-defined philosophical system
using positive sciences as its material.
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Geography. An Arabic

Edition and English Translation of Epistle 4, edited by Ignacio Javier Sánchez
Rojo & James Montgomery, Oxford, New York, Oxford University
252 p., 9.2 × 6.1 inches, 50 $. ISBN 978-0-19-872822-1
Status quaestionis
A common sin of scholars in Islamic studies is to flush out the hidden
profanations. For instance, Sanchez and Montgomery conclude from the
identification in Epistle 4 of the country of prophets with the fourth climate
(Mesopotamia, the Levant), as indicating the exclusion of Muhammad from
this family of prophets. Antrim is convincing in her rebuttal of this Orientalist
fantasy:
Indeed ninth- and tenth-century works, such as Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād al-Khuzāʾī’s
Kitāb al-fitan and world geographies by Ibn al-Faqīh and al-Muqaddasī, all apply
some version of the epithet ‘land of the prophets’ to Syria in recognition of
the many prophets before Muḥammad associated with the region and thus
its long sacred history.27
That many Muslim authors give great importance to other prophets does
not exclude Muḥammad from prophecy.
Presentation
This presentation is technically very precise for the history of geography
and is the only volume that puts the epistle both within the historical context
of Arabic geography development and in the hermeneutical context of the
Epistles as a whole.
26. De Vaulx d’Arcy, Les Épîtres des Frères en Pureté. Mathématique et philosophie, p. 28.
27. Antrim, “Review: On Geography”, p. 93.
The historical analysis reveals that: “Although al-Farghānī is the principal

source for the main text, the composition of the cartographical tables drew
on a different source. The tables of the cities with their co-ordinates that
accompany the description of the seven climes are based on al-Khwārismī’s
reformulation of Ptolemy’s Geography” (Eng. p. 35). So, all the sources are lim-
ited to the 9th century. We can add here an element mentioned in L ettinck’s
researches which established that Iḫwan al-Ṣafā’s meteorology exposed in
Epistle 4 and Epistle 18 has a specifically Kindian affiliation: “The Iḫwān
al-ṣafāʾ, al-Qazwīnī, and Najm ad-Dīn maintain with al-Kindī that wind is air
which is set into motion by dry exhalations.”28 Indeed, this explanation of
wind was rejected by other major thinkers like al-Ǧāḥiẓ and Ibn Sīnā, who
preferred the Aristotelian views. This Kindian affiliation could explain the
specificity of Epistle 4 (I 175-176/Arab. p. 41‒45) that the editors pointed out:
“There is, however, a striking difference that separates this epistle by the
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ from al-Farghānī’s and al-Khwārizmī’s works and also the
majority of Islamic geographical writings: the treatment of the fourth clime”
(Eng. p. 35‒36). Unfortunately, no surviving text can confirm this claim.
The other quality of this presentation is not to forget that Epistle 4 is
only a chapter of a larger book and to request that we “read the treatise as a
coherent textual unit in the holistic framework of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ”
(Eng. p. 43). We agree with such advice and follow it. The Epistle on Geography
is not only an introduction to this science, but it also takes part in the sote-
riological system. The individual has to know his actual place in the world
compared to the celestial destiny of his soul:
Knowledge of the Earth and of how it is stationary in the air belongs to the
noble sciences, because the Earth is what our bodies stand on, it is where our
bodies start their existence and grow, and whence they derive the matter for
their continuance, and it is thither that they return when they are separated
from our souls (Eng. p. 49/I 159).
Geography is the brother of astronomy, just as politics is of religion. While

astronomy describes the residence of the soul, geography describes the world
of the body. And the elevation from geography to astronomy can be compared
with the passage from sensitive geometry to theoretical geometry in Epistle 2,
28. Lettinck, Aristotle’s Meteorology and Its Reception in the Arab World, p. 176. See also p. 9‒10
and 107‒111.
and from music to harmony in Epistle 5 and Epistle 6. This is the movement
that prepares the ascension of the soul from its earthy life to its heavenly
eternal life through separation from the body.
Geography is also a propaedeutic to the science of the soul in another way.
The method of the Rasāʾil consists in showing how proximate elements prepare
us for the understanding of distant realities, not only in the theological way of
the inference from the visible to the hidden (al-istidlāl min al-šāhid ʿalā al-ġāʾib),
but also in the epistemological use of the duality microcosm/macrocosm, the
first being a preliminary way to understand the structure of the second, exactly
like the science of the self is a preparation for the science of the universe,
which is a macrozoon, following Plato’s view. Similarly, the representation of
the Earth (ṣūrat al-arḍ is the Arabic name for Geography) prepares us for the
study of the skies (I 166‒167/Arab. p. 56‒57).
Finally, the end of the epistle (I 181‒182/Arab. p. 77‒78) is clearly an an-
nouncement of Epistle 45 on the brotherhood that is able to prepare for the
next virtuous cycle.
Edition
The editors chose Esad Effendi 3638 after a precise analysis of the eleven
manuscripts and their classification (Eng. p. 13). But they make it clear that
“this edition does not seek to reconstruct a hypothetical Urtext (if it ever
existed)”.
A phenomenon concerning Esad Effendi 3637 has been noticed: it contains
some additions in the margin coming from the reading of a second manu-
script. The editors make a hypothesis: “A manuscript belonging to group B
(‫ز‬،‫ط‬،‫ك‬،‫ )ل‬seems to have been used for the marginal notes in ‫( ”ن‬Eng. p. 12).
But one addition in the margin (Arab. p. 7, footnote 2) can only be found in
the Beirut edition (I 159). So, the correction was made from the Beirut source,
or from a branch of this source. It may be the same for marginal additions
in Atif Effendi 1681.
And the Beirut edition contains most of the “additions” of other manuscripts
that are lacking only in Esad Effendi 3638’s. Some of them are most probably
omissions by homeoteleuton in Esad Effendi 3638 (for instance I 161/Arab. p. 10,
footnote 6). So, Beirut, and BNF 2304 (‫ )ز‬and Köprülü 870 (‫ )ك‬seem to be more
complete.
The introductory chapter of BCB which had no precise relation with the
topic of the epistle has been removed. We will find the same phenomenon
in the still unedited epistles, where such a summary disappeared from Atif
Effendi 1681: Epistle 29, III 34/300b, and Epistle 50, IV 250/523b. This can be
interpreted in two ways: BCB also contains some additions; or, each epistle
being distributed separately, a summary of the doctrine was inserted at its
beginning.
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Music.

An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistle 5,
edited by Owen Wright, Oxford, Oxford University Press in
association with the Institute of I smaili Studies, 2010.
408 p., 9.2 × 6.1 inches, 98 $. ISBN 978-0199593989
Status quaestionis
This volume was reviewed by the great specialist of Epistle 5 and of Arabic
music in general, Amnon Shiloah, who begins by reminding us of the relation
of the Brethren’s conception of music with al-Kindī’s school.29 He acknowl-
edges the admirable work of Owen Wright in general, and for his insistence
on a precise point: his disagreement with the translation of technical ter-
minology. In his point of view, ṣināʿat al-taʾlīf is not “art of composition”
but “art of harmony”, ṣināʿat al-malāhī is not “construction of instruments”
but “instrumental art”, and the distinction between al-awṣāt and al-naġamāt
does not correspond to “rhythms” and “tones” but to “sounds” and “beats”.
Shiloah concludes that “Wright’s translation is a kind of abstraction of the
terms, disconnected from the musical or rhythmical context”.30
Presentation
Wright, who had the difficult challenge of walking in Shiloah’s footsteps, as
he reminds us (Eng. p. 13), offers an interesting introduction to the history of
the music theory in the Arabic world, and confirms the deeply Kindian nature
29. Shiloah, “Review: On Music”, p. 151.

30. Shiloah, p. 153.
of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’s conception of music.31 The same theoretical Pythagorean

orientation, contrary to the reality of music, can be found in al-Kindī and the
Brethren in Purity:
This Pythagorean diatonic fretting, identical with that presented by al-Kindī

(albeit described differently...), fails to reflect the realities of practice, which
also involved the use of neutral intervals, as al-Fārābī's account makes clear
(pp. 127, 500, 511), (Eng. p. 114, footnote 146).
Their conception is clearly pre-Farabian.

Unfortunately, this presentation does not explain the relations of the
epistle with the rest of the book, and its soteriological aim is omitted. In par-
ticular, Epistle 5 has to be read in relation with Epistle 3, the human music
being only an imitation initiated by Pythagoras and other wise men of the
celestial music created by God between the spheres to make people yearn for
the Hereafter (I, 205‒207/Arab. p. 73‒74), and also in relation with Epistle 6
which is its theoretical counterpart, just as theoretical geometry was the
counterpart of sensitive geometry in Epistle 2 since music makes us aware
of the arithmetical harmony that exists among all the knowledgeable beings.
Two important problems remain unsolved in this epistle. The first is
philological and concerns the status of the well-known story of the musician
ascetic (I 185/Arab. p. 10‒12). This story also appears in Epistle 8 (I 289) and
will be found later in Ibn Ḫallikān and al-Bayhaqī who place al-Fārābī instead
of the ascetic.32 This point, which drew the attention of important scholars,33
is not even indicated in footnotes (Eng. p. 80). Personally, we tend to think
that it is a Hellenistic legend like those collected by Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq in his
Kitāb ādāb al-falāsifa, which was a great success in Arabic. Such a genealogy of
other stories on ascetic philosophers has already been done.34
31. See Eng. p. 15, footnote 16; Eng. p. 16; Eng. p. 17, footnotes 20 and 21; Eng. p. 42; Eng. p. 58;
Eng. p. 69; Eng. p. 83, footnote 28; Eng. p. 155, footnote 23; Eng. p. 160, footnote 311; Eng. p. 162,
footnote 315.
32. Ibn Ḫallikān (681/1282), Wafayāt al-aʿyān; al-Bayhaqī (565/1169), Tārīḫ ḥukamāʾ al-islām.
33. Like ʿAbd al-Rāziq, Faylasūf al-ʿArab wa-l-muʿallim al-ṯānī; Al-Ḥamd, Ṣābiʾat Ḥarrān wa Iḫwān
al-Ṣafā.
34. For example, the story of the ascetic who spat on the wealthy man is also found in
Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (313/926) and Miskawayh (421/1030). Its Hellenistic origins are explained
by Rémi Brague in al-Rāzī (313/926), La Médecine Spirituelle, p. 105, footnote 115.
The second problem is philosophical and deals with the concept of “best
proportion (al-nisba al-afḍal)” (I 225/Arab. p. 138). This concept is central in the
Epistles, for this proportion is the law of composition of all divine and human
creation. Nonetheless, it has two different definitions: one is only mathemat-
ical, the harmonic proportion in Epistle 6 (I 247), and the other is restricted
to musical use (Epistle 3, I 147, Epistle 5, I 222), i.e. 2/1, 3/2, 4/3, 5/4, 9/8. The
question is then: why did God restrict his creation to these proportions which
have no mathematical but only phenomenological specificity? We understand
that the ontology of the Rasāʾil is at stake here. In the Epistles, divine providence
is not architectonic; mathematical harmony is not a way to produce the best
possible world, but is soteriological; musical harmony is a way of putting signs
on Earth for the soul to understand its celestial destiny. Not only does the
editor not consider this question, but he even loses the concept in his trans-
lation, naming al-nisba al-afḍal by five different expressions: “the ideal pro-
portion” (Eng. p. 113 and p. 144), “perfectly proportioned” (Eng. p. 136), “the
proportional ideal” (Eng. p. 139), “the most perfect proportion” (Eng. p. 141
and p. 147), “the perfect proportion” (Eng. p. 147).
Edition
The edition is based on Atif Effendi 1681. A partial stemma is drawn, but the
editor declares that “the very concept of an Urtext is questionable” (Eng. p. 7),
and then reduces the book to a series of encyclopedic articles.
Footnotes indicate variations between manuscripts, but no indications are
made to the Beirut edition. Below are some variations between both editions,
with an estimation of the correct version.
Beirut London Correct edition
1 I 183 ‫وتأثيراتها كلها مظاهر روحانية‬ p. 7 ‫وتأثيراتها كلها روحانية‬ L
2 I 185 ‫غيّر نغمة الأوتار‬ p. 8 ‫غيّر أوتار الآلة‬ B
3 I 202 ‫والسرنايات والصفرات‬ p. 64 ‫والشبابات والصفرات‬ ?

‫والصلباب والشواشل‬ ‫والشلياك والشوشك‬
4 I 203 ‫الصنائع الأول‬ p. 65 ‫الصنائع‬ L

1. The term maẓāhir (phenomena) does not occur elsewhere in the

Epistles.
2. The sentence is taken from the first of two stories dealing with the
effects of the music on nerves. It is the different ways of playing, i.e. a
variation on the scales (maqāmāt), not a changing of the strings, that
produces different effects. The second story, which will be found also
in the Epistle 8, in Ibn Ḫallikān and al-Bayhaqī, with reference to
al-Fārābī, speaks about pieces of wood combined differently.35 A late
copyist could understand the first scene in the light of the second one.
3. Both Shiloah and Wright had some difficulties with those technical
terms for musical instruments in their respective translations.36
4. The expression “the first crafts” makes no sense and has no other
occurrence.
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Logic. An

Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistles 10-14,
edited by Carmela Baffioni, Oxford, Oxford University Press in
association with the Institute of I smaili Studies, 2010.
432 p., 9.2 × 6.1 inches, 83 $. ISBN 978-0199586523
Status quaestionis
This volume has already been reviewed twice. The first was by Adamson,
who naturally praises Baffioni’s knowledge and accuracy in translation,
quibbling only on her choosing qualities for translating “ṣifāt”. His only re-
mark about the presentation is an addition and deals with the proximity of
the definitions with the Greek commentators, David and Elias.37 Concerning
the second by Netton, he only praises the whole project without any specific
remarks on Baffioni’s work.38
35. Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafā, Beirut edition, I 289 ; Ibn Ḫallikān (681/1282), Wafayāt al-aʿyān;
al-Bayhaqī (565/1169), Tārīḫ ḥukamāʾ al-islām, p. 42‒43 and p. 153‒157, no. 706.
36. Shiloah, “L’épître sur la musique des Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ”; Brethren of Purity, On Music
(Epistle 5).
37. Adamson, “Review: On Logic”, p. 365.
38. Netton, “Review: On Logic”, p. 154.
Presentation
This volume contains the five epistles on logic, more precisely the little
organon (from the Isagoge to the Second Analytics). Although the long orga-
non is mentioned by al-Kindī in the Quantity of Books of Aristotle,39 his study
will not begin in Islam before al-Fārābī who studied with Mattā b. Yūnus.
This indication that the Rasāʾil are pre-Farabian is not noticed by Baffioni in
her presentation, which contains summaries of the five epistles, a historical
account on the Greek sources, and a philological study of eulogies, perhaps
giving greater importance to them than they deserve. Indeed, such expressions
can change easily from one copyist to another.
The editor also gives ancient sources of the epistles and asks about the
Epistles’ success or failure in reproducing and imitating Greek logic. This
concern for faithfulness makes her forget the great novelty of certain logical
concepts in the logic of the Epistles.
Epistle 10 on the Isagoge

Epistle 10 contains two elements whose importance only appears in the
economy of the system. The first one is a consequence of their political theory
of complementarity: that no science and no religion possesses the whole truth
but only a part of it.40 This theory is based on arithmetic, more precisely on
the series of cardinal numbers: each doctrine has a rank in the series, like
Christians who are the people of three, Aristotelians who are the people of
four, etc. The conception of language in Epistle 10 is also built on arithmetic,41
precisely on an analogy between numbers and languages. The relation between
languages and things is like the relationship between numbers and things,
each one correctly expresses a class of things, but we need all the numbers
to express all sorts of things (I 391). The result is very original and consistent
with the system of the Brethren in Purity: that no one language expresses all
ideas, we need them all. This linguistic complementarity will be developed
in Epistle 31 on the diversity of languages (III 153).
39. Al-Kindī (before 256/870), “Kammiyyat kutub Arisṭū”, p. 364.

40. See our article: de Vaulx d’Arcy, “Nul ne sera sauvé si tous ne le sont”. And see Epistle 2,
I 99‒100; Epistle 22, II 283‒284; Epistle 33, III 199; Epistle 42, III 425‒426.
41. It will be found also in Epistle 31 on the diversity of tongues (III 143).
The second element concerns their conception of revelation, integrated in

the general epistemology of the Rasāʾil. Here is Baffioni’s translation of the text:
And the study and investigation of this language, the knowledge of how the
soul perceives the concepts of existing beings in themselves by means of senses,
and how the concepts penetrate its thought through intellect, that is called ‘revelation’,
and the soul’s expression of these concepts through words in whatever lan-
guage, all this is called the ‘science of philosophical logic’ (I 392/Eng. p. 67).
The translation can be ambiguous, but Baffioni knows that what “is called
revelation” is not the intellect, but the applications of the text “establishing a
comparison between abstraction and religion” (p. 5). This does not mean that
religion is “well beyond logic”, as Baffioni says (p. 5). The process of abstraction
is described in this text in a very singular manner, it is an inqidāḥ, a sparking
that produces ideas from sensations. The term originally describes a natural
phenomenon, like die sublimierung in Freudian psychology: in sparking, the
heavy mineral becomes a light part of fire. Then, it would be more convenient
to translate the sentence as follows: “… and how the sparking (inqidāḥ) of the
ideas (al-maʿānī) happens in his thought through intellect – what is called
revelation (and inspiration) (al-waḥy wa-l-ilhām) –, and their expression …”
The science of philosophical logic is composed of three steps: perception of
the ideas in re, abstraction of those ideas in intellectu through inqidāḥ, and their
expression in words. The second step is called revelation and inspiration. Is
it consistent with the general view of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā? Yes, and it solves an
ambiguity. The Rasāʾil have two assertions on prophecy and knowledge: firstly,
scholars are the heirs of the prophets; and secondly, philosophy appeared
before the divine revelations of the Torah, the Gospels and the Koran. So,
wise men from the Ancient world who studied reality with the purity of their
soul, like Pythagoras, are already prophets. Prophecy is a universal faculty,
the faculty of grasping the universal ideas in the way described by this text.
Epistle 11 on the Categories

Aristotle’s Categories played such an important function in theology that
Patricia Crone could write: « The Categories was the disputer’s Bible ».42 We will
42. Crone, “Ungodly Cosmologies”, p. 107.

see below that the Brethren in Purity discovered new categories and used them
in religious disputation.
Falsafa was also fond of classification, classification of sciences, and classi-
fication of categories, developing the Hellenistic distinction between primary
and secondary categories. Al-Fārābī summarizes the different positions and
puts an end to this question in his Kitāb al-ḥurūf, § 51‒55.43 Thus Epistle 11
can also be situated between al-Kindī and al-Fārābī. While al-Kindī elects
three primary categories (substance, quality and quantity), Epistle 11 makes
it four, adding relation, and using the same way to combine them in second-
ary categories. For example, possession and position are a composition of
two substances.44 One detail is very important here: al-Kindī and the trans-
lators of the Categories translate the position into “al-mawḍūʿ ”, al-Fārābī uses
the term “al-waḍʿ”,45 but Epistle 11 translates it into “al-nuṣba”. And the only
one who also uses this term is Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī. We edit and
discuss the corresponding text elsewhere.46
Different elements exposed in Epistle 11 play an important role in the whole
system. Concerning the classification of categories, Baffioni concentrates on
the mathematical distinction between continuous and discrete quantities
as an anti-atomistic element (Eng. p. 10). Another distinction will play an
important function in the system, the status of matter and form: matter and
form are spiritual substances. So, how to distinguish both? “[The first wise
men] called the things preceding in existence ‘matter’ and called the things
succeeding in existence ‘form’” (I 405/Eng. p. 87). The distinction is relative.
This concept will become important in physics. Epistle 15, (II 6/Arab. p. 6‒7)
is consistent with this definition and illustrates the relativity of both concepts
with the example of the shirt (II 7/Arab. p. 11‒12) which will also be found
in Epistle 35 (III 234‒235).
That means two things. First, any difference is a formal difference. This
definition has a Kindian origin: “We must therefore now define form: I say
that it is the difference by which one thing is distinguished from others
43. Al-Fārābī (338/950), Kitāb al-ḥurūf, p. 91‒95.

44. Al-Kindī (before 256/870), “Kammiyyat Kutub Arisṭū.”, p. 370‒372; Epistle 11, I 410‒411.
45. Al-Fārābī (338/950), Kitāb al-ḥurūf, § 39, p. 83.
46. See MSS Ayasofia 4855, 71a, and our article: de Vaulx d’Arcy, “Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib
al-Saraḫsī, réviseur de l’Introduction arithmétique de Nicomaque de Gérase, et rédacteur des
Rasāʾil Iḫwān aṣ-ṣafā”.
through vision; vision is what grasps it.”47 If the difference between individ-
uals is formal, then real forms are singular. Then, only God can know all the
particulars48 (this will change later with Ibn Sīnā). Man just classifies beings
in general categories. Second, the ontological nature of matter as a spiritual
substance has a soteriological implication: the movement of return to the
spiritual world is universal.
Such a function in the whole system can be proved not only for a logical
category but also in the case of an image, like the metaphor of the garden
of sciences described in the Introductive Epistle (I 43). In Epistle 11, this
garden contains ten species of trees, symbolizing the Aristotelian categories
(I 413/Arab. p. 74‒76). The same garden will be found again in Epistle 31
(III 156) in the story of the blind and the cripple. This constitutes evidence
of the unity of style through all the Epistles.
Epistle 12
The presentation of the epistle on the Peri Hermeneias focuses on the
question of fidelity to the original which prevents the editor from spotting
its innovations. However, an innovating idea can be found in this short epis-
tle (only five pages long in the Beirut edition). Indeed, a consequence of the
definition of matter as a spiritual substance exposed in the former epistle will
be on the physical level of the nature of the primordial matter: “[The Prime
Matter] is the form of being and no more” (Epistle 15, II 8/Eng. p. 112). Forms in
the universal soul do not exist because matter still does not exist. This means
that the existence of natural beings is only a possibility. But, what about God?
Epistle 12 answers, by ending with the distinction between necessary being
(al-wāǧib), possible being (al-mumkin) and impossible being (al-mumtanaʿ):
That which is necessary in being precedes in nature that which is possible, and
that which is possible precedes in nature that which is impossible, because if
that which is necessary did not exist, then that which is possible would not be
known, and if that which is possible did not exist, then that which is impossible
would not be known (Epistle 12, I 419/Eng. p. 108).
47. Al-Kindī (before 256/870), The Philosophical Works of al-Kindī, “Epistle on the Five Essences”,
p. 316.
48. According to the recurring expression: “… The number of which can be calculated only
by God (wa-lā yuḥṣī ʿadadaha illā Allāh)ˮ (68 occurrences).
It asserts that necessary beings come first in generation (fī al-kawn). On an
ontological level, God is “the one from whom emanates (al-fāʾiḍ) the exist-
ence of the beings” (Epistle 42, III 515). Existence is given by God to beings
through the Universal Soul. Their possible existence then takes its origin in
His necessary existence. That is why Epistle 26 calls Him “wāǧib al-wuǧūd”
(II 470‒471). We have here the logical basis of the concept of God as wāǧib
al-wuǧūd, which will be a central principle later on with Ibn Sīnā, a young
reader of the Epistles, as his biography tells us.
Epistle 13
Baffioni offers an interesting summary of this epistle in the First Analytics,
but without considering its echoes in the rest of the Epistles. She has an excuse
because Epistle 13 is the only epistle which does not contain explicit references
to other epistles. However, an idea exposed here, i.e. the distinction between
different ways of reasoning, will play an important function in religious and
political sciences:
Know, O my brother, that when the former wise men began studying the
various types of sciences and consolidated them, invented and brought to
perfection wonderful arts, and, at that moment, discovered for each science
and art a root from which its species spread, then they set a measure (qiyāsan)
through which the various branches might be known, and a scale by which
the more, the less, and the equal in them might be clarified: such as the art of
prosody, which is the scale of poetry (Epistle 13, I 424/Eng. p. 117).
This unique balance is different for each art: poetry has prosody, astron-
omy has the astrolabe, geometry has the ruler, etc. The same is applicable to
sciences, and that is the meaning of Aristotle’s great organon: to show the
logical rules of each sort of speech. This plurality of logics is clearly expressed
in Epistle 42 on Opinions and Religions which mentions this very passage
under the expression “the books of logic” and says:
If you meditate, O brother, on the dissensions of the scholars, you will see
that most of them are related to judgments of the acquired intellect, either
for the different degrees (of quality) of their mind, or for the difference of
logical procedures (qiyasāt) and their various uses of them. For instance, some
of them use dialectic demonstration (qiyās) in the precise scientific research,
some the rhetoric demonstration, or the geometric demonstration (burhān),

or the logic one, or the arithmetic one (III 467).
That the epistles on Logic prepare the epistemology of religious opinions is

also proven by the reuse of Epistle 14’s analysis of the errors in demonstration
(I 432‒434) in the same Epistle 42 (III 444‒448).
Epistle 14
Epistle 14 on the Second Analytics has a very particular place in the history
of the Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafā for its independent circulation in Latin under the
title Liber introductiorus in artem logicae demonstrationis, with indication of an
author: “Mahometh discipulo Alquindi”. Numerous scholars wrote about this
indication,49 among them Carmela Baffioni. Despite her expertise on this
question, Baffioni does not expand on it and writes a single footnote here
summarizing the debate (Eng. p. 6, footnote 15). To recall it, some focused on
the first clue, the first name, like Farmer who read it as Muḥammad b. Taḫlān
al-Fārābī or Muḥammad b. al-Maʿšar al-Busṭī.50 Others like Hamdani paid at-
tention to the title, al-Kindī’s disciple, and dated the book “between al-Kindī
and al-Fārābī”.51 Our hypothesis on the authorship attributing the Rasāʾil
to Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī satisfies this second condition: the only
scholar who was ever called tilmīḏ al-Kindī is al-Saraḫsī.52 What about the first
condition? Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib is not Muḥammad. But Rosenthal noticed a
text of Murūǧ al-ḏahab which called him “Muḥammad b. al-Ṭabīb”.53 So, even
in Arabic manuscripts, Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib is called Muḥammad. Therefore,
discipulo Alquindi, author of the Liber introductorius, is most probably al-Saraḫsī.
Baffioni notices an interesting novelty in Epistle 14, the appearance of indi-
viduality as a logical category: “‘Individual’ is added to [the terms used by phi-
losophers] in the Ikhwān’s treatise” (Eng. p. 7). An individual is what is counted
as one, even if it is a plurality. It is one metaphorically (bi-l-maǧāz), while the
49. The main scholars are de Boer, “Zu Kindi und seiner Schule”; Farmer, “Who was the
Author of the ‘Liber introductorius in artem logicae demonstrationis’?”; Baffioni, “Il ‘Liber
introductorius in artem logicae demonstrationis’: problemi storici e filologici”.
50. Farmer, “Who was the Author of the ‘Liber introductorius in artem logicae
demonstrationis’?”.
51. Hamdani, “The Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ: Between al-Kindī and al-Fārābī”, p. 195‒196.
52. De Vaulx d’Arcy, Les Épîtres des Frères en Pureté. Mathématique et philosophie, p. 48.
53. Rosenthal, Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī. A Scholar and a Littérateur of the Ninth Century, p. 62.
ontological unity is restricted to God who is really one (wāḥid bi-l-ḥaqīqa).54

An individual is counted as one because it is a singular composition, such as
a mountain (Epistle 19, II 102), or a religious community (Epistle 9, I 374):
“Know, O my brother, that the meaning of the word ‘individual’ is a way of
referring (išāra ilā) to each whole (ǧumla), assembled from various things
and aggregated of a number of parts, single and distinct from other existing
beings” (Epistle 14, I 430/Eng. p. 128) The property of an individual is to be
išāra ilā ǧumla. It refers to the Aristotelian τόδε τι and will become al-mušār
ilayhi in al-Fārābī’s logic.
Another important idea in the system of the Epistles, and beyond, in the
history of epistemology, is the analogy between sources of knowledge and
books. This metaphor of the “book of the nature” will have a still to be written
history leading to Galileo’s Celestial Messenger, and the Epistles are perhaps the
starting point of this metaphor. The doctrine of the four books, among them
the natural books (al-kutub al-ṭabīʿiyya), will be discussed in Epistles 45 (IV 42)
and 48 (IV 167‒168), but it has logical roots in Epistle 14:
Know, O brother, that there are many relationships between the intelligible
objects that man perceives by the five senses and that which is deduced from
them by first senses, such as the relationship between the letters of the alphabet
and the names composed of them. There are also many relationships between
the intelligible objects that constitute the first principles and the sciences
derived from them by demonstration and syllogisms, such as the relation-
ship between names and the sciences and languages which come from their
aggregation in propositions, conversations and dialogues (I 436/Eng. p. 136).
The Arabic sentence is intricate, it is based on an analogy, a comparison

between two relations repeated twice, using the following construction: “The
relationship of (al-nisba) … with (bi-l-iḍāfa ilā) … is as many as (kaṯīra ka…) the
relationship of (al-nisba) … with (bi-l-iḍāfa ilā) …”. Analogy is one of the most
important logical and syntactical forms in the Epistles reflecting the idea of
micro- and macrocosm. Adding to that, al-nisba is a fundamental concept in the
Epistles which is the object of a technical study in an entire epistle, Epistle 6.
Al-nisba is the mathematical ratio, and “the ratio is the measure of a value
in relation to another” (I 42). This definition is inspired by Nichomachus of
Gerasa’s Introduction to Arithmetic: “A ratio is the relation of two terms to one
54. Al-Kindī (before 256/870), “al-Falsafa al-ūlā”, p. 129 ; Epistle 32, III 179.
another, and the combination of such is a proportion.”55 The text of Epistle 14

is precisely such a proportion. So, the translation needs a few modifications,
as follows:
Know, O brother, that the relation (al-nisba) between the information

(al-maʿlūmāt) that man perceives by the five senses and the first principles
(awāʾil al-ʿuqūl) deduced from them, is as productive as the relation between
the letters of the alphabet and the names composed of them. Know also that
the relation between the information (al-maʿlūmāt) coming from the first
principles and the sciences derived from them by demonstration and syllo-
gisms, is as productive as the relation between names and the language and
tongues (al-kalām wa-l-luġāt)56 which come from their composition (yataʾallaf)
in speeches (maqālāt), conversations and dialogues.
This proportion is more precisely a “greater inequality (al-iḫtilāf al-aʿẓam)”,

a relation of a greater value to a smaller.57 Both sensations and letters have
the capacity to produce by combination more items than the basic elements.
The technical root of the analogy is the mathematical proportion, and its
philosophical result is the production of a new epistemology: sensations are
mental letters, they build concepts in the same way letters compose words,
and then demonstrations are mental speeches. Philosophical reasoning is
composed of mental books based on sensations that are information taken
from nature. This passage from Epistle 14 is indeed the logical foundation of
an epistemology considering nature as a book.
Edition
Baffioni plays an important role in the London project, editing and trans-
lating alone a great part of the Epistles, reaching the hall of fame of those, like
Dieterici, Pausani, Marquet or Diwald, who dedicated their life of research
to the Brethren in Purity. She definitely put her imprint on this edition. Her
editing choices are nevertheless quite particular, being followed only by
55. Nicomachus of Gerasa (120 ce), Introduction to Arithmetic, II 21, p. 265.

56. We cannot follow Baffioni who retains against all the other manuscripts (Arabic p. 153,
n. 2012) the Atif Effendi version: al-ʿulūm wa-l-luġāt. Such a choice destroys the analogy between
language and tongues on one hand, and sciences on the other.
57. See Epistle 6, I 242‒243, and Nicomachus of Gerasa, Introduction to Arithmetic, I 17.
Poonawala in choosing one sole manuscript, Atif Effendi 1681, as a reference

text. She followed it faithfully, even in the design of the text, refusing for
example to add linefeed. At the same time, she edited all the important ad-
ditions from other manuscripts in appendices, giving a wide view on all the
possibilities. However, one source has been neglected, the Beirut version with
its important specificities. Regarding the epistles on Logic, one meaningful
modification was done, and three appendices added.
The modification concerns Epistle 10 which deals, in the Beirut edition,
with “the speech (al-nuṭq)” and distinguishes between “the mental speech
(al-nuṭq al-fikrī)” and “the oral speech (al-nuṭq al-lafẓī)”. In the London edi-
tion, one letter of this phrase is changed and becomes the mental and oral
“logic (al-manṭiq)”. The Beirut edition already used al-manṭiq al-lafẓī twice in
the same way it uses al-nuṭq al-lafẓī. So, the new edition seems to have erased
an odd imperfection of the text. Baffioni, then, interprets this distinction
as the distinction between logic and grammar in light of the ‘Logic versus
Grammar’ debate in Aristotle (p. 28‒30). This could be supplemented by the
Arabic context of such a discussion. Historically, al-Saraḫsī is the first phi-
losopher in Islam who dealt with the logical-grammatical problem in his fī
al-farq bayna naḥw al-ʿArab wa-l-manṭiq. This debate will become important
when logic takes the place of arithmetic in Islamic founding philosophy, with
Mattā b. Yūnis, al-Fārābī, Yūḥannā b. Ḥaylān, and al-Sayrāfī. Some elements
close to the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā can also be found in Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī.58
To come back to the editing choice, the problem is that one of the former
expressions, i.e. the mental speech (al-nuṭq al-fikrī), can also be found in another
epistle, Epistle 3 on Astronomy (I 143/Arab. p. 107), which attributes to the
souls without body (the malicious jinn and the defiant devils) the possession
of a mental speech (oral speech being an attribute of bodies). With Baffioni’s
correction, al-nuṭq al-fikrī in Epistle 3 becomes a hapax, and in Ragep and
Mimura’s translation in Epistle 3, the concept itself is lost, because the idea
of “mental speech” becomes merely a quality translated by “articulating with
consideration”.
However, the distinction between two sorts of speech (nuṭq), and not only
two sorts of logic (manṭiq), makes sense in the thought of the Brethren in Pu-
rity, who give great importance to the separation between incarnate souls,
whose speech is oral, and separate souls, whose speech is mental. For instance,
58. Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (m. 363/974), “Traité sur la différence qui existe entre l’art de la logique
philosophique et l’art de la grammaire arabe”, p. 194, § 18‒19.
a consequence of the necessity for men to communicate by oral speech is their

misunderstanding while they are in their earthly corporal form (Epistle 10,
I 402/Arab. p. 39). Mental speech ability is thus a condition of the Epistles’
ethics based on purification of the soul: this purification is the means to get
rid of corporeal links and to enable communication with celestial souls. The
whole idea disappears from the London edition.
Three appendices are added to the edition of the core text.
Appendix A is taken from Atif Effendi 1681 itself, the passage has no direct
relation with logic, and can be also found in Epistle 15 (II 8/Arab. p. 13), or, as
recorded by Baffioni (p. 163), in Epistle 35, III 234-236. Her decision to remove
it from the body of the epistle is reasonable.
Appendix B is a text found in Bodleian Library MS Laud Or. 260 and MS Marsh
189 in place of the whole epistle. So, Baffioni deduces that this passage is a
“summary” of Epistle 10: “The summary opens with the distinction between
linguistic (lughawī) and philosophical (falsafī) logic that corresponds to the
distinction between fikrī and lafẓī in the other versions” (p. 174). However,
finding it also in the Beirut edition (I 402-403), she judges that the summary
is an “addition” from the Beirut source (p. 177), which is almost unbelievable:
how could one of the oldest manuscripts have taken its abstract from another
manuscript and added it to this text without any effect on later manuscripts.
So, let us come back to the internal analysis of the text: what is the passage
on “the four genders” (I 403) about? It distinguishes among four types of cat-
egories: one contains the ten Aristotelian philosophical categories, while the
three others are linguistic categories. The passage could have been removed
by the copyist because of this focus on non-logical categories. These categories
are those introduced by the question “Who?” and they describe the social
status of a person: his original place (al-nisba), profession and genealogy. The
present distinction between luġawī and falsafī has absolutely no relation to
the former distinction between lafẓī and fikrī, for it is the distinction of two
sorts of logic, and not of logic on one hand, and language on the other. It has
echoes in the rest of the Epistles, and Epistle 7 (I 265‒266) already exposes the
function of the question “Who?”, which will be once more distinguished with
“What?”, questions in Epistle 42 (III 513‒514). Epistle 42 (III 436) also quotes
the distinction between both logics, luġawī and falsafī.
We have to understand that the present text is an absolute innovation
in the field of logic and opens the doors to a non-Aristotelian logic. The
Epistles make a theological use of it: “The saying of the master logician,
‘Everything existing, except the Creator, is either a substance or an accident’,

belongs to (the first principles)” (Epistle 14, I 445/Eng. p. 146). So, to which
category does God belong? The linguistic categories help to solve nothing less
than this problem of speaking of the divine transcendence. In order to avoid
the confusion between the Creator and the creations, the Epistles explain that
theological speech must be made with other categories than the philosophi-
cal ones, i.e. the linguistic categories. So, one must ask about God not by the
question “What?”, but rather by the question “Who?” (Epistle 42, III 413‒414).
Appendix C is an addition found in Esad Effendi 3638 about Epistle 12. This

summary can be part of the Epistles. Firstly, we find the same link between
grammatical and logical categories as in Epistle 10 and following the program
of Epistle 12: “In sum, everybody aiming at studying philosophical logic
should first be knowledgeable in the science of grammar” (Eng. p. 103‒104);
and secondly, the types of phrases are classified according to the arithmetical
series order. However, the numerological counting is quite odd, so it could
also be a later Ismaili addition.
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On the Natural

Sciences. An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of
Epistles 15-21, edited by Carmela Baffioni, Oxford, Oxford University
969 p., 9.2 × 6.1 inches, 120 $. ISBN 978-019968380259
Presentation
Editing and translating the epistles on natural sciences is a challenge, and
is very demanding for the scholar. Baffioni was the right person for such a
job, because she already published an article on the technical Epistle 21 on
Minerals.60 Her skills permit her to give a precise list of all the mineral terms
(Eng. p. 409‒432).
59. This volume was reviewed by Loinaz.

60. Baffioni, “La science des pierres précieuses dans l’épître des Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ : entre les
catalogues encyclopédiques et le commentaire philosophique”.
More widely, the presentation deals with both of the sources, “the classical
heritage”, and the general principles of Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’s philosophy, ending
with Ismaili elements (Eng. p. 54‒59), presuming that Ismaili cosmology was
already philosophical and not mythological as demonstrated by Heinz Halm.61
In our view, the transformation of Ismaili cosmology is due to the influence of
Abū Zayd al-Balḫī, who stands in between the philosophical system of Iḫwān
al-Ṣafā and the religious view of the Ismaili, converting the latter’s cosmology
into a conceptual one.
In her presentation, Baffioni does not introduce each epistle separately,
but considers them as a whole. Following the method used in the volume
On Logic, she mentions some Greek origins, and summarizes the theory. One
could also benefit from the way another scholar, Daniel de Smet, understands
the succession of those epistles on Natural Beings from the simplest (the el-
ements) to the more organized form as the “great chain of being” and the
long way back of the soul to the spiritual world.62
We would just like to add here few elements to link each epistle on Physics
to the whole system.
Epistle 15
There are five natural principles: form, matter, movement, space and
time. Baffioni does not explain why, but the number recalls Abū Bakr al-Rāzī’s
ontology, based on five principles: God, the soul, matter, space and time.
The parallel is interesting since in the Aristotelian view, God is the principle
of movement, and the soul is the form of the body. There could be some
Aristotelian philosophers who limited the world to its material part and esti-
mated that it was commanded by those five eternal principles. We think that
this group is mentioned in Epistle 5, I 217, and Epistle 33, III 199, in the list
of the metaphysical schools. Indeed, one can read: “… a group of n aturalists
preferred matters in fours; yet another group from the Ḫurramiyya favored
matters with fives…” (Epistle 33, III 199/Epistle 32b, Eng. p. 27). The presence
of al-ḫurramiyya, a Mazdean sect to represent the metaphysics based on five
principles is quite odd. Walker accepts the fact (p. 27, note 1), but Wright had
the same feeling: “The Khurramiyya was a movement […] noted, if anything, for
61. See Halm, “The Cosmology of the Pre-Fatimid Ismāʿīliyya”.

62. See de Smet, La philosophie ismaélienne.
dualism. The association made here with the number five remains unclear.”63
So we suggest reading the Arabic text quite differently, modifying the root
ḫ-r-m inǧ-r-m.64 The group, then, becomes al-ǧirmiyya, corporalists who
deny the existence of incorporeal beings. The philological substitution can
be historically explained by the copy being written in an Ismaili milieu. Many
evocations of the corporalist position can be found in the Epistles, directly
under the form “al-ǧirmiyyīn” in Epistle 1, I 76, indirectly about astrology
(Epistle 3, I 144/Arab. p. 111‒114) or about the conception of man (Epistle 40,
III 371‒372). Thus the Epistles, by integrating all the doctrines, accept their
view, but restrict its truth to the sublunary world.
The great novelty of the physics in the Rasāʾil, i.e. the conception of the
matter, is not noticed by Baffioni. We already raised the point concerning
Epistle 11. It also has reminiscences in Epistle 35, III 234‒235.
Epistle 16
Epistle 16 Fī al-samāʾ wa-l-ʿālam is translated by Baffioni in a soteriological
way: On the Heavens and the World. Indeed, physics is never independent of
religious concerns in the Epistles. This is confirmed by two sections (II 39/Arab.
p. 116‒123) which deal with physics and worship. Since the revolution of
the planets around the earth is like the circulation of the pilgrims around
the Kaaba, therefore a city has to be organized in spherical levels as the
Indian king did. Those analogies are more than metaphors, according to the
micro-macrocosm theory. Epistle 16 exposes the basis of a natural religion
which has echoes in Epistle 19, II 125/Arab. p. 337. Baffioni’s translation of
this passage is interesting: “And know, O my brother, that His worship does
not consist entirely of fasting and prayer, but it is the structure (ʿimāra) of
both the religion and the world” (Eng. p. 274). Indeed, the idea is to find
universal worship in the structure of the world. Epistle 20, II 142‒143/Arab.
p. 386‒389, replays the same comparison between the cosmological order and
the Mecca pilgrimage. Epistle 50, IV 261‒271, will set out a huge comparative
study of religions.
63. On Music, Eng. p. 136, n. 218.

64. Carmela Baffioni told us that MS Bodleien Laud Or 260 and MS Bodleien Marsh 189 had
the term without the consonant pointing which permits the reading ǧirmiyya.
Epistle 17
If the sky has to be understood as heaven, the world of generation and
corruption is hell (II 59‒60/Arab. p. 177‒178). Then, duality between Epistles
16 and 17 repeats the duality between Epistle 3 on Astronomy and Epistle 4
on Geography.
Epistle 18
This Epistle exposes the relation between the two worlds, the world of
generation in Epistle 17, and the superlunary one in Epistle 16. The evidence
that this cosmological division is thought of in a religious perspective is the
constant translation of the religious vocabulary into a philosophical one.
For instance:
Nature is one of the faculties of the heavenly Universal Soul, spread from it
into all bodies that are under the sphere of the Moon, effused in all their part,
called in the legal (sharʿī) terminology “angels charged with the preservation
of the world and with the disposition of creatures”, God willing, be He exalted,
and called in philosophical terminology “natural faculties” (II 63/Eng. p. 188).
Epistle 19
For the technical dimension of the history of mineralogy, one has to refer
to Baffioni’s previous article.65 On the philosophical level, we cannot restrict
the issue to what Baffioni says:
Finally, in addition to the technical contents, specific to the subject of the

Epistle, a large part deals, as usual in the encyclopedia, with the contents lato
sensu “philosophical”. I refer to the pages that describe what we might define
as the “sympathies” and “antipathies” of minerals (or gems).66
Actually, the epistle contains a strong polemic. On one hand, it fights

against the materialistic tendency of philosophers called al-ǧirmiyyūn, and
65. Baffioni, “La science des pierres précieuses dans l’epître des Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ: entre les
catalogues encyclopédiques et le commentaire philosophique”.
66. Baffioni, p. 88‒89.
on the other it contains a defense of the study of secondary causes against

the clerics who neglect the natural sciences and their intellectual laziness
which limit their knowledge to the primary cause.
Epistle 20
Epistle 20 on the Quiddity of Nature is entirely dedicated to the equivalence
of natural concepts and mythological characters in the perspective of unifying
different traditions. This method, which was also used by the Ḥarrāniyyūn, is
characteristic of pagan philosophy such as Stoicism.
Epistle 21
Epistle 21 on Plants continues the translation between philosophical and
religious vocabulary (II 152/Arab. p. 415). Then it begins with the explanation
of the continuity of nature. This great theory of the Epistles will also be ex-
posed in Epistle 34, III 224‒229/Arab. p. 91‒103, and in Epistle 51, IV 276‒277.
This theory is based on the arithmetical series which controls the emanation
of beings in the Epistles and will imply a theory of metempsychosis in which
the universal soul climbs back to heavens through all the steps of life’s or-
ganization.67
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: The Case of the

Animals versus Man before the King of the Jinn. An Arabic Critical
Edition and English Translation of Epistle 22, edited by Lenn Evan
Goodman & Richard J.A. McGregor, Oxford, Oxford University
696 p., 9.2 × 6.1 inches, 150 $. ISBN 978-0199580163
Status quaestionis
In her review, Nosko-Koivisto notices that the presentation and footnotes,
which constitute the commentary of the fable, are highly anachronistic, for
they are built on references from outside of the Islamic context. Indeed, the
67. See Marquet, La Philosophie des Ikhwân al-Safâʾ, p. 383‒403; Vallat, Fārābī et l’école d’Alexandrie,
p. 120‒121.
fable style is related to Aesop and Orwell more than to the Indian Persian
tradition, and to the philosophical views of Montaigne and Kant rather than
of al- Ǧāḥiẓ or al-Kindī.68 Pliny and Isidore of Seville are perhaps the main
references even if no Latin literature was translated into Arabic.
Presentation
Epistle 22 contains two parts: an introduction to zoology, and then the
famous fable which gives its title to the volume (although it is not the title of
the Epistle). The presentation focuses only on the second part. It gives some
useful appendices on the mythic animal names and the legendary kings of
Persia.
The presentation, like the translation, borrows extensively from Lenn
Goodman’s previous publications: his PhD dissertation and a paper from the
introduction in the same series that already dealt with Epistle 22.69 It contains
two principal elements of interpretation: a philosophical analysis of what is
called “the ecology of the Iḫwān” (p. 31) and a literary history of fables. The
problem is that both analyses are anachronistic.
The zoology of the Brethren in Purity has never been understood in its own
context, only in the commentator’s context. That was the case of Dieterici
in the 19th century with his commentary for which the title was obviously
anachronistic: Der Darwinismus Im Zehnten Und Neunzehnten Jahrhundert, which
in the second part describes the Epistles in terms of evolutionary theory. This
time, Goodman writes in the context characterized by ecological concerns, so
the meaning of Epistle 22 becomes ecological and deals with animal rights.
This constitutes a profound misunderstanding of animal fables which were
never meant as a way to understand animal interests by giving them a “virtual
subjecthood” (p. 40‒41). On the contrary, it is a way to divide humanity into
separate types by giving each character the form of an animal species. Fable is
not a literary way to teach zoology, it is a zoological way to create literature.
And it has its proper tradition, as we will see below. The zoology of the Epistles
must be read in its own scientific context, which is the Arabic translation of
68. Nosko-Koivisto, “Review: Epistle 22”, p. 173. See also Johnson, “Review: Epistle 22”.
69. Goodman, The Case of the Animals versus Man before the King of the Jinn: A Tenth-Century
Ecological Fable of the Pure Brethren of Basra. Goodman, “Reading the Case of the Animals versus
Man : Fable and Philosophy in the Essays of the ‘Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ’”.
Aristotle’s Parts of Animals and al-Ǧāḥiẓ’s Kitāb al-ḥayawān.70 On the other hand,
it must be read within its philosophical framework, which is characterized
neither by the evolution of species, nor by ecological problems, but by the
Qur’ānic question of tasḫīr, the submission of the creatures to man, in the
al-Ǧāḥiẓ version as noted by Netton.71
Regarding this literary genre, the presentation of the volume refers to
the Occidental tradition, from the “Aesopian fable” (Eng. p. 4) to Montaigne’s
Apology for Raymond Sebond.72 Such an analysis just indicates the absolute
ignorance of the Arabic heritage of fables. Basic introductions to Arabic fables
such ʿAbd al-Razzāq Ḥamīda’s Qiṣaṣ al-ḥayawān fī al-adab al-ʿarabī are not even
mentioned in the bibliography.73 But the present analysis also neglects the fact
that the convenient method of contextualization must proceed by c oncentric
circles, like the analysis of the theme of the two islands by de Callataÿ, begin-
ning with the Epistle, and following with the Greek and the Islamic traditions.74
Regarding our present topic, the Epistles themselves contain almost twenty
fables and parables which have echoes in the Case of Animals. Some of those
fables are inherited from the Indo-Persian tradition, and, five fables from Kalila
and Dimna are also alluded to.75 The poverty of references to this very last book,
which is the source of the title of the Rasāʾil, demonstrates the ignorance of that
heritage and constitutes a denial of the Oriental tradition which came from
India and spread throughout the Arab world thanks to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (whose
work is briefly referred to in two lines, Eng. p. 10). This author is indeed one
of the great influences of Iḫwān al-Ṣafā along with al-Kindī and al-Ǧāḥiẓ. Ibn
al-Muqaffaʿ’s book, Kalila and Dimna, the first Arabic mirrors for princes, was
not only read and memorized, but also rewritten and imitated, by Sahl b. Hārūn
for instance with his Kitāb al-nimr wa-l-ṯaʿlab.76 That is why the Case of Animals
must be read as a step in the development of the Arabic mirrors for princes.77
70. A comparison of Epistle 22 and Kitāb al-ḥayawān can be found in Benkheira, Mayeur-Jaouen
and Sublet, L’animal en islam. In particular, see p. 28.
71. Netton, Muslim Neoplatonists, p. 92; al-Ǧāḥiẓ, Kitāb al-ḥayawān, p. 21‒23.
72. Both in article, p. 254‒256, and in the presentation.
73. The bibliography however contains Immanuel Kant, Sextus Empiricus or Baruch Spinoza
but not one study on the Arabic fables.
74. De Callataÿ, “The Two Islands Allegory in the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ”.
75. See on one hand, Epistle 31, III 167, III 169, and III 170, and on the other hand, Epistle 2,
I 100, Epistle 26, II 474, Epistle 42, III 456 and III 499.
76. Sahl b. Hārūn (215/830), Kitāb al-nimr wa-l-ṯaʿlab.
77. Even when Goodman evokes the mirror for princes, p. 44‒46, he speaks about an Aesopian
framing.
In one sentence, let say that the Case of Animals is a turning point of such a
history, between the Indian and Persian princes’ mirrors and what we can call
the Islamic “people’s mirror” represented by the One Thousand and One Nights.78
Finally, the fable is not an independent story, no more than Plato’s cave
in the Republic: both constitute an allegory of the system. Then whoever does
not understand the system cannot understand the fable.
Edition
The edition is based on several manuscripts around a first group of four
selected for an unknown reason. The Beirut edition is only referred to for
pagination. Despite the more or less 2,000 differences between the Beirut
and London editions, the IIS version did make only few comparisons with or
in reference to the former and well-known edition.79 However, some entire
passages can only be found in BCB.80 Above all, the final chapter (42) is radi-
cally different. Yet, concerning the sentence of the trial and the resolution of
this very political case,81 this chapter is of particular importance. Indeed, the
question of the legitimacy of domination, the way the case is solved, expresses
a particular basis of political power.
Beirut, II 375 Transl. Garcin de Tassy, p. 117 London chap. 42, p. 312

‘How are we equal?’ Comment serions-nous égaux ? ‘How are we equal?’
demanded the Ḥijāzī. répliqua l’habitant du Héjaz. demanded the Ḥijāzī.
‘How do we stand on a Nous ne resterons pas toujours ‘How do we stand on
par, when we stay for eter- dans le même état. Si nous a par, when we have
nity and the infinity of time, obéissons aux commandements among us prophets
thanks to our obedience to de Dieu, nous irons demeurer and their devises,
prophets, imams, sages, avec les prophètes et les saints imams, sages, poets and
poets and paragons of en compagnie des hommes paragons of goodness

goodness and virtue... éminents par leur mérite… and virtue...
78. We develop such an analysis in our French translation of the very Epistle 22: Du miroir
des princes au miroir des peuples: l’épître des Frères en Pureté sur les animaux (upcoming).
79. However, the Beirut version is preferred in certain passages without any explicit refer-
ence. It concerns all the expression noted (*).
80. Some of them are clearly additions from a copyist, such as II 270, l. 14‒24; II 277, l. 11‒15;
II 278, l. 12‒19. Some cannot be additions from a later copyist like II 276, l. 3‒7; II 376, l. 1‒7; II
377, l. 6‒12; II 376, l. 1‒7; II 377, l. 6‒21.
81. See the presentation under the title “A Surprising Dénouement”, p. 51‒55. The existence
of another ending in the Beirut edition is denied.
The conclusion of the two versions (the Beirut and London editions) is
radically different. The first gives superiority to man over animals due to the
eternity of his soul, the second to the existence of prophets and imams. So, one
justifies man’s domination by his nature, and this domination is the political
analogy of the domination of the soul over the body, the animal part of man;
the second justifies it by the political order, the superiority of prophets and
imams to common people, so man’s domination over animals is just a meta-
phor for this human order. While the first is Platonic, the second is Ismaili.
The London edition can rely on all the listed manuscripts.82 The Beirut
version would have been isolated without the old translation of Garcin de
Tassy from an Urdu text. Although this version is different from the Beirut
edition, it can be related to the same interpretation. In Garcin’s translation,
“saints” may be used for “al-awṣiyāʾ (devises83)”, and “hommes éminents par
leur mérite” for “al-aḫiyār (paragons of goodness and virtue)”.
Then, which of both versions is the original text? The aim of the fable is
to determine which virtue will manifest the superiority of man over animals.
The ending should reflect the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’s doctrine in anthropology and
be consistent both with the previous debates in the fable and with the whole
system of the Epistles.
The theory of prophecy must therefore be examined. Prophets are called
in the Epistles, along with the sages, “doctors of the soul”.84 This theory is
reused in the fable to argue for man’s superiority:
A man from Syria, a Hebrew, rose and said: ‘It was He who favored us with
prophecy and inspiration, graced us with miracles and revealed books, the
unshakable verses that bear His diverse permissions and prohibitions...ʼ
(II 323/Eng. p. 255).
82. We consulted Istanbul, Raghab Pacha 838 (238b), Istanbul, Raghab Pacha 840 (218‒219),
Istanbul, Feyzullah 2130 (136b), Istanbul, Köprülü 870 (153b), Istanbul, Köprülü 871 (257b),
Istanbul, Anouar Othmani 2683 (202b), Istanbul, Atif Effendi 1681 (251a).
83. Here, more properly, delegates or deputies.
84. See Epistle 20, II 141; Epistle 27, III 111.
This argument is quite similar to the London ending. But, in chapter 30 it

was immediately refuted by the delegate of the birds:
You must know, O human, that prophets and emissaries are physicians and
astrologers of the soul. No one but the sick needs a doctor, and no one needs
an astrologer but the hapless, wretched, and forlorn (II 323/Eng. p. 255).
The existence of prophets is, on the contrary, the evidence of human

moral weakness and inferiority. The argument of the prophets cannot be the
original ending of the fable.
Concerning the argument of the eternal life of the soul, it was also alluded
to before in the fable by the same delegate of man on the previous page:
“We have other virtues… the promises our Lord gave us, that we of all living
beings will be resurrected and raised up…” (II 374/Eng. p. 311): as before, the
same nightingale, the delegate of birds, replies:
At this point the delegate of the birds, the nightingale, rose and said, ‘Yes,
as you said, O human. But bear in mind the rest of the promise, O humans –
chastisement in the grave, the interrogation of Nakīr and Munkar, the terrors
of the Judgment Day…ʼ (II 374/Eng. p. 311).
The hereafter is not a reward for man’s superiority, but a punishment for
his moral ignominy. But the argument did not reach its end, and the same
delegate of man replies: ‘How are we equal?’ demanded the Ḥiǧāzī ‘How do we
stand on a par, when we stay for eternity and the infinity of time?’” (II 375).
With the Beirut text, we have a precise reply to the objection, and not a
recycling of an old argument: even in damnation, the human soul is eternal
while the animal soul fades. So, man is actually superior to animals provid-
ed that he ends with spiritual attributes. This is confirmed in an additional
passage taken from the London edition:
And if we were rejected, we can find salvation by Muhammad’s intercession,

peace upon him, and remain in heaven with the houris, the young men, the
souls and spirits, meeting the Merciful in company of the best among the best.
And adding to our right, the Exalted said: ‘Peace upon you, you have done well,
so enter here to abide herein. But you, O Animals, you’re excluded from all
of that, because after the separation [with the body], you get corrupted, you
deteriorate, you disappear, and you don’t remain. That is the proof that we
are the masters and that you are our slaves and possessionsʼ (II 376).
Goodman and McGregor judge that this end is only a modern conclusion
filling out “to compensate for the seeming abruptness and surprising turn of
the last few pages” (Eng. p. 315, footnote 566). They ignore that an approxi-
mately similar passage can also be found in Garcin’s version:
If even we are sinners and we do not obey him, we can obtain through the
intercession of the prophets and especially through that of the unquestionable
prophet, Muhammad, the prince of the heavenly envoys, ... (p. 118).
This identity confirms our hypothesis of a common version present in

BCB and Garcin’s sources. The solution that is exposed in such a version is
consistent not only with the rest of the fable, but also with the purpose of
the whole book in which “the noblest science is the science of resurrection”
(Epistle 38, III 298) and “the goal of all of that is to make possible and to fa-
cilitate the ascension (of the soul) to the celestial world” (Epistle 25, II 454).
We can then conclude that the Ismaili ending claiming the superiority of
prophets and imams is contradictory to the fable itself, and that the Platonic
ending inviting man to care for the salvation of his soul is consistent and may
be considered as the original one.
This analysis has two main consequences. One is philological and concerns
the manuscript history of the Epistles. The choice of the London edition to
put aside the BCB version constitutes a serious mistake, for the printed text
preserved the oldest text whereas all the surviving manuscripts take their
source in a same later version.
The second consequence concerns the immediate posterity of the text.
That the Platonic version is the original and the Ismaili one a later distortion
of the text constitutes an important clue for the Ismaili mark on the Rasāʾil.85
It is not an influence on the writing, nor its original identity, but an early
adoption of the book by an Ismaili group who adapted the speech to its own
ends. Our hypothesis is that the transmission of the Rasāʾil to the Ismaili
85. That does not mean that the Beirut edition is free of any Ismaili interference. See Walker’s
demonstration in Sciences of the Soul and Intellect, Part I, English p. 3. But this interference is
lighter than the other manuscripts, for it concerns only the eulogy.
milieu could have happened thanks to Abū Zayd al-Balḫī (d. 322/934) who is
reputed to have been close to the Kindian milieu before adopting Šīʿa views.86
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: Sciences of the Soul

and Intellect. Part I. An Arabic Critical Edition and English T ranslation
of Epistles 32‒36, edited by Paul E. Walker, Ismail K. Poonawala,
David Simonowitz, Godefroid de Callataÿ, Oxford, Oxford University
434 p., 9.2 × 6.1 inches, 99 $. ISBN 9780198758280
Status quaestionis
Their volume has been reviewed three times. Firstly, by D’Ancona who pro-
vides precise comparisons with the pseudo-Theology of Aristotle.87 Secondly, by
Rizvi who questions the reasons for associating those different epistles in one
volume without an attempt either by the translators, or by the general editor
to give a general view of it.88 Then, by Anthony Shaker who also regrets the
lack of philosophical interpretation and, overall, the “lexical shortcomings” in
the translations, such as ʿālam translated either by cosmos, or by universe, but
never by world. He points out that translators, by their translation choices and
references to a wide Neoplatonistic philosophy, bordered on anachronism.89
The volume combines three different works: Walker’s on Epistles 32‒33
and 35, Poonawala and Simonowitz’s on Epistle 34 and de Callataÿ’s on
Epistle 36. Their philological and translation choices are different. We will
focus mainly on 32‒33 which contains the most important variations from
the Beirut edition.
86. Voir Rowson, “The Philosopher as Littérateur: al Tawḥīdīˮ.

87. D’Ancona, “Review…”, p. 409‒410.
88. Rizvi, “Review…”, p. 109.
89. Shaker, “Review…”, p. 85.
Epistles 32‒33
The London edition completely reorganizes the distinction between
E pistle 32 on “Intellectual Principles According to the View of the Pythagoreans”
and Epistle 33 on “Intellectual Principles According to the View of the Iḫwān
al-ṣafā” on the basis of manuscript evidence.
Beirut London
Epistle 32, p.178‒186 Epistle 32a
Epistle 32, p. 187‒198 Epistle 33
Epistle 33 Epistle 32b
The manuscripts reveal a confusion in the splitting of the three parts:

E pistle 32 (32a), its second part (33), and Epistle 33 (32b), but each manuscript
gives a different combination of those three texts (Eng. p. 7). Philological
evidence is therefore not sufficient to select the authentic text. Once more,
we must deduce the historical reality from the philosophical consistency of
the text.
Regarding the meaning of those Epistles, Walker has doubts concerning
the topic of each epistle: “Further consideration of the evidence for the titles
of the two Epistles shows them to be as uncertain as what they contain”
(Eng. p. 6). Indeed, only seven manuscripts refer to Pythagoras regarding the
doctrine exposed in Epistle 32, and only one version of Epistle 33 speaks about
Iḫwān al-Ṣafā in its title (‫ ;)ن‬two claim it for the Pythagoreans ( ‫ أ‬and ‫)ق‬. So, do
we have to reject the ancient idea that the two epistles speak respectively
of P ythagorean and Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’ views? No. Walker only redefines them:
Assuming one version was supposed to indicate the views of the Pythagoreans
and the other version, the doctrine of the Ikhwān (or the Aḥdāth, meaning here
the ‘moderns’), the rearrangement in BCB merges the two and mixes them
into a disordered mess (Eng. p. 8).
He proposes that Epistle 32 is about the view of the Ancients (qudamāʾ),

and Epistle 33 is about the view of the Moderns (al-aḥdāṯ). But what Walker
rejects is the content of such a distinction. The Beirut edition of Epistle 33
cannot be the original one for “what we have as 32b looks like an expanded
text of 32a with changes and additions” (Eng. p. 9). The Beirut Epistle 33 would
be nothing but a rewriting (32b) of Epistle 32 (32a), and the new Epistle 33
would be found in the second part of Beirut Epistle 32.
What does Walker’s reorganization change in both Epistles? Let us sum it
up in the table below:
Beirut 32 Beirut 33
Relationship between numbers Providential relationship between
and beings in the created world numbers, beings in the created world
and spiritual principles
Ex. Epistle 32, III 179/Epistle 32a, Ex. Epistle 33, III 203/Epistle 32b, p. 30
p. 17‒18 “For things in triplets, “As three follows after two, which
examples are the three dimensions, follows after one, so similarly the soul
which are length, breadth and depth, follows in existence after intellect and
or the three magnitudes, which are comes to possess three kinds: vegetal,
line, plane, and mass, …” animal, and rational, indicating its rank
in the order of beings that exist.”
Pythagorean Epistle Post-Pythagorean Epistle

London 32 London 33
Relationship between numbers created Outline of the order of creation/
beings sections on intellect and soul/
special generations of minerals
Pythagorean Epistle Neoplatonic Epistle
The change is considerable for the doctrine of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā between a
post-Pythagorean (Beirut version) and a Neoplatonic (London version) system.
But which one is the most congruent?
We can admit that, in the new version, the difference between the two
Epistles is much larger and more visible. But the actual difference between
Epistles 32 (32a) and 33 (32b) should be understood before rejecting their
distinction. The first one delves extensively into the relationships between
numbers and the beings of the created world, claiming that God purposely
created them in that manner, the order of things runs parallel to that of
numbers (Eng. p. 9).
In the new version of Epistle 33, the Pythagorean elements in the former epistle
do not reappear. Instead we have material that might well represent a later
tradition, quite possibly that of the Brethren (Eng. p. 10).
So, how can the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’s claim to be Pythagorean be understood now
that the Pythagorean elements have been removed from Epistle 33? Walker’s
choice supposes that the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā (I personally mean Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib
al-Saraḫsī) were aware of the distinction between Pythagorean ontology of
numbers and Plotinian cosmology. That was not the case, and the philosophy
of the Ancients was almost perceived as one before al-Fārābī: Kindism blended
Aristotle’s books with the neo-Pythagoreanism of Nicomachus of Gerasa, and
Neoplatonist writings circulated under the name of the Theology of Aristotle.
Obviously, the Epistles develop a system based on both the theory of numbers
and the theory of emanation.90 So the new partition between Epistle 32a/b
and Epistle 33 is quite anachronistic.
Internal evidence definitively refutes the new partition. In Epistle 33, III 206,
the text recalls a passage “in a chapter of that previous epistle” (fī faṣl min hāḏihi
al-risāla min mā taqaddama)” dealing with the “realities of nine”. If we follow
the London edition, Epistle 33 is only 32b. So, the previous epistle would be
Epistle 31. And indeed, this very epistle deals with the Indian nine letters in
III 148. But the text of Epistle 33 summarizes the content: that the universal
beings exist in nine ranks corresponding to the nine units. This idea cannot
be found in Epistle 31, but it is clearly exposed in Epistle 32, III 181‒182, which
gives to each of the nine universal principles a rank from one to nine. Then,
Epistle 33 cannot be a second version of Epistle 32. The new editing choice is
a mistake and a betrayal of the text of the Brethren in Purity.
So, how can we explain the difference between Epistle 32 and Epistle 33?
The distinction between Pythagoreanism and Iḫwān al-Ṣafā, between Ancients
and Moderns may be more subtly found inside the framework of the philos-
ophy of numbers which is common to Pythagoreanism and Iḫwān al-Ṣafā,
according to the Epistles:
The Pythagorean sages gave all that is sound in such matters its just due, since
they maintained that the existing beings accord with nature of the numbers,
as we have explained in part in this treatise, and this is the doctrine of our
brethren (Epistle 33, III 199/Eng. 32b, p. 27).
How can both doctrines say in different ways that “the existing beings
accord with nature of the numbers”? It is difficult to summarize this impor-
tant debate inside the Pythagorean heritage in a few lines, but the example
90. See Epistle 30, III 75.

of the rank of three in the previous table can help us understand some ele-
ments. Although natural beings are in accord necessarily with the nature of
the numbers in ancient Pythagoreanism according to Epistle 32, in Epistle 33
they are in accord providentially with numbers. This correspondence is of
divine providence, in order that the number of elements of a being indicates
its rank in the emanation, like the division of the human soul in three parts
is a way for the scientist to discover from the study of the soul’s nature that
it is the third emanation from the Creator. While divine organization of the
beings according to numbers in Pythagoreanism is architectonic, the arith-
metic order is the best order, in which divine creation of the beings according
to numbers in Brethren in Purity’s view is a conventional sign addressed to
thinkers to discover the hidden spiritual world.
The fact that Walker did not understand the basis of Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’s system
is proven by elementary mistakes presented in the table below.
Beirut London Correct version

Ranks of intelligible Epistle 32, III 181 Epistle 32, p. 9 Beirut
principles al-hayūlā then al-ṭabīʿa then
al-ṭabīʿa al-hayūlā
1st meaning of matter Epistle 32, III 184 Epistle 32, p. 12 Beirut
aqrab ilā al-ḥiss aqrab ilā al-ǧism
The first mistake is a blatant error more than a conscious choice, for the
same edition indicates a few pages later: “al-hayūlā awwal maʿlūl al-nafs” (p. 12),
then “ṯumma awǧada al-nafs bi-wāsiṭat al-ʿaql, ṯumma al-hayūlā” (p. 13). The sec-
ond mistake is subtler. The four definitions of matter are ordered according to
their distance from al-ḥiss/al-ǧism. The second version is absurd because the
body is material. The question is that of sensitive perception, al-ḥiss. So, the
fourth definition, which is the definition of Prime Matter, is not sensitive at
all. This classification of realities’ definitions according to their proximity or
distance with the individual has its origin in al-Kindī’s First Philosophy which
distinguishes between the two existences of man: the one that is close to us
but far from nature, and the other one that is far from us but close to nature.91
So, this second mistake is due to the ignorance of the Kindian context.
91. Al-Kindī (256/870), “al-Falsafa al-ūlā”, p. 106.

A word on Walker’s translation. It can be far from the historical and re-
ligious context. For instance, al-Šām, “the Levant”, is translated as “Syria”,
although Syrian was not a geographic but a religious term at that time. The
translation is not consistent, since the same paragraph, which is almost
repeated twice between Epistle 32a (Beirut’s 32nd) and 32b (Beirut 33rd), is
translated differently. For example, the last sentence:
Epistle 32a Epistle 32b
‫ق حقّه‬
ّ ‫ل ذي ح‬
ّ َ ‫أما الفيثاغور يون فأعطوا ك‬ ‫ق من ذلك حقّه‬
ّ ‫ل ذي ح‬
ّ َ ‫فـأما الحكماء الفيثاغور يّون فأعطوا ك‬
The Pythagoreans give everything its The Pythagorean sages, however, gave all
proper due that is sound in such matters its just due
Two remarks: first, the meaning is lost in its reformulation—the English

reader cannot recognize the same sentence; second, it is lost because the
translator himself did not recognize the connotation referring to the famous
ḥadīṯ on Abū al-Dardāʾ and Salmān al-Farsī’s brotherhood, in which the Persian
believer complains about the pious Abū al-Dardāʾ’s indifference to world
affairs and to others in particular. Then, the prophet tells Abū al-Dardāʾ:
“God has rights on you, but you have also rights on you, and others too. So give
everyone his proper due (fa-aʿṭi kulla ḏī ḥaqqin ḥaqqahu).”92All the essence of
this sentence that concentrates on the doctrine of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā is lost.
Epistle 34
This interesting presentation investigates the sources and the Ismaili
echoes of the macrocosm theory (which echoes go beyond the framework
of Ismailism93), but it lacks a study through the other epistles. The analogy
between the microcosm and the macrocosm has its foundation in Epistle 6
and the mathematical proportions (their application to cosmology is already
given in Epistle 5, I 225), and is developed in many epistles with different forms,
I mean not only the duality of individual/universe, but also the dualities of
92. Voir Buḫārī, al-Ǧāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ, vol. 12, p. 209‒210.

93. For echoes in Sufism, see Gobillot, “Quelques stéréotypes cosmologiques d’origine pythag-
oricienne. I.”; Gobillot, “Quelques stéréotypes cosmologiques d’origine pythagoricienne. II.”
An important philosophical influence of this doctrine is Ibn Ǧabīrūl (around 450/1058).
individual/city (Epistle 26, II 468), city/universe (Epistle 25, II 423; Synthetic

Epistle, p. 401), humanity/animal (Epistle 22, II 179), etc.
Epistle 35
The structure of Epistle 35 is based on the micro-macrocosm theory of
Epistle 34. Because macrocosm and microcosm are analogical, the faculty of
the human soul “whose function is to ponder, to investigate, and to deliber-
ate” (III 232/Eng. p. 117) is analogical to the second emanation, “the simple
immaterial substance enveloping all other things” (III 232/Eng. p. 117).
In understanding this logical construction, can we really agree with Walker
that “the Ikhwān al-ṣafā seem amateurish by comparison” (p. 113)? For in-
stance, he calls for a comparison with al-Fārābī’s Risāla fī al-ʿaql. The beginning
of both Epistles is similar, but the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’s one is simpler. This com-
parison is interesting, because it reveals that al-Fārābī is a precise reader of
the Rasāʾil, inheriting from them his method to found philosophical concepts
in common language. Following al-Kindī, as we saw in Epistles 32‒33, the
Epistles organize the definitions from the closest to experience to the most
abstract one. It is very close to Farabian distinction between first and second
impositions (al-waḍʿ). The proximity is quite obvious, and Walker’s judgment
appears a bit contemptuous.
Epistle 36
De Callataÿ offers a precisely annotated translation. Epistle 36 was already
the topic of his PhD published 1996 in Les révolutions et les cycles.94 After almost
twenty years of research on the Epistles, he could make a few additions, in
particular the philosophical and political importance of conjunctions that
he had not noticed before.
94. De Callataÿ, Les révolutions et les cycles.

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: Sciences of the Soul and
Intellect. Part III. An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of
Epistles 39‒41, edited by Paul E. Walker, Ismail K. Poonawala, David
Simonowitz, Godefroid de Callataÿ, Carmela Baffioni, Oxford, Oxford
University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2015.
400 p., 9.2 × 6.1 inches, 80 $. ISBN 978-0198797760
This volume combines Epistle 39 on the Quiddity of Motion, Epistle 40 on

Cause and Effect, and Epistle 41 on Definitions and Descriptions. Although
Epistle 41 is quite independent, being a classical volume of definitions in the
tradition of al-Kindī, and beyond, Aristotle’s Metaphysics Δ, Epistles 39 and 40
cannot be understood separately from Epistle 38 on Resurrection. Indeed, the
Epistle on Motion deals with the different motions under the lunar sphere,
which is identified as hell. So, its topic is a natural interpretation of the idea
of levels in hell. The only entity that is able to cross the sphere of the moon
is the subtlest one, i.e. the soul. Epistle 40 deals with the nature of the soul
which finds salvation (III 371 et sqq).
The presentations are large (196 pages for 142 pages of translation). We
can only regret that the presentation of Epistle 39 does not give us any clues
to understand the obscure distinction between small resurrection (al-qiyāma
al-ṣuġrā) and great resurrection (al-qiyāma al-kubrā) (III 333/Arab. p. 35‒36),
which was the object of an unconvincing interpretation by de Callataÿ in his
monograph on the Epistles in terms of individual and collective resurrection,95
although the great one is clearly the return of the universal soul and, with it,
of all creation (Epistle 22, II 183).96
The natural soteriology of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā is justified in Epistle 40: the
specificity of philosophy is to understand secondary causes while believers
only consider the first cause. This conception of the relation between belief
and knowledge is consistent with definitions given in Epistle 46 on Belief
(IV 61‒65) and was already the preoccupation of Epistle 19 (II 130‒131/Arab.
p. 350‒353). For instance, one begins by believing that the world is created,
then one will study the nature of such a creation, in time or out of time
(III 349‒351/Arab. p. 77‒82)
Concerning Epistle 41, the presentation contains two important parts. The
first contains a long analysis of the problem of relation between al-Kindī’s
95. De Callataÿ, Ikhwan al-Safaʾ, p. 29 and p. 32‒33.

96. Definition is given in Epistle 16, II 49/Arab. p. 147‒148.
Epistle on Definitions and the present one, by summarizing the old debate on this
topic. Poonawala arrives at the following conclusion: “The Ikhwān’s Epistle […]
not only bears the exact title of al-Kindī’s aforementioned treatise, but also
appears to have used al-Kindī’s epistle as its source” (Eng. p. 282). And to add
in footnote 19: “The Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-ṣafā [are] post-Kindī but pre-Fārābī”. We
must agree with such a conclusion.
The second part of the presentation analyzes the authorship hypothesis
based on al-Tawḥīdī (p. 293‒303), an analysis which leads to the conclusion
that “al-Tawḥīdī’s story does not stand up to close examination and must be
abandoned”. We also agree with such a conclusion.97
Concerning the edition, we can only regret that the Beirut variations were
not taken into account in spite of its particularities. For instance, Epistle 40, in
the Beirut edition, contains the following statement: “Understand, O Brother,
those remarks and admonitions (hāḏihi al-išārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt) in order to
awaken your soul from the sleep of ignorance and the slumber of negligence”
(III 355). This sentence disappeared from the London edition (Arab. p. 94),
although it may have been the origin of Ibn Sīnā’s title for his great opus
al-Išārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt.
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Companionship

and Belief. An Arabic Critical Edition and English
Translation
of Epistles 43‒45, edited by Toby Mayer, Ian Richard Netton
& Samer F. Traboulsi, Oxford, Oxford University Press in
association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2016.
400 p., 9.2 × 6.1 inches, 99 $. ISBN 9780198784678
Presentation
This volume is the second part on practical sciences, which are political
and soteriological (because politics are means for religious aims, as the body
is the instrument of the soul). It has to be read as following Epistle 42 which
explained the origin of intellectual and religious diversity, and the necessity
of unifying it. Epistle 43 distinguishes different groups of men regarding re-
ligious belief. Only the good believers have to be initiated in science, which
97. De Vaulx d’Arcy, “La 17e nuit d’al-Tawḥīdī : réfutation d’une hérésie menaçante, les Épîtres
des Frères en Pureté”.
is considered as the clarification and demonstration of belief and its causes

(see above Epistle 40). Then, Epistle 44 explains the way to initiate those elected
believers to philosophy and why fraternity between them is necessary to build
the vessel of salvation (safīnat al-naǧā). And Epistle 45 exposes the structure
of such an organization. Epistle 46 (which is excluded from this volume) will
expose the nature of the true believer educated as one of Iḫwān al-Ṣafā.
These are the core epistles for the question of fraternity which defines
the political project of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā. Here, no more than anywhere else,
the relation with the other epistles is taken in consideration, although the
following epistles cannot be understood except as a problematic conse-
quence of Epistles 44‒45. Epistle 50, for instance, will answer the question of
insertion of the brotherhood—described in Epistles 44‒45—in the city: how
this community based on individual choice and led by a sincere quest for
eternal happiness, can be included in the larger society based on habits and
the coercion of law? Can one follow two different laws (the communautarian
and the political)? To quote Epistle 50: “And the creed of your family, your
progeny, your wives and children must not be different from what you show
of your creed to your friends and brethren” (IV 260).
I should say something about the edition, especially because the volume
itself attributed only three pages to the technical introduction of Traboulsi
(perhaps to avoid his own critics…) who, after having worked on Epistles 44
and 45, was asked many years later to work on 43. The result is an inconsistent
edition using two different norms.
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Magic. An

Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistle 52a.
Part I, edited by Godefroid de Callataÿ & Bruno Halflants,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
436 p., 9.2 × 6.1 inches, 96 $. ISBN 9780199638956
Status quaestionis
Two reviews have been written on this first publication of the series.
The one by Anthony praises the translation which is said to be remarkable
for its precision, accuracy and readability.98 The second by Coulon criticizes
98. Anthony, “Review…”, p. 386.

the vagueness of the concept of magic and its confusion with the science of
talisman and astrology. This confusion would have come from the lack of
historical sense that led the editor to put al-Būnī and Ibn Ḫaldūn on the same
level whereas they belonged to different periods and conceptions of magic.
This lack of historical science is confirmed by the dating of al-Maǧrīṭī who
is not from the 11th but the 10th century.99 De Callataÿ will take account of
Coulon’s criticism. Indeed, he will follow him in a later article.100
De Callataÿ chose to edit the short version that he entitles (1), although
he found two long versions in the manuscripts: one found in Atif Effendi
1681 (2a), and the other in the Beirut edition (2b), the idea being to translate
one of the long versions later (it will be done by Moureau). In the Beirut pag-
ination, de Callataÿ edits only pages IV 283 to IV 312, and leaves out IV 312
to IV 463. Is the rest of Epistle 52 really a late addition without connection
with the first part, or was it later cut down in order to shorten the copyist’s
work? De Callataÿ does not give any clue, other than historical facts about
a manuscript tradition separating 52a and 52b (p. 1‒5). The hypothesis of
a late composition of 52b is quite astonishing considering that the second
part contains important paragraphs consistent with the whole system, such
as the final position of magic in the progression of sciences (IV 332); the
explanation of the expression “Iḫwān al-Ṣafā”, not as a proper name but as a
concept to call those who deserve it (IV 411‒412); and a commentary of the
verse: “No compulsion in religion” (IV 460), which reminds us of Locke’s Letter
Concerning Tolerance,101 and accords with Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’s complementarism.
Until a precise answer is given, we prefer to consider 52b as authentic and
52a merely as an arbitrary part of it.
De Callataÿ, who did not use the Beirut edition in this volume, has changed
his mind since that time, and accepted the originalities of the Beirut version
in a later article, confessing its authenticity in an understatement:
In the printed editions of Bombay, Cairo and Beirut—all of them regrettably

silent about their use of manuscripts—we even find inserted the additional
lines, which can hardly have been invented by the modern editors.102
99. Coulon, “Recension …” p. 646‒647.

100. De Callataÿ, “Magia…ˮ.
101. Indeed, both texts explain the impossibility of external compulsion on internal faith.
102. De Callataÿ, “For Those with Eyes to See”, (p. 8 of 36).
The understatement was a way to hide the contradiction with his own
editorial choices. But “those who have eyes will see.”
Partial Conclusion
The ambition to build a critical edition of the Epistles seems to be a failure
according to some editors themselves. The main reason is perhaps the lack
of collaboration between the scholars. That is the height of absurdity for a
philosophical system, the main message of which is a call to … collaboration!
The presumption that the Epistles of the Brethren in Purity is a syncretic book
resulted in the decomposition of the system into isolated treatises. We tried
in these lines to show the consistency of the system and the narrow links
between all the epistles. There are many reasons to doubt that Rasāʾil Iḫwān
al-Ṣafā is a syncretic book written by groups of scholars over a century. What
we know for sure is that the new edition is indeed syncretic in its method,
offering a series of different editions based on diverse manuscripts formatted
in various manners, and, as we show below, translated in inconsistent styles.
For instance, the publication of different versions of the same Epistle (for both
Epistles 32 and 52) rejects the idea itself of an Urtext. The philosophical sys-
tem disappears from the London edition, and the Epistles become no more
than an insignificant collection of scientific treatises copied from different
manuscripts, presented in an inconsistent manner and, as we will see below,
translated in various styles.
Part 2
Structural Problems
1. An Editorial Puzzle:
How to Find One’s Way Back in the London Maze
The editorial non-policy led to a nonsense text and reading the edition
ecame more difficult than reading the main manuscript. A simple glance at
b
samples from both the London edition and the Ms Atif Effendi 1681 (see samples
below) makes this clear. The table that follows the pictures aims to show some
of the editorial differences between the volumes of the series. We can then
propose a basic comparison between the London edition and the simple
facsimile of Atif Effendi 1681 published in 2014.
Overview on London Edition
How to find his way back in the London Maze
The edition respecting no common standard, we present here the choices of each particular editor.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Volume Editor/ Epistle’s Epistle’s Manuscript Reference Reference Reference Footnotes Plain text Editor previously
translator number given number Basis inside inside between continuous or or – wrote on
the Arabic text the translation text reinitialized Linefeed Ikh./Ism./Phil
and translation ar./engl. – edited texts
Yes/No
5 Nader el-Bizri 1‒2 1st/2nd Atif Efendi )‫ع (و\ظ‬ ‫ع‬ √ Reinit./cont. Linefeed Phil.
(General editor) of the 1st section 1681 ‫ع‬ Beirut Beirut No
8 F. Jamil Ragep ‒ 3 3rd The Mahdavī ‫ط‬ ‫ط‬ √ Reinit./cont. Linefeed Phil. ‒ Phil.
Taro Mimura of the 1st section Collection, Beirut Beirut Yes ‒ No
Tehran
MS 7437 (‫)ط‬
+)‫ن‬،‫ل‬،‫ك‬،‫ف‬،‫ع‬،‫(أ‬
7 James 4 4th of the 1st Esad effendi ‫ع‬ ‫ع‬ √ Reinit./reinit. Linefeed Phil.
Montgomery section 3637 (‫)ن‬ Beirut Beirut Yes ‒ No
– Ignacio
Sánchez
2 Owen Wright 5 5th of the ‫ل‬،‫ك‬،‫د‬،‫ط‬،‫ف‬،‫أ‬،‫ع‬ ‫ع‬ ‫ع‬ √ Cont./cont. Linefeed Phil.
1st section Beirut Beirut No
3 Carmela 10‒14 10th/14th of the Atif Efendi ‫ع‬ ‫ع‬ √ Cont./cont. Plain Ikh./Ism./Phil.
Baffioni 1st section 1681 ‫ع‬ Beirut Beirut No
6 Carmela 15-21 1st to 7th Atif Efendi ‫ع‬ ‫ع‬ √ Reinit./cont. Plain Ikh./Ism./Phil.
Baffioni of the 2nd section 1681 ‫ع‬ Beirut Beirut Yes
1 Lenn 22 [22] 8th ‫ك‬،‫أ‬،‫ل‬،‫ع‬ ‫ع‬ Ø X Cont./cont. Linefeed Phil – Rel.

E. Goodman of the 2nd section Beirut (chapter Yes ‒ No
– Richard no comparison numbers)
McGregor with Beirut edition
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Volume Editor/ Epistle’s Epistle’s Manuscript Reference Reference Reference Footnotes Plain text Editor previously
translator number given number Basis inside inside between continuous or or – wrote on
the Arabic text the translation text reinitialized Linefeed Ikh./Ism./Phil
and translation ar./engl. – edited texts
Yes/No
9 Paul E. Walker 32-33 [32] 1st of the Atif Efendi Ø Ø X Reinit./cont. Linefeed Ism./Phil.
3rd section / 1681 ‫ع‬ no comparison (no chapter Yes
[33] 2nd of the (32a+32b-33) with Beirut edition numbers)
3rd section on 511 Only ‫ خ‬and ‫ل‬
contain 32a
and 33
Ismail 34 3rd of the 3rd Atif Efendi ‫ع‬ Ø X Reinit./cont. Linefeed Ism./?
K. Poonawala/ section 1681 ‫ع‬ no comparison (no chapter Yes/No
David with Beirut edition numbers)
Simonowitz
Paul E. Walker 35 4th of the 3rd ?? all ?? Ø Ø X Reinit./cont. Linefeed Ism./Phil.
section and 34th no comparison (no chapter Yes
with Beirut edition numbers)
Godefroid 36 5th of the Mainly Ø Ø X Reinit./cont. Linefeed Ikh./Phil.
de Callataÿ 3rd section ‫ه‬،‫ن‬،‫أ‬،‫د‬،‫ل‬،‫ك‬،‫ع‬ (chapter titles) Yes
10 Carmela 39-40 8th/9th of the Atif Efendi ‫ع‬ ‫ع‬ √ Reinit./cont. Plain Ikh./Ism./Phil.
Baffioni 3rd section 1681 ‫ع‬ Beirut Beirut Yes
Ismail 41 10th of the Atif Efendi ‫ع‬ ‫ع‬ √ Reinit./cont. Linefeed Ism.
K. Poonawala 3rd section on 51 1681 ‫ع‬ Yes
11 Samer 43 2nd of the 4th Based on ‫أ‬،‫د‬،‫ق‬،‫ك‬،‫ل‬،‫ع‬ ‫أ‬،‫د‬،‫ق‬،‫ك‬،‫ل‬،‫ع‬ √ Reinit./cont. Linefeed Phil.
Traboulsi/ section on 51 ‫د‬،‫ق‬،‫ل‬،‫ك‬،‫أ‬،‫ع‬ Beirut Ism./Phil.
Toby Mayer checking in Yes‒Yes
Samer 44-45 3rd/4th of the ‫ن‬،‫ز‬،‫ر‬،‫غ‬،‫خ‬،‫ح‬ ‫أ‬،‫د‬،‫ق‬،‫ك‬،‫ل‬،‫ع‬ Ø X Reinit./cont. Linefeed Phil.
Traboulsi/ 4th section on 51 no comparison with (no chapter Ikh./Ism./Phil
Ian Netton Beirut edition numbers) Yes‒Yes
4 Godefroid 52a 11th of the Köprülü 871 (‫)ل‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ل‬ √ Cont./cont. Linefeed Ikh./Phil.
de Callataÿ 4th section Esad effendi (+ lines + ‫)و \ظ‬ (+ lines +‫)و \ظ‬ Yes
3637 (‫)ن‬ Beirut Beirut

306
Key and Reading

The table exposes:
(1) The eleven volumes already published (the inexistence of series number shows that the final number of volumes in the series is not planned). The
given number indicates the chronological order of publication. No importance was given to the logical order of the Epistles, in spite of their emphasis
of such an order.
(2) Their editors and translators’ names.
(3) The number of the epistle as written on the cover and the English translation.
(4) The number as written inside the Arabic text.
Whereas the first is generally the epistle’s rank in the whole book, the second is its rank in the part (propaedeutic and mathematical sciences,
natural sciences, …) as it is indicated in MS Atif Effendi 1681, which most of the editors follow. The result is the inconstancy of numeration in half
the volumes (15‒21, 34‒36, 39‒41, 43‒45, 52).
(5) The manuscripts on which the edition is based. The Arabic letters correspond to the symbolism used in the series. We can notice with surprise that
the manuscripts’ selection by editors is not consistent. Some based their edition on Atif Effendi 1681 because it is the oldest or because it contains
Ismaili views,2 some excluded it. So, the London edition adds a degree of complexity and confusion regarding the text.
(6) The reference in the Arabic text to the manuscript’s folios or to the former edition, in order to compare between both.
(7) The reference in the English translation to be able to find the passage in the Arabic text.
(8) The existence or not of chapter numbers to allow the reader to move back and forth between the English and the Arabic.
(9) The continuity or reinitialization on each page of the footnotes numbers. The incredible extent of philological footnote pages can make the reading
very hard (see Appendix 1).
For example, Epistle 5 contains 2625 footnotes in 186 pages, and the last number is 2625. The result is the pollution of the text with more than
9 000 numbers. It’s very surprising when the comparative analysis shows a text very close to Beirut edition. See p. 190 as a sample.
(10) Another editing difference is the choice between editing the plain text as it is in the manuscripts, that’s Baffioni’s choice for instance, and cutting
paragraphs by regular linefeeds which constitute a part of interpretation of the text. Wright chose this way in an extreme manner for the edition
of epistle 5 (for instance, p. 130, p. 171).
(11) We indicated the specialty of the editors and translators, which is mainly philosophical.
1. The title of the book is here fī tahḏīb al-nafs wa-iṣlāḥ al-aḫlāq min kalām al-ṣūfiyya.
2. Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, On Logic (epistles 10‒14), Appendix A, p. 157.
Guillaume De Vaulx D’arcy
Epistle on Magic
Samples of the London Edition.

Epistle on Music
Epistle on Logic
Sample of Atif Effendi 1681.
The Two New Editions: London (2008 et seq.) and Frankfurt (2015)103
The publication of Ms Atif Effendi 1681 would surely not have been done
without the inquiry by the Institute of Ismaili Studies on the majority of the
existing manuscripts all over the world. They did the main work: selecting
the best manuscripts and establishing their dating. Sezgin did the decisive
one. Now two additional editions can be consulted, the London edition and
the Frankfurt edition. We can compare it quickly:
103. Sezgin, Kitāb Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafā ‒ Ms Atif Effendi 1681.

Frankfurt (2015) London (2008 et seq.)

Facsimile of Ms Atif Effendi 1681 Semi-critical edition
Arabic text Arabic text + translation
Consistent Inconsistent
2 volumes Around 15 volumes
Manuscript text Printed text
Entirely vocalized Partially vocalized
Difficulty of reading: parts in margins Difficulty of reading: too many
references to footnotes
230 euros Around 1.200 dollars
Sezgin, Fuat, ed. Kitāb Iḫwān Aṣ-ṣafā - Ms Atif Effendi 1681, Frankfurt am Main, Goethe University,
2015.
Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Arithmetic and Geometry: An Arabic Critical
Edition and English Translation of Epistles 1-2, edited by Nader El-Bizri, Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 2012, etc.
The edition of Atif Effendi would surely not have been done without inquiry by the Institute
of Ismaili Studies on all the manuscripts all over the world. They did the main work: selecting
the best manuscripts, and establishing their datation.
2. A Philological Irony:
That the Oldest Manuscript is not the Oldest Text
A Partial Analysis of Ms Atif Effendi 1681 (‫)ع‬
It is certain that the Institute of Ismaili Studies’ project provides a great
service to the academic community by its preliminary work consisting of gath-
ering and selecting manuscripts. According to El-Bizri (foreword, footnote 3),
it consists of more than a hundred extant manuscripts preserved in thirty-nine
libraries and collections that were bought by the IIS and nineteen of them
were selected. This operation led to distinguishing Atif Effendi 1681 as the
oldest known manuscript (ad 1182). This manuscript was elected by a com-
mittee without the scholars in charge of the edition and before they entered
the project. So, the choice is not the result of the text analysis, but only of
the presumption that the oldest complete available manuscript is the best,
although all philologists know that this equation is often wrong.104
104. For instance, concerning Kalīla wa-Dimna the oldest manuscript dates from the 13th century
(Aya Sofya 1221), but the best ones date from the 15th century (London 4044) and the 16‒17th
century (Paris 3469). The London edition reproduced the mistake of de Sacy concerning Kalīla
The principal result was the decision by Sezgin to edit this manuscript in
facsimile. The clarity of the regular naskh handwriting and the full vocalization
prevents any confusion. Without the London project, we would not have had
this manuscript published.105
One last remark about the manuscripts listed in the foreword of the London
edition: Feyzullah 2130 (‫ )ف‬and Feyzullah 2131 (‫ )ق‬are not two different
manuscripts, but two parts of the same manuscript.
The Stemma(e) Problem

The committee did not prepare a stemma and each particular editor only
received the very epistle that he was in charge of. However, four editors tried
to do the codicological job: Montgomery and Sanchez with Epistle 4’s material
(p. 11‒12), Owen Wright with Epistle 5 (p. 6), Traboulsi with Epistles 43‒45,
and de Callataÿ-Halflands with Epistle 52a (p. 77). Some of their conclu-
sions are the same, such as the proximity between Atif Effendi 3638 ( ‫ ) أ‬and
Feyzollah 2131 (‫)ق‬, which is also confirmed by Ragep and Mimura.106 The main
results of their philological study is unfortunately inconsistent. De Callataÿ’s
stemma is the most complete, but his decision to rely on Ms Kröpülü 871 (‫)ل‬,
because of its proximity with an unknown source, contradicts Wright who
estimates that Ms Kröpülü 871 (‫ )ل‬is quite far from this same source. Traboulsi
finds a same origin to BNF Ms 6.647-8 (‫ )د‬and (‫)ك\ل‬, while de Callataÿ distin-
guishes them radically. Both scholars also differ completely on the origin of
Ms Esad Effendi 3637 (‫ )ن‬which is on the same branch of the stemma with
Atif Effendi 3638 ( ‫ ) أ‬and Feyzollah 2131 (‫ )ق‬in Traboulsi, and on the opposite
branch in de Callataÿ. So it is impossible to know which side is up.
Why such an inconsistency became possible? Not only because each scholar
studied a different material, but also because they chose different criteria to
build his stemma: the rank of the epistle (4th, 5th or 6th) for Montgomery
wa-Dimna. More than two centuries of philological progress were ignored. See Gruendler,
“Les versions arabes de Kalīla wa-Dimna : une transmission et une circulation mouvantes”,
p. 396‒397 and p. 399.
105. Sezgin, Kitāb Iḫwān al-Ṣafā ‒ Ms Atif Effendi 1681.
106. On Astronomia, Eng. p. 12.
and Sanchez, a passage not included by BCB for Wright, the version of Epistles
51‒52 for de Callataÿ,107 and an inversion in the order of the text for Traboulsi.
Concerning the source of the Beirut edition, only de Callataÿ tried to
estimate its position, but the result is clearly wrong. Regarding our analysis
of the end of Epistle 22 (see above): there is no filiation between what de
Callataÿ called y’/z branches and the Beirut edition. Our analysis shows a
strong originality in the Beirut edition shared only with the Urdu version
used by Garcin de Tassy.
The Quest for the Authoritative Text:

Beirut Version versus Atif Effendi 1681
In the presentation of the IIS’ project, Poonawala compared Atif Effendi’s
manuscript with the Bombay edition (which is the basis for the later editions
of Cairo and Beirut). But he actually compared only a few pages, those of the
table of contents, where he found seven passages of the Bombay edition that
could not be found in Atif Effendi 1681. He called them “additions” or “extras”
from the copyist of the manuscript read by Nūr al-Dīn Ǧīwāḫān, Bombay’s
editor, and attributed them to the Sufi milieu in which the copyist lived. On
Atif Effendi 1681, he only said that: “It cannot be considered exempt from
interpolation.”108 But, why did he call the seven passages of the Bombay edi-
tion “additions” and why did he refuse to call their absence in Atif Effendi
1681, “omissions”? Only on account that it was the oldest known manuscript,
even if nothing is known about the manuscript copied by Nūr al-Dīn Ǧīwāḫān.
However, some of the editors will assert the anteriority of the Bombay source
to Atif Effendi 1681.
If Atif Effendi 1681 was really the oldest source on the Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafā,
why did the IIS not prepare its own edition? That is what Sezgin decided, who
107. He used precisely two criteria, as below:

51‒1 51‒2
52-1 (short) Branch z
52-2a (long version) Branch x
52-2b (long version) Branch y
On branch z, de Callataÿ puts two manuscripts, Esad Effendi and Köprülü 871 to edit the short
version of Epistle 52 (the long one will be edited by Sébastien Moureau).
108. El-Bizri and Institute of Ismaili Studies, Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: The Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ
and Their Rasāʾil: An Introduction, p. 47.
simply had the facsimile edited with the Goethe Institute of Frankfurt, offer-
ing the public a new complete edition in 2014, long before the completion of
the London edition. We present a short comparison of both the London and
Frankfurt editions below (Appendix 3).
We would like here to make a real comparative philological analysis be-
tween the Beirut edition and Atif Effendi 1681. We chose to concentrate on
the still unpublished parts in order to stay away from the London edition and
to take examples from different parts of the text.
How can we determine which of two versions of the same text is better
than the other? Codicology is useless here, since no physical manuscript is
available for the BCB version. But text criticism also provides philological
tools which can be used here. We will not try alone to determine the place of
Atif Effendi 1681 in the stemma of manuscripts. It can be quite tricky since the
copyist declared that he had access to different versions of the text: “Waǧadtu
fī baʿḍ al-nusaḫ…” (577b). We can well understand the difficulty of the editor
who ignored that fact (the manuscript of Epistle 50 where this sentence can
be read, was available only later for this Epistle’s editor). Some characteristics
may have been acquired by horizontal transfer, and not by heritage from
an older version. We will then concentrate in our analysis on two analytical
tools. Firstly, the existence of homeoteleuton (when a copyist’s eyes skipped
from one word to the same word on a later line, leaving out a line or two in
the transcription) can indicate whether a passage found only in one of the
texts is an addition by the first copyist or, on the contrary, an omission by
the second. Secondly, variations on technical passages, like mathematical
ones, show which copyist understood the text and which one did not, and
that errors were due to the copyist’s incomprehension. We selected three
different Epistles for such a comparative analysis: a technical one, Epistle 6
on Composition, a simple one, Epistle 29 on Wisdom of Death, and one full of
traditional references, the 50th on the forms of government.
Case 1. Epistle 6
BCB’s source is more trustworthy than Atif Effendi
This Epistle is contained in Atif Effendi 1681 (‫)ع‬, folios 67a‒73b, and in
Beirut, I 242‒257. We can find 112 meaningful differences. Let us analyze the
most significant ones.
Ex1: A range of examples of multiples

(‫ )ع‬67b I 243 Correct version
Ø ‫وكذلك الخمسة خمسة أضعافه‬ Beirut
> Atif Effendi could omit it, Beirut could add it, but it is probably the first,
because examples are usually numerous in this Epistle, so one could want to
shorten the list.
Ex2: A range of numbers

3,4,5,6,7,8,9 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 Beirut
2,3,4,5,6,7,8
> Atif Effendi is incorrect, because this is a range of examples for the relation
of the same with an additional part. So, the two lines are not independent,
but have to be read as proportions: 3/2, 4/3, etc.
Ex3: 67b/I 243: First number

‫فهو مِثْل نسبة سائر الأعداد المبتدأة‬ ‫فهو مِثْل نسبة سائر الأعداد المبتدأة‬ (‫)ع‬
‫من الخمسة‬ ‫من الثلاثة‬
> Atif Effendi is correct in respecting the following table presented in the text,
the first proportion of which is 5/3. The BCB’s source read the number below.
Ex4: Current expression

(‫ )ع‬68a I 244 Correct version
‫المبتدأ من الثلاثة على النظام الطبيعي المبتدأ من الثلاثة المن ّظمة على‬ (‫)ع‬
‫الطبيعي‬ ‫النظام‬
> Atif Effendi is correct in respecting other occurrences of the same expression
in many passages. The omission in BCB is meaningless.
Ex5: Technical meaning

‫تحت الثلاثة والزائد جزءًا‬ ‫تحت المِثْل والزائد جزءًا‬ Beirut
> Atif Effendi is incorrect and combines two sentences to create a new expres-
sion, which gives a wrong meaning, because 3/2 is the same with one additional
part, 1.5, and not 3+n/3. So, Atif Effendi 1681 did not grasp the meaning.
Ex6: Omissions by homeoteleuton in Atif Effendi

(‫ )ع‬71b/I 251 (see Appendix 4)
> Two omissions by homeoteleuton in Atif Effendi, one of the missing is referred
to in the margin (like before in 68a/I 244, “al-mubtadaʾa min al-iṯnayn/al-ḫamsa”,
and then, later, in 68b/I 245-246, “… iṯnān iṯnān” where the omitted paragraph
is added in the margin), and the other is definitely omitted.
To conclude the case on Epistle 6, we can say that the copyist of Atif Effendi
clearly made many mistakes in this technical Epistle. The omissions by
homeoteleuton corrected in the margin show that the mistakes were not
inherited from a previous erroneous copy. The BCB’s version neither makes
such mistakes, nor such omissions.
Case 2. Epistle 29
That Bombay’s source is also deficient
Epistle 29 is simple to understand, so a copyist could be tempted to hurry
and make multiple mistakes. But in that case, each copyist made different
mistakes at different places.
Ex1: Reading the archetype

(‫ )ع‬301a III 37 Correct version
‫فيكون سبب بعث الأنفس الجزئية‬ ‫فيكون سبب بعث الأنفس الجزئية‬ (‫)ع‬
...‫الإنسانية الكاملة‬ ...‫الإنسانية الكلية‬
> Atif Effendi is certainly correct, because the particular souls are not the
universal soul. In fact, the passage is about the elected souls which are
the c omplete ones. Elsewhere, the Epistles speak about “al-nufūs al-tāmma
al-kāmila” (Epistle 40, IV 371).
Ex2: Omission by homeoteleuton in BCB

(‫ )ع‬301b III 38 Correct version
‫[الأعصاب] المنشأة من الدماغ‬ ‫[الأعصاب] المنشأة منها الأوتاد‬ (‫)ع‬

‫الكائنة منها العدلات الصلبة المحرّكة‬
‫للمفاصل والأعضاء المنشأة منها‬
‫الأوتاد‬
> The meaning of the Beirut edition here is incomplete, while that of Atif Effendi
is clear. This is a case of omission by homeoteleuton in the BCB’s source: the
copyist skipped a part of the anatomic description.
Ex3: Omission by homeoteleuton in Atif Effendi

(‫ )ع‬303b III 42 Correct version
‫ انتفع بعد‬،‫ لم ينتفع في [إذا] كملت خلقته هناك‬،‫[إذا] كملت هناك خلقته‬ Beirut
‫الولادة‬ ‫الرحم بل ينتفع بعد الولادة‬
> Both make sense, but BCB’s meaning is more precise and logical in the con-
text. This is an omission by homeoteleuton in Atif Effendi.
We can conclude that the meaning of Epistle 29 on the Wisdom of Death is

quite easy to grasp. The copyist of Atif Effendi, who is not a scientist according
to the analysis of Epistle 6, made fewer mistakes here, because he understood
the text better. The Beirut source hurried up and made some omissions by
homeoteleuton. In this Epistle, we can assume that Atif Effendi is more faithful
to its source. Then, when a sentence is missing in BCB, it may indicate that
the BCB’s source made an omission. And we can conclude that the reading
of Atif Effendi is useful to target the BCB’s omissions and complete the text.
Case 3. Epistle 50
Epistle 50 on different sorts of government describes Ḥarrānian and Islamic
forms of worship. So, regarding the second one, it deals with information
shared by all Muslims.
Omitted entire passages in Atif Effendi

If Atif Effendi saved this passage, it forgot others and cut almost the whole
chapter on Spiritual Leadership (fī al-siyāsa al-nafsāniyya) (IV 258‒259) where
an entire page is summarized in one sentence: “That and what is similar
belong to the management of the soul, and it is an obligation for you and in
your interest to use it.”
Here are the main other omitted paragraphs:
IV 250‒251. “Wa-qad laḫḫaṣnā … min fawāʾidinā”
IV 255. “Wa-ʿlam ayyuhā al-aḫ al-bārr al-raḥīm annaka… al-asqām. Wa-maʿa ḏālika”
IV 258‒259. “Wa-turīd li-l-ġayr mā turīd li-nafsik …” to the end.
Surrogate passages
We also find some surrogate sentences and variations on the same meaning
(indicated by =)
IV 251. “Fa-ʿalayka bi-l-iḥtifāẓ … bal talqīhā ilayhi”

it contains
523b. “Amarnāka bi-l-iḥtifāẓ bihi wa-l-ṣiyāna lahu wa-nurīdu an naṣifa laka ṣifat
alladīna yaṣluḥu laka an talqī ilayhim wa-naḥnu bihi ilayhim”
IV 252. “Wa-lam yabqa minhu illā maslak waʿr dāṯir al-ʿalāmāt…”

=
524a. “Wa-lam yura minhā illā ṭuruq waʿira wa-ʿalāmāt dāṯira”
IV 252. “Al-āya”
524a. “Sīmāhum fī wuǧuhihim min aṯar al-suǧūd” (Q IIL, 29)
IV 257. “fa-inna zāda bihim al-amr ḥattā yaṭbaḥa al-safīna mā yaksiruhā wa-yakūna
minhā mā qaḍā, kānū muṭmaʾinnī al-nufūs”
=
525b. “fa-inna zāda bihim al-amr ḥattā tankasira al-muṭiyya wa-taḏhaba minhum
mā kāna min amrihim mā quḍiya ʿalayhim wa-hum ṭayyabū”
IV 262. “Ammā al-duʿāʾ wa-l-qurbān al-maqbūl al-mustaǧāb, fa-ʿlam yā aḫī…”

527a. “Ammā al-duʿāʾ wa-l-qurbān, fa-innā ḏaḫarnāhu li-hāḏā al-faṣl yā aḫī...”
Some are concerned by the description of the Islamic rituals: numerous var-
iations on a well-known topic
IV 263. “wa-ʿinda muʿāyinat hilāl al-fiṭr”

=
527a. “wa-fī ʿīd al-fiṭr ʿinda muġāyabat al-qamar baʿda al-ḫurūǧ min al-ṣiyām”
IV 269. ʿīd al-aḍḥā wa-ʿīd al-ġadīr

=
529a. ʿīd al-naḥr wa-yawm al-waṣiyya
and others… Those are mainly different formulations of the very same idea.
Additional passages in Atif Effendi

IV 256 (last line) “al-ǧariyān, <...> kaḏālika”
525b “al-ǧariyān, wa-lā yanquṣu min ālatihā illā ḏahāb al-rīḥ fa-qaṭ kaḏālika”
IV 264. (last line) “šukran lahu … bi-mā manna”

527b. “šukran lahu naḥwahā bi-l-istiġfār wa-ḥasanāt afʿālihi bi-mā manna”
Omission by homeoteleuton in Atif Effendi

525b IV 257
wa-l-burhān anna al-rīḥ muḥarrik lahā wa-l-burhān anna al-rīḥ laysa min
ǧawhar al-safīna, wa-lā al-safīna ḥāmi-
la, bal al-rīḥ muḥarrik lahā
525b IV 257
Fa-in kāna allaḏīna man fīhi ahluhā Fa-in kāna allaḏīn man fīhā min ahlihā
ʿārifīna mawǧib al-maqdar iṭmaʾannat ʿārifīn mūǧab ḏalika al-amr min nuzūl
ḏalika al-ʿāṣif wa-annahu bi-mūǧab
al-maqdar iṭmaʾannat nufūsuhum
Conclusion on Epistle 50
It contains not only omissions and additions, but also variations:
15 sentences and even paragraphs differ entirely, and numerous ideas are
expressed in a different way. Why? It deals with the Islamic rituals. So, copyists
could easily substitute the original descriptions by their own way of naming
and explaining those rituals.
Partial Conclusion on Atif Effendi 1681

We must mention the omissions in Atif Effendi mainly because the additions
of the missing parts in the margin show the copyist’s tendency to omit. His
distraction appears also in repetitions as noticed in the edition of Epistle 43.109
109. On Companionship and Belief, Arab. p. 32, footnote 13.

We especially find numerous omissions by homeoteleuton in Atif Effendi 1681,

which characterize a deficient copy. Therefore, we have to refuse Poonawala’s
statement about the Bombay’s additions and to speak about Atif Effendi’s
omissions. Although Atif Effendi 1681 is the oldest available manuscript, it
is newer than the BCB source. So, by choosing Atif Effendi and neglecting
the BCB text, the London edition built a deficient text. The Beirut edition is
still the most trustworthy available version of the Epistles of Brethren in Purity.
3. Creation in Translation:
all the Different Ways to Translate the Same Sentences
We must welcome this project of complete translation, for it will give ac-
cess to the Epistles for the non-Arabic speakers. But what is given to them to
read? Are translation choices convenient for the Arabic meaning? Are they
consistent between different translators? We gave a partial answer to the first
question in our study of the different volumes. We would like here to show
that the answer to the second question is unfortunately: No.
We took examples of the many recurring expressions which appear
throughout the Epistles and gave them a unity of style. We noted the way
each translator translated the same expression and put a sign at the beginning
and the end of the expression to distinguish the different ways.
Ex 1
Translator Translation Recurring
expression
El-Bizri 1. O righteous and compassionate
‫الأخ البار الرحيم‬
brother
Baffioni 2. O pious and merciful brother
De Callataÿ 3. My dutiful and compassionate
brother
Sanchez 4. Dear esteemed Brother
Poonawala 5. O reverent and merciful brother
Mayer Ø
Netton 1. O righteous and compassionate
brother
Wright 6. O dear virtuous and compassionate
brother
Goodman/McGregor Ø
Ragep/Mimura 7. O pious and compassionate brother
Walker 2. O pious and merciful brother
Ex 2
Translator Translation Recurring expression
El-Bizri 1. May God aid us and you ‫أيدك ال ل��ه وإيانا بروح منه‬
with a spirit from Him
Baffioni 2. May God help you and us

through a spirit coming
from Him
De Callataÿ 3. May God stand by you and

by ourselves with a spirit
coming from Him
Sanchez 4. May God aid you and us

with a spirit of Him
Poonawala 5. May God help you and us

with His spirit
Mayer 6. May God support us and

you with a spirit from Him
Netton 1. May God aid us and you

Wright 4. May God aid you and us

with a spirit of Him
Goodman/ McGregor 7. God aid you and us with

His sustaining spirit
Ragep/Mimura 8. May God strengthen you

and us with a spirit from
Him
Walker 9. May God aid you and us

Ex3
Translator Translation Recurring expression
El-Bizri 1. It is alert to the ‫انتبه من نوم الغفلة واستيقظ من‬
slumber of the inatten- ‫رقدة الجهالة‬
tiveness and wakeful
from the slothfulness
of ignorance
Baffioni 2. To awaken from the
sleep of negligence…
3. awakened from the
sleep of their careless-
ness and woken up
from the slumber of
their ignorance
De Callataÿ 4. Be woken up from the
torpor of negligence
and the slumber of
ignorance
Sanchez 5. To awaken from the
sleep of negligence
and the slumber of
ignorance
Poonawala 6. The vigilance of the
soul from the slumber
of negligence and the
sleep of ignorance
Mayer Ø
Netton 5. … from the sleep of
negligence and the
slumber of ignorance
Wright 6. To arouse you
from the slumber
of forgetfulness…
Goodman/ McGregor II 327
(passage not edited)
Ragep/Mimura 7. Is aroused from the
sleep of the heedless
and awakens from the
slumber of ignorance
Walker Ø
It is amazing how such simple expressions can be translated in so many

ways. If they intended to do it purposely, they could not have done it any bet-
ter. The problem is that the unity of style of the original text disappears from
the English versions. The non-Arabic speaker cannot understand that all those
forms refer to one expression. The hypothesis of a stratified composition is
self-fulfilled, and the English translation finally gives the evidence it needed.
But more seriously, it gives an experimental argument against this same
stratified or even collective composition. The fact that, the dozens of scholars
who shared the IISʼ project and who could communicate their work every
second through the Internet were unable to find a consistent translation even
for the most usual and obvious expressions, reinforces the thesis of a unique
author for the whole book.
General Conclusion
This article was intended primarily to understand the new Epistles of the
Brethren in Purity underlying the London edition. It required a precise compari-
son between the text offered by the Beirut edition and the new one. Numerous
differences can indeed be found. But unfortunately, despite the high quality of
the particular volumes, our internal study of those innovations demonstrates
a certain inconsistency between the different volumes of the project, the
choice of manuscript Atif Effendi 1681 misleading the reader on the meaning
of the Epistles. It also confirms the Beirut edition as the reference edition.
The core problem of the London edition lies both on an historical mistake
about the authorship which led to a disregard of the internal consistency of
the Epistles, and the lack of a real editing policy. Indeed, the general editor
had two choices: whether to establish the best form of the text in the philo-
logical tradition of critical editions, or to reproduce the variety of variations
for highlighting the historical metamorphosis and the ideological struggles.
This second solution is permitted by digitalization and already gave strong
results in Arabic studies, such as the project “Kalila wa-Dimna ‒ Wisdom
Encoded” under the leadership of Prof. Beatrice Gründler who jumped into
such a new venture.110
110. “Il est impossible et indésirable de réduire la richesse des variations de Kalīla wa-Dimna à
un seul texte. Il est beaucoup plus pertinent d’identifier les variantes majeures existantes et de
Since the publishers refuse to revise their project, new volumes continue
to get published with the same problems. Despite the certitude of the falseness
of the historical hypothesis based on al-Tawḥīdī’s testimony, the Institute of
Ismaili Studies goes on talking on its website about “the anonymous adepts
of a tenth-century esoteric fraternity based in Basra and Baghdad”.
Despite these limits, the London edition will become the dominant one
in the West. Scholars will then lean on the English translation first, but the
complexity of the editorial questions will prevent most of them from going
further in the investigation. At the same time, the possibility of testing the
London edition and producing a real critical edition will become quite difficult
for the Institute of Ismaili Studies has entered into a copyright agreement
with the relevant institutions. For better or for worse, the London edition
may be the seal of the Epistles’ editions.
So finally, we can only claim our profound need of a real comprehension
and application of the system of the Brethren in Purity, whose idea of mutual
cooperation between scholars was not realized even by those who dedicated
their lives to studying them. We still have a lot to learn from the Epistles.
tenter de découvrir leurs histoires et métamorphoses transculturelles”, Gruendler, “Les versions

arabes de Kalīla wa-Dimna : une transmission et une circulation mouvantes”, p. 413‒414.
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A Tenth-Century Ecological Fable of the Pure Brethren of Basra, Woodbridge, Twayne
Publishers, 1978.
Goodman, Lenn Evan, “Reading the Case of the Animals versus Man : Fable and
Philosophy in the Essays of the ‘Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ’”, in Nader El-Bizri, The Ikhwān
al-Ṣafāʾ and Their “Rasāʾil”: An Introduction, London, The Institute of Ismaili Studies,
2008, p. 248–274.
Gruendler, Beatrice, « Les versions arabes de Kalīla wa-Dimna : une transmission
et une circulation mouvantes », in Marie-Christine Bornes-Varol, Marie-Sol
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Nancy, PUN-Presses Universitaires de Lorraine, 2013, p. 387‒418.
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Hamdani, Abbas, “Abū Ḥayyan al-Tawḥīdī and the Brethren of Purity”, International
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Alí-de-Unzaga (ed.), Forteresses of the Intellect : Ismaili and Other Islamic Studies in
Honour of Farhad Daftary, London, Tauris Publishers, Institute of Islamic Studies,
2011, p. 189‒212.
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p. 137‒181.
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arithmétique de Nicomaque de Gérase, et rédacteur des Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafā”,
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 29, no. 2, 2019 (à paraître).
Vaulx d’Arcy, Guillaume de, “La 17e nuit d’al-Tawḥīdī : réfutation d’une hérésie
menaçante, les Épîtres des Frères en Pureté”, ReMMM, (à paraître).
Widengren, Geo, “The Pure Brethren and the Philosophical Structure of Their System”,
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Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1979, p. 57‒69.
Abstract / Résumé / ‫مل ّخص‬
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.
Keywords: Rasāʾil Iḫwān al- Ṣafā, Epistles of the Brethren in Purity, edition, review,
Institute of Ismaili Studies.
•
Trente des cinquante-deux Épîtres des Frères en Pureté (Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ)
ont à ce jour été éditées par The Institute of Ismaili Studies. Il est venu le temps de
recenser les volumes parus et de demander plus généralement : qu’est-ce qui a
d’ores et déjà changé dans les nouvelles Épîtres ? Malheureusement, l’ambitieux
projet d’édition critique a donné le jour à une mosaïque incohérente d’éditions
et de traductions individuelles qui met à mal la compréhension des Rasāʾil.
L’analyse précise de détails tirés des éditions de Beyrouth et de Londres donne
l’occasion de mettre à l’épreuve les deux thèses qui s’affrontent sur les Épîtres :
la conception majoritaire qui y lit une doctrine syncrétique résultant d’une
rédaction stratifiée, et notre hypothèse d’une œuvre hautement philosophique
écrite par Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī.
Mots-clés : Rasāʾil Iḫwān al- Ṣafā, Épîtres des Frères en Pureté, édition, récension,
Institute of Ismaili Studies.
‫ ‬ ‫ ‪330‬‬ ‫‪Guillaume De Vaulx D’arcy‬‬
‫•‬
‫قام المعهدُ الإسماعيليّ حتّى الآن بنشرَ ثلاثين رسالة من رسائل إخوان الصفا البالغ عددها‬
‫اثنتين وخمسين رسالة‪ .‬وعليه فإ ّن الوقت قد جاء لدراسة الرسائل في ثوبها الجديد‪ ،‬ولطرح‬
‫النقدي ال َ‬
‫طموح لم‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫رت هذه الطبعة في الرسائل؟ وللأسف‪ ،‬فإ ّن العمل‬
‫السؤال التالي‪ :‬ماذا غي ّ ْ‬
‫ٍ‬
‫حقيقات‬ ‫جاءت الطبعة الجديدة في صورة فسيفساء ّ‬
‫مركبة من ت‬ ‫ْ‬ ‫ِ‬
‫يأت بالثمرة المنشودة‪ ،‬حيث‬
‫وترجمات متنوّعة تكاد تكون متناقضة‪ ،‬أنتجها باحثون منعزلون عن بعضهم البعض‪ .‬ولذا فإنّها‬
‫�لكن الدراسة التحليليّة المقارنة لطبعتي لندن وبيروت‬
‫ّ‬ ‫الإجمالي للعمل‪.‬‬
‫ّ‬ ‫تحول بيننا وبين الفهم‬
‫تعطينا فرصة ً لتأمّل نظريّتين تار يخيّتين ‪ ‬تتصارعان على فهم الرسائل‪ .‬أولاهما‪ ،‬وهي النظر يّة‬
‫الغالبة‪ ،‬ترى في الرسائل خل ً‬
‫طا لعناصر مختلفة المصدر نتج عن تع ّدد المؤل ّفين وتوزّعهم بين‬
‫فلسفي محض‬ ‫أجيا ٍ‬
‫ل مختلفة‪ .‬وثانيتهما‪ ،‬وهي الفرضيّة ال ّتي نطرحها‪ ،‬تفترض أ ّن الرسائل عمل‬
‫ّ‬
‫كتبه أحمد بن الطيب السرخسيّ‪.‬‬
‫كلمات مفتاحيّة‪ :‬رسائل إخوان الصفا‪ ،‬طبعة‪ ،‬قراءة نقديّة‪ ،‬معهد الدراسات الإسماعيليّة‪.‬‬

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MIDÉO

Mélanges de l'Institut dominicain d'études orientales

The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity Edited by the

Guillaume De Vaulx d’Arcy

Institut Dominicain d'Études Orientales

GUILLAUME DE VAULX D’ARCY

To Emily Cottrell and Mourad Kacimi for their support;

1. We model our translation of Iḫwān al-Ṣafā on the expression “brethren in faith”.

of the existing manuscripts were gathered and analyzed,2 a group of more

1. The Editorial Policy: Its Presupposition …

a. The General Non-Policy

Since the book is not considered as a completely unified and systematic

b. Volume Analysis: How to Make one Book Many? …

2. The Stroboscopic Epistles

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On ­Arithmetic and

8. Only Baffioni recorded it in the appendix of On Logic.

‫‪Nevertheless, concerning Epistle 1, the difference between both the ­Beirut‬‬

‫‪Beirut, I 61‬‬ ‫‪London, p. 37‬‬

‫‪The precision “I mean powers of two”, in El-Bizri’s translation, is only a‬‬

‫‪Beirut‬‬ ‫‪London‬‬ ‫‪Correct edition‬‬

‫بحثوا عن علم النفس وألفوا فيه ا�لكتب بقرائح قلوبهم الصافية‬

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On ­Astronomia. An ­Arabic

24. Crone, “Ungodly Cosmologies”, p. 115‒119.

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Geography. An ­Arabic

The historical analysis reveals that: “Although al-Farghānī is the principal

Geography is the brother of astronomy, just as politics is of religion. While

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Music.

29. Shiloah, “Review: On Music”, p. 151.

of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’s conception of music.31 The same theoretical Pythagorean

This Pythagorean diatonic fretting, identical with that presented by al-Kindī

Their conception is clearly pre-Farabian.

Beirut London Correct edition

1 I 183 ‫وتأثيراتها كلها مظاهر روحانية‬ p. 7 ‫وتأثيراتها كلها روحانية‬ L

2 I 185 ‫غيّر نغمة الأوتار‬ p. 8 ‫غيّر أوتار الآلة‬ B

3 I 202 ‫والسرنايات والصفرات‬ p. 64 ‫والشبابات والصفرات‬ ?

4 I 203 ‫الصنائع الأول‬ p. 65 ‫الصنائع‬ L

1. The term maẓāhir (phenomena) does not occur elsewhere in the

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Logic. An

Epistle 10 on the Isagoge

39. Al-Kindī (before 256/870), “Kammiyyat kutub Arisṭū”, p. 364.

The second element concerns their conception of revelation, integrated in

Epistle 11 on the Categories

42. Crone, “Ungodly Cosmologies”, p. 107.

43. Al-Fārābī (338/950), Kitāb al-ḥurūf, p. 91‒95.

some the rhetoric demonstration, or the geometric demonstration (burhān),

That the epistles on Logic prepare the epistemology of religious opinions is

ontological unity is restricted to God who is really one (wāḥid bi-l-ḥaqīqa).54

The Arabic sentence is intricate, it is based on an analogy, a comparison

another, and the combination of such is a proportion.”55 The text of Epistle 14

Know, O brother, that the relation (al-nisba) between the information

This proportion is more precisely a “greater inequality (al-iḫtilāf al-aʿẓam)”,

55. Nicomachus of Gerasa (120 ce), Introduction to Arithmetic, II 21, p. 265.

Poonawala in choosing one sole manuscript, Atif Effendi 1681, as a reference

a consequence of the necessity for men to communicate by oral speech is their

‘Everything existing, except the Creator, is either a substance or an accident’,

Appendix C is an addition found in Esad Effendi 3638 about Epistle 12. This

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On the ­Natural

59. This volume was reviewed by Loinaz.

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Arithmetic and

‫‪Nevertheless, concerning Epistle 1, the difference between both the Beirut‬‬

‫‪Beirut, I 61‬‬ ‫‪London, p. 37‬‬

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Astronomia. An Arabic

24. Crone, “Ungodly Cosmologies”, p. 115‒119.

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Geography. An Arabic

29. Shiloah, “Review: On Music”, p. 151.

1 I 183 ‫وتأثيراتها كلها مظاهر روحانية‬ p. 7 ‫وتأثيراتها كلها روحانية‬ L

2 I 185 ‫غيّر نغمة الأوتار‬ p. 8 ‫غيّر أوتار الآلة‬ B

3 I 202 ‫والسرنايات والصفرات‬ p. 64 ‫والشبابات والصفرات‬ ?

4 I 203 ‫الصنائع الأول‬ p. 65 ‫الصنائع‬ L

39. Al-Kindī (before 256/870), “Kammiyyat kutub Arisṭū”, p. 364.

43. Al-Fārābī (338/950), Kitāb al-ḥurūf, p. 91‒95.

55. Nicomachus of Gerasa (120 ce), Introduction to Arithmetic, II 21, p. 265.

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On the Natural

63. On Music, Eng. p. 136, n. 218.

Beirut, II 375 Transl. Garcin de Tassy, p. 117 London chap. 42, p. 312

91. Al-Kindī (256/870), “al-Falsafa al-ūlā”, p. 106.

95. De Callataÿ, Ikhwan al-Safaʾ, p. 29 and p. 32‒33.

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ. Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: On Companionship

98. Anthony, “Review…”, p. 386.

99. Coulon, “Recension …” p. 646‒647.

109. On Companionship and Belief, Arab. p. 32, footnote 13.