116
al-isfizr, ab mid
Idhr (d. first half of the eighth/four-
teenth century), it was the Nafsa who
began the conflict with Ubaydallh; they
appointed as commander Ab Baa,
as Ab Yay Zakariyy al-Irjn was
known. Ubaydallh sent against them
Al b. Salmn al-D with a great army.
The Nafsa attacked first, killed some of
Al’s companions, and put the survivors
to flight. Al later returned to besiege the
Nafsa, and, in Shabn 311/November-
December 923, he entered their citadel,
demolished it, killed the men, and took
the children as prisoners.
The Ib version of this conflict differs.
Al-Shammkh (d. 928/1522) refers to the
learned and pious Ab Yay Zakariyy,
whom the Nafsa named “kim or imm
mudfi (imm of defence).” By his account,
when the Fimids attacked the citadel of
al-Jazra (an impregnable high place in the
Jabal Nafsa, near modern-day Marqas),
Ab Yay Zakariyy put them to flight.
He defeated them a second time near
Tirakt but was killed by one of his com-
panions. Ib sources do not say whether
he was appointed imm of defence after
the fall of Thart—perhaps in the hope of
founding a new Ib immate in North
Africa centred on the Jabal Nafsa (as
had happened previously with the Rusta-
mid immate)—or was appointed imm
of defence only provisionally, in order to
protect the Ibs from Fimid attack.
After the death of Ab Yay
Zakariyy, Ab Abdallh b. Ab Amr b.
Ab Manr Ilys (d. before 293/896) was
initially named kim, but his appointment
was quickly revoked, and Ab Zakariyy
b. Ab Yay Zakariyy al-Irjn even-
tually succeeded his father. Al-Bughr
(d. first half of the seventh/thirteenth cen-
tury) states that, as soon as Ab Zakariyy
became kim of the Jabal, the Ibs had
to fight another army sent by the Fimids
and were defeated, with a great many
casualties. As happened to his father, Ab
Zakariyy was killed by one of his com-
panions, an unnamed man of armsa (in
the Jabal), probably shortly after his elec-
tion. After the death of Ab Zakariyy,
the Nafsa restored Ab Abdallh b. Ab
Amr as kim, who was still in power in
358/969, when the Ibs prepared the
revolt of Bghya (present-day Baghaï,
north of Khenchela, Algeria) against the
Fimids.
Bibliography
Sources
Maqrn b. Muammad al-Bughr, Srat
mashyikh Nafsa, ed. Tawfq Ayyd al-
Shaqrn, published on line by Muassasat
Twlt al-Thaqfiyya 2009, http://
www.tawalt.com; Ibn Idhr, al-Bayn al-
mughrib f akhbr al-Andalus wa-l-Maghrib, ed.
Georges Séraphin Colin and Evariste Lévi-
Provençal, 4 vols., Beirut 1983; Amad
b. Sad al-Shammkh, Kitb al-siyar, ed.
Muammad asan, 3 vols., Beirut 2009.
Studies
Adam R. Gaiser, Muslims, scholars, soldiers. The
origin and elaboration of the Ib immate tradi-
tions, Oxford 2010; Tadeusz Lewicki, Etudes
ibites nord-africaines, Warsaw 1955; Tadeusz
Lewicki, Ibitica, 2. Les kims et les muqad­
dams du Jabal Nafsa au moyen âge, RO
26/1 (1962), 97–123.
Virginie Prevost
al-Isfizr, Ab mid
Ab mid Amad b. Ab Isq
Muammad al-Isfizr was a fourth/
tenth-century philosopher and math-
ematician who, around 340–55/955–60,
attended a scholarly gathering at the court
of the affrids (r. 247–393/861–1003) in
al-isfizr, ab mid 117
Sijistn, in the region between present-
day Iran and Afghanistan. Information
about him is otherwise scarce. In his Ul
al-dn (1), the anaf scholar Ab l-Yusr
al-Bazdaw (al-Pazdaw; d. 493/1100)
mentions al-Isfizr disapprovingly in the
same breath as the famous philosopher
al-Kind (d. c. 252/866) amongst the phi-
losophers who have written erroneously
on tawd (the unity of God). This fits well
with some striking similarities between the
philosophical discussions of the Creator
by al-Isfizr and by the philosopher Mis-
kawayh (d. 421/1030), a renowned repre-
sentative of al-Kind’s tradition. The great
philosopher and physician Ibn Sn (Avi-
cenna, d. 428/1037) criticises al-Isfizr
for his understanding of some ethical
and mathematical matters in his Risla f
l-zwiya (“Treatise on the angle”) and his
letter to Ibn Zayla preserved in the Kitb
al-mubatht (“Discussions”) (Reismann,
An obscure Neoplatonist, 241–2). Yet,
given Ibn Sn’s generally harsh judge-
ment of the philosophical abilities of his
contemporaries, this criticism should not
be overrated.
Al-Isfizr’s main surviving work is the
Masil al-umr al-ilhiyya wa-hiya thamniya
wa-ishrn masala (“Twenty-eight questions
on metaphysical topics”), which deals
with epistemology (Questions 1–5), proofs
of the existence of the Creator, mainly
through motion (Q 6–12), His attributes
(Q 13–6) and His creation (Q 17–21), and
what knowledge man may possibly have
of his Creator (Q 22–8). Following Aris-
totelian philosophy, al-Isfizr presents the
proof of the existence of the Creator that
is based on motion and establishes Him
as the Prime Mover as the most decisive
and certain one. This proof further allows
it to be demonstrated that the Creator is
unmoved, incorporeal, eternal, simple,
one, and the cause of all that exists. The
Masil al-umr al-ilhiyya use an astonish-
ing number of ancient Greek philosophi-
cal sources, including Aristotle, Ptolemy,
Galen, Proclus, and Philoponus. Al-Isfizr
knows Philoponus’s impetus theory, which
explains any movement against natural
inclination, namely, that of light things
to rise and of heavy things to fall, by a
kinetic force exerted on the thing moved
by its mover. He further knows, at least in
part, of the no longer extant Arabic trans-
lation of Philoponus’s Against Proclus’s On
the eternity of the world, in which Proclus’s
arguments for the eternity of the world
are refuted. Most importantly, however,
the Masil al-umr al-ilhiyya contains the
longest Arabic quotation known so far of
a Platonic dialogue, namely, the Republic
(506d-509b), in dialogue form. Yet this
citation occurs in only one of the two sur-
viving manuscripts of al-Isfizr’s work (in
Damascus, hiriyya Library, MS 4871,
but not in Istanbul, Ragip Pasha Library,
MS 1463). In the Masil al-umr al-ilhiyya,
al-Isfizr refers to three other treatises
of his, namely Kitb f l-ikma al-amaliyya
(“On practical knowledge”), Kitb f taarruf
al-l bad al-mawt (“On acquiring knowl-
edge about the afterlife”), and Kitb f
adath al-lam (“On the origination of the
universe”). The latter two may be iden-
tified with two anonymously preserved
treatises of the same titles. The surviving
Kitb f taarruf al-l bad al-mawt is, how-
ever, not only transmitted anonymously
but also sometimes ascribed to Ibn Sn
and thus placed in the cultural and intel-
lectual milieu of the eastern parts of the
fourth/tenth-century Islamic world to
which al-Isfizr must have belonged. The
surviving Kitb f adath al-lam is uniquely
preserved in one of the two known man-
uscripts containing the Masil al-umr
118 iskandar beg munsh
al-ilhiyya (Istanbul, Ragip Pasha Library,
MS 1463), and, in upholding al-Isfizr’s
authorship, one may thus argue that the
copyist copied two treatises by the same
author. Further research is needed, how-
ever, to clarify these matters.
Bibliography
Sources
al-Bazdaw, Ul al-dn, ed. Hans-Peter Linss,
Cairo 1963.
Studies
Daniel Gimaret, Un traité théologique du phi-
losophe musulman Ab mid al-Isfizr
(IVe/Xe s.), in Louis Pouzet (ed.), Mélanges
in memoriam Michel Allard, S. J. (1924–1976),
Paul Nwyia, S. J. (1925–1980) (Beirut 1984),
207–52 (contains an edition of the Arabic
text of the “Twenty-eight questions”); Dan-
iel Gimaret, Sur un passage énigmatique du
“Tabyn” d’Ibn Askir, SI 47 (1978), 143–
63; David C. Reisman, An obscure Neopla-
tonist of the fourth/tenth century and the
putative Philoponus source, in Peter Adam-
son (ed.), In the age of al-Frb. Arabic philoso-
phy in the fourth/tenth century (London 2008),
239–64 (contains an English trans. of ques-
tions 8, 9, 11, 21); David C. Reisman, Pla-
to’s Republic in Arabic. A newly discovered
passage, ASP 14 (2004), 263–300; Elvira
Wakelnig, Al-Ank’s use of the lost Arabic
version of Philoponus’ Contra Proclum, ASP 23
(2013), 291–317; Elvira Wakelnig, Die Phi-
losophen in der Tradition Kinds. Al-mir,
al-Isfizr, Miskawayh, as-Siistn und
at-Tawd, in Heidrun Eichner, Matthias
Perkams, and Christian Schäfer (eds.), Isla-
mische Philosophie im Mittelalter. Ein Handbuch
(Darmstadt 2013), 233–52.
Elvira Wakelnig
Iskandar Beg Munsh
Iskandar Beg Munsh (b. 969/1561–
2, d. c.1043/1633 or 1634) was a Per-
sian court scribe (munsh) and chronicler
whose Trkh-i lam-r-yi Abbs (“The
world-adorning history of Abbs”) deals
with afavid history and the reign of Shh
Abbs I (r. 995–1038/1587–1629). Its
sequel (dhayl) chronicles the first five years
of the reign of his grandson and successor,
Shh af (r. 1038–52/1629–42).
1. Life
Iskandar Beg came from the Turkmen
clan of the Qizilbsh (the Qizilbsh, lit.
red head, were militant Sh groups who
rose to prominence in Azerbaijan, Ana-
tolia, and Kurdistan in the late ninth/
fifteenth century, some of them playing
a decisive role in the formation of the
afavid empire). From an anonymous
treatise on the Qizilbsh dating from the
opening years of the eleventh/seventeenth
century, we know that the clan and its
various branches claimed descent from
blood relatives, in-laws, and family allies
of the Qar Quynl (Kara Koyunlu,
r. 752–874/1351–1469) and q Qynl
(Akkoyunlu, r. 798–914/1396–1508), rul-
ers of Azerbaijan and eastern Anatolia
(Anon., Trkh-i Qizilbshn, 29–40). Iskan-
dar Beg’s year of birth was 969/1561–2,
given his own statement that early in
995/1587, the year in the summer of
which Shh Abbs ascended to the throne,
he was twenty-six. Furthermore, he states
elsewhere that in 1038/1629, the year in
the middle of which Shh Abbs died, he
was already seventy years old (Iskandar
Beg, lam-r, 336, 1095, trans., 472–3;
Iskandar Beg, Dhayl, 5; Storey and Bregel,
2:873). This is corroborated by a marginal
note in a afavid chronicle dating from
the early 1040s/1630s, in which Iskandar
Beg is praised for “devoting his whole
life of seventy-four years” to chronicling
the reign of Shh Abbs, implying that
he died in about 1043/1633–4 (Khzn
Ifahn, 302 n. 2). Despite their Qizilbsh