Ismailism
Chaper in Islamic Spirituality: Foundations, Ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, London: Routledge & Keegan Paul Ltd, 1987, pp. 179-198.
Abstract
This overview article on Ismailism focuses on some of the key concepts, underlying the Ismaili interpretation of Islam governing Ismaili beliefs. The article starts off with a brief historical background. It touches upon the da’wa activities and some of the challenging circumstances under which it operated.
The early literature of the Ismailis is preserved in Arabic and then Persian languages. Some of the major works of the more prominent dai’s such as Abu Ya’qub al-Sijistani, al-Mu’ayyad fi’l-din Shirazi and Nasir Khusraw are discussed in the article.
Ismailism is a part of the Shi’ite branch of Islam whose adherents constitute at present a small minority within the wider Muslim ummah. They live in over twenty-five different countries, including Afghanistan, East Africa, India, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, the United Kingdom, North America, and also parts of China and the Soviet Union.
Historical Background
(continues from Part I , Part II, Part III, Part IV and Part V)
Unity and the Cosmos
The Principle of Double Negation
Tawhid is the most fundamental concept of Islam. Its interpretation and exegesis by Ismaili thinkers demonstrate the operation of the Ismaili science of hermeneutics. One of the points of contention among early Muslim theologians had to do with an explanation of the Quranic verses concerning the Attributes of God, particularly where such Attributes reflected human associations such as sitting, hearing, speaking, etc. For the Ismaili thinker, this controversy highlighted one of the problems he came to be concerned with in understanding and explicating through ta’wil the seeming contradiction in these verses. Abu Ya’qub al-Sijistani (d. 360/971) and Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani (c. 411/1021), two well-known thinkers of the Fatimid period, established as their goal an interpretation that was free of the two errors they attributed to other theologians.10 The first is tashbih (anthropomorphism, i.e., trying to understand God by comparison or analogy); the second is ta’til (i.e., denying tashbih and thereby deleting from the description of God all Attributes). Their concern was not to establish through rational means the existence of God, since rational proof of that which is beyond the capacity of rational understanding would represent a futile exercise in itself, but rather, according to Sijistani, to understand God as He deserves to be understood, so as to accord Him the true worship that is due to Him alone. Kirmani’s exegesis occurs in his classic work Rahat al-‘aql (Balm for the Intellect). The title of the work itself indicates the essentially spiritual goal of the intellectual exercise – a sense of contentment and satisfaction that comes to the human mind in its proper interaction with Revelation, rather than mere vindication of the power of the rational faculty as over against Revelation. It is this attitude that caused Ismaili writers to oppose the views of Rhazes (Abu Bakr Muhammad Zakariyya’ Razi), particularly where the latter raises questions about the validity of the mission of the prophets and, by inference, the validity of a religious world view.
The ta’wil applied to the Quranic verses regarding God leads in both writers to a process of dissociating all humanlike qualities from God. This is considered to be the first step; both writers recognise that such a position could, in fact, lead to an accusation that they too had committed ta’til, leaving them open to a charge of “hidden anthropomorphism.” The step that must now be taken is that having denied that God cannot be described, located, defined, limited, etc., one must negate the previous negation. The absolute transcendence of God is established by the use of double negation, in which a negative and a negative of a negative are applied to the thing denied – the first freeing the idea of God from all association with the material and the second removing Him from any association with the non-material. God is thus neither within the sensible world nor within the extra-sensible. The process of ta’wil here begins with an affirmation of what God is not, then a denial of that affirmation, thereby deleting both the affirmation and the denial. Such a process of double negation offers the only means whereby one can use the available language without fully accepting its premises. In the above discourse, the resources of language, that is, the letter of the Revelation, establish a starting point, and ta’wil reveals how language itself is unable to express fully the reality inherent in the concept. Such a mode of defining the transcendence of God, in the Ismaili view, is an act of cognisance of God – indeed, an act of worship in itself.
Divine Order
This principle of unity is also reflected in Ismaili cosmological principles. In elaborating this cosmology, the writers adapted elements of the Neoplatonic schema of emanation, but not without establishing an Islamic context for the adaptation. At the heart of the cosmology is the principle of order, a harmonious totality. The various components of the cosmic structure were also regarded as constituting a hierarchical structure. The planets and the abstract principles that governed them were ranked one above the other, just as the prophets, the Imams, and the officials of the da’wa, and members of the community formed a hierarchy with clearly defined status.
God transcended the order and unlike in Neoplatonism, where the One brings forth by emanation the Universal Intellect, in Ismaili cosmology, Allah creates by a timeless and transcendent command (amr). The process is defined as ibda’, origination, which is an all-encompassing, timeless, creative act. Thus, all of creation is directly related to God in its origin, but manifested through a subsequent process of unfolding from the Universal Intellect, which is the First Originated Being. God is badi’ (Originator), as described in the Quranic verse-the Originator of the heavens and the earth (II, 117). The Quranic terminology of Qalam (pen), ‘Arsh (throne), and qada’ (decree) are also equated with the Universal Intellect as the prelude to a framework for what is called ‘alam al-i’ (the Universe of Origination) in a hierarchical series. This level is then made to correspond to the alam al-din (the Universe of Religion), in order to provide a framework in religious life represented by a hierarchy of faith (hudud al-din), which in turn corresponds to the various cosmic principles. The highest in this hierarchy constituting the first three intelligences were identified with the Prophet, his wasi (heir), ‘Ali, and the succeeding Imams respectively. This order was expounded in systems first elaborated in detail by al-Nasafi (d. 331/943) and subsequently refined in the works of Sijistani, Kirmani, and Nasir-i Khusraw. The exact hierarchy of the various intellects and the terminology employed tend to differ in the various authors’ works, but the fundamental principle of the absolute transcendence of God, the general order of the cosmic principles and underlying hierarchical notions are retained.
The architecture of the Ismaili cosmos, while affirming a strong sense of unity, is also the sacred canopy within which its religious conceptions unfold. Thus, cosmology, metaphysics, and religion are closely interlinked, where each element in the hierarchical universe mirrors the other, establishing a chain of being, making the cosmos intelligible and meaningful and at the same time rooting the religious life on earth to a dynamic cosmos, operating under divine command.
From the Institute of Ismaili Studies
Ismailimail 