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Ibn al-Nadīm's Ismāʿīlī Contacts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2008

DEVIN J. STEWART
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Extract

Iraq in the tenth and eleventh centuries witnessed a flowering of Shiite cultural production with lasting effects on the Islamic sciences such as law, hadith, theology, and Qur'anic commentary. The works of al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022), al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044), and al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067) not only broke significant new ground in Shiite intellectual history and defended Shiite doctrinal positions against opponents, but also set parameters for production in these fields that would remain in effect, grosso modo, until modern times. During the same period, Shiite authors made substantial contributions to fields not directly related to Shiite religious doctrine, playing a crucial role in elaborating and preserving Islamic heritage in general. Al-Masʿūdī's (d. 345/956) famous history Murūj al-dhahab and Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī's (d. 356/967) collection of songs, poetry, and associated lore, Kitāb al-Aghānī, are prominent examples of Shiite authors' contributions to general Arabo-Islamic cultural production. Arguably yet more important is the Fihrist, composed in Baghdad in 377-378 ah/987-988 ce by Ibn al-Nadīm, an Imāmī Shiite bookseller. This work, a comprehensive catalogue of Arabic book titles, is widely recognised as one of the most important sources for the history of all learned disciplines recorded in Arabic in the course of the first four Islamic centuries. As a consequence, the present understanding of entire swaths of Islamic intellectual history, including the rise and development of Muʿtazilī theology and the translation of the Greek sciences into Arabic, is heavily indebted to a Shiite author.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 21 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2008

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References

1 See Stewart, D. J., Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite Responses to the Sunni Legal System (Salt Lake City, 1998), pp. 114–120Google Scholar.

2 Polosin, V. V., Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima kak istoriko-kulturniy pamyatnik X veka (Moscow, 1989), pp. 66–68Google Scholar. On the Fihrist and Ibn al-Nadīm in general, see Polosin's work and his sources; also Dodge, B. (trans.), The Fihrist: A 10th Century AD Survey of Islamic Culture (New York, 1970)Google Scholar; Ibn an-Nadim und die mittelalterliche arabische Literatur. Beiträge zum 1. Johann Wilhelm Fück-Kolloquium (Halle, 1987), (Wiesbaden, 1996); D. J. Stewart, “Scholarship on the Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim: The Work of Valeriy V. Polosin”, Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: Bulletin of Middle East Medievalists, xviii.i (April 2006), pp. 8-13; idem, “Emendations to the Chapter on Islamic Law in Ibn al-Nadīm's Fihrist”, forthcoming in J. A. Nawas (ed.), Abbasid Studies (Leuven).

3 Rather than 385/995, the date accepted for many years. See Sellheim, R., “Das Todesdatum des Ibn an-Nadīm”, Israel Oriental Studies, ii (1972), pp. 428–432Google Scholar; idem, “Tārīkh wafāt Ibn al-Nadīm”, Majallat Majmaʿ al-Lughah al-ʿArabīyah (Damascus), l (1975), pp. 613-24; li (1976), p. 206.

4 Frolow, Dimitry, “Ibn al-Nadim on the History of Qur'anic Exegesis”, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes lxxxvii (1997). pp. 65–81Google Scholar, which argues that Ibn al-Nadim's presentation of works in the genre of Qur'anic exegesis uses chronology and regional groupings to stress the leading role of Shiite scholars in the field at the expense of the Syrians, presenting an original view of the history that is at variance with other extant accounts. See also Stewart, Devin J., “The Structure of the Fihrist: Ibn al-Nadim as a Historian of Islamic Law and Theology”, International Journal of Middle East Studies xxxix (2007), pp. 369–387CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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8 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, pp. 31–44.

9 I have not found any study that makes this claim, nor does Polosin, whose discussion of Ibn al-Nadīm's biography is the most extensive to date, mention any scholars who have done so.

10 Dodge, The Fihrist, p. xviii.

11 Dodge, The Fihrist, p. xx.

12 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, p. 78.

13 Cf. Dodge, The Fihrist, p. xvii.

14 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, pp. 85-87.

15 Stewart, D. J., “The Structure of the Fihrist: Ibn al-Nadīm as Historian of Islamic Legal and Theological Schools”, International Journal of Middle East Studies XXXIX (2007), pp. 369–387CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 241.

17 The Banū Ḥammād, he reports, were representatives min qibal “on behalf of” Abū Yaʿqūb. Dodge, The Fihrist, p. 472, has this wrong, apparently interpreting min qibal as min qabl and translating that they were “before [the time when] Abū Yaʿqūb . . . was at Rayy”. Ibn Ḥamdān took over as dāʿī of northern Iraq when the Banū Ḥammād died. Ibn Nafīs was also the representative of Abū Yaʿqūb in Baghdad, referred to by Ibn al-Nadīm here as al-ḥaḍrah, “the capital”, and supposed to succeed him. Al-Dabīlī was a rival of Ibn Nafīs. See Tajaddud, Fihrist, pp. 240-241. Stern already suggests that Abū Yaʿqūb may have been al-Sijistānī, and dates the events described to ca. 320-330 ah Stern, “Early Ismāʿīlī Missionaries”, pp. 204-205.

18 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 154.

19 Chester Beatty MS Ar. 3315, fol. 53r.

20 Dodge, The Fihrist, p. 306.

21 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 240.

22 Dodge, The Fihrist, p. 306 n. 248.

23 Flügel, Fihrist, i, p. 139.

24 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 154.

25 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, p. 95.

26 Flügel, Fihrist, i, p. 139.

27 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, p. 84.

28 Dodge, The Fihrist, p. 1032.

29 One recipe for Khushkanānaj is the following: “. . . take excellent samīd flour and put three ounces of sesame oil on every [pound], and knead it hard, well. Leave it until it ferments, then make it into long cakes, and into the middle of each put its quantity of pounded almonds and sugar kneaded with spiced rose-water. Then gather them as usual, bake them in the brick oven and take them up”. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Karīm, A Baghdad Cookery Book: The Book of Dishes (Kitāb al-Ṭabīkh), trans. Charles Perry (Totnes, England, 2005), p. 102.

30 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, p. 84.

31 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, p. 95.

32 Flügel, Fihrist, i, p. 139; Dodge, The Fihrist, p. 306, 306 n. 249; Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 154.

33 al-Ṭūsī, Fihrist kutub al-shīʿah, ed. Sayyid Muḥammad Ṣādiq Baḥr al-ʿUlūm (Najaf, 1961), pp. 115-116; al-Najāshī, Kitāb al-rijāl (Tehran, n.d.), p. 208; Shahrāshūb, Ibn, Maʿālim al-ʿulamāʾ, ed. Iqbāl, ʿAbbās (Tehran, 1934), p, 56Google Scholar; al-Amīn, Muḥsin, Aʿyān al-shīʿah (Beirut, 1984), ix, pp. 282–286Google Scholar.

34 Flügel, Fihrist, i, p. 139; Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 154.

35 Chester Beatty MS Ar. 3315, fol. 53r.

36 Flügel, Fihrist, i, p. 190; Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 241. Flügel adds the word “the Book . . .” at the end of the entry, but Tajaddud omits it.

37 Flügel, Fihrist, ii, p. 80 n. 1.

38 Stern, “Early Ismāʿīlī Missionaries”, p. 205.

39 Dodge, The Fihrist, pp. xviii, xx.

40 Dodge, The Fihrist, p. 473.

41 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, pp. 84, 94.

42 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, p. 94.

43 Flügel, Fihrist, ii, p. 80 n. 2.

44 Stern, “Early Ismāʿīlī Missionaries”, pp. 205-207.

45 Dodge, The Fihrist, p. xix.

46 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 94.

47 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, p. 95.

48 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 154.

49 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 166.

50 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 181.

51 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 94.

52 Tajaddud, Fihrist, pp. 171-172.

53 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 341.

54 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 325.

55 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 247.

56 Al-Ṭūsī, Fihrist kutub al-shīʿah, p.159; al-Najāshī, Kitāb al-Rijāl, pp. 306-307. Al-Najāshī tells the story of the mubāhalah but does not mention Sayf al-Dawlah. Instead, he simply refers to the ruler as Ibn Ḥamdān, the Sultan, or al-Amīr Ibn Ḥamdān.

57 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 195; also Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, p. 95.

58 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 235.

59 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, p. 88.

60 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 273.

61 Melchert, C., The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 9th-10th Centuries ce (Leiden, 1997), p. 185Google Scholar.

62 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 294.

63 Dodge, The Fihrist, pp. xviii, xx.

64 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, p. 85.

65 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, pp. 87-88.

66 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, p. 88.

67 Dodge, The Fihrist, p. 473.

68 Stern, “Early Ismāʿīlī Missionaries”, p. 207.

69 Stern, “Early Ismāʿīlī Missionaries”, p. 207 n. 30.

70 Flügel has ẓarīf for ṭarīf.

71 See Le Strange, G., Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate from Contemporary Arabic and Persian Sources (Oxford, 1900), p. 218, Map V (facing p. 107), no. 59Google Scholar.

72 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 168.

73 al-Ḥamawī, Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān (Beirut, 1965), ii, pp. 259–260Google Scholar. This may be an imprecise reference to a certain Ḥasanābādh located on the road from Rayy to Qum. See Stern, “Early Ismāʿīlī Missionaries”, p. 192.

74 On the Daylamī infantry in the Buwayhid army, see Minorsky, V., La domination des Dailamites (Paris, 1932)Google Scholar, reprinted and revised in Iranica: Twenty Articles (Hertford, England, 1964); idem, “Daylam”, EI 2, ii, pp. 189-194; Kabir, M., The Buwayhid Dynasty of Baghdad (334/946-447/1055) (Calcutta, 1964)Google Scholar; Bosworth, C.E., “Military Organisation under the Būyids of Persia and Iraq”, Oriens, xviii–xix (1965–66), pp. 143–167CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Madelung, W., “The Assumption of the Title Shāhanshāh by the Būyids and ‘The Reign of Daylam’ (Dawlat al-Daylam)”, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, xxviii (1969), pp. 84–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Busse, H., Chalif und Grosskönig: Die Buyiden im Iraq (945-1055) (Wiesbaden, 1969)Google Scholar; Faqīhī, ʿAlī Aṣghar, Āl-i Būyah (Tehran, 1986), pp. 384–389Google Scholar; Kraemer, J. L., Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival during the Buyid Age, second revised ed. (Leiden, 1992), pp. 31–36, 50–51Google Scholar; Donohue, J. J., The Buwayhid Dynasty in Iraq 334H./945 to 403H./1012: Shaping Institutions for the Future (Leiden, 2003), pp. 192–206Google Scholar.

75 Dodge reports that the Tonk MS reads, “. . . because he was exiled on account of him”. I do not have access to this MS, but Dodge's translation is probably based on an underlying Arabic phrase li'annahu nufiya bi-sababih. This is presumably a corruption of the text in MS SA 1934. Dodge, The Fihrist, p. 473 n. 97.

76 Flügel, Fihrist, i, p. 190; Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 241.

77 Stern, “Early Ismāʿīlī Missionaries”, p. 207.

78 Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam, pp. 44-45.

79 Justi, F., Iranisches Namenregister (Marburg, 1895; reprinted Hildesheim, 1963), p. 296Google Scholar.

80 Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Miskawayh, Tajārib al-umam (Cairo, 1915), ii, p. 173.

81 Miskawayh, Tajārib al-umam, ii, pp. 257-260.

82 Miskawayh, Tajārib al-umam, ii, p. 168.

83 Miskawayh, Tajārib al-umam, ii, pp. 170-171.

84 Miskawayh, Tajārib al-umam, ii, p. 174.

85 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 240.

86 Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs, pp. 121, 131, 165-167, 180.

87 V. Minorsky, “Musāfirids”, EI 2, vii, pp. 655-657; Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs, pp. 131, 166-167; Bosworth, C. E., The Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Handbook, rev. ed. (Edinburgh, 1980), pp. 86–87Google Scholar; Stern, “Early Ismāʿīlī Missionaries”, pp. 208-212.

88 Stern, “Abū 'l-Qāsim al-Bustī”, p. 305.

89 Stern, “Early Ismāʿīlī Missionaries”, p. 207; idem, “Abū 'l-Qāsim al-Bustī”, p. 309. I use the sign b/t here to indicate a single “tooth” without any distinguishing dots; i.e., a letter that could represent any of b, t, th, n, or y.

90 Stern, “Early Ismāʿīlī Missionaries”, pp. 207-208.

91 Stern, “Abū 'l-Qāsim al-Bustī”, p. 309.

92 ʿĀdil Sālim ʿAbd al-Jabbār, al-Ismāʿīlīyūn: Kashf al-asrār wa-naqd al-afkār. Taḥlīl wa-ʿarḍ li-Kitāb Abī al-Qāsim al-Bustī min kashf asrār al-bāṭinīyah wa-ʿawār madhhabihim (Kuwait, ʿĀdil Sālim ʿAbd al-Jabbār, 2005), pp. 134-135,139-142, 369.

93 ʿAbd al-Jabbār, al-Ismāʿīlīyūn, p. 140.

94 Stern, “Abū 'l-Qāsim al-Bustī”, p. 309.

95 Fück, “Ibn al-Nadim”, EI 2, iii, pp. 895-896, here p. 895.

96 The particle wa- here should probably be emended to fa-.

97 Tajaddud, Fihrist, pp. 238-239.

98 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 240.

99 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 239.

100 Tajaddud, Fihrist, p. 240.

101 Polosin, Fixrist Ibn an-Nadima, p. 94.

102 Wilferd Madelung and Toby Mayer, Struggling with the Philosopher: A Refutation of Avicenna's Metaphysics (London, 2001), pp. 1-15. See also Gaiser, Adam R., “Satan's Seven Specious Arguments: al-Sharastānī's Kitāb al-Milal wa-l-Niḥal in an Ismaʿili Context”, Journal of Islamic Studies xix (2008), pp. 178–195CrossRefGoogle Scholar.