Muslim Neoplatonists

An Introduction to the Thought of the Brethren of Purity

Ian Richard Netton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136853906
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Filosofía de la religión

The tenth or eleventh century group of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al Safa) are as well known in the Arab world as Darwin, Marx and Freud in the west. Designed as an introduction to their ideas, this book concentrates on the Brethren's writings, analyzing the impact on them of thinkers such as Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle and the Neoplatonists. Ian Netton traces the influences of Judaism and Christianity, and controversially this book argues that the Brethren of Purity did not belong to the Ismaili branch of Islam as is generally believed.

CHAPTER ONE

The Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ and their Rasā’il

The group of medieval Arab philosophers known to Islamic history as the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’) has rightly been described as both an ‘obscure puzzle’ and a ‘padlocked treasure’.¹ Their writings, presented in the form of epistles (rasā’il) are frequently complicated, repetitive and, at the same time, impressively encyclopedic. Their subject matter is vast and ranges from mathematics, music and logic, through mineralogy, botany and embryology, to philosophical and theological topics which are concluded by a treatise on magic. It is small wonder that many scholars, with only a few notable exceptions, have preferred to avoid textual exploration and exegesis; indeed, as one scholar points out, most previous research has been concerned instead with a positive identification of the authors of the Rasā’il and a definitive dating of their work.²

These interlocked themes of authorship and dating have been the source of frequent speculation over the years, and continue both to tantalise and to irritate: for The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’) remain one of the great works of Arabic literature about whose authors we know hardly anything. It is admitted that the epistles were written by a group of philosophers who called themselves Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’, and traditionally agreed that this group lived in the Lower Mesopotamian river port of Basra during the tenth or eleventh century AD. The rest must be conjecture. Arabic sources differ over their individual names and perhaps it is a successful measure of the secrecy which they sought for themselves in their age that we know so little about their lives in our own. Like the deserted camp of the beloved in early Arabic poetry, the traces of their passage have become faint and shadowy.

Their written legacy, however, is much more tangible: it comprises a total of fifty-two Rasā’il addressed to their associates, each commencing with such characteristic phrases as ‘Know, O brother …’³ or, much more rarely, ‘Know, O brethren …’.⁴ It is clear that an extra epistle (risāla) was added later for the text contains several assertions that the number of Rasā’il is fifty-one.⁵ Indeed, the fifty-second and last Risāla, which deals with magic and kindred subjects, numbers itself as 51 in one place⁶ and refers to only fifty Rasā’il having preceded it.⁷ Yet, underneath its chapter heading, it is correctly numbered as 52!⁸ It has been suggested that the obvious predilection for the number fifty-one, which is seventeen multiplied by three, may be linked with the numerical symbolism of the alchemist Jābir b. Ḥayyān, who appears to have flourished in the eighth century AD: the Ikhwān wrote seventeen Rasā’il on the natural sciences and seventeen was considered to be a key figure in the Jābirean corpus.⁹

The Rasā’il are divided into four main sections, comprising fourteen Rasā’il on Mathematical Sciences, seventeen on Natural Sciences, ten on Psychological and Rational Sciences, and eleven on Theological Sciences. A central feature of the whole work is a lengthy debate between man and a variety of representatives of the animal kingdom, which occupies a large part of Risāla 22 entitled On How the Animals and their Kinds are Formed.¹⁰ Separate from this group of fifty-two is a further Risāla, which seems to have been intended as a conclusion, entitled ‘The Summary’ (al-Risālat al-Jāmi‘a).¹¹ The authorship of this has been the subject of some dispute, and, indeed, has been falsely attributed to al-Majrīfī (died c. 1008);¹² but in view of the similar vocabulary, phraseology, and other resemblances it is highly unlikely that its authorship differs from that of the Rasā’il.

The Ikhwān discuss the Jāmi‘a briefly in their list of contents (Fihrist)¹³ and claim that its purpose is the clarification of the truths which have been alluded to in the other fifty-two Rasā’il.¹⁴ The lock of these epistles cannot be opened except by careful study, and it is only after such careful study that one is entitled to read the Jāmi‘a.¹⁵ The reader is thus led to expect a work of considerable clarity; but the Jāmi‘a does not, in fact, fulfil its promise nor its final self-designation as ‘the crown of the Rasā’il’¹⁶ to any large extent, for the work is neither exhaustive nor comprehensive. Much esotericism remains,¹⁷ as well as much repetition. It lacks most of the anecdotes and didactic storytelling of the fifty-two Rasā’il, despite the other similarities which have been mentioned, and it is also overladen with Qur’ānic quotation to an oppressive degree not found in these fifty-two.

It seems fairly certain that the Rasā’il were the product of meetings (majālis) convened by the Brethren for the purpose of philosophical discussion. One author has aptly likened their content to the draft of deliberations by a learned society composed by a well educated secretary,¹⁸ and this could be very close to the truth: the authors of the Rasā’il insist that their Brethren hold special meetings at set times, to which none but they are to be admitted, where their secrets and esoteric knowledge can be discussed in peace.¹⁹ Elsewhere it is suggested that such a meeting should take place every twelve days.²⁰ There is an interesting similarity between these meetings held by the Ikhwān and the meetings attended by the faithful of the Ismā‘īlī sect, during the Fātimid period in Egypt, which were held twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays for textual reading and study.²¹

It is certainly possible that the Rasā’il could be the work of one author only, for there are significant lapses from the usual plural mode of address into the first person singular.²² This single author has been identified as one of a range of possibilities which includes names as diverse as the previously mentioned al-Majrīṭī, ‘Alī (d. 661), Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq (c. 700–65) and Jābir b. Ḥayyān (c. 721–c. 815), to cite just a few examples.²³

Other scholars have preferred to view the Rasā’il as a joint undertaking. Thus by the time of the German scholar Flügel in the nineteenth century it was believed that the Ikhwān comprised a group of five thinkers who had formed a secret association in Baṣra and published their Rasā’il. This concept of joint authorship goes back to early Muslim sources such as al-Tawḥīdī (d. 1023)²⁴ and some modern scholars such as S. M. Stern have accepted and reiterated these views.²⁵ The arguments for and against the various names which have been put forward as the authors of the Rasā’il have been discussed frequently elsewhere and will not be repeated here.²⁶ For even when all the material has been surveyed ‘we find ourselves confronted with many contradictory opinions among students of the subject’.²⁷ In this book the convention is adopted of referring to the authorship in the plural.

An equally vexing problem has been that of fixing the date of composition of the Rasā’il. A number of different ways of assessing this from internal evidence have been attempted. L. Massignon, for example, drew attention to the fragments of Arabic and Persian poetry in the text, and the definition of the trigonometrical sine, and suggested that this sort of evidence should be used to discover a date of composition.²⁸ P. Casanova made use of astronomical data in a similar attempt;²⁹ but his dating of the writing of the Rasā’il of 418–27 AH (1027–35 AD) is rejected by Tibawi, who prefers 338–73 AH (949–83 AD).³⁰ The disparity in dating between these two authors, whose articles are admittedly separated by forty years, only underlines the difficulties involved in hazarding even an approximate date which will accord with all the internal data of the Rasā’il.

As a consequence of the time devoted by scholars to dating and authorship, many equally important problems arising out of the Rasā’il have been comparatively neglected or, at best, treated only cursorily. What was the precise relationship of the Ikhwān with the Ismā‘īlī movement? How Islamically orthodox are the Rasā’il? How have the Rasā’il been influenced by Greek and other philosophies? All these questions, and others, posed by A. L. Tibawi, deserve an answer before we can begin to move away from his assessment of the subject of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ as a field ‘still bristling with a number of question-marks and interspersed with unexplored corners’.³¹ Certainly, answers should be found to at least a few of these problems, especially that of the influences, Greek and otherwise, before an attempt is made at a positive personal identification of the authors.

Even the very name of the group, Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’, has not been free from controversy: it has led to the story of the ring-dove from Ibn al-Muqaffa‘’s Kalīla wa Dimna assuming a particular importance and significance in the Western history of the Rasā’il. According to this story a ring-dove and her companions become caught in a fowler’s net. They manage to fly with the net to a friendly rat who nibbles through the net to release them. A crow, who has witnessed and been impressed by the incident, befriends the rat, and later a tortoise and a gazelle join their company. One day the gazelle is caught in a net. His comrades combine to release him, the rat gnawing through the net. The slow tortoise, however, is caught by the huntsman. This time the gazelle acts as a decoy while the rat releases the tortoise and all four animals are saved.³²

In an important chapter on the human’s need for mutual help or cooperation (ta’āwun), the Ikhwān urge the brother to consider the story of the ring-dove in Kalīla wa Dimna, and how it was saved from the net, so as to realise the truth of what they have just said about mutual help.³³ Ignaz Goldziher suggested that it was this story of the ring-dove which led the Ikhwān to adopt the name Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’.³⁴ It is easy to see how this tale, with its emphasis on mutual help and friendship, the double usage of that favourite verb of the Ikhwān, to cooperate (ta‘āwana),³⁵ the frequent meeting of the animals to exchange news,³⁶ and the designation of these animals as Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’,³⁷ could have led Goldziher to regard the tale as the source of the Ikhwān’s name. It is clear from the context in Kalīla wa Dimna that ṣafā’ means ‘sincerity’ rather than ‘purity’. Thus the full name of the Ikhwān should be translated as ‘Brethren of Sincerity’ rather than ‘Brethren of Purity’, if Goldziher were correct.

His theory might have been plausible if the Ikhwān had described themselves only as Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ without any further additions. But they did not. Their title is frequently elaborated in Mu‘tazilite, Ismā‘īlī and Sūfi terms not found in the story of the ring-dove in Kalīila wa Dimn...