Command and Creation: A Shi'i Cosmological Treatise

A Persian edition and English translation of Muhammad al-Shahrastani's Majlis-i maktub

Daryoush Mohammad Poor

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780755602995
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies Among the considerable oeuvre of Muhammad al-Shahrastani (1086–1153), the prominent Persian theologian and heresiographer, the Majlis-i maktub ('The Transcribed Sermon') is his only known work in Persian. First delivered as a sermon in Khwarazm in Central Asia, this treatise invokes the theme of creation and command, providing an esoteric cosmological narrative where faith, revelation, prophecy and the spiritual authority of the Household of the Prophet are interwoven. The Majlis-i maktub further discusses themes such as the evolution of religious law ( shari'at ) and its culmination in the qiyamat (resurrection), the relation between free will and predestination, the interplay between the exoteric and esoteric aspects of faith, and the role and function of the Shi?i Imams in the cosmological narrative. This treatise is arguably the most dense expression of al-Shahrastani's thought, and it demonstrably indicates the Ismaili inclination of this Muslim scholar who has usually been regarded as a Shafi'i-Ash'ari. Daryoush Mohammad Poor's comparative study of this treatise and the corpus of Nizari Ismaili literature from the Alamut period (1090–1256) reveals the massive impact of al-Shahrastani's thought on every aspect of the doctrines of Nizari Ismailis.

Introduction

Abu’l-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. Abu’l-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Abū Bakr Aḥmad al-Shahrastānī, commonly understood to be a Shāfiʿī, Ashʿarī, Persian scholar who also bore the honorifics Afḍal, Ḥujjat al-Ḥaqq and Tāj al-Dīn, is known through his numerous important writings, some twenty in all, and in particular his magnum opus, the heresiographical work, al-Milal wa’l-niḥal. He was born in 467/1074, 469/1076 or 479/1086, in Shahristāna in Khurāsān. Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī (d. 626/1225) gives the first of these dates in his Muʿjam al-buldān,¹ deriving it apparently from the Taʾrīkh-i Khwārazm² from which he translated the biography of al-Shahrastānī.

Most of the biographies of al-Shahrastānī are taken from the narratives of three of his contemporaries. The first is Ibn al-Samʿānī (d. 562/1166),³ the second is Ẓahīr al-Dīn Bayhaqī⁴ (d. 565/1169) and the third, Abū Muḥammad Maḥmūd b. Arsalān al-Khwārazmī (d. 568/1172), however, his Taʾrīkh-i Khwārazm is now lost and only fragments of it are quoted by Yāqūt.

As regards other source material, in his notes, Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282)⁵ gives 467/1074 as the date of al-Shahrastānī’s birth, although without quoting any source, and this date is accepted by Abu’l-Fidāʾ (d. 732/1331) in his Taʾrīkh.⁶ However, Ibn al-Samʿānī heard the third date from al-Shahrastānī himself and gave this date in his Dhayl⁷ and then Ibn Khallikān and al-Subkī⁸ reported it from him. Since there is no reason to choose either of the first two dates, the evidence of a contemporary trustworthy source reporting the date from al-Shahrastānī himself should be reliable. So, it can reasonably be said that al-Shahrastānī was born in 479/1086.

In the primary sources there are virtually no references to the family of al-Shahrastānī. However, judging from the kunyas given to his father and grandfather, one can infer that individuals from this family were scholars in Shahristāna.

Early life

Al-Shahrastānī received his early education in Shahristāna and Gurgānj (Jurjāniyya) studying with the scholars there, who were like those of any other town in the Islamic lands of that era. However, in the late fifth/eleventh century, Nīshābūr was the greatest centre of learning in the Islamic east, largely as a result of the establishment of the Nizamiyya madrasa and so al-Shahrastānī moved on to Nīshābūr in his quest for knowledge. The Nizamiyya was a centre of Ashʿarī kalām and there he became a proponent of it. According to Ibn Arsalān al-Khwārazmī, in Nīshābūr al-Shahrastānī studied jurisprudence with Abu’l-Muẓaffar Aḥmad Khwāfī and Abū Naṣr Qushayrī, the principles of kalām with Abu’l-Qāsim Anṣārī and ḥadīth with Abu’l-Ḥasan Madāʾinī.⁹ The Niẓāmiyya madrasas, founded across the eastern lands of the caliphate by the vizier of the Great Saljūqs, Niẓām al-Mulk, were the pre-eminent centres of Sunni learning and the lecturers there approached their fields of learning with sophistication and subtlety. Only the most talented students could attend their lectures and, one can be certain that al-Shahrastānī was more talented than most. His reputation as someone endowed with vast knowledge, a sharp memory, an enthralling eloquence including the use of rhyming language and a subtle use of vocabulary and terms, all accompanied by tolerance and moral courage, maturity of thought, a mastery of Persian and Arabic literature and philology, as well as his competence in traditional and philosophical fields of learning, brought him to prominence at the Niẓāmiyya. His knowledge was such that Ibn Arsalān al-Khwārazmī said of him, ‘If he had not had corrupt beliefs and had not been inclined to heresy, he would have been an imam.’¹⁰ At some point after this it appears that he moved to Khwārazm and lived there for a few years.

Scholarly activity

Al-Shahrastānī’s preoccupation with the rational and philosophical sciences and his support of the philosophers and their beliefs, led the scholars of his time to call him someone engrossed in the ‘darkness of philosophy’ (ẓulumāt-i falsafa).¹¹ Individuals such as Ibn Arsalān al-Khwārazmī and Ibn al-Samʿānī, were amazed that, given his profound knowledge and maturity of intellect, he adhered to what the Ismailis were inclined to. In his al-Taḥbīr, al-Samʿānī says that ‘he was suspected of being inclined to the people of innovation, meaning the Ismailis, and their misguidedness (kān muttahaman bi al-mayl ilā ahl al-bidaʿ yaʿnī al-Ismāʿīliyya wa’l-daʿwat ilā ḍalālatihim)’.¹²

So it appears that during his time in Khwārazm, which lasted ended in 510/1116, al-Shahrastānī was accused of having an inclination for the faith of the taʿlīmiyya or the bāṭiniyya, that is to say the Ismailis. What Ibn Arsalān Khwārazmī, as cited by Yāqūt, calls the ‘affair’ (amr) or ‘thing’, and implicitly attributes to him, is adherence to the doctrines of the bāṭiniyya and Shiʿism.¹³

At the time, even though Khwārazm had developed significantly under the rule of the Khwārazmshāhs, the city of Khwārazm could not have rivalled Marw and Nīshābūr, two of the great cities of Khurasān, or Baghdad, the ʿAbbasid capital in Iraq. Thus, at the time of al-Shahrastānī scholars seeking to advance their learning and their careers went to study at the colleges in Khurasān or in Baghdad.

According to al-Khwārazmī, al-Shahrastānī travelled to the Ḥijāz to perform the ḥajj in 510/1116 and afterwards he went to Baghdad. At the time, Asʿad Mīhanī (from the village of Mīhna) was a renowned teacher at the Niẓāmiyya college of Baghdad. Mīhanī was close to the court of the ʿAbbasid caliph, al-Mustaẓhir bi’llāh (d. 512/1118), to whom al-Ghazālī dedicated his famous anti-Ismaili work, the Mustaẓhirī. Mihanī encouraged al-Shahrastānī, whom he had known earlier in Khwārazm, to give lectures and sermons in the Niẓāmiyya.¹⁴

The power and eloquence of al-Shahrastānī’s speech may be imagined given the eloquence of his writings, notably the Majlis, and his sermons became popular during the three years that he stayed in Baghdad. His lectures and sermons were attended by the scholars and senior figures of the ʿAbbasid capital, along with large numbers of ordinary people. However, in 514/1120 he left Baghdad and returned to the east, spending the rest of his life in the towns and cities of Khurāsān. He went first to Marw-i Shāh-i Jahān and was able to enter the service of Sulṭān Sanjar as opposed to remaining a marginal figure in the ʿAbbasid state. Through the patronage of Sanjar’s vizier, Naṣīr al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. Muẓaffar al-Marwazī, who had been the chief tax accountant (mustawfī), al-Shahrastānī was appointed a nāʾib-i dīwān.¹⁵ Installed in Marw, he began writing his scholarly works with the encouragement and sponsorship of Sanjar and his vizier, and later Majd al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Jaʿfar al-Mūsawī, the naqīb of the ʿAlids of Tirmidh.¹⁶

He lived in Marw for over twenty years, between 514/1120 and 536/1141. During this period two of his most important works were produced, namely al-Milal wa’l-niḥal and Nihāyat al-aqdām fī ʿilm al-kalām. The Milal is well known as al-Shahrastānī’s heseriography which presents histories of different denominations and religions. There are several editions of this book in Arabic and translations of it in Persian and one partial translation in English. The Nihāya consists of a discussion of tw...