Review: Early Ismāʿīlism Reconstructed

Author(s): Azim A. Nanji

Review by: Azim A. Nanji
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 107, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1987), pp. 741-743

Published by: American Oriental Society

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/603312
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 EARLY ISMAcILISM RECONSTRUCTED*
AZIM A. NANJI
OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY

This book brings together chapters from the unfinished book on Early Ismd'Tlism by the late
Professor Samuel M. Stern and several other previously published articles. They provide an
opportunity for evaluating, in this review article, his contribution to Isma'cli studies and his
reconstruction of the early phases of its development.

THIS WORK, published more than a decade after
Professor Samuel M. Stern passed away, reflects one
major component of his multifaceted contributions to
Near Eastern scholarship-the study of early Isma'Tl-
ism. It is a significant contribution for a number of
reasons. It attests to his diligent efforts to seek and
utilize primary Isma'l-i sources and texts as a basis
for his studies. Also, as more Isma'lli texts became
available to him, he saw the necessity of developing a
historiographical and theological context for evaluat-
ing and relating them to other contemporary accounts.
It is this integration of text and context that stands
out in this collection. Though his intended book on
Early Isml Tlism was never completed, the finished
chapters and other articles, collected here, indicate his
main thesis and conclusions and provide an overall
framework within which to better understand early
developments in the tradition.
In establishing this framework Professor Stern's
work succeeded in dismantling much of the over-
simplified, tendentious and often fantastical image of
Ismac'lism, uncritically accepted by many previous
Orientalists, that had come to be derived in the main
from sources hostile to the movement. He did not shy
away from using such sources where they provided
useful information, but he was careful to distinguish
between their polemical or disparaging intent and the
core of historical data they contained. His nuanced
treatment of such materials is evident for instance in
the last chapter of the book, "Aba'l-Qasim Al-Busti
and his refutation of Ismac'lism,'' where he com-
pared this with other refutations such as those of
alBaghdadi in his al-Farq bayn al-Firaq.
* This is a review article of Studies in Early Ismd'clism, by
S. M. STERN. (The Max Scholessinger Memorial Series,
Monographs I. The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University.)
Pp. xxii + 340. Leiden: E. J. BRILL. 1983.
741
While balancing and correcting the distortions of
Ismac'lism, Professor Stern resisted the view that the
early Isma'lTI movement constituted a single, homo-
geneous tradition. He was careful to delineate ten-
dencies and developments that reflected the different
facets of the movement as a whole and the variety
of stands that constituted varying manifestations of
Ismac'lism throughout its early history. His studies
also emphasize differing views and emphases from
within the movement as well. More specifically, the
studies and articles contained in the book reflect his
concern with what may be regarded as the formative
period of Ismac'lism. I shall review and highlight
several of his claims and conclusions in this regard.
The first three chapters are devoted to establish-
ing a context for the evolution of doctrine in early
Ismac'lism. In the absence of Isma'lTI sources from
the earliest period, Stern relies on a Zayd! source in
the first chapter; an analysis, in the second, of a mild
controversy between two later, tenth century, IsmadcTI
writers, al-Razil and al-Nasafi, on Persian religion;
and on Twelver Shici sources in the third. Stern, as
with most other modern scholars, traces the begin-
nings of the IsmaclTImovement to the middle of the
ninth century and in so doing seeks to establish those
aspects of their formulation that could be regarded as
distinctive to themselves with regard to both interpre-
tation of Islamic doctrine as well as their use of
intellectual tools of analysis, derived from traditions
with which Muslims had come into contact. The
notion of beginnings, when applied to religious tradi-
tions, reflects both the intellectual matrix within which
ideas develop, and the specific ways in which a tra-
dition reassembles its view of a past, to establish for
itself both continuity and identity. Ismadclism, as with
other traditions within and without Islam, sought to
clarify and develop an approach to, as well as a
religious self-understanding, of beginnings. Stern's
work is especially useful in depicting the matrix of

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742 Journal of the American Oriental Society 107.4 (1987)
intellectual trends and ideas that was to be found in
Islam's third century and the variety of responses by
Muslims in such a fertile milieu. The distinctive quali-
ties of the Isma'lTI movement were that it shared with
some other schools the view that rational tools of
inquiry and analysis, selectively integrated from other
monotheistic or philosophic traditions, was an appro-
priate and indeed necessary way of undergirding and
complementing the Qura'nic and Prophetic basis of
Islam. I am not certain that we have as yet an
adequately detailed study of this milieu and the spec-
trum of tendencies within it. Stern's studies indicate
the direction that IsmaclTIthought was taking and as
more sources become available and scholarly studies
of individual IsmaclTI thinkers multiply, our picture
of that milieu and the intellectual sources and direc-
tions of IsmaclTIthought will become much clearer.'
One area of study within this context-that merits far
more attention than a reading and recapitulating of
textual material is that of the "language" employed
in these texts. In particular, I refer to the IsmaclTIuse
of a specific "language" and literary mode to portray
its beginnings in such texts. Just as in the early period
when various Muslim scholars developed what might
be regarded as theological and legal modes of dis-
course, so IsmaclTI and other scholars were in the
process of refining a discourse that would allow for
proper discussion of cosmological and comparative
philosophical and religious concepts. An appreciation
of their methodology and application of language is
a prelude to understanding the doctrinal framework
that emerges from the texts. An emphasis on mere
textual correlations and concerns divorced from a
wider context can prove deceptive, as Professor
Madelung shows in an extremely helpful prefatory
note to the chapter utilizing Twelver sources.
Chapter Four, as Chapter Seven, is a study of
an anti-IsmadclI treatise. Stern notes that Ismadclism
evoked a violent reaction from other groups in Islam.
He highlights the political and doctrinal threats they
were perceived to be posing to their opponents, point-
ing out that the allegations in these tracts, particularly
the imputation of subversive motives to IsmacllIs in
regard to Islam, have been revealed by modern schol-
arship to have been a fabrication and a myth. Such
treatises distorted, through the idea of "grades of
' We now have access to a comprehensive survey of source
material and secondary scholarship on Ismacilism in I. K.
Poonawala's Biobibliography of Ismic TIT
Literature (Malibu:
Undena Publications, 1977).
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initiation" Ismac'lI concepts of intellectual and spir-
itual growth through various stages of learning, and
portrayed it as a cunning doctrine invented to cause
the followers eventually to lose all religion (p. 62).
That Isma'lTI writings were meant to educate their
own adherents as well as others is a theme that is
developed in the fifth chapter, focussing on Fatimid
Isma'lTI efforts to convert Jews to Islam and reflect-
ing on their general attitude to other monotheistic
traditions. Stern rejects the view held by certain
scholars in the past that the IsmadclIs practiced a
form of "interfessionalism." Rather, he shows that
their attitudes to other religious traditions were in
common with other Muslims, all of whom felt obliged
to try and convert others to Islam. What he regards as
distinctive, particularly in official Fatimid attempts to
preach Islam (as in the majlis al-nazar held regularly
in Cairo), was that IsmaclTIpreachers sought to inter-
pret parts of Jewish and Christian scripture allegori-
cally, to validate the truth of Islam's claims and the
rightful status of their Imams.2
Returning to his treatment of the emergence and
historical development of the Fatimid IsmaclTI state,
Stern provides in Chapter Six a text of materials
about the activities of the dacwa, that brought al-
Mahdi to political power. The text does not add
substantially to our knowledge of the early period,
since further materials have become available after
Stern's death. Rather it consolidates the picture that
has been established of the wide-ranging efforts of the
IsmaclTI dawa to create the conditions that eventu-
ally gave rise to Fatimid rule and its early develop-
ment in the Maghreb.3
2 Several relatively recent studies have begun to clarify the
interaction of Ismacil! ideas with those from other faiths and
movements, in particular their expression of Islamic spir-
ituality in relation to other esoteric traditions. See, for
example, H. Halm, Kosmologie und Heilslehre der friihen
Isma'iliyya: Eine Studie zur Islamischen Gnosis (Wiesbaden:
Kommissionsverlag Franz Steiner, 1978); Paul Walker, "Abu
Ya'qub al-Sijistani and the Development of Isma'ili Neo-
platonism" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1974);
M. A. Alibhai, "Abu Yaq'ub al-Sijistani: a Study in Islamic
Neoplatonism" (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University,
1983); and translations and reprinting of the late Professor
Henry Corbin's seminal articles on Ismacilism in Cyclical
Time and Ismaili Gnosis (London: Kegal Paul International
and Islamic Publications, 1983), that chart this confluence of
ideas.
3 Some of the basic Ismacili sources have now been edited,
in particular, al-Qadd al-Nu'man's Iftitah al Da'wa, ed.
 NANJI: Early IsmacTlism Reconstructed
Since most of the articles in Part Two have been
published earlier, I will only draw attention to other
subsequent studies that add to and refine our knowl-
edge of Early Ismac'lism, already developed in these
studies.
The Rasd'il Ikhwan al-Safd', continues to be a
subject of controversy.4 Stern's basic thesis is that the
authors were connected with the Isma'lTI movement,
but represented a coterie with a particularly idealized
view of a future Muslim society that was to emerge
under an Imam. Such a linkage is generally accepted
now by most scholars, but what has been at issue is
the substantive nature of this linkage to the subse-
quent Fatimid tradition. The strongest arguments for
this have come from Abbas Hamdani.5 He has argued
for its Fatimid Isma'lTI character, basing himself on a
study of the rasd'il themselves and of other Isma'lTI
works that refer to them. In general, most of these
issues boil down to the question of individual identi-
ties and links. Since this was a formative period in
Wadad al-Qadi (Beirut: Dar al-Thaqafah, 1974). For a study
based on this source, see T. Nagel, Frahe Ismailiyya und
Fatimiden im Lichte der Risalat Iftitah ad-da'Wa: ein reli-
gionsgeschichtliche Studie (Bonner Orientalistische Studien,
Neue Serie, Bd. 23, Selbstverlag des Orientalischen Seminars
der Universitat Bonn, 1972).
4 In addition to Y. Marquet's article in
the new Encyclo-
paedia of Islam, Vol. III, 1071ff., there is also now R. Netton,
Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of
the Brethern of Purity (London: George Allen & Unwin,
1982).
5 His arguments are set out in two articles, "An Early
Fatimid source on the time and authorship of the Rasd'il
IfhwdnAl-Safd'," Arabica, Vol. XXVI:1, (1979) 62-75, and
"Aba Hayyan al-Tawhidi and the Brethern of Purity," Inter-
national Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. IX:3 (1978)
345-53.
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743
which identities can best be regarded as being in the
state of "becoming," more critical are the issues and
perspectives within the Rasii'il that resonate with later
developments and the way in which later Ismac'lism
related itself to the authors of the Rasd'il. The critical
aspects of the "genealogy" are not necessarily those of
merely political and doctrinal adherence to what later
became normative Ismac'il doctrine, but rather to
intellectual beginnings, within the shared matrix, that
gave rise to early Isma'lTIthought.
The next two chapters provide an admirable account
of the Isma'lTI dacwa's successes in Sind, North-west
Persia, Khurasan and Transoxania, highlighting the
effort to establish a federation of Isma'lTI states linked
to the authorityof a single Imam and a uniformdoctrinal
and organizational framework. In particular, it empha-
sizes the qualities that led to the success of individual
du'dt and the conditions which enabled their mission
to find a receptive audience. To a larger extent it also
charts the spread and growth of Islam among areas
and peoples where in time it would become estab-
lished as a religion and a culture. A poignant note is
struck by the contribution on Cairo, founded by the
Fatimids in 969 A.D. as a capital and a center of
learning and culture the year of its millennium was
also the year of Professor Stern's death.
Finally, the editors are to be commended for having
painstakingly sought to put together the materials
posthumously and to present them in an organized
manner. Though lacking the coherence of an inte-
grated and complete work, it embodies the quality of
scholarship and erudition that had come to mark
Professor Stern's study of Isma'ilism. It ranks with
that of other deceased scholars in the field, Henri
Corbin, Marshall Hodgson and W. Ivanow (and the
late Isma'lTI scholars, A. A. A. Fyzee and Husayn
al-Hamdani) as a pioneering contribution to modern
scholarship on Ismac'lism.