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 and Part IV)
Ta’wil and Tanzil
This methodology in Ismaili thought is best brought out by Nasir-i Khusraw’s explanation of the nature of Revelation and, by inference, religion. There are two aspects of Revelation tanzil (Revelation) and ta’wil (hermeneutic interpretation), which are reflected in the Haqiqah and the Shari’ah, the latter being like a symbol of the Haqiqah (truth).6 Tanzil thus defines the letter of the Revelation embodied in the coming down of the values of the Shari’ah, and ta’wil is the hermeneutical analysis of the letter leading to the original meaning. Jean Pepin, in analysing the original Greek word hermeneuein states:
As used generally the word has come to signify “interpretation” and that hermeneutics today commonly has as its synonym “exegesis.” However, the original meaning of hermeneuein and of related words – or in any case their principal meaning – was not that at all, and was not far from being its exact contrary, if we grant that exegesis is a movement of penetration into the intention of a text or message.7
In context above, the Arabic sense of ta’wil, to go back to the first or original meaning, can be said to designate a similar interpretive function. The goal of ta’wil in Ismaili thought is to enable the believer to penetrate beyond the formal, literal meaning of the text and to create a sense of certitude regarding the ultimate relevance and meaning of a given passage in the Quran. All interpretation in Ismaili thought assumes such an exegetical basis, leading by way of levels of meaning to the ultimate truths expressed as the concept of Haqaqah. The validity of the literal (zahir) is not denied, but it is only one aspect of an overall meaning that also has an inner dimension (batin). When applied to the study of the Quran, Islam, and religion, it led to the rise of two differing but complementary genres of literature among the Ismailis – haqa’iq literature, which contains the esoteric tradition, and other forms of writing that are expository and whose subject matter related to Law, governance, and history.
The milieu within which Ismaili thought flourished and developed had already been characterised by the steady integration of philosophical and analytical tools assimilated through translations from the Greek tradition, as well as influences transmitted through Persia and India. Ismaili thought represents a self-conscious attempt to harmonise elements from these traditions that were considered compatible with its own understanding of Quranic wisdom. Nasir-i Khusraw calls this jami’ al-hikmatayn, “synthesis of the two wisdoms,”8 the title of one of his works, in which he seeks to harmonise the esoteric understanding of Islam with the wisdom of the ancients. In doing this he was following the fundamental Quranic notion of the universality of Revelation and the Islamic affirmation that God had vouchsafed the truth to others in the past. The synthesis, however, was not an indiscriminate one, and it has also been argued that in addition to Neoplatonism, early Ismaili sources also reflect influences from Gnostic elements in the milieu.9
From the Institute of Ismaili Studies
Ismailimail 