| Brethren Of Purity |
Article Index for Brethren Of |
Website Links For Brethren |
Information AboutBrethren Of Purity |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT BRETHREN OF PURITY | |
| 10th century philosophers | |
| arab people | |
| arab philosophers | |
| muslim philosophers | |
| people from basra | |
|
The Brethren of Purity ( in Basra , Iraq - which was then the seat of the Abbasid Caliph ate - sometime during the 10th Century CE . Their Esoteric teachings and philosophy are expounded in an Epistolary style in the '' Encyclopedia Of The Brethren Of Purity '' (Arabic: '' NAME The Arabic ''"Ikhwan al-Safa"'' (short for, among many possible transcriptions, ''"Ikhwan al-Safa wa Khullan al-Wafa wa Ahl al-Hamd wa abna al-Majd"'', or the "Brethren of Purity, Loyal Friends, People worthy of praise and Sons of Glory") can be translated as either the "Brethren of Purity" or the "Brethren of Sincerity"; various scholars such as Ian Netton prefer "of Purity" because of the group's ascetic impulses towards purity and salvation. A suggestion made by Goldziher, and later written on by Philip K. Hitti in his '' History Of Arabs '', is that the name is taken from a story in '' Kalilah Wa-Dimnah '', in which a group of animals, by acting as faithful friends (''ikhwan al-safa''), escape the snares of the hunter. The story concerns a Ring-dove and its companions who get entangled in the net of a hunter seeking birds. Together, they leave themselves and the ensnaring net to a nearby Rat , who is gracious enough to gnaw the birds free of the net; impressed by the rat's altruistic deed, a Crow becomes the rat's friend. Soon a Tortoise and Gazelle also join the company of animals. After some time, the gazelle is trapped by another net; with the aid of the others and the good rat, the gazelle is soon freed, but the tortoise fails to leave swiftly enough and is himself captured by the hunter. In the final turn of events, the gazelle repays the tortoise by serving as a decoy and distracting the hunter while the rat and the others free the tortoise. After this, the animals are designated as the "Ikwhan al-Safa". This story is mentioned as an Exemplum when the Brethren speak of mutual aid in one ''rasa'il'', a crucial part of their system of ethics that has been summarized thus: MEETINGS The Brethren regularly met on a fixed schedule. The meetings apparently took place on three evenings of each month: once near the beginning, in which speeches were given, another towards the middle, apparently concerning astronomy and astrology, and the third sometime between the end of the month and the 25th of that month; during the third one, they recited Hymn s with philosophical content "The liturgy of the first night consisted of personal oratory; that of the second of a 'cosmic text', read under the starry heavens facing the polar star; and that of the third night of a philosophical hymn (implying a metaphysical or metacosmic theme) which was a 'prayer of Plato', 'supplication of Idris', or 'the secret psalm of Aristotle'." pg 35 of Nasr 1964. During their meetings and possibly also during the three feasts they held, on the dates of the sun's entry into the Zodiac signs "Ram, Cancer, and Balance"), besides the usual lectures and discussions, they would engage in some manner of Liturgy reminiscent of the Harran ians "...the liturgy described by the Ikhwan seems to be more closely related to the religion of the heirs of the prophet Idris , that is, the Harran ians who were the principal inheritors in the Middle East of what has been called "Oriental Pythagoreanism" and who were the guardians and propagators of Hermeticism in the Islamic world." pg 34 of Nasr 1964 RANKS Hierarchy was a major theme in their Encyclopedia, and unsurprisingly, the Brethren loosely divided themselves up into four ranks by age; the age guidelines would not have been firm, as for example, such an exemplar of the fourth rank as Jesus would have been too young if the age guidelines were absolute and fixed. Compare the similar division of the Encyclopedia into four sections and the Jabirite symbolism of 4. The ranks were: # The "Craftsmen"- a craftsman had to be at least 15 years of age; their honorific was the "pious and compassionate" (''al-abrār wa 'l-ruhamā''). # The "Political Leaders"- a political leader had to be at least 30 years of age; their honorific was the "good and excellent" (''al-akhyār wa 'l-fudalā'') # The "Kings"- a king had to be at least 40 years of age; their honorific was the "excellent and noble" (''al-fudalā' al-kirām'') # The "Prophets and Philosophers"- the most aspired-to, the final and highest rank of the Brethren; to become a Prophet or Philosopher a man had to be at least 50 years old; their honorific compared them to historical luminaries such as Jesus , Socrates , or Muhammed who were also classified as Kings; this rank was the "angelic rank" (''al-martabat al-malakiyya''). pg 36, Neton 1991 IDENTITIES There have been a number of theories as to the authors of the Brethren. Among the at the court of Ibn Sa'dān, Vizier of the Buyid ruler Samsam Ad-Dawla . Apparently, al-Tawhīdī was close to a certain Zaid b. Rifa'a, praising his intellect, ability and deep knowledge - indeed, he had dedicated his ''Kitāb as-Sadiq was-Sadaqa'' to Zaid - but he was disappointed that Zaid was not orthodox or consistent in his beliefs, and that he was, as Stern puts it: For many years, this was the only account of the authors' identities, but al-Tawhīdī's comments were second-hand evidence and so unsatisfactory. This situation lasted until al-Tawhīdī's ''Kitāb al-Imtā' wa'l-Mu'ānasa'' was published in 1942. pg. 3, Stern 1947 This publication substantially supported al-Qifti's work, although al-Qifti apparently toned down the description and prominence of al-Tawhīdī's charges that the Brethren were '' Batiniyya '', an esoteric Ismaili sect and thus Heretics , possibly so as to not tar his friend Zaid with the same brush. Stern derives a further result from the published text of the ''Kitāb al-Imtā 'wal-Muanasa'', pointing out that a story al-Tawhīdī ascribes to a personal meeting with Qādī Abu'l-Hasan 'Alī b. Hārūn az-Zanjāni, the founder of the group, appears in almost identical form in one of the epistles. pg. 4, Stern 1947 While neat, Stern's view of things has been challenged by Tibawi, who points out some assumptions and errors Stern has made, such as the relationship between the story in al-Tawhīdī's work and the Epistles; Tibawi points out the possibility that the story was instead taken from a third, independent and prior source. pg 12-13 of "Ikhwan as-Safa and their Rasa'il:A Critical Review of a Century and a Half of Research", by A. L.Tibawi, as published in volume 2 of ''The Islamic Quarterly'' in 1955;pgs. 28-46 al-Tawhīdī's testimony has also been described as thus: The last contemporary source comes from the surviving portions of the ''Kitāb Siwan al-Hikma'' (c. 950) by Abu Sulaiman al-Mantiqi (al-Tawhīdī's teacher), which was a sort of compendium of biographies; al-Mantiqi is primarily interested in the Brethren's literary techniques of using parables and stories, and so he says only this little before proceeding to give some extracts of the ''Encyclopedia'': The second near-contemporary record is another comment by Shahzúry or (Shahrazūrī) as recorded in the ''Tawārikh al-Hukamā'' or alternatively, the ''Tawárykh al-Hokamá''; specifically, it is from the ''Nuzhat al-arwah'', which is contained in the ''Tawárykh'', which states: Amusingly, Aloys Sprenger mentions this in a footnote: "Since I wrote the first part of this notice I found one of the authors of these memoirs mentioned in the following terms: 'Zayd b. Rofa, one of the authors of the Ikhwan al safa, was extremely ignorant in tradition, and he was a liar without shame.'" {Link without Title} SEE ALSO NOTES References
EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|