The Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity (also variously known as the Epistles of the Brethren of Sincerity, the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity or Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and Loyal Friends; Arabic: Rasa'il ikhwan as-safa' wa khillan al-wafa' ) was an encyclopedia written by the Brethren of Purity of Basra, Iraq sometime in the 900s CE (or possibly later, in the 1000s). It had a great influence on later leading lights of the intellectual Islamic world (such as Ibn Arabi) and was transmitted as far abroad within the Muslim world as Spain ^[2]; Jorge Luis Borges notes that the Encyclopedia and Avicenna were chiefly responsible for bringing Platonism to the Arabic world. ^[3] They have been linked with as varied groups as the Ismaili and the Rosicrucians (typically on scant evidence).^[4][5] Countries where Arabic is spoken. ... Brockhaus Konversations-Lexikon, 1902 An encyclopedia or encyclopaedia, also (rarely) encyclopædia,[1] is a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge. ... This article belongs in one or more categories. ... Location of Basra Basra (also known as Başrah or Basara; historically sometimes called Busra, Busrah, and early on Bassorah; Arabic: البصرة, Al-Basrah) is the second largest city of Iraq with an estimated population of about 1,377,000 in 2003. ... The Common Era (CE), sometimes known as the Christian Era or Current Era, is the period of measured time beginning with the year 1 (the traditional birthdate of Jesus) to the present. ... BismillahirRahmanirRahim Muhyi l-Din Muhammad b. ... Dar al-Islam (Arabic: دار الإسلام literally house of submission) is a term used to refer to those lands under Muslim government(s). ... Jorge Luis Borges (born August 24, 1899 in Buenos Aires, Argentina; died June 14, 1986 in Geneva, Switzerland) was an Argentine writer who is considered one of the foremost literary figures of the 20th century. ... The works of Avicenna, the greatest of the medieval Persian physicians, played a crucial role in the European Renaissance. ... Platonic idealism is the theory that the substantive reality around us is only a reflection of a higher truth. ... The IsmāīlÄ« (Arabic: الإسماعيليون; Persian: اسماعیلیان Esmailiyan) are shia muslims which recognize the continuation of the line of imams from the descendents Imam Ismail, rather than the concept of the hidden Imam Mahdi, which is advoacted by other shia muslims and has arisen among the followers of Ismails brother... The Temple of the Rosy Cross, Teophilus Schweighardt Constantiens, 1618 The Rosicrucians are a legendary and secretive order dating from the 15th or 17th century, generally associated with the symbol of the Rose Cross, which is also used in certain rituals of the Freemasons. ...

Contents of the encyclopedia

Authorship

Main article: Brethren of Purity#Identities

The Encyclopedia is ascribed to the mysterious "Brethren of Purity", a group of scholars in Basra, Iraq sometime around 1000 CE. As to who they were, sources are unclear, but there are two contemporary accounts of them. While it is generally accepted that the group authored at least the 52 rasa'il, the authorship of the "Summary" (al-Risalat al-Jami'a) is uncertain; it has been ascribed to Majriti but this has been disputed by Yves Marquet. Further perplexities abound; the use of pronouns for the "sender" of the rasa'il is not consistent, with the writer occasionally slipping from third person to first-person point of view. This has led A. L. Tibawi (in his "Ikhwan al-Safa and their Rasa'il"), among others, to suggest that the rasa'il were not in fact written by the entire group, or were notes from lectures and discussions, or other possibilities, but were the work of a single person. Of course, if one accepts a long time span for the composition of the Encyclopedia, or the simpler possibility that each rasa'il was written by a number of persons, that would be impossible. This article belongs in one or more categories. ... This article belongs in one or more categories. ... Location of Basra Basra (also spelled BaÅŸrah or Basara; historically sometimes written Busra, Busrah, and the early form Bassorah; Arabic: , Al-Basrah) is the second largest city of Iraq with an estimated population of c. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Narrator. ...

Contents

"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." -Ian Richard Netton ^[6]

In philosophical outlook, it was a quasi-Plotinic Neoplatonic work which tried to integrate Greek philosophy (and especially the dialectical reasoning and logic of Aristotelianism, chiefly as presented in Aristotle's Organon) with various astrological, Hermeticism, Gnostic and Islamic schools of through; scholars have seen Isma'iliyah (and some have claimed that the Brethren were Isamaili, although this is unlikely because of their very luke-warm embrace of the Imamate and aspects of their theology that were decidedly not Ismalian, in addition to the lack of solid evidence in favor of such a hypothesis ^[7]) and Sufi influences in the religious content, and Mu'tazilite-like acceptance of reasoning in the work. Their unabashed eclecticism is fairly unusual in Arabic thought at this period of fierce theological disputes; they refused to condemn rival schools of thought or religions, instead insisting that they be examined fairly and open-mindedly for what truth they may contain. Plotinus Plotinus ( Greek: Πλωτίνος)(ca. ... Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is a school of philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century A.D. Based on the teachings of Plato and the Platonists, it contained enough unique interpretations of Plato that some view Neoplatonism as substantively different from what Plato wrote and believed. ... Classical (or early) Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. ... In classical philosophy, dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική) is an exchange of propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions, or at least a qualitative transformation in the direction of the dialogue. ... Logic, from Classical Greek λόγος (logos), originally meaning the word, or what is spoken, (but coming to mean thought or reason) is most often said to be the study of criteria for the evaluation of arguments, although the exact definition of logic is a matter of controversy among philosophers. ... Aristotle (Ancient Greek: Aristotélēs 384 – March 7, 322 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... This article is about Aristotles logical works. ... Astrology refers to any of several systems, traditions or beliefs in which knowledge of the apparent positions of celestial bodies is held to be useful in understanding, interpreting, and organizing knowledge about human affairs and events on Earth. ... Hermes Trismegistus depicted in a medieval rendering. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Islam (Arabic: ; ) is a monotheistic religion based on the Quran. ... The Ismāīlī (Arabic: الإسماعيليون; Persian: اسماعیلیان Esmailiyan) are shia muslims which recognize the continuation of the line of imams from the descendents Imam Ismail, rather than the concept of the hidden Imam Mahdi, which is advoacted by other shia muslims and has arisen among the followers of Ismails brother... The Shia Imam is considered by the Shia sect of Islam to be the rightful successor to Muhammad, and is similar to the Caliph in Sunni Islam only with regards to the aspect of political leadership. ... Sufism (Persian: صوفی‌گری Sufi gari, Arabic: تصوف, taṣawwuf) is a mystic tradition of Islam. ... Mutazilah (Arabic المعتزلة al-mu`tazilah) is a theological school of thought within Islam. ...

"...to shun no science, scorn any book, or to cling fanatically to no single creed. For [their] own creed encompasses all the others and comprehends all the sciences generally. This creed is the consideration of all existing things, both sensible and intelligible, from beginning to end, whether hidden or overt, manifest or obscure . . . in so far as they all derive from a single principle, a single cause, a single world, and a single Soul." -(from the Ikhwan al-Safa, or Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity; Rasa'il IV, pg 52) ^[1]

In total, they cover most of the areas an educated person was expected to be competent in in that era. The epistles (or "rasa'il") generally increase in abstractness, finally dealing with the Brethren's somewhat pantheistic philosophy, in which each soul is an emanation, a fragment of a universal soul with which it will reunite at death; in turn, the universal soul will reunite with Allah on Doomsday. The epistles are intended to grant right knowledge, leading to harmony with the universe and happiness. Besides the various epistles, there is an overarching summary of the work, which is not counted in the 52, called "The Summary" (al-Risalat al-Jami'a) which exists in two versions. The Summary, interestingly enough, has been claimed to have been the work of Majriti (d. circa 1008), although Netton states Majriti could not have composed it, and that Yves Marquet concludes from a philological analysis of the vocabulary and style in hisLa Philosophie des Ihwan al-Safa (1975) that it had to have been composed at the same time as the main corpus. Pantheism (Greek: pan = all and Theos = God) literally means God is All and All is God. It is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent God; or that the universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. ... For other uses, see Allah (disambiguation). ... Yawm al-Qiyâmah (يوم القيامة; literally: Day of the Resurrection (Quran 71. ... This article belongs in one or more categories. ...

Organization

Main article: List of rasa'il in the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity

Organizationally, it is divided into 52 epistles. The 52 rasa'il are subdivided into four sections, sometimes called books (indeed, some complete editions of the Encyclopedia are in four volumes); in order, they are: 14 on the Mathematical Sciences, 17 on the Natural Sciences, 10 on the Psychological and Rational Sciences, 11 on Theological Sciences. ^[6] The word epistle is from the Greek word epistolos which means a written letter addressed to a recipient or recipients, perhaps part of exchanged correspondence. ...

The division into four sections is no accident; the number four held great importance in Neoplatonic numerology, being the first square number and for being even. Reputedly, Pythagoras held that a man's life was divided into four sections, much like a year was divided into four seasons. The Brethren divided mathematics itself into four sections: arithmetic was Pythagoras and Nicomachus' domain; Ptolemy ruled over astronomy with his Almagest; geometry was associated with Euclid, naturally; and the fourth and last division was that of music. The fours did not cease there- the Brethren observed that four was crucial to a decimal system, as 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10; numbers themselves were broken down into four orders of magnitude: the ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands; there were four winds from the four directions (north, south, east, west); medicine concerned itself with the four humours, and natural philosophers with the four elements of Empedocles. In mathematics, a square number, sometimes also called a perfect square, is an integer that can be written as the square of some other integer. ... Bust of Pythagoras, Vatican Museum, Rome Pythagoras (approximately 580 BC–500 BC, Greek: Πυθαγόρας) was an Ionian (Greek) mathematician and philosopher, founder of the mystic, religious and scientific society called Pythagoreans, and is known best for the Pythagorean theorem which bears his name. ... Arithmetic is the current mathematics collaboration of the week! Please help improve it to featured article standard. ... Nicomachus (c. ... Claudius Ptolemaeus (Greek: ; c. ... Radio telescopes are among many different tools used by astronomers Astronomy (Greek: αστρονομία = άστρον + νόμος, astronomia = astron + nomos, literally, law of the stars) is the science of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earths atmosphere, such as stars, planets, comets, auroras, galaxies, and the cosmic background radiation. ... Almagest is the Latin form of the Arabic name (al-kitabu-l-mijisti, i. ... Table of Geometry, from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... Euclid Euclid of Alexandria (Greek: ) (ca. ... Music is conceptual time expressed in the structures of tones and silence. ... Decimal, or denary, notation is the most common way of writing the base 10 numeral system, which uses various symbols for ten distinct quantities (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, called digits) together with the decimal point and the sign symbols + (plus) and − (minus) to... An order of magnitude is the class of scale or magnitude of any amount, where each class contains values of a fixed ratio to the class preceding it. ... In traditional medicine practiced before the advent of modern technology, the four humours (or four humors) were four fluids that were thought to permeate the body and influence its health. ... Look up element in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Empedocles of Agrigentum Empedocles (c. ...

Another possibility, suggested by Netton is that the veneration for four stems instead from the Brethren's great interest in the Corpus Hermeticum of Hermes Trismegistus (identified with the god Hermes, to whom the number four was sacred); that hermetic tradition's magical lore was the main subject of the 51st rasa'il. Hermetica refers to a category of popular Late Antique literature purporting to contain secret wisdom, and generally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. ... Hermes Trismegistus (Greek for Hermes the thrice-greatest, Greek: Ερμης ο Τρισμεγιστος) or Mercurius ter Maximus in Latin, is the syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth. ... Hermes bearing the infant Dionysus, by Praxiteles Hermes (Greek IPA ), in Greek mythology, is the god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of orators, literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures and invention and commerce in general, of liars, and of...

Netton mentions that there are suggestions that the 52nd rasa'il is a later addition to the Encyclopedia, because of intertextual evidence: a number of the rasa'ils claim that the total of rasa'ils is 51. However, the 52nd rasa'il itself claims to be number 51 in one area, and number 52 in another, leading to the possibility that the Brethren's attraction for the number 51 (or 17 times 3; there were 17 rasa'ils on natural sciences) is responsible for the confusion. Seyyed Hossein Nasr suggests that the origin of the preference for 17 stemmed from the alchemist Jabir b. Hayyan's numerological symbolism. This article or section seems not to be written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia entry. ... The lunar farside as seen from Apollo 11 Natural science is the study of the physical, nonhuman aspects of the Earth and the universe around us. ... For other uses, see Alchemy (disambiguation). ... 15th-century European portrait of Geber, Codici Ashburnhamiani 1166, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan (Arabic: جابر ابن حیان) (ca. ...

Philosophy

More metaphysical were the four ranks (or "spiritual principles"), which apparently were an elaboration of Plotinus' triad of Thought, Soul, and the One, known to the Brethren through the Theologia of Aristotle (a version Plotinus' Enneads in Arabic, modified with changes and paraphrases, and attributed to Aristotle) ^[8]; first, the Creator (al-Bārī) emanated down to Universal Intellect (al-'Aql al-Kullī), then to Universal Soul (al-Nafs), and through Prime Matter (al-Hayūlā 'l-Ūlā), which emanated still further down through (and creating) the mundane hierarchy. The mundane hierarchy consisted of Nature (al-Tabī'a), the Absolute Body (al-Jism al-Mutlaq), the Sphere (al-Falak), the Four Elements (al-Arkān), and the Beings of this world (al-Muwalladāt) in their three varieties of animals, minerals, and vegetables, for a total hierarchy of nine members (each member increased in subdivisions proportional to how far down in the hierarchy it was- ex. Sphere, being number seven has the seven planets as its members); The Six Enneads is a book whose title is sometimes abbreviated to The Enneads or Enneads, and was written by the Neo-Platonist Plotinus; it was edited and compiled by his last student Porphyry, in a short period c. ... A planet is generally considered to be a relatively large mass of accreted matter in orbit around a star. ...

"The Absolute Body is also a form in Prime Matter as we explained in the Chapter on Matter. Prime Matter is a spiritual form which emanated from the Universal Soul. The Universal Soul also is a spiritual form which emanated from the Universal Intellect which is the first thing the Creator Created." ^[9]

Not all Pythagorean doctrines were followed, however. The Brethren argued strenuously against transmigration of the soul. Since they refused to accept transmigration, then the Platonic idea that all learning is "remembrance" and that man can never attain to complete knowledge whilst shackled in his body must be false; the Brethren's stance was rather that a person could potentially learn everything worth knowing and avoid the snares and delusion of this sinful world, eventually attaining to Paradise, Allah, and salvation, but unless they studied wise men and wise books - like their encyclopedia, whose sole purpose was to entice men to learn its knowledge and possibly be saved - that possibility would never become an actuality; as Netton writes: To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

"The magpie eclecticism with which they surveyed and utilized elements from the philosophies of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, and religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, was not an early attempt at ecumenism or interfaith dialogue. Their accumulation of knowledge was ordered towards the sublime goal of salvation. To use their own image, they perceived their Brotherhood, to which they invited others, as a "Ship of Salvation" that would float free from the sea of matter; the Ikhwan, with their doctrines of mutual cooperation, asceticism, and righteous living, would reach the gates of Paradise in its care." ^[10]

Another area in which the Brethren differed was in their conceptions of nature, in which they rejected the emanation of Forms that characterized Platonic philosophy for a quasi-Aristotelian system of substances: Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recounted in the New Testament. ... Judaism is the religion of the Jewish people with around 15 million followers as of 2006 [1]. It is one of the first recorded monotheistic faiths and one of the oldest religious traditions still practiced today. ... Hinduism {Sanskrit/Hindi - Hindū Dharma, also known as Sanātana (eternal) Dharma, and Vaidika (of the Vedas) Dharma} is a religion originating in the Indian subcontinent, based on the Vedas and the beliefs of other people of India. ... The word ecumenism (also oecumenism, œcumenism) (IPA: ) is derived from the Greek oikoumene, which means the inhabited world. In its broadest meaning ecumenism is the religious initiative towards world-wide unity. ... The substance theory, or substance attribute theory, a theory in metaphysics and ontology about objecthood, is the view that an object is something over and above the properties that inhere in it. ...

"Know, O brother, that the scholars have said that all things are of two types, substances and accidents, and that all substances are of one kind and self-existent, while accidents are of nine kinds, present in the substances, and they are attributes of them. But the Creator may not be described as either accident or substance, for He is their Creator and efficient cause." ^[11]

The 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica described the mingling of Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism this way: Efficient cause could only refer to the essential quality of causation. ... 1913 advertisement for the 11th edition, with the slogan When in doubt - look it up in the Encyclopædia Britannica The Encyclopædia Britannica (properly spelt with æ, the ae-ligature) is the oldest English-language general encyclopedia. ...

"The materials of the work come chiefly from Aristotle, but they are conceived of in a Platonizing spirit, which places as the bond of all things a universal soul of the world with its partial or fragmentary souls."^[4]

Style

A cock from the Island of Animals

The Encyclopedia is also famous for some of the didactic fables it sprinkled throughout the text; a particular one, the "Island of Animals" or the "Debate of Animals" (embedded within the 22nd rasa'il, titled "On How The Animals and their Kinds are Formed"), is one of the most popular animal fables in Islam. The fable concerns how 70 men, nearly shipwrecked, discover an island where animals ruled, and began to settle on it. They oppressed and killed the animals, who unused to such harsh treatment, complained to the King (or Shah) of Djinns. The King arranged a series of debates between the humans and various representatives of the animals, such as the nightingale, the bee, and the jackal. The animals nearly defeat the humans, but an Arabian ends the series by pointing out that there was one way in which humans were superior to animals and so worthy of making animals their servants: they were the only ones Allah had offered the chance of eternal life to. The King was convinced by this argument, and granted his judgement to them, but strongly cautioned them that the same Koran that supported them also promised them hellfire should they mistreat their animals. Didactic refers to literature or other types of art that are instructional or informative. ... In its strict sense a fable is a short story or folk tale embodying a moral, which may be expressed explicitly at the end as a maxim. ... Islam (Arabic: ; ) is a monotheistic religion based on the Quran. ...

Although portions of the Encyclopedia were translated into English beginning in 1812 with the Rev. T. Thomason's prose English introduction to Shaikh Ahmad b. Muhammed Shurwan's Arabic edition of the "Debate of Animals" published in Calcutta translated excerpt^[12], as of 2006, a complete translation of the Encyclopedia into English does not exist. The "Island of Animals" have been translated several times in differing completenesses; the fifth rasa'il, on music has been translated ^[13] as have the 43 through the 47th epistles ^[14]. This article is on Calcutta/Kolkata, the city. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

See also

• The Koran -(while much is made of, in this article, the Greek base of the Encyclopedia, the foundation is still Islamic and hence Koranic)
• Magic squares -(apparently within the Ikhwan was the first nine magic squares, including the first known example of a 6 by 6 magic square)
• Socrates -(The Brethren venerated Socrates' stoic self-sacrifice)

The Quran (Arabic al-qurʾān أَلْقُرآن; also transliterated as Quran, Koran, and less commonly Alcoran) is the holy book of Islam. ... In recreational mathematics, a magic square of order n is an arrangement of n² numbers, usually distinct integers, in a square, such that the n numbers in all rows, all columns, and both diagonals sum to the same constant. ... Socrates (Greek , invariably anglicized as IPA: SÇ’cratÄ“s; ca. ...

References

• The Island of Animals, trans. Denys Johnson-Davies. 1994, University of Teas Press, ISBN 0-292-74035-2

1. ^ ^a b Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa', 4 volumes (Beirut, Dar Sadir, 1957). A complete untranslated edition of the 52 rasa'il.
2. ^ "But they produced this enormous encyclopaedia, and um, everybody read it and we know that it was widely read by mathematicians in Spain, and by philosophers in Spain. Most crucially of all, it was read by Muhyi-I-din - ibn-al-Arabi er the most famous Sufi that Spain produced, or indeed one of the most famous Sufis in the history of Islamic mysticism - er, he died in 1240. Er, he absorbed a lot of their ideas and he was in turn read by these ministers of the Nasrid monarch ibn-al-Khratib, and ibn-al-Zamrak, both of whom had strong, mystical tendencies.", Robert Irwin; "In the Footsteps of Muhammad" -(transcript of a BBC program)
3. ^ "George Sales observes that this uncreated Koran is nothing but its idea or Platonic archetype; it is likely that al-Ghazali used the idea of archetypes, communicated to Islam by the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity and by Avicenna to justify the notion of the Mother of the Book." From "On the Cult of Books", Selected Non-Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges; ed. Eliot Weinberger, trans. Ester Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine, and Eliot Weinberger; 1999. ISBN 0-670-84947-2
4. ^ ^a b Isma'ili, Yezidi, Sufi. "The Brethren Of Purity." URL accessed on 2006-05-17.
5. ^ "The Rasail Ikhwan as-Safa." URL accessed on 2006-05-17.
6. ^ ^a b Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of the Brethren of Purity, Ian Richard Netton, 1991. Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 0-7486-0251-8
7. ^ This is not to say that there aren't some persuasive links between the Brethren and the Isma'ili. Heinz Halm notes in his "The cosmology of the pre-Fatimid Isma'iliyya" (as printed in Medieval Isma'ili History and Thought, ed. Farhad Daftary, 1996, ISBN 0-521-45140-X) that the Sunni theologian Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328) asserted that the doctrines of the Brethren were exactly identical to the Isma'ili's in one of his fatwas. Halm further notes that Paul Casanova had shown that the infamous Assassins had approved of the Encyclopedia and even made use of it. Other sects apparently used the Encyclopedia as well: "The theological treatises of the Tayyibi Isma'ilis of the Yemen contain ample quotations from the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa', and in the 'Uyun al-akhbar by the Yemenite da'i Idris 'Imad al-Din (d. 1468), Ahmad b. 'Abd Allah b. Muhammad b. Isma'il b. Ja'far al-Sadiq, the ninth imam ad the second of the leaders of the Isma'ili da'wa residing in Salamiyya, is explicitly named as the author as the Rasa'il." (pg 76) But there are more reasons to reject the identification of the Brethren with Isma'ili, such as the failure of Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani, an extremely important Islamic theologian, to make any mention of them. And other authors agree with this: pg 8 of Tibawi: "There is sufficient evidence in the tracts themselves to prove Isma'ili sympathies. Indeed, such sympathies have long been pointed out by Muslim authors, medieval and modern, who tried to turn sympathy into actual relationship. However, the balance of evidence tends to show that such relationship was a later development. There is as yet no proof that the formation of Ikhwan as-Safa and the publication of their Rasa'il was an Isma'ili movement, or even a movement concerted with any of the contemporary agitation of the Shi'a." From page 9: "A glaring example of the Ikhwan's independence is their advocacy of the principle that the office of imam need not be hereditary, for they argue that if the desired good qualities are not found in one single person but scattered among a group, then the group and not the individual should be 'the lord of the time and the imam. More surprising still is the denouncement of the belief in a concealed imam as painful to those who hold it and the discredit of the significance of 'number seven' and those who believe in it as contrary to the Ikhwan's creed."

   Compare this extract Netton provides on pg 102 of his Muslim Neoplatonists from one of the later rasa'il: "Know, O Brother, that if these qualities are united simultaneously in one human being, during one of the cycles of astral conjunctions, then that person is the Delegate (al-Mab'uth) and the Master of the Age (Sahib al-Zaman) and the Imam for the people as long as he lives, If he fulfills his mission and accomplishes his allotted task, advises the community and records the revelation, codifies its interpretation and consolidates the holy law, clarifies its method and implements the traditional procedures and welds the community into one; if he does all that and then dies and passes away, those qualities will remain in the community as its heritage. If those qualities, or most of them, are united in one in his community, then he is the man suited to be his successor in his community after his death. But if it does not happen that those qualities are united in one man, but are scattered among all its members, and they speak with one voice and their hearts are united in love for each other, and they cooperate in supporting the faith, preserving the law and implementing the sunna, and bearing the community along the path of religion, then their dynasty will endure in this world and the outcome will be happy for them in the next." Denys Johnson-Davies is an eminent Arabic-to-English translator who has translated, inter alia, several works by Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz. ... Central Beirut Beirut (Arabic: ‎ translit: ) is the capital, largest city, and chief seaport of Lebanon. ... Sufism (Arabic تصوف taṣawwuf) is a system of esoteric philosophy commonly associated with Islam. ... Nasrid is the name referring to the royal dynasty that ruled the kingdom of Granada in southern Spain from the mid 13th century to the 15th century, which is considered to be one of the longest Islamic dynasties in the history of Islamic Spain. ... Robert Irwin may be Robert Irwin (artist) Robert Graham Irwin, writer Robert Irwin (real estate author) This is a disambiguation page—a list of articles associated with the same title. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the largest publicly-funded radio and television broadcasting corporation of the United Kingdom (see British television) and the world. ... The Quran (Arabic al-qurʾān أَلْقُرآن; also transliterated as Quran, Koran, and less commonly Alcoran) is the holy book of Islam. ... Al-Ghazali Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali (Arabic: ابو حامد محمد بن محمد الغزالى for short: الغزالى ) (born 1058 in Tus, Khorasan province of Persia, modern day Iran, died 1111 in Tus) was a Muslim theologian, and philosopher, known as Algazel to the Western Medieval world, Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, or al-Ghazzali as it... Jorge Luis Borges (born August 24, 1899 in Buenos Aires, Argentina; died June 14, 1986 in Geneva, Switzerland) was an Argentine writer who is considered one of the foremost literary figures of the 20th century. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 17 is the 137th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (138th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 17 is the 137th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (138th in leap years). ... Abu al-Abbas Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn Abd al-Salaam ibn Abdullah ibn Taymiya al-Harrani, was a jurist, reformer, preacher, scholar, exegete of Islam. ... A fatwa (Arabic: ) plural fatāwa (فتاوى), is a legal pronouncement in Islam, issued by a religious law specialist on a specific issue. ... Assassin may refer to: Hashshashin, the historical Muslim sect of Alamut An assassin, a murderer who is politically motivated Sometimes a hitman, a murderer who is motivated by money, is called an assassin Assassin (rap crew), a French rap crew. ... The difinition on Sunna is __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Did what__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________. ...

8. ^ "Isma'ilism developed a complex and rich theosophy which owed a great deal to Neoplatonism. In the 9th century, Greek-to-Arabic translations proliferated, first by the intermediary of Syriac then directly. The version of Plotinus' Enneads possessed by Muslims was modified with changes and paraphrases; it was wrongly attributed to Aristotle and called Theologia of Aristotle, since Plotinus (Flutinus) remained mostly unknown to the Muslims by name. This latter work played a significant role in the development of Isma‘ilism" -(article at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
9. ^ pg 234-235 of vol. 3, Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa', 4 volumes (Beirut, Dar Sadir, 1957)
10. ^ volume 4, pg 685-688 of the 1998 edition of the The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy; ed. Edward Craig, ISBN 0415-18709-5
11. ^ pg 41 of vol 1, Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa', 4 volumes (Beirut, Dar Sadir, 1957)
12. ^ "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
13. ^ The epistle on music of the Ikhwan al-Safa, Amnon Shiloah. Published by Tel-Aviv University, 1978
14. ^ The Epistles of the Sincere Brethren: (Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa): an annotated translation of Epistles 43-47, by Eric van Reijn; 1995, ISBN 1-85863-418-0

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an online encyclopedia on philosophical topics and philosophers founded by James Fieser in 1995. ... Central Beirut Beirut (Arabic: ‎ translit: ) is the capital, largest city, and chief seaport of Lebanon. ... Central Beirut Beirut (Arabic: ‎ translit: ) is the capital, largest city, and chief seaport of Lebanon. ...

Further reading

• La philosophie des Ihwan al-Safa' ("The philosophy of the Brethren of Purity"), Yves Marquet, 1975. Published in Algiers by the Société Nationale d'Édition et de Diffusion

Map of Algeria showing Algiers province Algiers (French Alger, (Arabic: ولاية الجزائر) El-Jazair, The Islands) is the capital and largest city of Algeria in North Africa. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Brethren of Sincerity

• Article at Encyclopedia Britannica
• Ikhwān al-Safā’ -(general encyclopedia-style article)
• The Rasail Ikhwan as-Safa
• "Ikhwan al-Safa by Omar A. Farrukh" from A History of Muslim Philosophy [1]
• Review of Yves Marquet's La philosophie des Ihwan al-Safa': de Dieu a l'homme by F. W. Zimmermann
• Archived copy in the Internet Archive of "The Classification of the Sciences according to the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa'" by Godefroid de Callataÿ
• "Beastly Colloquies: Of Plagiarism and Pluralism in Two Medieval Disputations Between Animals and Men" -(by Lourdes María Alvarez; a discussion of the animal fables and later imitators; PDF file)
• "Pages of Medieval Mideastern History" -(by Eloise Hart; covers various small scholarly groups influential in the Arabic world)
• "Ikhwanus Safa: A Rational and Liberal Approach to Islam" -(by Asghar Ali Engineer)
• "Mark Swaney on the History of Magic Squares" -(includes a discussion of magic squares and the Encyclopedia)