Prophets As Physicians of The Soul: A Dispute About The Relationship Between Reason and Revelation

Volume LXIII 2010-2011
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Universit Saint-Joseph Dar el-Machreq

Beyrouth Liban
Prophets as Physicians of the Soul: A Dispute
About the Relationship Between Reason and
Revelation Reported by al-Tawd in his
Book of Delightful and Intimate Conversations
(Kitb al-Imt wa-l-munasa)
Frank Griffel and Klaus Hachmeier
In his Decisive Treatise (Fal al-maql), a text that makes the case for the legitimacy
of and need to study Aristotelian philosophy, Averroes (Ibn Rushd. d. 595/1198)
argues that prophets are healers of the soul just as physicians are healers of the body.
He writes:
The relationship (nisba) that the physician has with the health of the bodies is the
very same relationship that the legislator (shri) has with the health of the souls
(al-anfus). I mean that the physician is the one who aims at preserving the health of
the bodies, insofar as the bodies are healthy, and [he aims] at restoring health when
it has disappeared. The legislator aspires to this with regard to the human souls.
This latter [kind of] health is called piety (taqw).1
The overall thrust of this argument is directed against the epistemological

assumption of some, such as al-Ghazl, who opposed the philosophical movement
(falsafa) in Islam and claimed that prophets bring in their revelations original
knowledge that cannot be obtained through other means, most prominently through
human reason.2 By comparing prophets to physicians, Averroes aimed at rejecting the
claim that the epistemic faculties of prophets are superior to those of philosophers.
He wished to limit the office of prophecy to a mere practical benefit. Following
al-Frb (d. 339/950-51) in his assumption that revelation (shar) is an imitation
(mukh) of philosophy that conveys a lower level of philosophical insight and
moral maxims to the ordinary people, Averroes regarded prophets as bringers of
great benefits to humankind. Yet he denied that their revelations convey knowledge
1
Ibn Rushd (1959), Fal al-maql wa-taqrr m bayna al-shara wa-l-ikma min al-ittil, ed. Hourani
George F., Brill, Leiden, p. 35, 11-15. In the medieval Hebrew translation of the Fal al-maql, the
last word, taqw (piety), is represented by ha-hatslakhah ha-akharnah, meaning well-being in the
afterlife, a variant that may well have been in the original version of the text.
2
For al-Ghazls position see Griffel Frank (2009), Al-Ghazls Philosophical Theology, Oxford
University Press, New York, p. 98-101.
224 Frank Griffel and Klaus Hachmeier
that cannot also be acquiredin a much more precise and concise formthrough
the study of philosophy.3
Averroes description of the profession of the physician in his comparison of
prophets and physicians in the Decisive Treatise is curious. An accomplished
physician (abb mhir) is someone who aims to preserve the health of all people
and remove diseases from them.4 The balance between the prophylactic and the
therapeutic in the work of a physician accorded by this description would have
struck readers of Averroes as odd, for, if lucky, they would have been able to
consult a physician for the treatment of their ailments, but they probably had scant
opportunity to benefit from his prophylactic work. Yet Averroes goes to pains to
preserve this balance between prevention and treatment in every instance when he
describes the work of the physician, with the prophylactic always mentioned up
front. In short sequence the physician is described as someone who employs means
that preserve all peoples health and remove their disease and that avert the opposite
and as someone who knows the means that preserve health and remove disease.5
A physicians treatment and his prescribed medicine are characterized as things that
are beneficial for the preservation of health and removal of disease,6 until in a final
passage Averroes gives up the balance between prophylaxis and therapy and says
bluntly that what the physician does with his treatment and medicine is simply the
preservation of health (if al-ia).7
Lucky would have been the city in sixth/twelfth century al-Andalus where
physicians could truly care for the preservation of their healthy patients states and
where they were not overwhelmed by people who suffered from serious and often
life-threatening illnesses, patients who often had to dig deep into their life savings or
take up loans to get even the minimal degree of medical attention that would make
these illnesses disappear or at least bearable. And yet when reading these lines one
gets the impression that here Averroes is not describing the true state of the healthcare
that he could witness during his lifetime but rather has chosen these words for the
sake of a certain argument. If he had portrayed the daily work of a physician in what
would have probably been more truthful terms, namely, that in the great majority
of cases a physician tries to make existing diseases disappear, the comparison of
3
Ibn Rushd, Fal al-maql, ed. Hourani, p. 34, 8-36, 15.
4
Qaada il if iat jam al-ns wa-izlat al-amr anhum, Ibn Rushd, Fal al-maql, ed. Hourani,
p.34, 9.
5
Istiml al-ashy allat tafau iatahum wa-tuzlu amrahum wa-tujannibu addah, ibid., p. 34,
10-11, which is shortly followed by yalamu al-ashy al-fia li-l-ia wa-l-muzla li-l-mar, ibid.,
p.34, 12.
6
Al-ashy al-nfia f if al-ia wa-izlat al-mara, ibid., p. 34, ult.
7
Ibid., p. 35, 1.
Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

Prophets as Physicians of the Soul 225
physicians and prophets would not have been favorable to the latter. In that case,
the prophets office would have been limited to dealing with those souls that, like
the bodies of the physicians patients, had been struck with illness. The prophets
task would lie less in the preservation of the souls soundness (ia) than in the
healing of the soul. Healing, however, is only required if the soul is in need. This, in
turn, would imply that only those whose souls are deficient and sick are in want of a
prophet. Those whose souls are healthy or have been kept healthyperhaps through
the study of philosophyhave no need for a prophet. The prophets message would
be directed not to all people but only to those whose souls require treatment due to a
certain deficiency that the prophets message can mend.
The wording in Averroes Decisive Treatise seeks to preempt a potent objection
to his comparison of prophets and physicians: the comparison is inadequate because
the prophets work benefits all people while the physicians work benefits mostly
those who suffer from temporary or non-temporary illness. This objection would
be raised by adversaries of the movement of falsafa for instance, who by doing
so aim to reveal what they regard as the true position on prophecy held by the
falsifa, namely, that prophets are sent to benefit not the whole of humankind but
merely those humans whose souls are deficient. That Averroes did not adhere to this
view is evident in the twentieth discussion in his Incoherence of the Incoherence
(Tahfut al-tahfut), where he writes that all humans are in need of prophets, even
the philosophers among them, because all human societies are in need of religious
legislation. While the philosophers may not learn anything new from the prophets
about subjects that are also treated in philosophy, philosophy is unable to produce a
law that people will readily obey, hence the universal need for a revealed law. Even
the philosopher must himself be an obedient subject to that revealed law, and he must
adopt from among the revealed religions of his age the one that he thinks is the best.8
The wording of Averroes Decisive Treatise, which was written around 575/1179,
during the same period as the Incoherence of the Incoherence, makes evident, that its
author was very much aware of this potent objection to the parallel he was drawing.
Averroes was not the first Muslim thinker to compare the work of the prophet
with that of a physician. This resemblance appears often in Muslim theological
literature and is chosen mostly by rationalist theologiansof whom Averroes was
onein order to illustrate their understanding of prophecy as an office that provides
great benefits to Gods creation without necessarily teaching humanity things they
Ibn Rushd (1987), Tahfut al-tahfut, ed. Bouyges Maurice, 2nd ed., Dr el-Machreq, Beirut, p. 580-84.
8
would not already know through other sources, most importantly reason.9 Another
goal in comparing the prophet with the physician is to put rational knowledge, of
which medicine is a part, on an equal footing with divinely revealed knowledge. For
the opponents of this view, the comparison says that only some humans are in need
of prophecy, namely, those whose souls require therapy, while other humans have
no need for prophecyand no need for revealed religionbecause of the advanced
knowledge they have acquired through learning.
The terms of the debate between rationalist theologians in Islam and their
adversaries become abundantly clear from a dispute among scholars heldif it truly
happened the way it is reported to usin Baghdad around 373/983. Ab ayyn al-
Tawd, who died between 400/1009 and 414/1023, includes a detailed report of the
episode in one of the sessions of his Book of Delightful and Intimate Conversations
(Kitb al-Imt wa-l-munasa). The text reports a heated discussion between Ab
Sulaymn al-Maqdis al-Bust, one of the authors of the Epistles of the Brethren of
Purity (Rasil Ikhwn al-af), and an unknown attendant or student (ghulm) by
the name of al-Jarr about the comparison of prophets with physicians.
In the following we provide a translation of one of the nightly sessions (layla)
in al-Tawds Book of Delightful and Intimate Conversations. Al-Tawd was
born around 317/930 (we do not know where) and studied at many places in the
Islamic east, most significantly in Baghdad. Among his teachers in Baghdad was the
Christian philosopher Yay b. Ad (d. 363/974). Al-Tawd used his outstanding
education to become a courtier at several of the Byid courts in Baghdad and its
Persian hinterland. Byid princes and emirs as well as their viziers gathered their
administrators around them and invited scholars for discussions. The attraction of
these courts for highly educated people and philosophers was so immense that some
historians use the term Islamic renaissance to describe their cultural achievements.10
Al-Tawd thus came into close contact with most of the great thinkers of Iraq of
his time.
A scholar outside of these circles, however, had the most profound influence
on al-Tawid and stands in the background of the debate on prophecy that al-
Tawd reports. Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn, who was also known as the Logician
(almaniq), was a highly influential intellectual figure in fourth/tenth century
9
Joel Kraemer discusses the comparison of the prophet with the physician and provides several examples
from Islamic literature in Kraemer Joel L. (1992), Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam, 2nd ed., Brill,
Leiden, p. 171.
10
See Mez Adam (1922), Die Renaissance des Islams, C. Winter, Heidelberg and Kraemer Joel L. (1986),
Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam: Ab Sulaymn Al-Sijistn and His Circle, Brill, Leiden, and id.,
Humanism.

Byid Baghdad. Shlomo Pines once saw in him perhaps the most distinguished
philosopher of the period between al-Frb and Ibn Sn.11 Unfortunately we know
very little about Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistns life. He was born around 300/912 in the
province of Sstn or Sijistn (todays southern Afghanistan and the adjacent border
region in Iran), where he had an early career as a scholar at the local affrid court.
Some time before 327/939 he moved to Baghdad, where he studied with Yay
b.Ad. Here he forged his mature career and here he died around 377/987-88. Ab
Sulaymn al-Sijistn had a circle of students with whom he discussed philosophy,
mostly of the Greek tradition. He is often erroneously credited with the authorship of
the Cabinet of Wisdom (iwn al-ikma), a biographical history of philosophy that
is lost in its original but preserved in two extensive excerpts. This book, which is the
most important philosophical doxography and source for Greek wisdom literature in
Islam, was compiled by one of Ab Sulaymns students, Ab al-Qsim al-Kirmn,
the Ghulm of al-mir (d. c. 410/1020).12 Joel Kraemer, who wrote a monograph
on Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn, suggested the iwan al-ikma may have been a
compendium of texts that were studied in lessons or discussions in Sijistns circle.13
As works authored by his own pen, al-Sijistn left us only three short philosophical
treatises.14 Much more is known about his teachings from information in the works
of his student al-Tawd, who quotes him extensively on a broad range of subjects.
At the time in which al-Tawd has set the present session, that is, around 373/983,
al-Sijistn lived in retirement. In the concluding part of the passage presented below,
the vizier Ibn Sadn deplores not having met al-Sijistn personally.15
11
Pines Shlomo (1937), Some Problems in Islamic Philosophy, Islamic Culture 1, p. 66-80, at p. 72. Gerhard
Endress calls Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn the opinion-leader of one of the most influential philosophical
circles of Baghdad in his time, see Endress Gerhard (1976), The Limits to Reason Some Aspects of
Islamic Philosophy in the Byid Period, in Dietrich Albert (ed.), Akten des VII. Kongresses fr Arabistik
und Islamwissenschaft, Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, Gttingen, p. 120-25, at p. 122.
12
Al-Q Wadd (1981), Kitb iwn al-ikma: Structure, Composition, Authorship and Sources, Der
Islam 58, p. 87-124. That Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn was not the author of iwn al-ikma had been pointed
out earlier by Gimaret Daniel (1978), Sur un passage nigmatique dIbn Askir, Studia Islamica 47,
p.144-63, esp. p. 154-55. On Ab al-Qsim al-Kirmn see also Yahya Michots introduction to his edition
and translation of Ibn Sn (2000), Lettre au vizir Ab Sad, ed. Michot Yahya, ditions Al-Bouraq, Paris/
Beirut, p. 10-27 and Reisman David C. (2002), The Making of the Avicennan Tradition: The Transmission,
Contents, and Structure of Ibn Sns al-Mubat (The Discussions), Brill, Leiden, p. 166-85.
13
Kraemer, Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam, p. 119. See also his comment on p. 123: Ab Sulaymn
[al-Sijistn] was not the author of the iwn al-ikma in the modern sense of authorship. The texts
contained in the work were either studied in his school or collected by him and by his associates.
14
The three epistles are edited by Abd al-Ramn Badaw in al-Sijistn Ab Sulaymn (1974), iwn al-
ikma wa-thalth rasil, ed. Badaw A., Bunyd-i Farhang-i rn, Teheran, p. 364-87. See the English
translation and analysis of these texts in Kraemer, Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam, p. 274-310.
15
On Ab Sulaymn Muammad b. hir b. Bahrm al-Sijistns life and teachings see Kraemer,
Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam, p. 1-3 and passim; Kraemer, Humanism, p. 139-49 and passim;
The text we offer in translation is interesting for a number of reasons. It is one of

two places in the works of al-Tawid where he gives a fairly detailed report of Ab
Sulaymn al-Sijistns teachings on the relationship between reason and revelation.
The other passage is in al-Tawds al-Muqbast and it is much shorter.16 Whereas
there, Ab Sulaymn stresses the similarity between prophecy and philosophy in
being both concerned with the salvation of human souls, this passage in al-Imt
wa-l-munasa is about the difference between these two. While certainly influenced
by al-Frbs much more prominent teachings on the subjectal-Sijistn was a
student-student of al-Frbthe views of the two thinkers are nevertheless also
quite distinct. Like al-Frb, Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn believed that philosophy and
revealed religion are two equivalent ways of reaching salvation. Whereas al-Frb
taught that revealed religion is an imitation of philosophy, al-Sijistn saw many
more limitations on the side of reason. For him the fact that very few people have
been given sufficient reason to be able to benefit from the theoretical equivalence
of philosophy with religion means that for most, if not all, religion offers the only
way. Reason in its completeness does not exist in a single person from among
us, al-Sijistn say, but [is complete] only in mankind as a whole.17 Further at
the end of this text, al-Sijistn gives a second argument why all people, even the
philosophers, must take heed of revelation: if humans believe that they are not in
need of something, they become arrogant towards it and insubordinate. Responding
to this shortcoming in human nature, God conceals some things from reasonable
insight yet makes these things known through His revelation and in doing so conveys
even to philosophers that they truly need revelation (p. 252). Thus, according to
Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn, prophecy has a real epistemological advantage vis--
vis philosophy, whereas in al-Frbs concept philosophy and revealed religion
differ only in the means they use to create assent (tadq) to what is the truth. In
al-Frb and his many successorswho include Avicenna (Ibn Sn, d. 428/1037),
Averroes, and the Brethren of Purityreason and revelation are with regard to their
epistemological content ultimately identical.
Stern SamuelM. (1960), Ab Sulayman al-Sidjistn, in Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, ed.
GibbH.A.R. et al., 12 vol., Luzac and Brill, Leiden/London, [1960-2004], vol. I, p. 151-52 (henceforth
EI2); Khorasani Sharafoddin (2008), Ab Sulayman al-Sijistn, in Encyclopaedia Islamica, ed.
Madelung W. and Daftary F., Brill, Leiden, vol. II, p. 585-95 and Cottrell Emily J. (2011), Ab
Sulayman al-Sijistn, in Lagerlund H. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy: Philosophy Between
500 and 1500, 2 vol., Springer, Dordrecht, vol. I, p. 17-20.
16
Al-Tawd Ab ayyn (1989), al-Muqbast, ed. usayn Muammad T., Dr al-Adb, Beirut, p. 142,
translated and analyzed in Kraemer, Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam, p. 243.
17
See p. 240. Cf. also p. 236.

Unlike al-Frb, Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn stresses the differences between

reason and revelation, culminating in his teaching that there is a truth (aqqun) on the
side of philosophy and another truth (aqqun) on the side of religion. He expresses
this view by saying, according to al-Tawd, that philosophy is true (aqqun) but it
has nothing to do with the religious law; and the religious law is true but it has nothing
to do with philosophy (p. 252). Unfortunately, al-Tawds report tells us too little
about how Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn thought about the relationship between these
two kinds of truths. For Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn religion and philosophy make
different truth claims, it seems, claims that are both verifiable, albeit by different
means. In 1995, Friedrich Niewhner saw here an expression of a duplex veritas,
or double-truth theory, that is very similar to that which Bishop Etienne Tempier
in 1277 accused some members of the Paris Faculty of Arts of holding and that is
usually associated with Latin Averroism in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.18
Whether or not Niewhner is correct, it is clear that al-Sijistn offers an interesting
and important alternative to al-Frbs views and that this alternative has attracted
only limited attention among students of the relationship of philosophy and religion
in Islam.19
The principal reason behind our decision to present this passage in English is al-
Tawds report of a lively debate at a Baghdad book market about prophecy and
whether it can be compared with medicine. Prompted by his interlocutor, the vizier
Ibn Sadn, al-Tawd tells us about another faylasf, Ab Sulaymn al-Maqdis al-
Bust, and how he reacted to al-Sijistns views on the relationship between reason
and revelation. All we know about the life of Ab Sulaymn al-Maqdis al-Bust
(d. c. 380/990) is that he was one of the authors of the Epistles of the Brethren of
Purity (Rasil Ikhwn al-af).20 Al-Tawd reports a dispute between al-Maqdis
18
Niewhner Friedrich (1995), Averroismus vor Averroes? Zu einer Theorie der doppelten Wahrheit im 10.
Jahrhundert, Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum 32, p. 33-39.
19
Kraemer, Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam, p. 230-43, presents and analyzes Ab Sulaymns
position on the relationship between philosophy and the religious law. Arkoun Mohammed (1961),
Lhumanisme arabe au IVe/Xe sicle daprs le Kitb al-awmil wa-l awmil, Studia Islamica 14, p.
73-108, at p. 88-91, had earlier offered an analysis. Apart from Niewhners contribution there are further
remarks on Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistns original ideas on reason and revelation in Pines, Some Problems
in Islamic Philosophy, p. 72, and Endress, Limits to Reason, p. 122-24.
20
In all of Arabic literature, Ab Sulaymn Muammad b. Misar al-Maqdis al-Bust comes most to life in
the passage we offer here in translation. One nisba in his name refers to the town of Bustincidentally
also in Sstn or Sijistn in what is today the Helmand province of Afghanistan, where his family may
have been from or where he may have grown up. It is not likely that another of his nisba, al-Maqdis,
refers to Jerusalem; the reference is probably to another unknown place that was also regarded as holy.
Ab Sulaymn al-Maqdis may indeed have been the principal author of the Rasil Ikhwn al-af.
The iwn al-ikma, the biographical dictionary of philosophers created among members of the circle of
Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn, mentions that the Rasil Ikhwn al-af were all by him (lahu) (see the
al-Bust and a certain al-Jarr. Their argument took place at the book market at
Bb al-q in Baghdad and focuses on the merits of revealed knowledge and its
relationship to the rational sciences. It is the faylasf al-Maqdis al-Bust who
employs the comparison between the prophet and the physician, and al-Jarrin
the text he is merely described as an attendant (ghulm) of the judge Ibn arra21
who vigorously objects with the kind of compelling argument that Averroes in his
Decisive Treatise aims to preempt. The particular part of the nightly sessions from
al-Tawids Book of Delightful and Intimate Conversations that we present here has
not yet been translated into English, as far as we know, and deserves the attention
of those interested in how scholars and thinkers in Islam responded to each other,
sometimes as part of a debate that ran over the course of several centuries.
In addition to its vital contribution to the history of ideas in Islam, the text also
offers valuable information about the originators and transmitters of these ideas. It
contains a famous and often quoted passage that informs us about the authors of the
Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (Rasil Ikhwn al-af) and about Ab Ghnim
al-abb (the physician), a student of Ab Bakr Muammad b. Zakariyy al-Rz
(d. 313/925 or 323/935) whose radical critique of prophecy may have triggered Ab
Sulaymn al-Sijistns concept of the different truth(s) of philosophy and revelation.22
Moreover, we learn from the text of another little-known philosopher of the fourth/
tenth century, Ab Tamm al-Nsbr, and his connection to Ismailism,23 and gain
Muntakhab iwan al-ikma of Muammad b. Mamd al-Nsbr [d. c. 596/1200], edited in al-Sijistn,
iwn al-ikma wa-thalth rasil, ed. Badawi, p. 75-364, p. 361). Al-Tawd, however, considered
another author more important. In his al-Imt wa-l-munsa, (see Al-Tawd Ab ayyn [1939-44],
Kitb al-Imt wa-l-munasa, ed. Amn Amad and al-Zayn Amad, 3 vol. Lajnat al-Tarf wa-l-Tarjama
wa-l-Nashr, Cairo, vol. II, p. 157), he describes Ab al-asan al-Zanjn as the ib al-madhhab, i.e.,
the founder of the group. On Ab Sulaymn al-Maqdis see Marquet Yves (1971), Ikhwn al-af,
in EI2, vol. III, p. 1071-6, and the numerous references in Kraemer, Humanism, esp. p. 165-68. On the
authors of the Rasil Ikhwn al-af see note 35. References to the Rasil Ikhwn al-af wa-khilln
al-waf are to the four-volume edition published in Beirut, Dr dir, 1376/1957 and later. Currently the
Rasil Ikhwn al-af are being critically re-edited and translated into English by various editors under
the auspices of the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London and the direction of Nader El-Bizri. See El-Bizri
Nader (2008), Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: The Ikhwn al-af and their Rasil: An Introduction,
foreword by Daftary Farhad, Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford/ NY. The third volume has appeared as Epistles
of the Brethren of Purity: On Logic, Epistles 10-14, ed. and tr. Baffioni Carmela, foreword by Nader
ElBizri, Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, Oxford/ NY, 2010).
21
Attendant or retainer (ghulm) has a range of meanings and need not imply a great difference in status
between the ghulm and his master. In this passage Ab Sulaymn is himself described as one of the
attendants (min ghilmn) of Yay b. d, whose student he was (p. 252).
22
See n. 50 below.
23
This passage has been analyzed by Stern Samuel M. (1960), The Early Isml Missionaries in North-
West Persia and in Khursn and Transoxania, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 23,
p. 56-90, esp. p. 66-67. See also the remarks on Ab Tamm Ysuf b. Muammad al-Nsbr in Kraemer,
Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam, p. 22-24, and idem, Humanism, p. 173.

an impression of how some of their contemporaries thought about the philosophers

Ab Zayd al-Balkh (d. 322/934) and his student al-mir (d. 381/992). Finally, the
passage ends in an eloquent aphorism attributed to the famous adb Ibn al-Muqaffa
(d. c. 139/756) and an explanation of how the title of this book came about.
Al-Taws Book of Delightful and Intimate Conversations records thirty-seven
nightly sessions of the learned circle around Ibn Sadn (d. 375/985-86), vizier of
the Byid Grand Emir amm al-Dawla (reg. 372-376/983-987) in Baghdad.24 Ibn
Sadn was appointed in 373/983 and reigned only for a short period of one to two
years.25 These circumstances provide us with a terminus ante quem for the events
reported here (if they ever happened and are not entirely fictional). The session
we focus on is the seventeenth night (layla), and it begins, as happens regularly
throughout the book, with a dialogue between al-Tawd and his patron, Ibn Sadn.
The main part of the session is made up of a discussion between al-Tawds much-
quoted and highly influential teacher Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn and the latters
disciple Ab al-Abbs al-Bukhr.26 At one point during the report of Ab Sulaymn
al-Sijistns views, Ibn Sadn interrupts al-Tawd and asks whether another
famous scholar, Ab Sulaymn al-Maqdis al-Bust, has heard about al-Sijistns
views on the relationship between reason and revelation. Answering that question,
al-Tawd turns towards the dispute between al-Maqdis al-Bust and al-Jarr.
The structure of this nightly session is fairly complex, beginning with a
framing story that leads to a report on a dialogue between two philosophers into
which a second report, on the dispute between Ab Sulaymn al-Maqdis and al-
Jarr, is woven. We have divided the text into five sections: the dialogue between al-
Tawd and his patron Ibn Sadn (sections one and five) provides a framework for
the session by introducing and concluding the translated text. As we have noted, the
focus of the session is on a report on a discussion between al-Tawds teacher Ab
24
Ab Kljr Marzubn amm al-Dawla was Grand Emir (amr al-umar) in the Iraqi line of the Byids
that reigned in Baghdad. The Byid Grand Emirs acted as tutors to the Abbasid caliphs, whom they
deposed or installed almost at will during this period. amm al-Dawla came to power in 372/983 and
throughout his four-year reign in Baghdad he was involved in dynastic disputes with other members of the
Byid family. In 376/987 he was seized by his brother Sharaf al-Dawla (d. 379/989), who partially blinded
and imprisoned him. Freed after Sharaf al-Dawlas death, amm al-Dawla became in 380/990 the ruler in
the Fars and Khzistn line of the Byid principalities. Again involved in dynastic battles, he was murdered
388/998 in Isfahan by a member of the Byid family.
25
On Ibn Sadn see Busse Heribert (1969), Chalif und Groknig: Die Buyiden im Iraq (945-1055),
F.Steiner, Wiesbaden, p. 239, 509-10; Kraemer, Humanism, index, and Bosworth C. Edmond (1982),
Ibn Sadn, in EI2, Supplement, p. 398.
26
On Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn see above p. 226-229. Al-Tawd mentions the otherwise unknown Ab
al-Abbs al-Bukhr a few times in his al-Muqbast and clarifies there that he was a student of Ab
Sulaymn al-Sijistn (al-Tawd, al-Muqbast, ed. usayn, p. 102, translated in Kraemer, Humanism,
p. 163).
Sulaymn al-Sijistn al-Maniq and the latters disciple Ab al-Abbs al-Bukhr

(parts two and four), in which Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistns very interesting views
about the relationship between the truths of reason and revelation are to be found.
In the middle of the nightly session (part three) we have the dispute between Ab
Sulaymn al-Maqdis and al-Jarr over the comparison of prophets with physicians.
The present translation has benefited from earlier ones, most importantly Manfred
Fleischhammers publication of this text in German.27 Joel Kraemers English
translation of parts two and four of this work, that is, the two exchanges between
Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn and his student Ab al-Abbs al-Bukhr, came to our
attention only after we had finished our version.28 We compared our work with that
by Kraemer and revised our translation accordingly, thus benefiting from Kraemers
work as well. Faced with the choice of producing a fluent English translation or
replicating al-Tawds often quite eclectic style, we decided to preserve the latter
whenever possible, which may, in the end, compromise its English readability.
Numbers in square brackets indicate the page numbers in the standard edition of
al-Tawds Book of Delightful and Intimate Conversations (Kitb al-Imt wa-l-
munasa), established in the 1930s and 1940s by Amad Amn and Amad Zayn.29
Words and phrases in brackets are not included in the original text but have been
added by us to enhance the readers comprehension.
Translation of the text
Introduction
Also he [scil. the vizier Ibn Sadn] said: Tell me about something that is more
important to me and weighs heavier on my mind. I keep hearing from Zayd b. Rifa
about things and peoples opinions that I have never heard of otherwise.30 He gives
27
Fleischhammer Manfred (1988), Altarabische Prosa, ed. and tr., Philipp Reclam, Leipzig, p. 288-309. Parts
of the text are also translated and discussed in Kraemer, Humanism, p. 168-78; de Callata Godefroid
(2005), Ikhwan al-Safa: A Brotherhood of Idealists on the Fringe of Orthodox Islam, Oneworld, Oxford,
p. 4-5, and Ahmedali A. (1936), Zaid b. Rifa and his Abridgment of Ibn as-Sikkts Il al-maniq,
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlndischen Gesellschaft 90, p. 201-8, esp. p. 203-5, both offer English
translations of the initial section on Zayd b. Rifa and the Ikhwn al-af.
28
Kraemer, Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam, p. 231-39.
29
Al-Tawd Ab ayyn (1939-44), Kitb al-Imt wa-l-munasa, ed. Amn Amad and al-Zayn Amad,
3 vol. Lajnat al-Tarf wa-l-Tarjama wa-l-Nashr, Cairo, vol. II, p. 3-24. We used an undated reprinted
edition by Dr Maktabat al-ayt, published in Beirut, in which the three volumes are printed as one.
30
Ab al-usayn (and probably not: Ab l-Khayr) Zayd b. Rifa b. Masd al-Ktib (d. c. 390/1000) was
a close friend of al-Tawd and a scholar of philosophy and religion. He studied with the f Ab Bakr
al-Shibl (d. 334/946) and with the logician Ab Amr al-Zhid Muammad (d. 345/956). See Ahmedali,

allusions (kinya) I cannot ascertain and hints at what is completely unclear. He

mentions the letters and the points [of the Arabic alphabet], claiming that there is
a certain reason why the b is written with a diacritical point underneath, a cause
why the t is written with two points on top, and a purpose why the alif is denuded,
and other things like this. In the way he presents this, I sense a certain pretension;
he is proud of it and boasts of himself by presenting it. So, what is his story, his
business, [4] his concern, and what news is there about him?31 I was told that you go
and sit with him, that you visit him frequently, that you copy books for him, and that
you have shared with him funny anecdotes and astonishing stories. Now, whoever
shares a long companionship with another person has true knowledge of the other
and has understood his concerns, and he is put in a position to know about his hidden
opinions, secret views, and recondite ways [of thinking].
I replied: Dear vizier, it is you who knew him before I did, both in past and in
present times, by trying him, testing him, and employing his service, and you granted
him a long-lasting office and a well-known association!32 Ibn Sadn replied: Leave
that aside and describe him to me! I said: He possesses an overwhelming intelligence,
a burning intellect, a ready alertness, and ideas that mutually assist each other. He is
Zaid b. Rifa and his Abridgment of Ibn as-Sikkts Il al-maniq, and Kraemer, Humanism, p. 167;
202-3; 209; 221.
31
We know that the ascription of particular meanings to the diacritical points of the Arabic alphabet was
practiced in Ismaili circles. For example, the alif was said to represent the messenger (rasl) with
direct contact to the divine, the b (with one dot underneath) to represent the heir (waiyy) of the divine
message, second in religious authority to the messenger, while the t (with two diacritical points) would
stand for the imm, third in rank to the two mentioned before. See Halm Heinz (1978), Kosmologie und
Heilslehre der frhen Ismailiya: Eine Studie zur islamischen Gnosis, Steiner, Wiesbaden, p. 45-47, who
bases his presentation on the eighth/fourteenth century refutation of Ismailism by Muammad b. al-asan
al-Daylam, see Strothmann Rudolf (ed.) (1939), Die Geheimlehre der Batiniten nach der Apologie
Dogmatik des Hauses Muhammed von Muhammed Ibn al-Hasan ad-Dailami, Staatsdruckerei, Istanbul,
p. 54-57. The Rasil Ikhwn al-af deal with the meanings of the letters of the Arabic alphabet at the
end of their fortieth epistle (Rasil Ikhwn al-af vol. III, p. 376-83). Here twenty-eight, which is the
number of letters in the Arabic alphabet, is seen as of special importance. Various ways allow for the
letters to be grouped into two equal parts of fourteen: fourteen letters assimilate with the definite article
al-; fourteen letters bear diacritical points, and only fourteen of the twenty-eight letters are used in the
obscure letter combinations that stand at the beginning of some Quranic suras. There is, however, no
discussion or mention of particular meanings of diacritical points in the way described here by al-Tawd.
On this passage in the fortieth epistle in the Rasil Ikhwn al-af see Diwald Susanne (1975), Arabische
Philosophie und Wissenschaft in der Enzyklopdie. Kitb Iwn a-af (III). Die Lehre von Seele und
Intellekt, Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, p. 496-514.
32
Reading ira with one of the MSS for the slightly too intimate ukhuwwa. In his Rislat al-adqa wa-l-
adq, (ed. al-Kayln Ibrhm, Dr al-Fikr, Damascus, 1964, p. 8-9), al-Tawd confirms that the three
knew each other. Al-Tawd says he presented an early draft of the Rislat al-adqa to his friend Ab
al-usayn Zayd b. Rifa, who brought it to the attention of the vizier Ibn Sadn in the year 371/981-
982. Ibn Sadn then asked al-Tawd to write the book, which he eventually finished in Rajab 400/
November1009.
widely read in the arts of prose and poetry as well as highly skilled in the drafting
of both fiscal rescripts and literary epistles.33 [He also possesses] a [good] memory
of the history (ayym) of the people, listens to what is said in public lectures, and
reflects upon religious doctrines and beliefs. He moves freely in all of the arts, either
by conjecturing where he knows little, by explaining where he has clear insight, or
by silencing others where he excels.34
He said: And with all this, to which school of thought (madhhab) does he belong?
I said: He cannot be associated to anything nor is he known to [adhere to] any
group. This is because he shows excitement for everything and enthusiasm for all
disciplines and because there is a difference between what arises from the breadth of
his insight and what from the impetuosity of his tongue. He lived in Basra for a long
time and there met a group that combined the different disciplines of the sciences
and the various sorts of arts; to them belonged Ab Sulaymn Muammad b. Misar
al-Bust, known as al-Maqdis, Ab al-asan Al b. [5] Zahrn al-Zanjn, Ab
Amad al-Nahrajr, al-Awf and others. So he became their companion and served
them. This group kept harmonious company, untainted mutual friendship, and met
on the basis of holiness, purity, and sincere advice.35 They established between them
certain convictions (madhhab), claiming that through them they would bring closer
33
Al-Tawid here distinguishes between two classes of kuttb: those involved in the fiscal administration
(kitbat al-isb) and those who drafted the more literary insh, usually for general political or diplomatic
exchanges. Al-Tawd describes the existing rivalry between the two administrative groups in the seventh
night of the Kitb al-Imt wa-l-munasa, ed. Amn and Zayn vol. I, p. 96-104, a part that has been
translated by van Gelder Geert Jan H. (1986), Man of Letters v. Man of FiguresThe Seventh Night from
al-Tawds al-Imt wa-l-munasa, in Vanstiphout H. L. J., Jongeling K., Leemhuis F. and Reinink G.
J. (eds.), Scripta Signa Vocis, Studies about Scripts, Scriptures, Scribes and Languages in the Near East,
Presented to J. H. Hospers by His Pupils, Colleagues and Friends, E. Forsten, Groningen, p. 53-63.
34
Ibn Sadns half-hearted denial of knowing Zayd b. Rifa personally may have been based on dislike or
may be a mere literal device of al-Tawd to set up a contrast with his positive portrayal of Zayd.
35
In the edition of al-Tawds text the patronym of al-Maqdis al-Bust is given as Ibn Mashar and that
of al-Zanjn as Ibn Hrn. The edition also has al-Mihrajn instead of al-Nahrajr and al-Awq
(see corrections of Muammad Kurd Al on p. 25, vol. II) instead of al-Awf. The correct versions
of these names in al-Tawds text can, however, be established with the help of two sources that copy
from this very passage, namely Ibn al-Qif (d. 646/1248) (1903), Tarkh al-ukam, ed. Lippert Julius,
Dietrich, Leipzig, p. 83, and al-Bayhaq Al b. Zayd (d. 565/1169-70), Tatimma (sic) iwn al-ikma of
Al b. Zaid al-Bayha. Fasciculus I Arabic Text, ed. Shaf Mommad, L. Ishwar Das, Lahore, p. 21.
This much-quoted passage informs us about the identity of the authors of the Rasil Ikhwn al-af.
See Stern Samuel M. (1946), The Authorship of the Epistles of the Ikhwn-a-af, Islamic Culture
20, p. 367-72 and 21 (1947), p. 403-4; id. (1964), New Information about the Authors of the Epistles
of the Sincere Brethren, Islamic Studies 3, p. 405-428; de Callata, Ikhwan al-Safa: A Brotherhood
of Idealists, p. 4-6, and Kraemer, Humanism, p. 169 n. 168. That these were the authors of the Rasil
Ikhwn al-af can be corroborated from two other sources. First, the Q Abd al-Jabbr (d. 415/1025)
(1966), Tathbt dalil al-nubuwwa, ed. Uthmn Abd al-Karm, 2 vol., Dr al-Arabiyya, Beirut, n.d.),
vol. II, p.610-11, mentions a few names from this very group of people, including Zayd b. Rifa, and
identifies the judge Ab al-asan al-Zanjn as their leader. Abd al-Jabbr does not mention the Rasil
Ikhwn al-af but says that this group hides heretical views about prophecy behind a faade of Shism

the attainment of Gods favor and the path to His paradise. This is what they teach:
the religious law (al-shara) has been polluted by instances of ignorance and has
been mixed with errors. The only way to cleanse and purify it is through philosophy,
because philosophy combines the wisdom of the creed with the benefit of rational
endeavor. They claim that perfection will be reached once Greek philosophy and the
Arab revelation are properly combined, and so they composed fifty epistles in all the
branches of philosophy, practical and theoretical, provided a table of contents for
them, and called them The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and Sincere Friends.
They concealed their names, spread the epistles amongst the booksellers, and dictated
them to the people, and they claimed that they only did so out of desire for the face
of Godhigh and exaltedand to ask for His grace in order to free the people
from corrupt opinions that are harmful to the souls, from bad tenets, damaging
those who hold them, and from blameworthy deeds that make those who commit
them miserable. They stuffed the epistles with religious verbiage and parables from
revelation, with ambiguous words and delusional methods.36
Discussion between Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn

and al-Bukhrfirst part
He asked: Did you see the epistles?
I replied: I saw a number of them. They deal with every subject to a certain extent
without being satisfying or sufficient, they contain fables, allusions, fabrications [6],
and other patchwork; the correct is submerged in it because the wrong prevails. But
I carried a number of them to our master Muammad [b. hir] b. Bahrm Ab
Sulaymn al-Maniq al-Sijistn and presented them to him. He looked at them for
days and studied them for a long time, then he returned them to me and said: These
people made an effort, but did not succeed; they erected something, but to no avail;
they went in circles [around the waterhole], but did not arrive [at the water]; they
sang, but did not raise emotion; they wove, but [only] produced thin cloth; they
combed, but [only] made the hair crisp. They conjecture about what is not possible
and what cannot be done. They think that they can secretly place philosophy, which
is the science of the stars and the spheres, of the Almagest,37 of quantities, and of the
traces of nature; [and which is] also musicthat is, the science of melody, musical
(tashayyu). The second source is the brief passage on Ab Sulaymn al-Maqdis in iwn al-ikma, a
biographical dictionary of philosophers that is discussed supra n. 20.
36
The previous two paragraphs have also been translated in de Callata, Ikhwan al-Safa: A Brotherhood of
Idealists, p. 4-5.
37
Ptolemys (d. c. 168) widely used textbook of mathematical astronomy and cosmology.
metrics (q), drumbeats (naqart), and rhythmsand [which is] also logic, that
is, the consideration of phrases with their relations, quantities, and qualities, within
the religious law (shara); and [they think] that they can unite the religious law
withphilosophy.
This is a goal on the way to which are insurmountable obstacles.38 Indeed, long
before them other people devoted themselves to this task and these had sharper
teeth, better-prepared reasons, greater capacities, more elevated minds, more
wide-reaching powers, and firmer ties. But [even] they did not complete what they
aimed at and did not reach what they had hoped for; they only attained ugly hollow
phrases and shameful dirty spots, a desolate terminology, disgraceful results, and
pressingburdens.
At this point [Ab al-Abbs] al-Bukhr asked him: Why was that, dear master?
Al-Sijistn replied: The religious law (shara) is taken from Godhigh and
exaltedthrough the mediation of an emissary between Him and the people by way
of revelation. [This revelation] as well as the gate of secret conversation [with God],
the witnessing of [His] signs (ayt), and the appearances of miracles (mujizt)
sometimes in accordance with what reason deems necessary, sometimes with what
it deems [merely] possible[come about] for the benefit of the ordinary people,
[in other words] to make them more perfect, and for the guidance of those who are
[already] perfect, [meaning] to clarify matters for them. [7] Parts of the religious law
are not accessible to study or close examination; surrender to someone who calls
towards it and reminds of it is therefore inevitable. Here the why is dropped, the
how is void, the is it not? ceases, the were it that ? goes away, and the if
only? vanishes with the wind. This is because these questions are cut off from it
and the objections of those who oppose it are refuted. The doubts of the skeptics are
harmful, while the silence of those who are trustful leads to good.
Taken as a whole, the religious law contains the good, and its details are
connected to the whole in a way that allows for a good reception. The religious law
alternates between what it unveils by attaching it to the outward wording and what
it makes known by requiring allegorical interpretation (tawl). It makes helpful use
of common language and protects [its meaning] through a clear argumentative style
(jadal mubn), and it chases [evil] away by [prescribing] good deeds. It strikes well-
known parables and rests on evident proofs. It sets the law about what is allowed
and what is forbidden. It relies on old lore and stories that are well-known within
38
hdh marm dnahu adad; for the translation see Gutas Dimitri (1998), Greek Thought, Arabic Culture:
the Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbsid Society (2nd-4th/8th-10th
centuries), Routledge, London, p. 164.

the community, and it rests on what is agreed upon within the Muslim community.
The foundations of the religious law are piety and fear of God, while its highest
achievements are worshipping God and pursuing closeness [to Him].
There is no astrologers talk on the influences of the planets and the movements
of the spheres in revelation, nor about the size of the celestial bodies, nor where they
ascend and descend. Neither does it contain any talk about what good and bad signs
the planets have, whether they are in the ascending or descending half,39 whether
they bring good or evil fortune,40 whether they are apparent or concealed,41 their
direct and retrograde motion, and whether they are in a quartile (tarb), a trine
(tathlth), sextile aspect (tasds), or in an opposite conjunction.42 Nor does revelation
contain the talk of the natural philosopher, who studies the effects of nature, the
[four] prime elements, their conjunctability and divisibility and their differences
according to the different regions (i.e. climes), and [who studies] minerals and
bodies, how they are related to hotness, coldness, wetness, and dryness, which is
the agent and the patient, how they are mixed and connected to one another, how
they avoid one another or harmonize with one another, and to where their faculties
lead them and what they become in the end.43 Revelation also does not contain the
talk of the geometrician, who examines the measures of things: points, lines, areas,
bodies, sides, angles, and intersections; and what a sphere, a circle, and a straight
and a curved line are.44 [8] Nor does revelation contain the talk of the logician, who
examines the different ranks of statements and the appropriate places that nouns,
particles, and verbs have [therein]; [who examines] how one is connected to the
other according to the teachings of a certain man from Greece, so that a mans claim
to truth can be verified and falsification avoided. And the logician maintains that the
physician, the astronomer, the geometrician, and everyone else who utters words and
in so doing pursues a goal are in need of him and in need of what he has in his hands.
39
In Arabic astrology, the zodiac is divided into two sets of halves: (1) the northern and southern halves, and
(2) the ascending (id) and descending (hbi) halves. To the ascending half belong the signs Capricorn,
Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, and Gemini. See Wright R. Ramsay (1934), The Book of Instruction in the
Elements of the Art of Astrology by Abul-Rayn Muammad ibn Amad al-Brn; written in Ghaznah,
1029 A.D.; reproduced from Brit. Mus. Ms. Or. 8349, Luzac & Co., London, p. 377-78.
40
See ibid., p. 381-82.
41
The Arabs distinguished between superior and inferior planets, referring to their position relative to the sun,
which determined when the planets would appear or become invisible. See Wright, Book of Instruction,
p.152, and Rasil Ikhwn al-af, vol. II, p. 42-43.
42
For references of these astronomic terms see Wright, Book of Instruction, p. 151, and Rasil Ikhwn
alaf, vol. I, p. 152.
43
All this is discussed, for instance, in Epistles 16-23 of the Rasil Ikhwn al-af, vol. II, p. 24-395.
44
For these terms see Epistle 20 of the Rasil Ikhwn al-af, vol. I, p. 78-113.
Al-Bukhr asked: Given all this, how is it permissible that the Brethren of Purity
on their own accord came up with the claim to bring together that what is true in
philosophy (aqiq al-falsafa) with the method of revelation? Consider also that
beyond these groups there are other people who have similar goals, such as those
who work with charms and with talismans, the dream interpreters, those who pretend
to do magic, the alchemists, and the illusionists.
Al-Sijistn said: If this were permissible and possible then surely Godexalted
is Hewould have given an indication of it and then he, who brought us the
religious law [i.e., the Prophet], would have formed the religious law according to it.
He would have perfected the religious law through the use of philosophy and would
have remedied its faults through these additions that can be found in other sources.
Or he would have urged those who practice philosophy to render the religious law
clear by using philosophy. He would have approached them with the request to
complete the religious law and would have obliged them to undertake everything
that lies within their philosophical capacities to defend the religious law. But he
did not do this, nor did he assign it to others among his successors (i.e., caliphs) or
among the practitioners of his religion. On the contrary, he forbade delving into these
things, he made talk about philosophy an object of the peoples dislike, warned them
against it, and said: Whoever goes to a sorcerer, or someone who throws pebbles
or tells the future from the shape of limbs and birthmarks, or to a soothsayer or
an astrologer to ask him about what God has hidden from him, he fights God, and
whoever fights God should be fought against, and whoever tries to overcome Him
will be overcome.45 He [who brought us the religious law] also went so far as to say:
If God would withhold from mankind seven years of rain and would then send it,
there would be a group not believing in it. [9] They would say: Rain has come to us
because the star al-mukhdij was setting,46 and this is as it should be. And al-mukhdij
is [another name for] the star Aldebaran.47
45
The assumed adth does not appear in any of the canonical collections. Muslim b. al-ajjj, however,
reports that the Prophet said, Whoever goes to a sorcerer and asks him something, his prayers of forty
nights will not be accepted (al-ah, salm 125).
46
Thus corrected for al-mijda, as it appears in the edition (see following footnote).
47
The adth is almost canonical as it is reported not in one of the six canonical books but in the slightly
earlier adth collection of al-Drim (d. 255/869), al-Sunan, riqq 49. In al-Drim the rain is withheld for
ten years rather than seven and the remark and this is as it should be is left out. The fixed star Aldebaran
( Tauri), which is likewise mentioned as a clarification in al-Drims adth, is also called al-fanq, tbi
al-najm (follower of the star, meaning the Pleiades) and al-mukhdij (a she-camel giving birth to a young
of imperfect formation). See Sachau D. Edward (1879), The Chronology of Ancient Nations, an English
Version of the Arabic Text of the Athr-ul-Bqiya of Albrn, or Vestiges of the Past, Collected and
Reduced to Writing by the Author in A.H. 390-1, A.D. 1000, W. H. Allen, London, p. 344. The setting of
Aldebaran marks the fourth naw of the pre-Islamic Arabic calendar and was ascribed a pluvial role. Later,
these old Arabic time periods of the naw, pl. anw, became associated with the system of twenty-eight

Al-Sijistn then said: The Muslim community has always differed in many ways
on the general foundations (ul) and practical applications (fur) [of religion], and
people were always engaged in a dispute over a vast array of issues in religion, about
what is clear and opaque in judicial matters, about what is allowed and forbidden,
about the religious exegesis (tafsr) and allegorical interpretations (tawl), about
what has been eyewitnessed and reported, and about customary habits and agreed-
upon conventions. But not in any of these issues did they take recourse to an
astrologer, or to a physician, logician, geometrician, or musician, and not to someone
who practices charms, trickery, magic, or alchemy. This is because Godexalted
perfected the religion with His Prophetmay God bless him and grant him peace
and after the clear message that appeared with revelation He did not put the religion
in need of another message that is subject to mere opinion (ray).
Al-Sijistn said: And just as we do not find anyone in this community who takes
recourse to those who practice philosophy in any question regarding its religion,
so we do not find the community of Moses may God bless him which is the
Jews, taking recourse to the philosophers in any aspect of their religion.48 And so it
is the case with the community of Jesusmay God bless himand these are the
Christians, as well as with the Zoroastrians. He continued: It may enhance your clear
understanding and might astonish you that the community differs in respect to its
views, religious teachings, and opinions, and has split up into groups and subgroups
such as the Murjiites, the Mutazilites, the Shiites, the Sunnites, and the Kharijites,
but none of these groups took flight to the philosophers, nor did they try and bolster
their claims of the truth of their teachings through the attestations of the philosophers
or by taking them as witnesses. None of them occupies themselves with the methods
of the philosophers, nor does one find anything among them that does not come from
the book of their Lord and from what has been transmitted from their Prophet. And
likewise is it with the legal scholars (fuqah) who have differed in their judgments
about what is allowed and forbidden from the days of the inception [of Islam] until
our time today. We do not find them displaying [acquaintance with] the philosophers
and claiming them for support. The legal scholars do not speak to the philosophers
and say: Help us with what you have and testify for or against us with what is
beforeyou!
Al-Sijistn continued: Where does religion stand in respect to philosophy?
Where stands that which is taken from the descending revelation in comparison to
lunar mansions or stations (Arab. manzila, pl. manzil) of Indian astrology; see Pellat Charles (1960),
Anw in EI2, vol. I, p. 523-24.
48
The part so we do not find in any aspect of their religion, appears in al-Qif, Tarkh al-ukam, ed.
Lippert, p. 86, but has been lost in the text edition of al-Tawds al-Imt wa-l-munasa.
that which is taken from transitory opinion? Now, the philosophers take pride in
reason (al-aql), but reason is a gift from Godhigh and exaltedto every human,
yet only to the degree that it makes him [10] grasp that God has made something
more elevated [than reason], just as it makes him comprehend that what is below
reason is not concealed from it. Such is not the case with revelation, because it comes
with its far-beaming light and with its message that is easy to grasp.
Al-Sijistn said: In a sentence, the prophet stands above the philosopher, and
the philosopher below the prophet. The philosopher is obliged to follow the prophet
whereas the prophet does not need to follow the philosopher, because the prophet is
the one who is sent and the philosopher is someone to whom he is sent. He continued:
If reason [alone] were sufficient, then there would be no benefit in and profit from
revelation. Yet the people are in different ranks with regard to reason, and their
shares of it are different. Hence, if we were in a situation to fully replace revelation
by reason, then how would we get along? Reason in its completeness does not exist
in a single person from among us, but [is complete] only in mankind as a whole.
So, if one were to say, mockingly or out of ignorance: Every reasonable human is
left to the degree of his [own] reason and needs not seek the benefit of gaining more
reason from another human because he is sufficiently served with it, and he is not in
demand of more, the response to him would be: It suffices to tell you, persisting in
that opinion, that no one agrees or conforms with you. Now, if a single man could
rely on his reason for all his religious and worldly affairs, then he could also rely on
his reasons power for all his religious and worldly needs, and he alone would be
sufficient to do all arts and crafts and would not be in need of another one of his kind
and sort. This is feeble talk and must be rejected!49
49
Ab Sulaymns position is that because individual humans possess just a limited part of reason,
philosophy, which relies entirely on reason, can only lead to insights corresponding to that respective share.
This is not the case with the religious message, which everybody receives in full. Note that al-Sijistns
argument is ultimately philosophical since it acknowledges that reason is in its completeness of the same
value and benefit as revelation. Later he will clarify that philosophy and religion are two independent and
equal ways of reaching salvation; it is just that few humansor maybe even nonehave reason in such
sufficient quantity to benefit from this way to salvation. A similar argument was proposed earlier by the
Ismailite d Ab tim al-Rz (d. ca. 322/933) in his response to Ab Bakr Muammad b. Zakariyy
al-Rz (d. 313/925 or 323/935), the well-known physician and philosopher. Ab Bakr claimed that any
human is able to conduct his affairs solely through the use of reason (aql), zeal (himma), and intelligence
(fina) and that there is consequently no need for revelation. Ab tim vehemently objected: Nobody is
able to survive on the basis of his own capabilities alone, as is demonstrated by the fact that instruction
and knowledge from others is needed by everyone in regard to some aspect of their lives, including the
prophets and religious scholars who are transmitting or interpreting revelation. At the end of the passage we
translate here, al-Tawd will propose recording the arguments of one of Ab Bakr al-Rzs disciples, Ab
Ghnim, who, al-Tawd says, brought potent objections to Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistns views (see p. 253-
254). It is therefore quite reasonable to assume that al-Sijistn was familiar with the views of Ab Bakr

Al-Bukhr said: There are different degrees of prophethood that vary in respect
to revelation. And if difference is acceptable with regard to revelation and does not
render it blunt, it should also be acceptable with regard to reason and it should have
no effect on it.
Upon which al-Sijistn replied: What [kind of talk] is this? The difference in
degrees of those who received revelation does not exclude them from the confidence
and deep trust of Him who selected them for [delivering His] revelation, who singled
them out for conversation with Him, who picked them for the message, and who
perfected them by dressing them in the signs of prophethood. This [degree of]
confidence and deep trust [of God] is missing amongst those who engage in reasoned
inquiries with their different intellects.50 [11] This is because they are [generally]
distant from this confidence and deep trust and have it only in a very small quantity
and a tiny amount. The defects of this argument are evident and the idle talk of its
speaker obvious.
Discussion between al-Maqdis al-Bust and al-Jarr on Prophecy

The vizier Ibn Sadn said: Did al-Maqdis not hear any of this? I said: Of course.
I presented to him this as well as something similarwith some additions and
omissions and in a different form of presentationon many occasions in the presence
of amza the bookseller on the bookmarket of Bb al-q.51 But he kept silent and
did not regard me worthy of an answer.
al-Rz and may have formulated his own position in conscious opposition to it. For the debate between
Ab tim and Ab Bakr al-Rz see the report of Ab tim in al-Rz Ab tim (1397/1977), Kitb
Alm al-nubuwwa, ed. al-Sav . and Avn G. R., Anjuman-i Shhanshh-yi Falsafah-yi rn, Tehran,
p. 3-9. On that debate see Stroumsa Sarah (1999), Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn al-Rawnd, Ab
Bakr al-Rz and Their Impact on Islamic Thought, Brill, Leiden, p. 87-120; Brion Fabienne (1986),
Philosophie et rvlation: traduction annote de six extraits du Kitb Alm al-nubuwwa dAb tim
al-Rz, Bulletin de Philosophie Mdievale 28, p. 134-62, and Goodman Lenn E. (1999), Rz vs Rz
Philosophy in the Majlis, in Lazarus-Yafeh H., Cohen M. R., Somekh S., and Griffith S. H. (eds.), The
Majlis, Interreligious Encounters in Medieval Islam, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, p. 84-107, which includes
an English translation of the passage in question.
50
Probably a slant on Aristotelian intellect theories with their active and passive intellects as well as different
stages of the latter, such as the acquired intellect or the intellect in habitu. See also infra, n. 71.
51
al-warrqna bi-Bb al-q; the Bb al-q appears only in Ibn al-Qif, Tarkh al-ukam, ed.
Lippert, p. 88. The reference is to a majority Shiite market region on the eastern bank of the Tigris in
Baghdad named after the Gate of the Arch that led to it. See the indices of le Strange Guy (1900),
Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate, Clarendon Press, Oxford and Busse, Chalif und Grossknig.
But one day al-Jarr,52 the attendant (ghulm) of Ibn arra,53 provoked him at
the book market with some talk like this and [al-Maqdis] burst out and said: The
religious law is the medicine of the sick and philosophy the medicine of the healthy.
The prophets cure the sick so that their illness does not increase and their illness is
replaced by well-being. But the philosophers preserve health in their followers so
that an illness would not befall them at all! There is a clear difference and an obvious
disparity between the one who treats the sick and he who treats the healthy, because
the aim of the one who treats the sick is to transform him through his treatment to
a healthy state. This will happen when the medicine is useful, when the nature [of
the patient] accepts it, and when the physician gives good advice. The goal of the
one who treats the healthy is to preserve health; and when he does so, he teaches
his patient to attain virtues, to make room for them, and he enables him for the
acquisition [of the virtues]. Whoever is in that state reaches the greatest happiness
and holds the highest rank; he may rightfully claim the divine lifeand the divine life
(al-ayt al-ilhiyya) is one of the things that remain forever and that are everlasting
andeternal.
Someone who recovers from an illness because he took the medicine of a
physician may also attain virtues. But these virtues are not of the same kind as those
virtues because the former are [attained] through blind emulation (taqld) while the
latter are attained by apodeictic proof (burhn). The former rest on assumptions, the
latter on certain knowledge; those are spiritual, these are corporeal; those are eternal,
these bound to time.
[12] He also said: We have combined philosophy and the religious law for the one
reason that philosophy acknowledges the religious law even though the religious law
rejects philosophy; and we have also combined the two because the religious law is
general, while philosophy is specific. The general stands through the specific just
like the specific reaches the realization of its potential through the general. Each is in
52
The printed text and Ibn al-Qif, Tarkh al-ukam, ed. Lippert, p. 88, have al-arr. In his endnotes to
the edition (p. shn), Muaf Jawd corrects al-arr to al-Jarr and remarks that the nisba refers to the
short-lived legal madhhab of the Jarriyya, founded by Muammad b. Jarr al-abar (d. 310/923), with
which al-Jarr and his master were affiliated. Unfortunately, we know nothing more about al-Jarr.
53
The printed text has Ibn arrra, which is corrected by Muaf Jawd (see previous note) to Ibn arra.
He was Ab al-Faraj al-Muf b. Zakariyy al-Jarr al-Nahrawn (d. 390/1000), a highly educated and
well-read judge of Baghdad. On Ibn arra see Kraemer, Humanism, p. 64 n. 104; p. 170-71 n. 170 and
Sezgin Fuat (1967), Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums, vol. I, Brill, Leiden, p. 522-23. He is the author
of al-Jals al-li al-kf wa-l-ans al-ni al-shf (see Dietrich Albert [1955], Das Kitb al-als wa-
l-ans des Muf, ein wertvolles altes Adab-Werk, ZDMG 105, p. 271-86), a typical adab-compilation
that has been edited by Muammad Murs al-Khawl, (4 vol., lam al-Kutub, Beirut, 1981-93).

agreement with the other. It is like an outer side that must have an inner side, just as
an inner side must have an outer side.
Al-Jarr responded to him: Regarding your statement about the medicine for the
sick, the medicine for the healthy, and what you say about that, it is a simile that
nobody apart from you, or someone in trouble, would strike, because the physician
in our understanding is skilled in the art of medicine and combines the two matters.
By this I mean that he cures the sick from his illness, but also preserves the health
of the healthy person. And as for the fact that there should be two doctors, one of
them treating the healthy and the other treating the sick, this is something of which
neither you nor we are aware. It is not customary practice! And thus your simile is
rejected and your defamation has become a disgrace for you. Everybody knows that
the procedure in guarding health and pushing back illnessdespite the difference
between the twois one and the same, medicine covers both, and a single physician
treats both and the conditions of both.
Now, as for your statement in the second section, that there are two kinds of
virtues, one kind attained by [mere] emulation of others and another attained by
apodeictic proof, it is feeble-minded talk because you fool yourself. Do you not
know that the virtues that are acquired by apodeictic proof [first] appear through
revelation, join up with right guidance, call for the good, and promise a good place
in the world to come? And [do you not know] that the virtues that are acquired by
emulating others are taken from premise and conclusion, and from a claim where
reference is made to a person who has no true basis (ujja) [for his claim]? This
person only said something, to which others might agree or disagree, while those
who agree do not refer to revelation, nor do those who disagree make reference to a
certain truth. It is amazing that you place the religious law into the class of assumed
[and thus only probable] knowledge (ann) while it comes from revelation and that
you place philosophy into the class of certain knowledge (yaqn) while it comes
from [mere] opinion!
[13] Now you said that this is spiritualby this you mean philosophyand
that is corporealand here you mean the religious law. This is empty rhetoric that
does not merit an answer. May the vain gossipers answer that! As for us, however,
it would not be farfetched if we were to say: No, it is rather that the religious law is
spiritual because it is the voice of revelation, and revelation comes from Godhigh
and exaltedand philosophy is corporeal because it comes from a man who studied
bodies and accidents, and whatever this mans concern was, it was more related to
the body than to the subtleness of the spirit.54
54
The reference is to Aristotle, who began his career as a biologist.
And for your words that philosophy is specific and the religious law general, this
is worthless talk and no light falls upon it because what you are simply saying is that
certain people, who are the masses (al-mma), adhere to the religious law whereas
others, who constitute the elite (al-kha), embrace philosophy. Why then did you
put together the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and invite [all] people to [comply
with] the religious law if that is only necessary for the masses!55 And why did you not
[rather] say to the people: Whoever wants to belong to the masses should struggle
to comply with the religious law? You contradict yourself, because you stuffed your
epistles with verses from the book of God and claimed that revelation points towards
[the truth of] philosophy, then claimed that the knowledge (marifa) [gained through
philosophy] points towards the [truth of the] religious law! Finally you say that the
former [i.e., philosophy] is for the elite, and that the latter [i.e., religious law] is for
the masses. Why did you combine two things that are different and divide two that
are connected?56 By God, this is evident ignorance and disgraceful stupidity!
Now we come to your words: We have combined philosophy and the religious
law because philosophy acknowledges the religious law even though the latter rejects
philosophy. This is another contradiction, and really, I think that your perception is
failing and your reason ailing, because you openly acknowledge the excuse of the
practitioners of the religious law for their rejection of philosophy, that is, that the
religious law does not mention it [but also] does not urge to find fault with it. [14] This
is why the practitioners of the religious law have no knowledge [of the philosophers
teachings] that philosophy would prompt [people] to accept revelation, that it forbids
departure from it, and that they call it the law that preserves the beneficial [order]
of the world.
Al-Jarr continued by saying: Tell me, dear old man, to which religious law does
philosophy point? Is it to the Jewish one, or the Christian one, the Zoroastrian one,
or to Islam, or to what the Sabians are doing? Indeed, there are people who practice
philosophy and they are Christians, such as Ibn Zura, Ibn al-Khammr57 and
others; and there are Jews who practice philosophy, such as Ab al-Khayr and Ibn
Yash;58 and then there are Muslim philosophers like Ab Sulaymn, al-Nshajn
55
While al-Jarr has thus far used the second person singular to address his adversary al Maqdis, he now
changes to the second person plural (which he retains until the end of this paragraph), thus indicating that
he talks with al-Maqdis as one of the authors of the Rasil Ikhwn al-af.
56
Reading farraqtum rather than mazzaqtum in accordance with Muaf Jawds corrections at the end of the
edition (p. shn).
57
This seems to be the correct name pace Muammad Kurd Als suggestion of Ibn Khammr on p. 25 in
the appendix to vol. II of the edition.
58
We follow Kraemers emendation that there should be a ww between the two names (Humanism, p. 172
n. 172).

and others.59 Would you then say that philosophy permits each of these groups to
practice that religion that they grew up with? But let this be addressed to someone
other than you, for you belong by right of guidance, natural disposition (jibilla),
birth, and heritage to the people of Islam. Why is it that we do not see one among
you abiding by the pillars of faith or being tied to the book and to the sunna, closely
observing the signposts of religious duty and the tasks of supererogatory works?
Also, where did the first generation [of Islam] stand in respect to philosophyI
mean the companionsand where stood the following generations in respect to it?
Why is it that this great thingwith all the success and felicity that it contains
has been concealed from the first, second, and third generations of the community
until this present day of ours, while there are jurists, ascetics, pious servants, god-
fearing and devoted men among them, and theologians who study the details, the
details of details, and all that which brings blessings now and reward later! Yet no,
you concealed the sipping behind the froth, you drew water without a bucket and a
bucket string, and you pointed to your weakness and your feeble power. [15] You
wanted to elevate what God has made low, and to make low what God has elevated.
Yet God is not to be overcome; nay, He is the one who overcomes [everything] in His
affairs and He carries out whatever He wishes.
There were people in old and recent times who tried this ruse but turned on their
heels in despair and who lowered their faces in realization of their error.60 One of
them was Ab Zayd al-Balkh.61 He claimed that philosophy is in agreement with the
religious law, that the religious law resembles philosophy, that one of them was the
mother and the other the wet nurse. He outwardly showed adherence to the [moderate
Shiite] group of the Zaydiyya, and followed the emir of Khursn,62 who wrote to
him that he should strive to spread philosophy via the religious law and invite the
people to [follow] philosophy by being friendly and compassionate and by raising
59
On the philosophical scholars sa b. Zura (d. 398/1008), Ab al-Khayr b. al-Khammr b. Suwr
(d.440/1048), Ab al-Khayr Dwd b. Musj, Wahb b. Yash al-Raqq, and Ab al-Fat al-Nshajn see
the various references in Kraemer, Humanism, esp. p. 84, 123-30, 172. The first two as well as al-Sijistn
were well-known members of Yay b. ds (d. 363/974) school, while al-Nshajn belonged to the
circle of al-Sijistn and appears often in al-Tawds works. The two Jews are less well known. Kraemer
(p. 84) points out that during the fourth/tenth century, the number of Jews engaged in philosophy was
greater than medieval Jewish sources suggest.
60
Al-Tawd mimicks Quranic style by picking up phrases from there (e.g., Q. XXIII 66, My signs used to
be rehearsed to you, but you used to turn back on your heels) and combining them with rhyming words to
make it resemble Quranic saj. Cf. Kraemer, Humanism, p. 172.
61
Ab Zayd Amad b. Sahl al-Balkh (d. 322/934), a philosopher and a disciple of al-Kind. See Dunlop
Donald M. (1960), Ab Zayd Amad b. Sahl al-Balkh, in EI2, vol. I, p. 1003, and the numerous
references in Kraemer, Humanism.
62
Possibly the Smnid Emir Nar b. Amad (d. 331/943), see Kraemer, Humanism, p. 172 n. 173.
its attraction. But God has dispersed his words, demolished his support, stopped him
from getting his will, and subjected him to His power and strength. And so he has
accomplished nothing.
Ab Tamm al-Nsbr attempted the same.63 He served a group called the
Seveners64 and sought refuge with Muarrif b. Muammad, the vizier of Mardwj
al-Jl,65 in order that he might provide support for him, and might [thus allow] Ab
Tammm to speak his mind concerning all this. Yet this only led to his humiliation
and scorn for him and his hiding in his house.
Also, this is the very same that al-mir attempted, yet he was constantly driven
from one land to another, his life was threatened, and there were people waiting
to kill him. At one time he would protect himself at the court of Ibn al-Amd,66 at
another he would seek refuge with the military commander in Nishapur, and at a
third time he would approach the ordinary people with books he had composed in
support of Islam. Yet despite that, he was suspected and accused of heresy, of belief
in a pre-eternal world, and of talking about matter, about form, time, and space, and
other such nonsense, things that [16] God has not sent down in His book, that His
prophets have not summoned to, and that His community has never entered into. And
yet he spoke gently to people who held every [kind of] heretical innovation (bida).
Each of them would sit with him, and he would present his teachings to anyone
who assumed an inner meaning for the literal one and an outward meaning for the
innerone.
63
He has a brief entry in the Muntakhab iwn al-ikma (al-Sijistn Ab Sulaymn, iwn al-ikma wa-
thalth rasil, ed. Badaw, p. 340), where it says he was a formidable philosopher, but is hardly mentioned
anywhere else. No connection to Ismailism is mentioned there.
64
The edition has al-shiyya, but Stern, The Early Isml Missionaries in North-West Persia, p. 66 n.1,
suggested convincingly that this is a scribal mistake for al-sabiyya, i.e., Seveners, a reference to the
Ismali Shiites.
65
Muarrif b. Muammad (d. 321/933) was vizier of Mardwj b. Ziyr (d. 323/935), the founder of the
Ziyrid Kingdom in the Caspian regions of Persia; see Stern, The Early Isml Missionaries, p. 66
n. 1. Mardwj b. Ziyr was one of the most extraordinary figures of the early fourth/tenth century. A
condottiero, he started to style himself as king in the Persian tradition, reviving ancient Persian rituals
and festivals. He planned to overthrow and abolish the Abbasid caliphate. It is assumed that the early
Byids, who briefly served Mardwj, derived their notions of Persian kingship from this background.
Cf. Bosworth C. Edmond (1991), Mardawdj ibn Ziyr, in EI2, vol. VI, p. 539; Stern, Early Isml
Missionaries, p. 63-70, and Madelung Wilferd (1969), The Assumption of the Title Shahanshah by the
Buyids and the Reign of the Daylam (dawlat al-daylam), Journal of Near Eastern Studies 28, p. 84-109,
168-83, esp. p. 86 sqq.
66
Ab al-Fal Muammad b. al-usayn Ibn al-Amd (d. 360/970) a famous vizier of several Byid princes,
most importantly of Rukn al-Dn (d. 366/976) in Rayy. Ibn al-Amd was himself an accomplished author
of adab literature and an important patron of intellectuals; see Cahen Claude (1971), Ibn al-Amd Ab
al-Fal, in EI2, vol. III, p. 703-4 and the numerous references in Kraemer, Humanism, esp. p. 210-11.

I do not think that the models whom he followed and upon whom he drew, such
as Aristotle, Socrates, and Platoa group of unbelievers!mention something in
their books about the outward meaning and the inner one. This rather belongs to
the weavings of those who slander Islam, such as the Qaddids,67 people who hide
accusations against Islam in their souls. And this is precisely what the Bahrainian
Qarmaians68 did recently and what those people who have come from Qazwin
mumble. They have sent propagandists into all corners of the world lavishing wishful
thinking and seducing the souls!
We have heard those groups lengthy and defective allegorical interpretations
(tawlt) of the Quranic verses where Godhigh and exaltedsays: Rush
towards the shadow, the one with the three nations [Q., LXXVII 30] and the verse:
There is mercy in its inner side, but before that there is punishment at its outer side
(Q., LVII 13), and the verse: Above that is nineteen (Q., LXXIV 30), and Gods
words: We will show them our signs at the horizon and within their souls in order
that it will become obvious to them that it is the truth (Q., XLI 53) and others.
Therefore, spare us obscure references, tricky arguments, insinuations, and allusions
to something that has no connection to the accepted text [of the Quran]. People
are more critical about the religious convictions of these people and more eager to
see their goals defeated than are the money-changers in regard to their dinars and
dirhams!
Al-Maqdis had been blinded by what he had heard, and anger, powerlessness,
and lack of wit had almost cut into [his flesh], so that [17] he said: People are enemies
of what they are ignorant of. Spreading wisdom among people not fit for it causes
enmity, sows hatred, and ignites the spark of unrest (fitna).
Emboldened, al-Jarr resumed, turned [to him] certain of his victory, and said:
Ab Sulaymn [al-Maqdis]! Is there anyone among you who acknowledges that the
stick of Moses turned into a snake; that the sea was split; that a white hand appeared
without a stain; that a man was created from dust; that another man was born by a
woman without a father; that a man was cast into a blazing fire and it became for
him cooling and safety; that a man was dead for a hundred years, then rose, looked
at his food and drink and found they were unchanged; that a grave burst open over a
dead man who became alive; that clay was formed, [spirit] blown into it and that it
flew away; that a moon was split; that a palm trunk shows mercy; that a wolf talks;
67
A pun on the followers of Abd Allh b. Maymn al-Qadd (d. c. 180/976), the alleged founder of
Ismailism, on whom see Stern Samuel M. (1960), Abd Allh ibn Maymn al-add, in EI2, vol. I,
p.48. The phrase al-qaddn f al-Islm may also be understood as slanderers of Islam.
68
Lit. al-ajariyyn, a reference to ajar, the capital of the region of Bahrain; see Stern, Early Isml
Missionaries, 70.
that water gushed forth from between fingers and quenched the thirst of a big army;
or that a whole group satisfied their hunger from a heap of moistened bread crumbs
the size of a sand grouse?69
If you deny all this and [despite that] summon [people] to follow a revelation
that contains these miracles and marvels, then acknowledge that all of them are true,
firmly established, and did happen, that there is no doubt or dispute about them,
no allegorical interpretation (tawl) [necessary], that there is no deceit (tadls) [or:
faulty ascription], that they are not the effects of regular causes (tall) nor are they
fraud (talbs). Then you should give us your written confirmation that the natures
allow all this, that matter is a receptacle for it, and that God exalted has the power
to do it. And then dont make obscure remarks and treacherous arguments, and
leave deception and the [talk of the] outer and the inner meaning. Philosophy and
revelation are not of the same kind, rather there are arrows shot from one side to the
other and tears flow between them.
We, however, did not find among the religious people who adhere to any of the
[existing] religions somebody who mentions [18] that those who brought revelation
summoned to philosophy and gave orders to pursue it and that they drew upon it from
the Greeks. This is true for Moses, Jesus, Abraham, David, Solomon, Zacharias,
John [the Baptist] up to MuhammadGod bless him and grant him salvation. We
could not identify anyone who would attribute something of this kind to them or
connect them with this sort of talk.
Concluding part of the discussion between Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn

and al-Bukhr
The vizier [Ibn Sadn] said: I would not at all be astonished by all this talk if it
were not for Ab Sulaymn and his scornful and furious attitude, his passion
and his fanaticism! He is known as the logician and was one of the attendants
(ghulm) of Yay b. d, the Christian, who read with him the books of the Greeks
including commentaries on the intricate details of these books that treat them with
utmostclarity.
I said: Ab Sulaymn [al-Sijistn] teaches that philosophy is true (aqq) but it has
nothing to do with the religious law; and the religious law is true but it has nothing
69
Most of miracles in this long list are mentionedor at least indicatedin the Quran; see Q., VII 104;
XXVI 32 (stick of Moses); XXVI 63 (Moses divided the sea); XXVIII 32 (white hand appearing); XIX20-
22 (Jesus born without father); XXI 69 (cooling fire); II 259 (man revived after being dead for a hundred
years); XIX 33 (grave bursting open); III 49 (clay coming to life); LIV 1 (moon split); XIX 23-26 (palm
trunk showing mercy to Mary).

to do with philosophy. He who brought the religious law is someone who is sent,
he who practices philosophy is sent to; one of the two is singled out by revelation,
the other through his investigation; the former is self-sufficient, the latter [needs
to] work hard. The former says: I was given orders and instructed, it was said to
me, I do not say anything on my own account, whereas the latter says: I inquire, I
reason, I approve, and I reject. The latter says: I am guided by the light of reason,
whereas the former says: I have the light of the Lord of Creation and I walk in its
brightness. One says: God, exalted, says, and the angel says , whereas the
other says: Plato and Socrates said From the first, one hears the outward sense
of revelation, which allegorical interpretations are allowed, which habits (sunna) are
correct, and what the Muslim community agrees upon; from the second, one hears
about prime matter, form, nature, the four prime elements, what is essential and
accidental, what exists and what is non-existing, and other such things that cannot be
heard from a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, a Zoroastrian, or a Manichean.
He [al-Sijistn] also says: Whoever wants to practice philosophy has to divert his
eyes from the religions, and whoever chooses religious practice has to turn away his
attention from philosophy. [19] He must carry the ornaments of both separately, in
different places, and on different occasions. By way of religion he should draw near
to Godexalted is Hein accord with what he who brought us revelation clarified to
him as coming from Godexalted is He. And through philosophy (ikma) he should
explore the power of Godexalted is Hein this world, a world that brings together
a splendor that dazzles every eye and brings confusion to every reason. He should
not impair the one through the other; I mean, he should not reject what the bringer
of revelation has conveyed to him both in general and with regard to the details.
He should not be negligent of what Godexaltedwished this grandiose creation
to contain, what He revealed therein of His power and employed of His wisdom,
what He will make happen, and what His volition and His knowledge completes.
He should not oppose those parts of revelation [that talk about] the wonders of the
prophetic signs, parts that he might find unlikely [to be true] according to his reason,
his opinion, and the judgments of philosophy. Indeed, philosophy is based on reason
that is limited to [leading] to the final goal,70 whereas religion is based on revelation
that comes from the all-powerful intellect.71
70
The final goal (al-ghya) of the practice of philosophy is, according to the teachings of the falsifa, the
achievement of happiness in the afterlife through a union with the active intellect.
71
Amended to al-aql bi-al-qudra according to the original text in both MSS used in the edition. As in an
earlier passage (p. 241), al-Sijistn mocks the technical language of philosophical psychology, inspired
here by such terms as al-aql bi-al-fil, intellect in actu or al-aql bi-al-malaka, intellect in habitu.
What he means, however, is the active intellect also alluded to in the final goal of philosophy. While
Al-Sijistn continued: Upon my life, this may be difficult, but it brings together
[everything that needs] to be said, gathers what one can achieve, and is the utmost
extent of what is accessible to someone who has been assisted with subtle hints
(laif) and is free from defects and restricting burdens. He added: It is one of the
virtues of Gods grace upon humanity that He opened two roads and erected two
guideposts for them, that he showed them two avenues in order to arrive at the abode
of His favor, either by following both of them or just a single one.
Al-Bukhr asked: But why then did God not point out the two ways that you
have just outlined here?
Al-Sijistn answered: He did point them out and made them clear, but you
are blind! Did He not say: Only those who have knowledge grasp it (yaqiluh)
(Q.,XXIX 43)? Is not the meaning of this that only those who have knowledge
know it? One reaches understanding (aql) by way of knowledge (ilm), just as one
reaches knowledge by way of understanding, because human perfection is by virtue
of both. Do you not see that the understanding person gets only little benefit from
it when knowledge is taken away from him? And likewise, someone who possesses
knowledge has no use of it when he lacks understanding (aql)! Did God not say:
Only those [20] who have understanding will bear it in mind (Q., II 269) and
Consider this, you people of insight (Q., LIX 2) and Do they not consider the
Quran (Q., IV 82). And did He not criticize people when He said: They [only]
know the outer side of the life in this world, as for the hereafter they do not heed (Q.,
XXX 7)? And did He not say: Shall he who was dead and whom we have revived
and given a light whereby he can walk among the people be equal to someone who
is in the shadows from where he cannot get out? (Q., VI 122) and: Are there not
signs in the heavens and on earth that they pass by and turn away from? (Q., XII
105), and did He not say: Let this be a warning for those who have a heart, who
care to hear and to witness (Q., L 37)? The book of Godhigh and exalted is He
contains all this. Regarding those things that your reason cannot reach, your mind
cannot attain, and your thinking cannot grasp, it simply guides you towards being
obedient to His messengerGod bless him and grant him salvation. Hence, it is
upon you to follow it and to submit yourself to it. Evil came only from the heretical
group of the Dahrites,72 who had mounted the steed of quarrel and ignorance, who
philosophy aims to reach the perfection of the active intellect, so al-Sijistn, religion is based on the active
intellect as the source of inspiration for the prophets.
72
In Muslim hereseographical literature, dahriyya refers to groups who maintain that the world needs no
creator and can sustain itself. We know of no scholars who actively taught this position, so this is a third
party ascription or rather an argumentative challenge. The examples show that Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn
uses the term here rather unspecifically with the meaning of arch-heretics.

through their fanaticism had turned towards stirring unrest, and who simply called
this thing good and this thing bad and a third thing plain wrong while not realizing
that there is something behind those namessomething that they cannot reach, that
their studies and reasoning cannot grasp, and to whose essence their eyes are blind.
This group is well-known and among their members are li b. Abd al-Qudds,
Ibn Ab al-Awj, Maar b. Ab al-Ghayth, Ibn al-Rwand, and al-aymar.73 They
wandered around in the valleys of error and pulled people who are morally deprived
and unrestrained over to their ignorance.
Al-Bukhr asked: With this description, what do you leave for those who bring
together philosophy and religion and who combine the one with the other by saying
there is an outward meaning and an inner one, a secret meaning and an obvious one,
and an apparent meaning and a concealed one?
Al-Sijistn replied: I left a lot for them. These people claim that philosophy
is in agreement with the religious law and the religious law is in agreement with
philosophy. And [they claim] that there is no difference between someone reporting:
the prophet said and someone reporting the philosopher said. [They claim]
that Plato only composed the Laws so that we know how to express ourselves,
how [21] we should go about our inquiry, and what we should put into the place
of a premise and what after. And [they also claim] that prophethood is one of the
branches of philosophy, that philosophy is the root of the knowledge of whoever is
knowledgeable, that the prophet needs to complete his message by taking from the
philosopher, but that the philosopher can do without the prophet. [They claim] this
and similar things. [They also claim] that he who brought religion had to use clear
73
li b. Abd al-Qudds (d. 167/783) and Ibn Ab al-Awj (d. 155/772) were both from Basra and were
both executed for zandaqa, meaning here crypto-Manicheanism. Ibn al-Rwand (d. c. 250/864) was a
former Mutazilite who later became a fierce critic of the school and developed his own brand of Islam,
regarded by many contemporaries as zandaqa, meaning here the secret apostasy from Islam. Al-aymar
(if this reading is correct; see the corrections of Muammad Kurd Al at the end of vol. II of the edition,
p. 25) is a nisba to aymara, a place close to or north of Basra in the mountainous region of Khzistn,
and appears frequenty among the names of al-Tawds contemporaries (see the indices of Kraemer,
Humanism, and Busse, Chalif und Grossknig). Ab Zakariyy al-aymar was, for instance, a member
of Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistns circle, but he cannot be meant here. A moderate heretic, namely a
Mutazilite, was Muammad b. Umar al-aymar (d. c. 330/941), a student of al-Khayy and Ab Al
alJubb (on whom see Ibn al-Murta Amad b. Yay (1961), abaqt al-mutazila, ed. Diwald-
Wilzer Susanne, Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden, p. 96). Still, it is unlikely that he is meant here, which casts
doubts on the reading of this name. Kraemer, Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam, p. 237, suggests that
Ab al-Anbas Muammad b. Isq al-aymar (d. 275/888) is meant, an astrologer and poet mentioned by
Rosenthal Franz (1956), Humor in Early Islam, Brill, Leiden, p. 13, and by Brockelmann Carl (1937-49),
Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, 2 vol. and 3 suppl. vol., 2nd ed., Brill, Leiden, Suppl. I, p. 396. Maar
b. Ab al-Ghayth is unknown to us, and the name may well be a corruption of Mu b. Iys (d. 159/776),
also a known zindq.
expressions as well as vague descriptions and lucid indications as well as unclear

allusion so that the benefit will be achieved, the words well arranged, the community
in agreement, the sunna established, and life agreeable. One of them [scil. of those
who want to bring religion and philosophy together] even said: At the beginning
the religious law is invented things, in its middle it is observed customs (sunan), and
at its end it is rights that are removed. Now, where does this description stand in
relation to my words that the religious law is divine and philosophy is human? Here
I mean that the former comes from revelation, the latter from reason; one is trusted
and confided in, whereas the other is doubted and disputed.
Al-Bukhr asked him: Why did he who brought the religious law not follow this
method so that this controversy would have vanished, these assumptions would have
faded away, and this market would have become listless.
Al-Sijistn replied: He who brought the religious law is immersed in divine light
and thus he is caught in what he sees and discerns, finds and looks at. Because he, by
what he witnesses through eyesight, perceives through the senses, and grasps in the
depository of his heart, is taken away [and isolated] from everything else. Therefore
he summons [others] to acquire the perfection that he has attained, and only those
are made happy by his summons to whom it is given to respond to him, who submit
in obedience, and who are guided by his words. Philosophy is human perfection and
religion is divine perfection. Divine perfection does not need human perfection, but
human perfection is in need of divine perfection. That is how it is. Godhigh and
exalted is Heonly ordered reflection, only urged assiduous study, only excited
the hearts to extract knowledge, and only incited in the hearts desire to [undertake]
research in quest of the hidden, so that His servants would become wise, knowing,
god-fearing, and full of acumen. He ordered submission and prohibited the exercise
of excessive exaggeration in ones deep devotion [to something] only so that His
servants would seek refuge with Him, place their confidence in Him, resort to Him,
fear Him, put their hope in Him, call upon Him in fear and hopeful expectation, [22]
and serve Him with desire and awe.
He made the clear things clear because He endeavored that [humans reach]
understanding of Him, venerate Him, be obedient to Him and of service to Him. He
concealed the concealed things to prolong the humans need for Him and not let them
think they could do without Him. Being in need of something causes submission
and devotion, and being not in need causes arrogance and insubordination! This
happens quite commonly in both unjust and just conducts of life. One cannot avoid
this, remove it, disapprove of it, or deny it. Therefore, anyone who grasps something
with his reason has to make up for his shortcoming through whatever he finds
with someone who grasps whatever he grasps through the revelation of his Lord.
AlSijistn also said that this all is confirmed by the fact that the religious law with

its shining light of revelation mentions many things that can be grasped by reason;
whereas philosophy does not mention anything that comes from revelation, not the
big and not the small.
Al-Sijistn said: The Greeks are not known to have had a prophet or a true
messenger who was sent from God. They used to take refuge in their philosophers
when laying down laws that maximized the benefits of their lives, that created
order in their existences, and [led to] advantages in the circumstances of the time
spans they spent in this worldly abode. Their kings loved wisdom and promoted its
practitioners, and they advanced those who adorned themselves with any part of it.
Those laws were acted upon and they were obeyed. When time put them to the test
and the passing of night and day had worn them out, they returned to their tasks
and formulated another, new law by adding something about what had happened
in the meantime or by omitting something in accordance with the circumstances
that people had mastered and that constrained them. Therefore, one cannot say that
during the reign of Alexander [the Great], when he moved from the West to the
East, his religious law (sharatuhu) was such-and-such, that he used to talk about a
prophet called so-and-so, or that he said: I am a prophet! [No,] he fought Darius
and other kings and overcame them in his desire to take their kingdoms, seize their
lands, and take their wealth, prisoners, and booty. If there had been any mention
of prophecy or any prophet with a message, that would have been renowned and
accorded, recorded and well-known.
End
The vizier Ibn Sadn said: This is quite an amazing talk the like of which I never
heard with such explanation and with this degree of detail!
I said: [23] Indeed, our master Ab Sulaymn [al-Sijistn] is a copious sea and
has a broad mind, and spiritual matters, divine tidings, and concealed secrets are not
hidden from him; his thought is deep, he is very coherent,74 he has been given a well-
balanced character, a far-reaching mind, and a highly articulate tongue. The method
that he has chosen is surrounded by strong objections and offers his adversaries many
points of entry. Not everybody can be content with the outline that he gave, because
Ab Sulaymn [first] separated the religious law from philosophy and then called for
them to be embraced togetherthis seems contradictory. One of these days, I saw a
74
kathr al-wada; wada in the use of al-Taw refers to the unity of character. For a detailed discussion of
the term wada (unity) see Hachmeier Klaus (2004), Rating Adab: Al-Tawd on the Merits of Poetry
and Prose, Al-Qanara 25, p. 357-85, esp. p. 366-67.
companion of [Ab Bakr] Muammad b. Zakariyy [al-Rz] called Ab Ghnim

the Physician (al-abb), who had come from Rayy and who argued with al-Sijistn
about this subject and caused him trouble. He forced him to accept positions that he
had denied his opponent. If you permit, I will record their dispute on paper.
The vizier Ibn Sadn, however, said: The goal he aims for has become clear
and subjecting it to dispute will only obscure it; the intention is known, and there
is enough to understand it. And yet I wish we were granted to get to know him in a
personal meeting and through personal company and not [only] through narration
and hearsay! Now, take this good opportunity and bid farewell, for in intimate
conversations you have reached the utmost delight.75 I said: I would not wish to finish
the like of these noble sessions with what resembles jest and opposes earnestness!76
If you permit, I will narrate what may provide a solid basis and a foundation to the
precedent. Ibn Sadn agreed and said: Go on with what you wish; for what we have
heard from your account has only filled us with the desire to get your view!
I said: Ibn al-Muqaffa once said: When a man acts in a way that he knows is
wrong, it is [out of] a passion, and passion is a harm to integrity. When a man leaves
an action that he knows is right, it is neglect, and neglect is a harm to religion. But
when a man embarks on something of which he does not know if it is right or wrong,
it is obstinacy, and obstinacy is a harm to ones independent judgment (ray)!
Ibn Sadnmay God guard his soulsaid: How full of beauty is this speech!
How high is its rank regarding the true essence of reason! Write it down for us, no,
put together for me a good part of these sessions, for from time to time they will
bring refreshment to the intellect. Indeed, the light of reason does not shine at all [24]
times; still, sometimes it shines and sometimes it sparkles. When it shines, it brings
general benefit, but when it sparkles, it brings specific benefit. When it is concealed,
however, its benefit is null. I said: I shall do so.
75
wa-qad balaghta f l-munasa ghyat al-imt; thus providing the title of this book, al-Imt wa-l-
munasa, the Book of Delightful and Intimate Conversations.
76
The well-known topos of earnest and jest (al-jidd wa-l-hazl), i.e., blending an otherwise serious
discussion with entertaining or even humorous elements, was considered to be a component of good style.
Al-Ji composed a treatise with this title. See van Gelder Geert Jan H. (1992), Mixtures of Jest and
Earnest in Classical Arabic Literature, Journal of Arabic Literature 23, p. 83-108, (p. 169-90).

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Volume LXIII 2010-2011

Universit Saint-Joseph Dar el-Machreq

Frank Griffel and Klaus Hachmeier

The overall thrust of this argument is directed against the epistemological

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

The text we offer in translation is interesting for a number of reasons. It is one of

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

Unlike al-Frb, Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn stresses the differences between

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

an impression of how some of their contemporaries thought about the philosophers

Sulaymn al-Sijistn al-Maniq and the latters disciple Ab al-Abbs al-Bukhr

Translation of the text

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

allusions (kinya) I cannot ascertain and hints at what is completely unclear. He

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

Discussion between Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

Discussion between al-Maqdis al-Bust and al-Jarr on Prophecy

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

Concluding part of the discussion between Ab Sulaymn al-Sijistn

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

expressions as well as vague descriptions and lucid indications as well as unclear

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

companion of [Ab Bakr] Muammad b. Zakariyy [al-Rz] called Ab Ghnim

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

Mlanges de lUniversit Saint-Joseph 63 (2010-2011)

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