Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity

"Turn from the sleep of negligence and the slumber of ignorance, for the world is a house of delusion and tribulations." -(from the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Sincerity) ^[1]

The Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity (also variously known as the Epistles of the Brethren of Sincerity, the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity or Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and Loyal Friends; Arabic: Rasa'il ikhwan as-safa' wa khillan al-wafa' ) was an encyclopedia written by the Brethren of Purity of Basra, Iraq sometime in the 900s CE (or possibly later, in the 1000s). It had a great influence on later leading lights of the intellectual Islamic world (such as Ibn Arabi) and was transmitted as far abroad within the Muslim worldas Spain ^[2]; Jorge Luis Borges notes that the Encyclopedia and Avicenna were chiefly responsible for bringing Platonism to the Arabic world. ^[3] They have been linked with as varied groups as the Ismaili and the Rosicrucians (typically on scant evidence).

The encyclopedia

"Their subject matter is vast and ranges from mathematics, music and logic, through mineralogy, botany and embryology, to philosophical and theological topics which are concluded by a treatise on magic." -Ian Richard Netton ^[4]

In philosophical outlook, it was a quasi-Plotinic Neoplatonic work which tried to integrate Greek philosophy (and especially the dialectical reasoning and logic of Aristotelianism) with various astrological, Hermeticism, Gnostic and Islamic schools of through; scholars have seen Isma'iliyah (and some have claimed that the Brethren were Isamaili, although this is unlikely because of their very luke-warm embrace of the Imamate and aspects of their theology that were decidedly not Ismalian, in addition to the lack of solid evidence in favor of such a hypothesis) and Sufi influences in the religious content, and Mu'tazilite-like acceptance of reasoning in the work. Their unabashed eclecticism is fairly unusual in Arabic thought at this period of fierce theological disputes; they refused to condemn rival schools of thought or religions, instead insisting that they be examined fairly and open-mindedly for what truth they may contain.

"...to shun no science, scorn any book, or to cling fanatically to no single creed. For [their] own creed encompasses all the others and comprehends all the sciences generally. This creed is the consideration of all existing things, both sensible and intelligible, from beginning to end, whether hidden or overt, manifest or obscure . . . in so far as they all derive from a single principle, a single cause, a single world, and a single Soul." -(from the Ikhwan al-Safa, or Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity; Rasa'il IV, pg 52) ^[5]

In total, they cover most of the areas an educated person was expected to be competent in in that era. The epistles (or "rasa'il") generally increase in abstractness, finally dealing with the Brethren's somewhat pantheistic philosophy, in which each soul is an emanation, a fragment of a universal soul with which it will reunite at death; in turn, the universal soul will reunite with Allah on Doomsday. The epistles are intended to grant right knowledge, leading to harmony with the universe and happiness. Besides the various epistles, there is an overarching summary of the work, which is not counted in the 52, called "The Summary" (al-Risalat al-Jami'a). The Summary, interestingly enough, has been claimed to have been the work of Majriti (d. circa 1008), although Netton states Majriti could not have composed it, and that Yves Marquet's philological analysis of the vocabulary and style in hisLa Philosophie des Ihwan al-Safa (1975) shows it to have been composed at the same time as the main corpus.

Organizationally, it is divided into 52 epistles. The 52 rasa'il are subdivided into four sections, sometimes called books (indeed, some complete editions of the Encyclopedia are in four volumes); in order, they are: 14 on the Mathematical Sciences, 17 on the Natural Sciences, 10 on the Psychological and Rational Sciences, 11 on Theological Sciences.

The division into four sections is no accident; the number four held great importance in Neoplatonic numerology, being the first square number and for being even. Reputedly, Pythagoras held that a man's life was divided into four sections, much like a year was divided into four seasons. The Brethren divided mathematics itself into four sections: arithmetic was Pythagoras and Nicomachus' domain; Ptolemy ruled over astronomy with his Almagest; geometry was associated with Euclid, naturally; and the fourth and last division was that of music. The fours did not cease there; numbers were broken down into four orders of magnitude: the ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands; there were four winds from the four directions (north, south, east, west); medicine concerned itself with the four humours, and natural philosophers with the four elements of Empedocles. Another possibility, suggested by Netton is that the veneration for four stems instead from the Brethren's great interest in the Corpus Hermeticum of Hermes Trismegistus (identified with the god Hermes, to whom the number four was sacred), the magic of which occult tradition made up most of the 51st rasa'il, which was on magic.

It has been suggested that the 52nd is a later addition, since a number of the rasa'ils claim that the total of rasa'ils is 51, but the 52nd claims to be number 51 in one area of its text, and 52 in another, leading to the possibility that the Brethren's attraction for the number 51 (or 17 times 3; there were 17 rasa'ils on natural sciences) is responsible for the confusion. Seyyed Hossein Nasr suggests that the origin of the preference for 17 stemmed from the alchemist Jabir b. Hayyan's numerological symbolism.

More metaphysical were the four ranks (or "spiritual principles"), which apparently were an elaboration of Plotinus' triad of Thought, Soul, and the One, known to the Brethren through the Theologia of Aristotle (a version Plotinus' Enneads in Arabic, modified with changes and paraphrases, and attributed to Aristotle) ^[6]; first, the Creator (al-Bārī) emanated down to Universal Intellect (al-'Aql al-Kullī), then to Universal Soul (al-Nafs), and through Prime Matter (al-Hayūlā 'l-Ūlā), which emanated still further down through (and creating) the mundane hierarchy. The mundane hierarchy consisted of Nature (al-Tabī'a), the Absolute Body (al-Jism al-Mutlaq), the Sphere (al-Falak), the Four Elements (al-Arkān), and the Beings of this world (al-Muwalladāt) in their three varieties of animals, minerals, and vegetables, for a total hierarchy of nine members (each member increased in subdivisions proportional to how far down in the hierarchy it was- ex. Sphere, being number seven has the seven planets as its members);

"The Absolute Body is also a form in Prime Matter as we explained in the Chapter on Matter. Prime Matter is a spiritual form which emanated from the Universal Soul. The Universal Soul also is a spiritual form which emanated from the Universal Intellect which is the first thing the Creator Created." ^[7]

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

"The magpie eclecticism with which they surveyed and utilized elements from the philosophies of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, and religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism, was not an early attempt at ecumenism or interfaith dialogue. Their accumulation of knowledge was ordered towards the sublime goal of salvation. To use their own image, they perceived their Brotherhood, to which they invited others, as a "Ship of Salvation" that would float free from the sea of matter; the Ikhwan, with their doctrines of mutual cooperation, asceticism, and righteous living, would reach the gates of Paradise in its care." ^[8]

Another area in which the Brethren differed was in their conceptions of nature, in which they rejected the emanation of Forms that characterized Platonic philosophy for a quasi-Aristotelian system of substances:

"Know, O brother, that the scholars have said that all things are of two types, substances and accidents, and that all substances are of one kind and self-existent, while accidents are of nine kinds, present in the substances, and they are attributes of them. But the Creator may not be described as either accident or substance, for He is their Creator and efficient cause." ^[9]

The 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica described the mingling of Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism this way:

"The materials of the work come chiefly from Aristotle, but they are conceived of in a Platonizing spirit, which places as the bond of all things a universal soul of the world with its partial or fragmentary souls."[10]

Style

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

Although portions of the Encyclopedia were translated into English beginning in 1812 with the Rev. T. Thomason's prose English introduction to Shaikh Ahmad b. Muhammed Shurwan's Arabic edition of the "Debate of Animals" published in Calcutta translated excerpt^[11], as of 2006, a complete translation of the Encyclopedia into English does not exist. Only a few Epistles such as the "Island of Animals" have been translated.

See also

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

References

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

• ^ "George Sales observes that this uncreated Koran is nothing but its idea or Platonic archetype; it is likely that al-Ghazali used the idea of archetypes, communicated to Islam by the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity and by Avicenna to justify the notion of the Mother of the Book." From "On the Cult of Books", Selected Non-Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges; ed. Eliot Weinberger, trans. Ester Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine, and Eliot Weinberger; 1999. ISBN 0-670-84947-2
• ^ Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of the Brethren of Purity, Ian Richard Netton, 1991. Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 0-7486-0251-8
• ^ Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa', 4 volumes (Beirut, Dar Sadir, 1957). A complete untranslated edition of the 52 rasa'il.
  • ^ pg 41 of vol 1, Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa', 4 volumes (Beirut, Dar Sadir, 1957)
  • ^ pg 234-235 of vol. 3, Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa', 4 volumes (Beirut, Dar Sadir, 1957)
• ^ volume 4, pg 685-688 of the 1998 edition of the The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy; ed. Edward Craig, ISBN 0415-18709-5
• ^ "But they produced this enormous encyclopaedia, and um, everybody read it and we know that it was widely read by mathematicians in Spain, and by philosophers in Spain. Most crucially of all, it was read by Muhyi-I-din - ibn-al-Arabi er the most famous Sufi that Spain produced, or indeed one of the most famous Sufis in the history of Islamic mysticism - er, he died in 1240. Er, he absorbed a lot of their ideas and he was in turn read by these ministers of the Nasrid monarch ibn-al-Khratib, and ibn-al-Zamrak, both of whom had strong, mystical tendencies.", Robert Irwin; "In the Footsteps of Muhammad" -(transcript of a BBC program)
• ^ "Isma'ilism developed a complex and rich theosophy which owed a great deal to Neoplatonism. In the 9th century, Greek-to-Arabic translations proliferated, first by the intermediary of Syriac then directly. The version of Plotinus' Enneads possessed by Muslims was modified with changes and paraphrases; it was wrongly attributed to Aristotle and called Theologia of Aristotle, since Plotinus (Flutinus) remained mostly unknown to the Muslims by name. This latter work played a significant role in the development of Isma‘ilism" -(article at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• ^ "Ikhwan as-Safa and their Rasa'il: A Critical Review of a Century and a Half of Research", by A. L. Tibawi, as published in volume 2 of The Islamic Quarterly in 1955; pgs. 28-46

Further reading

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

External links

• Article at Encyclopedia Britannica
• Ikhwān al-Safā’ -(general encyclopedia-style article)
• The Rasail Ikhwan as-Safa
• "Ikhwan al-Safa by Omar A. Farrukh" from A History of Muslim Philosophy [12]
• Review of Yves Marquet's La philosophie des Ihwan al-Safa': de Dieu a l'homme by F. W. Zimmermann
• Archive in the Internet Archive of "The Classification of the Sciences according to the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa'" by Godefroid de Callataÿ
• "Beastly Colloquies: Of Plagiarism and Pluralism in Two Medieval Disputations Between Animals and Men" -(by Lourdes María Alvarez; a discussion of the animal fables and later imitators; PDF file)
• "Pages of Medieval Mideastern History" -(by Eloise Hart; covers various small scholarly groups influential in the Arabic world)
• "Ikhwanus Safa: A Rational and Liberal Approach to Islam" -(by Asghar Ali Engineer)
• "Mark Swaney on the History of Magic Squares" -(includes a discussion of magic squares and the Encyclopedia)