Majlis: Discours sur l'Ordre et la creation.

• Author: Daftary, Farhad
• Position: Book Review

Majlis: Discours sur l'Ordre et la creation. Edited and translated by DIANE STEIGERWALD. Saint-Nicolas, Quebec: PRESSES DE L'UNIVERSITE LAVAL, 1998. Pp. 168. $35 (paper).

Taj al-Din Abu'l-Fath Muhammad b. Abd al-Karim al-Shahrastani (d. 548/1153) was one of the most learned theologians of his time. He is generally recognized as a Shafi i Ashc ari Sunni scholar, well versed in philosophical traditions, and as the author of a famous book on religions and Islamic sects, the Kitab al-Milal wa'l-nihal. But in recent decades, modern scholarship has brought to light a new aspect of this enigmatic and original Muslim thinker's thought. In particular, by analyzing three of his works, including the Majlis, his only extant Persian treatise reproduced in the volume under review mainly from the critical edition prepared by Muhammad Rida Jalali Na ini together with an annotated French translation and introduction, a number of scholars including Diane Steigerwald, have argued convincingly that al-Shahrastani was in fact a crypto-Ismaili.

AI-Shahrastani was a contemporary of Hasani-i Sabbah (d. 518/1124), the founder of the Nizari da wa in Persia. The early Niziiri da is were particularly active in Khurusiin, alShahrastani's native land where he also became a close associate of the Saljuq sultan Sanjar. In fact, several of al-Shabrastani's contemporary Sunni scholars such as al-Sam ani (d. 562/1166) do report that he inclined towards the Ismailis and their teachings. We also have the valuable testimony of the well-informed Nasir al-Din al-Tusi who, in his spiritual autobiography (Sayr wa suluk), refers to al-Shahrastani with the Ismaili title of the duct al-du-at, a significant appellation even if used purely in an honorific sense. Be that as it may, al-Shahrastani doubtless had contacts with Nizari Ismaili du is and was familiar with the Ismaili teachings of both the Fatimid and Alamut periods, which he categorized respectively as the "old preaching" (al-da-wa al-qadima) and "new preaching" (al-da-wa a1-qadima). That he had direct access to Ismaili literature is attested by the fact that Hasan-i Sabbah's major theological treatise, the Fusul al-arba a, which has not survived, is preserved fragmentarily in al-Shahrastani's Kitab al-Milal wa'l-nihal (ed. W. Cureton [London, 1842-46], 150-52).

At any rate, al-Shahrastani's Majlis, as well as his Qur an commentary, the Mafdtih al-asrar, and his Kitab al-Musara a in which he refutes Avicenna's metaphysics on...