The Master and the Disciple

An Early Islamic Spiritual Dialogue

Arabic Edition and English translation

of
Ja™far b. Man˚ïr al-Yaman’s

Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm

by
James W. Morris

I.B.Tauris Publishers
london • new york
in association with
The Institute of Ismaili Studies
london
 Introduction

i. general presentation
Like all literary classics, the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm (The Book
of the Master and the Disciple) is an old, yet timeless story: the ini-
tial story of one seeker’s quest for and gradual realisation of the
‘truth’—the spiritual knowledge and eternal life of the true ‘knowers,’
the ‘friends of God’—and the ongoing story of their necessary re-
turn to this world in order to fulfil their responsibility to transmit
that divine ‘trust’ and discovery to their fellow human beings, to
their family and the other members of their wider community, in
the ways that are appropriate to each situation.1 Like its models
and constant source of inspiration in the Qur¢an and hadith, this
story is only a sort of map—a guide and reminder—that readers
must follow and interpret in their own way, in the light of their own
experience and insight. Since the universal meaning and interest of
this tale, and its remarkable artistic qualities, are so readily appar-
ent, we shall say only a few words in this opening section concerning
its main themes and structure. For this work, despite its age and
unfamiliar origins, should be immediately accessible to most read-
ers without any further introduction.
However, it is also true that the original Arabic text of the Kitåb
al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm—which has unfortunately remained hidden
from the wider Arabic and Islamic world for many centuries—is a
2 The Master and the Disciple

work of substantial historical importance with regard to (a) the de-

velopment of Arabic literature (especially in its unique use of the
dramatic dialogue form); (b) the still largely unexplored relations
between Sufi themes and institutions and corresponding dimensions
of earlier Shi™i tradition; (c) our general understanding of the early
stages of Ismaili Shi™ism and the Fatimid da™wa, which are still too
often the subject of many highly inaccurate myths and stereotypes;
and (d) the still relatively unstudied religious history of the Musta™lí
branch of Ismailism from the fall of the Fatimid state down to the
present day. These and other historical aspects of the work are dis-
cussed in greater detail in section ii of this Introduction. In addition,
since the author of this book, Ja™far b. Man˚ïr al-Yaman (late 3rd-
early 4th century ah), is largely unknown to any but a handful of
scholarly specialists, we have outlined in section iii what little is
known of his life and main surviving writings, virtually all of which
are still unpublished. section iv examines the significance for the
reader of the author’s complex usage of Qur¢anic passages and allu-
sions throughout this text. Finally, section v of the Introduction
discusses the manuscripts of the Arabic text and the methods and
format followed in this critical edition, including its notes and
indexes.
The Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm is, to begin with, the dramatic
presentation of a series of personal encounters between various seek-
ers of the spiritual truth and other individuals who act in some way
as their spiritual guide or ‘father.’ Thus we are presented not only
with the relationship between the ‘Master’ or ‘Knower’ (™ålim) and
his disciple or ‘young man’ (ghulåm) mentioned in the title, but also
with those between the overall narrator and his disciples (in the open-
ing and concluding paragraphs); between the Knower and his own
spiritual master; between the young man Íåli˙ and the ‘highest
master’ (al-shaykh al-akbar), at the centre and climax of the book;
between Íåli˙ and his own physical father; between the religious
dignitary Abï Målik and the other notables of his city; and finally
the long disputation between Íåli˙ and Abï Målik at the end. Now
each of these archetypal spiritual encounters—which together un-
derline the full variety of human capacities and predispositions in
this domain, and the correspondingly wide range of appropriate
 Introduction 3

methods of spiritual pedagogy and guidance—can be viewed from

either side of those relationships. Or, as the narrator puts it at the
very beginning of the work (paragraph [3]), this book is about both
the proper behaviour of those who are seeking the truth (ådåb al-
†alíbín) and the ‘ways of proceeding’—through appropriate action,
teaching and belief—of ‘the righteous,’ of those who are spiritually
receptive, prepared and suited for those ways (madhåhib al-˚åli˙ín).
So if the dramatic focus and unity of the work flows initially
from the reader’s natural interest in the fate of the sympathetic
young hero (the aptly named ‘Íåli˙’), the ongoing fascination and
lasting interest of this book also derive from its deeper insight into
the real possibilities and conditions of spiritual growth and guid-
ance, which are tellingly revealed in the contrasting attitudes and
approaches of the various spiritual teachers in different contexts of
study and initiation. At this more profound level of intention, the
Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm continues to offer new insights at each
reading, like a mirror reflecting each reader’s own experience and
personal situation—just as is the case with those scriptures that are
the author’s own constant reference and point of departure.
Of course, this analogy to the understanding of revelation is any-
thing but accidental here, since the structure and composition of
this text as a whole is governed at each stage by the fundamental
distinction between the three dimensions of the ‘outward,’ ‘inner’
and ‘innermost spiritual’ aspects of reality (úåhir, bå†in and bå†in
al-bå†in: see especially paragraphs [144]–[169]). However, here those
categories are not simply applied to the interpretation of the Qur¢an
and the sharí™a, but in fact correspond more fundamentally both to
the basic metaphysical structures of all reality (dunyå, åkhira, etc.)
and to the corresponding human spiritual types and forms of aware-
ness—that is, to the essential spiritual stages of the ‘divine knower,’
the ‘seeker of (spiritual) knowledge,’ and the wayward masses men-
tioned in the famous saying of ™Alí b. Abí ®ålib that is alluded to in
several key passages.2 And equally important, in still another per-
spective, are the similar correspondences of those three metaphysical
categories with the earthly and spiritual hierarchies of Ismaili reli-
gious guidance, the ˙udïd al-dín.3
4 The Master and the Disciple

Now it is the possibility of movement between these levels, the

natural impetus to reach a higher degree of spiritual understand-
ing, that forms the dynamic and dramatic aspect of this work, indeed
its very raison d’être, while at the same time determining the ex-
traordinary suitability of the dialogue form. For the essential
characteristic of the spiritual reality (al-˙aqq) or ‘true religion’ (dín
Allåh, dín al-˙aqq, etc.), the essential spiritual level of the bå†in al-
bå†in, is that it cannot be fully expressed, or perceived, either as
mere formal, subjective belief (the úåhir) or as the symbols that rep-
resent the esoteric hierarchy of the bå†in. Therefore it cannot
ultimately be ‘taught’ in any of the ways which might be appropri-
ate to those two lower levels; it can only be lived. Hence the bridge to
each higher level of spiritual insight can only be crossed by means of
the appropriate action and experience, the difficult—and necessar-
ily unique and individual—ongoing task of inner spiritual effort
and realisation. The master can at best only guide and encourage
that delicate and indispensable process of spiritual alchemy.
Thus this central theme of the essential interplay between spir-
itual knowing and right action (™ilm and ™amal)—and of their
ever-present common ground in divine grace (al-minna)—constantly
underlies the dramatic development of this work. And if every reader
must ultimately supply the actual correlates of those terms from
their own experience, still the author has so artfully presented the
more universal roots of that search in the recurrent painful doubt,
constriction and neediness of the unenlightened soul—through the
exemplary figures of both the young ‘disciple’ Íåli˙ and the learned
theologian Abï Målik—that almost anyone can identify with at least
the initial stages of their quest.
This ultimate spiritual finality of the bå†in al-bå†in likewise openly
determines the treatment of the historical and institutional means
or ‘vehicles’ for its realisation in this story—most notably the or-
ganisation of the early (pre-Fatimid) Ismaili da™wa and its particular
structures and teachings within the larger context of Islamic thought
and history. Here (unlike many of the author’s later, more specifi-
cally Ismaili writings) the decisive role of those particular historical
institutions and intentions, although constantly assumed, is largely
implicit at first, so that each reader—like Abï Målik and his followers
 Introduction 5

at the end—is repeatedly challenged to put the central characters’

far-reaching claims to the critical test of personal experience and
commitment. But the ultimate practical criterion—in this book, at
least—clearly remains the actual effectiveness of this or any other
path in realising those universal spiritual aims that are so artfully
evoked and presented here. In this respect, modern readers of the
Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm can hardly avoid noticing the recurrent
homologies and similarities, whether at the experiential level of spir-
itual realisation or in the more formal domain of key religious ideas
and structures, between this Ismaili text and certain more familiar
features of later Sufism. Whatever the possible historical connec-
tions between these two vast Islamic movements (see section ii.b
below), such striking resemblances do lead the attentive reader back
toward their common spiritual source and inspiration in the Qur¢an
and hadith.

ii. the historical significance of the

kitåb al-™ålim wa’l-ghulåm
As already mentioned, the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm, quite apart
from its intrinsic literary and philosophic merits, should also be of
considerable historical interest to scholars and students of (a) the
development of Arabic prose literature; (b) the historical relations
of Sufism and esoteric Shi™ism; and (c) early Shi™i movements and
the spread of the Ismaili-Fatimid da™wa. The special historical im-
portance of this work has not yet been adequately reflected in writing
on those fields, due to its long period of virtual inaccessibility out-
side the Musta™lí-®ayyibí tradition of Ismailism. The fact that modern
researchers now do have access to this text and to many other re-
lated writings also serves to underline our relative lack of accessible
in-depth studies of (d) the religious and philosophic history of the
post-Fatimid Musta™lí branch of Ismailism, both in Yemen and later
in India.
6 The Master and the Disciple

A. The Literary Form of the Text4

To the best of our knowledge, the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm is by
far the most accomplished example of the full-scale narrated5 dra-
matic dialogue form in Arabic literature—an example all the more
remarkable in that it seems to have been developed in relative au-
tonomy, on the basis of the Arabic sources discussed below, without
any direct influence, for example, from the early dialogues of Plato
(even if one finds remarkable literary and philosophic parallels, al-
most surely unknown to our author, in the similar narrative
frameworks of the Platonic dialogues). Ja™far b. Man˚ïr al-Yaman’s
re-creation of that literary form is especially noteworthy for his strik-
ingly appropriate use of dramatic realism and irony (especially in
his characters’ widely contrasting development of Qur¢anic and theo-
logical allusions)—characteristics which are likewise of central
importance in the Socratic dialogues, but which were seldom effec-
tively realised by Plato’s later philosophic imitators. The author’s
realistic, moving portrayal of certain spiritual (and social) ‘types’—
most notably in the more fully developed characters such as the
young disciple Íåli˙ and the learned theologian Abï Målik—has
already been noted. But even more important in conveying his es-
sential message is the repeated ironic contrast (sometimes not without
a touch of humour) between the different meanings of the same
key religious terms (e.g., the Mu™tazilí slogan of divine ‘unity and
justice’ (™adl wa taw˙íd) in the concluding theological discussion
with Abï Målik) as they are perceived by characters with radically
differing degrees of spiritual understanding.
The same remarkably developed stylistic characteristics also serve
to bring out—again as in real life (or as with Socrates)—the essen-
tially dialectical or rhetorical nature of many of the discussions, in
which the ‘guiding’ figure tentatively adopts his interlocutor’s own
(false or inadequate) premises and then exaggerates or twists them
to make a philosophically significant (and personally appropriate)
point.6 The artful marriage of all these distinctive features of the
dramatic dialogue form provides repeatedly highlighted reminders
that each seeker’s understanding of spiritual meanings—the saving
‘knowledge’ in question throughout this work—is, above all, a
 Introduction 7

function of individual states of awareness and particular contexts

and predispositions, of inner realities that can never be adequately
conveyed on the uni-dimensional plane of abstract concepts, rote
transmission and rhetorical disputation corresponding to the popu-
larly accepted ‘knowledge’ of the formally ‘learned’ (the ™ulamå¢) in
this or any other tradition.
Now the immediate historical antecedents for Ja™far b. Man˚ïr’s
extraordinary development of this particular literary form, so far as
we can tell, are to be found primarily in three types of Arabic reli-
gious literature whose direct traces can be seen—artfully
transformed—throughout the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm, as well
as the author’s other writings.7 The most obvious of these influ-
ences is of course the example of certain particularly relevant
emblematic spiritual narratives within the Qur¢an (e.g. Moses and
the mysterious divine ‘servant,’ later known as al-Khå{ir, in the Sura
of the Cave; or Joseph and his brothers), along with the amplifica-
tion and development of many shorter Qur¢anic stories or allusions
in the later literatures of textual commentary (tafsír) and the ‘tales
of the prophets’ (qi˚a˚ al-anbiyå¢)—a vast literature which, especially
in its traditional Shi™i expressions, is a major subject of many of
Ja™far b. Man˚ïr’s later theological works. The second area is the
immense literature of hadith—in Ja™far’s case, both from the Prophet
and from the early Shi™i imams—which often does contain famous
anecdotes perfectly illustrating the kind of dramatic spiritual en-
counters and conversations developed at length in the Kitåb al-™Ålim
wa’l-ghulåm, although usually in the hadith on a much shorter and
less elaborate scale.
The third obvious form of literary or rhetorical influence—openly
mirrored here in the long concluding debate between Íåli˙ and the
Mu™tazilí theologian Abï Målik—is the widespread practice in the
author’s time of religious and theological disputations (munåúaråt),
such as the famous discussions with the physician Abï Bakr al-Råzí
described by Ja™far b. Man˚ïr’s near-contemporary, the Persian Is-
maili thinker and missionary Abï Óåtim al-Råzí, in his Kitåb A™låm
al-nubuwwa.8 In particular, we only recently have had access, in a
well-annotated English translation, to a long ‘Book of Disputations’
(Kitåb al-Munåúaråt) in this genre, which is of extraordinary
8 The Master and the Disciple

historical interest since its author is a slightly older Tunisian Shi™i

scholar (Ibn al-Haytham) whose adult life was largely spent working
for the early Fatimid court and whose writing brilliantly depicts the
actual methods and approaches of learned Ismaili teachers and mis-
sionaries in the earlier period of ‘concealment’ (satr) of the imams
immediately prior to, and at the very beginning of, the Fatimid
caliphate in North Africa, perhaps only a few years after the compo-
sition of the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm.9 However, it is noteworthy
that almost all our direct literary ‘imitations’ of such debates, in-
cluding the elaborate Ismaili versions of al-Råzí and Ibn
al-Haytham—perhaps partly because they were normally written
down by only one of the two debating parties—tend to be remark-
ably dry, stilted and artificial (as in most later Western philosophic
imitations of Plato’s dramatic dialogue form). In fact, it is probably
the famous humorous parodies of such scholarly debates in books
such as al-Óarírí’s Maqåmåt that come closest to catching the dra-
matic vivacity, humour and vigour of Ja™far b. Man˚ïr’s own writing
at its best.
Finally, a fourth possible, if more hypothetical, literary influence
on Ja™far’s writing would be the complex genre of edifying Arabic
tales and fables (often adapted from earlier Hellenistic, Christian
and Indian sources) that is exemplified by such diverse works as the
famous stories of Kalíla wa Dimna, the fascinating Kitåb Bilawhar
wa Budhåsf, or the famous political animal parables of the Ikhwån
al-Íafå¢.10
However, even the most cursory comparison of the Kitåb al-™Ålim
wa’l-ghulåm with any of these earlier Arabic literary genres only
serves to emphasise the extraordinary originality and literary power
by which its author so creatively and subtly adapted those materials
to the expression of his chosen subject.11 Those distinctive literary
characteristics are especially evident, to begin with, in his constant
maintenance of the inner thematic coherence and philosophic unity
of the work, despite its length, shifting settings and the consider-
able diversity of its cast of characters. Even more striking is his
remarkable ability to marry dramatic realism with the intellectual
demands of his subject, so as to depict in a credible manner the
growth, ongoing change and sudden shifts of perspective and
 Introduction 9

awareness which actually are such essential features of inner spir-

itual life and development. Those traits are perhaps most beautifully
illustrated in the way in which the author only gradually reveals the
inner reality of spiritual ignorance underlying the extensive concep-
tual and traditional knowledge and formal beliefs of the young
disciple at the beginning of the work, and of the learned Abï Målik
at the end. Most obviously, all of these outstanding literary charac-
teristics are equally distant both from the episodic, often purely
allegorical approaches of earlier (and later) fables and edifying tales,
and from the one-dimensional, purely conceptual rhetorical posi-
tions of the disputation form in any of the literary examples that
have come down to us. In comparison with those possible Arabic
‘sources,’ one can only marvel at the highly accomplished develop-
ment of this distinctive literary genre of the dramatic dialogue in
the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm.

B. Sufism and Esoteric Shi™ism

The apparent resemblances between certain approaches in this work
and many familiar aspects of later forms of Sufism, whether on the
planes of religious ideas, individual spiritual realisation or socio-
institutional arrangements, are so frequent that their full analysis
would require a book in itself. However, where religious ideas and
spiritual realities are concerned, it would be very difficult to
demonstrate that those formal similarities reflect hypothetical
historical ‘influences’ (in either direction), since such similarities
obviously owe a great deal to the common sources and spiritual
inspiration of both Sufism and esoteric Shi™ism in the teachings of
the Qur¢an and hadith,12 on the one hand, and in certain universal
realities of human nature and experience (especially the essential
connections between spiritual understanding (™ilm) and practical
experience on the other. In the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm, of course,
this latter dimension of universality is dramatically underlined by
the intentional, carefully constructed aura of uncertainty concern-
ing the time and place of the story and the mundane details of its
characters’ lives. And these same universal themes—especially the
emphasis on the perennial role of the spiritual hierarchy (the asbåb),
10 The Master and the Disciple

and of the constant presence of the ‘friends of God’ (the Qur¢anic

awliyå¢ Allåh) as humanity’s spiritual guides—are developed in pro-
fuse detail, with reference to all the central figures and symbols of
earlier Islamic religious tradition, throughout the author’s other sur-
viving writings.
Here, however, we can only mention two of the more historically
significant points of convergence between the thought of the Kitåb
al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm and later Sufi conceptions in Islam. The first
of these is that the highest degree of true spiritual knowledge and
insight characterising the ‘friends of God’ is always represented as
something to which each properly qualified disciple can aspire and
eventually attain, given the appropriate inner discipline, spiritual
intention and the equally essential elements of divine grace and sup-
port (tawfíq, minna, etc.). Although this fundamental possibility
clearly underlies the aims and structure of our text as a whole, as
the ultimate goal of the spiritual path it is brought out most openly
in paragraphs [159]–[169], where the Knower also pointedly, albeit
discreetly, alludes to the possibility that the disciple’s own inner
imam or guide (‘your imam,’ the ˙abl Allåh)—like the realities of
the spiritual hierarchy and the spiritual world (bå†in al-bå†in) more
generally—may be other than the visible imam and his representatives
in this world.
The second striking point of ‘parallelism’ here is the
spiritualisation and concrete ‘internalisation’ of earlier Islamic theo-
logical discussions (especially in Mu™tazilí kalåm) concerning the
divine names and attributes: i.e., their transformation from the rela-
tively abstract, conceptual context of scholastic theology into a
comprehensive metaphysical expression of the divine presence as
mirrored and manifested—and realised to greatly varying degrees—
in the very human presence and indispensable guiding example of
the ‘friends of God’ (the awliyå¢). That essential metaphysical ‘per-
sonalisation’ of kalåm conceptions is already quite evident here both
in the initiatic ‘naming’ episode (paragraphs [268]–[288]) and es-
pecially throughout the longer discussions with the Mu™tazilí Abï
Målik concerning the true—or at least, the humanly knowable—
reality of God’s ‘unity and justice.’13 In these passages in particular,
that traditional theological vocabulary, in this newly ‘Platonised’
 Introduction 11

perspective, already provides a coherent conceptual framework for

expressing the inner relations of those fundamental metaphysical
categories and dimensions of reality—the úåhir, bå†in and bå†in al-
bå†in—whose importance was already mentioned above.
Needless to say, the early Ismaili da™wa (and Shi™i thought more
generally) also had its own historical specificities which are amply
illustrated throughout this dialogue, features which have now been
studied in detail by several generations of political and intellectual
historians.14 No doubt the most obvious and most practically im-
portant of those distinctive features is Ja™far b. Man˚ïr’s
thoroughgoing insistence—particularly in the impassioned conclud-
ing paragraphs of Íåli˙’s discussion with Abï Målik—on the wider,
universal political role of the Ismaili imamate and the da™wa struc-
ture as guides, not just for a relatively small spiritual elite, but
potentially for the Islamic community (and indeed even humankind)
as a whole. And this broader politico-religious perspective and ambi-
tion, of course, reflects the author’s (and his family’s) own openly
Ismaili historical commitments, an engagement that is expressed
even more plainly in all that we know of his family background, his
life and works, as explained in the biographical discussions below.
However, given the distinctively spiritual justification and meta-
physical framework underlying that political commitment as it is
explained in the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm, it is certainly easy to
see how the activity and teachings of the type of da™wa (preaching
and teaching) so vividly portrayed in this work—to the degree that
Ja™far b. Man˚ïr’s idealised image does reflect actual practices—
could easily have been quite influential in helping to convey similar
spiritual conceptions and related understandings of Islam into those
many historical settings where the more purely political aspirations
of the Fatimids eventually became ineffective, discredited in public
opinion (by the ensuing centuries of ‘cold war’ and ‘propaganda’
under first the Abbasids and then their Seljuq successors), or were
simply no longer a viable option.15 In other words, since we know
that the Ismaili and subsequent Fatimid teachers like those dramati-
cally depicted here were historically active throughout the Islamic
world for several centuries, Ja™far’s work suggests important ways in
which their religious teachings could well have had more lasting and
12 The Master and the Disciple

far-reachingly creative influences in domains which extended far

beyond the more visible, public historical signs of Shi™i ideological
adherence and overt political success.16

C. Early Ismailism and the Pre-Fatimid Da™wa

The past century has seen a remarkable profusion of scholarly stud-
ies of the formative phase of Ismaili Shi™ism in its wider historical
contexts, both during the earliest period of ‘concealment’ (satr) and
during the initial North African period of the Fatimid dynasty, thanks
to pioneering research by Ivanow, Hamdani, Strothman, Corbin,
Stern and others, and then to more recent detailed studies by Nagel,
Halm, Madelung and other researchers cited in our Bibliography.
The broad features of that vast and lastingly influential historical
movement developed by those scholars have been carefully summa-
rised in the recent, widely accessible surveys of Ismaili history by
Farhad Daftary, and are therefore sufficiently familiar to interested
students of Islamic history today so that there is no need to repeat
them here.
However, those approaching the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm with-
out any specialised background in early Ismailism and its wider
context in Islamic history of the 3rd-4th/9th-10th centuries may
well be surprised to discover that they have acquired indirectly some
very vivid and useful impressions of that long-ago historical context
from a most unexpected source. If the ‘general readers’ of Islamic
history in this period may at most be numbered in the thousands,
millions of people world-wide have read some of the Dune novels of
Frank Herbert (or seen the film based on the first volume of that
series) without ever realising that they were actually encountering a
powerful, imaginative recreation in a ‘science-fiction’ setting of this
formative period of Ismaili and Islamic history. For the Dune stories
were apparently based loosely on Ibn Khaldïn’s famous History, a
historical account which, interestingly enough, largely derives its
presentation of this period ultimately from Ja™far b. Man˚ïr’s own
dramatic history of his father’s key role in the early Ismaili da™wa
(the Sírat Ibn Óawshab discussed in the biographical section be-
low). That dramatic story, most likely written down during the same
 Introduction 13

early Yemeni period of Ja™far’s life as the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm,

was eventually adapted into al-Qå{í al-Nu™mån’s triumphalist ac-
count of the early Fatimids, Iftitå˙ al-da™wa, which went on to become
the primary historical source, for the early Ismailis and Fatimid dy-
nasty, used by Ibn Khaldïn and most other later Muslim historians
of this troubled period.
The gradual collapse of the ruling authority of the vast Abbasid
empire and the simultaneous resurgence, at all its fringes,17 of a
multitude of more localised political and cultural traditions, often
expressed in the form of a host of diverse and competing ‘hetero-
dox’ and semi-‘messianic’ popular (and more elite) religious
movements, are all brilliantly conveyed in those novels, along with
the pervasive climate of repression, suspicion and intermittent
persecution (often carried out by local commanders and semi-inde-
pendent warlords) where the central power was still able to exert
some control. All these essential historical elements of the context
of the early Ismaili movement are memorably re-created in ways
that remain broadly true to the highly unsettled religious and politi-
cal currents of Ja™far b. Man˚ïr’s own time.
The term ‘messianic’ here, in the Islamic context, refers to the
generalised public expectations—by no means restricted to Shi™i
settings—for a mahdí or ‘rightly-guided one’ from the family of the
Prophet, the promised eschatological saviour-figure who would ap-
pear to re-establish justice and order, and who was expected to either
purify or transcend the preceding religious revelation. Indeed the
honorific title given by later Ismailis to Ja™far b. Man˚ïr’s own father,
‘Man˚ïr al-Yaman’ (the ‘divinely-aided’ conqueror of that region),
itself reflects the vocabulary of Islamic eschatology referring to that
redeeming figure. And as with messianic movements more gener-
ally, the actual balance of eschatology, religious fervour and more
mundane local political, social and cultural discontentment varied
greatly from one individual or situation to another, even within what
were nominally the same ‘sectarian’ movements.
Still another broad historical parallel to the nascent Ismaili Shi™ism
of Ja™far’s and his father’s day, from more familiar recent times, is
the immense scope of ‘socialist’ movements and currents of ideas
from the time of the French Revolution down to the present. While
14 The Master and the Disciple

much of the political, social and cultural history of the past two
centuries—worldwide, and certainly from Europe to China—could
be written in terms of that vague, but popularly compelling complex
of ideas, ideals and related social and political movements, most
people are well aware of the incredible diversity and constantly shift-
ing spectrum of motivations, meanings, actual contexts and
‘movements’ which would have to be included under any such ru-
bric—and of the extraordinary ways the enemies and opponents of
this or that particular ‘socialist’ (or ‘communist’) idea, teaching or
political movement constantly imagined and (mis-) represented, both
unconsciously and quite intentionally, all sorts of what appear in
retrospect as often fantastic images of the particular ideas and move-
ments in questions. It is extremely helpful, if not indispensable, to
keep that broad set of parallels in mind when approaching any of
the literatures—whether the vast spectrum of medieval Islamic
polemics, or the increasingly well-grounded researches and specula-
tions of modern historians—relating to the complex of early Shi™i
movements and ideas of which Ja™far b. Man˚ïr and his writings
were one small, but influential part.
Readers of this book who are already familiar with some of that
literature concerning the history of early Ismailism and the Fatimid
da™wa will almost certainly be struck by the distance between the
widespread popular images of those movements and the distinctive
conceptions and ideas portrayed in the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm.
This is not the place to detail all the origins of those popular images
and misconceptions about the Ismailis, whether in the long-ago Ab-
basid and Seljuq polemics against the Qarma†ís (Qaråmi†a) and
Fatimids (and later the Nizårís of Alamït), or in the often exclusive
concentration of modern historians on those outwardly more ‘vis-
ible’ and highly dramatic political episodes. However, this work, along
with the other writings of Ja™far b. Man˚ïr discussed in the follow-
ing section, does point to a much more nuanced and diverse picture
of the origins and nature of early Ismailism,18 while raising many as
yet unanswered questions of historical interpretation that deserve
further detailed study by specialists in this field. One way of sug-
gesting some of those alternative historical perspectives is to look at
the problems posed by the contrast between the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-
 Introduction 15

ghulåm (with the ideas and conceptions it represents) and certain

widespread myths or stereotyped conceptions concerning those in-
fluential historical movements, prejudices which in many cases extend
to the treatment of Ismailism and Shi™ism much more generally.
To begin with, readers of modern secondary accounts (not to
mention their popular and journalistic summaries) are most often
left with the impression that the ‘Ismaili movement,’ whether in its
early or later stages of development, was somehow monolithic and
uniform with regard both to its socio-political structures and aims
and its intellectual expressions in religious or philosophic thought.
But if such an assumption is obviously absurd when measured against
the full range of historical forms and expressions associated with
‘Ismailism’ throughout longer periods of Islamic history, it is almost
equally unfounded even with regard to what we know of single time
periods—such as the era just prior to the political establishment of
the Fatimids, which is the apparent context of the Kitåb al-™Ålim
wa’l-ghulåm.19 In order to forestall any possible misunderstanding,
it is important to stress that our aim here is certainly not to replace
one myth by another: it is far from clear, for example, to what ex-
tent the ideas and conceptions represented in this dialogue (or in
many other roughly contemporary Ismaili-inspired texts, such as some
of the influential Raså¢il of the Ikhwån al-Íafå¢) actually corre-
sponded to wider concrete historical realities, or to what extent they
primarily express their authors’ own idealised personal conceptions
and aspirations. In either case the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm does
present a rather different and internally coherent paradigm for un-
derstanding our very fragmentary historical evidence about the aims
and structure of the early Ismaili da™wa, in at least the four follow-
ing areas.
The first of these common stereotypes is the notion that the early
Ismaili da™wa, prior to the establishment of the first Fatimids, was
an exclusively political—or even ‘revolutionary’—movement dedi-
cated above all to the establishment of a particular form of Shi™i
government (as a replacement for the Abbasid caliphate), and from
its beginning under some all-encompassing central control and guid-
ance. (A basic corollary of this political conception, the reduction of
Ismaili and Shi™i thought of that period to some sort of political
16 The Master and the Disciple

ideology or even ‘propaganda,’ is dealt with in the following sec-

tion.) Now, given the well-known examples of dozens of preceding
political da™wa movements and organisations and their rebellions
(including a multitude of Shi™i and Khårijí rebels and would-be
Mahdís) from early Umayyad times onward, combined with the even-
tual historical establishment of the centralised Fatimid dynasty, it is
certainly easy to understand why most subsequent historians—
whether in the medieval Muslim world or more recently in the
West—have naturally tended to interpret the broader ‘Ismaili move-
ment’ in this familiar political perspective. However, even a cursory
reading of the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm—which is supported in
this respect by a considerable body of historical and literary evi-
dence from roughly the same period—clearly suggests that the ‘actors’
in this particular movement at all levels were motivated by a far
more diverse range of conceptions and aspirations,20 most of which
are in fact carefully illustrated within this book (and can also be
found in comparable religio-political movements throughout human
history).21
What is so noteworthy about the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm is
that this wider range of motives and aspirations is here carefully
placed within a framework that is indeed potentially ‘political,’ but
in this case strictly governed by an essentially spiritual aim and in-
tention. The da™wa, in Ja™far’s conception, is aimed above all at
assuring both the wider awareness of human beings’ true spiritual
end (the ™ilm, or spiritual knowledge, of its main protagonists) and
the accessibility of the appropriate means (the corresponding ™amal)
for realising those potentialities, in the ways that are possible for
each individual. The claim to religiously legitimate political power
and authority, from this perspective, is ultimately justified only as a
means or instrument to that end of spiritual awakening and devel-
opment—a goal itself necessarily limited, in its fullest expression,
to a relatively small elite22 —and everything else is subordinate to
the furthering of that spiritual search, which can (and will) clearly
continue under almost any conceivable political circumstances, given
its universal human roots. Whatever the ‘truth’ or wider appeal of
Ja™far b. Man˚ïr’s portrayal and self-conception of the early Ismaili
da™wa, it is no doubt this essentially spiritual and religious intention
 Introduction 17

and understanding portrayed here, and not any more limited politi-
cal or historical aims, that explain the continued use and ongoing
interest of this Ismaili text (and others like it) for many centuries in
other parts of the Muslim world (see section ii.d immediately below).
Finally, whatever the wider usefulness of the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-
ghulåm as a historical portrait of early Ismailism, it does strongly
point out the considerable limits of any central political (or ideo-
logical) ‘control’ at this period. Even more tellingly, the range of
pedagogical procedures illustrated here—for example, the careful
instructions given to Íåli˙ to speak appropriately and cautiously
when he returns to his father and city (at [298]–[304] and [555]),
or the ambivalent position of the bå†in of ideology and temporal
hierarchy in relation to spiritual truth and realities (the bå†in al-
bå†in)—do actually correspond to the wide range of Ismaili thought
and ‘doctrines’ to be found in different settings at this and later
periods.23
In fact, what this work does very clearly bring out is how the
allegiance of different individuals to the Ismaili imam (or his ˙ujja)
and the religious hierarchy of the da™wa, beyond the mere formal
fact of their initial oath of fidelity (bay™a), was characteristically
motivated—and no doubt manifested—in a number of different
ways: e.g., political support (again, for a wide variety of motives);
economic assistance and co-operation (payment and use of the khums
due to the imams); loyalty to certain more specifically social, spir-
itual or philosophic conceptions of the role of the imamate, and so
on. Most of these possibilities of motivation are at least suggested in
the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm (which stresses their hierarchical in-
tegration within a broader spiritual framework), and they can all be
historically illustrated elsewhere already at the early stages of Is-
mailism, even before the establishment of the Fatimid dynasty. And
finally, the complexity of this range of motivations and
understandings helps explain how that allegiance, in each of these
possible forms, could—and often actually did—fairly easily come to
an end whenever a particular imam (or his representatives) failed to
realise one or more of those very different sets of expectations.24
Another frequent misconception concerning Ismaili Shi™ism,
whether at this early stage or in most later periods, is that the many
18 The Master and the Disciple

forms of writing and thought produced by its followers were all cen-
tred around the claims for a single distinctive and authoritative
‘teaching’ or ‘doctrine’—usually understood (implicitly or explic-
itly) as a sort of political ideology on the plane of formal belief.25
Once again, there is no doubt that this was one of the potential
functions of Ismaili thought and writing (as of Shi™i thought more
generally) in this and many other periods. But any exclusive focus
on this aspect of ‘political theology’ and ‘ideology’—an element which
is inevitably present in Islamic writing of any period—inevitably
tends to obscure the immensely wider set of common Qur¢anic and
Islamic conceptions and problems dealt with in virtually every known
Ismaili writing,26 while at the same time glossing over the often
equally significant basic differences of outlook, assumptions and
ultimate intentions separating the many types and representatives
of ‘Ismaili literature’ even within this and other periods.27
The Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm—again whether or not it is fully
representative of the socio-historical realities of the Ismaili da™wa in
the pre-Fatimid period—is especially revealing in this regard because
of its clear and consistently repeated distinction between what it
terms the bå†in (corresponding, in the religious realm, to a rela-
tively familiar body of Shi™i ‘ideological’ interpretations of Qur¢anic
symbolism in terms of cosmology, the religious hierarchy, etc.)28
and the underlying, universal spiritual reality it calls the bå†in al-
bå†in, which can only be fully realised through the necessary rare
combination of individual predisposition, ongoing spiritual disci-
pline and divine grace, under the proper guidance of a true master.
Needless to say, the bå†in (in this specially limited sense) looks en-
tirely different when it is viewed or unthinkingly accepted by itself
and when it is perceived as fully illuminated by the deeper spiritual
meanings and intentions revealed to the true ‘knower’ who has actu-
ally realised those common, deeper spiritual realities which it is meant
to convey.
In fact, the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm as a whole is entirely de-
voted to bringing out the manifold corresponding functions of each
of those levels of thought and reality: it is no accident if the spiritu-
ally apt ‘young man’ Íåli˙ quickly leaves behind the bå†in in his first
long discussion with his guide—while the theologian Abï Målik and
 Introduction 19

his followers have not even arrived there at the end. For the meta-
physical and epistemological schema outlined (and assumed) here
can be readily applied as well to most of the distinctive themes to be
found in any account of Ismaili ‘doctrines.’ To take a particularly
well-known example, the diverse ‘cycles’ of prophets, messengers,
imams etc., discussed in many slightly later Ismaili works can be
understood (a) on the level of historical and traditional—or of cos-
mological—erudition (i.e., their ‘úåhir’); (b) as one element of an
official ‘political theology’ or ‘ideology,’ either as justifying a par-
ticular dynastic claim or as pointing to a historical project and ideal
yet to be realised (i.e., their bå†in, as that term is used here); or (c)
as purely symbolic allusions to constantly present grades or types of
spiritual realisation and understanding (the bå†in al-bå†in). The ‘real’
meaning of such symbols, as Ja™far indicates, necessarily depends on
the situation and intentions of each author and reader (or guide
and disciple) alike,29 but it certainly cannot be reduced to, nor ex-
hausted by, a single ‘exoteric’ plane of socio-political interpretation.
A third, closely related common historical misconception con-
cerning early (and even later) Ismailism is that it arose from the
original and intentional propagation, in the Islamic context, of a
particular philosophic or ‘gnostic’ point of view. Often this histori-
cal image—which has its scholarly basis in a justifiable interest in
the important philosophic writings of such Ismaili thinkers as
Mu˙ammad b. al-Nasafí, Abï Óåtim al-Råzí, Abï Yå™qïb al-Sijiståní,
al-Mu¢ayyad fi’l-Dín al-Shíråzí, Óamíd al-Dín al-Kirmåní and Nå˚ir-i
Khusraw,30 not to mention the more complicated case of the Ikhwån
al-Íaf増is closely allied with the more widespread popular assump-
tion, deeply rooted in centuries of hostile propaganda, that the
Ismailis represented some sort of extraneous, even hostile ‘innova-
tion’ (bid™a) with regard to the main currents of Islamic thought
and history.
Without denying the importance of those (almost exclusively
Persian) Ismaili thinkers in their own right and while fully acknowl-
edging the distinctiveness of the intellectual tradition they represent,
even a cursory comparison of their works with the Kitåb al-™Ålim
wa’l-ghulåm or any of Ja™far b. Man˚ïr’s other works will immedi-
ately bring out the very different sources of his thought and writing
20 The Master and the Disciple

in a profound reflection on (and wide-ranging acquaintance with)

the Qur¢an and hadith, especially as conveyed by an elaborate and
long-standing body of Shi™i tradition.31 The profoundly Arab and
thoroughly Islamic outlook and presuppositions reflected in his use
of those materials, as well as in the cultural assumptions of the main
characters in this work, are likewise exemplified throughout the writ-
ings of his famous younger contemporary, the Qå{í al-Nu™mån. This
should certainly not be taken to suggest that the works of these two
Arab authors are either more ‘authentically’ Ismaili or Islamic than
those of the famous Iranian philosophers just mentioned. What is
more important, however, from a strictly historical point of view, is
the way the undeniable contrast between the writings of these two
groups of near-contemporary Ismaili authors—and the wider intel-
lectual traditions and contrasting cultural milieus they clearly
represent32 —itself helps point out the dangers and limits of those
stereotypes discussed in the preceding sections.
A fourth common misconception about early Ismailism—a preju-
dice that encompasses all the three preceding points and is at once
both the least founded in actual Ismaili literature and the most clearly
rooted in hostile propaganda—is that it preached some sort of vague
‘antinomianism’ (ibå˙a) or at least an eventual transcending of the
Islamic revelation (sharí™a), whether generally and universally (e.g.,
in an eventual messianic or eschatological context) or for a special
initiatic elite. But if there are several well-known cases, emphasised
precisely by common Shi™i traditions (shared with the Twelvers and
others), of such messianic ‘excesses’ (ghulåt) even among the fol-
lowers of some of the earliest imams, nothing of the sort is at all
visible in the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm, which clearly goes to the
greatest possible lengths, throughout all the encounters between the
Knower and his disciple, to emphasise the essential inner interde-
pendence of all three levels of reality, but more especially of the
úåhir and bå†in.33 In fact, a thorough critique of this common temp-
tation of a sort of ‘spiritual antinomianism’—i.e., of denigrating
the routine practice of the commonly accepted religious obligations
in favour of a more purely ‘spiritual’ conception of Islam or a chiliastic
‘revolutionary’ transformation of the human condition—is one of
the central themes of this work as a whole, since the Knower
 Introduction 21

repeatedly stresses the key role of the prescribed practices of each

divine revelation within the spiritual work that must be undertaken
by each disciple.
With Ja™far b. Man˚ïr, the vehemence of this insistence on the
fundamental role of the external aspect (úåhir) of the revelation
clearly has its own more poignant personal roots in the dramatic
apostasy (and violently ‘antinomian’ revolt) of his father’s Yemeni
follower and erstwhile Ismaili companion, ™Alí b. al-Fa{l. For that
story and its vividly drawn moral is the primary theme of his Sírat
Ibn Óawshab, discussed in the biographical section iii below. This
insistence, which is equally apparent in his other works, may also
have a more ‘official’ background in the reaction of Ismaili leaders
to the even more shocking and notorious actions of the various
Qarma†í groups.34 In any case, the Qå{í al-Nu™mån’s extremely in-
fluential writings, for example, are equally steadfast and unequivocal
in their affirmation of (and studied attention to) the importance of
the revelation—as understood in Shi™i tradition, of course—and its
practice and observance without exception.35

D. Later Musta™lí Ismailism

While the Kitåb al-™Ålim wa’l-ghulåm is undoubtedly of real histori-
cal importance with regard to our understanding of early Ismailism
and the pre-Fatimid da™wa, that particular historical aspect of its
interest should not obscure the fact that—along with the rest of
Ja™far b. Man˚ïr’s writings36 —it has continued to be carefully stud-
ied and copied down through the centuries as an important part of
the curriculum of religious studies in the Musta™lí Ismaili commu-
nity (in both its Sulaymåní and Då¢ïdí branches).37 As indicated by
the provenance of the manuscripts discussed in the following sec-
tion, as well as numerous additional recent manuscripts cited in
Poonawala’s Biobibliography, the book appears to have been studied
regularly for centuries by both major branches of the Musta™lí Is-
mailis and in Yemen—where the works of Ja™far b. Man˚ïr (as a key
historical ‘forefather’ of Yemeni Ismailism) seem to have enjoyed
special favour—as well as among the larger educational centres of
that Ismaili group in western India (Gujarat). The special role of the