KITAB AL-ALIM WA AL-GHULAM OF JAFAR B. MANSUR AL-YAMAN AS AN EXAMPLE OF EARLY ISMA’ILI LITERATURE

Abstract

The Isma’ili branch of Islam has had a long and complex history and a rich literature. It fourished under the Fatimid dynasty after 909. The character of the Isma’ili literature was closely connected to the Isma’ili dawa (mission) and its religious principles. For this reason both the religious and philosophical texts, in which the Isma’ili doctrine has been explained, and the juridical texts played the pivotal role in the Isma’ili literature. The distinction between the esoteric (batin) and exoteric (zahir) was central to the early Isma’ili system. The Isma’ilis also emphasized the role of the imam as the friends of God (awliya Allah). Their writings were purposely mysterious and ambiguous (available only for the initiated members of the community). In later Fatimid texts the influence of Neoplatonism is quite visible. Kitab al-alim wa-al-ghulam (Book of the Master and the Disciple) of Ja’far b. Mansur al-Yaman or/and his father, Mansur al-Yaman, was written in Yemen at the beginning of the 10th century. Its plot is a dramatic dialogue with the narrator. In Kitab al-alim all the issues important in the early Isma’ili period had been raised: the propagation of the mission, the esotericism of the doctrine, the gradual hierarchy of the initiated and the exclusiveness of the initiation. The universality of the Isma’ili revelation and the principles of the Isma’ili cosmology and cosmogony have been explained as well.