Command and Creation Book Launch #Daryoush #Mohammad #Poor #AKC
Channel: Malakut
Date: 2022-03-18

#Daryoush #Mohammad #Poor in conversation with #Orkhan #Mir-Kasimov and #Toby #Mayer at the Aga Khan Centre, London, 17 March 2022

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Command and Creation is a critical edition and English translation of the only Persian work by Shahrastani. The central question of the sermon is how the world comes into being (khalq). This creation is connected with knowledge of God, and then the manifestation of God’s command (amr) in the material world.

The speakers will explore two major themes in the book, beginning with the evolution of religious law (sharīʿat) and its perfection in esoteric resurrection (qiyāmat). They will also consider the relationship between the role of the Imams and that of Prophets, and look at a conversation between Musa and Khidr in which the role of the founder of religious law (the prophet) is discussed alongside the role of the esoteric perfector of it (the qāʾim).

The eminent Muslim scholar al-Shahrastānī, who may have been a crypto-Ismaili, wrote the Majlis-i maktūb in the final years of his life, some time between 538/1143 and his death in 548/1153. No longer in government service and having withdrawn to the village of Shahrastāna, in Khurāsān, it is possible that he felt he could express his personal beliefs more openly than hitherto. At any event, the Ismaili character of the work has been noted in the past and this element of the Majlis receives further confirmation in this new edition and translation. Its theme is the Divine Command, Be! (kun) and Creation, a topic central to the Ismaili understanding of cosmology. This theme is presented in the form of a sermon (waʿz) comparable to the sermons of the great Fatimid dāʿī, al-Muʾayyad fi’l-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. 470/1078) collected in his al-Majālis al-Muʾayyadiyya, or those of the medieval Persian poets Rūmī and Saʿdī.

The style of the Majlis is varied, immediate and engaging, and it includes logical argumentation as well as two dramatic duologues, between God and Iblīs and then Moses and Khidr. In the course of the sermon al-Shahrastānī challenges the arguments of various theological schools, including the Ashʿarīs, Muʿtazilīs and the Karrāmīs, as well as those of the philosophers. In the end it is the mystical truths of the enigmatic Khidr that he affirms. The concepts he outlines here went on to influence later Ismaili ideas, notably those concerning the declaration of the qiyāmat by the fourth lord of Alamūt, Ḥasan II ʿalā dhikrihi’l-salām, which took place in 559 /1164. As a result, this new edition and translation of the Majlis-i maktūb by Daryoush Mohammad Poor is an important addition to the study of early Nizārī Ismaili thought and provides a unique insight for anyone seeking to explore Islamic thought of the medieval era in general.
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Dr Daryoush Mohammad Poor is a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Academic Research and Publications, lecturer for the Department of Graduate Studies and the editor of the Ismaili Heritage Series publications of the IIS. He is also a fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the UK. His main area of expertise is Ismaili philosophy and intellectual history.

Dr Toby Mayer is a Senior Research Associate in Qur’anic Studies at IIS, before which he taught at SOAS. His research interests extend to Avicenna and his reception, and also Sufism. His research and translation projects at the Institute have mainly focused on Shahrastani’s Ismaili works, covering his critique of Avicenna, and his extensive Qur’an commentary, the second volume of which is due to be published later this year.

Dr Orkhan Mir-Kasimov is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, and series editor of the Ismaili Texts and Translations Series. He is Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and teaches courses on the history of the Islamic World as part of the IIS educational programmes. His research and publications address intellectual history of Islam with a focus on Shiʿi and Sufi mystical and messianic trends.