Iraq in the tenth and eleventh centuries witnessed a flowering of Shiite cultural production with lasting effects on the Islamic sciences such as law, hadith, theology, and Qur'anic commentary. The works of al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022), al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044), and al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067) not only broke significant new ground in Shiite intellectual history and defended Shiite doctrinal positions against opponents, but also set parameters for production in these fields that would remain in effect, grosso modo, until modern times.Footnote 1 During the same period, Shiite authors made substantial contributions to fields not directly related to Shiite religious doctrine, playing a crucial role in elaborating and preserving Islamic heritage in general. Al-Masʿūdī's (d. 345/956) famous history Murūj al-dhahab and Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī's (d. 356/967) collection of songs, poetry, and associated lore, Kitāb al-Aghānī, are prominent examples of Shiite authors' contributions to general Arabo-Islamic cultural production. Arguably yet more important is the Fihrist, composed in Baghdad in 377-378 ah/987-988 ce by Ibn al-Nadīm, an Imāmī Shiite bookseller. This work, a comprehensive catalogue of Arabic book titles, is widely recognised as one of the most important sources for the history of all learned disciplines recorded in Arabic in the course of the first four Islamic centuries. As a consequence, the present understanding of entire swaths of Islamic intellectual history, including the rise and development of Muʿtazilī theology and the translation of the Greek sciences into Arabic, is heavily indebted to a Shiite author.
Ibn al-Nadīm, however, presents something of an enigma since he is not described in any detail in contemporary or later sources. It has therefore been difficult to understand him and to assess the influence of his affiliations and biases on the presentation of the sciences in the Fihrist. Though he was both an Imāmī Shiite and an adept of Muʿtazilī theology, neither the Imāmīs nor the Muʿtazilīs devoted attention to him in their extant biographical or bibliographical collections. In his groundbreaking study of the Fihrist, Valeriy V. Polosin points out that nearly everything known regarding Ibn al-Nadīm derives exclusively from the text of this, his only extant work.Footnote 2 Biographical material from outside the text has revealed to modern researchers next to nothing about this elusive author's life except the date of his death, 380 ah/990 ce.Footnote 3 Some understanding of Ibn al-Nadīm's views may be gained through examination of the structure of parts of the Fihrist,Footnote 4 but other accounts of his life, studies, and the milieu that would supplement and corroborate such investigations are lacking. As Polosin argues, the only possible course in the attempt to construct a more substantial biography of Ibn al-Nadīm is to examine the forty-five figures mentioned in the Fihrist with whom he had some personal contact. Some he simply met; some he interviewed on specific occasions for information on specific topics; some were friends and colleagues with whom he had more extensive contact; and some were his teachers.Footnote 5 The following remarks pursue this line of inquiry, focusing on Ibn al-Nadīm's contacts with Ismāʿīlīs – three out of these forty-five acquaintances. While the importance of Ibn al-Nadīm's Ismāʿīlī contacts has been recognised, the relevant entries of the Fihrist have been misunderstood and translated incorrectly, with the result that his interactions with these figures have not been represented accurately in scholarship to date. Revised readings throw additional light on this important aspect of Ibn al-Nadīm's scholarly, cultural, and sectarian background.
The Fihrist has been recognised by Stern, Madelung, and other investigators as an important source for the early history of the Ismāʿīlī daʿwah. It provides information on dāʿīs active in Iraq and western Iran and quotes the lost anti-Ismāʿīlī work of Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAlī Ibn Rizām al-Ṭāʾī al-Kūfī, which dates from the first half of the tenth century.Footnote 6 These scholars remark that Ibn al-Nadīm had significant access to information about Ismāʿīlīs, but they use the Fihrist as a source and spend little time discussing his contacts, simply noting that he knew Ismāʿīlīs, including several dāʿīs, and had read Ibn Rizām's book. The few studies that directly address Ibn al-Nadīm's contacts with Ismāʿīlīs misinterpret the relevant passages of the Fihrist and are limited by reliance on a corrupt text. The present study aims to revise and correct these earlier studies, including Samuel Stern's discussions of early Ismāʿīlism, Dodge's English translation of the Fihrist and Polosin's monograph on the Fihrist and Ibn al-Nadīm. In order to provide readings that are as accurate as possible, it examines in detail the relevant passages of Gustav Flügel's 1871 edition of the Fihrist, Riḍā Tajaddud's 1971 edition, and the oldest extant manuscripts of the work, MS Chester Beatty Ar. 3315 and MS Şehid Ali Paşa 1934, which Polosin dates to the early eleventh century.Footnote 7 This is necessary because, as Polosin points out, two versions of the Fihrist have been conflated in later manuscripts and the published editions of the work: one version reflects Ibn al-Nadīm's original text, while the other reflects that text supplemented by the interpolations of al-Wazīr al-Maghribī (Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī, d. 418/1027).Footnote 8 Moreover, even the earliest manuscripts contain corrupt passages that require conjectural emendation.
Dodge notes that Ibn al-Nadīm had contacts with Ismāʿīlīs and reports that some scholars have consequently claimed that he was an Ismāʿilī himself.Footnote 9 In Dodge's view, these interactions with Ismāʿīlīs were part of Ibn al-Nadīm's broad investigation of religious sects, evident in several sections of the Fihrist. He considers it unlikely that Ibn al-Nadīm was an Ismāʿīlī, though contact with them piqued his curiosity. Dodge writes, “Because he met an Ismāʿīlī leader and attended an Ismāʿīlī meeting, some people have claimed that al-Nadīm was one of the Ismāʿīlīyah, but this idea does not seem to be a true one”.Footnote 10 In a later passage, he adds, “Apparently in addition to searching for books, he learned what he could about religious sects. He associated with an Ismāʿīlī leader and attended an Ismāʿīlī meeting, which may have inspired him to include his long passage about the Ismāʿīlīyah in Al-Fihrist”.Footnote 11 While Dodge's assessment that Ibn al-Nadīm was not an Ismāʿīlī is correct, he misses an important aspect of the texts on which he bases this characterisation, as would Polosin later on.
Polosin argues that Ibn al-Nadīm interrupted his formal education very early on and therefore derived all of his learning from books rather than teachers. It is true, as a number of Ibn al-Nadīm's biographers note, that he had no identifiable students and is not cited as an authority in chains of transmission (isnāds). He had few real teachers, in Polosin's view, and did not belong to the scholarly milieu proper, but to the world of book copyists and booksellers, related to, and in constant contact with academia but not part of it per se.Footnote 12 The exceptions to this blanket portrayal are the grammarian Abū Saʿīd al-Sīrāfī (d. 369/979) and the famous Shiite literary author Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī (d. 356/967), with whom Ibn al-Nadīm certainly studied. In addition to providing a list of forty-five persons with whom Ibn al-Nadīm had direct contact, Polosin makes several other substantial observations, the most important of which is to correct Ibn Ḥajar's (d. 852/1449) claim that Ibn al-Nadīm studied with Abū ʿAlī Ismāʿīl b. Muḥammad al-Ṣaffār (d. 341/952).Footnote 13 He shows convincingly that Ibn Ḥajar and others have misinterpreted passages in the Fihrist which seem to imply that Ibn al-Nadīm studied under al-Ṣaffār, when they actually quote statements by al-Sīrāfī. Al-Ṣaffār's student was al-Sīrāfī, not Ibn al-Nadīm.Footnote 14
Descriptions of the Ismāʿīlīs in the Fihrist show that Ibn al-Nadīm is well informed about them. He provides a substantial selection of material relating to the history of their movement, including a number of accounts not recorded elsewhere. He also records the titles of early Ismāʿīlī works not known through other sources. One reason Ibn al-Nadīm was able to do this, it appears, was that he had direct access to important members of the Ismāʿīlī daʿwah, for he gives specific information about the Ismāʿīlī dāʿīs operating in Iraq during his own lifetime. He describes in some detail the works of ʿAbdān, the head of the Ismāʿīlī-Qarmaṭī movement in Iraq in the late ninth century, and then provides seven other entries on prominent Ismāʿīlīs who lived between the late ninth century and 377/987, when he compiled the Fihrist:
1. ʿAbdān (d. 286/899).
2. al-Nasafī (d. 332/943).
3. Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 322/934).
4. The Banū Ḥammād [Abū Muslim and Abū Bakr] (fl. 320 ah).
5. Ibn Ḥamdān (d. ?).
6. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Nafīs (d. ?).
7. al-Dabīlī (d. ?).
8. al-Ḥasanābādhī (d. ?).
Ibn al-Nadīm usually follows chronological order in presenting individual entries within sub-sections of his work, though there are significant departures from this method.Footnote 15 This would seem to be the case here as well: ʿAbdān was the first major author of the Ismāʿīlī tradition, in Ibn al-Nadīm's assessment, and the entries follow in rough chronological order until 377/987, the date of composition of the Fihrist, even though Ibn al-Nadīm provides no death-dates for the authors mentioned. It would appear, however, that all but the last author mentioned, al-Ḥasanābādhī, had died by 377/987, because Ibn al-Nadīm's text includes the unfinished phrases “he was killed in the year . . .” for Ibn Nafīs, and “he remained for years after him [Ibn Nafīs] and died . . .” for al-Dabīlī.Footnote 16 (T 241)
Ibn al-Nadīm describes Ibn Nafīs and al-Dabīlī–from Dabīl, that is, the city of Dvin in Armenia–as dāʿīs in Baghdad. He states that the Banū Ḥammād and Ibn Ḥamdān were the dāʿīs of al-Jazīrah or northern Iraq. All of them, he reports, were under the leadership of Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī (d. after 361/971), for whom, however, he does not provide a notice.Footnote 17 The reason for this surprising omission is unclear, especially given that Ibn al-Nadīm mentions al-Sijistānī and obviously recognises his importance. Moreover, he presumably knew as well that al-Sijistānī had written important works in the Ismāʿīlī tradition. Perhaps he intended to add a notice devoted to al-Sijistānī at a later date, or perhaps he intended to damn him by omission, after reporting the negative account that al-Sijistānī had had his own representative, Ibn al-Nafīs, assassinated. Of the eight figures in this list, Ibn al-Nadīm explicitly states that he has met two, Ibn Ḥamdān and al-Ḥasanābādhī. Dodge and Polosin both downplay the importance of al-Ḥasanābādhī, and Polosin interprets the data as showing a closer, more significant relationship with Ibn Ḥamdān instead. A close reading of the text shows that the contrary is true. In addition, this list of Ismāʿīlī dāʿīs and authors omits a certain Khushkanānjah, an important Ismāʿīlī contact of Ibn al-Nadīm who appears not in Book V, on theology, but in Book III, in the section devoted to the writings of secretaries, viziers, tax collectors, and related officials. The Fihrist thus provides evidence regarding Ibn al-Nadīm's direct contact with three Ismāʿīlīs.
I. Khushkanānjah:
In the second chapter (fann) of Book (maqālah) III in the Fihrist, Ibn al-Nadīm provides an entry on a very close Ismāʿīlī acquaintance. He does not include this figure in the book on theology in the main list of Ismāʿīlī authors just mentioned, despite the fact that the man clearly wrote works on Ismāʿīlī theology. His name was ʿAlī b. Waṣīf, but he was known by the nickname Khushkanānajah. Born in Baghdad, he spent most of his life at al-Raqqah, then relocated to Mosul. Ibn al-Nadīm describes him as a close friend – wa-kāna lī ṣadīqan wa-anīsan “he was a friend and companion to me”– suggesting that they had spent a great deal of time with each other.Footnote 18 Ibn al-Nadīm probably associated with him in Mosul, because there is no indication that Khuskanānjah returned to Baghdad later in life. The Chester Beatty MS gives the Arabic text as follows:
Khushkanānjah al-kātib: min ahli Baghdād wa-kāna aktharu muqāmihi bi'r-Raqqah thumma 'ntaqala ilā al-Mawṣil wa'smuhu ʿAlī b. Waṣīf wa-kāna 'smuhu ʿAlīyan min al-bulaghā fī maʿnāhu. wa-allafa ʿiddat kutub wa-naḥalahā ʿAbdān ṣāḥib al-Ismāʿīlīyah wa-kāna lī ṣadīqan wa-anīsan wa-tuwuffiya bi'l-Mawṣil. wa-lahu min al-kutub: Kitāb al-Ifṣāḥ wa'l-tathqīf fī āʾīn al-kharāj wa-rusūmih.Footnote 19
Dodge translates the entry as follows:
Khushkanānjah, the Secretary
He was from among the people of Baghdād, but spent most of his life at al-Raqqah and then moved to al-Mawṣil. His name was ʿAlī ibn Waṣīf. The meaning of the name ʿAlī was derived by the language authorities. He composed a number of books, which ʿAbdān, the chief of the Ismāʿīlīyah, attributed to himself. He was friendly and agreeable to me. He died at al-Mawṣil, a Shīʿī. Among his books there was Explaining and Making Straight, about the institution of the land tax (al-kharāj) and its usages.Footnote 20
There are a number of errors in this translation, in addition to confusion created by variants in the manuscript tradition. Dodge has misunderstood the verb naḥala, supposing that ʿAbdān, the famous early Ismāʿīlī leader, claimed books that Khushkanānjah had written as his own, which is a logical impossibility because of the dates involved. Khushkanānjah wrote or forged works and passed them off as the original works of ʿAbdān, who had died in the late ninth century. This is corroborated by Ibn al-Nadīm's discussion of ʿAbdān in the section on Ismāʿīlī theology in Book V of the Fihrist, where he reports that ʿAbdān indeed wrote a number of books, but that other authors later wrote works and presented them as his: wa-kullu man ʿamila kitāban naḥalahu iyyāhu “Whoever composes a book falsely attributes it to him”.Footnote 21 It is noteworthy that Ibn al-Nadīm uses the same verb, naḥala, in that passage as well.
Another phrase that has confused Dodge, and is indeed puzzling in the original Arabic, appears in the Chester Beatty MS as wa-kāna 'smuhu ʿAlīyan min al-bulaghā fī maʿnāhu. Dodge renders this phrase, “The meaning of the name ʿAlī was derived by the language authorities”. He adds in a note, “The Flügel text apparently confuses this phrase and the Beatty MS does not make clear exactly what the author meant. Literally the passage is ‘His name was ʿAlī from the masters of literary style in its meaning”’.Footnote 22 Flügel's edition avoids the problem by omitting several words, giving the text merely as wa-kāna min al-bulaghāʾi fī maʿnāhu.Footnote 23 Tajaddud adopts the reading, wa-kāla ('smuhu ʿAlīyan) min al-bulaghāʾi fī maʿnāhu, where kāla is a typographical error for kāna introduced by Tajaddud, and the phrase ismuhu ʿAlīyan is placed in parentheses, indicating that it occurs in the Chester Beatty MS but not in Flügel's edition.Footnote 24 Polosin must have sensed that the text was problematic, for he avoids translating it completely, skipping over parts and merely giving the meaning, “. . . He was eloquent”.Footnote 25
The phrase wa-kāna 'smuhu ʿAliyyan indeed appears out of place, coming as it does after the phrase wa'smuhu ʿAlī b. Waṣīf. It makes no sense that Ibn al-Nadīm would repeat the fact that his friend was named ʿAlī in such close proximity. The text also differs from Ibn al-Nadīm's regular practice in presenting names in the entries of the Fihrist: he ordinarily states, wa'smuhu . . . “and his name is ..” in the present tense, rather than wa-kāna 'smuhu . . . “and his name was”. A conjectural emendation that solves this problem and makes sense in context is the following: the phrase wa-kāna 'smuhu ʿAlīyan “and his name was ʿAlī” should be read wa-kāna Ismāʿīlīyan “and he was an Ismāʿīlī”. An original single word, Ismāʿīlī, has been divided into two by a copyist, who may have been confused by a blotch or hole in the middle of the word on the original manuscript page. Dodge also errs in connecting the name ʿAlī with the following phrase, min al-bulaghāʾ fī maʿnāhu. The third person pronoun in maʿnāhu refers to Khushkanānjah and not to the name ʿAlī. The sense of this second phrase is that Khushkanānjah was one of the most eloquent authors in the particular category (maʿnā) of writers to which he belonged. Maʿnā here does not mean ‘meaning’, as Dodge interprets it. The category to which Ibn al-Nadīm refers is presumably the Ismāʿīlīs; he means to report that Khushkanānjah was one of the most eloquent Ismāʿīlī authors. This is corroborated by the immediately following reference to Khushkanānjah's authorship of Ismāʿīlī works.
There has been some difference of opinion regarding the nickname or epithet by which this Ismāʿīlī author was known. The text of Flügel's edition gives Khusknākah.Footnote 26 Polosin gives the form Khushkanaka.Footnote 27 Dodge reports that he gives the name as spelled in the Chester Beatty MS and supposes that this foreign name might derive from Turkish ḥuskinājī “a worker with henna dye”.Footnote 28 These forms, and Dodge's suggestion as well, are incorrect. The name derives from the Persian elements khushk ‘dry’ and nān ‘bread’ with a diminutive ending -aj, -ak, or -ah. Khushkanānaj (or -ak or -ah) is a type of biscuit or cookie made with sugar and almonds or almond flour.Footnote 29 Why the author was known by this term remains unclear, as Ibn al-Nadīm provides no additional information relevant to the question. Perhaps the family business was selling these biscuits.
Polosin lists Khushkanānjah as the twenty-third of Ibn al-Nadīm's forty-five acquaintances mentioned in the Fihrist, giving his name as ʿAli b. Wasif Khushkanaka al-Katib.Footnote 30 He translates the entry in a section devoted to acquaintances with whom Ibn al-Nadīm had close personal relationships, following the text of Flügel's edition.
ʿAli b. Wasif Khushkanaka al-Katib (d. 366/976). He was a Baghdadi who had spent a large part of his life in al-Raqqah; afterwards he moved to Mosul . . . He was eloquent, and wrote several books for which ‘Abdan, the leader of the Ismailites, gave himself credit. He was a friend and someone I chatted with. He died in Mosul. He was a Shi'ite. . .Footnote 31
The phrase kāna yatashayyaʿu, which Polosin renders “he was a Shiʿite” and Dodge as “(he died) . . . a Shīʿī”, does not appear in the Chester Beatty MS, but was probably added by al-Wazīr al-Maghribī, along with the kunyah Abū al-Ḥasan.Footnote 32 While Dodge understands the phrase to mean that Khushkanānjah was a Shiite, it more likely indicates that he passed outwardly as an Imāmī Shiite while at heart an Ismāʿīlī. Ibn al-Nadīm's original text did not include this statement, so it is suspect. Al-Wazīr al-Maghribī probably confused this author with another, more famous ʿAlī [b. ʿAbd Allāh] b. Waṣīf, a Shiite, Muʿtazilī theologian, and poet better known as al-Nāshī al-Ṣaghīr, who died in 365/975 or, according to some sources, 366/976. This is where Polosin obtained the death-date of 366/976 for Khushkanānjah, which belongs to al-Nāshī Ṣaghīr instead.Footnote 33 The works attributed to Khushkanānjah in the editions of Tajaddud and Flügel but not in the Chester Beatty MS or Dodge's translation may be works of al-Nāshī al-Ṣaghīr, also added in the interpolations of al-Wazīr al-Maghribī: Kitāb al-nathr al-mawṣūl bi'l-naẓm, Kitāb ṣināʿat al-balāghah, Kitāb al-fawāʾid, and Dīwān shiʿrih.Footnote 34
Taking the observations above into account, the Arabic text and its English translation should read as follows:
Khushkanānjah al-kātib: min ahli Baghdād wa-kāna aktharu muqāmihi bi'r-Raqqah thumma 'ntaqala ilā al-Mawṣil wa'smuhu ʿAlī b. Waṣīf wa-kāna Ismāʿīlīyan min al-bulaghāʾ fī maʿnāhu. wa-allafa ʿiddat kutub wa-naḥalahā ʿAbdān ṣāḥib al-Ismāʿīlīyah wa-kāna lī ṣadīqan wa-anīsan wa-tuwuffiya bi'l-Mawṣil. wa-lahu min al-kutub: Kitāb al-Ifṣāḥ wa'l-tathqīf fī āʾīn al-kharāj wa-rusūmih.Footnote 35
The entry should be translated into English as follows:
Khushkanānjah, the Secretary
A native of Baghdad, he spent most of his life residing at al-Raqqah, then moved to Mosul. His name is ʿAlī ibn Waṣīf. He was an Ismāʿīlī, one of the most eloquent writers in his category. He composed a number of books and passed them off as authored by ʿAbdān, the leader of the Ismāʿīlīs. He was a friend and companion of mine, and he passed away in Mosul. Among his books is The Clear Explanation and the Proper Correction, on the Institution of the Land Tax and Its Usages.
II. Ibn Ḥamdān:
The Arabic text of the entry on Ibn Ḥamdān in the fifth section of Book V, on theology, reads as follows as it appears in the editions of both Flügel and Tajaddud:
rajulun yuʿrafu bi-'bni Ḥamdān
wa'smuhu . . . raʾaytuhu bi'l-Mawṣili wa-kāna dāʿiyatan lammā māta Banū Ḥammād, wa-ʿamila kutuban kathīratan fa-minhā Kitāb al-Falsafah al-sābiʿah.Footnote 36
Flügel estimates that this Ibn Ḥamdān, who is not known from other sources, was alive ca. 350/961 on the grounds that Ibn al-Nadīm must have seen him in Mosul at about that time. His exact words are as follows: “unbekannt. Schwerlich ist er der Sohn des Schwagers ʿAbdan's . . . Ḥamdān b. Ashʿath mit dem Beinamen Qarmaṭ. Er muss, da ihn unser Verf. in Moṣul sah, etwa um 350 (beg. 20 Febr 961) gelebt haben. . . .”Footnote 37 Since the appearance of Flügel's edition in 1871, however, no other source has been discovered which mentions this figure.
Stern, Dodge, and Polosin all translate the entry. Stern renders the passage as follows:
A man known as Ibn Ḥamdān; his name was . . . [lacuna in the text]. I have seen him in Mosul; he was dāʿī after the death of the sons of Ḥammād. He wrote many books, amongst them the Book of the Seventh Philosophy, the Book . . . [lacuna].Footnote 38
Dodge, referring to this entry in the introduction to his translation of the Fihrist, states that Ibn al-Nadīm “associated with” an Ismāʿīlī dāʿī.Footnote 39 He translates the entry as follows:
A Man Known as Ibn Ḥamdān
His name was _____ . I saw him at al-Mawṣil, [where] he was [continuing] the movement after the death of the sons of Ḥammād. He wrote many books, among which there were: The Seventh Philosophy.Footnote 40
Polosin lists Ibn Ḥamdān as the first of the forty-five personal acquaintances of Ibn al-Nadīm mentioned in the Fihrist. He includes him in the group of those acquaintances with whom Ibn al-Nadīm had substantial personal contact.Footnote 41 His Russian rendition of the entry may be translated as follows:
An individual known as Ibn Hamdan. His name is . . . . I saw him in Mosul; he read a sermon when the sons of Hammad died. He composed many books, among them—the Kitab al-Falsafah as-sābiʿah, and the Kitab . . ..Footnote 42
One puzzling element of this short text is the word dāʿiyatan, which has been interpreted differently by Flügel, Stern, Dodge, and Polosin. Flügel writes, “dāʿiyah, die ungewöhnliche Form für dāʿī, die sich auch anderwärts, z.B. bei Nuweirī und Ibn al-Athīr, findet. . .”.Footnote 43 Stern apparently adopts the same interpretation, rendering dāʿiyah simply as dāʿī. Dodge apparently interprets dāʿiyah as an equivalent to the noun daʿwah, referring to the Ismāʿīlī movement in general. Polosin renders the phrase kāna dāʿiyatan lammā māta Banū Ḥammād as, “he read a sermon when the Sons of Ḥammād died” (on chital propovied kogda umerli dieti Xammada), suggesting that Ibn al-Nadīm had attended a funeral or some other ceremony in honour of the deceased Banū Ḥammād at which Ibn Ḥamdān read a religious sermon. Polosin's translation must be based on an interpretation of dāʿiyah as the active participle of the verb ‘to pray’ but stretching that meaning considerably.
In my view, none of these interpretations is accurate. The word in question most likely is not dāʿiyatan, with a tāʾ marbūṭah, but dāʿiyahu with a final hāʾ: “the dāʿī of it”, meaning here, “the dāʿī of Mosul”. Mosul is mentioned just prior to this sentence, Ibn Ḥamdān was obviously the dāʿī in charge of northern Iraq, and Ibn al-Nadīm met him there. While the form dāʿiyah occurs in medieval texts as an emphatic equivalent of dāʿī, its use in this case would be unlikely. Why would the indefinite appear here – “a dāʿiyah” – when it is clear that Ibn al-Nadīm does not intend merely to say that the man in question is one of many dāʿīs, but rather holds a specific, important position? He must mean that Ibn Ḥamdān is the dāʿī of Mosul or of northern Iraq in particular.
This short text provides important information regarding Ismāʿīlī daʿwah during Ibn al-Nadīm's time. The Banū Ḥammād were the dāʿīs of northern Iraq, with their headquarters at Mosul, perhaps one brother after the other, before Ibn al-Nadīm either arrived in, or became active in, Mosul. Other sources reveal that they were two brothers named Abū Muslim and Abū Bakr, and Stern deduces that they were active ca. 320 ahFootnote 44 Ibn Ḥamdān became the dāʿī of northern Iraq in their place after they had died. Ibn al-Nadīm met Ibn Ḥamdān, presumably while he was dāʿī, in Mosul. There is no direct evidence in the text that Ibn al-Nadīm had substantial contact with this dāʿī–he only states that he saw the man, and this may have occurred only once, contrary to Polosin's characterisation of their relationship. The mere fact that Ibn al-Nadīm met the dāʿī, though, suggests that he had privileged access to Ismāʿīlī circles through other Ismāʿīlī acquaintances such as his friend Khushkanānjah.
The text of the Fihrist contains many indications that Ibn al-Nadīm was in Mosul for a considerable period. Dodge gives a broad range of nearly forty years: “What is certain, however, is that he spent some time at al-Mawṣil, probably when Nāṣir al-Dawlah was ruler of the region, between ce 929 and 968”.Footnote 45 Dodge presumably bases this suggestion on the fact, mentioned in the Fihrist, that Ibn al-Nadīm met the tutor of the son of the Ḥamdānid ruler Nāṣir al-Dawlah, Muḥammad b. al-Layth al-Zajjāj (d. ?), in Mosul.Footnote 46 Flügel, as seen above, suggests that Ibn al-Nadīm was in Mosul ca. 350/961. Polosin suggests that Ibn al-Nadīm spent most of his youth in Mosul, up until the 350s ah (961-70 ce) or 360s ah (970-80 ce).Footnote 47
In my estimation, Ibn al-Nadīm was probably born and raised in Mosul and stayed there until he settled in Baghdad ca. 347/958-59. He must have associated with Khushkanānjah in Mosul.Footnote 48 He knew the relatives in Mosul of a certain author on music, Yaḥyā Ibn Abī Manṣūr al-Mawṣilī.Footnote 49 He also examined a manuscript of Abū al-ʿAtāhiyah's poetry in the handwriting of Ibn ʿAmmār, a well-known copyist, in Mosul.Footnote 50 As mentioned, he met Muḥammad b. al-Layth al-Zajjāj, tutor of one of Nāṣir al-Dawlah's sons, probably Abū Taghlib (328/940-369/979), in Mosul.Footnote 51 Ibn al-Nadīm was also personally acquainted with Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-ʿAdawī al-Shimshāṭī (d. after 377/987), another tutor and then boon-companion of two of Nāṣir al-Dawlah's sons, Abū Taghlib and one of his brothers, presumably in Mosul as well. He mentions that he knew him as a morally upright man qadīman “a long time ago, in the old days”, suggesting that their association occurred many decades before 377/987, when he was writing.Footnote 52 In another passage he describes ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-ʿImrānī, an inhabitant of Mosul, as a great book collector and mathematician, adding that people travelled great distances to study with him.Footnote 53 Ibn al-Nadīm saw a copy of the tenth Book of Euclid's Elements translated by Abū ʿUthmān al-Dimashqī (d. after 302/914) in al-ʿImrānī's library, presumably before al-ʿImrānī's death in 344/955-56.Footnote 54 Ibn al-Nadīm reports that he met the Imāmī Shiite jurist Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Quḍāʿah b. Ṣafwān b. Mahrān al-Jammāl al-Ṣafwānī in 346/957-58.Footnote 55 Al-Ṣafwānī resided in Mosul, and Ibn al-Nadīm must have met him there. According to Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, al-Ṣafwānī attended the court of Sayf al-Dawlah, where he debated and performed a mubāhalah – a mutual curse-ordeal – with the judge of Mosul. The judge died the day after the mubāhalah, an indication that the ordeal had proved the Shiite al-Ṣafwānī correct. In light of the prominent role of the judge of Mosul in this account, one assumes that al-Ṭūsī has confused the Ḥamdānid Sayf al-Dawlah, who ruled in Aleppo 333-56/945-67, with his brother Nāṣir al-Dawlah, who ruled in Mosul 317-358/929-969.Footnote 56 The ordeal must have taken place in Mosul. Presumably in Mosul as well, Ibn al-Nadīm met the famous Imāmī Shiite poet Abū Bakr al-Khālidī (d. 380/990), a native of the nearby town of al-Khālidīyah, for he writes of him, “I was amazed by the vastness of the material he had memorised and the speed of his extemporaneous composition” (wa-qad taʿajjabtu min kathrati ḥifẓihi wa-surʿati badīhatihi).Footnote 57 These pieces of evidence suggests that Ibn al-Nadīm resided in Mosul for a considerable period and remained there at least until in 346/957-958, when he met the Shiite scholar al-Ṣafwānī.
Polosin's estimate of Ibn al-Nadīm's years in Mosul, until the 350s ah (961-70 ce) or 360s ah (970-980 ce) is too late. The key piece of contradictory evidence is Ibn al-Nadīm's report that he heard Jaʿfar al-Khuldī, a well-known Baghdadi Sufi master, in person. He states, “I read in the handwriting of Abū Muḥammad Jaʿfar al-Khuldī . . . and I heard him say that which I had read in his handwriting”.Footnote 58 Since al-Khuldī died in 348/959-960, Ibn al-Nadīm must have left Mosul and settled in Baghdad ca. 347/958-959, that is, after his meeting with al-Ṣafwānī in 346/957-958 but before the death of al-Khuldī. It was probably in Baghdad as well that Ibn al-Nadīm met Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Hārūn Ibn al-Munajjim, before 352/963, when Ibn al-Munajjim died.Footnote 59 Ibn al-Nadīm also associated with Ḥaydarah b. ʿUmar, the leading Ẓāhirī jurist in Baghdad during his day, of whom he remarks, wa-raʾaytuhu wa-kāna lī ṣadīqan “I saw him, and he was a friend of mine”.Footnote 60 Their association occurred before 358/968-969, the date of Ḥaydarah's death.Footnote 61 While it is possible that Ibn al-Nadīm travelled back and forth between Mosul and Baghdad, the most probable interpretation is that he lived in Mosul until ca. 347/958-959, then moved to Baghdad, where he remained for the next thirty-three years, until his death in 380/990. He must have associated with Khushkanānjah and witnessed the dāʿī Ibn Ḥamdān before 347/958-959, though it is not possible at present to determine exact dates. Ibn al-Nadīm's birth-date is unknown, and the earliest date that he mentions in connection with his own life is 340/951-952, when he met the Khārijī jurist Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Bardaʿī and asked him about the works he had written.Footnote 62 He was already associating with scholars and collecting bibliographies by then, so one assumes that he was already about twenty years old at least and working as a bookseller at the time.
III. al-Ḥasanābādhī:
Dodge mentions in the introduction to the Fihrist that Ibn al-Nadīm attended an Ismāʿīlī meeting, doubtless referring to the entry on al-Ḥasanābādhī in the section on Ismāʿīlī theologians in the fifth section of Book V, on theology.Footnote 63 Polosin includes this acquaintance of Ibn al-Nadīm in the list of forty-five individuals with whom he had contact of some kind, but does not pay him a great deal of attention.Footnote 64 He reports that Ibn al-Nadīm retrieved information from him on a specific topic in an informal manner that did not resemble regular teaching.
In the pursuit of Ibn al-Nadīm's teachers, whether authentic or imaginary, it is necessary to name a group of individuals to whom the Fihrist's author turned to for answers to certain questions, the situation in which this took place hardly resembling the traditional scholarly process: 1) Abu al-Hasan al-Munajjim (no. 22 in the abovementioned list); 2) Ibn Shahram (no. 32); 3) al-Hasanabadhi (no. 44); 4) Yunus al-qass (no. 43); 5) Ibn Ashnas (no. 28); 6) ar-rahib an-Najrani (no. 15); 7) Amad al-mubad (no. 45); 8) Abu Dulaf (no. 37). Of these eight individuals only three — Abu al-Hasan al-Munajjim, Abu Dulaf, and Ibn Shahram — are more or less well known. They occupied a comparatively high status among Ibn al-Nadīm's contemporaries. The five remaining individuals come forward in the Fihrist simply as now-obscure representatives of various confessional or ethnic groups of the Baghdadi population. However, judging from the information contained within the Fihrist, Ibn al-Nadīm had a vague relation to all eight.Footnote 65
Polosin's use of the word ‘vague’ in particular stresses the informal and fleeting nature of Ibn al-Nadīm's contact with these figures. Polosin then translates part of Ibn al-Nadim's short entry on al-Ḥasanābādhī as follows: “I saw him, having at one time found myself at his place together with his aṣḥāb” (ya videl evo, polav k nemu kogda-to v'meste s evo asxabami).Footnote 66
The casual contact portrayed by Polosin is in keeping with Bayard Dodge's characterisation of their association. Dodge translates the entry as follows:
Al-Ḥasanābādhī
His name was _____. I saw him when I went to him with a group of his adherents. He was dwelling in a quarter between the two palaces and was elegant in manner, extraordinary in the style of his expression and speech and in what he recounted. He went to Ādharbayjān because of something that happened to him at Baghdād, after the exile of Shayrmadī, the Daylamī, with whom he had connections.Footnote 67
Dodge's translation seems to confirm Polosin's characterisation of the relationship between Ibn al-Nadīm and al-Ḥasanābādhī as a one-time, or casual, contact. As mentioned, he describes this episode in the introduction to his translation as Ibn al-Nadīm's “attending an Ismāʿīlī meeting”. Stern, drawing on this same passage, states that Ibn al-Nadīm was personally acquainted with al-Ḥasanābādhī, who lived in the quarter of ‘Between the Two Palaces' in Baghdad. Al-Ḥasanābādhī fled from Baghdad to Azerbaijan after the exile of ‘Shīrmādī’ the Daylamite, who used to protect him, when he got into trouble.Footnote 68 Stern comments in a note about the Daylamite protector, “I have no information about this person”.Footnote 69
In order to evaluate the interpretations of this notice by Dodge and Polosin, it is necessary to examine the original Arabic. The text as given in MS 1934 Şehid Ali Paşa, dating most likely from the early eleventh century and widely recognised as the oldest, most reliable witness of Ibn al-Nadīm's work, reads as follows:
al-Ḥasanābādhī, wa'smuhu ____________ , hādhā raʾaytuhu, wa-kuntu amḍī ilayhi fī jumlati aṣḥābihi, wa-kāna yanzilu bi-nāḥiyat Bayn al-Qaṣrayn, wa-kāna ṭarīfFootnote 70 al-ʿamal ʿajīb al-maʿnā fī ʿibāratihi wa-kalāmihi wa-mā yūriduhu, wa-kharaja ilā Ādharbayjāna li-amrin laḥiqahu bi-Baghdād baʿda nafyi Sh.y.r.m.d.y al-Daylamī fa-innahu kāna yuʿnā bihi. (fols. 19r-v)
It is odd that Ibn al-Nadīm does not mention any book titles by him. He leaves a blank space after this entry of about half a page - perhaps he intended to add more biographical information and a bibliography, as well as additional entries on other Ismāʿīlī scholars. This is one among many indications that he left the Fihrist unfinished.
Dodge's translation contains a number of errors. The phrase “a quarter between two palaces” should not be indefinite, since the noun nāḥiyah is in construct with Bayn al-Qaṣrayn; it means the quarter of “Between the Two Palaces,” as Stern has it. Even Stern, though, does not appear to have identified the quarter in question, located on the stretch of road just after the main bridge over the Tigris from the main city to the East side of Baghdad, which ran between the former palace of Asmāʾ, the daughter of the Abbasid Caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 136-158/754-775), and the palace of ʿUbayd Allāh, the son of the Caliph al-Mahdī (r. 158-169/775-785).Footnote 71 Dodge renders the noun ʿibārah as ‘expression’, when it more likely means ‘interpretation(s)’ or ‘explanation(s)’ here; this is particularly clear because of its connection with the term maʿnā ‘meaning, sense, content’ in the text, which Dodge renders ‘style’.
Other mistakes have more to do with interpretation of the context than with an exact understanding of the Arabic. Dodge has read the entry as describing a chance meeting between Ibn al-Nadīm and al-Ḥasanābādhī, perhaps influenced by the initial statement, hādhā raʾaytuhu, which Dodge translates as “I saw him”, but which one might render, “I have seen this man”. Dodge renders the phrase wa-kuntu amḍī ilayhi fī jumlati aṣḥābihi as “when I went to him with a group of his adherents”. First, the passage is not a circumstantial clause, as Dodge's ‘when’ suggests, but an independent sentence. The verb kuntu amḍī would normally mean ‘I would go’ or ‘I used to go’, rather than ‘I went’, implying that Ibn al-Nadīm went frequently, or many times, to see this scholar over a certain period of time in the past. The implication of Dodge's translation that he went only once is almost certainly incorrect. Polosin's translation similarly suggests that Ibn al-Nadīm saw al-Ḥasanābādhī once, kogda-to meaning “once, at some time, on one occasion”. In addition, Dodge renders the phrase fī jumlati aṣḥābihi as “with a group of his adherents”, suggesting that Ibn al-Nadīm is himself separate and distinct from the adherents, tagging along with an established group. Polosin's translation similarly suggests that Ibn al-Nadīm was v'meste s “together with” al-Ḥasanābādhī's adherents. However, the preposition fī “in, among” in the passage indicates that Ibn al-Nadīm was himself one of the group. One may compare this with Ibn al-Nadīm's use of the phrase in other contexts, such as his entry on the humorous scholar Abū al-ʿAnbas al-Ṣaymarī (d. 275/888): adkhalahu l-Mutawakkil fī jumlati nudamāʾihi . . . wa-ʿāsha ilā ayyāmi l-Muʿtamid wa-dakhala fī jumlati nudamāʾihi . . . “Al-Mutawakkil included him in the group of his boon companions . . . He lived until the days of al-Muʿtamid and entered among the group of his boon companions”.Footnote 72 In these cases it is clear that al-Ṣaymarī is one of the boon companions and not an outsider tagging along with an established group. Moreover, it is well known that ṣāḥib, pl. aṣḥāb is a technical term of Islamic education referring to students who are ‘fellows’, the close disciples and long-term devotees of a particular teacher. The implication, contrary to the impression that the translations of Dodge and Polosin give, is that Ibn al-Nadīm was a devoted student of al-Ḥasanābādhī, something that has not been brought out in scholarship on Ibn al-Nadīm or the Fihrist to date. Even Stern, whose statement that Ibn al-Nadīm was personally acquainted with al-Ḥasanābādhī suggests more substantial contact, does not give the sense that Ibn al-Nadīm was actually al-Ḥasanābādhī's student.
It is difficult to say more about the particulars of the student-teacher relationship depicted here, and it is difficult to identify al-Ḥasanābādhī in other sources. Ibn al-Nadīm's notice itself provides a few interesting details. His description of al-Ḥasanābādhī's lectures confirms that he held a high opinion of him and that this teacher had a captivating presence: “He had a curious manner. His interpretations, discussions, and the accounts he quoted were marvellous in content”. Ibn al-Nadīm may intend these remarks to explain how he could have been taken in by an Ismāʿīlī teacher as an impressionable youth, excusing his former association with Ismāʿīlism.
It is thus far clear that al-Ḥasanābādhī lived in Baghdad, in the Bayn al-Qaṣrayn quarter, and the context suggests that the lectures took place in his house there. If the place is established however, the date is not. It must have occurred in 347/958-959 or later, if Ibn al-Nadīm indeed moved from Mosul to Baghdad at about that date. The entry itself provides a hint about chronology, though it contains neither the birth-date nor the death-date of al-Ḥasanābādhī. The nisbah indicates that this teacher haled from Ḥasanābādh, probably a town on the road between Qum and Rayy.Footnote 73 Ibn al-Nadīm reports that al-Ḥasanābādhī left Baghdad for Azerbaijan at some point, apparently never to return, because of a problem that he encountered. This presumably occurred in Baghdad itself, and Ibn al-Nadīm specifies that it was “after the exile of Sh.y.r.m.d.y al-Daylamī”. It is not immediately obvious who this Daylamī character is, but the nisbah Daylamī, the mention of exile, and the context suggest that a Daylamī commander in the Buyid infantry in Baghdad was the patron or protector of al-Ḥasanābādhī.Footnote 74 That is the sense of the phrase fa-innahu kāna yuʿnā bihi “used to be concerned with him, worry about him”.Footnote 75 The Daylamī commander fell out of favour for some reason and was banished from Baghdad, at which point al-Ḥasanābādhī lost his protection and subsequently had to leave when he ran into trouble.
The problem is to identify the Daylamī in question. The name as it is given in the Şehid Ali Paşa MS does not appear in other sources: Sh.y.r.m.d.y. Dodge's rendition, Shayrmadī, follows that of the manuscript. It is clear that the name puzzled copyists of the Fihrist. Flügel and Tajaddud both give the form al-Sh.y.r.m.d.y, adding a definite article that does not occur in the Şehid Ali Paşa MS but which must have been introduced in later manuscripts.Footnote 76 Stern gives the form al-Shīrmādī, with the definite article as well, but also adding a long ‘ā’ that does not occur in the manuscripts.Footnote 77 Copyists were apparently mystified by the form of this name and on account of the final ‘y’ interpreted it as a nisbah adjective like al-Daylamī. The interpretation of the name as a nisbah adjective is certainly an error; the prefix Shīr- suggests that it is not an adjective but a Persian proper name. Many Daylamī names began with the element Shīr- or Shēr-, meaning ‘lion’ and by extension ‘brave’ in Persian. As Kraemer notes, the lion was a Sasanian symbol of kingship that had been adopted by the Buyīds and other Daylamī ruling families. The element Shīr- appears in five names of the Buyīds and their ancestors, not to mention scores of other Daylamī commanders.Footnote 78 Commonly attested names that begin with the element Shīr- include Shīrzād, Shīrzīl, Shīrafsār, Shīrdil, and Shīrwayh. The form Shīrm.dī, however, does not match exactly any recognisable name in Persian. In my view, the name as given in the text is in all likelihood corrupt and should be emended to Shīrmardī, literally ‘Lion-Manliness’, an attested name meaning ‘Valour’ or ‘Bravery’ similar to the name Shīrmard ‘Lion-man’ or ‘Brave’. The emendation involves only the addition of the letter -r-; it is easily conceivable that a copyist had omitted this -r- by haplology because of its resemblance to the contiguous -d-. In his dictionary of Persian names, Justi lists Ibn al-Nadīm's reference to a certain “al-Shīrmardī”. Having consulted Flügel's text of the Fihrist, he included the definite article, reporting the name as aš-Šērmerdī ad-Dailemī, but in effect adopting the same emendation that I propose without explaining that he has done so.Footnote 79
Two incidents involving the exile of Daylamī commanders may be relevant to the case of al-Ḥasanābādhī. The first occurred in 347/958-959 during the reign of the Buyīd ruler Muʿizz al-Dawlah (r. 334-356/945-967). In 345/956-957 the Daylamī commander Rūzbihān revolted against Muʿizz al-Dawlah. The revolt was quashed, and Rūzbihān was captured and imprisoned. Muʿizz al-Dawlah later had him drowned at night for fear of provoking a violent protest on the part of the Daylamī soldiery. Two years later, in 347/958-959, Muʿizz al-Dawlah conducted a purge of the Daylamī troops. All of the troops who had been connected with Rūzbihān were dispatched from Baghdad to Ahwaz and then dispersed by the vizier al-Muhallabī.Footnote 80 The most famous case of a Daylamī commander being exiled during this period occurred in 358/968-969, and it is tempting to connect it with the incident Ibn al-Nadīm mentions because his text may be read as referring to a well-known case of exile. The name in question, however, is not very close to the form that occurs in the MS. Shīrzād b. Surkhāb, a prominent secretary, aspired to the position of Isfahsalār or chief commander of the army. He came into conflict with the Turkish commander Sebuktegin and the Buyīd ruler Bakhtiyār (r. 356-367/967-978) and was exiled from Baghdad as a result.Footnote 81 Nevertheless, there is no explicit mention of a commander named Shīrmardī in connection with either incident, though the chronicles do in fact refer to such a figure.
A certain Shīrmardī is mentioned in connection with Muʿizz al-Dawlah's 347/958 campaign against the Ḥamdānid Nāṣir al-Dawlah (r. 317-358/929-969) in northern Iraq, and it appears likely that this is the commander Ibn al-Nadīm intends. Muʿizz al-Dawlah's forces set out from Baghdad on 14 Jumādā II 347/2 September 958.Footnote 82 After they reached northern Iraq, while the Buyīd ruler remained at Mosul, five hundred Daylamī troops led by the young Turkish commander Tekin al-Jāmdār marched ahead to face Nāṣir al-Dawlah's sons Abū al-Murajjā and Hibat Allāh at Sinjār. Finding that the two had fled camp with their forces, they set about plundering the abandoned equipment. Busy with their spoils, they were ambushed and quickly defeated by the Ḥamdānid forces, who had merely feigned a precipitous retreat. Miskawayh reports that the commander Ibn Mālik al-Daylamī, known as Siyā[h]chashm, was killed by Hibat Allah and that several other Daylamī commanders were captured: “Shīrzād, Shīrmardī, and a large number were taken prisoner”.Footnote 83 Nāṣir al-Dawlah sought asylum with his brother in Aleppo, while Muʿizz al-Dawlah remained in northern Iraq. After the exchange of several embassies and extensive negotiations, an agreement was reached whereby Nāṣir al-Dawlah would be restored to rule in northern Iraq after the payment of the enormous sum of one million dirhams and the return of the prisoners taken at Sinjār. The agreement was reached in Muḥarram 348/March-April 959; Muʿizz al-Dawlah hurried back to Baghdad, leaving the Vizier al-Muhallabī and the Chamberlain Sebuktegin in Mosul with the army to collect payment. Presumably, the Daylamī commanders Shīrzād and Shīrmardī mentioned above were returned shortly afterwards.Footnote 84 The commanders Shīrzād and Shīrmardī could not possibly have been exiled along with the Ruzbihānī Daylamīs in 347/958 because the Ḥamdānids did not free them until early in 348/959. The Shīrmardī mentioned in connection with this campaign is likely to be identical with al-Ḥasanābādhī's patron who is mentioned in the notice in the Fihrist. Ibn al-Nadīm's text suggests that he was a prominent figure and that his exile was a well-known event. It is not very likely that two famous Daylamī commanders in Iraq during this same period both bore the name Shīrmardī. It is thus reasonable to suppose that Ibn al-Nadīm refers to the exile of Shīrmardī, the commander who was captured at Sinjār, at some undetermined point after 348/959.
The possible dates of the exile in question may also be narrowed down by statements Ibn al-Nadīm makes regarding the spread of the Ismāʿīlī movement in Iraq. He writes that the Ismāʿīlī daʿwah was very active and in evidence in Iraq at the beginning of Muʿizz al-Dawlah's reign, which lasted in Iraq from 11 Jumādā I 334/19 December 945 until 17 Rabīʿ II 356/17 April 967. This would imply that the movement was especially strong in the late 330s/940s. He adds that the movement had a serious setback at a date a little over two decades later.
For the last twenty years, the sect's presence has dwindled, and the propagandists have become few, to such an extent that I now see none of their compiled works, when during the days of Muʿizz al-Dawlah, at the beginning of his reign, they were out in the open, common, and widespread, and the propagandists were spread out in every district and region. This is what I know in this land, but matters might possibly be as they used to be in the regions of al-Jabal and Khurasan. Regarding Egypt, matters are ambiguous. Nothing appears from the Imam who has taken control of the area that indicates what has been reported about him and his forefathers. Matters are quite different, and that's that.Footnote 85
Since Ibn al-Nadīm was writing in 377/987, this would mean that the change in the fortunes of the Ismāʿīlī movement in Iraq had occurred ca. 357/968. One may therefore set the flight of al-Ḥasanābādhī at some time between 348/959 and 357/968. Ibn al-Nadīm must have studied with al-Ḥasanābādhī before the latter date at the latest.
Al-Ḥasanābādhī's decision to flee to Azerbaijan in particular is easily explained. For decades prior to this event, Ismāʿīlī missionaries had been successful in converting Zaydis in Daylam, Gilan, and the surrounding regions, including Azerbaijan and Armenia. Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 322/934) won substantial numbers of converts in Daylam and Gilan in the early tenth century.Footnote 86 Several decades later, the Sālārids or Musāfirids, who ruled in parts of Azerbaijan and Daylam between ca. 304/916 and ca. 483/1090, were converted by Ismāʿīlī dāʿīs. Marzubān b. Muḥammad (r. 330-346/941-957) was converted to Ismāʿīlism by the Ismāʿīlī dāʿī Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī b. Jaʿfar, whom he named vizier and allowed to preach openly. His brother Wahsūdān, the ruler of Ṭarm or al-Ṭārum (r. 330-355/941-966), was also converted to Ismāʿīlism. It is probable that al-Ḥasanābādhī intended to attach himself to one of the Musāfirid courts; this would have been before they lost their territory in Azerbaijan in 374/984.Footnote 87
Al-Bustī's Possible Reference to al-Ḥasanābādhī:
Another reference to Ibn al-Nadīm's elusive teacher may occur in a unique MS now housed in the Ambrosiana collection in Milan of Revelation of the Secrets of the Bāṭinīs (Kashf asrār al-bāṭinīyah), by Abū al-Qāsim al-Bustī, a Zaydī Muʿtazilī author. Abū al-Qāsim al-Bustī died ca. 420/1029, and Stern estimates that he composed the Revelation around 400/1010-11.Footnote 88 Drawing on this MS for his discussion of early Ismāʿīlī missionaries, Stern mentions a curious dāʿī whose name and identity are both unclear. Al-Bustī, he reports, describes him as a “dāʿī of the Jibāl as far as al-Rūm who wrote a book in Persian on allegorical interpretation (taʾwīl)”. Stern gives his name al-Ḥ.b/t.r.bāy in this study, and slightly differently, as al-Ḥ.b/t.r.b/tāb/t.y, in another.Footnote 89 Stern speculates as to this dāʿī's identity: “This name may belong either to one of the dāʿīs before Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī . . . or to an otherwise unknown dāʿī after Abū Ḥātim”.Footnote 90 He comments, “It is impossible to identify this person . . .”.Footnote 91 The manuscript has recently been edited by ʿĀdil Sālim ʿAbd al-Jabbār, who interprets the name as al-Jīrānī, connecting it by conjecture with a town near Isfahan called Jīrān, and preferring that reading to al-Jurjānī, “from Jurjān”, or al-Jabrawānī, a toponymical adjective referring to a town near Tabriz.Footnote 92 In the editor's estimation, however, al-Bustī's manuscript reads al-Ḥ.r.dādī, in contrast to Stern's readings.Footnote 93 Unfortunately, the text ends in the middle of a quotation from this dāʿī's book of allegorical interpretations. It may originally have provided more information about the dāʿī's name, whereabouts, dates, and identity.
It is possible, though by no means certain, that this dāʿī is identical with al-Ḥasanābādhī, Ibn al-Nadīm's teacher from Baghdad. There are three reasons for this. First, the name as it appears in the manuscript is not very distant from al-Ḥasanābādhī in form. The combination -s.n.a.b- may have been mistaken for -r.d.- by a copyist, particularly if the connection between the sīn and the following nūn was broken or unclear for some reason, such as rubbed off ink or a blotch on the page, and the bāʾ before the alif was small and undotted. Second, both men are connected with Azerbaijan. Ibn al-Nadīm reports explicitly that al-Ḥasanābādhī fled from Baghdad to Azerbaijan, and al-Bustī's description of this character's jurisdiction as stretching from al-Jibāl to al-Rūm would certainly cover Azerbaijan. Stern explains this designation's import: “. . . presumably whose diocese comprised the countries between Jibāl and the Byzantine Empire, such as Ādharbayjān and the Jazīra”.Footnote 94 Third, the mention that the dāʿī of al-Jibāl wrote a Persian book on taʾwīl seems to fit the little that is otherwise known about al-Ḥasanābādhī's intellectual activities. His nisbah indicates that he was a native Persian, so that it is plausible that he would compose a work in Persian rather than Arabic, and Ibn al-Nadīm's description of his lectures, albeit laconic, suggests an expertise in taʾwīl since they refer to his ‘interpretations’ (ʿibārah) and their marvellous element.
If the dāʿī to whom al-Bustī refers is actually al-Ḥasanābādhī, one may conclude that after he fled Baghdad to Azerbaijan, he rose to a position of some prominence in the late tenth century, acting as dāʿī of a large region stretching from western Iran to the eastern borders of Byzantium. One may also verify that he wrote at least one work, a book in Persian devoted to taʾ wīl. Some version of this may have served as the basis for his lectures in Baghdad that impressed Ibn al-Nadīm as strange and wondrous. Unfortunately, al-Bustī does not provide any more of his name than does Ibn al-Nadīm. Only the nisbah appears.
Conclusion:
Johann Fück took Ibn al-Nadīm's discussion of the Ismāʿīlīs as evidence of his adherence to Imāmī Shiism, writing, “That he belonged to the Imāmiyya (Twelver Shīʿa) is shown by his distaste for the doctrine of the Sabʿiyya and by his criticisms dealing with their history”.Footnote 95 This is essentially true, but misses an important aspect of Ibn al-Nadīm's background, namely that several decades before composing the Fihrist, he had studied with a particularly impressive Ismāʿīlī teacher in Baghdad. It is not far-fetched to suggest that Ibn al-Nadīm had a flirtation with Ismāʿīlī Shiism in his younger years, under the influence of his friend Khushkanānjah, his teacher al-Ḥasanābādhī, and perhaps others as well. Imāmī Shiites were presumably the leading source of recruits for Ismāʿīlīs in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq at the time, just as were Zaydīs in Daylam, Gilan, and Azerbaijan. They very likely made up the bulk of Ibn al-Nadīm's classmates with whom he crossed the bridge from the west side of Baghdad to attend al-Ḥasanābādhī's lectures in Bayn al-Qaṣrayn.
It is clear, though, that Ibn al-Nadīm grew out of this phase. The structure of the Fihrist as well as his portrayal of the Ismāʿīlīs suggest that he does not consider them genuine Shiites. The Book on Law in the Fihrist (Maqālah VI) includes a chapter on Imāmī law but ignores Zaydī and Ismāʿīlī law, and the Book on Theology (Maqālah V) includes a joint chapter with separate sections on Imāmī and Zaydī theology (fann 2) but only addresses the Ismāʿīlīs as part of the section devoted to Sufism, the fifth chapter (fann 5). His arrangement of the material suggests that he did not view them as true or real Shiites, like the Imāmīs and the Zaydīs and that their devotion to esoteric meanings made them more akin to the Sufis. Ibn al-Nadīm is thus concerned to distance himself from the Ismāʿīlīs to some extent. In the course of his presentation of Ismāʿīlī theology, he quotes several negative accounts of Ismāʿīlī history and doctrine. He tries to be fair to the Ismaʿīlīs to a certain extent, remarking that he does not vouch for the truth of the accounts but is merely presenting them without judging their authenticity. Commenting on Ibn Rizām's account, he makes the disclaimer: wa-mā qad awradtuhu bi-lafẓ Abī ʿAbd Allāh fa Footnote 96 -anā abraʾ min al-ʿuhdah fī al-ṣidq ʿanhu aw al-kidhb fīhi “Regarding what I have cited in the words of Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Ibn Rizām], I am free of responsibility for its truth or falsehood”.Footnote 97 Nevertheless, he seems to accept the forged book “The Seven Messages” (al-Balāghāt al-sabʿah) as a genuine Ismāʿīlī work, when it is almost certainly an anti-Ismāʿīlī forgery meant to be passed off as condemning evidence against them. He writes, qad qaraʾtuhu wa-raʾaytu fīhi amran ʿaẓīman min ibāḥat al-maḥẓūrāt wa'l-waḍʿ min al-sharāʾiʿ wa-aṣḥābihā “I read it and saw in it horrid instances of declaring forbidden matters licit and disparagement of religious laws and [the prophets] who conveyed them”.Footnote 98 Another account cited by Ibn al-Nadīm includes a phrase suggesting that Ismāʿīlīs duped Daylamī commanders in Khurasan–apparently Zaydīs–into supporting them by hypocritically harping on Shiite themes: fa-mawwaha ʿalā al-quwwād bi-dhikr al-tashayyuʿ.Footnote 99 All this suggests that the Ismāʿīlīs of the east – Iraq, western Iran, and Khurasan–were heretics in Ibn al-Nadīm's view and not proper Shiites. He only treats the Fatimids in passing, but leaves open the possibility that they did not adopt the same heretical views: “Regarding Egypt, matters are ambiguous. Nothing appears from the Imam who has taken control of the area that indicates what has been reported about him and his forefathers”.Footnote 100
Ibn al-Nadīm had a fairly ecumenical approach to matters of faith, for in the Fihrist he discussed in some detail not only Sunni and Shiite Islam, in its Zaydī, Imāmī or Twelver, and Ismāʿīlī forms, but also Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and Hinduism. In order to do this, he had recourse to individual adherents of these religions, but, among them, some contacts appear to have been more profound than others. For example, Polosin judges, justifiably, that Ibn al-Nadīm had especially close contacts with the Christian community in Baghdad.Footnote 101 Dodge places a certain emphasis on Ibn al-Nadīm's Ismāʿīlī connections, but still underestimates them. Scholars to date have failed to stress the point that Ibn al-Nadīm studied with an Ismāʿīlī teacher and may have been tempted to join the Ismāʿīlī movement in his youth. This fleshes out one aspect of Ibn al-Nadīm's immediate background and helps explain how he obtained substantial information regarding Ismāʿīlism that is not found in other contemporary sources. It might be tempting to argue that Ibn al-Nadīm was an Ismāʿīlī at heart, but dissimulated for a wider audience, as has been argued regarding the famous heresiographer Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Shahrastānī (d. 548/1153).Footnote 102 In the event, however, Ibn al-Nadīm's exposure to Ismāʿīlī teachings did not alter the overall view of the Islamic sects that he provides, for he clearly repudiated his association after studying with al-Ḥasanābādhī. He writes the Fihrist from the perspective of an Imāmī or Twelver Shiite, an independent thinker with ecumenical views and a strong desire for objectivity, but an Imāmī Shiite nonetheless.
