About this text: Epistles of the Brethren of Purity

رسائل إخوان الصفاء

Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (the Brethren of Purity) (4th/10th century)

Two parts, one page each: the animals' case against man before the king of the jinn (Epistle 22), and the ninefold order of being from the Creator to the creatures (Epistle 32) with their definition of philosophy as becoming like God (Epistle 13).

On the Platonic Current: Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ

In the reader

74 passages · ~95 min · 49 Quran quotations

9,129 words

Published translation: none (the English is AI, marked as such)
Quran quotations: 49

Not yet: audio, commentaries.

Read it →Grammar practice Study sheet (print)

Difficulty

much rare vocabulary

Lexical difficulty, from the words themselves: how many roots fall outside the 1,000 most frequent in the Quran, how long the words are, and how much of the vowelling had to be supplied by AI. It says how unfamiliar the vocabulary is, not how deep the ideas are.

Rare roots 15% · mean word length 4.6 letters · AI vowelling on 98% of words

Themes & resonances AI

What the text is about, and what it connects to across the history of thought. Every connection says what kind of claim it is: a documented lineage, a shared source, a resonance with no influence claimed, or a contrast. Mapped by AI; references are shown only once checked. Across the library

Themes

Effusion: being overflows from the Creator in ranked stepsفيضfayḍroot فيض
Number as the pattern of existing thingsعددʿadadroot عددἀριθμόςarithmos
Intellect, Soul and Matter as the first three effectsعقلʿaqlroot عقلνοῦςnous
Nine nested spheres governed by the universal Soulفلكfalakroot فلك
Existence, duration, completeness, perfectionكمالkamālroot كمل
The human being as the composite that gathers all realitiesتركيبtarkībroot ركب
The animals' case against human lordshipسخّرsakhkhararoot سخر
Philosophy as becoming like God as far as humanly possibleتشبّهtashabbuhroot شبهὁμοίωσιςhomoiōsis

What each theme is here

Effusion: being overflows from the Creator in ranked steps. The Creator's generosity overflows first as Intellect, then Soul, then prime matter, and stops at body, which is too coarse to pass the effusion further (passages 48-50, 69-71).
Number as the pattern of existing things. Following Pythagoras, the Brethren hold that things come in twos, threes, fours and nines as numbers do, and that creation proceeds from the Creator as number proceeds from the one (passages 38-42, 47).
Intellect, Soul and Matter as the first three effects. The Intellect receives the Creator's gifts all at once and without time, then supports the Soul, which would otherwise have perished in the sea of matter (passages 48-50, 57).
Nine nested spheres governed by the universal Soul. Body takes the spherical shape, nine spheres nest one within another down to the Moon, and the Soul's powers, which revelation calls angels, run through them all (passages 53-60).
Existence, duration, completeness, perfection. Four ascending grades: everything perfect is complete, everything complete endures, everything that endures exists, while the converse fails at each step (passages 43, 48, 68).
The human being as the composite that gathers all realities. Minerals, plants, animals and humans rise in nobility of composition, and in the human are gathered all the realities of simple and composite things (passage 55).
The animals' case against human lordship. Before the king of the jinn the animals argue that God's making them subservient to humans is a favour like the subjection of sun and wind, and gives no title of mastery (passages 6-14, 20-29).
Philosophy as becoming like God as far as humanly possible. The Brethren define the aim of philosophy as becoming like God within human capacity, which they gloss as truth in speech, soundness in belief and goodness in deed (passage 74).

Connections

Lineage 3

Documented transmission: a chain of reading, teaching, translation or citation, grounded in a verified reference or in the later text itself.

Plato, Theaetetus 176b: homoiōsis theōi kata to dynaton, through the late-antique Alexandrian prolegomena to philosophy (Ammonius, Elias, David)Platonism · firm
The Alexandrian introductions to philosophy listed 'becoming like God as far as possible' among the standard definitions of philosophy, and this list of definitions passed into Arabic introductions and encyclopaedias, of which the Brethren's phrase is one instance.
Carried byالتشبّه بالإله بحسب الطاقة الإنسانيةal-tashabbuh bi-l-ilāh bi-ḥasab al-ṭāqa al-insāniyyaroot شبهὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόνhomoiōsis theōi kata to dynaton“becoming like God as far as possible”
- Christel Hein, Definition und Einteilung der Philosophie: Von der spätantiken Einleitungsliteratur zur arabischen Enzyklopädie (1985): Traces the definitions of philosophy, including becoming like God, from the Alexandrian prolegomena into Arabic encyclopaedic writing.
Plotinus, Enneads, as read in Arabic through the Plotiniana Arabica (the 'Theology of Aristotle')Neoplatonism · probable
The Brethren's order of Creator, Intellect, Soul and matter, with being overflowing from the first and the Soul needing the Intellect's support, is the Neoplatonic scheme as it circulated in Arabic, and Plotinus's claim that all beings are beings by the One sits behind their question of how existence pervades existing things.
Carried byفيضfayḍroot فيض“effusion, overflow”
In the library:Ennead VI.9, ch. 1 Ennead VI.9, ch. 6
- Ian Richard Netton, Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ) (1982): Studies the Brethren's emanationist scheme of Intellect, Soul and matter and its Neoplatonic and Pythagorean sources.
- Peter Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus: A Philosophical Study of the Theology of Aristotle (2002): Describes the Arabic adaptation of Plotinus through which this scheme reached Arabic readers.
Anselm Turmeda, Disputa de l'ase (1417), and Kalonymus ben Kalonymus's Hebrew version of the animals' caseMedieval Latin philosophy · probable
The debate of the animals before the king of the jinn was put into Hebrew in the fourteenth century, and Turmeda's Catalan dispute between a friar and an ass reworks the same debate; modern editors of the Arabic text discuss this afterlife.
Carried by“the animals' debate”
- Lenn E. Goodman and Richard McGregor, Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. The Case of the Animals versus Man Before the King of the Jinn: An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistle 22 (2009): Critical edition and English translation of Epistle 22, with an introduction on the text and its later reception.

Resonance, not influence 13

Resonance, not influence: a structural or thematic likeness. No influence is claimed.

Ibn Sīnā, Risāla fī al-ʿishq: every being loves its perfection and becomes like the GoodFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · probable
Both arrange beings in a ladder from the elements through plants and animals to the human, each rung oriented toward its perfection, and both speak of the higher overflowing from generosity and the lower becoming like it; Ibn Sīnā makes love the moving force, where the Brethren speak of supply and reception.
Carried byتشبّهtashabbuhroot شبه“becoming like”
In the library:Risāla fī al-ʿishq ¶2 Risāla fī al-ʿishq ¶33 Risāla fī al-ʿishq ¶38 Path: Love: the soul's longing back
Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (Adam) and Inshāʾ al-dawāʾir: the human being as the gathering of the world's realitiesAkbarian tradition (after Ibn Arabi) · probable
The Brethren say the human, made of a coarse frame and a simple soul, gathers the realities of all existents; Ibn ʿArabī says the human brings together what the cosmos holds in dispersion and calls him the world in two copies, and turns this into a doctrine of the divine image and vicegerency that the Brethren do not state.
Carried byroot جمع“gathering, comprehensiveness”
In the library:Faṣṣ Ādam ¶2 Faṣṣ Ādam ¶6 Inshāʾ al-dawāʾir ¶52 Path: The mirror
Suhrawardī, Hayākil al-nūr: the souls of the spheres and the ranks of the lightsIshraqi philosophy · probable
Both give each heavenly sphere a soul that moves it with an intellect above as its sustainer, and both identify these spiritual movers with what scripture calls angels; Suhrawardī recasts the whole order in the language of light.
Carried byفلكfalakroot فلك“sphere”
In the library:Hayākil al-nūr ¶18 Hayākil al-nūr ¶19
Plato, Timaeus: the world soul spread through the body of the cosmosPlatonism · suggestive
The Brethren's universal Soul, above the encompassing sphere and pervading every body down to the centre of the earth, resembles the soul the demiurge stretches through the cosmos in the Timaeus; the route by which such ideas reached the Brethren is not traced here.
Carried byالنفس الكليةal-nafs al-kulliyyaroot نفسψυχὴ τοῦ παντόςpsychē tou pantos“world soul”
Plutarch, Gryllus (Bruta animalia ratione uti) and De sollertia animaliumPlatonism · probable
Plutarch lets a man turned into a pig argue that beasts live more virtuously than humans, and elsewhere sets out the keenness of animal senses; the Brethren's camel and hare make similar points against human boasting, with no known route between the two.
Carried by“animal reason and virtue”
Zhuangzi, chapter 9, 'Horses' Hooves' (Mati)Daoism and Chinese thought · probable
Zhuangzi describes horses living freely on the plains until Bole brands, bridles and drives them, and half of them die; the Brethren's animals tell the same story of free roaming ended by halter, bit and whip, though Zhuangzi aims at the harm done by order itself.
Carried by“bridle and bit”
Michel de Montaigne, Essays II.12, 'Apology for Raymond Sebond': human presumption over the animalsEarly modern philosophy · probable
Montaigne lists the senses and skills in which animals surpass humans and mocks the human claim to rule them; the Brethren's beasts argue that keener senses belong to animals and that intellect is a gift that gives no ground for boasting.
Carried by“human presumption”
Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation: 'Can they suffer?'Early modern philosophy · probable
The ram, the elephant and the mule ask the king to look at their pain and ask 'Where is the mercy?'; Bentham also makes suffering the measure of how animals may be treated, within a secular ethics of utility.
Carried byرحمةraḥmaroot رحم“mercy, pity for suffering”
Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, Kalīla wa-DimnaArabic poetry · suggestive
Both put wisdom into the mouths of animals and warn readers not to take the tale as a game; the Brethren say they clothe the realities in words and allusions so as not to be driven from their position.
Carried by“fable as a veil for teaching”
Plato, Republic VI–VII: the Good as the source of being and knowing, and the ascent from the cavePlatonism · probable
Epistle 32 makes the Creator the cause of every being's existence, duration, completeness and perfection, as the one is the source of every number; the Republic makes the Good the source of being and of knowledge, as the sun is of growth and sight. Both picture the soul's task as a climb back up the ranks, which the Brethren close with a call to wake before the Trumpet.
Carried byعلّة وجودʿillat wujūdroot علل“cause of existence”
In the library:Republic VI–VII 509b Republic VI–VII 518c
Plato, Symposium: Diotima's ladder from bodies to the beautiful itselfPlatonism · suggestive
Both arrange what exists as a ladder that the soul may climb, Diotima by love from one beautiful body to beauty itself, the Brethren by knowledge from the minerals, plants and animals up through Soul and Intellect to the Creator. The Brethren's ladder is drawn by number and effusion, with no place for erōs; the likeness is in the ascent, not its motive.
Carried byمراتبmarātibroot رتب“ranks”
In the library:Symposium 211c
The Book of Causes (Kalām fī maḥḍ al-khayr, the Arabic adaptation of Proclus): the First Cause, Intelligence and SoulNeoplatonism · probable
Both set a First Cause above everything, a first Intellect that receives from it without mediation, and a Soul below the Intellect through which bodies are governed, and both describe the gift as an overflowing that does not diminish the giver. Neither text names the other; the shared ground is the Arabic Neoplatonism of the ninth and tenth centuries.
Carried byفيضfayḍroot فيض“effusion”
Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Rawshanāʾī-nāma: the Universal Intellect and Soul, the nine spheres, the elements and the three kingdomsShii and Ismaili thought · probable
The Persian poem descends as Epistle 32 does, from God beyond attributes through the Universal Intellect and Soul to the spheres, the four elements and the minerals, plants and animals, with the human being as their summary. Nāṣir-i Khusraw writes as an Ismaili missionary of the next century; whether he read the Epistles is not documented here, and the Brethren's own affiliation is contested (text record §0).
Carried byالنفس الكليةal-nafs al-kulliyyaroot نفس“the universal Soul”
In the library:The Book of Illumination (Rawshanāʾī-nāma)

Contrast 3

An instructive opposite: the difference teaches something about both.

Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī, Kitāb al-Maqālīd: the one of numbers and the One beyond numberShii and Ismaili thought · firm
The Brethren compare the Creator to the one that comes before two and grounds the number series; al-Sijistānī, working with the same Intellect and Soul, insists that the one of the numbers belongs at the level of Intellect and that God stands beyond it, beyond even the negation of attributes.
Carried byالواحدal-wāḥidroot وحد“the one”
In the library:al-Maqālīd al-malakūtiyya ¶19 al-Maqālīd al-malakūtiyya ¶20 al-Maqālīd al-malakūtiyya ¶21
René Descartes, Discourse on Method part V: the animal as machineEarly modern philosophy · firm
Descartes denies animals thought and treats their behaviour as mechanism; the Brethren give animals souls, senses and a voice in court, and place the difference only in the human soul's survival after death, which the animals themselves concede.
Carried byنفسnafsroot نفس“soul”
Ibn Ṭufayl, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān: the child raised by a gazelleFalsafa (Arabic philosophy) · probable
Ḥayy notices, as the Brethren's account of creation does, that animals have fur and weapons while he is naked, and he goes on to master and dissect them in his search for the soul; in the Brethren's fable the animals answer back and ask whether such mastery is a right.
Carried by“the naked human among clothed animals”
In the library:Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶60 Ḥayy (Ibn Ṭufayl) ¶73

Claude (opus) via Claude Code, headless, no web access, 2026-10-04. A reference with a check was found and checked with a web search.

Versions

19 layers, each with its licence

The original

al-Ziriklī's edition (Cairo 1928)Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī, Ṭāhā Ḥusayn, Aḥmad Zakī Pāshā · 1347/1928PD-US

By: Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī (editor); Ṭāhā Ḥusayn (introduction (not reproduced)); Aḥmad Zakī Pāshā (historical essay (not reproduced)) · 1347/1928
Source:: Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa-khullān al-wafāʾ, ʿunī bi-taṣḥīḥihi Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī, 4 vols (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Tijāriyya al-Kubrā, printed at al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿArabiyya, 1347/1928). Epistle 13's close vol. 1 p. 342; Epistle 22 vol. 2 pp. 152, 173–187, 314–317; Epistle 32 vol. 3 pp. 182–199. Scans: archive.org AAlexandrina-192979 and -145864 (vols 1–2), 3_20250821_20250821_2209 (vol. 3, 72 ppi) · link ↗
In the reader:: In full for the selected passages, through the Hindawi/OpenITI digital text collated against the page images; print page per passage
Licence:: Public domain in the US (published 1928); al-Ziriklī d. 1976, so not life + 70 elsewhere
Notes: Identified as the source of the Hindawi/OpenITI text by its title page, divisions, wording and shared quirks (text record §1). The edition is unvowelled and has no apparatus.

Hindawi's digital text of al-Ziriklī (via OpenITI)Hindawi Foundation, OpenITI · UNVERIFIEDOpen licence

By: Hindawi Foundation (digital text); OpenITI (corpus) · UNVERIFIED
Source:: OpenITI 0375IkhwanSafa.Rasail.Hindawi095926405Vols-ara1 (4 vols, editor named خير الدين الزركلي), lines 4146, 4350–4449, 5635–5674 (Ep. 22), 8245–8404 (Ep. 32), 2953–2962 (Ep. 13); each passage links its lines · link ↗
In the reader:: In full for the selected passages, corrected against the print (7 corrections, each logged)
Licence:: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (OpenITI)
Notes: Modernised spelling and punctuation; adds faṣl numbers «(3)». Typing slips found by the collation: الفصيلة, a doubled الحمار, الزقزم, مشنؤه, بعد, بالحجمة, يغيضها.

The Bombay lithograph (1305–06/1887–89)Nūr al-Dīn b. Jīwākhān, Digital Library of India · 1305–06/1887–89Public domain

By: Nūr al-Dīn b. Jīwākhān (publisher (Maṭbaʿat Nukhbat al-Akhbār)); Digital Library of India (scanner) · 1305–06/1887–89
Source:: Kitāb Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa-khullān al-wafāʾ, 4 parts (Bombay, 1305–06): Ep. 13 qism 1 pp. 125–130; Ep. 22 qism 2 pp. 119–245; Ep. 32 qism 3 pp. 2–16 · link ↗
In the reader:: Not shown; read where the Cairo vol. 3 scan is illegible, and its readings cited in the apparatus
Licence:: Public domain (1887–89)
Notes: A different witness (its order of the mathematical epistles differs). It settles four corrections in Epistle 32 and supports «النفس الكلية» where Cairo seems to print «الرتبة الكلية».

Dieterici's Arabic text of the animals' case (Thier und Mensch, 2nd ed. 1881)Friedrich Dieterici · 1879; 2nd ed. 1881Public domain

By: Friedrich Dieterici (editor) · 1879; 2nd ed. 1881
Source:: F. Dieterici (ed.), Thier und Mensch vor dem König der Genien, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1881), vocalised Arabic · link ↗
In the reader:: Not shown; held for a later collation
Licence:: Public domain (Dieterici d. 1903)
Notes: Not collated in this build (UNVERIFIED how far it agrees with Cairo). It shares the conflated quotation of Q 3:140 and 29:43.

Our edition

Our collation against the Cairo printClaude (AI) · 2026-10-04Our work

By: Claude (AI) (five readers, one per page range, against the page images) · 2026-10-04
Source:: data/sources/ikhwan-corrections.json, ikhwan-pages.json; scripts/recitals/ikhwan_base.py; text record §3
In the reader:: The corrected text, the print page of each passage, and the doubtful readings in the text record
Licence:: Ours
Notes: About 9,200 words compared word by word: 27 differences: 9 where the print reads better (7 corrections applied, 2 kept as doubtful because the Cairo scan is illegible or itself seems faulty), 6 where the digital text corrects a misprint, 12 variants kept as the digital text has them; 9 doubtful readings listed. Vol. 3 (Ep. 32) only in a 72-ppi scan: read with the Bombay lithograph.

Published translations

Dieterici's German of the animals' case (1858)Friedrich Dieterici · 1858Public domain

By: Friedrich Dieterici (translator) · 1858
Source:: F. Dieterici, Der Streit zwischen Mensch und Thier, ein arabisches Mährchen aus den Schriften der lautern Brüder (Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1858), pp. 1–23, 213–218 · link ↗
In the reader:: Used in the triangulation; cut to passages 1–35 (data/sources/ikhwan-tr-dieterici-1858.json)
Licence:: Public domain (1858)
Notes: From a different manuscript (Bīvarasp, Balāçāgūn); abridges the verdict (no «until the cycle begins anew»), omits some Quran lines, expands the coda.

Dieterici's German of Epistle 32 (1872) and of Epistle 13's close (1868)Friedrich Dieterici · 1868, 1872Public domain

By: Friedrich Dieterici (translator) · 1868, 1872
Source:: F. Dieterici, Die Lehre von der Weltseele bei den Arabern im X. Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1872), pp. 1–26; Die Logik und Psychologie der Araber im zehnten Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1868), pp. 58–59 · link ↗
In the reader:: Used in the triangulation; cut to passages 36–74 (data/sources/ikhwan-tr-dieterici-1872.json)
Licence:: Public domain
Notes: Pp. 11–26 translate our passages 43–72 closely; pp. 1–10 render a longer, reordered version of 36–42 from another manuscript. The definition: «die Aehnlichwerdung Gottes so weit es der Mensch vermag».

Platts's English (1869), from the UrduJohn T. Platts, Ikrām ʿAlī · 1869Public domain

By: John T. Platts (translator); Ikrām ʿAlī (author of the Urdu version (1810)) · 1869
Source:: J. Platts, Ikhwanu-s-safa; or, Brothers of Purity, translated from the Hindustani of Maulavi Ikram Ali (London: W. H. Allen, 1869), pp. 1–30, 229–234 · link ↗
In the reader:: Used in the triangulation as an indirect witness; passages 1–34
Licence:: Public domain (1869)
Notes: A translation of a free Urdu adaptation: reorders the frame, drops the portrait of the ideal man and the coda, and makes the verdict unconditional.

Dowson's English (1869), from the UrduJohn Dowson · 1869Public domain

By: John Dowson (translator) · 1869
Source:: J. Dowson, Ikhwánu-s Safá; or, Brothers of Purity, translated from the Hindustani (London: Trübner, 1869), pp. 5–25, 154–156 · link ↗
In the reader:: Used in the triangulation as an indirect witness; passages 1–34
Licence:: Public domain (1869)
Notes: The same Urdu source as Platts.

Goodman and McGregor's critical edition and English (IIS/OUP)Lenn E. Goodman, Richard McGregor · 2009 (IIS gives 2010)Copyrighted: cited only

By: Lenn E. Goodman (translator); Richard McGregor (translator) · 2009 (IIS gives 2010)
Source:: L. E. Goodman and R. McGregor (ed. and tr.), The Case of the Animals versus Man Before the King of the Jinn: An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistle 22 (Oxford: OUP with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2009) · link ↗
In the reader:: Not shown; not held; none of its wording is reproduced
Licence:: In copyright; cited only
Notes: The critical edition from the manuscripts; not consulted here, so the triangulation could not use it.

The IIS/OUP critical edition and English of Epistles 32–36Paul E. Walker, Ismail K. Poonawala, David Simonowitz, Godefroid de Callataÿ · 2015 (hardback 2016)Copyrighted: cited only

By: Paul E. Walker (editor and translator); Ismail K. Poonawala (editor and translator); David Simonowitz (editor and translator); Godefroid de Callataÿ (editor and translator) · 2015 (hardback 2016)
Source:: Sciences of the Soul and Intellect, Part I: An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistles 32–36 (Oxford: OUP with the IIS, 2015) · link ↗
In the reader:: Not shown; not held
Licence:: In copyright; cited only
Notes: Also Baffioni, On Logic (Epistles 10–14, 2010) for Epistle 13: cited only.

AI layers

Vowelling (all vowels supplied)Claude (AI) · 2026-10-04AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (vowelling) · 2026-10-04
In the reader:: Every vowel mark is AI (the print is bare), shown in amber
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus, via Claude Code; exact version not recorded by the script), 2026-10-04 (scripts/recitals/prepare.py ikhwan: headless Claude Code, letters verified unchanged)
Notes: Letters verified unchanged; Quran quotations restored verbatim from the Tanzil text (28). Words with two defensible vowellings listed per passage.

English translation, passage by passageClaude (AI) · 2026-10-04AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (translator) · 2026-10-04
In the reader:: Under each passage
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus, via Claude Code; exact version not recorded by the script), 2026-10-04 (scripts/recitals/translate.py ikhwan opus)
Notes: From the vowelled Arabic with the glossary in data/sources/ikhwan-meta.json; told not to reproduce or imitate published translations (the IIS/OUP volumes, Goodman, Dieterici, Platts …) and given none.

Word glossesClaude (AI) · 2026-10-04AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (glosses) · 2026-10-04
In the reader:: One gloss per word (word panel)
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus, via Claude Code; exact version not recorded by the script), 2026-10-04 (scripts/recitals/translate.py ikhwan opus)
Notes: From the same run as the translation.

Term notesClaude (AI) · 2026-10-04AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (notes) · 2026-10-04
In the reader:: Up to six technical terms per passage
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus, via Claude Code; exact version not recorded by the script), 2026-10-04 (scripts/recitals/translate.py ikhwan opus)
Notes: From the same run as the translation.

Translators differ (triangulation)Claude (AI) · 2026-10-04AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (comparison of the translations held, by docs/PROTOCOLS.md §17) · 2026-10-04
In the reader:: Serious divergences only, as a 'Translators differ' note under the passage
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus, via Claude Code; exact version not recorded by the script), 2026-10-04 (scripts/triangulate.py ikhwan)
Notes: Dieterici (German, 1858; 1868/1872) and the two Urdu-based English versions (Platts, Dowson) for Epistle 22; Dieterici alone for Epistles 32 and 13. The IIS/OUP translations are not held.

Resonances: themes and connectionsClaude (AI) · 2026-10-04AIOur work

By: Claude (AI) (map of themes and connections, by docs/RESONANCES-METHOD.md) · 2026-10-04
In the reader:: For the whole text and per passage
Licence:: Ours; marked AI
Made by:: Claude (Opus, via Claude Code; exact version not recorded by the script), 2026-10-04 (scripts/resonances.py whole --only ikhwan; passages ikhwan)
Notes: Every connection states its kind; external references shown only after an agent verified them with a web search.

Automatic analysis

Word analysis (CAMeL Tools)CAMeL Tools 1.6 (NYU Abu Dhabi) · 2026-10-04Our work

By: CAMeL Tools 1.6 (NYU Abu Dhabi) (analyser: calima-msa-r13 + MLE, constrained by the text's vowelling) · 2026-10-04
Source:: scripts/fusus/analyze_ch.py → data/sources/ikhwan-analysis.json · link ↗
In the reader:: Lemma, root, part of speech, clitics and pattern, in the word panel
Licence:: Our analysis layer, made offline with CAMeL Tools (code MIT; calima-msa-r13 database GPL v2, not redistributed)
Notes: 9,129 words, 5,939 with a root, 908 distinct roots, 349 vowel conflicts with the AI vowelling.

Quran quotationsOpenITI's @QUR tags, matched by skeleton to the Tanzil text; scripts/quran_refs.py · 2026-10-04Our work

By: OpenITI's @QUR tags, matched by skeleton to the Tanzil text; scripts/quran_refs.py (finder) · 2026-10-04
Source:: data/sources/ikhwan-base.json → quotes; app/src/data/quran-refs/ikhwan.json
In the reader:: 28 quotations marked as verified, plus automatic matches
Licence:: Ours
Notes: The tagged quotations are restored to the Tanzil wording; where the Cairo print quotes differently (Q 24:22, 43:13–14) or conflates (3:140 with 29:43), the text record says so.

✦ marks AI that no person has reviewed yet; ✧ marks AI reviewed by a named person. Copyrighted works are cited, never shown. All sources · How texts are established

Companions

Recitations, commentaries, lectures, editions and references around this text, by other people. They are linked out, not copied: the recordings belong to their reciters and platforms, and none of them is this reader's own (AI) audio. Links checked 2026-10-04.

Recitations · 1

Island of Animals (stage adaptation of The Case of the Animals versus Man), Golden Thread Productions, San Francisco · Golden Thread Productions (official site) ↗
Hafiz Karmali (playwright and director); Golden Thread Productions (producer) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: linked, not embedded · adaptation (performance): a theatrical adaptation, not a recitation of the text; the producing company's own page gives the run (21 Apr to 15 May 2006, Thick House, San Francisco), cast and the staging traditions drawn on (commedia, vaudeville, shadow puppetry) · HTTP 200. This is a performance, not a recitation of the text. No recording found. Per a search snippet, Karmali also staged it at the Ismaili Centre, London (UNVERIFIED).

Commentaries & lectures · 4

Les épîtres des Frères de la (en) pureté (Questions d'islam) · France Culture (Radio France) ↗
Ghaleb Bencheikh (host); Guillaume de Vaulx d'Arcy (guest) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: a radio conversation with the translator of the corpus's mathematical and philosophical epistles, on authorship and the role of arithmetic; broadcast 31 Mar 2019 · HTTP 200 for the page; the audio file (https://media.radiofrance-podcast.net/podcast09/10073-31.03.2019-ITEMA_22023197-0.mp3, about 57 MB) returns 200. Radio France's own player. The guest's name appears on the page, but whether he is the sole guest is UNVERIFIED. Link out.
The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (IIS video series 'Exploring the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity') · YouTube (The Institute of Ismaili Studies, channel UCWRXvLUcekZbqpzNciZJ9gw) ↗
Nader El-Bizri (speaker); Carmela Baffioni (speaker); Omar Alí-de-Unzaga (speaker); The Institute of Ismaili Studies (publisher (official channel)) · whole text
Rights: the owner's channel · specialist: the editors of the IIS/OUP critical edition discuss the epistles' structure, themes and intellectual sources; posted 13 Nov 2025, 15 min · HTTP 200; oEmbed author is 'The Institute of Ismaili Studies'; playableInEmbed true. IIS page: https://www.iis.ac.uk/multimedia/exploring-the-epistles-of-the-brethren-of-purity/ (dated 29 Dec 2025 there; the page says it belongs to a multimedia series, but further episodes were not found).
Interview with Dr Nader El-Bizri (IIS Archive) · YouTube (The Institute of Ismaili Studies) ↗
Nader El-Bizri (interviewee); The Institute of Ismaili Studies (publisher (official channel)) · whole text
Rights: the owner's channel · specialist: the series' general editor introduces the Ikhwān, the corpus, its themes and reception, and the edition project; recorded 2009 (the IIS page is dated 27 Aug 2009), uploaded to YouTube 7 Oct 2025, 27 min · HTTP 200; oEmbed author is the IIS; playableInEmbed true. IIS page: https://www.iis.ac.uk/multimedia/interview-with-dr-nader-el-bizri/ . It predates the newer Andalusian dating debate.
History of Philosophy without any Gaps, ep. 135: Undercover Brothers: Philosophy in the Būyid Age · History of Philosophy without any Gaps ↗
Peter Adamson (host) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist (general): Adamson (LMU Munich / King's College London), a historian of Arabic philosophy; one episode on Miskawayh, al-ʿĀmirī, al-Tawḥīdī, the Brethren of Purity and Ismaili missionaries; posted 30 June 2013 · HTTP 200, title matches. The reading list includes El-Bizri 2008, Kraemer and Netton. No HoPWaG episode is devoted only to the Brethren; ep. 136 is an interview with Farhad Daftary on the Ismailis (https://historyofphilosophy.net/podcast/islamic-world/formative-period/ismailis-daftary), useful background for the Ismaili authorship question.

Editions & translations · 32

Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa-khullān al-wafāʾ, ed. Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī, vols 1–2 (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Tijāriyya al-Kubrā / al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿArabiyya, 1347/1928), 300-ppi grey scan · Internet Archive ↗
Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī (editor); Bibliotheca Alexandrina (scanner) · whole text
Rights: public domain / open · base print (1928): The print our digital text derives from (title page: «عني بتصحيحه خير الدين الزركلي», with Ṭāhā Ḥusayn's introduction and Aḥmad Zakī Pāshā's essay). Epistle 13's close vol. 1 p. 342; Epistle 22 vol. 2 pp. 152–317 (our parts pp. 173–187, 314–317). Every passage of ours was collated against it. Public domain in the US (published 1928). · The print our digital text derives from (title page: «عني بتصحيحه خير الدين الزركلي», with Ṭāhā Ḥusayn's introduction and Aḥmad Zakī Pāshā's essay). Epistle 13's close vol. 1 p. 342; Epistle 22 vol. 2 pp. 152–317 (our parts pp. 173–187, 314–317). Every passage of ours was collated against it. Public domain in the US (published 1928).
The same, vols 1–2, a second (bitonal) scan · Internet Archive ↗
Digital Library of India (scanner) · whole text
Rights: public domain / open · base print (1928), second scan: A second Bibliotheca Alexandrina scan of the same bound volume; useful where a dot is faint in the grey scan (e.g. vol. 2 p. 180). · A second Bibliotheca Alexandrina scan of the same bound volume; useful where a dot is faint in the grey scan (e.g. vol. 2 p. 180).
The same, vol. 3 (community upload of a 72-ppi digitisation) · Internet Archive ↗
Digital Library of India (scanner) · Epistle 32 and the close of Epistle 13 (¶36–74)
Rights: public domain / open · base print (1928), poor scan: Epistle 32 on pp. 182–199. Badly degraded: dots and short particles are often illegible; the collation read it with the Bombay lithograph. A better scan of vol. 3 is wanted. · Epistle 32 on pp. 182–199. Badly degraded: dots and short particles are often illegible; the collation read it with the Bombay lithograph. A better scan of vol. 3 is wanted.
Kitāb Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, al-qism al-thānī (Bombay lithograph, 1305/1887–88), Digital Library of India scan · Internet Archive ↗
Digital Library of India (scanner) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: public domain / open · 19th-century lithograph: Epistle 22 (al-risāla al-thāmina) pp. 119–245; the frame story from p. 134, the verdict pp. 244–245. A separate witness from the Cairo print, used where Cairo is doubtful. · Epistle 22 (al-risāla al-thāmina) pp. 119–245; the frame story from p. 134, the verdict pp. 244–245. A separate witness from the Cairo print, used where Cairo is doubtful.
Kitāb Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, al-qism al-thālith (Bombay lithograph, 1306/1888–89), Digital Library of India scan · Internet Archive ↗
Digital Library of India (scanner) · Epistle 32 and the close of Epistle 13 (¶36–74)
Rights: public domain / open · 19th-century lithograph: Epistle 32 pp. 2–16: legible, and the witness through which the degraded Cairo vol. 3 was read; it settles منشؤه, يعد, المحجمة, يفيضها and suggests النفس الكلية (text record §3). · Epistle 32 pp. 2–16: legible, and the witness through which the degraded Cairo vol. 3 was read; it settles منشؤه, يعد, المحجمة, يفيضها and suggests النفس الكلية (text record §3).
Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (series): Arabic critical editions and English translations of the Rasāʾil · The Institute of Ismaili Studies ↗
Nader El-Bizri (general editor); The Institute of Ismaili Studies (publisher (with Oxford University Press)) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · scholarly (critical edition): the first critical edition of the corpus, epistle by epistle, each built on the oldest manuscripts with facing English; volumes by specialists · HTTP 200. The series listing shows 21 volumes, including On Arithmetic & Geometry (Ep. 1–2), On Music (Ep. 5), On Logic (Ep. 10–14), The Case of the Animals versus Man (Ep. 22), Sciences of the Soul and Intellect I (Ep. 32–36) and III (Ep. 39–41), The Call to God (Ep. 48), On God and the World (Ep. 49–51), On Magic I–II (Ep. 52a), and The Comprehensive Epistle. In copyright: cite only. The series uses the Atıf Efendi 1681 manuscript (578/1182) as a principal witness (per the volumes' introductions; UNVERIFIED here).
On Logic: An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistles 10–14 · The Institute of Ismaili Studies / Oxford University Press ↗
Carmela Baffioni (editor and translator) · Epistle 32 and the close of Epistle 13 (¶36–74)
Rights: linked, not embedded · scholarly (critical edition): Baffioni is a specialist in the Ikhwān's logic and cosmology · HTTP 200. Year 2010; ISBN 978-0-19-958652-3, 432 pp. Contains Epistle 13 (on the Prior Analytics), whose close gives the definition of philosophy as likeness to God as far as a human can manage (principles). In copyright: cite only.
The Case of the Animals versus Man Before the King of the Jinn: An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistle 22 · The Institute of Ismaili Studies / Oxford University Press ↗
Lenn E. Goodman (editor and translator); Richard McGregor (editor and translator) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: linked, not embedded · scholarly (critical edition): Goodman (Vanderbilt) has translated this epistle since 1978; McGregor (Vanderbilt) is an Islamicist. Reviewed by P. Lory in BEO (https://doi.org/10.4000/beo.758) · HTTP 200. Both IIS and SEP give the year as 2010 (the request said 2009; the imprint is 2009 per some catalogues, UNVERIFIED). ISBN 978-0-19-958016-3, 696 pp. In copyright: cite only. Primary triangulation witness for animals.
Sciences of the Soul and Intellect, Part I: An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistles 32–36 · The Institute of Ismaili Studies / Oxford University Press ↗
Paul E. Walker (editor and translator); Ismail K. Poonawala (editor and translator); David Simonowitz (editor and translator); Godefroid de Callataÿ (editor and translator) · Epistle 32 and the close of Epistle 13 (¶36–74)
Rights: linked, not embedded · scholarly (critical edition): Walker and Poonawala are senior Ismaili-studies scholars and de Callataÿ is an Ikhwān specialist; reviewed in BSOAS (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X17001331) and AJIS (https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v33i4.940) · HTTP 200. The IIS page gives the year as 2016; the imprint and SEP give 2015. ISBN 978-0-19-875828-0, 496 pp. The request listed 2015. In copyright: cite only. Primary triangulation witness for principles.
Le Procès animal de la domination humaine: fable tirée des Épîtres des Frères en Pureté · Les Belles Lettres (Sagesses médiévales) ↗
Guillaume de Vaulx d'Arcy (translator and introduction) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: linked, not embedded · scholarly (annotated translation): the publisher says the text was established from manuscripts with conflicting versions, with a historical and philosophical introduction · HTTP 200. Published 17 Sept 2021; EAN 978-2-251-45219-7. A complete French translation of Epistle 22. In copyright: cite only.
Kitāb Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa-khullān al-wafāʾ (Bombay edition, 1305–1306/1887–1889), qism 1 (Digital Library of India scan) · Internet Archive (Digital Library of India) ↗
Nūr al-Dīn b. Jīwā Khān (publisher (bookseller, Bhendi Bazaar, Bombay)); Digital Library of India (scanner) · Epistle 32 and the close of Epistle 13 (¶36–74)
Rights: public domain / open · early printed edition (uncritical): the first complete printing (4 vols.), from an old manuscript per its own notice; SEP cites it for dating evidence (vol. I, p. 46); not critical · HTTP 200. Checked by page image: leaf n1 is the publisher's notice (iʿlān) from al-Shaykh al-Ḥājj Nūr al-Dīn b. Jīwā Khān, bookseller in Bhendi Bazaar, Bombay, with his stamp, saying the book was printed from an old corrected copy and registered with the government. The catalogue gives 'Ahmad Bin Abdullah' as author, matching the Bombay title page's attribution to the hidden imam Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh (title page not itself checked). Public domain (1887). Qism 1 holds the mathematical epistles (Ep. 1–14), so it covers Part I, Part II and Ep. 13 (expected; UNVERIFIED by page). Qism 2: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.323864 (1887; natural sciences, so Ep. 22, animals); qism 3: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.323867 (1888; Ep. 32, principles); qism 4: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.323926 (1888). All four HTTP 200. SCOPE: qism 1 is listed here for Ep. 13 (the close, the definition of philosophy); its Ep. 1 and Ep. 5 are queued with Parts I–II. For Ep. 22 use qism 2, for Ep. 32 qism 3.
Kitāb Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa-khullān al-wafāʾ (Bombay: Maṭbaʿat Nukhbat al-Akhbār, 1305–1306/1887–1889), Bibliotheca Alexandrina scan · Internet Archive (Bibliotheca Alexandrina) ↗
Bibliotheca Alexandrina (scanner) · whole text
Rights: public domain / open · early printed edition (uncritical): same Bombay edition as the DLI scans; catalogue author 'al-Mastūr, Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh' (the hidden imam to whom the Bombay printing attributes the work) · HTTP 200. Leaf n1 is a blank leaf with a shelf number; which volume(s) this item holds is UNVERIFIED. Other BA scans of the same edition: https://archive.org/details/AAlexandrina-065487 , AAlexandrina-056370 , AAlexandrina-147128 (catalogue only). Public domain.
Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa-khillān al-wafāʾ (Hindawi e-text, 4 vols. of the Cairo 1928 edition revised by Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī, with Ṭāhā Ḥusayn's introduction) · Hindawi Foundation ↗
Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī (reviser (murājaʿa)); Ṭāhā Ḥusayn (introduction); Hindawi Foundation (publisher of the e-text (2018)) · whole text
Rights: public domain / open · reprint of an uncritical edition (re-typeset): Cairo 1928 (al-Maktaba al-Tijāriyya), from the Bombay text; re-typeset by Hindawi, so typos are possible; this is the base text of our OpenITI file (0375IkhwanSafa.Rasail.Hindawi095926405Vols) · PDF HTTP 200 (362 pp.; title 'رسائل إخوان الصفاء وخِلَّان الوفاء (الجزء الأول)'). The imprint page says the book and cover design are licensed CC BY 4.0, and the original text is public domain. Vol. 1 = Ep. 1–14, so it covers Part I, Part II and Ep. 13 (principles). Other volumes: vol. 2 (Ep. 15–31, so Ep. 22, animals) https://downloads.hindawi.org/books/74715296.pdf ; vol. 3 (Ep. 32–41; opens with Ep. 32 'fī mabādiʾ al-mawjūdāt', principles) https://downloads.hindawi.org/books/26362727.pdf ; vol. 4 (Ep. 42–52) https://downloads.hindawi.org/books/82924024.pdf . All four PDFs 200. The book pages (hindawi.org/books/<id>/) now redirect to safahat.org, which blocks automated fetches (403), so the PDFs are linked instead. This is a re-typeset e-text, not a scan; collate against the scan (PROGRESS step 3). SCOPE: for 'animals' use vol. 2 (Ep. 22); for 'principles' use vol. 3 (Ep. 32) and vol. 1 (Ep. 13).
Der Streit zwischen Mensch und Thier: ein arabisches Mährchen aus den Schriften der lauteren Brüder (German translation of Epistle 22) · Internet Archive (University of Toronto, PIMS) ↗
Friedrich Dieterici (translator) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: public domain / open · scholarly (1858): the first European translation of the epistle, by its later Arabic editor · HTTP 200. Berlin: E. S. Mittler, 1858. Other scans: https://archive.org/details/derstreitzwisch00algoog , https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_mGa04gpxzv8C . Public domain. The catalogue note says the Arabic text was published separately at Leipzig by Hinrichs, i.e. Thier und Mensch vor dem König der Genien (1879; 2nd ed. 1881). No scan of that Arabic edition was found on archive.org under that title; its glossary volume is below.
Arabisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch zum Koran und Thier und Mensch vor dem König der Genien (glossary to Dieterici's Arabic edition of Epistle 22) · Internet Archive (University of Toronto) ↗
Friedrich Dieterici (author) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: public domain / open · scholarly (lexical aid): a glossary keyed to Dieterici's Arabic edition of the epistle; useful for the word panel · HTTP 200. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 2nd ed. 1894. Second scan: https://archive.org/details/arabischdeutsch00dietgoog . Public domain. Dieterici's Arabic text itself (Thier und Mensch vor dem König der Genien, Leipzig 1879/1881) is still to be located (perhaps HathiTrust or MDZ).
Die Logik und Psychologie der Araber im zehnten Jahrhundert n. Chr. (German rendering of the logic epistles, including Epistle 13) · Internet Archive (Google Books scan) ↗
Friedrich Dieterici (translator) · Epistle 32 and the close of Epistle 13 (¶36–74)
Rights: public domain / open · scholarly (1868), paraphrastic: Dieterici's volume on the logic and psychology epistles · HTTP 200. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1868; public-domain mark on the item. Whether it renders the closing definition of philosophy in Ep. 13 is UNVERIFIED (check the page).
Die Lehre von der Weltseele bei den Arabern im X. Jahrhundert (German rendering of Epistles 31–40, including Epistle 32) · Internet Archive (University of Toronto, PIMS) ↗
Friedrich Dieterici (translator) · Epistle 32 and the close of Epistle 13 (¶36–74)
Rights: public domain / open · scholarly (1872), paraphrastic: Dieterici, vol. 8 of his Philosophie der Araber series; the catalogue describes it as a translation of treatises 31–40 · HTTP 200. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1872. Contents (OCR): I Zahl, Ding p. 1; II 'Ueber die Anfänge der Vernunft beim Beginn der Dinge' p. 11, with 'Die Anfänge der Körperwelt und ihre Stufenfolge' p. 15 and 'Die Allseele' p. 17. Chapter II is Ep. 32's intellectual principles. Second scan: https://archive.org/details/dielehrevonderw00algoog . Public domain.
Die Abhandlungen der Ichwân es-Safâ in Auswahl, zum ersten Mal aus arabischen Handschriften herausgegeben (Dieterici's Arabic selections; = Philosophie der Araber, Buch 11) · Internet Archive (University of Toronto, PIMS) ↗
Friedrich Dieterici (editor) · whole text
Rights: public domain / open · scholarly (1883–1886), from manuscripts: the first European edition of Arabic text from the Rasāʾil, made from manuscripts (not from the Bombay print) · HTTP 200. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1883–86. Three IA items hold the parts: …01ikhw (title page checked by OCR), https://archive.org/details/dieabhandlungend02ikhw , https://archive.org/details/dieabhandlungend03ikhw . Also catalogued as Khulāṣat al-wafāʾ bi-ikhtiṣār Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (1886): https://archive.org/details/khulatalwafbiikh01ikhwuoft . Which epistles and passages are excerpted is UNVERIFIED (the Arabic OCR is unusable). Public domain.
Ikhwanu-s-safa; or, Brothers of Purity, translated from the Hindustani (English, via Ikrām ʿAlī's Urdu version of Epistle 22) · Internet Archive (Library of Congress copy) ↗
John T. Platts (translator); Ikrām ʿAlī (Urdu translator (1810)) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: public domain / open · indirect (translation of a translation): an English version of Ikrām ʿAlī's Urdu adaptation, made for the Indian civil-service language examinations; useful for reception, but not a witness to the Arabic · HTTP 200. London: W. H. Allen, 1869; xii + 234 pp. The OCR confirms 'Translated from the Hindustani' and names Maulavi Ikram ʿAli. DLI scans: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.127252 and in.ernet.dli.2015.143104 . Public domain.
Ikhwánu-s Safá; or, Brothers of Purity, translated from the Hindustani · Internet Archive (Library of Congress copy) ↗
John Dowson (translator) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: public domain / open · indirect (translation of a translation): Dowson (Staff College, Sandhurst) made a close crib of the Urdu for examination candidates; his preface lists earlier English versions (Atkinson, in Asiatic Journal 28, 1829) · HTTP 200. London: Trübner, 1869; viii + 156 pp. Public domain.
Ikhwanu-s-safa (Urdu text by Ikrām ʿAlī, ed. Duncan Forbes, revised by Charles Rieu) · Internet Archive (University of Toronto) ↗
Ikrām ʿAlī (Urdu translator); Duncan Forbes (editor); Charles Rieu (reviser) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: public domain / open · reception witness: the Urdu version (Fort William College, 1810) through which Epistle 22 reached 19th-century British India · HTTP 200. London: Allen, 1862 (1861 per the DLI record: https://archive.org/details/india.history.resource.70944). Public domain.
Ichwan-oos-Suffa, in the original Arabic (Tuḥfat Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ: the animals' debate, Epistle 22) · Internet Archive (Wellcome Library) ↗
Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Shirwānī al-Yamanī (editor); T. T. Thomason (associated (Fort William College)) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: public domain / open · early printed edition (uncritical): Calcutta: P. Pereira, 1812; the first printing of any part of the Rasāʾil, made for Fort William College; text from manuscripts not identified · HTTP 200. viii + 442 pp. Wellcome marks it with the CC Public Domain Mark. A Google scan of the same work (Tuḥfat Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ): https://archive.org/details/08goog (not checked). That this volume contains exactly Epistle 22 is from the catalogue and the Urdu tradition; UNVERIFIED by page image.
The Ikhwan-oos-Suffa, translated from the original Oordoo into English prose · Internet Archive (Google Books scan, Oxford copy) ↗
Thomas Philip Manuel (translator) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: public domain / open · indirect (translation of a translation): made for the Calcutta University entrance examination; the preface summarises the animals' suit and the jinn king's verdict for mankind; 55 leaves, so likely partial · HTTP 200. Calcutta: D'Rozario, 1860. Public domain.
Iggereth baʿale ḥayyim: Abhandlung über die Thiere, von Kalonymos ben Kalonymos (Hebrew version of Epistle 22, 1316, with German introduction) · Internet Archive (University of Toronto) ↗
Kalonymos ben Kalonymos (Hebrew translator (1316)); Julius Landsberger (editor) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: public domain / open · reception witness (medieval translation): Kalonymos ben Kalonymos's Hebrew translation (1316), one of the earliest witnesses to the epistle outside Arabic; the patron and circumstances are not checked here · HTTP 200. Edited by Landsberger, 1882 per the IA metadata (place of publication not checked). Public domain.
Thier und Mensch vor dem König der Genien: ein arabisches Märchen aus den Schriften der lautern Brüder in Basra (Arabic text of Epistle 22) · Google Books ↗
Friedrich Dieterici (editor); Austrian National Library (holding library (Google scan)) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: public domain / open · scholarly (1879), from manuscripts: the first European edition of the Arabic text of Epistle 22, by the scholar who translated it in 1858 · HTTP 200. Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1879, 'Original from Austrian National Library, Digitized Nov 15, 2019'; the page offers 'Download PDF' (full view; public domain). 2nd edition (Hinrichs, 1881; Columbia copy, 148 pp., full view, HTTP 200): https://books.google.com/books?id=AEhIAAAAYAAJ (Arabic title page 'Fī tadāʿī al-ḥayawānāt ʿalā al-insān ʿinda malik al-jinn'). The glossary is the 1894 Handwörterbuch above. Which manuscripts Dieterici used is UNVERIFIED. Triangulation witness for the Arabic of 'animals'.
Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, vol. 1 (manuscript, BnF Arabe 6647; copied Shaʿbān 675/Feb. 1277; collation note, Yazd 709/1309) · Gallica (BnF) ↗
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits (holding library) · whole text
Rights: public domain / open · primary witness (13th c.): one of the oldest complete copies in a European library; Qurboniev and Van Den Bossche (2023) date the copying of vol. 1 to Shaʿbān 675 and give the Yazd collation note of 709 · HTTP 200. 191 ff. Gallica marks it 'domaine public'. BnF's title names the five men from al-Tawḥīdī's list as authors, showing the old attribution recorded in the catalogue (probably from a flyleaf note; Qurboniev and Van Den Bossche discuss a note on f. 191b). Companion volume: Arabe 6648, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10030497z (218 ff., same hand, no colophon). Which volume holds Ep. 22 and which Ep. 32 is UNVERIFIED (vol. 1 probably runs to the natural epistles). Catalogue: http://archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc33602c/ca59837645865627
Ichwan-oos-Suffa (Calcutta 1812), Silvestre de Sacy's interleaved and annotated copy (BnF Arabe 5242) · Gallica (BnF) ↗
Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (annotator); Bibliothèque nationale de France (holding library) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: public domain / open · reception witness: the founder of modern Arabic studies in France annotating the 1812 Calcutta text of Epistle 22 · HTTP 200. Gallica marks it 'domaine public'. Nature and extent of de Sacy's annotations not checked.
The Case of the Animals versus Man Before the King of the Jinn: A Tenth-Century Ecological Fable of the Pure Brethren of Basra (Library of Classical Arabic Literature 3) · Open Library (bibliographic record); Boston: Twayne, 1978 ↗
Lenn Evan Goodman (translator, introduction and commentary) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: linked, not embedded · scholarly (translation): the first complete English translation from the Arabic, with commentary; superseded by Goodman and McGregor's critical edition (2009/2010) but still widely cited; reviewed in Ethics and Animals 1.2 (1980): https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/ethicsandanimals/vol1/iss2/6/ · Record verified through the Open Library API (OL4718676M: Twayne 1978, ISBN 0805781617, series 'Library of classical Arabic literature ; v. 3'). The HTML page shows bots a human-verification screen. In copyright: cite only. PDFs on vdoc.pub and a course site circulate: do not link.
Mensch und Tier vor dem König der Dschinnen: Aus den Schriften der lauteren Brüder von Basra (Philosophische Bibliothek 433) · Felix Meiner Verlag (eLibrary) ↗
Alma Giese (translator and editor) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: linked, not embedded · scholarly (translation): Giese is an Arabist; a modern German translation in Meiner's philosophy series (1990, 232 pp.); PhilPapers lists S. H. Nasr as co-contributor (UNVERIFIED: PhilPapers returned 403) · HTTP 200. DOI https://doi.org/10.28937/978-3-7873-2629-7 ; print ISBN 978-3-7873-0981-8. In copyright: cite only.
Eläinten oikeudenkäynti (Finnish translation of Epistle 22) · University of Helsinki Research Portal (record); Helsinki: Basam Books, 2015 ↗
Janne Mattila (translator) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: linked, not embedded · scholarly (translation): Mattila (Helsinki) is a specialist in the Ikhwānian corpus (author of the 2025/26 Brill monograph); 352 pp., ISBN 978-952-260-260-2 · HTTP 200 (record only). In copyright: cite only.
The Animals' Lawsuit Against Humanity: a modern adaptation of an ancient animal-rights tale (from Kalonymos ben Kalonymos's Hebrew version) · Fons Vitae (publisher) ↗
Anson Laytner (translator and adapter); Dan Bridge (translator and adapter) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: linked, not embedded · adaptation (popular, indirect): a free English adaptation of the 14th-century Hebrew translation, illustrated, for general and young readers; not a witness to the Arabic · HTTP 200. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2005 (Fons Vitae page and PhilPapers). The translator's own page: https://ansonlaytner.com/the-animals-lawsuit-against-humanity/ (200). An archive.org upload of this book exists; it is not linked because it is a copyrighted book.
al-Ḥayawān wa-l-insān, wa-hiya khātimat wa-zubdat Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Taqaddum, 1913), Bibliotheca Alexandrina scan · Internet Archive (Bibliotheca Alexandrina) ↗
Maṭbaʿat al-Taqaddum (printer); Bibliotheca Alexandrina (scanner) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: public domain / open · popular printing (uncritical): a separate Cairo printing of the animals' debate, presented as the epistles' crowning summary; source text not identified · HTTP 200. Catalogue title and date (1913) from the IA metadata; contents not checked by page image. Public domain (1913).

References · 27

EḴWĀN AL-ṢAFĀʾ (Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. VIII, fasc. 3, pp. 294–297) · Encyclopaedia Iranica ↗
Paul E. Walker (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: Walker is a historian of Fatimid and early Ismaili thought (and co-editor of the IIS/OUP Epistles 32–36); published 15 Dec 1998, last updated 24 Apr 2013 per the page; open access · HTTP 200, title matches. Sets out al-Tawḥīdī's report (al-Imtāʿ wa-l-muʾānasa, ed. Amīn and Zayn, pt. 2, pp. 4–23) and the Ismaili early-dating view (Hamdani, Marquet), and observes that no Fatimid-era Ismaili work cites the Rasāʾil unambiguously. The bibliography lists the editions (Bombay, Cairo 1928, Beirut 1957), Dieterici, Diwald, Goldstein's Epistle 1 study and H. F. al-Hamdani 1932. DOI per the page: 10.1163/2330-4804_EIRO_COM_8958.
Ikhwān al-Safāʾ (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ↗
Carmela Baffioni (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: Baffioni (Naples, L'Orientale) edited several IIS/OUP volumes, including Epistle 13's volume On Logic; first published 22 Apr 2008, substantive revision 29 Aug 2025 · HTTP 200. The author is Carmela Baffioni, not Nader El-Bizri (copyright line on the page: 'Copyright © 2025 by Carmela Baffioni'). §1–2 survey authorship and dating in detail: al-Tawḥīdī and ʿAbd al-Jabbār; Dieterici's 961–986; Marquet; Hamdani's 873–909; Madelung; de Callataÿ's astronomical dating; and the newer Andalusian line (Fierro 1996; de Callataÿ 2013, 2014) linking the corpus to Maslama al-Qurṭubī (d. 964), which pushes the date earlier. Archived editions from Spring 2010 onward are at plato.stanford.edu/archives/…/entries/ikhwan-al-safa/.
Ikhwan al-Safa' (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy ↗
Diana Steigerwald (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist (general): Steigerwald (California State University, Long Beach) writes on Ismaili thought; a peer-reviewed survey, undated on the page; it reads the Ikhwān as broadly Ismaili, which is one side of a contested question · HTTP 200. Gives al-Tawḥīdī's list of names, and a cosmology section relevant to principles.
Ikhwan al-Safa' (Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy) · Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy ↗
Ian Richard Netton (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: Netton wrote the standard monograph Muslim Neoplatonists (1982); REP is subscription-only beyond the opening summary · DOI resolves (HTTP 200) to https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/ikhwan-al-safa/v-1 . Paywalled; SEP lists it under 'Other Internet Resources' via Islamic Philosophy Online, but no open copy was verified, so none is linked.
Ik̲h̲wān al-Ṣafāʾ (Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, vol. III, pp. 1071–1076) · Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (Brill) ↗
Yves Marquet (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: Marquet spent his career on the Ikhwān and read them as an Ismaili work; the article represents that view · The DOI resolves (HTTP 200) to referenceworks.brill.com/display/entries/EIEO/COM-0356.xml, with page title 'Ik̲h̲wān al-Ṣafāʾ' and author 'Y. Marquet'. Subscription. The volume and pages are from Iranica's bibliography.
Brethren of Purity (Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE) · Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE (Brill) ↗
Godefroid de Callataÿ (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: de Callataÿ (Louvain) is a leading Ikhwān scholar (Oneworld 2005; co-editor of several IIS/OUP volumes) · The DOI resolves (HTTP 200) to referenceworks.brill.com/display/entries/EI3O/COM-25372.xml (title 'Brethren of Purity', author Godefroid de Callataÿ). Subscription. The page shows dates of 1 Dec 2013 and 19 Jul 2021, but which is the publication date is UNVERIFIED.
Ikhwan Al-Safa' (The Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy) · Bloomsbury Philosophy Library ↗
Nader El-Bizri (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: El-Bizri is the general editor of the IIS/OUP Epistles series; ed. Oliver Leaman, 2006 (Crossref) · DOI resolves (HTTP 200) to bloomsburyphilosophylibrary.com. Subscription.
The Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and their Rasāʾil: An Introduction · The Institute of Ismaili Studies / Oxford University Press ↗
Nader El-Bizri (editor); Farhad Daftary (foreword) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: the series' introductory volume, with chapters by Poonawala, de Callataÿ, Hamdani, Baffioni, Netton, Michot, El-Bizri, Wright and Goodman; reviewed in the Journal of Islamic Studies (https://doi.org/10.1093/jis/ets008) · HTTP 200. 2008; ISBN 978-0-19-955724-0, 326 pp. Includes Hamdani's 'The Arrangement of the Rasāʾil … and the Problem of Interpolations' (pp. 83–100), Wright on music (queued Part II) and Goodman on Epistle 22 (animals). In copyright: cite only.
Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ) · Routledge (RoutledgeCurzon reissue) ↗
Ian Richard Netton (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: the standard English monograph on the Ikhwān's sources (Pythagorean, Platonic, Aristotelian, Neoplatonic); first published London: Allen & Unwin, 1982; Edinburgh UP 1991 (Islamic Surveys 19); this Routledge reissue 2002, ISBN 978-0-7007-1466-7 · HTTP 200, title matches. Especially relevant to Parts I and IV (number symbolism and the emanation hierarchy). Reviews: Religion 1984 (https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-721X(84)80046-9), Arabica 1984 (https://doi.org/10.1163/157005884X00129), BSOAS 1993 (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X00006297). In copyright: cite only.
Ikhwan al-Safa': A Brotherhood of Idealists on the Fringe of Orthodox Islam (Makers of the Muslim World) · Google Books (bibliographic record); Oneworld, Oxford 2005 ↗
Godefroid de Callataÿ (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: a short, readable introduction by a leading Ikhwān scholar; ISBN 978-1-85168-404-5 · HTTP 200 for the Google Books record. No live Oneworld catalogue page was found (title probably out of print); Stanford SearchWorks record: https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/6353144 . A PDF circulates on epdf.pub: do not link. Here de Callataÿ still accepted al-Tawḥīdī's testimony; he later revised his view (SEP, citing de Callataÿ 2013, 2014).
Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam: Abū Sulaymān al-Sijistānī and his Circle · Brill ↗
Joel L. Kraemer (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: the standard study of al-Tawḥīdī's milieu; SEP cites pp. 136 and 230 ff. for a close reading of al-Tawḥīdī's report on the Ikhwān · Leiden: Brill, 1986. The DOI resolves (HTTP 200) to brill.com/display/title/2875. Background for the authorship question.
Les Épîtres des Frères en Pureté (Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-ṣafāʾ): Mathématique et philosophie · Les Belles Lettres (Sagesses médiévales) ↗
Guillaume de Vaulx d'Arcy (translator and author of the introduction) · Epistle 32 and the close of Epistle 13 (¶36–74)
Rights: linked, not embedded · scholarly (annotated translation): by a philosopher (Ifpo, Beirut; IDEO, Cairo) whose Sorbonne thesis (2016) is on the corpus; the publisher's description lists six epistles translated: arithmetic, geometry, harmony, the wisdom of death, the metaphysical principles, and government · HTTP 200. Paris 2019, ISBN 978-2-251-44895-4. The long introduction argues that the author is Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib al-Sarakhsī (d. 899), al-Kindī's pupil: a minority view (see authorship). Which numbered epistles are 'harmony' and 'metaphysical principles' is UNVERIFIED (very likely Ep. 5 and Ep. 32). In copyright: cite only. SCOPE: listed under 'principles' for its translation of the metaphysical-principles epistle (very likely Ep. 32); its arithmetic and harmony epistles (Ep. 1, 5) belong to the queued Parts I–II.
'A Scholarly Copyist': Early Ilkhanid Intellectual Networks through the Prism of Two Colophons · Ghent University Academic Bibliography (open access); in Literary Snippets (Gorgias, 2023), pp. 431–457 ↗
Aslisho Qurboniev (author); Gowaart Van Den Bossche (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: codicological study (AKU-ISMC and Ghent; KITAB project); open access CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 per the repository · HTTP 200. DOI 10.31826/9781463244019-020 (De Gruyter Brill, which returned an empty 202 to automated fetch). Key manuscript facts, read in the PDF: Süleymaniye, Atıf Efendi 1681, copied 578/1182 at Shamākhī (Shirvan), the oldest dated copy; Süleymaniye, Esad Efendi 3638, copied in Baghdad, Shawwāl 686/1287, by Buzurgmihr b. Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī, with the famous illustrated double frontispiece; BnF Arabe 6647–6648 (675/1277). On authorship: the earliest attribution to the hidden imam Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh is in Idrīs ʿImād al-Dīn (d. 872/1468), citing De Smet 2017; on manuscripts, the commonest attribution is to Maslama al-Qurṭubī (often confused with Maslama al-Majrīṭī); the Esad Efendi copy names al-Tawḥīdī's Basran group.
The Missing Link?: MS 1040, An Important Copy of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ in the Collection of The Institute of Ismaili Studies · Bloomsbury (I.B. Tauris / IIS), in Texts, Scribes and Transmission (2022) ↗
Omar Alí-de-Unzaga (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: by the IIS scholar who coordinated the critical-edition project; a study of a manuscript in the IIS collection · DOI registered (Crossref, 2022). Publisher page not fetched. An author-uploaded PDF is on ResearchGate and Academia; not linked, since the rights are unclear.
Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī and the Brethren of Purity · International Journal of Middle East Studies 9.3 (1978): 345–353 (Cambridge) ↗
Abbas Hamdani (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: Hamdani (Wisconsin–Milwaukee), a historian of Ismailism from a Ṭayyibī scholarly family; this is the main critique of al-Tawḥīdī's report as evidence of authorship · DOI resolves (HTTP 200) to Cambridge Core; title and author match. The abstract notes that al-Tawḥīdī's naming of four contemporaries came to be taken as fact by medieval and modern scholars; the article questions it. Paywalled. A copy on gwern.net is not linked (rights unclear).
An Early Fatimid Source on the Time and Authorship of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ · Arabica 26.1 (1979): 62–75 (Brill) ↗
Abbas Hamdani (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: argues from an early Fatimid source for pre-Fatimid composition (Hamdani's dating of 873–909, per SEP) · DOI resolves (HTTP 200) to brill.com (title matches). Abstract not readable by automated fetch. Which Fatimid source is used is UNVERIFIED here (secondary reports point to Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman).
Rasāʾil Ikhwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ in the literature of the Ismāʿīlī Ṭaiyibī Daʿwat · Der Islam 20.4 (1932): 281–300 (De Gruyter) ↗
Ḥusain F. al-Hamdānī (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist (historic): the first study of how the Ṭayyibī Ismaili daʿwa in Yemen and India read and attributed the Rasāʾil, by a scholar from a Bohra family with access to its manuscripts · The DOI is registered (Crossref: title, author, Der Islam 20.4, 1932) and the handle resolves to degruyter.com; the page itself was not fetched (De Gruyter blocks automated access). Pages per Iranica's bibliography. A copy on ismaili.net is not linked (rights unclear).
L'auteur des Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ selon les sources ismaéliennes ṭayyibites · Shii Studies Review 1.1–2 (2017): 151–166 (Brill) ↗
Daniel De Smet (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: De Smet (CNRS) is a specialist in Ismaili philosophy; traces how the Ṭayyibī attribution to the hidden imam Aḥmad took shape · DOI resolves (HTTP 200) to brill.com; abstract read. In our own words: Ṭayyibī Ismailis credit the Epistles (and the Risāla al-Jāmiʿa) to 'the eminent person', identified with the hidden imam Aḥmad between Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl and al-Mahdī, who is said to have written them as the imams' 'true' philosophy, a counterweight to al-Maʾmūn's Greek translations; De Smet traces how this account formed in the sources.
Les épîtres des Ikhwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ, œuvre ismaïlienne · Studia Islamica 61 (1985): 57 ff. (JSTOR) ↗
Yves Marquet (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: Marquet's programmatic statement that the corpus is an Ismaili work · Crossref confirms the title, author, issue 61 and first page 57. The DOI resolves to JSTOR, which blocks automated fetches ('Client Challenge'), so the JSTOR page was not read. Paywalled.
Bāṭinism in al-Andalus. Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (d. 353/964), Author of the Rutbat al-Ḥakīm and the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (Picatrix) · Studia Islamica 84 (1996): 87–109 (JSTOR) ↗
Maribel Fierro (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: Fierro (CSIC, Madrid); the article that opened the Andalusian line on the Rasāʾil's transmission and dating (SEP calls it the pioneer study) · Crossref confirms Studia Islamica 84, from p. 87; the end page is per SEP. The DOI resolves to JSTOR, which blocks automated fetches. Paywalled.
Magia en al-Andalus: Rasāʾil Ijwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rutbat al-ḥakīm y Gāyat al-ḥakīm (Picatrix) · Al-Qanṭara 34.2 (2013): 297–344 (CSIC, open access) ↗
Godefroid de Callataÿ (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: de Callataÿ revisits the Maslama question; SEP reports that he treats al-Tawḥīdī's names as possibly transmitters or redactors of an older text · HTTP 200 (open-access journal page; author and title in the meta tags). DOI 10.3989/alqantara.2013.011.
La relación de Maslama al-Maŷrīṭī con las obras Rasāʾil Ijwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Risālat al-ŷāmiʿa, Rutbat al-ḥakīm y Gāyat al-ḥakīm · Anaquel de Estudios Árabes 25 (2014): 29–44 (Universidad Complutense, open access) ↗
Mourad Kacimi (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: part of the Andalusian-transmission debate cited by SEP · HTTP 200. DOI 10.5209/rev_anqe.2014.v25.45213.
La 17e nuit d'at-Tawḥīdī. Réfutation d'une hérésie menaçante, les Épîtres des Frères en Pureté · Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 146 (2019) (OpenEdition, open access) ↗
Guillaume de Vaulx d'Arcy (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: rereads al-Tawḥīdī's '17th night' as a polemical refutation of the Epistles rather than a factual report of their authors · The page served a short anti-bot page to curl; read with a fetch tool on 4 Oct 2026, and the title, author and abstract match. In our own words: the night is built as an argument against the work's claims, with characters standing for stages of being drawn in by it; the Epistles are dated to about 307/920 and were in al-Andalus by about 950. DOI 10.4000/remmm.13122.
The Formation of the Ikhwānian Corpus: A Philological Study of the Epistles and Two Summaries Attributed to the Brethren of Purity · Brill ↗
Janne Mattila (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: the most recent monograph on how the corpus and the Risāla al-Jāmiʿa summaries were formed (Crossref: issued 2026; chapters online 25 Nov 2025) · DOI resolves (HTTP 200) to brill.com/display/title/8900 (title matches). The argument has not been read; Brill blocks reading the abstract. ISBN 978-90-04-69013-4 (print), 978-90-04-69014-1 (e-book).
Studies in Early Ismāʿīlism (includes 'New Information about the Authors of the Epistles of the Sincere Brethren', repr. pp. 155–176) · Brill / Magnes (Jerusalem–Leiden, 1983) ↗
Samuel M. Stern (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: Stern brought al-Tawḥīdī's and the Ṣiwān al-ḥikma's evidence to bear on authorship (Islamic Culture 20, 1946; Islamic Studies 3, 1964) · Crossref confirms the DOI (1983); the reprint pages are per Iranica. The original 1964 article is in Islamic Studies 3.4: 405–428 (JSTOR issue https://www.jstor.org/stable/i20832767 ; the article's stable URL is UNVERIFIED because JSTOR blocks automated fetches).
Brethren of Purity (short encyclopedia article, IIS-hosted PDF) · The Institute of Ismaili Studies ↗
Nader El-Bizri (author) · whole text
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist (general): an edited version of El-Bizri's entry in Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, ed. J. W. Meri (Routledge, 2006), vol. I, pp. 118–119; free on the IIS site · HTTP 200 (PDF, ~21 KB). Landing page: https://www.iis.ac.uk/scholarly-contributions/brethren-of-purity/ . It places the coterie in Basra and Baghdad in the last quarter of the 10th century, the traditional dating, now contested.
The Ikhwan al-Safa''s Animal Accusers: An Islamic Debate on Animal Slavery · Environmental Philosophy 16.2 (2019) (Philosophy Documentation Center) ↗
Katharine Loevy (author) · Epistle 22 (the animals) (¶1–35)
Rights: linked, not embedded · specialist: a philosopher reading the animals' complaint as a debate on slavery and domination · DOI registered (Crossref: Environmental Philosophy 16.2, 2019, pp. 319–338). The publisher page blocks automated fetches (403). Paywalled. Loevy also wrote 'Literary Resistance to the Philosophy of Slavery: Al-Farabi and the Ikhwan al-Safa'' (Philosophy and Literature, 2020): https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.2020.0020 .

The text record

Our working notes on this edition: status, witnesses, the decisions taken and why, and what AI supplied. This is a working edition, not an authority.Show the notes

Work / author / dates	Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa-Khullān al-Wafāʾ (رسائل إخوان الصفاء وخلّان الوفاء), "The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and the Friends of Loyalty": an encyclopaedia of 52 epistles in four sections (mathematical, natural-bodily, psychic-intellectual, nomic-theological) with a summary (al-Jāmiʿa). Anonymous; between the late 3rd/9th and the late 4th/10th century; authorship CONTESTED (§0).
Part added	A selection, one text in two parts (the author's scope, 4 Oct 2026): I `animals`: Epistle 22, the animals' case against man before the king of the jinn (faṣl 3–6 and the closing faṣl), ¶1–35; II `principles`: Epistle 32, the intellectual principles after the Pythagoreans (whole), ¶36–72, and the close of Epistle 13 with the definition of philosophy, ¶73–74. 74 passages, 9,187 words. Queued: Epistle 1 (number) and Epistle 5 (music), see `docs/ROADMAP.md`.
Reader route	`/read/ikhwan` (contents) · `/read/ikhwan/animals` · `/read/ikhwan/principles` · about page `/read/ikhwan/about`
Kind	Philosophical treatises (`philosophy`), §14
Status	Hindawi/OpenITI text collated word by word against the Cairo 1928 print (vol. 3 with the Bombay lithograph), 7 corrections · AI-vowelled throughout (the print is bare) · AI English ✦ unreviewed · not yet checked by a person · reviewed by: —

Structure. Part I (Epistle 22, «on how the animals were made and their kinds», of which the debate is the larger half): when Adam's children had spread over land and sea and yoked the beasts, a party of humans is cast up on an island in the Green Sea ruled by the jinn king Bīrāst (elsewhere Bīwarāsb) the Wise; the beasts complain of them, and the king hears both sides (¶1–6); the humans' spokesman claims lordship from the Quran, the beasts' spokesman answers that the verses speak of God's favours and not of ownership, and recalls that the beasts lived on the earth before Adam (¶7–12); the king summons his jinn and jurists (¶12–14); the humans boast of their upright form, the beasts answer that every form suits its use (¶15–17), then of their senses and reason (¶18–19); the humans claim lordship by buying and selling, feeding and housing them, and the pleas follow: donkey, ox, ram, camel, elephant, horse, mule, the pig (whom no one can classify) and the hare (¶20–29). The cut then passes over the long middle of the debate (the delegations of the beasts of prey, the birds, the insects, the sea creatures and the reptiles, the jinn sages' speeches, the human speakers of many nations) to the closing faṣl: the Ḥijāzī orator claims the resurrection and Paradise for humans alone; the nightingale answers that the beasts are also spared the punishment; the last claim, the saints («the friends of God») and the portrait of the perfect man, «Persian by descent, Arab in religion …»; the king's verdict that the animals be under the humans' command «until the cycle begins anew» (ḥattā yustaʾnafa al-dawr); and the Brethren's own word: do not take this epistle for children's play (¶30–35). Part II (Epistle 32): Pythagoras's doctrine that beings are ordered after the nature of number; the dyads, triads, tetrads; the one as the root of number as the Creator is of beings; then the ninefold order, each rank after the one before as each number after the last: Creator (one), Intellect (two), Soul (three), Matter (four), Nature (five), Body (six), the spheres (seven), the elements (eight), the generated beings (nine), with minerals, plants and animals as tens, hundreds and thousands (¶36–42); existence, duration, completeness and perfection (¶43); body, matter and form (¶44–47); how Intellect, Soul and Matter receive the Creator's effusion, and why matter, far from Him, desires nothing (¶48–50); questions on the principles, and a short poem (¶51); the spiritual and bodily principles in their ranks, from the active Intellect down through the spheres, the elements and the three kingdoms to the human being as a small world, and the soul's powers in minerals, plants, animals and the embryo (¶52–72). Part II, close (Epistle 13): logic as the balance and instrument of philosophy, because «it has been said in the definition of philosophy that it is becoming like God as far as is humanly possible» (al-tashabbuh bi-l-ilāh bi-ḥasab al-ṭāqa al-insāniyya), and the Brethren's gloss on «human capacity»: truth in speech, right belief, sound knowledge, good character, good acts, sound work and craft (¶73–74).

0. Authorship: CONTESTED

The authors present themselves only as an anonymous brotherhood. Graded CONTESTED: five positions, none with a consensus (C. Baffioni, SEP "Ikhwān al-Safāʾ", rev. 2025, §§1, 3). Sources checked by the companion sweep (app/src/content/companions/ikhwan.json → authorship):

A Basran circle of the later 4th/10th century (the older view). Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī, al-Imtāʿ wa-l-muʾānasa (Baghdad, c. 373/983), names Abū Sulaymān al-Bustī (al-Maqdisī), Abū al-Ḥasan al-Zanjānī, Abū Aḥmad al-Nahrajūrī (al-Mihrajānī), al-ʿAwfī and his friend Zayd b. Rifāʿa. P. E. Walker, Encyclopaedia Iranica VIII/3 (1998) pp. 294–297; S. M. Stern, Islamic Studies 3 (1964), repr. Studies in Early Ismāʿīlism (1983), DOI; J. L. Kraemer, Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam (1986).
An Ismaili work. The Ṭayyibī tradition gives them to the hidden imam Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh (attested first in Idrīs ʿImād al-Dīn, d. 872/1468: D. De Smet, Shii Studies Review 1 (2017), DOI); Abbas Hamdani dates the corpus 873–909, before the Fatimids (IJMES 9 (1978), DOI; Arabica 26 (1979), DOI); Y. Marquet, Studia Islamica 61 (1985). Against: no Fatimid-era Ismaili text clearly cites them (Walker), and Ismaili use begins in the 6th/12th century (Stern, Diwald, De Smet, per the SEP).
Shiʿi-adjacent and independent: a circle with Shiʿi sympathies and an «Ismaili tendency», not the official mission (Stern, Bausani, per the SEP); I. R. Netton, Muslim Neoplatonists (1982) and REP (1998); G. de Callataÿ, Ikhwan al-Safa' (2005).
Earlier, and known in al-Andalus by c. 950 through Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (d. 353/964), which makes al-Tawḥīdī's men at most redactors: M. Fierro, Studia Islamica 84 (1996); G. de Callataÿ, Al-Qanṭara 34 (2013); W. Madelung (2018, per the SEP); G. de Vaulx d'Arcy, REMMM 146 (2019), who reads al-Tawḥīdī's «17th night» as a refutation.
One author, al-Kindī's pupil Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib al-Sarakhsī (d. 286/899): de Vaulx d'Arcy (2016 thesis; Les Belles Lettres 2019), a minority view.

In the reader: the author line says «Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (the Brethren of Purity)» and the dates «4th/10th century» (the Cairo print's own framing; the range runs from the late 3rd/9th). The text is filed under Philosophical treatises and not under Ismaili philosophy, since that would take position 2 as settled (§14). The Platonic Current's node keeps its «dating disputed». What our passages themselves show: the verdict's «until the cycle begins anew» (dawr), the «friends of God» whose portrait closes the debate, and «the imams, the trustees» (al-aʾimma wa-l-awṣiyāʾ) among the blessed in ¶32 are Shiʿi in colour; the colophon blesses «Muḥammad and his family, the guiding imams». None of this decides between positions 2 and 3.

1. Witnesses

Siglum	Witness	Kind	Vowelled?	Licence	Location
C	Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa-khullān al-wafāʾ, ed. Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī, 4 vols (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Tijāriyya al-Kubrā / al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿArabiyya, 1347/1928), with Ṭāhā Ḥusayn's introduction and Aḥmad Zakī Pāshā's essay. Ep. 13's close vol. 1 p. 342; Ep. 22 vol. 2 pp. 152, 173–187, 314–317; Ep. 32 vol. 3 pp. 182–199	standard print (no apparatus)	no	PD in the US (1928); al-Ziriklī d. 1976	archive.org AAlexandrina-192979 (vols 1–2, 300 ppi grey), AAlexandrina-145864 (same, bitonal), 3_20250821_20250821_2209 (vol. 3, 72 ppi, degraded). Local: `data/raw/arabic/ikhwan/` (`ACQUISITIONS.md`, SHA-256 per file)
H	Hindawi Foundation's digital text of C, via OpenITI `0375IkhwanSafa.Rasail.Hindawi095926405Vols-ara1` (editor named: al-Ziriklī)	digital	no	CC BY-NC-SA 4.0	GitHub; every passage links its lines
B	Bombay lithograph, 4 parts, 1305–06/1887–89 (Maṭbaʿat Nukhbat al-Akhbār); Ep. 13 qism 1 pp. 125–130, Ep. 22 qism 2 pp. 119–245, Ep. 32 qism 3 pp. 2–16	lithograph	partly	PD	DLI scans 323847, 323864, 323867
D-ar	F. Dieterici (ed.), Thier und Mensch vor dem König der Genien, 2nd ed. (Leipzig 1881), Arabic, vocalised; his Abhandlungen … in Auswahl (1883–86)	edition	yes	PD	archive.org AAlexandrina-161831; dieabhandlungend01–03ikhw. Held, not collated
—	Manuscripts: Istanbul, Atıf Efendi 1681 (578/1182, the oldest dated), Esad Efendi 3638 (686/1287), not online; Paris, BnF Arabe 6647–6648 (675/1277) on Gallica, which volume holds our epistles not checked	MSS			known through the companion sweep
—	Critical editions (cited only): Goodman & McGregor, Epistle 22 (OUP/IIS 2009; IIS 2010); Walker, Poonawala, Simonowitz & de Callataÿ, Epistles 32–36 (OUP/IIS 2015); Baffioni, On Logic, Epistles 10–14 (2010). Beirut, Dār Ṣādir 1957 (in copyright)			copyrighted	not held

Which edition H is. C: the vol. 1 title page («عني بتصحيحه خير الدين الزركلي», Ṭāhā Ḥusayn, Aḥmad Zakī Pāshā), the same division into four ajzāʾ and the same epistle titles, wording that matches line for line in every page collated, and shared quirks: the king «بيراست الحكيم لقبه شاه مردان» on the island «صاغون» (Dieterici's MS: Bīvarasp, Balāçāgūn), the order of the pleas starting with the donkey and the ox, and the conflated quotation «وتلك الأيام نداولها بين الناس وما يعقلها إلا العالمون» (Q 3:140 run into 29:43). H modernises spelling and punctuation and numbers the faṣls; no page breaks of C survive in it (they were found by matching, §7).

2. Base and why

H, corrected against C. C is the print H digitises and is public domain in the US; the Bombay lithograph is a different witness (its order of the mathematical epistles differs) and was used where C is illegible. The IIS/OUP critical editions are in copyright and not held. The other public-domain Arabic (Dieterici's) is held for a later collation of Part I.

3. Collation

Five AI readers, one per page range, compared H with the page images of C word by word (data/raw/arabic/ikhwan/work/collation/A–E.json; method in work/collation/INSTRUCTIONS.md): about 9,200 words, every passage. Vol. 3 of C exists only in a 72-ppi scan, so Epistle 32 was read in B and each disagreement checked against C's outline. 27 differences: 9 where C reads better (7 applied, 2 kept as doubtful), 6 where H corrects a misprint of C (kept: e.g. «تتخاص» for نتخلص, case endings), 12 variants kept as H has them. Applied (data/sources/ikhwan-corrections.json, logged in ikhwan-base.json → changes, type "collation"):

¶	H	Adopted	Basis
15	الفصيلة	الفضيلة	C vol. 2 p. 180 (the dot clear in the bitonal scan)
21	فقال الحمار: أيها الملك	فقال: أيها الملك	C vol. 2 p. 183 (the second «الحمار» is only in H)
31	شجرة الزقزم	شجرة الزقوم	C vol. 2 p. 315
41	ومشنؤه	ومنشؤه	C vol. 3 p. 185 (outline) and B p. 4
41	بالواحد بعد كل عدد	بالواحد يعد كل عدد	B p. 4 and the sense; C's dots illegible
65	بالحجمة	بالمحجمة	C vol. 3 p. 196 (partly) and B p. 12
69	ولا يغيضها	ولا يفيضها	B p. 14 and the sense (fayḍ); C's dots illegible

4. Decisions and doubtful readings (kept as printed; `ikhwan-base.json` → `uncertain`)

¶52 «الرتبة الكلية»: the sense needs «النفس الكلية» (the next clause: «وانبجس من النفس»), which B has; C seems to repeat «الرتبة» and H put the words in «». Kept as printed; the AI English follows the sense with a bracketed note. A person should check C at better resolution.
¶64 «ثم دفعها لها بالقوة الهاضمة لتحيلها إلى ذاتها» stands twice in C (and H); B has it once. Kept.
¶67 B «واستؤنف» (C illegible); ¶63 B «صار» for «صارا»; ¶65 «ثقلت» (B «نقلت»; an earlier parallel suggests «فضلت»).
¶20 C repeats «اذا مرضت»; ¶21 C «لشفقة»; ¶25 C quotes Q 24:22 as «وليعفوا أو ليصفحوا» and Q 43:13–14 with «وتقولون … منقلبون»: our text has the Quran's wording, restored from Tanzil.
¶21 the conflated quotation of Q 3:140 + 29:43 is the print's own (and Dieterici's Arabic); kept.

5. Quotations verified

28 Quran quotations tagged in H (@QUR), each matched to its verse by consonantal skeleton in the Tanzil text and restored verbatim (scripts/recitals/restore_quran.py; 28/28): in Part I (18) Q 16:5–8, 23:22, 43:13–14, 22:37, 95:4, 82:8, 20:50, 24:22, 45:14, 6:38, 11:6, 39:73; in Part II (10) Q 27:59 (the opening doxology), 51:49, 24:21, 95:4–8, 21:104, 22:5. scripts/quran_refs.py adds automatic matches (stock formulas labelled). No ḥadīth is quoted in our passages.

6. Vowelling

C is unvowelled, so every mark is AI (scripts/recitals/prepare.py ikhwan, headless Claude Opus, letters verified unchanged; cached per passage under data/raw/cache/ikhwan/). Words with two defensible vowellings are listed per passage (ambiguous). Dieterici's vocalised Arabic of Part I (1881) is held and not yet compared. CAMeL disagrees with the AI vowelling on 349 words.

7. Segmentation and word IDs

74 passages of whole paragraphs (about 110–190 words), each heading opening a passage (scripts/recitals/ikhwan_base.py); headings for the epistles and the numbered faṣls (our English labels). Word IDs ik:<passage>:<word>. Print pages per passage from the collation (data/sources/ikhwan-pages.json, the H line in which each page of C begins). Paged reader: the base file's parts make the reader show one part a page (/read/ikhwan/<part>; lib/pagedProse.ts, components/LibraryReader.tsx); old links to /read/ikhwan#p-N or ?w=ik:N:… are sent on to the right part.

8. Analysis layer

CAMeL Tools 1.6 via scripts/fusus/analyze_ch.py ikhwan.json ikhwan-analysis.json ik: 9,129 words, 5,939 with a root, 908 distinct roots, 349 vowel conflicts.

9. Commentaries aligned

None exists. The Brethren's own al-Risāla al-Jāmiʿa restates their doctrine; not held.

10. Translation

AI (Claude Opus) from the vowelled Arabic, scripts/recitals/translate.py ikhwan opus, told not to reproduce or imitate the published translations and given none; glossary in data/sources/ikhwan-meta.json (tashabbuh bi-l-ilāh "becoming like God", al-ṭāqa al-insāniyya "human capacity", al-nafs al-kulliyya "the universal Soul", al-hayūlā al-ūlā "prime matter", fayḍ "effusion", zaʿīm "spokesman", arbāb/ʿabīd "masters/slaves", taskhīr "subjection" …). Word glosses and term notes from the same run. All ✦ unreviewed.

10b. Translation triangulation

scripts/triangulate.py ikhwan against four public-domain translations, each cut to our passages from the page images (by AI readers, checked word by word): Dieterici 1858 (Der Streit zwischen Mensch und Thier, pp. 1–23, 213–218; data/sources/ikhwan-tr-dieterici-1858.json), Dieterici 1868/1872 (Logik und Psychologie p. 59; Die Lehre von der Weltseele pp. 1–26; …-tr-dieterici-1872.json), and the two English versions of 1869 made from Ikrām ʿAlī's Urdu adaptation (1810), Platts and Dowson (…-tr-platts.json, …-tr-dowson.json; indirect witnesses, Part I only, ¶35 has none). Dieterici translates other manuscripts: in 1858 the king is Bīvarasp and the island Balāçāgūn, the verdict lacks «until the cycle begins anew» and the coda is fuller; his pp. 1–10 of 1872 render a longer, reordered recension of ¶36–42, while pp. 11–26 follow ¶43–72 closely. His definition of philosophy: «die Aehnlichwerdung Gottes so weit es der Mensch vermag» (1868 p. 59). The IIS/OUP translations are not held (copyright), so the triangulation could not use them. Result: 77 divergences, 22 judged serious by the model. Curated (scripts/recitals/ikhwan_differ.py): 11 demoted (not shown) because they come from the Urdu adaptation or Dieterici's other manuscript, not from two readings of our Arabic; 3 notes added where the letters of our text are in question: ¶2 «الحرس» guarding or «الحرث» ploughing (one dot; all translators plough), ¶27 «يغضبوننا» anger or «يبغضوننا» hate (one dot; the translators hate), ¶52 «الرتبة الكلية» or «النفس الكلية» (Cairo against Bombay and Dieterici). 14 shown, among them ¶17 «أعطى كل شيء خلقه» (Q 20:50: what God gave, and to whom), ¶20 «نعرض عنها», ¶21 the Rūm (Byzantines, or Turks in Dowson), ¶23 «عواري», ¶30 «النشور», ¶32 «مشفقون», ¶34 «الغرباء» (strangers, or the Urdu sense «poor»). AI-English flags: 17 (1 contradiction, 16 doubtful), each decided from the Arabic and fixed (scripts/recitals/ikhwan_fixes.py, logged in app/src/content/ai/ikhwan.json → fixes): ¶1 the sequence of fear and settlement; ¶2 the ḥaras/ḥarth note; ¶3 Bīrāst [Bēvarasp], Ṣāghūn [Balāsāghūn]; ¶9 «them [the animals]»; ¶17 «our» read as «[your]», with the print's reading stated; ¶19 «the intelligent»; ¶27 the Jews «hate us» with the print's reading stated, and the Rūm and Armenians as the topic of the next clause (the contradiction); ¶35, ¶45, ¶54, ¶57, ¶60, ¶68 («originated» for ikhturiʿat), ¶71. A person should check these.

11. Rights and private layers

C: PD in the US (1928), shown through H; H: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 with attribution, as for the other OpenITI texts. B, Dieterici, Platts, Dowson: public domain. The IIS/OUP volumes, Goodman's 1978 translation, the French of de Vaulx d'Arcy and the Beirut edition: in copyright, cited only; nothing of their wording is in this reader and none is held privately. Audio: none made (about 9,200 Arabic and 11,000 English words: estimated about $2 on Azure; the author approves any TTS run above $1).

12. Open questions / to review

A person should read the transcription's doubtful places (§4), above all ¶52 «الرتبة الكلية», in a better scan of C vol. 3 (HathiTrust was blocked by a bot check; worth a manual look) or in the IIS edition.
Collate Part I with Dieterici's vocalised Arabic (1881); check which volume of BnF Arabe 6647–6648 holds Epistles 22 and 32.
Acquire the IIS/OUP translations (Goodman & McGregor; Walker et al.; Baffioni) through a library into the private layer and rerun triangulate.py ikhwan.
Epistles 1 and 5 (queued); the long middle of Epistle 22 (the delegations), if wanted.

13. Resonances (PROTOCOLS §16)

scripts/resonances.py whole --only ikhwan and passages ikhwan (batches of 4), with the author's pointers given to the model as an editor's hint (FOCUS in the script: consider, never assert); 19 new external references verified by an agent with web search, none removed (partial fits noted in the ledger: Goodman & McGregor 2009 for the Hebrew and Catalan afterlives, Hein 1985 for al-Kindī's Ḥudūd). Whole text 19 connections, passages 358 (253 parallels, 63 contrasts, 30 lineages, 12 shared sources). Most linked: al-Sijistānī's Maqālīd (47; the one of number and the One beyond it, the Command, Intellect and Soul), Ibn Sīnā's ʿIshq (35; tashabbuh, each being moved toward its perfection), Ibn Ṭufayl's Ḥayy, the Hayākil, Plotinus VI.9, the Symposium and the Republic. Graded: the definition of philosophy is a lineage (Theaetetus 176b through the Alexandrian prolegomena, Hein 1985); Plotinus's procession is a lineage through the Arabic Plotinus (Netton 1982; Adamson 2002); the Republic, the Symposium, the Timaeus, the Book of Causes and Nāṣir-i Khusraw are parallels (the last four whole-text ones curated, scripts/recitals/ikhwan_resonances_curated.py, because the generator cannot link the Rawshanāʾī-nāma, which has no English layer it reads); Plutarch's Gryllus, Montaigne, Bentham and the Zhuangzi are parallels to the animals' case, Descartes a contrast; Turmeda's Disputa de l'ase and Kalonymus's Hebrew version are its documented afterlives. On the Platonic Current the Ikhwān node now reads this text, with a faint thread to Plato (the Theaetetus definition, Hein 1985) and a convergence thread to the Book of Causes.

14. Kind, and one text in two parts

Kind: Philosophical treatises (philosophy), with the Niche of Lights, the Temples of Light and the Treatise on Love: argued philosophical prose on the order of being. Not "Ismaili philosophy" (al-Sijistānī, Nāṣir-i Khusraw), because the Ismaili authorship is contested (§0) and the kind would assert it; the Ismaili texts are linked from the reader and the resonances instead. Not "Visionary recitals", though Part I is a tale: the Brethren close it by saying it is no children's play but philosophy clothed in a story. One text, two parts (not two catalogue entries): one anonymous work that cites itself («as we have shown in our epistles»), one edition, one authorship question, one About page, one set of companions; the parts are its sections, as al-Sijistānī's fifteen keys are one text (the Maqālīd). The Fuṣūṣ chapters are separate entries because each is a whole chapter with its own commentaries and its own route; here each part opens as its own light page instead (§7), which keeps a phone's load to one epistle. A decision for the author: whether to list it under Ismaili philosophy as well (the catalogue has one kind per text).

15. Change log

2026-10-04: selection built from H (four epistles), cut by the author to two parts; collated against C (and B); 7 corrections; vowelled, analysed, translated; Dieterici, Platts and Dowson cut to the passages; triangulation; companions (64 items); version record; resonances; registered at /read/ikhwan (two parts, one page each) under Philosophical treatises.