The Shahrastānī Dossier: His Persian Ismailism

For some time, specialists have been aware that the famous theologian and heresiographer Abūʾl-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm Shahrastānī (1074–1153) was more than just the run of the mill Shāfiʿī trained jurist and Sunni Ashʿarī theologian. His Nihāyat al-aqdām fī ʿilm al-kalām was considered to be an Ashʿarī textbook of the seminary and acts as a supplement to his heresiography. 

This text begins with the classic problem of the eternity of the cosmos which he rejects citing Ashʿarī authorities such as Abūʾl-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (874–936) himself, as well as Abū Isḥāq al-Isfarāyinī (and Imam al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī (1028–1085).

And of course the work for which he was best known was al-Milal waʾl-niḥal, an extensive heresiography and doxography (first edited by Cureton in 1846) in which not only does one find one of the best accounts of Ismaili thought but also in which in the long discussion of the roots and reasons for dissension in the early Muslim community one finds a rather sympathetic (to say the least) presentation of the Shiʿi position. 

On the former, we have this distinction between the 'old' kerygma of the early Ismailis in the name of the messianic Imam Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl b. Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and the new one of the Fatimids:

Then we have a bit further a more detailed examination of the Fatimids and after since Shahrastānī was active in Iran and familiar with the Nizārī mission that would make sense (and one finds reference to the Fuṣūl-e arbaʿa of Ḥasan-e Ṣabbāḥ):

Similarly in his presentation of the early dissension in Islam, one cannot help but feel an element of a philo-Shiʿi stance at the very least:

Anyway beyond these indicators, three further sources are well known for Shahrastānī's Shiʿi (Ismaili/Nizārī) inclinations. The first of these is his Qurʾan exegesis, Mafātīḥ al-asrār or Keys to the Arcana, a partial work mainly on sūrat al-Baqara with some important preliminary discussions on hermeneutics of which the first volume has been translated into English by Toby Mayer. 

The second is his critique of Avicennian philosophy, Muṣāraʿat al-falāsifa or Struggling with the Philosopher as translated by Wilferd Madelung and Toby Mayer that one ought to see alongside other critics of Avicennian metaphysics such as al-Ghazālī (1058–1111), Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (1155–1191), Says al-Dīn al-Āmidī (1156–1233), and even ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī (1162–1251). 

While one would reconcile elements of the critique with Ashʿarism (even the critique of the notion of God as necessary existent which by the time of Shahrastānī was increasingly absorbed into Ashʿarī metaphysics and cosmology), there are also clear indications of an apophaticism and cosmology that are consistent with some Eastern Fatimid and Nizārī ideas. 

The third text that I want to discuss here has been recently edited and translated by Daryoush Mohammad Poor and published in the same series as the previous two by the Institute of Ismaili Studies. 

We have known about these two Persian sermons on cosmology since the appendix of Sayyid Muḥammad Riżā Jalālī Nāʾinī's appendix to Afżal al-Dīn Turka (d. 1446) and his Persian translation of al-Milal. ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn Zarrīnkūb, Guy Monnot and later Diane Steigerwald in her doctoral dissertation all discussed the Ismailism of Shahrastānī with respect to this work. Of course, the current edition is clearly an improvement: unlike Jalālī Nāʾinī's singular manuscript, it is based on three manuscripts: MS Marʿashī Qum 12868 dated 685/1286, MS Majlis-e Shūrā-ye Islāmī 10117, and finally MS Tehran University Central Library 643/24. The first is these is the only dated one, the earliest one and the basis for the edition. And of course a fluent English translation is presented along with appendices on terms and citations. One observation on the aesthetics of the Persian font - it strikes me as being rather clumsy and rounded. There are surely better Persian fonts to use out there. 

 
Mohammad Poor provides an excellent and rather full introduction that is actually longer then the text (almost double in length) that presents the author and his work, examines the question of his Ismailism, contextualises the text here and brings out key elements of why this text provides evidence for Shahrastānī's Ismailism: the Nizārī doctrine of the qiyāmat, the comparison with other important Nizārī works such as the Fuṣūl and others as well as (ps-)Ṭūsī's Rawżat al-taslīm which is often said to be influenced by Shahrastānī. 

There is little doubt that much of what Mohammad Poor presents here is rather convincing. In the Majlis, Shahrastānī clearly identifies himself with the new Nizārī mission and on the question of cosmogony critiques Ashʿarī, anthropomorphist, and Avicennian ideas among others in his quest to explain the nature of the divine command. There are clear echoes of the work of Ḥasan-e Sabbāḥ (in the Fuṣūl-e arbaʿa) and of Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī (perhaps through the prism of Nāṣir-e Khusraw). While we know that the genre of the majlis was well known in Iran at this time - especially among preachers such as the Karrāmīya as well as among Sufis (one thinks of the work of ʿAbdullāh Anṣārī and the later majālis that led to the redaction of the exegesis of Rashīd al-Dīn Maybudī) - Mohammad Poor links it here to the Ismaili genre of preaching sermons that one found at the Fatimid court (the works of al-Muʾayyad fīʾl-dīn al-Shīrāzī and even al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān come to mind) as well as later in the Nizārī tradition. He even speculates on a direct meeting and teacher-disciple relationship between Ḥasan-e Sabbāḥ and Shahrastānī. While some elements to the Shiʿi affiliation (for example, in the exegesis) might suggest that Shahrastānī was Twelver Shiʿi (and of course his patron for most of these works was the Twelver Shiʿi naqīb al-ashrāf of Tirmidh) and this is the argument that Mustafa Öztürk has made recently; Mohammad Poor is correct to designate this argument as weak - and we know that the middle period Imāmī tradition never claimed Shahrastānī and in fact Ibn al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī (1250–1325)  the famous student of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī made it clear that Shahrastānī's positions were contrary to Imāmī theology. Perhaps the most convincing and interesting section is the discussion of the intertextuality of the text read alongside Nizārī works and intriguing (one wonders about this in the Mongol Persian context) of Shahrastānī's work as a modification of Ashʿarism, perhaps even a Ismaili evolved or supplemented Ashʿarism? Of course, if one were to bracket Imamology, there is an interesting line of inquiry to be pursued on the theological relationship of Ashʿarī and Nizārī Ismaili positions. 

Anyway, while Mohammad Poor is careful not to be too categorical in asserting Shahrastānī's Nizārism - he does say that he probably was. In the absence of clearer expressions in favour of the Imams of the time, this is understandable. Regardless, he is to be congratulated for producing this work as a intertextual intervention in the intellectual history of Persian theological writing in the pre-Mongol and early Mongol period. Certainly it is a further piece of evidence in the Shahrastānī dossier on his not-so-crypto-Ismailism. And one can imagine using the text fruitfully in classes on theology in Islam on the cusp of the Mongol invasions.