Sabine Schmidtke

MS Riyadh, Maktabat Malik Fahd al-Waṭaniyya 748 is a multitext volume copied by al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī Ibn Abī l-ʿAshīra in 552/1157 in Ṣaʿda. It consists of doctrinal texts by Zaydī and Muʿtazilī authors, invariably Iranian. The codex is the only known extant witness of all but two of the tracts it includes (the exceptions being Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-Farrazādhī’s K. Taʿlīq al-Tabṣira and Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Dāʿī al-Ḥasanī’s K. Ḥaqāʾiq al-aʿrāḍ wa-aḥwālihā wa-sharḥihā), and two of its tracts, K. al-Nasīm fī l-uṣūl by one Abū Jaʿfar and K. Muhaj al-ʿulūm by Muʿādh b. Abī l-Khayr al-Hamadhānī, are not even attested in the relevant biobibliographical sources. This study includes critical editions of the doctrinal tracts included in the majmūʿa as well as an additional tract preserved in a related codex that was apparently also copied by Ibn Abī l-ʿAshīra (MS Milan, Ambrosiana, ar. E 462). The edited tracts include Abū l-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās Ibn Sharwīn’s K. al-Wujūh allatī taʿẓumu ʿalayhā l-ṭāʿāt ʿinda llāh, his K. al-Yāqūta, and his Ḥaqāʾiq al-ashyāʾ, ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadhānī’s Ḥudūd al-alfāẓ, Ibn al-Dāʿī’s K. Ḥaqāʾiq al-aʿrāḍ wa-aḥwālihā wa-sharḥihā, the extant part of the K. al-Nasīm fī l-uṣūl, K. Muhaj al-ʿulūm, by Muʿādh b. Abī l-Khayr al-Hamadhānī, fragments of two theological summae by unidentified Zaydī scholars, and collections of doctrinal definitions of uncertain authorship.

MS Tehran, Malik 1650, includes not only one of the earliest witnesses of al-Miqdād b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad al-Ḥillī al-Suyūrī’s (d. 826/1422–23) al-Anwār al-jalāliyya fī sharḥ al-Fuṣūl al-naṣīriyya, completed in 852/1448, but also the quotation of a portion of the otherwise lost K. al-Minhāj, a theological summa by the early seventh/thirteenth-century Imāmī scholar Sālim b. Maḥfūṭ Ibn ʿUzayza (or ʿAzīza) that was popular among Imāmī scholars of al-Ḥilla up until the ninth/fifteenth century. The present study discusses the scarce available data about Sālim b. Maḥfūẓ and the reception of his K. al-Minhāj, and it includes an editio princeps of the work’s portion that is preserved in Ms. Tehran, Malik 1650.

Scholars studying the development of Imāmī doctrinal thought are confronted with a lack of sources. Many pertinent works by Imāmī thinkers who lived in the various centers of Shīʿī learning in Iraq, Iran, and the historical region of Syria between the lifetimes of al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044) and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) have not come down to us. Whereas al-Ṭūsī’s doctrinal works introduced Avicennan terminology and selected Avicennan concepts into Imāmī kalām, Imāmī theologians of the late fifth [eleventh] and sixth [twelfth] centuries were torn between the doctrines of the Bahshamites, their doctrinal alternatives (especially the notions of Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī and his followers), and what were perceived as the more authentic theological views of the imams. Muʿtazilite thought, Avicennan notions, and the quest to return to the early doctrines of the imams continued to constitute the principal parameters of Imāmī theological thought over the following centuries. One way to overcome the gaps in our knowledge of Imāmī intellectual history is to consult documentary material that is primarily preserved in the manuscript tradition. Ownership statements, authorial and scribal colophons, collation notes, taʿlīqāt, and ḥawāshī, as well as the rich ijāza literature, provide extensive information about the circles of Imāmī scholarship during those centuries. The present study, focussing on the Ḥimṣī Rāzī family, which flourished in Iran during the seventh [thirteenth] and eighth [fourteenth] centuries, aims to showcase what can be achieved by gathering and piecing together relevant paratextual material from manuscript collections in German, Iranian and Turkish libraries. This evidence, together with information gleaned from the relevant biobibliographical and historiographical literature, provides deeper insights into the history of the family and the scholarly and doctrinal profiles of its members. The study is complemented by editiones principes of selected works by members of the Ḥimṣī Rāzī family—namely, the Mishkāt al-yaqīn, a note on istiḥālat ittiḥād al-bāriʾ maʿa l-makhlūqāt, and the introductions to Kashf al-maʿāqid, al-Amālī al-ʿirāqiyya, and al-Maṭālib al-qudsiyya, and a facsimile edition of the Talkhīṣ al-maqāṣid.