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Echoes of the Gnostics: ‘Kitāb Kanz al-Walad’ of al-Ḥāmidī and the Incorporation of Mythic Cosmology into Ismāʿīlī Thought
Abstract
Neo-Platonic philosophy deeply influenced the development of many different genres of Islamic intellectual disciplines – not least of which was the intellectual sciences in Ismāʿīlī Islam. While the inspiration of Neo-Platonism upon Ismāʿīlī philosophy has been much discussed, the archetypes strongly reminiscent of the ancient Gnostic movements have not. One such work of the ḥaqā’iq ("esoteric realities") genre, to which little research has been devoted, is the 12th century C.E. Ṭayyibī thinker Ibrāhīm al-Ḥāmidī’s (d. 1162 C.E.) work, Kitāb Kanz al-Walad. This text contains many themes which are less specifically representative of Neo-Platonism than they are of the Gnostic movements of early Christianity. The purpose of this paper will be to discuss some of the unusual mythic elements in this work, to reveal the surprising parallels to the Gnostic traditions. In particular, this paper will explore what I term “memory relics,” memetic pieces of a religious mythos which survive beyond the religion’s death and become embedded and “nativized” in a new cosmology. Some particular issues that will be discussed are whether al-Ḥāmidī’s system displays a prototypical Gnostic kind of dualism, the role of the demiurge, and the existence of a mythic “le drame dans le Ciel,” as Henry Corbin termed it, within the Kanz. This work will analyzed as a text exemplifying Islamic gnostic themes, but also as an attempt to apply an allegorical overlay upon Ismāʿīlī Neo-Platonic rationalism, as well as the socio-political developments which may have led al-Ḥāmidī to formulate his cosmology.
Discipline
Religious Studies/Theology
Geographic Area
Islamic World
Yemen
Sub Area
7th-13th Centuries