The academic study of Ismaili Quranic ta’wil – often translated as “esoteric interpretation”, “allegorical interpretation”, or “spiritual exegesis” – is in the early stages with just one monograph by Hollenberg published on the topic. In that monograph, the author argues that medieval Ismaili ta’wil is meant to induce “new habits of mind” and sectarian loyalty among members of the Ismaili movement and launch subtle polemic against other Shi‘i groups. Accordingly, Hollenberg interprets the Fatimid Ismaili ta’wil of the Quranic story of Adam as a veiled polemical referring to Eastern Ismaili da‘wa that failed to recognize the Fatimid Imam-Caliph; in his reading, the Adam figure alludes to the first Fatimid Caliph al-Mahdi while Iblis refers to the da‘i who had betrayed him. Even though ta’wil in Ismaili thought is supposed to orient and lead the believer to his/her spiritual origin, Hollenberg’s thesis diverts the stated goal of Ismaili ta’wil back to socio-political events. In this study, I offer an alternative perspective to Hollenberg’s reading by proposing that the Ismaili exegesis of the Adam story was coined to address entirely different concerns – which has implications on the nature of Ismaili ta’wil more generally. My method is to analyze the Ismaili ta’wil of the Adam story as found in four sources: Sara’ir wa-asrar al-nutuqa by Ja‘far b. Mansur al-Yaman, Asas al-ta’wil by al-Nu‘man (10th CE), Rawda-yi Taslim by Nasir al-Din Tusi (13th CE), and Zahr al-ma‘ani by Idris Imad al-Din (15th CE). In doing so, I note core similarities of the Ismaili exegesis as presented over four centuries of sources. I argue that the Ismaili interpretation of the Adam narrative is primarily concerned with four theological claims: 1) safeguarding the absolute transcendence of God above all anthropomorphic qualities, such as vocal speech and breathing; 2) interpreting the creation of Adam from water/clay as his prophetic initiation as opposed to physical creation, so as to affirm Adam’s natural birth from human parents; 3) establishing the concrete existence of the Imam and his da‘wa as a metahistorical channel of divine guidance on earth both before Adam and in direct succession from Adam to the present day; 4) positing Iblis as a renegade teacher who reappears in every prophetic cycle, including that of Muhammad, to violate the protocol of taqiyya. I thereby argue that the Ismaili ta’wil of the Adamic creation story is primarily concerned with interpreting Quranic narrative in harmony with Ismaili theology, cosmology, and sacred history.

The Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’) were a tenth century CE Ismāʿīlī philosophical group that flourished in Basra, Iraq. Little is known about the actual group or its members, and their only remains are 52 epistles and two summaries. However, their works played an influential role in various intellectual trajectories throughout Islamic and Jewish philosophical history. I argue that the Brethren’s conception of God demonstrates how they combined Qur’ānic symbols with Ismāʿīlī Hermetic and NeoPythagorean ontology and Neoplatonic cosmology to chart a way by which human beings can bring themselves closer to God. In this paper, I show how God is addressed in the two Treatises and their summaries. Although the Treatises have been translated, a study of the influence of this Treatises and their summaries has yet to be undertaken. In the first treatise, entitled On “Arithmetic,” the Brethren address the role of God. They begin with an invocatory statement, “Know oh Brother, may God provide you and us with a spirit from Him.” This statement says two things which are important for cosmology. First, that despite the Neoplatonic emanationist model which they follow, they insist on God’s direct intervention in the lives of individuals. Second, the request for God to provide a spirit instead of His direct help is indicative of their Hermetic theurgical beliefs. In their 33rd Treatise, entitled On the Intellectual Principles According to the Views of Pythagoras, the Brethren of Purity begin by stating that God, “the Creator, Blessed and Exalted, is of perfect Existence, complete in excellences, fully knowing about beings before they are, and able to bring them into being whenever He wishes.” They then employ Qurʾānic verses to substantiate their claim. For example, they cite the 112th chapter of the Qurʾān stating that God is the “One, the Unique, the Eternally Sufficient unto Himself. He begets not; nor was He begotten. And none is like unto Him.” Using Pythagorean ontology and language, the Brethren of Purity argue that the One, Creator, Light, and Perfection are all found in God. They begin their Summary of the Treatises by citing the Qurʾān’s 87th chapter, confirming their belief that only through God’s guidance can human beings achieve spiritual success. The Brethren of Purity’s Treatises constantly emphasize God’s transcendence and immanence. They also emphasize God’ knowledge of all things, role in creating and destroying the world.

In the history of Islamic thought, Sayyid Bahāʾ al-Dīn Ḥaydar al-Āmulī (d. after 787/1385) is primarily remembered as one of the earliest figures to fully integrate Ṣūfism, especially the Ṣūfī intellectual tradition associated with Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) and his followers, within a Twelver Shīʿī framework. Āmulī’s systematic synthesis of the Ṣūfī and Shīʿī traditions led him to formulate and defend a vision of esoteric orthodoxy according to which the secret and superior aspect of tawḥīd—the most fundamental doctrine of Islamic monotheism—is known only to an elite community at the very apex of the spiritual hierarchy. This esoteric tawḥīd, which Āmulī refers to as ‘ontological tawḥīd,’ is in fact a reformulation of the highly controversial doctrine of ‘the oneness of existence’ (waḥdat al-wujūd); analogously to the exoteric tawḥīd expressed in the shahāda, which denies any divinity other than Allāh, esoteric-ontological tawḥīd holds that existence in an absolute sense belongs only to God, with everything other than God being the particularized disclosures (tajallīyāt) of God’s absolute existence. Āmulī’s theory of tawḥīd is the key to understanding his entire worldview. In this paper, I explore how his theory of tawḥīd informs his universal hermeneutics, which is methodologically directed towards interpreting the correspondences (taṭbīqāt) between all domains of reality, conceived of as three great ‘books’: the Qurʾān, the created world, and humanity. This will be accomplished through a reading and analysis of passages from his voluminous Tafsīr al-Muḥīṭ al-aʿẓam. Though now only partially extant, this work represents a comprehensive summa of Āmulī’s thought, and in it he most fully articulates his universal hermeneutic methodology. In addition to outlining Āmulī’s universal hermeneutics, I endeavor to contextualize his theory in relation to broader patterns in Islamic intellectual history. While his hermeneutic theory is, in a sense, quite original, it also clearly participates in a widespread épistémè of the time that viewed the cosmos as a divinely revealed scripture; such ideas were current in a variety of discursive spheres, including Ṣūfism (especially among Ṣūfīs sympathetic to Ibn ʿArabī), Shīʿism (especially among Ismāʿīlīs and those who were pejoratively denounced as ghulāt or ‘extremists’), and occultism (especially practitioners of the science of letters). I conclude my paper by examining how Āmulī put his universal hermeneutics into practice. To do so I offer a reading of his exegesis of Sūrat al-fātiḥa contained in the only extant portion of the Tafsīr to directly explicate the Qurʾān.