This panel explores trajectories in Ismāʿīlī thought from the medieval to modern period, focusing on metaphysics, exegesis and gender. An emergent theme of the panel papers is the influence of the metaphysics of Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240) upon Nizārī Ismāʿīlī thought well into the modern period.
The first paper sheds light on the framing of gender in pre-modern Ismāʿīlī cosmology. Drawing on pre-Fatimid doctrines such as the cosmogenesis of Kūnī and Qadar, the fall of the primordial shadows, and the systematic Fatimid-Ṭayyibī frameworks, the paper outlines attitudes towards femininity ranging from a metaphysical principle to a tainted result of materiality. Noting how the rhetoric language of their time presupposed a masculine characterization of spiritual hierarchies, the paper shows that the “gendered” metaphysics of Ismāʿīlī thinkers reflects linguistic conventions and conservatism as opposed to treating gender as an absolute.
The second paper analyzes the hermeneutical approaches in the Ismāʿīlī Gināns - devotional hymns of South Asia whose authorship is ascribed to Ismāʿīlī Pīrs from the thirteenth century onward. The paper argues that the Gināns embody Ismāʿīlī taʾwīl by demonstrating how the Gināns depict the journey of the itinerant soul through initiation narratives and thereby transpose classical taʾwīl into a devotional and ritual setting. One such Ginān frames this spiritual journey through cosmological hierarchies associated with Ibn al-ʿArabī's notion of Waḥdat al-wujūd (oneness of being).
The third paper examines metaphysical ideas in the autobiography of Shāh Muḥammad Ḥasan al-Ḥusaynī Aga Khan I (1804-1881), 46th hereditary Imam of the Shīʿī Ismāʿīlī Muslims. It argues that Aga Khan's view on a number of issues such as Waḥdat al-wujūd, the Perfect Man, light and darkness, barzakh, and the question of seeing God has been greatly influenced by Ibn al-ʿArabī's school of thought through the teachings of the Niʿmatullāhī Sufi order.
The final paper examines the theological worldview of Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III (1877-1957), 48th hereditary Imam of the Shīʿī Ismāʿīlī Muslims, as per his public writings. The paper argues that Aga Khan III’s theological worldview fuses major elements of Waḥdat al-Wujūd doctrines and Fatimid Ismāʿīlī Neoplatonism in a modern context. The Aga Khan’s idea of “mono-realism” and continuous creation through Divine Will stems from the views of Ismāʿīlī Neoplatonists, Ibn al-ʿArabī's school and Aga Khan I. Additionally, Aga Khan III's view of the Holy Spirit and Universal Soul convey certain ideas of the Fatimid Ismāʿīlī thinker Nāṣir-i Khusraw (d. 1088).
Religious Studies/Theology
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Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III (d. 1957), the 48th hereditary Imam of the Shīʿī Ismāʿīlī Muslims, is mostly recognized for his socio-political activities among his Ismāʿīlī flock and the world at large. The late Aga Khan was the President of the All-India Muslim league, the President of the League of Nations, and one of the founders of the republic of Pakistan while also spearheading a number of modernization and social development efforts for his Ismāʿīlī followers.
The Aga Khan is among the few Ismāʿīlī Imams to publicly write on theology and metaphysics and his worldview merits careful analysis. Through an exegetical and intertextual analysis of his writings, speeches and Memoirs, this paper argues that the Aga Khan’s theological worldview bears the influence of Fatimid Ismāʿīlī Neoplatonism, the Akbarī doctrine of Waḥdat al-Wujūd, and certain Muslim modernist ideas. The Aga Khan’s metaphysics centres upon the idea of God as the absolute Reality (“Monoreality”) who continuously creates, sustains and manifests the Cosmos through the mediation of an apparently Ismāʿīlī-Neoplatonic hierarchy of hypostases: the Divine Will, the Holy Spirit/Intellect, and the Universal Soul.
The Aga Khan’s concept of God, called “monorealism” in contrast to “monotheism”, and his vision of the Cosmos as divine self-manifestation is a rooted in the ontology of Waḥdat al-Wujūd associated with Ibn al-ʿArabī. This Akbarī theo-ontology is also evoked in the memoirs of Aga Khan I, the grandfather of Aga Khan III, and was likely impressed upon Aga Khan III through the influence of his forefathers and his mother. The Aga Khan’s idea of the creative Divine Will, which he describes as a “matrix” or “womb” containing all existence, resembles both Ismāʿīlī and Akbarī notions of God’s Command or All-Merciful Breath. His depiction of the Holy Spirit as the source of spiritual illumination, ultimate happiness and divine inspiration resembles the Ismāʿīlī Neoplatonic idea of the Universal Intellect and he uses similar light imagery to describe the Light (nūr) of Imamat to his followers. His idea of the Universal Soul as the spiritual dimension of the physical Universe, the celestial agency of revelation, and the goal of human souls, is based on a doctrine of Universal Soul from the Fatimid Dā‘ī Nāṣir-i Khusraw. Finally, the Aga Khan’s understanding of the laws of nature as expressions of Divine power and intelligence fuse the classical Ismāʿīlī vision of nature as “incarnate intellect” with certain modernist Muslim conceptions of nature.
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Mr. Paul Anderson
Throughout the history of Shiʿism, women have served an important symbolic as well as literal role in the life of the community. Muḥammad’s wife Umm Salamah was a noted transmitter of ḥadīth which are integral to Twelver collections, and of course Fāṭimah has a far-reaching presence from popular piety to theological literature – indeed, she is arguably understood as the perfect woman.
Despite this, theological and metaphysical literature is typically articulated through a primarily masculine lens – it does not help that Arabic grammar has lent its own gendering to the very words themselves, since masculine is typically default and feminine marked. Abstract entities, or intellects, in Ismāʿīlī hierarchies are rarely described in anthropomorphic terms. But does this very lack of definition assume a gendering of the spiritual as intertextually masculine and the feminine as a feature of base materiality? Or is the picture more complex?
In this paper, I will explore if and how the medieval Ismāʿīlī conception of the spiritual world is gendered. Drawing on early doctrines such as those of the cosmogenesis of Kūnī and Qadar or the fall of the primordial shadows as well as the more systematic output of Fatimid and Ṭayyibī theologies, I will outline specific attitudes towards femininity, from a primordial principle to a tainted result of materiality. I argue that while the rhetoric language of the time presupposes a masculine characterization of spiritual hierarchies, it has more to do with linguistic conventions and conservatism than Ismāʿīlī philosophers understanding gender as an absolute. I will consider whether a docetic interpretation, where gender is merely a temporary feature of the body, may be a strategy for legitimizing the religious devotion to female personages such as Fāṭimah or Arwā al-Ṣulayḥī, who are subject to both female as well as male gendering in Ismāʿīlī discourse. I will also interrogate whether we should understand a deficit of gender as being itself a kind of gendering discourse. These narratives present us with a tension that their writers were obviously aware of: how to reconcile an abstract religious ta’wīl of “the feminine” with the real women who existed as pivotal figures in Islamic history.
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Mr. Shahrad Shahvand
This paper examines the influence of the mystical philosopher of Andalusia, Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240) on the Ismaili thought by focusing on an autobiographical treatise in Persian written by Shāh Muḥammad Ḥasan al-Ḥusaynī, known as Āqā Khān I (1804-1881), a military commander and a Qajar governor, a Niʿmatullāhī Sufi, and the 46th Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims. Āqā Khān’s autobiography, Tārīkh-i ʿIbratʾafzā, often has been used by scholars of Ismaili Studies as a source for studying his political career in the nineteenth century Iran and India. In this paper, however, I bring to discussion some unnoticed theological, philosophical, and cosmological themes, concepts, and ideas scattered throughout Tārīkh-i ʿIbratʾafzā. Within the text, there are at least one unmentioned direct quotation form Ibn ʿArabī’s monumental work Futūḥāt Makkiya in translation. After careful analyze of these passages, I argue that Āqā Khān’s view on a number of issues, including believing in the idea of Waḥdat-i wujūd, depicting the Prophet as the perfect man, explaining the relationship between God and the world in terms of light, darkness, and barzakh, as well as his position on God’s essence and attributes, and the question of seeing God has been to some extent influenced by Ibn ʿArabī and his school of thought. I eventually conclude that the trajectory of Ibn ʿArabī’s influence on this later phase of Ismailism, which is also visible on the following Ismaili Imams, must be traced back through the teachings of the Shiite Niʿmatullāhī Sufi order to whom Āqā Khān also belonged. In other words, this paper argues that by being affiliated with the Niʿmatullāhī order and being exposed to their monistic view borrowed from the school of Ibn ʿArabī, Āqā Khān I paves the way for incorporating more monistic ideas and concepts to the structure of Ismaili thought.
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Mr. Aaron Viengkhou
Composed in vernacular languages, the Gināns are devotional hymns that have served to embody the essentials of Ismāʿīlī doctrine in literary forms accessible on a popular level to the Nizārī communities of India and Pakistan.
This paper concerns itself with the analysis of the Gināns from two interrelated perspectives. On the one hand, the Gināns are read as a genre of narrative literature. Indeed, a major theme found in the Gināns centers on the figure of the Guide (guru) who leads the faithful along the True Path (satpanth) to the realization of spiritual knowledge. The Gināns thus furnish a comprehensive narrative of initiation whereby the itinerant soul is guided to ever greater proximity to Truth. The stages of this narrative are described in detail in the Ginān Būjh Nirañjan, which conceives of the journey of the soul in terms of the hierarchical metaphysics of the "Oneness of Being" (waḥdat al-wujūd). Importantly, the doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd was first articulated in the Ṣūfī thought of Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240 CE) and his school; it was later introduced into the Ginān tradition under the influence of the Qādirī Ṣūfī order.
On the other hand, this paper analyzes what I refer to as the “hermeneutic efficacy” of the Gināns. As a popular vehicle of expression for Ismāʿīlī doctrine, the Gināns are read as poetic performances of the fundamental Ismāʿīlī principle of spiritual hermeneutics (taʾwīl). In its classical formulation, the hermeneutics of taʾwīl propose to lead the outward forms of positive religion (e.g. scripture, law, etc.) to their inward, spiritual signification. However, the Gināns transpose the intellectual abstractions of classical taʾwīl into an overtly devotional and ritual context, thereby rendering taʾwīl as an efficacious practice. In other words, through the lived experience of the Gināns in song and prayer, the soul enacts the narrative along the True Path as a hermeneutic traversing the metaphysical landscape of waḥdat al-wujūd from outward multiplicity to inward unity. As narratives of hermeneutic efficacy, then, the Gināns themselves function as virtual Guides along the True Path.
In arguing these points, this paper makes reference primarily to examples drawn directly from the Ginān tradition, and secondarily to earlier Ismāʿīlī and Ṣūfī literature that serves to situate the themes of narrative and hermeneutics within a broader context of the history of ideas.
