View source for Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani

{{Short description|10th century Persian Ismaili missionary and Neo-Platonic philosopher}}
{{Distinguish|Abu Sulayman al-Sijistani}}
{{Infobox religious biography
| name               = Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani
| native_name        = 
| native_name_lang   = 
| image              = 
| alt                = 
| caption            = 
| religion           = [[Isma'ili]] [[Shi'a Islam]]
| known_for          = Introduction of [[Neoplatonism]] into Isma'ili theology
| flourished         = 930s–971
| death_date         = 971
| title              = Chief {{Transliteration|ar|[[da'i]]}} of [[Rayy]], [[Sijistan]], and [[Khurasan]]
| predecessor        = [[Abu Hatim Ahmad ibn Hamdan al-Razi|Abu Hatim al-Razi]] (Rayy), [[Muhammad al-Nasafi]] (Khurasan)
| successor          = 
| works              = 
}}
{{Ismailism}}
'''Abu Ya'qub Ishaq ibn Ahmad al-Sijistani''' ({{langx|ar|أبو يعقوب إسحاق بن أحمد السجستاني}}) or '''al-Sijzi''' ({{lang|ar|السجزي}}), also known as Bandaneh<ref>{{Cite web |title=ابویعقوب سجزی |url=https://www.cgie.org.ir/fa/article/225130/%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%88%DB%8C%D8%B9%D9%82%D9%88%D8%A8-%D8%B3%D8%AC%D8%B2%DB%8C}}</ref> ([[Persian language|Persian]]: بندانه), was a 10th-century [[Iranian peoples|Persian]] [[Ismaili]] missionary active in the northern and eastern Iranian lands. His life is obscure, but he was a prolific writer, who played a crucial role in the infusion of [[Neoplatonic]] ideas into Isma'ili theology.

==Life==
Al-Sijistani's life is obscure,{{sfn|Daftary|2007|p=155}} as references to him are found mostly in isolation in hostile [[Sunni]] [[Heresiology|heresiological]] works, while [[Isma'ili]] sources usually do not provide any details about him.{{sfn|Walker|1983}} He was given the nickname 'cottonseed' ([[Arabic]]: {{Transliteration|ar|khayshafūj}}, [[Persian language|Persian]]: {{Transliteration|fa|banba-dāna or Bandaneh}}) in several near-contemporary non-Isma'ili works that mention him, but the origin and significance of it are unknown.{{sfn|Walker|1983}}{{sfn|Daftary|2007|p=154}} What can be gleaned from the sources is that he was a senior missionary ({{Transliteration|ar|[[da'i|dāʿī]]}}) in the Iranian lands of the eastern Islamic world.{{sfn|Walker|1983}}
 
[[Nizam al-Mulk]] reports that a certain Ishaq succeeded [[Abu Hatim Ahmad ibn Hamdan al-Razi|Abu Hatim al-Razi]] as chief {{Transliteration|ar|dāʿī}} at [[Rayy]] upon the latter's death on 934, while [[Ibn al-Nadim]] mentions a certain Abu Ya'qub as the chief {{Transliteration|ar|dāʿī}} at [[Rayy]] in {{circa|932–942}}. This Abu Ya'qub was also in charge of the missionary movement ({{Transliteration|ar|[[dawah|daʿwa]]}}) in [[Upper Mesopotamia]] and [[Iraq (region)|Iraq]], with the brothers Abu Muslim and Abu Bakr ibn hammad in [[Mosul]] and Ibn Nafis in [[Baghdad]] as his agents.{{sfn|Daftary|2007|p=155}}{{sfn|Walker|1983}} This is likely to have been the same person as al-Sijistani, as it agrees with a statement in one of al-Sijistani's works that he was in Iraq in 934.{{sfn|Walker|1983}} Earlier opinion among scholars was that he was executed along with [[Muhammad al-Nasafi]] in 943, but this is now disproven.{{sfn|Stern|1960|p=160}} In reality, he was al-Nasafi's successor, both as chief {{Transliteration|ar|dāʿī}} in [[Khurasan]], as well as in continuing the development of al-Nasafi's theological ideas.{{sfn|Daftary|2007|p=155}}{{sfn|Walker|1983}} Other sources maintain that he was active in [[Sijistan]] (whence his {{Transliteration|ar|[[nisba (onomastics)|nisba]]}}), both during and after al-Nasafi's tenure.{{sfn|Daftary|2007|p=155}}{{sfn|Walker|1983}}

The movement he headed was not initially affiliated with the [[Fatimid Caliphate]], but at some point, during the caliphate of [[al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah]] ({{reign|953|975}}), he accepted the Fatimids as the legitimate imams, and many of his views were taken over by the Fatimid-sponsored {{Transliteration|ar|daʿwa}}.{{sfn|Daftary|2007|p=155}}{{sfn|Walker|1983}} According to [[Rashid al-Din Hamadani]], al-Sijistani was executed by the [[Saffarid]] emir of Sijistan, [[Khalaf ibn Ahmad]] ({{reign|964|1003}}). Al-Sijistani's work ''Kitāb al-iftikhār'' was written around 971, this provides a ''[[terminus post quem]]'' for his execution. The introductions to two of his other works indicate they were written during the reign of the Fatimid caliph [[al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah]] ({{reign|996|1021}}), but they are likely later interpolations.{{sfn|Daftary|2007|p=155}}{{sfn|Walker|1983}} Al-Sijistani died in 971.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Armstrong |first=Karen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_n3cCF2I2FUC |title=A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam |date=1994-08-09 |publisher=Random House Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-345-38456-0 |pages=179 |language=en}}</ref>

==Works==
Several of al-Sijistani's works survive, having been copied and studied by the [[Tayyibi Isma'ili]] communities of Yemen and India. However, as they are regarded as "highly esoteric and restricted", they have been slow to be studied by modern scholars and published in critical editions.{{sfn|Walker|2014|p=255}} Furthermore, as the historian Paul Walker comments, "[a]s they exist now, it is in some cases difficult to determine the original form of the texts", as many survive only in translations or paraphrased summaries.{{sfn|Walker|1983}} Some works are only known by title or in fragments, being cited or quoted in other works.{{sfn|Walker|1983}}

===Kashf al-mahjub===
The {{Transliteration|ar|Kashf al-maḥjūb}} ('Unveiling of the Concealed'),{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=153}}{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=20}} was the first of al-Sijistani's works to become available to scholars.{{sfn|Walker|2014|p=256}} It only survives in a Persian translation, or even paraphrase, of the Arabic original, produced in the 11th century.{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=153}} It comprises seven chapters, each further divided into seven parts. The aim of the work is to 'unveil' divine knowledge ({{Transliteration|el|[[gnosis]]}}, {{Transliteration|ar|[[irfan]]}}), and deals with the concepts of the Oneness of God ({{Transliteration|ar|[[tawhid]]}}), the stages of creation, the nature of prophethood, and resurrection ({{Transliteration|ar|[[qiyama|qiyāma]]}}).{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=153}} Based on its containing passages supporting the idea of [[metempsychosis]], it likely belongs to the early phase of al-Sijistani's career, before he accepted Fatimid orthodoxy.{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=21}}

Excerpts of the work were first published by Mahdi Bayani in 1938 ({{Transliteration|fa|Namūna-yi sukhan-i Fārsī}}, Tehran, Shirkat-i Chāp-i Khudkār).{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=153}} The Persian text was published with a French commentary in 1949 by [[Henry Corbin]] (Tehran, Institut Franco-Iranien & Paris, A. Maisonneuve). Corbin also published a full French translation in 1988 as {{lang|fr|Le dévoilement des choses cachées: Kashf al-Maḥjûb, Recherches de philosophie Ismaélienne}} (Lagrasse, Verdier).{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=153}} A partial English translation was published by Hermann Landolt (''Kashf al-maḥjūb, Unveiling of the Hidden'') in S.H. Nasr and M. Aminrazavi (eds.), ''An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Volume II'' (Oxford,  Oxford University Press, 2001).{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=153}}

===Ithbat al-nubu'at===
The {{Transliteration|ar|Ithbāt al-nubūʾāt}} or {{Transliteration|ar|al-nubuwwāt}} ('Proofs of Prophecies').{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=153}}{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=20}} In its seven sections, al-Sijistani "puts forward a variety of proofs for the necessity of prophecy ({{Transliteration|ar|nubuwwa}}), also explaining different prophetic eras".{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=153}} According to Paul Walker, it shows signs of later editing,{{sfn|Walker|1983}} and all available manuscripts are missing the final two sections.{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=190}}

The work was published in Arabic in 1966 by Arif Tamir (Beirut, al-Matba'a al-Kathulikiyya).{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=153}} According to Walker, this edition "contains errors, faulty readings, pages out of order, and extraneous passages".{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=190}}

===Kitab al-iftikhar===
The {{Transliteration|ar|Kitāb al-iftikhār}} ('The Book of Boasting'),{{sfn|Walker|2014|p=256}} is likely the last of al-Sijistani's works, being written around 971.{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=153}} As its title suggests, it is "strikingly polemical and strikingly defensive and apologetic" work; Walker describes it as "an exceedingly frank confession of the points of difference between himself and the Ismaili {{Transliteration|ar|daʿwa}}, on the one hand, and the intellectual, religious world all around him, on the other".{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=23}} For Walker, it is perhaps the "[best] place to look for a definition of [Isma'ili Shiism] in its fourth / tenth-century manifestation",{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=23}} while [[Farhad Daftary]], points out that it "presents a summary exposition of Ismaili doctrine and preserves remnants of the mythological cosmology propounded by the early Ismailis, including the spiritual beings called {{Transliteration|ar|jadd}}, {{Transliteration|ar|fatḥ}} and {{Transliteration|ar|khayāl}} which mediated between the spiritual and the physical worlds".{{sfn|Daftary|2004|pp=153–154}}

The work was first partially published by Mustafa Ghalib in 1980 (Beirut, Dar al-Andalus),{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=153}} but "suffers from inaccuracies and serious omissions".{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=190}} In 2000 a "definitive" edition{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=190}} with an English commentary was published by Ismail K. Poonawala (Beirut, Dar al-Gharb al-Islami).{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=153}}

===Al-Yanabi===
The {{Transliteration|ar|Kitāb  al-Yanābīʿ [al-ḥikma]}} ('Book of the Wellsprings/Sources [of Wisdom]'),{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=22}} was written around 961, and extensively paraphrased by the 11th-century {{Transliteration|ar|dāʿī}} [[Nasir Khusraw]] in his own  {{Transliteration|ar|Khwān al-ikhwān}}.{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=154}} The work is a collection of treatises on about forty themes or 'wellsprings'.{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=154}} According to Daftary, the work's primary theme is "the wellsprings of human knowledge and spiritual life in each era of religious history",{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=154}} while Walker emphasizes that "portions of this work are purely Neoplatonic in the tone and in the content of its teachings; other sections bring these concepts in line with the author's Shiite interpretation of religious knowledge and its purveyors".{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=22}}

The work was first published in a critical edition, with a partial French translation ({{lang|fr|Le livre des sources}}) in Henry Corbin's 1961 ''Trilogie Ismailienne'' (Tehran, Département d’Iranologie de l’Institut Franco-Iranien and Paris, A. Maisonneuve).{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=154}}{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=190}} An Arabic edition was published by Mustafa Ghalib in 1965 (Beirut, al-Maktab al-Tijari), and an English translation by Paul Walker in 1994 as part of ''The Wellsprings of Wisdom: A Study of Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani's Kitab al-Yanabi'' (Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press).{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=154}}

===Al-Maqalid===
The {{Transliteration|ar|Kitāb al-Maqālīd}} ('Book of the Keys'),{{sfn|Walker|1983}} comprises seventy chapters.{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=190}} According to Walker, it is of exceptional importance as it is "relatively late and by any account the most comprehensive" of al-Sijistani's works, but remains unpublished.{{sfn|Walker|1993|pp=23, 150, 190}}

===Al-Nusra===
The {{Transliteration|ar|Kitāb al-Nuṣra}} ('Book of the Support/Defence'), is no longer extant, except for extensive quotations in [[Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani]]'s {{Transliteration|ar|Kitāb al-riyāḍ}}.{{sfn|Walker|1993|pp=20–21}} The work is one of al-Sijistani's earlier writings, composed as a defence of his predecessor and teacher, [[Muhammad al-Nasafi]], against the accusations of [[antinomianism]] by [[Abu Hatim Ahmad ibn Hamdan al-Razi]]. {{sfn|Walker|1993|pp=21, 60–63}}{{sfn|Daftary|2007|pp=225–227}}

===Sullam al-najat===
The {{Transliteration|ar|Sullam al-najāt}} ('Ladder of Salvation') survives only in an incomplete form.{{sfn|Walker|1993|pp=22, 190}} In it, al-Sijistani gives a summary of the Isma'ili doctrine ({{Transliteration|ar|[[madhhab]]}}). According to Walker, these can be summarized as "faith in God, His angels, His books, His emissaries, the last day, salvation after death, and paradise and hellfire".{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=23}}

Its Arabic text was published by Muhtadi Mustafa Ghalib in 2002 (Salamiyya, Dar al-Ghadir).{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=154}} An English translation is part of a 1983 doctoral dissertation by M. Alibhai (''Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistānī and Kitab Sullam al-Najāt: A Study in Islamic Neoplatonism'', Harvard University).{{sfn|Walker|1993|p=190}}

===Epistles===
The epistle {{Transliteration|ar|Risalat tuḥfat al-mustajībīn}} expounding on Isma'ili doctrine was published by Arif Tamir in {{Transliteration|ar|Khams rasāʾil Ismāʿīliyya}} and reprinted since in {{Transliteration|ar|al-Mashriq}} in March/April 1967, and in Tamir's {{Transliteration|ar|Thalāth rasāʾil Ismāʿīliyya}}.{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=155}}

The epistle {{Transliteration|ar|al-Risāla al-bāhira fi’l-maʿād}} was published by Boustan Hirji in 1992 ({{Transliteration|fa|Taḥqīqāt-i Islāmī}}, Vol. 7), with a Persian-language translation by Abdallah Nurani. An English-language translation was published as part of B. Hirji's doctoral thesis ''A Study of al-Risālah al-Bāhirah'' (McGill University, 1994).{{sfn|Daftary|2004|p=154}}

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

==Sources==
{{sfn whitelist|CITEREFWalker1983}}
* {{cite book |last=Daftary |first=Farhad |author-link=Farhad Daftary |title= Ismaili Literature: A Bibliography of Sources and Studies | publisher = I.B. Tauris | location = London and New York | year = 2004 | isbn = 978-0-8577-1386-5 | url = {{Google Books|Ij0BAwAAQBAJ|plainurl=y}}}}
* {{Daftary-The Ismailis|edition=Second}}
* {{EI2 | last=Stern | first = S. M. | author-link = Samuel Miklos Stern | volume=1 | page=160 | title=Abū Yaʿḳūb Isḥāḳ b. Aḥmad al-Sid̲j̲zī |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_0273}}
* {{cite journal | last = Stern | first = S. M. | author-link = Samuel Miklos Stern | title = The Early Ismā'Īlī Missionaries in North-West Persia and in Khurāsān and Transoxania | journal = Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies | volume = 23 | issue = 1 | year = 1960 | pages = 56–90 | doi = 10.1017/s0041977x00148992 | s2cid = 162532568 | ref={{harvid|Stern|1960b}}}}
*{{Encyclopaedia Iranica | first = Paul Ernest | last = Walker | title = ABŪ YAʿQŪB SEJESTĀNĪ | volume = 1 | fascicle = 4 | pages = 396-398 | url=https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abo-yqub-sejestani}}
*{{cite book | first = Paul Ernest | last = Walker | year = 1993| title = Early Philosophical Shiism: the Ismaili Neoplatonism of Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani | publisher = Cambridge University Press | isbn = 0-521-44129-3}}
*{{cite encyclopedia | first = Paul Ernest | last = Walker | year = 2014 | title = Sijistānī, Abū Yaʿqūb al- | encyclopedia = The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science, and Technology in Islam | pages = 255–257 | publisher = Oxford University Press | isbn = 978-0-19-981257-8 | location = Oxford | editor-last = Kalin | editor-first = Ibrahim | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=or-6BwAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PA255}}

==External links==
* [http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/sijistan.htm Abu Ya‘qub al-Sijistani] at the [[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]

{{Fatimid Caliphate topics|state=expanded}}
{{Islamic philosophy}}

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sijistani, Abu Yaqub}}
[[Category:10th-century executions]]
[[Category:10th-century Iranian philosophers]]
[[Category:10th-century Ismailis]]
[[Category:Neoplatonists]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]
[[Category:Year of death unknown]]
[[Category:Iranian Ismailis]]
[[Category:Executed Iranian people]]
[[Category:Ismaili theologians]]
[[Category:Ismaili da'is]]