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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A History of Muslim Philosophy Volume 1, Book 3 Chapter 15: Ikhwan al-Safa Ikhwan al-Safa by Omar A.

Farrukh, Ph.D, Member of the Arab Academy, Damascus (Syria) Introduction The name Ikhwan al‑Safa was assumed by a group of libres penseum who cultivated science and philosophy not for the sake of science and philosophy, but in the hope of forming a kind of an ethico‑spiritual community in which the elites of the heterogeneous Muslim Empire could find a refuge from the struggle that was raging among religious congregations, national societies, and Muslim sects themselves.

External evidence concerning the Ikhwan al‑Safa is so scanty that no clear historical picture of them is in any way possible. Were it not for Abu Hayyan al‑Tauhidi (d. after 400/1009), a famous author and a friend of some members of the group, no facts about them would have come down to us. The group of the Ikhwan al‑Safa originated in Basrah.

In about 373/983, the group was already famous and its “Epistles,” which contain its spiritual doctrines and philosophical system, were in wide circulation.[^1] The complete name of the group was Ikhwan al‑Safa wa Khullan al‑Wafa wa Ahl al‑Hamd wa Abna' al‑Majd [^2] a name which was suggested to them by the chapter of the “Ring‑Necked Dove” in Kalilah wa Dimnah , a book which they very highly esteemed.[^3] The Ikhwan al‑Safa succeeded in keeping complete secrecy about their names.

But when Abu Hayyan was asked in about 373/983, about them, he named, perhaps at random, five of them: Abu Sulaiman Muhammad b. Ma'shar ad‑Busti, known as al‑Muqaddisi, Abu al‑Hasan 'Ali b. Harun al‑Zanjani, Abu Ahmad Muhammad al‑Mihrajani, a certain al‑'Aufi, and the famous Zaid b.

Rifa'ah.[^4] The Ikhwan al‑Safa produced numerous works the most famous and im­portant of which is the encyclopedic compilation entitled Rasa'il Ikhwan al‑Safa (Epistles of the Ikhwan al‑Safa), which will henceforth be referred to as Rasa’il or “Epistles.” These “Epistles” are definitely the result of a collaboration of various writers many of whom may not have been members of the group.

The compilation must have dragged over a long period, but by 373/983 the “Epistles” must have been already complete in the first recension at least. It is, moreover, practically certain that the Ikhwan al‑Safa embarked upon the compilation of the “Epistles” with the number fifty in their mind. The current edition, however, has fifty‑three epistles.