The Banquet of the Brethren : An Ismaili Guide to Spiritual Hermeneutics: Part 2 An English translation of Nasir-i Khusraw’s Khwan al-ikhwan

I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies.

The Ismaili dai (missionary) and poet Nasir-i Khusraw (d. after 1070) wrote Khwan al-ikhwan (The Banquet of the Brethren) when he was living in his remote mountain refuge of Yumgan in Badakhshan. This work includes a precis of ideas found in the Kitab al-Yanabi (al-?ikma) (The Wellsprings of Wisdom), written by the earlier dai Abu Ya’qub al- Sijistani (d. ca. 971). Nasir-i Khusraw recast these ideas in Persian and then expanded them into 100 chapters (or ‘courses’ of a banquet). The text presents a sequence of dynamic arguments for divine unicity (taw?id), while also asserting the authority of the Prophet Muhammad, his legatee and son-in-law ?Ali b. Abi ?alib, and the subsequent Imams from the line of the Prophet’s descendant Ismail b. Ja’far al-Sadiq.

Khwan al-ikhwan stands as a significant work in Ismaili theology and philosophy, exemplifying the central role of ta’wil (esoteric interpretation). It also reflects the learning of the age, including the conception of a geocentric cosmos, Aristotelian physics, and Neoplatonic philosophy, all of which profoundly influenced the Ismaili da’is in Iran.

This first English translation of Khwan al-ikhwan, derived from the Persian critical edition presented in Part 1, is accompanied by detailed annotation and an introduction which situates this important work in the context of Nasir-i Khusraw''s other works and Aby Ya’qub al-Sijistani''s Kitab al-Yanabi?.