Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

The name of the author and the date of composition are not mentioned in the work, and there is not the slightest key to this. We may place thus the date of the composition of the work anywhere between 710/1311 and 1312/1895, which latter is the date of the present copy.. The language is good Persian, without any trace of the Badakhshani or Central Asian peculiarities. The author seems to be a highly intellectual man, of good learning. All this seems to indicate that the work was not produced somewhere in the Oxus region. And yet there is a great puzzle in it, if we analyze the Ismaili terminology which we find in the author's references to the doctrinal matters. In his speculations the author continually refers to the terms like Natiq, Asas and hujjats (in Plural ). This terminology does not belong to the Eastern, or Nizari branch of Ismailism as it developed in Persia, ,and as it is found in different authentic works of the community in question.(1)

These terms are used only in those Persian Ismaili works which continue the tradition of Nasiri Khusraw, and which are produced in the Oxus area, where the earlier form of Ismailism, as it was under the Fatimides, was mixed together ,with the more advanced forms of the Alamuti period. It continues there up till now only because of the absence of education amongst the followers of the religion which does not permit them to see the inconsistency of this mixture of the un-reformed , and of the reformed systems.

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1. In the Eastern Ismaili works instead of the term Natiq is used Payghambar, Rasul, etc. The term Asas, which is originally applied to Ali ibn Abu Talib, to distinguish him from his descendants, the Imams (it is in reality the Asasu'l -imamat, i.e. " the foundation of Imamat") is entirely forgotten, because the doctrine recognises the equality of all Imams, amongst whom there are no greater and ones,and no lesser ones. The term hujjat in the earlier Ismailism correspond to something like a " bishop" of the Ismaili church ; there were officially 24 or 12 of them. In the Eastern Ismailism the Hujjat is mostly one, and is endowed with as supernatural qualities as the Imam himself, to whom he is a subordinate.