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

We may give here briefly the contents of the work, with page or two in a full translation as a specimen of its style. The original verses from the Gulshani raz are here initialed with GR.

The work begins with a short doxology, and then it immediately comes to the subject.(1) It firstly mentions the " primaeval convenant " (ahdi awali) between God and Man, by which the latter had to seek for spiritual wisdom and for knowledge of the Deity. Such knowledge with the accordance with the ismaili doctrine, is possible to find only in the Perfect Man(insani kamil)(p.3). "Whoever has not seen the Perfect Man of his period of history will for ever remain an alien; it is said (in the hadith) : Whoever has seen me has seen me, has seen the truth." (2) The existence of such Perfect Man is,absolutely necessary to the existence of the world, and the faithful person has to take the oath of allegiance to him.

"Verily, those who swear allegiance to thee do but swear allegiance to God " (Coran, XLVIII, 10). This means that those who take oath to the hujjats, swear, in fact, their allegiance to the Imam.(p. 4). This point about the oath of allegiance still carefully observed amongst the Western Ismailis. This is the Ismaili understanding of the first half of the 4th question of the GR. The second half is about the spiritual " traveller," salik. (p. 4). Who is the salik ? One who turns towards the da'i ; kamil, or a complete disciple, is one who turns towards the hujjat, and the gnostic, arif, is one who turns towards the Imam. The author then tells about the usual Ismaili idea about the periods of element prophets (dawr), explains the theory of the " letters " (huruf of which the Universe is composed. then he comes to the question of the Nabi and the Wali(p.7), or the Prophet and the Saint, explaining that one is connected with the other: - GR. Prophetship is hidden in the Wali, And the Wali is manifest in the Nabi.
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1. We may give here the initial lines of the work