Ikhwan al-Safa, Rasa'il al-Jami'ah (an abridged version of Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa 'Epistles of the Brethren of Purity'), probably Egypt, Mamluk, 14th century

Formerly in the collection of a Middle Eastern Ambassador to the UK, early 1970s

The Ikhwan al-Safa was a secret brotherhood thought to have been affiliated to the Ismai'li movement. The Rasa'il are considered to be central to Isma'ili doctrine and have been attributed to the authorship of various different Shi'a imams, and scholars from the eleventh century. Given the esoteric nature of Shi'a Isma'ilism, one can understand why they even referred to themselves (in the fourth Rasa'il) as "sleepers in the cave". Although the Ikhwan remained an anonymous group of scholars, the literary scholar Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi (d.1023 AD) is thought to have identified three members, all of whom were from Basra: Abu'l-Hasan ‘Ali Ibn Harun al-Zanjani and three of his companions, Abu Suleyman Muhammad Ibn Ma‘shar al-Busti, (called al-Maqdisi), Abu Ahmad al-Nahrajuri and al-‘Awfi.

This manuscript of the text includes the four sections of the book as follows:

1.  The mathematical sciences

2. The natural sciences

3. The rational sciences

4. The theological sciences

Notably, on the final leaf the scribe refers to an additional epistle entitled The Fellowship of the Brethren of Purity and how they interact with each other, although this remains incomplete. This addition to the text is interesting given the mystery that shrouds the Ikhwan al-Safa. Their true identities were so thoroughly hidden that scholars today can only speculate.

Other known early manuscripts of the Rasa'il al-Safa include the famous copy in the 'Atif Pasha Library, Istanbul (1681), dated 587 AH/1182 AD; the copy formerly in the British Museum, now in the British Library (Or 6692), dated 646 AH/1248-49 AD, and a copy in the Majlis-i Shura-yi Milli, Tehran (4707), dated 686 AH/1287 AD.