Bohra Library

Scholarship and Ismaili Material

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Resources

A Neo-Fatimid Treasury of Book Arabic Manuscripts Among the Alawi Bohras of South Asia.pdf

  • Description: A study of the manuscript treasury of the ʿAlawi Bohras of Gujarat, examining the preservation, transmission, cataloguing, and social life of Arabic books inherited from the Fatimid and Tayyibi traditions. It is particularly valuable for understanding how Fatimid-era intellectual traditions remain materially preserved in modern Bohra communities.
  • Author: Olly Akkerman — a modern scholar of Ismaili manuscript cultures, particularly the ʿAlawi Bohra community and its manuscript traditions.
  • Time Period: Modern scholarship; published 2022. The manuscripts studied preserve material from the medieval Fatimid/Tayyibi tradition, while the living manuscript treasury is modern. The book is especially useful for the post-Fatimid/Tayyibi continuation of Fatimid heritage.

Abu Yaqub AlSijistani and Kitab Sullam Al Najat A Study in Islamic Neoplatonism.pdf

  • Description: A thesis examining Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī and his Kitāb Sullam al-Najāt, with particular attention to early Ismaili Neoplatonism, cosmology, intellect, soul, prophecy, and spiritual salvation.
  • Author: Mohamed Abualy Alibhai
  • Time Period: The thesis focuses on the 10th-century, pre-Fatimid and early Fatimid Ismaili intellectual tradition. Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī was active during the 4th/10th century and was one of the major early Ismaili dāʿīs and philosophers.

Adem, Hayes Reason, Esotericism, and Authority in Shiʿi Islam.pdf

  • Description: A collection of studies examining reason, esotericism, taʾwīl, religious authority, and intellectual traditions in Shiʿi Islam, including important studies of early Shiʿism and Fatimid Ismaili interpretation.
  • Author: Rodrigo Adem and Edmund Hayes, editors/contributors, with contributions by several scholars including Tahera Qutbuddin and Paul E. Walker. The volume is important for contemporary academic approaches to Shiʿi intellectual history.
  • Time Period: Modern scholarship, 2021, covering material from early Islam through Fatimid, medieval, and modern Shiʿi traditions.

Al-Mu’ayyad al-Shirazi and Fatimid Da’wa.pdf

  • Description: A major study of al-Muʾayyad al-Shīrāzī, his career as a Fatimid dāʿī, his poetry, and the relationship between literary production and the Fatimid daʿwa. It is especially useful for understanding Fatimid missionary rhetoric and devotional poetry.
  • Author: Tahera Qutbuddin — a leading scholar of Arabic literature, Islamic oratory, and Fatimid/Ismaili literary traditions. Her work on al-Muʾayyad is particularly important for understanding the literary culture of the Fatimid daʿwa.
  • Time Period: Fatimid period, 4th–5th/10th–11th centuries. Al-Muʾayyad lived c. 996/997–1078 and served the Fatimid daʿwa under the Imams al-Mustanṣir and al-Mustanṣir’s immediate political context.

Arabic Oration – Art and Function.pdf

  • Description: A comprehensive study of Arabic oration (khuṭba), examining its rhetorical structure, oral aesthetics, political and religious functions, and role in establishing authority in early Islamic society.
  • Author: Tahera Qutbuddin — a major scholar of Arabic literature and Islamic oratory. The work is important for understanding the literary and rhetorical environment in which early Islamic and Shiʿi preaching developed.
  • Time Period: Early Islamic period, primarily 7th–8th centuries CE, while the book itself is modern scholarship, first published in 2019. It discusses speeches associated with the Prophet Muḥammad, ʿAlī, and other early Muslim leaders.

Arabic Oration in Early Islam – Religion and Rhetoric.pdf

  • Description: A study of religious oratory in early Islam, examining rhetoric, ritual, authority, and the transmission of religious and political ideas through sermons and public speech.
  • Author: Tahera Qutbuddin — specialist in classical Arabic oratory and Islamic literary culture.
  • Time Period: Early Islamic period, especially 7th–8th centuries CE. The article itself was published in 2023 but studies the foundational period of Arabic oration

Beyond The Quran Early Ismaili Tawil and the Secrets of The Prophets.pdf

  • Description: A study of early Ismaili taʾwīl and the esoteric interpretation of Qurʾanic and prophetic traditions. It examines how early Ismaili thinkers interpreted prophetic narratives as symbols of deeper spiritual realities.
  • Author: David Hollenberg — scholar of Islamic studies whose work examines Qurʾanic interpretation, esotericism, and Ismaili intellectual traditions.
  • Time Period: Early Ismaili / Fatimid intellectual period, particularly the 9th–10th centuries and the development of Ismaili taʾwīl. The book is modern scholarship on these traditions.

Caliphate and Imamate An Anthology of Medieval Islam.pdf

  • Description: An anthology of medieval Muslim writings on legitimate political and religious authority, comparing concepts of caliphate and imamate across Sunni, Shiʿi, Muʿtazili, Ibadi, Zaydi, and Ismaili traditions.
  • Author: Hassan Ansari and Nebil Husayn, editors — scholars of Islamic intellectual and political theology. The anthology presents translated primary texts from different medieval schools rather than representing one author.
  • Time Period: Medieval Islamic period, approximately 2nd/8th–7th/13th centuries, including early and Fatimid Ismaili material. No single Imam or satr applies to the anthology as a whole.

Corbin - Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis.pdf

  • Description: A study of cyclical sacred history, spiritual birth, cosmology, Imamology, and gnosis in Ismaili thought, comparing Ismaili concepts with earlier Iranian and late antique religious traditions.
  • Author: Henry Corbin (1903–1978) — one of the most influential modern scholars of Islamic philosophy, Iranian thought, and Ismaili spirituality.
  • Time Period: Modern scholarship; studies classical and medieval Ismaili traditions. The essays were originally presented in the 1950s and collected in book form in 1983.

Crow Role of Aql in Early Islāmic Wisdom.pdf

  • Description: A study of the concept of ʿaql (intellect) in early Islamic wisdom, especially traditions associated with Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and the development of ideas about the first creation and divine intellect.

  • Author: Karim Douglas Crow — modern scholar of Islamic intellectual history and Shiʿi thought.

  • Time Period: Early Islamic period, especially 1st–3rd/7th–9th centuries. The article itself was published in 1996. Crow argues that the fully Neoplatonizing formulation of the “first creation is the intellect” is not earlier than the mid-3rd/9th century. Ecstasy and Enlightenment The Ismaili Devotional Literature .pdf

  • Description: An Institute of Ismaili Studies publication examining Nizari Ismaili devotional literature in South Asia, particularly the ginans. It explores their religious themes, literary forms, historical development, and relationship to Sufi, Bhakti, and Sant traditions.

  • Author: Ali S. Asani — a leading modern scholar of Ismaili devotional literature and South Asian Islam.

  • Time Period: Post-Fatimid and Nizari South Asian tradition, covering several centuries of ginan production and continuing into the modern period. Published by the Institute of Ismaili Studies in 2002.

Fatimid Aspirations of Conquest and Doctrine.pdf

  • Description: A study of Fatimid ideas of universal religious and political authority as expressed through poetry and daʿwa doctrine, including the relationship between conquest, eschatology, and the Fatimid Imamate.
  • Author: Tahera Qutbuddin — scholar of Arabic literature and Fatimid daʿwa poetry. The study examines poetry attributed to al-Qāʾim, Ibn Hāniʾ al-Andalusī, Amīr Tamīm b. al-Muʿizz, and al-Muʾayyad al-Shīrāzī.
  • Time Period: Fatimid period, 4th–5th/10th–11th centuries, particularly the reigns of al-Qāʾim, al-Manṣūr, al-Muʿizz, al-ʿAzīz, and al-Mustanṣir.

Fatimid Legal Exegesis of the Qur_an.pdf

  • Description: A study of the Qurʾanic interpretive methods used by al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān in Daʿāʾim al-Islām, explaining how Fatimid legal interpretation operated within the Ismaili system of religious authority.
  • Author: Husain K. B. Qutbuddin — scholar of Arabic and Islamic intellectual history. The article examines the exegesis of the Fatimid dāʿī and chief judge al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān.
  • Time Period: Early Fatimid period, 4th/10th century. The principal figure, al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān, died in 363/974 and served several Fatimid Imams, especially al-Qāʾim, al-Manṣūr, and al-Muʿizz.

Fortresses of the Intellect Ismaili and other Islamic Chapter 1-11.pdf

  • Description: A collection of scholarly studies on Ismaili and wider Islamic intellectual history, covering theology, philosophy, law, literature, manuscripts, and the development of Islamic ideas.
  • Author: Edited by Omar Ali-de-Unzaga, with contributions from numerous major scholars including Wilferd Madelung, Paul E. Walker, Hamid Algar, Abbas Hamdani, Hermann Landolt, Alice Hunsberger, and others.
  • Time Period: Modern scholarship; published 2011, covering material from early Islam through Fatimid, post-Fatimid, Nizari, and later periods.

Fortresses of the Intellect Ismaili and other Islamic Chapter 12-22.pdf

  • Description: Continuation of the same scholarly collection, containing further studies of Ismaili and Islamic intellectual history, including theology, philosophy, literature, and religious institutions.
  • Author: Edited by Omar Ali-de-Unzaga, with contributions from numerous specialists in Islamic and Ismaili studies.
  • Time Period: Modern scholarship; 2011, with chapters addressing multiple historical periods.

History of Islamic Philosophy Nasr & Leaman.pdf

  • Description: A major scholarly reference work surveying Islamic philosophy from its formative period through medieval and later developments, including Neoplatonism, Shiʿi philosophy, Avicenna, Suhrawardī, and later Islamic philosophical traditions.
  • Author: Edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman — major modern scholars of Islamic philosophy. The volume is important as a broad reference rather than as a primary Ismaili source.
  • Time Period: Modern scholarship covering the 8th–20th centuries, depending on the chapter. No single satr or Imam applies.

Ismaili Tawil.pdf

  • Description: A study of Ismaili taʾwīl, the esoteric interpretation of revelation, explaining the relationship between outward (ẓāhir) and inward (bāṭin) meanings and the role of interpretation in Ismaili thought.
  • Author: Ismail K. Poonawala — a leading scholar of Ismaili literature, Arabic manuscripts, and Islamic intellectual history.
  • Time Period: Modern scholarship on early and Fatimid Ismaili thought, particularly the development of taʾwīl from the pre-Fatimid period through the Fatimid era.

Journey_with_Muhammad.pdf

  • Description: A study of the Prophet Muḥammad’s journey and spiritual ascent, likely examining the relationship between prophetic experience, sacred geography, revelation, and initiatory or mystical ascent in Islamic thought.
  • Author: Parveen Hasanali
  • Time Period: Early Islamic period, particularly the lifetime of the Prophet Muḥammad and the development of traditions concerning the isrāʾ and miʿrāj; the document itself is modern scholarship.

Maulana Ali – Literary Culture – Article.pdf

  • Description: A study of Imam ʿAlī’s literary and oratorical culture, examining the speeches, sermons, letters, and literary traditions associated with him and their role in early Islamic intellectual history.
  • Author: Tahera Qutbuddin — major scholar of classical Arabic oration and early Islamic literary culture.
  • Time Period: Early Islamic period, 7th century CE, particularly the lifetime of Imam ʿAlī (d. 661 CE), although the article itself is modern scholarship.

Nizaris.pdf

  • Description: A compilation of writings and/or scholarly material concerning Nizari Ismaili gnosis, doctrine, cosmology, spiritual interpretation, and the role of the Imam.

Prophetic Ascent and Initiatory Ascent.pdf

  • Description: A study of Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān’s Asās al-Taʾwīl, examining its interpretation of Qurʾanic narratives, prophetic accounts, and the relationship between outward meaning (ẓāhir) and inner meaning (bāṭin) in Fatimid Ismaili thought.
  • Author: Elizabeth R. Alexandrin — a modern scholar of Ismaili literature and Qurʾanic interpretation.
  • Time Period: Fatimid period, 4th/10th century, with particular focus on Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974) and the development of Fatimid Ismaili taʾwīl.

Sources For Tayyibi literature.pdf

  • Description: A bibliographical and source-oriented guide to Tayyibi Ismaili literature, including texts, authors, manuscripts, and the development of the Tayyibi daʿwa after the Mustaʿlian succession.
  • Author: Samer Traboulsi — a scholar of Ismaili and Tayyibi literature, religious history, and manuscript traditions.
  • Time Period: Post-Fatimid / Tayyibi period, beginning after the Fatimid caliphate ended in 1171 and continuing through the medieval and modern Tayyibi traditions.

Shihabudin Shah Al Husayni True meaning of religion.pdf

  • Description: A concise exposition of Nizari Ismaili religious belief, emphasizing the living Imam, spiritual guidance, faith, ethics, and the inner meaning of religion.
  • Author: Shihāb al-Dīn Shāh al-Ḥusaynī — an important modern Nizari Ismaili religious scholar and member of the hereditary Imamat tradition. His writings represent the continuation of Ismaili religious thought in the modern period.
  • Time Period: Modern Nizari Ismaili period; late 19th–early 20th century. Associated with the period following the 47th Imam, Ḥasan ʿAlī Shāh (Āqā Khān I, d. 1885)

Tahera Qutbudin A Supplication for God’s Mercy .pdf

  • Description: A study/translation of an Islamic supplication for divine mercy, examining its literary, religious, and devotional significance.
  • Author: Tahera Qutbuddin — scholar of Arabic literary culture, Islamic oratory, and Fatimid/Ismaili traditions.
  • Time Period: Fatimid period, particularly the 4th–5th/10th–11th centuries, associated with the literary and devotional traditions of al-Muʾayyad al-Shīrāzī and the Fatimid daʿwa.

The Bohra Faith.pdf

  • Description: A study of Bohra Ismaili belief, history, religious organisation, and communal identity, particularly the Mustaʿlī-Tayyibī tradition.

The Bohra Manuscript Treasury as a Sacred Site of Philology - a Study in Social Codicology.pdf

  • Description: A study of Bohra manuscript collections as living religious institutions, examining how manuscripts are preserved, transmitted, catalogued, interpreted, and integrated into communal identity.
  • Author: Olly Akkerman — a scholar of Ismaili manuscript cultures, particularly the ʿAlawi Bohra community and its manuscript traditions.
  • Time Period: Modern scholarship, dealing particularly with the contemporary preservation of post-Fatimid/Tayyibi textual traditions.

The dai Hatim ibn Ibrahim al-Hamidi and His Book Tuḥfat al-Qulub.pdf

  • Description: A study of the Tayyibi dāʿī Ḥātim ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ḥāmidī and his Tuḥfat al-Qulūb, an important work of early Tayyibi theology, cosmology, and religious instruction.

The Ihya of al-Jamial-Anwar Religious Values in the Restoration of Sacred Islamic Monuments.pdf

  • Description: A study of the restoration (iḥyāʾ) of al-Jāmiʿ al-Anwar / al-Ḥākim Mosque in Cairo and the religious, historical, and architectural values associated with the preservation of a major Fatimid monument.

The Intellect is the Essence of the Huma.pdf

  • Description: “The Intellect is the Essence of the Human” is an Arabic poem on the intellect (Qaṣīdat al-ʿAql) that presents the ʿaql as the defining essence of the human being and as the means through which spiritual knowledge and salvation are attained. The poem reflects Fatimid-Ṭayyibī teachings on intellect, knowledge, divine guidance, and the relationship between the believer, the dāʿī, and the Imam.
  • Author: Sayyidna Taher Saifuddin (1888–1965), the 51st Dāʿī al-Muṭlaq of the Dāʾūdī Bohra community and an Indian Fatimid-Ṭayyibī religious scholar, poet, and author.
  • Time Period: Modern Fatimid-Ṭayyibī period, particularly the first half of the 20th century. The poem belongs to the living Tayyibī tradition of the Dāʾūdī Bohras and reflects the intellectual and devotional heritage of the Fatimid Imams and Tayyibī duʿāt.

The Isma’ilis.pdf

  • Description: A comprehensive history of the Ismailis, covering their origins, doctrinal development, Fatimid history, Nizari and Tayyibi branches, and modern communities.
  • Author: Farhad Daftary — one of the leading modern historians of Ismailism and author of major reference works on Ismaili history and doctrine.
  • Time Period: Modern scholarship covering the 8th century to the modern period. The book therefore encompasses pre-Fatimid, Fatimid, post-Fatimid/Nizari, Tayyibi, and modern Ismaili history.

The Renaissance of Shii Islam Facets of Thought.pdf

  • Description: A collection of studies on the revival and development of Shiʿi intellectual and spiritual traditions from the late medieval period onward, with particular attention to the Ismaili Anjudan revival and Safavid-era Shiʿism.
  • Author: Janis Esots and Farhad Daftary, editors — scholars of Shiʿi and Ismaili intellectual history.
  • Time Period: Post-Fatimid period, especially 9th–12th/15th–18th centuries, beginning with the Ismaili Anjudan revival and extending through the Safavid period. Published 2022.

Transmission of Knowledge.pdf

  • Description: A study of the transmission of knowledge and the preservation of books within the Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlī tradition, examining the roles of teachers, manuscripts, libraries, religious institutions, and scholarly networks in maintaining and transmitting the community’s intellectual heritage.

Ṭūsī Shii Interpretations.pdf

  • Description: A discussion of Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s Shiʿi theological interpretations, particularly his understanding of the Imamate, religious authority, spiritual knowledge, and the relationship between reason and revelation.
  • Author: Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (1201–1274) — one of the greatest Muslim philosophers, theologians, and scientists. He is especially important to Ismaili history because he spent approximately three decades with the Nizari Ismailis and produced major works during the Alamut period.
  • Time Period: Post-Fatimid / Nizari Ismaili Alamut period; 13th century, especially c. 1227–1256 CE. Associated with the Nizari Imams ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad III (r. 1221–1255) and Rukn al-Dīn Khurshāh (r. 1255–1256).

Tusi The Paradise of Submission.pdf

  • Description: A major Ismaili philosophical and theological treatise explaining spiritual knowledge, the authority of the Imam, prophecy, revelation, resurrection, and the inner meaning of religious truth.
  • Author: Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (1201–1274) — a renowned philosopher and theologian who became an important intellectual figure among the Nizari Ismailis at Alamut. His work helped preserve and develop Nizari Ismaili philosophical thought.
  • Time Period: Post-Fatimid / Nizari Ismaili Alamut period; 13th century, probably before the Mongol destruction of Alamut in 1256 CE. Associated with Imam ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad III and the beginning of the Imamat of Rukn al-Dīn Khurshāh.

Tusi_Commentary upon Ibn Sīnā.translation of 9th namat.pdf

  • Description: Ṭūsī’s commentary on the ninth namat of Ibn Sīnā’s Kitāb al-Ishārāt wa’l-Tanbīhāt, examining advanced philosophical questions concerning the soul, spiritual knowledge, metaphysics, and human perfection.
  • Author: Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (1201–1274) — one of the most important philosophers of the medieval Islamic world and a major intellectual figure of the Nizari Ismaili Alamut period.
  • Time Period: Post-Fatimid / Nizari Ismaili period; 13th century. Ṭūsī’s association with the Ismailis at Alamut places this work within the intellectual world of the later Nizari tradition,.

Walker Fatimid History and Ismaili Doctrine.pdf

  • Description: A collection of thirteen studies examining Fatimid history, Ismaili doctrine, the daʿwa, succession to the Imamate, institutions of learning, judiciary, political authority, and philosophical/theological ideas.
  • Author: Paul E. Walker — one of the leading modern historians of Fatimid history and Ismaili intellectual traditions.
  • Time Period: Modern scholarship on the Fatimid period, especially the 3rd–6th/9th–12th centuries. The book itself was published in 2008, but its primary subject is the Fatimid state and its Ismaili intellectual tradition.

Ya Sayyida Shohodai.pdf

  • Description: A study of Karbala mourning among the Fāṭimid-Ṭayyibī Shīʿa of India, focusing on the doctrinal and performative dimensions of Sayyidnā Ṭāhir Sayf al-Dīn’s Arabic marthiya, “O King of Martyrs” (Yā Sayyida l-Shuhadāʾī). The article examines how the memory of Imam Ḥusayn’s martyrdom is expressed through Arabic elegy, ritual performance, communal mourning, and Tayyibī religious doctrine.
  • Author: Tahera Qutbuddin — Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago; ORCID: 0000-0002-9315-2040.
  • Time Period: Modern Tayyibī Bohra devotional tradition, focusing on the twentieth-century Dāʾī al-Muṭlaq Sayyidnā Ṭāhir Sayf al-Dīn and the continuing commemoration of Karbala among the Fāṭimid-Ṭayyibī Shīʿa of India. The historical subject of mourning is the martyrdom of Imam Ḥusayn at Karbala in 61/680.

Farhad Daftary A Modern History of the Ismailis Continuity and Change in a Muslim Community .pdf

  • Description: A modern historical survey of Ismaili communities, with particular attention to their continuity, institutional development, intellectual traditions, and transformation in the modern world. The pages in this PDF appear to be an extract from the larger work.
  • Author: Farhad Daftary — leading modern historian of Ismailism and a major scholar of Ismaili history, doctrine, and communities.
  • Time Period: Modern scholarship covering the entire Ismaili historical trajectory, with particular emphasis on the post-Fatimid, Tayyibi, Nizari, and modern periods. The book was first published in 1990/1991 and later editions expanded the scholarship.

The Dawoodi Bohras (Mustali Ismaili Shia).pdf

  • Description: A study or overview of the Dāʾūdī Bohra community, their Mustaʿlī-Tayyibī Ismaili origins, religious organisation, beliefs, daʿwa, and historical development.

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