كليدواژه :
primordial letters , Imamic cycles , Iblīs , divine language , Adam and Eve
چكيده لاتين :
A manuscript addition to Epistle 50: ‘On the Quantity and the Quality
of the Species of Administration’ of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al‐Ṣafāʾ, aims to disclose
secret knowledge about the scriptural story of Adam, with one section
addressing the issue of the gift of language that God gave to Adam, in its exoteric
(scriptural) and esoteric versions. Starting from the well‐known article
by Walter Benjamin, ‘On Language as Such and on the Language of Man’, a
strict link is demonstrated to exist between the Bible and the Qurʾan, and between
esoteric Jewish and Islamic thought. However, an ‘original’ component
of the addition is its Ismaili character, proven by a comparison with the Ismaili
thinker and dāʿī Abū Yaʿqūb al‐Sijistānī, approximately contemporary
with the addition, whose affords the addition a special relationship with the
Rasāʾil Ikhwān al‐Ṣafāʾ, further enhancing the Ikhwān’s Ismaili commitment.
