RT Article
T1 The Chronology of al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān’s Works
JF Arabica
VO 65
IS 1/2
SP 84
OP 162
A1 Poonawala, Ismail K. 1937-
LA English
YR 2018
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1570986401
AB A chronology of an author’s works is necessary for understanding his or her intellectual evolution. Al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān wrote numerous books on diverse disciplines, such as jurisprudence, history, traditions of the Messenger of God and the Ismāʿīlī imams, biographies of the Fāṭimid caliph-imams, refutations of the Sunnī schools of law, and allegorical interpretation of the Qurʾān and the šarīʿa. The chronology of al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān’s corpus, which consists of more than fifty titles, is based primarily on pieces of evidence in his extant works. The sequence of al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān’s legal works suggests that The Pillars of Islam (Daʿāʾim al-islām), compiled under the directions of al-Muʿizz around 349/960, was his crowning achievement after serving the first four Fāṭimid caliph-imams since 313/925. In fact, al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān began and completed his first work Kitāb al-Īḍāḥ, a massive collection of legal traditions transmitted on the authority of the family of the Prophet, while he was still serving al-Mahdī (r. 297/909-322/934). The chronology further reveals that after composing The Pillars of Islam, al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān devoted his energies to the explication of the major Ismāʿīlī theological doctrine, namely the theory of taʾwīl (hermeneutics). In his Asās al-taʾwīl, he justifies the twin concepts of taʾwīl and bāṭin (the inner, hidden, esoteric meaning behind the literal wording of sacred texts)—from a jurist’s viewpoint—and argues that these concepts are firmly grounded in the foundational texts of Islam, viz., the Qurʾān and the Hadiths of the Prophet.
K1 al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān : al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān : Ismāʿīlīs : ismaélisme : Fāṭimids : Fāṭimides : al-Mahdī : al-Mahdī : al-Manṣūr : al-Manṣūr : al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh : al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh : taʾwīl : taʾwīl : bāṭin : bāṭin : Daʿāʾim al-islām : Daʿāʾim al-islām : al-Maǧālis wa-l-musāyarāt : al-Maǧālis wa-l-musāyarāt : Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī : Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī : Idrīs ʿImād al-Dīn : Idrīs ʿImād al-Dīn : ʿUyūn al-aḫbār : ʿUyūn al-aḫbār : Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbd al-Rasūl al-Maǧdūʿ : Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbd al-Rasūl al-Maǧdūʿ : Fihrist : Fihrist
DO 10.1163/15700585-12341475