IKHWAN AS-SAFA'

(Arabic: Brethren of Purity), a secret Arab confraternity, founded at Basra, Iraq, that produced a philosophical and religious encyclopaedia, Rasa'il ikhwan as-safa' wa khillan al-wafa' (Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and Loyal Friends), sometime in the second half of the 10th century AD. Neither the identity nor the period of the Ikhwan as-Safa' has been definitively established, but the various authors of the Rasa'il do seem to reflect the doctrinal position of the Isma'iliyah, a radical Shi'i Muslim sect influenced by Manichaeism and Neoplatonism, which preached an esoteric interpretation of the Qur'an open only to initiates (see Isma'ilite). The Ikhwan as-Safa', like all other Islamic philosophers, attempted to naturalize Greek philosophy in a way of their own; they chose to follow a fairly orthodox Neoplatonic position and admitted Hermetic, Gnostic, astrological, and occult sciences on a large scale in the belief that their absorption of ancient wisdom enabled them to fathom the esoteric meaning of revelation. According to the Ikhwan as-Safa', individual human souls emanate from the universal soul and rejoin it after death; the universal soul in its turn will be united with God on the day of the Last Judgment. The Rasa'il are thus intended to purify the soul of misconceptions and lead it to a clear view of the essence of reality, which in turn will provide for happiness in the next life. To accomplish this enlightenment, the Rasa'il are structured theoretically to lead the soul from concrete to abstract knowledge. There is also an important summary of the whole encyclopaedia, ar-Risalah al-jami'ah.