Brethren of Purity - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
General Material Designation
[Article]
First Statement of Responsibility
de Callataÿ, Godefroid
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
Leiden
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Brill
GENERAL NOTES
Text of Note
(3,559 words)
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
The Brethren of Purity and the Friends of Loyalty (Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ wa-Khullān al-Wafāʾ) is the name used by the authors of a large and influential encyclopedic work of mediaeval Islam in order to disguise their identity. The work is traditionally referred to in literature as the "Epistles of the Brethren of Purity" (Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ) because it presents itself as a collection of about fifty treatises written in the form of epistles and addressed to a fictive "brother." In addition to this collection, there are a "