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The ''Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity'' ((アラビア語:رسائل إخوان الصفا)) also variously known as the ''Epistles of the Brethren of Sincerity'', ''Epistles of the Brethren of Purity'' and ''Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and Loyal Friends'' was a large encyclopedia〔"The work only professes to be an epitome, an outline; its authors lay claim to no originality, they only summarize what others have thought and discovered. What they do lay claim to is system and completeness. The work does profess to contain a ''systematized'', harmonious and co-ordinated view of the universe and life, its origin and destiny, formed out of many discordant, incoherent views; and it does claim to be a 'complete account of all things' - to contain, in epitome, all that was known at the time it was written. (詳細はStanley Lane-Poole (1883), pages 190, 191.〕 in 52 treatises (''rasā'il'') written by the mysterious〔"Having been hidden within the cloak of secrecy from its very inception, the ''Rasa'il'' have provided many points of contention and have been a constant source of dispute among both Muslim and Western scholars. The identification of the authors, or possibly one author, the place and time of writing and propagation of their works, the nature of the secret brotherhood the outer manifestation of which comprises the ''Rasa'il'' - these and many secondary questions have remained without answer." Nasr (1964), pg 25.〕 Brethren of Purity of Basra, Iraq sometime in the second half of the 10th century CE (or possibly later, in the 11th century). It had a great influence on later intellectual leading lights of the Muslim world, such as Ibn Arabi,〔"It is probable that they have influenced some of the most prominent thinkers of Islam, such as al-Ghazzali (d. 1111A.D.) and Ibn al'Arabi (d. 1240 A.D.)." van Reijn (1995), pg. "v".〕〔"The ''Rasa'il'' were widely read by most learned men of later periods, including Ibn Sina and al-Ghazzali, have continued to be read up to our own times, and have been translated into Persian, Turkish, and Hindustani. From the number of manuscripts present in various libraries in the Muslim world, it must be considered among the most popular of Islamic works on learning." Nasr (1964), pg. 36〕 and was transmitted as far abroad within the Muslim world as Al-Andalus.〔Van Reijn (1945), pg "v"〕〔"But they produced this enormous encyclopaedia, and um, everybody read it and we know that it was widely read by mathematicians in Spain, and by philosophers in Spain. Most crucially of all, it was read by Muhyi-I-din - ibn-al-Arabi, er, the most famous Sufi that Spain produced, or indeed one of the most famous Sufis in the history of Islamic mysticism - er, he died in 1240. Er, he absorbed a lot of their ideas and he was in turn read by these ministers of the Nasrid monarch ibn-al-Khratib, and ibn-al-Zamrak, both of whom had strong, mystical tendencies." Robert Irwin; ("In the Footsteps of Muhammad" ), transcript of a BBC program〕 The ''Encyclopedia'' contributed to the popularization and legitimization of Platonism in the Islamic world.〔"George Sales observes that this uncreated Qur'an is nothing but its idea or Platonic archetype; it is likely that al-Ghazali used the idea of archetypes, communicated to Islam by the ''Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity'' and by Avicenna to justify the notion of the Mother of the Book." From "On the Cult of Books", ''Selected Non-Fictions'', Jorge Luis Borges; ed. Eliot Weinberger, trans. Ester Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine, and Eliot Weinberger; 1999. ISBN 0-670-84947-2. ''See: Origin and development of the Qur'an#"Created" vs. "uncreated" Qur'an for the concept of the "uncreated Qur'an".''〕 The identity and period of the authors of the ''Encyclopedia'' have not been conclusively established,〔Ikhwan as-Safa'. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved April 25, 2007, from (Encyclopædia Britannica Online )〕 though the work has been linked with as varied groups as the Isma'ili, Sufi, Sunni, Mu'tazili, Nusairi, Rosicrucians, etc.〔''Brethren of Purity'', Nader El-Bizri, an article in ''Medieval Islamic Civilization, an Encyclopedia'', Vol. I, p. 118-119, Routledge (New York-London, 2006). Retrieved from ().〕〔"Ibn al-Qifti, giving his own view, considers the Ikhwan as followers of the school of the Mu'tazilah...Ibn Tamiyah, the Hanbali jurist, on the other hand, tends towards the other extreme in relating the Ikhwan to the Nusairis, who are as far removed from the rationalists as any group to be found in Islam." Nasr (1964), pg 26.〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=The Brethren Of Purity )〕 The subject of the work is vast and ranges from mathematics, music, astronomy, and natural sciences, to ethics, politics, religion, and magic—all compiled for one, basic purpose, that learning is training for the soul and a preparation for its eventual life once freed from the body.〔Walker, Paul E. ("(unicode:EḴWĀN AL-ṢAFĀʾ)" ). In ''Encyclopædia Iranica''. December 15, 1998.〕 ==Authorship== (詳細はBrethren of Purity" a group of scholars placed in Basra, Iraq sometime around 10th century CE.〔(Ikhwan al-Safa', ''Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy'' )〕〔"Not everyone accepts the contemporary evidence that gives the Brethren as inhabitants of Basra. V. A. Ivanov, in ''The Alleged Founders of Ismailism'' (Bombay, 1946), says that "I would be inclined to think that this was a kind of camouflage story being circulated by the Ismailis to avoid the book being used as a proof of their orthodoxy. ()". As quoted by Nasr (1964), pg 29.〕 While it is generally accepted that it was the group who authored at least the 52 rasa'il,〔Unsurprisingly, other authors have been proposed: "Between these two extremes there have been the views expressed over the centuries that the ''Rasa'il'' were written by 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, al-Ghazzali, Hallaj, Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq, or various Isma'ili ''da'i''s, or "missionaries"." Nasr (1964), pg 26〕 the authorship of the "Summary" (''al-Risalat al-Jami'a'') is uncertain; it has been ascribed to the later Majriti but this has been disproved by Yves Marquet (see the ''Risalat al-Jami'a'' section). Since style of the text is plain, and there are numerous ambiguities, due to language and vocabulary, often of Persian origin, it has been suggested that the authors of the encyclopedia were of Persian descent.〔Baffioni, Carmela. ("Ikhwân al-Safâ’" ), ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Summer 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), First published April 22, 2008; Retrieved May 12, 2012.〕 Further perplexities abound; the use of pronouns for the authorial "sender" of the ''rasa'il'' is not consistent, with the writer occasionally slipping from third person to first-person (for example, in Epistle 44, "The Doctrine of the Sincere Brethren").〔"The Prophets and those of the Philosophers who have the right view...maintain that the body is only a prison of the soul, or a veil, an intermediary path or an isthmus...The sages of India called Brahmins cremate the bodies of the dead, but ignorant and cunning as they are, they do not do it for the reasons I have given. It would be proper to say that the term "sages" applies to only a few among them." van Reijn (1995), pages 24-25.〕 This has led some to suggest that the ''rasa'il'' were not in fact written co-operatively by a group or consolidated notes from lectures and discussions, but were actually the work of a single person.〔 Of course, if one accepts the longer time spans proposed for the composition of the ''Encyclopedia'', or the simpler possibility that each ''risala'' was written by a separate person, sole authorship would be impossible. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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