M. Ali Lakhani - Faith and Ethics: The Vision of the Ismaili Imamat

Published in 2018 by
I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd
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Copyright Islamic Publications Ltd, 2018

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ISBN: 978 1 78831 248 6
eISBN: 978 1 78672 390 1
ePDF: 978 1 78673 390 0

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In loving memory of my parents,
Ibrahim and Kulsam,
who lived the ethics of their faith

Bani Adam

The sons of Adam are limbs of each other,

Having been created of one essence.

When the calamity of time affects one limb

The other limbs cannot remain at rest.

If you have no sympathy for the troubles of others,

You are unworthy to be called by the name of a Human.

Sadi of Shiraz

Bani Adam from Gulistan by the Persian poet, Sadi (d. 1292). The text of this verse is inscribed at the entrance of the United Nations building in New York.

Illustrations

Frontispiece

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Note on Illustrations

Cover and Frontispiece

[Sultan Muhammad, The Court of Gayumars, c.1522, 47 32 cm, opaque watercolour, ink, gold, silver on paper, folio 20v, Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp I (Safavid), Tabriz, Iran (Aga Khan Museum, Toronto)].

The cover depicts King Gayumars, the legendary first king of Persia. The painting of him is a detail from a scene depicting his Court, shown in the frontispiece. King Gayumars son, Siyamak, is standing to the right, while his grandson, Hushang, is seated to the left. The royal family is shown as elevated above the terrestrial realm of the lower court, where the subjects gather in an orderly circle. The whole scene symbolises cosmic order.

The King is the prototype of the imago Dei or al-insan al-kamil (Perfect Man). He represents the spiritually centred ruler who is the khalifa or vicegerent of God on earth. He is the measure of order, of justice, and he thereby depicts the humane potential of humanity what the poet Sadi refers to as being a Human (in the Bani Adam verse that is the epigraph to this book). The King is the microcosm.

The complete Court scene is the macrocosm. The arrangement descends from the celestial to the terrestrial, from the King to the Commons, reflecting the traditional devolution of order from the Sacerdotum (kingdom of spiritual governance, symbolising the Spirit and its faculty of higher intellect) to the Regnum (kingdom of human governance, symbolising the soul and its faculty of the psyche) and thence to the Commons (the subjects to be governed, symbolising the lower self and its appetites). Order, premised on verticality, and equilibrium, based on complementarity, are both represented in the painting, as is pluralism, which is evident in the diversity of the community of the Court.

The cover depicts the ethical and humane man. The frontispiece represents a vision of the ordered universe, acknowledging the norms of hierarchy and complementarity, which are a fundamental feature of Ismaili ethics.

Preface

At a time when Islam is under great scrutiny, when it is beset by fragmentary forces from within and without, when horrific acts are undertaken in its name acts which most Muslims consider appalling and defamatory of their faith and when its very nature is both misrepresented and misunderstood, there is a need to take a fresh look at its ethos. This book does just this, through the prism of the Ismaili branch of Islam, with particular focus on the outlook and example of Prince Karim al-Husseini, the fourth Aga Khan and of the Ismaili Imamat institutions he has established.