Narrative in Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ

Abstract

This article examines the narratives that appear in the encyclopedic Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (Epistles of the Brethren of Purity). Written in the tenth century, this multi-layered Neoplatonic work contains over 40 narratives—parables, allegories, fables, animal tales, and dialogues. These narratives serve multiple purposes, including the elucidation and illustration of ethical, philosophical, religious, mathematical, and scientific concepts. Together they encapsulate the philosophy of the secret society that produced them. With the exception of the famous animal fable, The Case of the Animals vs. Man in the Court of the King of the Jinn, these narratives have received little scholarly attention. Those narratives that have been studied have been considered in isolation rather than with the other narratives of the corpus. This article identifies the narratives in each epistle that utilizes them, shows their distribution, examines their types, and provides examples of the shorter narratives.