The Nusayri Path of Knowledge: A Study and Critical Edition of ʿIṣmat al-Dawla’s (thrived 11th century) Manhaj al-ʿilm wa l-bayān wa-nuzhat al-samʿ wa l-ʿiyān

Book info: The Nusayri Path of Knowledge: A Study and Critical Edition of ʿIṣmat al-Dawla’s (thrived 11th century) Manhaj al-ʿilm wa l-bayān wa-nuzhat al-samʿ wa l-ʿiyān (Hardcover, 470 pages) – Brill, 2024. Language: English.

This book is a study and edition of the Manhaj al-ʿilm wa l-bayān wa-nuzhat al-samʿ wa l-ʿiyān (The Path of Knowledge and Clarification and the Bliss of Hearing and Seeing). The Manhaj is a Nusayri doctrinal treatise composed by ʿIṣmat al-Dawla during the fifth/eleventh century. This edition makes this important source available to scholars for the first time. The Manhaj is a comprehensive compendium of knowledge for followers of the faith. It is also an autobiographic account detailing the author’s conversion and the teachings of his teacher, Abū l-Fatḥ al-Baghdādī. The Manhaj thus provides a personal, vivid account of the networks through which esoteric knowledge was sought and shared Editorial Reviews Review "David Hollenberg and Mushegh Asatryan have made a major contribution to early Shīʿī and Nuṣayrī studies by having made accessible this important primary source." - Daniel De Smet, in: Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 33 (2025) About the Author David Hollenberg , Ph.D. (2006, University of Pennsylvania), is Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Oregon. He has published monographs, editions, and articles on Shii doctrinal literature such as Beyond the Qur'an: Early Ismaili ta'wil and the Secrets of the Prophets (University of South Carolina Press, 2016).
Mushegh Asatryan , Ph.D. (2012, Yale), is Associate Professor of Arabic and Muslim Cultures at the University of Calgary. He has published on the history of medieval Islamic sectarianism, Shi'ism, and Nusayrism. He is the author of Controversies in Formative Shi'i Islam: The Ghulat Muslims and their Beliefs (London: I.B. Tauris, 2017), and, most recently, "The Emergence of Sunnism: When did the Sunnis Become a Sect?" .