In light of the evidence presented, can it be concluded that the Minhāj is an Ismaili work? The answer is yes, even if it contains many Sunni influences. Can the work be attributed to al-Nuʿmān? Presumably, yes. As there are no historical data specifying the exact time of composition of the Minhāj, the period of its composition can be estimated only by comparing its contents with the other works produced by al-Nuʿmān. In formulating a chronology of the Ismaili works, I would say the Minhāj was composed first, followed by the Iqtiṣār, then the Yanbūʿ, then the Āthār and finally the Daʿāʾim. Justifications for such a sequence can be drawn from an internal analysis of the Ismaili works themselves. One such method, but not the strongest, is to examine the omissions characterising the Minhāj which would allow us to imagine a more archaic treatment of the subject. For instance, some rules which are found in the Iqtiṣār, Yanbūʿ, Āthār and Daʿāʾim are absent in the Minhāj; examples include the rules regarding al-ḥamīl,1 the consequences of manu-mitting a slave before and after the division of the estate,2 and the acknowledgment of a person as an heir (iqrār).3 Many other cases are omitted from the Minhāj, but are found in the Āthār and Daʿāʾim, particularly the case of al-murtadd (apostate),4 the rule that the diya is inherited by the ahl al-mīrāth (heirs) (except the uterine siblings),5 the allotment of the estate to the bayt al-māl in the absence of any heir,6 and the operations to be performed before shares can be allocated to the heirs.7
Applying this same method of examination of the cases omitted from the Āthār but present in the Daʿāʾim allows us to envisage that the Āthār preceded the Daʿāʾim and represented an intermediate stage in the elaboration of the Ismaili doctrine. In particular, this applies to the case of al-mushtarak (a child conceived by a woman who has had sexual intercourse with two men in the same inter-menstrual period) in the mother’s womb,8 and the case of a slave who is the sole heir.9 If this analysis is correct, it may prove that Ivanow was right to doubt that the composition of the Daʿāʾim preceded that of the Āthār, and definitively disprove the theory, held by Muḥammad Waḥīd Mīrzā, that the Āthār and the Daʿāʾim are the same work.10
However, the chronological sequence Minhāj – Iqtiṣār – Yanbūʿ – Āthār – Daʿāʾim is justified primarily on the evolution of the Ismaili doctrine itself. The Daʿāʾim represents its furthest and final point of evolution,11 the Yanbūʿ and Āthār its intermediate position, and the Minhāj its most archaic phase. For instance, in the following cases where there is no correspondence between the doctrines of the Minhāj and those of the Yanbūʿ and Āthār, it is clear that the doctrinal stage of the Minhāj is rudimentary: for example, the radd doctrine for spouses is uncertain in the Minhāj, doctrines on homicide as a diriment impediment to inheritance and the proofs to which a hermaphrodite must be submitted are not definitively stated. Thus, I agree with Poonawala’s statement that ‘Nuʿmān in the Daʿāʾim was moving towards a moderate and reconciliatory position compared to his earlier views’.12
These considerations provide clues to the method followed by al-Nuʿmān in the composition of his works. He created no new rules, but only took into consideration the pre-existent law, both Sunni and Imāmī, choosing from them whatever he deemed, or the Fatimid caliph considered, to be the best solutions to various cases. If this is true, one can hardly accept the opinion of Lokhandwalla,13 who wonders how much al-Nuʿmān’s works did influence the Ithnāʿasharī doctrines, adding, oddly enough, that an answer to his question would require a close study of the works of al-Kulaynī, Ibn Bābawayh, al-Ṭūsī and al-Ḥillī [sic!]. I believe that it may be the contrary: both the Ithnāʿasharī and Ismaili schools are the products of the late third and first half of the fourth centuries, but there is no doubt that Imāmī and Ismaili schools are independent of each other, and that the comparison must be made among the authors who lived until the time of al-Nuʿmān, the founder of Ismaili fiqh, and not with those who came after, like al-Ṭūsī and al-Ḥillī. If in the eyes of an Imāmī scholar the Daʿāʾim and, to a lesser extent, the other three works appear to be a mere case of ikhtilāf (difference of opinion) in the Imāmī school, a deeper analysis leads to the conclusion that the works of al-Nuʿmān were completely autonomous, and a result of the re-elaboration of previous Sunni and Imāmī law literature.
The originality of Ismaili fiqh resides in this work of discernment, itself subject to change in accordance with an evolving historical situation, which sometimes leads al-Nuʿmān to reject, based on ‘Sunni’ arguments, certain doctrines specific to the Imāmīs. There are two examples of this. The first regards the entitlement of the first-born child to certain personal effects of the deceased which are, therefore, excluded from the estate;14 the second concerns the exclusion of a wife from the inheritance of certain goods included in the estate.15 These two doctrines are refuted in the Daʿāʾim, but ignored in the Minhāj, Iqtiṣār, Yanbūʿ and Āthār (another clue indicating the more recent composition of the Daʿāʾim). Al-Nuʿmān also applies Sunni doctrine, in opposition to the rigid Imāmī system of classes, by allowing a grandmother to inherit, notwithstanding the presence of her son.
It seems that the Daʿāʾim represents the zenith in the elaboration of the Ismaili doctrine. Thus, it is not by chance that the Daʿāʾim, and not the Yanbūʿ or Āthār, became the official code of the Fatimid state.
The Yanbūʿ is undoubtedly an Ismaili work, and its doctrine does not differ much from that of the Iqtiṣār, Āthār and Daʿāʾim. However, the arrangement of the subjects and its exposition appear more rudimentary than the Daʿāʾim’s. Therefore, I believe that the Yanbūʿ could have been written before the Daʿāʾim.16 But I do not agree with Lokhandwalla who questions al-Nuʿmān’s authorship of the work. His hypothesis that it was written by ‘some [anonymous] enthusiastic Ismāʿīlī author’17 seems unsound, because Ismaili sources relate enough information about the activities of jurists and qāḍīs under the Fatimids for the author of a work of law such as this to be unknown. The most serious question posed by Lokhandwalla18 is why al-Nuʿmān does not mention the Yanbūʿ in his later works. It is probable that it really was composed during the reign of al-Manṣūr (334–341/946–953) and was indeed based on his authority, but that its importance was superseded by the later works composed by al-Nuʿmān under the authority of al-Muʿizz, and it therefore fell into oblivion; there is precedence for arriving at such a conclusion, since this was also the fate of the Minhāj.
The Minhāj often agrees with the Mālikī doctrines, and this sheds light on the contentious question about al-Nuʿmān’s formative theological underpinnings. Why not see the Minhāj as a first attempt by a jurist, who was profoundly skilled in Mālikī law, to codify the very controversial field of inheritance law, during the first period of the Fatimid caliphate, when Abū Ṭāhir al-Dhuhlī, a Mālikī qāḍī in Egypt after Fatimid conquest, was continuing to apply Mālikī law, but who also was forced to follow a not yet definitively fixed Ismaili doctrine in the field of succession?
Generally speaking, the composition of a complete manual of law precedes the composition of books on one of its particular fields. However, in the Minhāj we have a text on succession law that is antecedent to the manuals of Ismaili law. This apparent anomaly can be justified based on the need to regulate an important institution of the Qurʾan, such as inheritance law, which assures correct rules for the transmission of property causa mortis. Therefore, the Minhāj is neither completely adherent to the Sunni nor to the Imāmī doctrine, nor is it completely original; rather, it represents a rudimentary Ismaili doctrinal position. But another hypothesis may be advanced: that the Minhāj is a part of one of the lost law works of al-Nuʿmān.
If the Iqtiṣār is more recent than the Minhāj and it was composed in the same period as al-Muntakhaba, during the reign of the Imam-Caliph al-Qāʾim from 322/934 to 334/946, then the Minhāj belongs to a previous period of Fatimid rule. Might it be a remnant of the Kitāb al-īḍāḥ? Only a comparison between these two works could confirm this hypothesis, but this is presently impossible since only fragments of the Kitāb al-īḍāḥ are extant.
Leaving aside any consideration about the highly elaborated exposition and style present in the Yanbūʿ, Āthār and Daʿāʾim, ignoring the fact that the doctrines and cases are widely justified there, that the terminology is more accurate19 and that some incomplete and uncertain rules are clearly specified,20 all the above considerations lead to one conclusion: the doctrine of the Minhāj is characteristic of an early stage in the evolution of the Ismaili school of law. It reflects the temporal fact that the Ismaili doctrine was not yet definitively fixed and contains many remnants of the previous Mālikī milieu. Furthermore, no Zaydī influence seems to emerge.
1. al-Nuʿmān, Iqtiṣār , p. 135; al-Nuʿmān, Yanbūʿ, fol. 117r; al-Nuʿmān, Āthār, fol. 122r; al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim, vol. 2, pp. 384–385, no. 1367. On the meaning of ḥamīl, see Ibn Bābawayh, Maʿānī al-akhbār (Najaf, 1391/1971), pp. 258–259.
2. al-Nuʿmān, Iqtiṣār , p. 135; al-Nuʿmān, Āthār , fol. 122v; al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim, vol. 2, p. 386, no. 1370. In the same context, the Āthār and Daʿāʾim also mention the case of a mushrik who embraces Islam.
3. al-Nuʿmān, Iqtiṣār , p. 136; al-Nuʿmān, Āthār , fol. 124r; al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim, vol. 2, p. 392, no. 1387.
4. al-Nuʿmān, Yanbūʿ , fol. 117v; al-Nuʿmān, Āthār , fol. 122v; al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim, vol. 2, p. 386, no. 1372.
5. al-Nuʿmān, Iqtiṣār , p. 136; al-Nuʿmān, Yanbūʿ , fol. 117v; al-Nuʿmān, Āthār, fol. 122v; al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim , vol. 2, p. 387, no. 1376.
6. al-Nuʿmān, Yanbūʿ , fol. 119r; al-Nuʿmān, Āthār , fol. 124v. al-Nuʿmān (Daʿāʾim, vol. 2, pp. 391–392, no. 1386) adds that, if the ahl al-kufr are present, they are to be considered as not existing.
7. al-Nuʿmān, Yanbūʿ , fol. 113v; al-Nuʿmān, Āthār , fol. 124r; al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim, vol. 2, p. 392, no. 1388.
8. al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim , vol. 2, p. 384, no. 1366.
9. al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim , vol. 2, p. 386, no. 1374.
10. Waḥīd Mīrzā, ‘Avant-propos’, pp. xxxv, 13.
11. This is seen, for example, in the great uncertainty in the earlier Ismaili works about the proofs fit to establish the prevalent sex of a hermaphrodite, and the definitive refusal of the doctrine on the reciprocal right to inherit between a patron and a client.
12. Poonawala, ‘Ismaʿili Jurisprudence’, p. 137, n. 23.
13. Lokhandwalla, ‘Introduction’, p. 8.
14. al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim, vol. 2, pp. 394–396, no. 1393. See Cilardo, ‘Peculiarities’, pp. 132–134.
15. al-Nuʿmān, Daʿāʾim, vol. 2, pp. 396–397, no. 1394. See Cilardo, ‘Peculiarities’, pp. 134–136.
16. Cf. Lokhandwalla who says, ‘The style of the Yanbūʿ by no means indicates that it is earlier or later than the Daʿāʾim’ (‘Introduction’, p. 35).
17. Lokhandwalla, ‘Introduction’, p. 37.
18. Lokhandwalla, ‘Introduction’, pp. 35 and 36.
19. For a child not yet born (al-mawlūd) the term al-janīn (foetus) is used (Yanbūʿ, fol. 117r; Āthār, fol. 122r; Daʿāʾim, vol. 2, p. 385, no. 1368).
20. It is stated not only that a Muslim has the right to inherit from a kāfir, not vice-versa, but also that kuffār belonging to the same denomination have the right to inherit from each other, but one group of ahl al-milla cannot inherit from people belonging to a different group of ahl al-milla, except Muslims (Iqtiṣār, p. 135; Yanbūʿ, fol. 117r–117v; Āthār, fol. 122r–122v; Daʿāʾim, vol. 2, pp. 385–386, no. 1369).