Talk:Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity

AFD?

I have to ask, was the quickly withdrawn AfD of this article some kind of internal joke? u p p l a n d 06:31, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Sort of. Initially I dared Rory to do it, but then Rory ran the Google search and that convinced'im to put it up. Of course, when I pointed out that the search should have been for "Brethren of Purity" and not "Brethren of Sincerity", and when Rory found the EB article, that was the final straw. --maru (talk) contribs 16:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Verification

"The 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica described the mingling of Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism this way:

"The materials of the work come chiefly from Aristotle, but they are conceived of in a Platonizing spirit, which places as the bond of all things a universal soul of the world with its partial or fragmentary souls."[1]"

I'm trying to verify this- it's from a fairly kookish web page; I'm reasonably sure its quotes and transcriptions are accurate, but it would be nice to be sure. As a reference, it gives "EB-2:187a (14th Ed., 1930)." Only problem is, the 14th ed. is apparently not from 1930, and I can't find a copy of the 14th to check, anyway. --maru (talk) contribs 00:12, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. A kind fellow editor looked it up and found it to be true. --maru (talk) contribs 16:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

'Epistles' - Name change

I suggest this article be moved to Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. Personally, I haven't heard it being mentioned as Encyclopedia, its always referred to as the the Epistles. Either way, thats the more popular name. Check this compared to this. --Bluerain (talk) 17:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I think Encyclopedia is a better name, since the Epistle is just the form. That name may well be more popular, but I think Encyclopedia is more correct. --maru (talk) contribs 16:34, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

External links modified

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"Enecyclopedia of the brethren of purity" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Enecyclopedia of the brethren of purity. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 September 29#Enecyclopedia of the brethren of purity until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. — MarkH₂₁^talk 09:05, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Reliable sources for the section on evolution

I removed the section on evolution citing a lack of reliable sources, but was reverted by M.Bitton who believes the sources to be reliable [2]. These are the scholars used for the point of view that the Ikhwan al-Safa prefigured the modern theory of evolution:

• Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who as a perennialist personally believes that all scientific knowledge was already divinely revealed to the prophets and leaders of all world religions. He wrote a number of works on the history of Islamic science with an apologetic tone that are for the most part ignored by other specialists in the field.
• Muhammad Hamidullah, a hadith and fiqh scholar (i.e., a religious scholar) who wrote dozens of popular books, including on Islam and science
• Muzaffar Iqbal, another religious Islamic scholar writing about Islam and science

Nasr might be a passable source if his views were balanced by those of more prominent academic scholars specializing in the Ikhwan al-Safa. Hamidullah and Iqbal on the other hand are clearly writing from a strictly religious apologetic point of view, which is not acceptable for Wikipedia.

It's also interesting to note that Malik 2021, pp. 113-116 mentions both Nasr and Iqbal as Islamic thinkers who reject Darwinian evolution theory. This clearly shows that these authors are not writing about the subject from a disinterested and independent point of view.

Ultimately the only scholar cited here who does not write from a religiously inspired point of view is the historian of science Conway Zirkle, who (predictably) questions that Darwin should have been inspired by the Ikhwan al-Safa.

The big question is whether scholars specializing in the Ikhwan al-Safa even mention modern evolution theory in this context? If not, the whole idea would be WP:FRINGE. Thus, without a citation to such a scholar the wp:dueness of this section is not verifiable, which means that it should probably be removed altogether. If we do find such sources, the section should be rewritten (and properly explain the relation of the Ikhwan's views with the theory of the great chain of being). In this case Malik 2021 should also be used to put Nasr et al.'s views in context. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 16:12, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

An Islamic Encyclopedia is well within the above scholars' field of expertise. The idea is neither undue nor fringe, as other scholars, such Yves Marquet, also attribute it to them. What's probably needed is content that contradicts their conclusions (I tried to reinstate what was added by the IP, but since it was copyvio, it had to be removed). M.Bitton (talk) 20:54, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the reference to Marquet 1992, that's very interesting! To be sure, Marquet's views are generally rejected by other Ikhwan specialists, but at least we now have an Ikhwan scholar to base something on. This makes it clear that the section should actually be rewritten rather than removed, using Marquet 1992, Malik 2021, and others.

I do maintain, however, that the sources currently used are not reliable: Wikipedia is based on the work of secular academics (who of course write prolifically on Islamic topics), not on the work of Islamic religious scholars like Hamidullah and Iqbal or perennialists like Nasr. Secondary sources need to be independent and disinterested from their subject, which excludes authors writing from an explicitly religious point of view on a subject relating to their religion, as well as authors with a clear ax to grind such as those rejecting modern evolution theory writing about ... the history of evolution theory. A site-wide consensus exists for this, so further discussion on that point would be a waste of time.

This is likely moot though, since neither of us is probably going to rewrite this now. I would still prefer to remove it for the time being, but I won't insist. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 21:47, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

There are always exceptions, but I agree that the section should be rewritten. Since neither of us is going to rewrite it, I suggest we tag it for now to attract more input to this discussion. I will also leave a couple of sources that might be helpful to whomever wants to have a go at it.

• Ikhwan al-Safa, Ibn Miskawayh, Biruni and Biological Evolutionary Theory by hassan miandari
• Pre-Darwinian Muslim Scholars’ Views on Evolution by Dr. Sultan Shah

M.Bitton (talk) 23:01, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I appreciate you coming up with new sources, but neither of those two are specialists in the Ikhwan al-Safa' or the history of philosophy more broadly, and both appear to be writing from an apologetic perspective... I guess that the really good sources, which I assure you do exist, are just too hard to find when starting from a simple internet search. As is often the case, most of them are not available online, and most of them are written in other languages than English. Someday though someone will pass by here and rewrite the whole article based on expert scholarly sources. Until then it's probably best to leave it as it is. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:27, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

It's true that, unlike Marquet, they're not specialists in the Ikhwan al-Safa, but I don't see where you're getting the idea that they're writing from an apologetic perspective. M.Bitton (talk) 23:36, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi M.Bitton, that's hard to explain without writing a whole well-sourced essay about Aristotelian and Neoplatonic ontology and the way these are reflected in the reception of the Aristotelian-Neoplatonic great chain of being theory by Abrahamic creationist authors like the Ikhwan al-Safa'. Perhaps an unsourced summary: according to Aristotelian-Neoplatonic ontology the species are eternal, but the Book of Genesis and the Qur'an clearly indicate a temporal creation process; this led to a system where the species were eternal in the mind of God but temporally created in the material world. In such a system there can be no evolution of species, which would be glaringly obvious to anyone who has a solid understanding of the subject.

Reading the abstracts of Miandari and Shah, it's immediately clear to me that they do not have that solid understanding (though Miandari at least does seem to have a clue). But why would authors who have no deep understanding of the historical and philosophical issues at play write about it? Why would they get published? There must be some other motivation at play, and it's not difficult to guess what that motivation would be in this case: reading modern (Western) scientific discoveries into medieval (Islamic) texts has been a mainstay of Islamic apologetics since at least the late 19th century, starting with such influential thinkers as Muhammad Abduh and Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi.

But I stressed that these things are clear to me. I am a historian of ancient and medieval philosophy myself (as well as a trained Arabist), but why would you or any other editor trust me on that? Ever since WP:ESSJAY it has been clear that we simply can't do that on an anonymous website like Wikipedia. Which severely limits the effectivity of talk page discussion: when I rewrite article content the quality generally gets recognized and the fact that it's well-sourced makes it kind of speak for itself, but when commenting on talk pages without doing the deep dive into the sources and spending my whole day or more on it, my expertise is worth absolutely nothing. It's a hard contrast, and it can be incredibly frustrating.

But that's the way it is, and I also understand why it is the way it is. Whence my suggestion to leave things as they are if we're not going to do a rewrite. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:01, 9 December 2022 (UTC)