From Ibn Masarra to Ibn ‘Arabī: References and Subtle Allusions to the Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā in the Literature of al-Andalus

De Callatay, Godefroid [UCL]

The present contribution is the natural continuation of several studies recently devoted to the reception of the Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ in al-Andalus and whose results imply a thorough reconsideration of the chronology still prevailing in modern scholarship for both the original compilation of the corpus and its introduction in the western part of the Islamic world in the Middle Ages. The purpose of the present essay is to focus on the works of al-Andalus which appear to have referred to the Ikhwān or to their encyclopaedic corpus under the form of disguised and secret allusions. Although not aiming at being exhaustive, the present survey includes texts from Ibn Masarra, Maslama al-Qurṭubī, Ibn Baṭalyawsī, Ibn Ṭufayl and Ibn ‘Arabī. This selection of texts is clear evidence of the fact that the Brethren’s encyclopaedia widely circulated through the Iberian Peninsula, and this from a date much earlier than has been acknowledged in modern scholarship thus far.