RAWŻA-YE TASLIM

 

RAWŻA-YE TASLIM, title of the most comprehensive work on the Nezāri Ismaʿili theology of the Alamut  period by Naṣir-al-Din Ṭusi (597-672/1201-74), the celebrated polymath who also served as vizier under the Il-khanid Hülegü (r. 1256-65).

During his long and fruitful stay at the Nezāri Ismaʿili strongholds of northern Iran (624-54/1227-56), Ṭusi compiled a number of books and treatises in support of the Nezāri Ismaʿili religious doctrines.  Notable among those that have survived to our time are his confessional autobiography known as Sayr wa soluk, Āḡāz wa anjām, Maṭlub al-muʾmenin, Tawallā wa tabarrā, Aḵlāq-e nāṣeri, Aḵlāq-e moḥtašami, and the Rawża-ye taslim.  

On Tuesday, 15 Šawwāl 640/7 April 1243, in the presence of Ḥasan Maḥmud Kāteb, compiler of his lectures in book form, Ṭusi finalized the proceedings of a number of his edicts and lectures in a work which was named Rawża-ye taslim, also known as Taṣawworāt (Ṭusi, 2005, pp. 170-71). The book is composed of 27 chapters alongside a number of questions and answers, and it covers a variety of themes, such as the creator, cosmogony, nature of human existence, ethics, eschatology, prophethood, imamate, and spiritual exegeses of the seven pillars of Islamic religious law.

Ṭusi’s output during his vizierate of the Mongols still reflects some of his Ismaʿili viewpoints (e.g., Ṭusi, 1982, pp. 47, 152; idem, 1956, pp. 23-4), but the Rawża-ye taslim is ertainly his last major work on Ismaʿili thought that further improves on the topics already covered in his earlier works such as Āḡāz wa anjām, Maṭlub al-muʾmenin, Tawallā wa tabarrā, and the Sayr wa soluk.   

Herman Landolt writes:

[Rawża-ye taslim] is a masterful compendium of medieval Ismaili thought.  More specifically, it is a unique source for the study of the ideas and doctrines held by the Nizārī Ismailis under the second-to- last Lord of Alamūt, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad III (r. 618-53/1221-55).  As such, it reflects the vision of Islam that distinguished the Nizārīs at the time when two seemingly contradictory events in their recent history needed to be interpreted and harmonised: the proclamation of the resurrection (qiyāmat) by Ḥasan II … and the restoration of the formal observation of the Sharīʿat under Jalāl al-Dīn Ḥasan III in 607/1210.
(Landolt, p. 1)

Other distinctive features of the Rawża-ye taslim pertain to its treatment of the Ismaʿili doctrine of kašf wa satr (exposure and concealment) of religious truths under the veil of šariʿat (Daftary, p. 158); its detailed treatment of the Nezāri daʿwa (see DAʿI) of pre-Mongol period and its encounter with philosophy and influence on Twelver Shiʿite eschatology: “Given Tūsī’s importance as a ‘conduit’ between Ismaʿili and Twelver Shiʿism, it could be that the doctrines in Taṣawworāt or perhaps in a genuine work of Ṭūsī’s from an Ismaʿili perspective, Āghāz u anjām, had an important influence on thinkers such as Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī and Mullā Ṣadrā” (Rizvi, pp. 106-9).  

Bibliography:  

Farhad Daftary, Ismaili Literature: A Bibliography of Sources and Studies, London, 2004.  

Herman Landolt, “Introduction to Rawḍa” in Ṭusi, Rowża-ye taslim, ed. and tr. S. J. Badakhchani, London, 2005.  

H. Sajjad Rizvi, review of Rowża-ye taslim, in Journal of Islamic Studies 18/1, 2007.  

Naṣir-al-Din Moḥammad b. Moḥammad Ṭusi, Awṣāf al-ašrāf, ed. Najib Māyel Heravi, Mashad, 1982.  

Idem, “Jabr va qadar,” in idem, Majmuʿa-ye rasāʾel, ed. Moḥammad-Taqi Dānešpažuh, Tehran, 1956; tr. Parviz Morewedge, as “Treatise on Determinism and Destiny,” in The Metaphysics of Ṭūsī: Treatise on the Proof of a Necessary Being, …, New York, 1992.  

Idem, Sayr wa soluk, ed. and tr. S. J. Badakhchani as Contemplation and Action: The Spiritual Autobiography of a Muslim Scholar, London, 1998. 

Idem Rawża-ye taslim, ed. and tr. S. Jalal Badakhchani, as Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought, London, 2005. 

Idem, Tawallā wa tabarrā, Maṭlub al-muʾmenin, and Āḡāz wa anjām, in S. Jalal Badakhchani, ed. and tr., Shiʿi Interpretation of Islam, London, 2010.

(S. Jalal Badakhchani)

Originally Published: December 12, 2014

Last Updated: December 12, 2014

Cite this entry:

S. Jalal Badakhchani, "RAWŻA-YE TASLIM," Encyclopædia Iranicaonline edition, 2014, available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/rawza-ye-taslim (accessed on 12 December 2014).