Again on Maslama Ibn Qāsim al-Qurṭubī, the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ and Ibn Khaldūn: New Evidence from Two Manuscripts of Rutbat al-ḥakīm; De nuevo sobre Maslama Ibn Qāsim al-Qurṭubī, los Ijwān al-Ṣafā’ e Ibn Jaldūn: Nuevos datos de dos manuscritos de la Rutbat al-ḥakīm

the reception of Rasā’il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā’ in alAndalus, this paper argues that it was common among Andalusī scholars of the Middle Ages to credit the astronomer Maslama al-Majrīṭī (d. 395/1004 or shortly thereafter) not only with the authorship of Rutbat al-ḥakīm and Ghāyat al-ḥakīm – now both correctly ascribed to Maslama Ibn Qāsim al-Qurṭubī (d. 353/964) – but also with the entire encyclopaedic corpus of the Rasā’il. The first part of this article seeks to explain the series of Como continuación a estudios anteriores sobre la recepción de las Rasā’il Ijwān al-Ṣafā’ en al-Andalus, en este artículo se sostiene que entre los estudiosos andalusíes de la Edad Media era una creencia generalizada considerar al astrónomo Maslama al-Maŷrīṭī (m. 395/1004 o poco después) como el autor no solo de la Rutbat al-ḥakīm y la Gāyat alḥakīm – hoy ambas correctamente atribuidas a Maslama Ibn Qasīm al-Qurṭubī (m. 353/964) – sino también de todo el corpus enciclopédico de las Rasā’il. La primera parte del ar-

successive confusions by which these three works came to be identified as forming three steps of a philosophical ladder and how this trilogy then came to be attributed to the scientist al-Majrīṭī. The second part focuses on two biographical notes found on the title pages of two manuscripts of the as-yet-unedited Rutbat al-ḥakīm. In addition to providing supplementary evidence for the spread of this misconception among medieval scholars, these documents also offer valuable and sometimes unique information about the two Maslamas, their respective writings and entourages, as well as the widespread circulation of the Rasā'il across the Peninsula. The edition, translation and commentary of these two biographical notes are here provided for the first time.
Key words: Alchemy; Magic; Manuscripts; Maslama Ibn Qāsim al-Qurṭubī; Maslama al-Majrīṭī; Ibn Khaldūn; Ikhwān al-Ṣafā'; Rutbat al-ḥakīm; Ghāyat al-ḥakīm; Picatrix. tículo trata de explicar a través de qué serie de sucesivas confusiones estas tres obras llegaron a ser identificadas como los tres escalones de una escalera filosófica y cómo esta trilogía acabó siendo después asignada al científico Maslama al-Maŷrīṭī. La otra parte se centra en dos anotaciones de carácter biográfico que aparecen en las portadas de dos manuscritos de la Rutbat al-ḥakīm, aún inédita. Además de proporcionarnos evidencias adicionales sobre la difusión de esta concepción entre los eruditos medievales, esos documentos también nos ofrecen información interesante y a veces sin igual sobre los dos Maslamas, sus respectivos escritos y seguidores, así como sobre la amplia circulación de las Rasā'il por toda la Península. La edición, traducción y comentario de estas dos anotaciones biográficas son ofrecidas aquí por primera vez. Palabras clave: alquimia; magia; manuscritos; Maslama Ibn Qāsim al-Qurṭubī; Maslama al-Maŷrīṭī; Ibn Jaldūn; Ijwān al-Ṣafā'; Rutbat alḥakīm; Gāyat al-ḥakīm; Picatrix. 1 Dozy and de Goeje,"Nouveaux documents", de Callataÿ, "Magia en al-Andalus", pp. 310-311. another in ascribing the Rutba and the Ghāya to an otherwise unidentified "Pseudo-Majrīṭī" supposed to have been active around the middle of the 5 th /11 th century. It is under this appellation and with this chronology in mind that the texts of the Ghāya and those of its Latin and Spanish adaptations have repeatedly been edited, translated and discussed up to the end of the 20 th century. 3 Challenging a long and prestigious tradition of 'Warburgian' scholars, all of whom had taken these suppositions for granted, Maribel Fierro demonstrated in a study published in 1996 that the genuine author of the two treatises was in fact another "Maslama al-Andalusī", who had been active not fifty years after al-Majrīṭī's time but rather fifty years before him. 4 This Abū l-Qāsim Maslama Ibn Qāsim al-Qurṭubī was a traditionist with bāṭinī aspirations whose life and activities from the time of his extended riḥla through the Middle East in the early 930s to his death in 353/964 are relatively well documented in Andalusī historiography. 5 A number of indications found in the manuscripts themselves as well as in later sources allow us to confirm that the confusion of names must have occurred at an early stage. It was facilitated by the fact that the respective names of these two scholars share all of the following components: the kunya Abū l-Qāsim, the ism Maslama and the two nisbas al-Qurṭubī and al-Andalusī. 6 This similarity of name is evidently one of the main causes of the general and enduring misattribution of both Rutbat al-ḥakīm and Ghāyat al-ḥakīm to the scientist Maslama al-Majrīṭī.
In addition to the Rutba and the Ghāya, al-Majrīṭī was also credited at times with other esoteric writings. This is notoriously the case, for instance, with Risālat al-Jāmi‛a ("The Comprehensive Epistle"), which purports to be the summary of Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' and which presents itself as the "crown" (tāj) of this important and very influential corpus of epistles. In his Kashf al-ẓunūn, under the heading "Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā'", the 11 th /17 th century encyclopaedist Ḥājjī Khalīfa (Katip Çelebi) unambiguously credits "the sage al-Majrīṭī al-Qurṭubī, who died in 395 [1005]," with the authorship of the Jāmi‛a by reproducing there the incipit of that compendium. 7 Much has been made of the fact that the same attribution is also found in some of the manuscripts of the Jāmi‛a, which prompted Jamīl Ṣalībā to edit the work as "The Comprehensive Epistle ascribed to the Sage al-Majrīṭī" (al-Risāla al-Jāmi‛a al-manṣūba li-l-ḥakīm al-Majrīṭī). It must be recalled here that Ṣalībā's edition was based on merely five manuscripts, only two of which feature indications that the compendium was al-Majrīṭī's work, and that Ṣalībā himself ruled out the attribution to Maslama al-Majrīṭī in the introduction to his edition. 8 In fact, more recent investigation tends to minimise considerably the significance of these indications. Morad Kacimi, who is currently preparing a new edition of the Jāmi‛a for a doctoral dissertation at the University of Alicante, kindly informed us that out of the numerous manuscripts he has consulted for his edition only these two include the reference to Maslama al-Majrīṭī. Furthermore, it would appear that in both cases the reference to al-Majrīṭī was made by an annotation in a later hand and that in at least one of the two manuscripts the author of the annotation derives his information from Ḥājjī Khalīfa's Kashf al-ẓunūn.
On the other hand, there is evidence to support the assumption that not only Risālat al-Jāmi'a but the entire corpus of Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' was believed by some to be the work of al-Majrīṭī. This is what can be inferred, for instance, from two manuscripts of the Rasā'il kept in the library of El Escorial. 9 Not surprisingly, the manuscripts featur-ing a connection with Maslama al-Majrīṭī appear to have circulated mainly in the western part of the Islamic world.
No doubt Maslama al-Majrīṭī's unequalled celebrity as a scientist in al-Andalus did much to earn him the reputation of a prolific author who was capable of writing various works about the occult sciences as well as astronomical treatises in the footsteps of Ptolemy and al-Khwārizmī. In the case of the Jāmi‛a and the Rasā'il, one must consider the misattribution as yet another outcome of the above-mentioned confusion between Maslama al-Majrīṭī al-Qurṭubī and his homonymous predecessor, Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī. The date of the misattribution of these two additional works, Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' and the Jāmi'a, to "Maslama" cannot be ascertained with precision. Contrary to the prevailing impression in modern scholarship, it is now becoming increasingly clear that only the attribution of the Rasā'il to "Maslama" can be dated with certainty to medieval times.
How is it then that al-Qurṭubī's name became associated with that of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' in the first place? And more generally, how can we explain how a work whose oriental provenance appears to us so evident could have been believed by some to have been composed on the soil of al-Andalus? The answer to these questions lies in al-Qurṭubī's own works.
Although it does not make explicit reference either to the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' or to the Rasā'il, Ghāyat al-ḥakīm is greatly indebted to the encyclopaedic corpus of the Ikhwān. In the footnotes to their translation of the Ghāya into German, Hellmut Ritter and Martin Plessner pointed out about 60 passages more or less closely related to the Rasā'il, some of them appearing to be taken literally from them and extending over several pages. It has recently been asserted that the corpus of the Rasā'il 10 See Bakhouche et al.,Picatrix,p. 32. 11 MS Be ir A a 505 (= ), fol. 2v, ll. 11-13, MS Ragıp Pa a 965 (= ), fols. 49r, l. 2 ab imo-49v, l. 1: ) : .
( : The orthography of Arabic quotations taken from manuscripts has been normalised throughout the present contribution. The Be ir A a manuscript, dated to 756/1355, is one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Rutba. On MS Ragıp Pa a 965, cf. below. For an updated list of the manuscripts at our disposal for the edition of the work, see de Callataÿ and Moureau, "Towards a Critical Edition". 12 MS Be ir A a 505, fols. 3r, l. 16-3v, l was one of the three major sources of the Ghāya, together with the Jābirian corpus and the Nabatean Agriculture. 10 However, the most interesting evidence is found in the as-yet-unedited Rutba, where the collection of "51 epistles" -or "50 epistles", depending on the manuscript -is mentioned in several places, and reference is also made to individual epistles as well. The prologue of the Rutba also includes a crucial passage in which the "philosophical epistles" are considered to embody a sort of ideal introduction to philosophy. What is more, Maslama al-Qurṭubī explains in this passage that his own work is nothing but a summary of these epistles, and that his aim in writing his alchemical treatise has been to bring together what had been treated separately there. The remarkable aspect of al-Qurṭubī's references to the Rasā'il in the Rutba is that in these passages he uses a somewhat ambiguous form of expression which could be read as suggesting that he was also the author of the Epistles themselves. Thus the prologue includes the following statement: As regards to works about the propaedeutic sciences and the philosophical secrets, we have presented 51 epistles in which we have treated these sciences in a systematical way -something which nobody in our time had done before us. 11 Subsequently, in the concluding lines of the same prologue, al-Qurṭubī explains: Similarly one reads in section 3 of the third maqāla: I have already dealt with minerals and their division, something which no philosopher has ventured to do. Out of the collection of philosophical epistles, I have presented the epistle on minerals, since I have written this book in lieu of the 50 epistles, I mean, of those epistles. You shall see that, in order to deal with minerals, I have not failed to have recourse to the way I have dealt with them there, since -I repeat -I have written this book in lieu of all these epistles. 13 How are these statements to be interpreted? There is, to be sure, a certain level of ambiguity in these lines. Judging from al-Qurṭubī's habitual use of enigmatic expressions in both the Rutba and the Ghāya, we may reasonably suspect that this ambiguity was intentional. Whatever the case, it would be a serious mistake to assume that al-Qurṭubī is claiming here to be the 'author' of the Rasā'il in the modern sense of the word, for this is in obvious contradiction to what he writes about the 'genuine author' of the corpus in the very same work. Referring in the prologue to otherwise unidentified readers of bygone days, he explains: They did not know who had compiled them [the Rasā'il] nor from where they had been compiled. However, when they scrutinised them in order to appreciate the value of their formulation, the intelligent people presumed that they were part of a work pertaining to the same epoch as that in which they were living, although they did not know who had compiled them. 14 As observed by Ḥusain al-Hamdānī, what is meant by these assertions seems to be that al-Qurṭubī was the first scholar ever to make the Epistles known to the people of al-Andalus, and the most probable explanation is that he achieved this by copying an exemplar of the encyclopaedia on the occasion of the long journey he made across the Middle East in the early 930s. 15 This is a far cry from claiming that he is himself the author of the work. At the same time, what al-Qurṭubī says in the prologue of the Rutba allows us to deduce the reason some later writers credited him -identifying him, of course, as Maslama al-Majrīṭī -with the authorship of the Rasā'il as well as the Rutba and the Ghāya. In all likelihood the attribution of the Risālat al-Jāmi‛a to "the sage Maslama al-Majrīṭī al-Qurṭubī" was prompted by the same circumstances, although in this latter case the reason for the confusion is perhaps even easier to grasp. As recorded above, the Jāmi‛a was meant to be the summary of the Rasā'il, and this is exactly what al-Qurṭubī also says about his Rutba. In short, the confusing situation faced by modern scholars regarding the authorship of the Rutba, the Ghāya, the Rasā'il and the Jāmi‛a is a result of successive misattributions of works and confusions of names, in a sequence which we may tentatively put forward as follows: 1) Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī introduces Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' to al-Andalus on his return from the East shortly after 325/936 and writes 3) At about the same time, ambiguous statements in the Rutba itself prompt readers to credit its author with the Rasā'il. 4) It becomes usual among medieval Andalusī scholars to consider 'Maslama' the author of a trilogy of works: the Rutba, the Ghāya and the Rasā'il. 5) At a much later stage (and plausibly in post-medieval times), the Jāmi'a is also ascribed to 'Maslama', again on the basis of the ambiguity of certain passages from the Rutba.

Back to the Muqaddima
As has just been remarked, the Rutba, the Ghāya and the Rasā'il must all three have been considered the work of a single writer by the vast majority of the intellectuals from the western part of the Islamic world. One such example is the Andalusī mystic Ibn Sab‛īn (d. c. 668/1269), the author of the Sicilian Questions and of the Budd al-'ārif. While describing in his Fatḥ al-mushtarak what he presents as the five different sorts of "letter magic" (sīmiyā'), Ibn Sab‛īn reports that "the first one is specious: it is the one which was mentioned by Maslama al-Majrīṭī, the author of the Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā'." 16 Ibn Sab‛īn does not mention either the Rutba or the Ghāya, but we may reasonably surmise that he shared the common view that they were also by al-Majrīṭī.
The tendency to credit a single author with these three works is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than by Ibn Khaldūn in the Muqaddima. Browsing through his exceptionally detailed report on magic and related sciences, 17 we observe that "Maslama b. Aḥmad al-Majrīṭī" is regularly depicted principally as a sort of Andalusī counterpart to Jābir b. Ḥayyān and, in more general terms, as the successor in al-Andalus of a long tradition of magic and alchemy inherited from the East. Ibn Khaldūn defines Maslama as "the imam of Andalusī scholars in the propedeutical and magical sciences" (imām ahl al-Andalus fī ta‛ālīm wa-siḥrīyāt). 18 In the same section he regards the Ghāya as the best and most complete treatise about magic, observing that "nobody has written on this science ever since" (wa-lam yaktub aḥad fī hādhā l-'ilm ba‛dahu). 19 As for the Rutba, the "alchemical companion" of the Ghāya in Ibn Khaldūn's own words, it is described as a work in which hardto-decipher expressions abound for the uninitiated. In obvious reference to the longer forms of the titles of the Rutba and the Ghāyanamely, Rutbat al-ḥakīm wa-madkhal al-ta'līm and Ghāyat al-ḥakīm wa-aḥaqq al-natījatayn -Ibn Khaldūn also notes that Maslama regarded magic and alchemy as "the two conclusions of philosophy" (natījatān li-l-ḥikma) and "the two fruits of sciences" (wa-thamaratān li-l-'ulūm). 20 He also mentions Maslama's opinion that "whoever does not take interest in them entirely misses the fruit of science and philosophy" (wa-man lam yaqif 'alayhimā fa-huwa fāqid thamarat al-'ilm wa-l-ḥikma ajma‛). 21 There is no explicit reference to the Ikhwān or to their writings in the Muqaddima, nor in any other work by Ibn Khaldūn. However it is 22 Various other examples could also be given, although caution is certainly advised in this field. It has recently been suggested with much naivety and a regrettable bias towards oversimplified explanations that Ibn Khaldūn derived from the Rasā'il the greatest part of his ideas on history, geography, economics ethics, etc.; see Ismā'īl,Nihāya, Ibn Khaldūn,Prolégomènes,vol. 2,p. 373. See also Rosenthal's translation in Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah, vol. 2, pp. 422-423: "the whole of existence in (all) its simple and composite worlds is arranged in a natural order of ascent and descent, so that everything constitutes an uninterrupted continuum." 24 Rosenthal in Ibn Khaldūn,The Muqaddimah,vol. 2,p. 423,n. 27a. 25 See Rosenthal in Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah, vol. 2, p. 423, n. 27a. On the issue of evolutionism and the Ikhwān, see Dieterici,Der Darwinismus,Vernet,"Las obras biológicas",p. 190. For a more critical approach, see Nasr, An Introduction, pp. 72-74. For a lucid warning against the dangers of over-interpreting a medieval author by projecting modern theories back in time, see also : Kruk, "Ibn Tufayl." most unlikely that the corpus of Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' was unknown to the historian; on the contrary, he must have been very familiar with it, as has been repeatedly noted since the re-discovery of Ibn Khaldūn by modern European scholarship. To take but one example, 22 it is commonly acknowledged today that Ibn Khaldūn was inspired by the Ikhwān's doctrine when, in a chapter of the Muqaddima devoted to "the sciences of the prophets", he speaks of the "uninterrupted continuum" (ittiṣāl lā yankharim) meant to exist between each stage of the world and the one immediately adjacent to it in a highly hierarchic conception of the universe. 23 This passage, which further highlights the preparedness (isti‛dād) for transformation between the highest representatives of one stage (such as palms and vines in plants) and the lowest representatives of the one above it (such as shellfish and snails in animals) and which on this occasion also deals with what could be defined as a qualitative step "from ape to man" (al-qirda […] ma‛a linsān), has been viewed by many as anticipating Darwin's theory of evolution. It is generally agreed that this reading vastly over-interprets Ibn Khaldūn's text, and Rosenthal was thus certainly right to observe that this passage "at one time provoked an overenthusiastic comparison with Darwinism". 24 The modern over-interpretation of this passage should not detract from the fact that Ibn Khaldūn most probably borrowed the basis of his argumentation from Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ. 25 As specified by Ibn Khaldūn himself, the above-cited passage about the "uninterrupted continuum" is the reformulation, in very much the same terms, of ideas already expressed in a previous chapter of the Muqaddima also dedicated 26 Ibn Khaldūn,The Muqaddimah,vol. 1, In our view, the present context suggests that one should translate muḥaqqiqīn instead as "those who have achieved true knowledge". 28  to prophecy and to "the various types of human beings who have supernatural perception" (chapter 1, muqaddima 6). 26 The section opens with the following lines: We shall now give an explanation of the real meaning of prophecy as interpreted by many thorough scholars ('alā mā sharaḥahu kathīr min al-muḥaqqiqīn). 27 We shall then mention the real meaning of soothsaying, dream vision, divination, and other supernatural ways of perception. We say: It should be known that we -May God guide you and us (fa-naqūlu i‛lam arshadanā Llāh wa-īyāka) -notice that this world with all the created things in it has a certain order and a solid construction. It shows nexuses between causes and things caused, combinations of some parts of creation with others, and transformations of some existent things into others, in a pattern that is both remarkable and endless. 28 It is quite revealing that the formula "Know -May God guide you and us" (i‛lam arshadanā Llāh wa-īyāka) is used here, since this formula -or a close variant of it -is undoubtedly the most characteristic expression of the Ikhwān's style, as it appears in innumerable paragraphs of the Rasā'il and may therefore truly qualify as a shibboleth. In a recent publication devoted to the ways of referring to the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' as found in the literature of al-Andalus, we have already shown that the use of these typically Ikhwānian formulae became a common practice among authors from the Peninsula as a means of subtly alluding to the corpus of the Brethren, and moreover they are generally found in strategic places in the text. 29 The presence of the words "we say" (fa-naqūlu) immediately before the shibboleth reinforces the assumption that we are dealing here with an Ikhwānian shibboleth in its own right, and also that this method of referencing was intentional on Ibn Khaldūn's part. In a footnote on this passage Rosenthal commented: "For the use of such formulas to introduce the communication of esoteric knowledge, cf. n. 925 to Ch. VI." 30 The reference is to another example of the same formula where the encyclopaedic corpus of the Brethren is duly conjectured by Rosenthal, as shall subsequently be seen.
Significantly, the only other place in the Muqaddima where the same kind of formula is to be found is in Chapter VI; specifically, section 28 (on the sīmiyā', namely the secret "science of letters"), where it appears on three occasions. The first is found at the very beginning of the subsection entitled "On learning hidden secrets from letter connections" and reads: i‛lam arshadanā Llāh wa-īyāka, which is precisely the same formulation as above. 31 The variant wa-Llāh yurshidunā wa-īyāka ("God guide us and you") appears a few pages later and is closely followed by i‛lam ayyadanā Llāh wa-īyāka bi-rūḥ minhu ("Know -God strengthen us and you with a spirit coming from Him"). 32 In view of what has just been discussed above, the presence of these three variants of the shibboleth in the peculiar context of letter magic could hardly be coincidental, and this is clearly what prompted Rosenthal to write in a footnote to the first of these references: "This formula, and even more so the one used below, is characteristic of esoteric literature. Cf., for instance, the Rasā'il Ikhwān aṣ-Ṣafā' and Ibn 'Arabī's Futūḥāt. Cf. also 1:194, above [with reference to the passage in Chapter I. 6 already discussed]." 33 The formula which Rosenthal sees as "even more characteristic of esoteric literature" is yet another occurrence of the shibboleth in the same section. It follows shortly after the previous two examples in a passage which deserves quoting at some length: A competent (practitioner of letter magic) said (qāla ba‛ḍ al-muḥaqqiqīn): 34 Let it be known to you -God strengthen us and you with a spirit coming from Him -(i'lam ayyadanā Llāh wa-īyāka bi-rūḥ minhu) that the science of letters is an important science. The scholar who knows it comes to know things that he would not be able to know with the help of any other science in the world. The practice of the science of (letter magic) requires certain conditions. With its help, the scholar may discover the secrets of creation and the inner works of nature (asrār al-khalīqa wa-sarā'ir al-ṭabī‛a). Thus, he learns the two results of philosophy, which are letter magic and its sister (alchemy) (natījatay al-falsafa a‛nī alsīmiyā ' wa-ukhtahā). The veil of the unknown is lifted for him. He thus learns the contents of the secret recesses of the heart (yurfa‛u lahu ḥijāb al-majhūlāt wa-yuṭalli‛u bi-dhālika 'alā maknūn khafāyā l-qulūb). 35 One may assert that the variant under which the shibboleth is given here is even more characteristic of the Ikhwān than the others, for it includes the Qur'ānic bi-rūḥ minhu ("with a spirit coming from Him", Q 58:22), which the Brethren associate with one variant or another of their beloved formula more than 200 times. At the same time, what gives weight to the comparison with the passage from Chapter I. 6 discussed above, and which also includes the shibboleth i'lam ayyadanā Llāh wa-īyāka, is that the two passages are introduced by almost identical expressions. They both include the reference to the muḥaqqiqīn (literally, "those who have achieved true knowledge") as above, and they read: fa-min ṭarā'iqihim fī stikhrāj al-ajwiba mā yanquluhu qāla ba'd al-muḥaqqiqīn minhum ("as to what we have reported about their methods to find answers, some of those having achieved true knowledge have said") in the first case, and wa-min ṭarīqihim ayḍan fī stikhrāj al-jawāb qāla ba'ḍ al-muḥaqqiqīn ("regarding another of their methods to find answers, some of those having achieved true knowledge have said"). 36 Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' include at least one extensive section on letter speculation. It is found at the beginning of Epistle 40 ("On causes and effects"). 37 What the Brethren have to say there about the sīmiyā' (or 'ilm al-ḥurūf) is not especially original, but the fame of the Rasā'il in whatever appertains to the occult may perhaps explain why Ibn Khaldūn decided to allude subtly to that work in this particular place of his Muqaddima, as was suggested by Rosenthal. For our discussion, however, the most remarkable element lies elsewhere in the passage, where the Rutba and the Ghāya are clearly referred to as to "the two conclusions (natījatān) of philosophy, which are letter magic and its sister (alchemy)". It was common among medieval Muslim scholars to link together sīmiyā' ("letter magic", later simply "magic") and 38 Cf. Kraus,J bir,vol. 2,Lory,La science,. See also Moureau, "Alchemy and Medicine". 39 MS Be ir A a 505, fols. 4r, l. 25-4v, l. 4 and MS Ragıp Pa a 965, fols. 52r, l. 6 ab imo-52v, l. 1: In the Prologue of the Gh ya a very similar text is given, but there reference is made to the Ancient Greeks and to their ways of naming the various disciplines involved. See Pseudo-Majr , Gh yat al-ak m, p. 10, ll. 5-6, which could be translated as follows: "The Ancient Greeks used to designate the n ranj t and the transformation of things (qalb al-'ayn) by the name tarj h and the talisman ( illasm) by the name 'syllogism' (siljim s), and this is the calling down of the superior powers, but they gave the whole [science] the name 'magic' (si r)." The similarity of this passage with that from the Rutba was noticed by the German translators of the work, see Ritter and Plessner in Pseudo-Majr , Picatrix, p. 10, n. 4. kīmiyā' ("alchemy") -two words distinguished from one another by only one letter -, as for instance in the famous corpus of alchemical texts attributed to Jābir b. Ḥayyān. 38 The distinction between the two sister-sciences is made by al-Qurṭubī himself, who in the prologue of the Rutba gives the following explanation: They are two conclusions. The Ancients called one of them kīmiyā' and they called the other one sīmiyā'. These are the two sciences of the ancients from which one can profit. Whoever has not achieved them is no sage until he masters them, and he who masters [only] one of them is [only] half a sage. Both share [the quality of] being subtle. For kīmiyā' is the knowledge of earthly spirits and the advantageous extraction of their subtleties. The other is called sīmiyā', and is the tarjīḥ (literally, "the fact of giving the preponderance to something"), the [art of] talismans and of syllogisms, and this is the science of the superior spirits and of how to call down their powers advantageously. 39 Returning to Ibn Khaldūn's statement as noted above, the combination of the Ikhwānian shibboleth with this allusion to two famous esoteric works of the past suggests that, in the view of Ibn Khaldūn, the Rasā'il, the Rutba and the Ghāya were all three the works of a single author, and it is most probably for this reason that the Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' are never explicitly mentioned in his writings. In attributing these three texts to one author, the great historian appears to have done nothing more than adopt the same position as Ibn Sab‛īn one century and a half before him, a view which was presumably shared by the vast majority of Andalusī thinkers during the Middle Ages.

Complementary evidence from two manuscripts of the Rutba
The rest of the present article is devoted to providing supporting evidence for this discussion from two biographical notes found on the title pages of two of the earliest known manuscripts of Rutbat alḥakīm. They are MSS Ragıp Paşa 965 and 963, both kept in the Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi in Istanbul. Together with a brief presentation, we provide here the edition of each note, along with a translation and an extensive commentary. The spelling of hamzas has been normalised, and missing dots have been restituted. The vocalisation is that of the manuscripts.

MS Ragıp Paşa 965, title page (fol. 47r) 1 Presentation
Dated by Sezgin to the 8 th /14 th century, 40 MS Ragıp Paşa 965 is considered the older of these two paper manuscripts. The text of the Rutba is found on fols. 47r-150v and includes the usual misattribution to Maslama al-Majrīṭī. The body of the text is carefully written in naskh and vocalised throughout. On the title page (fol. 47r), the copyist gives the title of the work as Kitāb Rutbat al-ḥakīm wa-madkhal al-ta‛līm ta'līf al-shaykh al-imām al-fāḍil al-faylasūf Abī Muḥammad Maslama al-Qurṭubī al-Majrīṭī raḥimahu Llāh wa-huwa muṣannif Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' qaddasa Llāh rūḥahu wa-nūr ḍarīḥihī ("Book of the Rank of the Sage and of the Introduction to Learning, written by the Shaykh, the Virtuous Imam, the Philosopher Abū Muḥammad Maslama al-Qurṭubī al-Majrīṭī -May God have mercy on him! He is also the author the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity -may God sanctify his spirit and the light of his mausoleum"). There is no doubt that this information is given in the same hand as the rest of the work (and evidently also the other works included in this manuscript).
The rest of the title page consists of a lengthy biographical note, written 90° counter-clockwise from the title by another hand. This other hand may be from a later period, but the possibility that it is roughly contemporary cannot be ruled out, nor can the possibility that it is the same as the one who copied the main text. This second hand is less polished than the first, though reasonably elegant for a note of this genre. The text is vocalised only in part, and diacritical points are frequently omitted, which at times makes the reading difficult. The greatest part of this note is taken almost literally from Ṣā‛id's Ṭabaqāt al-umam, as is acknowledged by the copyist himself. Yet the last five lines of the note appear to be an original addition by the author of the note, who reports various theories about the way the Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' came to be associated with 'Maslama'.
In addition to this biographical note, the page also includes two ownership marks. The first in red ink is located in the upper right corner of the page. It is clearly by the same hand as that of the note and reads: li-Llāh ta'ālā fī yad 'abdihi 'Alī ibn Sa'd al-Anṣārī al-Awsī 'afā Llāh 'anhu ("To God Most High, in the hand of His servant 'Alī b. Sa'd al-Anṣārī al-Awsī -May God excuse him").

Illustration nr. 1
This indication is valuable since the same owner's name also appears on MS 19/219 of the Budeiri Library in East Jerusalem, a manuscript which is dated to the 9 th /15 th century. 41 In the description of this manuscript, the date "3 Ṣaffar 822" [= 1 March 1419] is mentioned, but it is unclear whether it refers to 'Alī b. Sa'd al-Anṣārī al-Awsī or to another owner. If it could be proven that this indication concerns 'Alī b. Sa'd al-Anṣārī al-Awsī, this would be an excellent confirmation that our note was written early in the 9 th /15 th century. The other ownership mark is found in the upper left corner of the page. It is written in black ink and is in another hand which is much less easy to decipher in places. We tentatively propose that it reads: li-Llāh ta'ālā fī yad ' U. The name of al-Majr is written "al-Mar " here, whereas "al-Mar " is given in Cheikho's edition of the abaq t al-umam. In both editions of the 'Uy n al-anb ' we also find the form "al-Mar ". As for the Ta'r kh al-ukam ', it provides the more correct "al-Majr ", but this may be a correction from the editor. It should be observed that the form "al-Mar " also appears in Ibn al-Abb r, Takmila, pp. 246-247.  46 The variants of these two texts have been inserted in the apparatus only for proper names as well as for a few other words. They are respectively marked with Q and U.

Translation
Praised be God! The author of this book is the shaykh, the master, the venerable teacher {Abū l-Qasim [sic] Maslama Ibn Aḥmad, referred to as al-Marḥīṭī [sic]. He was the imam of the mathematicians of his time in al-Andalus, and he knew more than anyone before him of the science of the spheres and of the movements of the stars. He was concerned with the observations of planets, and he was eager to understand the book by Ptolemy known as the Almagest. He wrote a good book on commercial arithmetic, a discipline known to us as mu‛āmalāt. He was also the author of a book on the calculation of the true position of the planets, which is a summary of al-Battānī's Zīj. He also studied the has mentioned in some of his writings that they are his [own] composition, [as for instance] when he says in Rutbat al-ḥakīm or in other books about the 'art': "I have already mentioned this in my book 'so and so'". Some have said that he took them with him and that he then introduced them into al-Andalus. Some have said that they were originally dispatched in Baṣra, and that they then became famous, [spreading] from Baṣra over the land of the East, and [that] al-Kirmānī became acquainted with them from these countries, but since he was a follower of al-Majrīṭī (?) ... they have ascribed them all to his teacher. And it is said that all the books are not by him [= Maslama], and that they are only said [to be so] from his own mouth, and other things of this kind are said, but God knows best.
Leaving aside the part taken from Ṣā‛id in this commentary and turning immediately to the last lines of the text, we note that the first original addition to the Ṭabaqāt al-umam is to be found just before the phrase "He died in Zaragoza in the year 458", with which Ṣā‛id concludes his report about al-Kirmānī. The insertion is worth noting; by commenting that "there is no learning in al-Andalus without reference to it", the author of the note provides new and particularly striking evidence of the success enjoyed by the Ikhwānian corpus in the western part of the Islamic world. Not only does the copyist remark that the corpus has acquired the status of a key work in the transmission of scientific knowledge through al-Andalus, he also insists that this fact is unanimously agreed upon in the Peninsula.
Having briefly returned to Ṣā'id's account in order to mention al-Kirmānī's year of death, the copyist recounts several theories about the attribution of the Ikhwānian corpus to Maslama al-Majrītī. This is clearly the most interesting part of the note. The introductory phrase (wa-baqiya qawl man yansibuhā ilā l-ra'īs Maslama) suggests that the copyist is no longer quoting from anyone here but is instead providing an updated synthesis of the issue in his own words, just as he did previously in commenting on the diffusion of the Rasā'il. He starts by pointing out the origin of the problem: namely, certain affirmations found in Rutbat al-ḥakīm. This naturally calls attention to the ambiguous attitude of the Rutba's author as discussed above. When the copyist refers to phrases such as "I have already mentioned this in my book so and so", what else could this be except a reference to the multiple passages in which the author uses expressions such as qad qaddamtu or qad qaddamnā ("I/We have already presented") in reference to the Rasā'il? In emphasising how evident these self-ascriptions are, the copyist is implicitly acknowledging the position of those who take this for granted, thereby affirming that Maslama is the genuine author of the encyclopaedia.
The copyist then moves on to alternative theories as put forward by some of his predecessors whom he does not mention by name. The first theory which "some have put forward" is that Maslama al-Majrīṭī brought the Rasā'il back to al-Andalus himself. This represents the position of those who, although they do not believe in Maslama's authorship, nevertheless admit that he played an important role in the transmission of the Ikhwānian corpus to al-Andalus.
This argument has simplicity in its favour, and it is understandable that this theory may have appealed to some scholars, ancient and modern alike, but it also raises a major difficulty; it has become habitual for modern biographers to stress that Maslama al-Majrīṭī's life is poorly documented, but the deafening silence of medieval sources about the possibility of such a sojourn in the East makes it rather doubtful that Maslama ever set foot on Oriental soil. In fact, the only references found in literature to such a trip are precisely those which connect al-Majrīṭī with the story of the introduction of the Rasā'il into al-Andalus. But if we take a closer look at this material we soon arrive at the conclusion that this connection is merely a modern legend.
The origin of the myth is a note made by the nineteenth-century Spanish scholar Pascual de Gayangos in his English translation of the Nafḥ al-ṭīb by al-Maqqarī (d. 1041/1632). Addressing the passage in which al-Maqqarī narrates the story about al-Kirmānī and Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' -evidently following Ṣā'id or one of his numerous followers -, de Gayangos asserts: "I believe the author to be wrong in his statement that this individual was the first who introduced into Spain the collection of philosophical treatises known by the title of Rasáyil arbábi-s-safá [sic]." 94 To justify his own position, de Gayangos appeals to a passage from Ibn Khayr's Fahrasa, which he had apparently found in the manuscript Ar. 1667 from El Escorial Library and which claims that "Abú-l-kásim Moslemah Ibn Ahmad Al-majerittí [sic] was the first who brought them [the Rasā'il] to Spain from the East." 95 That de Gayangos, who nowhere gives a precise reference to this passage, may have been "the victim of some error" 96 is suspected by Samuel Stern in his article "New Information about the Authors of the 'Epistles of the Sincere Brethren'". Stern rightly notes that no information of this kind can be found in the edition of the Fahrasa by Codera and Ribera and that the names of Maslama al-Majrīṭī and Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' do not even appear in the index of the edition. 97 In addition to Stern's argument one may also observe that de Gayangos commits another serious error just a few notes before, and that this other inaccuracy may also have been instrumental in the propagation of our legend in modern scholarship. Thus while commenting on the passage about "Abú ᾿Obeydah Moslem Ibn Ahmed", better known as the "master of the Qibla" (al-ma'rūf bi-ṣāḥib al-qibla) 98 -in fact the Cordoban mathematician and astronomer Abū 'Ubayda Muslim b. Aḥmad al-Laythī (d. 295/908) 99 -, de Gayangos believes he can identify this scholar with "a certain Moslem or Moslemah Ibn Ahmed Al-majerittí (from Madrid)" 100 as mentioned by Casiri in his description of the manuscripts of El Escorial. De Gayangos himself seems aware that his proposition has its share of weakness, 101 but since Maqqarī's text in that place indicates that this scholar made a journey in the Orient, with stays in Mecca and Cairo, this must have been perceived as confirmation of the theory that Maslama al-Majrīṭī accomplished a riḥla to the East and took advantage of his sojourn there to acquire a copy of the Rasā'il and bring it back to al-Andalus. 102 More than fifty years after the publication of Stern's article, it remains curious that so many later scholars took this most improbable story for granted and never sought to check the sources. 103 98 De Gayangos, The History, vol. 1, p. 149. 99 See Rius, "Al-Laythī, Abū 'Ubayda". 100 De Gayangos,The History,vol. 1,p. 427,n. 37. 101 De Gayangos, The History, vol. 1, p. 427, n. 37: "His surname was Abú-l-kásim, not ᾿Obeydah. However, as the Arabs not infrequently denominate themselves after one or more of their sons, he may have had both appellatives, Abú-l-kásim and Abú ᾿Obeydah, and therefore be the individual here intended, especially as the account of his life given by Casiri (vol. i. p. 378,c. 2), as translated from the Arabica Philosophorum Bibliotheca, agrees with the present." In fact, the notice in that place (Casiri,Bibliotheca,vol. 1,p. 378) concerns a copy of the Ghāya and is for Casiri the occasion of providing a biographical account of "Moslemae Magritensis, sive Matritensis Vita et Scripta ex Arabia Philosophorum Bibliotheca, fol. 365". This proves to be a mere summary of Ṣā'id's account on Maslama al-Majrīṭī (where, of course, no connection with the Rasā'il is established and no journey to the East is mentioned), the only supplementary information being a reference to "Ebn Pasqual" and to "Ebn Alfharadi" for the alternative date of al-Majrīṭī's death. Contrary to what de Gayangos writes, there is nothing in this account which agrees with Maqqarī's statement about the "Master of the Qibla". 102 For the edition of this passage, see Maqqarī,vol. 2,p. 255. 103 See for instance, among recent statements: Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science, vol. 1, pp. 668-669, s. v. "Maslama Ibn Aḥmad", here p. 668: "He may have introduced into Spain the writings of the Brethren of Purity, or else this was done later, by one of his disciples, al-Kirmānī": Sarton writes in a note: "Arabic sources contradict one another on this point"; Vernet, La cultura hispanoárabe en Oriente y Occidente, p. 32: "Buena parte de esos conocimientos quedaron recogidos en Las epístolas de los hermanos de la pureza o Rasā'il ijwān al-ṣafā', compuestas en Oriente a fines del siglo X e introducidas en España por Maslama de Madrid. Su discípulo, al-Qarmānī (sic) (m. 458/1065), Yet it also seems important to raise the following point: if one ascribes the Rutba and the Ghāya to Maslama al-Majrītī, and if, on the other hand, one takes into account what the author of the Rutba says about the Rasā'il, then it becomes perfectly conceivable to consider that al-Majrītī played a role in the introduction of the corpus into al-Andalus. The most obvious supposition in that case is that al-Majrīṭī himself travelled to the East to obtain a copy, even if his riḥla across the Orient is not documented in the sources. The author of the bibliographical note of the MS Ragıp Paşa 965 must have been following similar reasoning when he wrote: "Some have said that he [= Maslama al-Majrīṭī] took them with him and that he then introduced them into al-Andalus". It is worth stressing this point since this is, to the best of our knowledge, the first time that one encounters this assumption in pre-modern literature. In the absence of any comparable affirmation in medieval sources, it is not possible to determine from where the copyist derived this information, so that various options remain open for consideration. In view of the fact that an extended sojourn in the East is well documented for Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī, as we have seen above, it could be suggested that our phrase is another consequence of the confusion between the two Maslamas. However this eventuality seems unlikely, because the rest of the note is entirely dedicated to Maslama al-Majrīṭī, and one might question whether its author was even aware of al-Qurṭubī's existence. What can be definitively ruled out is the supposition that this text formed the basis for the modern legend regarding Maslama al-Majrīṭī as the importer of the Rasā'il since that legend seems to originate in a confusion made in the 19 th century.
The copyist next addresses what has apparently become the standard interpretation over the centuries. Once again he only alludes to unidentified informants, but in this case his allusions are precise and transparent. The first part, in which the original dispatching of the Rasā'il in Baṣra is followed by its broader diffusion in the East, clearly echoes the tradition proceeding from al-Tawḥīdī's famous statement in the Imtā'. 104 The second part, in which al-Kirmānī is mentioned as the scholar who brought the corpus into al-Andalus, is merely a recapitulation of what the copyist has just quoted from Ṣā'id's Ṭabaqāt. What succeeds this is more noteworthy; in spite of one or two words which cannot be clearly read, the meaning of the remark is unambiguous: since al-Kirmānī was a follower of Maslama al-Majrītī, it is to al-Kirmānī's master that the whole corpus of the Rasā'il was ascribed.
In view of this hotchpotch of theories, which even the copyist seems to have recorded with a certain degree of scepticism, it can be surmised that the note's concluding words express its author's conviction that "all the books" alleged to be by Maslama "are not his", but that people have been misled by what the scholar affirms in his own writings. It is not entirely clear which works the copyist alludes to with "all the books", but there can be no doubt that the Rasā'il are chief among them.

Ragıp Paşa 963, title page (fol. 90r) 1 Presentation
According to Sezgin, MS Ragıp Paşa 963 is from the 9 th /15 th century. 105 The text of the Rutba is found on fols. 90r-115v. The text is fully vocalised, albeit somewhat erratically, and it is written in an extremely careful and elegant naskh script. On fol. 90r the title of the work is given in the same hand as:
Maslama ibn Aḥmad surnamed al-Majrīṭī al-Andalusī -May God have mercy on him! It consists of four chapters. Chapter One has no sections. Chapter Two has four sections, Chapter Three has 13 and Chapter Four has 14. In all, it contains 31 sections.
The rest of the page consists entirely of a biographical note in the same hand. As opposed to the note of MS Ragıp Paşa 965, this one appears to be a compilation of several distinct sources. There are no ownership marks on this manuscript. The readings quoted in the notes are the readings of the manuscript.

Translation
It is found in some history books that the aforementioned Maslama died with God's mercy within the divisions of the third hour 108 of the 12 th of Dhū al-Qa‛da of the year 395 [20 August 1005], that he had numerous disciples in al-Andalus, among them Abū Bakr Ibn Bishrūn, Ibn al-Ṣaffār, al-Zahrāwī, al-Kirmānī and Ibn Khaldūn, and that 'the Sage,' the son of al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh, had much concern for him.
Ibn al-Shāmkh [sic] mentioned that he was from the Berber Masmuda tribe, but this is not true since he came from the Banū Umayya.
There has been between Ibn al-Shamkh [sic] and Maslama a profound dissension, because this one had treated him roughly, and he [= Ibn al-Samḥ] had left him for Abū Muḥammad al-Sūsī. This is reliable information as it was reported by Ibn Bishrūn and others.
Maslama had an outstanding rank and distinguished himself in the sciences. He is the author of various famous books on the religious sciences dealing with the [legal] derivatives and principles. He is also the author of excellent books in the mathematical sciences, among them Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā', Rutbat al-ḥakīm about the first conclusion, and also this second [conclusion] which is Ghāyat al-ḥakīm. His is also the wonderful history Ta'rīkh al-falāsifat al-'arab, in which he has elaborated on what is known about them. His is also a small epistle on derivation in which he has established the secret of the 'art' and of the derivation of bodies from one another. Nobody more marvellous, more astonishing, more intelligent and more pious than him has appeared in the country of al-Andalus.
Consider his books and know that Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī owes to the Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' the whole of his understanding and most of his science, and that it is from these that he has obtained his understanding and his science.
It is said that the Epistles which are his [= Maslama's] are different from those which are in the people's hands, and that his Epistles are famous in the Maghrib. But God knows best!

Commentary
Sources disagree about Maslama al-Majrīṭī's time of death. Ṣā‛id al-Andalusī, who provides the most detailed account of Maslama's biography, reports that he died "shortly before the beginning of the fitna, in the year 398 [1007]". This date is also given by both Ibn al-Qiftī and Ibn Abī Uṣaybi'a. On the other hand, Ibn Bashkuwāl (d. 578/1183) mentions "Dhū al-Qa‛da of 395" and affirms, on the account of his predecessor Ibn Ḥayyān (d. 469/1076), that Maslama was "ninetyseven years old when the fitna broke out." 109 Subsequent authors tend to follow either of these traditions, with preference given to Ibn Bashkuwāl's dating, which agrees with our manuscript. The horoscopelike precision of the present writer is most unusual and does not seem to have an equivalent in the other sources.
The writer next turns to Maslama's disciples; five students are mentioned: Abū Bakr Ibn Bishrūn, Ibn al-Ṣaffār, al-Zahrāwī, al-Kirmānī and Ibn Khaldūn. The last four are precisely the same four names and in the same order as those listed in Ṭabaqāt al-umam. The two lists are at variance about the first name. Whereas Ṣā‛id mentions the famous geometer and astronomer Abū l-Qāsim Aṣbagh ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Samḥ al-Gharnāṭī (d. 426/1035), 110 the copyist of the present manuscript mentions Abū Bakr Ibn Bishrūn, whose name is nowhere to be found in Ṭabaqāt al-umam.
The second scholar mentioned is the mathematician and astronomer Abū l-Qāsim Aḥmad b. 'Abd Allāh ibn 'Umar al-Ghāfiqī Ibn al-Ṣaffār al-Andalusī, who was born in Cordoba and who died in Denia in 1035. 111 The third one, al-Zahrāwī, is an arithmetician and geometrician referred to by Ṣā‛id as Abū l-Ḥasan 'Alī b. Sulaymān. 112 The fourth is Abū l-Ḥakam 'Amr b. 'Abd al-Raḥmān b. Aḥmad b. 'Alī al-Kirmānī, who was born in Cordoba and died in 458/1066, and whom Ṣā'id credits with the introduction of the Rasā'il to Zaragoza. Ibn Khaldūn is Abū Muslim 'Amr b. Aḥmad Ibn Khaldūn al-Ḥaḍramī, who was born in Seville and died in 449/1057. He is mentioned by Ṣā'id as well as by his namesake, the historian Ibn Khaldūn. 113 Abū Bakr Ibn Bishrūn, the first disciple named in this list, is a scholar whose biography is more obscure. A scientist by the same name is mentioned in the Muqaddima as a disciple of "Maslama al-Majrīṭī", or rather as Ibn Khaldūn believed, a disciple of the author of the Rutba and of the Ghāya. He is there presented as the author of an epistle on alchemy addressed to a certain "Ibn al-Samḥ", the contents of which the historian reproduces in their entirety. 114 Ibn Khaldūn and the copyist of the biographical note clearly consider Abū Bakr Ibn Bishrūn to be one of al-Majrīṭī's pupils: an assumption evidently resulting from the fact that the addressee of the epistle is identified with Abū l-Qāsim Aṣbagh b. Muḥammad Ibn al-Samḥ al-Gharnāṭī, the first of Maslama al-Majrīṭī's students in Ṣā‛id's list. But this is highly conjectural, if only for the fact that Abū l-Qāsim Aṣbagh Ibn al-Samḥ is nowhere mentioned in connection with alchemy. In her article on the bāṭinī traditionist Maslama b. Qāsim al-Qurṭubī, Maribel Fierro suggests with greater plausibility that the addressee of Ibn Bishrūn's treatise should be identified with another "Ibn al-Samḥ", who was born in 303/915 and whose death must have taken place in Madīnat al-Zahrā' in either 370/980 or 387/997. 115  would also mean that, in addition to the general confusion between the two Maslamas (and most probably as a direct consequence of that first amalgamation), medieval authors confused their respective entourages as well.
Having mentioned what he regards as five of Majrīṭī's students, the author of the note turns to the scholar's privileged position with respect to the political authority of his time. The "son of al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh" is the caliph al-Ḥakam II (r. 350-366/961-976), son and successor of 'Abd al-Raḥmān III, whose surname was indeed "al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh". He is here referred to as al-ḥakīm ("the Sage"). Is this a simple scribal error for "al-Ḥakam", or is it a reference to the caliph's peerless reputation as a patron of the arts and sciences? "Ibn al-Shāmkh", spelled "Ibn al-Shamkh" in the subsequent line, must be Abū l-Qāsim Aṣbagh b. Muḥammad Ibn al-Samḥ, the famous Andalusī geometrician whose name for some unknown reason had not previously appeared in the copyist's list of al-Majrīṭī's disciples. The "profound dissension" supposed to have taken place between Ibn al-Samḥ and his master al-Majrīṭī is not otherwise recorded in ancient literature, but an echo of Ibn al-Samḥ's separation from his teacher is still perceptible in the Takmila li-Kitāb al-Ṣila by Ibn al-'Abbār (d. 658/1260), where the following statement about the disciple appears: Aṣbagh b. Muḥamad b. Aṣbagh Ibn al-Samḥ al-Mahrī from Cordoba, surnamed Abū l-Qāsim. He was famed for his mastery of mathematics and geometry and for his experience in medicine and astronomy. He studied under Maslama b. Aḥmad al-Marḥīṭī [sic], and he was one of his greater disciples. Having adopted the doctrine of Abū Muḥammad al-Sūsī, he followed his trail and left his homeland of Cordoba during the fitna to establish himself in Granada under the protection of Ḥabbūs b. Māksan al-Ṣanhājī, the son of Bādīs. 118 The author's informant in this case is a certain "Ibn Bishrūn". It cannot be determined who he is, but he could hardly be the same as the above-mentioned "Abū Bakr Ibn Bishrūn", since the latter must have died well before the separation between al-Majrīṭī and his disciple Ibn al-Samḥ. 119 Whoever "Ibn Bishrūn the informant" may have been, it is interesting to observe that our biographer considers him a much more reliable source than "Ibn al-Samḥ", at least with respect to the question of al-Majrīṭī's tribe. To the best of our knowledge, this controversy regarding Majrīṭī's origin does not appear in any of the extant medieval sources.
In his enumeration of Maslama's books, the author of the note first writes of "various famous books" in the religious sciences; he does not mention these by name, but we might perhaps hypothesise that he is alluding to Maslama's recognised authority in the field of inheritance legislation. Al-Majrīṭī specialised in the laws of descent and distribution, technically known as 'ilm al-farā'iḍ, and he owed to this specialisation his nisba of "al-Faraḍī." 120 The copyist notes Maslama's production in the "mathematical sciences" (fī l-riyāḍīyāt) -a common designation in Arabic literature for rational thinking. First and foremost, he explicitly expresses his belief that Maslama al-Majrīṭī was not only the author of the Rutba and the Ghāya but also of the Rasā'il. This confirms our view that the attribution of the three works to a single scholar was the rule rather than the exception among Western Arab authors of the Middle Ages. The three works are listed in the correct chronological order of their redaction, and we may reasonably suppose that this is due to internal evidence: the Ghāya refers to the Rutba, and the Rutba refers to the Rasā'il. The formulation of the note also suggests that the chronological sequence of the works was understood as reflecting the progression of the "Sage" as he scales the philosophical ladder. In the Rutba, the Rasā'il are considered the best compendium of philosophy and the ideal prerequisite to alchemy. In turn, alchemy is an absolute prerequisite to magic, which is the ultimate goal of the sage, as affirmed in the Ghāya. After this trilogy of works, a book called al-Ta'rīkh al-'ajīb ("the wonderful history") is mentioned, immediately followed by Ta'rīkh falāsifat al-'arab ("The History of Arab Philosophers"). The assertion that Maslama wrote a "History of Arab Philosophers" unquestionably comes from the Ghāya and the Rutba themselves. In the second maqāla of the Ghāya, one of Maslama's books entitled "The History of Arab Philosophers" (Ta'rīkh falāsifat al-'arab) is mentioned. Al-Qurṭubī's purpose here is to point out that he had mentioned in that earlier book a treatise on the fabrication of talismans by Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Zakarīyā  In the prologue of the Rutba, in response to a virulent diatribe against the pseudophilosophers and the pseudo-scientists of the author's time, one finds mentioned a work entitled "The Book of the Categories of Arab Philosophers" (Kitāb Ṭabaqāt falāsifat al-'arab), which is most probably this treatise. 122 A book with another variant of this title is also referred to in the last maqāla of the Rutba. This mention in a passage about Jābir b. Ḥayyān reads: "I provide a report about him [= Jābir], his lineage and the titles of his books in my book known as the 'History of Arab Philosophers and of Those to Whom Wisdom is Ascribed'." 123 The same book is then simply referred to as Ta'rīkh a few pages further down in a passage where al-Qurṭubī discusses once again Jābir and his works. The passage states: "The mentioned man has written many writings of this kind. They are more numerous than the writings on the (alchemical) work. The same could be said of yet another reference made by al-Qurṭubī in the same part of the work relating to the history of alchemy: "In the aforementioned book, which I have entitled 'The History,' we have already mentioned these people, their situations, their names, their countries and how they received wisdom one after the other." 125 For the sake of completeness, it may be added that the same tendency to refer to an unspecified Ta'rīkh is also observable in Ghāyat al-ḥakīm. In the third maqāla, for instance, al-Qurṭubī mentions his earlier Kitāb al-Ta'rīkh while discussing astrological prognostications and refers to the philosopher al-Kindī and his treatise Fī Mulk al-'arab wa-kammīyatihi ("On the Rule of the Arabs and its Duration"). 126 It thus seems natural to assume that this "Book of History" is the same work as "The History of Arab Philosophers". Ritter and Plessner arrive at same conclusion in a note to their translation of that passage. 127 It is unfortunate that this historical work by al-Qurṭubī is no longer extant. 128 But how are we to interpret the mention of al-Ta'rīkh al-'ajīb ("the wonderful history") which immediately precedes this reference in the biographical note of our manuscript? No book by this name has so far been associated either with Maslama al-Majrīṭī or Maslama al-Qurṭubī. 129 In the absence of any other plausible explanation we are tempted to attribute this latter mention to some confusion in the biographer's mind. "The wonderful history" and "The History of Arab Philosophers" are possibly one and the same book, which for some unknown reason was given here two distinct denominations. This could account for the strange formulation of that part of the note, with no particle of conjunction between the two ta'rīkhs, and possibly also the fact that the second ta'rīkh has been written here in a curiously upward and off-the-line position with respect to the rest of the text.
The last work ascribed to Maslama by the copyist is a short epistle (risāla saghīra) on "derivation" (istinbāṭ) in which he is claimed to have exposed the secret of the alchemical art (sirr al-ṣan'a) and the process by which bodies are derived from one another. Although istinbāṭ is a term susceptible of various interpretations, 130 the present context makes it likely that it is used here in the specific context of alchemy. Apart from Rutbat al-ḥakīm, the only alchemical work ascribed to "Maslama al-Majrīṭī" is Rawḍat al-ḥadā'iq wa-riyāḍ alkhalā'iq, which Ziriklī regards as a "short epistle" (risāla ṣaghīra). 131 The attribution of the Rawḍa to "Pseudo-Majrīṭī" is not just a modern speculation as it was also made by Ḥājjī Khalīfa in the 11 th /17 th century. His statement in the Kashf al-ẓunūn is worth citing here as it provides further evidence for the attribution of Rasā'il Ikhwān al-Ṣafā' to "al-Majrīṭī": "Rawḍat al-ḥadā'iq wa-riyāḍ al-khalā'iq, by the sage Maslama ibn al-Waḍḍāḥ al-Qurṭubī al-Majrītī, who is the author of the book of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʼ". 132 In the third maqāla of the Rutba we 133 MS Be ir A a 505, fol. 26v, ll. 12-18, MS Ragıp Pa a 965, fol. 88v, ll. 9 ab imo-3 ab imo : : ) ) ( : and adds that this text could be the same as the Rawḍat al-ḥadā'iq. We did not have access to this part of the Beşir Ağa manuscript. It may also be interesting to note that an "epistle" (risāla) has also been ascribed to "Maslama b. Waḍāh b. Aḥmad al-Majrīṭī" by Paul Kraus on the basis of an alchemical manuscript kept in the Khanjī Collection; see Kraus, Jābir, vol.  find an indication that its author has previously written an "epistle" (risāla) entirely devoted to symbols (rumūz) and the way they are used in the sciences. The context of the passage suggests that al-Qurṭubī's objective in writing that epistle had been to explain that every science is necessarily symbolic (marmūza), but that alchemy has usually been considered the "symbolic science" (al-'ilm al-marmūz) par excellence as a result of the people's prejudice and disregard for it (taḥāmulan ʻalayhi wa-dhamman lahu). 133 Could that epistle be the one alluded to by the copyist of the manuscript? And could it eventually be identified with the Rawḍa? Given the present state of knowledge, and pending a close examination of the manuscripts of the Rawḍa, it is probably better not to press the case too hard.
The note ends with a polemic against Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī. As must have been the case for various champions of Islamic orthodoxy in the Middle Ages, al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) adopted a resolutely hypocritical position towards the Brethren of Purity. Thoroughly dismissing the Rasā'il as a weak and shallow work by followers of Pythagoras in his Munqidh min al-dalāl ("Deliverance from Error"), 134 he appears to have been directly inspired by the Ikhwān for certain views expressed in his own writings, albeit without acknowledgment. In the introduction to her translation of the Risālat al-Ladunīya, a work in which al-Ghazālī presents a largely Neo-Platonist-inspired system to classify knowledge, Margaret Smith emphasises how indebted to the