Nasir-i Khusraw (d. 469/1077), who was appointed by the Fatimid imam al-
Mustansir bi’llah (d. 487/1094) as the ḥujjat and chief dā‘ī for the region of
Khurasan, lived the later period of his life exiled in Badakhshan due to religious
persecution. This treatise, a virtual summa of eleventh-century Ismaili
philosophical theology put forth in a question-and-answer format, deals with
almost all of the scientific and philosophical issues that occupied the minds
of the Isma‘ili mission of his time. The context is a reply to the amīr of
Badakhshan, Abu al-Ma‘ali ‘Ali ibn al-Asad (reign 462/1069), who had requested
Nasir to explain Abu al-Haytham Ahmad ibn al-Hasan al-Jurjani’s (d.
10th century) philosophical qaṣīdah. The text itself, originally edited by Henry
Corbin and Mohammed Mu‘in in 1953, offers an alternative reading to Latimah
Parvin Peerwani’s clear but partial English translation, which was recently
published in the second volume of An Anthology of Philosophy of
Persia. Ibrahim al-Dasuqi Shata had translated the 1953 edition into Arabic
in 1974, and Isabelle de Gastines’ French translation was made available in
1990.
Source: American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences