Доклады Международного конгресса ИИСАА. Т. 1

II. Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia / Ближний Восток, Кавказ и Центральная Азия Доклады Международного конгресса по источниковедению и историографии стран Азии и Африки. Т. 1. 2020 95 published four titles, of which three were related to Ismaili literature. His Ismailitica I and II belong to this early publication of him on Ismaili. 1 Ismailitica II included his notes on the Ismailis in Persia became obsolete and was in need of complete revision. Ismailitica I, on the other hand, included Khayr-khwāh Harātī’s Faṣl dar bayān-e shinākht-e imām: risālahʾi dar ḥudūd-e dīn (On the Recognition of the Imam of the Time: A Treatise on the Ranks of Faith) and was still reliable. 2 He published a revised English edition of Khayr-khwāh Harātī’s Faṣl dar bayān-e shinākht-e imām in 1947, 3 and its third edition, which also included the Persian edition as well as the English translation of the text was published in 1960. 4 Ivanow made an attempt at editing the Persian text but he could not avoid many errors in the edited text. In 1947, the Ismaili Society of Bombay also published a Gujarati version of the text. 5 He was aware of the fact that most of the sources of scholarly information on Ismaili history and doctrine until the early 1930s were not reliable. In his preface to a Brief Survey of the Evolution of Ismailism , he stated that: Much has been written on the subject [Ismailism], but all this has been based almost entirely on information derived from sources bitterly hostile to the [Ismaili] movement. Their only aim was to discredit it in every possible way, and hence all means which served this purpose were regarded as good and permissible. 6 There were two main reasons why the literature produced on Ismaili history and doctrines lacked reliability and scholarly validity. Firstly, the polemical works of the medieval Sunni Muslims, encouraged by the ʿAbbāsid caliphs and other forces hostile to the Ismailis, produced and reproduced fake accounts on the history and true genealogy and origin of the Ismaili Fatimid caliphs and imams. These works came to be termed the Black Legends. Secondly, the Crusaders (1095–1492) added another layer of fabricated narratives on the Ismaili doctrines and produced what came to be known as theAssassin Legends. The Crusaders viewed Islam as the enemy of Chris- tianity and aimed to defame Islam as a whole without an interest in understanding the various schools ( madhāhib ) within Islam. Farhad Daftary 7 provides an account of the evolution of the Sunni Black Legends and the Crusaders’ Assassin Legends, which then merged together and led to the circulation of false accounts about Ismaili history and doctrines. Given the scale of fabricated and fictitious literature on Ismailism, Ivanow stated that “those who work over genuine Ismaili sources have to revise almost every point, 1 Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal , Calcutta. 1922. Vol. VIII. P. 1–76. 2 IvanowW. Ismaili Tradition Concerning the Rise of the Fatimids. Oxford, 1942. P. xi-xiii. 3 Khayr-khwāh Harātī. On the Recognition of the Imām, 1947. 4 Khayr-khwāh Harātī. Faṣl dar Bayan-i Shinakht-i Imam. 1960. 5 Khayr-khwāh Harātī. Shinākht-e-Imam, 1947. 6 Ivanow W. Brief Survey of the Evolution of Ismailism. Bombay, 1952. P. i. 7 Daftary F. The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismaʿilis. London, 2001.