The Kitāb al-Kashf is one of the oldest Ismaili books to have reached us. This collection of six treatises contains several elements showing the proximity of Shi‘i ghulāt circles to the early Ismailis, as it appears when comparing it with both ghulāt literature and Nusayrī texts. However, the Kitāb al-Kashf is also a testimony to the early Fatimid caliphate’s attempts to reorganise its doctrine and to legitimise its temporal power. This lecture will present some ambiguous passages of the text in which traces of early Shi‘i ideas can still be detected despite their Fatimid rewriting.
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Dr Fârès Gillon
Fârès Gillon is maître de conférences in Islamic Studies and Arabic language at Aix-Marseille University. He obtained his doctorate in Arab and Islamic studies from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE, PSL). His recent publications include The Book of Unveiling, Early Fatimid Ismaili Doctrine in the Kitāb al-Kashf, attributed to Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman (2024). His research focuses primarily on Fatimid Ismailism, especially in its relations with its Shiʿi roots and with the parallel tradition of Nusayrism on which he has published several scholarly articles. He is also interested in the history of ideas in Islam, as well as in Islamic philosophy. He co-edited, with Mathieu Terrier, a bilingual anthology of philosophy in Islam (forthcoming).
