The Master and the Disciple: An Early Islamic Spiritual Dialogue

This volume includes a fully annotated translation and Arabic critical edition of one of the earliest surviving Ismaili Shi'i writings, by the Yemeni author Ja'far Ibn Mansur al-Yaman. In addition to being a key source for pre-Fatimid Ismaili history, "The Master and the Disciple" is important as the most elaborate example of the narrated dramatic dialogue form in Arabic literature. The work also illustrates the processes by which early esoteric Shi'i ideas and institutions eventually contributed to the evolution of more familiar forms of Sufism in the Islamic West.