The “Friends of God” in the Rasā’il Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafā’

In Ep. 7 On the theoretical arts of the Encyclopaedia of the Pure Brethren the Iḫwān list six kinds of “legal sciences for the cure of the souls and the search for the hereafter”, from among which number five is the science of memory and spiritual admonitions, of asceticism and Sufism. The article addresses this category, and more specifically the so-called “Friends of God”, whose qualities related to gnosiology are stressed by the Iḫwān.