Few biographical details are available on Abu Ishaq Ibrahim Quhistani, a prominentNizari Ismailiauthor and missionary (dai), who flourished in the second half of the 9th AH / 15th CE century and died not too long after 904 AH/1498 CE.
He was born in the district of Muminabad, to the east ofBirjandA city in Quhistan, in southern Khurasan in Iran., in Quhistan, the medieval name of the south-eastern region ofKhurasanThe northeastern region of early Islamic Persia, immediately south of Transoxania and west of Badakhshan. More. He evidently spent his entire life in that part of Persia.
As mentioned in his sole surviving work, 晨硃款喧泭莉硃莉, or Seven Chapters (pp. 24, 63), a treatise written at the beginning of the 10th AH / 16th CE century and preserved by theNizarisof Central Asia, Abu Ishaq was a contemporary of the thirty-fourth Qasimshahi NizariimamIn general usage, a leader of prayers or religious leader. The Shi’i restrict the term to their spiritual leaders descended from 尪Al蘋 b. Ab蘋 廜珀lib and the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima., Mustansir billah also known as Gharib Mirza (d. 904/1498), whose mausoleum is still preserved in the village of Anjudan in central Persia.
As explained in the first autobiographical chapter of his晨硃款喧泭莉硃莉(pp. 4-9), Abu Ishaq was born into a non-Ismaili (probably Ithnaashari) family and converted to Nizari Ismailism in his youth by a localdai. Subsequently, he was appointed to a post in thedawaor missionary organisation of the QuhistaniNizarisby the regions chiefdai, a certain Khwaja Qasim.
Author
Dr Farhad Daftary
Co-Director and Head of the Department of Academic Research and Publications
An authority in Shi’i studies, with special reference to its Ismaili tradition, Dr. Daftary has published and lectured widely in these fields of Islamic studies. In 2011 a Festschrift entitledFortresses of the Intellectwas produced to honour Dr. Daftary by a number of his colleagues and peers.