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Tazim Kassam has bravely entered this obscure and difficult field with an interesting and in some ways bold study of substantial group of ginans attributed to Pir Shams. More specifically, her work comprises English translations of the 106 text selected (originally written in the mixed languages of Northern India) accompanied by an ample historical introduction and brief textual notes, etc.
Essentially, both her introduction and translation are concerned to advanced two main contentions. First, she argues that the Sathpanth was a comprehensive and coherentreligious system, subtly integrating Islamic and Hindu elements, and not just a mishmash put together primarily to make Hindu converts feel more at home in the Ismaili faith. This proposition-not in itself new, though articulated with some skill-is linked to a rather more interesting historical character of the early Satpanth.
Put very briefly, it is Dr Kassam's view that the Satpanth evolved out of a complex process of social interaction and political alliance between various Arab Ismailies, indigenous Sindhi converts and certain Hindu groups in the Multan- Sind region during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This process was prompted by the common treat of the expanding Delhi Sultanate, and probably encouraged in its later phases by the central Nizari Ismaili directorate at Alamut in Iran. Her hypothesis thus postulates a measure of historical continuity between the earlier Ismaili state of Multan and the later Nizari mission of Shams, Satgur Nur, etc; it also has ,the advantage of providing a rather more realistic explanation for the success of the latters ' conversion of Hindus than that which is traditionally given in terms of the Pirs' miraculus preaching powers. At the same times, though Dr Kassam's thesis opens up some fresh possibilities for early Indian Ismaili history, it has to be said that much of what she relates about the general situation in Sindh/Multan is based upon the earlier researches of Maclean and others, interpreting rather than adding to this data.
As regards the deployment of original Ismaili sources, the author's main contribution lies in her use of the Pir Shams ginans to illustrate the political diamention of the Ismaili involvement in northern India. In this connection I believe she is absolutely right to draw attention to the political significance of the battle, rivalries and references to help from the West (? the Imams in Almut) which occurs in Shams ginans she has investigated. But it is also here that the value of her study would have been considerably enhanced had she also examined the contents of several other long ginans ascribed to Shams, not included within the scope of her selection, most notably the text of Mansamjani vadi, which throws further light on the political aspects of the elusive Pir's career. Similarly, though less centrally, her work on the Nizari involvement with the Indian community might have been usefully extended to include Persian Nizari sources, such as the writings of Nasir al-Din Tusi.
In this discussion of the Ismaili sources, one other more general point needs to be made about the author's treatment of the ginans themselves. Although she is certainly familiar with some of the manuscript version of her texts, her study and translations seem to be almost entirely based on the twentieth-century printed Gujrati editions and take little or no account of the problems of manuscript transmission and textual variants. Her defense of this omission largely fastens on the concepts of the special authority of the ginans as orally transmitted sacred literature, linked to the expectation that any differences between copies are likely to be of minor significance. Not all students of the history of the ginans, or of comparable literature belonging to other religious traditions, are likely to be satisfied with this explanation. Indeed, a compelling counter case can be made for holding that the historical significance of Satpanth ginans will never be properly understood until the question of their transmission and textual variation is comprehensively addressed.
In considering the nature of the translations given, a partial distinction may be drawn between the literary quality of the English rendering the extent to which they succeed in computing the original meanings. In the former area, Kasam deserves praise for the fluency of her style, and the extent to which the result often seem to reflect a deep immersion in the idea content of the ginans concerned. On the other hand, her elaborate translation methodology, involving work from a second generation (Gujrati) edition, through a series of paragraph and refinements, seems to have contributed to the inclusion of a number of mistakes, including misrepresentation or omission of certain key original names or terms (e.g. in ginan II, Samaya, the name of a town in Sindh, is confused with the modern Gujrati verb sumaya, rendered here as 'established': whilst later in the same text another place in Sindh. Daybal, is translated as 'temple'). The text also contain several other careless errors in rendering common words and phrases, which tend to mar the quality of what is otherwise quite a lively contribution to the continuing exploration of South Asian Ismailism.