Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani

Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani (died c. 411 AH / 1020-21 CE) was among the most learned thinkers of the Fatimid Ismaili tradition — a Shia branch whose imam-caliphs then ruled from Cairo. His birth date is not recorded; the name "al-Kirmani" suggests he was, as sources put it, probably born in the Persian province of Kirman, of Persian origin.

He spent most of his career as a da'i (a religious missionary and teacher of the Ismaili cause) in Iraq — chiefly Baghdad and Basra — and in central and western Iran. His title, hujjat al-Iraqayn ("proof," i.e. chief authority, "of the two Iraqs," Arab and Persian Iraq), marks this regional role.

He is remembered above all for his learning under the caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah (reigned 996-1021). Around 1014 he was called to Cairo to help counter dissident missionaries — among them al-Akhram, Hamza, and al-Darazi — who were proclaiming al-Hakim to be divine; their movement became the Druze faith. Al-Kirmani wrote several treatises, such as al-Risala al-Waiza, rejecting that claim. Reports hold these writings had some success in checking the doctrine.

His masterwork, Rahat al-aql ("Repose of the Intellect"), completed in 411/1020, set out a cosmology of ten Intellects emanating from God, fusing the Neoplatonic and Aristotelian philosophy of his day with Ismaili thought. Whether he then returned to Iraq, and exactly where he died, the sources do not settle.