Abstract:

We see that the symbolic/metaphoric language seen in Antiquity was frequently used in the history of Islamic thought. One of those who use the symbolic language in the history of Islamic philosophy is undoubtedly Ikhwan al-Safa. According to them, some concepts and abundant meanings must be made meaningful in understanding the language of religion, especially for the people. They argued that it is imperative to embody the concepts that are not understood in this sense and to use symbolic language, otherwise, most concepts in religion cannot be fully understood for these segments. It seems that Ikhwan al-Safa uses symbolic language, especially in the ontological sense. They attempted to express the ontology with symbols by moving from the apparent meaning to the aboriginal meaning since it was the easiest and first way to understand the metaphysical realm. However, each abdominal meaning to be removed from the apparent meaning naturally causes different interpretations, causing different problems to occur. Here, we will try to identify the path followed by Ikhwan al-Safa in solving these problems and to show how effective this path is in solving this problem, which still occupies the Islamic world of thought.

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