Kitab al-Majmu‘ ( ar, كتاب المجموع "The Book of the Collection") is a book which is claimed by some Sunni Muslims and former Alawites to be the main source of teaching of the ‘Alawi sect of Islam.Glassé, Cyril. 2008. The New Encyclopedia of Islam. Walnut Creek CA: AltaMira Press, p.37 They claim the book is not openly published and instead is passed down from initiated Master to

Apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

; however, the book has been published by Western scholars, and both the original Arabic and French translation are available on the Internet Archive. The Alawis, however, reject this book as baseless and state that their main source of teaching is

Nahj al-Balagha ''Nahj al-Balagha'' ( ar, نَهْج ٱلْبَلَاغَة ', 'The Path of Eloquence') is the best-known collection of sermons, letters, and sayings attributed to Ali ibn Abi Talib, fourth Rashidun Caliph, first Shia Imam and the cousin and so ...

. According to Matti Moosa: :''Kitab al-Majmu'' contains sixteen suras (chapters) incorporated by Sulayman al-Adani in his ''Kitab al-Bakura''... ''Kitab al-Majmu'' was published with a French translation by

René Dussaud René Dussaud (; December 24, 1868 – March 17, 1958) was a French Orientalist, archaeologist, and epigrapher. Among his major works are studies on the religion of the Hittites, the Hurrians, the Phoenicians and the Syriacs. He became curator ...

in his ''Histoire et Religion des Nosairis'', 161-98. The Arabic text of the same is found in Abu Musa al-Hariri's ''al-Alawiyyun al-Alawiyya'' (Dubai: Dar al-Itisam, 1980), 145-74. An English translation by Edward E. Salisbury was published in '' Journal of the American Oriental Society'' in 1866. The man who revealed the alleged book was Sulayman al-Adani, an Alawite convert to Christianity. It is also known as ''al-Dustoor'', and has been attributed to an 11th-century Alawite missionary, ''al-Maymoun al-Tabarani''; however, Yaron Friedman says that the Dustur and Kitab al-Majmu are different texts and their identification is a mistake. Yaron Friedman suggests that Kitab al-Majmu was influenced by Jewish esoteric traditions found in the '' Sefer Yetzirah''; Friedman in particular points to the similarity of the texts in their letter mysticism, comparing Sefer Yetzirah's "great secret" (''sod gadol'') of ''aleph-mem-shīn'' to Kitab al-Majmu's secret (''sirr'') of ''ʿayn-mīm-sīn''. Contemporary Alawis insist that the ''Kitab al-Majmu'' is fabricated, some even suggesting that it is a forgery created by 19th century Christian missionaries.

References

External links

French translation by René Dussaud (HTML version)
Islam-related literature Alawites {{Islam-stub