Esegesi spirituale e simbologia numerica: tecniche di decifrazione in contesti ismailiti

The Ismailis, known in the Islamic world as “the people of the teaching” (ahl alta
ʽlīm), were a movement of shīʻite derivation whose formation dates back to the
second half of the 2nd /8th century. They performed a relevant function on political
and military level. Doctrinally, they have greatly contributed to the developing of
Islamic thought. The revolutionary nature of their movement and the esoteric feature
of their doctrines compelled them to act clandestinely and to spread their teachings
in an allusive and cryptic way. Among the dissimulative methods they resorted to,
there is the “science of signs”, sīmīya’. It was destined to few chosen because it was
a way to decipher the Truth disguised in all the levels of the Universe. The present
paper aims to describe how this method worked on the basic dogmas of Islamic
religion