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The Crisis of the Imamate and the Institution of Occultation in Twelver Shiʿism: A Sociohistorical Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Said Amir Arjomand
Said Amir Arjomand
Affiliation:
Professor in the Department of Sociology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N.Y. 11794–4356, USA.
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Extract

The formative period of Imami Shiʿism from the mid-8th century to the mid-10th century remains obscure in many respects. This study is an attempt to organize the historical information about the period around a central problematic: the twin crisis of the nature of the Imamate and the succession to this office. The crisis of the Imamate and the efforts to resolve it serve as a focal point for constructing a conceptually coherent overview of these two formative centuries from a sociohistorical perspective. This perspective requires that the endeavors to create a stable system of authority in Imami Shiʿism be considered in the context of the social change and politics of the early ʿAbbasid era: ʿAlid–ʿAbbasid relations, massive conversion of the population of Iran to Islam, and the dialogue and competition between Shiʿism and other contemporary religious and intellectual trends and movements. Our approach suggests a new periodization of the early history of Imami Shiʿism.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , November 1996 , pp. 491 - 515
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

NOTES

Author's note: I am grateful to Professor Wilferd Madelung for his comments on an earlier draft of this article.

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16 Mufīd, , Irshād, 284Google Scholar; English trans., 430.

17 Ibid., 284. The version I have translated varies slightly from the one given in the printed Kamāl but is identical to the version found in some of its manuscripts (al-ṢadūqIbn Bābūya, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī Ibn Bābūya, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī, Kamāl al-dīn. wa tamām al-niʿma ft ithbāt l-ghayba wa kashf al-ḥayra, ed. Ghaffārī, A. A. [Tehran, 1970], 35, n. 6–7)Google Scholar.

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21 When Musa's death was announced, one group among his followers could not decide whether he was dead or alive because of “the many traditions proving that he was the Qaʾim, the Mahdi” (Nawbakhtī, , Firaq, 69Google Scholar; al-Qummī, Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 91Google Scholar). For instance, a tradition in which Musa affirms that he is the Qaʾim (al-qāʾim bi'l-ḥaqq) is doctored by adding the phrase “but the Qaʾim who cleanses the earth from God's enemies and fills it with justice…is the fifth of my descendants for whom there is a long occupation” (Bābūya, Ibn, Kamāl, 391Google Scholar). See also Bābūya, ʿAlī ibn, Imāma, 147Google Scholar.

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24 To forestall this, the caliph had in vain had the dead body of Musa al-Kazim identified and inspected by the judges, the Hashemites, and the army chiefs of the capital (al-Yaʿqūbī, Aḥmad ibn Wāḍiḥ, Taʾrīkh [Historiae], 2 vols., ed. Houtsma, M. Th. [Leiden, 1883], 2:499)Google Scholar. Some fifty to seventy men from his Shiʿa were reported to have been among those who inspected his corpse (Bābūya, Ibn, Kamāl, 38–39Google Scholar). al-Iṣfahānī, Abū'l-Faraj (Maqātil, 504–5Google Scholar) reports that the body was even put on public display on a bridge in Baghdad. Nevertheless, some extremists among the Waqifiyya, who claimed divinity for Musa, continued to believe that he was the Qaʾim. One Muhammad ibn Bashir even claimed access to the divine Qaʾim, and reportedly offered favored followers views of a finely dressed man (or statue) who impersonated Musa (al-Qummī, Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 62–63Google Scholar; Kashshī, , Rijāl, 477–81Google Scholar).

25 Nawbakhtī, , Firaq, 68Google Scholar; al-Qummī, Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 89–90Google Scholar.

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27 Modarressi, , Crisis, 62Google Scholar; among cited references, see esp. Kashshī, , Rijāl, 405,467Google Scholar, and Najāshī, , Rijāl, 300Google Scholar.

28 Bābūya, Ibn, ʿUyūn, 1:17–18Google Scholar.

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30 Ibid., 464, 553.

31 Al-Tabarī, , Taʿrikh, 3:976Google Scholar; English trans., The History of al-Tabarī, vol. 32: The Reunification of the ʿAbbasid Caliphate, trans. Bosworth, C. E. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), 9, 12Google Scholar; Isfahānī, , Maqātil, 523Google Scholar; Gabrieli, F., Al-Maʾ mun e gli ʿAlidi (Leipzig, 1929), 5, 15–16Google Scholar.

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35 Madelung, , “New Documents concerning al-Maʾ mun, al-Faḍl b. Sahl and ʿ Alī al-Riḍā,” in Studia Arabica Islamica. Festschrift für Iḥsān ʿ Abbās, ed. al-Qāḍi, W. (Beirut, 1981), 337Google Scholar.

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41 Arjomand, S. A., The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 58CrossRefGoogle Scholar, citing a tradition from Yaʾqūbī, , TaDrikh, 2:500Google Scholar. The eighth imam strongly disapproved of his revolutionary brother, Zayd al-Nar (Bābūya, Ibn, ʿUyūn, 2:234–38Google Scholar).

42 These phrases are used in Maʾmun–s letter to the ʿAbbasid rebels in Baghdad (Madelung, , “New Documents,” 345Google Scholar). The parousia of the Mahdi was expected for the year 200 (815)Google Scholar, and according to one apocalyptic tradition later excised from Nuʿ aym ibn Ḥammād's Kitāb al-fitan, the last of the Banu ʿ Abbas was called ʿ Abd Allah “and he is the last lord of the ʿayn among them…;he will be the key to the tribulation and sword of perdition” (cited by Madelung, , “New Documents,” 345Google Scholar).

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46 Many Zaydis, presumably including the failed rebels, were among these (Nawbakhtī, , Firaq, 73Google Scholar; al-Qummī, Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 94)Google Scholar.

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57 This is the only case of succession to an Imam in which no schism is reported. Only a few Imamis are said to have proposed an even younger son of the deceased Imam but soon returned to the fold (Nawbakhtī, , Firaq, 77Google Scholar; al-Qummī, Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 99–100)Google Scholar.

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82 Kashshī, , Rijāl, 520–28Google Scholar; Modarressi, , Crisis, 71–72Google Scholar. His name shows his father to have been a convert to Islam.

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89 Modarressi, , CrisisGoogle Scholar, chap. 2. The complex issue of the social and ethnic composition of the adherents of these rival doctrinal positions had not yet been seriously examined.

90 Ibid., 38.

91 al-Rāzī, Ibn Qiba, Naqḍ kitāb al-Ishhād li-Abī Zayd al-ʿAlawī, reproduced in Modarressi, Crisis, 181Google Scholar; English trans., 216. Ibn Qiba, however, vehemently rejected the idea and considered those who advanced it infidels.

92 Encyclopedia Iranica, 3:354–55Google Scholar, s.v. “Badā” (W. Madelung).

93 Kashshī, ,Rijāl, 516–20Google Scholar.

94 lbn Bābūya, , Kamāl, 222Google Scholar; Modarressi, , Crisis, 65Google Scholar.

95 Khalaf in al-Qummī, Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 102Google Scholar; alhar in Nawbakhtī, , Firaq, 79Google Scholar. The wording is otherwise identical in the two sources.

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98 Rāzī, , Kitāb al-zina, 290–93Google Scholar.

99 The name of the hidden Imam was kept secret on pain of anathema (Nawbakhtī, , Firaq, 91Google Scholar; al-Qummī, Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 104–5Google Scholar).

100 Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 216Google Scholar.

101 Ibid., 245–46.

102 Ibid., 216–17.

103 Ibid., 219–23; Modarressi, , Crisis, 93Google Scholar.

104 Bābūya, Ibn, Kamāl, 483Google Scholar; Ṭūsi, , Ghayba, 176Google Scholar.

105 See Arjomand, S. A., “Imam Absconditus and the Beginnings of a Theology of Occultation: Imami Shiʿism around 900 CE/280–290 AH,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 117, 1 (1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, forthcoming.

106 Ibid. for the translation of the rescript and commentary.

107 Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 257–58Google Scholar.

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109 Bābūya, Ibn, Kamāl, 93Google Scholar. Sayqal (or Saqil), the slave girl who was kept under surveillance by the caliph for two years to test the allegations that she was pregnant by Hasan al-ʿAskari, moved thereafter to the house of a Nawbakhti and was maintained as the mother of the hidden Imam for more than twenty years (Iqbal, , Khāndān, 108, 245Google Scholar).

110 lqbāl, , Khāndān, 214–16Google Scholar.

111 Ibid., 91, 120. Abu Sahl and his nephew also drew on the theological tract on the Imamate by Ibn al-Rawandi's teacher, Abu ʿIsa al-Warraq (d. 861), a Muʿtazilite convert from Manichaeanism (ibid., 102–3).

112 Madelung, , “Imamism and Muʿtazilite Theology,” in Le Shîʿisme imâmite, ed. Fahd, T., (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1979), 13Google Scholar.

113 These were Ibn Qiba al-Razi in Rayy, to be considered later, and Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Mumallak al-Isfahani, who came from Gurgan and lived in Isfahan (Najāshi, , Rijāl, 380–81Google Scholar).

114 The thesis that a viable solution to the crisis caused by the absence of the Imam required a nomocratic theology is developed in my “Consolation of Theology.”

115 Modarressi, , Crisis, 125Google Scholar.

116 Naqḍ Kitāb al-Ishhād, in Modarressi, , Crisis, 178Google Scholar; trans., 212.

117 Masʾala fi'l-Imāma in Modarressi, , Crisis, 138Google Scholar; trans., 143.

118 Ibid., 135; trans., 139.

119 Ibid., 136; trans., 140–41.

120 The Waqifite position had been revived after the death of the eleventh Imam. See Arjomand, “Imam Absconditus.”

121 The text from which the above passages were translated is preserved in Bābuya, Ibn, Kamāl, 90–94Google Scholar.

122 See n. 96.

123 al-Nadīm, Ibn, Fihrist, ed. Flügel, G. (Beirut: Khayyat Reprints, 1964 [1871]), 176Google Scholar.

124 Kulaynī, , Kāfi, 2:126–127Google Scholar; Bābūya, Ibn, Kamāl, 648Google Scholar.

125 Bābūya, Ibn, Kamāl, 92–93Google Scholar; English trans., Arjomand, “Imam Absconditus.”.

126 Muhammad was hardly an outlandish name. One of the splinter groups after the death of Imam Hasan al-ʿAskari believed that he had appointed as his successor an adult son, named Muhammad, who was under cover from fear of his uncle Jaʿfar. Another small splinter group in the Sawad of Kufa denied that the son's name was Muhammad and called him ʿAli (al-Qummī, Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 114Google Scholar).

127 Iqbāl, (Khāndān, 110–11)Google Scholar does not reject this report outright, but considers it a possible earlier opinion. If our analysis is correct, it is Abu Sahl's later view.

128 See Arjomand, “Consolation of Theology.”

129 See Iqbāl's, carefully documented account in Khāndān, 115–16Google Scholar.

130 Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 247Google Scholar.

131 Iqbāl, , Khāndān, 113–14Google Scholar. Hallaj was eventually executed in 922.

132 Klemm, , “Vier sufarāʾ,” 141–42Google Scholar.

133 Ibid., 132–41.

134 Ibn Ruh al-Nawbakhti was, according to one report, a relatively junior figure, one of the ten representatives of Ibn al-ʿAmri in Baghdad. He must, however, also have worked for Ibn al-ʿAmri as a secretary at the bureau of the Imam because one of the decrees issued by the hidden imam to curse one of Ibn al-ʿAmri's opponents appeared in his hand (Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 245Google Scholar).

135 Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 227;Google ScholarIqbāl, , Khāndān, 215–16Google Scholar. As Klemm, (“Vier Sufarā-ʾ,” 138Google Scholar, esp. n. 63) correctly observes, Umm Kulthum's grandson is the chief source for this period.

136 Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 227–28;Google ScholarIqbāl, , Khāndān, 216Google Scholar.

137 Bābūya, Ibn, Kamāl, 504Google Scholar.

138 Ibid., 509; Ṭūsī, Ghayba, 195–96.

139 After Shalmaghani's defection, Ibn Ruh was asked what the Shiʿa were to do with his books “as our houses are full of them” (Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 239Google Scholar). We know from a question answered by the Sharif al- Murtada that Shalmaghani's legal manuals were still in use a century later (Rasāʿil al-sharīf al-Murtaḍā [Qumm: Dār al-Qurʾān, 198?] 1:279)Google Scholar.

140 Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 239Google Scholar; Iqbāl, , Khāndān, 230–34Google Scholar.

141 Ibid., 218.

142 Arjomand, , Shadow of God, 43Google Scholar, citing Tūsī, , Ghayba, 241Google Scholar.

143 Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 250Google Scholar. On the late Zoroastrian political oracles, see Kippenberg, “Mittelpersischen Traditionen,” 64–70Google Scholar.

144 Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 147–50Google Scholar.

145 Ibid., 220–21; Klemm, , “Vier Sufarāʾ,” 133Google Scholar.

146 Modarressi, , Crisis, 78–79, 82–83Google Scholar.

147 Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 227, 248–50Google Scholar; Iqbāl, , Khāndān, 215, 232–34Google Scholar.

148 Bābūya, Ibn, Kamāl, 516Google Scholar. The editor notes (n. 1) that the variant tāmma (complete) is found in some copies of the manuscript. The latter variant is the one given in Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 243Google Scholar.

149 Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 254–56Google Scholar.

150 Bābūya, Ibn, Kamāl, 516Google Scholar; Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 243Google Scholar.

151 Bābūya, Ibn, Kamāl, 3Google Scholar.

152 Kohlberg, E., “From Imāmiyya to Ilhnāʿashariyya,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 39 (1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Modarressi, , Crisis, 97–98Google Scholar. The sense of doubt pervades the short sections on the Lord of the House (ṣāḥib al-dār) and the occultation in Kulayni's Kāfi (1:117–20Google Scholar), and in dating one report, Kulayni uses the term perplexity (ḥayra) instead of occultation (ghayba) as the beginning of the period (2:470)Google Scholar. A rescript issued by the secretariat at the holy seat in response to a certain Ibn Abi Ghanim similarly speaks of the believers’ “doubt and perplexity (ḥayra) concerning those in authority” (Ṭūsī, , Ghayba, 173Google Scholar).

153 Bābūya, Ibn, Kamāl, 87–93Google Scholar.

154 Arjomand, “Consolation of Theology.”