Обсуждение:Ши‘изм
Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān / Shīʿa
Literally, “party/followers.” The term shīʿa occurs eleven times in the Qurʾān, with the first use in Sūrat al-Anʿām (q 6, “The Cattle”) and the last in Sūrat al-Qamar (q 54, “The Moon”). The word itself is lexically derived from the Arabic verb shāʿa, yashīʿu, meaning “to spread, disseminate, divulge, publicize or become known,” and in this sense occurs once, in q 24:19: “Those who love to spread (an tashīʿa) scandal among the believers….” The primary meaning of the term shīʿa (pl. shiyaʿ and ashyāʿ) that is conveyed in the Qurʾān is that of factions, communities, people with similar views and faith, followers and supporters, as portrayed in q 37:83, “Verily Abraham (q.v.) was surely among the followers [of Noah; q.v.]” (wa-inna min shīʿatihi la-Ibrāhīm; see parties and factions).
q 6:65 speaks of God's power to reduce humankind to factions (aw yalbisakum shiyaʿan), with exegetes offering varying opinions as to whether shiyaʿ meant the Jews and Christians in particular or the consequence of arbitrary human conflict (see jews and judaism; christians and christianity; religious pluralism and the qurʾān). Al-Qummī (fl. mid fourth/tenth cent.; Tafsīr, ad loc.) alludes to religious differences and ʿAlī b. ¶ Muḥammad b. al-Walīd (d. 612/1215; Tāj, ad loc.) to community dispute after the Prophet. q 6:159 refers to those who split their religion and become disparate groups (kānū shiyaʿan), and q 30:31-2 exhorts believers not to be part of them (see religion; belief and unbelief). q 28:4 addresses Pharaoh (q.v.) who arrogantly created divisions among his people (wa- jaʿala ahlahā shiyaʿan). The plural form ashyāʿ in q 34:54 as interpreted by al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923; Tafsīr, ad q 54:51), refers to those who had intensely questioned the truth (q.v.), while q 54:51 addresses the polytheists (see polytheism and atheism) among Quraysh (q.v.), warning them about how communities in the past had been destroyed (kamā fuʿila bi-ashyāʿihim; see punishment stories).
q 15:10, on the other hand, employs the term to portray communities to whom messengers (see messenger) had been sent: “Indeed, we sent [messengers] before you among communities of the past” (arsalnā min qablika fī shiyaʿ al-awwalīna). Twice in q 28:15 it is used for Moses (q.v.), exegetes agreeing that shīʿatihi meant the religion of Moses, just as they explain min shīʿatihi in q 37:83 as Abraham following Noah's religion. In Ibn al-Walīd's Tāj al-aqāʾid, these verses appear inter-textually to reflect religion as affection for ʿAlī (see ʿalī b. abī ṭālib) alongside the prophetic tradition regarding Noah's ark (q.v.), which states that true believers are henceforth called shīʿa.
Thus, in four instances (q 6:65, 159; 28:4; 30:32), the term shīʿa has been used to convey the meaning of factions while on four other occasions the word is applied to ancient communities of faith to whom prophets were sent (q.v.; q 15:10; 28:15 twice; 37:83; see prophets and prophethood). When the Qurʾān speaks of shiyaʿ al-awwalīn and shīʿatihi, it essentially refers to previously rightly-guided communities (see ¶ generations), but kānū shiyaʿan is used in the divisive sense, while the plural ashyāʿ is applied to formerly erring people (see error; astray), and min kullī shīʿatin in q 19:69 means communities in general.
In post-qurʾānic Arabic writings, the word shīʿa can be used in either a qualified or unqualified form, as definite or indefinite. The word can be used in a construct phrase to indicate the “followers” of a particular individual: shīʿat Muʿāwiya, for example. Invariably, when the term is found with the definite article (al-) and no other qualifier, the followers of ʿAlī are meant: al-shīʿa are the “followers [of ʿAlī]” (shīʿat ʿAlī), those who, as described in Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī's (d. ca. 322/934) Kitāb al-Zīna, were intimate with ʿAlī during the lifetime of the Prophet (see also shīʿism and the qurʾān; family of the prophet; people of the house; politics and the qurʾān).
- Bibliography
- Primary
Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Aḥmad b. Ḥamdān, Kitāb al-Zīna, ed. in ʿAbdallāh al-Sāmarrāʾi, al-Ghuluww, Baghdad 1972
Bayḍāwī, Anwār
Ibn al-Walīd, ʿAlī b. Muḥammad, Tāj al-ʿaqāʾid wa-maʿdin al-fawāʾid, Beirut 1967
Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman, Kitāb al-Kashf, ed. R. Strothmann, London 1952
Naṣr b. Muzāḥim Abū l-Faḍl al-Minqarī, Waqʿat Ṣiffīn, ed. ʿA.M. Hārūn, Cairo 1962, 19813
Qummī, Tafsīr
Ṭabarī, Tafsīr
id., Taʾrīkh
Yaʿqūbī, Taʾrīkh
Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf
- Secondary
M.M. Bar-Asher, Scripture and exegesis in early Imāmī Shiism, Leiden 1999
S.H.M. Jafri, Origins and early development of Shiʿa Islam, London 1979, 20002
A.R. Lalani, Early Shīʿī thought. The teachings of Imam Muḥammad al-Bāqir, London 2000
W. Madelung, The succession to Muhammad. A study of the early caliphate, Cambridge 1997
W.M. Watt, The formative period of Islamic thought, Edinburgh 1973, Oxford 19982
J. Wellhausen, The religio-political factions in early Islam, ed. R.C. Ostle, trans. R.C. Ostle and S.M. Walzer, Amsterdam/New York 1975
- Cite this page
Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān / Shīʿism and the Qurʾān
- Article Table of Contents
- The attitude of the Shīʿa to the Qurʾān
- Principles and methods of Shīʿī exegesis
- Major Shīʿī exegetes and their works
- Bibliography
At present, the Shīʿīs, who differ from the Sunnī majority concerning the legitimacy of the political and spiritual succession to Muḥammad, comprise about ten percent of the Islamic community. Like the Sunnīs, they enjoy a rich tradition of scholarship in Islamic sciences, including both ḥadīth collection and classification as well as qurʾānic exegesis. Just as their conception of the legitimate leadership of the Muslim community evolved differently from that of their Sunnī counterparts, so, too, did their understanding of the Qurʾān itself. The following, therefore, will discuss, first, the attitude of the Shīʿa towards the Qurʾān and then provide an overview of the principles and methods of Shīʿī exegesis. It will conclude with a presentation of some of the major Shīʿī exegetes and their works.
- The attitude of the Shīʿa to the Qurʾān
One of the bones of contention between Sunnī and Shīʿī Islam concerns the integrity of the Qurʾān. The Shīʿa (q.v.) disputed the canonical validity of the ʿUthmānic codex, the textus receptus, of the Qurʾān (see collection of the qurʾān; codices of the qurʾān) and cast doubt on the quality of its editing, alleging political tendentiousness on the part of the editors — namely, the three first caliphs (see caliph), particularly the third of them, ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (r. 23-35/644-56). Shīʿī (mainly Imāmī) criticism of the qurʾānic text was most severe in the first centuries of Islam (see politics and the qurʾān; textual criticism of the qurʾān). The editors were accused of falsification (taḥrīf) of the qurʾānic text by both the omission of some phrases and the addition of others (see revision and alteration). Moreover, the claim that the Qurʾān had been falsified is one of the principal arguments to which early Shīʿī ¶ tradition resorted to explain the absence of any explicit reference to the Shīʿa in the Qurʾān.
In Shīʿī qurʾānic commentaries many traditions are found accusing the Companions of the Prophet (q.v.) of violating the integrity of the qurʾānic text. In one of these traditions, cited in the commentary (tafsīr) ascribed to the Imām Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (d. 260/873-4), it is stated that “Those whose ambitions overcame their wisdom (alladhīna ghalabat ahwāʾuhum ʿuqūlahum, i.e. the ṣaḥāba) falsified (ḥarrafū) the true meaning of God's book and altered it (wa-ghayyarūhu)” (ʿAskarī, Tafsīr, 95; cf. Kohlberg, Some notes, 212 and n. 37). A treasure trove of such traditions is Kitāb al-Qirāʾāt (known also as Kitāb al-Tanzīl wa-l-taḥrīf) by Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Sayyārī (fl. late third/ninth century), of which an annotated edition is in preparation by M.A. Amir-Moezzi and E. Kohlberg. A similar tradition — which, however, does not blame the Companions of the Prophet for the falsification — is found in the Qurʾān commentary of al-ʿAyyāshī (d. ca. 320/932): “Had the book of God not been subject to additions and omissions, our righteousness would not have been hidden from any [person] of wisdom” (lawlā annahu zīda fī kitāb Allāh wa-nuqiṣa minhu mā khafiya ḥaqqunā ʿalā dhī ḥijan; ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, i, 25). In a similar tradition it is stated: “The [Qurʾān] contained the names of [various] persons, but these names have been removed” (kānat fīhi asmāʾu l-rijāl fa-ulqiyat; ibid., i, 24). The commentator does not attempt to validate this general claim with examples of texts that, in his opinion, have been altered.
Just how unspecific these traditions are can be demonstrated by an account ascribed to Imām Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), cited in relation to verse q 2:79: “On leaving the house of the [caliph] ʿUthmān, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ met ¶ the Commander of the Faithful [ʿAlī; see ʿalī b. abī ṭālib ] and said to him: ‘O ʿAlī, we have spent the night on a matter with which we hope God will strengthen this community.’ ʿAlī answered him: ‘I know how you spent the night: you have falsified, altered and changed (ḥarraftum wa-ghayyartum wa-baddaltum) nine hundred letters/words (ḥarf); falsified three hundred letters/words, changed three hundred letters/words and altered three hundred letters/words. [And then ʿAlī added this verse, q 2:79]: Woe to those who write the book (q.v.) with their hands and then say, ‘this is from God’” (fa-waylun lilladhīna yaktubna l-kitāba bi-aydīhim thumma yaqūlūna hādhā min ʿindi llāhi; ibid., i, 66). It is obvious that the figures quoted here are not to be taken at face value, just as the three different verbs used to describe the editorial activity (ḥarrafa, ghayyara and baddala) in no way indicate discrete falsification techniques (see forgery; corruption).
Numerous Shīʿī utterances refer to the nature of the original text of the Qurʾān prior to its alleged corruption by the Sunnīs. In a well-known tradition, which appears in the writings of most early Imāmī commentators, Imām Muḥammad al-Bāqir (d. ca 114/732) declares: “The Qurʾān was revealed [consisting of] four parts: One part concerning us [the Shīʿa], one part concerning our enemies, one part commandments (q.v.) and regulations (farāʾiḍ wa-aḥkām; see virtues and vices, commanding and forbidding; boundaries and precepts; law and the qurʾān) and one part customs and parables (sunan wa-amthāl; see parable). And the exalted parts of the Qurʾān refer to us” (wa-lanā karāʾim al-Qurʾān; ibid., i, 20 and 21 where a tripartite division is suggested; cf. also the following sources, in which allusion is made to division into either three or four parts: Sayyārī, Qirāʾāt, tradition no. 11; ¶ Furāt, Tafsīr, 1, 2; Kulaynī, Kāfī, ii, 627-8; Goldziher, Richtungen, 288). Other accounts refer to the length of the original Qurʾān. It is believed to have contained 17,000 verses (q.v.; Sayyārī, Qirāʾāt, tradition no. 16). q 33 is given as an example of a text that in the original Qurʾān was two and two-third times longer than Sūrat al-Baqara (“The Cow,” q 2; ibid., tradition no. 418; see sūras), which in turn was longer than the version in the ʿUthmānic codex (ibid., tradition no. 421).
The discrepancy between the qurʾānic text and the Shīʿī viewpoint is not necessarily one that a “correct” interpretation can remedy. This discrepancy results from a textual gap between the incomplete qurʾānic text found in the possession of the Sunnīs and the ideal text that, according to Shīʿī belief, is no longer in anyone's possession but will be revealed by the Mahdī in the eschatological era (see eschatology).
Later, beginning in the fourth/tenth century, in the wake of the political and social changes that Shīʿism underwent, a tendency to moderation became apparent, and some of the criticism became muted. Imāmī-Shīʿī scholars — among them Muḥammad b. al-Nuʿmān, better known as al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/ 1022), al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044), Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067), one of the eminent Imāmī-Shīʿī exegetes, and Abū ʿAlī l-Faḍl b. Ḥasan al-Ṭabarsī (d. 548/1153) — held that although the text of the Qurʾān as we have it is incomplete, it does not contain any falsifications. In other words, what is found in the ʿUthmānic codex is the truth but not the whole truth since it does not include all the revelations made to Muḥammad (see revelation and inspiration). (On the various positions taken by Imāmī- Shīʿīs on this question, see Kohlberg, Some notes.)
¶ Despite the moderate views expressed by these and other Shīʿī scholars, the opinion that the Qurʾān was falsified has been perpetuated throughout the history of Shīʿism and persists to this day. Prominent scholars in Iran during the Ṣafavid period — including Muḥammad b. Murtaḍā al- Kāshānī, known as Muḥsin al-Fayḍ (d. 1091/1680), Hāshim b. Sulaymān al-Baḥrānī (d. 1107/1693 or 1109/1697), and Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī (d. 1110/1699 or 1111/1700) — revived the debate about the integrity of the Qurʾān, basing their anti-Sunnī polemics upon traditions extant in the early Shīʿī corpus of tafsīr and ḥadīth (see ḥadīth and the qurʾān).
One of the most radical works ever written on this matter is the Faṣl al-khiṭāb fī taḥrīf kitāb rabb al-arbāb by the eminent Shīʿī scholar Ḥusayn Taqī Nūrī l-Ṭabarsī (d. 1320/1902). In this work Nūrī brought together a great number of traditions referring to the question of the falsification of the Qurʾān. A recurrent tradition on which Nūrī bases his argument in favor of taḥrīf draws an analogy between the Shīʿīs and the Jews (a notion that in itself is very common in Shīʿī literature): “Just as the Jews and the Christians (see jews and judaism; christians and christianity; people of the book) altered and falsified the book of their prophet [sic; see prophets and prophethood ] after him, this community [i.e. the Muslims] shall alter and falsify the Qurʾān after our Prophet — may God bless him and his family — for everything that happened to the Children of Israel (q.v.) is bound to happen to this community” (inna l-yahūd wa-l-naṣārā ghayyarū wa-ḥarrafū kitāb nabiyyihim baʿdahu fa-hādhihi l-umma ayḍan lā budda wa-an yughayyirū l-Qurʾān baʿda nabiyyinā ṣallā llāh ʿalayhi wa-ahlihi li-anna kulla mā waqaʿa fī banī Isrāʾīl lā budda wa-an yaqaʿa fī hādhihi l-umma; Nūrī, Faṣl, 35; ¶ whence Brunner, The dispute, 439; see community and society in the qurʾān). It should be stressed, however, that Nūrī's extreme anti-Sunnī tone was criticized even by the Shīʿī scholars of his day. Nevertheless, the question of taḥrīf never ceased to be a burning issue in Shīʿī-Sunnī discourse, to the point that “there is hardly a new book on the general subject of the qurʾānic sciences whose author can afford not to include a long chapter dealing with taḥrīf” (Brunner, The dispute, 445; see traditional disciplines of qurʾānic study).
Significant as it may be, the claim of forgery — i.e. that issues relating to the Shīʿa were deliberately omitted from the Qurʾān — is not the sole argument used by Shīʿī authors to explain the absence of any explicit mention of the ahl al-bayt/Shīʿa in the Qurʾān (see people of the house). Two additional arguments are (a) the Qurʾān contains hidden meanings, which the exegete should decipher (see polysemy) and (b) the Qurʾān teaches principles while tradition expounds their details.
The most common approach explaining the absence of references to the Shīʿa in the Qurʾān asserts that it is in the nature of the Qurʾān to speak in symbols and codes (see metaphor; similes; symbolic imagery) and according to this approach it should come as no surprise that the Qurʾān does not mention the Shīʿa explicitly: those who know how to read between the lines can decipher the passages that allude to the Shīʿa. This is the principle underlying the broad attempt to interpret many obscure qurʾānic verses (mubhamāt) as well as some quite clear ones, as referring to the Shīʿa. Even a cursory reading of the early Shīʿī tafsīrs reveals how wholeheartedly this approach was embraced by Shīʿī commentators.
The other approach — that the Qurʾān ¶ teaches principles while tradition expounds their details — is expressed, for example, in the answer al-Bāqir gave to one of his disciples concerning the reason ʿAlī is not mentioned in the Qurʾān:
Say to them [i.e. to those who put this question to you]: God revealed to his messenger [the verses about] prayer (q.v.) and did not [explicitly] mention three or four [prayers] until this was interpreted by the messenger. So also he revealed [the verses about] the pilgrimage (q.v.), but did not reveal the injunction “encircle [the Kaʿba (q.v.)] seven times.” So too is the meaning of the verse [ q 4:59] “Obey God and obey the messenger and those in authority (q.v.) among you.” This verse was revealed in relation to ʿAlī, Ḥasan and Ḥusayn (ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, i, 276; see obedience; kings and rulers).
According to this tradition, the reason ʿAlī and his disciples are not mentioned explicitly in the Qurʾān is that the Qurʾān, by its very nature, restricts itself to general principles; it presents religious laws and general rulings yet does not go into details, a prerogative reserved for the interpreter. This tripartite argumentation in no way suggests that these were three separate approaches to the problem, each exclusive of the other. Rather, the three together demonstrate the problems that Shīʿī exegetes faced and the attempts they made to resolve them.
- Principles and methods of Shīʿī exegesis
Shīʿī exegetes, perhaps even more than their Sunnī counterparts, support their distinctive views by reference to qurʾānic proof-texts (see exegesis of the qurʾān: classical and medieval). A major distinction is that the Shīʿī exegetes attempt to find in the Qurʾān explicit references to such themes as the imāms' (see imām) ¶ supernatural and mystical qualities, their authority to interpret the Qurʾān and other religious scriptures, or such major Shīʿī doctrines as the duty of loyalty (q.v.) to the imāms (walāya) and dissociation from their enemies (barāʾa).
A fundamental principle of Shīʿī exegetical tradition is that the authority to interpret the Qurʾān is reserved for ʿAlī and his descendants, the imāms. In a well-known ḥadīth, cited in both Sunnī and Shīʿī sources, Muḥammad is said to have declared: “There is one among you who will fight for the [correct] interpretation of the Qurʾān just as I myself fought for its revelation, and he is ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib” (inna fī-kum man yuqātilu ʿalā taʾwīl al-Qurʾān kamā qātaltu ʿalā tanzīlihi wa-huwa ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib; ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, i, 27; Shahrastānī, Milal, 189; and cf. Gimaret and Monnot, Livre, i, 543, and n. 231, where further sources are cited; also Poonawala, Ismāʿīlī taʾwīl, 209-10). This idea of ʿAlī and (implicitly) also his descendants being presented by the Prophet himself as interpreters of the Qurʾān is also deduced from other traditions, the most famous of which is “the tradition about the two weighty things” (ḥadīth al-thaqalayn), i.e. the two things that Muḥammad is reported to have bequeathed to his believers. There are significant differences between the Sunnī and Shīʿī exegetical traditions regarding both the identity of these two “things” and the interpretation of the ḥadīth. According to one version, they are the book of God (kitāb Allāh) and the Prophet's practice (sunnat nabiyyihi, Ibn Isḥāq-Guillaume, 651; see sunna). Other versions of this tradition, recorded in both Sunnī and Shīʿī works, mention as the thaqalān the Qurʾān and the family of the Prophet (q.v.; ahl al-bayt). The explanation given in Shīʿī sources as to the discrepancy between the two versions of this tradition is that while in Sunnī exegesis the practice ¶ of the Prophet is considered a tool for interpreting the Qurʾān (and is therefore mentioned in conjunction with the book itself), in Shīʿī tradition the family of the Prophet plays the equivalent role: only through the mediation of the imāms, the descendants of the Prophet, are both the exoteric (ẓāhir) and the esoteric (bāṭin) meanings of the qurʾānic text revealed to believers. The thaqalān are further viewed as being forever intertwined with each other (lan yaftariqā) or, in the words of al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067): “This tradition proves that [the Qurʾān] exists in every generation, since it is unlikely that [Muḥammad] would order us to keep something which we cannot keep, just as the family of the Prophet, and those we are ordered to follow, are present at all times” (Ṭūsī, Tibyān, i, 3-4). The distance from here to the creation of the metaphor describing the imāms as “the speaking book of God” (kitāb Allāh al-nāṭiq) is short indeed (see e.g. Bursī, Mashāriq, 135; Ayoub, The speaking Qurʾān, 183, n. 17; Poonawala, Ismāʿīlī taʾwīl, 200).
The authority of the imāms as interpreters of the Qurʾān is reiterated in many traditions other than the ḥadīth al-thaqalayn. One tradition defining the many functions of the imāms includes their role as interpreters of the Qurʾān: “We know how to interpret the book [i.e. the Qurʾān] and how to speak clearly” (naʿrifu taʾwīl al-kitāb wa-faṣl al-khiṭāb; ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, i, 28).
These as well as numerous other traditions have but one purpose — to make clear that those qualified to interpret the Qurʾān are the imāms, and that this right was bestowed upon them directly by God. In the absence of the imāms, the duty of the text's interpreters is restricted to preserving traditions in their name and making these available to believers (see teaching and preaching the qurʾān). The interpreters are thus no more than a ¶ vehicle and, at least theoretically, are not authorized to pronounce their own views (ibid., i, 27; Qummī, Tafsīr, ii, 397).
Among Shīʿīs, as among other religious circles and groups operating on the fringes of society, allegory, typology and secret codes became favorite methods of interpreting the Qurʾān. Nevertheless, only heterodox factions such as the Nuṣayrīs and the Druze (see druzes) went so far as to view the inner meaning of the Qurʾān as the exclusive, binding authority. At times such techniques derive from an elitist outlook, one which maintains that religious secrets (q.v.; see also hidden and the hidden) should be concealed from the masses and be the unique privilege of the elect. Sometimes it derives from an existential necessity: religious and ideological minorities may find themselves in danger as a consequence of overt and careless expression of ideas unpalatable to the ruling majority (see heresy; theology and the qurʾān). And indeed, the fact that many Shīʿī factions throughout their history flourished under Sunnī rule required the use of survival techniques both in everyday life and when committing their religious doctrines to writing. Shīʿī scholars had to walk a fine line: on the one hand, they wished to give whenever possible expression to their real intentions; on the other hand, they had to make sure that the expression of such ideas did not arouse the wrath of their Sunnī opponents. This is one of the clearest manifestations of the doctrine of precautionary dissimulation (q.v.; taqiyya).
An illustration of the allegorical approach (taʾwīl) of Shīʿī Qurʾān exegesis may be seen in the interpretation of the night journey of Muḥammad referred to in the first verse of q 17 (Sūrat al-Isrāʾ, “The Night Journey”; see ascension). Although aware of the conventional interpretation of this verse as referring to an ¶ actual journey during which the Prophet was borne from Mecca (q.v.) to Jerusalem (q.v.), Ismāʿīlī as well as Nuṣayrī authors interpreted this passage as a symbol of the spiritual progress of the imāms or other persons within the divine realm. (For the Ismāʿīlī approach, see e.g. al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān, Asās al-taʾwīl, 337; for the Nuṣayrī interpretation, see the epistle of the Nuṣayrī author Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Ḥusayn b. Hārūn al-Ṣāʾigh [fl. fourth/tenth century] in Bar-Asher and Kofsky, The Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawī religion, 89-97.)
Ismāʿīlīs tend to employ allegory to, inter alia, interpret Muslim law. Thus, for example, “the pillars of Islam” are given in Ismāʿīlī writings symbolic meanings: the five obligatory prayers correspond to the five divine ranks (ḥudūd) in the Ismāʿīlī hierarchical system; almsgiving (q.v.; zakāt) means that those with knowledge should provide reliable mentors to guide the people (see knowledge and learning); fasting (q.v.; ṣawm) entails observing silence and not betraying religious secrets to the uninitiated; pilgrimage to Mecca, the house of God (see house, domestic and divine), symbolizes an audience with the imām, since God's knowledge resides with him (Poonawala, Ismāʿīlī taʾwīl, 218, paraphrasing Kitāb al-Iftikhār, 240 f., by the prominent Ismāʿīlī dāʿī Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī [d. ca. 361/971]). It is worth mentioning that this tendency, prevalent in Ismāʿīlism, is shared by Ghulāt groups such as the Nuṣayrīs and the Druzes. A significant difference, however, should be noted. Moderate allegorists — e.g. Imāmī Shīʿī and most Ismāʿīlīs — maintained that the allegorical interpretation that extracts the true meaning of the Qurʾān does not aim to invalidate the plain meaning of the text (see e.g. Bar-Asher, Scripture and exegesis, 122-4). Heterodox groups, in contrast, often held that allegory was the only correct interpretation and thus belittled and even ¶ ignored the revealed meaning of the texts.
This distinction became especially glaring with regard to legal matters. Consistent allegorical interpretation led its practitioners, more often than not, to adopt antinomian attitudes toward the religious precepts of the Qurʾān, and once a law assumed a symbolic meaning its literal meaning, according to these circles, was no longer binding. A blatant antinomian interpretation of the pillars of Islam is offered e.g. by the fourth epistle of the Druze canon (al-Kitāb al-Maʿrūf bi-l-naqḍ al-khafī; an unpublished critical edition of this epistle is offered by Bryer, The origins, ii, 31-50; cf. De Sacy, Exposé, ii, 673).
Shīʿī Qurʾān exegesis is further characterized by a radical anti-Sunnī bias. Many qurʾānic verses whose apparent meanings have a negative connotation or refer generally and vaguely to evil or to evildoers (see good and evil; evil deeds; oppression) are taken, through allegorical or typological interpretation, to refer to specific historical luminaries of Sunnī Islam. Negative qurʾānic terms such as baghy (insolence; see insolence and obstinacy; arrogance; pride), faḥshāʾ (indecency; see adultery and fornication; chastity; modesty), munkar (dishonor), al- fujjār (the wicked), al- mufsidūn fī l-arḍ (corrupters on earth; see corruption; oppression), al- shayṭān (Satan; see devil), al-maghḍūb ʿalayhim (those against whom [God] is wrathful; see anger), al-ḍāllūn (those who are astray; see error; astray) and the like are interpreted as referring to the enemies of the Shīʿa in general or to specific persons among them, in particular the first three caliphs, two of Muḥammad's wives (ʿĀʾisha and Ḥafṣa [q.v.], the daughters of the first and the second caliphs, respectively; see also wives of the prophet; ʿāʾisha bint abī bakr), the Umayyads and the ʿAbbāsids. In an utterance attributed to al-Bāqir he goes so far as to state that “every occur-¶ rence in the Qurʾān of the words ‘Satan says’ is [to be understood as referring to] ‘the second’ [namely the caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb]” (wa-laysa fī-l-Qurʾān [shayʾ] wa-qāla al-shayṭān illā wa-huwa al- thānī; ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, ii, 240). In another tradition, cited in the same source, a more general formulation of this idea is also attributed to this imām. To Muḥammad b. Muslim (d. 150/767), one of his disciples, the imām said: “Whenever you hear God [in the Qurʾān] mentioning someone of this nation in praise, it refers to us [i.e. the Shīʿa]; and when you hear God denigrating people who flourished in the past, it refers to our enemies” (idhā samiʿta llāha dhakara aḥadan min hādhihi l-umma bi-khayrin fa-naḥnu hum wa-idhā samiʿta llāha dhakara qawman bi-sūʾin mimman maḍā fa-hum ʿaduwwunā; ibid., i, 24; see chastisement and punishment; punishment stories; reward and punishment).
Secret language in Shīʿī exegesis is evident on two levels. The first level, the exegetes believe, is found in the Qurʾān itself; it underlies such obscure or general qurʾānic expressions as al- jibt wa-l-ṭāghūt (see idols and images; jibt), al- faḥshāʾ wa-l-munkar and many others. The second level is added by the Qurʾān commentator himself. When tracing the exegete's method of unraveling the meaning of obscure expressions one often discovers that the exegete not only avoids disclosing the secrets of the text but actually further conceals them. The commentator never claims explicitly that expressions such as those just mentioned refer to Abū Bakr, ʿUmar or other enemies of the Shīʿa; rather, he resorts to code words such as “the first” (al- awwal) and “the second” (al-thānī), ḥabtar, “fox” (usually applied to Abū Bakr “because of his cunning and fraudulence” (li-ḥilatihi wa-makrihi, Majlisī, Biḥār, lith., 4, 378; 9, 65) and zurayq, “shiny-eyed” or “blue-eyed” (referring to ʿUmar; ¶ e.g. Furāt, Tafsīr, 69; see also pre-islamic arabia and the qurʾān). This physical feature was considered unfortunate by the ancient Arabs (q.v.) and finds an echo in q 20:102, according to which the wicked will rise on the day of resurrection (q.v.) with shiny (or blue) eyes (q.v.; for these and other derogatory appellations, see Goldziher, Spottnamen, 295-308; Kohlberg, Some Imāmī Shīʿī views, esp. 160-7; Bar-Asher, Scripture, 113-20). In other words, the transition from the covert stratum in the Qurʾān to the overt stratum of the interpretation is not direct but undergoes a further process of encoding. The underlying assumption is that every Shīʿī is familiar with these code words which are an integral part of his religious-cultural upbringing.
In other cases Shīʿī exegesis is designed to support the Shīʿī doctrine of the imāmate and concepts derived from it, examples being ʿiṣma (see impeccability), or the immunity of prophets and imāms from sin (see sin, major and minor) and error; the intercession (q.v.; shafāʿa) of prophets and imāms on behalf of their communities; badāʾ (the appearance of new circumstances that cause a change in an earlier divine ruling); and, in the case of the Ismāʿīlī, Druze and Nuṣayrī factions, such additional concepts as the cyclical creation (q.v.) of the world and the transmigration of souls (q.v.).
Another current feature of early Shīʿī (mainly Imāmī) exegesis is the use of variant readings (qirāʾāt) of the qurʾānic text or, in certain cases, the addition of words believed to have been omitted from it (see readings of the qurʾān). Such textual alterations are based on the assumption that the qurʾānic text is flawed and incomplete. Scholars who held the view that the Qurʾān is corrupt believed that the Mahdī will eventually reveal the true text and uncover its original intention. Examples of ¶ these alterations are the common textual substitution of aʾimma (imāms) for umma (nation or community) or slight changes to the word “imām” itself. The implication of these variants is that the institution of the imāmate and other principles associated with it originate in the Qurʾān. For example, for q 3:110 most early Shīʿī exegetes read: “You are the best leaders [leg. aʾimmatin rather than ummatin, nation] ever brought forth to humankind” (kuntum khayra aʾimmatin ukhrijat lil-nās); or in q 2:143: “Thus we appointed you midmost leaders” (wa-kadhālika jaʿalnākum aʾimmatan wasaṭan), etc. (For the first verse, cf. Qummī, Tafsīr, i, 110; ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, i, 218; for the second, cf. Qummī, Tafsīr, i, 63.)
Prominent among the other type of alterations is the insertion of certain words generally proclaimed to be missing from the ʿUthmānic codex of the Qurʾān. These are primarily (a) the words fī ʿAlī (concerning ʿAlī) in various qurʾānic verses, among them q 2:91: “Believe in what God has revealed to you [+ concerning ʿAlī]” (āminū bi-mā anzala llāh [+ fī ʿAlī]) or q 4:166: “But God bears witness to what he has revealed to you [+ concerning ʿAlī]” (lākinna llāh yashhadu bi-mā anzala ilayka [+ fī ʿAlī]); or (b) the words āl Muḥammad (the family of Muḥammad) or occasionally āl Muḥammad ḥaqqahum ([deprived] of their rights) as the object of a verb from the root ẓ-l-m (to do an injustice to/to usurp), which appear often in the Qurʾān. Shīʿī commentators believe that this addition stresses that the injustice (see justice and injustice) referred to by words and verbs derived from the root ẓ-l-m alludes specifically to the injustice perpetrated against the family of the Prophet and his offspring, i.e. the Shīʿa. The same method is applied with regard to other doctrines. The insertion of the words fī walāyat ʿAlī (concerning the [duty of] loyalty to the house of ʿAlī) in several places in the Qurʾān is intended to provide ¶ scriptural authority to the doctrine of walāya, as the addition of the words ilā ajalin musamman (for a given time) to the mutʿa verse (q 4:24), is meant to emphasize the temporary nature of mutʿa marriage (see marriage and divorce; temporary marriage; sex and sexuality). Less known is the addition of the word mutʿa in q 24:33: wa-l- yastaʿfifi lladhīna lā yajidūna nikāḥan [+ bi-l-mutʿa] ḥattā yughniyahumu llāhu min faḍlihi, “And let those who find not the means to enter into a [+ mutʿa] marriage be abstinent till God enriches them of his bounty” (Sayyārī, Qirāʾāt, tradition no. 372; see abstinence).
The differentiation between variant readings and additions by the commentators or their sources inheres primarily in terminology. In many places where the commentator introduces a Shīʿī version of a qurʾānic verse, he does so by using typical formulas. The Shīʿī version is preceded by such utterances as (a) nazala Jibrīl [or Jibrāʾīl] bi-hādhihi l-āya hākadhā ʿalā Muḥammad, “thus the verse was revealed to Muḥammad by [the angel] Gabriel” (q.v.; see e.g. ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, ii, 353; and for similar versions, ibid., i, 63; Qummī, Tafsīr, ii, 111); or followed by (b) hākadhā nazalat, “thus [the verse] was revealed” (see e.g. Qummī, Tafsīr, i, 142, 297; ii, 21); at other times it is stated that the version cited was the reading of one of the imāms (e.g. ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, i, 217, 218; Qummī, Tafsīr, i, 389). At times even stronger expressions are used to stress that certain passages in the canonical text are incorrect. These include statements formulated in the negative such as (a) ʿalā khilāf mā anzala llāh, “[the version in the textus receptus] contradicts the form in which it was revealed” (see e.g. Qummī, Tafsīr, i, 10, which cites q 3:110 or q 25:74 as examples of such verses); or (b) fīmā ḥurrifa min kitāb Allāh, “[This verse] is one of those falsified [or altered] in the book of God” (Qummī, Tafsīr, ii, 295).
¶ In the absence of such a firm declaration it is difficult to decide whether the alteration is a mere commentary or whether the exegete is in fact suggesting an alternative reading to the canonical text despite the absence of such typical expressions as those mentioned above.
On the basis of such a rejection of the “Sunnī” text one might have expected the Shīʿa to insert these alternative versions and additions into the text of the Qurʾān or at least to implement them when the text is read on ritual occasions (see ritual and the qurʾān; recitation of the qurʾān). In reality, however, almost no action was taken by the Shīʿa to canonize their variant readings. One exception is a late attempt reflected in a manuscript of the Qurʾān, said to have been discovered in the city of Bankipore, India, in which, besides the Shīʿī alternative versions to some of the qurʾānic verses, two apocryphal sūras were also included: sūrat al-walāya, “the sūra of divine friendship (i.e. between God and ʿAlī; see friends and friendship; clients and clientage)” and sūrat al-nūrayn, the sūra of the two lights (i.e. Muḥammad and ʿAlī; on this issue, noted by scholars as early as the nineteenth century, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 200-27; The divine guide, 79-91, 198-206; see light).
This behavior of the Shīʿa reveals a paradox. On the one hand, Shīʿīs are certain that the true version of the Qurʾān is that known to them; on the other hand, not only do they not reject the canonical codex, they actually endorse it (see e.g. Goldziher, Richtungen, 281). This contradiction is typical of the Shīʿa: on the one hand an uncompromising position of superiority was adopted on the theoretical-doctrinal level; on the other hand the constant fear of persecution from the hostile Sunnī environment brought about, on the practical level, a pragmatic attitude that included ¶ the adoption de facto of the ʿUthmānic codex. This tension and paradox is reflected in the many Shīʿī exegetical traditions in which Shīʿī qirāʾāt are mentioned. In some of them one finds the following situation: A disciple of the imām is reading from the (canonical) Qurʾān in the presence of the imām, who tells him that it was revealed in a different version. The imām then proceeds to read the “true” (i.e. the Shīʿī) version. As, however, against such accounts, which underrate the importance of the ʿUthmānic codex, an opposing tendency is sometimes revealed: Someone is reading from the Qurʾān in the presence of one of the imāms, and inserts in his reading the Shīʿī version of the verse. At this point he is stopped by the imām, who instructs him to read according to the version followed by the people (i.e. the textus receptus) until such time as “the righteous savior” (al- qāʾim) shall come with the correct version of the Qurʾān, identical with the one that ʿAlī possessed and bequeathed to his daughter, Fāṭima (q.v.), whence its title muṣḥaf Fāṭima, “the codex of Fāṭima” (see muṣḥaf).
Other methods of Shīʿī exegesis are based on the word and letter order and calculations of the numerical value of letters (see numerology). In his interpretation of q 108 (Sūrat al-Kawthar), al-Sijistānī presents a transposition of the words and letters of the sūra, thus reading into it the Shīʿī tenet of waṣāya, the rank of plenipotentiary among the imāms (Poonawala, Ismāʿīlī taʾwīl, 218-9). The technique of numerical calculation of letters is primarily applied to the mysterious letters (q.v.; fawātiḥ al-suwar) appearing at the head of twenty-nine sūras. For example, the letters alif, lām, mīm, ṣād (the total numerical value of which is 161) at the head of q 7 (Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, “The Heights”; see people of the heights) allude, according to an account attributed to ¶ al-Bāqir, to the year 161 of the hijrī calendar (777 c.e.), a year which had been (incorrectly) predicted as the one in which the fall of the Umayyad dynasty would occur (ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, ii, 7-8).
It should further be noted that Shīʿī, and particularly Ismāʿīlī, exegesis is characterized by the use of a secret script designed to encrypt information — mainly names of persons — that the author wishes to conceal for precautionary reasons. Numerous examples of this practice are found in the Kitāb al-Kashf by the dāʿī, Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman (fl. first half of fourth/tenth century), and Mizāj al-tasnīm by the Yamamite Ismāʿīlī Sulaymānīdāʿī, Ismāʿīl b. Hibat Allāh (d. 1184/1770).
- Major Shīʿī exegetes and their works
The earliest Imāmī-Shīʿī Qurʾān commentaries known to us are from the end of the third/ninth century. These include the works of Furāt b. Furāt b. Ibrāhīm al-Kūfī (Tafsīr Furāt al-Kūfī), al-ʿAyyāshī (Tafsīr) and al-Qummī (Tafsīr), all of whom flourished in the last decades of the third/ninth century and the beginning of the fourth/tenth century, that is, prior to the Great Occultation (al- ghayba al-kubrā) of the twelfth imām, which occurred in the year 329/941. Somewhat later is Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Jaʿfar al-Nuʿmānī (d. ca. 360/971), to whom is ascribed a treatise constituting a sort of introduction to the Qurʾān (Majlisī, Biḥār, xc, 1-97). Other compositions are the two commentaries ascribed to the sixth and eleventh imāms, respectively: Ḥaqāʾiq al-tafsīr al-qurʾānī, a small exegetical treatise of a Ṣūfī character (see ṣūfism and the qurʾān) attributed to Imām Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and Tafsīr al-ʿAskarī, a comprehensive commentary of a legendary-mythical nature on the first two sūras of the Qurʾān attributed to Imām Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (d. 260/874; on which see Bar-Asher, al-ʿAskarī). The most outstanding tafsīrs of the post-ghayba period ¶ are al-Ṭūsī's Tibyān, al-Ṭabarsī's Majmaʿ and the Rawḍ al-jinān wa-rūḥ al-janān, a Qurʾān commentary in Persian by Abū l-Futūḥ Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī al-Rāzī (fl. first half of the sixth/twelfth century). Some very comprehensive Imāmī-Shīʿī tafsīr works, which are mainly compilations of early sources, were composed in Ṣafavid Iran. The most prominent among these are Taʾwīl al-āyāt al-ẓāhira fī faḍāʾil al-ʿitra al-ṭāhira by Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAlī l-Ḥusaynī l-Astarābādī (fl. tenth/sixteenth century), Kitāb al-Ṣāfī fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān by Muḥsin al-Fayḍ and Kitāb al-Burhān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān by Hāshim b. Sulaymān al-Baḥrānī. Representative of modern Imāmī-Shīʿī Qurʾān exegesis are Ṭabāṭabāʾī's Mīzān and Min waḥy al-Qurʾān by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍl Allāh. Needless to say, exegetical material other than Qurʾān commentaries per se proliferates in all genres of Imāmī-Shīʿī literature. (For a detailed survey of Shīʿī tafsīr works, see Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, iii, 302-7; iv, 231-346.)
Ismāʿīlī doctrinal writings include a vast amount of exegetical material but little is known of specific Ismāʿīlī exegetical works. Among the few that have come down to us are Kitāb Asās al-taʾwīl by the dāʿī al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān b. Ḥayyūn Maghribī (d. 363/973) and Kitāb al-Kashf by Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman. (For other Ismāʿīlī exegetical works, see Poonawala, Biobibliography, index, s.v. tafsīr and taʾwīl.)
The Zaydī exegetical tradition remains largely unexplored and most Zaydī works of tafsīr are still in manuscript form. The Zaydī imāms al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm Rassī (d. 246/860), al-Nāṣir lil-Ḥaqq al-Uṭrūsh (d. 304/917) and Abū l-Fatḥ Nāṣir b. Ḥusayn al-Daylamī (d. 444/1052) are among those credited with a tafsīr (Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, iv, 255, 261; Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism). A Qurʾān commentary is also ascribed to Ziyād b. Mundhir Abū l-Jārūd, the eponym of the Zaydi-Jārūdī sub-sect, ¶ the Jārūdiyya (Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, iv, 251). The work is not extant; excerpts of it are, however, incorporated in al-Qummī's Tafsīr (Bar-Asher, Scripture, 46-56, 244-7). Another outstanding Jārūdī scholar who is credited with a tafsīr is Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Hamadhānī, better known as Ibn ʿUqda (d. 333/947; cf. Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, iv, 251). Finally, there is the tafsīr by Shawkānī (d. 1250/1834), one of the best known and most prolific authors of the late Zaydiyya.
There is no evidence that Qurʾān commentaries were written by members of Ghulāt groups (such as the Druzes and the Nuṣayrīs), although the Qurʾān is widely cited and often commented on in their sacred writings. See also persian literature and the qurʾān.
- Bibliography
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- Secondary
B. Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism and interpretation of the Qurʾān in the theology of al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm. Kitāb al-mustarshid, Leiden/New York/Cologne 1996
M.A. Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin dans le shiʿisme originel. Aux sources de l'ésotérisme en Islam, Paris 1992, 200-27
trans. D. Streight, The divine guide in early Shiʿism. The sources of esotericism in Islam, New York 1994, 79-91, 199-206
id. and C. Jambet, Qu'est-ce que le shî'isme? Paris 2004, 89-97 (on the Qurʾān), 139-78
M. Ayoub, The speaking Qurʾān and the silent Qurʾān.
A study of the principles and development of Imāmī Shīʿī tafsīr, in Rippin, Approaches, 177-98
M.M. Bar-Asher, The Qurʾān commentary ascribed to the Imām Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, in jsai 24 (2000), 358-79
id., Scripture and exegesis in early Imāmī Shiism, Jerusalem/Leiden 1999
id., Variant readings and additions of the Imāmī-Šiʿa to the Quran, in ios 13 (1993), 39-74
id. and A. Kofsky, The Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawī religion. An enquiry into its theology and liturgy, Leiden 2002, 89-97
R. Brunner, Die Schia und die Koransfälschung, Würzburg 2001
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Goldziher, Richtungen, 263-309
id., Spottnamen der ersten Chalifen bei den Schiʿiten, in id., Gesammelte Schriften, ed. J. Desomogyi, 6 vols., Hildesheim 1967-73, iv, 295-308
E. Kohlberg, Authoritative scriptures in early Imami Shīʿism, in E. Patlagean and A. Le Boulluec (eds.), Les retours aux écritures. Fondamentalismes présents et passés, Louvain-Paris 1994, 295-312
id., Some Imāmī Shīʿī views on the ṣaḥāba, in jsai 5 (1984), 143-75
repr. in id., Belief and law in Imāmī Shīʿism, Aldershot 1991, chap. 9
id., Some notes on the Imāmite attitude to the Qurʾān, in S.M. Stern, A. Hourani, and V. Brown (eds.), Islamic¶ philosophy and the classical tradition. Essays presented to Richard Walzer, Oxford 1972, 209-24
B.T. Lawson, Note for the study of a ‘Shīʿī Qurʾān,’ in jss 36 (1991), 279-95
H. Modarressi, Early debates on the integrity of the Qurʾān, in si 77 (1993), 5-39
I.K. Poonawala, Biobibliography of Ismāʿīlī literature, Los Angeles 1977
id., Ismāʿīlī taʾwīl of the Qurʾān, in Rippin, Approaches, 199-222
W. al-Qāḍī, al-Kaysāniyya fī l-tārīkh wa-l-adab, Beirut 1974
S. de Sacy, Exposé de la religion des Druzes, 2 vols, Paris 1838
W. St. Clair Tisdall, The Shīʿah additions to the Koran, in mw 3 (1913), 227-41
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Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition / S̲h̲īʿa
, in the broad sense, refers to the movement upholding a privileged position of the Family of the Prophet (ahl al-bayt [q.v.]) in the political and religious leadership of the Muslim Community. The name is derived from s̲h̲īʿat ʿAlī , i.e. the party or partisans of ʿAlī, which was first used in the inter-Muslim war during ʿAlī’s caliphate distinguishing them from the s̲h̲īʿat ʿUt̲h̲mān , the partisans of the murdered caliph ʿUt̲h̲mān opposed to ʿAlī. The present article will deal with the origins and early development of the S̲h̲īʿa until the emergence of the major sectarian branches. For these, see the individual articles on It̲h̲nā ʿas̲h̲ariyya, Ismāʿīliyya, Zaydiyya, etc.
In the lifetime of Muḥammad, his close kin enjoyed a raised religious status of purity recognised by the Ḳurʾān. As his kin (d̲h̲awu ’l-ḳurbā), there were counted the descendants of his great-grandfather Hās̲h̲im and, to some extent, the descendants of Hās̲h̲im’s brother al-Muṭṭalib. They were, like the Prophet himself, not allowed to receive or to handle alms (zakāt) as these were considered unclean. In compensation for this exclusion they were entitled to receive a portion of the k̲h̲ums , the fifth of war booty reserved to the Prophet, and of the fayʾ [q.v.], property which fell to the Muslims without war effort. After Muḥammad’s death, the establishment of the caliphate by Abū Bakr on the basis of a privileged position for the tribe of Ḳurays̲h̲ as a whole, and the confiscation of Muḥammad’s property, deprived the Prophet’s Family of the special status, as they were disinherited and lost their tide to their Ḳurʾānic share of the k̲h̲ums and fayʾ. The Banū Hās̲h̲im vainly protested against these developments by refusing to pledge allegiance to Abū Bakr for six months. The disestablishment of the Family of the Prophet after his death was the ultimate motive for the rise of the S̲h̲īʿa.
As leader of the Banū Hās̲h̲im was first generally recognised Muḥammad’s cousin ʿAlī because of his close association with the Prophet, his marriage to Muḥammad’s daughter Fāṭima and his early merits in Islam. Early S̲h̲īʿī support, however, was not restricted to him and his descendants. Throughout the Umayyad age there was broad awareness that the Prophet’s Family comprised all of the Banū Hās̲h̲im, as is evident, for instance, in the poetry of al-Kumayt entitled Hās̲h̲imiyyāt. There were, however, preferences, partly on a local basis, for some particular branch of the Family. In Baṣra, descendants of al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib b. Hās̲h̲im occasionally enjoyed support as kin of the Prophet since they were setded there. In Kūfa, where ʿAlī resided during his reign, his descendants were most often preferred to others. Support of descendants of al-ʿAbbās and of ʿAlī’s brother D̲j̲aʿfar should not be seen as an illegitimate deviation from early S̲h̲īʿī backing of the ʿAlīds.
A popular movement in favour of ʿAlī first emerged in Kūfa under the governorship of al-Walīd b. ʿUḳba during the first half of ʿUt̲h̲mān’s caliphate. Its spokesmen, many of them Ḳurʾān readers (ḳurrāʾ [q.v]), later appear as leaders of the s̲h̲īʿat ʿAlī under the latter’s caliphate and, if they survived, after his assassination. They were calling for the removal of ʿUt̲h̲mān from the leadership and for allegiance to ʿAlī. One of them, ¶ Mālik b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ al-As̲h̲tar [q.v.], became the leader of the Kūfan revolt which overthrew ʿUt̲h̲mān’s governor Saʿīd b. al-ʿĀṣ [q.v.] and installed Abū Mūsā al-As̲h̲ʿarī [q.v.] in his place. He also led the Kūfan rebel group which joined the groups from Egypt and Baṣra converging on Medina to press for the resignation of ʿUt̲h̲mān. Although he and the Kūfans did not join in the siege of the caliph’s palace carried out by the Egyptians, he played a major part in securing the succession of ʿAlī to power against the rival candidacy of Ṭalḥa [q.v.] and subsequently in rousing Kūfan support for ʿAlī against ʿĀʾis̲h̲a, Ṭalḥa, and al-Zubayr in the Battle of the Camel, in spite of the neutralist stand of the governor Abū Mūsā al-As̲h̲ʿarī.
ʿAlī’s reign bore from the outset the character of a counter-caliphate. He was heralded by his supporters and officials as the most excellent of Muslims after the Prophet, and was acclaimed in poetry and eulogies as the waṣī , the legatee, of Muḥammad. Such claims, which put the legitimacy of the caliphate of his predecessors in question, lent the conflict between him and his opponents a religious dimension apart from the political one. Already in the Battle of the Camel, ʿAlī’s opponents spoke of a “religion of ʿAlī (dīn ʿAlī)” a notion deeply resented by the Prophet’s cousin, who insisted that he represented the religion of Muḥammad.
ʿAlī’s own attitude to the legitimacy of his predecessors’ reign, as expressed in his speeches and letters, was complex. He praised Abū Bakr’s and ʿUmar’s conduct in office highly and reprimanded any of his followers who depreciated them. He severely criticised ʿUt̲h̲mān for misgovernment and arbitrary innovations. Holding that ʿUt̲h̲mān had provoked the rebellion against himself, he refused to condemn the rebels, while not expressly condoning the murder of the caliph and distancing himself from any personal involvement in the rebellion. He asserted that he personally had a better right to the succession of Muḥammad than any other Companion, on the basis of his close kinship and association with him as well as his outstanding merits in the cause of Islam. The Community of the Faithful as a whole deserved blame for having turned away from him after the death of Muḥammad. It was ʿAlī who first gave the ḥadīt̲h̲ of G̲h̲adīr K̲h̲umm [q.v.] publicity by inviting those Companions who had heard the Prophet’s statements there to testify on the square in front of the mosque of Kūfa. These statements have traditionally been understood by the S̲h̲īʿa as an implicit appointment of ʿAlī to the succession in the leadership of the Community. ʿAlī made plain that he considered the Family of the Prophet to be entitled to the leadership of the Community as long as there remained a single one of them who recited the Ḳurʾān, knew the sunna and adhered to the true faith.
The most basic distinguishing beliefs of the S̲h̲īʿa thus go back to ʿAlī, who must to this extent be considered its founder and first teacher. This fact has been largely unpalatable to Sunnī historiography, which therefore created and propagated as the founder of the S̲h̲īʿa the figure of ʿAbd Allāh b. Sabaʾ [q.v.], the malicious Yemenite Jew who first stirred up the rebellion against ʿUt̲h̲mān and invented the doctrine of ʿAlī being the legatee of Muḥammad, ending up with extremist fiction denying the death of ʿAlī and deifying him. Only this latter aspect may well have had a historical foundation. Ibn Sabaʾ appears to have been active in al-Madāʾin after ʿAlī’s death and to have propagated belief in his return (rad̲j̲ʿa) and ultimate victory over his enemies.
When ʿAlī was assassinated in 40/661, his partisans ¶ in Kūfa were evidently convinced that only a member of the Prophet’s Family could legitimately succeed him. Although ʿAlī, probably following the Prophet’s precedent, refused to appoint a successor after having been mortally struck, his eldest son al-Ḥasan [q.v.], grandson of Muḥammad, was immediately recognised without dissent. A few months later, al-Ḥasan abdicated in favour of the Umayyad Muʿāwiya [q.v.] on the basis of a treaty which stipulated a full amnesty and safety of life and property for the s̲h̲īʿat ʿAlī and which denied Muʿāwiya the right to appoint a successor. According to some accounts, it provided for al-Ḥasan to succeed him, according to others for election by a council (shūrā), evidently on the model of the electoral council appointed by ʿUmar. Although the abdication aroused general disappointment and some protest among the S̲h̲īʿa, it was not regarded as a renunciation by al-Ḥasan of his ultimate title to the leadership, and he continued to be recognised as the legitimate Imām. Al-Ḥasan died in 49/669 or 51/671, poisoned, it was widely suspected, by one of his wives at the instigation of Muʿāwiya. The S̲h̲īʿa now turned to his younger brother al-Ḥusayn [q.v.] and, disaffected by what they regarded as the oppressive and vindictive nature of Muʿāwiya’s rule, urged him to rise to restore the legitimate reign of the Prophet’s Family. Although by character more inclined to pursue the leadership actively than his brother, al-Ḥusayn declined to act as long as Muʿāwiya was reigning, evidently recognising the continued validity of al-Ḥasan’s agreement.
The S̲h̲īʿī riot in Kūfa in 51/671, for which Ḥud̲j̲r b. ʿAdī [q.v.] and other leaders were executed, was not an attempted revolution but an incident intentionally provoked by Muʿāwiya and his governor Ziyād b. Abīhi [q.v.] with the aim of crushing latent opposition to the Umayyad rule. Muʿāwiya had, in breach of the spirit, if not the letter, of his treaty with al-Ḥasan, ordered his governor of Kūfa, al-Mug̲h̲īra b. S̲h̲uʿba [q.v.], to curse ʿAlī from the pulpit in the Friday prayers and to insist on the presence of several S̲h̲īʿī leaders, among them Ḥud̲j̲r. Al-Mug̲h̲īra had done so, but failed, evidently against Muʿāwiya’s intentions, to discipline those who protested against the cursing. Al-Mug̲h̲īra’s successor Ziyād took the occasion of pebbles being thrown at his deputy in protest against the cursing to intervene, ordering the rounding-up of Ḥud̲j̲r and other S̲h̲īʿī leaders. There was some fighting between police and rioters in which no-one was killed. Ḥud̲j̲r eluded Ziyād for a time, finding refuge in the quarters of various tribes. Eventually, he surrendered voluntarily on the promise of being sent to Muʿāwiya. Ziyād drew up an accusation of armed rebellion against the S̲h̲īʿī leaders and had it signed by representatives of the Kūfan nobility. Muʿāwiya offered them pardon if they would renounce their loyalty to ʿAlī and curse him. As they refused, he ordered the execution of Ḥud̲j̲r and five others. The law of Islam and practice so far prevalent allowed only imprisonment and exile for insurrection. These executions amounted to murder. The incident, rather than crushing the opposition, inflamed the sense of outrage of the Kūfan S̲h̲īʿa.
After the death of Muʿāwiya and the succession of his son Yazīd [q.v.], the Kūfan S̲h̲īʿa and many of the tribal leaders wrote letters to al-Ḥusayn inviting him and offering him their backing. Al-Ḥusayn had, together with other members of the Islamic aristocracy, declined to pledge allegiance to Yazīd during Muʿāwiya’s lifetime and, after his death, fled from Medina to the Sanctuary in Mecca in order to avoid ¶ being forced to do so. He sent his cousin Muslim b. ʿAḳīl [q.v.] ahead of him to test the ground in Kūfa. On receiving at first a favourable report from Muslim, al-Ḥusayn set out for Kūfa. Determined action by the governor ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ziyād, however, induced the Kūfan tribal leaders to abandon their backing of the revolt. Muslim b. ʿAḳīl was killed, and al-Ḥusayn soon faced a Kūfan army preventing him from proceeding or returning. He and over twenty members of the Prophet’s ahl al-bayt, brothers and sons of al-Ḥusayn, sons of al-Ḥasan, and descendants of ʿAlī’s brothers ʿAḳīl and D̲j̲afar, were massacred at Karbalāʾ on 10 Muḥarram 61/10 October 680.
The violent death of the Prophet’s grandson at the hands of a Kūfan army, after the Kūfans had first invited him and then failed to stand up for him, had a profound effect on the S̲h̲īʿa. The passion motive, the call for repentance and martyrdom, became permanent aspects of S̲h̲īʿi spirituality. In immediate reaction, a movement of penitents (tawwābūn), calling for self-sacrifice and revenge for al-Ḥusayn, sprang up among the old partisans of ʿAlī led by Sulaymān b. Ṣurad al-K̲h̲uzāʿr. It gathered strength after the death of the caliph Yazīd as Kūfa came nominally under Zubayrid rule. In 65/684-5 some 4,000 volunteers left Kūfa, visited Karbalāʾ to weep and make vows on the grave of al-Ḥusayn, and moved against an Umayyad army near ʿAyn al-Warda. They were defeated, and the majority, including Sulaymān b. Ṣurad, were killed.
As the old guard leaders of the S̲h̲īʿa were killed off, new forces came to the fore. After the death of the caliph Yazīd, al-Muk̲h̲tār b. ʿUbayd al-T̲h̲aḳafī [q.v.], nephew of ʿAlī’s governor of al-Madāʾin Saʿd b. Masʿūd, sought the leadership of the S̲h̲īʿa in Kūfa, promising to take revenge for the blood of al-Ḥusayn more effectively than his rival Sulaymān b. Ṣurad. When the latter was killed, most of the S̲h̲īʿa turned to him, although some of the conservatives remained aloof from his movement. Al-Muk̲h̲tār claimed to be acting on behalf of ʿAlī’s non-Fāṭimid son Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya [q.v.], whom he proclaimed the Imām and the Mahdī [q.v.], who would restore justice on earth. This choice was natural after the death of al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, since Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya was the only surviving son of ʿAlī closely associated with him during his reign. Ibn al-Ḥanafiyya gave limited encouragement to al-Muk̲h̲tār, especially to his aim to seek revenge for al-Ḥusayn, but declined to assume personal leadership of the movement and to come to Kūfa. Al-Muk̲h̲tār took possession of Kūfa by revolt in 66/685. Although he attempted to reconcile the defeated tribal chiefs, initially restraining his followers from taking revenge on those involved in the killing of al-Ḥusayn, conflict soon arose as he accepted substantial numbers of non-Arab clients (mawālī) into the ranks of his movement. The tribal chiefs staged a revolt but were defeated. Now fully in control, the radical S̲h̲īʿīs took revenge for al-Ḥusayn, seeking out and killing those most guilty in his death. Shortly afterwards, the Kūfans defeated a Syrian army on the river K̲h̲āzir, killing ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ziyād. Many of the tribal chiefs and their supporters had found refuge in Baṣra, governed by Muṣʿab b. al-Zubayr [q.v.], and agitated for action against al-Muk̲h̲tār. The latter was killed as the Baṣrans took Kūfa in 67/687. Muṣʿab b. al-Zubayr allowed the Kūfan nobles to massacre their opponents, and 6,000 to 8,000 of al-Muk̲h̲tār’s followers are said to have been killed.
The movement founded by al-Muk̲h̲tār survived, ¶ however, and spread, chiefly among the lower classes, outside Kūfa also. It was commonly called that of the Kaysāniyya [q.v.], after the chief of al-Muk̲h̲tār’s bodyguard Abū ʿAmra Kaysān [q.v.], and espoused a distinctly messianic S̲h̲īʿism. The name Sabaʾiyya also applied to it by early contemporaries evidently connects it with the earlier messianic teaching of ʿAbd Allāh b. Sabaʾ concerning ʿAlī in al-Madāʾin. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya continued to be recognised as the Imām and Mahdī until his death in 81/700. After his death, which was denied by many, he was generally expected to return and to reign in glory. Other beliefs and practices of the followers of al-Muk̲h̲tār also aroused hostility and scorn among conservative S̲h̲īʿīs as well as Sunnīs. Al-Muk̲h̲tār had made predictions in rhymed prose like the pre-Islamic soothsayers, and was widely called by his opponents a magician or false prophet although he did not claim prophethood. He instituted or allowed the public veneration of an empty chair, practiced especially by some Yemenite tribes. The chair was said to be a relic from ʿAlī and was compared to the Ark of the Covenant of the Jews. The failure of some of al-Muk̲h̲tār’s predictions to be realised is said to have given rise to the doctrine of badāʾ [q.v.], the possibility of a change of God’s will. Upholding a radical interpretation of ʿAlī’s attitude towards the caliphs preceding him, the Kaysāniyya definitely rejected their legitimacy.
The usurpation of the rights of the Family of the Prophet by the early caliphs was also at the core of the S̲h̲īʿī teaching of ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿAbbās (d. 68/687-8) in Mecca. Ibn al-ʿAbbās [q.v.], cousin of Muḥammad and ʿAlī, had been drawn by the caliph ʿUmar close to himself and became initially ʿAlī’s most trusted associate during his reign, though there arose later disagreement between them. After ʿAlī’s death he backed al-Ḥasan’s caliphate, urging him to resume his father’s war against Muʿāwiya. After al-Ḥasan’s resignation he became the main spokesman for the rights of the ahl al-bayt. He consistently countered the reports of Abū Bakr’s daughter ʿĀʾis̲h̲a which described her father as the closest intimate of Muḥammad, chosen as his successor by his appointment to lead the communal prayers during Muḥammad’s final illness. Contrary to her claim, the Prophet had not insisted on Abū Bakr leading the prayers when she pleaded for him to be excused. Rather, he had suggested that ʿUmar should lead them. The latter declined, however, to take precedence before Abū Bakr. ‘Umar had thwarted the mortally ill Muḥammad’s intention to dictate a testament as guidance for the faithful, insisting that the Prophet was delirious and the Ḳurʾān was sufficient guidance for them. Muḥammad had not died in ʿĀʾis̲h̲a’s arms, as she claimed, but leaning on ʿAlī’s chest. Although critical of some aspects of ʿAlī’s conduct, Ibn al-ʿAbbās made clear that the Banū Hās̲h̲im, and he himself, were convinced of ʿAlī’s legitimate right to the succession to Muḥammad, of which he was deprived by Abū Bakr with the backing of the majority of Ḳurays̲h̲. Muḥammad’s kin had protested against Abū Bakr’s usurpation, first by burying the Prophet privately in his house, thus denying the caliph the occasion to do the last honours for his predecessor. The election of Abū Bakr in the Hall of the Banū Sāʿida, which took place at the time of the preparation of Muḥammad’s burial, had later been described by ʿUmar in public as a falta , a precipitate, arbitrary act, excusable only because God had bestowed success on it. Abū Bakr had illegitimately denied the Banū Hās̲h̲im their inheritance from the ¶ Prophet and their Ḳurʾānic share of war booty and fayʾ. ʿUmar had attempted to satisfy their just claim by offering them partial restitution, but they had declined his overtures as being insufficient.
Ibn al-ʿAbbās warned al-Ḥusayn of the danger of his rising and did not back it. Jointly with Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya, however, he resisted the demands of the anti-ʿAlid counter-caliph ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr that they should pledge allegiance to him. Ibn al-Zubayr imprisoned them together, and they were freed by a Kūfan S̲h̲īʿī cavalry troop sent by al-Muk̲h̲tār. Ibn al-Zubayr accused ʿAbd Allāh b. al ʿAbbās and his brother ʿUbayd Allāh of trying to “raise the banner of Abū Turāb (sc. ʿAlī) which God had lowered and of gathering the muddleheads from Irāḳ around themselves.”
The descendants of Fāṭima were, after the massacre of Karbalāʾ, for a generation eclipsed in the leadership of the S̲h̲īʿa. Al-Ḥusayn’s only surviving son ʿAlī’s Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn [q.v.] kept aloof from S̲h̲īʿī activity and attracted no substantial following. Al-Ḥasan’s senior son al-Ḥasan also avoided involvement with the S̲h̲īʿa. Only al-Ḥusayn’s grandson Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, known as al-Bāḳir [q.v.], after his father’s death in 94/713-14 actively engaged in S̲h̲īʿī teaching, while refusing to be drawn into revolutionary activity, and became the founder of systematic S̲h̲iʿī religious law. His teaching in particular raised the religious rank and spiritual authority of the Imāms who were endowed with a divinely inspired knowledge. The Imām was described by him as muḥaddat̲h̲ , “spoken to” by the angel of revelation. The term was taken from a variant reading of Ḳurʾān, XXII, 52, “We have not sent before you any Messenger of Prophet” adding “or muḥaddat̲h̲”, which was contained in the codex of ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿAbbās and was interpreted as a form of revelation ranking below that reserved for prophets. The Imām was not expected, however, to add in any way to the message and the law revealed by the Prophet, but rather to preserve it in its integrity through his divinely-granted authority. The world was in permanent need of such an Imām and could, in the absence of a prophet, never exist for a moment without him. In a hostile environment, the Imām was protected by his and his followers’ license and obligation to practice taḳiyya [q.v.], the precautionary concealment of their religious beliefs and practice.
Al-Bāḳir’s legal and ritual teaching comprised most of the features which were later seen as distinctive of S̲h̲īʿī law, such as the ḥayʿala in the call to prayer [see ad̲h̲ān ], the prohibition of the masḥ ʿala’l-k̲h̲uffayn [q.v.] in the ritual ablution, and the permission of mutʿa [q.v.], temporary marriage. The latter permission (which was not upheld by Zaydī and Ismāʾīlī law) also reflects influence of the doctrine of ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿAbbās, who taught that mutʿa had been practised in the time of Muḥammad and Abū Bakr and had been prohibited only by ʿUmar. Al-Bāḳir’s quietist conduct aroused little suspicion among the authorities, and he was widely respected as a traditionist among Sunnī scholars. Among the S̲h̲īʿa in Kūfa, his prestige was widely recognised.
The activist S̲h̲īʿa who had backed al-Mukhtār went underground after his death. The leadership in Kūfa fell to Salama b. Bud̲j̲ayr of the Banū Musliya Mad̲h̲hid̲j̲. His father Bud̲j̲ayr b. ʿAbd Allāh had been a close associate of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya and al-Mukhtār, and was executed by Musʿab b. al-Zubayr. Salama became intimately attached to Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya’s son Abū Hās̲h̲im, who took a more active part than his father in the organisation of a ¶ tightiy-knit secret movement spreading S̲h̲īʿī revolutionary propaganda. After his father’s death, Abū Ḥās̲h̲im was recognised by the movement as their Imām. After Abū Hās̲h̲im’s death in 98/718 there were rival claims among his followers, that he had appointed as his successor either the ʿAbbāsid Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. al-ʿAbbās or the D̲j̲aʿfarid ʿAbd Allāh b. Muʿāwiya b. ʿAbd Allāh. Salama b. Bud̲j̲ayr is said to have recognised the ʿAbbāsid, but he died shortly afterwards. Decisive was the arbitration of the dispute by Abū Riyāḥ Maysara al-Nabbāl, a mawlā of the Azd, in favour of Muḥammad b. ʿAlī. The Banū Musliya and their clients now backed the ʿAbbāsid and, after him, his son Ibrāhīm. The movement had, still under Abū Hās̲h̲im, begun to spread to K̲h̲urāsān, mainly through the missionary activity of Bukayr b. Māhān, son of a client of the Banū Musliya. While in Kūfa its appeal remained limited, it attracted a broad following among Arab and Persian Muslims during the last decades of the Umayyad caliphate.
A few years after al-Bāḳir’s death, his brother Zayd b. ʿAlī came to visit Kūfa in a dispute about a debt. He was immediately surrounded by S̲h̲īʿīs who persuaded him to lead a rising. Initially, he enjoyed broad backing, but his refusal to denounce Abū Bakr and ʿUmar as apostates and to condemn their conduct, even though he upheld the prior tide of ʿAlī to the succession to Muḥammad, was taken by many of the former supporters of al-Bāḳir and other radicals as a motive to withdraw. They now generally recognised al-Bāḳir’s son D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ [q.v.] as the legitimate Imām. Zayd’s revolt failed and he was killed in 122/740.
The schism during Zayd’s revolt was decisive for the further development of the S̲h̲īʿa, giving rise to its Imāmī and Zaydī branches. D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ, who may be considered the founder of the Imāmiyya, closely followed and elaborated the teaching of his father. The teaching authority of the Imāms was further strengthened by the doctrine of their immunity from error and sin (ʿiṣma [q.v.]). The imāmate was based on a divinely-guaranteed explicit designation (naṣṣ [q.v.]) of the Imām, and, after al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, was handed down from father to son among the descendants of the latter. Knowledge of and obedience to the rightful Imām were incumbent upon every believer. By ignoring the explicit naṣṣ of the Prophet for ʿAlī and by backing the caliphate of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, the mass of the Community had fallen into apostasy. The radical tendencies of the following of D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ were strengthened by their gradual absorption of the remnants of the Kaysāniyya and adoption of some of their controversial doctrines like badāʾ and rad̲j̲ʿa and their messianic expectation of the Mahdī this expectation was blunted, however, by al-Ṣādiḳ’s strict prohibition of his followers engaging in revolutionary activity and his insistence that the rising of the legitimate Imām as the Ḳāʾim or Mahdī would occur only in the distant future. The nascent Imāmiyya thus combined radical S̲h̲īʾī religious dogma with political quietism.
The sectarian movement arising out of the supporters of Zayd’s revolt, later known as the Zaydiyya, was, by contrast, moderate in its S̲h̲īʿī doctrine and deviation from the religious views of Sunnism, but politically militant. The imāmate could be claimed only by someone prepared to rise with the sword actively seeking the leadership, in addition to being qualified by religious knowledge. The first Imām after al-Ḥusayn was thus Zayd b. ʿAlī Neither his more learned brother al-Bāḳir nor his father were Imāms. ¶ There was no need for an Imām at all times and, after ʿAlī, al-Ḥasan, and Ḥusayn, no designation of a successor, though recognition and support of a legitimate claimant was a religious obligation. The Imām was not immune from error and sin and had no superior teaching competence; rather, a collective religious authority of the Family of the Prophet was generally acknowledged. Since the designation of ʿAlī as Muḥammad’s successor had been obscure (naṣṣ k̲h̲afī), the Community, in recognising Abū Bakr and ʿUmar as caliphs, had not fallen into a state of apostasy but at most into a state of sin. Others held that their caliphate was justified since ʿAlī had recognised it. Messianic tendencies were generally weak among the Zaydiyya.
Zayd’s son Yaḥyā, who escaped to K̲h̲urāsān after the collapse of his father’s revolt, was tracked down by the Umayyad authorities there and killed in 125/743. His murder strengthened the hand of the S̲h̲īʿa in K̲h̲urāsān, and revenge for Zayd and Yaḥyā became one of the slogans of the rapidly-expanding revolutionary movement. The leader of the movement was now, after the death of the ʿAbbāsid Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, his son Ibrāhīm. Its propaganda, however, was in favour of the reign of “the one agreed upon of the Family of Muḥammad (al-riḍā min Āl Muḥammad), suggesting a broad choice among the Banū Hās̲h̲im.
As the imminent overthrow of the Umayyad caliphate became predictable, leading representatives of the Banū Hās̲h̲im met in a secret gathering at al-Abwāʾ, on the road to Mecca, to discuss the choice of a common candidate for the reign. Present were especially Ḥasanids and ʿAbbāsids, including Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad. The senior Ḥasanid, ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī, promoted the candidacy of his son Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh, a namesake of the Prophet, whom he had been grooming for the role of the Expected Mahdī He gained the support of the ʿAbbāsid Abū D̲j̲aʿfar, the later caliph al-Manṣūr, and Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh, known as al-Nafs al-Zakiyya [q.v.], received the pledge of allegiance of those present. However, D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ, who arrived later, refused to recognise him as the Mahdī and maintained that he would not pledge allegiance to him in the presence of his father ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan, the senior among the descendants of ʿAlī. Given the large following of D̲j̲aʿfar in the S̲h̲īʿa, his opposition was a severe setback for the efforts to unite the Prophet’s Family behind a common leader, and this encouraged the ʿAbbāsids to seek the caliphate for their own candidate.
The rivalry between ʿAlids and ʿAbbāsids erupted into open conflict as soon as the Family of the Prophet achieved their victory over the Umayyads. As the ʿAbbasid Imām Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī was discovered, imprisoned, and killed by the last Umayyad caliph Marwān, the ʿAbbāsids fled to Kūfa. The local leader of the revolutionary movement there, Abū Salama al-K̲h̲allāl [q.v.], sheltered them but hesitated to pledge allegiance to Ibrāhīm’s chosen successor Abu ’l-Abbās al-Saffāḥ. In accord with the general sentiment in Kūfa, he was inclined to back an ʿAlid candidate. His hand was forced, however, by the K̲h̲urāsānian army commanders who pledged allegiance to Abu ’l-ʿAbbās. A few months later he was murdered for his display of disloyalty by an emissary of Abū Muslim al-K̲h̲urāsānī [q.v.]. The inaugural address of al-Saffāḥ, partly delivered by his uncle Dāwūd b. ʿAlī, stressed the right of the ʿAbbāsids to rule as members of the Prophet’s Family and denounced those S̲h̲īʿīs who asserted a superior tide of the ʿAlids.
The Ḥasanid Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh remained, ¶ together with his brother Ibrāhīm, in hiding after the establishment of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate, and his supporters spread propaganda for him as the Mahdī. The second ʿAbbāsid caliph, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar al-Manṣūr, was seriously worried and made vain efforts to find him, imprisoning his father and at least nine others of his Ḥasanid kin as they refused to reveal his whereabouts. When Muḥammad revolted in Medina in 145/762-3, al-Manṣūr murdered his imprisoned kinsmen. In spite of widespread popular backing, Muḥammad and Ibrāhīm were defeated and killed. Al-Manṣūr now gave his own son and heir-apparent Muḥammad the title al-Mahdī in an attempt to attract popular messianic sentiments to the ʿAbbāsid house. His bloody repression of the Ḥasanids, however, rather strengthened the pro-ʿAlid sympathies in the S̲h̲īʿa. The Zaydiyya first restricted their backing to the Ṭālibids, the descendants of ʿAlī’s father Abū Ṭālib, and then the descendants of al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn.
The K̲h̲urāsānian S̲h̲īʿa, who had initially recognised the imāmate of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs, were at the same time substantially reduced, first by the defection of the supporters of Abū Muslim al-K̲h̲urāsānī after he was killed by al-Manṣūr, then by al-Manṣūr’s suppression of those extremists deifying him, and finally, by the defection of the supporters of his nephew ʿĪsā b. Mūsā, who had been appointed by al-Saffāḥ to succeed al-Manṣūr but was replaced by the latter’s appointment of his own son Muḥammad al-Mahdī. Al-Mahdī tried during his reign to tie the ʿAbbāsid S̲h̲īʿa more closely to the ruling house by denying the imāmate of ʿAlī and his offspring and by asserting the sole right of al-ʿAbbās and his descendants to the Prophet’s succession. His son Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd saw no interest in maintaining a S̲h̲īʿī following and preferred to identify fully with orthodox Sunnism. The ʿAbbāsid S̲h̲īʿa disintegrated under his reign. The attempt of his son al-Maʾmūn to recover broad S̲h̲īʿī support for a caliphate of the Banū Hās̲h̲im, including ʿAlids as well as ʿAbbāsids, by appointing D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ’s grandson ʿAlī al-Riḍā as his successor, ended in failure. There was stubborn opposition from the ʿAbbāsids and little appreciation among the S̲h̲īʿa, who were now upholding the sole right of the descendants of the Prophet through his daughter Fāṭima. When ʿAlī al-Riḍā died, al-Maʾmūn did not seriously renew his efforts. The ʿAbbāsid caliphate had become virtually Sunnī and the S̲h̲īʿa strictly ʿAlid.
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J. Wellhausen, Die religiös-politischen Oppositionspartekn im alien Islam, Berlin 1901, 55-99
M.G.S. Hodgson, How did the early Shīʿa become sectarian?, in JAOS, lxxv (1955), 1-13
W.M. Watt, Shiʿism under the Umayyads, in JRAS (1960), 158-72
S.H.M. Jafri, Origins and early development of Shiʿa Islam, Beirut 1979
E. Kohlberg, The term “Muḥaddath” in Twelver Shīʿism, in Stadia Orientalia memoriae D.H. Baneth dedicata, Jerusalem 1979, 347-52
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idem, Shiʿism in the time of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs, forthcoming.
- Cite this page
Madelung, W., “S̲h̲īʿa”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 28 January 2017 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_6920>
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