Book contents
- Agents of the Hidden Imam
- Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization
- Agents of the Hidden Imam
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Rise of the Agents in the Late Imamate (830–874 ce)
- 2 The Crisis before the Crisis
- 3 Crisis!
- 4 The Agents of the Nāḥiya in the Era of Perplexity
- 5 The Creation of an Envoy
- 6 Rise and Fall
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Other titles in the series
6 - Rise and Fall
Ibn Rawḥ, Shalmaghānī, and the Rise and Fall of the Envoyship
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2022
- Agents of the Hidden Imam
- Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization
- Agents of the Hidden Imam
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Rise of the Agents in the Late Imamate (830–874 ce)
- 2 The Crisis before the Crisis
- 3 Crisis!
- 4 The Agents of the Nāḥiya in the Era of Perplexity
- 5 The Creation of an Envoy
- 6 Rise and Fall
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Other titles in the series
Summary
The envoyship of Abū Jaʿfar al-ʿAmrī generated expectations of succession, culminating in Ibn Rawḥ al-Nawbakhtī’s accession to the role upon his death. Quasi-Imamic mechanisms of designation (naṣṣ) and initiatic inheritance (waṣiyya) were invoked to support this. However, it is argued in Chapter 6 that long-present pressures against a centralizing Imamate now led to the collapse of the envoyship. Ibn Rawḥ fell afoul of the complex machinations of the ʿAbbasid court. He was imprisoned, then was challenged by his aide, Shalmaghānī, who claimed to embody Imamate and divinity. Ibn Rawḥ issued a denunciation of Shalmaghānī, and the caliph al-Rāḍī had him executed as a heretic. However, soon after Ibn Rawḥ’s death, a rescript from the hidden Imam declared the termination of the office of envoy. Thereafter, the diffuse leadership of earlier elites, especially scholars, came to replace the centralizing bureaucratic leadership of the envoys, and the defunct envoyship was canonized as orthodox history.
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- Information
- Agents of the Hidden ImamForging Twelver Shi‘ism, 850-950 CE, pp. 172 - 215Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022