Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Professor Carole Hillenbrand: List of Publications
- Preface
- 1 The Origin of Key Shi‘ite Thought Patterns in Islamic History
- 2 Additions to The New Islamic Dynasties
- 3 Al-Tha‘alibi's Adab al-muluk, a Local Mirror for Princes
- 4 Religious Identity, Dissimulation and Assimilation: the Ismaili Experience
- 5 Saladin's Pious Foundations in Damascus: Some New Hypotheses
- 6 The Coming of Islam to Bukhara
- 7 A Barmecide Feast: the Downfall of the Barmakids in Popular Imagination
- 8 The History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church as a Source for the History of the Seljuks of Anatolia
- 9 Genealogy and Exemplary Rulership in the Tarikh-i Chingiz Khan
- 10 Vikings and Rus in Arabic Sources
- 11 Qashani and Rashid al-Din on the Seljuqs of Iran
- 12 Exile and Return: Diasporas of the Secular and Sacred Mind
- 13 Clerical Perceptions of Sufi Practices in Late Seventeenth-Century Persia, II: Al-Hurr al-‘Amili (d. 1693) and the Debate on the Permissibility of Ghina
- 14 On Sunni Sectarianism
- 15 The Violence of the Abbasid Revolution
- 16 Nationalist Poetry, Conflict and Meta-linguistic Discourse
- Bibliography
- List of Contributors
- Index
4 - Religious Identity, Dissimulation and Assimilation: the Ismaili Experience
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Professor Carole Hillenbrand: List of Publications
- Preface
- 1 The Origin of Key Shi‘ite Thought Patterns in Islamic History
- 2 Additions to The New Islamic Dynasties
- 3 Al-Tha‘alibi's Adab al-muluk, a Local Mirror for Princes
- 4 Religious Identity, Dissimulation and Assimilation: the Ismaili Experience
- 5 Saladin's Pious Foundations in Damascus: Some New Hypotheses
- 6 The Coming of Islam to Bukhara
- 7 A Barmecide Feast: the Downfall of the Barmakids in Popular Imagination
- 8 The History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church as a Source for the History of the Seljuks of Anatolia
- 9 Genealogy and Exemplary Rulership in the Tarikh-i Chingiz Khan
- 10 Vikings and Rus in Arabic Sources
- 11 Qashani and Rashid al-Din on the Seljuqs of Iran
- 12 Exile and Return: Diasporas of the Secular and Sacred Mind
- 13 Clerical Perceptions of Sufi Practices in Late Seventeenth-Century Persia, II: Al-Hurr al-‘Amili (d. 1693) and the Debate on the Permissibility of Ghina
- 14 On Sunni Sectarianism
- 15 The Violence of the Abbasid Revolution
- 16 Nationalist Poetry, Conflict and Meta-linguistic Discourse
- Bibliography
- List of Contributors
- Index
Summary
The Shi‘a appeared on the historical stage in the formative period of Islam with their own distinct identity and ideas on religious authority and leadership revolving around the sanctity of the Prophet Muhammad's family or the ahl al-bayt. Soon after the tragedy of Karbala’ where al-Husayn b. ‘Ali, the Shi‘i imam and the Prophet's grandson, and his small band of companions were massacred by an Umayyad army in 61/680, the Shi‘a themselves split into different groups, each one recognising a different line of ‘Alids, descendants of ‘Ali b. Abi Talib (d. 40/661), the Prophet's cousin, son-in-law and the first Shi‘i imam, or other members of the then broadly defined ahl al-bayt, as their spiritual leaders or imams.
Subsequently, Shi‘ism evolved in terms of two main branches, designated as the Kaysaniyya and the Imamiyya, each comprised of a number of sects and splinter groups. However, both of these Shi‘i branches represented minority positions within the Islamic community compared to groups later collectively designated as Sunnis. The Kaysanis, representing the politically active wing of Shi‘ism, were gradually absorbed into the Abbasid movement that succeeded in supplanting the Umayyads and installing the Abbasids to the caliphate in 132/750. It was in the aftermath of the establishment of Abbasid rule that the moderate Imami branch of Shi‘ism, the common heritage of the Twelver (Ithna‘ashari) and Ismaili Shi‘is, acquired its prominence during the imamate of Ja‘far al-Sadiq, while yet another politically active Shi‘i tradition found expression in Zaydi Shi‘ism.
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- Information
- Living Islamic HistoryStudies in Honour of Professor Carole Hillenbrand, pp. 47 - 61Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2010