Occasional Fat.imid attempts to gain a foothold in Umayyad Iberia were typically accompanied by fierce polemical exchanges from both sides.Vocal opposition emanating from al-Andalus and Umayyad interference in North African affairs precluded any but the most minimal transmission of ideas or texts. Moreover, esoteric doctrinal writings by agents of the Ismaili da`wa were subjected to a rule of secrecy. Ismailis were sworn never to reveal anything in their writings. Opponents in the Fat.imid era knew little of it and most denunciations of the Ismailis were based instead on generic polemical falsehoods. In addition, although fourth-/tenth-century Ismaili thought became dependent on a form of Neoplatonism, there are serious questions as to what degree it was accepted in the Maghrib. There is also an issue of whether it promotes any kind of mysticism rather than a narrower doctrine of intellect that tends to reject most forms of supra-rational perception.
Dhimmī (non-Muslim subjects, mostly Christians and Jews, who were afforded protection by the Islamic state) persecution in Islamic Egypt included most notably that instigated by the Fatimid caliph al-Ḥākim from about 395/1004 until near the end of his reign in 411/1021. This ruler imposed burdensome restrictions and sumptuary regulations on Jews and Christians, causing significant numbers of them to adopt Islam. He also commenced the state-sponsored destruction of churches and synagogues, most famously the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And yet, near the end, this same caliph relented, mitigating the severity of his previous policies. A general picture of what happened already exists, but the precise chronological order of these events and many of the exact details remain vague. Most importantly, we continue not to have a reason for his radically new policy. Al-Maqrīzī’s various accounts provide useful evidence although they hardly suffice. The Jewish reaction is far from clear. Two Christian histories, those by the Melkite Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd of Antioch and the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, confirm many particulars. However none of this information explains why. Was al-Ḥākim moved to act as he did in response to, or in imitation of, the strikingly similar set of restrictive regulations imposed long before under the so-called “Pact of ʿUmar”?
Over forty years ago, S. M. Stern published two important studies of succession problems in the Fatimid state. He covered on those occasions issues related, first, to the Nizārī-Mustaʿlī split that resulted, in 487/1094, in a conflict over legitimacy which continues even now and, second, to the obscure events that led, in 524/1130, to the Ṭayyibī/Ḥāfiẓī division in the Ismaili legacy and eventually to the termination of the dynasty itself. Both articles were fine examples of Stern's careful scholarship; they have continued not only to be the most useful analyses of these problems, but to retain great value despite the lapse of time. 2 There were, however, all along issues in the general matter of succession to a rule based on the Ismaili form of Shiism that Stern did not take up in these particular articles. In addition since his writing, sources have appeared which he either did not consider or were simply unavailable to him. Chief among the latter is the complete text of al-Maqrīzī's Ittiʿāẓ al-ḥunafāʿ, which is this late Mamluk historian's own quite interesting and valuable history of the Fatimids. 3
Almost a century ago Richard Gottheil published an important article entitled "A Distinguished family of Fatimide Cadis (al-Nuʿman) in the Tenth Century." 1 His purpose was to call attention, not simply to the founding member of this influential family, but to his descendants who occupied, one after the other, the highest position in the Fatimid judicial system. Qāḍī al-Nuʿman was even then famous for his role in creating an Ismaili law, for several books on the Fatimid imams and one on the establishment of the dynasty, although at the time none of them had been published. In fact accurate information about them was generally lacking altogether in modern scholarship. Fortunately, however, over the intervening years copies of many of these same works have been located, edited, and published and the investigation of Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān's career has received considerable scrutiny by a number of competent scholars. 2
The exact sectarian affiliation of Shahrastani has long been a matter of serious debate. Was he possibly an adherent of the Ismaili cause? Considerable recent scholarship purports to establish a connection. The evidence consists of some offhanded remarks by his own contemporaries; what he himself has to say about the Ismailis in his Kitab al-Milal wa-l-nihal; and finally, a set of doctrines or analytical categories he uses in his later writings that were later adopted by Nizari Ismailis. However, an impartial look at the evidence does not support the claim that Shahrastani was himself in any significant way an Ismaili.
Who speaks for Islam? To whom do Muslims turn when they look for guidance? To what extent do individual scholars and preachers exert religious authority, and how can it be assessed? The upsurge of Islamism has lent new urgency to these questions, but they have deeper roots and a much longer history, and they certainly should not be considered in the light of present concerns only. The present volume – grown out of an international symposium at the Free University, Berlin in 2002 – is not so much concerned with religious authority, but with religious authorities, men and women claiming, projecting and exerting religious authority within a given context. It addresses issues such as the relationship of knowledge, conduct and charisma, the social functions of the schools of law and theology, and the efforts on the part of governments and rulers to organize religious scholars and to implement state-centred hierarchies. The volume focuses on Middle Eastern Muslim majority societies in the period from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, and the individual papers offer case studies elucidating important aspects of the wider phenomenon. Individually and collectively, they highlight the scope and variety of religious authorities in past and present Muslim societies.
Any analysis of doctrines concerning metempsychosis in Islam must begin with the recognition of a fundamental point: for the orthodox Muslim, acceptance of a belief in bodily resurrection, regardless of whatever philosophical or theological problems that might entail, effectively precludes the concept of reincarnation in almost all forms. If soul—that is individual soul—preserves its connection to its particular body, or has this connection reestablished, there can be, accordingly, no possibility of the same soul moving into another body.
The writings of al-Ghazālī give the distinct impression that he was highly concerned with the threat the Ismailis and their doctrines posed. By his own admission, he wrote six separate treatises to refute and condemn them, most importantly his Faḍāʾiḥ al-bāṭiniyya (The infamies of the esotericists), which he composed in the year 488h (1095) in the months prior to his renunciation of government service and departure from Baghdad. His attack focused on the doctrine known as taʿlīm, with its insistence on the unrivaled absolute authority of a single infallible Imam. He had in mind the Alamut teaching by Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ of a doctrine then widely advocated in the Abbasid–Seljuk East. Significantly, there is no sign of this term used in this manner in the western Fatimid domains either earlier or later. However, our knowledge of events in the career of Ḥasan and of his teachings come from much later sources and are in part legendary at best. Although the doctrine of taʿlīm was certainly implicit in Ismaili works long before, in this particular work al-Ghazālī directed his attentions squarely against a new teaching he encountered personally in his own time and place. But we know it otherwise primarily from accounts recorded much later, in particular al-Shahrastānī’s al-Milal wa-l-niḥal.
The writings of al-Ghazālī give the distinct impression that he was highly concerned with the threat the Ismailis and their doctrines posed. By his own admission, he wrote six separate treatises to refute and condemn them, most importantly his Faḍāʾiḥ al-bāṭiniyya (The infamies of the esotericists), which he composed in the year 488h (1095) in the months prior to his renunciation of government service and departure from Baghdad. His attack focused on the doctrine known as taʿlīm, with its insistence on the unrivaled absolute authority of a single infallible Imam. He had in mind the Alamut teaching by Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ of a doctrine then widely advocated in the Abbasid–Seljuk East. Significantly, there is no sign of this term used in this manner in the western Fatimid domains either earlier or later. However, our knowledge of events in the career of Ḥasan and of his teachings come from much later sources and are in part legendary at best. Although the doctrine of taʿlīm was certainly implicit in Ismaili works long before, in this particular work al-Ghazālī directed his attentions squarely against a new teaching he encountered personally in his own time and place. But we know it otherwise primarily from accounts recorded much later, in particular al-Shahrastānī’s al-Milal wa-l-niḥal.
The two sermons edited and translated here for the first time are primary material from the years before the establishment of the Fatimid caliphate in 297/909. The authors have been identified as Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Shi‘i and Abu’l-‘Abbas Muhammad, two brothers who were central to the success of the Ismaili da’wa in North Africa. Da’wa, a term used to describe how Muslims teach others about the beliefs and practices of their Islamic faith, therefore provide a unique view of the nature and development of Islam throughout history. In this case, the primary texts shed light on the development of Islam among the Berbers of the Maghreb.The first text by Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Shi‘i shows how the arguments for belief in the ‘imamate’ of the family of the Prophet, that is, the Shi’a belief that all imams should be spiritual descendants of the Prophet Muhammad and his household, were developed and presented to bring new adherents to the cause. The Book of the Keys to Grace by his elder brother Abu’l-‘Abbas, too, concerns not only the centrality of the imam in the faith but also sheds light on the hierarchy of the da’wa in this early period and its organisational sophistication.Both texts also reveal the contemporary theology propagated by the Ismaili da’wa, including for instance, the powerful analogy of Moses/Aaron and Muhammad/‘Ali, the awareness of a variety of religious traditions and the use of detailed Qur’anic quotations and a wide range of hadith. As such they constitute primary source material of interest not only for Ismaili history but for this early period of Islam in general.
Proofs of Prophecy and the Refutation of the Ismāʿīliyya: The Kitāb Ithbāt nubuwwat al-nabī by the Zaydī al-Muʾayyad bi-llāh al-Hārūnī (d. 411/1020). By Eva-Maria Lika. Worlds of Islam, vol. 9. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2018. Pp. vii + 177 (Eng.), 152 (Ar.). $149.99, €129.95, £106.99.
