Twelver Shiism : unity and diversity in the life of Islam, 632 to 1722 / Andrew J. Newman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Newman, Andrew J., author.

Series:

New Edinburgh Islamic surveys

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shīʻah--History.

Shīʻah.

History.

Shīʻah--Doctrines--History.

Imams (Shiites).

Shīʻah--Doctrines.

Shīʻah / Doctrines / History.

Shīʻah / History.

Local Subjects:

Shīʻah / Doctrines / History.

Shīʻah / History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

x, 267 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2013.

Summary:

Some 10-15 per cent of the world's one billion Muslims are estimated to be Shiites, and the largest of today's three Shii groups are the Twelver Shia. Theirs is the established faith in modern Iran and the majority faith in Iraq, and it has adherents in Arab countries, the Subcontinent and Afghanistan. Twelvers believe that the Prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law Ali and his descendants should have succeeded the Prophet. Now they await the return of the Twelfth Imam who disappeared in the late 9th century AD. Andrew J. Newman chronicles the progression of Twelver Shiism, exploring the numerous external challenges and internal disagreements that marked the lives of believers in pockets across the Middle East to the early 18th century. During this time, from the 13th to the 15th century especially, with scholarly activity and the availability of earlier key texts of the faith limited, the region's many millenarian doctrines and movements threatened its demise. Only by the late 17th century was Twelver Shiism's survival assured, both in Iran and elsewhere in the region. Book jacket.

Contents:

Twelver Shii Studies to 1979 2

Tears of expansion: Shii Studies in the aftermath of 1979 4

More recent trends 6

A different agenda 9

The sources 10

1 Shiism fragmented: the faith and the faithful from the seventh to the ninth century 16

From the death of the Prophet to the fall of the Umayyads 16

Internal divisions 17

The Shia and the Umayyads 19

Shii risings in the later eighth century 21

The Husaynid Imams in the later Umayyad period 24

The Husaynid Imams over the later Abbasid period 25

Summary and conclusion 30

2 Bereft of a leader: the early traditionists and the beginnings of doctrine and practice 36

Pockets of believers: the traditionists of Qum 36

The earliest compilations of the Imams' traditions: the Qummi responses of al-Barqi and al-Saffar 38

Pockets of believers: ... and Baghdad 41

The Qummi response to Baghdadi discourse: al-Kulayni's al-Kafi 44

Summary and conclusion 49

3 The challenge of 'the Uncertainty' 57

The reality of al-Hayra: 'the Imamate and the Enlightenment' 57

Al-Numani's Kitab al-Ghayba 58

The coming of The Buyids 60

Beyond al-Hayra: al-Ziyarat in theory and practice 60

Ibn Babawayh and the Imams' traditions 62

Confronting the confusion: Kamal al-Din 63

'Speaking truth to power': Uyun Akhbar al-Rida 65

Al-Itiqadat: a challenging précis 67

Al-Faqih: Ibn Babawayh and the Ahkam 69

Alternative approaches 72

Summary and conclusion 73

4 Majority and minority: rationalism on the defensive in the later Buyid period 78

The Shia in Baghdad: a beleaguered community 78

Al-Shaykh al-Mufid 80

Al-Sharif al-Murtada 84

Al-Shaykh al-Tusi: blending revelation and reason 87

The rationalists and the rijal 88

Al-Tusi and the ahkam/furu 89

Al-Tusi and the occultation 92

Alternative visions: disagreements among the faitlful 94

Summary and conclusion 95

5 Betwixt and between: the Twelvers and the Turks 101

The initial legacy 101

The arrival of the Saljuqs 102

Scattered pockets and lost resources 104

The community in the west: Syria 105

Resurgent traditionism in Baghdad 106

The community in al-Hilla: the critique of al-Tusi 109

Populism on the Iranian plateau 110

The plateau's elites 113

Summary and conclusion 117

6 The Mongol and Ilkhanid periods: the rise and limits of the school of al-Hilla 122

The fall of Baghdad and the rise of al-Hilla 122

The state of the community 125

The jurisprudence of al-Hilla: cautious advances I 126

The Hillis and the Ahkam: cautious advances II 128

Al-Hilla, the traditions and The rijal 131

Alternative discourses 132

Summary and conclusion 133

7 The severest of challenges 138

The state of the faith in the fourteenth century 38

From west to east: the Shia in greater Syria /Lebanon 140

Ibn Makki's writings 142

The Shia of the Hijaz 143

Millenarianism on the plateau 144

Dissent in Ibn Makki's time 145

The age of the Timurids 146

The fifteenth-century community 147

The Shia of the Gulf 147

The renewal of the millenarian challenge 148

Summary and conclusion 151

8 Shiism in the sixteenth century: the limits of power (and influence) 155

The scattered pockets 155

The written legacy 157

Iran in the first Safawid century: a failure to take hold 158

The Lebanon 163

Arab Iraq: still viable after all these years 164

The Shia in the Hijaz and the Gulf 166

The Deccan 'states': more Shiism from above 168

Summary and conclusion 170

9 The past rediscovered and the future assured: Shiism in the seventeenth century 177

The scattered pockets 177

The written legacy 178

The dynamics of Shiism in seventeenth-century Iran 179

Iran: the external and internal challenges 180

Pre-Safawid sources, Persian and the anti-Sufi polemic 182

Pre-Safawid sources, Persian and Friday prayer 184

Rising above the polemics: Baqir al-Majlisi and the traditions 188

The latter days of the Safawids 189

The other centres: Iraq and the shrine cities 190

The Lebanon 191

Eastern Arabia and the Hijaz 192

The Indian subcontinent: winding up the Deccan 193

And further east 195

Summary and conclusion 196.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 242-255) and index.

ISBN:

9780748633302

0748633308

0748633316

9780748633319

OCLC:

820779656