Chapter 1
The Origins
When the Prophet Muhammad died in the year 632, questions surfaced that would subsequently shape the communities of the Muslim world: Who was to inherit authority over the Muslim community (umma), who would now stand as its religious and moral guide, its political leader? Who was to be the arbiter of law and doctrine, now that the Prophet was physically no more? How was salvation to be realised now that the living guide on Godâs path had passed away? The myriad questions that the earliest Muslims faced when the Prophet died were encapsulated in one: who now was the rightful leader, the legitimate imam of Muslims?
For some, the answer converged in one person, Ali b. Abi Talib (601â61), the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet. It was recalled that Ali had been brought up by the Prophet himself, was at the Prophetâs side from the earliest days of his mission until his final moments on this earth, had been given the Prophetâs daughter Fatima in marriage, and had fathered the Prophetâs only surviving grandsons. His supporters, who became known as the Shiâat Ali (party of Ali), claimed that the Prophet, as ordered by God and therefore through divine designation, had appointed Ali and a chosen line of descendants from Fatima as the Imams of the community. As such, Shiâa still believe that these Imams from the Household of the Prophet (ahl al-bayt) were the only true inheritors of the Prophetâs mantle of authority; only they were vested with the means to lead humankind to salvation.
For many others, the choice of succession to the Prophet settled on the four senior companions of the Prophet: Abu Bakr, followed by Umar, Uthman and Ali, who were recognised as the successors or caliphs of the Messenger of God. Over the course of time, those who followed this line of authority evolved into the Sunni branch of Islam, so named for their belief that the Prophetâs way of living (sunna) was transmitted this way. Aliâs caliphate was virulently contested by Muâawiya, the leading figure of the Umayyad clan, an aristocratic family from Mecca who had opposed the Prophet in the earlier days of his mission, but who ascended to the senior ranks of the Muslim community after his death. The assassination of Ali allowed Muâawiya to establish the Umayyad caliphate in 661. Their dynasty lasted nearly a century, until it was overthrown in 750 by the Abbasid clan, who also claimed to be Imams belonging to the family of the Prophet.
Over this first century of Islam, monumental transformations had taken place in the lands that were to become the Muslim world. The first believers had by now spread out from Arabia into the lands of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt and Ifriqiya. Across these lands, they built and settled in new towns, rubbing shoulders with the peoples who had lived there for centuries, and inheriting their learning and traditions. These interactions led to new questions: Who could be defined as a Muslim? Was Islam exclusively reserved for Arab tribesmen or open to all converts? What did it actually mean to be a Muslim? What was the relationship between faith and practice? Did a believer have merely to believe, or did he have to fulfil all the acts and rituals that were increasingly being codified? What determined law and ritual? How was the text of the Qurâan to be understood, and who could interpret it? What was true knowledge, and from whom could it be obtained? Underlying these questions was the ever-present concern of following the true guide to salvation.
Shiâi Beginnings
The Zaydis
The two Sunni caliphates that preceded the Fatimids â that of the Umayyads (661â750) and the Abbasids (750â1258) â both claimed to be the legitimate inheritors and rightful representatives of the Prophetâs authority. But throughout those periods, the communities of Shiâa Muslims maintained their belief that the only true heirs to the Prophetâs mantle of religious and temporal authority remained the lineal descendants of the Prophet through his daughter, Fatima, and Ali. In time, the Shiâa also divided over who amongst the progeny of Ali and Fatima were the true Imams. Zayd b. Ali (d. 740), a great-greatgrandson of the Prophet and the eponymous founder of the Zaydi branch of the Shiâa, held that any of the descendants of Ali could become the Imam, so long as they sought justice and publicly declared their claim. But for many of the Shiâa, the imamate followed the lineage of the sons of al-Husayn, son of Ali, as shown in Figure 3.
The Imami Shiâa
Another branch of Shiâa emerged in the middle of the 8th century, as the Umayyad dynasty was disintegrating and the Abbasid caliphate gained ascendancy. Imam Jaâfar al-Sadiq (702â65) â the great-grandson of Imam Husayn â around whom the Imami Shiâa clustered, lived in the city of Medina throughout this tumultuous age, devoting his life to outlining the principles of the Shiâi faith based on the teachings of his forefathers. He explained that guidance and salvation were attained through knowledge, learning and the use of the intellect. He taught that supreme knowledge of the right path had been given by God to His creation through His chosen messengers and guides; the seal of the prophets, and therefore the last, was Imam Jaâfarâs own forefather, the Prophet Muhammad. Thereafter, divine guidance continued with his rightful successor, Ali, and then in a divinely chosen lineage through the sons of his progeny, the Imams from the Household of Muhammad.
It was this knowledge that enabled the Imams of the ahl al-bayt to know the truth that underpinned the Qurâan, whose inner meanings are known only to Godâs chosen guides. Imam Jaâfar proclaimed that rightful leadership belonged only to these divinely appointed guides, each of whom named his own successor, just as the Prophet Muhammad had designated Ali as his successor. Political authority, and the caliphate, belonged to them by divine decree. But whether they held political office or not, the legitimacy of the Imams did not alter. After al-Husayn, the imamate passed to Zayn al-Abidin, Jaâfarâs grandfather, and then to his own father, al-Baqir, before the imamate â the knowledge, the wisdom, the guidance and the rightful authority â came to reside in Imam Jaâfar himself. Due to the centrality of the idea of the imamate in their vision of faith, the followers of Imam Jaâfar, in time, would often be referred to as the Imamiyya (the Imamis).
The Shiâi Imams and their supporters endured decades of persecution under the reign of the Umayyad caliphs, the latter always in fear of a challenge to their claim to the caliphate. After the Abbasid revolution in 750 that overthrew the Umayyads in Damascus, the descendants of Ali and their followers suffered a new wave of persecution under the Abbasid caliphs, with their new capital city at Baghdad. The Abbasids asserted that, as the descendants of the Prophetâs uncle Abbas, they were part of the Prophetâs family, the true ahl al-bayt, and to them alone belonged the titles of Imam and caliph; claims by rival Imams from the lineage of Ali and Fatima, who were direct blood descendants of the Prophet, would not be tolerated. Scores of Alids (followers of those descended from Ali and Fatima) were executed by the Abbasids, and many more imprisoned.
The Ismaili Shiâa and the Twelvers
It was during this oppressive climate when agents of the Abbasid caliph pursued the Imami Shiâa that Imam Jaâfar Sadiq passed away. His death in 765 led to a major division between the Imamis. There were those who held that Imam Jaâfar had pronounced the nass (divine designation of succession) upon his eldest son, Ismaâil, who, according to some historical reports predeceased his father, whereupon the imamate was passed on to his son, Muhammad b. Ismaâil. In history, they came to be known as the Ismaili Shiâa. There were others who contended that the nass was professed instead on Imam al-Sadiqâs youngest son, Musa. Subsequently, this latter group came to be known as the Ithnaâashari, or Twelver, Shiâa.
Both these groups of Shiâa met with severe persecution by the Abbasids. Musa al-Kazim, the seventh Imam of the Ithnaâashari Shiâa, was arrested, jailed and then allegedly poisoned on the orders of the Abbasid caliph. Another son of Jaâfar fled to Mecca. It was then that the Ismaili Shiâa Imam Muhammad b. Ismaâil secretly left Medina, and, evading Abbasid agents, headed eastwards to the region of Khuzistan, which straddles Iraq and Iran.
The Emerging Ismaili Daâwa
The âConcealmentâ
From around 765, the location and identity of Imam Muhammad b. Ismaâil were considered to have been known only to his most trusted associates, who concealed his whereabouts while remaining in contact with him. Following this significant turn of events, the next century and a half (765â909) came to be characterised in Ismaili history as the dawr al-satr (period of concealment). It was during this era, when the identities of the Imams remained hidden except from the most trusted of believers, that an organised movement known as the daâwa (religio-political mission) gained momentum across the Muslim world. This mission, which promoted the recognition of the hidden Ismaili Imams and secured allegiance for their cause, served as the precursor to the establishment of the Fatimid state.
Salamiyya: The Ismaili Imamâs Secret Residence
Salamiyya (see Figure 1) at this time comprised clusters of houses that made up the districts of the town, all situated around a main road that ran through the centre of the town. The ruins of ancient Christian monasteries nearby testi-fied that it was an old settlement, but the town itself had only recently been resettled in the Abbasid era, by immigrants from near and far. As did many other towns of the time, it featured a governorâs mansion, residential districts, teeming marketplaces and, rising above them all, the minarets and walls of the central mosque, which in Salamiyya was built out of the black rock extracted from local lava fields.
In the residential quarters was a mansion whose high walls indicated that it was home to someone of considerable status. The people of Salamiyya knew the owner to be a respected and wealthy merchant from the Hashimi family (the name of the greater clan to which the Prophet Muhammad had belonged), but only a small, trusted group of people across the Muslim world knew his real identity and the purpose his building served. By the end of the 9th century, the mansion had come to function as the secret central headquarters of the Ismaili daâwa, and it was home to Imam Abd Allah al-Mahdi. Few living in Salamiyya at the time could have imagined the series of events that over the next decade would propel Abd Allah to become the first Imam-caliph to found an empire that would span the shores of the Mediterranean.
Justice and Righteous Rule
During the dawr al-satr that began with the concealment of the Imam Muhammad b. Ismaâil in the 8th century, the Ismaili daâwa attracted adherents across the Muslim world, particularly in Ifriqiya, Yemen, Iraq, Iran and Sind. It called for the establishment of a reign based on justice and a Shiâi understanding of righteous rule, one that aimed to end what many had come to regard as the oppressive rule of the Abbasids, and to replace it with the Alid Ismaili Imams at the helm of the Muslim world.
In the early decades of the 9th century, the Ismaili daâwa became highly organised and hierarchical. In the climate of fear and persecution, secrecy was paramount. At the head of the organisation was the hujja, the âproofâ and âguarantorâ of the Imam himself. Many thought that the hujja in those early years was the ârepresentativeâ of Muhammad b. Ismaâil. Later, in the Fatimid age, hujjas were understood to be his sons and successive Imams, whose true identities had remained concealed.
The term daâi, which is derived from the same root as daâwa, literally means âinviterâ or âsummonerâ. The task of the daâi was to call people to the recognition of the imamate of Muhammad b. Ismaâil, and to teach the doctrines of the din al-haqq (the true faith/religion). The daâis held that the core of âthe religions of the bookâ (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam) was the true religion, the din al-haqq, a universal and eternal truth. Throughout history, God had sent speaker-prophets (natiqs) â Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad â each of whom pronounced laws and ceremonies, rites and regulations, for their own communities. These were seen as the exterior (zahir) expressions of the faith. Yet the core of their message and the inner reality of all the scriptures â the Torah, the Bible and the Qurâan â contained the same universal truths.
Adherents of the daâwa pronounced the basic Shiâi doctrine of Imam Jaâfar al-Sadiq, that alongside each natiq, God had decreed a wasi, a vicegerent who was to serve as an elucidator of the revelation and to lead the initiated believers towards its inner truth. Just as the wasi of Adam was his son Abel, for Abraham it was his son Ismaâil, for Moses it was Aaron, and for Jesus it was Peter, so for Muhammad the wasi was Ali b. Abi Talib. Thereafter, the task of explaining the spirit of Islam and the inner truths of the Qurâan was vested in the Imams who came after Ali. Recognition of the Imam was therefore indispensable for anyone who would attain salvation.
As the Ismaili daâis spread across the Muslim world, they found an increasingly receptive audience. Towards the latter half of the 9th century, the previously powerful and intellectually vibrant Abbasid state began to unravel. Disaffection plagued their lands; political factionalism encouraged unscrupulous tax collectors exacting unjust taxes to pay for the growing luxuries of the court and the rising stipends of the unruly soldiers. As the infrastructure declined, farmers suffered, trade was stifled and a general breakdown in order led to rebellion and rioting in the cities.
The call for a reign of justice and righteousness led by an Imam from the ahl al-bayt found copious respondents in these politically, socially and economically turbulent times. People were drawn to various aspects of the Ismaili cause; the emphasis on seeking knowledge appealed to many amongst the literary classes of Iran and Iraq, whilst the call for justice and good governance drew those who felt slighted by the existing powers, including the Bedouins of the desert and the rural populations of Iraq and North Africa. The daâwaâs call for the imminent emergence of a long-awaited mahdi fell on receptive ears.
Belief in the mahdi, literally meaning âthe rightly guided oneâ, formed an integral doctrinal feature of a number of Muslim communities from the earliest decades of Islam, given support by the hadiths ascribed to the Prophet Muhammad which predicted his arrival to âfill the world with justice just as it was once filled with oppressionâ. Almost synonymous with the term al-mahdi was the term al-qaâim, âthe one who risesâ to restore justice and righteousness. While there were differences of views amongst Muslim groups regarding the identity of the mahdi, the time of his appearance and his role and function in the Muslim community at the time of his manifestation (zuhur), there was nonetheless considerable conformity among various groups to the idea that a mahdi and a qaâim would indeed appear to restore the community of Muhammad to the true path.
Within the Ismaili daâwa also there developed different views on the identity of the mahdi. For some, the one they were calling Imam al-Mahdi was Jaâfar al-Sadiqâs grandson Muhammad b. Ismaâil himself, whom they believed would emerge, having been in concealment for over a century but who was to return as Godâs appointed saviour. Yet, for others, and for the leaders of the daâwa at Salamiyya, the mahdi would be the living Imam from the descendants of Muhammad b. Ismaâil, and it would not be long before his public emergence would be proclaimed. It was to North Africa that the eyes of many Ismaili faithful turned, in the year 909, for the manifestation of Imam al-Mahdi.
The Ismaili Daâwa in Ifriqiya
The Berber clans of the Kutama tribes lived in the lands of eastern Algeria, an area known today as the lesser Kabylia, a highland region of mountains, deep valleys, thick forests and flowing streams. Around 893, almost 20 years before the arrival of Imam Abd Allah al-Mahdi in North Africa, a group of Kutama pilgrims went to Mecca. There, they met an Ismaili daâi and set out upon a mission that was soon to change the face of the Muslim ...