4. The Emergence of Gnosis

Levi Billig, a Jewish scholar, was the first to have taken the Kitāb Baṣā’ir al-darajāt—the work to be examined in this chapter—as one of his principal objects of scientific study and had begun to prepare its critical edition. His task remains unfinished. During the night of August 20, 1936, he was murdered by a lone shooter in Talpiot, a suburb south of Jerusalem. The present study is dedicated with much feeling to his memory. I am grateful to my friend and colleague Professor Etan Kohlberg for having sent me some of Levi Billig’s works and notes, along with excerpts from local newspapers of the time reporting the tragic event.

      1.  Halm, Die islamische Gnosis; Tucker, Mahdīs and Millenarians.

      2.  Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin and La religion discrète.

      3.  Amir-Moezzi, “Considérations sur l’expression dīn ʿAlī.”

      4.  See, respectively, Crow, “The Death of al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī and Early Shīʿī Views of the Imamate”; al-Qāḍī, al-Kaysāniyya fī l-ta’rīkh wa l-adab and “The Development of the Term Ghulāt.”

      5.  Tucker, “Bayān b. Samʿān and the Bayāniyya,” “Rebels and Gnostics,” “Abū Manṣūr al-ʿIjlī and the Manṣūriyya,” and “ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya and the Janāḥiyya”; Wasserstrom, “The Moving Finger Writes”; Straface, “Il concetto di estremismo nell’eresiografia islamica.” See also Taylor, “An Approach to the Emergence of Heterodoxy in Medieval Islam” and “Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq”; Fahd, “Ğa’far al-Ṣādiq et la tradition scientifique arabe.”

      6.  Ansari, L’imamat et l’Occultation selon l’imamisme, especially the introduction and chapter 2.

      7.  Meshkāt, Tārīkh-e tashayyoʿ dar īrān, passim; Jaʿfariyān, Tārīkh-e tashayyoʿ dar īrān az āghāz tā qarn-e dahom-e hejrī, especially the first three chapters.

      8.  A few well-studied examples may suffice: the appropriation including even the expression of the “Family of the Prophet” (ahl al-bayt) by the Umayyads (see Sharon, “Ahl al-Bayt” and “The Umayyads as Ahl al-Bayt”; Amir-Moezzi, “Considérations sur l’expression dīn ʿAlī”); the development of the literature on the “Virtues” (faḍā’il) of the Prophet’s companions, particularly the first three caliphs, over against the traditions praising the “virtues” of ʿAlī and his family (in the bibliography see the works by A. Hakim on the image of the first two caliphs and more particularly, that of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb); the fabrication of traditions on the role of the companions in the account of the Prophet’s heavenly Ascent (miʿrāj) over against Shi’ite traditions emphasizing the imams’ capability for celestial ascent to the same extent as Muḥammad (see Colby, “the Early Imami Shiʿi Narratives and Contestation”). The authors of these studies often emphasize the fact that the Sunni traditions were elaborated in reaction to the Shi’ite traditions which hence are older. As in other religious traditions, what is termed “orthodoxy” took shape in reaction to earlier tendencies which gradually came to be seen as “heterodox,” if not in fact “heretical.” According to other scholars, however, it is nearly impossible to know which of the two bodies of literature, Sunni or Shi’ite, is indeed the earliest and accordingly, which underlies the other; see, e.g., the synthetic presentation by Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins, introduction.

      9.  Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin and La religion discrète; Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, Qu’est-ce que le shi’isme?, especially the second part.

    10.  The ascription of the K. Baṣā’ir al-darajāt to al-Ṣaffār has been put into doubt by my friend and colleague Dr. Hassan Ansari (“Madkhal-e moṭāleʿe-yī tafṣīlī dar bāre-ye Kitāb Baṣā’ir al-darajāt va hoviyyat-e nevisande-ye ān”). This is not the place to enter into a detailed discussion, but I must admit that the latter’s arguments do not strike me as convincing nor do they succeed in casting serious doubt on the centuries of prosopograhical and bibliographical traditions supporting this ascription. In any case, even if the hypothesis of Ansari were accepted, the work would then be that of Saʿd b. ʿAbdallāh al-Ashʿarī and probably completed by Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-ʿAṭṭār, two exact contemporaries of al-Ṣaffār. Hence, this does not affect the dating involved in my argument, but solely the identity of the author of the text being examined. On al-Ṣaffār and his work, see also Newman, The Formative Period of Twelver Shīʿism, chapter 5.

    11.  On these two Imami traditions and the role played by Shi’ite political power in the fourth/tenth century, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, pp. 33–58; Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, Qu’est-ce que le shi’isme?, part 3.

    12.  Ibn Dāwūd al-Ḥillī, Rijāl, s.n. (the biographical dictionaries are arranged by personal names in alphabetical order; thus it is easy to find the desired reference).

    13.  Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ al-ruwāt, s.n.

    14.  The Kitāb al-Maḥāsin of Abū Ja’far al-Barqī (d. 274/887 or 280/893) is logically a little older than the Baṣā’ir al-darajāt, but it is closer to a kind of literary anthology than to a doctrinal treatise; moreover, the side of it dealing with the imamate does not make up its main subject, but is only the subject of a few chapters; see GAS, 1:538; Newman, The Formative Period of Twelver Shīʿism, chapter 4; Vilozny, “A Shīʿī Life Cycle According to al-Barqī’s Kitāb al-Maḥāsin” and “Réflexions sur le Kitāb al-ʿIlal d’Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Barqī.”

    15.  Lithograph ed., Iran, 1285/1868 (with the Nafas al-raḥmān fī faḍā’il Salmān of al-Nūrī al-Ṭabrisī); ed. Mīrzā Muḥsin Kūčebāghī, Tabriz; the editor’s introduction is dated 1380/1960, while his final note is dated a year later). A facsimile of this edition was published in Tehran in a thousand copies in 1404/1983. It is clear that Mīrzā Kūčebāghī, lacking access to the manuscripts, used the lithographed edition, while, at the same time, availing himself of the “lessons” in the Biḥār al-anwār of al-Majlisī (d. 1111/1699). The text to which this note pertains was first written in 1992 (in my article “Al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī”) and then in 2011. It remained valid until a few months ago when there appeared a new edition of the Baṣā’ir al-darajāt together with a Persian translation, by ʿA. Zakīzādeh Ranānī, Qumm 1391/2012, 2 vols. I have not had the time to examine this edition carefully as to its quality. Oddly enough, the editor says nothing in his introduction about the earlier editions of the work!

    16.  Ṭūsī, Fihrist (ed. Sprenger), pp. 143–44, no. 611, and Rijāl, p. 436, no. 16.

    17.  Najāshī, Rijāl (Bombay), pp. 251 and 274.

    18.  Ṭūsī, Fihrist, p. 143; Najāshī, Rijāl, pp. 251, 274. On Ibn al-Walīd, see, e.g., Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 262; Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist (ed. Tajaddod), p. 279; ʿAllāma Ḥillī, Khulāṣat al-aqwāl (= Rijāl al-ʿAllāma), s.n.; Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ al-ruwāt, s.n.

    19.  According to tradition, the twelfth and final Imami Shi’ite imam had his first Occultation in 260/874, termed the “minor Occultation,” which lasted for seventy lunar years during which “the hidden imam” communicated with his followers through the mediation of the Four Representatives. In 329/940–941, a letter attributed to the imam brought the institution of delegation to an end and marked the beginning of the great Occultation, during which only a spiritual relationship with the last imam remained possible. According to Twelver Shi’ism, this Occultation still continues and will end only with the return of the imam at the End of Time as the eschatological savior (on this question, see Amir-Moezzi, “Eschatology in Imami Shiʿism”).

    20.  References to the works of Najāshī, Ṭūsī, Ibn Dāwūd al-Ḥillī and Ardabīlī (the last two making two persons out of our author) have already been given. See also ʿAllāma Ḥillī, Khulāṣat al-aqwāl, s.n.; Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ al-maqāl, 3:103; Mudarris, Rayḥānat al-adab, 3:453; Tafrishī, Naqd al-rijāl, s.n.; Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, 3:124–25, no. 416. For other Shi’ite prosopographical sources, see Kūčebāghī’s introduction to his edition of the Baṣā’ir al-darajāt, pp. 9–10. For non-Shi’ite sources, see Baghdādī Ismāʿīl Pāshā, Hidyat al-ʿārifīn wa asmā’ al-mu’allifīn, 2:24; Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-mu’allifīn, 9:208; for modern critical sources, see Strothmann, Die Zwölfer-Schia, p. 101; GAL, S. 1, p. 319; GAS, 1:538, no. 29; Newman, The Formative Period of Twelver Shīʿism, chapters 5 and 7.

    21.  The Imami juridical tradition, in contrast to their dogmatic tradition, displays few differences from the juridical tradition of the various Sunni schools (see Linant de Bellefonds, “Le droit imāmite,” especially p. 185). Al-Ṭūsī does not provide a list of al-Ṣaffār’s juridical collections, but limits himself to noting that the latter edited works on the model of those of al-Ḥusayn b. Saʿīd (i.e., b. Ḥammād al-Ahwāzī, a disciple—according to the Rijāl of al-Ṭūsī—of the eighth, ninth, and tenth imams, and the author of thirty or so collections, the titles of which are very nearly identical with those of al-Ṣaffār just enumerated. On him and for the discussions of his dates, see, e.g., Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ al-maqāl, 1:328–30).

    22.  For this translation of taqiyya, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, index s.v. and especially the conclusion. For the notion in general and its evolution in Imami Shi’ism, see Kohlberg, “Some Imāmī-Shīʿī Views on taqiyya” and “Taqiyya in Shīʿī Theology and Religion.”

    23.  For this technical sense of the term mu’min (a follower initiated into the esoteric side of the religion) and its difference from muslim (a simple Muslim who has submitted to the exoteric religion alone), see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, index s.v.

    24.  See the list of manuscripts given in GAL, S1, p. 319, and GAS, 1:538.

    25.  This is not to be confused with the lost work of the same title by al-Ṣaffār’s contemporary, Saʿd b. ʿAbdallāh al-Ashʿarī (d. 299/910 or 301/912, author of the renowned heresiographical work Kitāb al-maqālāt wa l-firaq (see the bibliography). According to H. Ansari, only the latter had compiled a work with this title at that time (see note 10, in this chapter, where I express my disagreement with this view). The book of Saʿd b. ʿAbdallāh was summarized by al-Ḥasan b. Sulaymān al-Ḥillī (edited under the title Mukhtaṣar Baṣā’ir al-darajāt, Najaf, 1370/1950); see Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, 3:124, no. 415, and, following him, GAS, no. 30. According to the Rijāl of al-Najāshī as well as the Fihrist of al-Ṭūsī, the Baṣā’ir of Saʿd b. ʿAbd Allāh was devoted to praises (manāqib) of the members of the Prophet’s family and yet the summary by al-Ḥillī also comprises a number of other subjects, including gnostic and initiatory themes. According to a reference by Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, 20:182–83, no. 2496, in editing his Mukhtaṣar, al-Ḥillī used, aside from the work of Saʿd, such other sources as the Baṣā’ir of al-Ṣaffār, the Kitāb Sulaym b. Qays (see chapter 1), the K. al-ghayba (The Book of the Occultation) by al-Nuʿmānī, and al-Ṭūsī, the Tafsīr of ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-Qummī, al-Tanzīl wa’l-taḥrīf of al-Sayyārī (see chapter 2), al-ʿUmda of Ibn al-Biṭrīq, etc.

    26.  See the indexes in GAL and GAS.

    27.  On this technical sense of the term ʿilm in the old Shi’ite corpus, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, index s.v. and most especially, part III-2 (“Sacred Knowledge”).

    28.  In the last part of the present chapter, the complete table of contents of the Baṣā’ir will be given.

    29.  Le guide divin, parts I.1 and I.2. For everything that is stated here in summary fashion, the reader is referred to that study, where all the necessary references to the early sources, as well as to modern works, are given. See also Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, Qu’est-ce que le shi’isme?, part 3.

    30.  We have already encountered this important evolution of Imami Shi’ism in chapters 2 and 3.

    31.  See Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, pp. 33ff. and the conclusion, and “Réflexions sur une évolution du shi’isme duodécimain.”

    32.  For a study of this evolution through an analysis of the semantic shifts of the term ʿaql (proceeding from “hallowed understanding” to “reason”), see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, pp. 15–48.

    33.  In an effort to avoid pointlessly multiplying or lengthening the notes, the reader conversant with Arabic is referred—for whatever concerns these individuals as well as those who come later—to the prosopographical sources already cited, and most especially to the works of al-Najāshī, al-Ṭūsī, al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī, al-Ardabīlī and al-Māmaqānī. The alphabetical arrangement of persons in these sources allow the reader to find the entries devoted to them.

    34.  Especially al-Ṭūsī in his Istibṣār or al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī in his Sharā’iʿ al-islām.

    35.  Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ al-maqāl, 3:103 (toward the end of the entry: ʿadam riwāya Ibn al-Walīd li-Baṣā’ir al-darajāt li-tawahhumihi annahu yaqrubu l-ghuluww). But see the addition to note 15; see also the refutation directed at al-Majlisī by the new editor of the Baṣā’ir al-darajāt in his introduction, 1:38.

    36.  On the charge of ghuluww and the problems connected with it, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, the conclusion.

    37.  These “anomalies” also crop up in the edited versions as well as in the manuscripts in my possession, namely, Mashhad, Āstān-e qods I, akhbār 62–1629; Mashhad, Āstān-e qods V, akhbār 407–1933 and Tehran University, Mishkāt III, 3, 1061. For practical reasons I refer to the edition of Kūčebāghī, which is readily available.

    38.  Baṣā’ir, section II, chapter 1 (no. 1), p. 56; s. III/ch. 1 (no. 1), p. 114; III/9 (1), p. 132; IV/1 (1), p. 162; IV/4 (15), p. 178; V/1 (1), p. 262; VI/8 (1), p. 288; VII/1 (1), p. 313; VII/11 (1), p. 333; VIII/1 (1), p. 368; IX/1 (1), p. 418; X/1 (1), p. 470.

    39.  In the Imami Rijāl (or prosopographical) works, two persons named Ḥamza b. al-Qāsim were al-Ṣaffār’s contemporaries, the first of them still alive in 339/950–951 and the second having served as a direct informant of Saʿd b. ʿAbdallāh al-Ashʿarī. Both descended from Abū l-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās, son of the imam ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. Nevertheless, the first is called Ḥamza b. al-Qāsim b. ʿAlī Abū Yaʿlā (and not Abū l-Qāsim) in the sources, while the second is called Ḥamza b. al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad.

    40.  Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-ʿAṭṭār al-Ashʿarī al-Qummī, an unassailable authority in Hadith and a member of the powerful clan of the Ashʿarites of Qumm. He is often cited by al-Kulaynī. He transmits traditions on al-Ṣaffār’s authority but, as will be seen, he also cites him as a direct informant. Hence the two men transmitted hadiths mutually, one to the other.

    41.  The published version of the book is clearly the long version. Āqā Bozorg al-Ṭihrānī claims to have seen several manuscripts of the work, and he specifies that the lithograph edition of 1285/1868 corresponds to the long integral version (wa hādhā l-maṭbuʿ huwa l-Baṣā’ir al-kabīr al-kāmil), Dharīʿa, 3:125. Moreover, in its title this edition takes up the adjective al-kubrā, as does the edition of Kūčebāghī, executed on the basis of the first version. The manuscript Mashhad 1629 bears the title K. Baṣā’ir al-darajāt al-kabīr. The short version seems to be lost today. Al-Ṭūsī in his Fihrist (p. 143) speaks of a supplement (ziyāda) of the Baṣā’ir, while al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1104/1692) cited, as among the sources of his Wasā’il, the two versions, long and short, of the book (Wasā’il al-shīʿa ilā taḥṣīl masā’il al-sharīʿa, lithograph ed., 1:5). At the beginning of the twentieth century, however, al-Ṭihrānī, a recognized specialist in Shi’ite manuscripts, wondered whether the incomplete manuscripts he had seen correspond to the short version (Dharīʿa, 3:125). Thus this learned scholar had evidently not come across a manuscript explicitly designated as the short version.

    42.  On the Four Representatives of the hidden imam during the minor Occultation, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, pp. 271ff.; for the formulation of the question about the tradition dealing with “the institution of the representation” (wikāla) restricted to these four persons, see Klemm, “Die vier Sufarā’ des Zwölften Imams.”

    43.  On the initiatory structure of Shi’ite circles, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, pp. 305ff.

    44.  Gibb, “The Social Significance of the Shuʿūbiyya”; Dūrī, al-Judhūr al-ta’rīkhiyya li l-shuʿūbiyya; Carter, “The Kātib in Fact and Fiction”; Mottahedeh, “The ShuʿÛbîyah Controversy”; Enderwitz, “Shuʿūbiyya,” EI2.

    45.  See Ibn Bābawayh, Kitāb man lā yaḥḍuruhu l-faqīh, 1:208, traditions 935–37 and p. 312, traditions 1419 (the author bases himself on the authority of al-Ṣaffār).

    46.  Ṣaffār, Baṣāir, section 11, chapter 7, no. 8, p. 335. For the legend of the Sasanian princess, see Amir-Moezzi, “Shahrbānū.” On the Arab/Persian conflict, see Amir-Moezzi, “Persian, the Other Sacred Language of Islam.”

    47.  In Alid or older Shi’ite circles, the term qā’im was more often used than mahdī (“well-guided”) to denote the eschatological savior.

    48.  Kulaynī, Uṣūl min al-Kāfī, “Kitāb al-ḥujja,” 2:117–209, 275 and 440–86; Ibn Bābawayh, Kamāl al-dīn, passim (the entire work might be considered as a monograph devoted to the twelfth imam, his fate, his Occultation, and his Return at the end of time).

    49.  Nuʿmānī, Ghayba; Ibn ʿAyyāsh, Muqtaḍab al-athar.

    50.  On these questions, see Friedlaender, Die Messiasidee im Islam; MacDonald and Madelung, “Mahdī”; Sachedina, Islamic Messianism; Blichfeldt, Early Mahdism.

    51.  On the quietism of the Ḥusaynid imams after Karbalā’, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, part III-1.

    52.  Najāshī, Rijāl, pp. 12 and 19; Ṭūsī, Fihrist, p. 14; Ibn Dāwūd, Rijāl, pp. 15 and 416. Wāqifī denotes someone who definitively ends (waqf) the line of the imams at such and such an imam while professing that this imam is the final in the line and the eventual savior to come.

    53.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 39.

    54.  About him and his work, see Kohlberg, “Al-uṣūl al-arbaʿumi’a,” pp. 146, 154–55, 158 and 164.

    55.  Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, 16:76, no. 382. On this author’s father, see Kashshī, Maʿrifat akhbār al-rijāl (Bombay), pp. 288–89.

    56.  Kitāb Abī Saʿīd al-ʿUṣfurī, p. 9.

    57.  For this account, see Ibn Bābawayh, Kamāl al-dīn, vol. 1, pp. 424ff. and 474ff.; Ṭūsī, K. al-ghayba (Tabriz), pp. 148ff.; (Pseudo-?) Masʿūdī, Ithbāt al-waṣiyya (Najaf), pp. 262ff.; Mufīd, Fuṣūl ʿashara (Najaf), pp. 135ff.; Ibn Rustam Ṭabarī, Dalā’il al-imāma (Najaf), pp. 223ff.; Ibn Shahrāshūb, Manāqib āl Abī Ṭālib (Najaf) 3:533 and 4:421ff.; Majlisī, Biḥār, 1:236–38 and 335ff.

    58.  Historical analysis of this phenomenon has been carried out in magisterial fashion by Kohlberg in “From Imāmiyya to Ithnā-ʿashariyya.”

    59.  Kulaynī, Uṣūl min al-Kāfī, “Kitāb al-ḥujja,” bāb al-nahy ʿani l-ism, 2:126ff.; Nuʿmānī, Ghayba, chapter 16, pp. 313ff.; Ibn Bābawayh, Kamāl al-dīn, chapter 33, 1:333ff.; chapter 35, no. 2, 2:370; chapter 56, 2:648ff.

    60.  Nuʿmānī, Ghayba, chapter 10, p. 217, no. 9. The fact that the name of the savior is given in separate letters as MḤMD (= Muḥammad) must correspond to this second phase (see Kulaynī, Uṣūl min al-Kāfī, bāb al-ishāra wa l-naṣṣ ilā Ṣāḥib al-dār—“chapter on the allusions and the investiture concerning the Lord of the dwelling,” i.e., the hidden imam—2:119, Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 1:102 and 2:76; Ibn Bābawayh, Kamāl al-dīn, chapter 42, no. 3 and chapter 43, no. 19).

    61.  Ibn ʿAyyāsh, Muqtaḍab al-athar, p. 9. On the two forms of knowledge, the “hidden” and the “lavished,” which seem to have much wider significance in other contexts, see Ṣaffār, Baṣā’ir, section 2, chapter 21, pp. 109–12; Kulaynī, Uṣūl min al-Kāfī, 1:375–76. Also Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, part IV-1.

    62.  Barqī, Maḥāsin, pp. 3–15; Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya to Ithnā-ʿashariyya,” p. 523. A few decades later, Ibn Bābawayh will report, in his Khiṣāl, numerous traditions on the number 12, several of which are about the twelve imams (Khiṣāl, 2:264–329).

    63.  Kulaynī, Uṣūl min al-Kāfī, “K. al-ḥujja,” bāb karāhiyyat al-tawqīt, 2:191, no. 3; bāb mā jā’a fī l-ithnā ʿashar wa l-naṣṣ ʿalayhim, 2:468, no. 1 and p. 475, no. 5: Nuʿmānī, Ghayba, chapter 4, nos. 2–4, pp. 58–60; chapter 13, no. 33, pp. 239–40 and no. 39, p. 242; chapter 14, no. 2, p. 248; chapter 16, no. 12, p. 294; Ibn Bābawayh, Kamāl al-dīn, 1:21, 25–26, 221, 241, 259, 288, 296–97, 299, 300, 2:334, 339, 361, 386, 388, 655, and 670.

    64.  On the Qā’im and his Return, see Baṣā’ir, pp. 24 (hadith no. 17), 28 (no. 8), 70 (no. 1), 77–78 (no. 5), 155 (no. 13), 175 (no. 2), 176 (no. 4), 183–84 (no. 36), 189 (no. 56), 193 (no. 3), 259 (no. 3), 262 (no. 1), 311 (no. 11), 356 (no. 8), 478 (no. 2), 484 (no. 1), 490–91 (no. 4), 510 (no. 15). On the number twelve for the imams: p. 280, no. 15 (section 6, chapter 5); p. 319, no. 2, p. 320, nos. 4 and 5 (section 7, chapter 5); p. 372, no. 16 (section 8, chapter 1).

    65.  On the tabdīd al-ʿilm as an esoteric procedure applied to texts, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, index s.v. The tactic seems to have been effective since these five traditions eluded the vigilance of my friend and colleague E. Kohlberg who states that al-Ṣaffār reports no tradition concerning the Occultation (which is true enough) and the twelve imams (“From Imāmiyya to Ithnā-ʿashariyya,” p. 523). But it is conceivable that the Israeli scholar meant by that: no tradition bearing the names of the twelve imams. Indeed, the oldest text the authenticity of which is certain and in which the complete list of the imams appears seems to be the Qur’anic commentary of ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-Qummī (d. shortly after 307/919), written a few years after the beginning of the minor Occultation and before the composition of the Kāfī of al-Kulaynī (Qummī, Tafsīr, 2:44–45).

    66.  Kulaynī, Uṣūl min al-Kāfī, “K. al-ḥujja,” bāb mā yufṣalu bihi bayn daʿwā l-muḥiqq wa l-mubṭil fī amr al-imāma, hadiths nos. 8 and 9; bāb karāhiyyat al-tawqīt, no. 1; bāb al-tamḥīṣ wa l-imtiḥān, nos. 2, 3 and 6; bāb mā jā’a fī l-ithnā ʿashar, nos. 2 and 19. According to Burūjirdī, Tartīb asānīd al-Kāfī, pp. 121–22, this Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan from whom al-Kulaynī transmits is not our Ṣaffār but rather Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭā’ī; he is the sole prosopographical author to hold this view, to the best of my knowledge; Nuʿmānī, Ghayba, chapter 10, no. 11; chapter 15, no. 6; chapter 16, no. 10; Ibn Bābawayh, Kamāl al-dīn, 1:136, 211, 262, 286, 288–289, 330, 2:335, 344, 346, 348–50, 370, 523, 645, 649, 671–72.

    67.  See also Hussain, The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam, part 2.1.1.; Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, part IV-1.

    68.  On the different theories of the Occultation, see Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la typologie des rencontres avec l’imam caché,” especially pp. 117–118; Amir-Arjomand, “The Crisis of the Imamate,” “The Consolation of Theology,” and “Imam Absconditus.”

    69.  This order seems a bit arbitrary, for the first chapters of one section are often the continuation of the last chapters of the preceding section, leading one to wonder why these chapters do not form part of the preceding section.

    70.  Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, part III-2 (“la Science sacrée”); also, Amir-Moezzi, “Réflexion sur une évolution du shi’isme duodécimain” and “Du droit à la théologie.” See also Kohlberg, “Imam and Community in the Pre-Ghayba Period,” particularly part 1.

    71.  See note 23 in this chapter; also Amir-Moezzi, “Etude du lexique technique de l’ésotérisme imamite.”

    72.  On taslīm (noun of action—“initiatory submission”—of the second form of the verbal root SLM) and the musallim (active participle—“the initiate submissive to his initiatory master”—from the same second form), see, e.g., Ṣaffār, Baṣā’ir, section 10, chapter 20, pp. 520ff.; Kulaynī, Uṣūl min al-Kāfī, bāb al-taslīm wa l-musallimīn, 2:234ff.; Ibn Bābawayh, K. al-Tawḥīd, pp. 458ff. The words islām and muslim are likewise the noun of action and active participle of the fourth form of the same verbal root SLM. To read musallim instead of muslim in well-known scriptural texts is an old practice in Shi’ism; see, e.g., traditions nos. 74, 76, 120, 129, 285, 361, and 363 as reported by al-Sayyārī in Kohlberg and Amir-Moezzi, Revelation and Falsification and the relevant commentaries.

    73.  The genre of “personalized commentary” that we analyzed in the Book of Sulaym b. Qays, and in al-Ḥibarī in particular, occurs quite frequently in al-Ṣaffār as well.

    74.  In this dualistic conception, very present in al-Ṣaffār’s work, general theoretical expositions as well as exact allusions to the imams and their historical enemies—notably, the first two caliphs and other companions hostile to ʿAlī—are to be found, in accord with the Shi’ite viewpoint.

    75.  On the central notion of walāya, see Amir-Moezzi, “Notes à propos de la walāya imamite.”

    76.  On preexisting worlds, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, parts II-1 and II-2; also Amir-Moezzi, “Cosmogony and Cosmology in Twelver Shi’ism.”

    77.  The expression can be translated also as “commander of the believers” and in Sunni Islam it denotes the title of caliph or of any temporal leader. For Shi’ites, this title is reserved exclusively for ʿAlī to such an extent that even the other imams in his line cannot use it.

    78.  In the oldest texts, notably in the Book of Sulaym, as we have seen, the word amr designates the caliphate, the legitimate temporal power. An evolution is perceptible here, a semantic shift of the term into an interior dimension in which the imamate, represented by the terms walāya or amr, has become a cosmic function attended by its spiritual counterparts. In this respect, Pines, “Shīʿite Terms and Conception in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari” is worth consulting.

    79.  This assertion runs counter to the dogma of Muḥammad’s illiteracy, a miraculous sign of his prophetic status which is eventually accepted in Sunni Islam. See Goldfeld, “The Illiterate Prophet (nabī ummī)”; and especially Athamina, “Al-Nabiyy al-Ummiyy”; and Günter, “Muḥammad, the Illiterate Prophet.”

    80.  On muḥaddath (not to be confused with muḥaddith: expert in Hadith, traditionist), see Kohlberg, “The Term Muḥaddath in Twelver Shīʿism.”

    81.  See chapter 3 of the present work.

    82.  On the magical power of the Column of Light, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, index s.v.

    83.  This assertion, like many others in the work, contradicts the Sunni dogma according to which the Prophet left no testament.

    84.  Rudolph, Die Gnosis.

    85.  See also the conclusion of the following chapter.

    86.  Halm, Die islamische Gnosis.

    87.  There is no doubt that doctrines of a gnostic sort are present in many Shi’ite traditions. It is the question as to their milieus and their means of transmission within the Islamic world that prompts debate. See, e.g., Massignon, “Die Ursprünge und die Bedeutung des Gnostizismus im Islam”; Corbin, “De la gnose antique à la gnose ismaélienne” and “L’idée du Paraclet en philosophie iranienne”; Rubin, “Pre-existence and Light”; al-Qāḍī, “The Development of the Term Ghulāt”; Halm, Kosmologie und Heilslehre der frühen Ismāʿīliyya; Bar-Asher and Kofsky, The Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawī Religion; Anthony, The Caliph and the Heretic. Conversely, for the hypothesis that gnostic themes in Shi’ism display a later character, see Bayhom-Daou, “The Second-Century Ghulāt.”

    88.  Massignon, “Der gnostische Kult der Fatima im schiitischen Islam”; Halm, “Das ‘Buch der Schatten’”; Wasserstrom, “The Moving Finger Writes”; De Smet, “Au-delà de l’apparent”; Tucker, Mahdīs and Millenarians.

5. Perfecting a Religion

This chapter is a slightly modified version of article by Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi and Hasan Ansari (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) that appeared in Studia Iranica (see the bibliography). The last part is the work of Amir-Moezzi alone. See also note 17of the introduction.

      1.  We are not taking into account the innumerable hagiographical studies devoted to our author and his work by Shi’ite scholars of the traditional sort. For Western studies, see Madelung, “al-Kulaynī,” EI2, 5:364; GAS, 1:540–42; Sander, Zwischen Charisma und Ratio, pp. 123ff.; Newman, The Formative Period of Twelver Shi’ism, chapters 6 and 8; Gleave, “Between Hadith and Fiqh”; the monographic article by Marcinkowski, “A Glance on the First of the Four Canonical Hadith Collections of the Twelver-Shīʿites,” is of a traditionalist and apologetic nature and cannot be deemed a historical and critical study.

      2.  Early Shi’ite sources: Abū Ghālib al-Zurārī, Risāla, pp. 176–77; Ibn Bābawayh al-Ṣadūq, “Mashyakha,” p. 534; Najāshī, Rijāl, pp. 377–78; Ṭūsī, Rijāl, p. 439, Fihrist, p. 393–95, and “Mashyakha,” pp. 5ff.; Ibn Sharāshūb, Maʿālim, p. 99; Ibn Dāwūd, Rijāl, p. 341; Ḥillī (‘Allāma), Rijāl, p. 145. Early Sunni sources: ‘Abd al-Ghanī al-Azdī, Mushtabah al-nisba, pp. 166–67; Ibn ‘Asākir, Ta’rīkh madīnat Dimashq, 56:297–98; Ibn Athīr, Kāmil, 8:364; Ibn Mākūlā, Ikmāl, 7:144; Dhahabī, Sīyar aʿlām al-nubalā’, 15:280, and Ta’rīkh al-īslām (between the years 321–30), p. 250; Ṣafadī, Wāfī, 5:226; Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Lisān al-mīzān, 5:433. Later sources combining all tendencies: Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ al-ruwāt, 2:218; Efendī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 5:199; Baḥrānī, Lu’lu’at al-baḥrayn, p. 387; Tafrishī; Naqd al-rijāl, p. 339; Ḥā’irī, Muntahā l-maqāl, p. 298; Ṭurayḥī, Jāmiʿ al-maqāl, p. 194; Quhpā’ī, Majmaʿ al-rijāl, 6:74; Baḥr al-ʿulūm, al-Fawā’id al-rijāliyya, 3:326; Narāqī, Shuʿab al-maqāl, p. 103; Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt, 6:108; Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:526; Baghdādī, Hidyat al-ʿārifīn, 2:35; Ṣadr, Ta’sīs al-shīʿa, 288; Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ al-maqāl, 3:200; Qummī, al-Kunā va l-alqāb, 3:98, Hidyat al-aḥbāb, p. 347, and al-Fawā’id al-riḍawiyya, p. 657; Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt aʿlām al-shīʿa (volume on fourth-century authors), p. 314; Ziriklī, Aʿlām, 7:145; Kaḥḥāla, Muʿjam al-mu’allifīn, 12:116; Tustarī, Qāmūs al-rijāl, 8:437; Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 18:50, no. 12038; Ṭabāṭabā’ī, Ghadīr, pp. 42–45.

      3.  Ibn’Asākir, Ta’rīkh madīnat Dimashq, 56:297–98.

      4.  This fact is all the more peculiar when one knows of Ibn al-Nadīm’s relationships with the Imami Shi’ites of the capital, as well as his familiarity with Shi’ite scholars and their works, to which indeed he devotes an entire chapter of his famous work. Might the part devoted to al-Kulaynī have been dropped from the manuscripts of al-Fihrist? See Anṣārī, “Ibn Nadīm” in DBI.

      5.  Ibn ‘Asākir, Ta’rīkh madīnat Dimashq, 56:297–98.

      6.  This date may be inferred from the fact that al-Kulaynī does not transmit directly from al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī (d. 290/902–3; see the preceding chapter) and that he transmits also—though rarely, true enough—from ‘Abdallāh b. Jaʿfar al-Ḥimyarī, who departed Qumm for Kūfa in 297/909–10.

      7.  He had in fact heard the Kūfan master Ḥumayd b. Ziyād (d. 310/922–23).

      8.  Al-Kulaynī transmitted directly from Abū l-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. Ismā’īl al-Nīshābūrī, called Bandfar, thanks to whom he came to know a large number of the reports of al-Faḍl b. Shādhān al-Nīshābūrī (d. 260/873); see Burūjirdī, Tartīb asānīd Kitāb al-Kāfī, 121; also Ibn ‘Asākir, Ta’rīkh madīnat Dimashq.

      9.  Ibn ‘Asākir, Ta’rīkh madīnat Dimashq.

    10.  Ṭūsī, “Mashyakhat al-Tahdhīb,” p. 29.

    11.  Assuming, to be sure, that he began his studies at the usual age in adolescence.

    12.  See, among others, Amir-Moezzi, “Shahrbānū,” p. 515–24. Generally speaking, the bibliographic references are quite plentiful with regard to this aspect of our work. We shall limit ourselves to several that are apposite.

    13.  Minorsky, La domination des Dailamites, passim and “Daylam,” EI2, 2:189–94. Also Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, passim.

    14.  Khan, “The Early History of Zaydī Shi’ism,” pp. 301–14.

    15.  On the conquest of Rayy by Muslim troops during the caliphate of ‘Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (in the year 19, 20, or 22 Hijra), see Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-buldān, pp. 313, 316; Yāqūt, Mu‘jam al-buldān, 3:116; Suyūṭī, Ta’rīkh al-khulafā’, p. 132; on the resistance of the populace up until the time of the third caliph ‘Uthmān b. ‘Affān, see Balādhurī, Futūḥ al-buldān, p. 315; Suyūṭī, Ta’rīkh al-khulafā’, p. 154.

    16.  Kāẓem-Beygī, “Tārīkh-e siyāsī,” p. 189ff.

    17.  Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, 7:418. Cf. also Ibn Isfandiyār, Tārīkh-e Ṭabaristān, p. 252.

    18.  Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, 7:371; Qummī, Tārīkh-e Qom, p. 163.

    19.  During the reign of the emir Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad (279–95/ 892–908) and the caliphate of al-Muktafī (289–95/ 902–8); see Ṭabarī, Ta’rīkh, 8:215–16.

    20.  For this period, see Qurṭubī, Ṣila Ta’rīkh al-Ṭabarī, pp. 35–36 and 95–96; also Stern, “The Early Ismāʿīlī Missionaries.”

    21.  See Sajjādī, “Āl-e Būya/Buwayh,” DBI.

    22.  Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, 2:901.

    23.  For him, see Ṭabarī, Ta’rīkh (Cairo), 10:16; also Bahrāmīyān, “Aḥmad b. al-Ḥasan al-Mādarānī,” DBI.

    24.  On his Shi’ism and his relations with the “representatives” of the hidden imam during the minor Occultation, see Ibn Rustam al-Ṭabarī (Pseudo-?), Dalā’il al-imāma, p. 282ff.; Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 1:522: Mufīd, Irshād, 2:363; Ṭūsī, Ghayba, pp. 282–83; Khaṣībī/Khuṣaybī, al-Hidāya al-kubrā, p. 369.

    25.  See Yūsufī Ashkevarī, “Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī,” DBI.

    26.  Barqī, Rijāl, p. 52, 55, 57–58; Ṭūsī, Rijāl, p. 158, 208; Ibn Dāwūd, Rijāl, pp. 13, 268, 341, 461; Ḥillī (‘Allāma), Rijāl, pp. 14, 33, 49, 143–44; Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 15:25.

    27.  See below the section devoted to al-Kulaynī’s masters, nos. 12, 15, and 16.

    28.  On Shi’ism at Qumm, see Mez, Die Renaissance des Islam, pp. 56–57; Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter nach arabischen Geographen, pp. 560–61; Spuler, Iran in frühislamischer Zeit, p. 179; Newman, Formative Period, chapter 3. See also Lambton, “Qum.” On the history and bibliography of the “Local Histories” of this city, see Modarressi, Ketāb shenāsī-ye āthār-e marbūṭ be Qom, Qom Nāmeh, and Rāhnamā-ye jughrāfiyā-ye tārīkhī-ye Qom. For the scholars of Qumm in the early period, see Qummī, Tadhkirat mashāyikh Qumm.

    29.  Initially, since the governor was chosen from among them by the caliph, they could thus have control of the city; see al-Qummī, Tārīkh-e Qomm, pp. 28, 101–2, 164. It is also reported that they often would not accept non-Shi’ite governors and judges appointed by the caliph. Furthermore, they often resisted paying various state taxes (ibid., pp. 241, 279).

    30.  Ibid., pp. 27, 242, 260–264, 278.

    31.  Najāshī, Rijāl, pp. 91, 174; Kashshī, Ikhtiyār maʿrifat al-rijāl, pp. 623–25; Ḥillī (ʿAllāma), Rijāl, pp. 15, 75.

    32.  Nevertheless, Ashʿarite religious views at this time are still in need of more nuanced study.

    33.  See Qummī, Tārīkh-e Qom, pp. 240–41, which offers a good analysis of the situation. On the Ashʿarite family, see Modarressi, “al-Ashʿariyyūn.”

    34.  For a historical approach on the transfer of Hadith science from Kūfa to Qumm, see Qummī, Tārīkh-e Qom, pp. 90–100.

    35.  On the evolution of the terms ghuluww and ghālin, pl. ghulāt, see al-Qāḍī, “The Development of the Term Ghulāt,” passim. On early Shi’ite esotericism and the ambiguity of the term ghuluww applied to Shi’ites retroactively judged “heterodox,” see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, pp. 307–17 and “Aspects de l’imamologie duodécimaine I,” passim.

    36.  See, e.g., Mufīd, Tasḥīḥ, pp. 135, 138; Sharīf Murtaḍā, “Mas’ala fī ibṭāl al-ʿamal bi akhbār al-āḥād,” p. 310; Fattūnī, Tanzīh al-Qummiyyin, 4ff.; Modarressi, An Introduction to Shi’i Law, p. 34.

    37.  See Sourdel, “La politique religieuse du calife ʿabbāsside al-Ma’mūn,” p. 26ff.; Madelung, “New Documents,” pp. 333–46. On the Abbasid caliphate in general, see Omar, The ʿAbbāsid Califate; Daniel, The Political and Social History of Khurasan; Kennedy, The Early ʿAbbāsid Califate.

    38.  See Sourdel, Le vizirat ʿabbāside; Massignon, “Les origines shi’ites de la famille vizirale de Banu’ l Furât,” pp. 25–29.

    39.  According to a well-documented study by Verena Klemm, the institutionalization of what tradition will call “the Four Representatives” is late and the historicity of the first two representatives especially seems dubious in the extreme; see Klemm, “Die vier Sufarā’ des Zwölften Imam.” Also Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la typologie des rencontres avec l’imam caché.”

    40.  See Massignon, La Passion de Hallâj, index, pp. 249–50. Canard, “Baghdad au IVe siècle de l’Hégire.” On the connections between the executions of al-Ḥallāj and of al-Shalmaghānī and the role of the Shi’ite families of the time in the coming to power of the Buwayhids, see Amir-Moezzi, “Savoir c’est pouvoir,” p. 275, note 120. The subject deserves a monograph study.

    41.  See Laoust, “Barbahārī,” EI2.

    42.  See, e.g., Laoust, “Le Hanbalisme sous le caliphat de Baghdad (241–650/956–1258),” pp. 85–94.

    43.  See Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought, pp. 116ff.

    44.  See Canard, “Baghdad au IVe siècle de l’Hégire,” p. 276. On this mosque, see Shahīdī Ṣāliḥī, “Barāthā,” DBI.

    45.  Laoust, La Profession de foi d’Ibn Baṭṭa, pp. ix–xi.

    46.  Ibid., pp. xl–xli.

    47.  In this connection, see Waines, “The Pre-Buyid Amirate.”

    48.  See Cahen, “Buwayhides,” EI2, 1:1390–97; also Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society, pp. 68ff. On the Shi’ite position during this period, see Gabrieli, “Imamisme et littérature sous les Buwayhides”; Faqīhī, Āl-e Būye va owḍāʿ-e zamān-e īshān.

    49.  On this turn and the two early Imami traditions, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, pp. 15–47; Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, Qu’est-ce que le shi’isme?, part 3; also the previous chapter of the present work.

    50.  On the founding of Bagdad and its significance, see, e.g., Lassner, The Shaping of ʿAbbāsid Rule, pp. 45ff.; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, 3:3ff.

    51.  Ibn Nadīm, pp. 283–84; also GAS, 1:97, 100, and 102.

    52.  See the examples given by Ibn Ḥajar, Maṭālib ʿāliya, 1:4ff.

    53.  See Patton, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and the Miḥna; van Ess, “Ibn Kullāb et la Miḥna”; Nawas, “A Reexamination of Three Current Explanations,” pp. 615–29.

    54.  See, e.g., Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, pp. 168–70, 183–84, 194–96, 222–23, 230–31.

    55.  Bādkūbe, “Ibn Abī ʿUmayr,” DBI.

    56.  For the differences among these tendencies, see Modarressi, An Introduction to Shi’i Law, pp. 25–27.

    57.  E.g., Aḥmad b. ʿĪsā b. Zayd (d. 247/861) or Muḥammad b. Manṣūr al-Murādī (d. ca. 290/903); see Anṣārī, “Aḥmad b. ʿĪsā b. Zayd,” DBI; Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, 80–84.

    58.  Both headed a Zaydi state. On al-Hādī, see von Arendonk, Les débuts de l’imamat zaydite du Yémen, 127–305; Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm, pp. 163–68; on al-Nāṣir al-Uṭrūsh, see Madelung, ibid., pp. 161–63.

    59.  Anṣārī, “Abū Zayd ʿAlawī va kitāb-e ū dar radd-e emāmiyye,” pp. 125ff.

    60.  See Qāḍī Nuʿmān, Daʿā’im al-islām; Poonawala, “Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān and Ismaʿili Jurisprudence,” pp. 117–43.

    61.  On Ismaili law at this period, see Madelung, “The Sources of Ismāʿīlī Law”; Poonawala, “Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān and Ismaʿili Jurisprudence,”

    62.  See Massignon, “Esquisse d’une bibliographie nuṣayrie”; Bar-Asher and Kofsky, The Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawī Religion. On Shi’ite “extremism” and the roots of Nusayrism, see Halm, Die islamische Gnosis; Moosa, Extremist Shiites.

    63.  On this heritage, see Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, pp. 21–29, 33–34.

    64.  On this author and his works, see, e.g., Friedman, “al-Husayn ibn Hamadan al-Khasibi” and The Nuṣayri-ʿAlawīs, passim.

    65.  On al-Kulaynī’s origins, see Ḥillī (ʿAllāma), Rijāl, 18; cf. Fīrūzābādī, al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ, s. v. “kalān,” 4:263; Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs, 9:322, s.v. “kalān”; also, Dhahabī, al-Mushtabih, 2:553; Ṣafadī, Wāfī, 5:266; Ibn Ḥajar ʿAsqalānī, Tabṣīr, 3:1219, cf. also 2:737; also Majlisī, Mir’āt al-ʿuqūl, 7:1; Baḥrānī, Lu’lu’at al-baḥrayn, p. 376; Narāqī, ʿAwā’id al-ayyām, p. 298; Baḥr al-ʿulūm, Dalīl al-qaḍā’, 3:126; Amīn, Aʿyān al-shīʿa, 47:152.

    66.  This name is often mutilated in the historical sources, see Ibn Ḥawqal, Ṣūrat al-arḍ, p. 322; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, 2:894; al-Baghdādī, Ṣafī al-Dīn Marāṣid al-iṭṭilāʿ, 3:1177; Fayḍ, Ganjīne-ye āthār-e Qomm, 1:255–56; for the meaning of rustāq, see Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, 1:40–41. In the third/ninth century, Rayy had seventeen rustāqs; see Ibn al-Faqīh, Mukhtaṣar kitāb al-buldān, p. 274; Maqdisī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm, p. 386.

    67.  Ṭūsī, Rijāl (1960), pp. 438, 496; Ibn Dāwūd, Rijāl, pp. 23, 248, 290; Ḥillī, Rijāl, p. 18; Baḥr al-ʿulūm, Fawā’id, 3:79; Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt al-jannāt, 6:118.

    68.  Iṣṭakhrī, Masālik al-mamālik, p. 209.

    69.  Ḥamdullāh Mustawfī, Nuzhat al-qulūb, p. 54.

    70.  This region lies 45 km southeast of present-day Tehran. See Karīmān, Ray-e bāstān, 2:509 and 614; Stahl, Teheran und Umgebung, 49–54.

    71.  Farhang-e joghrāfiyā’ī-ye īrān, 1:183. According to this source, the village of Kulayn forms part of the region of Fashāfūya, the central part of the Rayy department in the province of Tehran, 38 km southeast of the city of Rayy, 5 km to the east of the Qumm road. It has 555 inhabitants (as of 2002).

    72.  Maqdisī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm, p. 400; Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs, 9:322.

    73.  Yāqūt in his Muʿjam al-buldān (5:334) mentions this village and locates it in the viciniity of Qūhadh al-ʿulyā, on the road going from Rayy to Khurasan. In modern sources it is called Gilīn or Gilīn-e Khāleṣe (Farhang-e joghrāfiyā’ī-ye īrān, 1:193).

    74.  Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, 4:303.

    75.  Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 107:190; cf. Ḥillī, Rijāl, p. 18; Narāqī, ʿAwā’id al-ayyām, p. 298.

    76.  Samʿānī, al-Ansāb, 10:463; cf. Tunukābunī, Qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamā’, p. 396.

    77.  Cf. Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs, 9:322.

    78.  Ḥillī, Rijāl, p. 18; Amīn, Aʿyān al-shīʿa, 47:152.

    79.  Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 6:108; Nūrī, Mustadrak al-wasā’il, 3:526; Qummī, Safīnat al-biḥār, 2:495; Muẓaffar, (Sharḥ)Uṣūl al-Kāfī, 1:12–13; cf. Narāqī, ʿAwā’id al-ayyām, p. 298.

    80.  Certain Imami prosopographers deem that the entire family was known under the name of ʿAllān; see Baḥr al-ʿulūm, Fawā’id, 3:79; Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ al-maqāl, 1:48. Out of this family, Aḥmad and Muḥammad, the sons of Ibrāhīm and also ʿAlī, the son of Muḥammad, al-Kulaynī’s maternal uncle and one of his masters, are often cited; see Najāshī, Rijāl, pp. 260, 377; Ṭūsī, Rijāl (1960), pp. 438, 496; see also the list of al-Kulaynī’s masters.

    81.  For him, see Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, pp. 117ff.

    82.  See Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 373.

    83.  For him, see Anṣārī, “Abū Zayd ʿAlawī va ketāb-e ū dar radd-e emāmiyye,” pp. 125–29; Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, pp. 121, 171ff.

    84.  See Stern, “The Early Ismā’īlī Missionaries,” passim.

    85.  See, further on, for a refutation of the Carmathians among al-Kulaynī’s works.

    86.  al-Rāzī, al-Iṣlāḥ and Aʿlām al-nubuwwa.

    87.  See Stroumsa, Freethinkers of Medieval Islam.

    88.  See al-Rāzī, Aʿlām al-nubuwwa, passim; al-Kirmānī, al-Aqwāl al-dhahabiyya, pp. 2–3; Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs, p. 121; Anṣārī, “Ketabī az Abū Tammām Nīshābūrī,” pp. 63–67.

    89.  See Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs, pp. 167–68.

    90.  Baghdādī, Farq, pp. 25, 209–10; Shahrastānī, Milal, 1:88.

    91.  On the religious and theological currents at Rayy generally, see van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, 2:632ff.; on the massive Muʿtazilite presence in Rayy from the third/ninth century, see id. “Ḍirār b. ‘Amr,” part 2, p. 59.

    92.  See Schmidtke, “Jubbā’ī, Abū ʿAlī,” in DJI, 9:540–44; Gimaret, “Matériaux pour une bibliographie des Jubbā’ī” and “Materiaux pour une bibliographie des Jubbā’ī: Notes complémentaires.”

    93.  See Khashīm, Al-Jubbā’iyān, passim.

    94.  Zaryāb, “Abū l-Qāsim Balkhī,” DBI.

    95.  See Frank, “Elements in the Development of the Teaching of al-Ashʿarī,” pp. 141ff.; and especially, Gimaret, La doctrine d’al-Ashʿarī.

    96.  See Rudolph, Al-Māturīdī und die Sunnitische Theologie in Samarkand.

    97.  See Makdisi, “Ashʿarī and the Ashʿarites in Islamic Religious History”; Brunschvig ,” Muʿtazilisme et Ashʿarisme à Bagdad”; Madelung, “The Spread of Maturidism and the Turks.”

    98.  See Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism; De Smet, La Quiétude de l’Intellect.

    99.  On the Gates of Baghdad, see, e.g., Suyūṭī, Ta’rīkh al-khulafā’, p. 161; ʿUmarī Mawṣilī, Ghāyat al-marām, p. 22.

  100.  Ibn Ḥajar ʿAsqalānī, Tabṣīr, 3:1219 and Lisān, 5:433; Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs, 9:322.

  101.  Ṭūsī, “Mashyakha,” p. 29.

  102.  Najāshī, Rijāl, pp. 377–78; Ḥillī (ʿAllāma), Rijāl, p. 145.

  103.  Since he refers continually to the Fihrist in his Rijāl, particularly in the notice devoted to al-Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, p. 439.

  104.  Ṭūsī, Fihrist (1999), p. 395.

  105.  On the events that transpired in Baghdad during this year, see Ṭūsī, Ghayba (1965), p. 242; Ibn al-Jawzī, Muntaẓam, 6:315–25; Ibn Kathīr, Bidāya, 11:191–200; Ibn Taghrībirdī, Nujūm, 3:266–73.

  106.  Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, 8:364; Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān, 5:433; Ṣafadī, Wāfī, 5:226.

  107.  Ibn Ṭāwūs, Kashf al-maḥajja, p. 159.

  108.  Ṭūsī, Ghayba, p. 394. On the history of the Occultation in a more general fashion, see Hussain, The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam.

  109.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 378; Ḥillī, Rijāl, p. 145. Abū Qīrāṭ was himself knowledgeable in Hadith. The famous Imami traditionist Hārūn b. Mūsā al-Tallaʿukbarī (d. 385/995) followed his teaching in 328/940 and received his authorization (ijāza) to transmit hadiths; see Ṭūsī, Rijāl (1961), p. 500; Ibn al-Jawzī, Muntaẓam, 6:382.

  110.  Ṭūsī, Fihrist (1999), p. 395 and Rijāl, p. 439; cf. Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 378.

  111.  Anṣārī, “Ibn ʿUbdūn,” DBI.

  112.  See Yaʿqūbī, Buldān, pp. 12 and 24; Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-buldān, 3:377; Baghdādī, Ṣafī al-Dīn, Marāṣid al-iṭṭilāʿ, 2:836.

  113.  Ṭūsī, Fihrist, p. 395.

  114.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 378; Ḥillī, Rijāl, p. 145.

  115.  See Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ al-ruwāt, 2:218; Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 6:117; Ḥirz al-Dīn, Marāqid al-maʿārif, 2:214.

  116.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 92; Ṭūsī, Fihrist, p. 64; Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth (1992), 2:42ff.

  117.  E.g., Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 3:445, no. 20, 4:3, no. 6, 5:78, no. 8.

  118.  On this expression and on his masters, see ʿAmīdī, al-Shaykh al-Kulaynī al-Baghdādī, pp. 348ff.

  119.  ʿAlī transmits from Aḥmad al-Barqī through the intermediary of his own father and the grandson of Aḥmad al-Barqī, ʿAlī b.Muḥammad Mājīlūya/ Mājīlawayh. See Ibn Bābawayh, Tawḥīd, pp. 99 and 103 andʿUyūn akhbār al-Riḍā, pp. 152, 240.

  120.  Ibn Bābawayh, Kamāl al-dīn, p. 655; Mufīd, Amālī, pp. 23, 317; Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 335, no. 898; also, Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 2:135. On him see also Ṭūsī, Fihrist, p. 135; Ghaḍā’irī, Takmila risāla, p. 189.

  121.  Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 5:4, no. 6. On him, see Pākatčī “Ibn ʿUqda,” DBI.

  122.  Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 1:424, no. 60, p. 458, no. 3.

  123.  For this Imami scholar, a descendent of the imam al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, whose imāmzāda Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm at Rayy is well known, see Najāshī, p. 247; Madelung, “ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Ḥasanī,” Enc. Ir. 1:96–97.

  124.  Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 1:524, no. 24. On him, see Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 66; Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 7:79–80.

  125.  See chapter 2 and now, Kohlberg and Amir-Moezzi, Revelation and Falsification.

  126.  Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 2:14, no. 3. On him see Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 132; Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 7:302ff.

  127.  Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 1:524, no. 10, p. 530, no.1, p. 535, no. 6, p. 539, no. 6, p. 543, nos. 7 and 8, p. 552, no. 9, p. 558, no. 11, p. 564, no. 12; 3:276, nos. 4 and 5; see also Ashʿarī, al-Maqālāt wa l-firaq.

  128.  Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 1:457, no. 10; for his insertion into the list of al-Kulaynī’s masters, see Maḥfūẓ, Taqdima, p. 16; Muẓaffar, 1:22; see also Ḥimyarī, Qurb al-isnād.

  129.  On him see Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 11:148ff.

  130.  On him and his traditions in al-Kāfī, see Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 12:212ff.; also Bar-Asher, Scripture and Exegesis, pp. 33ff.

  131.  On him see Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 12:406–7.

  132.  On him see Najāshī, Rijāl, pp. 353–54.

  133.  Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 5:541, no. 5. On him see Najāshī, Rijāl, pp. 260–61, 377.

  134.  On the differerences over his identity, see Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 16:96–99.

  135.  Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 4:390, no. 9 and p. 336, no. 18. On him, see Abū Ghālib al-Zurārī, Risāla, pp. 140–41.

  136.  Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 3:78, no. 5; p. 197, no. 1. On him see Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 373.

  137.  Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 4:224, no. 1. On him see Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 17:307.

  138.  On him, see Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 185.

  139.  On him, see ibid., p. 353.

  140.  On these disciples in general, see Ibn Bābawayh, “Mashyakha,” p. 534; Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 377; Ṭūsī, Fihrist (1999), pp. 394–95 and “Mashyakha,” 5ff.; Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:527 and 666.

  141.  See, e.g., Ibn ʿAsākir, Ta’rīkh madīnat Dimashq, 56:297–98.

  142.  Ḥillī (ʿAllāma), Rijāl, p. 17; Ibn Dāwūd, Rijāl, p. 35; Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ al-ruwāt, 1:39; Baḥrānī, Lu’lu’at al-baḥrayn, p. 394; Narāqī, Shuʿab al-maqāl, p. 103; Ḥā’irī, Muntahā al-maqāl, p. 298; Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 6:119; Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:527; Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ, 3:7: Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth (1970), 2:21; Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt (fourth century authors), p. 18 and 98.

  143.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 377, no. 1026; Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:527; Quhpā’ī, Majmaʿ al-rijāl, 6:74; Waḥīd Bihbahānī, Taʿlīqa, p. 31; Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ, 1:49.

  144.  Ṭūsī, Fihrist, p. 136; Muẓaffar, 1:24; Ḥā’irī, Muntahā, p. 298; Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 6:119; Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ, 1:71; Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt (fourth century), p. 34; cf. Ṭūsī, Rijāl (1961), p. 450; Ibn Dāwūd, Rijāl, pp. 35–36; Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ al-ruwāt, 1:55; Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 2:167. Also Ibn ʿAsākir, Ta’rīkh madīnat Dimashq, 56:297.

  145.  Ḥillī, Rijāl, p. 17; Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ, 1:93; Ṣadr, ʿUyūn al-rijāl, p. 14. See also Abū Ghālib, Risāla.

  146.  For his teaching with al-Kulaynī, see Baḥrānī, Lu’lu’a, p. 394; Ḥā’irī, Muntahā, p. 298; Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 6:119; Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:527; Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt (fourth century), pp. 54 and 315.

  147.  Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:533.

  148.  Abū Ghālib al-Zurārī, Risāla, pp. 176–77.

  149.  Najāshī, Rijāl, 74, also 377, no. 1026. On the differences about his name, see Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ, 1:113; Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt (fourth century), p. 60. On his status as a transmitter from al-Kulaynī, see Ardabīlī, Jāmiʿ al-ruwāt, 1:81; Quhpā’ī, Majmaʿ al-rijāl, 6:74.

  150.  For his transmission from al-Kulaynī, see Ibn Qūlawayh’s Kāmil al-ziyārāt, pp. 248, 249, 329, 330; for him, see Baḥrānī, Lu’lu’a, p. 394; Ḥā’irī, Muntahā, p. 298; Quhpā’ī, Majmaʿ al-rijāl, 6:74; Narāqī, Shuʿab, p. 103; Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:527; Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 6:119; Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 18:62; cf. Ibn Dāwūd, Rijāl, p. 67; and Ḥillī, Rijāl, p. 31.

  151.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 82, no. 198 and pp. 368–69.

  152.  Ḥā’irī, Muntahā, p. 298; Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:527; Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 18:60.

  153.  Ibn Bābawayh, Khiṣāl, 1:160, no. 209, p. 167, no. 219; 2:643, no. 23, and ʿIlal al-sharā’iʿ, 1:135 and 154.

  154.  For the differences relating to his nasab in some isnāds in Ibn Bābawayh, see Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt (fourth century), p. 173; also Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 11:271–72; Ibn Bābawayh, ʿUyūn akhbār al-Riḍā, 1:313, no. 86, and Faqīh (1972), 2:238, no. 2292.

  155.  Nuʿmānī, Ghayba, pp. 94–95, etc; also Ḥillī, Rijāl, p. 162; Ibn Dāwūd, Rijāl, p. 160; Muẓaffar, 1:24; and compare Majlisī, Mir’āt al-ʿuqūl, 3:199.

  156.  Ibn Dāwūd, Rijāl, p. 498; Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt (fourth century), pp. 237–38; Muẓaffar, 1:24; also Ibn Bābawayh, “Mashyakhat” al-Faqīh, p. 434.

  157.  Baḥrānī, Lu’lu’a, p. 394; Ḥā’irī, Muntahā, p. 298; Narāqī, Shuʿab, p. 103; Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 6:119; Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:527; Muẓaffar, 1:24; Ṭihrānī, Ṭabaqāt (fourth century), p. 280.

  158.  Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:527; Muẓaffar, 1:24; also Ḥā’irī, Muntahā, p. 284; and Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ, 3:159.

  159.  See Ibn Bābawayh, Faqīh, p. 530, ʿIlal, 1:166, and Thawāb al-aʿmāl, pp. 104 and 153.

  160.  Khū’ī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 17:62.

  161.  Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 6:119; Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:527; also Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ, 3:179.

  162.  Ibn Bābawayh, “Mashyakha,” p. 534.

  163.  Ṭūsī, Fihrist (1999), pp. 394–95 and “Mashyakha,” 13; ‘Allāma Ḥillī, Rijāl, p. 180; Ibn Dāwūd, Rijāl, p. 365; Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ, 3:286.

  164.  On the institution of wikāla during the minor Occultation, see Klemm, “Die vier Sufarā’ des Zwölften Imam.” On the role of the wukalā’ during the Occultation crisis and the importance of financial problems for the scholars, see Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, pp. 17–18, 92–94. On the history of this period and its doctrines, see Hussain, The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam; Sachedina, Islamic Messianism; Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la typologie des rencontres avec l’imam caché.”

  165.  E.g., Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 1:329ff. and 514ff. Nevertheless, it is useful to keep in mind that al-Kulaynī does not yet speak of the institution of the Four Representatives (al-sufarā’/wukalā’/nuwwāb al-arba’a) as of a proper and formally institutionalized situation. He does mention the names of many representatives contemporaneous with the hidden imam in various cities. In her documented study “Die vier Sufarā,” Verena Klemm does indeed show in a persuasive fashion that the dogma of the “unique” representation of the twelfth imam, and accordingly the leadership of one representative at a time, seems to have been invented and diffused by the powerful Nawbakhtī family following upon the wikāla of the “third” representative, in effect, al-Ḥusayn b. Rawḥ al-Nawbakhtī; see also Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la typologie des rencontres avec l’imam caché,” pp. 118–19.

  166.  See Ṭūsī, Ghayba, pp. 408ff., etc; also Massignon, La Passion de Hallâj, index, pp. 249–50.

  167.  See Ṭūsī, Ghayba, p. 401–5; Massignon, La Passion de Hallâj, passim. On the violent conflicts between “esotericist” Shi’ites and “rationalist” Shi’ites occasioned by al-Ḥallāj and then by al-Shalmaghānī, see Amir-Moezzi, “Savoir c’est pouvoir,” p. 275, note 120.

  168.  See, e.g., Pākatčī, “Imāmiyya” in DBI.

  169.  See, e.g., Ṭūsī, Ghayba, p. 390ff.

  170.  E.g., Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 77.

  171.  Ibid., p. 261.

  172.  See Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 1:95ff., 104ff., 155ff.; on al-Ṣaffār and his sources, see chapter 4 of the present work; Newman, Formative Period, p. 67ff.

  173.  For him, see Eqbāl, Khāndān-e Nawbakhtī, pp. 212–38; Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, pp. 42, 67, 93. On his role in formation of the theory of the Occultation, see Ansārī, “Abū Sahl Nawbakhtī,” DBI; Modarressi, ibid., pp. 88–89, 95.

  174.  See Anṣārī, “Ibn Hammām Iskāfī,” DBI.

  175.  He probably died before al-Kulaynī; see Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 262; cf.Ṭūsī, Ghayba, p. 394.

  176.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 261.

  177.  Ṭūsī, Ghayba, pp. 320, 322,394; Ibn Bābawayh, Kamāl al-Dīn, pp. 502–3; Najāshī, Rijāl, pp. 261–62.

  178.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 262; Ṭūsī, Rijāl, p. 432.

  179.  For the juridical and theological implications of the Occultation and the reactions of the Imami community, see Madelung, “Authority in Twelver Shiism in the Absence of the Imam”; Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya to Ithnā-’ashariyya” and “Early Attestations of the Term ithnāʿashariyya”; Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, pp. 86–105; Amir-Moezzi, “Réflexions sur une évolution du shi’isme duodécimain: tradition et idéologisation”; Amir-Arjomand, “The Consolation of Theology,” and “The Crisis of the Imamate,” and “Imam Absconditus.” Also, on a much wider level, see the works by Hussain and Sachedina (see the bibliography).

  180.  See Ibn Bābawayh ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn, al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra. For him, see Anṣārī, “Ibn Bābawayh,” DMIK.

  181.  Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, part III-1, pp. 155ff.

  182.  “None of us,” the imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq is reported to have said, “we, the People of the Prophet’s Household, has revolted or will revolt against oppression or to defend a just cause without some terrible catastrophe ripping him out by the roots, and this will be so until our Resurrector [qā’im, i.e. “the Savior at the End of Time”] arises. Every revolt by one of us will only bring further suffering upon us (the imams) and our faithful followers” (Imam ‘Alī Zayn al-’Ābidīn [ascribed to] al-Ṣaḥīfa al-sajjādiyya, p. 22, no. 62—the sentences are numbered—fī bayān isnād al-Ṣaḥīfa). Several of the imams are said to have declared, “Every lifted banner (i.e., every revolt) prior to the emergence of the Resurrector is tantamount to a rebellion against God (ṭāghūt),” Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, 8:295; see also Nuʿmānī, Ghayba, chapter 5 in its entirety.

  183.  Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 2:297ff. The term ri’āsa denotes both religious and political leadership; a ra’īs may also be a political head, a “leader” of men as well as a theologian or a jurist “head of a school.” The hadiths in this subchapter are of course an invitation to a quietist political attitude as well as very likely a denunciation of all other religious authority than that of the imams.

  184.  Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, nos. 2, 7, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. See also Majlisī, 15/3:102–4 (on those who claim to be head—al-mutara”isūn).

  185.  Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:46.

  186.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 377.

  187.  See Ṭūsī, Fihrist (1999), p. 393 and Rijāl, p. 439. The attitude of the first generations of Imami scholars in the Buwayhid period diverges from this medley of praise. Al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā in particular, criticizes al-Kulaynī for precise doctrinal and historical reasons, charging him with having introduced a large number of traditions into his compilation that seem absurd from a rational viewpoint (see Jawābāt al-masā’il al-ṭarābulusiyyāt al-thālitha, 408–9). Al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā’s attitude is the direct result of the rationalizing turn in Imami Shi’ism during the Buwayhid period—a turn that signals the marginalization of the “original esoteric and non-rationalist tradition” in favor of an increasingly dominant “rational theological and juridical tradition”; see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, pp. 15–47; Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, Qu’est-ce que le shi’isme?, part 3.

  188.  See Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, p. 18ff.

  189.  See, e.g., Ibn Tāwūs, Kashf al-maḥajja, p. 158 and Faraj al-mahmūm, p. 85.

  190.  Following Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 108:47, 62, 75–76, 96, 110:18.

  191.  Ibid., 108:141, 109:7, 91, 104, 159.

  192.  Al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, Wuṣūl al-akhyār, p. 85; also Nūrī, Mustadrak al-wasā’il, 3:532. The very fact of emphasizing al-Kulaynī’s critical acumen in Hadith appears to be a reaction against the opinion of al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (note 187 in this chapter) who faulted our author for a lack of critical discernment.

  193.  Majlisī, Muḥammad Taqī, Rawḍat al-muttaqīn, 14:260; Majlisī (Muḥammad Bāqir), Biḥār, 110:70, 82.

  194.  Majlisī, Mir’āt al-ʿuqūl., lithograph ed., 1:3 and Biḥār, 110:152; for other laudatory opinions, see ibid., 110:34, 40, 90, 100, and 133.

  195.  See, e.g., al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Wasā’il al-shīʿa, 20:36.

  196.  Majlisī, Biḥār, 109:159, 110:36; cf. Shūshtarī, Majālis al-mu’minīn, 1:452.

  197.  Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, Sharḥ Uṣūl al-Kāfī, 1:167 and 3:3.

  198.  Shūshtarī, Maqābis al-anwār, p. 6; Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:532; Qummī, al-Kunā va l-alqāb, 3:98, Najafī, Itqān al-maqāl fī aḥwāl al-rijāl, p. 134.

  199.  See Baḥr al-ʿulūm, al-Fawā’id al-rijāliyya, 3:325 (already in Ibn Ṭāwūs, Kashf al-maḥajja, pp. 158–59); Bahā’ī, Wajīza, p. 7; Majlisī, Mir’āt al-ʿuqūl, lithograph ed., 1:3 and Biḥār, 108:33 and 67; Kāẓimī, Takmilat al-rijāl, 2:486; Kantūrī, Kashf al-ḥujub, p. 418; Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 6:112.

  200.  Ibn al-Athīr, Kāmil, 8:364; Ibn Mākūlā, Ikmāl, 4:575; Ṣafadī, Wāfī, 5:226; Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-mīzān, 5:433; Fīrūzābādī, al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ, s.v. “kalān,” 4:263; Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs; s.v. “kalān,” 9:322; for later sources, see Ziriklī, Aʿlām, 8:17.

  201.  Tradition often reported by Abū Hurayra: “God the Exalted raises up for this community at the start of every century someone who will revive His religion” (inna llāha taʿālā yabʿathu li hādhihi l-umma ʿalā ra’si kulli mi’a sana man yujaddidu lahā dīnahā); see Abū Dāwūd Sijistānī, Sunan, 4:480; Ḥākim Nīsābūrī, Mustadrak, 4:22; Suyūṭī, Khaṣā’iṣ, 3:23; Ḥusaynī Maybudī, Sharḥ ḥadīth ra’s mi’a, passim. See also al-Ṣaʿīdī, al-Mujaddidūn fī l-islām, pp. 8–9, and especially Landau-Tasseron, “The ‘Cyclical Reform.’”

  202.  Ibn al-Athīr, Jāmiʿ al-uṣūl, 12:220; see also Bahā’ī, Wajīza, p. 7; Ḥā’irī, Muntahā, p. 298; Waḥīd Bihbahānī, Taʿlīqa, p. 329; cf. Baḥrānī, Lu’lu’a, p. 237.

  203.  See Majlisī, Biḥār, 108:75; Baḥrānī, Kashkūl, 2:201; Baḥr al-ʿulūm, Fawā’id, 3:325; Kantūrī, Kashf al-ḥujub, p. 418; Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 6:116; Nūrī, Mustadrak, 3:527; Qummī, al-Fawā’id al-riḍawiyya, p. 657 and Safīnat al-Biḥār, 2:494; Ṣadr, Ta’sīs al-shīʿa, p. 288; Amīn, Aʿyān al-shīʿa, 47:153.

  204.  Bahā’ī, Mashriq al-shamsayn, pp. 98 and 102 and Wajīza, p. 7; Majlisī, Biḥār, 109:147; See also Ḥurr ʿĀmilī, Tafṣīl wasā’il al-shīʿa, 30:153, and Majlisī, Biḥār, 31:33 and 55:363; Fāḍil Hindī, Kashf al-lithām, 1:195; Baḥr al-ʿulūm, Fawā’id, 3:325; Narāqī, ʿAwā’id al-ayyām, pp. 98, 111, 220. For the title as used exclusively for al-Kulaynī, see Baḥrānī, Ḥadā’iq, 21:134 and 205, 22:639; Nūrī, Khātimat Mustadrak al-wasā’il, 3:479 and 483. For a commentary on this title, see Qummī, al-Fawā’id al-riḍawiyya, 2:658. The term thiqa is used in the science of Hadith and the prosopographical sciences (ʿilm al-rijāl) to designate a truthful and especially trustworthy traditionist or transmitter; see Shahīd Thānī, al-Riʿāya, pp. 203–4.

  205.  Mudarris Tabrīzī, Rayḥānat al-adab, 5:79.

  206.  Majlisī, Biḥār, 105:48; Māzandarānī, Sharḥ Uṣūl al-Kāfī, 9:359. For the title applied to other scholars, see Qummī, al-Kunā va l-alqāb, 3:198. At the present time, however, the title has lost its traditional value and is used to denote students of religious sciences and mid-level theological scholars; in this regard, see Matīnī, “Baḥthī dar bāre-ye sābeqe-ye tārīkhī-ye alqāb va ʿanāvīn-e ʿolamā’,” p. 580ff.

  207.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 377, Ṭūsī, Fihrist, pp. 393–94; Ibn Shahrāshūb, Maʿālim al-ʿulamā’, p. 99.

  208.  On this book, see also Baghdādī, Hidyat al-ʿārifīn, 2:35.

  209.  Niẓām al-Mulk, Siyar al-Mulūk, p. 263 (the author stipulates that a village called Kulayn exists in the district of Fashābūya [sic]).

  210.  Ibid., p. 264.

  211.  Ibid., pp. 264–65.

  212.  Ibid., pp. 265–66. For his other activities in Ṭabaristan, see pp. 266–67; also Stern, “The Early Isma’ili Missionaries,” pp. 56ff.; Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs, pp. 120–21.

  213.  Ibn Shahrāshūb, Maʿālim al-ʿulamā’, p. 99 (incorrectly as al-Wasā’il).

  214.  Ibn Ṭāwūs, Kashf al-maḥajja, pp. 158–59, and also pp. 153, 173, 189. Another citation from this work in Ibn Ṭāwūs’s Fatḥ al-abwāb, pp. 143–44, and al-Luhūf fī qatlā l-ṭufūf, p. 27. See also Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, pp. 312–13. For later citations, see, e.g., Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī, Sharḥ Uṣūl al-Kāfī, 2:612–15; ʿAlam al-Hudā, Maʿādin al-ḥikma, 1:188.

  215.  Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 5:347, no. 2; cf. Ibn Ṭāwūs, Fatḥ al-abwāb, pp. 143–44.

  216.  Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:331 and 354, 8:374.

  217.  See also Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, 4:208; Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, pp. 337–38.

  218.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 97; see also Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 6:118.

  219.  Kulaynī, Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, hadiths nos. 90, 91, 222, 257, 292, 293, 335, 336. On this theme, see also Ṭūsī, Tibyān, 12:97; Ṭabrisī, Majmaʿ al-bayān, 5:209; on dream interpretation Ibn Khaldūn, Muqqadima, pp. 299–300, may be consulted with profit; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Iʿlām, 1:212; on dream types in Islam, see Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-bayān, 12:151; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr, 4:9. On the question, see also Lory, Le rêve et ses interprétations en Islam.

  220.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 377; Ḥillī, Rijāl, p. 145; Ibn Dāwūd, Rijāl, p. 341; Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, 6:80 and 17:245.

  221.  On the K. al-Faqīh, see Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, 22:232–33; on the Tahdhīb, see Shubayrī, “Tahdhīb al-aḥkām,” DJI; on Istibṣār, DBI, s.v. (collective article).

  222.  See, e.g., Bahā’ī, Miftāḥ al-Falāḥ, pp. 3, 5.

  223.  See, e.g., Karakī, Qāṭiʿat al-lajāj, p. 80.

  224.  See MacDermott, The Theology of al-Shaikh al-Mufīd, pp. 373ff.

  225.  The expression al-kutub al-arbaʿa (“the Four Books”), denoting the consecration of the four previously mentioned books, does not seem to be very old. It was used in fact for the first time during the Safavid period by al-Shahīd al-Thānī (d. 965/1558; see his Ijāza for Tāj al-Dīn b. Hilāl al-Jazā’irī in Rasā’il al-Shahīd al-Thānī, 2:1162 and his Ijāza for Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī b. ‘Abd al-ʿĀlī, ibid., 2:1149; cf. Shahīd Thānī, Sharḥ al-bidāya, p. 74) as well as by al-Muhaqqiq al-Ardabīlī (d. 993/1585; see his Zubdat al-bayān, p. 255 and Majmaʿ al-fā’ida wa l-burhān, 6:56). See also Ṣāḥib al-Maʿālim, Muntaqā al-jumān, 1:2 and 27; al-Sabzawārī, Kifāyat al-aḥkām, p. 183; Majlisī, Bihār l-anwār, 1:26. The effective acknowledgment of the Four Books as the absolutely authoritative corpus of Shi’ite Hadith seems to be later still, since, during the same period, al-Shaykh al-Bahā’ī accords Ibn Bābawayh al-Ṣadūq’s work (now lost), the Madīnat al-ʿilm, the same rank as the Four Books and speaks of the “Five Foundations” (al-Uṣūl al-khamsa) of Imami Shi’ism. See his Wusūl al-akhyār, pp. 44 and 85–86; also Shahīd Awwal, Dhikrā, p. 6; on the Madīnat al-ʿilm, see Ṭihrānī, Dharīʿa, 20:251–53; Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, pp. 240–41.

  226.  Kohlberg, “Al-Uṣūl al-arba’umi’a”; Modarressi, Tradition and Survival and An Introduction to Shi’i Law; Ansari, “L’imamat et l’Occultation selon l’imamisme.”

  227.  It is not well known quite where and until when the hadith sources prior to al-Kulaynī were preserved. Certainly Shaykh al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1068) owned the main works in the corpus and Ibn Ṭāwūs (d. 664/1266) had access to a very great number of them in his famous library; see Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work. We know too that a goodly number of these old works were already lost by the time of al-Majlisī (d. 1110/1699), toward the end of the Safavid period. A list of the Imami Hadith works available at this period, a great number of which contributed to the compilation of the monumental encyclopedia of hadiths by al-Majlisī, the Biḥār al-anwār, is given in the first volume of that work. Majlisī made a colossal effort, on the financial side as well, to assemble within his working circle the greatest possible number of these works, sought out by his team in diverse corners of the Islamic world. Aside from a few minor exceptions, today we have almost all of al-Majlisī’s sources. Some of the latter are older than the Kāfī, but the large majority of them are later, such as the works of Ibn Bābawayh, of al-Mufīd, or of Ibn Ṭāwūs; see Mahdavī Rād-ʿĀbedī-Rafīʿī, “Hadith,” pp. 125ff.

  228.  On the many commentaries on al-Kāfī, see, e.g., GAS, 1:541–42.

  229.  On the objectives of al-Kāfī, see Anṣārī, “Moqaddame-ye al-Kāfī” and “Jāygāh-e al-Kāfī dar miyān-e imāmiyya” in BT; also Newman, Formative Period, pp. 94ff. It is interesting to note that the oldest allusion to this book occurs in al-Kulaynī’s exact contemporary, to wit, Ibn Wahb (d. shortly after 334/945–46), al-Burhān fī wujūh al-bayān, p. 398.

  230.  Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 377.

  231.  For the transmission of the book, see Ibn Bābawayh, “Mashyakha,” p. 534; Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 377; Ṭūsī, Fihrist, pp. 394–95 and “Mashyakha,” pp. 5ff.; Shūshtarī, Maqābis al-anwār, p. 7; Maḥfūẓ, Taqdima, pp. 25–26.

  232.  The majority of manuscripts dates from the great epoch of manuscript production and compilation of Shi’ite Hadith works during the Safavid era, especially in the eleventh/seventeenth century, during al-Majlisī’s time. It is worth noting that no manuscript dating from less than three centuries after our author’s epoch has yet been identified. In his recent work, Ṣādrā’ī Khū’ī, Fehrestgān-e noskhe-hā-ye khaṭṭī-ye ḥadīth va ʿolūm-e ḥadīth-e shīʿa, 5:202–319, lists 1,100 manuscripts of our work. At the library of Āstān-e Quds at Mashshad (Iran) alone, there are more than 150 manuscripts of al-Kāfī. Among the oldest: 1. Manuscript no. 13800, in naskhī script, copied in 675/1276. 2. Ms. no. 11294, in naskhī, copied in 891/1486 at Ḥilla; see Fekrat, Fehrest-e alefbā’ī-ye kotob-e khaṭṭī-ye Āstān-e Qods-e Riḍavī, pp. 455–56. In the Amīr al-mu’minīn Library at Najaf, there are 29 manuscripts of our work; see al-ʿAmīdī, al-Shaykh al-Kulaynī, p. 159. The Marʿashī Library of Qumm too owns a substantial number of manuscripts of the Kāfī, for example, 1. MS no. 564, dating from the seventh/thirteenth century; 2. MS no. 268, containing the text of the book from the beginning of the K. al-ṭalāq to the end of the K. al-Rawḍa, copied in 953/1546, and verified by the Second Martyr Zayn al-Dīn b. ʿAlī al-ʿĀmilī; 3. MS no. 1415, copied between the ninth/fifteenth and tenth/sixteenth centuries. 4. MS no. 810, copied toward the seventh/thirteenth and eighth/fourteenth centuries; see Ḥusaynī Ashkevarī, Fehrest-e noskhe-hā-ye khaṭṭī (Marʿashī), 1:259; Muttaqī and Mūsavī, Rāhnamā-ye noskhe-hā-ye khaṭṭī (Marʿashī), p. 113; see also GAS, 1:540–41.

  233.  See, e.g., among the lithographed editions: s.l., 1266/1850; Shiraz, 1278/1862; Tabriz, 1281/1864 (to the end of the K. al-īmān wa l-kufr); Lucknow, 1302/1885; Tehran, 1307/1890; Tehran, 1311/1894 (with other texts on the margins); Tehran, 1315/1897 (in 2 vols. with other texts on the margins); Tehran, 1325/1907. Among printed editions: Najaf, 1376/1957, Maṭʿabat al-Nuʿmān, with commentaries by ʿAbd al-Ḥusayn b. Muẓaffar; Tehran, 1374ff./1955ff., Maṭbaʿat Ḥaydarī, in 8 vols., ed. and commentary by ʿAlī Akbar Ghaffārī with an introduction by Ḥusayn ʿAlī Maḥfūẓ (this is the edition used in this chapter); Tehran, 1381/1961, Dār al-kutub al-islāmiyya, the most widely used edition; also al-Uṣūl min al-Kāfī, Maṭbaʿa Ḥaydarī, 1389/1969, in 4 vols. (rev. ed. of the ed. 1374ff./1955ff. of ʿA. A. Ghaffārī), with commentaries in Persian by Jawād Muṣṭafawī; Qumm, 1413/1993, in 6 vols., with the Persian translation of Muḥammad Bāqir Kamare’ī; al-Rawḍa min al-Kāfī, has sometimes been separately edited: Tehran, 1303/1886, lithograph, with the Tuḥaf al-ʿuqūl and the Minhāj al-najāt; Najaf, Maṭbaʿat al-Najaf, by Shaykh Hādī al-Asadī. For editions of al-Kāfī, see Maḥfūẓ, Taqdima, pp. 38–39; al-ʿAmīdī, al-Shaykh al-Kulaynī, pp. 173–76.

  234.  See Mufīd, Jawābāt ahl al-Mawṣil, p. 19; Subḥānī, Kulliyyāt fī ʿilm al-rijāl, pp. 478–79.

  235.  See Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 6:116; Ṣadr, Nihāyat al-dirāya, p. 545; Baḥr al-ʿulūm, Dalīl al-qaḍā’ al-sharʿī, 3:139.

  236.  See Linant de Bellefonds, “Le droit imâmite,” 185 (“From this viewpoint [i.e., the juridical viewpoint], the divergencies (Imami Shi’ism) from Sunnism are no more acute than at the very heart of Sunnism itself”); also Watt, The Formative Period, p. 278; Stewart, Islamic Legal Orthodoxy, p. 131.

  237.  In this respect, one can think of a number of compilers prior to al-Kulaynī and the way in which they organized their collections. For example, the writings of al-Ḥusayn b. Saʿīd and his brother al-Ḥasan b. Saʿīd al-Ahwāzī or indeed, Saʿd b. ʿAbdallāh al-Ashʿarī (m. 299 or 301/912 or 914); see Najāshī, Rijāl, pp. 58ff., 177.

  238.  Although internal scrutiny of the text as well as the many testimonies of older authors and indeed, entire generations of bio-bibliographers seems to justify no hesitation with respect to the attribution of this part of the Kāfī to al-Kulaynī (see, e.g., Najāshī, Rijāl, p. 377), nevertheless, certain Imami scholars have cast it in doubt. For example, Mullā Khalīl b. al-Ghāzī al-Qazwīnī (d. 1089/1678) thought that this part was the work of the later author Ibn Idrīs al-Ḥillī (d. 598/1202); see Efendī, Riyāḍ al-ʿulamā’, 2:261; Kh(w)ānsārī, Rawḍāt, 3:272. On the autonomy of this part in comparison with the rest of al-Kāfī, see Ibn Shahrāshūb, Maʿālim al-ʿulamā’, p. 99.

  239.  On the complexity of the term ʿaql in the old Shi’ite corpus, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, pp. 15–48 (where I have often translated it as “hiero-intelligence,” especially within the framework of cosmogonic traditions). Also Crow, “The Role of al-ʿAql in Early Islamic Wisdom,” passim.

  240.  On the technical aspect of the term ʿilm in early Shi’ism and its semantic evolution, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, pp. 174–99, and “Réflexions sur une évolution du shi’isme duodécimain,” 63–68. Also chapter 4 of the present work.

  241.  We write Imam (with a capital I) when the term in its cosmic and archetypal sense is intended, and imam (with a small i) when dealing with the historical imam, the locus of manifestation of the former. This homonymy makes sense, of course, but often makes it difficult to distinguish between the two semantic levels; see Amir-Moezzi, “Remarques sur la divinité de l’Imam.”

  242.  In the titles that follow, distinction between the two meanings of the figure of the imam is not obvious. In order not to make reading overly ponderous, we avoid writing Imam/imam over and over again though it is necessary to bear in mind that the notion freely subsumes both senses.

  243.  Al-Kulaynī is the last great author of the older tradition to support the thesis of falsification of the official version of the Qur’an and to offer numerous citations from the “Qur’an of the imams,” not to be found in the Qur’an known to all. For these traditions he draws on al-Sayyārī, among others (see chapter 2, in the present work, as well).

  244.  Īmān, in the Shi’ite technical sense, denotes initiation into the esoteric aspect of the religion and is distinct from islām which signifies submission to the exoteric religion; see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, index., s.v. Also Amir-Moezzi, “Du droit à la théologie,” 50ff. The complete title of the book that is al-Kāfī is “The Book of Faith and Unbelief, of Pious Actions and of Sins” (K. al-īmān wa l-kufr wa l-ṭāʿāt wa l-maʿāṣī).

  245.  Kulaynī, al-Uṣūl min al-Kāfī, 1:8, where the author states that his work is meant to be a sufficient source for knowledge of the religion; doubtless it is for this reason that the work is also known under the title Kitāb al- Kāfī fī ʿilm al-dīn. To the best of our knowledge, however, no manuscript bears the latter title, but simply that of Kitāb al- Kāfī.

  246.  Older Shi’ism as the “religion of the Iman” is the main topic of Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin and La religion discrēte.

  247.  On Neoplatonism within the sphere of Islam, its characteristrics, its synthesis with gnostic doctrines, and the problems that the milieus and modalities of its transmission pose, see particularly Goldziher, “Neuplatonische und gnostische Elemente im Hadith”; Frank, “The Neoplatonism of Ğahm b. Ṣafwān”; Endress, Proclus Arabus and “The Circle of al-Kindī”; Rudolph, Die Doxographie des Pseudo-Ammonius; Morewedge, Neoplatonism and Islamic Thought; Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism; D’Ancona, Recherches sur le Liber de Causis and “Greek into Arabic”; De Smet, La Quiétude de l’Intellect and Empedocles Arabus; Madelung and Walker, The Advent of the Fatimids, especially the author-editors’ introduction; Adamson, The Arabic Plotinus; De Smet, La philosophie ismaélienne. See also the works cited in notes 84, 86, 87, and 88 of the previous chapter. To be sure, this list of references is not exhaustive.

  248.  On these older Imami works, see Ansari, L’imamat et l’Occultation selon l’imamisme.

  249.  For further details on these visions of the world, see Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, Qu’est-ce que le shi’isme?, part 1, chapter 1, pp. 27–40.

Epilogue

      1.  E.g., Wellhausen, Die religiös-politischen Oppositionsparteien im alten Islam and Das arabische Reich und sein Sturz; Périer, Vie d’al-Hadjdjâdj ibn Yousof; Lammens, Etudes sur le règne du Calife Omaiyade Moʿâwia 1er and “Le triumvirat Abou Bakr”; Caetani, Annali dell’ Islam; Djaït, La Grande Discorde; Madelung, The Succession to Muḥammad.

      2.  Nöldeke and Schwally, Geschichte des Qorāns; Mingana, “The Transmission of the Kur’an”; Beck, “Der ʿuthmānische Kodex in der Koranlesung des zweiten Jahrhunderts,” “ʿArabiyya, Sunna und ʿĀmma,” “Die Kodizesvarianten der Amṣār,” and “Studien zur Geschichte der kufischen Koranlesung”; Burton, The Collection of the Qur’an; Wansbrough, Quranic Studies and The Sectarian Milieu; Cook, The Koran.

      3.  Sprenger, Das Leben und die Lehre des Moḥammad, “Über das Traditionswesen bei den Arabern”; Goldziher, Muhammadanische Studien, especially vol. 2, Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung; Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence; Kister, Studies in Jāhiliyya and Early Islam; Juynboll, Muslim Tradition. Studies in Chronology, Provenance and Authorship of Early Hadith, and Studies on the Origins and Uses of Islamic Hadith; Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins, part 2: “The Emergence of Early Islamic Historical Writing.”

      4.  Lüling, Über den Ur-Qur’an, especially the introduction; Cook, “The Opponents of the Writing of Tradition in Early Islam”; Kister, “Lā taqra’ū l-qur’āna ʿalā l-muṣḥafiyyīn”; Donner, Narratives of Islamic Origins, passim; Borrut, Entre mémoire et pouvoir, passim.

      5.  Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien and Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung, and Le Dogme et la Loi de l’Islam. Histoire du développement dogmatique et juridique; Birkeland, Old Muslim Opposition Against Interpretation of the Koran; Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique; Rippin, Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur’an and The Qur’an; Gilliot, Exégèse, langue et théologie en islam.

      6.  See the historical points of reference and the figures at the beginning of this volume.

      7.  On the doctrine that the Qur’an cannot be understood without recourse to the Hadith, its probable Shi’ite origin, and its development even within Sunnism, see Goldziher, Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung, pp. 55–57 and 263f.; Birkeland, Old Muslim Opposition Against Interpretation of the Koran, passim; Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, pp. 60–74, 110ff. (the role of the theory of “polysemy”—wujūh—and “concordances” [naẓā’ir] of the Shi’ite Muqātil); Rippin, “The Present Status of Tafsīr Studies,” pp. 226–28; Gilliot, “Les sept ‘Lectures,’” especially part 2, “Exégèse, langue et théologie en islam,” the entire chapter 5. On the “orthodox” reaction with regard to this doctrine, exemplified by the expression al-Qur’ān yufassir baʿḍuhu baʿḍan (i.e., the Qur’an can be commented upon only by itself), see Ṣubḥī al-Ṣāliḥ, Mabāḥith fī ʿulūm al-Qur’an, pp. 299–312.

      8.  Birkeland, Old Muslim Opposition Against Interpretation of the Koran, passim; Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, pp. 317ff., 370–72; Gilliot, “Exégèse, langue et théologie en islam,” pp. 80f., 90, 186, 227–28, and 277–78. It could be asked by what mechanisms, caliphal power, especially Umayyad but also Abbasid to a certain extent, supported literalism (true, it is easier to control) and combated hermeneutics that seeks to go beyond the literalness of language (and so reveals itself as difficult to misuse through political power). This is a huge subject of study in its own right. In this regard, Claude Gilliot, in the aforementioned study, suggests some important and well-documented thoughts along with some quite apt paths of research. He particularly emphasizes (ibid., pp. 111–33, through a close analysis of the notions of ḥadd and muṭṭalaʿ), as Paul Nwyia had noted before him (Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, pp. 67ff.), the steady impoverishment of Sunni nonmystical exegesis from the fourth/tenth century on, as a consequence of the intrusion of politics into the sphere of religion.

      9.  Cf. Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, 2:115 (trans. Bercher, p. 139).

    10.  Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem), 4:889–91; Gertner, “Terms of Scriptural Interpretation: A Study on Hebrew Semantics,” pp. 1–27; Gant, L’interprétation de la Bible des origines chrétiennes à nos jours, pp. 101–2. See also the many contributions (e.g., those by J. Pépin, A. Kerrigan, R. Loewe et al.) in the volume Second International Conference on Patristic Studies. On the parallelism between these currents and exegetical traditions in Islam, see van Ess, Die Gedankenwelt des Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī, pp. 210ff.; Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, pp. 243–44. On the probable role of Yemeni converts, who came from Judaism and/or Judeo-Christianity, to Shi’ism in Kūfa in the formation of certain Shi’ite doctrines, see, e.g., Watt, “Shi’ism Under the Umayyads,” pp. 158ff.; Djaït, “Les yamanites à Kufa au 1er siècle de l’Hégire,” pp. 148ff.; van Ess, “The Youthful God,” pp. 12–13; Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew, pp. 124ff.

    11.  Sharon, “Ahl al-Bayt,” p. 173; Gil, “The Exilarchate,” pp. 63–64; Amir-Moezzi, “Fāṭema, daughter of the Prophet,” passim, and “Considérations sur l’expression dīn ʿAlī,” pp. 60–61 (= Religion discrète, pp. 44–45).

    12.  Especially verses 1:15 where John the Baptist says of Jesus: “Before I was born, he already was,” or again 8:58 where Jesus himself says: “in very truth I tell you, before Abraham was born, I am (sic).”

    13.  See the references given in notes 84 to 88 of chapter 4 and note 247 of chapter 5 of the present work. On the central role of hermeneutics of the Scriptures among Gnostics in general, see also Puech, “Gnosis and Time,” pp. 52ff.; Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria, passim. On the part played by esotericist Shi’ite milieus in the genesis and development of the spiritual hermeneutics of the Qur’an, see also Hodgson, “Bāṭiniyya,” p. 1098, and “How Did the Shi’a Become Sectarian?” pp. 7ff.; Rajkowski, Early Shiism in Iraq, pp. 690ff.; Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest, pp. 427ff., 501 ff. See also Goldziher, “Neuplatonische und gnostische Elemente im Ḥadīt”; on the decisive role of the different versions of the mystical Tafsīr ascribed to the imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and the reception of gnostic and neo-Platonic themes in Shi’ite milieus due to this source, see Nwyia, Exégèse coranique et langage mystique, pp. 156–207 and especially 161–68. On the different aspects of old Shi’ite imamology, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, passim, and the series of articles devoted to “Aspects de l’imamologie duodécimaine” (see the bibliography) now collected in La Religion discrète, chapters 3 and then 5 to 14.

    14.  See, e.g., Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, 2:112 ff. (trans. Bercher, p. 136), and especially Jaʿfarī, “Tafsīr,” pp. 145–91.

    15.  Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, introduction and appendix and “Réflexions sur une évolution du shi’isme duodécimain”; Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, Qu’est-ce que le shi’isme?, part 3.