The Mansuris, however, were a minor sect, the majority of the Shiʿites followed Jaʿfar who was Imam at the time of the ʿAbbasid revolution. He was one of those who were deeply influenced by the traditions of Hellenistic philosophy and science, and was the author of works on chemistry, augury, and omens: he is usually credited with being the founder, or at least the chief exponent, of what are known as batinite views, that is to say, the allegorical interpretation of the Qurʾan as having an esoteric meaning, which can only be learned from the Imam who is illuminated by divine wisdom, and who alone is able to reveal its true sense. The inner meaning thus revealed was usually a more or less imperfect reproduction of Aristotelian doctrine as it had been handed down by the Syriac writers. Like his brother, Abu Mansur Jaʿfar fully endorsed the doctrine of a divine Imamate and the transmigration of the Divine Spirit, then tabernacled in himself, and it seems probable that Van Vloten (Recherches sur la domination arabe, 1894, pp. 44-45) is right in suggesting that the general promulgation of these beliefs amongst the Shiʿites was largely due to the labours of the Hashimite missionaries.
The contemporary establishment of the ʿAbbasids made a far-reaching change in the conditions of Islam. The Arabs began to take a secondary place, and Persian influences became predominant. In 135 the noble Persian family of the Barmecides began to furnish wazirs or Prime Ministers to the Khalifate, and controlled its policy for a period of fifty-four years. Nearly all important offices were given to Persians, and a distinct anti-Arab party was formed, known as the Shuʿubiyya, which produced a prolific controversial literature which expressed the hatred stored up under generations of ʿUmayyad misrule: the Arab was held up to derision, his pretensions to aristocratic descent were contrasted with the much more ancient genealogies of the Persian nobles, and he was portrayed as little better than an illiterate savage. In literature, in science, in Muslim jurisprudence and theology, and even in the scientific treatment of Arabic grammar, the Persians altogether surpassed the Arabs, so that we must be careful not to talk of Arab philosophy, Arab science, etc., in the history of Muslim civilization, but always of Arabic philosophy, etc., remembering that it was not the science and philosophy of the Arabs, but that of the Arabic speaking people, amongst whom only a small minority were actually of Arab race: and this applies to the “golden age” of Arabic literature (A.H. 132-232). On the other hand it must be remembered that, indirectly and unintentionally, the ʿUmayyads had helped towards this result. It was under their rule that the Arabic language had been introduced into the public administration, and in due course replaced Greek and Persian in all public business, so that it became the common speech of all Western Asia, or at least a common medium of intercourse between those who used various languages in their private life, and thus the brilliant intellectual and literary renascence was rendered possible by a wide exchange of thought.
We may rightly refer to this period as a renascence, for it meant quickening into new and other life the embers of the later Hellenistic culture, and especially of the Aristotelian philosophy and medical and natural science, which had never quite died away in Western Asia, but had been checked by its passage into Syriac-speaking and Persian-speaking communities, amongst whom the language in which the original authorities were written was only imperfectly known. Thus Hellenism suffered a phase of provincialism, which came to an end when Arabic appeared as a more or less cosmopolitan language, and thought began to be exchanged by different races and social groups. Under the early ʿAbbasids, and especially under the Khalif al-Maʾmun (A.H. 198-218), there was a vast amount of translation from Greek into Arabic until the greater part of Aristotle, of the neo-Platonic commentators on Aristotle, of Galen, some parts of Plato, and other material, were freely accessible to the Muslim world: whilst at the same time translations were made from Indian writers on mathematics, medicine, and astronomy, some directly from the Sanskrit, and others from old Persian versions.
As a result the philosophical speculations of the Greeks began to act as a solvent upon Islamic theology, and from this doctrinal discussions and controversies arose which, on the one side, produced a series of rationalistic heresies, and on the other side laid the foundations of an orthodox Muslim scholasticism. Long before this Hellenistic influences had permeated Persia and Mesopotamia, and these now revived and resulted in a philosophical presentation of religion which, under the veil of allegorical explanations of the Qurʾan, was really undermining orthodox doctrine, and heading towards either pantheism or simple agnosticism. With these tendencies the pro-Persian party was particularly associated. The Khalifs who, in spite of Arab birth, were most devoted to Persian ideas, largely because the Persians were subtle courtiers and were the champions of absolutism, were amongst those most ardent in promoting the study of Greek philosophy; and the Imams, such as Jaʿfar and his brother Zayd, were even more devotedly attached to this type of philosophical speculation which was acting as a powerful solvent on the traditional beliefs of orthodox Islam.
At Jaʿfar’s death another schism took place, indeed the perpetual sub-division into new sects has always been a salient characteristic of the Shiʿiya. Jaʿfar had nominated his son Ismaʿil as his successor, but afterwards disinherited him because he had been found in a state of intoxication and chose as heir his second son, Musa al-Qazam. There were some, however, who still adhered to Ismaʿil, and refused to admit that his father had power to transfer the divinely ordained succession at will; they asserted indeed that the son’s drunkenness was itself a sign of his superior illumination as showing that he knew that the ritual laws of the Qurʾan were not to be taken literally, but had an esoteric meaning which did not appear on the surface. Musa, the seventh Imam as generally reckoned, and his son, ʿAli ar-Rida (p. 202), the “two patient ones,” suffered harsh treatment at the hands of the contemporary ʿAbbasid rulers; they were brought from Madina by Harun ar-Rashid so as to be under the observation of the court, and in 148 Musa was poisoned by the wazir Ibn Khalid. His son ʿAli married the daughter of the Khalif Maʾmun, and was intended to be the heir to the throne. But Maʾmun very nearly provoked civil war by his strong Shiʿite sympathies, and when he perceived how dangerous a storm the projected accession of ʿAli was beginning to arouse, he extricated himself from the difficulty by procuring the Imam’s death. ʿAli al-Qazim was usually reckoned as the eighth Imam, the ninth was Muhammad al-Jawad (d. 220), the tenth ʿAli al-Hadi (d. 254), and the eleventh al-Hasan (d. 260), these two latter being buried at Samarra, which replaced Baghdad as the ʿAbbasid capital from A.H. 222 to 279. The town afterwards fell into decay, but has been colonised by Shiʿites, and is one of the places of Shiʿite pilgrimage. The twelfth Imam was Muhammad al-Muntazir, who in A.H. 260 “disappeared.” The mosque at Samarra is said to cover an underground vault into which he went and was no more seen. The “twelvers,” or Ithna ʿashariya, who to-day form the main body of the Shiʿites, and whose belief is the official religion of modern Persia, suppose that he is still living, and the place where he is to re-appear when he emerges from concealment is one of the sacred spots visited by the Shiʿites.
But, as we have already noted, some of the Shiʿites did not accept Jaʿfar’s transference of the Imamate from his son Ismaʿil to his second son Musa, but recognised Ismaʿil still as heir. Ismaʿil died in 145 whilst his father was still alive, leaving a son named Muhammad. Although Ismaʿil’s body was publicly shown before its burial at al-Bakiʿ, many persisted in believing that he was not dead, and asserted that he had been seen in Basra after his supposed funeral; others admitted his death, but believed that his Imamate had passed to his son Muhammad; others again believed that his soul had migrated to Muhammad, so that they were in reality one person. These adherents of Ismaʿil, or of his son Muhammad, or of Ismaʿil-Muhammad, formed the sect known as the Ismaʿilians or the Sabʿiya, i.e., “seveners,” accepting the six Imams to Jaʿfar as-Sadiq, and adding his son or grandson as the seventh and last.
These “seveners” seem to have been a comparatively minor sect of the extremer Shiʿites. Some members of the sect are still to be found in the neighbourhood of Bombay and Surat. But, about 250 this comparatively obscure sect was taken in hand and organised by a singularly able leader, and became for a time one of the most powerful forces in Islam.
GENEALOGY OF THE FAMILY OF ʿALI
