(1) ʿAli d. 41.
+-----------------------------+
| |
marr. (i) Fatima (ii) al-Hanifiya
+---------------------+ |
| | |
(3) Hasan d. 50. (3) Husayn d. 61. Muhammad
| |
Hasan |
+-------------+ |
| | |
Muhammad Abd Allah (4) ʿAli Zayn d. 94.
| | +-------------------+
| | | |
(Sherifs of Idris Zayd (5) Muhammad
Morocco) | | al-Bakir d. 113.
(Idrisids (Zaydites |
of N. Africa) of N. Persia (6) Jaʿfar as-Sadiq
and S. Arabia) d. 148.
+------------------+
| |
(7)* Ismaʿil (7) Musa
| d. 183.
Muhammad |
| (8) ʿAli ar-Rida
(alleged d. 202.
descent of |
Fatimids) (9) Muhammad al-Jawad
d. 220.
(10) ʿAli al-Hadi
d. 254.
(11) al Hasan al
Askari d. 260.
|
(12) Muhammad
al-Muntazar
“disappeared”
A. H. 260.

II
THE ISMAʿILIAN SECT

From the beginning the neo-Ismaʿilian sect showed all the characteristics of the ultra Shiʿite bodies: it accepted the ʿalim l-batin, or the principle of allegorical interpretation which is especially associated with Jaʿfar as-Sadiq, the doctrine of incarnation, and of the transmigration of the Imam’s soul. But underneath all this, borrowed from current Shiʿite ideas, it had a strong element of agnosticism, a heritage of the philosophical ideas borrowed from Greek scientists, and developed in certain directions by the Muʿtazilites. As organised by its leader, whose name was Abdullah b. Maymun, it was arranged in seven grades to which members were admitted by successive initiations, and which diverged more and more from orthodox Islam until its final and highest stages were simply agnostic. According to Stanley Lane-Poole “in its inner essence Shiʿism, the religion of the Fatimids is not Mohammedanism at all. It merely took advantage of an old schism in Islam to graft upon it a totally new and largely political movement” (Lane-Poole: Story of Cairo, Lond., 1906, p. 113). In this passage “Shiʿism” is taken as denoting the sect of the “Seveners,” and the “political movement” is simply disaffection towards the Khalifate. Similarly Prof. Nicholson considers that “Filled with a fierce contempt of the Arabs and with a free-thinker’s contempt for Islam, Abdullah b. Maymun conceived the idea of a vast secret society which should be all things to all men, and which, by playing on the strongest passions and tempting the inmost weaknesses of human nature, should unite malcontents of every description in a conspiracy to overthrow the existing régime” (Nicholson: Literary History of the Arabs, pp. 271-272).

Undoubtedly the ideas involved in the Ismaʿilian doctrines were totally subversive of the teachings of Islam, but so were those of the “philosophers,” and in exactly the same way. The views of Ibn Tufayl (d. 531 A.H.) and of Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 595 A.H.) were purely Aristotelian in basis, and on this foundation was built up an agnostic-pantheistic superstructure. Ibn Tufayl particularly makes it quite clear that his teaching is not consistent with the Qurʾan which he treats as setting forth a system of doctrines and ritual precepts suitable for the unlearned who ought not to be disturbed in their simple faith, but quite inadequate for the satisfaction of the more intelligent: the mysteries of the universe, revealed through Aristotle and his followers, furnish a sounder religion, but it is expedient that this be reserved for the enlightened and not divulged to the illiterate who are unable to appreciate or understand its bearing. Such teaching is subversive of orthodox Islam, and consciously so: in the case of ʿAbdullah it may, perhaps, be described as a conspiracy against religion. In one sense it was the final product of the rationalism of the Muʿtazilites.

Admittedly the Ismaʿiliya worked as a political conspiracy against the ʿAbbasids, but this was true of every Shiʿite sect: the ʿAbbasids had used the Shiʿites in seating themselves on the throne, and then discarded them. Still it seems that we have no reason to question the perfect sincerity of the Ismaʿilians in their agnostic principles: those principles were the product of the solvent influence of Greek philosophy upon the religion of Islam: Islamic thought was too simple and primitive to be able to adapt itself to that philosophy in its entirety, hence some such position as that of Ibn Tufayl, or of Ibn Rushd, or of the Ismaʿilians, was inevitable. It was equally a necessary result of the time and circumstances that these rationalists tended towards the Shiʿites. In spite of weird superstitions, especially current in Khurasan, the Shiʿites represent the Muslim element most kindly disposed towards freedom of thought. This seems a bold statement to those familiar with Shiʿites of the present day, but it must be noted that the Shiʿites whom the European most frequently meets are either the devotees who have settled in places like Samarra, or those who seem to be more exclusive than the orthodox Muslims, chiefly because they have as yet had much less intercourse with foreigners. In 2-3rd cent. Islam it was the Shiʿite princes who invariably did their best to foster philosophical and scientific research, whilst, after A.H. 232, the orthodox party, as it gets in the ascendent, becomes distinctly reactionary, and tends to repressive persecution.

The most difficult task for us is to appreciate the strong appeal which the doctrines of incarnation and transmigration made to the Persian and Mesopotamian mind. Both these doctrines had figured prominently in pre-Islamic religions in Western Asia; and both recur in most religious movements from the coming of Islam to the present day in that particular area. We may note a few instances to illustrate this, and show incidentally the strong attraction these doctrines had for the Persian mind.

Abu Muslim was the general who more than any other helped to seat the ʿAbbasids on the throne, and suffered death at the hands of the first ʿAbbasid Khalif, who was jealous,—with good cause, it would appear,—of his excessive power. But Abu Muslim had exercised an extraordinary influence over men during life, and was treated as a quasi-divine hero after death, his admirers regarding him as not really dead but as having passed into “concealment,” some other having been miraculously substituted for him at the moment of execution. This resembles the theory which the pre-Islamic Persian teacher Mani held as to Christ. Mani fully accepted Christ as a religious teacher, side by side with Zoroaster and Buddha, but he could not admit the reality of his death, for a material body capable of death was in his view unworthy of one purely good. He supposed, therefore, that at the crucifixion Simon of Cyrene was at the last moment substituted for Christ, and this Persian idea has actually obtained a place in the Qurʾan (cf. Sura 4, 156).