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This chapter compares Western/North African and Eastern/Omani Ibâḍî accounts of the munâẓara (debate) that took place at Ḥarûrâ’ before the Battle of Nahrawân to reveal two similar yet distinct traditions. A further comparison with non-Ibâḍî (i.e. al-Ṭabarî, al-Balâdhurî, al-Baghdâdî, etc.) versions of the debate shows that it is the Western/North African tradition that shares certain features and narrative structures with non-Ibâḍî accounts. The key to understanding these particular textual configurations is the figure of the last Basran Imâm, Abû Sufyân Maḥbûb Ibn al-Raḥîl. Abû Sufyân wrote his Kitâb Abî Sufyân on the commission of the Rustumid Imâm Aflaḥ Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhâb, and likely incorporated Basran and Kûfan Ibâḍî traditions that did not gain wide currency among Ibâḍîs in Oman. For this reason, non-Ibâḍî and Western munâẓara accounts share certain characteristics that are not present in Eastern accounts, even though Oman is geographically closer to the places where non-Ibâḍî accounts likely originated.
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berian Umayyad relations with the Ibāḍī Rustumids and the Ṣufrī Midrārids have not been well understood. After an initial period of Khārijite rebellion against the Umayyads in the 120s/740s, in which Khārijite revolutions in North Africa spilled over into the Iberian Peninsula, profound ties developed between the Umayyad amīrs, and the Midrārid and Rustumid imāms. In the far Maghrib, where ‘Abbāsid power did not reach, trade—especially the trade in human beings—brought these erstwhile political and religious enemies together. Relationships between these groups lasted well beyond the destruction of the Midrārid and Rustumid dynasties in the early fourth/tenth century. This paper re-examines the textual and numismatic evidence for Ibāḍī, Ṣufrī, Iberian Umayyad (and even early ‘Abbāsid) relations in order to propose that strong economic interests based primarily in the slave trade underlay the political ties that developed in the late second/eighth century between these groups.
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This paper explores the usages of four concepts – sunna, sīra, āthār, and nasab – mainly in early Ibāḍī epistles, but also in other types of Ibāḍī literature, to examine how early Ibāḍīs understood the legacy of the Prophet Muḥammad, and their relation to that legacy. It argues that before the sixth/twelfth century a notion of communal pedigree occupied pride of place in early Ibāḍī conceptualizations of legality and legitimacy. Thus, Ibāḍī sunna was “communal sunna”. The accumulated weight of Ibāḍī tradition – what is known as āthār in Ibāḍī literature – operated authoritatively as a counterpart to sunna; and the Ibāḍī siyar tradition did not focus on the Prophet exclusively, but rather described the scholarly community as an imagined whole. Moreover, Ibāḍīs explicitly articulated their communal pedigree in “teacher lines” (called nasab al-dīn or nasab al-islām) in Omani literature, and through the structure of their ṭabaqāt/siyar works in North Africa. Appreciating the importance of this communal pedigree, and the nexus of concepts through which it was articulated, helps us to understand the relative lack of emphasis placed on collecting and documenting ḥadīth (Ibāḍīs employ ḥadīth, but they did not use isnāds, nor did they appear to have a ḥadīth collection until the sixth/twelfth century), as well as the general absence of Prophetic biography among them (which also does not appear until the sixth/twelfth century).
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With few exceptions, scholarly presentations of the Ibāḍī “stages of religion” (masālik al-dīn) and their corresponding Imāms (i.e. imām al-ẓuhūr, imām al-difāʿ, imām al-shirā', and imām al-kitmān) propose a simplified overview of the institution that is based on post-Ibāḍī renaissance thought on the Imāmate. This paper investigates the pre-renaissance usages of the masālik al-dīn by comparing sixth/twelfth-century Arabian and North African Ibāḍī texts on the subject. It demonstrates that Eastern and Western Ibāḍīs manipulated the concepts central to the later masālik al-dīn ideal to reflect the particular needs of each respective community. While the articulations of the masālik al-dīn differed according to region, they simultaneously utilized a similar vocabulary. This convergence implies an earlier and inherited conceptual system (most likely from the earliest Basran Ibāḍī umma) that was adapted in the medieval period to fulfil the unique needs of each community.
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In light of recent evidence that indicates al-Shahrastānī's adherence to Nizari Ismaʿilism, this article highlights certain structural and thematic characteristics of al-Shahrastānī's Kitāb al-Milal wa-l-niḥal by comparing it to earlier (especially fourth/tenth-century) Khurasani Ismaʿili heresiographies such as Abū Tammām's Kitāb al-Shajara and al-Rāzī's Kitāb al-Zīna. Shared features of these works include the avoidance of specifically Ismaʿili language in the body of the work, utilization of neo-Platonic symbolism and language, and (for al-Shahrastānī and Abū Tammām) use of Satan (or satans) as the origin of sectarian differences among humankind. An awareness of these features will better allow scholars to contextualize al-Shahrastānī's work in relation to other heresiographies, and may point to the existence of a Khurasani Ismaʿili ‘school’ of heresiography. At the very least, the similarities show the influence of Abū Tammām's work on al-Shahrastānī. An awareness of al-Shahrastānī's Ismaʿili inspired methodology in his Kitāb al-Milal, in turn, challenges the prevalent scholarly view of al-Shahrastānī as an objective cataloguer of sectarian divisions.
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"Shurāt Legends, Ibāḍī Identities: Martyrdom, Asceticism, and the Making of an Early Islamic Community, written by Adam R. Gaiser, 2016" published on 06 Aug 2020 by Brill.