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Ibadism first developed in Basra in the second century A.H. among groups of Arabian origin, especially from Oman. The earliest Ibadi texts were produced there; some have been lost, while others have been found in private Ibadi libraries in North Africa. It seems that the Ibadi community in North Africa wrote to the sect’s leaders in Basra for guidance, and that these early texts came into existence for that reason. Most of these texts remained unknown in Oman for centuries. The Ibadi textual tradition in the Arabian peninsula developed somewhat later and separately, after persecution in the late Umayyad period led to the dissolution of the Basran leadership and the migration of many Ibadis to Oman, and some to Yemen. The earliest Ibadi texts in the Arabian peninsula are letters or short treatises known as siyar (singular sira) that deal with a broad number of issues, from law and theology to rules for the Imamate. In the 3rd/9th century Ibadis produced the earliest Ibadi collections (jawami‘) of legal opinions. Abu Sa‘id al-Kudami (3rd/9th to 4th/10th century) produced the first monograph on a single topic, in which he tried to heal wounds in the Ibadi community of Oman that had been precipitated by disagreements over the deposal of an aged Imam in 272/886. Ibn Baraka (second half of the 4th/10th century) may have been the first to compose comprehensive works of Ibadi theology and law. His works were incorporated into a series of encyclopedias composed in the 5th/11th and 6th/12th centuries that consolidated Ibadi doctrine in Oman. It was only in the late 19th century that Nur al-Din al-Salimi led Ibadi theological literature in Oman toward convergence with that of North Africa, in the process creating a major change in the official Omani-Ibadi doctrine on the creation or eternity of the Qur’an. This paper will trace the development of Ibadi theological literature and the process of consolidation of an Ibadi theological tradition in the Arabian peninsula, especially with regard to three issues: association and dissociation (walaya and bara’a), free-will versus predestination, and the creation or eternity of the Qur’an.

The Aqw?l Qat?da (the Sayings/teachings of Qat?da) is a collection of writings on fiqh (jurisprudence) and ?ad?th (traditions) narrated by Qat?da b. Di'ama al-Sadusi (c.60-117/680-735) that has frequently attracted the interest of present-day scholars. In addition to these writings, the discovery of a number of previously unknown texts on Ib??? jurisprudence and early legal opinions in the Maghrib region by a non-Ib??? scholar from Ba?ra now raises important questions about early Ib??? history and the proper methods of recording information during Islam’s formative period during the first half of the 2nd /8th century. Although these texts have not yet been published, they are the subject of intense debate amongst modern scholars. Although the Aqw?l Qat?da was never incorporated into the legal literature of the Ib??iyyah in Oman, manuscripts of the Aqw?l Qat?da have repeatedly attracted particular interest among modern scholars as it raises questions concerning the early development of the Ib??? Ba?ran community. It is a unique document because it attests to the existence of a scholarly link between Sunn?s and Ib???s during the early development of Islamic law. The fact that the legal responses and traditions of Qat?da are part of an Ib??? collection, in which the traditions of J?bir bin Zayd (one of the founders of Ibadism) have been transmitted through ‘Amr b. Harim and ‘Amr b. D?n?r, proves that Ib??? lawyers of the first generations considered Qat?da to be a faithful upholder of J?bir's doctrine. This present study on the text is based on two recently discovered manuscripts. One of these is in the D?r al-Kutub al-Mi?riyyah in Cairo, while the other is in the al-B?r?niyyah Library (al-Khiz?nah al-B?r?niyyha) on the Tunisian island of Djerba. We shall look at both of them in detail. The texts display three important features, which will be the subject of analysis: 1) fiqh opinions commonly held during the early Islamic period in Ba?ra; 2) early approaches to the collection of Islamic religious traditions including ?ad?th of the Prophet and legal opinions of the early community 3) the development of Islamic jurisprudence during the first two centuries of the Islamic era.

This paper discusses the broader historiographical significance of recently published Ibadi texts dated to the 8th century CE. The valuable nature of these works can be demonstrated in their documentation of paradigmatic precepts and conceptual models of philosophical theology or kalam which subsequently went on to have broader influence in Islamic doctrine, exegesis, and law as a whole. Such examples indicate the methodological incumbency of incorporating Ibadi thought for the sake of properly historicizing “reason and revelation” as a category of analysis for Islamic thought. The very bifurcation of reason and revelation as distinct epistemic resources for Islamic theology finds its earliest documentation in the particular text which receives the most attention in this paper: the Radd ‘ala Ibn ‘Umayr by Abd Allah b. Yazid al-Fazari. The juxtaposition of these two resources, their role in the proof of the existence of God and prophethood, and the epistemic role and limits of human thought in determining moral value or religious injunction (which defined more commonly known debates between Mu’tazilites, Ash’aris, and other schools of thought), can all be discerned here in embryo, and likewise accompanied by surprisingly developed argumentation pointing to even earlier developmental stages. This paper offers an exposition of the abovementioned material in conversation with recent discussions by Wilferd Madelung along with a genealogy of its subsequent reception history in later traditions. This will be accompanied by historiographical reflections on the necessity of acknowledgement of these sources beyond specialists in Ibadism to include specialists in Islamic Thought as a whole.

While Kharijism supported the claims of the Yaman? tribes and the Persians in the East, in North Africa Ibadism was soon identified with the Berbers and contributed to shape their ethnic identity. Far from being natural, the Arab-Berber dichotomy was first constructed against the Empire, for legitimizing the new indigenous Islamic polities, in particular the Imamate of Tahart (777-909). Instead of focusing on Berber rebellion as a response to Arabic ‘oppressiveness’ or a struggle for ‘freedom’, our contribution examines how the political confrontation between the Empire and his Western confines determined the Sunni narrative on the Islamic conquest of North Africa and its local population. The polemical image of the Berbers as a wild and rebellious nation, superficially converted to Islam, was probably an answer to the Khariji threat. This is made even clearer by the existence of an Ibadi counter-discourse, preserved by Ibn Sallam al-Law?t? (end of the 9th c.) and later sources, in which the Berbers become a new chosen people and their primitiveness a sign of their religious sincerity. These surviving fa??’il al-Barbar rely on hadiths which prove to be exactly the opposite of the available Abbasid and later Sunni material. The ethnic controversy, called shu??biyya, played a political role and was not reduced to a mere literary game in this context. The Iraqi geographer al-Ya?qub?, who visited North Africa roughly at the same time when Ibn Sall?m compiled his information, observed that local Berber communities had also adopted Eastern genealogies, like the well known affiliation to Barr b. Qays. The praise of indigeneity was therefore combined with the use of other widely diffused references. Among them, the Persian shu??biyya entered North Africa and probably inspired the ‘praise of the Berbers’. The Rustamids, whose name seems to remind of a famous Iranian hero, claimed to be ‘Persians’. At the end of the 11th century, Ab? Zakariyy?’ al-W?rjl?n?, clearly associated the fa??’il al-Barbar with the fa??’il al-Furs tradition by presenting the imams as the heirs of the Sassanid kings. The legendary figure of ?Abd al-Ra?m?n b. Rustam, who rooted a Persian dynasty in a Berber land, was at the crossroad of these two intertwined legitimacies and personified the alliance of the two Gentile nations of Islam oppressed by the ‘Arabs’.

Early Ibadi engagements with the Murji'a reflect a profound awareness, and probably actual encounters with, Murji'a in the early Islamic world. This paper investigates the image of Murji'ism that appears in later, 6th/12th century Ibadi writings, a time when Murji'ism had ceased to exist and its main ideas had filtered into the Sunni consensus. This paper will show that later Ibadi authors, just as their Sunni counterparts, struggled to present Murji'ism as a separate firqa. Moreover, medieval Ibadi writings on the Murji'a betray a deep awareness of contemporary Sunni heresiography on the Murji'a

Ibadi works have generally been overlooked in scholarship on the development of Islamic theology (kalam). From at least the early 8th century, kalam has revolved around questions about the divine attributes and their relation to God’s unity. The distinction between the attributes of God’s essence and the attributes of His acts has usually been attributed to the Mu‘tazil? theologians Ab? ’l-Hudhayl (ca. 135/752–ca. 227/842) and al-Na???m (d. between 220/835-230/845), but a recently published text written by Ib??? theologian ‘Abd All?h b. Yaz?d al-Faz?r? soon after the death of Ib??? imam Ab? ‘Ubayda Muslim b. Ab? Kar?ma (d. between 150/767-158/775) employs these terms. This is just one indication of how Ib??? texts can offer new perspectives on the development of Islamic theology. Al-Faz?r? was fully engaged in the theological controversies of Basra and Baghdad until H?r?n al-Rash?d’s persecution of the mutakallim?n in 179/795. He wrote works refuting the ideas of other theological schools, and his ideas were followed and developed among the Maghrib? Ibadis. In Oman, early resistance to kal?m was overcome in the writings of Abu ’l-Mundhir Bash?r b. Muhammad b. Ma?b?b (d. ca. 290/908). Ib??? theology on the attributes and essence of God has generally been similar to that of the Mu‘tazila, although Omani Ib???s only came to accept the doctrine of the creation of the Qur’an in the late 19th century. This paper examines Ibadi writings on the divine attributes from the earliest available texts to the twentieth century. Ibadi responses to questions that arose concerning the divine attributes will be compared geographically and chronologically with each other and with the articulations of other schools. In modern Sunni thought, these questions are generally ignored or even deemed irrelevant, but they remained vital much longer to Ibadi scholars, for whom they were central to the definition of the faith. The theological intricacies surrounding these questions received less attention over the course of the twentieth century, but Abdul Aziz bin Baz’s public denunciation of the Ibadis as infidels for their rejection of the eternity of the Qur’an and of the possibility of seeing God led the Mufti of Oman to provide a public—and hence simplified—explanation of Ibadi teachings on these issues. Nonetheless, Omani policy under Sultan Qaboos (r. 1970-present) and current Ibadi attitudes have emphasized pan-Islamic unity, at the expense of specifically Ibadi doctrinal articulations.