Agents of the Hidden Imam: Forging Twelver Shi‘ism, 850-950 CE

by Edmund Hayes

In 874 CE, the eleventh Imam died, and the Imami community splintered. The institutions of the Imamate were maintained by the dead Imam's agents, who asserted they were in contact with a hidden twelfth Imam. This was the beginning of 'Twelver' Shiʿism. Edmund Hayes provides an innovative approach to exploring early Shiʿism, moving beyond doctrinal history to provide an analysis of the socio-political processes leading to the canonisation of the Occultation of the twelfth Imam. Hayes shows how these agents cemented their authority by reproducing the physical signs of the Imamate, including protocols of succession, letters and the alm taxes. Four of these agents were ultimately canonised as “envoys” but traces of earlier conceptions of authority remain embedded in the earliest reports. Hayes dissects the complex and contradictory Occultation narratives to show how, amidst the claims of numerous actors, the institutional positioning of the envoys allowed them to assert a quasi-Imamic authority in the absence of an Imam.

Genres: History, Islam, Religion

266 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 17, 2022

Reviews

[Maryam Imami · Rating 1 out of 5]

Surprisingly, the weakness in the understanding of historical sociology is mixed with the weakness in the ontological analysis of Shiism and ended up in a book that does not inform about any truth except in an incomplete form. Half-truth is worse than a lie!

[Aengus]

The author thought he is seemingly careful to understand that he is interpreting events that are doctrinal for Twelver Shias offers a nuancing of the transition from an embodied Imam to the occultation of the 12th Imam. He shows at several points that there was contestation for the leadership of the community and that it was not a simple transition from the 11th Imam to the 4 envoys. Theological disputes mixed with political and economic disputes. The author goes to some lengths to show how the authority to collect and disperse funds was an important and contested role. In the final few generations of embodied Imams despite living under the shadow of the Abassid Calips who notionally has an antagonistic relationship to the Shia and vice versa, the Imamate had been able to develop institutions governing and financial. Taking control of these institutions was an important sign of legitimacy in the early occultation period. Figures from the last Imam’s mother, his brother Jaffar, to his and his father’s various advisers contested both the religious power and the economic power of the Imamate. A faction seems to have developed that pushed the idea of a hidden child successor of the 11th Imam. Eventually the son of one of these advisors Abu Ja'far seems to have been able to consolidate leadership of a large part of the Imami community. He was succeeded by Ibn Ruh al-Nawbakhti who was interestingly a figure of influence at the Abassid court to which the Imami were notionally hostile. However political and religious conflict in the leadership of this deputy seems to have convinced a majority of the elite scholars and leaders of the Imami to dispense with the role of official deputy to the hidden imam in favor of a more diffused leadership by scholars and theologians that would characterize Twelver Shiism going forward. From the perspective of an outsider and a novice in Islamic history it seems like a balanced account and synthesis of the evidence.