This volume brings together seventeen articles reflecting the wide range of scholarly interest in early Shi`ism over the past half century. All major branches of Shi`ism are covered. Some studies are historical in nature, whether dealing with specific events or offering a broad historical perspective. Others focus on literary issues, on the development of doctrine or on the relations between the Shi`a and the non-Shi`i world. The studies have been selected because they represent the best of current scholarship, or are classic works with continuing significance; six appear for the first time in English translation. The editor's introduction reviews the historiography of the field and highlights directions and trends in research and is followed by a bibliography of key further reading.

    Contents: General Editor's preface; Introduction. Imamiya: How did the early Shî’a become sectarian? Marshall G.S. Hodgson; Only the man of God is human: theology and mystical anthropology according to early Imami exegesis (aspects of Twelver Imamology IV), Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi; The death of al-Husayn b. ’Ali and early Shi’i views of the Imamate, Douglas Karim Crow; The Hashimiyyat of al-Kumayt and Hashimi Shi’ism, Wilferd Madelung; The crisis of the Imamate and the institution of occultation in Twelver Shi’ism: a sociohistorical perspective, Said Amir Arjomand; The four Sufara’ of the Twelfth Imam: on the formative period of the Twelver Shi’a, Verena Klemm; Some remarks on the Imami Firaq literature, Wilferd Madelung. Ghulat: The development of the term Ghulat in Muslim literature with special reference to the Kaysaniyya, Wadad al-Qadi; Bayan b.Sam’an and the Bayaniyya: Shi’ite extremists of Umayyad Iraq, William F. Tucker. Zaydiya: The Kamiliya: on the genesis of a heresiographical tradition, Josef van Ess; The early history of Zaydi Shi’ism in Daylaman and Gilan, M.S. Khan. Isma’iliya: The earliest Isma’ilis, Farhad Daftary; Isma’ilis and Qarmatians, S.M. Stern; Methods and forms of the earliest Isma’ili Da’wa, Heinz Halm. Abbasids: On the meaning of the ’Abbasid call to al-Rida, Patricia Crone; The ’Abbasid Dawla: an essay on the concept of revolution in early Islam, Jacob Lassner; The religious policy of the ’Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun, Dominique Sourdel, Index.

    Biography

    Etan Kohlberg

    '... a compulsory reference work on the history and the spiritual doctrines of Shi'ism.' Connaissance des Religions