In this book, Omid Ghaemmaghami demonstrates that in the early years of what came to be known as the Greater Occultation, Shīʿī authorities maintained that all contact with the Imam had been sundered, forcing him to remain incommunicado until his (re)appearance.
The history of Twelver Shīʿī Islam is a history of attempts to deal with the abrupt loss of the Imam. In Encounters with the Hidden Imam in Early and Pre-Modern Twelver Shīʿī Islam, Omid Ghaemmaghami demonstrates that in the early years of what came to be known as the Greater Occultation, Shīʿī authorities maintained that all contact with the Imam had been sundered, forcing him to remain incommunicado until his (re)appearance. This position, however, proved untenable to maintain. Almost a century after the start of the Greater Occultation, prominent scholars began to concede the possibility that some Shīʿa can meet the Hidden Imam. Accounts of encounters with the Imam from the Greater Occultation soon began to appear, adumbrating their exponential growth in later centuries.
About the Author
Omid Ghaemmmaghami is Assistant Professor of Arabic and Near Eastern Studies at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Approaches to the Question of Encountering the Hidden Imam in Sources in Western languages
Outline of the Book
1. The Unknown, the Unseen, and the unrecognized
The hadith compilations attributed to al-Barqi and al-Saffar al-Qummi
The exegetical corpus: the tafsir of al-Askari, al-Sayyari, al-Furat, al-Qummi, and al-Ayyashi
The hadith compilation of al-Kulayni
The hidden Imam: Unseen and Unrecognized
The Hidden Imam: Seen but not Recognized
2. Hidden from All, yet Seen by Some? The Special Case of Three Hadith
Hadith 1 (and Variants): “the 30 are never lonely”
Hadith 2 (and variants): [and] no one will know his location except the elite of his mawali
Hadith 3 (and variants): “except the mawali who is in charge of his affairs”
The mawla/mawali
3. “ A Lying Impostor”
Ibn Abi Zaynab al-Numani
Al-Shaykh al-Saduq
The Final Missive of the Hidden Imam
A Lying Impostor
Al-Shayk al-Mofid
Al-Sharif al-Murtada and his Students
4. From the Youth and the Stone to the Proliferation of Accounts
The earliest account of encounters with the Imam in a wakeful state
The “invention” of a tradition
The proliferation of account and the consolidation of a tradition
Conclusion
Back Matter
Al-Majlisī’s Gloss of the “lying impostor” Passage of the Final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam
Bibliographic Information
Title: Encounters with the Hidden Imam in Early and Pre-Modern Twelver Shīʿī Islam
Author: Omid Ghaemmmaghami
Publisher: BRILL
Language: English
Length: 276
ISBN: 978-9004340480
Pub. Date: 2020
