A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi'is

by John McHugo

  VII

  It was in the decades leading up to the Buyid period and, above all, during that period itself, that the theory of the Hidden Imam and his occultation was developed by Twelver scholars. The Buyid period has thus been called the era of the Twelver ‘church fathers’,27 in which the sect distinguished itself from other Shi‘i groups and defended its positions against polemical attack. Although much of this thought was begun in other Buyid cities such as Rayy and Qumm, Baghdad became the epicentre for Twelver learning.

  A crucial development in Twelver thinking was the adoption of the rationalist ideas of the Mu‘tazili school. This school had become prominent in Baghdad in the early 800s, and had used the techniques of Greek logic and dialectic. It had supported the view that the Qur’an was created. After the end of the Mihna in 847, the opposing view that the Qur’an was an eternal manifestation of God’s attribute of speech prevailed and the school fell out of favour among Sunnis. However, its ideas had never disappeared and they resurfaced in the writings of Sheikh al-Mufid (d. 1022), who shaped the form that Twelver thought would take. He gave reasoned argument (‘aql – literally ‘intellect’) a fundamental role in Twelver jurisprudence. This would be the beginning of an intellectual thread that stretches all the way to the ideas of Ayatollah Khomeini, and which would be influential in the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. Nevertheless, Sheikh al-Mufid taught that reason should be used only within narrowly defined limits, and could never override scripture. Like the Mu‘tazilis, he held that man’s actions were the product of free will, rather than being predetermined by God, since this was a necessary consequence of God’s justice. He also followed the Mu‘tazilis in teaching that the Qur’an had been created. His pupil Ali al-Murtada (d. 1044), who was the brother of al-Sharif al-Radi and followed him as the naqib (leader) of the descendants of Ali at the Abbasid court, took the use of reason further, arguing that reasoned argument had to be applied to matters of faith. Merely relying on the authority of others in matters of the transmission of tradition (taqlid) would lead to unbelief, since a saying attributed to the Prophet or one of the Imams would always comply with reason if it was genuine. This rational test therefore had to be applied in order to establish the authenticity of a saying.28

  The Twelvers now believed that their imam, the ultimate religious authority in Islam, was permanently in hiding and that this would remain the case until the End Times. This position inevitably required some explanation and justification from their scholars. This can be gleaned from the polemical works they wrote during the Buyid period to defend their positions. These were predicated on rational, Mu‘tazili arguments. God is just. Man is weak, and in need of God’s grace. Man requires guidance, which can be supplied only by the imam. Without leadership from an imam who is divinely inspired, infallible and sinless, human society would descend into perpetual strife, injustice, anarchy and chaos. Indeed, unjust men dominate the world, and it is their tyranny that has forced the imam into hiding. The Abbasid caliphs themselves acted in ways that are tyrannical.

  Heinz Halm, a scholar whose speciality is Shi‘i history and doctrine, has pointed out how remarkable it is that a figure such as Ali al-Murtada (known as Sharif al-Murtada, d. 1044) who ‘went in and out of the Abbasid court’ could write in such terms.29 Yet al-Murtada provided precedents. He pointed out how, according to the Qur‘an, Joseph asked Pharaoh, the archetypal oppressor, to put him in charge of his granaries. He also drew attention to the fact that Ali had acquiesced in the Shura that had elected Uthman as caliph, and had actually taken part in the election of Uthman himself. These were precedents that Twelvers could follow when dealing with or serving rulers such as the Abbasid caliph, whom they considered to be intrinsically unjust. Ja‘far al-Sadiq was also reported to have said, ‘Fulfilment of the needs of fellow believers atones for collaboration with government.’30 Important Twelver writers repeatedly taught that, when the imam reappeared, he would fight oppression and overthrow all earthly governments, since they were ineluctably unjust. Even the governments of rulers who were themselves Twelvers were frequently considered as tainted in this way. However, Muhammad bin Hassan al-Tusi (d. 1067) taught that a ruler who accepts the Hidden Imam and therefore rules provisionally in his name while applying the Sharia (as taught by the Twelvers) is entitled to obedience.

  A second reason for the necessary existence of the imam flowed from the Sharia. Although believers were aware of the existence of the Sharia, they needed the imam in order to enable them to ascertain the detail of its contents. The believers were frail and fallible. Their judgement was questionable both as individuals and when assembled together as a group. The Qur’an required an interpreter and elucidator. It was the imam who could instruct the faithful in the way the Prophet interpreted the holy book. Furthermore, the methodology adopted by the Sunni schools was wrong. Ijtihad and qiyas (the terms for judgment by use of analogy that, as in some Sunni texts, sometimes tended to be elided together) were only forms of speculative opinion or conjecture (zann). They could be no substitute for the imam. In the same way, problems in the transmission of some hadith demonstrated that the imam was necessary in order to provide clarity.

  But the absence of the Hidden Imam must at times have seemed an insurmountable problem. His functions included not just the definition of religious truth, but all the tasks that were the prerogative of the imam alone: the exercise of those punishments prescribed in the Qur’an which involve capital and corporal punishment (the hudud), leading the congregational prayers on Fridays, raising the religious taxes known as khums and zakat, proclaiming jihad and administering justice. From the time of the scholars in the Buyid period until the present, debate among Twelvers has continued. Despite disagreement, the trend has been towards the view that more and more of these powers and prerogatives have been delegated to the religious scholars who are experts on the detail of the Sharia, the fuqaha. Nevertheless, this was a gradual – and often contested – process. In the sixteenth century, the questions of whether taxes could be collected during the Imam’s absence and whether congregational prayers on a Friday could validly be held were still disputed. Only at the end of the eighteenth century was it agreed that religious scholars could enforce the hudud, while it was not until the nineteenth century that it was accepted that scholars could proclaim jihad.31 This trend might be said to have reached its logical conclusion in the twentieth century, when Ayatollah Khomeini would assert that religious scholars should take on the political authority of the imam. This, however, remains extremely controversial among Shi‘i scholars today.

  The Twelver scholars believed that, if they erred in their elucidation and interpretation of the Sharia, the imam would still find a way to guide and correct them. This meant that, for all practical purposes, the imam’s function as the supreme teacher of the Sharia had devolved on them as a class. They therefore accepted the principle of ijma, consensus, in order to expound the Sharia. However, this was the ijma of the Twelver scholars alone. The opinions of Sunnis, as well as of ordinary people, did not count.

  The Twelver scholars therefore acted as judges in their own community, deciding cases on the basis of the Qur’an and hadith. It was kufr, unbelief, to seek it from the courts of Sunni rulers, even if the judgement given happened to be based on a correct understanding of the Sharia.32 When it came to the sources of law, there were obvious similarities to those used by Sunni judges, save that the traditions the Twelvers followed included those ascribed to the twelve imams. They also believed that, by rejecting Ali, most of the Companions had betrayed the Prophet’s legacy. Aisha, who was an important transmitter of traditions recognised by Sunnis, is an obvious example. For Shi‘is, she was quite simply not a reliable source. The right to decide disputes had been delegated to trustworthy scholars by the imams, and there was evidence that Ja‘far al-Sadiq had appointed scholars to do this himself.

  At first there may have been a degree of reluctance to consider the problem of how judges could be app
ointed during the occultation of the Hidden Imam. Nevertheless, in time it was taught that a Twelver scholar who possessed the right attributes to be a judge could decide cases while the imam was absent.33 These desirable attributes were depth of religious knowledge, piety and the respect of ordinary believers. In a somewhat similar way, Twelver scholars originally held that the portion of the zakat, the religious tax, that was to be paid to the ruler for administrative purposes and for the conduct of jihad (three eighths of the total) had lapsed during the occultation of the imam. However, as time passed this attitude changed, and it was held that these portions of the zakat should also be paid to the fuqaha, the religious scholars, alongside the portions of the tax payable in respect of other matters, such as the relief of poverty and the construction and maintenance of religious buildings. This change had been accepted by the sixteenth century, and occurred through a re-assessment of the texts of revelation and the teachings of earlier scholars.34

  Another question that had to be considered was: what are the political consequences of all earthly governments being deemed unjust? The answer is that, until the Hidden Imam returns, there is no point in trying to overthrow them. The religious scholars therefore followed the traditional attitude of quietism. Yet they could also, if they deemed it appropriate, co-operate with the secular power when they chose. This may explain why the Buyid dynasty was content to control Baghdad but never attempted to abolish the Abbasid Caliphate. Instead, they manipulated the caliphs, whom, as we have seen, they could depose at will. The policy the Buyids followed towards the caliphs was simple expediency. Because the majority of those over whom the Buyids ruled were Sunnis, the dynasty adopted a wise policy of live and let live in religious matters.

  VIII

  As the Buyids declined from the late tenth century onwards, the period sometimes called the Sunni revival began. The Caliph Qadir, who ruled from 991 to 1031, was able to escape Buyid control to an extent that permitted him to take a much more assertive role in religious affairs than his immediate predecessors. Backed by popular demonstrations, he was strong enough to refuse a Buyid choice for the post of chief judge in Baghdad. It was under his successor, Qa’im, who ruled from 1031–75, that the Buyid dynasty finally lost Baghdad. It was to the Seljuqs: unruly Turkish tribes who had converted to Sunni Islam and swept across Iran from Central Asia. Their leader, Tughril Beg, sent envoys to Baghdad, where Qa’im conferred the legitimacy on him that he had granted other Sunni rulers. In 1058, three years after Tughril Beg had entered into Baghdad in person, the Caliph appointed him ‘the King of the East and West’. Tughril Beg was now the Caliph Qa’im’s protector. The Caliph was free of Buyid influence and control at last.

  The Seljuqs surged on, taking Greater Syria and, in a battle that decisively altered the course of history, defeating the Byzantines at Manzikert (or Malazgirt) in 1071. This opened up Anatolia to Turkish settlement. However, their empire was short lived. After the death of the third Seljuq sultan, Malik-Shah, in 1092, it began to disintegrate into a number of smaller states which were at war with each other as much as with their neighbours. Nevertheless, Sunni rule was restored in most places over the whole of the eastern Islamic world. That world also now became more assertively Sunni. Seljuq rulers encouraged more rigorous study of the Sharia through the establishment of colleges set up by one or other of the four doctrinal law schools. These began to educate the bureaucratic elite of administrators, producing a class that was more outwardly observant in its religious practice than its predecessors, and was one of the pillars of society and the state. This did not mean the end of Twelver Shi‘ism in the territories which were dominated by Seljuq rulers. It retained a presence in Baghdad and Kufa, as well in many parts of Iran. The shrine of the Eighth Imam, Ali al-Rida, at Mashhad near Tus remained an important pilgrimage centre. This was also the case, of course, with the shrines in Iraq.

  The Twelvers were not seen as a political threat. The custom of having a naqib, or local leader of the descendants of the Prophet, continued, and he was a respected figure with whom the political authorities would deal. There were also many Twelvers appointed to government officers by Sunni Turkish rulers. These were often benefactors who endowed their community and sponsored the teaching of the Twelver version of Islam in response to the proliferation of Sunni scholars who graduated from the colleges established by Seljuq rulers.

  The disintegration of the Seljuqs eventually gave the Abbasids some leeway to escape from the control of those who claimed to be their protectors. The Caliph Nasir, who reigned from 1180 to 1225, reestablished political and military control over most of Iraq, but that control was only ever on a ‘local’ basis. The lands beyond had slipped away from political control by the caliph forever. The most the caliph could hope for was a continuation of the symbolic pledges of allegiance from local rulers, recognition of the caliph in the Friday prayers as the leader of the Muslim community, and handsome gifts. These may theoretically have been a form of tribute, but they were given at the local ruler’s whim, or were the subject of negotiation. The caliph was in no position to extract anything from a reluctant ruler. Sunni Islam would soon find that it could exist perfectly well without him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Of Ismailis, Assassins, Druze, Zaydis, Gnostic Shi‘is, Alawis and Sufis

  I

  By 874 – the year of the death of al-Hasan al-Askari, the Eleventh Imam of the Twelvers, and the beginning of the epoch of the Hidden Imam – there were many other Shi‘is who belonged to different trends. Most of these maintained that the imamate had continued through the line of Ismail, the son whom Ja‘far al-Sadiq had designated as his successor but who had predeceased him. They are known as the Ismailis, a name that denotes all those who believed the imamate continued through the descendants of Ismail. It is to these that we turn in this chapter before looking more briefly at other movements which are Shi‘i, or at least Shi‘i in origin. We will conclude by saying a few words about Sufism and its relationship to both Sunnism and Shi’ism.

  The quietism of the Twelvers was probably greatly influenced by the decision of Ja‘far al-Sadiq not to accept the office of caliph when it was offered to him – to say nothing of their general belief at that time that jihad, war declared in the name of Islam, could not be proclaimed during the imam’s occultation. By contrast, Ismailism would be an intellectual and spiritual cradle for movements that, over the next couple of centuries, preached the use of violence to establish a new and just caliphate.

  During the last decades of the ninth century, at approximately the time when the Twelvers were coming to the conclusion that the Twelfth Imam had gone into permanent occultation, a rival public preaching mission, or da‘wa, began. This da‘wa seems to have been started by a man known as Abdullah the Elder who lived in a small town called Askar Mukram on the river Karun in Khuzistan. He taught that Muhammad bin Ismail had been the last of the seven imams and would return in the End Times as the Mahdi to establish the true religion that had hitherto been known only to a few. This would mean that the rules of the Sharia would be lifted, and humanity would live once more in a blissful state like that in the Garden of Eden.

  After preaching locally and then in Basra, constantly facing hostility, he ended up at Salamiyya, south-east of Hama in Syria, which became the centre for his missionary activity (and which remains an Ismaili centre to this day). This preaching spread the Ismaili word, not least among those Shi‘is in Iran who were disillusioned after the death of the Eleventh Imam, al-Hasan al-Askari, and did not accept the existence of the Twelfth Imam. Abdullah the Elder was succeeded by his son and grandson, who continued his work. Effective missionaries were sent out to many corners of the Muslim world. They carried on trade in local markets where they could secretly tell their subversive message to the people they met. They also proselytised more openly among the nomadic tribes, where the level of religious knowledge was generally low. These tribes provided them with some of their greatest successes in recruiting new followers.
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br />   The missionaries taught that God had revealed his teaching in the Qur’an, which he had imparted to Muhammad, just as earlier revelations had been sent to the earlier prophets. The prophets, however, taught only the outward form of the religion God wanted to be established on earth: the rituals and sacred law that the believers must follow and obey. But these rituals and sacred law had an inner meaning, which was imparted not to the prophet but to his deputy, or wasi. Thus, in the case of Abraham, the wasi had been Isaac; the wasi of Moses had been Aaron; that of Jesus had been Simon Peter; and that of Muhammad had been Ali. Each wasi had communicated this inner teaching only to a small circle who kept it secret, and who were to be succeeded by a cycle of seven imams. The seventh imam after Ali was Muhammad bin Ismail. He had not died but had gone into occultation, where he remains until he reappears as the Mahdi and brings back the bliss of the Garden of Eden.

  It is hardly surprising that the Ismailis became known as the batinis, ‘those with a secret teaching’ (literally, the ‘interiorists’). Their da‘is, or missionaries, would swear-in those they initiated, and stress that the name of the Mahdi was known to only a few. Ultimately, however, this far-flung preaching led Ismailism to split into different branches.