Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

138 t CHAPTER SIX
(ghulat) Shiism and the initial stage of a movement from loyalty
to Ali’s family to the clearly defined ideology that we call simply
Shiism. The other stages toward the final formulation of this latter
remain obscure since, with the accession of the Abbasids, the
Shiites appear to have abandoned any real claim to the caliphate
and to have contented themselves with wielding considerable political,
though not doctrinal, influence on the Abbasid caliphs.
Although our clearest view of the formative process of Shiism
comes in the earliest years of the tenth century, the roots of the
movement go back to the circle around Jafar al-Sadiq in the eighth
(see below). By the tenth century, however, most of the basic tenets
of what is called Imami Shiism were in place: Ali was the designated
Imam in succession to Muhammad, and after him had come,
likewise by designation (nass), and likewise from among Ali’s descendants
and heirs, consecutive Imams, all of whom had been
gifted with infallible spiritual powers for guidance of the community.
This line came to a temporary end with the “concealment”
(ghayba) in 878 of the twelfth Imam. This “Hidden Imam” would
return one day, but only at the end of time as the Mahdi.
Thus, in the late ninth century, the Shiite Imamate apparently
vacated history and politics for the safer ground of eschatology. By
trading in their political claims for spiritual vindication, the Shiites
ceased posing a threat to the current, strongly Turkish-buttressed
Abbasid regime, and indeed there are signs that in the late ninth
and early tenth centuries the caliphs began to take a more relaxed
view of Shiism and Shiites. It was in this climate that the Shiite
theologians constructed their new doctrinal synthesis on the Imamate.
In summary, the Imami or “Twelver” Shiites regarded the
Imamate not as an evolutionary consequence of the religion of Islam
but as one of its basic and necessary ingredients, as fundamental
as belief in the One God or in the Prophet’s mission. The Imamate
had been established by God as part of the primordial nature
of things. There was a cycle of transcendental Imams in the
pleroma, and in their historical manifestation they are the intermediaries
between that transcendental world and the universe of
humanity. Each Imam is God’s “Proof” (hujja), and as such they
are all impeccable and infallible. Moreover, they are the sole repos-