Encounters with the Hidden Imam in Early and Pre-Modern Twelver

Shīʿī Islam
 Islamic History and
Civilization
Studies and Texts

Editorial Board

Hinrich Biesterfeldt
Sebastian Günther

Honorary Editor

Wadad Kadi

volume 167

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ihc

 Encounters with the Hidden
Imam in Early and Pre-Modern
Twelver Shīʿī Islam

By

Omid Ghaemmaghami

LEIDEN | BOSTON
 ّ َ ‫شي ْع َت ِي م َْن ي‬
Cover illustration: ‫دِعي ال ْم ُش َاه َد َة‬ ِ ‫سي ْأَ ت ِي‬
َ َ ‫و‬. A passage from the final rescript (tawqīʿ) attributed to the
Hidden Imam from the period known as the Minor or Lesser Occultation. Translation: “And [before I
reappear], some will come to my followers claiming to have seen [me] with their own eyes.”

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov

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‫‪For B. Todd Lawson‬‬

‫وما رأيت إلّا جميلا‬

‫∵‬
Contents

Acknowledgments ix
A Note on Transliteration and Style xi

Introduction 1
1 Approaches to the Question of Encountering the Hidden Imam in
Sources in Western Languages 7
2 Outline of the Book 21

1 The Unknown, the Unseen, and the Unrecognized 23

1 The Hadith Compilations Attributed to al-Barqī and al-Ṣaffār
al-Qummī 23
2 The Exegetical Corpus: The tafāsīr of al-ʿAskarī, al-Sayyārī, al-Furāt,
al-Qummī, and al-ʿAyyāshī 28
3 The Hadith Compilation of al-Kulaynī 40
4 The Hidden Imam: Unseen and Unrecognized 44
5 The Hidden Imam: Seen but Not Recognized 49

2 Hidden from All, yet Seen by Some? The Special Case of Three
Hadiths 53
1 Hadith 1 (and Variants): “the 30 are never lonely” 54
2 Hadith 2 (and Variants): “[and] no one will know his location except
the elite of his mawālī” 66
3 Hadith 3 (and Variants): “except the mawlā who is in charge of his
affairs” 72
4 The mawlā/mawālī 75

3 “A Lying Impostor” 85
1 Ibn Abī Zaynab al-Nuʿmānī 86
2 Al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq 93
3 The Final Missive of the Hidden Imam 96
4 “A Lying Impostor” 106
5 Al-Shaykh al-Mufīd 115
6 Al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā and His Students 121

4 From the Youth and the Stone to the Proliferation of Accounts 133
1 The Earliest Accounts of Encounters with the Imam in a Wakeful
State 137
viii contents

2 The “Invention” of a Tradition 145

3 The Proliferation of Accounts and the Consolidation of a
Tradition 157

5 Conclusion 172

Appendix 1 179
Appendix 2 188
Bibliography 195
Index of Quran Citations 246
Index of Quoted Hadiths 247
Index of People and Places 249
Index of Subjects 259
Acknowledgments

Many individuals have contributed to the gestation of this book. I wish to thank
Sebastian Günther, Hinrich Biesterfeldt, and Wadad Kadi for including this vol-
ume in their series. I extend my appreciation to Kathy van Vliet-Leigh, Teddi
Dols, and Pieter te Velde at Brill for their exemplary work in shepherding the
manuscript from acquisition to production. Sections of chapter 2 were previ-
ously published in Esotérisme Shiʿite: Ses Racines et ses Prolongements at the
kind invitation of its chief editor Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, and Brepols
Publishers granted permission for these sections to be revised and included
in this book. The copyediting and indexing labors of Valerie Joy Turner and
the assistance of Wendy Heller have been exceptional. I am grateful to Burhan
Zahrai for the calligraphy that appears on the cover.
The anonymous external readers chosen by the series editors provided con-
structive critiques and comments on the draft. Jamel Velji, Mohammed Rus-
tom, Devin Stewart, Shahin Vafai, Moojan Momen, and Mina Yazdani patiently
read early iterations of different sections and offered helpful suggestions.
Meaningful conversations with teachers, colleagues, and scholars Muhammad
Afnan, David Hollenberg, Meir Litvak, Issam Eido, Ed Hayes, Hassan Ansari,
Mushegh Asatryan, Ahmet Karamustafa, Sajjad Rizvi, Fatemeh Keshavarz, Hus-
sein Abdulsater, Shahzad Bashir, Babak Rahimi, Roy Mottahedeh, George War-
ner, Shafique Virani, Walid Saleh, Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, Matthew Melvin-
Koushki, Zackery Heern, Mahdi Tourage, Tarek Chams, Robert Gleave, Todd
Smith, Elham Afnan, Sasha Dehghani, Vahid Behmardi, Steven Phelps, Siya-
mak Zabihi-Moghaddam, Hamid Samandari, Stephen Lambden, Sam Hindawi,
Amin Egea, Armin Eschraghi, Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, Nargis Virani, Franklin
Lewis, John Walbridge, Ali Khadem, Jonathan Gribetz, Edward Sevcik, Mark
Hellaby, Sholeh Quinn, Farshid Kazemi, Valerie Purdue, and Vahid Rafati have
stimulated my thinking and enriched my work.
The Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies (CNES) at Bingham-
ton University, the State University of New York (SUNY), has been a supportive
intellectual home since fall 2014. Special thanks are due to Andrew Scholtz,
John Starks, Nancy Um, Mary Youssef, Tina Chronopoulos, Jonathan Karp,
Gregory Key, Hilary Becker, Jeffrey Becker, Joshua Price, Robyn Cope, Tarek
Shamma, and Ricardo Laremont. Kent Schull has exceeded all expectations
that a junior faculty member could ever hope for in a mentor and a colleague.
The administrative and moral support of Margaret Dwyer has been unremit-
ting. Special thanks are also extended to the Dean of Harpur College and to Bat-
Ami Bar On and the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH)
x acknowledgments

for teaching releases that made the timely completion of the manuscript pos-
sible.
The unstinting love and generosity of my parents Behrooz and Roohangiz
Ghaemmaghami, my sister Elham, and my brother-in-law Paulo, have been my
saving grace. Mina Yazdani continues to be the living embodiment of courage
and encouragement. I cannot imagine a truer friend, a more erudite scholar, or
a more complete human being.
The highest expression of gratitude is laid at the feet of Professor Todd Law-
son. This book is based on a dissertation completed under his matchless tute-
lage at the University of Toronto. It has benefitted in countless way from his
encyclopedic knowledge and profound insights. If any value lies between its
covers, then all of the credit is due to him; only the mistakes are mine.

‫بيش از ا ين گفتن مرا در خوى نيست‬

‫بـحـر را گـنجايـش اندر جوى نيست‬
A Note on Transliteration and Style

The transliteration of Arabic and Persian words, names, and titles follows the
official “IJMES (International Journal of Middle East Studies) Transliteration
Chart” with some modifications. For consistency, a distinction has not been
made in transliterating consonants found in both Persian and Arabic, except in
that “v” is used for the Persian consonant vāv instead of “w.” Any transliteration
found in quoted passages has been left intact. Some terms and place names
of Persian or Arabic origin that have well-established English equivalents or
are found in common English lexicons (e.g., Ayatollah, Baghdad, hadith, Imam,
Islam, Quran, Tehran, ulama) appear in their familiar form unless they occur as
part of a quotation. Whenever two dates are provided and separated by a (/),
they denote AH (Anno Hegirae) and CE (Common Era), unless otherwise abbre-
viated by Sh. (Anno Shamsi). If only one date or century is mentioned, it corre-
sponds to CE. Documentation follows an abbreviated form of the Chicago Man-
ual of Style, 16th edition, with minor adaptions. For example, in order to reduce
the bulk of documentation, shortened citations have been used throughout,
including the first time a work is cited. Abbreviations to printed and online
editions of reference articles are listed below.

DJI Dānishnāmih-yi jahān-i islām (Tehran, 1375 Sh./1996–)

DJI (online) Dānishnāmih-yi jahān-i islām, available online at http://rch.ac.ir/
DMBI (online) Dāʾirat al-maʿārif-i buzurg-i islāmī, available online at https://www
.cgie.org.ir/fa/publication/volumes/63
EIO Encyclopaedia Islamica Online, available online at http://referencewo
rks.brillonline.com/browse/encyclopaedia‑islamica
DMT Dāʾirat al-maʿārif-i tashayyuʿ (Tehran, 1366 Sh./1988–)
EI¹ The Encyclopaedia of Islam: A Dictionary of the Geography, Ethnogra-
phy and Biography of the Muhammadan Peoples (1st edition, Leiden,
1913–36)
EI² The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edition, Leiden, 1955–2005)
EI³ (online) The Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd edition, 2007–), available online:
http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/encyclopaedia‑of‑
islam‑3
EIr Encyclopædia Iranica (London, 1982–)
EIr (online) Encyclopædia Iranica (New York, 1996–), available online at http://
www.iranicaonline.org/
EQ Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (Leiden, 2001–2006)
ER The Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd edition, Detroit, 2005)
xii a note on transliteration and style

OEIW (online) The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World (New York, 2009), avail-
able online at http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/Public/book_oe
iw.html
OB Oxford Bibliographies, available online at http://www.oxfordbibliogra
phies.com
Introduction

The earliest surviving Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿī sources identify the Imam as the
spiritual and temporal guide of the world. As noted by Mohammad Ali Amir-
Moezzi in his landmark Le guide divin dans le shîʿisme originel, these sources
define the Imam as a “cosmic necessity”: “without the Imam, the universe
would crumble, since he is the Proof, the Manifestation, and the Organ of
God, and he is the Means by which human beings can attain, if not knowl-
edge of God, at least what is knowable in God.”1 Walāya—the duty to inti-
mately love, incessantly support, and remain ever devoted and loyal to the
Imam—is consistently defined as one of the three or five pillars of religion,
if not its most vital.2 The same sources demands recognition of the Imam as
the speaking Quran3 and the living source of knowledge.4 Yet, according to
the Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿa,5 the Imam of the present age, the twelfth and final

1 Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight), 125 [= Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 303].
2 See the hadiths recorded in al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 2:18–24 (bāb daʿāʾim al-islām) (nos. 1–15),
especially no. 5, where, among obligatory prayer, the giving of alms, pilgrimage, fasting, and
walāya, it is walāya that is singled out as the most excellent and meritorious (afḍal), inas-
much as walāya is the key by which the others are opened. See also Carney, “The Personal
Imam.” On the significance of walāya in Shīʿī Islam, see Amir-Moezzi, “Notes à propos de la
Walāya Imamite”; Dakake, The Charismatic Community; Landolt, “Walāyah,”ER, 14:9656–9662;
Lawson, Tafsir as Mystical Experience, 9–47.
3 See, e.g., al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī, Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, 64 (no. 13), where the Imam is called “God’s
mouthpiece” (lisān Allāh al-nāṭiq). On the Imam as the speaking book (al-kitāb al-nāṭiq),
without which one cannot grasp the true or primary meaning of the silent book (the Quran),
see Ayyoub, “The Speaking Qurʾān”; Lawson, “Hermeneutics,” EIr, 12:235–9; Rizvi, “The Speak-
ing Qurʾan and the Praise of the Imam,” 135–42.
4 According to a well-known hadith, “He who dies without having an Imam [var., without hav-
ing known (or recognized) his Imam], dies the death of the ignorant barbarians” (man māta
wa-laysa lahu imāmun [var., wa-lā yaʿrifu/wa-lam yaʿrif imāmahu] māta mītatan jāhiliyyatan),
Ibn Bābūya, al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra1, 83. Hadiths found in al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī,
1:337, 342, declare that those who fail to recognize the Imam have strayed from their religion.
See also the five hadiths mentioned in the first chapter of the “Kitāb al-Ḥujja” of al-Kulaynī’s
al-Kāfī, 1:168–74; 2:398 (no. 5) and the seven hadiths recorded in chapter 25 of al-Nuʿmānī’s
al-Ghayba, 350–2; McDermott, The Theology, 51; Bar-Asher, Scripture and Exegesis, 190–2 (sec-
tion titled ‘The Duty of Knowing (maʿrifa) the Imam’).
5 I use Imāmī, Twelver, and Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿī/Shīʿa interchangeably to refer to the proto-
Ithnā ʿasharī (Twelver) community/“sect” ( firqa) that later became known (and is still known
today) primarily as the Ithnā ʿashariyya (“Twelver Shīʿa”). In Saʿd b. ʿAbdallāh al-Ashʿarī al-
Qummī’s (d. 299/911–2 or 301/913–4) Kitāb al-Maqālāt wa-l-firaq, 102, the author states that
this firqa “is famously known as the Imāmiyya” (al-maʿrūfa bi-l-imāmiyya). As Kohlberg
first pointed out, the term “Ithnā-ʿashariyya” (Twelver) does not appear in extant Imāmī

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413153_002

2 introduction

Imam—the living source of knowledge and the lodestar of faith—disappeared

in the late third/ninth century and has been in an ongoing state of conceal-
ment (ghayba) for more than eleven hundred years.6 When one considers that
the Hidden Imam has been defined and described in Imāmī/Twelver sources as
“the remnant of God” (Quran 11:86), “the light of God” (Quran 61:8), “the lord of
the [final] age,” “the master of time,” and “the most favored, the most clement,
and the most knowledgeable of the Imams,”7 one cannot help but be sensitive
to the distressing repercussions of his indefinite absence on a community that
yearns for his reappearance and ensuing intervention to redress the concatena-
tion of wrongs, ignominies, and setbacks believed by the Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿa
to have been inflicted upon each of their Imams and on their community at
various stages of its history. One of the most grievous of these setbacks was the
alleged disappearance of the twelfth Imam itself. The intellectual, philosoph-
ical, spiritual, social, and political history of Shīʿī Islam since the moment the
Imam vanished can be seen as a history of attempts to explain his disappear-

sources until about the year 390/1000, and even during the Buyid period (334–447/945–
1055), Imāmī authors continued to prefer older names such as Imāmiyya and Shīʿī/Shīʿa. See
Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 521 n. 2; Kohlberg, “Early Attestations,” 351–4. See also Sander,
Zwischen Charisma, 5 n. 2; Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 247–8 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine
Guide (trans. Streight), 100–1]. Cf. al-Murtaḍā[/al-Mufīd], al-Fuṣūl al-mukhtāra, 321: “Among
the firaq we have mentioned [of the firaq that split after the passing of the al-Ḥasan al-
ʿAskarī, the eleventh Imam], the only firqa that still exists in our time, which is the year
373/983–4, is the Twelver-Imāmī (al-imāmiyya al-ithnā ʿashariyya) whose followers believe
in the imamate of (al-ʿAskarī’s) son and who are certain that he is alive and will continue
to live until the time he rises with the sword.” The label “Ithnā-ʿashariyya” appears to have
been used by non-Shīʿī authors after the ghayba of the twelfth Imam to describe the sect
as a way of distinguishing this community from other ʿAlid (= Shīʿat ʿAlī) currents (viz.,
the Zaydiyya and the Ismāʿīliyya). The decision of most early Imāmī Shīʿī ulama to largely
shun the label “Ithnā ʿasharī” likely reflects a desire to avoid using an outsider’s nomen-
clature and a belief that their sect represents the true (and only) form of (Imāmī/Shīʿī)
faith.
6 On the genesis and early development of the idea of ghayba (lit., concealment, absence, dis-
appearance, invisibility, though commonly translated as “occultation”) in Shīʿī history and
theology, on the belief in the physical disappearance of the Imam and its roots in pre-
Islamic religions, and on the related doctrine of rajʿa (return), see MacDonald and Hodgson,
“Ghayba,” EI², 2:1026; al-Qāḍī, al-Kaysāniyya; van Ess, “Das Kitāb al-irğāʿ”; van Ess, Theolo-
gie und Gesellschaft 1:306–9; Kohlberg, “Rad̲ jʿ̲ a,” EI², 8:371–3; Amir Arjomand, “Ḡayba,” EIr,
10:341–4; Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God, 41–3; Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 244–6; Amir-
Moezzi, “Rajʿa,” EIr (online); Bashir, Messianic Hopes, 11–28; Ansari, L’ imamat et l’ Occultation
selon l’imamisme; Hayes, “The Envoys of the Hidden Imam,” 16–32.
7 [= afḍaluhum aḥlamuhum aʿlamuhum] This is according to a hadith of the Prophet Muḥam-
mad transmitted on the authority of Salmān. See al-Ḥalabī, Taqrīb al-maʿārif, 420; al-ʿĀmilī,
Mawsūʿat al-shahīd al-thānī, 4:39 n. 4.
introduction 3

ance, negotiate or exploit his absence, and answer the burning questions of
when, where, and how he will return.
Traditionally, the ghayba of the Hidden Imam has been neatly divided into
two phases. The difference between the two phases is said to relate to the pos-
sibility of seeing or encountering the Imam. In the first phase, this was con-
sidered possible, while in the second phase it is generally assumed not to be
possible. The first phase is said to have commenced with the Imam’s disap-
pearance as a young child in 260/874.8 The next seven decades, known as the
Minor or Lesser Occultation (al-ghayba al-ṣughrā),9 are a period in which the
Imam is said to have been seen by many, and to have communicated with his
small band of followers via (primarily) four authorized emissaries (safīr, pl.
sufarāʾ),10 the last of whom died in or around the year 329/941.11 It is alleged
that six days prior to the passing of the fourth and final emissary, he furnished
a signed letter or rescript (tawqīʿ) from the hidden Imam—the last of many
tawqīʿāt that were issued in the Imam’s name or are said to have been written
or dictated by the Imam during this first phase. The final tawqīʿ announced that
no further intermediaries would appear or be appointed, because “the Second
Occultation” (al-ghayba al-thāniya), commonly referred to in later sources as
“the Complete Occultation” (al-ghayba al-tāmma) or “the Major” or “Greater
Occultation” (al-ghayba al-kubrā), had now begun.

8 Most Shīʿī scholars mark the start of the Minor or Lesser Occultation from the death of the
eleventh Imam in 260/874, while a minority argue that the Minor Occultation began with
the Hidden Imam’s birth, which is given as different days and months in the years 254/868,
255/869, 256/870, 257/871, 258/872, and 259/872–3. On these variant dates, see Modarressi,
Crisis and Consolidation, 77 n. 123.
9 For scholarly studies of the period that came to be known as the Minor or Lesser Occulta-
tion, see now the thorough work by Hayes, “The Envoys of the Hidden Imam.” See also
Ansari, L’imamat, esp. 229–35; Amir Arjomand, “Imam Absconditus”; Amir Arjomand,
“The Crisis”; Abdulsater, “Dynamics of Absence”; Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 85–98;
Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, 70–105; Klemm, “Die vier sufarāʾ” [the main points
of this article are summarized in Klemm, “Islam in Iran ix. The Deputies of Mahdī,” EIr,
14:143–6]; and Ali, “Safīre des Zwölften Imāms.”
10 Safīr can also be translated as envoy, representative, messenger, commissioned agent, and
the like. The word is derived from a root that connotes traveling; uncovering something
that is not apparent; and writing.
11 However, scholars point out that in the extant sources from the period of the Lesser Occul-
tation, including al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī, there is no mention that any individuals were for-
mally designated as the Imam’s emissary (safīr), but rather there is a network of deputies
and agents (wukalāʾ) who knew the location of the Imam. See Newman, “Between Qumm
and the West,” 95; Hayes, “The Envoys of the Hidden Imam.” On the sufarāʾ, see Kohlberg,
“Safīr 1. In Shīʿism,” EI², 8:811–2; Klemm, “Die vier sufarāʾ”; and chapter 3 of this book.
4 introduction

The Imam’s final communication concluded with a warning followed by a

declaration. It warned that before he reappears, certain of the Imam’s follow-
ers will attempt to deceive others by claiming to have seen and encountered
him; but everyone should know that whoever claims or purports to have seen
him is a fraud, prone to mendacity:

[Before I reappear], some [or someone] will come to my followers claim-

ing to have seen [me] with their own eyes. But beware! Anyone who
claims to have seen [me] before the appearance of al-Sufyānī and [the
sounding of] the Cry is a lying impostor.12

With this sentence, we are presented with what are, purportedly, the final
words of the Hidden Imam, quoted in a work only three decades removed
from the start of the Greater Occultation. According to the standard Shīʿī nar-
rative, this second phase of the Imam’s hidden presence will continue until
he emerges from concealment at the end of time, the Imam having abne-
gated his rights and authority to the clergy (jurists and ulama) in the interreg-
num.13
The final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam has long posed an epistemological chal-
lenge to the Shīʿī ulama, one to which they have responded in flexible ways.
My objective in this book is to show that initially, in the early years of the
Greater Occultation, Shīʿī authorities maintained that contact with the Imam
was mostly severed, forcing him to remain incommunicado until his reappear-
ance. This position, however, proved untenable to maintain. More than two
hundred years after the final tawqīʿ, accounts appeared detailing encounters
between the Imam and the most privileged of his followers. The earliest sto-
ries are few in number. The paucity of accounts indicates a reluctance to break
free from the implications of the final tawqīʿ. In these rare, early accounts, the
Imam is often presented as a miracle worker, a guide to lost pilgrims, or a healer
of seemingly incurable diseases. Later, the accounts exponentially increase in
number, become more embellished, and take on a different tone. Although
they vary in certain details, the accounts feature common patterns and utilize
a similar stock of devices, images, and tropes to describe encounters between
a select cadre of Shīʿa and the concealed, yet unconcealed, Imam. While the

12 For a discussion of this letter, see chapter 3.

13 See Eliash, “The Ithnā ʿasharī”; Madelung, “Authority in Twelver Shiism”; Amir-Moezzi,
“Remarques sur les critères”; Amir-Moezzi, “Islam in Iran x. The Roots of Political Shiʿism,”
EIr (online); Sachedina, “Activist Shiʿism”, passim, esp. 410; Stewart, “An Eleventh-Century
Justification”; al-Mūsawī, al-Imām al-mahdī, 113–5.
introduction 5

Imam continues working miracles, in some of these later accounts, he also

answers vexing legal or theological questions of prominent ulama who meet
him. In essence, he provides the same direct knowledge that is believed to have
been suspended when the Lesser Occultation ended and the Greater Occulta-
tion began. This suggests that, epistemologically, remarkably little has changed
about the nature and purpose of the ghayba from the time of the Lesser Occul-
tation.
Claims of encounters with religious figures, whether hidden or dead, are, of
course, not exclusive to Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿī Islam. Stories of encounters with
the Hidden Imam are analogous to accounts of Marian apparitions, visions
of Christ, meetings with the tenth Sikh Guru, and dreams and visions of the
Prophet Muḥammad, the first eleven Imams of Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿī Islam, and
other friends of God (awliyāʾ) and sacred figures in Islam, among others.14 The
stories of contact and encounters with the Hidden Imam thus can be said to
form a mode and expression of pious belief represented in some religious bio-
graphical and hagiographical sources.
Although the focus of this book is on encounters with the Hidden Imam
in mainly the early and premodern periods (defined here as roughly the late
third/ninth to early thirteenth/nineteenth centuries), it is important to note
that the last two centuries have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number
of accounts detailing such encounters.15 Stories of sightings, contact, and meet-
ings with the Hidden Imam constitute a recurring and salient theme in many
of the books and articles that have been published in Arabic and Persian on
the Hidden Imam since the late nineteenth century.16 These books and arti-

14 On apparitions of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, see Zimdars-Swartz, Encountering Mary;
Wiebe, Visions of Jesus. On dreams in Islam, see Schimmel, Die Träume des Kalifen; Felek
and Knysh (eds.), Dreams and Visions in Islamic Societies; Marlow (ed.), Dreaming Across
Boundaries. On encounters with the Prophet Muḥammad, see Sirriyeh, Dreams and
Visions in the World of Islam, 140–57. On dreams of the Imams and other sacred figures
in Islam, see Amir-Moezzi, “Visions d’Imams”; Sindawi, “The Image of ʿAlī in the Dreams
of Visitors to His Tomb”; Mittermaier, Dreams That Matter; Szanto Ali-Dib, “Following
Sayyida Zaynab,” 120, 179–93. On encounters with the tenth Sikh Guru, see Luis, “The
Khanda,” 170–1, 178.
15 The accounts of encounters with the Hidden Imam that have proliferated since the nine-
teenth century require further study and analysis. The brief comments here and the anec-
dotes mentioned in the conclusion about the modern period are meant to highlight the
relevance of the issue for the contemporary period.
16 See e.g., Mahdīpūr, Kitābnāmih-yi ḥaḍrat-i mahdī (published in 1375 Sh./1996), a slightly
annotated bibliography of Arabic and Persian books about the Hidden Imam that intro-
duces 2,066 works; and Bunyād-i Farhangī-i Ḥaḍrat-i Mahdī-i Mawʿūd, Kitābshināsī-i mah-
daviyyat (originally published in 1382 Sh./2004) that introduces some 3,500 works (i.e.,
6 introduction

cles feature stories of ulama who are said to have met the Imam during the
period of the Greater Occultation. Often, the stories are read into earlier cen-
turies. In addition, numerous websites and blogs have been created to recount
stories of prominent ulama who have met the Hidden Imam and performed
“miraculous works” (karāmāt).17 This is to say nothing of the books dedicated
to the topic of encounters with the Hidden Imam that have been produced in
Arabic and Persian over the last thirty years, including such titles as ʿInāyāt-
i ḥaḍrat-i mahdī bih ʿulamāʾ va ṭullāb (The manifold favors of the Mahdī to
ulama and students of the Shīʿī seminary) by Muḥammad-Riḍā Bāqī-Iṣfahānī;
ʿInāyāt-i ḥaḍrat-i mahdī-i mawʿūd bih ʿulamāʾ va marājiʿ-i taqlīd (The manifold
favors of the promised Mahdī to ulama and sources of emulation) by Ayatollah
ʿAlī Karīmī Jahrumī;18 Arwaʿ al-qiṣaṣ fī-man raʿā l-mahdī fī ghaybatihi al-kubrā
(The most wondrous tales of those who have seen the Mahdī during his Greater
Occultation) by Mājid Nāṣir al-Zubaydī; and Mulāqāt-i ʿulamāy-i buzurg-i islām
bā imām-i zamān (The encounters of eminent ulama with the Imam of the Age)
by Sayyid Muḥammad Ṭabāṭabāʾī.19

approximately 75 percent more books and articles). Hundreds, if not thousands, of arti-
cles and books have been written since 2004.
17 See, for example, “Mulāqāt bā imām-i zamān” (Encountering the Imam of the Age),
22 February 2017, http://mahdinow.rozblog.com; “Tasharrufāt-i khidmat-i valī-i ʿaṣr” (At-
taining the presence of the Guardian of the Age), 30 December 2018, https://tasharrof
.org/.
18 An Arabic translation of this collection has also been published. Al-Jahrumī, Riʿāyat al-
imām al-mahdī li-l-marājiʿ wa-l-ʿulamāʾ al-aʿlām.
19 Other titles include Tavajjuhāt-i valī-i ʿaṣr bih ʿulamāʾ va marājiʿ-i taqlīd (The Guardian of
the Age’s [i.e., the Hidden Imam] care and concern for ulama and “sources of emulation”)
by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Bāqirzādih Bābulī; Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr: Ḥikāyāt-i ʿabqarī al-
ḥisān fī aḥwāl mawlānā ṣāḥib al-zamān (The blessings of the Guardian of the Age: Stories
of the fine wonders of beauty concerning the conduct and circumstances of the lord of
the [final] age) by ʿAlī-Akbar Nahāvandī, compiled by Sayyid Javād Muʿallim; Karāmāt-i
ʿulamāʾ (The miracles of the ulama) by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Bāqirzādih Bābulī; Arvāḥ-i mihra-
bān: Ḥālāt-i maʿnavī-i buzurgān bā imām-i zamān (The benevolent souls: The mystic rela-
tionship of eminent ones [from among the ulama and religious authorities) with the
Imam of the Age) by Muḥammad-Ḥasan Yūsufī; Mulāqāt bā imām-i zamān (Meetings
with the Imam of the Age) by Ḥasan Abṭaḥī; al-Bushrā fī dhikr man ḥaẓiya bi-ruʾyat al-
ḥujja al-kubrā (Glad tidings concerning those who have seen the most great proof) by
Muʾassasat al-Imām al-Hādī; Nigāh-i sabz: Mulāqāt bā imām-i zamān (The green glance:
Encounters with the Imam of the Age) by Ḥasan Jalālī-ʿAzīziyān; Dāstānhā va karāmāt-i
khāndanī az imām-i zamān va aʿimmih-yi maʿṣūmīn (Stories and miracles worth reading of
the Imam of the Age and the [other] infallible Imams) by Mīrzā-ʿAlī Bābāʾī; and Ḥikāyāt ʿan
al-imām al-mahdī (Stories about Imam Mahdī) by Grand Ayatollah Muḥammad Taqī Bah-
jat (d. 2009) (this book, the sixth and last chapter of which concerns encounters with the
Hidden Imam, appears to be an Arabic translation of Imām-i zamān dar kalām-i Ayatollah
introduction 7

The stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam have played a significant
role in fortifying the doctrine of the ghayba, intensifying faith in the Hidden
Imam’s existence, bolstering clerical authority, cultivating an aura of sanctity
for the ulama as his representatives (and thereby strengthening their religious
and social influence), and substantively freezing the eschatological tensions
within Shīʿī Islam while simultaneously mitigating their severity.
Judging from the sheer number of books, articles, and websites that have
appeared, and the fact that the Hidden Imam is believed to have been physi-
cally concealed since the late third/ninth century, it may be tempting to con-
clude that belief in the possibility of encountering the Hidden Imam has always
been a part of Shīʿī doctrine. However, this is not the case. As I show, encounters
with the Imam during the Greater Occultation are, in fact, a tradition “invented”
gradually during the first three centuries of the Greater Occultation and con-
solidated in the centuries that followed.20

1 Approaches to the Question of Encountering the Hidden Imam in

Sources in Western Languages

Despite increased scholarly activity and interest in virtually every aspect of

Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿī Islam over the last century (in particular since the 1979
Islamic Revolution in Iran), studies on the development of Shīʿī messianism
and eschatology have been markedly slow. And while stories of encounters
with the Hidden Imam are found in hundreds of books in Persian and Ara-
bic, the issue is relatively uncharted territory in scholarship and books written
in Western languages. Consequently, the topic of encounters and contact with
the Hidden Imam is one of the most observable yet paradoxically least noticed
features of Shīʿī Islam and an underdeveloped subfield of the academic study of
Islam in the West. In fact, other than three significant contributions by Henry

Bahjat (The Imam of the Age in the words of Ayatollah Bahjat), compiled by Muḥammad-
Taqī Umīdiyān).
20 In this context, I define tradition as an established belief that is handed down, repeated,
and claimed to be rooted in the past. I invoke the concept of “invented traditions” devel-
oped by British historians Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, who argue that many
traditions that are believed to be ancient were constructed in the not-too-distant past.
See Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions.” Hammer and Lewis, “Introduction,”
2, add that “whereas Hobsbawm and Ranger point to the eighteenth century as the time
when traditions began to be invented on a massive scale, the invention of sacred traditions
appears to be a perennial motif in religious history.”
8 introduction

Corbin (d. 1978)21 and Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi—studies that focus on

the esoteric or initiatory dimensions of these narratives—the subject has not
received adequate attention in literature published in Western languages and
has yet to be properly examined for its historical roots and implications. Here
I survey the key contributions that have been made to the study of the topic in
Western languages and point out lacunae in the secondary literature.
The first scholar in the West to bring attention to the issue of contact with,
and sightings of, the Hidden Imam was the Hungarian orientalist Ignác Goldz-
iher (d. 1921). In a footnote to his Vorlesungen über den Islam (first published in
1910), Goldziher refers to “fables” of believers who received signed letters (that
is, tawqīʿāt) from the Hidden Imam and alludes to those who claimed to have
seen him.22 In view of the paucity of Shīʿī sources available to him, and the

21 On Corbin, see Janis Esots, “Corbin, Henry,” EIO; Shayegan, “Corbin, Henry,” EIr, 6:268–72.
22 Goldziher, Vorlesungen über den Islam, 232 [= Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology
and Law, 201 n. 98]. Prior to Goldziher, Gobineau (d. 1882), in his Trois ans en Asie, 305
(first published in 1859) stated that “les théologiens officiels” claim that the Imam moves
from place to place to avoid being recognized, but Gobineau makes no mention of sto-
ries of those who have seen him. Likewise, British orientalist E.G. Browne (d. 1926), who
traveled to Iran in 1887, never refers to stories of sightings of the Imam, but throughout
his works repeats, without providing a source, in a prima facie manner that “[t]he Shiʿites
hold that (the Hidden Imam) did not die, but disappeared in an underground passage in
Surra-man-Raʾa [= Samarra], A.H.329; [and] that he still lives in one of those mysterious
cities, Jábulḳá and Jábulsá.” Browne, Traveller’s Narrative, 298. Browne repeats the same
assertion in other works, e.g., Browne, The Táríkh-i-Jadíd, 287 n. 1; Browne, “Bábism,” 334
[cited in, Browne, Selections from the Writings of E.G. Browne (ed. Momen), 408]; Browne,
A Literary History, 1:246 n. 1; Browne, “Bāb, Bābīs,” Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics,
2:300. Following Browne’s lead, and without citing sources other than Browne, West-
ern sources to the present day repeat the idea that the Imam is hiding in the cities of
Jābulqā and Jābulsā (alternatively spelled or vocalized as the following: Jābalqā, Jābalsā,
Jābulṣā, Jābalṣā, Jābarsā, or Jābarṣā), see, e.g., Seoharvi, “Bahaism,” 412 (pub. 1907); Gilmore,
“Babism,” The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 1:394 (pub. 1908),
calls Jābulqā and Jābulsā “Arabic utopias”; Friedlaender, “Jewish-Arabic Studies,” 486 (pub.
1912); Sell, “The Báb and the Bábís,” 50 (pub. 1901); Sell, Baháism (pub. 1912), 3; Wilson,
Bahaism, 20 (pub. 1915); Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, 165 (pub. 1985) states, “The
Hidden Imam was popularly supposed to be resident in the far-off cities of Jābulsā and
Jābulqā and in former times books were written about persons who had succeeded in
travelling to these places”; Walbridge, “The Babi Uprising in Zanjan,” 359 (pub. 1996) states
that the Hidden Imam “lives in the fabulous underground cities of Jabalqa and Jabarsa”;
Cole, Modernity and the Millennium, 21–2 (pub. 1998); and MacEoin, The Messiah of Shi-
raz, 16 (pub. 2009). None of these scholars provide primary sources for the notions that
Jābulqā and Jābulsā are “underground” or that believers have actually traveled to these
cities. An in-depth study of Jābulqā and Jābulsā and, specifically, their function in Shīʿī
sources need not detain us. See Arsanjānī, “Jābulsā wa Jābulqā,”DMBI (online); Sajjādī and
Sayyid-ʿArab, “Jābulqā va Jābulsā,”DJI (online); Tūnihʾī, Mawʿūdnāmih, 238–9; ʿUthmān, al-
introduction 9

fact that the study of Shīʿī Islam was not his main area of research,23 it is not
surprising that Goldziher did not explore this topic further.
Goldziher’s finding was repeated by the American scholar Duncan Black
MacDonald (d. 1943), author of the short entry on ghayba in the first edition of
the Encyclopaedia of Islam. MacDonald added that the Hidden Imam is present
and “unrecognized” during the season of pilgrimage in Mecca, where he “scru-
tinize[s] the hearts of the believers.” More significantly, MacDonald appears to
have been the first scholar to ponder the theological implications of the Imam’s
ghayba, and draw a connection between the Imam’s authority and the author-
ity of the ulama: “The earlier organization of the sect has been replaced by the
presence of independently learned mud̲ j̲tahids in the various Shīʿī centres, rec-
ognized by the community as qualified to interpret the Imām’s will.”24

Khaṣībī, 113–5. The earliest classical source for the myth that the Hidden Imam is in these
cities seems to be Muḥammad Taqī al-Majlisī’s (d. 1070/1659) Lavāmiʿ-i ṣāḥib-qirānī, 4:160
(on this work and its author, see Sajjādī, “Lavāmiʿ-i ṣāḥib-qirānī,” DMT, 14:528–32; Kiyānī-
Farīd, “Majlisī, Muḥammad-Taqī,” DMT, 15:78–9; Gleave, “Muhammad Taqi al-Majlisi”), an
extended Persian translation of the same author’s Arabic Rawḍat al-muttaqīn, a com-
mentary on al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq’s Man lā yaḥḍuruhu al-faqīh. In commenting on a prayer
(attributed to the ninth Imam) that invokes blessings on the Qāʾim’s “descendants and
family,” Muḥammad Taqī al-Majlisī avers that it is well known (mashhūr ast) that the
descendants of the Hidden Imam are all currently (al-ḥāl mawjūdand) in Jābulqā and
Jābursā. Al-Majlisī cites some of the “numerous hadiths” with “sound” chains of trans-
mission from al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī and al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī’s Baṣāʾir al-darajāt that describe
these cities. Al-Majlisī adds, “I have heard from my teachers (mashāyikh) and seen reports
from the Imams (rivāyāt) stating that the progeny (awlād) of the lord of the amr are in
these cities and from time to time, (the Imam) himself also visits these cities” (gāhgāhī nīz
ān ḥaḍrat khūd tashrīf mī-āvarand bih īn shahrhā). This passage is not found in al-Majlisī’s
Arabic commentary, Rawḍat al-muttaqīn. Mahdīpūr, Kitābnāmih-yi ḥaḍrat-i mahdī, 1:263,
mentions an unpublished work titled Jābulqā va Jābulsā by Muḥammad Bāqir al-Bahārī
al-Hamadānī (d. 1333/1915) that discusses “reports (rivāyāt) about Jābulqā, Jābulsā, and
the residence (iqāmatgāh) of the Mahdī.” Others cite hadiths that mention these cities
to support the veracity of one of the most elaborate of the stories describing encoun-
ters with the Hidden Imam, viz., the lengthy account of the “Green Island in the White
Sea,” a story popular in the late Safavid and Qajar periods. See, e.g., al-Bāḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-
walī, 259–64; al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:623–5; al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 475. On
reports that mention Jābulqā and Jābulsā/Jābursā in connection with the Imam, see Zayn
al-Dīn, Muʿjam buldān, 210–4. The Shīʿī scholar Majīd Jalālī Dihkurdī (d. 1934–5) refers to
the city of Samarra as the model of Jābulqā and Jābulsā, as it served, during his time, as
the residence of the “source of emulation” (marjiʿ al-taqlīd) Mīrzā-yi Shīrāzī (d. 1895). See
Dihkurdī, Āftāb-i ʿilm, 96.
23 Kohlberg, “Western Studies of Shiʿa Islam,” 38.
24 MacDonald, “Ghayba,” EI¹ (online). This entry was slightly expanded by Hodgson in Mac-
Donald and Hodgson, “Ghayba,” EI², 2:1026.
10 introduction

Jawad Ali’s Der Mahdī der Zwölfer-Schiʿa und seine vier Safire, written in the
late 1930s and made available to me in an Arabic translation, contains a chap-
ter on the Greater Occultation, in which the author states that he has heard of
numerous encounters that have taken place between ulama and the Hidden
Imam. Ali proceeds to describe how Ḥusayn al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī (d. 1902), a Shīʿī
scholar who compiled two collections of these stories in the late nineteenth
century, attempted to negotiate the apparent contradiction between these sto-
ries and the Imam’s warning in the final tawqīʿ.25
More recently, Hasan Ansari, in his comprehensive bibliographic study
L’ imamat et l’Occultation selon l’imamisme, while affirming that the last tawqīʿ
“explicitly states that any visual encounter with the Hidden Imam is now
impossible until the End of Time,” acknowledges that “dozens of people” have
claimed to have met the Hidden Imam during the Greater Occultation.26
Most introductory works on Shīʿī Islam or the Imams have been silent or
treated the subject of encounters with the Imam during the Greater Occulta-
tion as, at best, a minor issue. In his short biographical sketch of the twelve
Imams, originally published in 1923, the Anglican missionary Edward Sell
(d. 1932) notes the presence of many “fanciful” accounts of the Imam appear-
ing to “his favoured ones” in order to strengthen their faith in his existence.27
Dwight Donaldson’s (d. 1976) 1933 monograph, the first book-length survey of
Shīʿī Islam in a European language, refers readers to MacDonald’s statements
in the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam.28 Moojan Momen’s An Intro-
duction to Shiʿi Islam includes two short references to the subject,29 while Heinz
Halm’s Die Schia and Der schiitische Islam: von der Religion zur Revolution, Yann
Richard’s L’islam chiite: Croyances et idéologies, Hamid Dabashi’s Shiʾism: A Reli-
gion of Protest, Farhad Daftary’s A History of Shiʿi Islam, and Andrew Newman’s
Twelver Shiism: Unity and Diversity in the Life of Islam, 632 to 1722, among other
introductions, treat the matter of contact and communication with the Hidden
Imam as closed.30

25 ʿAlī, al-Mahdī l-muntaẓar, 259–60.

26 Ansari, L’imamat, 230 n. 605. Ansari adds that stories of encounters with the Imam are
now a flourishing genre of Shīʿī literature. He directs readers to Amir-Moezzi’s article “Con-
tribution á la Typologie” (on which, see below).
27 Sell, Ithna ʿAshariyya, 55.
28 Donaldson, The Shiʿite Religion, 235. On Donaldson, see Avery, “Donaldson,” EIr, 7:492.
29 Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, 165, 199. See also Momen, Shiʿi Islam, 185.
30 Halm, Die Schia [= Halm, Shiʿism (trans. Watson and Hill)]; Halm, Shiʾa Islam, 29, states
that after the Lesser Occultation, “the Hidden Imam decided to break off all contact and
retreat totally from humanity. In his last letter, he is said to have announced his intention,
branding as a liar anyone claiming in the future to have had contact with him.” Richard,
introduction 11

Likewise, few introductory works written with an emic approach, and avail-
able in Western languages, broach the subject. Two examples are Ayatollah
Jaʿfar Subḥānī’s compendium of Shīʿī beliefs titled Manshūr-i ʿaqāyid-i imāmiy-
yih, available in English translation under the title Doctrines of Shiʿi Islam,
and Sayed Ammar Nakshawani’s The Fourteen Infallibles. Subḥānī states that
“throughout history, numerous devout and pure-hearted individuals who were
worthy of the honor of attaining the presence [of the Hidden Imam] have met
him and drawn—and continue to draw—benefits from him. Others have bene-
fited from the blessings of the Imam’s existence through them.”31 Although Sub-
ḥānī does not refer to specific accounts, he seems to refer, primarily, to stories
of ulama claiming to have seen the Imam. Nakshawani suggests, in response to
the question of whether the Imam can be seen during the Greater Occultation,
that the Hidden Imam “visits a number of people a year” during the pilgrimage,
at the funeral of a man who dies without any debts, and whenever “someone is
troubled” and “calls out to the Imam.”32
Studies relying on historical methodologies have not carried matters for-
ward on the topic of encounters with the Hidden Imam. Blichfeldt’s instructive
survey of early Islamic sources on the Mahdī asserts that during the Greater
Occultation, the Imam’s followers are “shut off from any kind of communi-
cation.”33 Jassim Hussain’s monograph, The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam: A
Historical Background, presents a traditional picture of the early ghayba works.
While most of Hussain’s discussion covers the period of the Lesser Occultation,
the penultimate chapter of his book discusses the implications of the Greater

L’islam chiite [= Richard, Shiʿite Islam (trans. Nevill)]; Dabashi, Shiʾism, 64, categorically
states that “the gate of direct communication between the Hidden and his community
was closed” after the end of the Lesser Occultation; Daftary, A History of Shiʿi Islam; New-
man, Twelver Shiism. Cf. Haider, Shīʿī Islam, 97 states that “all conventional contact with
the Imām was severed” in the Greater Occultation.
31 Subḥānī, Manshūr-i ʿaqāyid-i imāmiyyih, 177. For an alternate translation, see Sobhani,
Doctrines of Shiʿi Islam, 117.
32 Nakshawani, The Fourteen Infallibles, 263. Other examples of introductory works available
in Western languages and written from an emic approach include Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Shiʿite Islam
(trans. Nasr) and Shomali, Shiʿi Islam: Origins, Faith and Practices. Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-
Ṭabāṭabāʾī (d. 1981), known as ‘Allāma Ṭabāṭabāʾi, implicitly refers to the subject of encoun-
ters with the Imam when he writes, “The Imam watches over [(ishrāf )] men inwardly and
is in communion [(ittiṣāl)] with the soul and spirit of men even if he be hidden from their
physical eyes.” Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Shiʿite Islam (trans. Nasr), 214 [= Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Shīʿah dar Islām,
152]. See also Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Khulāṣih-yi taʿālīm-i islām [= Tabatabaʾi, Islamic Teachings (trans.
Campbell)]. In the short section of his work on the Mahdī, Shomali does not pose the
question of whether the Hidden Imam can be seen, but in the section of his book on the
city of Qum he refers to the story of an encounter with the Hidden Imam in Jamkarān.
Shomali, Shiʿi Islam.
33 Blichfeldt, Early Mahdism, 9.
12 introduction

Occultation for the Shīʿī community in general and the ulama in particular.
However, in this chapter, Hussain does not offer any references to the subject
of encounters with the Imam.34
Hussain’s treatment of the Hidden Imam has much in common with the
only other book-length historical survey of the enduring Shīʿī belief in this fig-
ure: Abdulaziz Sachedina’s Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi in Twelver
Shiʿism. In the introduction, Sachedina alludes to the doctrine of al-niyāba ʿal-
āmma (the general representation of the Imam) in stating that “the Imam is
not completely cut off from his followers but has spokesmen, in the person of
learned jurists, who can act on his behalf and guide the Shiʿites in their reli-
gious matters.”35 Yet, he never undertakes a serious engagement with the sub-
ject of encounters with the Hidden Imam. In a section titled “The Miraculous
Appearance of the Mahdi at the Hajj,” Sachedina devotes two paragraphs to the
subject. He writes that “the Shiʿites assert” that the Imam resides in the vicin-
ity of Mecca where he appears each year during the pilgrimage season.36 He
then refers readers to several accounts that describe encounters with the Imam
in Mecca during the Lesser Occultation. Years later, in the introduction of his
English translation of Ayatollah Ibrāhīm Amīnī’s (b. 1304 Sh./1925) Dādgustar-
i jahān, Sachedina speaks approvingly of the author’s presentation of “rational
arguments to discredit some of the stories about meetings with the twelfth
Imam that have been accepted uncritically by some scholars of hadith.”37
Etan Kohlberg was among the first Western scholars to draw attention to
missives putatively written by the Hidden Imam and presented to a Shīʿī scholar
(al-Shaykh al-Mufīd) in the first century of the Greater Occultation.38 (As I
show, the earliest work that cites these letters, albeit without a chain of trans-
mission, was written over a century after the death of al-Mufīd, who in his own
writings argues against the possibility of anyone having contact with the Imam
during the Greater Occultation.) Kohlberg also makes an important passing ref-
erence to seven stories of contacts with the Imam—each of which involves
a healing or some other supernatural event—then states that “it can be seen
that the Imam appears mainly as a consoler or a miracle worker; unlike the

34 Hussain, The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam.

35 Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 23.
36 Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 75. Referred to in Peterson, “Eschatology,” OEIW (online).
37 Amini, al-Imām al-Mahdī: The Just Leader of Humanity (trans. Sachedina), ii.
38 Kohlberg, “Authoritative Scriptures,” 308. The letters to al-Mufīd were also reproduced in
ʿAlī, al-Mahdī l-muntaẓar, 289–94. As mentioned earlier, this is the Arabic translation of
Ali, Der Mahdī der Zwölfer-Schiʿa und seine vier Safire, completed in the late 1930s. On al-
Shaykh al-Mufīd and the alleged letters of the Hidden Imam to him, see below, chapters 3
and 4.
introduction 13

situation in the Minor Occultation, in the Major Occultation he appears only

infrequently in order to answer legal questions.”39 The scope of his article did
not provide space to provide examples of such encounters.
Other books and articles in which one might expect to see a discussion or at
least references to the subject are either silent or offer intriguing hints. Sached-
ina’s The Just Ruler (al-Sulṭān al-ʿĀdil) in Shīʿite Islam is an ambitious theoretical
study of the social and political role of the ulama in the absence of the Imam.40
Yet here as well, there is no mention of the stories of encounters with the
Imam. In a study of charismatic authority (along Weberian lines) in Shīʿī Islam,
Liyakat Takim speaks of Shīʿī biographical works “replete with accounts of …
miraculous deeds” ascribed to the ulama, but does not refer to the accounts of
encounters with the Imam featured in many of these sources.41
It is also surprising that the numerous studies that chart the manner in
which the sacrosanct authority of the Hidden Imam has been arrogated to
themselves by the Shīʿī ulama, who, beginning in the sixteenth century CE, pre-
sented themselves as the “general representatives” of the Hidden Imam and
gradually appropriated and exercised the rights, prerogatives, and privileges
traditionally reserved for the Imams in the classical sources do not discuss
this issue. Chief among these rights are (1) carrying out the legal punishments
or sanctions of the Quran (iqāmat al-ḥudūd), (2) leading the Friday congre-
gational prayer (ṣalāt al-jumʿa),42 (3) waging defensive war ( jihād), and (4)
receiving and spending the Imam’s share (sahm al-imām) of the khums (a tax
intended for pious purposes).43
While the theoretical basis of the ulama’s authority and its historical devel-
opment has been the subject of numerous studies, many of which invoke Max
Weber’s theories of charisma and its routinization, the issue of encounters with
the Imam has received scant attention in these works.44 In fact, only six schol-

39 Kohlberg, “Authoritative Scriptures,” 309.

40 Sachedina, The Just Ruler.
41 Takim, The Heirs of the Prophet, 94.
42 On the debate among jurists ( fuqahāʾ) concerning whether it is permissible to convene
the Friday prayer during the ghayba, see Algar, “Emām-e Jomʿa,” EIr, 8:386–91; Abisaab,
“Moral Authority,” 146–8.
43 For a succinct description of these four domains, see Amir-Moezzi, “Islam in Iran x. The
Roots of Political Shiʿism,” EIr (online).
44 See, for example, Eliash, “The Ithnā ʿasharī”; Eliash, “Misconceptions”; Eliash, “The Twelfth
Imam”; Madelung, “Authority in Twelver Shiism”; Lambton, “A Reconsideration”; Keddie,
“The Roots of the Ulama’s Power”; Calder, “Judicial Authority in Imāmī Shīʿī Jurispru-
dence”; Calder, “Khums in Imami Shiʿi Jurisprudence”; Algar, Religion and State in Iran
1785–1906; Algar, “Fatwā,” EIr, 9:428–36; Newman, “The Nature of the Akhbārī/Uṣūlī Dis-
pute in Late Ṣafawid Iran, Part 2,” 258–61; Moaddel, “The Shiʿi Ulama”; Cole, Sacred Space
14 introduction

ars from those whose works are listed in note 44 refer in a significant way to
these stories: Amanat,45 Amir Arjomand,46 Brunner,47 MacEoin,48 Madelung,49
and Stewart.50
The same omission is consequently reflected in several entries published
in encyclopedias and reference guides on Islam, where one might expect to

and Holy War, passim; Litvak, Shiʿi Scholars; Kazemi-Moussavi, Religious Authority in Shiʿite
Islam; Kazemi-Moussavi, “The Establishment”; Amanat, “From ijtihad to wilayat-i faqih”;
Sachedina, The Just Ruler, passim, esp. 139–42, 166; Sachedina, “Activist Shiʿism,” esp. 410,
424, 426; Brunner, “Shiʿite Doctrine ii. Hierarchy in the Imamiyya,”EIr (online); Amir Arjo-
mand, The Shadow of God, passim, esp. 51, 141–2; Stewart, “An Eleventh-Century Justifica-
tion”; Rasekh, “Agents of the Imam”; Abada, “The ‘Ulamā’ of Iran”; MacEoin, The Messiah of
Shiraz, 11–29, 253–84. On religious authority in Islamic thought, see Afsaruddin, “Author-
ity, religious,” EI³ (online).
45 Amanat, Resurrection and Renewal, 55: “… since the Imam was in Occultation, and since
after the completion of Lesser Occultation and the time of the Four Agents the chances
of any regular contact with the Imam were remote, the mainstream learned Shiʿism
insisted that the responsibility of guiding believers during this interregnum rested upon
the ʿulama. However, this attitude did not dismiss repeated claims concerning mystical
encounters. Part of the literature on Occultation was devoted to these experiences.” As we
see below, not all Shīʿī authors qualify such encounters as “mystical.”
46 While contextualizing al-Majlisī’s Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, Amir Arjomand makes the following
cogent argument in his Weberian analysis of Shīʿī Islam: “The Shiʿite hierocracy [in the
Safavid period], while allowing for the intermittent appearance of the Imam and espe-
cially for visits and favors he vouchsafes upon the prominent ‘ulamā’, and attempting to
reserve attenuated forms of contact with the Hidden Imam through dreams and visions
as their own prerogative, staunchly opposed any attempt to translate the eschatology into
this-worldly millenarianism on the basis of mahdistic and epiphanic claims.” Amir Arjo-
mand, The Shadow of God, 162.
47 Brunner, “Sleeping Mullahs” and the slightly extended French version of the same article,
Brunner, “Le charisma des songeurs,” in particular, the comment on 114: “Le message pour
les croyants est sans équivoque: pas de salut sans recours aux savants qui donnent accès
aux Imams. C’est sans doute là une des raisons principales de la genèse de la puis sante
hièrocratie des savants dans le shiʿisme.”
48 MacEoin, The Messiah of Shiraz, 13–4.
49 Madelung, “Authority in Twelver Shiism,” 165: “After [the fourth emissary’s] death in
329/941 the greater ghayba began when no one was able to get in touch with the imam
who may only occasionally appear to a favored one among his followers.” Madelung was
one of the first Western scholars to directly mention the issue of contact with the Imam
during the Greater Occultation.
50 Stewart, “An Eleventh-Century Justification,” 470: “Regular communication with [the Hid-
den Imam] is not possible, though believers may see him in visions or dreams or meet
him without realizing at the moment that he is in fact the Twelfth Imam.” Stewart adds
in a footnote, “According to some authorities, the Imam has been seen from time to time
and has been in correspondence with others.” Cf. Stewart, Islamic Legal Orthodoxy, 162:
“During the Greater Occultation, direct access to the imam is impossible and one cannot
obtain his opinions directly.”
introduction 15

find, at least, a reference to the topic of encounters with the Hidden Imam.51
The only entry in EI² other than “Ghayba” that mentions the issue is the arti-
cle “Ithnā ʿAsharī,” though the author focuses exclusively on the otherworldly
interpretations of these accounts highlighted or advanced by Henry Corbin.52
Three entries in the Encyclopedia of Religion refer to the issue of sightings of the
Imam, but again, these entries mention only Corbin’s view of the accounts.53 In
fact, Henry Corbin and Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi are the only two scholars
who have devoted full-length articles to the topic of encounters with the Imam.

51 E.g., the following entries in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World: “Mahdī” (Robert
S. Kramer) (Kramer states that the Shīʿa believe the Mahdī to be an “incarnation of
God”; this is incorrect); “Ghaybah” (Andrew Newman); “Intiẓār” (Yann Richard); “Imam”
(Imtiyaz Yūsuf); “Shīʿī Islam” (Syed Husain M. Jafri, et al.); and the following entries
by Abdulaziz Sachedina: “Messiansim”; “Imāmah”; and “Ithnā ʿAsharīyah.” The following
entries can be found in EI2: “Muḥammad al-Ḳāʾim” (J.G.J. ter Haar); and three by Wilferd
Madelung: “al-Mahdī”; “Ḳāʾim Āl Muḥammad”; and “Imāma.” It is hoped that this lacuna
will be filled in the third edition of The Encyclopaedia of Islam. There is also no mention of
the subject in the entries on “Ghayba(t)” (Robert Gleave) in Martin (ed.), The Encyclopedia
of Islam and the Modern World, 1:273–4; the entry on “Mahdi” (Reza Aslan) in Campo (ed.),
Encyclopedia of Islam, 447–8; or in the short entry on “Muḥammad al-Qâʾim” in Newby
(ed.), The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, 155.
52 Nasr makes similar statements in his introductory books about Islam. For example, “[The
Hidden Imam] is alive like Elijah, who was taken to Heaven alive according to Jewish
belief. But the Twelfth Imām is also the secret master of this world and can appear to
those who are in the appropriate spiritual state to see him.” Nasr, The Heart of Islam, 72. In
Nasr, The Garden of Truth, 112, he suggests, without further explanation, that the Hidden
Imam is a Sufi concept: “… some have achieved the climb [of transcending the ordinary
human state] successfully without a human guide, through the agencies of what Sufism
calls ‘absent’ or invisible guides (rijāl al-ghayb), such as al-Khiḍr or the Hidden Imam.”
See also Nasr, “Shiʿism and Sufism,” 232. Cf. Nasr, Islam in the Modern World, 116, where he
defines ghayba as the Imam having “concealed [himself] from the gaze of the outward
world.” In a more recent work, Nasr states that “there are many Persian Shiʿite mystics,
although not by any means all, who have claimed that they have had no human master
but that their master has been the Twelfth Imam.” Elsewhere, he singles out Baḥr al-ʿUlūm
and ʿAllāma al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī as being among a hidden chain of Shīʿī ulama who were aided
by the Hidden Imam. Nasr, In Search of the Sacred, 104, 280. Nasr’s view has been cited
in numerous books on Shīʿism. See, for example, D’Souza, Shia Women, 6; and Pandya,
Muslim Women, 11, who goes on to say that the Shīʿa believe that the twelfth Imam is “in a
supernatural realm.”
53 See “Shiism: Ithnā ʿAshariyah” (by Seyyed Hossein Nasr); “Ghaybah” (by Douglas S. Crow);
and “Spiritual Guide” (by Stuart W. Smithers). Cf. the following comment in the entry
“Ghayba” by Jamel Velji in Campo (ed.), Encyclopedia of Islam, 707: “Although the death
of the fourth deputy signaled a cessation of formal contact between the imam and his
community, the Hidden Imam is thought to be in contact with many of his followers
miraculously, through dreams or visions.”
16 introduction

First, it must be said that it is almost impossible to overestimate the value

of Henry Corbin’s many studies on the Hidden Imam in general and on the
topic of encounters with this figure during the Greater Occultation in partic-
ular. Corbin was the first and in some cases remains the only Western scholar
to have studied rare yet significant sources on the Hidden Imam in Arabic and
Persian that include stories of those who met the Imam. In the first of three
interrelated studies on the subject, “Au Pays de l’ Imām Caché,” Corbin trans-
lated three of the accounts: the lengthy story of the Green Island in the White
Sea, the account of the archipelago of five islands ruled by the Hidden Imam
and his sons, and the account of a believer from Hamadan who encountered
the Imam in the desert near Mecca and was miraculously transported back to
his home in Iran.54 A condensed version of these accounts is included in the
chapter “Mundus Imaginalis.”55 The three accounts were later republished in
the fourth volume of his magnum opus, En Islam iranien: aspects spirituels et
philosophiques, to which he appended the translation of a fourth account—
the now famous encounter between the Hidden Imam and the legendary figure
al-Khiḍr at the mosque of Jamkarān outside Qum. In addition, he included
details of his own “pilgrimage” to this site with Seyyed Hossein Nasr in 1962.56
Corbin’s translations of these accounts are the first of their kind in any Euro-
pean language, though they are perhaps better described as adaptations than
word-for-word renditions.
Corbin frequently uses interpretative license in En Islam iranien. Since there
are often no markers to separate the translations from Corbin’s glosses of them,
short of consulting the original texts of the accounts, in places it is impossible
to determine if one is reading the original text or Corbin’s interpretations. For
example, throughout his translations, Corbin regularly refers to the imaginal
world (ʿālam al-mithāl) and the realm of the placeless (nā-kujā-ābād), giving
the impression that such terms are found in the original texts of the accounts
he is translating, when in fact they are not.57
In the opinion of Corbin, the accounts describing meetings with the Imam
were a fecund field of mystical speculation. They seemed to describe events
that transpired in the physical world, but Corbin averred that the encounters
took place in “un monde qui reste au-delà du contrôle empirique de nos sens et

54 Corbin, “Au Pays de l’Imām caché,” 31–87.

55 This chapter was published in Corbin’s Face de Dieu, face de I’homme. For an English trans-
lation, see Corbin, “Mundus Imaginalis” (trans. Fox).
56 Corbin, En Islam iranien, 4:338–9. For Nasr’s account of this visit, see Nasr, In Search of the
Sacred, 98.
57 On the ʿālam al-mithāl, see chapter 2.
introduction 17

de nos sciences rationnelles.”58 Elsewhere, he maintains that the Hidden Imam

is “a supernatural being” who “does not appear and disappear according to the
laws of material historicity.”59
A firm belief in this metahistorical reality of the Hidden Imam is wedded to
a deep interest in symbolism. Corbin nurtures both throughout his writings on
the Hidden Imam. In the three above-mentioned studies, his approach is char-
acterized by a certain sanguineness: the Hidden Imam “dwells on the Green
Island in the middle of the Sea of Whiteness,”60 he is “hidden between Heaven
and Earth in the ʿālam al-mithāl,”61 and can only be encountered in this realm
of the simulacra, a realm with a reality and topography that transcends the
limits of the empirical world. The gate to this realm was the phenomena of
dreams, metaphysical visions, and other intuitive experiences. Ever the enthu-
siastic and imaginative reader, Corbin maintains that visions were the portal to
the realm of the Hidden Imam:

For more than ten centuries the figure of the Hidden Imam dominate[d]
all Shiʿite religious consciousness .… For more than ten centuries …
Shiʿism has lived in the company of the mysterious Twelfth Imam, lived in
the secret of passionate devotion, in the secret of an eschatological expec-
tation that has never been trapped by imposture .… [The Imam] is to be
seen only in visionary dreams; if he has been encountered it is realized
only after the event. Stories abound, filling volumes.62

Elsewhere, he writes:

L’Imâm caché, jusqu’à l’heure de la parousie, ne se rend visible qu’ en

songe ou bien en certaines manifestations personnelles qui ont alors le
caractère d’événements visionnaires; elles n’interrompent pas le temps

58 Corbin, En Islam iranien, 4:376.

59 Corbin, History of Islamic Philosophy (trans. Sherrard), 71 [= Corbin, Histoire de la philoso-
phie islamique, 110].
60 Corbin, Alone with the Alone, 56. On the story of the Green Island, see Ghaemmaghami,
“To the Abode of the Hidden One.”
61 Corbin, Alone with the Alone, 81.
62 Corbin, “Visionary Dream in Islamic Spirituality,” 405. This reading is also posited by Hos-
sein Ziai, “Dreams ii: In the Persian Tradition,” EIr, 7:550: “The occultation of the twelfth
imam, who possessed a higher visionary knowledge … is of special significance in the
Shiʿite view of dreams, for he ‘resides’ in Ḥūrqalyā [sic], a realm of the imagined world
and may thus be ‘seen’ through dreams.” On Islamic oneirology, see the bibliography in
Kinberg, “Dreams,” EI³ (online).
18 introduction

de la ghaybat, puisqu’elles se passent justement dans cet “entre-temps”

[that is, in the mundus imaginalis], et qu’ elles ne se matérialisent pas
dans le courant des faits de l’histoire matérielle que le premier venu peut
enregistrer et attester. Les récits de ces visions théophaniques sont nom-
breux dans les livres shîʾites .…63

Throughout Corbin’s studies on the Hidden Imam, the reader cannot help but
sense a feeling of urgency. Corbin was affected by the West’s rejection of the
imaginal realm and suppression of the nature and reality of the Unseen.64 In
the narrative (ḥikāya) of the Hidden Imam, including the accounts of encoun-
ters with him, he saw a hierohistory: “it is a history of real events, but it is not a
reality open to critical history.”65 His contributions to the study of the encoun-
ters with the Imam were an attempt to redress the devastating imbalance he
saw in the Western worldview. For this reason, Corbin was especially attracted
to the founder and leaders of the Shaykhī movement who nurtured the mode
of the invisible presence of the Imam in the imaginal realm.66
Amir-Moezzi followed the interpretative trajectory laid out by Corbin in
his (Amir-Moezzi’s) studies of the encounter narratives. In “Contribution á la
Typologie des Rencontres avec l’Imám Caché,”67 he set out to fulfill a wish
Corbin expressed in his En Islam iranien,68 namely, to categorize the accounts
of encounters with the Imam during the Greater Occultation. In this article,
Amir-Moezzi introduces a three-part typology based on the role and function
of the Hidden Imam in the encounter: humanitarian, initiatory, and eschato-
logical.69 The five accounts from the Greater Occultation he briefly summarizes
and classifies under the humanitarian category are those in which the Imam
comes to the aid of a desperate believer, for example, by healing him of an
incurable illness or saving him from being lost in the desert. He classifies six

63 Corbin, En Islam iranien, 4:330. See also Corbin, “Visionary Dream in Islamic Spirituality,”
406.
64 See Corbin, Corps spirituel et Terre céleste, 20 [= Corbin, Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth
(trans. Pearson), xxi]. For a representative passage lamenting the shortcomings of Western
civilization, see Corbin, En Islam iranien, 1:8–9.
65 Corbin, “Visionary Dream in Islamic Spirituality,” 405.
66 See Amir-Moezzi, “Une absence remplie de présences.”
67 For an English translation of this article, see Amir-Moezzi, The Spirituality of Shiʿi Islam,
431–60.
68 Corbin, En Islam iranien, 4:330: “il y aurait à en opérer le classement typologique.”
69 Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution á la Typologie,” 110. Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, Qu’ est-ce que
le shîʾisme?, 118–21 [= Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, What is Shiʾi Islam? (trans. Casler and
Ormsby), 63–4].
introduction 19

accounts under the rubric of initiatory, those in which the Imam reveals cer-
tain spiritual knowledge or teaches a specific prayer to his initiate. He then
introduces the eschatological dimension by which an encounter with the Hid-
den Imam “prompts a believer’s spiritual resurrection.”70 According to Amir-
Moezzi, the eschatological dimension interested “mystics, theosophists, and
Imami sufis, who meditated and developed these traditions.”71
Amir-Moezzi does not mention any specific accounts in this third section.
Instead, he discusses the spiritual hermeneutics of some of the accounts
offered by masters of the Shaykhī movement and the Dhahabī and Khāksārī
Shīʿī Sufi orders.72 These masters proposed different forms of the following syl-
logism: “The Hidden Imam can be seen only at the End of Time, but certain
people saw [him], therefore these people reached the End of Time.”73
Amir-Moezzi’s article on the symbolic and theological hermeneutics of the
occultation provided by the masters of the Shaykhiyya elucidates this third
dimension.74 According to this perspective, only through interpretation is one
able to perceive the colorful and profound metaphors dormant and latent in
the stories. Amir-Moezzis’s concern for the initiatic component of these nar-
ratives is perhaps best illustrated by an article he wrote, describing his own
pilgrimage to the mosque of the Hidden Imam in Jamkarān.75

70 Amir-Moezzi, “Islam in Iran vii: The Concept of the Mahdi in Twelver Shiʿism,” EIr, 14:140.
71 Amir-Moezzi, “Eschatology iii: In Imami Shiʿism,” EIr, 8:579.
72 On the Dhahabī order, see van den Bos, “Dhahabiyya,” EI³ (online). On the Shaykhī move-
ment, see Hermann, “Shaykhism,” EIr (online).
73 Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution á la Typologie,” 132. See also Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, Qu’ est-
ce que le shîʾisme?, 118 [= Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, What is Shiʾi Islam? (trans. Casler and
Ormsby), 63].
74 Amir-Moezzi, “Une absence remplie de présences.” For an English translation of this arti-
cle, see Amir-Moezzi, The Spirituality of Shiʿi Islam, 461–86.
75 Since the account features some of the elements, devices, and topoi found in some other
stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam, especially the story of the Green Island in
the White Sea, it is useful to provide a summary. Amir-Moezzi recounts that, in 1973, he
was summoned by his paternal great-uncle who, when he was dying, revealed that fifty
years earlier, he had made a pilgrimage to Jamkarān. After arriving in the village, a guide
showed him an underground city inhabited by companions of the Hidden Imam: “gens
de la hiérarchie initiatique occulte” who frequently attained the presence of the “mystic
pole” (i.e., the Imam). The denizens of this mysterious city were men and women, each
more radiant and comely than the next. As he gazed upon them, a young man emerged,
advanced toward him and began to initiate him into the knowledge of certain divine mys-
teries. Then suddenly, he had rejoined his caravan and was midway between Qum and
Tehran. A full week had passed. What had happened? Was it all a dream? Does such a city
exist? Most importantly, he asked himself: “Le jeune homme qui me parla était-il l’ Imâm
du Temps lui-même?” Not having dared venture back to Jamkarān, now in the twilight
20 introduction

The contributions of Corbin and Amir-Moezzi have helped illuminate the

function of the guide-initiate relationship in Shīʿī Islam. In the estimation of
many among the sampling of scholars and mystics whom Corbin and Amir-
Moezzi studied, the Hidden Imam is the apotheosis of the spiritual guide.
Corbin maintained that these accounts “represent, preeminently, the arche-
type of an individual and individuating relationship with a personal heavenly
guide.”76 While this approach is useful in discussing mystical speculations in
Shīʿī Islam, such as those advanced by some modern (post-1800) thinkers, it
would be an overgeneralization to apply it to the entire corpus of stories of
encounters with the Hidden Imam. For example, the main source for most of
the narratives Corbin and Amir-Moezzi discuss or mention in passing was the
hadith specialist (muḥaddith) Ḥusayn al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī (d. 1902). It is impor-
tant to note that al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, in emphasizing the issue of authority,
declares that Shīʿī mystics are inimical to the Imams and rejects any attempt
to situate the stories of encounters he collected and published in any realm
but the physical; to wit, he dismisses the approach of mystics, theosophists,

of his life, he summoned his great-great-nephew to ask him to travel there and attempt
to discover the secret. Arriving in Jamkarān, Amir-Moezzi met with the same guide, now
advanced in age. Each time he attempted to raise the question of the hidden city in the
subterranean realm, his host politely changed the subject to matters of theology, philoso-
phy, and the secret meanings latent in the Quran and the hadiths of the Imams. Feeling a
cold coming on and overcome with fever, he suddenly thought he heard his host tell him:
“Ici, à Jamkarân, le temps passe autrement. Nous sommes ici dans le domaine du Seigneur
du Temps, et c’est son temps à lui qui s’écoule ici.” His host then took him to visit four
neighbors. Each time Amir-Moezzi attempted to broach the matter of the hidden city, his
hosts changed the topic of conversation. As day turned into night, he boarded the minibus
for the fifteen-minute ride back to Qum. In a feverish and drowsy state, he began to see a
vertiginous mixture of images: his great-great-uncle, the doors of a cellar, the inhabitants
of the sanctuary of the Hidden Imam, the monotonous voice of his host, the chants of
faceless men in an obscure room, the noise of the engine of the minibus … then the driver
woke him. It was Wednesday. He had entered Jamkarān on Sunday. Returning to Tehran,
he learned that his family had not heard from him in four days. His great-great-uncle had
passed away that Monday. A postscript provided details of Amir-Moezzi’s second visit to
Jamkarān in 1995. The place was hardly recognizable. What was once a hamlet had sud-
denly become a small town. A highway had been built circumventing Qum and connecting
Jamkarān directly to the Iranian capital. Each Wednesday, thousands of pilgrims arrived
in chartered buses. The sanctuary of the Hidden Imam has been renovated. Jamkarān now
features several new mosques, travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, and publishing houses.
Informed sources told him that an apolitical and eschatological cadre of ulama that is
opposed to the ideals of the Islamic revolution has succeeded in promoting Jamkarān as
a holy city, to compete with Qum and Mashhad. Amir-Moezzi, “Jamkarân et Mâhân,” 154–
67.
76 Corbin, “Visionary Dream in Islamic Spirituality,” 386.
introduction 21

and others interested in esoteric interpretation (ahl-i taʾwīl) who speak of the
imaginal world (ʿālam-i mithāl) or abodes of the heart (manāzil-i qalbiyyih).77

2 Outline of the Book

Building on previous scholarship, this book raises new questions and concerns.
I focus chiefly, though not exclusively, on the genesis and evolution of encoun-
ters with the Hidden Imam in the early and premodern period, focusing largely
on roughly the first three hundred and fifty years of the Greater Occultation
(circa 329/941 to the end of the seventh/thirteenth century). By adopting this
focus, I hope this book will fill several gaps in scholarship, present new research
on an underappreciated aspect and critical phase of Shīʿī intellectual history
and piety, and lay the groundwork for further study of the issue, in particular
in the modern and contemporary periods.
The first two chapters offer a textual study of the early hadith corpus on the
question of seeing the Hidden Imam. Chapter 1 serves as a background. I exam-
ine the earliest extant Shīʿī sources that address the ghayba of the final Imam
during the period known as the Lesser or Lesser Occultation. While this period
has been closely studied by scholars, this chapter addresses a gap in the scholar-
ship by isolating and analyzing the few references to the ghayba in the earliest
surviving Quran commentaries and hadith works, and by investigating what
these sources say (or neglect to say) on the issue of seeing the Hidden Imam. I
will show that the overwhelming majority of hadiths affirm that the Imam can-
not be seen or recognized by anyone during the ghayba, while a small number
of hadiths suggest that he can be seen though not recognized as the Hidden
Imam.
Considering the authority invested in hadith literature,78 and in light of
the fact that the majority of hadiths affirm that the Hidden Imam cannot be
seen during his absence, a question emerges: on what scriptural basis do Shīʿī
ulama record and transmit the accounts of those who have alleged to have seen
and spoken with the Hidden Imam during the Greater Occultation? Chapter 2

77 Al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:624–5. On the history of anti-Sufi rhetoric among Shīʿī ulama, see
Pourjavady, “Opposition to Sufism in Twelver Shīʿism,” 614–23; Rizvi, “The Takfīr”; and in
particular during the Qajar period, Bayat, “Anti-Sufism in Qajar Iran,” 624–38.
78 On Shīʿī hadith, see Kohlberg, “Shīʿī Hadith”; Ahmad, “Twelver Šīʿī ḥadīṯ”; Kazemi-
Moussavi, “Hadith ii. In Shiʿism,”EIr, 11:447–9; Brunner, “The Role of Ḥadīth.” For important
insights on the function of hadith as both narrative fiction and religious text, see Günther,
“Fictional Narration and Imagination.”
22 introduction

focuses on three hadiths that are cited by some later ulama, as these hadith
leave open the possibility of a special cadre of believers that can encounter
(and recognize) the Imam during this second ghayba. I gloss and contextualize
the key words found in these hadiths and probe the ways in which they have
been interpreted and negotiated by Shīʿī ulama and Western scholars who have
commented on them.
In chapter 3, I focus on the first two critical centuries of the Greater Occulta-
tion. A noticeable shift can be discerned between the tradition-oriented ulama
who wrote in the early years of the Greater Occultation and the rationalist-
oriented scholars who followed them vis-à-vis the possibility of seeing the
Imam. The traditionists argued that the Imam can no longer be seen or encoun-
tered physically by anyone. The locus classicus for proscribing the possibility
of seeing him in the second ghayba was the final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam,
referred to above. I show that the rationalist scholars slowly, if cautiously,
acceded to the possibility of encountering the Imam, although they abstained
from mentioning anyone who had, in actuality, met him. These findings amend
the assumption that stories of encounters with the Imam in a wakeful state
have existed and occurred from the beginning of the Greater Occultation.
Finally, in chapter 4, I examine the earliest known and surviving accounts
of encounters with the Hidden Imam. The tacit approval of the rationalist-
oriented scholars, discussed in chapter 3, of the possibility of seeing the Imam
served as the nucleus for another critical shift. In the following two centuries,
accounts of encounters and contact with the Imam during the Greater Occul-
tation, albeit rare and infrequent, began to appear in the works of Shīʿī author-
ities. Near the end of this chapter, I will show that while, in the next centuries,
the accounts of encounters remained few in number and were consistent in
their representation of the Hidden Imam, in the Safavid period they increased
and became far more embellished. I propose that this development is linked
to a critical gloss of the final tawqīʿ, a gloss that adumbrated the exponential
proliferation of these accounts in the modern period and has been cited by
numerous scholars to justify the stories of encounters with the Imam in the
Greater Occultation.
 chapter 1

The Unknown, the Unseen, and the Unrecognized

In this chapter, I examine Imāmī Shīʿī hadith compilations and Quran com-
mentaries (tafsīr) produced in the period later known as the Lesser or Minor
Occultation. I isolate a number of passages from these works that discuss the
ghayba of the twelfth and final Imam, and in particular, the question of con-
tacting and seeing this figure.

1 The Hadith Compilations Attributed to al-Barqī and al-Ṣaffār

al-Qummī

At the outset, it must be said that the two earliest surviving Imāmī Shīʿī hadith
collections, both compiled by scholars who lived during the early years of the
occultation of the Hidden Imam, are decidedly un-messianic. There are no
references to the ghayba in Kitāb al-Maḥāsin attributed to Aḥmad b. Muḥam-
mad b. Khālid al-Barqī (d. 274/887 or 280/893), an absence to which Kohlberg
first brought attention, or in Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, attributed to Muḥammad b.
al-Ḥasan al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī (d. 290/902–3).1 Amir-Moezzi found it “plus com-
plexe et plus troublant” that the latter contains only five hadiths (of 1,881) that
refer to there being twelve Imams.2 His observation lends further credence
to the notion that most Shīʿa knew nothing about the Hidden Imam during
the crisis of mass confusion, uncertainty, helpless, loss, and perplexity (ḥayra)
that erupted after the death of the eleventh Imam, al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (d. 260/

1 Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 523. This absence is emphasized in Amir-Moezzi, “al-Ṣaffār al-
Qummī,” 240; Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 249 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans.
Streight), 101]; Amir-Moezzi, “Islam in Iran vii,” EIr, 14:137; Newman, The Formative Period, 59;
Vilozny, “Pre-Būyid Ḥadīth Literature,” 207. On al-Barqī and Kitāb al-Maḥāsin, see Vilozny,
Constructing a Worldview; Newman, The Formative Period, 51–9; Kohlberg, “Imam and Com-
munity,” 39; Vilozny, “Pre-Būyid Ḥadīth Literature”; Ansari, “al-Barqī,” EIO. On al-Ṣaffār al-
Qummī and the question of the attribution of Baṣāʾir al-darajāt to him, see Amir-Moezzi,
“al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī,” 221–50 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Silent Qurʾan & the Speaking Qurʾan, 97–
124]; Anṣārī, “Tabārshināsī-i kitāb-i baṣāʾir al-darajāt va huviyyat-i nivīsandih-yi ān.”
2 Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 249 n. 537, states that five out of 1,881 hadiths “équivaut à un
silence presque total.” Cf. Amir-Moezzi, “al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī,” 237, 241 [= Amir-Moezzi, The
Silent Qurʾan & the Speaking Qurʾan, 111, 114]. See also Newman, The Formative Period, 84–5;
Momen, Shiʿi Islam, 62–3.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413153_003

24 chapter 1

874).3 Indeed, the five hadiths in Baṣāʾir al-darajāt that do refer to there being
twelve Imams do not hint at the notion of ghayba or suggest that the twelfth
Imam is the messianic Mahdī or Qāʾim.4
The twenty-second chapter of Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, titled “The Messenger of
God bequeathed the supreme name [of God] (al-ism al-akbar), the heritage
of prophecy and the heritage of [all] knowledge to ʿAlī before he died,” does
feature two hadiths that are intriguing but have been neglected for the most
part in academic literature. These two hadiths anticipate the appearance of a
prophet (nabī) after Muḥammad and the line of Imams.5 The first was transmit-
ted by the sixth Imam, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765),6 and is a ḥadīth qudsī (divine
saying; lit., sacred or holy hadith) in the sense that the words are attributed to
God:

I never leave the earth bereft of a walī [here, meaning an Imam] who
possesses knowledge, by whom My obedience and My walāya are made
known, a Proof [again, an Imam] who will exist between the passing of
the Prophet and the coming forth of the next Prophet (bayna qabḍ al-nabī
ilā khurūj al-nabī l-ākhar).7

The second hadith (the fourth and final hadith found in the same chapter) is
similar, only here the words are attributed to the angel Gabriel and the def-
inite article on the word nabī has been omitted to make the meaning more
generic: “between the passing of a prophet and the coming forth of another

3 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 4:222, aptly defines ḥayra as the state of being lost or unable to
find one’s way, thus the antonym of ihtidāʾ.
4 Al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī, Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, 280 (hadith no. 15), in which the Prophet commands
Abū Bakr to believe in ʿAlī and eleven of his descendants who the Prophet says “are like
me except that they are not prophets”, 319–20 (nos. 2, 4, 5), and 372 (no. 16). Cf. another
hadith where all twelve Imams are called mahdīs. Amir-Moezzi, “al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī,” 240
n. 48.
5 On early objections to the understanding that Muḥammad was the “seal of the prophets”
(Quran 33:40) and the final bearer of revelation, see van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, 1:29–
32 [= van Ess, Theology and Society, 1:34–7]; Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, 70.
6 On him, see Robert Gleave and et al., “Jaʿfar al-Ṣādeq,” EIr, 14:349–66; Crow, “Imam Jaʿfar al-
Ṣādiq and the Elaboration of Shiʿism.”
7 Al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī, Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, 468 (no. 1). While the word nabī is usually translated as
prophet, its relationship with the word nabaʾ (“news”) and the locution al-nabaʾ al-ʿaẓīm (“the
great news” or “the great announcement”) of Quran 78:2, usually defined by Quran exegetes
as the Day of Resurrection, suggests that a second and perhaps more precise meaning of nabī
is one who foretells the coming of the Day of Resurrection.
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 25

(prophet)” (bayna qabḍ nabī ilā khurūj ākhar).8 Both hadiths, and in particular
the first, suggest that after Muḥammad an Imam will always be present until
the next prophet is raised by God.9 As is the case with all other hadiths found
in Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, these hadiths do not mention or intimate that any of the
Imams who will appear before the appearance of the next prophet will be con-
cealed.
Furthermore, if by “the next prophet” is meant the Qāʾim, who, according to
other Shīʿī hadiths, will introduce a new amr, a new book, a new sovereignty
(sulṭān), and new laws (aḥkām)—which according to Amir-Moezzi, “seems to
indicate a new religion abrogating Islam”10—then these two hadiths appear to
support a notion about the Qāʾim that is implied throughout Imāmī/Twelver

8 Al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī, Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, 469–70 (no. 4). On early Shīʿī sources defining the
term “proof [of God]” (ḥujjat) as a designation of all the Imams and in particular an epi-
thet of the twelfth Imam, see Dakake, “Ḥojjat,” EIr, 12:424–6; Arastu (trans.), al-Nudbah,
112 n. 3; Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight), index, s.v. “ḥujja, ḥujaj (proof).”
On the class of hadiths known as ḥadīth qudsī, see Robson, “Ḥadīt̲h̲ Ḳudsī,” EI², 8:28–9;
Algar, “Hadith iv. In Sufism,” EIr, 11:451–3. Graham devotes a few paragraphs to discussing
the presence of aḥādīth qudsiyya in the later Shīʿī hadith collection of al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī
(d. 1104/1693) while admitting that a study of aḥādīth qudsiyya in Shīʿī hadith collections
is outside the scope of his monograph and merits a separate survey. Graham, Divine Word,
67–8.
9 Cf. a hadith stating that there will always be a Proof (i.e., an Imam) on earth until forty days
before the Day of Resurrection: “By God, the earth will continue to have a Proof (ḥujja)
[i.e., an Imam] who knows what is permissible (ḥalāl) and what is prohibited (ḥarām)
and who will call [people] to the Way of God [cf. Q 16:125]. The Proof will never be cut off
from the earth except for [the last] forty days prior to the Day of Resurrection,” al-Barqī,
Kitāb al-Maḥāsin, 236; al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī, Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, 484.
10 Amir-Moezzi, “Eschatology iii: In Imami Shiʿism,” EIr, 8:577. Cf. the following comment by
Amanat, “Islam in Iran v.,” 14:131, presumably based on the same hadiths: “[The Mahdī] is
the divine agency that brings the old revelatory cycle to its ultimate totality and poten-
tially stands to start a new religious dispensation (even though the latter aspect is often
passed over in silence in the Shiʿite literature).” Henry Corbin read the same hadiths dif-
ferently: “… the Parousia of the Twelfth Imām is not that the Twelfth Imām must bring
a new Book, a new sharīʿat. That would not at all be the advent of taʾwīl; a new Law
would not at all mark the advent of the esoteric. Not at all—what the Twelfth Imām
brings is the revelation of the hidden meaning of all the revelations.” Corbin, “Youthful-
ness and Chivalry,” 71 (trans. Rhone) [= Corbin, L’Homme et son ange, 231–2]. Kohlberg,
“Authoritative Scriptures,” 310–11, expresses a similar opinion: “In some eschatological
traditions it is stated that the Mahdī will bring with him a new order and a new book
(or revelation) (amr jadīd wa-kitāb jadīd). The amr jadīd is not to be understood to
mean that he will usher in a new religion .… Similarly, the kitāb jadīd is probably not
a previously unknown text but one or more texts that had been the preserve of the
Imam.”
26 chapter 1

Shīʿī works and spoken of directly in Ismāʿīlī sources, namely, that the Qāʾim is
prophet-like, if not a prophet himself.11
The term amr warrants a comment. It is often difficult to translate amr (lit.,
command, order, cause, affair) in the Quran and in Shīʿī hadiths because of the
multifarious uses of this word. In Shīʿī sources, various Imams are called the
possessor (ṣāḥib) of the amr.12 In hadiths about the Qāʾim, amr has eschato-
logical and apocalyptic connotations. In certain hadiths, the Quranic amr is
the Qāʾim. The amr of God mentioned in the opening verse of Sūrat al-Naḥl
(Quran 16:1), “The amr of God cometh; so seek not to hasten it,” is interpreted by
Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq as being “our amr, meaning the rise of our qāʾim (huwa amrunā
yaʿnī qiyām al-qāʾim), [the one who will rise from] the family of Muḥammad.”13
Based on this and other hadiths, the exegete Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Lāhījī
(fl. eleventh/seventeenth century) avers that what is meant by (murād) amr
Allāh throughout the Quran is the Qāʾim.14
In a related hadith, one of al-Bāqir’s disciples says, “I asked (Imam al-Bāqir)
about this amr, when will he appear?”15 He answered, “When you expect that
he will come from one direction [or in one manner] and he appears from a
[different] direction [or in a different manner], do not reject him.”16 Al-Qummī
defines the coming amr of God in Quran 16:33 as the coming forth (khurūj) of
the Qāʾim.17 According to a more frequently cited hadith ascribed to al-Ṣādiq,
the Qāʾim will appear with an entirely new amr.18 A slightly different variation
of this hadith is found in al-Sayyārī.19 Another hadith, also attributed to al-
Ṣādiq, states that the Qāʾim will call people to islām anew while guiding them to

11 This interpretation is advanced by Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, 201–2, based on

his study of Twelver Shīʿī hadiths: “… in Shīʿī traditions the only available explanation of
the constant comparison with prophets is that the Mahdī himself is either at the level of a
prophet (which depends largely on how the word amr is translated), or just slightly below
it.” For a comparison with fourth-/tenth-century Ismāʿīlī sources, see Ghaemmaghami,
“{And the Earth will Shine with the Light of its Lord} (Q 39:69).” See also Cook, Studies
in Muslim Apocalyptic, 226; Crone, The Nativist Prophets, 465.
12 Al-Ṣadūq, al-Amālī, 175, 435.
13 Al-Najafī, Taʾwīl al-āyāt, 1:252; al-ʿĀmilī al-Iṣfahānī, Muqaddimat tafsīr, 73; al-Raḍawī, al-
Mahdī l-mawʿūd, 137. Cf. al-Majlisī, Kitāb-i rajʿat, 173.
14 Al-Lāhījī, Tafsīr-i Sharīf Lāhījī, 2:694.
15 [= saʾaltu Abā Jaʿfar ʿan al-amr māta yakūnu]
16 [= in kuntum tuʾammilūna an yajīʾakum min wajhin thumma jāʾakum min wajhin fa-lā
tunkirūnahu] Ibn Bābūya, al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra1, 94.
17 Al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, 2:385. Khurūj can also be understood as referring to the upris-
ing/rebellion of the Qāʾim against the forces of darkness.
18 [= jāʾa bi-amrin ghayr alladhī kāna] Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:536 (no. 2).
19 Al-Sayyārī, Kitāb al-Qirāʾāt, 106.
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 27

a forgotten amr, from which the people have strayed.20 Other hadiths appear
to equate amr with dīn (= religion, but also belief in the unity of God; pious
fear of God; a custom, habit, way, mode, manner of conduct, or the like).21 For
example, in a passage excerpted by his student al-Murtaḍā, al-Mufīd refers to
a hadith saying that the Qāʾim has been so-called “because he will proclaim a
dīn that has been effaced ( yaqūm bi-dīnin qad indarasa), manifest a truth that
was hidden ( yuẓhir bi-ḥaqqin kāna makhfiyyan), and fearlessly rise through the
power of Truth/God.”22 Moreover, the first part of Quran 5:64, “The Jews said,
‘The hand of God is chained up.’,” is interpreted by the eighth Imam, ʿAlī al-
Riḍā (d. 203/818), as intending to say, “(The Jews) meant that God has brought
the amr to an end and will not bring forth a new thing again … He will not
add anything to (the amr).”23 That is, the Jews believed that the amr of God
brought to them by Moses was the only amr and that God would never raise
a prophet with a new amr again. I prefer Lawson and Amanat’s translation of
amr as “the divine cause,”24 though some other translations offered by scholars
are also useful. Cook, for example, suggests translating amr in messianic and
apocalyptic Shīʿī hadiths as “the End,” “a new revelation or messianic system
of government,” or “revelation, period or dispensation.”25 Clarke translates amr
jadīd in a Shīʿī hadith about the Qāʾim as “a new rule (amr, political order).”26
Similarly, Sachedina and Amir-Moezzi render amr jadīd as “a new order.”27 The
term was also used by the early Fatimids, especially as part of a title also found
in Imāmī/Twelver sources, ṣāḥib (master, lord, and possessor of) al-amr.28

20 [= wa-hadāhum ilā amrin qad duthira fa-ḍalla ʿanhu al-jumhūr] Al-Mufīd, al-Irshād fī
maʿrifat ḥujaj Allāh ʿalā l-ʿibād, 2:383.
21 See Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 1:944.
22 Al-Murtaḍā [/al-Mufīd], al-Fuṣūl al-mukhtāra, 322.
23 [= yaʿnūna anna Allāh taʿālā qad faragha min al-amr fa-laysa yuḥdith shayʾan … fa-laysa
yazīd fīhi shayʾan] Al-Ṣadūq, ʿUyūn akhbār al-Riḍā, 1:182, 189.
24 Lawson, Gnostic Apocalypse and Islam, index, s.v. “divine cause (al-amr)”; Abbas Amanat,
Resurrection and Renewal, 252 (here, Amanat translates amruʾlláh as “Divine cause”); Law-
son, “Interpretation as Revelation,” 250.
25 Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, 195, 199, 232–3.
26 Clarke, “The Rise and Decline of Taqiyya,” 50.
27 Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 175; Amir-Moezzi, “Eschatology iii: In Imami Shiʿism,” EIr,
8:577. Cf. Amir-Moezzi, “Muḥammad le Paraclet et ʿAlī le Messie,” 21. See also Mir-Kasimov,
“Takfīr and Messianism,” 192.
28 Halm, The Empire of the Mahdi, 69, 76; Mahdī-Ḥāʾirī, “Ṣāḥib al-zamān,”DMT, 10:239–40. See
also Baljon, “The ‘Amr of God’ in the Koran”; Momen, “A Study of the Meaning”; an inter-
esting usage drawn attention to in Kister, “‘A Booth Like the Booth of Moses …’ A Study
of an Early Ḥadīth”; and the related interpretation of amr in Sunnī works of kalām, where
it appears as a particular revelation of God’s will and the providential rule of creation
through His command and decrees. Schwarb, “Amr,” EI³ (online).
28 chapter 1

2 The Exegetical Corpus: The tafāsīr of al-ʿAskarī, al-Sayyārī, al-Furāt,

al-Qummī, and al-ʿAyyāshī

In their search for references to the twelfth Imam and the notion of ghayba,
scholars have mined the three major hadith compilations—namely, al-Qum-
mī’s Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, al-Barqī’s Kitāb al-Maḥāsin, and al-Kulaynī’s (d. 328–
9/940–1) al-Kāfī—and the two Shīʿī heresiographical works—namely, al-Ḥasan
b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī’s (d. between 300/912–3 and 310/922–3) Kitāb Firaq al-
Shīʿa29 and Saʿd b. ʿAbdallāh al-Ashʿarī al-Qummī’s (d. 299/911–2 or 301/913–4)
Kitāb al-Maqālāt wa-l-firaq30—that have survived from the period that came
to be called the Minor or Lesser Occultation. However, a similar study has not
yet been undertaken for the earliest surviving Shīʿī Quran commentaries, all
of which likewise date from the Lesser Occultation, or just before. In order to
arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of the early sources and what
information they may contain about the Imam’s ghayba in general and the
question of contact with the Hidden Imam in particular, it is imperative to con-
sider these commentaries as well.31
Of the 379 hadiths that make up the partial tafsīr ascribed to the eleventh
Imam, al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, only one hadith mentions the ghayba of the Qāʾim.
This hadith is narrated on the authority of al-ʿAskarī’s father, the tenth Imam,
ʿAlī al-Hādī (d. 254/868):32

Were it not for the learned (ʿulamāʾ) who will live after the ghayba of your
Qāʾim, who invite [people] to [his cause], guide [them] to him, defend his
dīn with the proofs of God, save the weak (ḍuʿafāʾ) among God’s servants
from the temptations of Iblīs and his evil spirits (cf. Quran 37:7) and the

29 On al-Nawbakhtī and his Firaq al-Shīʿa, see Iqbāl, Khāndān-i Nawbakhtī, 125–65; van Ess,
Der Eine und das Andere, 219–60; Pingree, “Nawbaḵti, Ḥasan,”EIr (online); Anthony, “Naw-
baḵti Family,” EIr (online); Kraemer, “al-Nawbakhtī, al-Ḥasan b. Mūsā,” EI², 7:1044; Anṣārī,
“Abū Sahl Nawbakhtī,” DMBI, 5:579–83; Madelung, “Imāmism and Muʿtazilite Theology,”
14–16; Ḥāʾirī, “Ḥasan bin Mūsā,” DMT, 6:306; Rashed, Al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā al-Nawbaḫtī, 341–
91, especially 383–4.
30 On al-Qummī and his Kitāb al-Maqālāt wa-l-firaq, see van Ess, Der Eine und das Andere,
260–9; Kohlberg, “Early Attestations,” 343. For a comparison of the works of al-Nawbakhtī
and al-Qummī, see Madelung “Bemerkungen zur imamitischen Firaq-Literature,” 37–52.
31 On Shīʿī Quran commentaries produced in this period, see Gordon, “Obeying Those in
Authority,” 72–80; Ardehali, “The Formation of Classical Imāmī Exegesis,” 104–14; and
other sources cited below.
32 On the tenth Imam, see Madelung, “ʿAlī al-Hādī,” EIr, 1:861–2; Bernheimer, “ʿAlī al-Hādī,”
EI³ (online). On the eleventh Imam, see Halm, “ʿAskarī, Ḥasan b. ʿAlī” EIr, 2:769.
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 29

snares of those who are hostile toward the Shīʿa (al-nawāṣib), [then] every
person would renounce [their] faith in God.33

Bar-Asher has suggested, from internal evidence, that the tafsīr ascribed to al-
ʿAskarī was likely composed during his lifetime, though he is not prepared to
attribute the work directly to al-ʿAskarī.34 The fact that only one hadith out of
379 mentions the ghayba amounts to a near complete silence on the issue and
further supports Bar-Ashers’s thesis that the work was composed during the
lifetime of the eleventh Imam. It is also possible that the above hadith, or at
least the phrase “the ghayba of your Qāʾim,” was added to the work during or
after the period that came to be known as the Minor Occultation.
Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Sayyārī’s (fl. third/ninth century) Kitāb al-Tanzīl
wa-l-taḥrīf (or simply, al-Tafsīr), a work on variant readings of the Quran, con-
tains numerous references to the Qāʾim (though not to the Mahdī)35 but never
mentions the notion of ghayba or alludes to the possibility of contact with the
Hidden Imam.36 Perhaps in an attempt to link al-Sayyārī to the Hidden Imam

33 Al-ʿAskarī (attrib.), al-Tafsīr al-mansūb, 344–5 (no. 225). Cf. al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 2:6
(no. 12), where the oddly sounding “your Qāʾim” (which might be a strange thing for an
Imam to say) is rendered as “our Qāʾim.” Hadiths of this type that divide the Shīʿa into two
distinct categories—the learned (ʿulamāʾ) and the weak (ḍuʿafāʾ)—are common in the
tafsīr attributed to al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī. See Kohlberg, “Imam and Community,” 41–3.
34 Bar-Asher, “The Qurʾān Commentary,” 379. Cf. the formidable study by Muḥammad Taqī al-
Tustarī (d. 1995) who contests that any attempt to attribute this tafsīr to al-ʿAskarī amounts
to slander (buhtān) and argues that many of the hadiths found in this work are fabricated.
Al-Tustarī, al-Akhbār al-dakhīla, 152–228. See also Luṭfī, “Tafsīr-i Imām Ḥasan ʿAskarī,”
DMBI (online).
35 On more than one occasion in the introduction and notes to their critical edition of
al-Sayyārī’s Kitāb al-Tanzīl wa-l-taḥrīf, Amir-Moezzi and Kohlberg state that the terms
Qāʾim and ṣāḥib hādhā l-amr refer to the Mahdī, giving the impression that the title “al-
Mahdī,” with messianic connotations, was used by al-Sayyārī in speaking about the Qāʾim.
Kohlberg and Amir-Moezzi, “Introduction,” 40, 92–3. However, al-Sayyārī’s work does not
mention the title “al-Mahdī” with messianic connotations. This absence further supports
Sachedina’s thesis that “at least at the beginning of the Imamite history, which should be
placed at the end of third/ninth and the beginning of the fourth/tenth century, … no idea
about (the twelfth Imam) being al-Mahdī, the eschatological savior of Islam, had yet been
accentuated.” Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 59. Sachedina’s argument was criticized by
Hussain, The Occultation, 147, who cites a hadith from al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī that identifies
the twelfth Imam as the Mahdī; however, al-Kulaynī’s work is slightly later than the period
discussed by Sachedina. Since the bulk of the sources used for this book are from the
period after al-Kulaynī, when the appellations Mahdī and Qāʾim are used interchange-
ably, these terms are likewise used interchangeably in this book. On the term Qāʾim, see
also Madelung, “Ḳāʾim Āl Muḥammad,” EI², 4:456–7.
36 Not surprisingly, there are also no references to the ghayba or to the Hidden Imam in the
30 chapter 1

or compensate for the lack of any reference in his work to the notion of ghayba,
some sources attribute the report of an account of a miracle performed by the
Hidden Imam, soon after he was born, to al-Sayyārī.37
Another Quran commentary produced in the same period is the incomplete
tafsīr of Furāt b. Furāt Ibrāhīm al-Kūfī (fl. late third/ninth century).38 While
al-Kūfī cites numerous hadiths that mention the Mahdī,39 he makes only one
reference to the ghayba of the Imam: In a hadith without an isnād, the Prophet
Muḥammad foretells the coming of “the concealed one who will appear after
a lengthy ghayba.”40 Al-Kūfī does not proffer any comments about the mean-
ing of this hadith or any other hadith, as his work is strictly a tafsīr bi-l-maʾthūr
(commentary based on other portions of the Quran or on hadiths and other
transmitted reports), as opposed to a tafsīr bi-l-raʾy (commentary based on
exercising one’s independent rational faculty to form an opinion about the
interpretation of a verse).
The case of the tafsīr ascribed to ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-Qummī (fl. fourth/tenth
century)41 is somewhat different. While the author of this work transmits
numerous hadiths about the apocalypse, including hadiths about the appear-
ance of the Qāʾim,42 he makes only three references to the ghayba.43 First,
under his commentary for Quran 28:5, Moses’s fright and concealment are
interpreted as prefigurations of the Qāʾim’s ghayba, escape, and concealment.44

Zaydī Shīʿī tafsīr of al-Ḥusayn b. al-Ḥakam al-Ḥibarī (d. 286/899–900). On this work and
its author, see al-Ḥibarī, Tafsīr al-Ḥibarī, 17–74; 75–216 (from the introduction by al-Jalālī);
Lawson, “Exegesis vi.,” EIr, 9:124; Amir-Moezzi, Le Coran silencieux et le Coran parlant;
Amir-Moezzi, “Le Tafsīr d’al-Ḥibarī (m. 286/899).”
37 For the sources of this account, see Kohlberg and Amir-Moezzi, “Introduction,” 33, n. 158.
38 On him, see Bar-Asher, “Forāt b. Ebrāhīm,”EIr, 10:82; Bar-Asher, Scripture and Exegesis, 29–
31; Amir-Moezzi, “Furāt b. Furāt al-al-Kūfī,” EI³ (online); Hamza, Rizvi, with Mayer (eds.),
An Anthology, 25–6. On his tafsīr, see also Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work,
341; Ansari, al-Mutabaqqī min kutub mafqūda, 1:15–32.
39 For example, al-Kūfī, Tafsīr Furāt al-Kūfī, 74–5 (no. 48).
40 [= al-ghāʾib al-qādim baʿda ṭūl al-ghayba] Al-Kūfī, Tafsīr Furāt al-Kūfī, 267. Also cited in
al-Ṣadūq, al-Amālī, 562; al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān, Sharḥ al-akhbār, 2:398, 3:444.
41 On al-Qummī, see Bar-Asher, Scripture and Exegesis, 33–56; Newman, The Formative
Period, index, s.v. “ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm b. Hāshim al-Qummī”; Hamza, Rizvi, with Mayer (eds.),
An Anthology, 24–5; Amir-Moezzi, “ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-Qummī,” EI³ (online).
42 See Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, 296; Bar-Asher, Scripture and Exegesis, 214.
43 Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, xvii, has noted that the “the Tafsīr commonly ascribed
to ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-Qummī is not by that scholar.” Modarressi appears to be alluding to
Āqā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī’s theory that the tafsīr was assembled by al-Qummī’s student Abū
l-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās. On al-Ṭihrānī’s theory, see Bar-Asher, Scripture and Exegesis, 55; Hamza,
Rizvi, with Mayer (eds.), An Anthology, 25; Haydūs, Ḥawl tafsīr al-Qummī.
44 [= ghaybatihi wa-harabihi wa-istitārihi] Al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, 2:134. Also cited in
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 31

According to the editor of al-Qummī’s tafsīr, this sentence is not found in some
manuscripts45 and may be, in fact, a later addition to the text. The entire hadith
is likely of Wāqifī origins (on the Wāqifiyya, see below).
The second reference to the ghayba in al-Qummī’s tafsīr is found under his
commentary on Quran 22:45, “How many a city We have destroyed in its evildo-
ing, and now it is fallen down upon its turrets! How many a deserted well, a lofty
palace!” In al-Qummī’s tafsīr, “a deserted well” is interpreted as “[a well] from
which one cannot draw water: This is the Imam who has vanished and from
whom it is no longer possible to acquire knowledge.”46 Al-Qummī contrasts
this well with “a lofty palace,” which is “a similitude (mathal) for the Comman-
der of the Faithful [that is, ʿAlī], for [all of] the Imams, and for their excellent
virtues which tower above the world.”47 Curiously, al-Qummī does not iden-
tify “the Imam who has vanished” as the son of al-Ḥasan b. al-ʿAskarī or any
other person, perhaps because his identity was already known to his readers,
or because he himself did not know. There are also no references to the Imam’s
emissaries and representatives, to his agents, or to any of the tawqīʿāt that were
said to have been issued by the Imam in al-Qummī’s time, which are cited in
later works. Significantly, al-Qummī states that now that the Imam is in ghayba,

al-Baḥrānī, al-Burhān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 4:255; al-Ḥuwayzī, Tafsīr nūr al-thaqalayn, 4:109.
Cf. Hadith cited by al-ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, 1:64–5, that mentions, in part, that the
Mahdī will depart from Medina following the prophetic precedent of Moses, “ ‘fearful and
vigilant’ (Quran 28:18, 21) until he arrives in Mecca” (khāʾif an yataraqqab ḥattā yaqdam
Makka).
45 Al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, 2:134 n. 1.
46 [= hiya allatī lā yustasqā minhā wa-huwa al-imām alladhī qad ghāba fa-lā yuqtabas minhu
al-ʿilm]
47 Al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, 2:85. Also cited in al-Kāshānī, Tafsīr al-ṣāfī, 3:383; al-Baḥrānī,
al-Burhān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 3:893; al-Ḥuwayzī, Tafsīr nūr al-thaqalayn, 3:507; al-Majlisī,
Biḥār al-anwār, 24:101 (no. 5). On the basis of this hadith, al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 1:93–4
(referred to in Tūnihʾī, Mawʿūdnāmih, 150), lists “the deserted well” as one of the Hidden
Imam’s epithets. Al-ʿĀmilī l-Iṣfahānī, Muqaddimat tafsīr, 94, likewise interprets the well
as “ʿAlī, his walāya, the Silent Imam, the Hidden Imam, Fāṭima and her children [i.e., the
Imams] who have been cut off from earthly power.” Other Imāmī hadiths gloss the lofty
palace as the “speaking Imam” and the deserted well as the “silent Imam,” al-Ṣaffār al-
Qummī, Baṣāʾir al-darājāt, 505; al-Ṣadūq, Maʿānī l-akhbār, 111 (nos. 1–2); the lofty palace
as Muḥammad and the deserted well as ʿAlī, Ibn Shahrāshūb, Manāqib Āl Abī Ṭālib, 3:88
[this interpretation is also found in the early Ismāʿīlī work, al-Yaman (attrib.), Kitāb al-
Kashf, 50 (on this work, see below)]; the lofty palace as ʿAlī and the deserted well as Fāṭima
and the other Imams on account of their having been deprived of [earthly] sovereignty
(muʿaṭṭalīn min al-mulk), al-Ṣadūq, Maʿānī l-akhbār, 111 (no. 3). See also al-Baḥrānī, al-
Hidāya al-Qurʾāniyya, 1:432–5 (nos. 620–7). On the title amīr al-muʾminīn, see Marsham,
“Commander of the Faithful,” EI³ (online).
32 chapter 1

there is no way to receive knowledge (ʿilm) from him. Presumably, the ghayba of
knowledge (ghaybat al-ʿilm) is what has made it necessary for him to produce
a written commentary on the Quran, something that was not needed when the
Imam was present and his knowledge was accessible.48
The third and final reference to ghayba in al-Qummī’s tafsīr is similar to
the previous hadith and is found under his comments on Quran 67:30, “Say:
Have you considered? If water vanished into the ground, who would bring
you running water?’” Commenting on this verse, al-Qummī quotes the words
of an unnamed Imam: “If your Imam vanishes, who will bring you an Imam
like him?”49 This hadith is reiterated in al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī, al-Nuʿmānī’s Kitāb
al-Ghayba, and al-Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-dīn. The version found in Kamāl al-dīn
is ascribed to the sixth Imam, Muḥammad al-Bāqir (d. 114/732, 117/735 or 118/
736),50 and narrated on the authority of ʿAlī b. Abī Ḥamza al-Baṭāʾinī, showing
that it is likely of Wāqifī origin (on al-Baṭāʾinī and the Wāqifiyya, see below).
This version in Kamāl al-dīn is as follows: “This verse has been revealed about
the Qāʾim (nazalat fī l-qāʾim). When your Imam vanishes, you will not know
where he is. Who then will bring you an unconcealed Imam?”51 In other words,
if the Imam, who is analogous to water—the source of all life on earth—
disappears, God alone can cause him to appear again.52 What immediately
stands out is the fact that the vanished Imam and the unconcealed/manifest
Imam appear to be two different figures; this suggests that the hadith origi-
nated with the Wāqifī group that believed the Imam had died and would be
resurrected in the future as the Qāʾim. This belief is represented in several early
Shīʿī hadiths that are either omitted in many later works or included and ratio-
nalized. Perhaps the most significant of these is a curious hadith ascribed to
al-Ṣādiq stating that the Qāʾim will only appear after an interval or break in
the series of Imams (ʿalā fatratin min al-aʾimma), that is, after a period of time
when there are no Imams, just as the Prophet was raised after a break in the
sequence of messengers.53

48 This understanding anticipates the Akhbārī principle that after the ghayba of the Imam,
the only source of knowledge available to the believers is the hadiths of the Imams.
49 Al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, 2:379.
50 On him, see Madelung, “al-Bāqer, Abū Jaʿfar Moḥammad,” EIr, 3:725–6.
51 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 305 (no. 3) (all references to Kamāl al-dīn are to the Beirut 2004
edition unless otherwise specified); Ibn Bābūya, al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra1, 115–
6 (no. 105); al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 158.
52 On the various symbolic meanings of water in Islamic literature, see Zargar, “Water”; Law-
son, “Divine Wrath.”
53 [= kamā anna rasūl Allāh buʿitha ʿalā fatratin min al-rusul] Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:341 (no. 21);
al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 193. Cf. Quran 5:1. A different hadith with the same purport (i.e.,
that there will be a break or interregnum in the imamate) is categorically rejected in al–
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 33

Before concluding the discussion of the Qāʾim in Tafsīr al-Qummī, it is appro-

priate to discuss the well-known hadith of al-Khiḍr54 which is recorded in
al-Qummī’s commentary and has received significant attention from Western

Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 596. See also al-Shahrastānī (d. 548/1153–4), al-Milal wa-l-niḥal, 1:171,
who, based on earlier sources at his disposal, describes the various Shīʿī sects that split
after al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī and states that the eighth sect maintained that (1) al-ʿAskarī died
without issue; (2) those who claimed he had a surviving son were lying and deceitful; (3)
it is possible for God to remove ( yarfaʿ: lit., to raise; cf. Quran 4:158) the Proof (i.e., the
Imam) from the earth when the people are transgressing the sacred law (li-maʿāṣīhim); (4)
that the earth today is bereft of an Imam just as there was no prophet in the world in the
interval between the previous prophet (i.e., Jesus) and the raising/sending of Muḥammad
(wa-l-arḍ al-yawm bi-lā ḥujja kamā kānat al-fatra qabl mabʿath al-nabī). Cf. the descrip-
tion of the fourteenth sect of the factions that split after al-ʿAskarī in al-Ashʿarī al-Qummī
(d. 299/911–2 or 301/913–4), Kitāb al-Maqālāt, 114–5; the eighth sect in al-Nawbakhtī (d.
between 300/912–3 and 310/922–3), Kitāb Firaq al-Shīʿa, 85–6 [= al-Nawbakhtī, Shīʿa Sects
(trans. Kadhim), 159]; and the ninth sect in al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974), Sharḥ al-
akhbār, 3:313–5, who believed that al-ʿAskarī did not have a surviving son; rather, after his
death, the community entered a period in which there were no Imams on earth (al-arḍ
al-yawm bi-ghayr ḥujja), just as there were no prophets in the period before the appear-
ance of Muḥammad. Cf. also the highly original interpretation found in the early Ismāʿīlī
text attributed to Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman (attrib.), Kitāb al-Kashf, 79, in which ghayba is
interpreted as the interregnum between two speaker-prophets (hiya al-fatra allatī takūn
bayna al-nāṭiq wa-l-nāṭiq). The Kitāb al-Kashf is a compilation of six pre-Fatimid Ismāʿīlī
treatises on the interpretation of the Quran. See Madelung, “Das Imamat,” 52–8; Daftary,
Ismaili Literature, 122. On early Ismāʿīlī conceptions of fatra, see Hollenberg, Beyond the
Qurʾān, index, s.v. “fatra”; Hollenberg, “Neoplatonism in Pre-Kirmānīan Fāṭimid Doctrine.”
Cf. Ibn al-ʿArabī’s (d. 638/1240) intriguing statement that the Mahdī will appear after a long
break in the dīn ( yakhruj ʿalā fatratin min al-dīn). Ibn al-ʿArabī, al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya,
3:327. This passage is cited by Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. after 787/1385) in at least two of his works:
Āmulī, Jāmiʿ al-asrār, 441, and Āmulī, al-Muqaddamāt, 236; by [Mullā] Ṣadrā in his Sharḥ
uṣūl al-kāfī, 1:560; and by Ṣadrā’s student al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī in his hadith compendium,
al-Wāfī, 2:470, though none of these scholars adds his own comments to the passage. The
meaning of this statement by Ibn al-ʿArabī is unclear, but it may be related to the sentence
that immediately follows, that through the Mahdī God will lay down what has not been
laid down in the Quran.
54 Al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, 2:44–5. Al-Khiḍr (or al-Khaḍir) (lit., “the green man”) is the
name given to the legendary figure of Islamic lore commonly identified as the anony-
mous servant of God and spiritual guide who accompanied Moses and his companion
(Quran 18:59–81). See Krasnowolska, “Ḵeżr,” EIr (online); Renard, “Khaḍir/Khiḍr,” EQ, 3:81–
4; A.J. Wensinck “al-Khaḍir (al-Khiḍr),”EI², 4:902–5; Franke, Begegnung mit Khidr; Halman,
Where the Two Seas Meet. In Shīʿī works written to prove the ghayba of the Hidden Imam,
stories of al-Khiḍr are often cited as accounts of another holy figure whose life is mirac-
ulously prolonged by God and who lives in a perpetual state of concealment. For an
analysis of narrative stories about al-Khiḍr that were incorporated into the earliest sur-
viving ghayba works, see Yoshida, “Qiṣaṣ Contribution,” 91–104. See also Markwith, “The
Eliatic Function in the Islamic Tradition,” esp. 62–74; Cheetham, Green Man, Earth Angel,
34 chapter 1

scholars. In an older version of this hadith found in al-Barqī’s Kitāb al-Maḥāsin,

Imam ʿAlī (d. 40/661), his son al-Ḥasan (d. 50/670),55 and the Prophet’s com-
panion, Salmān al-Fārisī (d. 35/655–6 or 36/656–7),56 were greeted inside a
mosque by a mysterious stranger later identified by ʿAlī as “my brother al-Khiḍr.”
The stranger posed a number of questions to ʿAlī, who deflected them to al-
Ḥasan in order to test al-Ḥasan’s knowledge. Fully satisfied with the responses
he received, the stranger turned to ʿAlī and bore witness that he [ʿAlī] was
the Prophet’s successor (waṣī), that al-Ḥasan would in turn succeed him, fol-
lowed by the other Imams “until he came to the last of them (ḥatta atā ʿalā
ākhirihim).”57 Some scholars have suggested that this hadith, as found in al-
Qummī’s tafsīr, is the earliest text in which the names of all twelve Imams are
mentioned.58 Yet, as Amir-Arjomand points out, the hadith that occurs in al-
Qummī’s tafsīr does not mention the name of the twelfth Imam;59 nor does
it suggest that he will have a ghayba. It does not even explicitly say that the
Qāʾim is the son of the eleventh Imam. The precise wording is that the suc-
cessor of al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī (al-ʿAskarī, the eleventh Imam) is the eagerly awaited
(al-muntaẓar) Qāʾim who will fill the earth with justice and equity.60 The name
of the twelfth Imam is not mentioned in this hadith or in any of the extant
sources before al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī.
Finally, in Abū l-Naḍr Muḥammad al-ʿAyyāshī’s (fl. late third/ninth to mid-
fourth/tenth century)61 tafsīr, the extant copy of which covers the first eighteen
suras of the Quran,62 there are only two references to the ghayba. The first

122; Corbin, “Visionary Dream in Islamic Spirituality,” 390; and Brown, The Challenge of
Islam, 113.
55 On him, see Madelung, “Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib,” EIr, 12:26–8.
56 On him, see Levi Della Vida, “Salmān al-Fārisī or Salmān Pāk,” EI², 12:701–2; Savant, The
New Muslims, 61–89.
57 Newman, The Formative Period, 59.
58 Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 523 n. 2; Newman, The Formative Period, 85; Amir-Moezzi, Le
guide divin, 260 n. 566 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight), 216 n. 566]; cf.
Amir-Moezzi, “Islam in Iran vii. The concept of Mahdi in Twelver Shiʿism,” EIr, 14:137.
59 Amir Arjomand, “Imam Absconditus,” 11 n. 83.
60 Al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, 2:45. On the significance of the term waṣī in Shīʿī sources, see
E. Kohlberg, “Waṣī,” EI², 11:161–2.
61 On al-ʿAyyāshī, see Poonawala, “ʿAyyāšī, Abuʾl-Nażr Moḥammad,” EIr, 3:163–4; Fahimi
Tabar (trans. Melvin-Koushki), “Al-ʿAyyāshī,” EIO, where his dates are given as 260–329/
874–941, making him contemporaneous with the period of the Lesser Occultation; Bar-
Asher, Scripture and Exegesis, 56–8; Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran, 84–5;
Hamza, Rizvi, with Mayer (eds.), An Anthology, 26–7; Aḥmadīnizhād-Balkhī, “ʿAyyāshī
Samarqandī.”
62 As noted by Hamza, Rizvi, with Mayer (eds.), An Anthology, 27, his comments on later
verses are found in subsequent Shīʿī exegetical works.
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 35

is in a hadith ascribed to Imam ʿAlī about the Quranic figure Dhū l-Qarnayn.
After recounting that Dhū l-Qarnayn concealed himself from his people before
returning to them, ʿAlī declares, “and in your midst is one like him” (wa-fīkum
mithluhu).63 The phrase may have been understood as a proleptic reference
to the ghayba since Imāmī/Twelver sources consider the concealment of
Dhū l-Qarnayn a prophetic precedent for the ghayba of the Qāʾim.64 It is more
likely to have been understood as a reference to ʿAlī himself, as later Shīʿī (both
Imāmī/Twelver and Ismāʿīlī) texts identify Dhū l-Qarnayn as a typological pre-
figuration of ʿAlī.65
The only other reference in al-ʿAyyāshī’s tafsīr is a long hadith ascribed to al-
Bāqir which identifies “the distressed one” of Quran 27:62 as the eagerly awaited
Imam. Since this hadith deals directly with the issue of contact with the Imam,
it is instructive to cite the relevant section in full:

While pointing toward the region of Dhū Ṭuwā,66 al-Bāqir said, “The mas-
ter of this amr will hide in one of these gorges. Two nights before he
appears, the mawlā67 who is at his disposal will come and meet some of
his followers. He will ask them, ‘How many of you are here?’ They will
respond, ‘About forty.’ He will then ask, ‘What would you do if your Mas-
ter appeared at this very moment?’ And they will say, ‘By God, if he asks
us to move the mountains for him, we would not hesitate.’ The next night,
(the mawlā) will return to them and say, ‘Identify ten of your leaders and
the best among you.’ They will do so. He will leave with [these ten] and
they will meet their master, who will promise to see them the next night
[to make his khurūj/ẓuhūr?] .…”68

63 Al-ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, 2:339. Al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, 2:41, recorded this report
in his tafsīr as well and added the words yaʿnī nafsahu (meaning himself, i.e., ʿAlī) after wa-
fīkum mithluhu. Cf. hadith ascribed to al-Bāqir in al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 13:300 (no. 19).
64 See, for example, al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 357 (no. 1).
65 See, for example, Strothmann (ed.), Arbaʿat kutub Ismāʿīliyya, 138; al-Bursī, Mashāriq
anwār al-yaqīn, 257, 268; al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 26:6; al-Ḥusaynī, Manāqib-i Murtaḍā,
136, 153; al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 1:39.
66 Al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-buldān, 4:45, describes Dhū Ṭuwā as a place near Mecca. Shīʿī
sources identify it as a mountain near Mecca that serves at times as the residence of the
Hidden Imam. See Muḥsin Muʿīnī, “Dhī Ṭuwā,” DMT, 8:73–4; Arastu (trans.), al-Nudbah,
93 (n. 136). Ṭuwā is an enigmatic term mentioned twice in the Quran (Quran 20:12, 79:16)
as the name of a sacred valley where Moses encountered God. See Rubin, “Moses and
the Holy Valley Ṭuwan.” Brinner, “Ṭuwā,” EQ, 5:395–6, notes that Ṭuwā “has been defined
as something ‘twice done,’ as though folded, and medieval writers have said that ṭuwā is
‘twice sanctified, twice blessed and twice called,’ as God calls Moses.”
67 On the term mawlā, see chapter 2.
68 Al-ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, 2:56. Also cited in al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:341 (no. 91);
36 chapter 1

This hadith is also likely of Wāqifī origin. In a report that resembles the text
of this hadith, a believer meets the seventh Imam, Mūsā al-Kāẓim, and one of
his servants (khādim), and is told they have settled in Dhū Ṭuwā.69 The refer-
ence to gorges (shuʿāb) is likely meant to recall the story of Muḥammad con-
cealing himself in the ravine of Shiʿb Abī Ṭālib outside Mecca. In Shīʿī sources,
this account and the report of the time when the Prophet and Abū Bakr hid
in a cave on the journey to Yathrib, are adduced as evidence that Muḥammad
himself was forced into two periods of ghayba out of fear for his life.70
These few references notwithstanding, the fact that the above commentaries
are almost silent about the ghayba is peculiar, in particular in the case of al-
Qummī, who was one of al-Kulaynī’s teachers71 and whose name is found in
the chains of transmission (isnād, pl. asānīd) of no fewer than one-third of
the hadiths al-Kulaynī transmits in al-Kāfī, including most of the reports con-
cerning the Qāʾim and his ghayba.72 Three explanations can be offered for this
relative silence: (1) the genre of tafsīr was not deemed appropriate for trans-
mitting hadiths about the Qāʾim, and, instead, such hadiths were collected
and recorded in treatises and works on the ghayba that have not survived but
which are referred to in biographical and bibliographical works produced in the
next century;73 (2) some of the hadiths about the ghayba of the Qāʾim did not
exist or were not known to the above-mentioned Quran commentators, sug-
gesting that they were discovered or written later; or (3) it was not considered
necessary to elaborate on the doctrine of the ghayba, since the proto-Twelver
Shīʿa shared the same messianic beliefs in the Qāʾim as other contemporary

al-Baḥrānī, al-Burhān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 2:686 (no. 4273). A similar hadith with a different
chain of transmission is cited in al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 187 (no. 30).
69 Al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr, Dalāʾil al-imāma, 338–340 (no. 296).
70 See al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 92; al-Murtaḍā, Masʾala wajīza, 11 [translated in Sachedina, “A
Treatise on the Occultation,” 121]; al-Murtaḍā[/al-Shaykh al-Mufīd], al-Fuṣūl al-mukhtāra,
58; al-Ṭūsī, Talkhīṣ al-shāfī, 4:215–6; al-Muḥaqqiq al-Ḥillī, al-Maslak fī uṣūl al-dīn, 282;
Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 529; Kohlberg, “Taqiyya in Shīʿī Theology and Religion,” 349.
For the story of the Prophet hiding in Shiʿb Abī Ṭālib, see al-Majlisī, Ḥayāt al-qulūb, 3:795.
Cf. statement attributed to al-Ṣādiq in the Kitāb al-Haft wa-l-aẓilla, composed between
the second/eighth and fifth/eleventh centuries and transmitted by Nuṣayrī Shīʿa, which
confirms his father’s words that the master of the amr will conceal himself in a gorge ( fī
baʿḍ ashʿābikum) situated beyond the mountain of Qāf that encompasses the earth, al-Juʿfī
(attrib.), Kitāb al-Haft, 173. On Kitāb al-Haft wa-l-aẓilla, see Asatryan, “Shiite Underground
Literature Between Iraq and Syria.”
71 Amir-Moezzi, “ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-Qummī,” EI³ (online).
72 Ibrāhīmzādih, “Thiqat al-Islām Kulaynī,” 18.
73 A similar explanation has been advanced by Newman, The Formative Period, 84–5, for why
Baṣāʾir al-darajāt does not address the ghayba of the Imam.
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 37

Shīʿī groups, such as the followers of Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ (d. after 286/899),74 who
began his messianic and apocalyptic activities around the all-important year
of 260/874.75

2.1 Al-Baṭāʾinī and the Wāqifiyya

Since all of the hadiths concerning the ghayba that I discuss in the remaining
sections of this chapter and the next are likely of Wāqifī origin or explicitly
transmitted on the authority of known Wāqifīs, a brief overview of this sect is
in order. Wāqifiyya is a designation originally used in biographical and here-
siographical works for various groups of followers of the seventh Imam, Mūsā
al-Kāẓim (d. 183/799).76 Al-Kāẓim lived in Medina all of his life, with two excep-
tions: (1) He was briefly arrested by the Abbasid caliph Muḥammad b. Manṣūr
al-Mahdī (r. 158–169/775–785) and detained in the Abbasid capital of Baghdad
sometime between 163/779–80 and 166/782–3. According to al-Ṭabarī, after al-
Mahdī was chastised in a dream by ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, he immediately released al-
Kāẓim, who subsequently returned to Medina. (2) He was arrested again on the
order of the Abbasid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170–190/786–809) in 179/795–6
and once again brought to Baghdad, where he is said to have been killed at the
behest of the caliph in 183/799.77 The Wāqifīs (lit., “those who stop or put an end
to” [the imamate with al-Kāẓim]) were those among al-Kāẓim’s followers who
denied that al-Kāẓim had died, claiming instead that he escaped from prison
in Baghdad, went into hiding, and would reappear as the Qāʾim. Al-Kāẓim’s
absence from his followers in prison and his alleged concealment gave rise, for
the first time, to the idea of there being two periods of ghayba for the Qāʾim.78

74 On him, see Madelung, “Ḥamdān Ḳarmaṭ b. al-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲,” EI², 3:123–4; Madelung, “Ḥamdān
Qarmaṭ.”
75 On the Qarmaṭiyya, see Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs, 147–67; Daftary, Ismaili History and Intellec-
tual Traditions. On responses by Twelver scholars to the Qarmaṭiyya and Fatimid branches
of the Ismāʿīliyya, see chapter 3.
76 The best scholarly treatments of the Wāqifiyya are Buyukkara, “The Imami Shīʿī” and
Buyukkara, “The Schism.” See also Halm, Die Schia, 37–9; Halm, “al-Wāḳifa or al-Wāḳifiyya,”
EI²; Watt, “Sidelights on Early Imāmite Doctrine,” 295–6; Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi
Islam, 45, 56–7; Hussain, The Occultation, 39. For a traditional Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿī per-
spective on the sect, see al-ʿĀmilī al-Iṣfahānī, Ḍiyāʾ al-ʿālamīn, 2:335–7.
77 See Madelung, “Mūsā al-Kāẓim,” EI², 7:645.
78 Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 532. Cf. Amir Arjomand, “The Crisis,” 494; Amir Arjomand,
“Islamic Apocalypticism,” 263; and Amir-Moezzi, “Islam in Iran vii.,” EIr, 14:150: “It must be
emphasized that the concept of two occultations, the first shorter than the second, orig-
inated in the beliefs of the Wāqefis of the seventh Imam Mūsā al-Kāẓem.” At least some
Wāqifīs claimed that al-Kāẓim had in fact died (though was not killed) but was then res-
urrected from the dead and entered into a second ghayba. See al-Nawbakhtī, Kitāb Firaq
38 chapter 1

The key figure in this movement was Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Abī Ḥamza al-
Baṭāʾinī (d. ca. 201–2/816–8), a Kufan mawlā of the Anṣār who transmitted
hadith from al-Ṣādiq and al-Kāẓim.79 During al-Kāẓim’s time in Baghdad, al-
Baṭāʾinī served as his agent (wakīl). After the death of al-Kāẓim, al-Baṭāʾinī
was denounced by al-Kāẓim’s son ʿAlī al-Riḍā (d. 203/818), the eighth Imam
of Twelver/Imāmī Shīʿī Islam,80 for serving as one of the principal leaders of
the Wāqifiyya.81 Modarressi observes that al-Baṭāʾinī was reportedly the first to
claim that al-Kāẓim had not died—and could not die—because he was the
promised Qāʾim. Al-Baṭāʾinī thus openly opposed al-Riḍā’s claim to the suc-
cession of the imamate. According to later sources, as the financial agent of
al-Kāẓim, he and another agent of the Imam in Kufa had a large sum of money
(30,000 dīnārs according to a report mentioned by Ibn Bābūya82) in their pos-
session when al-Kāẓim died. Rather than hand over these funds to al-Riḍā,
these two agents kept the money83 and maintained that al-Kāẓim had in fact
not died but was simply in hiding. The fact that al-Kāẓim’s body was hung over
a bridge in Baghdad by the Abbasid caliph for public display84 did not prevent
Wāqifīs from refusing to deliver the khums tax to al-Riḍā.

al-Shīʿa, 68: “Some of them denied that he was killed. They said that he has died, that God
lifted him up to Himself (cf. Quran 4:158), and would send him back when he rises (from
the dead).”
79 Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, 183–7 (no. 32), states that al-Baṭāʾinī was “reportedly
the first to suggest that Mūsā al-Kāẓim did not die and to oppose ʿAlī al-Riḍā’s claim
to the succession.” See also al-Sayyārī, Revelation and Falsification, 79 n. 58; al-Najāshī,
Rijāl al-Najāshī, 249–50; al-Ṭūsī, al-Fihrist, 161–2 (no. 418); al-Ṭūsī, Ikhtiyār maʿrifat al-rijāl,
2:705, 706, 742, where al-Baṭāʾinī is denounced as “a doubt-filled liar”; al-Ḥillī, Khulāṣat al-
aqwāl, 181, 362–3, regards him as “extremely weak” (ḍaʿīf jiddan) [on Khulāṣat al-aqwāl, see
Schmidtke, The Theology of al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī, 68]; Buyukkara, “The Schism,” 86–7; Halm,
“Das “Buch der Schatten” [II],” 27; al-Khūʾī, Muʿjām rijāl al-ḥadīth, 12:234–51 (no. 7846). Al-
Baṭāʾinī’s son, Abū Muḥammad Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ḥamza al-Baṭāʾinī, was a Kufan mawlā
of the Anṣār, a Wāqifī, and the author of the lost works Kitāb al-Ghayba, Kitāb al-Qāʾim,
and Kitāb al-Fitan/al-malāḥim, presumably written in defense of the Wāqifī belief in the
ghayba of Mūsā al-Kāẓim and used by later scholars like al-Nuʿmānī. See al-Ṭūsī, Ikhtiyār
maʿrifat al-rijāl, 2:827, who denounces al-Baṭāʾinī’s son as “an accursed falsifier” (kadhdhāb
malʿūn), among other things; Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, 250–4 (no. 81); Modar-
ressi, Crisis and Consolidation, 45 n. 152, 87 n. 184.
80 On ʿAlī al-Riḍā, see Bayhom-Daou, “ʿAlī al-Riḍā,” EI³ (online).
81 By contrast, those who acknowledged with certainty that al-Kāẓim had died are referred to
as Qaṭʿiyya (those who “affirmed confidently” (qaṭaʿū ʿalā) the physical death of al-Kāẓim)
in the Shīʿī heresiographical works of al-Nawbakhtī and al-Ashʿarī al-Qummī.
82 Ibn Bābūya, al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra1, 75 (no. 66).
83 Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, 184; Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, 62; Sached-
ina, “The Significance of Kashshī’s Rijāl,” 203–4; Kohlberg, “Mūsā al-Kāẓim,” EI², 7:647–8.
84 Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 23. See also Amir Arjomand, “The Crisis,” 511 n. 24.
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 39

According to a report, after the passing of al-Kāẓim, one of his followers,

Abū Jarīr al-Qummī,85 appeared before al-Riḍā and asked whether he was the
new Imam or whether his father was still alive as alleged by many of his close
disciples (that is, the Wāqifīs).86 Al-Riḍā affirmed that al-Kāẓim had indeed
died. Al-Qummī then stated that some of the Shīʿa were claiming that al-Kāẓim
would manifest the prophetic precedent (sunna) of four prophets, alluding to
a hadith attributed to al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq in various forms that states, in part,
like Joseph, the Qāʾim will be concealed. Al-Riḍā again responded:

“I swear by God, beside whom there is no other God, that (al-Kāẓim)

perished (halaka)!”
Al-Qummī then asked, “Did he perish in the sense that he is now hiding
or did he perish in the sense that he is dead? (halāka ghaybatin aw
halāka mawtin).”
Al-Riḍā answered, “He perished in the sense of having died.”
Al-Qummī then asked, “Are you practicing taqiyya with me?”87
Al-Riḍā answered, “Good God! [That is not the case!]”
Al-Qummī said, “Did he appoint you as the executor of his will?”
Al-Riḍā said, “Yes.”
Al-Qummī said, “Did he appoint anyone else along with you [as execu-
tor of his will] ( fa-ashraka maʿak fīhā)?”
Al-Riḍā answered, “No.”
Al-Qummī said, “Are any of your brothers an Imam over you [that is, do
any of your brothers have a greater right than you to be an Imam]?”
Al-Riḍā said, “No.”
Al-Qummī finally asked, “Then, are you the Imam?”
Al-Riḍā said, “Yes!”88

As pointed out by Madelung, “Many, perhaps the majority, of the Kufan Imāmī
transmitters in the third/ninth century belonged to this sect [i.e., the Wāqi-
fiyya].”89 Later rijāl works identify al-Baṭāʾinī and several other hadith trans-

85 On him, see al-Sayyārī, Revelation and Falsification, 74 n. 47.

86 On Abū Jarīr al-Qummī, see al-Sayyārī, Revelation and Falsification, 74 n. 47.
87 By taqiyya here is meant the cautionary protection of a secret.
88 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:380, no. 1. In a different hadith, al-Riḍā exclaims, “Gracious God! The
Messenger of God died, but Mūsā [al-Kāẓim] cannot die? I swear by God, Mūsā passed
away (maḍā) just as the Messenger of God passed away.” Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:380 (no. 2).
A similar hadith, mentioned by al-Kashshī, is quoted in Modarressi, Crisis and Consolida-
tion, 88–9 n. 191.
89 Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran, 80.
40 chapter 1

mitters as Wāqifīs in a clear attempt to discredit them as untrustworthy trans-

mitters of hadith. However, as I show, this did not prevent authors of the ghayba
works from using hadiths transmitted on their authority about the Qāʾim and
his ghayba. I will return to the Wāqifiyya in the pages to come.

3 The Hadith Compilation of al-Kulaynī

Having considered the works produced prior to al-Kulaynī, I now turn to the
oldest extant work that includes accounts of those who saw and recognized
the Hidden Imam during the Lesser Occultation, namely, al-Kulaynī’s (d. 328–
9/940–1)90 hadith compendium, al-Kāfī, widely recognized as the most impor-
tant Imāmī Shīʿī work that has survived from the period of the Lesser Occulta-
tion.91 Al-Kulaynī was as outspoken as his predecessors were quiet on the issue
of the Imam’s ghayba.92 Of the thirty-one hadiths al-Kulaynī recorded in the
chapter on the ghayba in his Uṣūl al-kāfī, only three state that the Qāʾim will
have two distinct occultations. Throughout his work, al-Kulaynī mentions the
names of several individuals who served as the Imam’s deputies and agents
(wukalāʾ) in different regions, from Yemen to Nīshābūr. The agents collected
the khums and zakāt taxes from believers and carried messages to and from
the Imam.93 In a chapter entitled “the names of those who saw (the twelfth

90 On al-Kulaynī and his al-Kāfī, see Kohlberg, “Kolayni,” EIr (online), Madelung, “al-Kulaynī
(or al-Kulīnī),” EI², 5:362–363; Muḥammadzādih and Ṭāvūsī-Masrūr, “Kulaynī,” DMT, 14:
166–9; Kazemi-Moussavi, “Hadith ii. In Shiʿism,” EIr, 11:447–9; Ahmad, “Twelver Šīʿī ḥadīṯ,”
134–5; Newman, The Formative Period, passim; Akhtar, Early Shīʿite Imāmiyyah Thinkers, 1–
37; Amir-Moezzi and Ansari, “Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī,” 191–247; Arastu, “Preface,”
xi–xliii.
91 Amir Arjomand, “The Consolation of Theology,” 551. Al-Kāshānī, al-Wāfī, 1:5, for example,
praised al-Kāfī as “the most trustworthy and most complete” of the four main Shīʿī hadith
collections.
92 One of al-Kulaynī’s main sources for hadiths about the Qāʾim was a collection titled
Akhbār al-qāʾim passed down to him by his uncle.
93 See Newman, The Formative Period, 151. At that time, during the Lesser Occultation, some
individuals are said to have “corresponded with the (Hidden Imam) and asked him ques-
tions concerning various aspects of the sharia” (kātaba ṣāḥib al-amr wa-saʾalahu masāʾil
fī abwāb al-sharīʿa). Al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī, 354–5 (no. 949). Here al-Najāshī is refer-
ring to Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh b. Jaʿfar al-Ḥimyarī, known as Abū Jaʿfar al-Qummī (fl. late
third/ninth to early fourth/tenth century). A book entitled Kitāb al-Ghayba is attributed
to al-Ḥimyarī’s father, known as “Shaykh of the Qummīs,” but it has not survived. See
Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight), 216 (no. 566); Amir Arjomand, “The Cri-
sis,” 503.
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 41

Imam),”94 al-Kulaynī transmits fifteen separate reports (all but one from a sin-
gle transmitter) of believers who saw the Imam as an infant in Samarra or as
a youth in Mecca or between Mecca and Medina. Most of these reports are
brief, unembellished, and straightforward: so-and-so reported that he saw the
Hidden Imam as a boy during the lifetime of al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, or so-and-so
reported that he saw the Hidden Imam as a child or youth in Mecca. The fif-
teenth and final report in this chapter is noticeably different from those that
precede it, in that (1) it contains a clear narrative structure, and (2) the isnād
reverts to an anonymous source, namely, “one of the residents of al-Madāʾin.”95
Similar accounts appear and multiply in later works.96 Since this account is
representative of stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam from the Lesser
Occultation, it is useful to recount its details.
The narrator states that he traveled to Mecca to perform the hajj with one
of his companions. They arrive at the halting station (al-mawqif ) in the plain
of Arafat.97 Suddenly, they see a youth (shābb) seated on the ground, wearing
a cloth around his waist and yellow sandals on his feet. They are struck by the
fact that this youth does not show any of the strains of travel. A mendicant
approaches them, but they quickly wave him away. He moves on to the youth
and begs him for money. The youth picks up something from the ground and
hands it to him. The beggar prays for the youth fervently and for a long time.
The youth then disappears from their sight (ghāba). Intrigued, the narrator
and his companion approach the mendicant and ask to see what the youth
gave him. The beggar takes out a small piece of gold which they estimate to be
twenty mithqāls.98 The two immediately realize that the youth was their “mas-
ter” (mawlā), by whom the author means the Hidden Imam. They search for
him frantically but are unable to find him. They then ask their fellow pilgrims
to Mecca and Medina whether they knew anything about this young man. They

94 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:329–32.

95 [= baʿḍ ahl al-madāʾin] Al-Madāʾin (previously Ctesiphon) was a metropolis on the Tigris
River that declined in importance after the founding of Baghdad. See Streck and Morony,
“al-Madāʾin,” EI², and Morony, “Madāʾen,” EIr (online). According to Muḥarramī, Tārīkh-
i tashayyuʿ, 181, most of the residents were Shīʿī or pro-ʿAlids during the first/seventh to
third/ninth centuries.
96 See al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 399–435 (chapter 44: “mention of those who saw him [the
Hidden Imam] and spoke with him”); al-Mufīd, al-Irshād fī maʿrifat ḥujaj Allāh ʿalā l-
ʿibād, 2:351–4 (“mention of those who saw the twelfth Imam, and some of his proofs and
evidences”); al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 253–80; al-Qazwīnī, al-Imām al-Mahdī, 187–93; al-
Ṣadr, Tārīkh al-ghayba al-ṣughrā, 566–90; al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-Shīʿa, 2:70–1; Ghaemmaghami,
“Numinous Vision,” 51–76.
97 On the significance of the halting station (al-mawqif ), see Wensinck, “Mawḳif,” EI², 6:874.
98 One mithqāl is equivalent to 3.4 ounces, or 4.8 grams.
42 chapter 1

learn that he is “a youth and a descendant of ʿAlī (shābb ʿalawī) who performs
the hajj on foot each year.”99
Amir-Moezzi argues that such reports of sightings of and encounters with
the Hidden Imam found in al-Kāfī were aimed, principally, at proving that
the eleventh Imam had a surviving son who was the expected Qāʾim.100 These
reports, however, were atypical. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Bābūya (d. 329/940–1; the
father of al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq), who died near the end of the Lesser Occultation,
for instance, did not cite a single account of a sighting of the Hidden Imam in
his al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra, a work written, as the title suggests,
to dissipate the confusion of believers who had fallen into uncertainty about
the existence or identity of the twelfth Imam.101 There are also no accounts,
or any mention of the Hidden Imam, in one of the few works to have survived
from the period of the Lesser Occultation, namely, al-Ṭabarī al-Imāmī’s (fl. early
fourth/tenth century) al-Mustarshad fī l-imāma.102 Some three decades after

99 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:332 (no. 15). Also referred to in al-Kāshānī, al-Wāfī, 2:401 (no. 899); al-
Bāḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-walī, 64 (no. 33), 276 (114); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:59–60 (no. 43)
[= al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī), 799]; al-Majlisī, Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, 317; Amir-
Moezzi, Le guide divin, 281; Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la Typologie,” 114. A similar
account is summarized in Sell, Ithna ʿAshariyya, 55–6. For a comparison of this and sim-
ilar stories with a widely known version of a hadith describing the Prophet’s encounter
with God in the form of a handsome youth (shābb) wearing yellow sandals, see Ghaem-
maghami, “Numinous Vision,” 51–76.
100 Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la Typologie,” 110, 121.
101 Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la Typologie,” 114. On Ibn Bābūya and al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira
min al-ḥayra, see Ansari, L’imamat, 18–27. Ibn Bābūya is said to have been in contact
with the third and fourth emissaries of the Hidden Imam. See Ibn Bābūya, al-Imāma
wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra2, 38 (from the editor’s introduction). According to an account
often cited in hagiographical sources, both of Ibn Bābūya’s sons were born as a result of
a prayer offered by the Hidden Imam. This type of story was meant to affirm the inter-
cessory power of the Hidden Imam (and by extension, all members of the ahl al-bayt at
whose shrines believers recite prayers for intercession). Ibn Bābūya, al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira
min al-ḥayra2, 22 (from the editor’s introduction); al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 321 (no. 267);
Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, 201 n. 98; Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution
à la Typologie,” 18. Amir-Moezzi adds that Ibn Bābūya (the father) cited messages in his
al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra that were transmitted by the Hidden Imam through
his emissaries and representatives. The chapter in which these messages appear (called
bāb imāmat al-Qāʾim) is in fact part of an addendum (mustadrak) to the manuscript of al-
Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra. This addendum is composed of reports transmitted on
the authority of Ibn Bābūya in the works of his son, al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq. This addendum
was added to the Qum edition [Ibn Bābūya, al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra1]. It does
not appear in the earliest manuscript or in the later Beirut edition of the text [Ibn Bābūya,
al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra2].
102 Al-Ṭabarī al-Imāmī, a contemporary of al-Kulaynī, wrote al-Mustarshad to prove the ima-
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 43

the start of the Greater Occultation, matters appear to have changed rather
quickly; at the time, a report cited by al-Ṣadūq mentions the names of sixty-
eight individuals who saw the Hidden Imam or witnessed his miracles during
the Lesser Occultation.103
The authors of numerous Shīʿī hagiographies put forward the claim that not
only was al-Kulaynī in contact with the Hidden Imam, but that his al-Kāfī was
sanctioned by the Imam or one of his emissaries, attributing an oft-cited saying
to the Imam: “Al-Kāfī suffices our followers” (al-kāfī kāfin li-shīʿatinā).104 How-
ever, there is no historical evidence to support these apocryphal claims. This
saying, attributed to the Hidden Imam, is not mentioned in any early work

mate of ʿAlī. The scholar should not be confused with al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr (on whom, see
chapter 4). Several other works where one might expect to find accounts of Lesser Occul-
tation encounters do not contain any such reports, e.g., al-Rāzī’s (fl. fourth/tenth century)
Kifāyat al-athar fī al-naṣṣ ʿalā al-aʾimma al-ithnā ʿashar, written to prove the investiture of
the twelve Imams. The only hadith in this work that speaks of someone seeing the Hid-
den Imam is the following, attributed to al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī: “Praise be to God who did
not cause me to leave the world before showing me my successor, he who most resem-
bles the Messenger of God in his physical appearance as well as in his character (khalqan
wa-khulqan). May God protect him during his ghayba and cause him to appear so that
he may fill the earth with equity and justice even as it has been filled with injustice and
tyranny.” Al-Rāzī, Kifāyat al-athar, 291. On this work and its author, who is frequently
referred to as al-Khazzāz al-Rāzī, see ibid., 6–11; Ansari, L’ imamat, 98–105; Amir-Moezzi,
Le guide divin, 56 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight), 22]. Al-Rāzī does
transmit a number of apocalyptic hadiths about the Mahdī, perhaps none more impor-
tant than a hadith ascribed to the Prophet identifying where the Imam will appear. This
hadith stipulates that when the world is filled with confusion and chaos (harjan marjan),
God will grant the Qāʾim permission to manifest himself from a village in Yemen called
Karʿa. The Qāʾim will then emerge wearing a turban, entrusted with the sword of Prophet
Muḥammad, and preceded by a caller (cf. Quran 50:41) who will proclaim to the world:
“This is the Mahdī, the caliph of God! Follow him!” See al-Rāzī, Kifāyat al-athar, 150–1.
Other manuscripts of this work have Akraʿa, Karīma, and Karīmah instead of Karʿa. Al-
Rāzī, Kifāyat al-athar, 150 n. 7. This hadith is widely cited in Sunnī sources in various
forms, e.g., al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-buldān, 4:452. See also Cook, Studies in Muslim Apoc-
alyptic, 179. An account of an encounter with an old man who is identified as the Mahdī
identifies his location as Karʿa. Al-Bayāḍī (d. 877/1472–3), al-Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm, 2:261. Cf.
al-ʿĀmilī al-Iṣfahānī, Ḍiyāʾ al-ʿālamīn, 2:243, where the old man is identified as a youth
(shābb).
103 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 406–7 (no. 16); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:30–31 (no. 26). Al-
Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī adds to this list some 240 other individuals who are said to have seen the
Imam during the Lesser Occultation. Al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:446–52. Also referenced by
Gulpāyigānī, Muntakhab al-athar, 377–81. Modern works thus mention over 300 people
who are said to have seen the Hidden Imam during the Lesser Occultation. See al-Zanjānī
al-Najafī, ʿAqāʾid al-imāmiyya, 1: 248; Ṭayyib, Kalim al-ṭayyib, 537.
104 See Ibrāhīmzādih, “Thiqat al-Islām Kulaynī,” 21.
44 chapter 1

or collection of the Imam’s tawqīʿāt. Muḥammad Taqī al-Majlisī (d. 1070/1659–

60) cites a passage that resembles it, “Al-Kāfī is sufficient for knowing the
Imams” (al-kāfī kāfin fī maʿrifat al-aʾimma),105 though al-Majlisī does not attri-
bute these words to the Hidden Imam. More importantly, al-Kulaynī and his
students do not allude to his having encountered the Hidden Imam. Al-Kulay-
nī’s decision to spend twenty years of his life producing a voluminous compi-
lation of some 16,000 Shīʿī hadiths meant to serve as an authoritative guide on
theology and fiqh was itself inspired by the belief that the Imam was no longer
accessible to the majority of his followers.106 Indeed, al-Kulaynī himself, in the
introduction to al-Kāfī, bemoans the fact that “knowledge in its entirety has
nearly dried up and been cut off from its source, for people are content to rely
on ignorance and to let knowledge and scholars waste away.”107

4 The Hidden Imam: Unseen and Unrecognized

The overwhelming majority of hadiths and reports found in al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī

and the earliest surviving ghayba apologias maintain that the Qāʾim cannot be
seen or recognized during his ghayba in general and in the second or longer
ghayba in particular. At the outset, it must be said that there are clear con-
tradictions in these sources. These inconsistencies reflect the ḥayra (the crisis
of mass confusion, uncertainty, helplessness, loss and perplexity) that reigned
after the sudden and unexpected death of the young eleventh Imam.108 The
chapter on the ghayba in al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī, for example, cites conflicting
hadiths, at times from the same people, about the year of the birth of the
twelfth Imam109 and the number of ghaybas (one or two) he would experi-
ence.110
One of the most glaring discrepancies concerns the length of his absence.
According to a rare hadith ascribed to al-Ṣādiq, “The master of this amr will
have two ghaybas. One of them will be longer than the other. The first (ghayba)

105 Al-Majlisī, Rawḍat al-muttaqīn, 13:262.

106 Arastu, “Preface,” xxiv–xxviii, provides several responses to the claim that al-Kāfī was
approved by Hidden Imam or his representatives.
107 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:5. Translation cited from al-Kulaynī, al-Kafi: The Earliest and Most
Important Compilation of Traditions from Prophet Muhammad and His Successors (trans.
Islamic Texts Institute), 1:xlviii.
108 Al-Rāzī, Kifāyat al-athar, 193.
109 See Newman, The Formative Period, 150.
110 See Newman, The Formative Period, 120, 139 (nn. 17–8); Newman, “Between Qumm and the
West,” 95.
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 45

will last forty days while the other (ghayba) will last six months or something
close to that.”111 By contrast, a hadith ascribed to ʿAlī stipulates that there will
be one ghayba that will last “six days, six months, or six years.”112
The hadiths likewise present a conflicting picture about the nature of the
ghayba. On the one hand, there are hadiths that explicitly state that the Imam
cannot be seen. This of course is the meaning of ghayba, a verbal-noun that
denotes “to vanish; to be or become absent, hidden, or concealed from sight.”
According to a hadith ascribed to al-Riḍā, after he enters into ghayba, in order
to seek refuge and be protected from his enemies, the Qāʾim’s “body will not be
seen and he will not called by his name until all of creation sees him, his name
is announced, and [everyone] hears it.”113
When Muḥammad b. Ziyād al-Azdī114 asked al-Kāẓim about the passage “and
He has lavished upon you His blessings, both outwardly and inwardly?” (Quran
31:20), the seventh Imam declared: “The outward blessing is the unconcealed
Imam while the inward blessing is the hidden Imam .… His body will be con-
cealed from the eyes of men, but his remembrance will not be absent from
the hearts of the believers. He is the twelfth from among us.”115 A well-known
hadith ascribed to the Prophet states that the Imam “will be concealed from
his Shīʿa and his closest friends/initiates.”116 The Prophet goes on to say that
during the ghayba, the Imam’s partisans will be illuminated by his light and

111 Al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr, Dalāʾil al-imāma, 535 (no. 519). This hadith is not mentioned by any
other scholar, before or after al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr (on whom, see chapter 3).
112 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:338 (no. 7). Later scholars, obviously concerned by the phrase, “six
days, six months or six years,” altered it to “a period of time” or omitted it altogether. See
Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, 87, 103 n. 259. To the sources mentioned by Modar-
ressi in this note can be added al-Shaykh al-Mufīd, al-Ikhtiṣāṣ, 209.
113 [= lā yurā jismuhu wa-lā yusammā bismihi aḥad baʿda ghaybatihi ḥattā yarāhu wa-yuʿlan
bismihi wa-yasmaʿahu kull al-khalq] Al-Khaṣībī, al-Hidāya al-kubrā, 364. Other forms of
this hadith occur in al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:333 (no. 3); Ibn Bābūya, al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira
min al-ḥayra1, 117; al-Masʿūdī (attrib.), Ithbāt al-waṣiyya, 266; al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 587
(no. 2); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 51:33 (no. 12); al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Ithbāt al-hudā, 5:93
(no. 179), 5:107 (no. 226), 5:208 (no. 754).
114 Muḥammad b. Abī ʿUmayr Ziyād b. ʿĪsā Abū Aḥmad al-Azdī. On him, see al-Najāshī,
Rijāl al-Najāshī, 326–7 (no. 887); Ibn Dāwūd, Rijāl Ibn Dāwūd, 159–60 (no. 1272); al-Khūʾī,
Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 15:291–306 (no. 10043); Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, index,
s.v. “Ibn Abī ʿUmayr.”
115 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 344 (no. 6). Also cited in al-Rāzī, Kifāyat al-athar, 270; al-Kāshānī,
Nawādir al-akhbār, 225; al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 51:150 (no. 2). Cf. al-Nīlī, Muntakhab al-
anwār al-muḍīʾa, 39–40; al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār 51:64; al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Ithbāt al-hudā,
5:195 (no. 676), 5:210 (no. 762).
116 [= yaghīb ʿan shīʿatihi wa-awliyāʾihi]
46 chapter 1

benefit from his walāya in the same way that people draw benefit from the sun
when it is hidden behind the clouds.117 This hadith was clearly meant to con-
vey the idea that the benefits of the imamate continue even though he may be
absent. Similarly, a long hadith ascribed to ʿAlī implies that the Hidden Imam
is omnipresent but cannot be seen:

He moves from east to west, listening to the people and greeting them. He
sees but is not seen. [In this manner, he passes time] until the [appointed]
hour [cf. Quran 15:38, 38:81] [when] the promise [will be fulfilled] [cf.
Quran 21:97] and the call of the one who calls from the sky [cf. Quran
50:41] [will be heard]. Truly, on that day, blissful joy [cf. Quran 76:11] will
be the lot of the progeny of ʿAlī and his Shīʿa.118

Other hadiths recorded by al-Ṣadūq compare the Shīʿa to cattle searching for
pasture yet unable to find it.119 Still other hadiths state that the Imam “will
not appear to them [i.e., his followers], and they will not know his location.”120
Similar hadiths that “none will see him” ( fa-lā yarāhu aḥad) or “his body/per-

117 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 241 (no. 3); Subḥānī, Manshūr-i ʿaqāyid-i imāmiyyih, 177 [= Sob-
hani, Doctrines of Shiʿi Islam (trans. Shah-Kazemi), 117]; al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-Shīʿa, 2:62; Amir-
Moezzi, Le guide divin, 282 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight), 116]. A differ-
ent hadith attributes the same words to al-Ṣādiq. See al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 199 (no. 22).
Moreover, a similar expression is found in a tawqīʿ attributed to the Hidden Imam and
produced by the second safīr, Muḥammad b. ʿUthmān al-ʿAmrī (this may have been the
last tawqīʿ that was transmitted by the second safīr, sometime around the year 281/895),
recorded in al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 292, and translated in Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering
in Islām, 221: “As for the benefits that can accrue from me during my ghayba, they are
like those of the sun when clouds hide it from the sight of men.” For other translations
of this hadith, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 282 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide
(trans. Streight), 116]; Amir Arjomand, “Imam Absconditus,” 4; Amir Arjomand, “The Cri-
sis,” 502–3. Cf. the well-known prophetic hadith transmitted in Sunnī hadith collections
on the authority of Abū Hurayra (d. ca. 58/678), the famous companion of the Prophet
Muḥammad: “The people said to the Messenger of God: ‘O Messenger of God! Will we
see our Lord on the Day of Resurrection?’ He responded: ‘Do you have any trouble seeing
the moon when it is full?’ (hal tuḍārrūn fī ruʾyat al-qamar laylat al-badr) They said no. He
asked them, ‘Do you have any trouble [seeing] the sun when it is not covered by clouds?’
(hal tuḍārrūn fī l-shams laysa dūnahā saḥāb) They said no. He said: ‘You will behold [God]
in the same manner that you see the sun and the moon.’” Al-Nīshābūrī, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, 1:112;
and cf. ibid., 1:114–5; 8:216.
118 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 146.
119 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 286 (no. 12), 286–7 (no. 14).
120 Ibn Bābūya, al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra1; al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 165 (no. 1); al-
Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 457 (no. 468).
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 47

son/corporeal form will not be seen” (lā yurā shakhṣuhu) are found throughout
the earliest sources on the ghayba of the Imam.121
Rather than expect to see the Imam, the Shīʿa are exhorted to wait patiently
for his appearance (ẓuhūr), inasmuch as his appearance will relieve them from
sorrow. Yearning for the Imam’s deliverance from trials and tribulations (intiẓār
al-faraj) is “the best of acts” (afḍal aʿmāl) and the greatest mode of worship-
ing God.122 Indeed, one of the purposes of intiẓār (waiting expectantly for the
appearance of the Imam) is to test (tamḥīṣ, imtiḥān) the faith of the Shīʿa.123

4.1 The Hidden Imam: Unseen and Unrecognized on Pilgrimage

A number of hadiths state that the Imam attends the pilgrimage to Mecca each
year, thereby suggesting that he lives among the people incognito. According
to a hadith ascribed to al-Ṣādiq, “the year that the master of this amr does not
attend pilgrimage, the pilgrimage of the people is not accepted.”124 This hadith
is likely meant to emphasize that the Imam, whether physically or spiritually,
does in fact attend the pilgrimage each year.
A set of four hadiths likewise attributed to al-Ṣādiq and transmitted on the
authority of Zurāra b. Aʿyān (d. 148–9/765–7)125 (or his son ʿUbayd126) affirm

121 Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 237; al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 353 (no. 1). In a passage found in
a well-known hadith transmitted on the authority of al-Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUmar al-Juʿfī, al-
Ṣādiq states that after the Imam enters into hiding, “no eye will see him until every person
and every eye sees him” ( fa-lā tarāhu ʿayn ḥattā yarāhu kull aḥad wa-kull ʿayn). Al-Ḥillī,
Mukhtaṣar baṣāʾir al-darajāt, 440; al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār 53:6. See also al-Aḥsāʾī, al-
Arbaʿūn ḥadīthan, 267.
122 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 584 (no. 3). See also the other hadiths in the same chapter, entitled
bāb mā ruwiya fī thawāb al-muntaẓir li-l-faraj as well as the hadiths mentioned al-Kāshānī,
Nawādir al-akhbār, 249–51 (bāb intiẓār al-faraj fī ghaybatihi). On the Shīʿī conception of
intiẓār, see Turner, Islam without Allah?, 194–215; Turner, “Still Waiting for the Imam?”, 29–
47.
123 See, e.g., al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 339–40 (nos. 286–8); al-Kāshānī, Nawādir al-akhbār,
251–2 (bāb al-tamḥīs).
124 [= al-ʿām alladhī lā yashhad ṣāḥib hādhā l-amr al-mawsim lā yuqbal min al-nās ḥajjuhum]
Al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr, Dalāʾil al-imāma, 487 (no. 485); al-Baḥrānī, Ḥilyat al-abrār, 6:283
(no. 7); al-Baḥrānī adds that Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (known as al-Shahīd al-Thānī) (d. 965/
1557–8 or 966/1558–9) has mentioned (a hadith?) in his Manāsik that states that when the
master of the amr attends the pilgrimage, Iblīs does not.
125 Abū l-Ḥasan Zurāra b. Aʿyan b. Sunsun, a Kufan who transmitted hadith from al-Bāqir
and al-Ṣādiq, is numbered among the first Shīʿī mutakallimūn in heresiographical and
bio-bibliographical sources. He is identified by Modarressi as “the most prominent Shīʿite
scholar of his generation.” Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, 404–5. See also Sachedina,
“The Significance of Kashshī’s Rijāl,” 198–202 (section titled “Zurārah ibn Aʿyān”); Amir-
Moezzi, Le guide divin, 35; Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, 77.
126 ʿUbayd b. Zurāra b. Aʿyan was a hadith transmitter from Kufa. On him, see Modarressi,
Tradition and Survival, 383–4.
48 chapter 1

that while the Imam, or more specifically the Qāʾim, is present on pilgrimage
and sees and recognizes the pilgrims, they are incapable of seeing him:

ُ ‫( يفَ ْ ق ِد ُ ٱل َن ّا‬١)
َ‫س ِإم َام َه ُْم ي َش ْه َد ُ ٱل ْموَ ْس ِم َ ف َيرَ َاه ُْم و َل َا يرَ َْونه‬

(1) The people will miss their Imam. He will attend the hajj festival (al-
mawsim) and see them, but they will not see him.127

َ ‫ى ٱل َن ّا‬
َ‫س و َل َا يرَ َْونه‬ ِ ‫( ل ِل ْق َاِئِم غ َي ْب َت َا‬٢)
َ َ‫ن ي َش ْه َد ُ ف ِي ِإحْد َاه ُم َا ٱل ْموَ َاس ِم َ ير‬
ٰ
(2) The Qāʾim will have two ghaybas. During one of them, he will attend
the hajj festivals. He will see the people, but they will not see him.128

ُ ‫( يفَ ْ تقَ ِد ُ ٱل َن ّا‬٣)

َ‫س ِإم َام ًا ي َش ْه َد ُ ٱل ْموَ َاس ِم َ يرَ اَ ه ُْم و َل َا يرَ َْونه‬

(3) The people will miss an Imam. He will attend the hajj festivals. He will
see [the people], but they will not see him.129

127 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:337–8 (no. 6). Also cited in al-Ḥalabī, Taqrīb al-maʿārif, 432; al-
Kāshānī, al-Wāfī, 2:413 (no. 917); al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Ithbāt al-hudā, 5:55 (no. 19). The same
matn with a slightly different isnād is cited by al-Ṣadūq in the chapter of his work on
hadiths ascribed to al-Ṣādiq concerning the Qāʾim and his ghayba, al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-
dīn, 330 (no. 49). For a slightly different version of the hadith with similar isnād recorded
by al-Ṣadūq on the authority of his father, see al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn 325 (no. 34), 404
(no. 7); also cited in al-Baḥrānī, Ḥilyat al-abrār, 6:281 (no. 2); Rayshahri, The Scale of Wis-
dom, 253. This hadith is also found in al-Ṣadūq’s father’s work, Ibn Bābūya, al-Imāma
wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra1, 126. The same hadith is also cited by al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba,
161 (no. 119), and al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr, Dalāʾil al-imāma, 482 (no. 477), 531 (no. 509). Al-
Majlisī, Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, 4:42, considered this hadith weak (ḍaʿīf ) but nonetheless men-
tions the various versions in his Biḥār al-anwār, 52, 151–2 (no. 2). For the Persian trans-
lation, see Qazvīnī-Khurāsānī, Bayān al-furqān, 899. The verb yafqid means “to lose” and
“to miss” and is found in the Quranic story of Joseph (Q 12:71–2). Other hadiths use
the same verb: a hadith ascribed to al-Kāẓim begins with “When the fifth descendant
of the seventh goes missing ( fuqida) …”, al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 156 (no. 11); another
hadith states “The master of this amr will be missed for a time …” (ṣāḥib hādhā l-amr
yufqad zamānan), al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 162 (no. 5). A form of this verb is found in
a rare report in which al-Ṣādiq, after traveling with a follower to a mysterious island,
tells his companion that whenever an Imam goes missing (uftuqida), rather than die,
the Imam travels to the island and waits there for the time of his return (see chap-
ter 4).
128 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:339 (no. 12); al-Baḥrānī, Ḥilyat al-abrār, 6:281–2 (no. 3); Klemm, “Die
vier sufarāʾ,” 142; Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 84.
129 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 180 (no. 13); al-Aḥsāʾī, al-Arbaʿūn ḥadīthan, 266–9. Hadiths 1 and 3
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 49

َ ‫ن ه ُو َ ي َش ْه َد ُ ٱل ْموَ َاس ِم َ يرَ َى ٱل َن ّا‬

‫س‬ ْ ‫جُع ف ِي ِإحْد َاه ُم َا و َف ِي ٱْلُأ‬
َ ْ ‫خر َى ل َا ي ُْدر َى َأ ي‬ ّ َ ‫( ِإ‬٤)
ِ ْ َ‫ن ل ِل ْق َاِئِم غ َي ْب َت َي ْنِ ير‬
ٰ
َ‫و َل َا يرَ َْونه‬

(4) The Qāʾim will have two ghaybas. He will return in one of them, while
in the second, it will not be known where he is. He will attend the hajj
festivals and see the people, but they will not see him.130

5 The Hidden Imam: Seen but Not Recognized

Alongside the hadiths stating that the Imam cannot be seen are hadiths and
reports that maintain that he can be seen without being recognized as the
Imam. We cannot but notice the contrast between the four hadiths above,
which explicitly state that the Imam cannot be seen during the pilgrimage,
and the following report attributed to Muḥammad b. ʿUthmān al-ʿAmrī (d.
ca. 305/917), later canonized as the second of the four official emissaries
(sufarāʾ) of the Hidden Imam during the Lesser Occultation:

speak generically about an Imam, but al-Kulaynī, al-Nuʿmānī, and all of the scholars who
followed them clearly believed that they applied to the Qāʾim. The first three hadiths have
the name of Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad b. Mālik b. ʿĪsā b. Sābūr al-Fazārī in the isnād, a Kufan
mawlā of Asmāʾ b. Khārija b. Ḥisn al-Fazārī whom al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī, 122 (no. 313),
calls a weak reporter of hadith: “Aḥmad b. Ḥusayn said that he used to grossly fabricate
hadith ( yaḍaʿ al-ḥadīth waḍʿan) and report from unknown persons. I heard someone say
that he believed in corrupt doctrines and was misguided in his narration of hadith” ( fāsid
al-madhhab wa-l-riwāya). According to Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, 22, the term
fāsid al-madhhab sometimes designates those “who split from the community and estab-
lished their own heretical sects on the basis of their interpretations.” Ibn al-Ghaḍāʾirī (fl.
mid. fifth century/eleventh century), al-Rijāl li-Ibn al-Ghaḍāʾirī, 48 (no. 27), called him a
liar (kadhdhāb) who held doctrines exaggerating the station of the Imams (wa-fī mad-
hhabihi irtifāʿ) and stated that he transmitted hadiths from weak and unknown narrators.
On this basis, he ruled that all the hadiths he narrated should be rejected (matrūk al-ḥadīth
jumlatan). (The expressions ahl al-irtifāʿ and fī madhhabihi irtifāʿ were used in early Shīʿī
rijāl works to describe the Mufawwiḍa. See Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, 24–5.)
Al-Ṭūsī, Rijāl al-Ṭūsī, 418 (no. 6037), says that he was formerly trustworthy but certain peo-
ple caused him to become a weak transmitter (thiqa wa-yuḍaʿʿifuhu qawm) and that he
narrated many strange things about the birth of the Qāʾim.
130 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 181 (no. 15); al-Baghdādī, Tārīkh al-aʾimma wa-wafayātihim, 265.
For the Persian translation, see Dhākirī, “Irtibāṭ bā imām-i zamān,” 67; Amīnī, Dādgustar-i
jahān, 204 [= Amini, al-Imām al-Mahdī (trans. Sachedina), 209]. On hadiths of the Imam
attending the pilgrimage, see also al-Ṣaffār al-Najafī, Mawsūʿat al-imām, 6:146.
50 chapter 1

ِ‫ي ع َْن م ُح َم ّد‬

ّ ُ ِ َ‫جعْف ٍَر اْلح ِميْ ر‬ ُ ْ ‫ل ح ََّدث َن َا ع َب ْد ُ ٱلل ّٰه ُب‬
َ ‫ن‬ َ ‫ل ر َض ِيَ ٱلل ّٰه ُع َن ْه ُ ق َا‬ ُ ْ ‫ح ََّدث َن َا م ُح َم ّد ُ ب‬
ِ ِ ّ‫ن م ُوس َى ب ِْن ٱل ْم ُتوَ َك‬
َ ‫ب ه َذ َا ٱْلَأْمر ِ ل َي َْحض ُر ُ ٱل ْموَ ْس ِم‬
َ ‫ح‬
ِ ‫صا‬ ّ َ ‫ل و َٱلل ّٰه ِ ِإ‬
َ ‫ن‬ ُ ‫ل سَم ِعْتهُ ُ يقَ ُو‬
َ ‫ي ر َض ِيَ ٱلل ّٰه ُع َن ْه ُ ق َا‬
ِ ّ ِ‫ب ِْن ع ُث ْم َانَ ٱل ْع َْمر‬

َ ‫ى ٱل َن ّا‬
َ‫س و َ يعَ ْرِفهُ ُْم و َيرَ َْونهَ ُ و َل َا يعَ ْرِفوُ نه‬
ٰ
َ َ‫سنةَ ٍ ف َير‬ ّ َ ُ‫ك‬
َ ‫ل‬

I swear to God! The master of this amr attends the hajj festival every year.
He sees the people and recognizes them, and they see him but do not rec-
ognize him.131

In reports and hadiths of this kind that affirm that the Hidden Imam can be
seen but not recognized, the Qāʾim is often compared to the Prophet Joseph. In
fact, as we began to see earlier, no other prophet, with the possible exception
of Muḥammad, is compared more often to the Qāʾim than Joseph. The Qāʾim
“will have a ghayba like the ghayba of Joseph.”132 A hadith of likely Wāqifī ori-
gin ascribed to al-Ṣādiq and transmitted by al-Baṭāʾinī predicts that just as God

131 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 404 (no. 8); al-Ṣadūq, Man lā yaḥḍuruhu al-faqīh, 2:520; al-Ṭūsī,
Kitāb al-Ghayba, 363–4 (with minor differences); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:152 (no. 4;
from Kamāl al-dīn) [= al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Urūmiyyih-ʾī), 1:747–8]; al-
Baḥrānī, Ḥilyat al-abrār, 6:282 (no. 4); Ṣamadī, “Barrasī-i masʾalih-yi,” 196; Amir Arjomand,
“Imam Absconditus,” 2. According to two reports transmitted by the same narrator in al-
Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-dīn, al-ʿAmrī saw the Hidden Imam in Mecca. In the first report, when
asked if he saw master of the amr, al-ʿAmrī answered yes and added that the last pledge he
made to him was at the Kaʿba. Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 404 (no. 9); al-Baḥrānī, Ḥilyat al-
abrār, 6:282 (no. 5). In the second report, al-ʿAmrī says that he saw the Imam clinging to the
curtains of the Kaʿba at the wall called al-Mustajār (tradition says that this was where ʿAlī
was born), and prayed, “O God! Take revenge on my enemies for my sake!” (allāhumma
intaqim lī min aʿdāʾī) Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 404 (no. 10); al-Baḥrānī, Ḥilyat al-abrār,
6:282 (no. 5). Cf. al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 252: “Take revenge on your enemies for my sake”
(intaqim lī min aʿdāʾika), and al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 51:351: “Take revenge on your ene-
mies through me” (intaqim bī min aʿdāʾika). Of course it is possible that the four hadiths
introduced in the previous section could be reconciled with the above report, though I am
only aware of one Shīʿī scholar who has attempted this reconciliation, namely al-Majlisī,
who, in glossing one of the four previous hadiths, suggests that “perhaps the word ‘seeing’
[in these hadiths] means recognizing (wa-laʿalla al-murād … bi-l-ruʾya al-maʿrifa), in other
words, none of the people will recognize him (ay lā yaʿrifuhu aḥad min al-nās).” Al-Majlisī,
Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, 4:47.
132 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 149. Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, 198–9, states “it is not
clear at all why Joseph was chosen in place of some other long-lived prophet.” If Joseph’s
ghayba and suffering in imprisonment were the only qualities that the Qāʾim was to man-
ifest, one might wonder why, but other Shīʿī hadiths indicate that the Qāʾim will manifest
many other attributes of Joseph, chief among them his beauty. Joseph serves as the embod-
iment and archetype of beauty, comeliness, modesty, and beneficence in Islamic litera-
ture. See al-Majlisī, Ḥayāt al-qulūb, 3:711, where Joseph is described as exceeding all others
in beauty, as the full moon excels the star (ziyādatī-i ḥusn-i ū bar sāyir-i mardum mānand-i
the unknown, the unseen, and the unrecognized 51

placed a figurative veil (ḥijāb) between Joseph and the people so that they saw
him but could not recognize him ( yarawnahu wa-lā yaʿrifūnahu), the master of
the amr will likewise be veiled from the people.133 According to al-Ṣādiq, the
Qāʾim “knows the people, but they do not recognize him, just as Joseph knew
the people, but they failed to recognize him,”134 an allusion to Quran 12:58: “And
the brethren of Joseph came, and entered unto him, and he knew them, but
they knew him not.”135 In this regard, al-Ṣādiq points out that even though the
brothers of Joseph were his kinsmen, they were unable to recognize him before
he manifested himself to them and proclaimed “I am Joseph” (Quran 12:90). It
is believed that when Joseph was in Egypt, he lived a distance of eighteen days
travel from Jacob. God could have easily apprised Jacob about Joseph’s loca-
tion but did not. Thus, al-Ṣādiq asks rhetorically, who is to say that God cannot
conceal His Proof (that is, the Hidden Imam) in the same manner that He con-
cealed Joseph from his family?136 That is, like Joseph, the Qāʾim may be in close
proximity to the believers during his ghayba, but they are unable to see him or
know his location before his appearance (ẓuhūr) at the end of time.137

ziyādatī-i māh-i shab-i chahārdahum būd bar sitārigān); Schimmel, A Two-Colored Bro-
cade, 64, 66. A hadith ascribed to al-Bāqir states that in his beauty and magnanimity
( jamālihi wa-sakhāʾihi), the Qāʾim will manifest the beauty and magnanimity of Joseph.
Al-Masʿūdī (attrib.), Ithbāt al-waṣiyya, 267. According to a number of hadiths, the Qāʾim
will appear wearing the shirt of Joseph. See, e.g., al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn (1984 Qum edi-
tion), 1:143. A much rarer hadith adds that the believers throughout the world (lit., east and
west) will smell his scent, for he will appear wearing the same shirt whose scent Jacob
sensed when he declared, “I sense the scent of Joseph!” (Quran 92:12). The earliest and
only work in which I have found this particular hadith is al-Bayāḍī (d. 877/1472–3), al-
Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm, 2:253. Al-Bayāḍī does not provide a source, saying only that the hadith
was narrated on the authority of al-Ṣādiq’s discipline, al-Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUmar al-Juʿfī. On the
symbolism of Joseph’s shirt and its scent, see Lawson, “Typological Figuration,” 231–9. On
stories about Joseph in Shīʿī sources, see Arastu, God’s Emissaries, 253–99.
133 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 329 (no. 46); al-Kāshānī, al-Wāfī, 2:424; al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār,
51:223–4 (no. 10); al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Ithbāt al-hudā, 5:90 (no. 158); al-Shubbar, Ḥaqq al-yaqīn,
288; al-Gulpāyigānī, Muntakhab al-athar, 301 (no. 5). For a Persian translation, see Ṣamadī,
“Barrasī-i masʾalih-yi,” 195.
134 [= yaʿrif al-nās wa-lā yaʿrifūnahu kamā kāna yūsuf yaʿrif al-nās wa-hum lahu munkirūn]
Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 144 (no. 2). Also cited in al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Ithbāt al-hudā, 5:144
(no. 462); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 51:112–3 (no. 8); Dhākirī, “Irtibāṭ bā imām-i zamān,”
61.
135 [= fa-ʿarafahum wa-lum lahu munkirūn]
136 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 320–1 (no. 21); al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 167 (no. 4).
137 Cf. Kennedy’s insightful discussion of the literary energy of anagnorisis recognition and
its entertainment and edificatory functions in classical Arabic literature in his Recognition
in the Arabic Narrative Tradition. My thanks to Todd Lawson for this reference.
52 chapter 1

A similar hadith ascribed to al-Ṣādiq explicates the prophetic precedent

(sunna) that the Qāʾim will become manifest: “As for Joseph, his brothers spoke
with him and paid homage to him but could not recognize him.”138 Another
hadith comparing the Hidden Imam to previous prophets affirms that the
Imam will not only be hidden from the generality of believers but also from his
closest disciples (al-ghayba min khāṣṣatihi wa-ʿāmmatihi), just as Joseph was
concealed from his brothers despite the proximity between him and his fam-
ily.139 These hadiths reaffirm that like Joseph, the Hidden Imam is a normal
human being who “walks in their markets” ( yasīr [alt., yamshī] fī aswāqihim;
cf. Quran 25:7, 25:20), lives among the people, and associates with them. The
people see him but cannot recognize him.140
Such hadiths appear to influence other hadiths, some found in later
sources, indicating that when the Imam makes his appearance at the Kaʿba at
the time of his ẓuhūr, he will appear as a young man wearing the mantle and
sandals of the Prophet Muḥammad, but no one will recognize him.141

138 [= wa-ammā sunnat Yūsuf fa-inna ikhwatahu kānū yubāyiʿūnahu wa-yukhāṭibūnahu wa-
lā yaʿrifūnahu] Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 39. Cf. al-Karājkī, Kanz al-fawāʾid, 1:374, and al-
Ḥalabī, Taqrīb al-maʿārif, 431, both of whom cite a similar hadith ascribed to al-Bāqir
stating, in part, that the prophetic precedent of Joseph, which the Qāʾim will manifest, is
“ghayba from his family in such wise that he will not recognize them and they, in turn,
will be unable to recognize him” ( fa-l-ghayba ʿan ahlihi bi-ḥaythu lā yaʿrifuhum wa-lā
yaʿrifūnahu). The wording here is peculiar, since, in the Quran, Joseph clearly recognizes
his brothers. Al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Ithbāt al-hudā, 5:198 (no. 690), attempted to correct this
anomaly by removing the first occurrence of the word lā and rendering the hadith as fa-
l-ghayba ʿan ahlihi bi-ḥaythu yaʿrifuhum wa-lā yaʿrifūnahu.
139 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 306 (no. 7). Also cited in al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 51:217–8 (no. 6);
al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Ithbāt al-hudā, 5:83 (no. 131). Similar hadiths that compare Joseph and
the Qāʾim are summarized in al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-Shīʿa, 2:59.
140 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:336–7 (no. 4); al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 167; al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 145
(no. 11), 320–1 (no. 21). For the Persian translation of the version in al-Nuʿmānī, see Qazvīnī-
Khurāsānī, Bayān al-furqān, 901. See also Amīnī, Dādgustar-i jahān, 205, 215 [= Amini,
al-Imām al-Mahdī (trans. Sachedina), 210, 222]. Cf. Jarrar, “Al-Manṣūr bi-Llāh’s Contro-
versy,” 330. Other attempts have been made to explore the commonalities in the narratives
of Joseph and the Hidden Imam. See, for example, al-Zaydī, Asʾila muʿāṣira, 385–93. Cf.
hadiths cited in both Sunnī and Shīʿī works about al-Khiḍr and Ilyās (Elijah), who are said
to be alive “walking on earth” (bāqiyān yasīrān fī l-arḍ). Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 51:98.
On the manner in which early Shīʿī authors, such as al-Nuʿmānī and al-Ṣadūq, presented
stories of various prophets who were at one time or another concealed to signify a prefig-
uration of the ghayba of the Hidden Imam, see Warner, “Buddha or Yūdhāsaf?”
141 [= laysa thamma aḥad yaʿrifuhu] Al-Ḥillī, Mukhtaṣar baṣāʾir al-darajāt, 440; al-Majlisī,
Biḥār al-anwār, 53:6–7.
 chapter 2

Hidden from All, yet Seen by Some? The Special

Case of Three Hadiths

The hadiths presented in the section entitled “The Hidden Imam: Unseen and
Unrecognized” of the previous chapter suggest that no one can see the Imam.
By contrast, those presented in the section entitled “The Hidden Imam: Seen
But Not Recognized” affirm that it is possible to see the Imam though no one,
not even his closest followers, is able to recognize him. On what basis, then,
do later Shīʿī scholars who contend that it is possible to see and recognize the
Hidden Imam base their claim? As might be expected, these scholars tend to
emphasize the stories of sightings of and encounters with the Hidden Imam as
the greatest proof that seeing and contacting him is possible during the Greater
Occultation.
Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, who compiled two major collections of such stories in
the late nineteenth century, for example, claims, “Let it be known that we have
limited ourselves in citing the stories [of encounters with the Hidden Imam] to
what we found in credible books (kutub-i muʿtabarih) or heard from trustwor-
thy scholars and ulama. We left out a number of accounts that did not have a
reliable chain of transmission.”1 More recently, the publisher of a compilation
of such stories writes, “Since there are so many widely attested reports (al-
akhbār al-kathīra wa-l-mutawātira) from ulama and scholars (al-fuḍalāʾ) [who
said that they met the Hidden Imam], no one can deny or reject [this fact] and
say it is impossible to see him during the occultation (lā yumkin li-aḥadin inkār
wa-juḥūd wa-istiḥālat mushāhadatihi fī zamān al-ghayba).”2
Yet, in light of the final tawqīʿ of the Imam and the hadiths discussed in chap-
ter 1, which explicitly deny that the Imam can be recognized during the ghayba,
these scholars have sensed a need to support their position with traditional
proofs. They have cited and glossed three hadiths—and only three—from the
earliest sources and left open the possibility that a special cadre of believers
can encounter (and recognize) the Imam during the Greater Occultation.3 In
this chapter, I comment on these three hadiths, explore their Sitz im Leben, and
examine how they have been understood and negotiated by traditional Shīʿī
ulama and Western scholars and translators.

1 Al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:846.

2 Al-Nīlī, al-Sulṭān al-mufarrij, dāl (from the publisher’s introduction).
3 The three hadiths are isolated and commented on in Dhākirī, “Irtibāṭ bā imām-i zamān.”

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413153_004

54 chapter 2

1 Hadith 1 (and Variants): “the 30 are never lonely”

The first hadith (henceforth, Hadith 1) is found in al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī:

A number of our masters4 < Aḥmad ‫ن ب ِْن‬ِ َ‫ن اْلح َس‬ ِ َ ‫صح َابنِ َا ع َْن َأْحم َد َ ب ِْن م ُح َم ٍّد ع‬ ْ ‫ع َِّدة ٌ م ِْن َأ‬
b. Muḥammad5 < al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī
ٍ‫صير‬ِ َ ‫ع َل ِ ٍيّ ال ْو ََّشاء ِ ع َْن ع َل ِ ِيّ ب ِْن َأب ِي حَم ْزةَ َ ع َْن َأب ِي ب‬
al-Washshāʾ6 < ʿAlī b. Abī Ḥamza
[al-Baṭāʾinī]7 < Abū Baṣīr8 < [Jaʿfar] َ ‫ع َْن َأب ِي ع َب ْدِ الل ّٰه ِ ق َا‬
‫ل‬
al-Ṣādiq:

The master of this amr will be forced ‫ب ه َذ َا اْلَأْمر ِ م ِْن غ َي ْبةَ ٍ و َل َا ب َُّد ل َه ُف ِي‬
ِ ‫ح‬ َ ِ ‫ل َا ب َُّد ل‬
ِ ‫صا‬
into ghayba and he will certainly be
َ‫ل َطي ْبةَ ُ و َم َا بثِ َل َاث ِين‬
ُ ِ ‫غ َي ْب َت ِه ِ م ِْن ع ُْزل َة ٍ و َنعِ ْم َ ال ْمنَ ْز‬
isolated during his ghayba.9 Ṭayba
is the best abode and the thirty are ‫حشَة‬
ْ َ ‫م ِْن و‬
never lonely.10

4 This formula is common in hadiths cited in al-Kāfī and suggests that al-Kulaynī consid-
ered the hadith as one attested to by multiple chains of transmission.
5 Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā al-Ashʿarī (d. between 274/887 and 280/893), a companion of
Imam al-Jawād and an associate of Imam al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī. See Newman, The Formative
Period, 41–2, and index, s.v. “Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā al-Ashʿarī.”
6 Al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Ziyād, known as Abū Muḥammad al-Washshāʾ, was one of the compan-
ions of Imam al-Kāẓim and Imam al-Riḍā. He was a prominent believer (min wujūh al-
ṭāʾifa). For a period of time, he was a Wāqifī but eventually became a believer in the eighth
Imam. Al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī, 39 (no. 80). See also al-Ṭūsī, al-Fihrist, 106 (no. 202);
Ḥāʾirī, “Ḥasan bin ʿAlī Vashshāʾ,” DMT, 6:301.
7 On him, see chapter 1.
8 Abū Muḥammad Yaḥyā b. al-Qāsim al-Asadī (d. 149–50/767), known by his alternative
kunya of Abū Baṣīr, was a Kufan mawlā and one of the most prolific transmitters of hadith
from Imam Muḥammad al-Bāqir and Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. Al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī, 441
(no. 1187); Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, 395, Buyukkara, “The Schism,” 86–7. New-
man, The Formative Period, 82, calls him “a Wāqifī companion of the fifth and sixth Imams,”
but I have not seen any evidence in the Shīʿī rijāl works to suggest that he held Wāqifī
beliefs.
9 This sentence can be translated in a number of ways, e.g., “A ghayba is inevitable [or indis-
pensable] for the master of this amr, and it is inevitable that he will be isolated during his
ghayba.” Cf. a hadith ascribed to al-Ṣādiq: “The Qāʾim must go into hiding” (la budda li-l-
qāʾim min ghayba). When pressed as to why this is the case, al-Ṣādiq responds, while point-
ing to his stomach to intimate that the Qāʾim will be in danger of being stabbed, because
“he fears for his life” ( yakhāf ʿalā nafsihi). Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 437 (no. 7). For an alter-
native translation of this and a similar hadith, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 277 n. 612.
10 Lit., “and in thirty, there is no loneliness.” Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:340 (no. 16). Al-Nuʿmānī
cites the same hadith on the authority of al-Kulaynī. Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 194 (no. 41)
[= al-Nuʿmānī, Ghaybat-i Nuʿmānī (trans. Fahrī-Zanjānī), 220].
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 55

Following al-Kulaynī, two scholars presented this hadith in their works: (1)
Al-Nuʿmānī (d. 345/956 or 360/971) (on whom see chapter 3), who transmitted
numerous hadiths from his teacher al-Kulaynī and personally copied the lat-
ter’s al-Kāfī,11 includes Hadith 1 verbatim in his Kitāb al-Ghayba (completed in
Dhū l-Ḥijja 342/April–May 954);12 (2) Abū l-Ṣalāḥ al-Ḥalabī (d. 447/1055) (on
whom see chapter 3) cites Hadith 1 in his Taqrīb al-maʿārif without an isnād,
though in his version the enigmatic phrase “and the thirty are never lonely”
(discussed below) is absent.13
Moreover, al-Ṭūsī (d. 459 or 460/1066–7) (on whom, see chapter 3) recorded a
similar hadith in his Kitāb al-Ghayba (completed in 447/1055–6) with a slightly
different isnād ascribed to al-Bāqir (rather than al-Ṣādiq):

Aḥmad b. Idrīs14 < ʿAlī b. Muḥam- ّ‫س ع َْن ع َل ِ ِي‬ َ ‫ن ِإْدرِ ي‬ُ ْ ‫ي َأْحم َد ُ ب‬ْ ‫و َبِه َذ َا اْلِإْسن َادِ )أ‬
mad15 < al-Faḍl b. Shādhān al-
‫ي ع َْن‬ ّ ِ‫شاذ َانَ النيِ شَابوُ ر‬ َ ‫ل ب ِْن‬ ِ ‫ض‬ ِ َ ‫ب ِْن م ُح َم ّد( ع‬
ْ َ ‫ن ال ْف‬
Nīshābūrī16 < ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b.
Abī Najrān17 < ʿAlī b. Abī Ḥamza [al- َ َ‫نج ْر َانَ ع َْن ع َل ِ ِيّ ب ِْن َأب ِي حَم ْزة‬ ِ َ ‫ع َب ْدِ ال َر ّْحم‬
َ ‫ن ب ِْن َأب ِي‬
Baṭāʾinī]18 < Abū Baṣīr19 < al-Bāqir:
‫ل‬
َ ‫جعْف ٍَر ق َا‬
َ ‫صيرٍ ع َْن َأب ِي‬
ِ َ ‫ع َْن َأب ِي ب‬

11 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 13; Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, 102–3 n. 259.

12 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 194 (no. 31); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:157 (no. 20) [= al-Majlisī,
Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Urūmiyyih-ʾī), 1:754; al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī),
932–3].
13 Al-Ḥalabī, Taqrīb al-maʿārif, 431.
14 On Aḥmad b. Idrīs b. Aḥmad Abū ʿAlī al-Ashʿarī al-Qummī, see al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī,
92; al-Ṭūsī, al-Fihrist, 71 (no. 81); Newman, The Formative Period, index, s.v. “Aḥmad b. Idrīs
al-Ashʿarī.”
15 This is likely ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Abbān al-Rāzī al-Kulyanī, known as ʿAllān (or
ʿAlān), the maternal uncle of Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī, the author of a work that
has not survived called Kitāb akhbār al-Qāʾim. Al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī, 260–1 (no. 682).
Al-Kulaynī transmits a number of hadiths from him in al-Kāfī.
16 Faḍl b. Shādhān al-Nīshābūrī (d. 260/873), a scholar and follower of the eleventh Imam. On
him, see Kohlberg, “Fażl b. Šāḏān,” EIr, 9:463–464; Bayhom-Daou, “al-Faḍl b. Shādhān al-
Naysābūrī,”EI³ (online); van Ess, Der Eine und das Andere, 215–9. A book about the ghayba
is attributed to him but has not survived. Klemm, “Die vier sufarâʾ,” 127; Hussain, The Occul-
tation, 4. On this and other eschatological writings ascribed to him, see Ansari, L’ imamat,
182–209.
17 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Najrān al-Tamīmī, a Kufan mawlā who narrated hadiths from
al-Riḍā. On him, see al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī, 235–6 (no. 622); al-Ṭūsī, al-Fihrist, 177
(no. 475).
18 On him, see above.
19 On him, see above.
56 chapter 2

The master of this amr will be forced ‫ب ه َذ َا اْلَأْمر ِ م ِْن ع ُْزل َة ٍ و َل َا ب َُّد ف ِي‬
ِ ‫ح‬ َ ِ ‫ل َا ب َُّد ل‬
ِ ‫صا‬
into isolation, but there is certainly
ْ َ ‫ع ُْزل َت ِه ِ م ِْن قوَُ ّة ٍ و َم َا بثِ َل َاث ِينَ م ِْن و‬
َ ‫حشَة ٍ و َنعِ ْم‬
power in his isolation. The thirty are
never lonely and Ṭayba is the best َ‫ل َطي ْبة‬
ُ ِ ‫ال ْمنَ ْز‬
abode.20
1.1 Hadith 1: Commentary
The most important name in the isnād of this hadith is ʿAlī b. Abī Ḥamza
al-Baṭāʾinī, who, as mentioned in chapter 1, was one of the main leaders of
the Wāqifiyya. Guided by the principles of ʿilm al-dirāya / ʿilm dirāyat al-
ḥadīth (a field of study concerned with investigating, evaluating, and com-
prehending hadith), Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī (d. 1111/1699–1700) classified
this hadith as “weak or reliable/dependable” (ḍaʿīf aw muwaththaq), though
he did not provide a reason.21 Other than al-Baṭāʾinī, the other individuals
in the isnād are considered trustworthy (thiqa) in the various rijāl works.22
Thus, it would be safe to presume that al-Majlisī’s23 rather uncertain clas-
sification was based on the presence in the isnād of the impugned Wāqifī
al-Baṭāʾinī. Though al-Majlisī does not say so explicitly, he seems to imply
that if al-Baṭāʾinī transmitted this hadith during the lifetime of al-Ṣādiq or al-
Kāẓim (and thus, as a prophetic statement about the Hidden Imam), it could

20 Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba 162 (no. 121). Also cited in al-Majlisī, Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, 4:51; al-Majlisī,
Biḥār al-anwār, 52:153 (no. 6) [= al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Urūmiyyih-ʾī), 1:748; al-
Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī), 930]. Cf. a hadith ascribed to Imam ʿAlī stating
that when “a man from among my descendants appears at the end of time,” he will touch
the head of his servants and God will grant each of them the strength of forty men. Al-
Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 592 (no. 17). Another hadith ascribed to al-Bāqir similarly states that
each of the Imam’s men will have the strength of forty men and that collectively they
will be the foundations of the earth and its treasures. Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 8:294 (no. 449);
Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in Islām, 218.
21 Al-Majlisī, Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, 4:50. The four essential categories of hadith are ṣaḥīḥ (“sound”),
ḥasan (“good”), muwaththaq (“reliable/dependable”), and ḍaʿīf (“weak”). For descrip-
tions of all four categories, see al-Shahīd al-Thānī, Dirāyat al-Ḥadīth (trans. Virjee), 25–8;
Ahmad, “Twelver Šīʿī ḥadīṯ,” 138–9; Afsaruddin, Excellence and Precedence, 204–6. A fifth
category, qawī (“strong”), which comes between muwaththaq and ḍaʿīf, is not as common
as the other four. See Modarressi, An Introduction to Shīʿī Law, 5–6; al-Faḍlī, Introduction
to Hadith, 117.
22 On the four classical Shīʿī rijāl works, namely, al-Kashshī’s (d. 367/ 978) Kitāb maʿrifat al-
nāqilīn ʿan al-aʾimma al-ṣādiqīn, available in a version abridged by al-Ṭūsī entitled Ikhtiyār
maʿrifat al-rijāl, al-Ṭūsī’s Kitāb al-Rijāl, al-Ṭūsī’s Kitāb Fihrist kutub al-Shīʿa, and al-Najāshī’s
Kitāb al-Rijāl, see Modarressi, An Introduction to Shīʿī Law, 5. On al-Kashshī, see Takim,
“Kašši, Abu ʿAmr Moḥammad,” EIr (online).
23 Unless otherwise specified, “al-Majlisī” here and elsewhere refers to Muḥammad Bāqir al-
Majlisī and not to his father.
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 57

be considered muwaththaq, but if he transmitted the hadith after al-Kāẓim’s

death, it should be deemed ḍaʿīf, since al-Baṭāʾinī would have fabricated the
hadith to support his claim that al-Kāẓim was the Qāʾim who had not died
but was in hiding, though not in Iraq where he was imprisoned at the order
of two Abbasid caliphs, but rather in Ṭayba (i.e., Medina) with thirty of his fol-
lowers.

I now comment on the key phrases of this hadith:

ʿuzla: “and he will certainly be isolated during his ghayba”

ʿUzla (synonyms: khalwa, waḥda, infirād, inqiṭāʿ) denotes withdrawing oneself

from association with others and retiring into seclusion. It is similar to the con-
cept of iʿtikāf and implies seclusion, usually in a place of worship and often
during Ramaḍān, to pray, remember God, meditate, and perform spiritual exer-
cises or practices.24 Not surprisingly, ʿuzla is used in a similar sense in Shīʿī
sources.25 However, in commenting on this hadith, Shīʿī scholars agree, in light
of other hadiths, that the Imam’s seclusion was not voluntary; rather, he was
forced to withdraw from the community and enter ghayba out of fear for his
life.26

ghayba: “and he will certainly be isolated during his ghayba”

Some have understood Hadith 1 as referring only to the first ghayba, com-
monly referred to in later sources as the Lesser or Minor Occultation. In his

24 See Melchert, “Asceticism,” EI³ (online); Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 1:2036.

25 For example, a well-known hadith ascribed in different forms to the Prophet Muḥammad
and Imam al-Ṣādiq states that “solitude is a mode of worshiping (God)” (al-ʿuzla min al-
ʿibāda). Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 74:185; al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Mustadrak al-wasāʾil, 11:388
(no. 13337). This adage is also found in Sunnī works, e.g., Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa-l-nihāya,
9:275.
26 In Shīʿī hadiths, the main justification for the ghayba is to safeguard the life of the Imam;
the other reason is said to be known only by God. Several hadiths prohibit mentioning
the Hidden Imam’s name. According to a report narrated by an individual identified in
later sources as one of the deputies (wukalāʾ) of the Hidden Imam during the Lesser
Occultation, the location of the Imam could not be revealed to his followers out of fear
that “if they learned [his] location, they would reveal it [to others]” (in ʿarafū l-makān
dallū ʿalayhi). Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:333 (no. 2); Kohlberg, “Taqiyya in Shīʿī Theology and
Religion,” 349. See also Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 103–6, 145; al-Shīrāzī, Limādhā l-
ghayba, 20–32. For a discussion of other representative hadiths, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide
divin, 277.
58 chapter 2

remarks on this hadith in al-Ḥāshiyya ʿalā uṣūl al-kāfī, Muḥammad Amīn al-
Astarābādī (d. 1033/1623–4 or 1036/1626–7)—widely considered the founder
(muʾassis) or propagator (murawwij) of the Akhbārī school (depending on one’s
view concerning its origins)—states that during the Minor Occultation the
Hidden Imam likely lived in Medina, where he sought the company of thirty
of his closest friends/initiates (kāna yastaʾnis bi-thalāthīn min awliyāʾihi).27
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Ṭurayḥī (d. 1087/1676–7), author of the important Shīʿī lex-
icon Majmaʿ al-baḥrayn,28 and Muḥsin al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī (d. 1090/1679), a
Safavid polymath, shared his opinion that Hadith 1 applies to the Minor Occul-
tation. Al-Kāshānī comments in his hadith compendium entitled al-Wāfī that
“it seems that [this hadith] refers to (the Imam’s) short ghayba [that is, the
Lesser Occultation] because during the long (ghayba) [i.e, the Greater Occul-
tation], there is no way for his Shīʿa to reach him.”29 Al-Kāshānī’s statement
that the Imam is unreachable during the Greater Occultation may appear odd
in light of the fact that al-Kāshānī was among the authorities who transmit
two popular and controversial stories (in his Nawādir al-akhbār and ʿIlm al-
yaqīn) that describe Shīʿa who traveled during the Greater Occultation to mys-
terious islands ruled by the Hidden Imam and his sons. Moreover, al-Kāshānī
affirms the ontological reality of the “world of images” (ʿālam al-mithāl)30 in

27 Al-Astarābādī, al-Ḥāshiyya ʿalā uṣūl al-kāfī, 161. Al-Astarābādī’s comments are cited verba-
tim in al-Māzandarānī, Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī, 6:244. See also al-Majlisī, Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, 4:50–
1. On al-Astarābādī, see Kohlberg, “Astarābādī, Moḥammad Amīn,” EIr, 2:845–6; Gleave,
Scripturalist Islam, passim, esp. 31–139; Gleave, “Akhbāriyya and Uṣūliyya,” EI³ (online);
Madelung, “Ak̲h̲bāriyya,” EI², 12:56–7; Newman, “The Nature of the Akhbārī/Uṣūlī Dis-
pute in Late Ṣafawid Iran. Part 1,” 22; Abisaab, “Was Muḥammad Amīn al-Astarābādī
(d. 1036/1626–7) a Mujtahid?”; Abisaab, “Shiʿi Jurisprudence.” On al-Ḥāshiyya ʿalā uṣūl al-
kāfī, see Gleave, Scripturalist Islam, 37.
28 Al-Ṭurayḥī, Majmaʿ al-baḥrayn, 2:110. On this work, see Sulaymān, “Majmaʿ al-Baḥrayn,”
DMT, 15:79–80.
29 [= fa-inna fī l-ṭawīla laysa li-shīʿatihi ilayhi sabīlun] Al-Kāshānī, al-Wāfī, 2:416. Al-Kāshānī
adds, “When [the Hidden Imam] isolated himself and hid in [Medina], thirty of his Shīʿa
were with him, keeping each other company. As a result, they were never lonely ( fa-lā
waḥshata lahum).”
30 The imaginal realm or world of images (ʿālam al-mithāl) interposed between the physical
world and spiritual realm is traced to the teachings of the Persian philosopher Shihāb al-
Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 587/1191), the founder of the school of Illuminationism (al-ishrāq).
Elements were incorporated into Shīʿī thought by Ibn Abī Jumhūr al-Aḥsāʾī (fl. ninth/fif-
teenth century) and Mullā Ṣadrā (d. ca. 1045/1635–6), among others. See Madelung, “Ibn
Abî Ğumhûr al-Aḥsâʾi’s Synthesis,” 149; Lawson, “Ebn Abi Jomhūr Aḥsāʾi,”EIr, 7:662–3; Rah-
man, “Dream, Imagination and ʿĀlam al-mithāl,” 409–19. On the ʿālam al-mithāl as the
location of the Hidden Imam in later Shīʿī (viz., Shaykhī) thought, see al-Aḥsāʾī, Kitāb al-
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 59

his Kalimāt-i maknūna as the realm where “the Holy Imams [including pre-
sumably the Hidden Imam] are present when they appear before a dying per-
son.”31 It is possible that al-Kāshānī believed that whereas the generality of
Shīʿa could not reach the Imam during the Greater Occultation, a special group
could and in fact have encountered the Imam; this is reflected in the accounts
he chose to transmit and the interpretation he advances about Hadith 2 (see
below).
Most scholars, however, interpreted this hadith as applying to the Greater
Occultation. For example, according to Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ al-Māzandarānī
(d. 1080/1669 or 1081/1670),32 the locution “and he will certainly be isolated dur-

Rajʿa, 92; al-Aḥsāʾī and al-Rashtī, Asrār al-imām al-mahdī, 110; al-Rashtī, Risālat al-ṭabīb,
102; al-Rashtī, Majmaʿ al-rasāʾil, 46; Corbin, En Islam iranien, 4:286–91; Corbin, Histoire,
110–1 [= Corbin, The History (trans. Sherrard), 70–1]; Corbin, “Visionary Dream in Islamic
Spirituality,” 405; Lawson, Gnostic Apocalypse and Islam, 138–9; Lawson, “The Authority
of the Feminine,” 105; Lawson, “Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy,” 135–6; Rafati, “The Devel-
opment,” 107–9, 114; Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, 227; MacEoin, The Messiah of
Shiraz, 616, 621–2; Amanat, Resurrection and Renewal, 50–3, 59; Amanat, Apocalyptic Islam
and Iranian Shiʿism, 52; Bayat, Mysticism, 42–5; Hamid, “The Metaphysics,” 41–2; Eschraghi,
Frühe Ṧaiḫī, 41–3; Ziai, “Dreams ii,” EIr, 7:550.
31 Corbin, Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth (trans. Pearson), 178, and discussed in Law-
son, “Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī,” 26. On al-Kāshānī’s Kalimāt-i maknūna, see Lawson, “The
Hidden Words of Fayḍ Kāshānī”; Zargar, “Revealing Revisions.” As Lawson points out else-
where, al-Kāshānī does not speak of the possibility of encountering the Hidden Imam in
the ʿālam al-mithāl while a believer is still alive. Lawson, “Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy,”
136. The idea that the Imams appear to a dying person is a Shīʿī axiom. As part of his
survey of Shīʿī doctrines, al-Majlisī, al-Iʿtiqādāt, 27, mentions that “the Prophet and the
twelve Imams appear at the death of [both] the pious and the sinners, the believers and
the infidels. The believers benefit from their intercession in easing the throes of death
.…” In another creedal work, he states that according to Shīʿī hadiths, the tears that flow
from the eyes of the believers when they die stem from the gladness and exultation they
feel at the moment of death, when they behold the Prophet and the Imams (min shid-
dat faraḥihim wa-surūrihim bi-ruʾyatihim al-nabī wa-l-aʾimma). Restating the traditional
Ashʿarī bi-lā kayfa “solution,” al-Majlisī adds that it is not necessary to think about how
this vision takes place (wa-lā yalzam al-tafakkur fī kayfiyyat dhālik), but he is quick to
rule out esoteric interpretations by the mystically-inclined, who speak of hūrqālyā and
the like in relation to the words of the Imams (wa-lā yajūz al-taʾwīl). Al-Majlisī, al-ʿAqāʾid,
67.
32 On him, see Ṣaḥrāʾī, “Māzandarānī, Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ b. Aḥmad,” DMT, 15:19. Al-Māzan-
darānī was a student of (among others) Muḥammad Taqī al-Majlisī (d. 1070/1659–60)
and the polymath Muḥammad b. Ḥusayn Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī, known as al-Shaykh al-
Bahāʾī (d. 1030/1621) (on whom, see Stewart, At the Nexus of Traditions), and a teacher of
Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī and al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī. His commentary on the Uṣūl al-kāfī
60 chapter 2

ing his ghayba” is a reference (ishāra) to the Greater Occultation, since it is

widely believed that during the Greater Occultation, the Imam is isolated from
everyone (li-annahu yaʿtazilu fīhā l-nās jamīʿ an). However, al-Māzandarānī is
quick to add that in some manuscripts this sentence of Hadith 1 is missing the
word budda; without budda, its meaning is the opposite: “and he will not be iso-
lated during his ghayba” (wa-lā lahu fī ghaybatihi min ʿuzla). He explains this
divergent text by suggesting that the Imam lives among the people and sees
them, while they cannot see him, despite the fact that they benefit from his
presence among them.33 It would seem that he prefers this version of the sen-
tence, as it agrees with the purport of the hadiths introduced in chapter 1, “The
Hidden Imam: Unseen and Unrecognized.”
Asad Allāh al-Shaftī (d. 1290/1873) likewise opined that Hadith 1 “in all likeli-
hood” refers to the Greater Occultation because the Imam was not completely
isolated during the Lesser Occultation.34 Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī was confident in
interpreting Hadith 1 to mean that in every generation throughout the Greater
Occultation, “thirty believers attain [the Imam’s] presence.”35 This interpre-
tation was advanced by numerous scholars after al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī to defend
their interpretation that thirty believers in any given age are privileged to be in
contact with the Imam. In their view, this interpretation establishes the verac-
ity of the stories of ulama who claimed to have contacted the Imam during
the Greater Occultation. The prominent Iraqi cleric Muḥammad Ṣādiq al-Ṣadr
(d. 1999), for example, maintains that “this hadith … proves that a group of peo-
ple in every generation recognize the Mahdī, are in contact with him, and dispel
[his] loneliness.”36

Ṭayba: “Ṭayba is the best abode”

strongly criticizes Mullā Ṣadrā’s commentary. See Barārī-Fandarī, “Mullā Ṣāliḥ Māzan-
darānī,” esp. 108, and Kohlberg, “Kolayni,” EIr (online).
33 Al-Māzandarānī, Sharḥ Uṣūl al-kāfī, 6:243–4.
34 Al-Shaftī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 2:301 (no. 228).
35 Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 148.
36 [= hādhā l-khabar … yuthbit anna jamāʿa min al-nās fī kull jīl yaʿrifūna al-mahdī wa-
yattaṣilūna bihi wa-yarfaʿūna ʿanhu al-waḥsha] Al-Ṣadr, Tārīkh al-ghayba al-kubrā, 68. Sim-
ilarly, the Lebanese scholar Muḥammad Jamīl Ḥammūd (al-ʿĀmilī) argues that “while it is
known that the elite mawālī who see [the Imam] during the Greater Occultation are not
the Mahdī’s representatives or deputies, this hadith [stating that thirty believers have con-
tact with the Imam] proves the veracity [of their claims].” Ḥammūd, Abhā l-murād fī sharḥ
muʾtamar ʿulamāʾ Baghdād, 2:677. On “the elite mawālī,” see below. See also al-Maythamī
al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 192, for a similar reading.
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 61

The vast majority of Shīʿī commentators of this hadith agree that Ṭayba
refers to Medina (madīnat al-nabī).37 According to classical Islamic sources,
Ṭayba (lit., the “sweet-smelling”) was an honorific name bestowed on Medina
by the Prophet Muḥammad.38 This reference is affirmed by commentators who
cite Hadith 1 as proof that just as Muḥammad lived in Medina, likewise the Hid-
den Imam resides in or around Medina during the ghayba.39
In his comments on this hadith in Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, widely recognized as
“arguably the most useful and comprehensive commentary”40 on al-Kāfī, al-
Majlisī reasons that “(the Imam) is likely always in Medina or its environs
[during the Greater Occultation] or was there during the Lesser Occultation.
It is has also been said that Ṭayba is the name of a different place, other than
Medina, where he lives with his companions, but this is mere conjecture (rajm
bi-l-ghayb).” Al-Majlisī then refers to a hadith recorded in al-Kāfī in which al-
Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, when asked where to look for his successor should something
happen to him, answered, “in Medina.”41
Since Hadith 1 is almost certainly of Wāqifī provenance, it is not surprising
to see Medina mentioned as the abode of the Qāʾim. In addition to the city
being the refuge of the Prophet from his adversaries, and perhaps more impor-
tantly, Medina was the birthplace of the seventh Imam, Mūsā al-Kāẓim, and
his residence for most of his life. As mentioned in chapter 1, al-Kāẓim lived in
Medina all of his life, with two exceptions, that is, the times in which he was
absent (ghāʾib) from his followers, in effect, in forced ghayba. After al-Kāẓim’s
death in Baghdad, the Wāqifīs contended that al-Kāẓim was the Qāʾim. Some
Wāqifīs likely pointed to (or in fact created) Hadith 1 at this time to declare
that al-Ṣādiq or al-Bāqir had previously prophesied that al-Kāẓim as the Qāʾim
would not die but instead return to Medina and be accompanied by thirty of
his closest followers.

The number thirty: “the thirty are never lonely”

The meaning of this critical though enigmatic phrase is unclear. Shīʿī sources
commonly number the Qāʾim’s companions as 313, the same number of men

37 Al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī), 930.

38 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab, 1:56; Watt, “al-Madīna,” EI², 5:994.
39 Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:158 [= al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī), 933]. Cf.
al-Majlisī, Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, 4:50, where he reads al-Ṭayba as al-Ṭība.
40 Kohlberg, “Kolayni,” EIr (online). On Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, see Anūshih, “Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl,” DMT,
15:234–5.
41 This hadith is recorded in al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:328 (no. 2). See also al-Masʿūdī (attrib.),
Ithbāt al-waṣiyya, 229.
62 chapter 2

who, according to Shīʿī sources, fought alongside the Prophet Muḥammad at

the Battle of Badr.42 What then, is the significance of the number thirty? Schim-
mel observes that in Judeo-Christian sources, the number thirty is connected
with ideas of order and justice,43 two principles that are closely connected to
the Qāʾim. A more likely explanation can be found in the Shīʿī sources them-
selves. Two significant hadiths mention the number thirty in the context of the
companions of the seventh Imam and the Prophet Muḥammad. According to
the first report, al-Kāẓim disclosed to a group of thirty presumably elite follow-
ers that his son, ʿAlī (al-Riḍā), was his successor.44 More importantly, according
to the second report, the day the Prophet died, it is said that there were pre-
cisely thirty companions by his side. This report features prominently in a work
attributed to Sulaym b. Qays al-Hilālī (d. 76/695–6), a putative follower of ʿAlī
from Kufa.45
Commenting on the phrase “the thirty are never lonely,” al-Majlisī states:

In other words, [the Imam] is with thirty of his mawālī and elite follow-
ers (khawāṣṣihi). They never feel lonely for they keep each other company

42 The fact that 313 is also the abjad numerical value of the word jaysh (army) is not a
coincidence. Al-Nuʿmānī records five hadiths with this number in chapter 20 of his work
concerning “the army of wrath, that is, the companions of the Qāʾim, their number [i.e., the
number of soldiers in the army of wrath], their characteristics, how they will be tested, and
[who] they will fight.” Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 325–31 (nos. 3, 6, 7, 8, 9). Another notable
hadith occurring in this chapter and ascribed to al-Ṣādiq states that even if all the people
of the world abandon the Qāʾim, God will enable his companions (aṣḥābuhu), who have
been preserved for him (maḥfūẓatun lahu), to reach and support him. Several Quranic
verses are then interpreted as having been revealed about these companions, e.g., 6:89,
and most notably, 5:54: “God will assuredly bring a people He loves, and who love Him,
humble towards the believers, disdainful towards the unbelievers, men who struggle in
the path of God, not fearing the reproach of any reproacher.” Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 330
(no. 12). The fact that this hadith is not among the hadiths cited by Shīʿī scholars as proof
that a special cadre of believers know the location of the Imam suggests that it may have
been overlooked or, more likely, that it has been understood as applying to the time after
the Qāʾim’s appearance from ghayba and not before. On the Battle of Badr, see Athamina,
“Badr,” EI³ (online).
43 Schimmel, The Mystery of Numbers, 239–40.
44 Al-Masʿūdī (attrib.), Ithbāt al-waṣiyya, 204.
45 Al-Hilālī, Kitāb Sulaym b. Qays al-Hilālī, 794; al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 22:398. On al-Hilālī
and his work, see Djebli, “Sulaym b. Ḳays,” EI², 9:818–9; Dakake, “Writing and Resistance,”
186–93. Both Shīʿī and non-Shīʿī scholars have raised doubts about the authenticity of this
work; nonetheless, it has been cited by numerous Shīʿī scholars through the centuries. See
Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 532–3; Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, 101; Modarressi,
Tradition and Survival, 82–6; al-Sayyārī, Revelation and Falsification, 243 n. 567; and Amir-
Moezzi, “Note Bibliographique.”
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 63

(laysa lahum waḥsha li-istīnās baʿḍihim bi-baʿḍin). By contrast, [it could be

that the Imam himself] is one of the thirty and thus never feels alone. A
[third] possibility is that [the preposition] bāʾ [in the phrase, wa-mā bi-
thalāthīn min waḥsha] denotes “with” (maʿa) [rather than “in”], to mean
that he never feels alone because he is with thirty [other people, though
not necessarily his elite followers].
It has also been said that this hadith means that [the Imam] has the
appearance of someone who is thirty years old, for [at this age],46 a
person [is old enough to] not feel lonely, even if he is far [from every-
one else] (wa-man kāna kadhālika lā yastawḥishu fa-huwa fī ghāyat al-
buʿd).47

In commenting on this hadith in his Biḥār al-anwār, al-Majlisī argues that

“when one of the thirty dies, someone else takes his place.”48 In his Persian
Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, al-Majlisī explicitly states that “during the ghayba, it is possible
for some of the Shīʿa to attain [the Imam’s] presence.” To support this asser-
tion, he alludes to the above hadith which he says affirms “that thirty of his
elite [followers] (sī nafar az makhṣūṣān) are perpetually in [the Imam’s] ser-
vice. In other words ( yaʿnī), when one [of these thirty followers] dies, another
[follower] takes his place.”49
Later sources state that the thirty are in fact a category of awliyāʾ (intimate
friends or initiates). Commenting on this hadith in his Kitāb al-Rajʿa, Aḥmad
al-Aḥsāʾī (d. 1241/1826)50 employs terminology common to descriptions of the
Sufi hierarchical order of awliyāʾ in stating that thirty refers to the thirty sub-

46 Here he is likely referring to the opinion of his teacher al-Māzandarānī: “It has been said,
it is possible that this hadith means that he always appears as someone who is thirty years
old, for a person does not feel lonely at that age (wa-mā fī hādhā l-sinn min waḥsha), but
God knows best.” Al-Māzandarānī, Sharḥ Uṣūl al-kāfī, 6:244.
47 Al-Majlisī, Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, 4:50–1. A Persian summary of al-Majlisī’s explanation is pro-
vided by Fahrī-Zanjānī in his translation of al-Nuʿmānī’s al-Ghayba. Al-Nuʿmānī, Ghaybat-i
Nuʿmānī (trans. Fahrī-Zanjānī), 220–1.
48 [= in māta aḥaduhum qāma ākharu maqāmahu] Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:158 [= al-
Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī), 933]. Al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:854, also maintains
this view.
49 Al-Majlisī, Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, 345–6. Muṣṭafavī advances a similar interpretation, namely
that thirty, or twenty-nine (if we include the Imam himself), of the Imam’s companions
(aṣḥāb) are with him during his ghayba. Al-Kulaynī, Uṣūl al-kāfī (trans. Muṣṭafavī), 2:140
(no. 16).
50 On him, see Lawson, “Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy,” 128–9; MacEoin, The Messiah of Shiraz,
59–106, 607–18; Hamid, “Shaykh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾī.”
64 chapter 2

stitutes (abdāl)51 and chiefs (nuqabāʾ)52 that are in the company of the Hidden
Imam.53 While he does not state this explicitly, al-Aḥsāʾī appears to be referring
to a hadith ascribed to al-Bāqir prophesying that some three hundred believ-
ers will take an oath of allegiance to the Qāʾim when he appears at the Kaʿba,
and among these believers will be nuqabāʾ from Egypt, abdāl from Syria, and
akhyār (outstanding people) from Iraq.54
Ḥasan Urūmiyyih-ʾī (d. after 1260/1844), who translated volume 13 of al-
Majlisī’s Biḥār al-anwār on the ghayba of the Hidden Imam into Persian, com-
mented that “[the Imam’s] home during the days of ghayba is [in Medina],” and
added that “it appears that the thirty people refers to the ‘Men of the Unseen’
(rijāl al-ghayb) who are in the service of the Imam during the ghayba.”55

51 There are differences of opinion about the number of the abdāl. In his well-known Sufi
handbook, the Persian mystic ʿAlī al-Hujwīrī (d. between 465/1072 and 469/1077) states
they are forty in number. See Awn, “Sufism,” ER, 13:8821. The famous Andalusian philoso-
pher and mystic Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) states that there are only seven abdāl in any
given age. See I. Goldziher and H.J. Kissling, “Abdāl,” EI². On the absorption of the term
abdāl into later Shīʿī sources, see J. Chabbi, “Abdāl,” EIr, 1:173–4; Moosa, Extremist Shiites,
110–19; Corbin, The History of Islamic Philosophy, 72. On the position of the nujabāʾ and
nuqabāʾ in later Shaykhī discourse, in particular the writings of Muḥammad Karīm Khān
Kirmānī (d. 1871), see Bayat, Mysticism, 66–7, 76; MacEoin, The Messiah of Shiraz, 24–5, 29.
52 The nuqabāʾ of the Hidden Imam are referred to in an early hadith ascribed to al-Ṣādiq and
found in al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī, 8:167 (no. 185) and appear to refer to an elite body of initiates:
“[When he appears], the Qāʾim will take out a book (kitāban) which has been sealed with
a golden seal (makhtūm bi-khātam min dhahab). He will tear off [the seal] and read to the
people from [this book]. They will become startled and scatter away from him like fright-
ened sheep. Only his nuqabāʾ will remain.” Cf. a slightly different version of this hadith in
al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 610 (no. 25); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:326 (no. 42); al-Aḥsāʾī,
Sharḥ al-ziyāra, 3:77.
53 Al-Aḥsāʾī, Kitāb al-Rajʿa, 92. Cf. Lawson, Tafsir as Mystical Experience, 87. The abdāl inter-
pretation is also advanced by Ḥammūd, Abhā l-murād fī sharḥ muʾtamar ʿulamāʾ Baghdād,
2:677.
54 Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 477. A similar hadith ascribed to ʿAlī states that the nujabāʾ are
from Kufa and the abdāl are from Syria. Al-Mufīd, al-Amālī, 31.
55 Al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Urūmiyyih-ʾī), 1:748. The rijāl al-ghayb is another name
for the abdāl. See Moosa, Extremist Shiites, 110–1. In his al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya, Ibn al-
ʿArabī frequently speaks about the “men of the unseen” as a class of spiritual beings who
the helpers of the Mahdī can see with their “penetrating vision … even when [the “men
of the unseen”] want to be veiled and not to appear to [ordinary human] vision,” [Ibn
al-ʿArabī], The Meccan Revelations (trans. Morris), 1:73, 254 n. 30. Ibn al-ʿArabī recounts
two personal experiences of encounters with such spiritual beings, both of whom were
strangers and one of whom was Persian. [Ibn al-ʿArabī], The Meccan Revelations (trans.
Morris), 1:90–1, 271–2 nn. 119–21. Cf. the adoption of the term rijāl al-ghayb by leaders of
the Shaykhī school to designate an occult spiritual hierarchy. Corbin, En Islam iranien,
4:276; Amir-Moezzi, “An Absence Filled with Presences,” 42–4.
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 65

The prolific Quran commentator and cleric Muḥammad Muḥammadī Ishti-

hārdī (d. 2006) interprets this hadith to mean that “besides his wife and chil-
dren, a group of his friends who, according to a hadith, are thirty of his ‘sup-
ports’ (awtād) and prominent disciples, are always (hamvārih) in his service.”56
Since this statement follows his discussion of the famous encounter story of
the Green Island in the White Sea, it appears that the special friends to whom
Ishtihārdī refers are the family and followers of the Imam who are said to reside
on the Green Island with him.

waḥsha: “the thirty are never lonely”

Finally, the word waḥsha (defined in Arabic lexicons as loneliness; solitude;

forlornness, desolation, and sadness arising from these states) is derived from
waḥsh (pl. wuḥūsh), meaning wild beasts of the desert.57 Waḥsha is the anto-
nym of uns (companionship) and shares semantic properties with waḥda
(loneliness), khawf (fear), and hamm (concern). As an example of its usage in
classical Arabic literature, the lexicographer Ibn al-Zabīdī cites the expression,
akhadhathu al-waḥsha: “sadness arising from loneliness or solitude laid hold
upon him.”58 In Arabic sources, laylat al-waḥsha (also called laylat al-waḥda) is
the first night after the burial of a loved one. In Shīʿī sources, the night of ʿĀshūrā
(the eve of 11 Muḥarram) is called laylat al-waḥsha since on this night, believ-
ers remember and mourn the plight of the survivors of Karbala who spent the
night fearful in the desert.59 Moreover, waḥsha appears in a significant hadith
ascribed to Imam al-Riḍā about al-Khiḍr’s relationship to the Hidden Imam
(note the similarities between this and the Qāʾim’s appearance during the pil-
grimage, as discussed in the hadiths presented in the previous chapter):

Al-Khiḍr drank from the water of life and is alive. He will not die until
“the Trumpet is blown” (Q 78:18). He comes and greets us. We hear his
voice but do not see him. He is present whenever his name is mentioned
[or remembered, dhukira]. Whoever mentions him should greet him [for
then he is present]. He attends the pilgrimage, performs the rites, stands
in vigil at Mount Arafat, and says “amen” to the prayers of the believers.
Through him, God will keep our Qāʾim company (sa-yuʾnis bihi waḥshat

56 Ishtihārdī, Ḥaḍrat-i mahdī, 53.

57 Cf. Quran 81:5, the only verse in the Quran in which a word from the wāw-ḥāʾ-shīn root
occurs.
58 Al-Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs, 9:221. See also Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 2:2929–30.
59 Muḥaddithī, Mawsūʿat ʿĀshūrāʾ, 392 (entry on laylat al-waḥsha).
66 chapter 2

qāʾiminā) [lit., through him, God will accompany the loneliness of our
Qāʾim] during his ghayba and protect him from loneliness (wa-yaṣil bihi
waḥdatahu).60

Commenting on the phrase, “the thirty are never lonely,” Jalālī maintains that
“with the thirty people that are near him, [the Imam] prevents fear and worry
from entering [his heart].”61

2 Hadith 2 (and Variants): “[and] no one will know his location

except the elite of his mawālī”

The second hadith (henceforth, Hadith 2) that some later scholars cite as proof
that it is possible to contact the Imam during the Greater Occultation is, like
Hadith 1, first encountered in al-Kulaynī’s Uṣūl al-kāfī:

Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā62 < Muḥammad ‫ن ا ب ِْن‬

ِ َ ‫يح ْي َى ع َْن م ُح َم ّدِ ب ِْن اْلح ُسَي ْنِ ع‬
َ ‫ن‬
ُ ْ ‫م ُح َم ّد ُ ب‬
b. al-Ḥusayn63 < [Ḥasan] b. Maḥbūb64
ِ‫ل َأبوُ ع َب ْد‬ َ ‫ق ب ِْن عمََ ّاٍر ق َا‬
َ ‫ل ق َا‬ َ ‫ب ع َْن ِإْسح َا‬
ٍ ُ‫مح ْبو‬
َ
< Isḥāq b. ʿAmmār [al-Ṣayrafī]65 < al-
Ṣādiq: ‫الل ّٰه‬

60 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 362 (no. 4). Also cited in al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:152 (no. 3) [=
al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī), 929]. A similar hadith, attributed to al-Ḥasan
al-ʿAskarī, is first encountered in al-Rāwandī’s al-Kharāʾij wa-l-jarāʾiḥ, 3:1173 (no. 68), and
later in al-Nīlī’s Muntakhab al-anwār al-muḍīʾa, 75. The phrase, wa-yaṣil bihi waḥdatahu, is
similar to a sentence found in a Shīʿī supplication recited when a dead body is prepared for
burial: “O God! Be Thou his companion, befriend him in his loneliness (ānis waḥshatahu),
and dispel his solitude through Thy mercy .…” Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 79:30. Another
version of the same supplication is cited in al-Ṭūsī, Miṣbāḥ al-mujtahid, 21.
61 [= bā sī tan kih dar kinār-i ūyand, bīm va harāsī bih khud rāh nimīdahad] Al-Ṭūsī, Khūrshīd
dar nahān (trans. Jalālī), 1:231.
62 On him, see Newman, The Formative Period, index, s.v. “Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-ʿAṭṭār al-
Ashʿarī al-Qummī.”
63 Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. Abī l-Khaṭṭāb al-Zayyāt (d. 262/876). On him, see Newman,
The Formative Period, 68; Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, index, s.v. “Muḥammad b. al-
Ḥusayn b. Abī ʾl-Khaṭṭāb.”
64 Ḥasan b. Maḥbūb al-Sarrād or al-Zarrād (d. 224/838–9), author of the work Kitāb al-
Mashyakha on the subject of the ghayba (which has not survived), was a companion of
Imams al-Kāẓim, al-Riḍā, and al-Jawād, and considered trustworthy by authors of early
Shīʿī rijāl works. See Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 531–2; Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim
Scholar at Work, 264; Takim, “The Rijāl of the Shīʿī Imāms,” 216; Hussain, The Occultation,
4, 6; Ḥāʾirī, “Ḥasan b. Maḥbūb Sarrād,” DMT, 6:302.
65 Abū Yaʿqūb Isḥāq b. ʿAmmār b. Ḥayyān (d. ca. 181/798) was an important and trusted
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 67

The Qāʾim will have two ghaybas. One ٌ َ‫خر َى َطوِ يلة‬ ْ ‫صير َة ٌ و َاْلُأ‬ ِ َ ‫ن ِإحْد َاه ُم َ ق‬ ِ ‫ل ِل ْق َاِئِم غ َي ْب َت َا‬
of them will be short, while the other
ِ ‫شيعتَ ِه‬
ِ ُ ‫صة‬ ّ َ ‫ال ْغيَ ْبةَ ُ اْلُأول َى ل َا يعَ ْل َم ُ ب ِم َك َان ِه ِ فيِ ه َا ِإ َلّا خ َا‬
will be long. During the first ghayba,
no one will know his location except ‫صة ُ م َو َال ِيه‬ ّ َ ‫خر َى ل َا يعَ ْل َم ُ ب ِم َك َان ِه ِ فيِ ه َا ِإ َلّا خ َا‬ ْ ‫و َاْلُأ‬
the elite of his Shīʿa, while during the
other, no one will know his location
except the elite of his mawālī.66

Al-Nuʿmānī records the same hadith in his Kitāb al-Ghayba (completed in

342/954), stating that he heard it directly from al-Kulaynī, though in al-Nuʿmānī
work, the words “in his faith” ( fī dīnihi) are added to the end of the hadith’s
matn:

al-Kulaynī < Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā < ِ‫يح ْي َى ع َْن م ُح َم ّد‬

َ ‫ب ع َْن م ُح َم ّدِ ب ِْن‬ ُ ْ ‫ح ََّدث َن َا م ُح َم ّد ُ ب‬
َ ‫ن يعَ ْق ُو‬
Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn < Ḥasan
َ ‫ب ع َْن ِإْسح َا‬
‫ق ب ِْن‬ ٍ ُ‫مح ْبو‬
َ ‫ن ب ِْن‬
ِ َ‫ن اْلح َس‬
ِ َ ‫ب ِْن اْلح ُسَي ْنِ ع‬
b. Maḥbūb < Isḥāq b. ʿAmmār < al-
Ṣādiq: (‫ل َأبوُ ع َب ْدِ ال َل ّه ِ )ع‬ َ ‫عمََ ّاٍر ق َا‬
َ ‫ل ق َا‬

The Qāʾim will have two ghaybas. One ٌ َ‫خر َى َطوِ يلة‬ ْ ‫صير َة ٌ و َاْلُأ‬ ِ َ ‫ن ِإحْد َاه ُم َا ق‬ ِ ‫ل ِل ْق َاِئِم غ َي ْب َت َا‬
of them will be short while the other
ِ ‫شيعتَ ِه‬ ّ َ ‫ال ْغيَ ْبةَ ُ اْلُأول َى ل َا يعَ ْل َم ُ ب ِم َك َان ِه ِ فيِ ه َا ِإ َلّا خ َا‬
ِ ُ ‫صة‬
will be long. During the first ghayba,
no one will know his location except ‫صة ُ م َو َال ِيه ِ ف ِي‬ ّ َ ‫خر َى ل َا يعَ ْل َم ُ ب ِم َك َان ِه ِ فيِ ه َا ِإ َلّا خ َا‬ ْ ‫و َاْلُأ‬
the elite of his Shīʿa, while during the
ِ‫دِينه‬
other, no one will know his location
except the elite of his mawālī in his
faith.67

Al-Nuʿmānī also cites a similar hadith ascribed to al-Ṣādiq:

early hadith transmitter from al-Ṣādiq who (at one point) is said to have entertained
doctrines that were deemed “extreme” by later Imāmī Shīʿa, who considered themselves
“moderate.” On the problem of using the term ghulāt (lit., “exaggerators”), see Hodg-
son, “How did the Early Shīʿa become Sectarian?” 4–5; al-Qāḍī, “The Development of the
Term Ghulāt,” 295–319. On Ibn Ḥayyān, see Halm, “Das ‘Buch der Schatten’ [I],” 241–2;
Madelung, Religious Trends in Early Islamic Iran, 81; Modarressi, Tradition and Survival,
299 (no. 111).
66 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:340 (no. 19). Also cited in al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Ithbāt al-hudā, 5:58;
Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 532.
67 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 175 (no. 2); al-Shaftī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 2:302 (no. 230).
68 chapter 2

Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Saʿīd b. ‫ل‬

َ ‫ن ع ُْقد َة َ ق َا‬
ُ ْ ‫سعيِ ٍد ا ب‬ ُ ْ ‫ح ََّدث َن َا َأْحم َد ُ ب‬
َ ‫ن م ُح َم ّدِ ب ِْن‬
ʿUqda (d. 333/944–5)68 < ʿAlī b. al-
َ‫ن ال َت ّي ْم ُل ِ ُيّ ع َْن عمُ رَ َب ِْن ع ُث ْم َان‬ ُ ْ ‫ح ََّدث َن َا ع َل ِ ُيّ ب‬
ِ َ‫ن اْلح َس‬
Ḥasan al-Taymulī (d. 224/838–9)69 <
ʿUmar b. ʿUthmān < Ibn Maḥbūb < ‫ق ب ِْن عمََ ّاٍر‬
َ ‫ب ع َْن ِإْسح َا‬
ٍ ُ‫مح ْبو‬
َ ‫ن ب ِْن‬
ِ َ‫ن اْلح َس‬
ِ َ‫ع‬
Isḥāq b. ʿAmmār al-Ṣayrafī < al-Ṣādiq:
ُ ‫ت َأباَ ع َب ْدِ ال َل ّه ِ )ع( يقَ ُو‬
‫ل‬ ُ ْ‫ل سَم ِع‬ ّ َ ‫ال‬
َ ‫صي ْر َف ِ ِيّ ق َا‬

The Qāʾim will have two ghaybas. One ٌ ‫صير َة‬ ْ ‫ن ِإحْد َاه ُم َا َطوِ يلةَ ٌ و َاْلُأ‬
ِ َ ‫خر َى ق‬ ِ ‫ل ِل ْق َاِئِم غ َي ْب َت َا‬
of them will be long, while the other
ِ ‫شيعتَ ِه‬ ّ َ ‫ف َاْلُأول َى يعَ ْل َم ُ ب ِم َك َان ِه ِ فيِ ه َا خ َا‬
ِ ‫صة ٌ م ِْن‬
will be short. During the first, [only]
the most elite of his Shīʿa will know ْ ‫و َاْلُأ‬
ّ َ ‫خر َى ل َا يعَ ْل َم ُ ب ِم َك َان ِه ِ فيِ ه َا ِإ َلّا خ َا‬
ِ ‫صة ُ م َو َال ِيه‬
his location, while during the other,
ِ‫ف ِي دِينه‬
no one will know his location except
the elite of his mawālī in his faith.70
Al-Ḥalabī (d. 447/1055) cites a similar hadith on the authority of Isḥāq b.
ʿAmmār with two noticeable differences: (1) his version does not contain the
second part of the hadith, and (2) the term awliyāʾ is used, as opposed to Shīʿa
or mawālī: “The Qāʾim will have two ghaybas, one short and the other long. For
the first one, his place will be known, especially to his intimate friends/initi-
ates.”71
Interestingly, the two versions of this hadith cited by al-Majlisī in Biḥār al-
anwār are markedly different. One version reads, “The Qāʾim will have two
ghaybas. One of them will be short while the other will be long. During the first
ghayba, no one will know his location except the elite of his mawālī.”72 In this
version, there is no mention of whether anyone will know the Imam’s location
and be able to contact him during the second or Greater Occultation.
The second version of the hadith recorded by al-Majlisī is even more puz-
zling. Here, the negative particle illā is left out, generating a radically different
meaning: “The Qāʾim will have two ghaybas. One of them will be long, while
the other will be short. During the first, [only] the most privileged of his Shīʿa

68 Known as Ibn ʿUqda. On him, see al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī, 94 (no. 233); Modarressi, Tra-
dition and Survival, index, s.v. “Ibn ʿUqda.”
69 Abū Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Faḍḍāl al-Kūfī al-Taymulī, a transmitter of hadith
from al-Kāẓim and al-Riḍā. On him, see al-Sayyārī, Revelation and Falsification, 62 n. 17.
70 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 175 (no. 1); al-Shaftī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 2:301 (no. 229); Sachedina,
Islamic Messianism, 210 n. 16; Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin 327–8 n. 711.
71 [= yuʿlam makānuhu khāṣṣatan li-awliyāʾihi] Al-Ḥalabī, Taqrīb al-maʿārif, 431.
72 Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:155 (no. 11) [= al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Urūmiyyih-
ʾī), 1:750–1].
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 69

will know his location, while during the other, not even the elite of his mawālī
in his faith will know his location.”73

2.1 Hadith 2: Comments

Like Hadith 1, Hadith 2 is also of Wāqifī origin. Although none of the names
mentioned in the isnād are identified as Wāqifī in rijāl works, at least one,
namely al-Ḥasan b. Maḥbūb, transmitted numerous hadiths from the Wāqifī
ʿAlī b. Abī Ḥamza al-Baṭāʾinī74 and consequently, al-Ṭūsī called his authority
into question.75 Moreover, Hadith 2 is clearly modeled after a different Wāqifī
hadith that al-Ṭūsī has preserved: “Abū l-Ḥasan [that is, Mūsā al-Kāẓim] will
have two ghaybas. One of them will be short, and the other will be long.”76
Based on reading Hadith 2 (the version found in al-Nuʿmānī), which states
that “the first ghayba will … be the longer one,” Kohlberg argues that “the
impression gained from the discrepancy between the description of the respec-
tive lengths of the first and second ghaybas is that initially it was not quite clear
which of the two would last longer.”77 Hadith 2 does state that one of the two
ghaybas will be longer, though it does not necessarily clarify that it is the first.
More importantly, elsewhere in al-Nuʿmānī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba, where this ver-
sion of Hadith 2 is first cited, al-Nuʿmānī is adamant that “the short ghayba”
(al-ghayba al-qaṣīra) has ended and that he is writing during the long [what
came to be known later as the greater] ghayba.
In Hadith 2, the meaning of the word khāṣṣa is of particular importance. In
early Shīʿī sources, the Shīʿa are often called al-khāṣṣa (“the elite”) while the

73 Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:155 (no. 10). The editors of Biḥār al-anwār have “corrected”
this anomaly by placing the word illā back into the hadith in brackets and referencing
the published edition of al-Nuʿmānī’s al-Ghayba, but it is entirely possible that al-Majlisī
relied on an earlier manuscript of al-Nuʿmānī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba. It merits noting that
in the two published Persian translations of al-Majlisī’s work, both translators rendered
the hadith the way it was preserved by al-Majlisī without observing any problems. Thus,
Urūmiyyih-ʾī translates the last part of the hadith as “In the short ghayba, the elite (khāṣ-
ṣān) of [his] Shīʿa know his location while in the other, not even the elite are aware [of his
location].” Al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Urūmiyyih-ʾī), 1:750. Davānī’s translation is
similar: “During the first [short] ghayba, the elite of his Shīʿa know his location, but during
the second [long] ghayba, not even his special friends (dūstān-i makhṣūṣ-i ū) know where
he is.” Al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī), 930.
74 See, for example, al-Ṭūsī, al-Amālī, 216 (no. 380); al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 435; al-Majlisī,
Biḥār al-anwār, 23:4 (no. 81); 52:214 (no. 69); 52:354 (no. 115).
75 Al-Ṭūsī, Ikhtiyār maʿrifat al-rijāl, 2:799 (no. 989).
76 [= iḥdāhumā taqill wa-l-ukhrā taṭūl] Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 57; Kohlberg, “From Imām-
iyya,” 532 n. 78; Klemm, “Die vier sufarāʾ,” 142.
77 Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 528. The same reading of this hadith is found in Momen, An
Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, 75.
70 chapter 2

non-Shīʿa (and especially Sunnīs) are labeled al-ʿāmma (“the commoners” or

“the regular, ordinary folk”).78 However, in works such as al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī’s
(d. 290/903) Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, the early Shīʿī community is divided into two
circles. The majority of the Shīʿa constitute the ʿāmma, while a prestigious
minority or inner circle make up the khāṣṣa, a qualified spiritual elite who
were initiated into secret knowledge and esoteric doctrines that were kept from
the ʿāmma, and who were charged with “la garde du secret,” to quote Amir-
Moezzi’s perceptive translation of taqiyya.79 According to a report found in
Ithbāt al-waṣiyya, the tenth Imam concealed himself from all but a handful
of his elite Shīʿa (ʿadad yasīr min khawāṣṣihi), and al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī spoke
with his elite followers and others from behind a veil. It is said that the Imams
acted in this fashion to prepare the believers for the ghayba of the Qāʾim, so
that the Imam’s concealment would become a routine matter and they would
not reject the ghayba.80 My translation of khāṣṣa as “elite followers” follows
Amir-Moezzi, who renders khāṣṣa as “l’élite des croyants”81 and argues that
the expression khāṣṣat shīʿatihi “désigne sans doute les quatre ‘représentants’
(nāʾib/wakīl/safīr) de l’imam cache pendant l’Occultation mineure,”82 since,
according to tradition, they alone knew the location of the Imam. It is impor-
tant to note, however, that Amir-Moezzi is here expressing a later interpreta-
tion of Hadith 2, given that, as mentioned, the institution of sifāra (“emissary-
hood”) is not explicitly defined in any of the works that have survived from the
Lesser Occultation.
Seeing as Hadith 1 and Hadith 2 are recorded in al-Kulaynī’s Uṣūl al-kāfī
(unlike Hadith 3 below), it is useful to briefly discuss a commentary on al-Kāfī
that has not yet been mentioned: the incomplete commentary of the renowned

78 Kohlberg, “ʿĀmma,” EIr, 1:976–7; Kohlberg, Belief and Law, 8; M.A.J. Beg, “al-Khāṣṣa waʾl-
ʿĀmma,” EI²; Floor, “Ḵāṣṣa,” EIr, 16:106–12; Dakake, The Charismatic Community, 11–2, 159–
60; Mahdīpūr, “Khāṣṣah va ʿĀmmah,” DJI (online). In one of the accounts of an encounter
with the Hidden Imam from the Lesser Occultation, the Imam tells ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm b.
Mahziyār al-Ahwāzī that were it not for the repentance of some of the Shīʿa, every-
one on earth would be killed “except the elite few of the Shīʿa whose words resemble
their deeds” (illā khawāṣṣ al-shīʿa alladhīna tushbihu aqwāluhum afʿālahum). Al-Ṭabarī al-
Ṣaghīr, Dalāʾil al-imāma, 154. Cf. al-Baḥrānī, Madīnat al-maʿājiz, 8:118, where it is cited with
slight differences; al-Baḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-walī, 146.
79 Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 221. See also Friedman, The Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, 185.
80 Al-Masʿūdī (attrib.), Ithbāt al-waṣiyya, 272; al-Ṣadr, al-Mahdī, 181–2. On the attribution of
Ithbāt al-waṣiyya to al-Masʿūdī, see Anṣārī, Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī, 875–85.
81 Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 74 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight), 29].
82 Amir-Moezzi, “Fin du Temps,” 62; Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin 328 n. 711; Amir-Moezzi,
“Eschatology iii: In Imami Shiʿism,” EIr, 8:579. Cf. Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la Typolo-
gie,” 133, where the words “sans doute” are left out.
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 71

Safavid philosopher Mullā Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (Mullā Ṣadrā) (d. ca. 1045/
1635–6).83 While a rigorous analysis of Ṣadrā’s views on the Hidden Imam
remains a desideratum,84 some notes about his comments on these hadiths
can be mentioned.
Although Ṣadrā chose not to gloss Hadith 1 and Hadith 2 directly, in the
chapter of his work concerning hadiths about the Qāʾim and his ghayba, he
states that the Qāʾim was named al-qāʾim “because he exists (mawjūd)85 …
never becomes weak or ill, never grows old, and will never be forgotten …
rather, he lives and will die in accordance with the will of God.” Here Ṣadrā
appears to be reading qāʾim in a sense that is closer to the meaning of the divine
name, qayyūm (“self-subsisting”; cf. Quran 2:255). Then he contends, in a possi-
ble echo of his signature philosophical theory of “transubstantial motion” and
“essential movement” (al-ḥaraka al-jawhariyya), that “the substance/essence of
(the Qāʾim’s) spirit is not separate from [his] body (laysa anna jawhar rūḥihi
mufāraqun ʿan al-jasad); rather, he is [constantly] eating, drinking, talking,
moving, resting, walking, sitting and writing.” In other words, the Qāʾim is not
essentially stable but rather, like the rest of reality and all of creation, he under-
goes flux and is continually renewed and recreated by God.86
Concerning the ghayba of the Imam, Ṣadrā specifically maintains that

the nature (kayfiyya) of [the Hidden Imam] being alive and existing on
earth is the same as the nature of Jesus being alive and existing in the sky.
Anyone who rejects the fact that the Mahdī exists today or thinks that it is

83 On Ṣadrā, see Rahman, “Mullā Ṣadrā,” ER, 9:6231–4, though he does not mention Ṣadrā’s
commentary on the Uṣūl; Rizvi, “Mollā Ṣadrā Ṧirāzi,” EIr (online); Rizvi, “Reconsidering
the Life of Mullā Ṣadrā,” 181–201. The Sharḥ Uṣūl al-kāfī was one of his later works. Rustom,
The Triumph of Mercy, 36, points out that it was written after he had completed his com-
mentaries on various suras of the Quran. On Sharḥ Uṣūl al-kāfī, see Dakake, “Hierarchies of
Knowing in Mullā Ṣadrā’s Commentary on al-Kāfī”; Kaukua, “The Intellect in Mullā Ṣadrā’s
Commentary on the Uṣūl al-kāfī.” Another important philosophical commentary on al-
Kāfī by Muḥammad al-Bāqir Mīr Dāmād (d. 1040/1630), al-Rawāshiḥ al-samāwiyya fī sharḥ
aḥadīth al-imāmiyya, does not contain any comments on the hadiths about the ghayba.
84 Studies in Persian include the short descriptive articles of Mamdūḥī, “Ḥaḍrat-i Mahdī-i”
and Saʿdī, “Imām-i Mahdī.” On the general role of the Imam in Ṣadrā’s worldview as “a
microcosmic disclosure of God and cosmos,” though without any reference to the Hidden
Imam, see Rizvi, Mullā Ṣadrā and Metaphysics, 128–30; Dehbashi, Transubstantial Motion,
24–5.
85 The word Qāʾim is the active participle of the verb qāma, meaning “to rise,” but Qāʾim can
also be translated as “the one who exists,” since the English word “exist” is etymologically
traced to the Latin “existō,” meaning, like qāma, “to stand forth, to arise, to be.”
86 On Ṣadrā’s theory, see Dehbashi, Transubstantial Motion, esp. 57–9.
72 chapter 2

inconceivable that he could live so long suffers from deficient knowledge,

weak faith, and inadequate awareness of the nature [of the ghayba].87

Elsewhere, he states that

in investigating the reality of this matter and others like it, we have pur-
sued a fastidious methodology and a meticulous approach. This is not the
place to go into the details,88 but briefly, we have alluded to it earlier in
our statement that the quiddity of his existence and his being alive in the
realm of the earth (ʿālam al-arḍ) is the same as Jesus existing and living
in the sky.

It appears that Ṣadrā is not speaking about the physical earth and sky in this
passage. Immediately following this comment, he integrates a long excerpt
from Ibn al-ʿArabī’s (d. 638/1240) al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, without an introduc-
tion or any indication that he is citing from that work, about “the earth of wor-
ship” (arḍ al-ʿibāda), thus suggesting that this is what he means by the “realm
of the earth” as the abode of the Hidden Imam.89 Ṣadrā’s interpretation, like his
entire philosophical system, is innovative, though the influence of Ibn al-ʿArabī
here and elsewhere is discernible. I have not come across any references in
Ṣadrā’s published writings to the stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam,
in contrast, for example, to the works of his student al-Kāshānī. Ṣadrā chose not
to comment directly on any of the reports found in al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī about
believers who had seen the Hidden Imam during the Lesser Occultation.

3 Hadith 3 (and Variants): “except the mawlā who is in charge of his

affairs”

The third and final hadith (henceforth, Hadith 3) invoked by some Shīʿī scho-
lars to defend the veracity of stories of encounters with the Imam during the
Greater Occultation is ascribed to al-Ṣādiq and transmitted on the authority
of his well-known disciple al-Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUmar al-Juʿfī (fl. late second/eighth

87 Ṣadrā, Sharḥ Uṣūl al-kāfī, 1:558. Ṣadrā then cites, presumably with approval, via his teacher,
al-Shaykh al-Bahāʾī, a lengthy passage from chapter 366 of Ibn al-ʿArabī’s al-Futūḥāt al-
Makkiyya concerning the Mahdī and his helpers. He does so without any further com-
ments of his own. Ṣadrā, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm, 5:76, also affirms the doctrine of “return”
(rajʿa), said to take place at the time of the appearance of the Qāʾim.
88 [= wa-lanā fī taḥqīq hādhā l-marām wa-amthālihi maslakun anīqun wa-manhajun daqīqun
laysa hāhunā mawḍiʿ tafṣīlihi]
89 Ṣadrā, Sharḥ Uṣūl al-kāfī, 1:564.
 hidden from all, yet seen by some? 73

century, d. before 179/795–6).90 This hadith is not found in any of the Shīʿī works
that have survived from the time of the Lesser Occultation. In fact, the earliest
extant work in which it appears is al-Nuʿmānī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba. Two attesta-
tions are cited in al-Ṭūsī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba, henceforth, al-Ṭūsī (A) and al-Ṭūsī
(B). For ease of comparison, all three hadiths are presented in the following
table:

al-Ṭūsī (B) al-Ṭūsī (A) from al-Nuʿmānī’s al-Ghayba

(‫من كتاب الغيبة للطوسي )ب‬ (‫من كتاب الغيبة للطوسي )أ‬ ‫من کتاب الغيبة للنعماني‬

‫ن‬
ِ َ ‫ست َنيِ ر ِ ع‬
ْ ُ ‫ن ال ْم‬
ُ ْ ُ‫ل و َر َو َى ِإ ب ْراَ ه ِيم ب‬
َ ‫ق َا‬ ‫ن‬
ِ َ ‫س ع َْن ع َل ِ ِيّ ب ِْن م ُح َم ٍّد ع‬
َ ‫ن ِإْدرِ ي‬
ُ ْ ‫َأْحم َد ُ ب‬ ‫ل‬
َ ‫سعيِ ٍد ق َا‬
َ ‫ن م ُح َم ّدِ ب ِْن‬
ُ ْ ‫و َ َأخْبرَ َناَ َأْحم َد ُ ب‬
(‫ت َأباَ ع َب ْدِ الل ّٰه )ع‬
ُ ْ‫ل سَم ِع‬
َ ‫ل ق َا‬ ّ َ َ ‫جبلَةَ َ ال ْم ُف‬
ِ ‫ض‬ َ ‫شاذ َانَ ع َْن ع َب ْدِ الل ّٰه ب ِْن‬
َ ‫ل ب ِْن‬
ِ ‫ض‬
ْ َ ‫ال ْف‬ ‫ن‬ ُ ْ ‫ح ََّدث َن َا ال ْق َاس ِم ُ ب‬
ِ َ‫ن م ُح َم ّدِ ب ِْن م ُح َم ّدِ ب ِْن اْلح َس‬
‫ل‬
ُ ‫يقَ ُو‬ ‫ل‬ ّ َ َ ‫ن ال ْم ُف‬
ِ ‫ض‬ ِ َ ‫ست َنيِ ر ِ ع‬
ْ ُ ‫ن ع َْن ع َب ْدِ الل ّٰه ب ِْن ال ْم‬ ُ ْ‫سب‬ ُ ْ ‫ل ح ََّدث َن َا ع ُب َي‬
َ ‫ب ِْن ح َازٍِم م ِْن كتِ اَب ِه ِ ق َا‬
(‫ت َأباَ ع َب ْدِ الل ّٰه )ع‬ ُ ْ‫ل سَم ِع‬ َ ‫جبلَةَ َع َْن ِإ ب ْراَ ه ِيم َ ب ِْن عمُ رَ َق َا‬ َ ‫ه ِشَاٍم ع َْن ع َب ْدِ الل ّٰه ب ِْن‬
‫ل‬
ُ ‫ل ب ِْن عمُ رَ َاْلج ُعْفِ ِّي يقَ ُو‬
ِ ‫ض‬ّ َ َ ‫ن ال ْم ُف‬
ِ َ ‫ست َنيِ ر ِ ع‬
ْ ُ ‫ب ِْن ال ْم‬
‫ل‬
َ ‫ق )ع( ق َا‬ ِ ِ‫صاد‬ ّ َ ‫ع َْن َأب ِي ع َب ْدِ الل ّٰه ال‬

ِ‫ب ه َذ َا اْلَأْمر ِ غ َي ْب َت َي ْن‬

ِ ‫ح‬
ِ ‫صا‬ ّ َ ‫ِإ‬
َ ِ‫نل‬ ِ‫ب ه َذ َا اْلَأْمر ِ غ َي ْب َت َي ْن‬
ِ ‫ح‬
ِ ‫صا‬ َّ ‫إ‬
َ ِ‫نل‬ ِ‫ب ه َذ َا اْلَأْمر ِ غ َي ْب َت َي ْن‬
ِ ‫ح‬
ِ ‫صا‬ َّ ‫إ‬
َ ِ‫نل‬
َ ‫ح َت ّى يقُ َا‬
‫ل‬ ْ ‫ن اْلُأ‬
َ ‫خر َى‬ َ ِ‫ل م‬
ُ َ ‫ِإحْد َاه ُم َا َأْطو‬ ‫ت‬ َ ‫ح َت ّى يقَ ُو‬
َ ‫ل بعَ ْض ُه ُْم م َا‬ َ ‫ل‬
ُ ‫ِإحْد َاه ُم َا ت َط ُو‬ ‫ت‬ َ ‫ح َت ّى يقَ ُو‬
َ ‫ل بعَ ْض ُه ُْم م َا‬ َ ‫ل‬
ُ ‫ِإحْد َاه ُم َا ت َط ُو‬
‫ل‬
َ ِ ‫ل ق ُت‬
ُ ‫ض يقَ ُو‬
ٌ ْ َ‫ت و َبع‬
َ ‫م َا‬ ‫ل بعَ ْض ُه ُْم‬
َ ‫ل و َ يقَ ُو‬
َ ِ ‫ل بعَ ْض ُه ُْم ق ُت‬
َ ‫و َ يقَ ُو‬ ‫ل‬
ُ ‫ل و َبعَ ْض ُه ُْم يقَ ُو‬
َ ِ ‫ل ق ُت‬
ُ ‫و َبعَ ْض ُه ُْم يقَ ُو‬
‫ب‬
َ َ ‫ذ َه‬ ‫ب‬
َ َ ‫ذ َه‬

‫ف َل َا ي َب ْقَى ع َلىَ َأْمر ِه ِ ِإ َلّا نفَ َر ٌي َِسير ٌ م ِْن‬ ‫صح َاب ِه ِ ِإ َلّا‬
ْ ‫ح َت ّى ل َا ي َب ْقَى ع َلىَ َأْمر ِه ِ م ِْن َأ‬
َ ٌ ‫صح َاب ِه ِ ِإ َلّا نفَ َر‬
ْ ‫ف َل َا ي َب ْقَى ع َلىَ َأْمر ِه ِ م ِْن َأ‬
ِ ‫ضع ِه‬ ّ َ َ ‫صح َاب ِه ِ و َل َا ي‬
ِ ْ ‫طلـ ُِع َأح َدٌ ع َلىَ م َو‬ ْ ‫َأ‬ ‫ضع ِه ِ َأح َدٌ م ِْن‬ ّ َ َ ‫ضع ِه ِ َأح َدٌ م ِْن و َل ِ ٍيّ نفَ َر ٌي َِسير ٌ ل َا ي‬
ِ ْ ‫طلـ ُِع ع َلىَ م َو‬ ّ َ َ ‫ي َِسير ٌ ل َا ي‬
ِ ْ ‫طلـ ُِع ع َلىَ م َو‬
‫و َ َأْمر ِه ِ و َل َا غيَ ْر ِه ِ ِإ َلّا ال ْموَ ْل َى ال َ ّذ ِي يلَ ِي‬ ‫و ُل ْد ِه ِ و َل َا غيَ ْر ِه ِ ِإ َلّا ال ْموَ ْل َى ال َ ّذ ِي يلَ ِي َأْمرَه‬ ‫و َل َا غ َي ْر ِه ِ ِإ َلّا ال ْموَ ْل َى ال َ ّذ ِي يلَ ِي َأْمرَه‬
ُ ‫َأْمرَه‬

90 Al-Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUmar al-Juʿfī was an agent of al-Ṣādiq who transmitted hadith from
both al-Ṣādiq and al-Kāẓim. According to some later sources, he briefly preached cer-
tain antinomian ideas of which al-Ṣādiq disapproved. On al-Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUmar al-Juʿfī,
see Halm, “Das ‘Buch der Schatten’ [I],” 224–36 and passim; Halm, Die Islamische Gnosis,
214–7; Madelung, “K̲ h̲aṭṭābiyya,” EI²; Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 215 n. 27; Sached-
ina, “The Significance of Kashshī’s Rijāl,” 194; Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, index,
s.v. “Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUmar al-Juʿfī”; Bar-Asher, Scripture and Exegesis, 240–1; Anthony, “The
Mahdī,” 465ff.; Asatryan, “Mofażżal al-Joʿfi,”EIr (online); Asatryan, Controversies in Forma-
tive Shiʿi Islam, 43ff. On works attributed to him, see Modarressi, Tradition and Survival,
333–7.
 74 chapter 2

(cont.)

al-Ṭūsī (B) al-Ṭūsī (A) from al-Nuʿmānī’s al-Ghayba

(‫من كتاب الغيبة للطوسي )ب‬ (‫من كتاب الغيبة للطوسي )أ‬ ‫من کتاب الغيبة للنعماني‬

Al-Ṭūsī (B): The master of this Al-Ṭūsī (A): The master of this Al-Nuʿmānī: The master of this
amr will have two ghaybas. amr will have two ghaybas. amr will have two ghaybas.

One of them will last longer than One of them will last until some One of them will last until some
the other, until some say that he say that he has died and others say that he has died and others
has died and others say that he say that he was killed, and still say that he was killed, and still
was killed. others [say] that he has left [and others [say] that he has left [and
will not return]. will not return].

No one will remain [faithful] to [It will last] until none of his com- None of his companions will
his amr except a small group panions remain [faithful] to his be remain [faithful] to his amr
of his companions. No one will amr except a small group. None except a small group. None of his
know his location or have any of his children or anyone else friends or anyone else will know
knowledge about his amr or any- will know his location except the his location except the mawlā
thing else [related to him] except mawlā who is in charge of his who is in charge of his affairs.93
the mawlā who is in charge of his affairs.92
affairs.91

The matn of the hadith as recorded by al-Nuʿmānī is older and appears to be

more reliable than al-Ṭūsī (A), leading scholars to conclude that the hadith was
corrupted (muḥarraf ), inasmuch as al-Nuʿmānī narrated it without mention-
ing that the Imam had any children.94
As first noted by Madelung, this hadith, like others that specify two ghaybas
for the Qāʾim, is undoubtedly of Wāqifī origin.95 ʿAbdallāh b. Jabala (d. 210/834)

91 Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 61 (no. 60).

92 Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 161–2 (no. 120). Also cited in al-Nīlī, Muntakhab al-anwār al-
muḍīʾa, 155; al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Ithbāt al-hudā, 5:118 (no. 279); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār,
52:152–3 (no. 5); al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 152; al-Shaftī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 2:304
(no. 238). This particular report has been adduced by some scholars as proof that the Hid-
den Imam had children during the ghayba. For a discussion of this controversial question,
see Shafīʿī, “Dānistanīhā-yi,” 329–33.
93 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 176 (no. 5); al-Shaftī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 2:302 (no. 232). This hadith
is partially translated in Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 528. Al-Nuʿmānī avers that this one
hadith suffices to prove the ghayba of the Imam: wa-law lam yakun yurwā fī l-ghayba illā
hādhā l-ḥadīth la-kāna fīhi kifāya li-man taʾammalahu.
94 Al-Tustarī, al-Akhbār al-dakhīla, 150. Gulpāyigānī (b. 1918), Pāsukh-i dah pursish, 54, also
makes this point and argues that it is not possible to know with certainty whether or not
the Hidden Imam has a wife and children.
95 Madelung, “al-Mahdī,” EI², 5:1236. Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 57 (no. 52), preserves a hadith
explicitly stating that al-Kāẓim will have “two ghaybas.”
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 75

of Kufa, who is mentioned in the isnād, wrote a work to prove the ghayba of al-
Kāẓim and is widely recognized as a Wāqifī in the early rijāl works.96 Though
al-Ṭūsī cites this hadith, he also responded to the challenge that the hadith
is of Wāqifī origin. He writes that this hadith makes clear that the Qāʾim will
have two ghaybas. During the first or minor ghayba, information about the
Imam was accessible to the faithful. However, during the second ghayba, news
about him (akhbāruhu) was cut off, his written communications (mukāta-
bātuhu), that is, his tawqīʿāt, ceased, and no one had any information about
him except one special person: the mawlā. Al-Ṭūsī argues that the same was
not true of the ghayba of al-Kāẓim and therefore this hadith was not applica-
ble to him.97

4 The mawlā/mawālī

Hadith 2 and Hadith 3 maintain that during the ghayba of the Imam, and in
particular during the second or longer ghayba, no one in his family, or any of
his Shīʿa, or any of his awliyāʾ will know his location or be able to contact him.
The only person/people who will be able to reach him are the elite of his mawālī
(according to Hadith 2) or the mawlā who is responsible for his affairs (accord-
ing to Hadith 3); this begs the question: who is/are the mawlā/mawālī?
Mawlā (pl. mawālī), a polysemic word from the root waw-lām-yāʾ, has an
expansive semantic field and a penumbra of connotations. It is undoubtedly
the most ambiguous term in the above-mentioned hadiths. The word mawlā
can be rendered as protector, friend, ally, patron, lord or chief; kinsman, depen-
dent or relative; freedman or client (in the sense of being under someone’s
patronage); or servant.98 The term has a range of meanings and a rich history
in Shīʿī literature. It immediately conjures up the cryptic words Muḥammad
is said to have spoken during his farewell pilgrimage at the pool of Ghadīr
in the valley of Khumm, words that have been the subject of intense debate

96 Al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī, 216 (no. 563); al-Ḥillī, Khulāṣat al-aqwāl, 372; al-Shāhrūdī, Mus-
tadrakāt ʿilm rijāl al-ḥadīth, 4:497 (no. 8138).
97 Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 61 (no. 60). Cf. al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Ithbāt al-hudā, 5:117 (no. 277).
98 Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 2:3061. On its use in the Quran, see Guenther, “Clients and
Clientage,” EQ, 1:344–6; Wensinck, “Mawlā I. In the Ḳurʾān and Tradition,” EI²; Calderini,
“Lord,” EQ, 3:229–31; Badawi and Abdel Haleem, Arabic-English Dictionary of Qurʾanic
Usage, 1048–9, who identify five denotations: (1) master, protector, patron; (2) ally, friend;
(3) kinfolk, dependents; (4) a freed slave; (5) inheritor, heir. See also Crone, “Mawlā II. In
Historical and Legal Usage,” EI²; Campo, “Mawlā,” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic
World; Landolt, “Walāyah,” ER, 14:9656–9662.
76 chapter 2

among Sunnī and Shīʿī scholars for centuries: “For whomever I am their mawlā,
ʿAlī is [also] their mawlā.”99

4.1 Mawlā = God

Some scholars interpreted al-mawlā in Hadith 3 as a reference to God. Ḥasan
Urūmiyyih-ʾī (d. after 1260/1844) appears to have been the first to posit this
interpretation by rendering illā l-mawlā alladhī yalī amrahu as “except Divine
Providence Who directs [the Imam’s] affairs”100 in his Persian translation of
the Kitāb al-ḥujja of al-Majlisī’s Biḥār al-anwār. More than a century later,
ʿAlī Davānī (d. 2007) was less oblique in his updated translation of the same
volume, completed in 1339 Sh./1960: “except for God Who determines when,
where, and how [the Imam] will appear.”101 Researcher and translator Muḥam-
mad Sipihrī (b. 1965) advanced the same interpretation: “No one, not even his
children, knows [the Imam’s] location, except God, Who holds [the Imam’s]
affairs in His hands.”102
Defining mawlā in these hadiths as God is a late development and though
textually tenable, it implies that no human being can know the location of the
Imam during the Greater Occultation. This reading thus negates the possibility
of any person ever contacting or seeing the Imam, a position with which schol-
ars like Urūmiyyih-ʾī and Davānī would presumably not agree, given that they
have translated many of these accounts into Persian.

4.2 Mawlā = Friend

A more likely interpretation of mawlā is “intimate friend” (close to one of the
meanings of the word walī) or “initiate.” In some early sources, the term is
deployed in this sense. For instance, a hadith ascribed to al-Kāẓim classifies
humanity into three categories: “the true genuine Arab, the mawlā, and the
uncouth (ʿilj) [person]. We [that is, the Imams] are the true, genuine Arabs;

99 Translated and discussed in Valieri, “G̲ h̲ adīr K̲ h̲umm,”EI², 2:993–4; Landolt, “Walāyah,”ER,
14:9658; Amir-Moezzi, “Notes à propos de la Walāya Imamite,” 738; Dakake, The Charis-
matic Community, 46–7; Dakake, “Ḡadīr Ḵomm i.,” EIr, 10:246–7; Jafri, Origins and Early
Development, 21–2; Dien and Walker, “Wilāya,” EI², 11:207–9; Bar-Asher, “La rapport de la
religion nuṣayrite-ʿalawite,” 81. For other sources, see Lalani, “Ghadir Khumm,” OB.
100 [= magar parvardigārī kih mudabbir-i umūr-i ūst] Al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans.
Urūmiyyih-ʾī), 1:748.
101 [= juz khudāvandī kih ẓuhūr-u ū bi-dast-i viy ast] Al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans.
Davānī), 930.
102 [= magar khudāyī kih ikhityār-i ū rā dar dast dārad] Al-ʿĀmilī, Jazīrih-yi khaḍrāʾ (trans.
Sipihrī), 218.
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 77

the mawlā is he who befriends, loves, and is loyal to us ( fa-man wālānā);103

and the uncouth [one] is he who disassociates himself from us and is openly
hostile toward us.”104 Moreover, it is said that the tenth Imam appointed his son
as the next Imam in the presence of “a group of mawālī,”105 meaning, here at
least, a close inner circle of followers and friends. And a hadith ascribed to the
third Imam states that the mawālī are “from us” (wa-hum minnā),106 which, to
cite Amir-Moezzi, “probablement qu’ils sont formés de la même substance que
nous.”107
Among scholars writing in Western languages, the greatest proponent of this
interpretation has been Amir-Moezzi. He posits that taken together, Hadith 2
and Hadith 3 “appear to suggest” that the faithful believers in the Imam remain
in contact with him throughout the Greater Occultation. In his works, Amir-
Moezzi translates khāṣṣat mawālīhi in Hadith 2 as “les élus parmi ses Amis
intimes” [the chosen ones among his intimate friends]108 and “les élus parmi
ses Amis fidèles”109 or “les élus parmi ses fidèles Amis”110 [the chosen ones
among his faithful friends]. According to him, khāṣṣat mawālīhi refers to “les
fidèles particulièrement initiés pour pouvoir être en contact avec l’ imâm caché
pendant l’Occultation majeure.”111
Amir-Moezzi’s translation of Hadith 3 as it appears in al-Nuʿmānī is pecu-
liar: “Seuls quelques-uns parmi ses fidèles resteront acquis à sa Cause et nul,
parmi les amis ou autres, ne connaîtra l’endroit [walī] où il se trouve, hormis

103 Cf. In some versions, an additional sentence is added to the hadith of Ghadīr Khumm: “O
God, befriend him who befriends [ʿAlī] and be an enemy to those who show enmity toward
him.” (Allāhumma wāli man wālāhu wa-ʿādi man ʿādāhu). Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 2:226.
For slightly different translations, see Landolt, “Walāyah,” ER, 14:9658; Lawson, “Seeing
Double,” 44; Lawson, “The Quran Commentary,” 91.
104 Al-Ṣadūq, Maʿānī l-akhbār, 403 (no. 70). For discussion and an alternate translation, see
Amir-Moezzi, “Seul l’Homme,” 194, 201–2. Similar hadiths in al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī present
the trinary without the word mawlā or other derivatives of walāya, e.g., “There are three
categories of people: those who possess knowledge, those who seek knowledge, and the
flotsam (ghuthāʾ). We [i.e., the Imams] are the possessors of knowledge, our Shīʿa are
the seekers of knowledge, and the rest of the people are flotsam.” Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:34
(no. 4).
105 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:325 (no. 2).
106 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 8:244–5 (no. 339).
107 Amir-Moezzi, “Seul l’Homme,” 202.
108 Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 327.
109 Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la Typologie,” 133.
110 Amir-Moezzi, “Fin du Temps,” 62.
111 Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin 328 n. 711 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight),
234]. This interpretation is repeated with slight variations in Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution
à la Typologie,” 133; Amir-Moezzi, “Fin du Temps,” 62; Amir-Moezzi, “Eschatology iii: In
Imami Shiʿism,” EIr, 8:579.
78 chapter 2

l’ Ami intime qui régit sa Cause [al-mawlā l-ladhī yalī amrahu].”112 As he cor-
rectly observes, this tradition makes “une distinction inhabituelle” between the
walī, which he translates in the case of this hadith as “ami”; he translates mawlā
as “ami intime,” to establish a hierarchy among the believers.113 But it is not clear
what is meant or intended by reading mawlā as the intimate friend of the Imam
who governs or regulates (régit) his cause.114 The phrase yalī amrahu may be
understood to mean “he who protects/guards his amr” or “he who holds com-
mand or authority over his amr,” but to guard authority ( yalī amr), or to be the
guardian of his authority (walī amrihi), is also to take an affair or matter upon
oneself, that is, to undertake something,115 which is the reading that most schol-
ars advance, as below.
Based on this interpretation, Amir-Moezzi suggests that the “les mystiques
imâmites n’ont pas cessé de declarer” that the friends of the Imam are a small
minority of faithful believers who

discover the Light of the Imam in their hearts and thus attain esoteric
knowledge and miraculous powers [and come to] know “the location of
the hidden imam”, [but are] able to hide their privilege from the eyes of
the world, so that the conditions set up by the hidden imam in his last
letter may [that declare anyone who has seen him a lying impostor will]
be respected.116

As Amir-Moezzi shows, this reading is developed most fully in the writings of

Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī (d. 1241/1826) and subsequent Shaykhī masters.117 This read-
ing is encountered in the works of three other Shīʿī writers from the nine-
teenth century onward: (1) Urūmiyyih-ʾī renders khāṣṣat mawālīhi as “his spe-

112 Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 328 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight), 137];
also cited in Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la Typologie,” 133, where “l’ Ami intime” is ren-
dered as “l’Ami fidèle”; and in Amir-Moezzi, “Fin du Temps,” 62, where “l-Ami intime” is
rendered as “fidèle Ami.”
113 Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 328 n. 712 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight),
234].
114 Cf. Amir-Moezzi, “Eschatology iii: In Imami Shiʿism,”EIr, 8:579, where al-mawlā alladhī yalī
amrahu is translated as “the faithful friend who guides to his cause.”
115 Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab, 15:407. See also Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 2:3060;
Radtke, “Wālī (a., pl. wulāt),” EI², 11:109.
116 Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight), 137 [= Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 329].
117 On the Shaykhī hermeneutics of the ghayba, see Corbin, En Islam iranien, 4:205–300
passim, and in particular, 274–86 and 286–91; Amir-Moezzi, “Une absence remplie de prés-
ences.”
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 79

cial friends” (khāṣṣān-i dūstanash);118 (2) Amīnī (b. 1925) likewise interprets
khāṣṣat mawālīhi as the elite of the Imam’s friends (khavāṣṣ-i dūstān);119 and (3)
finally, Muḥammad Javād Ghaffārī translates the phrase in al-Nuʿmānī’s Kitāb
al-Ghayba as “his servants or his special friends” (khidmatkārān va yā dūstān-i
khāṣṣ-i ū)120 in one place and “the elite friends-servants of (the Imam) who are
firm in his dīn”121 in another.

4.3 Mawlā = Servant

A more tenable reading is to understand mawlā in this hadith as denoting “ser-
vant,” similar in meaning to the word khādim (coll. khadam, pl. khuddām and
khadama).122 It is common knowledge that the Prophet and all of the Imams
possessed male servants, from Anas b. Mālik (d. 93/712) who entered Muḥam-
mad’s service as a youth,123 to Abū l-Shaʿthāʾ Qanbar b. Kādān al-Dawsī, ʿAlī’s
famous mawlā and groom,124 to the many servants and attendants of al-Ḥasan
al-ʿAskarī.125 The will and testament of the seventh Imam, Mūsā al-Kāẓim, pre-
served by al-Kulaynī, states in part that he bequeathed the voluntary alms
(ṣadaqāt) in his possession, his properties (amwāl), and servants (mawālī) to
his son.126
It seems that the prominent Shīʿī teacher and jurist al-Shaykh al-Mufīd
(d. 413/1022) is referring to the above hadiths when he maintains that, during
the second or longer ghayba, not even the Imam’s most elite votaries know his
location or are able to reach him, inasmuch as “the only people who know his
location during the longer (ghayba) are those from among his most trustwor-
thy and intimate friends/initiates who were entrusted with the task of serving

118 Al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Urūmiyyih-ʾī), 1:751.

119 Amīnī, Dādgustar-i jahān, 131.
120 Al-Nuʿmānī, Matn va tarjumih-yi (trans. Ghaffārī), 249.
121 [= dūstān-i khidmatguzār-i khāṣṣ-i ānḥaḍrat kih bar dīn-i ū hastand] Al-Nuʿmānī, Matn va
tarjumih-yi (trans. Ghaffārī), 250.
122 Wensinck, “K̲ h̲ādim,” EI², 4:899.
123 On him, see Juynboll, “Anas b. Mālik,” EI³ (online).
124 He is designated in Imāmī Shīʿī sources as a mawlā, khādim, and ghulām of ʿAlī from Kufa.
Stories of his unwavering loyalty to ʿAlī and ʿAlī’s deep affection for him are plentiful. See,
e.g., al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 42:121–140. There is surprisingly little about him in West-
ern sources. See Friedlaender, “The Heterodoxies of the Shiites,” 99–100; Rajkowski, “Early
Shīʿism in Iraq,” 120 n. 2; Anthony, “The Caliph and the Heretic,” 171–2 n. 62. Several of his
descendants were hadith transmitters, e.g., Kathīr al-Qanbarī. See Modarressi, Tradition
and Survival, 309. He also features prominently in an early Nuṣayrī source as “the bāb of
revelation.” See Bar-Asher and Kofsky, “A Tenth-Century Nuṣayrī Treatise,” esp. 244–9.
125 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:329 (no. 6).
126 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:316 (no. 15).
80 chapter 2

him (man tawallā khidmatahu min thuqāt awliyāʾihi) and who only tend to his
[daily] needs (lam yanqaṭiʿ ʿanhu ilā l-ishtighāl bi-ghayrihi).”127 In other words,
the mawālī are the Imam’s attentive servants.128
In fact, the overwhelming majority of Shīʿī scholars who have commented
on these hadiths have interpreted mawlā and mawālī as a servant (or servants)
who tends to the everyday needs of the Imam, using an Arabic or Persian deriva-
tive of the khāʾ-dāl-mīm root and on a rare occasion, in the case of Persian
translators and commentators, the word ghulām.129 Commenting on the ver-
sion of Hadith 2 found in al-Kāfī, al-Kāshānī speculates that “it seems that by
khāṣṣat al-mawālī is meant those who serve [the Hidden Imam].”130 Al-Kāshānī
reached this conclusion “because there is no way for the rest of the Shīʿa to
reach him during [the Greater Occultation].”131 According to al-Majlisī, khāṣṣat
al-mawālī are the Imam’s “servants (khadamahu), family members and chil-
dren or the thirty who have already been mentioned [in his commentary on
Hadith 1].”132 Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī understood illā l-mawlā alladhī yalī amrahu to
mean “except for the one who is busy serving [the Imam] and tending to his
needs.”133
Many twentieth-century scholars have advanced a similar interpretation.
In his exposition of the doctrines of Shīʿī Islam, Mujtabā Qazvīnī-Khurāsānī

127 Al-Mufīd, al-Masāʾil al-ʿashar fī l-ghayba, 76.

128 On the function of servants and messengers in the household of the Hidden Imam in the
early ghayba sources, see Hayes, “The Envoys,” 159–60, 163, 188, 239.
129 The word ghulām is of Arabic origin and denotes “either a servant, sometimes elderly and
very often, but not necessarily a slave servant; or a bodyguard, slave or freedman, bound
to his master by personal ties.” Sourdel, et al. “Ghulām,” EI², 2:1079–1091. See also Lane, An
Arabic-English Lexicon, 2286–7. The word has a rich history in Arabic literature, beginning
with the Quran, where the following are referred to as ghulām: Ismāʿīl (Quran 15:53; 37:101);
the unnamed youth killed by the companion of Moses (Quran 18:74, 80); the two orphaned
owners of the wall that the companion of Moses repaired (Quran 18:82); John the Baptist
(Quran 3:40, 19:7–8); Jesus (Quran 19:19–20); the young men who serve the denizens of
paradise (Quran 52:24); and Joseph (Quran 12:19), the ghulām par excellence in Islamic
sources. In Persian, the loanword ghulām denotes a young male servant or slave and can
carry homoerotic connotations. See Dihkhudā, Lughatnāmah (online), s.v. “ghulām.”
130 [= ka-annahu yurīd bi-khāṣṣat al-mawālī alladhīna yakhdimūnahu]
131 [= li-anna sāʾir al-shīʿat laysa lahum fīhā ilayhi sabīlun] Al-Kāshānī, al-Wāfī, 2:414. The same
explanation is repeated by al-Kāshānī in his al-Shāfī fī l-ʿaqāʾid, 332.
132 Al-Majlisī, Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, 4:52. For a Persian translation, see Dhākirī, “Irtibāṭ bā imām-i
zamān,” 87; Baḥyranī, Ḥadīth-i ghaybat va sifārat, 68. The first part of al-Majlisī’s explana-
tion is also mentioned in al-Kulaynī, Uṣūl al-kāfī (trans. Muṣṭafavī), 2:140–1 (no. 19).
133 [= magar ānkih mashghūl-i khidmat va mutavallī-i umūr-i ūst] Al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib,
2:861.
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 81

(d. 1967)134 translates illā l-mawlā alladhī yalī amrahu as “except the one who
serves [the Imam].”135 Amīnī understood the phrase as “his special servant”
(khidmatkār-i makhṣūṣash),136 while Ayatollah Yad Allāh al-Dūzdūzānī (b. 1935)
interpreted mawlā as “those who support his cause. These are [his] servants and
no one else.”137
Muḥammad Javād Ghaffārī, the Persian translator of al-Nuʿmānī’s Kitāb al-
Ghayba, rendered the final part of the hadith as “except for the servant who
tends to his needs.”138 Ghaffārī’s translation is similar to a later translation
by ʿAlī-Akbar Dhākirī: “except for the servant who takes care of his affairs.”139
Kamarihʾī renders khāṣṣat mawālīhi as “his initiated servants” (khādimīn-i maḥ-
ram-i ū),140 while Bihbūdī translates the locution as “his special servants”
(ghulāmān-i makhṣūṣ-i ū).141 Aḥmad Fahrī-Zanjānī translates mawālī in con-
nection with these hadiths as servants (nawkarān).142 ʿAlīpūr cites this hadith
as proof that meeting the Imam is possible and translates khāṣṣat mawālīhi as
“the elite servants” (khidmatkārān-i khāṣṣ)143 who, he argues, are “special indi-
viduals” (afrād-i khāṣṣī)144 who have seen and recognized the Imam.
Muḥammad Rāzī, who translated al-Ṭūsī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba into Persian,
renders the phrase in al-Ṭūsī (1) as “except for the servant who tends to his
needs,”145 and al-Ṭūsī (2) as “except that servant who will oversee his affairs.”146
ʿAbbās Jalālī, who retranslated al-Ṭūsī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba into Persian, followed

134 One of the founders of the maktab-i tafkīk and the teacher of such prominent contempo-
rary ulama as ʿAlī Sīstānī (b. 1930) and Abū l-Qāsim Khazʿalī (d. 2015).
135 [= magar ānkih ū rā khidmat mīnamāyad] Qazvīnī-Khurāsānī, Bayān al-furqān, 900.
136 Amīnī, Dādgustar-i jahān, 132.
137 [= wa-hum al-khadama wa-lā yashmal ghayr al-khadama] Al-Dūzdūzānī, Taḥqīq laṭīf, 91.
138 [= magar hamān khidmatguzārī kih bikārhāy-yi ū mīrisad] Al-Nuʿmānī, Matn va tarjumih-
yi (trans. Ghaffārī), 251. See also idem, 259, where al-mawlā is translated as “special servant”
(khidmatkār-i makhṣūṣ). A similar translation is offered by Yaʿqūbī, “Nigāhī bih tavallud,”
353: “except the person who is in charge of his affairs” ( juz ān kasī kih umūr-i vay rā pay
mīgīrad).
139 [= magar khādimī kih kārhā-yi īshān rā anjām mīdihad] Dhākirī, “Irtibāṭ bā imām-i zamān,”
88.
140 Al-Kulaynī, Uṣūl al-kāfī (trans. Kamarihʾī), 2:576 (no. 19).
141 Al-Kulaynī, Guzīdih-yi Kāfī (trans. Bihbūdī), 1:90 (no. 118).
142 Al-Nuʿmānī, Ghaybat-i Nuʿmānī (trans. Fahrī-Zanjānī), 220, 213. In other places, Fahrī-
Zanjānī translates mawlā as “special servant” (khidmatkār-i makhṣūṣ).
143 ʿAlīpūr, Jilvahhāy-i pinhānī-i imām-i ʿaṣr, 110.
144 ʿAlīpūr, Jilvahhāy-i pinhānī-i imām-i ʿaṣr, 113.
145 [= magar ghulāmī kih mutavallī-i amr-i ū mīshavad] Al-Ṭūsī, Tuḥfih-yi qudsī (trans. Rāzī),
51.
146 [= magar ān ghulāmīkih mubāshir-i kār-i ūst] Al-Ṭūsī, Tuḥfih-yi qudsī (trans. Rāzī), 135
(no. 6).
82 chapter 2

suit, translating the phrase in al-Ṭūsī (1) as “except the servant who has assumed
responsibility for his affairs,”147 and al-Ṭūsī (2) as “except for the servant who is
responsible for his affairs.”148 This reading is affirmed by Javād Muʿallim, who
alludes to Hadith 1 and states, “the Imam’s servants are some thirty people who
not only see the Imam whenever they wish but are in fact always in his service
(hamīshih dar khidmat-i ḥaḍratand).”149
Three scholars writing in Western languages have advanced the same inter-
pretation. Sachedina and Klemm translated khāṣṣat mawālīhi as “[the Imam’s]
special slaves”150 and “the chosen ones from among [the Imam’s] assistants”
(Auserwählten seiner Helfer),151 respectively, while Hussain translates mawlā
as “his servant.”152

4.4 Mawlā = Client

A fourth possibility is that mawlā denotes “client” or “ally.” This meaning should
perhaps be the first advanced in discussing any hadith or report that mentions
both mawālī and the Mahdī or Qāʾim. In the first centuries of Islam, the mawālī
were non-Arab converts to Islam who were forced to affiliate themselves with
an Arab tribe and who made up an underprivileged second-class citizenry.153
The promise of the appearance of the Mahdī was especially appealing to the
mawālī.154 Consequently, many mawālī were attracted to various movements
of Shīʿī or proto-Shīʿī Islam, in particular in its more pronounced messianic
and eschatological modes of expression.155 Al-Mukhtār b. Abī ʿUbayd Allāh al-
Thaqafī’s (d. 67/686–7) main supporters, for example, were mawālī of Persian

147 [= juz ghulāmī kih umūr-i marbūṭ bih ū rā bar ʿuhdah mīgīrad] Al-Ṭūsī, Khūrshīd dar nahān
(trans. Jalālī), 1:231.
148 [= magar ghulāmī kih ʿuhdihdār-i kārhā-yi ū mīshavad] Al-Ṭūsī, Khūrshīd dar nahān (trans.
Jalālī), 1:107. See also Shafīʿī, “Dānistanīhā-yi,” 331.
149 Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr, 74 n. 1.
150 Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 84.
151 Klemm, “Die vier sufarāʾ,” 142–3.
152 Hussain, The Occultation, 142.
153 One of the best discussions of this topic remains Sharīf’s 1954 work al-Ṣirāʿ bayna al-
mawālī wa-l-ʿarab.
154 Daftary, “ʿAlids,” EI³ (online). However, as Tucker (Mahdis and Millenarians, 126, index,
s.v. “Mawla [sic], Mawālī”) demonstrates, Arabs, and not just their non-Arabic client
allies, clearly continued to play a role in the various manifestations of Shīʿī messianic fer-
vor.
155 For example, Tucker, “Bayān b. Samʿān,” 197, speculates that the mawālī made up most, if
not all, of Bayān b. Samʿān’s (d. 119/737) followers. On him, see Walker, “Bayān b. Samʿān,”
EI³ (online). See also Amir Arjomand, “Islamic Apocalypticism,” 255–6.
hidden from all, yet seen by some? 83

origin from Kufa, the cradle of Shīʿī Islam.156 Al-Mukhtār’s failed revolt is sig-
nificant not only because it is widely recognized as the first historical moment
in which the title “Mahdī” was deployed with an explicitly messianic connota-
tion as the promised restorer of true Islam, in this case, applied by al-Mukhtār
to ʿAlī’s son, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya157 (d. 81/700–1), but also because two
central closely related concepts of later Twelver Shīʿī Islam were promulgated:
(1) the concept of sifāra (“emissaryhood” or representation), in the sense that
al-Mukhtār claimed to be the authorized representative and envoy of the con-
cealed Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya, and (2) the concept of ghayba, in that a
group of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya’s followers denied his death and claimed
that he was in hiding. The Kaysāniyya, as the sect that grew out al-Mukhtār’s
movement after his death came to be known, was led by the Persian mawlā
Kaysān Abū ʿAmra and enjoyed the support of many mawālī in southern Iraq.158
Furthermore, mawālī is used in the sense of clients, or more precisely liberated
clients, in hadiths ascribed to the Imams.159
While the Abbasid revolution is credited with dispelling, in large part, the
glaring distinctions between Arab Muslims and the mawālī,160 it is likely that
the above hadiths originated in a pre-Abbasid milieu and were later modi-
fied by proponents of the Wāqifiyya to fit their doctrines. Identifying these
hadiths as Wāqifī in origin, Madelung translates al-mawlā alladhī yalī amrahu
as “the client in charge of [the Imam’s] affairs.”161 Hussain’s translation of khāṣ-
ṣat mawālīhi as “his close associates”162 would appear to be similar in meaning.

156 See Friedlaender, “Jewish-Arabic Studies. I.,” 281; Litvak, “Iraq x. Shiʿites of Iraq,” EIr 13:581;
Newman, The Formative Period, 6. For Kufa’s role as the “cradle of Shīʿism,” see Djaït, “al-
Kūfa,” EI², 5:345–51, esp. “Part II. Politics, ideology and culture in Kūfa.”
157 On him, see Buhl, “Muḥammad Ibn al-Ḥanafiyya,” EI², 7:402–3.
158 Jafri, Origins and Early Development, 114, 262–3; Amir-Arjomand, “Millenial Beliefs,” 221–2;
Madelung, “Kaysāniyya,” EI², 4:836–8.
159 See, for example, al-ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, 2:263 (no. 436), where Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq
interprets “the mountains” and “the trees” (Quran 16:68) as the Arabs and the mawālī who
were freed (al-mawālī ʿatāqatan) respectively. This passage is also referred to in Bar-Asher,
Scripture and Exegesis in Early Imāmī Shiism, 111–2.
160 Daniel, “ʿAbbāsid Revolution,” EI³ (online). Cf. the lengthy Daniel apocalyptic text found
in Ibn al-Munādī’s (d. 336/947) Kitāb al-Malāḥim, where an unnamed mawlā features
prominently as a messianic figure, providing an important window onto some of the apoc-
alyptic attitudes that permeated late third-/ninth- and fourth-/tenth-century Baghdad.
For a translation and discussion of this text, see Cook, “An Early Muslim Daniel Apoca-
lypse.”
161 Madelung, “al-Mahdī,” EI², 5:1236.
162 Hussain, The Occultation, 142.
84 chapter 2

The multivalency and indeterminacy of mawlā and the resulting ambigu-

ity renders all of the interpretations above tenable, though the evidence is
stronger for “client” or “servant,” and most scholars who have commented on
these hadiths or translated them prefer the reading of “servant.”

The three hadiths I have discussed in this chapter are the only hadiths adduced
by later Shīʿī scholars as traditional proofs to validate their position that elite
believers of the Hidden Imam—particularly from the ranks of the ulama—
were and are able to see and recognize the Imam during the Greater Occul-
tation. Yet, as I have shown, there is much more to these hadiths than meets
the eye. Most importantly, all three hadiths appear to have emanated from the
Wāqifī followers of Mūsā al-Kāẓim. As Kohlberg and Madelung both convinc-
ingly demonstrate, many, if not most, of the hadiths that speak about a ghayba
or two ghaybas for the Qāʾim existed long before the death of the eleventh
Imam. Shīʿī scholars, such as al-Kulaynī and al-Nuʿmānī, drew on these hadiths
and aligned them with the nascent dogmas about the ghayba of the Hidden
Imam.163 This was done, in part, by reinterpreting the earlier reports and partly,
perhaps, by producing new reports based on earlier sources.
Again, the overwhelming majority of hadiths mentioned in the earliest
sources, many of which were discussed in chapter 1 affirm that the Imam can-
not be recognized by anyone during the ghayba. The single most important text
that negates the possibility of anyone encountering the Imam is the final tawqīʿ
attributed to the Hidden Imam. I now turn to a study of this document.164

163 See Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 532; Madelung, “al-Mahdī,” EI², 5:1236. See also Halm,
Shiʿism, 31–2, 38, 40; Amir Arjomand, “Imam Absconditus,” 10; Ansari, L’ imamat, 249.
164 An earlier iteration of portions of this chapter was previously published in the chapter
“‘Except the Mawlā’: Notes on Two Hadiths concerning the Ghayba of the Twelfth Imam,”
in Esotérisme Shiʿite: Ses Racines et ses Prolongements, edited by Mohammad Ali Amir-
Moezzi, M. De Cillis, D. De Smet, and O. Mir-Kasimov (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2016),
pages 369–85.
 chapter 3

“A Lying Impostor”

The death, in Shaʿbān 329/May 941, of the person later cast as the fourth and
final emissary of the allegedly concealed twelfth Imam is said to mark the start
of the second ghayba, commonly referred to in later sources as the Greater
or Major Occultation. In this chapter I show that, according to the sources
that have survived, in the decades that followed, the possibility of seeing the
Imam again was almost completely excluded. This was the position advanced
by the Shīʿī traditionists, as represented in the earliest surviving defenses of the
ghayba written by al-Nuʿmānī and al-Ṣadūq, and as reflected in the final tawqīʿ
of the Hidden Imam recorded by the latter in his book on the occultation of
the Hidden Imam.1 As I show, the position of rejecting the possibility of see-
ing the Imam during the Greater Occultation, however, proved untenable. The
next generation of scholars revived the rationalist approach that had been in
abeyance since the period of the Lesser Occultation.2 Al-Mufīd, an exponent
of the rationalist Baghdad school, for the most part affirmed the opinion of
the traditionists that it was not possible for anyone (including the ulama) to
see or have contact with the Imam during the Greater Occultation, a privilege
he reserved only for those among the Imam’s servants who tend to his needs.
Al-Mufīd’s student al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā and three of the latter’s students dis-
agreed with al-Mufīd by writing that it was at least theoretically possible for
the elite followers of the Imam (and not just his servants), which presumably
includes the ulama, to see him and benefit from his knowledge. I begin by dis-
cussing the views of the traditionists.

1 By traditionists, I mean ulama who privileged the hadiths and reports of the Prophet and the
previous Imams over other proofs. Some of these scholars also presented rational ideas and
proofs, but their work focused on texts and the compiling of hadiths.
2 On this early stage of Muʿtazilī influence on the Shīʿī belief in the Imam’s ghayba, see
Madelung, “Imamism and Muʿtazilite Theology”; Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, part II;
Amir Arjomand, “Ḡayba,” EIr, 10:341–4; McDermott, “Ebn Qeba, Abū Jaʿfar Moḥammad,” EIr,
8:45; Amir-Moezzi, “Islam in Iran vii. The Concept of the Mahdi in Twelver Shiʿism,”EIr, 14:137–
8.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413153_005

86 chapter 3

1 Ibn Abī Zaynab al-Nuʿmānī

Ibn Abī Zaynab al-Nuʿmānī (d. 345/956 or 360/971) was an itinerant student
of Shīʿī hadith, having traveled to Shiraz, Baghdad, Damascus, and Aleppo in
search of hadiths of the Imams. He was a student of al-Kulaynī and is com-
monly referred to by the agnomen al-kātib (“the scribe”) for having copied the
latter’s al-Kāfī.3 Whereas his teacher is believed to have died before the end of
the first or shorter ghayba, al-Nuʿmānī lived and wrote into the period of the
second ghayba as well.4
Al-Nuʿmānī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba (completed in Dhū l-Ḥijja 342/April–May
954),5 from which I cited extensively in chapters 1 and 2, is the earliest extant
defense of the ghayba of the Hidden Imam, from the period of the Greater
Occultation. It is difficult to overestimate its importance as a window into the
ḥayra (confusion, uncertainty, helplessness, loss, and perplexity) that charac-
terized the Shīʿī community in the period that immediately followed the four
emissaries (sufarāʾ), especially in light of the fact that, unlike al-Kulaynī’s al-
Kāfī, which is a catalogue of Shīʿī hadiths with few comments from its compiler,
al-Nuʿmānī offers valuable observations about the state of the fledgling Imāmī
Shīʿī community of his time and, on rarer occasions, his own interpretation of
the hadiths he cites.
In the introduction to Kitāb al-Ghayba, al-Nuʿmānī bemoans the fact that the
Shīʿa have split into numerous branches (tashaʿʿabat madhāhibuhā). He states
that those who believe in the line of the Imams either do not know who the
Hidden Imam is, they dispute his existence, or are so pusillanimous as to allow
themselves to be overcome with doubt about the ghayba.6 The heresiographi-
cal works that have survived from the Lesser Occultation indicate that after the
passing of al-ʿAskarī, his followers split into numerous sects. According to al-
Nawbakhtī (d. between 300/912–3 and 310/922–3),7 fourteen factions emerged
(though he only provides information for thirteen of them); according to al-
Ashʿarī al-Qummī (d. 299/911–2 or 301/913–4),8 fifteen factions. The celebrated

3 Newman, “Between Qumm and the West,” 96. On al-Nuʿmānī, see idem; Modarressi, Crisis and
Consolidation, 102–3 n. 259; Bar-Asher, Scripture and Exegesis, 63–4; Amir-Moezzi, Le guide
divin, 52. On al-Nuʿmānī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba, see Ansari, L’ imamat, 36–42; Ourghi, Schiitischer
Messianismus, 30; Amir-Moezzi, “Fin du Temps,” 54 and passim.
4 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 13.
5 Al-Nuʿmānī mentions that the Imam has been in hiding “some eighty years.” See al-Nuʿmānī,
al-Ghayba, 159.
6 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 27–8.
7 Kitāb Firaq al-Shīʿa, 79–94 [= al-Nawbakhtī, Shīʿa Sects (trans. Kadhim), 153–6].
8 Kitāb al-Maqāmāt wa-l-firaq, 102–16.
“a lying impostor” 87

historian and geographer al-Masʿūdī (d. 345/956), writing in 332/943–44,9 states

that the followers of al-ʿAskarī split into twenty-one factions.10 It is not known
how many of these sects still existed at the time of al-Nuʿmānī, who was writing
twelve years after the start of the second ghayba, but it is clear from his descrip-
tion that many factions continued to vie with one another. A contemporary of
al-Nuʿmānī, the Ismāʿīlī dāʿī and Fatimid chief judge Abū Ḥanīfa al-Nuʿmān b.
Muḥammad al-Tamīmī al-Maghribī, known as al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974),
states that eleven sects appeared after the death of al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, the sixth
of which are the Twelver Shīʿa.11 By the time of al-Mufīd, the situation changed
quite rapidly, since al-Mufīd is reported to have stated:

Among the firaq (“sects”) we have mentioned [of the firaq that split after
the passing of the al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, the eleventh Imam], the only firqa
(“sect”) that still exists in our time, which is the year 373/983–4, is the
Twelver-Imāmī (al-imāmiyya al-ithnā ʿashariyya) whose followers believe
in the imamate of [al-ʿAskarī’s] son and who are certain that he is alive and
will continue to live until the time he rises with the sword.12

Later Shīʿī sources attempted to foresee these divisions. A hadith ascribed to al-
Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī states, “In the year 260 [/873–4], my Shīʿa will become divided
( yaftariq shīʿatī).”13
Taking matters into his own hands, al-Nuʿmānī states that he decided to
write a formal defense of the ghayba against the attacks of “those who oppose
the tiny group [of believers] who steadfastly follow”14 the Hidden Imam. It is
clear from his prologue that at the time in which al-Nuʿmānī was writing, the
Shīʿa who upheld the ghayba of the son of al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī were a barely
visible minority. Al-Nuʿmānī refers to his fellow believers as “the small band”
(al-ʿiṣāba al-qalīla)15 and a “tiny group who stand apart from the great major-
ity who claim to be Shīʿa16 but who have split into different sects ( firaq) as
a result of their corrupt and selfish inclinations.”17 He accuses these factions

9 On him, see Cooperson, “Masʿudi,” EIr (online).

10 See al-Masʿūdī, Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-jawhar, 4:199.
11 Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān, Sharḥ al-akhbār, 3:313–5. On this work and its author, see Poonawala,
“The Chronology.”
12 Al-Murtaḍā[/al-Mufīd], al-Fuṣūl al-mukhtāra, 321.
13 Al-Rāzī, Kifāyat al-athar, 290.
14 [= man khālafa al-shirdhima al-mustaqīma ʿalā] Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 159.
15 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 34.
16 [= al-shirdhima al-munfarida ʿan al-khalq al-kathīr al-muddaʿīn lil-tashayyuʿ]
17 [= lā tastawḥishū fī ṭarīq al-hudā li-qillat man yaslukuhu] Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 174.
88 chapter 3

of stubbornly refusing to endure patiently the loss ( fiqdān) of the Imam and
the length of his ghayba despite repeated warnings from the (previous) Imams
that they must remain steadfast. He exhorts them to persevere and “not be dis-
tressed at the small number of those who tread the path of guidance.”18
Al-Nuʿmānī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba is the first Shīʿī work that delineates the dis-
tinguishing features of the two ghaybas: “In the first ghayba, there were emis-
saries (sufarāʾ) between the Imam and the people who had been appointed
(manṣūbīn) [by the Imam].” It is noteworthy that al-Nuʿmānī does not iden-
tify these emissaries, nor does he suggest that they were only four in number,
as indicated decades later in al-Ṭūsī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba. He only says that they
were prominent people who were visible and well known to the believers.19
These emissaries served as intermediaries between the Imam and his believ-
ers, and provided answers to all manner of abstruse questions and problems
posed by the faithful to their Imam. However, al-Nuʿmānī adds, “This was the
short ghayba (al-ghayba al-qaṣīra) whose days have come to an end and whose
time has now passed. The second ghayba (al-ghayba al-thāniya) is the one dur-
ing which the emissaries (sufarāʾ) and the intermediaries (wasāʾiṭ)20 have been
removed for a purpose intended by God.”21
Interestingly, although al-Nuʿmānī was the first scholar to outline the distin-
guishing features of the two ghaybas—an idea which, as I showed in chapter 2,
was borrowed from the post-Mūsā al-Kāẓim Wāqifīs—he nonetheless includes
hadiths that mention only one ghayba for the Qāʾim as well, for example, the
following intriguing hadith ascribed to al-Ṣādiq: “The master of this amr will

18 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 175, also cited in idem, 34, 35. For a discussion of this section of al-
Nuʿmānī’s work, see Krinis, “Galut and Ghayba,” 255–7. An almost identical statement is
found in al-Imām ʿAlī (attrib.), Nahj al-balāgha, 319 (sermon 201).
19 [= ẓāhirīn mawjūdī l-ashkhāṣ wa-l-aʿyān]
20 This is one of two places in the text where al-Nuʿmānī mentions the wasāʾiṭ (see below for
the other mention). It is not clear if al-Nuʿmānī is using wasāʾiṭ as a synonym of sufarāʾ or
if the term is being deployed to refer to a different class of individuals who served as the
Imam’s agents and deputies, similar to how the term wukalāʾ was used by scholars before
and after al-Nuʿmānī. On the related term nuwwāb (“representatives”), which appears to
have begun to be used in the Safavid period, see chapter 4.
21 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 179. Hussain, The Occultation, 140–1, provides a different transla-
tion of a part of this passage. Amīnī offers a partial Persian translation, though he inter-
polates a phrase that is not found in the original text: “through the intermediation (of
the sufarāʾ), the sick were healed.” Amīnī, Dādgustar-i jahān, 134–5. Cf. a different Persian
translation, Baḥraynī, Ḥadīth-i ghaybat va sifārat, 69–70. Sachedina translated the passage
from Amīnī’s work as “from [their] hands emanated cures derived from the knowledge and
the intricate wisdom which they possessed.” Amini, al-Imām al-Mahdī (trans. Sachedina),
129. Cf. Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 85–6.
“a lying impostor” 89

have a ghayba. He will say during it, ‘I fled from you when I feared you. But
[now] my Lord has granted me the law and made me one of the messengers’
[Quran 26:21].”22
Al-Nuʿmānī declares that this “second ghayba,” a time in which the believ-
ers are tested (al-tamḥīṣ wa-l-imhtiḥān), thrown into confusion (balbala), sifted
(gharbala), and purified (taṣfiyya), “is now upon us.”23 Yet according to al-
Nuʿmānī, the hadiths of the Prophet and previous Imams predicted both the
ghayba of the Hidden Imam, referred to, among other things, as the “the master
of truth” (ṣāḥib al-ḥaqq), and the ghayba of “the means (al-sabab) [of reaching
the Imam],” that is, the Hidden Imam’s emissaries, deputies and intermediaries
who constituted the support (al-sinād) on whom the Shīʿa relied during the
first ghayba. The moment this support was removed, they became like goats
without a shepherd,24 and the upheaval ( fitna) of the second ghayba com-
menced.25 For as long as they had intermediaries (wasāʾiṭ) between themselves
and the Hidden Imam, there was a means to communicate (balāgh) with him
and receive guidance (hudā). God then decreed “to remove such means” (rafʿ
al-asbāb) during the second ghayba in order to further test the Shīʿa.26 The idea
that the purpose of the ghayba is to test the faith of the Shīʿa is found in numer-
ous hadiths.27
Al-Nuʿmānī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba represents an initial push to deny any possibil-
ity of contacting the Imam until his reappearance (among the Shīʿa, commonly
called his ẓuhūr). In distinguishing the second ghayba from the first ghayba,
al-Nuʿmānī is adamant that seeing the Imam is no longer possible; though the
Imam physically exists (inna al-imām mawjūd al-ʿayn wa-l-shakhṣ), he cannot
be seen during the second ghayba. “Until the day of [the appointed] time and
the promise [when] the caller will call from the sky (cf. Quran 50:41), he [the
Hidden Imam] sees but is not seen.”28
According to al-Nuʿmānī, the “widely attested” (mutawātir) hadiths he
presents suffice and testify to the truth of the ghayba and the concealment
of knowledge (ikhtifāʾ al-ʿilm), and “by knowledge is meant the Proof (of God)
to the world [that is, the Hidden Imam].” The previous Imams commanded

22 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 179 (no. 10).

23 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 178–9.
24 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 197 (no. 3), is here alluding to a hadith ascribed to Imam ʿAlī and
translated in chapter 1 of this book.
25 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 198.
26 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 198. See also al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 164.
27 See, e.g., al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 155–6 (no. 11), and chapter 2 of this book.
28 [= ilā yawm al-waqt wa-l-waʿd wa-nidāʾ al-munādī min al-samāʾ yarā wa-lā yurā] Al-
Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 138.
90 chapter 3

the Shīʿa to cling steadfastly to their creed, to never shake or waver in their
belief, and to yearn patiently for the Imam’s ẓuhūr. Al-Nuʿmānī then makes a
striking statement: while the Shīʿa still have an obligation to know and recog-
nize their Imam, they “are excused from not being able to see the Proof (of God)
and the Imam of their time during [his] ghayba.”29 In fact, they are forbidden
to search for the Imam,30 to demand to know his name, or to ask where he
lives or where he is hiding. They are even prohibited from “speaking about him
in glowing terms, to say nothing of asking to see him with their own eyes.”31
Unlike the people of knowledge (ahl al-maʿrifa), who submit to the will of God
and endure patiently, only the people of ignorance (ahl al-jahl) fail to discern
what the Imams have said and demand instead to be guided to the Hidden
Imam and his location32 or imperiously insist that the Imam show himself
to them.33 Not surprisingly, al-Nuʿmānī does not cite or refer to any individ-
uals who have seen or encountered the Imam since the start of the second
ghayba.
Al-Nuʿmānī’s words betray an implicit dialogue with rival Shīʿī groups, such
as the Zaydī Shīʿa and especially the Ismāʿīlī Shīʿa. Zaydī Shīʿī writers were
engaged in writing anti-Imāmī/Twelver tracts.34 The Ismāʿīlī Shīʿa posed an
even greater threat to the Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿī community. The crisis that fol-
lowed the death of al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī in 260/874 played into the hands of the
Ismāʿīlī mission or “call to truth” (daʿwat al-ḥaqq),35 as many of al-ʿAskarī’s for-

29 [= wa-hum maʿdhūrūn fī an lā yaraw ḥujjatahum wa-imāma zamānihim fī ayyām

al-ghayba]
30 [= wa-maḥẓūrun ʿalayhim al-faḥṣ wa-l-kashf ʿan ṣāḥib al-ghayba]
31 [= wa-maḥẓūrun ʿalayhim … al-ishāda bi-dhikrihi faḍlan ʿan al-muṭālaba bi-muʿāyinatihi]
Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 163–4.
32 [= yuṭālibūna bi-l-irshād ilā shakhṣihi wa-l-dalāla ʿalā mawḍiʿihi]
33 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 163–4.
34 One such work is the late third-/ninth-century Kitāb al-Ishhād, on which see Modarressi,
Crisis and Consolidation, 16, 169ff.; Lika, Proofs of Prophecy, 40. Haider, “Zaydism,” 439,
notes that Zaydī polemical works against Twelvers featured “repeated references to politi-
cally passive Imāms ‘sitting quietly at home’ in occultation.” Hadiths found in al-Nuʿmānī’s
al-Ghayba continued to be subject to attacks hundreds of years after al-Nuʿmānī’s death.
Al-Manṣūr bi-Llāh, a Zaydī Imam from the early seventh/thirteenth century, for example,
wrote a refutation of the ghayba of the final Twelver Imam based on hadiths found in al-
Nuʿmānī’s al-Ghayba (though he relied on earlier material also). See Jarrar, “Al-Manṣūr
bi-Llāh’s Controversy.” Zaydī writers also engaged in producing anti-Ismāʿīlī tracts. See
Lika, Proofs of Prophecy.
35 As Halm points out, the followers of the sect known as the Ismāʿīlīs used other terms to
describe themselves such as ahl al-ḥaqq (“the people of truth” or the “people of God”).
They called their movement dīn al-ḥaqq (“the religion of truth”) or simply al-ḥaqq, and
the preaching of their movement was daʿwat al-ḥaqq (“the call to truth”) or simply al-
“a lying impostor” 91

mer followers transferred their allegiance to the Ismāʿīlī Imam. Among those
who changed allegiance was the founder of the Ismāʿīlī community in Yemen,
Ibn Ḥawshab, known as Manṣūr al-Yaman (d. 302/914),36 who came from a
prominent proto-Imāmī/Twelver family in Baghdad and reproached Shīʿī sects
such as the Nuṣayrīs and the Imāmīs/Twelvers for having failed to recognize the
true Imam.37 Al-Yaman was plagued with doubts after the death of al-ʿAskarī
and openly complained about “the fraud which the followers of Muḥammad b.
al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (the twelfth Imam [i.e., the Hidden Imam]) were perpetrat-
ing.”38
Reports indicate that on the eve of the founding of the Fatimid dynasty (297–
567/909–1171), some of the former followers of al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī left Baghdad
when the Fatimid Caliph ʿAbdallāh al-Mahdī (d. 322/934) assumed power, and
sought to encourage him to conquer the Abbasid capital and the eastern fron-
tiers.39 Others joined the eastern Ismāʿīlī revolutionary movement known as
the Qarāmiṭa,40 who ridiculed the Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿa for their belief in an
absent, concealed Imam.41 Therefore, it is not surprising to find that Imāmī Shīʿī
scholars were actively involved in anti-Ismāʿīlī polemics during this period.
Faḍl b. Shādhān al-Nīshābūrī (d. 260/873), a confidant of the eleventh Imam,
wrote a refutation of the Ismāʿīlīs (which has not survived) called al-Radd ʿalā

daʿwa. Halm, The Empire of the Mahdi, 17; Halm, Die Schia, 194. Likewise, followers of the
Ismāʿīlī caliphate that ruled until 567/1171 (commonly called the Fatimid dynasty) referred
to the dynasty as dawlat al-ḥaqq (“the empire [or cycle] of truth”). Halm, Die Schia, 209.
36 On him, see Halm, “Ebn Ḥawšab,” EIr, 8:28–9.
37 See Hollenberg, Beyond the Qurʾān, 129.
38 Halm, The Empire of the Mahdi, 32. Halm’s statement that “his father was a Twelver Shiʿite”
(Halm, “Ebn Ḥawšab,” EIr, 8:28) must be modified, since we cannot speak of Twelver Shīʿī
Islam before 260/874. See also Walker, “dāʿī(s),”EI³ (online); Halm, The Fatimids, 17–29, 56–
70; Halm, Shiʿism, 164: “Ismāʿīlī propaganda (daʿwa) was aimed in particular at the Imāmī
Shiʿites who had been shaken by the death of their eleventh Imam.”
39 Halm, The Empire of the Mahdi, 182.
40 Daftary, A History of Shiʿi Islam, 64. Cf. It is said that al-Ḥusayn b. Rūḥ (or Rawḥ) al-
Nawbakhtī (d. 326/938), later canonized as the third emissary of the Hidden Imam was
imprisoned by the Abbasid authorities in Baghdad and urged the Qarāmiṭa to conquer
the city. See Anthony, “Nawbaḵti Family,” EIr (online).
41 See, for example, the text translated by Halm, The Empire of the Mahdi, 254 n. 398, and
attributed to a Qarmaṭī propagandist: “Our Imam is the Mahdi so-and-so, son of so-and-
so, the son of Ismāʿīl b. Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq; we are not like those stupid Twelver Shiʿites (rāfiḍa)
who make propaganda for an expected Absent One.” On the Qarāmiṭa, see Madelung,
“Ḳarmaṭī,” EI²; Daftary, “Carmatians,” EIr, 4:823–32; Daftary, “Hidden Imams and Mahdis,”
6–7; Hajnal, “Some Aspects”; and the important study by Madelung, “The Fatimids,” 21–73,
in which he corrects the erroneous assumption that the Qarmaṭī leaders in Bahrain were
in collusion with the Fatimids.
92 chapter 3

l-bāṭiniyya wa-l-Qarāmiṭa.42 Al-Kulaynī likewise authored a work entitled Kitāb

al-Radd ʿalā l-Qarāmiṭa rebutting the Qarāmiṭa.43 Moreover, al-Kulaynī’s Uṣūl
al-kāfī includes numerous reports that seek to discredit Ismāʿīl b. Jaʿfar and
remonstrate with the Ismāʿīlīs of his own time. For example, al-Kulaynī
includes a report of a believer and his father who wrote letters to the Hid-
den Imam and received responses (he does not reveal the contents of these
letters and responses). A third person then wrote a letter and did not receive
a response purportedly because he had become a Qarmaṭī (anna al-rajul
taḥawwala qarmaṭiyyan) and the Hidden Imam had miraculous knowledge of
his conversion.44 An example of an implicitly anti-Ismāʿīlī hadith in al-Kāfī is
one in which Imam al-Bāqir glosses Quran 39:60, “And upon the Day of Resur-
rection you will see those who lied against God, their faces blackened; is there
not in Gehenna a lodging for those that are proud?”, as “he who claims that
he is an Imam yet is not an Imam.” When asked, “Even if he is a descendant
of ʿAlī and a descendant of Fāṭima?”,45 al-Bāqir responded, “Yes, even if he is
a descendant of both ʿAlī and Fāṭima.”46 A contemporary of al-Kulaynī, ʿAlī b.
Bābūya al-Qummī (the father of al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq, on whom see below), also
included reports in his al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra that discredit Ismāʿīl
b. Jaʿfar.47
The threat posed by Ismāʿīlī Shīʿa remained so great that in 342/954, al-
Nuʿmānī devoted two complete chapters of his Kitāb al-Ghayba to hadiths
denouncing the right of Ismāʿīl to the imamate48 and to hadiths concern-
ing “those who claim to be an Imam yet are not.”49 According to al-Najāshī
(d. 450/1058–9), al-Nuʿmānī also authored a celebrated refutation of the Ismāʿī-

42 Al-Ṭūsī, al-Fihrist, 198; al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 10:189 (no. 459). On Faḍl b. Shādhān, see chap-
ter 2.
43 Al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī, 377; al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 10:218 (no. 620); Kohlberg, “Kolayni,”
EIr (online); Marcinkowski, “A Glance,” 15.
44 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:520 (no. 13); al-Ḥalabī, Taqrīb al-maʿārif, 434; al-Ṭabrisī, Iʿlām al-warā,
2:263; al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 51:309–10 (no. 28); al-Shīrāzī, Kalimat al-imām al-mahdī,
524–5 (no. 7).
45 [= wa-in kāna ʿalawiyyan wa-fāṭimiyyan]
46 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:372; al-Qummī, Tafsīr al-Qummī, 2:69; al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 113
(no. 5).
47 Ibn Bābūya, al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra2, 207 (bāb ibṭāl imāmat Ismāʿīl b. Jaʿfar),
and 201–6. See also chapter 2 on proving the imamate of Mūsā al-Kāẓim.
48 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 342–9 (chapter 24: fī dhikr Ismāʿīl b. Abī ʿAbdallāh wa-l-dalāla ʿalā
akhīhi Mūsā b. Jaʿfar [al-Kāẓim]).
49 [= man zaʿama annahu imāmun wa-laysa bi-imām] Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 111–6 (chap-
ter 5).
“a lying impostor” 93

līs (which has not survived) called Kitāb al-Radd ʿalā l-Ismāʿīliyya.50 More-
over, both al-Nuʿmānī and several of the scholars who followed him regularly
debated with Ismāʿīlī propagandists.51

2 Al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq

Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, known as al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq (lit., “the veracious
teacher”) (b. ca. 311/923; d. 381/991–2) is the other prominent traditionist from
the early decades of the second ghayba whose defenses of the occultation have
survived.52 Al-Ṣadūq addresses the ghayba of the Hidden Imam in a number of
works, though he often avoids the question of whether it is possible for believ-
ers to see the Imam.
In his al-Iʿtiqādāt fī l-imāmiyya, the earliest extant work on Shīʿī creed,53 al-
Ṣadūq affirms, “We believe that no one [but the Hidden Imam] can be the
Qāʾim”54 no matter how long he may remain in a state of ghayba.55 “Even if
he remained in hiding in perpetuum, only he could ever be the Qāʾim.”56 In

50 Al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī, 383; al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 11 (from the introduction written
by Fāris Ḥassūn Karīm); al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 10:183 (no. 409); Bar-Asher, Scripture and
Exegesis, 63; Newman, “Between Qumm and the West,” 96.
51 These scholars include al-Ṣadūq, al-Mufīd, and al-Murtaḍā. See, for example, al-Mur-
taḍā[/al-Mufīd], al-Fuṣūl al-mukhtāra, 306, 326, where he speaks about the falsity (buṭlān)
of the Ismāʿīlī Imams; Halm, Shiʿism, 50–1, and other sources mentioned below.
52 On al-Ṣadūq and his works, see Khusravī, Shaykh Ṣadūq; al-Aʿlamī’s introduction to al-
Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 5–11; Serdani, “Der verborgene Imam”; McDermott, “Ebn Bābawayh
(2),” EIr, 8:2–4; Kohlberg, “Ibn Bābawayhi or Ibn Bābūyah,” ER, 6:4262–3; Amir-Moezzi, Le
guide divin 53–4; Akhtar, Early Shīʿite Imāmiyyah Thinkers, 39–77; Ansari, L’ imamat, 65–
76. As mentioned in chapter 1, al-Ṣadūq’s birth is credited to the miraculous intervention
of the Hidden Imam. It is said that al-Ṣadūq’s father wrote a letter to Ḥusayn b. Rawḥ al-
Nawbakhtī (later canonized as the third emissary of the Hidden Imam during the Lesser
Occultation), asking him to intercede on his behalf with the Hidden Imam to pray that he
be given a son. See al-Majlisī, Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, 319.
53 On the development and use of Islamic creedal compositions, see Watt, “ʿAḳīda,”EI², 1:332–
6; Hoover, “Creed,” EI³ (online).
54 [= wa-law baqiya fī ghaybatihi ʿumr al-dunyā lam yakun al-qāʾim ghayrahu]
55 Here, again, al-Ṣadūq is in implicit dialogue with other Shīʿī groups (viz., the Fatimids, the
Qarāmiṭa, and Zaydīs) who supported rival claimants to being the Mahdī and the Qāʾim,
which, by the time of al-Ṣadūq, were seen by the Shīʿa as titles of one and the same person.
56 [= wa-law baqiya fī ghaybatihi ʿumr al-dunyā lam yakun al-qāʾim ghayrahu] Al-Ṣadūq,
al-Iʿtiqādāt, 95. For an alternative translation, cf. al-Ṣadūq, A Shīʿite Creed, 86. See also
al-Ṣadūq, al-Iʿtiqādāt fī l-imāmiyya, 94 n. 1; al-Ṣadūq, A Shīʿite Creed, 85. In his critical com-
mentary and correction of al-Ṣadūq’s creed, al-Mufīd does not mention the Hidden Imam
and in fact makes no reference to the ghayba. See al-Mufīd, Taṣḥīḥ al-iʿtiqād.
94 chapter 3

this statement of core Shīʿī beliefs, al-Ṣadūq does not broach the question of
whether the Imam can be contacted or encountered during the second ghayba.
What can be concluded from this silence? Perhaps the question was not contro-
versial and thus did not need to be addressed. That is, the first ghayba (i.e., the
Lesser Occultation) had ended, and with its termination there was no longer a
possibility of physically seeing the Imam.
The fact that al-Ṣadūq did not broach the possibility of seeing the Imam in
his statement of core Shīʿī beliefs amounts to an argumentum e silentio. In his
record of a debate with an unnamed “heretic” (mulḥid) held at the at the court
of the senior Buyid ruler, Rukn al-Dawla (d. 366/976),57 al-Ṣadūq was asked how
he personally could believe in an Imam that he cannot see. He responded that
if faith was contingent on seeing, no one would believe in God or the Prophet,
since no one living in his time has physically seen either.58

57 Rukn al-Dawla is said to have held al-Ṣadūq in high esteem and, in 350/962, invited him to
Rayy for these debates. See Madelung, “Imamism and Muʿtazilite Theology,” 20; Serdani,
“Der verborgene Imam,” 51–3 (Ibn Bābūyas Beziehungen zu den Herrschern). On Rukn al-
Dawla, see Bowen and Bosworth, “Rukn al-Dawla, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan b. Būya,” EI², 8:597–8;
Donohue, The Buwayhid Dynasty, index, s.v. “Rukn al-Dawla.”
58 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 93. The record of another series of debates al-Ṣadūq is said to
have conducted at the court of Rukn al-Dawla has also been published. Al-Ṣadūq (attrib.),
Munāẓarat al-Malik Rukn al-Dawla li-l-Ṣadūq b. Bābūyah. The editor, Syrian scholar Jawād
al-Ward, relied in part on a previously unpublished and undated manuscript available
in Iran’s Parliament Library. See idem, 24–5 (from the editor’s introduction). On other
extant manuscripts of this work in Iran, see Tafaḍḍulī, Kitābshināsī-i, 254–62. A Persian
translation of parts of these alleged debates was provided by al-Qāḍī Nūr Allāh Shūshtarī
(d. 1019/1610–11), Majālis al-muʾminīn, 1:461–3. Ḥasan Anṣārī, Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī, 757–60,
has raised questions about the authenticity and provenance of this record and estab-
lished that the manuscript could not have been written during al-Ṣadūq’s lifetime. It is
nonetheless useful to review briefly the portion of the record of these debates that con-
cern the ghayba of the Hidden Imam, since it reflects an attempt by an unknown person
to defend the ghayba, and to read this explanation back into the time of al-Ṣadūq. In the
record, Rukn al-Dawla is attributed as having posed three questions about the Hidden
Imam. First, he asked when the Imam will appear. Al-Ṣadūq is said to have responded
that God has concealed the Imam from the people for reasons of wisdom and according
to a purpose known to Him alone. Al-Ṣadūq then cites the prophetic hadith “The Qāʾim
[who will appear] from my descendants is like the Hour [of the Day of Judgment].” (This
hadith is also recorded in al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 347; al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 51:154;
Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Shiʿite Islam, 212–3. Cf. Abū Maʿāsh, al-Imām al-mahdī fī l-qurʾān wa-l-sunna,
144–6; Mubārak, Bashāʾir al-imām al-muntaẓar, 17, 127–8.) Rukn al-Dawla’s second ques-
tion dealt with how the Imam could live so long. Al-Ṣadūq defends the Imam’s longevity
by citing the Quranic story of Noah, who is said to have lived 950 years. But when Rukh al-
Dawla objected that no one lives as long as Noah anymore, al-Ṣadūq responds by quoting a
hadith ascribed to Muḥammad, prophesying that everything that occurred in the past will
be repeated in his community. He then argues that since no one is better known than the
“a lying impostor” 95

Al-Ṣadūq addresses the question of contacting the Hidden Imam more

directly in his magnum opus on the ghayba titled Kamāl al-dīn wa-tamām al-
niʿma fī ithbāt al-ghayba wa-kashf al-ḥayra, a work that has been described as
“the comprehensive work on the subject of the twelfth Imam and his ghayba.”59
Similar to al-Nuʿmānī’s motivation for writing his Kitāb al-Ghayba, al-Ṣadūq
decided to write Kamāl al-dīn after he grew perturbed by the “widespread con-
versions” of Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿa away from their faith and by the doubts and
questions that pervaded the Shīʿī community about the ghayba, especially in
Khurasan during his time there.60 In addition to the hadiths cited in Kamāl al-
dīn negating the possibility of seeing the Imam (on these hadiths, see chapter 1),
al-Ṣadūq also maintains that the Shīʿa can no longer reach the Imam, or know
where he is hiding, because people, by nature, cannot keep secrets. If his loca-
tion were revealed or if he met with some of his believers, there would be a risk
that one of them might unintentionally divulge this information, because when
something, anything, is disclosed, one can never be sure that it will not fall into
the wrong hands. Moreover, if the Imam could be seen, some Shīʿa might, while
debating with their opponents, reveal his identity or location.61 It is also worth
noting that al-Ṣadūq cites in Kamāl al-dīn a list of the individuals who saw the
Imam during the early years of the first ghayba—both deputies (wukalāʾ) of the
Imam in various regions as well as non-deputies,62 but no such list is presented
for anyone who has seen him after the first ghayba. In sum, the Imam, in the
estimation of al-Ṣadūq, can no longer be seen in a wakeful state. The believers
are instead instructed, in a letter attributed to the Hidden Imam from the Lesser

Mahdī, it is only natural to expect that the prophetic precedent of longevity (sunnat ṭūl al-
ʿumr) would be fulfilled by the Hidden Imam. Finally, Rukn al-Dawla inquired about what
need an absent Imam served—a question which, I will show, was of paramount impor-
tance for the rationalist scholars who followed al-Ṣadūq. Al-Ṣadūq responds with alacrity
by adducing the traditional proof, found in Shīʿī hadiths, that the world will cease to exist
without the presence of an Imam. Citing Quran 8:33, “But God would never chastise them,
with you [O Muḥammad] among them,” he maintains that just as God did not punish the
people while the Prophet was alive, He will not chastise the world while an Imam exists,
for “the Imam is the successor of the Prophet in every way except in prophecy and the
descent of revelation.” Al-Ṣadūq (attrib.), Munāẓarat, 67–71.
59 Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 79. Al-Ṣadūq’s work has also been called Kitāb al-Ghayba,
al-Kamāl fī l-ghayba, Kamāl al-niʿma fī l-ghayba, and Ikmāl al-dīn wa-itmām al-niʿma. See
Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 210 (no. 251).
60 Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation, 97–8. Serdani, “Der verborgene Imam,” 59, sets 368/
978–9 as the terminus post quem of the work’s composition. See also Ourghi, Schiitischer
Messianismus, 30–1; Amīnī, “Kitāb-i ghaybat-i Shaykh Ṭūsī,” 480.
61 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 54–5; referred to in Kohlberg, “Taqiyya in Shīʿī Theology and Reli-
gion,” 350.
62 The lists are presented in tables in Hayes, “The Envoys,” 134–6, 137–9.
96 chapter 3

Occultation, to direct their questions about anything that transpires to those

who transmit the hadith of the Imams (i.e., the ulama), for they (the transmit-
ters of hadith) constitute the proof of the Hidden Imam to the believers just as
the Hidden Imam constitutes the proof of God to them.63

3 The Final Missive of the Hidden Imam

In Kamāl al-dīn, al-Ṣadūq is the first scholar to record the locus classicus for
proscribing the possibility of seeing the Imam in the second ghayba: the final
missive or written communication (tawqīʿ) of the Hidden Imam.64 The final
tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam, a document “d’une importance capital dans la des-
tine historique et doctrinal de l’imâmisme,”65 was furnished by ʿAlī b. Muḥam-
mad al-Samurī (d. ca. 329/941),66 who was canonized in later sources as the

63 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 484.

64 The word tawqīʿ had three general meanings in the premodern period: (1) the record of
a verdict in a tort redress, (2) a written edit, and (3) a signature at the end of a letter. See
Babinger and Bosworth, “Tawqīʿ,”EI², 6:933–5, who do not mention the tawqīʿāt of the Shīʿī
Imams. On the literary qualities of the first two usages, see Gruendler, “Tawqīʿ (Apostille),”
101–29. It appears that the term was used for the letters attributed to the Hidden Imam
in order to indicate that they were signed documents or carried the Imam’s seal. On the
tawqīʿāt of the Imams, and in particular, those attributed to the Hidden Imam, see Shabīrī,
“Tawqīʿ (3),” DJI (online edition); Ḥāʾirī, “Tawqīʿāt,” DMT, 5:150–3. There are approximately
seventy documents identified as tawqīʿāt from the Hidden Imam. See Riḍvānī, Mawʿūdshi-
nāsī, 271. With the exception of the letters addressed to Shaykh Mufīd (on these two
letters, see chapter 4), all of the tawqīʿāt allegedly written by the Hidden Imam are from
the Lesser Occultation. The tawqīʿāt are compiled in Akbar-Nijād, Mawsūʿat tawqīʿāt, and
in al-Shīrāzī, Kalimat al-imām al-mahdī. A comprehensive study of the tawqīʿāt remains
a desideratum. Many of them deal with questions of finance or respond to instances of
apostasy (viz., charging certain believers, such as al-Shalmaghānī, with heresy and apos-
tasy). See Hussain, The Occultation, 126–32; Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God, 42–3;
Amir Arjomand, “Imam Absconditus,” 2; Hayes, “The Envoys.”
65 Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 276 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight), 114].
66 His name is often misspelled in Western sources as “al-Samarrī” based on the assumption
that he was from the city of Samarra, where the Hidden Imam is first believed to have
entered into hiding, but if that were the case, we would expect a nisba of “al-Sāmarrāʾī.”
Halm, Die Schia, 43 n. 16 (perhaps relying on al-Ḥamawī, Muʿjam al-buldān, 3:246) sug-
gests a vocalization of “al-Simmarī” after Simmar, located in southern Iraq near Kashkar
between Wasit and Basra. Hussain, The Occultation, 133, offers the same explanation,
though he renders the nisba “al-Sammarī.” Cf. Tūnihʾī, Mawʿūdnāmih, 409, who calls the
village “Samar.” The correct vocalization, however, appears to be “al-Samurī,” a nisba that
reverts to an ancestor whose name was al-Samur (meaning an acacia tree, Lane, An Arabic-
English Lexicon, 1:1425). This vocalization is given in al-Tabrīzī (d. 1093/1682), al-Hidāyā,
 “a lying impostor” 97

fourth and final of the four emissaries (sufarāʾ), six days before his death.67
Some eighty years after al-Ṣadūq, the final tawqīʿ was cited in the Kitāb al-
Ghayba of al-Ṭūsī, who states that he heard it from a group of Shīʿa on the
authority of al-Ṣadūq. For ease of comparison, the texts are presented side-by-
side in the following table. The text of the tawqīʿ is almost identical in both
works, with some minor variants and one major difference, which has been
identified in boldface:

The final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam in al-Ṭūsī’s The final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam in al-Ṣadūq’s
Kitāb al-ghayba Kamāl al-dīn wa-tamām al-niʿma

‫جعْف ٍَر م ُح َم ّدِ ب ِْن ع َل ِ ِيّ ب ِْن اْلح ُسَي ْنِ ب ِْن‬
َ ‫( و َ َأخْبرَ َناَ جَم َاع َة ٌ ع َْن َأب ِي‬١) ‫ل‬
َ ‫ب ق َا‬
ُ ِّ ‫كت‬
َ ُ ‫ن َأْحم َد َ ال ْم‬ ُ َ‫( ح ََّدث َن َا َأبوُ م ُح َم ٍّد اْلح َس‬١)
ُ ْ‫نب‬
‫ل‬
َ ‫ب ق َا‬
ُ ِّ ‫كت‬
َ ُ ‫ن َأْحم َد َ ال ْم‬ ُ َ‫ل ح ََّدث َنِي َأبوُ م ُح َم ٍّد اْلح َس‬
ُ ْ‫نب‬ َ ‫باَ بوَ يَ ْه ِ ق َا‬

ُ‫خ َأبو‬ ّ َ ‫سنةَ ِ ا َل ّت ِي توُ فُ ِ ّي َ فيِ ه َا ال‬

ُ ْ ‫شي‬ ّ َ ‫سل َاِم ف ِي ال‬
ّ َ ‫ت ب ِم َدِين َة ِ ال‬
ُ ْ ‫كن‬
ُ (٢ ) ّ‫خ ع َل ِ ُي‬ ّ َ ‫سنةَ ِ ا َل ّت ِي توُ فُ ِ ّي َ فيِ ه َا ال‬
ُ ْ ‫شي‬ ّ َ ‫سل َاِم ف ِي ال‬
ّ َ ‫ت ب ِم َدِين َة ِ ال‬
ُ ْ ‫كن‬
ُ (٢ )
َ ْ ‫س س ِ ُرّه ُ( فَح َض َرْتهُ ُ ق َب‬
ِ ‫ل و َف َات ِه‬ َ ِ‫ي )ق ُّد‬
ّ ُ ِ‫سم ُر‬ ُ ْ ‫ن ع َل ِ ُيّ ب‬
ّ َ ‫ن م ُح َم ٍّد ال‬ ِ َ‫اْلح َس‬ ‫ل و َف َات ِه ِ ب َأِ َي ّاٍم‬ َ ‫ي )قَّد‬
َ ْ ‫س الل ّٰه ُر ُوح َه ُ( فَح َض َرْتهُ ُ ق َب‬ ّ َ ‫ن م ُح َم ٍّد ال‬
ّ ُ ِ‫سم ُر‬ ُ ْ‫ب‬
ُ ُ‫خته‬ ِ ‫ج ِإل َى ال َن ّا‬
َ ‫س توَ ْقيِ ع ًا ن ُْس‬ ْ ‫ب َأِ َي ّاٍم فَأ‬
َ َ ‫خر‬ ُ ُ‫خته‬ ِ ‫ج ِإل َى ال َن ّا‬
َ ‫س توَ ْقيِ ع ًا ن ُْس‬ َ َ ‫خر‬
ْ ‫فَأ‬

َ ‫ي َأْعظَم‬ ّ َ ‫ن م ُح َم ٍّد ال‬

ّ َ ِ‫سم ُر‬ َ ْ ‫حيِم ياَ ع َل ِ َيّ ب‬ ِ ‫( بسِ ِْم الل ّٰه ِ ال َر ّْحم‬٣)
ِ ّ ‫ن ال َر‬ َ ‫ي َأْعظَم‬ ّ َ ‫ن م ُح َم ٍّد ال‬
ّ َ ِ‫سم ُر‬ َ ْ ‫حيِم ياَ ع َل ِ َيّ ب‬ ِ ‫( بسِ ِْم الل ّٰه ِ ال َر ّْحم‬٣)
ِ ّ ‫ن ال َر‬
‫س َت ّة ِ َأ َي ّاٍم‬
ِ َ‫ك و َب َي ْن‬
َ َ ‫ت م َا ب َي ْن‬ َ ّ ‫ك ف ِ َإ َن‬
ٌ ِّ ‫ك م َي‬ َ ِ‫ك في‬
َ ِ ‫خو َان‬
ْ ‫جر َ ِإ‬
ْ ‫الل ّٰه ُ َأ‬ ‫س َت ّة ِ َأ َي ّاٍم‬
ِ َ‫ك و َب َي ْن‬
َ َ ‫ت م َا ب َي ْن‬ َ ّ ‫ك ف ِ َإ َن‬
ٌ ِّ ‫ك م َي‬ َ ِ‫ك في‬
َ ِ ‫خو َان‬
ْ ‫جر َ ِإ‬
ْ ‫الل ّٰه ُ َأ‬
‫ك‬
َ ِ ‫ك بعَ ْد َ و َف َات‬َ َ ‫ص ِإل َى َأح ٍَد ف َيقَ ُوم َ م َق َام‬ ِ ُ‫ف َاْجم َْع َأْمرَك َ و َل َا تو‬ ‫ك‬
َ ِ ‫ك بعَ ْد َ و َف َات‬ َ َ ‫ص ِإل َى َأح ٍَد يقَ ُوم ُ م َق َام‬ ِ ُ‫ف َاْجم َْع َأْمرَك َ و َل َا تو‬
ِ
ُ ُ‫ن الل ّٰه تعَ اَ ل َى ذِك ْره‬ ُ ‫ت ال ْغيَ ْبةَ ُ ال َت ّا َمّة ُ ف َل َا‬
ِ ‫ظه ُور َ ِإ َلّا بعَ ْد َ ِإْذ‬ ِ َ َ‫فقَ َْد و َقع‬ ‫ل‬ ِ
ّ َ َ ‫ن الل ّٰه ع ََّز و َج‬ ُ ‫ت ال ْغيَ ْبةَ ُ ال َث ّانيِ َة ُ ف َل َا‬
ِ ‫ظه ُور َ ِإ َلّا بعَ ْد َ ِإْذ‬ ِ َ َ‫فقَ َْد و َقع‬
‫ض‬ ِ
ِ ‫ب و َاْمتلِ َاء اْلَأْر‬ ِ ُ‫سو َة ِ ال ْق ُلو‬
ْ َ ‫ل اْلَأم َدِ و َق‬ ِ ‫طو‬ ُ َ ‫ك بعَ ْد‬َ ِ ‫و َذ َل‬ ‫ض‬ ِ
ِ ‫ب و َاْمتلِ َاء اْلَأْر‬ ِ ُ‫سو َة ِ ال ْق ُلو‬
ْ َ ‫ل اْلَأم َدِ و َق‬ ِ ‫طو‬ ُ َ ‫ك بعَ ْد‬َ ِ ‫و َذ َل‬
‫جو ْر ًا‬
َ ‫جو ْر ًا‬
َ

1:96; Farīdanī, “Samurī,” DMT, 9:292; and ʿAlī, al-Mahdī l-muntaẓar, 239 [= Arabic transla-
tion of Ali, Der Mahdī der Zwölfer-Schiʿa und seine vier Safire]. Al-Ṣadr, Tārīkh al-ghayba
al-ṣughrā, 412, states that some have written his name as “al-Saymarī” or “al-Ṣaymarī,” but
he does not give a source and I have not encountered these vocalizations elsewhere. On
the four emissaries in general, see Klemm, “Die vier sufarāʾ.” On the first two emissaries in
specific, see Ali, “Die beiden ersten.”
67 Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 394 (no. 364), is the first work in which we find a report stat-
ing that al-Samurī died on 15 Shaʿbān 329/20 May 941. However, both al-Ṭabarsī and Ibn
Ṭāwūs state that al-Samurī died in 328/939–40 and add that the Lesser Occultation lasted
seventy-four years. Al-Majlisī, Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, 4:52–3, reasons that al-Ṭabarsī and Ibn Ṭāwūs
are calculating the Lesser Occultation from the year the Hidden Imam was born, rather
than from the year al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī died. This view is repeated in al-Ṣadr, Tārīkh al-
ghayba al-ṣughrā, 417.
 98 chapter 3

(cont.)

The final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam in al-Ṭūsī’s The final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam in al-Ṣadūq’s
Kitāb al-ghayba Kamāl al-dīn wa-tamām al-niʿma

‫ن ا َدّعَى‬
ِ َ ‫شيع َت ِي م َْن يَّدِعي ال ْم ُشَاه َد َة َ َأل َا ف َم‬
ِ ‫سي ْأَ ت ِي‬
َ َ ‫( و‬٤ ) ‫ن ا َدّعَى‬
ِ َ ‫شيع َت ِي م َْن يَّدِعي ال ْم ُشَاه َد َة َ َأل َا ف َم‬
ِ ‫سي ْأَ ت ِي‬
َ َ ‫( و‬٤ )
ٌ ‫صي ْح َة ِ فهَ ُو َ ك َ َذّا‬
ٍ َ‫ب م ُْفتر‬ ّ َ ‫سْفي َان ِ ِيّ و َال‬ ّ ُ ‫ج ال‬ ِ ‫ل خ ُر ُو‬ َ ْ ‫ال ْم ُشَاه َد َة َ ق َب‬ ٍ َ‫ب م ُْفتر‬
ٌ ِ‫صي ْح َة ِ فهَ ُو َ ك َاذ‬ ّ َ ‫سْفي َان ِ ِيّ و َال‬ ّ ُ ‫ج ال‬
ِ ‫ل خ ُر ُو‬ َ ْ ‫ال ْم ُشَاه َد َة َ ق َب‬
‫ل و َل َا قوَُ ّة َ ِإ َلّا باِ ل َل ّه ِ ال ْع َل ِ ِيّ ال ْع َظ ِيِم‬ َ ْ ‫حو‬َ ‫و َل َا‬ ‫ل و َل َا قوَُ ّة َ ِإ َلّا باِ لل ّٰه ِ ال ْع َل ِ ِيّ ال ْع َظ ِيِم‬ َ ْ ‫حو‬َ ‫و َل َا‬

ْ َ ‫ل ف َن َسَْخن َا ه َذ َا ال َت ّو ْقيِ َع و َ خ َر‬

َ‫جن َا م ِْن عِن ْدِه ِ ف َل َم ّا ك َان‬ َ ‫( ق َا‬٥) ْ َ ‫ل ف َن َسَْخن َا ه َذ َا ال َت ّو ْقيِ َع و َخ َر‬
َ‫جن َا م ِْن عِن ْدِه ِ ف َل َم ّا ك َان‬ َ ‫( ق َا‬٥)
َ ّ ‫ص ُي‬
‫ك‬ ِ َ ‫ل ل َه ُم َْن و‬
َ ‫سه ِ فقَ ِي‬
ِ ‫يجوُ د ُ بنِ َْف‬
َ َ ‫س ع ُْدناَ ِإل َي ْه ِ و َه ُو‬ ُ ِ‫ساد‬ َ ّ ‫ص ُي‬
ّ َ ‫ك اليْ وَ ْم ُ ال‬ ِ َ ‫ل ل َه ُم َْن و‬
َ ‫سه ِ فقَ ِي‬
ِ ‫يجوُ د ُ بنِ َْف‬
َ َ ‫س ع ُْدناَ ِإل َي ْه ِ و َه ُو‬ ُ ِ‫ساد‬ ّ َ ‫اليْ وَ ْم ُ ال‬
‫خر ُ ك َلاَ ٍم سُم َِع‬ِ ‫ل لل ّٰه ِ َأْمٌر ه ُو َ باَ لغِ ُه ُ و َق َض َى فهَ َذ َا آ‬ َ ‫ل لل ّٰه ِ َأْمٌر ه ُو َ باَ لغِ ُه ُ و َم َض َى ر َض ِيَ الل ّٰه ُع َن ْه ُ فهَ َذ َا م ِْن بعَ ْدِك َ فقَ َا‬ َ ‫م ِْن بعَ ْدِك َ فقَ َا‬
68‫ضاه‬ َ ‫م ِن ْه ُ ر َض ِيَ ال َل ّه ُع َن ْه ُ و َ َأْر‬ 69‫خر ُ ك َلاَ ٍم سُم َِع م ِن ْه‬ ِ ‫آ‬

The following translation is based on the version al-Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-dīn wa-
tamām al-niʿma:
(1) Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad al-Mukattib70 told us:
(2) I was in Baghdad the year ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Samurī died. I visited him
a few days before he died. He showed the people a tawqīʿ [from the Hid-
den Imam], which I copied:
(3) In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
To ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Samurī, may God increase the reward of your
brethren through you! You will die in six days, so prepare yourself and
appoint no one to succeed you, for the second ghayba [al-Ṭūsī: the com-

68 Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 395; al-Ṭabrisī, Tāj al-mawālid, 112–3; al-Ṭabrisī, Iʿlām al-warā,
2:260; al-Rāwandī, al-Kharāʾij wa-l-jarāʾiḥ, 3:1128–9 (no. 46); al-Ṭabarsī, al-Iḥtijāj, 2:478;
al-Baghdādī, Tārīkh al-aʾimma wa-wafayātihim, 266; al-Irbilī, Kashf al-ghumma1, 2:1023–
4; al-Nīlī, Muntakhab al-anwār al-muḍīʾa, 338–9; al-Kāshānī, Nawādir al-akhbār, 233; al-
Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 51:360–1 (no. 7), 52:151 (no. 1); al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Ithbāt al-hudā,
5:321 (no. 112); al-Shaftī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 2:308; al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 1:378; al-
Shīrāzī, Kalimat al-imām al-mahdī, 203; al-Badrī, ʿAwālim al-bayān, 114. For Persian trans-
lations, see Ardabīlī (attrib.), Ḥadīqat al-shīʿa, 2:989–9; Khātūnābādī, Kashf al-ḥaqq, 58;
al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 191, 229–30; Nūrī-Ṭabarsī2 (d. 1318/1900–1), Kifāyat al-
muwaḥḥidīn, 2:788; al-Ṭūsī, Khūrshīd dar nahān (trans. Jalālī), 2:554–5; Amīnī, Dādgustar-i
jahān, 143.
69 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 467 (no. 44); al-ʿAṭṭār, “Muqaddimat al-muḥaqqiq,” 22. For Persian
translations, see al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn (trans. Pahlavān), 2:294–5.
70 Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad al-Mukattib was a teacher of al-Ṣadūq. Al-Khūʾī,
Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 5:272; Dhākirī, “Irtibāṭ bā imām-i zamān,” 57.
“a lying impostor” 99

plete ghayba] has come, and the ẓuhūr will not take place before God—
exalted and glorified be He—permits it, and that will only happen after a
long time has passed, when hearts have become callous and oppression
has filled the earth.71
(4) [Before I reappear], some [or someone] will come to my followers claim-
ing to have seen [me] with their own eyes.72 But beware! Anyone who
claims to have seen [me] before the appearance of al-Sufyānī73 and [the
sounding of] the Cry74 is a lying impostor.75 There is no power nor
strength except in God, the Exalted, the Great.76

71 This is a reference to the famous prophetic hadith that God will raise up one of Muḥam-
mad’s descendants at the end of time (near or on the Day of Resurrection), and he will
fill the earth with equity and justice, even as it has been filled with injustice and tyranny.
Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:338 (no. 7).
72 It is also possible to read this sentence as “[Before I reappear], my followers will come,
those claiming to have seen (me) with their own eyes.” Cf. al-Shubbar (d. 1242/1826–7),
Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, 287, who reproduces the tawqīʿ from a manuscript of al-Ṭabarsī’s (on whom,
see chapter 4) al-Iḥtijāj and has written this sentence as “[Before I reappear], some [or
someone] will come claiming to have seen (me) .…” (wa-sayaʾtī man yaddaʿī l-mushāhada),
i.e., without the word “my followers” (shīʿatī).
73 In early Shīʿī sources, likely originating in an anti-Umawī Kufan collection of apocalyptic
literature, al-Sufyānī is presented as the chief opponent and eschatological doppelgänger
of the Mahdī. See Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, index, s.v. “Sufyānī and Sufyānī
cycle”; Cook, “Ḥadīth, Authority and the End of the World,” 34; Madelung, “The Sufyānī,”
5–48; Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 165, 211 n. 66; Poonawala, “Apocalyptic ii. In Muslim
Iran,” EIr, 2:157–60; Amir Arjomand, “Islamic Apocalypticism,” 254–6, 262; Shaddel, “The
Sufyānī.” For Shīʿī hadiths that mention the emergence of al-Sufyānī as one of the signs
that will precede the appearance of the Qāʾim, see al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 310–8 (chap-
ter 18: mā jāʾa fī dhikr al-Sufyānī wa-anna amrahu min al-maḥtūm). His name suggests that
he will be a descendant of the Umayyad patriarch, Abū Sufyān (d. ca. 32/653), the arch-
enemy of the Prophet Muḥammad.
74 The Cry (al-ṣayḥa) is mentioned six times in the Quran as the harbinger of the end of the
world and the arrival of the Day of Judgment, most prominently Quran 50:42: “On the day
they hear the Cry in truth, that is the day of coming forth.” The sounding of the cosmic
Cry from the heavens is glossed as one of the portents of the appearance of the Qāʾim
in Shīʿī sources. See Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 287 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide
(trans. Streight), 118]; Ghaemmaghami, “{And the Earth will Shine with the Light of its
Lord} (Q 39:69),” 612, 620. On the Cry, see also Cook, “The Apocalyptic Year,” 64; Lawson,
“Duality, Opposition and Typology,” 37–8. Cf. ʿAlī’s declaration in the Khuṭbat al-bayān that
he is the Cry. Al-Bursī, Mashāriq anwār al-yaqīn, 319 (cf. Dihdār-Shīrāzī, Sharḥ khuṭbat al-
bayān, 76).
75 The original language text of the final tawqīʿ in al-Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-dīn has here the nomen
agentis al-kādhib (liar or one who lies, deludes and misleads, since the nomen agentis in
Arabic is, properly speaking, a verbal adjective); the version of the tawqīʿ in al-Ṭūsī’s Kitāb
al-Ghayba has the more intensive verbal adjective al-kadhdhāb (a habitual liar) from the
faʿʿāl form, the ism al-mubālagha (the noun of intensiveness). The phrase is clearly meant
100 chapter 3

(5) (Al-Mukattib) said: We copied this tawqīʿ and left [al-Samurī’s] home. Six
days later, we returned and found him in the throes of death.77 Someone
said to him, “[Tell us,] who is to succeed you?” He responded, “God has
a purpose (amr) which He will surely accomplish” [cf. Quran 65:3]. He
passed away, may God be pleased with him, and these were the last words
anyone heard from him.78
The final tawqīʿ of the Imam has been transmitted by numerous Shīʿī ulama
through the centuries, most of whom cite the version produced by al-Ṭūsī.79
A few scholars discuss the tawqīʿ but choose to ignore or leave out the “lying
impostor” passage.80 In some Persian translations of the tawqīʿ, translated by

to recall the Quranic verse “He is naught but a man who has forged against God a lie”
(in huwa illā rajul iftarā ʿala Allah kadhiban) (Quran 23:38). The locution iftarā (or some
other form of this verb) ʿala Allāh kadhiban/al-khadhib is encountered twenty-one times
in the Quran, e.g., 4:50, 6:21, 10:69, 21:61, 34:8. The word may have been changed from al-
kādhib to al-kadhdhāb as a further slight against Jaʿfar b. ʿAlī, the brother of the al-Ḥasan
al-ʿAskarī, who is referred to as Jaʿfar al-Kadhdhāb in Shīʿī sources because he claimed that
al-ʿAskarī did not have a surviving son and (in some narrations) proclaimed himself the
next Imam. In later Shīʿī sources, e.g., al-Majlisī, Jalāʾ al-ʿuyūn, 869, the sixth Imam, Jaʿfar
b. Muḥammad, is said to have adopted the epithet “al-Ṣādiq” to distinguish himself from
this future Jaʿfar al-Kadhdhāb. This report is one of many circulated to vilify Jaʿfar b. ʿAlī. In
early sources, Musaylima (d. ca. 12/633–4), an Arab who claimed after meeting Muḥam-
mad to be a prophet, is also commonly labeled al-kadhdhāb. See Savant, The New Muslims,
174.
76 The nuances of this common Arabic exclamation (lit., there is no possibility for change/
transformation/motion or strength/power except from/by/through God, the exalted, the
great), known as the ḥawqala, are difficult to convey in English. The ḥawqala is sometimes
found at the end of a composition as it is here, but it is commonly used in classical and
modern Arabic after hearing disastrous news or something blasphemous or reprehensi-
ble. See Piamenta, Islam in Everyday Arabic Speech, 155–8. Its use at the end of the final
tawqīʿ serves to emphasize the warning and declaration expressed in the previous two
sentences.
77 The expression jāda bi-nafsihi (lit., to give generously of one’s self or sacrifice oneself) is
said of someone who is in the agony of death (ʿind al-mawt) or about to give up the spirit,
Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab, 5:21; Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 1:481.
78 For slightly alternate translations, see Amini, al-Imām al-Mahdī (trans. Sachedina), 138;
Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 276 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divin Guide, 113]; Amir-Moezzi,
“Contribution à la Typologie,” 122–3; Klemm, “Die vier sufarâʾ,” 135; Momen, An Introduc-
tion to Shiʿi Islam, 164; Momen, Shiʿi Islam, 52; Hussain, The Occultation, 134–5, has the
singular “someone shall come to my partisans claiming”; Eliash, “Misconceptions,” 23–4;
Corbin, “Au Pays de l’Imâm cache,” 45; Corbin, En Islam iranien, 4:324; Kohlberg, “Authori-
tative Scriptures,” 308; Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God, 43; Amir Arjomand, “The Crisis
of the Imamate,” 508–9.
79 See the notes following the Arabic text of the tawqīʿ for some of these references.
80 For example, the East African Khoja Shīʿī scholar Mullah Haji Mohammadjaffer Sheriff
Dewji (d. 1960) mentions the final tawqīʿ in his defense of the Hidden Imam but inex-
“a lying impostor” 101

scholars who support the possibility of encounters with the Imam during the
Greater Occultation, the text has been interpolated by the addition of the word
“near” (zūd / bih zūdī) or the words “in the near future” (dar āyandih-yi nazdīk).
It appears that by adding “near” or “in the near future,” these scholars are sug-
gesting that, although those who claimed to have seen the Hidden Imam in the
years immediately following the end of the Lesser Occultation were liars, later
(and contemporary) claimants to encountering the Imam are veridical.81
A more deliberate misrepresentation of the tawqīʿ can be observed in a
self-purported “analytical history” of the ghayba by Pūr-Sayyid-Āqāyī, Jabbārī,
ʿĀshūrī, and Ḥakīm.82 In their discussion of the final tawqīʿ, they point out five
facts: (1) it was written for al-Samurī; (2) he was ordered not to appoint a suc-
cessor to replace him, which “is proof that direct communication between the
Mahdī and his special/exclusive representatives (nuvvāb-i khāṣṣ) had ended
and from this date forward, the people could no longer pose questions to the
Imam through them”; (3) the Lesser Occultation had come to an end and the
Greater Occultation had begun; (4) the Imam will appear at a time of God’s
choosing; (5) two signs will herald the Imam’s parousia: the appearance of al-
Sufyānī and the sounding of the Cry.83 The sentence in the tawqīʿ about “a
lying impostor” is omitted. Consequently, their work, ostensibly a history of the
ghayba, does not contain any accounts of encounters with the Imam from the
Greater Occultation. In fact, the authors do not broach the topic, giving the
impression that no one has claimed to have encountered the Imam since the
period of the Lesser Occultation.
Still others have interpreted the “lying impostor” passage of the final tawqīʿ as
applying only those who both claim to see the Imam and claim be his exclusive
representative (like the four emissaries (sufarāʾ) from the Lesser Occultation).
In other words, during the Greater Occultation, only those who claim to have

plicably leaves out the “lying impostor” passage. Dewji, Imame Zaman Hazrat Mehdi, 46.
Since his book features stories of “numerous persons [who] have reported meeting Hazrat
Mehdi (A.S.)” (idem, 129) during the Greater Occultation, Dewji likely felt that this sen-
tence of the tawqīʿ conflicted with the accounts and did not wish to reconcile them.
81 See al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 191; al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:851; ʿAlīpūr, Jilvahhāy-
i pinhānī-i imām-i ʿaṣr, 120. Abdulaziz Sachedina translates the beginning of the “lying
impostor” passage in similar manner: “In the near future there will be those among my fol-
lowers.” Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 96. The word “near” is not mentioned in the text.
Cf. other Persian translations which remain loyal to the text of the tawqīʿ: al-Majlisī, Ḥaqq
al-yaqīn, 315; al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī), 928; al-Kamarihʾī, Davāzdahumīn,
sīn-zāʾ-sīn-ḥāʾ; Qazvīnī-Khurāsānī, Bayān al-furqān, 902; Farīdanī, “Samurī,” DMT, 9:292.
82 Their work is entitled Tārīkh-i ʿāṣr-i ghaybat.
83 Pūr-Sayyid-Āqāyī, Jabbārī, ʿĀshūrī, and Ḥakīm, Tārīkh-i ʿāṣr-i ghaybat, 300–1.
102 chapter 3

seen the Imam and likewise claim to be his emissary are to be shunned as liars.
Otherwise, if one does not claim to be the Imam’s emissary, this sentence of the
tawqīʿ does not apply.84 As I will show in chapter 4, this eisegesis of the tawqīʿ is
anachronistic, as the concept of “representation” (niyāba) and the distinction
between “the special representatives” (al-nuwwāb al-khāṣṣa) and “the general
representatives” (al-nuwwāb al-ʿāmma) of the Imam was not fully developed
until the Safavid period.
Before continuing my discussion of the critical sentences of the final tawqīʿ,
beginning with the words “[Before I reappear], some [or someone] will come to
my followers claiming to have seen [me],” it is necessary to register a few com-
ments about the final emissary (safīr) and the change from “second ghayba”
(in the text of the tawqīʿ in al-Ṣadūq) to “complete ghayba” (in the text of the
tawqīʿ in al-Ṭūsī).

3.1 The Final Emissary of the Hidden Imam

ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Samurī is a mysterious figure. Virtually nothing is known
about him, though he is the last person who was said to have been in regular
contact with the Hidden Imam during the period that came to be known as
the Lesser Occultation. The only information presented about him in the fifth-
/eleventh-century rijāl works is that he was originally one of the companions
of the eleventh Imam, al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, and that he succeeded the powerful
al-Ḥusayn b. Rūḥ (or Rawḥ) al-Nawbakhtī (d. 326/938)85 as the fourth autho-
rized emissary (safīr) of the Hidden Imam.86 However, in the earliest sources,
there is no textual evidence for either of these points. Unlike other emissaries
and agents of the Imam, his name is not mentioned in any of the works that
have survived from the Lesser Occultation (including al-Kulaynī’s al-Kāfī or
Ibn Bābūya’s al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra). Nor is he mentioned in al-
Nuʿmānī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba. Moreover, unlike the previous emissaries (sufarāʾ),
there are no letters from the Imam announcing that al-Samurī was the suc-

84 See appendix II.

85 Al-Ḥusayn b. Rūḥ (or Rawḥ) al-Nawbakhtī occupied a powerful position in the Abbasid
financial administration and frequently dissimulated his Shīʿī identity. He was later im-
prisoned for failing to pay overdue taxes and secretly urging the Qarāmiṭa to invade Bagh-
dad. On him, see Arjomand, “Ḥosayn b. Ruḥ,” EIr, 12:506–8; Anthony, “Nawbaḵti Family,”
EIr (online); Abdulsater, “Dynamics of Absence,” 314–26; Hayes, “The Envoys,” 488–507. Cf.
for traditional, descriptive biographical notes, see Hūshangī, “Ḥusayn b. Rūḥ Nawbakhtī,”
DJI (online); Yūsufī-Ishkavarī, “Ḥusayn b. Rūḥ,” DMT, 6:330–1.
86 Al-Shīrāzī, Kalimat al-imām al-mahdī, 104; al-Ṣadr, Tārīkh al-ghayba al-ṣughrā, 412–3;
Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 96, says that he “belonged to the close associates of al-
ʿAskarī.” Cf. Abdulsater, “Dynamics of Absence,” 327 n. 136.
“a lying impostor” 103

cessor to the third emissary, al-Ḥusayn b. Rūḥ (or Rawḥ) al-Nawbakhtī. In fact,
there appear to have been serious doubts about al-Samurī’s claim to be the
Imam’s emissary. Al-Ṭūsī recounts several theurgic acts (karāmāt) attributed
to him as evidence of his being an emissary, including his foreknowledge of
the precise moment when Ibn Bābūya died.87 Reports of these alleged miracles
may have served to vindicate al-Samurī’s authority to those who questioned it.
As a historical figure, al-Samurī’s significance lies in the notion that the
institution of sifāra (“emissaryhood”) is said to have ended with him, only
three years after he is said to have assumed the reins. (Al-Ḥusayn b. Rūḥ (or
Rawḥ) al-Nawbakhtī, by contrast, is said to have served as an emissary for
some twenty-one years.) It is not clear why the institution of sifāra was aban-
doned in favor of the idea of a second ghayba, during which there would no
longer be any sufarāʾ. Some Shīʿī scholars contend that the Lesser Occulta-
tion prepared the way for the Greater Occultation, suggesting that once the
Shīʿa were properly prepared for the Imam’s extended period of absence, an
emissary or representative was no longer needed.88 Western scholars have sug-
gested other answers. Amir Arjomand speculates that “it is not unreasonable
to regard Samari [sic] as a cipher for the failed project to institutionalize cen-
tral hierocratic authority in the form of sifāra.”89 Other individuals had claimed
to be in contact with the Hidden Imam or claimed to be his deputy (wakīl) or
gate (bāb), both before al-Samurī’s death during the lifetime of al-Nawbakhtī—
such as the famed mystic and poet Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj (d. 309/922) and Abū Jaʿfar
Muḥammad al-Shalmaghānī (d. 323/934), the one-time protégé and proxy of
al-Nawbakhtī90—and shortly after al-Samurī’s passing—such as Abū Bakr al-
Baghdādī, the nephew of the second safīr.91 At least one person came forward

87 On these alleged miracles, see al-Mūsawī, al-Ḥayra, 223–39; ʿAlī, al-Mahdī l-muntaẓar, 239–
40. On the theme of miraculous powers ascribed to the sufarāʾ, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide
divin, 273–5.
88 See, for example, Gulpāyigānī, Discussions Concerning al-Mahdī, 125–6.
89 Amir Arjomand, “The Crisis,” 508.
90 Iqbāl, Khāndān-i Nawbakhtī, 111–6 (regarding al-Ḥallāj), 222–39 (regarding al-Shalma-
ghānī); Massignon, La Passion, 1:362, 373, 376–7 (regarding al-Ḥallāj); Amir Arjomand, The
Shadow of God, 42; Anthony, “Nawbaḵti Family,” EIr (online); Abdulsater, “Dynamics of
Absence,” 316–320. Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 397–412, mentions six “imprecated” individ-
uals in a chapter titled “Mention of the disgraced ones (al-madhmūmīn; cf. Quran 17:22)
[as opposed to the sufarāʾ who are called ‘the praised ones’ (al-maḥmūdīn)] who falsely
claimed to be the gate of the Imam (bābiyya) and his safīr.” See also al-Majlisī, ʿAyn al-
ḥayāt, 1198–1201.
91 Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 412–4; Hussain, The Occultation, 139; Amir Arjomand, “The Cri-
sis,” 509; Hayes, “The Envoys,” 504–5.
104 chapter 3

claiming to be the Hidden Imam himself.92 Research has uncovered that sev-
eral Shīʿa with gnostic (ghulāt) tendencies, such as Abū Shuʿayb Muḥammad
b. Nuṣayr (fl. third/ninth century), had previously claimed authority on behalf
of the Imam as well.93
The final tawqīʿ announcing the second ghayba reflects a community that
had lost hope in the Imam’s reappearance. By the time of al-Samurī, it must
have become impossible to keep up the pretense of direct communication with
an absent Imam. In the year 329/941, the Hidden Imam would have approached
the seventy-fifth year of his life; no previous Imam had exceeded the age of
sixty-five, and the previous three Imams (the ninth, tenth, and eleventh Imams)
had died at the ages of twenty-five, forty-two, and twenty-eight respectively.
The Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿa were not used to the idea of an Imam living so long.
The believers must have begun questioning when, if ever, the Hidden Imam
would emerge. Some likely wondered why, if someone’s life was to be miracu-
lously prolonged by God and thereby transcend the laws of nature, it had not
been the Prophet or one of the earlier Imams.
The religious and political context needs to be taken into consideration, as it
is of great significance. Two politically and culturally distinct Zaydī Shīʿī com-
munities led by competing Shīʿī Imams were flourishing in northern Persia and
Yemen, respectively.94 Moreover, shortly after the death of al-ʿAskarī, an active
Ismāʿīlī daʿwa emerged and gained ground in the central Islamic lands. The
Ismāʿīlī duʿā preached political and military action (ruled by caliph-imams—
in the case of the Fatimid Ismāʿīlīs—who were regarded as representatives of
the Qāʾim and who ruled the empire of the Mahdī) in contradistinction to the
political quietism practiced by the Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿa, who appeased and
placated the ruling pro-Shīʿī Buyids. The Buyids were likely Zaydī Shīʿa, and it is
clear why the quietist approach of Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿī ulama, and their belief
in an invisible Imam who did not exercise any outward political authority, may
have appealed to the Buyids politically.
Consequently, the Buyids extended their patronage to Twelver Shīʿī schol-
ars.95 It is of no minor significance that the final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam,

92 See Klemm, “Die vier sufarāʾ,” 133.

93 See Asatryan, Controversies in Formative Shiʿi Islam, 80–4, 111–6. On the Nuṣayrī movement
and its founder, see also Steigerwald, “Ibn Nuṣayr,” EI³ (online).
94 On the Zaydiyya, see Halm, Die Schia, 244–50; Haider, Shīʿī Islam, 103–22, 169–81; Haider,
“Zaydism.”
95 On Buyid support for the Twelver Shīʿa and the overall conditions of the Shīʿī community
under Buyid rule, see Halm, Shiʿism, 45–8; Jaʿfariyān, Tārīkh-i tashayyuʿ dar Iran, 1:359–70;
Donohue, The Buwayhid Dynasty; Marcinkowski, Shiʾite Identities, 75–6; Letvik, “Iraq x.,”
EIr, 13:581–8; Nagel, “Buyid,” EIr, 4:578–86.
“a lying impostor” 105

which sundered all contact with him, was allegedly produced less than five
years before the Buyids seized control of central Iraq. Surviving members of
the notable Nawbakhtī family and other Twelver Shīʿī authorities in Iraq who
had supported the institution of sifāra decided it was wiser for the Shīʿa to have
an invisible—and more importantly and prudently—an unreachable Imam to
whom they could keep their spiritual allegiance, than to continue the failing
and politically hazardous experiment of living emissaries and representatives
of the Imam.96 It was then left to Shīʿī ulama to justify this shift. The continued
existence and growth of Twelver Shīʿī Islam proved that this development kept
the nascent community intact.

3.2 From the Second Ghayba to the Complete Ghayba

The most reliable edition of Kamāl al-dīn was prepared by ʿAlī-Akbar al-
Ghaffārī, who consulted seven different manuscripts. In a footnote to the locu-
tion “the second ghayba” (al-ghayba al-thāniya), al-Ghaffārī writes that “some
manuscripts” have “the complete occultation” (al-ghayba al-tāmma).97 Al-
ghayba al-tāmma is almost certainly a later redaction introduced by al-Ṭūsī or
a member of the unnamed group ( jamāʿa) that transmitted the hadith from
al-Ṣadūq to al-Ṭūsī. This interpolation was likely reintroduced into some later
transcriptions of al-Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-dīn to make it conform with the version in
al-Ṭūsī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba,98 since it is highly unlikely that al-ghayba al-tāmma
would be changed to al-ghayba al-thāniya otherwise. Al-Ṭūsī’s version was cited
by Aḥmad al-Ṭabarsī (d. late sixth/twelfth century) in his al-Iḥtijāj ʿalā ahl al-
lajāj and subsequently by most Shīʿī scholars that followed,99 though a small
number have preserved al-Ṣadūq’s al-ghayba al-thāniya.
This alteration of al-ghayba al-thāniya in al-Ṣadūq’s version to al-ghayba
al-tāmma in al-Ṭūsī’s version is significant because neither al-Nuʿmānī nor al-

96 Eliash, “Removal of the Divine,” 226–7; Maghen, “Occultation in Perpetuum,” 238, 246.
97 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn (1984 Qum edition), 2:516 n. 1.
98 The oldest manuscript of Kamāl al-dīn available to me, from the twelfth/eighteenth cen-
tury, has “the complete ghayba” (al-ghayba al-tāmma). See al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn (ms. 1),
folio 330. Cf. a lithograph printed in Iran in 1301/1883, which has “the second ghayba” (al-
ghayba al-thāniya). Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn (ms. 2), folio 284. Pahlavān’s Persian transla-
tion of Kamāl al-dīn also has “second ghayba” (duvvumīn ghaybat). Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn
(trans. Pahlavān), 2:294. Kamarihʾī’s Persian translation, on the other hand, has “complete
ghayba” (ghaybat-i kāmil). Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn (trans. Kamarihʾī), 2:193. On informa-
tion about surviving manuscripts of Kamāl al-dīn in Iran, see Tafaḍḍulī, Kitābshināsī-i,
206–28.
99 Al-Ṭabarsī, al-Iḥtijāj, 2:478.
106 chapter 3

Ṣadūq ever mentions the idea of a “complete ghayba.” The term al-ghayba al-
tāmma is not found in any of their extant writings. Rather, both al-Nuʿmānī and
al-Ṣadūq use the expression “the second ghayba” throughout their works.100

4 “A Lying Impostor”

Initially, the final tawqīʿ of the Imam was understood to mean that no one could
claim to see the Imam after the start of the second ghayba. In his extended
defense of the ghayba, al-Ṣadūq devoted a lengthy chapter to accounts of those
who had seen and spoken with the Hidden Imam.101 The chain of transmission
and text of these accounts reveals that all of them are from the Lesser Occulta-
tion.102
Here, the position of scholars who suggest that al-Ṣadūq (and al-Ṭūsī after
him) cited accounts of contact with the Imam from the Greater Occultation
needs to be reconsidered. Amir-Moezzi, for example, remarks that although
al-Ṣadūq cites the final tawqīʿ of the Imam in his Kamāl al-dīn, he “does not
hesitate to relate in the same work some accounts of meetings with the Hidden
Imam after his Major Occultation [that is, during the second ghayba—again,
the term “major occultation” is never used by al-Ṣadūq].” Based on this premise,
to which I will return presently, Amir-Moezzi avers:

From the very beginning, ocular vision of the imam, to which the letter
[i.e., the final tawqīʿ] refers, seems to have been understood not in a gen-
eral sense, but as a condition of the Hidden Imam’s representative. Thus,
what is declared impossible during the major occultation (thus until the
end of time) is not an encounter with the Hidden Imam as such, but
laying claim to the niāba [i.e., niyāba] of the latter by citing a meeting
with the Hidden Imam as grounds. A believer may be granted the privi-
lege of meeting the Imam, but if following this he declares himself to be

100 See, e.g., al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn (1984 Qum edition), 1:139, 1:146, and the examples provided
above in al-Nuʿmānī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba.
101 [= man shāhada al-qāʾim wa-raʾāhu wa-kallamahu]
102 The same is true for the reports mentioned in the chapters in al-Mufīd’s al-Irshād fī
maʿrifat ḥujaj Allāh ʿalā l-ʿibād and in al-Ṭūsī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba on those who saw the Hid-
den Imam or witnessed his miracles (muʿjizātihi). Al-Mufīd, al-Irshād fī maʿrifat ḥujaj Allāh
ʿalā l-ʿibād, 2:351–67; al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 253–84. All of the accounts mentioned in
these works date from the Lesser Occultation. For more information on these works, see
below.
“a lying impostor” 107

the “representative” of the Imam due to the encounter, he is considered

(according to terms of the letter) no less than a liar and impostor.103

Two issues arise in relation to this argument. First, the interpretation that the
tawqīʿ means that believers can see the Imam as long as they do not claim to
be his “representative” was not explicitly advanced until some eight hundred
years after the beginning of the ghayba by the Safavid savant, Muḥammad Bāqir
al-Majlisī, a point to which I will return in chapter 4.104 Second, Amir-Moezzi
argues that “The last letter of the twelfth imam will cut to the quick: not only
will there not be a ‘representative,’ but no one but an impostor will claim to
be one.”105 But is this the case? The tawqīʿ does not declare that anyone who

103 Amir-Moezzi, “Islam in Iran vii,” EIr, 11:140. Amir-Moezzi gives the same explanation in
Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, Qu’est-ce que le shîʾisme?, 117 [= Amir-Moezzi and Jambet, What
is Shiʾi Islam? (trans. Casler and Ormsby), 63] and in Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la
Typologie,” 123 (italics added for emphasis): “Ibn Bâbûya [al-Ṣadūq] semble être le pre-
mier à reproduire cette letter [i.e., the final tawqīʿ]. Il rapporte pourtant des récits de
rencontres pendant l’occultation majeure, et son exemple sera suivi par les auteurs pos-
térieurs. C’est que dès le début, la vision oculaire de l’ imâm caché dont parle la lettre paraît
avoir été comprise non pas dans un sens général, mais comme une condition de la représen-
tation de l’imâm. Ce qui est déclaré impossible pendant l’ occultation majeure, et donc
jusqu’à la Fin du temps, ce n’est pas la rencontre de l’ imâm caché mais la prétention à la
niyâba de ce dernier sous prétexte de rencontre. Le fidèle peut être gratifié du privilège
de la vision oculaire de l’imâm, mais si par la suite et en raison de cette rencontre il se
déclare ‘représentant’ de l’imâm, il ne peut être considéré, selon les termes de la lettre,
que comme un menteur et un imposteur.” Amir-Moezzi’s understanding is also conveyed
in the following translation of the critical sentence of the final tawqīʿ, to which he has
added a qualifier in brackets: “Among my partisans, some will claim to having seen [me]
with their eyes [as was the case with the ‘representatives’].” Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide
(trans. Streight), 113. A similar view was expressed by Corbin; after citing the final tawqīʿ,
Corbin argues: “Ainsi commença le temps de la Grande Occultation (al-ghaybat al-kobrâ);
il dure encore. Car non seulement quiconque prétendrait être l’ Imâm en personne, mais
aussi quiconque prétendrait se donner comme le représentant qualifié de l’ Imâm (son Bâb,
son Seuil) et revendiquerait une investiture personnelle en vue d’une prédication publique,
celuilà briserait l’attente qui est essentielle au sentiment eschatologique shîʿite, et en voulant
anticiper sur la parousie, se mettrait eo ipso en dehors du shîʿisme. La chose est arrivée,
nous le savons; ce fut la tragédie du bâbisme, puis du behâʾisme.” Corbin, “Au Pays de
l’Imâm caché,” 45 (italics added for emphasis). See also Corbin, History of Islamic Philos-
ophy, 70 [= Corbin, Histoire de la philosophie islamique, 110].
104 Amir-Moezzi, “Islam in Iran vii. The concept of Mahdi in Twelver Shiʿism,” EIr, 11:140, cites
al-Murtaḍā and Ibn Ṭāwūs as the two other scholars, before al-Majlisī, who advanced this
interpretation, but neither appears to have mentioned the niyāba interpretation explicitly
in this connection.
105 Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight), 136 [= Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 326].
A similar reading was given earlier by Hussain, The Occultation, 135.
108 chapter 3

claims to be the Imam’s representative is a lying impostor; it says that anyone

who claims to have seen him is one. To support his contention that from the
beginning of the Greater Occultation, this important sentence of the tawqīʿ was
understood to mean that no one could simultaneously claim to see the Imam
and be his representative (as opposed to just seeing the Imam), Amir-Moezzi
states that al-Ṣadūq records accounts in his Kamāl al-dīn of sightings of the
Imam from after the Lesser Occultation.106 The Qajar-era Shīʿī hadith specialist
Ḥusayn al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī put forward this argument, which “Grand Ayatol-
lah” Luṭf Allāh al-Ṣāfī al-Gulpāyigānī (b. 1918) repeated. Both al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī
and al-Ṣāfī al-Gulpāyigānī allege that al-Ṭūsī (rather than al-Ṣadūq), who, as we
have seen, also recorded the final tawqīʿ, ignored the critical sentence about “a
lying impostor” and included stories of encounters with the Imam, during the
Greater Occultation, in his Kitāb al-Ghayba (on which, see below).107
In his “Contribution á la Typologie des Rencontres avec l’ Imâm Caché,”
Amir-Moezzi cites two accounts from al-Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-dīn that, according
to Amir-Moezzi, occurred during the second ghayba: (1) the account of ʿAlī b.
Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār108 and (2) an account of a believer from Hamadan who
was saved from certain death in the desert.109 A close examination of these

106 Mīr-Lawḥī Sabzavārī (fl. eleventh/seventeenth century) also claimed that accounts of
encounters with the Imam during the period of the Greater Occultation are transmitted
in al-Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-dīn, though he did not provide any specific examples. Sabzavārī,
Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 638.
107 See al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 146; al-Gulpāyigānī, Muntakhab al-athar, 400 n. 1.
108 Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la Typologie,” 129 (Récit d’ Ibrâhîm b. ʿAlî b. Mahziyâr (IV/Xe
s.)).
109 Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la Typologie,” 128 (Récit de l’ homme des Banî Râshid de
Hamadân (IV/Xe siècle)). Corbin likewise placed this account in the Greater Occulta-
tion and provided an abridged translation in Corbin, “Au Pays de l’ Imâm caché,” 76–9,
repeated with minor differences in Corbin, En Islam iranien, 4:374–6 (in the chapter titled
“Au temps de la ‘Grande Occultation’”). See also Corbin, “Mundus Imagalinas,” 29–30. A
third account from the fourth/tenth century (though not found in al-Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-
dīn), which Amir-Moezzi places in the Greater Occultation, is the story of a Shīʿī who was
saved by the Imam from dying of thirst in the desert after having lost his caravan. Amir-
Moezzi, “Contribution à la Typologie,” 128. This account is first cited (and translated into
Persian) in Mīr Lawḥī Sabzavārī’s (fl. eleventh/seventeenth century) Kifāyat al-muhtadī,
583–4, citing as his source al-Ḥasan b. Ḥamza al-ʿAlawī al-Ṭabarī’s (fl. fourth/tenth cen-
tury) Kitāb al-Ghayba, which has not survived. It is important to note that Sabzavārī does
not mention this account in the chapter of his work dealing with reports of the Greater
Occultation. This suggests that he regarded the account as having occurred during the
Lesser Occultation. The only other Shīʿī scholar I am aware of who cites this account is
the contemporary cleric “Grand Ayatollah” Luṭf Allāh al-Ṣāfī al-Gulpāyigānī, Muntakhab
al-athar, 391, citing as his source Arbaʿīn-i Khātūnābādī, a reference to the collection of
forty hadiths also known as Kashf al-ḥaqq by the Qajar-era Isfahan-based scholar Mīr
“a lying impostor” 109

two accounts, however, suggests that they are, in fact, from the period of the
Lesser Occultation:

(1) The story of ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār al-Ahwāzī begins when a stranger
appears to him in a dream and commands him to perform the hajj, with the
promise that he will meet the Hidden Imam in Mecca. Upon waking, al-Ahwāzī
immediately sets out from his native Iraq for the Hijaz. One night in Mecca,
while circumambulating the Kaʿba, he sees “a comely and sweet-smelling youth
wearing a mantle.” The youth knows al-Ahwāzī and his family, though al-
Ahwāzī has never met him. He guides al-Ahwāzī out of Mecca and they ride to
the mountains of Ṭāʾif. The youth points to a tent bursting with light, pitched
on a nearby hill.110 As the two approach the tent, the youth turns to al-Ahwāzī
and declares, “This land is sacred. Only a friend of God (walī) enters it and only
a friend of God takes leave from it.”111 The youth enters the tent and instructs
al-Ahwāzī to do the same. As soon as al-Ahwāzī enters, he beholds the Imam:

I entered into his presence and found him seated on a rug with brown and
red-colored spots, reclining on a pillow. We greeted each other. I looked
at him closely and saw a face as luminous as the moon. He was strong
yet refined and mild-tempered, not too tall and not too short. He was of
medium build and had a broad forehead, beautifully arched eyebrows,
large deep-black eyes, an aquiline nose, and two smooth cheeks with a
birthmark on the right. As I looked at him, my mind was lost in his fea-
tures.

The Imam proceeds to tell al-Ahwāzī to prepare himself and the Shīʿa for the
appearance of the Imam, for “the Hour is nigh” (Quran 54:1).112

Muḥammad Ṣādiq Khātūnābādī (d. 1272/1856). Al-Gulpāyigānī places this account in a

chapter of his work on miracles performed by the Hidden Imam during the Lesser Occul-
tation and states in a footnote that in all likelihood the story is from the period of the
Lesser Occultation. Al-Gulpāyigānī, Muntakhab al-athar, 391 n. 1.
110 Cf. the tabernacle or tent of meeting where Moses met with God. In a hadith found in
several early sources, the twelfth Imam is said to have a residence called bayt al-ḥamd (cf.
al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 3:219) with a light inside that will continue to shine until he rises with
the sword. Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 245 (no. 31); al-Masʿūdī (attrib.), Ithbāt al-waṣiyya, 267;
al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 467. On the motif of light and the Hidden Imam, see Ghaem-
maghami, “{And the Earth will Shine with the Light of its Lord} (Q 39:69),” 618–9.
111 Cf. the words spoken to Moses as he approached the burning bush in Exodus 3:4–5 and
Quran 20:12.
112 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 424–7 (no. 23). Also cited in al-Baḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-walī, 109–15
(no. 49); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:42–6 (no. 32). The account is referred to in pass-
110 chapter 3

The early Shīʿī sources feature three other stories that are similar to the above
account: the story of Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār (this account, also mentioned by
al-Ṣadūq, parallels the above account but features the jarring presence of the
Hidden Imam’s brother, whose name is Mūsā, in his tent)113 and two stories of
ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār.114
The identity of ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār al-Ahwāzī has been a subject of
debate among Shīʿī scholars. In the rijāl works, an ʿAlī b. Mahziyār al-Ahwāzī
is identified as a non-Arab client (mawlā) from Ahwāz and a companion or
confidant of the eighth, ninth, and tenth Imams.115 The early sources iden-
tify him as the son of a Christian convert from India116 and a prolific author
of some thirty-one books (none of which have survived).117 Ibn Bābūya (the
father of al-Ṣadūq) states that he was the brother of Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār,118

ing in Amir Arjomand, “Imam Absconditus,” 6; Amir Arjomand, “Islamic Apocalypticism,”

268. The text is ambiguous about whether the youth is the Imam or a different person.
Scholars who have commented on this account or translated it into Persian have said that
the youth is a special servant of the Imam, a reading that appears to be influenced by the
hadiths discussed in chapter 2. The text is perhaps intentionally inconclusive.
113 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 408–14 (no. 19); al-Baḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-walī, 80–90 (no. 46); al-
Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:32–7 (no. 28); Nūrī-Ṭabarsī2, Kifāyat al-muwaḥḥidīn, 2:809–11;
Hayes, “The Envoys,” 343 n. 150. Al-Shaftī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 1:360–2 (no. 360), records
the account in the chapter of his work on those who met the Imam during the Lesser
Occultation. Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 641, identifies Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār and his son
Muḥammad as two of the Hidden Imam’s representatives during the Lesser Occultation.
114 The first story is mentioned in al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 263–7 (no. 228); al-Baḥrānī, Tab-
ṣirat al-walī, 156–61 (no. 65); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:9–12 (no. 6); Ardabīlī (attrib.),
Ḥadīqat al-shīʿa, 2:977–80 (Persian translation); Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 603–7 (Per-
sian translation). Al-Majlisī translated the version from al-Ṭūsī which he claimed has a
sound isnād in al-Majlisī, Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, 340–43. The second story is mentioned in al-
Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr, Dalāʾil al-imāma, 539–42 (no. 522); al-Baḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-walī, 143–7
(no. 60); al-Baḥrānī, Madīnat al-maʿājiz, 8:115–8 (no. 2732). A shortened version of the sec-
ond story is recorded in Ḥasan b. Sulaymān al-Ḥillī’s Mukhtaṣar baṣāʾir, 176–7, who cites
his teacher al-Nīlī as his source. See also al-Nīlī, al-Sulṭān al-mufarrij, 92–3 (account 16).
On Mukhtaṣar baṣāʾir and questions of its attribution to al-Ḥillī, see Anṣārī, Tashayyuʿ-i
imāmī, 180ff.
115 See Pakatchi (trans. Melvin-Koushki), “ʿAlī b. Mahziyār,” EIO.
116 See Buyukkara, “The Imami Shīʿī Movement,” 410; Amir-Arjomand, “The Crisis,” 498, 500.
117 A Kitāb al-Malāḥim [likely on the subject of end time calamities] and a Kitāb al-Qāʾim are
ascribed to him. The latter was almost certainly written to refute the Wāqifī claims about
Mūsā al-Kāẓim. These sources are cited as evidence of the fact that he “played a key role in
the reception of chiliastic traditions into the Imami corpus.” Amir-Arjomand, “The Crisis,”
500. See also Hussain, The Occultation, 4; Watt, “Sidelights on Early Imāmite Doctrine,”
294; Buyukkara, “The Schism,” 92; Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin 251.
118 Ibn Bābūya, al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra2, 201 (no. 56); at 234 (no. 83), he also nar-
rates from ʿAlī b. Mahziyār.
“a lying impostor” 111

whom al-Ṭūsī lists as one of the companions of the ninth and tenth Imams,119
and who was likely the father of the ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār al-Ahwāzī men-
tioned in the above account. ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār’s brother, Muḥammad
b. Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār (also called Muḥammad b. Mahziyār) was a close deputy
(wakīl) of the eleventh Imam.120 Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār is said to
have had doubts about al-ʿAskarī’s successor before witnessing a miracle which
he attributed to the Hidden Imam’s miraculous powers.121 Moreover, an ʿAlī b.
Mahziyār is mentioned as al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī’s servant, who helped to conceal
the Hidden Imam during al-ʿAskarī’s lifetime.122
Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī mentions the names of Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār and ʿAlī b.
Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār as two of the individuals who encountered the Hidden
Imam during the Lesser Occultation, but he is quick to add that in his opinion, a
mistake (isthibāh) was made in one of these names and in fact, all the accounts
refer to a single person (an agent of the eleventh Imam who likewise met the
Hidden Imam) and a single episode.123 To my knowledge, other than Amir-
Moezzi, no other scholar has suggested that any of these four accounts took
place during the period of the Greater Occultation, and since Amir-Moezzi has
not provided evidence for his statement, it is difficult to assess. All other writers
who have cited or referred to these accounts have placed them in the period of
the first ghayba, that is, during the Lesser Occultation.124

(2) The only other encounter with the Hidden Imam recorded by al-Ṣadūq that
Amir-Moezzi (and Corbin before him) suggest took place during the period of
the Greater Occultation is that of Aḥmad b. Fāris al-Adīb. Al-Ṣadūq says that
he heard this account from one of his teachers, a scholar of hadith named
Aḥmad b. Fāris al-Adīb, likely a reference to the man of letters Abū l-Ḥasan
Aḥmad b. Fāris b. Zakariyyā al-Qazwīnī al-Hamadhānī al-Rāzī (b. 308/920; d.

119 Al-Ṭūsī, Rijāl al-Ṭūsī, 374, 383.

120 Al-Ṭūsī, Rijāl al-Ṭūsī, 402, mentions that he was a companion of the eleventh Imam, al-
Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī. See also al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 406 (no. 16); al-Nīlī, Muntakhab al-anwār
al-muḍīʾa, 295; al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-Shīʿa, 2:71; al-Shīrāzī, Kalimat al-imām al-mahdī, 109.
Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 638, identifies Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār as the
deputy of the Imam in Ahwāz.
121 Al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:518 (no. 5); al-Mufīd, al-Irshād fī maʿrifat ḥujaj Allāh ʿalā l-ʿibād, 2:355–
6; Hayes, “The Envoys,” 339–51. This account is repeated in numerous works in chapters
about the miracles performed by the Hidden Imam during the Lesser Occultation. See
al-Nīlī, Muntakhab al-anwār al-muḍīʾa, 215 n. 8, for references.
122 See Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr, 106–8.
123 Al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 1:448. See also al-Tustarī, al-Akhbār al-dakhīla, 104–8.
124 See e.g., al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 1:328, and the references provided in the accounts
above.
112 chapter 3

ca. 395/1004–5) known as Ibn Fāris.125 According to this account, while in

Hamadan, Ibn Fāris heard a story about a group of people known as the
Banū Rāshid who were all Shīʿa (ahl al-imāma). When asked about how they
became Shīʿa, one of their elders narrated a story about one of their ances-
tors ( jadd) who became separated from his caravan while undertaking the
pilgrimage to Mecca. Suddenly, this pilgrim reached a green land (arḍ khaḍrāʾ)
with a luminous palace (qaṣr) guarded by two white servants (khādimayn
abyaḍayn). After receiving permission to enter the palace, he walked into
a room with a large sword hanging from the ceiling. Here he encountered
a youth ( fatā) described as being as luminous as the full moon (ka-anna
al-fatā badrun yalūḥ). The youth introduced himself as the Qāʾim who will
appear at the end of time. The sword above his head symbolized that he
would fill the world with justice and equity. He then asked the pilgrim from
Hamadan (whom he knew intimately) if he wished to return to his family. Sig-
naling for one of his servants to take the pilgrim’s hand, he gave him a purse
and walked with him a few feet. As they walked, the man saw trees and the
minaret of a mosque. The servant asked him, “Do you recognize this place?”
He answered, “Near our city is a town called Asadābād which resembles this
area.” The servant responded, “This is Asadābād!” The man looked to the place
the servant had been standing only to find that he had disappeared. Look-
ing in the purse the servant had given him, he found forty or fifty dīnārs. He
then rushed home to his family in Hamadan.126 It is not stated but under-

125 On him, see Gökkir and Leaman, “Ibn Faris, Abuʾl-Husayn,” 180–1. He was a prolific gram-
marian, author of the lexicon Muʿjam maqāyīs al-lugha, and a teacher of the famed Arabo-
Persian litterateur Aḥmad Badīʿ al-Zamān al-Hamadhānī (d. 398/1008). See al-Amīn, Aʿyān
al-shīʿa, 3:60–2; al-Shāhrūdī, Mustadrak safīnat al-biḥār, 8:177; al-Baḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-walī,
90 n. 10. Al-Khūʾī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 2:199, indicates that Ibn Fāris lived for some time
in Hamadan before moving to Rayy, where he died in 375/985–6 or 390/999–1000.
126 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn 414–5 (no. 20). Also cited in al-Ṭūsī, al-Thāqib fī l-manāqib, 605–
6 (no. 553); al-Nīlī, al-Sulṭān al-mufarrij, 62–4 (no. 12); Ardabīlī (attrib.), Ḥadīqat al-shīʿa,
2:967–9 (Persian); Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī 634–6 (Persian); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-an-
wār, 52:40–2 (no. 30); al-Majlisī, Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, 339–40 (Persian); al-Baḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-
walī, 90–3; al-Baḥrānī, Madīnat al-maʿājiz, 8:183–5 (no. 2781); al-Baḥrānī, Ḥilyat al-abrār,
5:230–2 (no. 3); al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Ithbāt al-hudā, 5:298–9; al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib,
1:356–7; al-Qummī, Muntahā l-āmāl fī tawārīkh al-nabī wa-l-āl ʿalayhim al-salām, 3:2022–
4; al-Baḥrānī and al-Marzūq, Mawsūʿat al-qiṣaṣ, 122–4; Qummī, Nigāhī bar zindigī-i cha-
hārdah maʿsum, 559–61 (Persian). The story is still very popular and is cited in many
contemporary books about the Hidden Imam. See, for example, Āl Quṭayṭ, Salū l-mahdī
ʿan dawlatihi, 405; ʿĀshūr, Mawsūʿat ahl al-bayt, 19:73–4. A similar account is recorded in
al-Rāwandī, al-Kharāʾij wa-l-jarāʾiḥ 2, 788–9 (no. 112); al-Baḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-walī 204–5
(no. 69). Shūshtarī, Majālis al-muʾminīn, 80, alludes to this account, and states that accord-
ing to al-Rāwandī’s al-Kharāʾij, “some of the families of Hamadan were Shīʿa and became
Shīʿa as a result of a miracle.”
“a lying impostor” 113

stood that after hearing of this incident, the tribe known as Banū Rāshid all
converted to Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿī Islam.
Prior to Corbin and Amir-Moezzi, only two other scholars placed this story
in the period of the Greater Occultation.127 This opinion does not appear to be
correct. There is no date in the account itself, but it is clear that that al-Ṣadūq
heard it from Ibn Fāris al-Adīb earlier than 368/978–9, when he completed
Kamāl al-dīn. Based on this fact, we can conclude that Ibn Fāris in turn must
have heard the story sometime during the last part of the Lesser Occultation
or the early years of the Greater Occultation. Ibn Fāris explicitly says that the
account is about the forefather ( jadd) of the one of the believers in Hamadan.
The word jadd denotes both “grandfather” and “ancestor.”128 Assuming that this
jadd was not alive when Ibn Fāris heard the story (or presumably, Ibn Fāris
would have heard the account directly from the jadd rather than from an elder
of Hamadan), we can be almost certain that the account is from the time of
the Lesser Occultation. This is, in fact, the consensus of opinion among Shīʿī
scholars about the story: al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī recorded the account in chapter 6
of his Najm-i thāqib as one of the forty most popular stories of miracles asso-
ciated with the Hidden Imam from the time of the Lesser Occultation;129 Asad
Allāh al-Shaftī (d. 1290/1873) and Ismāʿīl Aḥmad Nūrī-Ṭabarsī (d. 1900–1, not
to be confused with Ḥusayn al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī) likewise recorded the account
in the chapters of their respective works dealing with believers who saw and
recognized the Imam during the Lesser Occultation;130 and al-Maythamī al-
ʿIrāqī (d. 1306/1888–9, 1308/1890–1 or 1310/1892–3) included the story in the
chapter of his book that concerns those who saw the Hidden Imam during the
Lesser Occultation or soon after it.131 Additionally, al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī (d. 1915)
and ʿAbbās al-Qummī (d. 1940) also recorded the story in their works but not
in the chapters dealing with accounts of encounters with the Imam during the
Greater Occultation, suggesting that they too regarded it as an encounter with
the Imam that took place during the Lesser Occultation.132 Furthermore, all
of the other twenty-five accounts in the chapter of al-Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-dīn on

127 Ardabīlī (attrib.), Ḥadiqat al-Shīʿa, 967–8; al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 505, though
neither provides any evidence to support the notion that this account belongs in the cat-
egory of stories of encounters during the Greater Occultation.
128 Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, 1:385.
129 Al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 1:428–30 (no. 27).
130 Al-Shaftī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 1:360–2; al-Nūrī-Ṭabarsī2, Kifāyat al-muwaḥḥidīn fī ʿaqāyid al-
dīn, 2:811–2.
131 Al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 315–7 (no. 21).
132 Al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 1:356–7; al-Qummī, Muntahā l-āmāl fī tawārīkh al-nabī
wa-l-āl ʿalayhim al-salām, 3:2022–4.
114 chapter 3

believers who saw the Imam are from the Lesser Occultation, and al-Ṣadūq does
not even hint that the two accounts mentioned above are an exception.
Al-Ṣadūq does note one (and only one) person who saw the Imam during
the second ghayba, though this account appears in a different section of his
work—and this person is al-Ṣadūq himself. In the introduction to Kamāl al-
dīn, al-Ṣadūq recounts that one night, while he was deeply disturbed by the
doubts and confusion about the Imam’s absence that continued to haunt the
Shīʿī community, he dreamt that he was standing next to the Black Stone of the
Kaʿba. He suddenly saw “our master, the Qāʾim, the lord of the [final] age” stand-
ing at the door of the Kaʿba. The Imam knew why al-Ṣadūq was so despondent
merely by looking at his face. He suggested that al-Ṣadūq write a book about the
ghayba. When al-Ṣadūq responded, “I have already written many things about
the ghayba,”133 the Imam answered that what al-Ṣadūq (or others) have written
was not what he had in mind. He then ordered him to write a new book that
would focus on the prophets who appeared before him and who had likewise
disappeared or had their lives miraculously prolonged by God.134 In al-Ṣadūq’s

133 [= qad ṣannaftu fī l-ghayba ashyāʾa] Al-Ṣadūq’s words can also be translated as “Many
things have already been written about the ghayba [by others]” (qad ṣunnifat fī l-ghayba
ashyāʾu).
134 Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 15. Referred to in Vilozny, “What Makes a Religion Perfect?” 477–8;
Amir Arjomand, “The Consolation of Theology,” 555; Tafaḍḍulī, Kitābshināsī-i, 207; al-
Jahrumī, Riʿāyat al-imām al-mahdī, 51–3. Shīʿī scholars continue to cite al-Ṣadūq’s dream of
the Hidden Imam as proof of “the blessings” that have been bestowed on “traditionalists,
theologians and scholars, who have compiled comprehensive books on each and every
topic concerning Imam-e-Zamana, thereby clarifying the discussions in their entirety.”
[Gulpāyigānī], Traditional Reports on the Hidden Imam (trans. Rizvi), iii. Rizvi adds, “The
significance of working on this subject can be gauged from the fact that Imam-e-Zamana
himself ordered Shaikh Saduq to pen a book on occultation.” See also al-Jahrumī, Riʿāyat
al-imām al-mahdī, 51–3. In the modern period, other Shīʿī scholars have claimed, like
al-Ṣadūq, that the Imam appeared to them or someone close to them in a dream and
ordered them to write books about him. Mīrzā Muḥammad-Taqī al-Mūsawī al-Iṣfahānī
(d. 1930), author of Mikyāl al-makārim fī fawāʾid al-duʿāʾ li-l-qāʾim—a long work about the
Hidden Imam, the duties of believers towards the Imam, and the benefits of praying for
the Imam—states that the Hidden Imam commanded him in Persian in a dream to write
Mikyāl al-makārim in Arabic, after the Imam delivered him from an outbreak of cholera in
Mecca in 1912. Al-Iṣfahānī, Mikyāl al-makārim, 1:14. Ḥasan al-Shīrāzī (d. 1983), who estab-
lished the Zaynabiyya Shīʿī ḥawza in Damascus, recounted to his students that when he
was imprisoned and tortured by members of the Baʿth party in Iraq, he pledged to the
Hidden Imam that he would write a book about the Imam if he was released from prison.
After being freed, two different people said to him that they were prompted in dreams
to remind al-Shīrāzī that the time has come to fulfill his pledge to the Imam. He then set
out to write Kalimat al-imām al-mahdī, a collection of the tawqīʿāt, prayers, and sayings
of the Hidden Imam. Upon finishing the most important section of this book, al-Shīrāzī
“a lying impostor” 115

oneiric encounter with the Imam is the implication that the Imam can appear
in dreams (at least he can appear specifically in al-Ṣadūq’s dream).135 The fact
that al-Ṣadūq was careful to point out that his encounter took place in a dream
is itself significant. The idea that the Imam can appear in a dream must cer-
tainly have been an innocuous proposition to advance in the context of Buyid
rule, when the nascent Twelver Shīʿī community was actively attempting to
portray itself as apolitical vis-à-vis the Zaydī Shīʿa and the Ismāʿīlī Shīʿa who
posed a political and military challenge to the Buyid confederacy. Al-Ṣadūq
never alleges that he saw the Imam in a wakeful state, as such a claim would
presumably have had different implications. While he does not say so directly,
it is possible that al-Ṣadūq understood the “lying impostor” passage of the final
tawqīʿ as applying only to those who claimed to see the Imam physically and
materially, in a wakeful state. In sum, al-Ṣadūq does not record any accounts of
any other ulama or individuals who met the Hidden Imam during the Greater
Occultation, either awake or asleep.

5 Al-Shaykh al-Mufīd

Following al-Ṣadūq, the most prominent Shīʿī teacher and leading Shīʿī jurist
and theologian of the late fourth/tenth century was his student, Muḥammad
b. Muḥammad b. al-Nuʿmān al-Baghdādī al-Karkhī, known as Ibn al-Muʿallim
and more commonly, as I refer to him here, as al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (lit., ‘the
beneficial/instructive teacher’) (b. 336/948 or 338/950, d. 413/1022). During the
reign of the Buyid ruler ʿAḍud al-Dawla (d. 372/983), al-Mufīd was held in great
esteem by the court and was often invited to debate other thinkers. Although
the Shīʿa enjoyed unprecedented freedoms in Baghdad under the Buyids, al-
Mufīd’s prominence made him the object of Sunnī attacks and he was exiled
from the Abbasid capital following Sunnī-Shīʿī riots on at least three different
occasions.136

himself experienced a vision of a figure who kissed his hands and introduced himself as
having been sent by the Imam. Al-Shīrāzī concluded that this man was an emissary of
the Hidden Imam, who had been sent to thank al-Shīrāzī on behalf of the Imam for the
book. Al-Shīrāzī, Kalimat al-imām al-mahdī, 6–8. Kalimat al-imām al-mahdī is part of a
25-volume collection by al-Shīrāzī aiming to compile the words of the Prophet Muham-
mad, the twelve Imams, significant companions of the Prophet, and other members of his
family (e.g., Fāṭima and Zaynab).
135 On the importance of this dream, see Vilozny, “What Makes a Religion Perfect?” 477 ff.
136 On al-Mufīd and his thought, see al-Amīnī, Muʿallim al-Shīʿa: al-Shaykh al-Mufīd; Yūnus,
Taṭawwur al-fikr, 110–26; Ansari, L’imamat, 94–8; Anṣārī, Tashayyuʿ-i imāmī, 23–37; Zan-
116 chapter 3

Al-Mufīd is widely credited with reviving the rationalist orientation that

had been in abeyance in Baghdad since the time of the Nawbakhtīs in the
early fourth/tenth century.137 He and his students developed the principles
of jurisprudence (uṣūl al-fiqh) and assigned reason (ʿaql) a fundamental role
in the acquisition of religious knowledge.138 They also severely weakened the
traditionists. Al-Ṣadūq, a teacher of al-Mufīd, was stringently criticized by al-
Mufīd, and is widely considered the last of the great classical Shīʿī traditionists.
Al-Mufīd devoted several works to questions of the imamate and the
ghayba.139 In one of his earlier works, al-Irshād fī maʿrifat ḥujaj Allāh ʿalā l-ʿibād,
better known as the Kitāb al-Irshād, written around 380/990, he recorded many
accounts of encounters that took place during the Lesser Occultation, accounts
that are mentioned by al-Kulaynī though, unlike al-Kulaynī, he did not consider
these accounts as primary proof of the Imam’s existence.140 In the final chapter
of Kitāb al-Irshād, he rearticulates (following al-Nuʿmānī) the doctrine of two
ghaybas:

‫خب َار ُ فَأ َمّا ال ْق ُص ْر َى‬ ْ ‫ك اْلَأ‬ َ ِ ‫ت ب ِذ َل‬ْ َ ‫كم َا ج َاء‬َ ‫خر َى‬ ْ ‫ن اْلُأ‬ َ ِ‫ل م‬ ُ َ ‫ن ِإحْد َاه ُم َا َأْطو‬ِ ‫ل قيِ َام ِه ِ غ َي ْب َت َا‬ َ ْ ‫و َل َه ُ ق َب‬
ٰ ٰ
ّ ُ ‫سف َر َاء ِ باِ ل ْوفَ َاة ِ و َ َأ َمّا ال‬
ٰ ‫طول َى‬ ّ ُ ‫شيعتَ ِه ِ و َع َد َِم ال‬ ِّ ‫ت م َو ْل ِد ِه ِ ِإل َى ان ْق ِطَاِع ال‬
ِ َ‫سف َار َة ِ ب َي ْنهَ ُ و َب َي ْن‬ ِ ْ ‫م ِْنه ُم َا ف َم ُن ْذ ُ و َق‬
‫ف‬
ِ ْ ‫سي‬ ِ ‫ي بعَ ْد َ اْلُأول َى ٰ و َف ِي آ‬
ّ َ ‫خر ِهاَ يقَ ُوم ُ باِ ل‬ َ ِ َ‫فه‬

As has been narrated in the hadiths [of the Imams], before his rise,
[the Hidden Imam] has two ghaybas, one longer than the other. The
shorter of the two lasted from [the Imam’s] birth to the point when the
function performed by the those who served as emissaries between him
and his Shīʿa was suspended and there were no longer any emissaries

jānī, “Shaykh Mufīd,”DMT, 10:178–85; Madelung, “Mufīd, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad,”EI²,
7:312–3; Bayhom-Daou, Shaykh al-Mufid; Kadhim, “Politics and Theology,” 47–81; Kadhim,
“Šayḫ Mufīd and the Refinement of Shīʿī Theology”; McDermott, The Theology; Sourdel,
“L’Imamisme,” 217–96; Howard, “Introduction,” xxi–xxvii; Abdulsater, “Traditionalist Spir-
its and Rationalist Bodies,” 13–8.
137 On the dominance of the Nawbakhtīs in Baghdad during the period of the Lesser Occul-
tation, in particular the role of the jurist and theologian, Abū Sahl Ismāʿīl al-Nawbakhtī
(d. 311/923–4), see Amir Arjomand, “The Crisis,” 502–7; Modarressi, Crisis and Consolida-
tion, index, s.v. “Abū Sahl al-Nawbakhtī”; Klemm, “Die vier sufarāʾ,” 139–41 (Abū Sahl Ismāʿīl
b. ʿAlī an-Naubaḫtī und sein Kreis).
138 See Halm, Shiʿism, 48–56.
139 For a list of al-Mufīd’s works on the imamate and the ghayba, based on Rijāl al-Najāshī,
see Amīnī, “Kitāb-i ghaybat-i Shaykh Ṭūsī,” 480.
140 Al-Mufīd, al-Irshād fī maʿrifat ḥujaj Allāh ʿalā l-ʿibād, 2:351–4. On this work, see Akhtar,
Early Shīʿite Imāmiyyah Thinkers, 96–99.
“a lying impostor” 117

because they had all died. The longer (ghayba) is after the first. At the end
of it, [the Imam] will rise with the sword.141

Like al-Nuʿmānī, al-Mufīd maintains that there are no longer any “gates” (ab-
wāb, another term he uses in the same sense as emissaries/envoys/representa-
tives)142 to establish contact between the Imam and the faithful or to impart
knowledge to them. He suggests that the second ghayba may last forever. Else-
where he states that the Imam may remain in hiding for one thousand years.143
The arguments in al-Mufīd’s later works on the ghayba are based on ratio-
nal proofs (dalāʾil ʿaqliyya), as opposed to dalāʾil naqliyya or samʿiyya, that is,
proofs derived from the text of the Quran and the hadiths of the Prophet and
the Imams narrated on the authority of their companions. The generation of
scholars that preceded al-Mufīd was not shy about expressing their aversion
to the Muʿtazilīs, followers of a rationalist theological school that emphasized
God’s justice and unity and was active in Iraq in the fourth/tenth century.144 Al-
Nuʿmānī considered the Muʿtazilīs enemies of the Imams, similar to those who
advocate (religious) innovations (mubtadiʿīn).145 Al-Ṣadūq stated in his Kamāl
al-dīn that the harsh attacks of the Muʿtazilīs exacerbated the confusion and
doubt that Shīʿa from Baghdad to Nīshābūr were experiencing, and led many to
renounce their faith.146 By the time of al-Mufīd, the traditional arguments fur-

141 Al-Mufīd, al-Irshād fī maʿrifat ḥujaj Allāh ʿalā l-ʿibād, 2:340 (for an alternative transla-
tion, see al-Mufīd, Kitāb al-Irshād (trans. Howard), 525). Al-Mufīd’s explanation is cited
by a number of prominent ulama after him, including al-Irbilī, Kashf al-ghumma1, 2:949;
ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī (attrib.), al-Mustajād min kitāb al-irshād, 253–4; Ibn al-Ṣabbāgh, al-Fuṣūl
al-muhimma, 2:1097–1100 (with minor differences); al-Kāshānī, ʿIlm al-yaqīn, 2:933–4; al-
Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 51:23–4 (no. 36); al-Baḥrānī, Madīnat al-maʿājiz, 8:6; al-Ḥāʾirī al-
Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 1:289; al-Gulpāyigānī, Muntakhab al-athar, 321. Sachedina, Islamic
Messianism, 87–8, comments that “al-Mufīd does not embark on the question of the two
forms of ghayba in his account of the twelfth Imam in al-Irshad,” a statement that clearly
needs to be corrected.
142 Al-Murtaḍā[/al-Mufīd], al-Fuṣūl al-mukhtāra, 318. This book is a compilation of passages
from other works written by al-Mufīd (that have not survived), mainly his al-ʿUyūn wa-l-
maḥāsin by his student al-Murtaḍā. See Akhtar, Early Shīʿite Imāmiyyah Thinkers, 188.
143 Al-Murtaḍā[/al-Mufīd], al-Fuṣūl al-mukhtāra, 319.
144 On the Muʿtazilī movement and its Shīʿī reception, see el-Omari, “Muʿtazilite Move-
ment (II): The Origins of the Muʿtazila”; Bennett, “Muʿtazilite Movement (II): The Early
Muʿtazilites”; Schmidtke, “Muʿtazilite Movement (III): The Scholastic Phase”; Ansari and
Schmidtke, “The Shīʿī Reception of Muʿtazilism (II): Twelver Shīʿīs.” All four chapters are
published in Schmidtke (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology. See also ʿAṭāʾī-
Naẓarī, “Kalām-i shīʿī va guftimān-i muʿtazilī.”
145 Al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ghayba, 36.
146 For references, see Hussain, The Occultation, 144.
118 chapter 3

nished by al-Nuʿmānī and al-Ṣadūq were no longer adequate in the debates

being conducted in cosmopolitan Baghdad. Al-Mufīd and Shīʿī scholars who
followed him regularly engaged in dialogue with the Muʿtazilī scholars of Iraq,
some of whom were of Zaydī persuasion. To defend the doctrine of the ghayba
to their rationalist interlocutors, they had to adduce rational proofs.
In his works, al-Mufīd does not directly posit the possibility of encountering
the Imam. In a key doctrinal text, in response to the question of what proof
there is for the Imam’s existence (mā l-dalīl ʿalā wujūdihi), he responds that
every age must have an Imam who is protected by God from committing sin
(maʿṣūm). Thus he emphasizes the key ghayba principle of the Shīʿī rational-
ists, that is, luṭf, or grace from God.147 The argument stems from the Muʿtazilī
principles that (1) God is just and (2) human beings are responsible for their
actions. Since humans are prone to error, and thus in need of guidance, and
since the ruling caliphs are deemed sinful and tyrannical, God’s luṭf (grace)
obligates Him to provide at all times an authoritative source of guidance in the
form of an Imam who has been protected (maʿṣūm)148 by Him from commit-
ting error. And if this Imam is not present, he must be in hiding. A reader might
expect here mention or some discussion of the Imam appearing to his followers
as evidence of his existence, but the subject is not broached.
The question remains, can anyone ever see the Imam or benefit from his
guidance? In his al-Masāʾil al-ʿashar fī l-ghayba,149 one of his last works, com-
pleted near the end of 411/1021,150 al-Mufīd responds to this question by defend-
ing the doctrine of the ghayba. On the question of seeing the Imam, he
responds: “A group of the companions of [the eleventh Imam] al-Ḥasan al-
ʿAskarī saw his successor [that is, the Hidden Imam] with their own eyes while
al-ʿAskarī was still alive.”151 These companions were al-ʿAskarī’s elite followers

147 Al-Mufīd, al-Nukat al-iʿtiqādiyya, 44–5. On the principle of luṭf, see al-Murtaḍā, al-
Dhakhīra fī ʿilm al-kalām, 186–98; al-Ṭūsī, “Masāʾil kalāmiyya,” 98; al-Ṭūsī, Tajrīd al-ʿaqāʾid,
135; Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 20, 124–35 passim; Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of
God, 44; Halm, Shiʿism, 53.
148 On the Shīʿī ascription of ʿiṣma (divine protection from errancy) to the Imams, see Algar,
“Čahārdah Maʿṣūm,” EIr, 4:627–9.
149 On this work, see Kadhim, “Politics and Theology,” 78–80, though his comment that the
book was written in 410/1019–20 should be corrected. For general comments about al-
Mufīd’s thought regarding the ghayba, see McDermott, The Theology of al-Shaykh al-Mufīd
(d. 413/1022), 127–31; Bayhom-Daou, Shaykh al-Mufid, 77–81. According to McDermott, The
Theology, 35 (no. 90), 36 (no. 108), al-Mufīd is said to have composed two other works on
the occultation: Kitāb al-Ghayba and Kitāb Mukhtaṣar fī l-ghayba, neither of which have
survived.
150 Al-Mufīd, al-Masāʾil al-ʿashar fī l-ghayba, 32.
151 [= jimāʿa min aṣḥāb Abī Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad qad shāhadū kha-
“a lying impostor” 119

(khāṣṣatahu). After al-ʿAskarī’s death, these same elite companions became

“the intermediaries (al-wasāʾiṭ) between [the Hidden Imam] and his Shīʿa dur-
ing his ghayba.” Al-Mufīd maintains that the mere fact “that [the Hidden Imam]
was seen [by these companions] disproves the enemy who claims, ‘The leader
[of the Shīʿa] has not been seen or encountered since his alleged birth.’” But
what happened after these companions died? Al-Mufīd goes on to say,

As for the time after their passing [that is, after the passing of the elite
companions and the intermediaries], … we have hadiths that have been
narrated on the authority of the Imams that affirm that the eagerly
awaited Qāʾim will have two ghaybas: one longer than the other. [These
hadiths state that] the elite [of his followers] have information about
him ( yaʿrif khabarahu al-khāṣṣū) during the shorter (ghayba), but the
only people who know his location during the longer (ghayba) are those
from among his most trustworthy and intimate friends/initiates who have
been entrusted with the task of serving him (man tawallā khidmatahu min
thuqāt awliyāʾihi) and who do nothing else but tend to his [daily] needs
(lam yanqaṭiʿ ʿanhu ilā l-ishtighāl bi-ghayrihi).152

Al-Mufīd appears to be alluding here to what I have called Hadith 2 and Hadith
3 in the previous chapter. According to his reading of the Shīʿī hadith, not even
the elite followers of the Hidden Imam, which presumably includes the ulama,
can see him during the second ghayba. Only a very select group of the Imam’s
friends who are in fact his servants charged with tending to his personal needs
are capable of seeing him.
In other late works in which he responds to this question, al-Mufīd is far
from charitable toward his fellow Shīʿa. A Muʿtazilī scholar once asked him the
same question he had posed to other Shīʿī ulama from Khurasan to Fars, and for
which he never received a satisfactory answer: “Does [the Hidden Imam] fear

lafahu fī ḥayātihi] It bears noting that in this sentence, al-Mufīd uses the verb shāhada.
The verbal-noun (maṣdar) of this verb is al-mushāhada, the same word used in the fol-
lowing sentence of the final tawqīʿ: “[Before I reappear], some [or someone] will come to
my followers claiming to have seen [me] [al-mushāhada] with their own eyes.” Although
al-Mufīd does not cite the final tawqīʿ in any of his extant works, it stands to reason that,
having been a student of al-Ṣadūq, he had access to al-Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-dīn and possessed
knowledge of the final tawqīʿ.
152 Al-Mufīd, al-Masāʾil al-ʿashar fī l-ghayba, 76. On the function of servants and messengers
in the household of the Hidden Imam in the early ghayba sources, see Hayes, “The Envoys,”
159–60, 163, 188, 239.
120 chapter 3

you in the same way that he fears his enemies?153 Or does he fear his enemies
only?” In other words, the Muʿtazilī scholar was at least willing to understand
the rationale that the Imam was forced to conceal himself out of fear of his
enemies, but why did he not appear to his believers, especially at a time (in the
context of Buyid rule) when they enjoyed liberties and freedoms unheard of
before the ghaybas commenced? Al-Mufīd responds that the Imam is in fact
fearful not only of his enemies and those who do not know him, but also of his
Shīʿa. That he distrusts his enemies is self-evident, but the Imam cautiously
evades those who do not know him because they may kill him or turn him
over to his enemies in order to receive a monetary reward or some position
in the government. Finally, the Imam has reservations about appearing to his
Shīʿa because none of the Shīʿa are perfect, that is, none of the Imam’s follow-
ers are incapable of making a mistake.154 If the Imam were to show himself to
them155 and they saw him or they somehow learned his whereabouts,156 they
might be tempted by Satan to reveal this to the authorities, in their desire for the
transitory things of this world157 as was so often the case with the followers of
previous prophets who apostatized (here, he gives the example of the follow-
ers of Moses who abandoned him and Aaron and followed al-Sāmarī (Quran
20:85–97)).158 Or a follower may unintentionally (ʿalā sabīl al-sahw) tell others
that he has seen the Imam or knows his location or seek to parade the fact that
he knows he has seen the Imam to others.159
In lieu of seeing the Imam, al-Mufīd argues that if differences arise among
the Shīʿa or they have questions about matters of belief, they must seek the help
of the Shīʿī ulama and jurists ( fuqahāʾ), and if they are not able to find answers
to their questions in the hadiths, they may use reason as a source for deriving
laws.160 Thus, the ulama and fuqahāʾ are at once the Imam’s locum tenentes and
conduits for religious guidance to the faithful.161 However, their authority is not
based on seeing the Imam or knowing his whereabouts.

153 [= hal huwa taqiyya minkum kamā huwa fī taqiyya min aʿdāʾihi]
154 [= laysū bi-maʿṣūmīn min al-ghalaṭ]
155 [= law ẓahara lahum al-imām]
156 [= aw ʿarafū makānuhu]
157 [= ṭamʿan fī l-ʿājila wa-raghbatan fīhā] Cf. Quran 17:18, 76:27.
158 Al-Murtaḍā[/al-Mufīd], al-Fuṣūl al-mukhtāra, 110–1. This is discussed, in part, in Kohlberg,
“Taqiyya in Shīʿī Theology and Religion,” 350. See also Bayhom-Daou, Shaykh al-Mufid, 80.
159 [= li-l-tajammul wa-l-tasharruf bi-maʿrifatihi bi-l-mushāhada] Al-Murtaḍā[/al-Mufīd], al-
Fuṣūl al-mukhtāra, 115.
160 Al-Mufīd, ʿIddat rasāʾil, 386–7 (from al-Risāla al-thāniya fī l-ghayba).
161 Rasekh, “Struggling with Political Limitations,” argues that al-Mufīd did not intend to arro-
gate political authority, only juristic authority.
“a lying impostor” 121

Al-Mufīd’s defense of the ghayba became the framework for the next gen-
eration of Twlever Shīʿī scholars, all of whom were his intellectual heirs. In his
statement that a number of believers are in the service of the Imam, we see the
first signs of a shift was made explicit by two of his most prominent students: al-
Sharīf al-Murtaḍā and al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī. Al-Murtaḍā, al-Ṭūsī, and their students
all suggested in subtle terms that direct contact with the Hidden Imam before
his reappearance was theoretically possible for his closest and most devoted
followers. I now turn to a discussion of their works.

6 Al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā and His Students

When al-Mufīd died in 413/1022, the mantle of religious authority among the
Shīʿī scholars in Baghdad was passed to his student al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/
1044).162 A prodigious man of letters known as ʿAlam al-Hudā (“the banner
of [divine] guidance”), al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā was the doyen of the renowned
Shīʿī ulama of the Buyid period and the “undisputed head of the Imāmī com-
munity after the death” of al-Mufīd.163 With him, the anti-traditionist, ratio-
nalist, and Muʿtazilī-leaning orientation of the Shīʿī ulama of Baghdad which
al-Mufīd had revived reached its peak.164 However, unlike his teacher al-Mufīd
who maintained that reason alone without the aid of inspired tradition (that is,
the aḥādīth of the ahl al-bayt) was insufficient to attain knowledge, al-Murtaḍā
affirmed, in agreement with the Muʿtazila, that the core principles and doc-
trines of faith could be established and defended by reason.165
Al-Murtaḍā’s views on the Hidden Imam are expressed in several books
and treatises.166 It is important to note that al-Murtaḍā seldom cites from the

162 On al-Murtaḍā, see Abdulsater, Shiʿi Doctrine; Brockelmann, “al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā,” EI²,
7:634; Madelung, “ʿAlam-al-Hodā,” EIr, 1:791–5; Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, 311;
Halm, Shiʿism, 51; Yūnus, Taṭawwur al-fikr, 131–7; Akhtar, Early Shīʿite Imāmiyyah Thinkers,
177–204; Stewart, “Al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā,” 167–210; “Traditionalist Spirits and Rationalist
Bodies,” 18–23.
163 Madelung, “A Treatise,” 21.
164 On the attempts of the rationalist scholars in Baghdad “to modulate the radicalism” of the
traditionist school of Qum, see Ansari and Schmidtke, “The Shīʿī Reception of Muʿtazilism
(II): Twelver Shīʿīs,” 200–4; Lawson, “Hermeneutics,” EIr, 12:235–9.
165 Madelung, “ʿAlam-al-Hodā,”EIr, 1:793; Madelung, “Imamism and Muʿtazilite Theology,” 25–
8. On the differences between al-Mufīd and al-Murtaḍā’s legal approaches, see Modarressi,
An Introduction to Shīʿī Law, 42 n. 8.
166 Cf. the late sixth-/twelfth- or early seventh-/thirteenth-century anonymous Shīʿī-Muʿtazilī
theological treatise, Khulāṣat al-naẓar, which offers a similar response focusing on the
principle of luṭf (divine grace) but does not hint at the possibility of the Hidden Imam
122 chapter 3

hadiths introduced in chapters 1 and 2 of this book. Scholars have documented

his decision to largely censure al-Kulaynī, al-Nuʿmānī, and to a lesser extent al-
Ṣadūq, for filling their books with “forged” hadiths averse to reason.167
Like al-Mufīd, al-Murtaḍā’s speculations about the ghayba begin with the
premise of the imamate. If a person becomes convinced of the necessity of
the imamate, then the doctrine of the Imam’s ghayba is easy to grasp.168 In
his works, al-Murtaḍā officially sanctions reports stating that the Imam made
incognito visits to his followers or granted audiences to some of his believers
during the Lesser Occultation. Al-Murtaḍā states that the Imam used to appear
to his adherents at the beginning of his ghayba; he only hid himself from his
enemies. It was later (that is, after the end of the Lesser Occultation), when
danger to his life increased, that he hides himself from both his followers and
his opponents. According to al-Murtaḍā,

The Imam hides from his enemies because he must protect himself from
them (li-l-taqiyya minhum) and he hides from his closest friends (awli-
yāʾihi) because he fears for them (li-l-taqiyya ʿalayhim) … for if he were to
appear to those who affirm his imamate or is seen by an enemy who then
tells others, his followers would be persecuted; and even if, in these cir-
cumstances, the Imam himself managed to evade capture by going back
into hiding, these enemies would still inflict grievous harm upon his fol-
lowers.169

Al-Murtaḍā repeats this same assertion when stating that the Imam will only
appear when there is no longer a need for him to be cautious (tazūl ʿanhu

appearing to his most elite disciples during the Greater Occultation. Schmidtke and Ansari
(eds.), Khulāṣat al-naẓar, 171–8, esp. 176.
167 Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin 32 [= Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide (trans. Streight), 13];
Kohlberg, “Kolayni,” EIr (online); Modarressi, An Introduction to Shīʿī Law, 41: “[Al-Mur-
taḍā] was very critical of the traditionists, and even accused all ‘Qummiyyūn’ of being
religious deviationists, with the only exception of al-Ṣadūq, toward whom he adopted a
more moderate approach.”
168 For discussions of al-Murtaḍā’s teachings on the ghayba, see Abdulsater, Shiʿi Doctrine,
169–72; Kadhim, “Politics and Theology,” 173–6. For his thought about the imamate, see
Mohaghegh, “Al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā,” 123–31.
169 I have not been able to locate this passage in any of al-Murtaḍā’s extant writings, but al-
Ṭabrisī (on whom, see chapter 4) quotes him thus in his Iʿlām al-warā, 2:303. The passage
is repeated a century later by al-Irbilī (on whom, see chapter 4), who again attributes it to
al-Murtaḍā. See al-Irbilī, Kashf al-ghumma1, 2:1033. The translation here is from Kohlberg,
“Taqiyya in Shīʿī Theology and Religion,” 350, which I have revised slightly after consulting
the original Arabic text in Iʿlām al-warā.
“a lying impostor” 123

al-taqiyya) [lit., when fear vanishes from him], adding ominously that “[the
Imam] is constantly watching us (shāhid lanā) and knows everything about
us; nothing about our state and condition is hidden from him (wa-ghayr khāfin
ʿalayhi shayʾ un min aḥwālinā).”170
Using dialectical arguments, in his Masʾala wajīza fī l-ghayba, al-Murtaḍā
asserts that indeed, the possibility that the Imam appears in person to some
of his friends cannot be ruled out:

If it is said, “What is the difference between [saying that the Imam] exists
or does not exist when he is concealed (ghāʾib) and no one can reach
him or benefit from him (lā yaṣil ilayhi aḥad wa-lā yantafiʿ bihi bashar),” …
then it should be said [to those making such objections], “First, we con-
sider it allowable (nujawwiz) that many of his closest friends (awliyāʾihi)
and those who profess his imamate can reach him, and thus benefit from
him.”171

Al-Murtaḍā then maintains that the Shīʿa who do not meet the Imam (lā
yalqāhu) still benefit from his existence because they hesitate to commit rep-
rehensible acts (qabāʾiḥ) out of fear of being chastised or reprimanded by the
Imam.172
Al-Murtaḍā’s al-Shāfī fī l-Imāma is a rebuttal of the work on the imamate
written by his teacher Qāḍī l-Quḍāt ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadānī (d. 415/1024–
5),173 a Muʿtazilī theologian who wrote an anti-Shīʿī (or more precisely, anti-
Twelver-Shīʿī) polemic and exposition of Muʿtazilī kalām entitled the Kitāb al-
Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-l-ʿadl.174 In his rebuttal, al-Murtaḍā modulates
his position and maintains,

170 Al-Murtaḍā, Rasāʾil al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā, 1:283.

171 Sachedina, “A Treatise on the Occultation,” 122, slightly revised after consulting the origi-
nal text in al-Murtaḍā, “Masʾala wajīza,” 12. Sachedina calls this treatise Risālat al-ghayba,
but all other sources refer to it as Masʾala wajīza fī l-ghayba. For another translation, see
Stewart, “An Eleventh-Century Justification,” 486. Al-Murtaḍā makes an almost identi-
cal statement in his al-Dhakhīra fī ʿilm al-kalām, 423, in an essay about the proofs of the
Imam’s existence.
172 See also al-Murtaḍā, Rasāʾil al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā, 3:145. This opinion was also expressed
by Maytham al-Baḥrānī (d. 699/1299–1300) some three centuries later. See al-Oraibi, “Shīʿī
Renaissance,” 155–6, and chapter 4 of this book.
173 On ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadānī, see Madelung, “ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Aḥmad,” EIr, 1:116–7;
Dhanani, “ʿAbd al-Jabbār,” ER, 1:3–5; and Reynolds, A Muslim Theologian, 41–57.
174 On Kitāb al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-l-ʿadl, see Rosenthal, “ʿAbd al-Jabbār on the
Imamate,” 207–18. On al-Shāfī fī l-imāma, see Abdulsater, Shiʿi Doctrine, 26–7; Zanjānī, “al-
Shāfī fī l-imāma,”DMT, 9:499–502; Akhtar, Early Shīʿite Imāmiyyah Thinkers, 187; Ansari and
Schmidtke, “Al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā’s Responses,” 257.
124 chapter 3

We cannot be certain (lasnā naqṭaʿ) that the Imam will not appear to
some of his closest friends (awliyāʾ) and Shīʿa. In fact, [the Imam appear-
ing to some] remains a possibility, but it is also possible that he will not
appear to any of them. Each person only knows about his own self (laysa
yaʿrif kull wāḥid minnā illā ḥāl nafsihi), and it is not possible for him to
know about anyone else ( fa-ammā ḥāl ghayrihi fa-ghayr maʿlūm lahu).

It is worth noting that al-Murtaḍā’s explanation is not the first reason he gives
in discussing the rationale for the ghayba. It is not even the second. In fact,
he concedes that the main reason he mentions this possibility is to respond
to ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadānī’s question of why the Imam did not appear to
his followers once he no longer faced the same threats to his life that he faced
when the ghayba began in the pre-Buyid period. Satisfied with this “solution” to
an ostensibly insoluble problem, al-Murtaḍā concludes, “Since we deem it pos-
sible that [the Imam] may appear to some of [the Shīʿa], or even all of them,
we see no reason to mention the rationale preventing his appearance (al-ʿillā
l-māniʿa min al-ẓuhūr).”175
Al-Murtaḍā offers a more reticent view in his Tanzīh al-anbiyāʾ.176 In
response to questions about whether there is a difference between the Imam’s
existence and nonexistence, if no one can reach him and benefit from him
while he is in ghayba, he retorts, “We cannot say with certainty (innā ghayr
qāṭiʿīn) that no one can reach the Imam or encounter him ( yalqāhu) because
this matter is unknown and there is no way to be certain one way or another.”177
Nevertheless, “the possibility” that the Imam may appear in person to “some of
his friends has not been ruled out.”178 He then refers to his earlier argument in
al-Shāfī fī l-imāma, in which he emphasizes that it is not possible to be certain
about the matter, and that “each of the Imam’s Shīʿa can only answer for him-
self [whether he has seen the Imam or not]. There is no way he can answer for
anyone else.”179

175 Al-Murtaḍā, al-Shāfī fī l-imāma, 1:149.

176 As the title suggests, the central theme of Tanzīh al-anbiyāʾ is the doctrine of ʿiṣma. For
general comments about this work, see Bar-Asher, Scripture and Exegesis, 173–9; Abdul-
sater, Shiʿi Doctrine, 27; Anṣārī, Az Ganjīnahā-yi nusakh-i khaṭṭī, 31–4; Anṣārī, Barrasīhā-yi
tārīkhī, 477–81.
177 [= fa-hādhā l-amr ghayr maʿlūm wa-lā sabīl ilā l-qaṭʿ ʿalayhi] Al-Murtaḍā, Tanzīh al-anbiyāʾ,
182; al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 150; al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:855.
178 Al-Murtaḍā, Tanzīh al-anbiyāʾ, 184; Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 528; Kohlberg, “Authori-
tative Scriptures,” 307–8.
179 Al-Murtaḍā, Tanzīh al-anbiyāʾ, 184; al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 151; ʿAlīpūr, Jilvah-
hāy-i pinhānī-i imām-i ʿaṣr, 126. The only Western scholar I am aware of who has examined
“a lying impostor” 125

In these statements, al-Murtaḍā is implying, in subtle terms, that even if

someone meets the Imam, it would not be proper to divulge this fact to oth-
ers; nor would it be appropriate for others to question the veracity of someone
who has claimed to have seen the Imam. In other words, certain believers can
see the Imam, but no one should claim this publicly. Why would this be so?
Although al-Murtaḍā does not cite the last tawqīʿ of the Imam in any of his
works, in these statements, it appears that he has the last section of the tawqīʿ,
where the following warning is found, in mind: “[Before I reappear], some [or
someone] will come to my followers claiming to have seen [me] with their own
eyes. But beware! Anyone who claims to have seen [me] before the appearance
of al-Sufyānī and [the sounding of] the Cry is a lying impostor.”
The final work in which al-Murtaḍā deals with the question is his al-Muqniʿ fī
l-ghayba. Although it is not known when al-Muqniʿ fī l-ghayba was written, it is
certainly one of al-Murtaḍā’s later works, for he refers in it to al-Shāfī fī l-imāma
and Tanzīh al-anbiyāʾ. In the introduction, al-Murtaḍā explains that questions
about the ghayba of the Imam of the Age arose at a meeting with a Buyid min-
ister, requiring him to respond in brief.180 The explanations offered in al-Muqniʿ
fī l-ghayba were held in high esteem by future generations of scholars; they are
cited in part or in toto by, among others, al-Ṭūsī in his Kitāb al-Ghayba, al-Ṭabrisī
in his Iʿlām al-warā bi-aʿlām al-hudā, and al-Majlisī in his Biḥār al-anwār, and
are thus a tribute to al-Murtaḍā’s perceived intellectual prowess vis-à-vis his
defense of the doctrine of ghayba.
On the question of seeing the Imam, al-Murtaḍā again poses the hypotheti-
cal question mentioned earlier: What is the difference between saying that the
Imam exists or does not exist when no one can reach him and benefit from
him during his ghayba? He responds, “Before we answer this question, it must
be stated that it cannot be said with certainty (mā yuqṭaʿ) that no one reaches
the Imam or encounters him because this matter is hidden from us (hādhā l-
amr mughayyab ʿannā) and steeped in uncertainty.”181 Elsewhere, he asks: “If
we accept that the rationale for [the Imam’s] ghayba from his enemies is that
he feared them, then why does he not [at least] appear to his friends? This
rationale does not apply to them, right?” Al-Murtaḍā begins his response by
saying that other ulama (alluding here to al-Ṣadūq and al-Mufīd) have already
answered this question by arguing that if the Imam appeared to some of his

this text is Kohlberg, “From Imāmiyya,” 528: “Al-Murtaḍā maintains that it is not impossi-
ble for the Imām to appear before one of his adherents, provided the Imām has complete
confidence in him.”
180 The wazīr is identified by al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 22:123.
181 Al-Murtaḍā, al-Muqniʿ fī l-ghayba, 55–6.
126 chapter 3

friends, they might reveal his location to his enemies or be unable to conceal
their joy at seeing the Imam. However, al-Murtaḍā does not find this response
convincing. Even if there is concern that one or two Shīʿa might act unwisely,
this does not apply to the overwhelming majority of Shīʿa, who would never
reveal their encounters with the Imam since they appreciate the risks that this
would pose to the Imam’s life. Al-Murtaḍā elaborates on this point in the book’s
addendum. He addresses the question of how the believers can benefit from
the Imam when he is concealed. His response is telling:

Those loyal to the Imām of the Age, his Shīʿa and the believers in his ima-
mate, benefit from him during his ghaybah, the kind of benefit which—
we say—is necessary under an obligation to fulfill one’s religious duties
(taklīf ); because, knowing that he is among them and believing with cer-
tainty in their obligation to obey him, they must revere and fear him upon
[intending] to perpetrate evil deeds. They fear his discipline, reproach
and punishment. Hence, their fulfillment of duties will increase and their
evil deeds will decrease, which is more proper; and this is the rational
need for the Imam after all.182

Thus, al-Murtaḍā argues that whereas it is possible for the Imam to appear to
his closest friends (awliyāʾ) in order to admonish, discipline, or educate them,
the Imam is never obligated (ghayr wājib) to do so, just as the Shīʿa are not
obligated to search for reasons he does not appear if he chooses not to.183 Al-
Murtaḍā is essentially arguing here that there is no need to see the Imam. His
concealed presence—or perhaps the threat of his reappearance—is enough to
preclude the Shīʿa from committing heinous acts or failing to fulfill their reli-
gious obligations.
While the arguments advanced by al-Murtaḍā do not amount to a reversal on
the question of seeing the Imam, they do signify a clear discontinuity. Like al-
Nuʿmānī, al-Ṣadūq, and al-Mufīd before him, al-Murtaḍā does not mention any
accounts of encounters with the Imam during the second ghayba. Yet unlike
al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ṣadūq, and al-Mufīd, who maintained that the Imam cannot be
seen (at least not in a wakeful state in the case of al-Ṣadūq and with the excep-
tion of some of his servants in the case al-Mufīd), al-Murtaḍā argued repeatedly
that it is indeed possible for the Imam to appear to his Shīʿa, though the ques-
tion ultimately remains shrouded in uncertainty.

182 Al-Murtaḍā, al-Muqniʿ fī l-ghayba, 74; translation by Kadhim, “Politics and Theology,” 176.
See also Abdulsater, Shiʿi Doctrine, 170–1.
183 Al-Murtaḍā, al-Muqniʿ fī l-ghayba, 77.
“a lying impostor” 127

Al-Murtaḍā’s influence over the next generation of Shīʿī scholars should not
be underestimated. Taking advantage of the greater freedoms they experienced
under the Buyid rulers, many of his students settled in Iran, parts of Iraq, and
the Levant and promulgated Twelver Shīʿī thought. Three of these students left
works specifically addressing the question of whether it is possible to see and
recognize the Hidden Imam during the Greater Occultation. I now turn to a
discussion of their responses to this question.

6.1 Al-Karājukī
Abū l-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān al-Karājukī (d. 449/1057) was a jurist,
astronomer, medical doctor, and theologian.184 After studying in Baghdad
under al-Mufīd and later al-Murtaḍā, al-Karājukī returned to his home in Trip-
oli on the Levantine coast, where he taught and served as a jurist. At the time,
Tripoli was under Fatimid control and inhabited by many Ismāʿīlī scholars.
Al-Karājukī’s Kanz al-fawāʾid, an anthology of his writings that include long
passages from the works of his teachers, is considered a major source of Shīʿī
theology.185 The work reflects the intense debates al-Karājukī engaged in with
Ismāʿīlī scholars, but also with Muʿtazilīs, Ashʿarīs, Jews, and Christians.
Two chapters of Kanz al-fawāʾid are devoted to the Hidden Imam and to a
defense of the doctrine of ghayba. Al-Karājukī’s argument centers around the
principle of self-protection: as was the case with previous prophets and mes-
sengers who are said to have disappeared for a time, the Imam was likewise
forced into hiding in the face of threats posed by oppressors who sought to kill
him.186 In the chapter on the Hidden Imam, after explaining that the Imam
was forced to conceal himself from everyone out of fear for his life, al-Karājukī
states: “Despite this, we cannot say with certainty that no one is able to recog-
nize the Imam or reach him. In fact, it may be possible for a group of his closest
friends to meet him187 and conceal their encounter and keep it a secret.”188

184 On al-Karājukī’s life and works, see al-Karājukī, Kanz al-fawāʾid, 1:11–25; Stewart, “An
Eleventh-Century Justification,” 474–6; Ansari, L’imamat, 109–14; Akhtar, Early Shīʿite
Imāmiyyah Thinkers, 185, 208; Mourad, Early Islam, 198. In Western sources his name is
often misspelled as “al-Karājkī,” “al-Karājikī,” “al-Karāchakī,” or “al-Karākji.” The correct
vocalization appears to be “al-Karājukī,” a nisba derived from the name of the town of
Karājuk, see al-Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs, 13:632.
185 On Kanz al-fawāʾid, see Stewart, “An Eleventh-Century Justification,” 474–91; Kadhim, “Pol-
itics and Theology,” 177; Ansari and Schmidtke, “Al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī,” 477–8 n. 9.
186 [= inna al-sabab fī ghaybat al-imām ikhāfa al-ẓālimīn lahu wa-ṭalabuhum bi-safk damihi]
Al-Karājukī, Kanz al-fawāʾid, 1:370.
187 [= qad yajūz an yajtamiʿ bihi ṭāʾifa min awliyāʾihi]
188 [= tastir ijtimāʿahā bihi wa-tukhfīhi] Al-Karājukī, Kanz al-fawāʾid, 2:218.
128 chapter 3

Al-Karājukī also states that since the Imam is in ghayba, those seeking guid-
ance (mustarshidūn) must find recourse in jurists and legal scholars ( fuqahāʾ),
pose their questions to them about the sharīʿa, and seek their legal rulings
about what is permissible and impermissible, since the fuqahāʾ are “the inter-
mediaries (wasāʾiṭ) between the people and the lord of the [final] age and the
custodians of the laws of the sharīʿa of Islam.”189 He adds that even though the
Imam is concealed and the people cannot recognize him (lā yaʿrifūn shakh-
ṣahu), he is nonetheless among them, he follows their affairs, and he knows
of their words, their conduct, and their deeds. Should, God forbid, the fuqahāʾ
stray from the truth, God will cause the Imam to appear.190 That is, as long as
the Imam remains in ghayba, the believers can rest assured that the fuqahāʾ will
not lead the people astray, even if they are unable to be certain of the Imam’s
opinion on legal matters or receive guidance directly from him.

6.2 Al-Ḥalabī
Abū l-Ṣalāḥ al-Ḥalabī (374–447/984–1055) studied under al-Mufīd, al-Murtaḍā,
and al-Ṭūsī in Baghdad and later served as al-Ṭūsī’s representative in al-Ḥalabī’s
native Aleppo. A prominent Shīʿī jurist and theologian, he is referred to as
al-Murtaḍā’s successor in scholarship.191 In his Taqrīb al-maʿārif, al-Ḥalabī reit-
erates al-Murtaḍā’s opinion: “We cannot say with certainty that the Imam is
concealed from all [of his friends]. Rather, it is possible that he appears to many
of them ( yajūz ẓuhūruhu li-kathīrin minhum). As for those he does not appear
to, they still know that he is alive and remain committed to the obligation of
obeying him, for they fear him, knowing that the Imam can appear to any obser-
vant believer.” “In this manner,” al-Ḥalabī argues, “the fact that [the Imam] is
hidden is the same as [the Imam] being manifest.”192

6.3 Al-Ṭūsī
The most eminent of al-Murtaḍā’s students was Muḥammad b. Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī
(d. 459 or 460/1066–7), known as Shaykh al-Ṭāʾifa (“the master (or authority) of

189 Al-Karājukī, Kanz al-fawāʾid, 2:218.

190 Al-Karājukī, Kanz al-fawāʾid, 2:219. For an alternate translation of this section of his work,
see Stewart, “An Eleventh-Century Justification,” 488–91.
191 On al-Ḥalabī, see Kohlberg, “Ḥalabī, Abuʾl-Ṣāleḥ,” EIr, 11:580–1; Pakatchi and Umar, “Abū
l-Ṣalāḥ al-Ḥalabī,” Encyclopaedia Islamica (online); Bābāyī, “Abū l-Ṣalāh Ḥalabī,” 19–27;
Stewart, Islamic Legal Orthodoxy, 130.
192 [= fa-ghaybabtuhu ʿalā hādhā l-taqdīr ka-ẓuhūrihi] Al-Ḥalabī, Taqrīb al-maʿārif, 444. On
this work, see al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 4:366 (no. 1096); Ansari and Schmidtke, “Al-Shaykh
al-Ṭūsī,” 477 n. 7.
“a lying impostor” 129

the sect,” that is, the Twelver Shīʿī community) or simply al-Shaykh.193 A prodi-
gious and prolific scholar, al-Ṭūsī was originally a student of al-Mufīd and, upon
the latter’s death, became one of the most prominent students of al-Murtaḍā,
who entrusted him with the task of condensing his aforementioned Kitāb al-
Shāfī fī l-imāma. The influence al-Ṭūsī exerted on future generations of scholars
is evident from the fact that the school of law that he founded dominated Shīʿī
legal scholarship for the next three centuries.
Invoking Muʿtazilī principles, al-Ṭūsī argued that God cannot be blamed for
the Imam’s ghayba, as He is incapable of being unjust or committing an ugly act
(qabīḥan). Likewise, the Imam himself is not responsible, for he is simply abid-
ing by the will of God. Rather, the ghayba is a result of (1) the overwhelming
number of the Imam’s enemies and (2) the scarcity of his helpers.194 Al-Ṭūsī
furnishes traditional proofs for the long life of the Qāʾim by mentioning that
previous prophets lived for as long as three thousand years.195
Like al-Murtaḍā, al-Ṭūsī is hesitant to permit the possibility of encountering
the Hidden Imam during the second ghayba. He never affirms this possibil-
ity as a matter of doctrine. In his Talkhīṣ al-shāfī,196 al-Ṭūsī asserts that the
Shīʿa are not obliged to believe that the Imam is hidden from all of his clos-
est friends.197 He presents his view by restating the position of al-Murtaḍā: “We
cannot be certain that [the Imam] is hidden from all of his initiates/friends.
Suffice it to say that [seeing the Imam] is possible.”198 Yet in the same work he
appears to contradict himself when he states that the rationale for the Imam
not appearing to his friends reverts to the believers and not to the Imam him-
self because if he appears to them, they may be so excited that they inform their
friends. Then the news would reach the Imam’s enemies, who would seek him

193 On al-Ṭūsī, see Amir-Moezzi, “al-Ṭūsī, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan,”EI², 10:744; Tihrānī, Zindigī-
nāmih-yi Shaykh Ṭūsī; Ḥusayn Karīmān, “Shaykh Ṭūsī,”DMT, 10:169–72; Marḍiyyih Muḥam-
mad-Zādih, “Shaykh Ṭūsī,”DMT, 10:172–6 [the editor of Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Tashayyuʿ notes
that, given his importance, two separate articles have been devoted to him]; Yūnus,
Taṭawwur al-fikr, 137–56; Akhtar, Early Shīʿite Imāmiyyah Thinkers, 205–46; Modarressi,
An Introduction to Shīʿī Law, 44–5; Marcinkowski, “Rapprochement and Fealty”; Rāmyār,
“Shaykh Ṭūsī”; Sachedina, Islamic Messianism, 35–8; Ansari and Schmidtke, “Al-Shaykh al-
Ṭūsī”; Ansari, L’imamat, 114–9.
194 [= kathrat al-ʿadū wa-qillat al-nāṣir]
195 Al-Ṭūsī, “Masāʾil kalāmiyya,” 99.
196 On this work, see Rāmyār, “Shaykh Ṭūsī,” 133–6.
197 [= lā yajib al-qaṭʿ ʿalā istitārihi ʿan jamīʿ awliyāʾihi] Al-Ṭūsī, Talkhīṣ al-shāfī, 4:222.
198 [= wa-l-tajwīz fī hādhā l-bāb kāfin] Al-Ṭūsī, Talkhīṣ al-shāfī, 4:217. The same statement is
repeated in al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 93.
130 chapter 3

out and harm him. For this reason, it is more likely that the Imam will remain
concealed from everyone.199
In his Kitāb al-Ghayba, completed in 447/1055–6,200 al-Ṭūsī sought to recon-
cile the approaches of the rationalists and the traditionists by defending the
doctrine of occultation through citing hadiths as well as strictly rational argu-
ments. He states that although the enemies of the Hidden Imam prevented him
from appearing and guiding the affairs of the world, they are not able to restrain
him from appearing to his elite friends, provided he has complete confidence in
their obedience to him.201 He then speculates, “It is possible for [the Imam] to
appear to most of [his friends], but each person can only speak for himself.”202
If the Imam does not appear to someone, it is likely because the believer has
been lax in carrying out his religious obligations.203 In other words, “Whomever
the Imam does not appear to must look within himself and mend his ways,204
because God knows if his intention to help the Imam is pure and if he is not
distracted from that intention, the Imam will appear to him.”205
Yet al-Ṭūsī, like so many scholars before him, does not appear to mention any
accounts of encounters or sightings of the Hidden Imam after the death of the
fourth and last emissary, ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Samurī.206 The guarded opinion

199 [= fa-yaʿūd al-amr ilā l-istitār ʿan al-jamīʿ] Al-Ṭūsī, Talkhīṣ al-shāfī, 1:94.
200 On this work, see Muḥammadī, “al-Ghayba,”DMT, 12:146–7; Akhtar, Early Shīʿite Imāmiyyah
Thinkers, 231; al-Tihrānī, Zindigīnāmih-yi Shaykh Ṭūsī, 38; Rāmyār, “Shaykh Ṭūsī,” 136.
201 Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 98.
202 Lit., “each person only knows his own state” [= wa-lā yaʿlam kull insān illā ḥāl nafsihi] Al-
Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 99. Also cited in Faḍl Allāh, al-Naẓariyyāt al-kalāmiyya ʿinda al-Ṭūsī,
231. Persian translation: al-Ṭūsī, Khūrshīd dar nahān (trans. Jalālī), 157–8; Dhākirī, “Irtibāṭ
bā imām-i zamān,” 78. The same response is given in a different work: “While we cannot
be certain that all of his friends do not see [the Imam] [i.e., it is possible that some do see
him], each person can only speak for what he himself knows or has seen.” Al-Ṭūsī, “Sharḥ
jumal al-ʿilm,” 244–5.
203 Al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 99; al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 151.
204 [= yanbaghī an yurājiʿ nafsahu wa-yuṣliḥ sīratahu]
205 Al-Ṭūsī, al-Iqtiṣād al-hādī, 233. On this work, see Rāmyār, “Shaykh Ṭūsī,” 145; Ansari and
Schmidtke, “Al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī,” 487.
206 The third chapter of al-Ṭūsī’s Kitāb al-Ghayba is entitled “Reports of some of those who
saw the lord of the [final] age while not recognizing him, or who recognized him soon after
having seen him.” This would have been the appropriate place to mention an account of
an encounter with the Imam during the Greater Occultation, but all fifteen of the reports
mentioned by al-Ṭūsī in this chapter appear to be from the Lesser Occultation. Mention
can also be made here of Ḥusayn al-Ḥalawānī, a student of al-Murtaḍā. Al-Ḥalawānī refers
in the section on the Hidden Imam in his book on sayings of the Imams entitled Nuzhat
al-nāẓir wa-tanbīh al-khāṭir, 147–51, to an encounter with the Imam from the Lesser Occul-
tation; this encounter was said to have taken place in the year 293/906.
“a lying impostor” 131

proffered by al-Murtaḍā, al-Karājukī, al-Ḥalabī, and al-Ṭūsī must be viewed in

light of the pressures they and other contemporary Shīʿī scholars faced from
their interlocutors, (the Muʿtazilīs and other dialecticians) to substantiate the
prolonged absence of the Imam with strictly rational proofs. Their willingness
to concede the possibility of encounters with the Imam was likely more a strate-
gic method of neutralizing the doubts raised by their rationalist interlocutors
than a doctrinal judgment. In this light, it is of no minor importance that in
his al-Iʿtiqādāt, a statement of core Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿī beliefs, al-Ṭūsī chose
not to allude or refer to the issue of seeing (or not seeing) the Hidden Imam or
adduce any stories of sightings and encounters. In the section of al-Iʿtiqādāt on
the Hidden Imam, al-Ṭūsī argues that the Imam will continue to subsist until
the end of the Muslim community “because he is a divine grace (luṭf ) to the
people, and God is obliged to act with kindness in every age. If the Imam was
not living, then God would have failed in his duty to be kind.” He then adds,
“The proof that the Qāʾim, [God’s] caliph, is alive and present (ḥayy mawjūd) is
that there must be an Imam who is guarded [by God] from error (maʿṣūm) at
every moment and in every age (kull ānin wa-zamān). And thus it is established
that he is living and present in each age ( fī kull zamān).”207

As I have demonstrated in this chapter, al-Nuʿmānī, al-Ṣadūq, and al-Mufīd are

adamant that the door of privileged communication between believers and the
Hidden Imam was closed in perpetuum after the first ghayba (with the excep-
tion of (1) the Imam appearing to al-Ṣadūq in a dream and (2) the servants who
are with the Imam at all times, according to al-Mufīd). None of these scholars
ever suggests that it is possible for other Shīʿa, including the ulama, to see the
Imam physically in a wakeful state after the first ghayba. The most important
text that reflects this position is the final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam, in which
it is said that anyone who claims to see him before the end of time is a lying
impostor.
The door that the tawqīʿ purportedly closed was partially opened by al-
Mufīd, and to a greater extent by al-Murtaḍā and his students, the latter out
of intellectual necessity. The ghayba of the Hidden Imam created the requi-
site intellectual space for Shīʿī scholars in the Buyid period to formulate the-
ology and jurisprudence. With the Shīʿī fuqahāʾ, ulama, and hadith experts
situated as intermediaries between the Hidden Imam and the faithful, there
was no longer a need for an unconcealed and manifest Imam. Guarded in their
response to their rationalist interlocutors, these scholars moved the issue of
contacting and seeing the Hidden Imam from the realm of the impossible to

207 Al-Ṭūsī, “al-Iʿtiqādāt,” 107.

132 chapter 3

the realm of the theoretically possible. Permitting the possibility of encounters

with the Imam served both a discursive and an apologetic function. It made an
irrational concept slightly more rational in the largely pluralistic and diverse
context of fifth-/eleventh-century Baghdad. It also foreshadowed what was to
occur over the next two centuries: the earliest stories of contact with the Hid-
den Imam began to appear, thus signifying a further shift; encounters with the
Hidden Imam during the Greater Occultation would soon no longer simply be
a possibility.
 chapter 4

From the Youth and the Stone to the Proliferation

of Accounts

The tacit approval of al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā and al-Ṭūsī of the possibility of see-
ing the Imam foreshadowed the “invention” of a tradition. Over the following
two centuries, accounts of encounters and contact, in a wakeful state, with
the Imam during the Greater Occultation, albeit rare and infrequent, began to
appear in the works of Shīʿī authorities Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāwandī (d. 573/1178),
Aḥmad al-Ṭabarsī (d. late sixth/twelfth century), and in particular, Ibn Ṭāwūs
(d. 664/1266) and his student al-Irbilī (d. 692/1292–3 or 693/1293–4).
Until the late fourth/twelfth century, other than al-Ṣadūq’s dream of the Hid-
den Imam at the Kaʿba (discussed in chapter 3), one other story of an encounter
with the Imam during the period after the Lesser Occultation has come to light,
though this account cannot be dated with absolute certainty. The encounter
described in this account also occurs in a dream and is found in Abū Jaʿfar
Muḥammad b. Jarīr b. Rustam al-Ṭabarī al-Āmulī al-Māzandarānī’s (known as
al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr; fl. early fifth/early eleventh century)1 Dalāʾil al-imāma (The
proofs of the imamate), a hagiographical collection of mostly miraculous tales
that seek to prove the Imams’ supernatural abilities.2 The account in question

1 According to al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 8:241, the author’s full name is Muḥammad b. Jarīr b. Rus-
tam al-Ṭabarī al-Āmulī al-Māzandarānī. The epithet “al-Ṣaghīr” distinguishes him from an
earlier Shīʿī scholar with the same name who lived in the first half of the fourth/tenth cen-
tury, was a contemporary of al-Kulaynī, and wrote al-Mustarshad fī l-imāma (on this work,
see chapter 1). Al-Ṭihrānī suggests that al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr was a contemporary of al-Najāshī
(d. 450/1058–9) and al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067), as he narrates hadith on the authority of teach-
ers of both of these scholars; however, the publisher of the Qum edition of Dalāʾil al-imāma
argues that al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr belonged to an earlier generation of scholars (that included
al-Murtaḍā and and al-Murtaḍā’s brother al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1015)) who were also con-
temporaries of al-Ṭūsī and al-Najāshī. Al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr, Dalāʾil al-imāma, 29–37, esp. 31–2.
See also al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr, Nawādir al-muʿjizāt, 35–57 (from the publisher’s introduction).
Unlike al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr’s Dalāʾil al-imāma, his Nawādir al-muʿjizāt does not appear in Ibn
Ṭāwūs’s list of early Shīʿī books and is not mentioned in Kohlberg’s study of Ibn Ṭāwūs.
2 Copies of Dalāʾil al-imāma that have survived are incomplete. We do not know when Dalāʾil
al-imāma was written but we can infer from internal evidence a terminus post quem of
411/1020–1. See al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr, Dalāʾil al-imāma, 40. Al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 8:244 (no. 1018),
points out that Ibn Ṭāwūs was the first Shīʿī scholar to cite from this work. On references to
Dalāʾil al-imāma in Ibn Ṭāwūs’s writings, see Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work,

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413153_006

134 chapter 4

is the last of five reports in a chapter called “Knowledge about the compan-
ions [that is, Shīʿa] who saw the lord of the [final] age during the ghayba and
recognized him.”3 The first four reports mentioned in this chapter all date to
the Lesser Occultation. The fifth report appears to describe an episode that
occurred during the Greater Occultation, though it is not possible to be certain.
Al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr writes that he heard this story from Abū l-Ḥasan Muḥam-
mad b. Hārūn b. Mūsā al-Tallaʿukbarī (fl. late fourth/tenth century),4 who heard
it from a certain Abū l-Ḥusayn b. Abī l-Baghl al-Kātib, about whom nothing is
known, during the lifetime of Abū Manṣūr al-Ṣāliḥān,5 a minister at the court
of the Buyid rulers Sharaf al-Dawla (r. 350–79/961–89)6 and Bahāʾ al-Dawla
(r. 379–403/989–1012)7 during the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Qādir bi-Allāh
(r. 381–422/991–1031).
In the account, Abū l-Ḥusayn b. Abī l-Baghl al-Kātib, while fleeing from Abū
Manṣūr al-Ṣāliḥān, seeks refuge in a cemetery in Baghdad and asked its custo-
dian to lock the gate. During the night, a young man miraculously enters the
cemetery without opening the gate and gives him the text of a prayer known as
duʿāʾ al-faraj (“supplication for the removal of difficulties”)8 to recite for divine
aid and assistance (ghawth). The next day, al-Ṣāliḥān’s men find al-Baghl al-
Kātib and assure him that he will not be harmed if he comes with them to meet

140–1, and al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr, Dalāʾil al-imāma, 42–4. Both Dalāʾil al-imāma and Nawādir al-
muʿjizāt require further study. One of the topoi encountered in Dalāʾil al-imāma is peregrina-
tions to mysterious islands and lands controlled by the Imams. For references and discussion,
see Ghaemmaghami, “To the Abode of the Hidden One.”
3 Al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr, Dalāʾil al-imāma, 537–53.
4 Little information is known about al-Tallaʿukbarī, though both he and his father are men-
tioned by al-Najāshī, Rijāl al-Najāshī, 79. Al-Tallaʿukbarī’s name appears in lists of students of
al-Ṣadūq. See al-Ṣadūq, al-Hidāya ( fī l-uṣūl wa-l-furūʿ), 97; al-Khūʾī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth,
18:336 (no. 11971). Al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 8:242, gives 387/997–8 as his date of death. Al-
Tallaʿukbarī compiled a collection of supplications called Majmūʿ al-daʿawāt, which was
among the sources used by Ibn Ṭāwūs in his Muhaj al-daʿawāt. See Ḥāʾirī-Qazvīnī, “Majmūʿ
al-daʿawāt,” DMT, 15:82. For further information on al-Tallaʿukbarī, see also Ansari, L’ imamat,
76–9.
5 On him, see al-Bāḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-walī, 192 n. 3.
6 On him, see Madelung, “S̲h̲araf al-Dawla,” EI².
7 On him, see Bosworth, “Bahāʾ al-Dawla wa-Ḍiyāʾ al-Milla,” EI²; Klaus Hachmeier, “Bahāʾ al-
Dawla,” EI³ (online).
8 A supplication with this name is found in many modern Shīʿī devotional texts though in differ-
ent forms and attributed to more than one Imam. See al-Qummī, Kulliyyāt-i mafātīḥ al-jinān,
47–8. Cf. idem, 115–6 (duʿāʾ-i faraj-i ḥaḍrat-i ḥujja), which is actually a different supplication.
See also al-Shīrāzī, Kalimat al-imām al-mahdī, 281–2. For general information on supplica-
tions attributed to various Imams, see Algar, “Doʿā,” EIr, 7:452–6; Amir-Moezzi, “Notes sur la
Prière dans le Shīʿisme Imamite”; Turner, “Aspects of Devotional Life.”
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 135

al-Ṣāliḥān, a request to which he readily consents. Al-Ṣāliḥān tells al-Baghl al-

Kātib that on the previous night, the Hidden Imam appeared to him in a dream
and commanded him “to do good.” Al-Baghl al-Kātib responds that the Hidden
Imam also appeared to him as a young man and informs al-Ṣāliḥān about the
miracle that seemed to occur in the cemetery.9
After al-Ṭūsī the next prominent Shīʿī authority was Amīn al-Dīn (or Amīn al-
Islām) Abū ʿAlī al-Faḍl b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabrisī (d. 548/1154),10 author of “probably
the most widely used and admired Twelver Imāmī tafsīr.”11 Al-Ṭabrisī contin-
ued the work of al-Murtaḍā and his students to incorporate the principles of
Muʿtazilī kalām to defend the doctrine of ghayba. And like the scholars before
him, al-Ṭabrisī does not mention any accounts of believers who have seen the
Hidden Imam during the Greater Occultation. In fact, in his Tāj al-mawālid fī
mawālīd al-aʾimma wa-wafayātihim, he does not address the issue of seeing the
Imam during the ghayba at all. And the seven accounts he cites in his Iʿlām al-
warā bi-aʿlām al-hudā in the chapter on sightings of the Hidden Imam are all
from the Lesser Occultation.12

9 Al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr, Dalāʾil al-imāma, 551–3 (no. 525); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 51:304–6
(cited in chapter 15: mā ẓahara min muʿjizātihi wa-fīhi baʿḍu aḥwālihi wa-aḥwāl sufarāʾihi);
al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 1:360–1 (in the chapter on miracles performed by the Hid-
den Imam); Muʾassasat al-Imām al-Hādī, al-Bushrā, 65–8, mistakenly provides al-Ṭūsī’s
Kitāb al-Ghayba as the source. Al-Gulpāyigānī, Muntakhab al-athar, 418 n. 1, reasons that
the person who narrated the account from Abū l-Ḥusayn b. Abī l-Baghl al-Kātib was a
contemporary of al-Mufīd, and that Abū Manṣūr al-Ṣāliḥān apparently lived in the early
period of the Greater Occultation. As a result, al-Gulpāyigānī records the account in the
chapter of his work on accounts of encounters with the Hidden Imam during the Greater
Occultation, though he grants the possibility that the events in the story occurred during
the Lesser Occultation. Neither al-Majlisī nor al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī include the account in their
chapters on encounters with the Imam in the Greater Occultation. By contrast, al-Nūrī,
Najm-i thāqib 2:567–9 (account no. 30), translated the story into Persian and included it
in the chapter of his book dealing with accounts of contact with the Imam during the
Greater Occultation. The original account in Arabic is recorded in Ibn Ṭāwūs, Faraj al-
mahmūm, 245–7 (on this work, see below); al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 88:349–51 (no. 11),
92:200–1 (no. 33); al-Bāḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-walī, 192–5 (no. 82); al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Mustadrak
al-wasāʾil, 6:308–10; Faqīh, Liqāʾāt al-ʿulamāʾ, 147–9; Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i
ʿaṣr, 314–6 (Persian translation). See also al-Hayʾa al-ʿIlmiyya, Muʿjam aḥādīth al-imām al-
mahdī, 6:349–52, where the account is mentioned as one of the miracles performed by the
Hidden Imam after the Lesser Occultation.
10 On him, al-Ṭabrisī, Iʿlām al-warā, 1:16–28; Hamza, Rizvi, with Mayer (eds.), An Anthology,
36–7; Modarressi, An Introduction to Shīʿī Law, 45.
11 Hamza, Rizvi, with Mayer (eds.), An Anthology, 36. See also Bar-Asher, “Exegesis ii.,” EIr,
9:116–9. On al-Ṭabrisī’s famous commentary, Majmaʿ al-bayān, see Karīmān, Ṭabarsī va
majmaʿ al-bayān; Fudge, Qurʾānic Hermeneutics.
12 Al-Ṭabrisī, Iʿlām al-warā, 2:218–21. In Tāj al-mawālid, al-Ṭabrisī stresses that no one knows
136 chapter 4

One of Amīn al-Dīn al-Ṭabrisī’s grandsons, ʿAlī b. Raḍī l-Dīn al-Ḥasan b. Amīn
al-Dīn al-Faḍl al-Ṭabrisī (fl. late sixth/twelfth century), compiled a collection of
prayers and supplications called Kunūz al-najāḥ,13 in which he records a suppli-
cation taught by the Hidden Imam in a dream to a certain Abū l-Ḥasan Muḥam-
mad b. Aḥmad b. Abī l-Layth. The encounter took place in the Quraysh ceme-
tery when Abū l-Ḥasan had fled to the cemetery out of fear of being killed.14
The story of this supplication bears a strong, if not uncanny, resemblance to the
above-mentioned story from al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr’s Dalāʾil al-imāma and may in

when the ghayba will end and anyone who appoints a time for the Imam’s appearance
is a liar. Al-Ṭabrisī, Tāj al-mawālid, 13. In the same work, he weighs in on a question that
later became a source of great contention: does the Hidden Imam have wives and children
and if so, are their lives also prolonged? Al-Ṭabrisī states that according to the hadiths of
the Imams, it is not prohibited (ghayr mumtaniʿ) for the Hidden Imam to have children
and a family, and he is also permitted ( jāʾiz) to have a family during the period of his rule
(ayyām dawalitihi) after he appears from hiding, though al-Ṭabrisī ultimately concludes
that no one can answer this question with certainty. Al-Ṭabrisī, Tāj al-mawālid, 116–7. Later,
in stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam that were popular in the Safavid period,
it is suggested that the Imam has children (and great-grandchildren) who rule various
islands on the earth that the Imam himself frequents. See Ghaemmaghami, “To the Abode
of the Hidden One.” Al-Ṭabrisī’s Iʿlām al-warā (completed between 511/1117 and 534/1140) is
a biography of the Prophet Muḥammad, Fāṭima, and the twelve Imams, while the shorter
Tāj al-mawālid (completed in 509/1115–6) is considered an abridgement of Iʿlām al-warā,
even though it was completed earlier.
13 This work has never been published, and I do not know of any extant manuscripts in North
America. Amir-Moezzi consulted a manuscript identified by him as “s.l. [Iran], 1318/1900”
in his “Contribution à la Typologie,” 128 n. 68. Al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 18:175–6, states that
this work was compiled by Amīn al-Dīn al-Ṭabrisī’s son, but adds that Ibn Ṭāwūs said
explicitly in his Muhaj al-daʿawāt (on this work and its author, see below) that the author
is al-Ṭabrisī senior. On Kunūz al-najāḥ, see also Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at
Work, 233–4 (no. 320).
14 Amir-Moezzi found this supplication in the above-mentioned manuscript of the Kunūz
al-najāḥ, 46–7. Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la Typologie,” 128 (Récit de Muḥammad b.
Aḥmad b. Abî l-Layth (VI/XII siècle). The earliest work which refers to this account is al-
Mashhadī (d. 610/1213–4), al-Mazār al-kabīr, 591. Al-Mashhadī includes the account in the
section of his work on supplications to recite as one is entering the underground cellar
(sirdāb) in Samarra. He does not mention the source, saying only that the prayer was
narrated on the authority of the Imam. The account is also mentioned in al-Nūrī, Najm-i
thāqib, 2:554 (no. 24), citing an unidentified manuscript of Kunūz al-najāḥ as his source;
al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 94–5 (here, as opposed to Najm-i thāqib, al-Nūrī al-
Ṭabarsī does not mention that the supplication was taught to Abū l-Layth in a dream);
al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 2:44 (no. 28) (citing al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī’s Jannat al-maʾwā
as his source); al-Qummī, Kulliyyāt-i mafātīḥ al-jinān, 45–6 (where three words not found
in earlier versions are added to the end of the supplication), 531–2 [for a similar supplica-
tion, cf. al-Qummī, Kulliyyāt-i mafātīḥ al-jinān, 115–6]; Gulpāyigānī, Muntakhab al-athar,
519–20 (no. 2); Muʾassasat al-Imām al-Hādī, al-Bushrā, 70–1.
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 137

fact be a copy or the sign of an emerging trope, though the supplication taught
by the Imam to Abū l-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Abī l-Layth in his dream
is different from the Duʿāʾ al-faraj taught to al-Baghl al-Kātib.15

1 The Earliest Accounts of Encounters with the Imam in a Wakeful

State

The story of the youth and the Black Stone of the Kaʿba is the earliest account
of a physical encounter with the Hidden Imam in a wakeful state that can be
placed, definitively, in the Greater Occultation. The story is recorded in the
chapter on the miracles of the Hidden Imam in Quṭb al-Dīn Saʿīd b. Hibat
Allāh al-Rāwandī’s16 (d. 573/1178) al-Kharāʾij wa-l-jarāʾiḥ, also known as Kitāb al-
muʿjizāt.17 Like al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣaghīr’s Dalāʾil al-imāma, al-Kharāʾij wa-l-jarāʾiḥ is a
collection of miracles attributed to Muḥammad and the Imams. The title refers
to the supernatural acts that are said to have proceeded from (kharaja) or been
achieved ( jaraḥa; cf. Quran 6:60) by these figures as proof of their stations. Al-
Rāwandī also compiled a collection of tales about the prophets called Qaṣaṣ (or
Qiṣaṣ) al-anbiyāʾ which contains a short chapter on the Hidden Imam, though
in this chapter he does not broach the issue of contact with the Imam other
than to cite stories about the miraculous nature of his birth.18
The story of the youth and the Black Stone is narrated on the authority
of the Shīʿī traditionist and jurist Abū l-Qāsim Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad b. Qūl-
awayh (d. 368/978–9 or 369/979–80), a disciple of al-Kulaynī and a teacher of
al-Mufīd.19 Al-Rāwandī does not mention the final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam
in this work and makes no attempt to reconcile this account with the “lying
impostor” assertion of the tawqīʿ.

15 A contemporary of Abū ʿAlī al-Faḍl b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Faḍl al-Ṭabrisī, Warrām Abī Farrās al-
Ashtarī (d. 605/1208–9) mentions another account of an encounter with the Hidden Imam
in which the Imam miraculously caused a spring of water to appear inside a mosque and
later appeared to an individual on his deathbed. Al-Ashtarī, Tanbīh al-khawāṭir wa-nuzhat
al-nawāẓir al-maʿrūf bi-majmūʿat Warrām, 2:303–5.
16 On him, see Kohlberg, “Rāvandi, Qoṭb-al-Din Saʿid,” EIr (online); Modarressi, An Intro-
duction to Shīʿī Law, 45; Ansari and Schmidtke, “The Shīʿī Reception of Muʿtazilism (II):
Twelver Shīʿīs,” 207.
17 On this work, see Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 215 (no. 260). Anṣārī, Az
Ganjīnahā-yi nusakh-i khaṭṭī, 75, introduces the oldest known manuscript.
18 For a summary of some of these tales, see Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin, 265–9; Pierce,
Twelve Infallible Men, 136–8.
19 On him, see McDermott, “Ebn Qūlawayh, Abuʾl-Qāsem Jaʿfar,” EIr, 8:47; Ansari, L’ imamat,
62–4.
138 chapter 4

In this story, according to Ibn Qūlawayh, after the Black Stone of the Kaʿba
was returned by the Ismāʿīlī Qarāmiṭa in 339/950–1,20 that is, some eight years
after the passing of al-Samurī, the fourth and final emissary, and the start
of the Second or Greater Occultation, no one was capable of setting it back
in its place. Suddenly, Ibn Qūlawayh witnesses a handsome, brown-skinned
youth21 appear, and in a spectacular feat of bravery, miraculously yet quietly
set the Black Stone in the corner of the Kaʿba that houses the Black Stone in
a vivid typological refiguration of the famous account mentioned in the biog-
raphy (sīra) of the Prophet Muḥammad in which, while still a youth in Mecca,
Muḥammad set the same Black Stone in its place.22 Phantom-like, the myste-
rious young man disappears as suddenly as he had appeared. Since Shīʿī lore
maintains that only a Prophet or Imam can set the Black Stone in its place,23
the narrator concludes that the comely, brown-skinned youth was the Hidden
Imam.24

20 Al-Baḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-walī, 201, al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:58, and other later author-
ities give the year as 337/948–9, but older sources state that in 339/951 the Qarāmiṭa
returned the Black Stone they had stolen in 317/930. See, for example, Ibn al-Athīr (d. 630/
1232–3), al-Kāmil fī l-tārīkh, 8:486. The discrepancy between 337 and 339 is perhaps due to
the similarity between the shape of the numbers 7 (sabʿ) and 9 (tisʿ) when handwritten.
The unprecedented theft of the stone by the forces of the Qarmaṭī leader Abū Ṭāhir sent
shock waves throughout the Muslim world and was clearly meant as an apocalyptic act to
usher in the end of the era of the sharīʿa if not the end of the Islamic dispensation alto-
gether, a central Qarmaṭī objective. See Hajnal, “Some Aspects,” 235. For a detailed study of
the theft and return of the Black Stone, see Halm, The Empire of the Mahdi, 250–64, 380–
5. See also Madelung, “The Fatimids,” 21, 37–9; Wensinck and J. Jomier, “Kaʿba,” EI²; Amir
Arjomand, “Islamic Apocalypticism,” 272.
21 According to some Shīʿī hadiths, God preserves the Qāʾim in the form of a young man
throughout his ghayba, and the Qāʾim will appear “as a robust youth in the form/body of
someone who is in his early thirties at the time of his ẓuhūr” (annahu yakūn ʿind ẓuhūrihi
shābban qawiyyan fī ṣūrat ibn nayyif wa-thalāthīn sana). Al-Murtaḍā[/al-Mufīd], al-Fuṣūl
al-mukhtāra, 319. See also al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī, Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, 189; al-Nīlī, Muntakhab
al-anwār al-muḍīʾa, 319–22; al-Shaftī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 2:311–4; Gulpāyigānī, Muntakhab
al-athar, 284–5. For a discussion of the theme of the Imam as a youth, see al-Ṭūsī, Kitāb
al-Ghayba, 112; Amīnī, “Kitāb-i ghaybat-i Shaykh Ṭūsī,” 483; Modarressi, Crisis and Consol-
idation, 95–6. In stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam, the Imam often appears as
a youth iridescent in beauty. See Ghaemmaghami, “Numinous Vision,” esp. 56–8.
22 [Ibn Isḥāq], The Life of Muḥammad (trans. Guillaume), 86; al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 4:217 (no. 3).
23 According to Muḥammad al-Ṣadr, Tārīkh al-ghayba al-kubrā, 121, there are no known
hadiths to support this notion, though he adds that according to tradition, only prophets
(e.g., Abraham, Muḥammad) or Imams (e.g., ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-Ābidīn (d. 95/713),
the fourth Imam) have placed the Black Stone in its place.
24 Al-Rāwandī, al-Kharāʾij wa-l-jarāʾiḥ, 1:475–8 (no. 18). Also cited in al-Irbilī, Kashf al-
ghumma1, 2:999–1000; al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:58–9 (no. 41); al-Bāḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-
walī, 201–3 (no. 85); al-Baḥrānī, Madīnat al-maʿājiz, 8:154–6; al-ʿĀmilī al-Iṣfahānī, Ḍiyāʾ al-
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 139

It merits noting that the Black Stone has a close association with the Qāʾim in
an early Shīʿī hadith. It is said that when the Qāʾim appears, Gabriel will descend
to earth in the form of a bird, become the first creature to pledge allegiance to
the Qāʾim at the Black Stone, guide others unto the Qāʾim, and bear witness to
those who enter the Qāʾim’s presence at the corner of the Kaʿba that houses the
Black Stone in order to pledge their allegiance and loyalty to him, in a mythic
reenactment of the primordial covenant.25 Another hadith states that Gabriel
will appear at the time of the Imam’s appearance (ẓuhūr) in the form of a giant
white bird, an image that perhaps is meant to conjure the image of the giant
cosmic, white rooster that serves as the Prophet’s friend and in many hadiths
stands before the Throne of God.26
Questions exist about the provenance of the story of the youth and the Black
Stone. Of the twenty-five works attributed to Ibn Qūlawayh, only his Kāmil al-
ziyārāt (or Kamāl al-ziyāra), one of the earliest extant works on the rewards

ʿālamīn, 4:105–6; al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 1:346–7; al-Iṣfahānī, Mikyāl al-makārim,
1:166–7 (no. 426); al-Shāhrūdī, al-Imām al-mahdī, 141–2; al-Ṣaffār al-Najafī, Mawsūʿat al-
imām, 3:116–8; ʿĀshūr, Mawsūʿat ahl al-bayt, 19:65; al-Baḥrānī and al-Marzūq, Mawsūʿat
al-qiṣaṣ, 546–8; Muʾassasat al-Imām al-Hādī, al-Bushrā, 64–5. For Persian translations, see
Ardabīlī (attrib.), Ḥadīqat al-shīʿa, 2:970–1; Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 625–7; al-Majlisī,
Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, 338–9; al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 312–4 (no. 19), who records the
account in the chapter of his work on accounts of those who saw the Hidden Imam during
the Lesser Occultation or close to it; al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:674–5 (account no. 53), who
records the account in the chapter of his work on accounts of those who met the Imam
during the Greater Occultation; Nūrī-Ṭabarsī2, Kifāyat al-muwaḥḥidīn, 2:815–6; al-Majlisī,
Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī), 796–8, where the translator mistakenly records the date
of the account as 307/919–20; Tūnihʾī, Mawʿūdnāmih, 271–2. A partial English translation is
found in Dewji, Imame Zaman Hazrat Mehdi (trans. Lakha), 133–4. Nūrī-Ṭabarsī2, Kifāyat
al-muwaḥḥidīn, 2:854, contends that the Qarāmiṭā’s theft of the Black Stone and destruc-
tion of the Kaʿba fulfilled one of the portents of the Imam’s reappearance.
25 Al-Ṣadūq, ʿIlal al-sharāʾiʿ, 2:429–30; al-Ḥillī (d. after 802/1399–1400), Mukhtaṣar baṣāʾir
al-darajāt, 490–1 (no. 585). See also al-Ṣadūq, ʿIlal al-sharāʾiʿ, 2:423–4 (no. 5); al-Ḥillī,
Mukhtaṣar baṣāʾir al-darajāt, 488 (no. 583); al-Majlisī, Rawḍat al-muttaqīn, 4:6; al-Ḥurr al-
ʿĀmilī, Tafṣīl wasāʾil al-Shīʿa, 13:319 (no. 17840). According to a hagiographical account first
mentioned in al-Rāwandī’s al-Kharāʾij wa-l-jarāʾiḥ, green angels descended to earth on the
night of the Hidden Imam’s birth and instructed al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī to protect the infant.
Al-ʿAskarī identified one of the birds as Gabriel. Al-Rāwandī, al-Kharāʾij wa-l-jarāʾiḥ, 1:456.
Also cited in al-Baḥrānī, Madīnat al-maʿājiz, 8:33; al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-shīʿa, 2:67.
26 See Tottoli, “At Cock-Crow”; Omidsalar, “Cock. ii. In Persian Literature and Folklore,” EIr,
5:878–82. It is said that the rooster will place one foot on the Kaʿba and the other on the
city of Jerusalem, i.e., the holiest sites of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and cry out the
beginning of the first verse of Sūrat al-Naḥl: “The amr of God cometh; so seek not to has-
ten it .…” (Quran 16:1). Al-Ṣadūq, Kamāl al-dīn, 608 (no. 18); al-Aḥsāʾī, Kitāb al-Rajʿa, 94.
As mentioned in chapter 1, the amr of God is often defined in Shīʿī sources as the Qāʾim
and/or the Qāʾim’s amr or qiyām.
140 chapter 4

bestowed on those who visit the tombs of the Prophet and the Imams, has
survived.27 The story of the youth and the Black Stone is not mentioned in
this work. Even more importantly, some two centuries separate Ibn Qūlawayh
and al-Rāwandī, yet ulama and historians prior to al-Rāwandī (including Ibn
Qūlawayh’s students, such as al-Mufīd) do not mention, allude or refer to this
account. There are also no references to the mysterious youth and his role in set-
ting the Black Stone in its place, in the extant historical accounts of the return
of the Black Stone. Since al-Rāwandī does not provide a formal isnād (he only
says that he is narrating the account on the authority of Ibn Qūlawayh), it is
not possible to determine his source for the account.
In the same period, a contemporary of al-Rāwandī, Abū Manṣūr Aḥmad al-
Ṭabarsī (d. late sixth/twelfth century; not to be mistaken with his more famous
contemporary, the aforementioned Quran exegete Amīn al-Dīn al-Ṭabrisī)28
claimed in his anti-Sunnī polemical work al-Iḥtijāj ʿalā ahl al-lajāj29 that some
two centuries earlier, al-Mufīd had been in contact with the Hidden Imam.
By way of evidence, he furnished two short letters from the Imam addressed
to al-Mufīd, but without a chain of transmission. In an attempt to prove the
Hidden Imam’s existence to the opponents of the Shīʿa, and to demonstrate
that he directly communicates with some of the Shīʿī ulama, al-Ṭabarsī alleged
that al-Mufīd received these letters from al-nāḥiya al-muqaddasa (“the sacred
region”)30 of the Hidden Imam in the year 410/1019. He thus drew clear parallels

27 McDermott, “Ebn Qūlawayh, Abuʾl-Qāsem Jaʿfar,” EIr, 8:47. On Kāmil al-ziyārāt, see al-
Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 17:255 (no. 139); Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 211
(no. 253); Nakash, “The Visitation of the Shrines,” 155.
28 On him, see Kohlberg, “al-Ṭabarsī (al-Ṭabrisī),” EI², 10:39; Ḥusayn Karīmān, “Ṭabarsī, Abū
Manṣūr Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib,”DMT, 10:472–3. Almost nothing is known about the life
of this scholar and thus Kohlberg’s ambiguity about the correct transliteration of his nisba
is understandable. If he was born in the village of Ṭabris (the Arabicized form of Tafrish)
between Kāshān and Iṣfahān, then his nisba is al-Ṭabrisī. If, however, he was born in the
northern Iranian region of Tabaristan (Tapuria), his nisba would be al-Ṭabarsī. On this
problem, see the first paragraph of Kohlberg, “al-Ṭabrisī (Ṭabarsī), Amīn al-Dīn,”EI², 10:40.
Cf. Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la Typologie,” 113 n. 8. Since he is buried in a shrine near
Bārfurūsh in Tabaristan, it would be safe to presume that the correct vocalization of his
name is, in fact, al-Ṭabarsī. Halm, Shiʿism, 60, gives his date of death as 599/1202, though
he does not provide a source.
29 On this work, see Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 187–8 (no. 187). Kohlberg
points out elsewhere that this work was very popular in the Safavid period, when it
was twice translated into Persian, likely because of its anti-Sunnī and polemical tone,
Kohlberg, “al-Ṭabarsī (al-Ṭabrisī),” EI², 10:39.
30 As pointed out by Kohlberg and Hayes, the enigmatic term al-nāḥiya is used in sources
from the Lesser Occultation as a cypher for the institutions that represented the Hidden
Imam or at times for the threshold or location of the Imam. See Kohlberg, “Taqiyya in Shīʿī
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 141

to the tawqīʿāt furnished by the emissaries and agents of the Imam during the
Lesser Occultation.31 However, al-Ṭabarsī does not identify his sources nor does
he provide an isnād for this or any of the other reports or hadiths he cites (with
the exception of the tafsīr ascribed to al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, discussed in chap-
ter 1). In the introduction to his work, he states that he sees no need to cite
asānīd for the reports and hadiths he records because, in his words, there is
consensus (ijmāʿ) and agreement about their authenticity.32
In one of these letters, al-Mufīd is addressed with the honorific epithet “al-
Shaykh al-Mufīd.” It was likely based on this letter that Zayn al-Dīn Muḥammad
b. ʿAlī b. Shahrāshūb (d. 588/1192; a student of al-Rāwandī, al-Ṭabrisī, and al-
Ṭabarsī, and called “the most illustrious Imami scholar of the 12th century”33)
claimed that the epithet “al-Mufīd” was given to him by the Hidden Imam.34

Theology and Religion,” 348; Hayes, “The Envoys,” 150–2, who notes that whereas al-nāḥiya
is used in sources from the Lesser Occultation, al-nāḥiya al-muqaddasa appears in later
sources.
31 Al-Ṭabarsī, al-Iḥtijāj, 2:495–9; al-Shīrāzī, Kalimat al-imām al-mahdī, 136–50. The two let-
ters were translated into Persian by al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī in the chapter of his Najm-i thāqib
on contact with the Imam during the Greater Occultation. Al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:660–
5 (account no. 50), 2:666–72 (account no. 51). Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī mentions a report cited
by Yūsuf al-Baḥrānī (d. 1186/1772) saying that al-Mufīd received three letters, one of which
has not survived. Al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:670. The theory of the three letters gained pop-
ularity and is alluded to in many biographical entries about al-Mufīd. See, for example,
al-Mufīd, Awāʾil al-maqālāt, pānzdah (of the editorial introduction). Madelung, “Mufīd,
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad,” EI², was the first Western scholar to take notice of the two
letters, though he neglects to point out that they are not cited in any works prior to al-
Ṭabarsī and are almost certainly of later origin.
32 Al-Ṭabarsī, al-Iḥtijāj, 1:14.
33 Amir-Moezzi, “Ebn Šahrāšūb,” EIr, 8:53–4; Modarressi, An Introduction to Shīʿī Law, 45;
Pierce, “Ibn Shahrashub.” Ibn Shahrāshūb’s Manāqib āl Abī Ṭālib originally had a chap-
ter on the Hidden Imam that may have included some accounts of encounters with the
Imam but it has not survived. See Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 251, and
Amir-Moezzi, “Ebn Šahrāšūb,”EIr, 8:53–4, who notes that the section on the Hidden Imam
is missing from every accessible surviving copy, including a manuscript dated 777/1375–6.
However, it is unlikely that this work contained any accounts of meetings with the Imam
from the Greater Occultation (other than perhaps the story of the youth and the Black
Stone, which was likely transmitted to Ibn Shahrāshūb by al-Rāwandī) since none of Ibn
Shahrāshūb’s students (who presumably had access to his complete work) transmit any
such accounts on his authority. A third work of Ibn Shahrāshūb, Mathālib al-nawāṣib (pub-
lished in Baghdad; on manuscripts, see al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 19:76 (no. 409); Amir-Moezzi,
“Ebn Šahrāšūb,” EIr, 8:53–4) is an anti-Sunnī polemic and does not contain any accounts
of encounters with the Hidden Imam.
34 [= wa-laqqabahu bi-l-shaykh al-mufīd ṣāḥibu al-zamān] Ibn Shahrāshūb, Maʿālim al-
ʿulamāʾ (a biblio-biographical lexicon of prominent Shīʿī scholars that combines features
of rijāl and fihrist works), 148. Ibn Shahrāshūb adds that he provides additional informa-
142 chapter 4

This point has been challenged by the prominent twentieth-century “Grand

Ayatollah” Abū l-Qāsim al-Khūʾī (d. 1992).35
Moreover, none of the works written by al-Mufīd, his prolific students (e.g.,
al-Murtaḍā, al-Ṭūsī, al-Najāshī, al-Karājukī, Abū Yaʿlā al-Jaʿfarī), or anyone else
prior to al-Ṭabarsī mentions or alludes to these letters. Later generations of
ulama cite these letters without questioning them; one scholar from the late
nineteenth century even claimed that all of the ulama accept them.36 How-
ever, a number of modern scholars have cast doubts on their veracity. Baḥr
al-ʿUlūm al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (d. 1212/1797), whose numerous stories of encounters
with the Imam circulate (see below), states, ironically, that these letters amount
to “a claim that the Imam can be seen—something which has been summar-
ily rejected during the Greater Occultation.”37 Baḥr al-ʿUlūm al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī is
almost certainly alluding here to the final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam and the

tion about how al-Mufīd received this epithet from the Hidden Imam in his Manāqib āl
Abī Ṭālib. This was repeated in Āl Āqā (d. 1269/1852–3), Tanbīh al-ghāfilīn, 91. Sources from
the Safavid and Qajar periods claim that a poem eulogizing al-Mufīd was left on his grave
by the Hidden Imam. See Shūshtarī, Majālis al-muʾminīn, 477. Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī men-
tions this report as an example of an encounter with the Hidden Imam, al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī,
Jannat al-maʾwā, 73 (account no. 25); al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:673 (account no. 52). Also
cited in al-Ḥalawājī, al-Qiṣaṣ al-bāhira, 243; al-Shīrāzī, Min karāmāt al-awliyāʾ, 260–1. On
Maʿālim al-ʿulamāʾ, see Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 236–7 (no. 326).
35 Al-Khūʾī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 18:220, points out that al-Mufīd was called al-Mufīd by
his contemporaries al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār and the Arab linguist ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā al-Rummānī
(d. 384/994) well before the letters he was said to have received from the Hidden Imam.
Al-Mufīd’s student al-Ṭūsī refers to his teacher as al-Shaykh al-Mufīd. See e.g., al-Ṭūsī, al-
Fihrist, 104, 128, 129, 150, and passim; al-Ṭūsī, al-Amālī, 3 and passim. However, al-Ṭūsī never
suggests that this name was given to al-Mufīd by the Hidden Imam. Some modern-day
scholars continue to cite the letters to support al-Mufīd’s authority and unique station in
the eyes of the Imam. See, for example, Saʿīd, Saqīfat al-ghayba, 249–51.
36 See al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:671. Among the scholars who have accepted them are al-
Waḥīd al-Bihbihānī (d. 1205/1791) (cited in al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:671) and Bihbihānī’s
grandson, Maḥmūd b. Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī (d. 1269/1852–3), who refers to the letters as
praise of al-Mufīd but mistakenly states that the letters were sent by the Imam during the
Lesser Occultation. Āl Āqā, Tanbīh al-ghāfilīn, 89. Contemporary Shīʿī scholars cite the
letters in books about the Hidden Imam and the virtues of the ulama. See for example, al-
Qurashī, Ḥayāt al-Imām al-Mahdī, 75–81, 134; ʿAlī, al-Mahdī l-muntaẓar, 289–94; al-Shīrāzī,
Min Qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamāʾ, 38; Arastu (trans.), al-Nudbah, 101, 113, refers to a statement from one
of the letters in a footnote to his translation of the famous Shīʿī supplication known as duʿāʾ
al-nudba. (The duʿāʾ al-nudba is attributed in some Shīʿī sources to the sixth Imam Jaʿfar
al-Ṣādiq, and in others to the Hidden Imam, from the period of the Lesser Occultation.
See idem, ix–xi. See also Anṣārī, Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī, 667–74.)
37 [= daʿwāhu al-mushāhada al-manfiyya baʿd al-ghayba al-kubrā] Al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Rijāl al-
Sayyid Baḥr al-ʿUlūm, 3:320.
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 143

various hadiths negating the possibility of seeing the Imam. The same assess-
ment about the letters addressed to al-Mufīd is echoed by al-Khūʾī: “It is not
possible to be certain about the authenticity of these tawqīʿāt that are said to
have been sent from the Sacred Precincts [of the Hidden Imam] because al-
Mufīd was born seven or nine years after the [start of the] Greater Occultation
and we do not know how they reached al-Mufīd.”38 Al-Khūʾī’s point about the
year of al-Mufīd’s birth is likewise an allusion to the “lying impostor” passage of
the final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam to the fourth emissary. That is, according
to al-Khūʾī, since al-Mufīd was born and lived after the end of the Lesser Occul-
tation, he could not have been in contact with the Imam, since the final tawqīʿ
prohibits such contact. Among Western scholars, Devin Stewart suggests that
the letters are “forgeries,” adding that they represent “attempts to smooth over
the discontinuity between the period of the Lesser Occultation and that of the
Greater Occultation.”39
These few accounts notwithstanding, stories of encounters with the Imam
during the fifth/eleventh and sixth/twelfth centuries are extremely rare. Ḥasan
Anṣārī postulates that the story of an encounter with the Hidden Imam and al-
Khiḍr in the future site of the mosque of Jamkarān outside Qum may have origi-
nated in this period in a work (that has not survived) by Muḥammad b. al-Fattāl
al-Nīshābūrī (d. 508/1114–5).40 None of the works by any of the other Twelver
Shīʿī scholars I am aware of, who lived in the more than a century that sepa-
rates al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī and al-Rāwandī and Ibn Shahrāshūb and whose writ-
ings include sections or chapters on the Hidden Imam that have survived and
been published broaches the topic of encounters with him during the Greater
Occultation. They include Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s (fl. late fifth/eleventh
century) ʿUyūn al-muʿjizāt,41 al-Sudābādī’s (fl. fifth/eleventh century) al-Muqniʿ

38 Al-Khūʾī, Muʿjam rijāl al-ḥadīth, 18:220. See also al-Kātib, Taṭawwur al-fikr, 346–7.
39 Stewart, “An Eleventh-Century Justification,” 486.
40 See Anṣārī, Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī, 647–54 (“Mūnis al-ḥazīn-i Shaykh Ṣadūq va baḥthī dar-
bārih-yi mīzān-i iṣālat-i ḥikāyat-i masjid-i Jamkarān”). For the story of the encounter with
the Imam and al-Khiḍr at Jamkarān, see al-Ṣaffār al-Najafī, Mawsūʿat al-imām, 3:31–5. The
encounter is said to have taken place in the late fourth/tenth century, but there is no docu-
mentary evidence to support this. On the mosque of Jamkarān and its growing messianic
significance, especially after the Islamic revolution, see Calmard, “Jamkarān,”EIr (online);
Rahimi, “Jamkaran: Embodiment and Messianic Experience in the Making of Digital Pil-
grimage;” Amanat, Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Shiʿism, 227–32, 241, 246; Cook, “Waiting
for the Twelfth Imam,” 135–7, 140–2. See also the introduction of this book.
41 ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, ʿUyūn al-muʿjizāt. On this work, see al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 15:383–5
(no. 2390); Anūshah, “Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb,”DMT, 6:333. ʿUyūn al-muʿjizāt was among
the sources used by Safavid scholars such as al-Majlisī (in compiling Biḥār al-anwār), al-
Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī (in compiling Ithbāt al-hudā), and Hāshim al-Baḥrānī (in compiling Madī-
144 chapter 4

fī l-imāma,42 Mutāqil b. ʿAṭiyya’s (d. 505/1111–2) Muḥāwala ḥawl al-imāma wa-

l-khilāfa (also called Muʾtamar ʿulamāʾ Baghdād fī l-imāma wa-l-khilāfa),43 the
aforementioned Muḥammad b. al-Fattāl al-Nīshābūrī’s Rawḍat al-wāʿiẓīn wa-
baṣīrat al-muttaʿiẓīn,44 Ibn al-Khashshāb al-Baghdādī’s (d. 567/1172) Tārīkh al-
aʾimma wa-wafayātihim,45 and Ibn Ḥamza al-Ṭūsī’s (d. 585/1189–90 or 588/1192–
3) al-Thāqib fī l-manāqib.46 All of these works cite accounts of the Hidden
Imam’s birth, reports of those who claimed to have seen him during the Lesser
Occultation, or tawqīʿāt issued by the Imam to the sufarāʾ, as “proofs” of his
existence. However, these works do not contain any stories of sightings or con-
tact with the Hidden Imam during the period of the Greater Occultation, up
to the date in which each writer lived. Even works produced earlier, such as
Ḥasan Ashʿarī-Qummī’s (d. ca. 378/988–9) Tārīkh-i Qum, which has survived
in the form of a Persian translation from the early ninth/fifteenth century and
contains a brief chapter on the birth and ghayba of the Hidden Imam as well as
hadiths aiming to prove his existence47 do not contain accounts of any physical
sightings of the Hidden Imam during the Greater Occultation. It would be safe
to presume that if such stories existed or were in circulation, they would have
been cited in these apologetic and historical works.

nat al-maʿājiz). In the chapter of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s work on the Hidden Imam, he discusses
the wisdom of the ghayba and records several tawqīʿāt. The latter are accounts of some of
the Lesser Occultation encounters mentioned in earlier works such as Uṣūl al-kāfī and
Kamāl al-dīn. In this section of his work, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb bemoans a group of Shīʿa whom
he labels as being among “the opponents.” These people believe in the Mahdī but have seri-
ous doubts about how anyone could live longer than one hundred years. In response, ʿAbd
al-Wahhāb adduces the traditional proofs found in Kamāl al-dīn about earlier prophets
whose lives were miraculously prolonged by God. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, ʿUyūn al-muʿjizāt, 138–
46.
42 The author may have been a contemporary of al-Ṭūsī. See the biographical introduction
in al-Sudābādī, al-Muqniʿ fī l-imāma, 20–37. He also wrote a book about the proofs of the
Imams, in particular the twelfth Imam (see ibid., 151), but that work has not survived.
43 Ibn ʿAṭiyya, Muʾtamar ʿulamāʾ Baghdād. On this work, see al-Rifāʿī, Muʿjam mā kutiba ʿan
al-rasūl wa-ahl baytihi, 6:323–4 (no. 15868).
44 Al-Nīshābūrī, Rawḍat al-wāʿiẓīn. On this work, see al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 11:305 (no. 1815).
45 Al-Baghdādī, Tārīkh al-aʾimma wa-wafayātihim. The chapter on the Hidden Imam includes
hadiths on Quranic verses said to have been revealed about the Imam in addition to por-
tents concerning the advent of the Qāʾim and the government (dawla) he is to establish.
46 Ibn Ḥamza al-Ṭūsī, al-Thāqib fī l-manāqib. On this work, see al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 5:4.
47 See Ashʿarī-Qummī, Tārīkh-i Qum, 532–5.
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 145

2 The “Invention” of a Tradition

The two individuals who deserve more credit than any other scholar for pop-
ularizing the idea of encountering the Hidden Imam are the adroit Iraqi Shīʿī
scholar ʿAlī Raḍī l-Dīn, known as Ibn Ṭāwūs (d. 664/1266), and his student, Bahāʾ
al-Dīn ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Abī l-Fatḥ al-Irbilī (d. 692/1292–3 or 693/1293–4).
Known as “Ṣāḥib al-karāmāt” (someone to whom, or through whom, God
performs miracles), hagiographical sources often point to Ibn Ṭāwūs’s propen-
sity for asceticism, for having been given the greatest name of God (ism Allāh
al-aʿẓam), and for being in contact with the Hidden Imam.48 In one of his
earliest surviving works, al-Ṭarāʾif fī maʿrifat madhāhib al-ṭawāʾif, a polemical
anti-Sunnī work that appeared under a pseudonym (suggesting that Ibn Ṭāwūs
was practicing taqiyya) and was likely written around 633/1236,49 Ibn Ṭāwūs
furnishes the same arguments and proofs to support the existence of the Hid-
den Imam—and justify the Imam’s ghayba—that are found in earlier apologias
such as al-Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-dīn. In relation to the ghayba, his main argument is
based on the notion of fear: the Imam was forced to enter ghayba under threat
of being killed. Ibn Ṭāwūs refers to the final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam to the
last emissary, but he intentionally—one might say brazenly—omits the sen-
tence declaring anyone claiming to see the Imam “a lying impostor”:

When the matter [of the sifāra (“emissaryhood”)] reached ʿAlī b. Muḥam-
mad al-Samurī, he said that the Mahdī informed him that he [al-Samurī]
would [soon] pass away, revealed the day of his death to him, and instruct-
ed him not to appoint anyone else [as an emissary] because the [time of
the] complete ghayba had arrived, when the believers would be tested,
for such is God’s method carried into effect of old.50

After leaving out the “lying impostor” passage, Ibn Ṭāwūs maintains that “after
(al-Samurī’s death), many Shīʿa and non-Shīʿa met the Mahdī”51 and he [the

48 On Ibn Ṭāwūs, see Kohlberg, “Ebn Ṭāwūs,” EIr, 7:55–8; Yūsufī-Ishkavarī, “Āl-i Ṭāwūs,” DMBI
(online) and the sources mentioned there; Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work,
3–24; Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, 314. On his alleged supernatural abilities,
see Rafīʿī, Imām-i zamān, 133–5, 174–268; Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work,
14.
49 On this work, see Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 57–9 (no. 51); Anṣārī, Az
Ganjīnahā-yi nusakh-i khaṭṭī, 111–2.
50 Ibn Ṭāwūs, al-Ṭarāʾif, 1:184.
51 [= wa-la-qad laqiya al-mahdī khalqun kathīrun baʿda dhālika min shīʿatihi wa-ghayrihim]
146 chapter 4

Imam] furnished proofs (dalāʾil) to establish his identity to these people.52 Who
were these “many Shīʿa and non-Shīʿa” who encountered the Imam after the
death of the fourth emissary? In this work, Ibn Ṭāwūs does not cite a single
account. He then asserts that “even if [the Imam] is not visible today to all of
his Shīʿa, it is not impossible for a group of them to encounter him, benefit from
his words and deeds and conceal [this fact from others].”53
Some years later, in his Kashf al-maḥajja li-thamarat al-muhja, completed in
649/1251–2 and dedicated to his sons Muḥammad and ʿAlī,54 Ibn Ṭāwūs recalls
being approached one day by a fellow believer (whose identity is not revealed)
who was overcome with doubt (shubha) about the ghayba. This believer had
read the various defenses of the Imam’s occultation but remained uncon-
vinced. He lamented to Ibn Ṭāwūs, “Why does [the Imam] not just meet one of
his followers and resolve the conflicts and differences that have arisen among
them on matters of religious doctrine and law?” Rather than answer the ques-
tion directly, Ibn Ṭāwūs responded that God is more powerful than the Imam
in dispelling the source of contention among Muslims and yet has chosen not
to intervene. The same explanation can be applied to the reasons the Imam
does not reveal himself to quell their differences.55 In other words, if the Imam
wished, he could appear to some or all of his followers, but he chooses not to, on
account of a wisdom known to God alone. One would guess from this answer
that Ibn Ṭāwūs was averse to the possibility of seeing the Hidden Imam. How-
ever, Ibn Ṭāwūs then entrusts his son Muḥammad to the Hidden Imam and
instructs him to place the Imam’s needs, at all times, before his own. Ibn Ṭāwūs
mentions that he himself dreamt of the Imam in several places (or shrines).56
In these dreams, the Imam answered his prayers and confirmed and blessed his
family.57 His statement later in the same work that “the path to your Imam is
open (al-ṭarīq maftūḥa ilā imāmika) to those upon whom God wishes to shower

52 For a partial Persian translation of this passage, see Rafīʿī, Imām-i zamān, 131–2.
53 Ibn Ṭāwūs, al-Ṭarāʾif, 1:184–5. Persian translation: ʿAlīpūr, Jilvahhāy-i pinhānī-i imām-i ʿaṣr,
128.
54 On Kashf al-maḥajja li-thamarat al-muhja, see Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at
Work, 41–2 (no. 24). In the Safavid period, the celebrated scholar al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī
abridged and commented on this work in a book entitled Tashīl al-sabīl bi-l-ḥujja fī
intikhāb kashf al-maḥajja li-thamarat al-muhja.
55 Ibn Ṭāwūs, Kashf al-maḥajja, 150–1.
56 [= raʾaynāhu fī ʿiddat maqāmāt fī manāmāt]
57 Ibn Ṭāwūs, Kashf al-maḥajja, 151; al-Kāshānī, Tashīl al-sabīl, 56. Cf. al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jan-
nat al-maʾwā, 130, who reproduces the passage from Kashf al-maḥajja, though in his ver-
sion the word munājāt (prayers; while praying) appears in place of manāmāt (dreams;
while dreaming).
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 147

His loving kindness or treat favorably”58 should likely be understood in the con-
text of receiving guidance and confirmation from the Imam in dreams.
In two other works, Ibn Ṭāwūs speaks of corporeal sightings of the Imam in a
wakeful state, but in each case, the person who has seen the Imam is not named.
In his Faraj al-mahmūm fī maʿrifat al-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām min ʿilm al-nujūm, com-
pleted in 650/1252,59 Ibn Ṭāwūs speaks of an anonymous contemporary who
saw the Hidden Imam while awake, inside the shrine of the seventh Imam in
Iraq:

In my own time, I have met people who told me that they have seen the
Mahdī. Some of them carried brief messages and letters from him in reply
to requests that were made to him. One of these individuals is a person
whose words I know to be true, yet he would not allow me to disclose his
name. He told me that he had asked God to grant him the favor of see-
ing the Mahdī. He then dreamt that he would see [the Imam] at a time
that he specified ( fa-raʾā fī manāmihi annahu shāhiduhu fī waqtin ashāra
ilayhi). He told me that when the specified time arrived, he was visiting
the shrine of Imam Mūsā al-Kāẓim. He heard a voice that he had heard
before, when visiting the shrine of Imam al-Jawād.60 He refrained from
troubling the man [whose voice he had heard], entered the shrine, and
stood at the feet of our master Imam al-Kāẓim. He came out of the shrine
and saw the person whom he believed to be the Mahdī with a compan-
ion by his side. He saw him [that is, Imam Mahdī], but out of respect,
refrained from saying a word while he was in [the Mahdī’s] presence (wa-
shāhadahu wa-lam yukhāṭibhu fī shayʾ li-wujūb al-taʾdīb bayna yadayhi).61

58 Ibn Ṭāwūs, Kashf al-maḥajja, 154; al-Kāshānī, Tashīl al-sabīl, 57; al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat
al-maʾwā, 131. Persian translation: Rafīʿī, Imām-i zamān, 131.
59 On this work, see Matar, “The Faraj al-Mahmūm of Ibn Ṭāwūs”; Matar, “Dreams and Dream
Interpretation”; Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 10, 32–3 (no. 10).
60 The shrines of Mūsā al-Kāẓim and his grandson Muḥammad al-Taqī al-Jawād (d. 218/834),
the seventh and ninth Imams respectively, are adjacent to one another in the town of
Kāẓimayn (originally called al-Mashhad al-Kāẓimī) in Iraq. See Streck and Dixon, “Kāẓi-
mayn,”EI², 4:854–6. Streck and Dixon mention that the earliest evidence of pilgrimages to
these shrines dates from the seventh/thirteenth century, citing the Arab biographer Ibn
Khallikān’s (d. 681/1282) Wafayāt [al-aʿyān wa-anbāʾ al-zamān], completed in 672/1274. See
Fück, “Ibn Khallikān,” EI², 3:833. Ibn Ṭāwūs’s account was written about twenty-two years
before Ibn Khallikān’s work.
61 A manuscript of Faraj al-mahmūm fī maʿrifat al-ḥalāl wa-l-ḥarām min ʿilm al-nujūm is
reproduced in appendix one of Matar’s dissertation, “The Faraj al-Mahmūm of Ibn Ṭāwūs.”
This passage is found in fol. no. 175 of this appendix. The passage is repeated in al-Majlisī,
Biḥār al-anwār, 52:53. For a Persian translation, see al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:528 (no. 13);
148 chapter 4

Ibn Ṭāwūs proceeds to mention two other individuals, whom he again does
not name but whom he describes as being trustworthy and sincere, the first
of whom contacted the Hidden Imam and asked for permission to accompany
and serve the Imam during his ghayba, and the second of whom wrote a let-
ter to the Imam comprising questions on a number of unspecified weighty
matters, placed the letter in the underground cellar (sirdāb) in Samarra, and
witnessed one of the servants of the Imam appear at around midnight and col-
lect the letter.62
Additionally, in his al-Muwāsaʿa wa-l-muḍāyaqa (also known as Risāla fī l-
muḍāyaqa fī fawāt al-ṣalā), completed on 18 Rabīʿ 661/1 March 1263,63 Ibn Ṭāwūs
states: “I heard from someone, whose name I will not mention,64 that he con-
tacted our master [the Hidden Imam], but if I were to describe this matter in
detail, it would fill the pages of several books, proving, from beginning to end,
that (our master) exists, is alive, and is performing miracles.”65

Rafīʿī, Imām-i zamān, 132. For an earlier English translation, see Matar, “The Faraj al-
Mahmūm of Ibn Ṭāwūs,” 346–7.
62 Matar, “The Faraj al-Mahmūm of Ibn Ṭāwūs,” fol. 176 of the appendix (original Arabic
text); idem, 349–50 (English translation). The sirdāb (Persian pronunciation: sardāb) is
the subterranean water well in Samarra into which, according to some reports, the Hid-
den Imam initially hid at the start of the ghayba. See Donaldson, The Shiʾite Religion,
233; Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, 161–2. By the late fifth/eleventh century, it
was a place of pilgrimage for the Shīʿa. See Amir Arjomand, “Islamic Apocalypticism,”
271. The Moroccan explorer Ibn Baṭūṭa (d. 779/1368–9) recounts that he observed Shīʿa
in Samarra waiting for the Mahdī to emerge from a well (almost certainly a reference to
the sirdāb). The believers also kept a horse tied nearby, ready for the Imam to use as soon
as he appeared. See Shamīsā, Farhang-i talmīḥāt, 566; cf. Ourghi, Schiitischer Messianis-
mus, 257–8; Bashir, Fazlallah Astarabadi and the Hurufis, 13; García-Arenal, Messianism
and Puritanical Reform (trans. Beagles), 341; Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs,
302. For a physical description of the sirdāb, see Ṣāḥibī, “Bāb-i ghaybat dar Sāmarā.” A
shrine with a turquoise dome has been built over the sirdāb. It is adjacent to the shrines
of Imam al-Hādī (d. 254/868) and Imam al-ʿAskarī. All three shrines are important sites of
pilgrimage and constitute part of the “sublime thresholds” (al-ʿatabāt al-ʿāliyāt) [i.e., the
Shīʿī shrine cities of Najaf, Karbala, Kāẓimayn, and Samarra]. In anti-Shīʿī polemical works
written by Sunnī scholars, the Shīʿī belief that the Hidden Imam is concealed in the sirdāb
is often a subject of ridicule and has occasioned sharp ripostes from Shīʿī writers (see the
comments by al-Irbilī below). See, e.g., al-Ghurayfī, al-Imām al-muntaẓar, 5:426; Shahīdī,
Ẓuhūr-i ḥaḍrat-i Mahdī, 167–71.
63 Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 53. Cf. Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la
Typologie,” 129, who gives the date as 641/1243.
64 It is commonly understood that Ibn Ṭāwūs is speaking about himself. Javādī (ed.), “Ibn
Ṭāwūs, Sayyid Raḍī al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Mūsā,” DMT, 1:345, writes that, “it has been mentioned
that (Ibn Ṭāwūs) met the Hidden Imam.”
65 This passage is quoted in al-Astarābādī (d. 1033/1623–4 or 1036/1626–7), al-Fawāʾid al-
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 149

It is likely that Ibn Ṭāwūs is the believer in both of the above accounts. This
may have been what was understood by his interlocutors and readers. Perhaps
for political reasons, or perhaps in an attempt to be seen as being faithful to the
final tawqīʿ of the Imam—for surely the “lying impostor” warning of the final
tawqīʿ was known to other Shīʿī ulama at his time—Ibn Ṭāwūs chose to relate
and obfuscate the encounters in the third person.
In his Jamāl al-usbūʿ bi-kamāl al-ʿamal al-mashrūʿ, while commenting on
a supplication that alludes to the coming of other Imams, who will appear
from among the descendants of the Qāʾim, Ibn Ṭāwūs mentions an intriguing
discovery: “I found a report with a continuous chain of transmission (riwāya
muttaṣilat al-isnād) stating that the Mahdī has pious sons ruling over a num-
ber of islands in the sea.”66 This report appears to be the story of the archipelago
of five islands ruled by the Hidden Imam and his sons.67
Elsewhere, in his Muhaj al-daʿawāt wa-manhaj al-ʿibādāt—one of his last
works, written in 662/1263–4—Ibn Ṭāwūs claims that he himself heard the
voice of the Hidden Imam.68 He reports that on 13 Dhū l-Qaʿda 638/2 June 1241,
while praying in the underground cellar (sirdāb) in Samarra, he heard the Imam
recite a short prayer sotto voce.69 It is worth noting that he explicitly avoids
mentioning that he saw the Imam here, saying that he merely heard the Imam’s
voice. Perhaps the final tawqīʿ of the Imam was at the forefront of his mind.
After all, the “lying impostor” passage of the final tawqīʿ declares that anyone
who claims to have seen the Imam is a liar, but it does not specify the same
about those who claim to hear the Imam’s voice.70

madaniyya, 91; For a Persian translation, see al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:527 (account no. 12).
In the margins of pages 30–40 of a 1321/1904 MS of al-Astarābādī’s al-Fawāʾid al-madaniyya,
Amir-Moezzi (“Contribution à la Typologie,” 129–30) read an account of Ibn Ṭāwūs’s com-
panion’s dream of the Hidden Imam, cited by Astarābādī from Ibn Ṭāwūs’s al-Muwāsaʿa
wa-l-muḍāyaqa. Amir-Moezzi adds that the encounter took place “un état de contempla-
tion profonde” and that the Hidden Imam “celui-ci lui révéla de hautes connaissances
secrètes qui le plongèrent dans un état extatique.” The published 1424/2003 edition of al-
Fawāʾid al-madaniyya does not contain this account.
66 Ibn Ṭāwūs, Jamāl al-usbūʿ, 310. On this work, see Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at
Work, 40–1 (no. 22).
67 Al-Nūrī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 32, interprets Ibn Ṭāwūs’s statement as a “definite” (maqṭūʿ) ref-
erence to the story of the five islands. For the story, see Najm-i thāqib, 2:462–72 (no. 2).
68 On Muhaj al-daʿawāt, see Daryābīgī, “Muhaj al-daʿawāt wa-manhaj al-ʿibādāt,”DMT, 15:550.
69 Ibn Ṭāwūs, Muhaj al-daʿawāt, 296. Also cited in al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:61 (no. 50);
al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 127–9 (no. 55); al-Gulpāyigānī, Muntakhab al-athar,
417 (no. 6). Persian translation: al-Majlisī, Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, 339; Tunkābunī, Qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamāʾ,
380. On Muhaj al-daʿawāt, see Daryābīgī, “Muhaj al-daʿawāt wa-manhaj al-ʿibādāt,” DMT,
15:550.
70 Another collection of prayers attributed to Ibn Ṭāwūs which has not survived is in his
150 chapter 4

Until the time of Ibn Ṭāwūs, eminent Shīʿī ulama had only spoken of the pos-
sibility of seeing the Imam during the Greater Occultation. With Ibn Ṭāwūs,
encountering the Imam became possible and entered the realm of actuality.
Yet, although Ibn Ṭāwūs himself claimed to have seen the Imam in dreams (like
al-Ṣadūq), he is careful to never explicitly say that he saw the Imam while awake
or in person. Here, comments by some Western scholars71 and Shīʿī ulama72
need to be modulated; the earliest work to feature a story of Ibn Ṭāwūs encoun-
tering the Hidden Imam while awake was written more than a century after his
death.73
It is worth speculating as to why Ibn Ṭāwūs was so keen to emphasize that
many have met the Hidden Imam. At a time of great turmoil, in face of the cat-
aclysm of the Mongol invasion and the imminent fall of the Abbasid Empire,
Ibn Ṭāwūs believed, as did many of his contemporaries, that the end times were
at hand. He interpreted a hadith attributed to al-Ṣādiq to mean that after the
Abbasid Empire falls, a just and honest person from the descendants of the ahl
al-bayt would lead the Muslim community and herald the coming of the Qāʾim.
Then, one night (12 Rabīʿ 662/13 January 1264), “the thought occurred to [him]
and [he] immediately knew”74 that the one whose appearance al-Ṣādiq had
heralded was none other than Ibn Ṭāwūs himself, because he was descended
from both Imams al-Ḥasan (d. 50/670) and al-Ḥusayn (d. 61/680) and because
the Mongol ruler had appointed him the chief (naqīb) of the ʿAlids, the titular

Kitāb ighāthat al-dāʿī wa-iʿānat al-sāʿī, which is said to have contained a number of prayers
ascribed to the Hidden Imam. See Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 35–6.
In his earliest work, Miṣbāḥ al-zāʾir wa-janāḥ al-musāfir, Ibn Ṭāwūs included a visitation
prayer (ziyāra) for the Hidden Imam with the words, “O God! Show us the blessed face of
your Friend (wajh waliyyika al-maymūn) while we are alive and after [our] death.” Cited
in al-Mashhadī (d. 610/1213–4), al-Mazār al-kabīr, 658; al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 53:95; al-
Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 2:299. On Miṣbāḥ al-zāʾir, which also contains a prayer of
visitation for the resting places of the sufarāʾ, see al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 21:107 (no. 4155);
Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 46–8.
71 E.g., Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, 94, states that Ibn Ṭāwūs “claimed to have met
the Hidden Imam,” but he does not specify that this encounter took place in a dream. Cf.
Matar, “The Faraj al-Mahmūm of Ibn Ṭāwūs,” 28, who says that Ibn Ṭāwūs saw the Hidden
Imam in a dream during a journey to the shrine of ʿAlī in Najaf in 641/1263. Matar refer-
ences Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, 94, but Momen does not mention that the
encounter took place in a dream, nor does he add that it occurred during a journey to the
shrine of ʿAlī.
72 E.g., al-Mūsawī, al-Liqāʾ al-mahdawī, 141, states that no other scholar has met the Hidden
Imam as often as Ibn Ṭāwūs.
73 See al-Nīlī, al-Sulṭān al-mufarrij, 57–61 (no. 10) (on this work, see below). This account was
subsequently cited by al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:75–7, and other scholars after him.
74 [= ghalaba ẓannī wa-ʿaraftu]
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 151

head of the Shīʿa of Baghdad.75 It is thus significant to note that Ibn Ṭāwūs hints
that he may live to see the days of the Imam’s complete and consummate man-
ifestation.76 He writes that “these, God willing, are the days of the appearance
of those suns [that is, the rajʿa of the Prophet and the Imams], a time when
all pain and suffering will end.”77 The purpose of emphasizing that “many Shīʿa
and non-Shīʿa” had encountered the Imam may have been to support his belief
that the end of the Imam’s ghayba was imminent.
But the ghayba of course did not end. Still, Ibn Ṭāwūs’s influence on future
scholars who wrote about the issue of encounters with the Imam is evident,
beginning with his student, the prominent Iraqi traditionist, jurist, and poet
Bahāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Abī l-Fatḥ al-Irbilī (d. 692/1292–3 or 693/1293–4).78
Al-Irbilī’s most famous work, Kashf al-ghumma fī maʿrifat al-aʾimma (com-
pleted in 682/1283–4), is a biography of the Prophet Muḥammad, Fāṭima and
the twelve Imams.79 The final chapter of this work includes several accounts
of sightings of and contact with the Hidden Imam during the Lesser Occulta-
tion. Al-Irbilī takes great exception to Sunnīs who claim that the Shīʿa believe
the Hidden Imam is hiding in an underground chamber (sirdāb) in Samarra.
He maintains that the Shīʿa have never claimed that the Hidden Imam is in
the sirdāb permanently but rather believe that “he comes and goes and trav-
els around the earth, [entering peoples’] homes and tents, accompanied by
[his] servants (khadam), entourage (ḥasham), camels, horses, and so forth.”80
In addition, and more significantly for our purposes, al-Irbilī records “two sto-

75 See Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 12; Halm, Shiʿism, 63.
76 [= ayyām ẓuhūrihi al-kāmil]
77 [= fa-hādhā awān ẓuhūr tilka al-shumūs wa-zawāl al-ḍurr wa-l-buʾs] Ibn Ṭāwūs, Kashf al-
maḥajja, 154.
78 On al-Irbilī, see Qurbānī-Zarrīn, “Bahāʾ al-Dīn Irbilī,” DJI (online); Javādī (ed.), “Irbilī,”
DMT, 2:54–5. Algar, “Imam Musa al-Kazim and Sufi Tradition,” 5, mistakenly identifies al-
Irbilī as a Sunnī, perhaps because he transmitted hadiths from Sunnī sources in his Kashf
al-ghumma, including, most prominently, from the Syrian Shāfiʿī jurist Abū ʿAbdallāh
Muḥammad al-Ganjī al-Shāfiʿī (d. 658/1260), a Sunnī scholar who sympathized strongly
with ʿAlī, as demonstrated in his Kifāyat al-ṭālib fī manāqib ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, and who
supported the Shīʿī belief that the Hidden Imam was the Mahdī, as can be seen in his
oft-published and oft-cited (in Shīʿī apologetic literature) Kitāb al-bayān fī akhbār ṣāḥib al-
zamān, in which he cites Sunnī hadiths to prove that the Mahdī was the twelfth Imam. On
these works, see Madelung, “al-Mahdī,” EI², 5:1236; Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar
at Work, 218 (no. 268).
79 See al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 18:47–8 (no. 619), who gives the title as Kashf al-ghumma ʿan
maʿrifat aḥwāl al-aʾimma wa-ahl bayt al-ʿiṣma. A popular work, Kashf al-ghumma was
translated into Persian in the Safavid period; both the original Arabic text and the Per-
sian translation have been published numerous times.
80 Al-Irbilī, Kashf al-ghumma1, 2:991.
152 chapter 4

ries of encounters with the Imam that occurred near his own time,”81 which
he heard from “a group of trustworthy brethren”:82 (1) the story of a certain
Ismāʿīl b. al-Ḥasan al-Hirqilī from al-Ḥilla which appears to have been trans-
mitted to him by Ibn Ṭāwūs, who features prominently in the story;83 and (2)
the account of the father of a certain al-Bāqī b. ʿAṭwa al-ʿAlawī al-Ḥusaynī.84 Al-
Irbilī appears to have heard the latter directly from al-Bāqī, then confirmed its
veracity with others. In both accounts, a mysterious stranger heals a presum-
ably incurable disease, vanishes, and is believed, after he disappears, to have
been the Hidden Imam. Upon recounting these two stories, al-Irbilī adds that
he knows of many accounts of Shīʿa who lost their way en route to Mecca, were
saved from certain death by the Hidden Imam, and returned to their home
or caravan. He then says that he does not wish to prolong the issue; other-
wise, he would mention some of these accounts. Instead, the two accounts
that occurred close to his own time are deemed sufficient. Thus he suggests
that the stories he has in mind of believers who were saved en route to Mecca
are from the Lesser Occultation.85 The third and only other Greater Occulta-
tion account that al-Irbilī cites is the aforementioned story of the youth and
the Black Stone.86
Unlike his teacher Ibn Ṭāwūs, who misrepresented the final tawqīʿ of the
Imam, al-Irbilī attempts to reconcile the final tawqīʿ with the position that we
cannot be certain as to whether it is possible or not to see the Imam during the
Greater Occultation:

81 [= qiṣṣatayn qaruba ʿahduhumā min zamānī]

82 [= jamāʿa min thiqāt ikhwānī]
83 Al-Irbilī, Kashf al-ghumma1, 2:991–4; al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:61–3 (no. 51); al-Baḥrānī,
Bahjat al-naẓar, 199–202; al-Shaftī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 1:396–400; al-Badrī, Gharāʾib al-akh-
bār, 66–9. For a Persian translation or summary, see Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 629–
33; al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 478–83; al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:485–91 (no. 5);
Nūrī-Ṭabarsī2, Kifāyat al-muwaḥḥidīn, 2:819; al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 2:5–8 (no. 2);
Jalālī-ʿAzīziyān, Nigāh-i Sabz, 85–100; Bābāʾī, Dāstānhā va karāmāt-i khāndanī, 138–42.
For an English translation, see Dewji, Imame Zaman Hazrat Mehdi (trans. Lakha), 144–
7. The story is also referred to in Kohlberg, “Authoritative Scripture,” 309 n. 75; Kohlberg,
A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work, 8 (no. 45).
84 Al-Irbilī, Kashf al-ghumma1, 2:994–5; al-Baḥrānī, Bahjat al-naẓar, 202; al-Baḥrānī, Ḥilyat
al-abrār, 6:507; al-Shaftī, Kitāb al-Ghayba, 1:402–3; al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 2:5
(no. 1). Persian translation: al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 484.
85 Al-Irbilī, Kashf al-ghumma1, 2:995. See the partial Persian translation in Sabzavārī, Kifāyat
al-muhtadī, 634. It is also cited in al-Baḥrānī, Bahjat al-naẓar, 198–9, and in Kawrānī, Ḥawl
ruʾyat al-mahdī l-muntaẓar, 49–50.
86 Al-Irbilī, Kashf al-ghumma1, 2:999–1000. He transmits the account on the authority of al-
Rāwandī.
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 153

As I see it, if someone does see [the Imam], he knows not to claim to have
seen him or encountered him [publicly], for anyone who claims [to have
seen him] is a liar. In this way, there is no contradiction [between the final
tawqīʿ and the stories of those who have seen the Imam during the Greater
Occultation], but God knows best.87

In other words, it is perfectly acceptable if someone sees the Imam, as long as

they do not disclose to others that that they have seen him. This position was
advanced in a more subtle manner in the works of al-Murtaḍā and al-Ṭūsī. In
fact, al-Irbilī cites the position of al-Murtaḍā and al-Ṭūsī, that is, that each per-
son can only know and speak about his own self, verbatim, in order justify his
inclusion of stories of encounters from the Greater Occultation.88 However, he
makes no attempt to resolve the tension between the solution that he advances
and the two stories he mentions of individuals who were met and healed by the
Imam and who did tell others about their experiences.
A contemporary of both Ibn Ṭāwūs and al-Irbilī, Kamāl al-Dīn Maytham al-
Baḥrānī (d. after 681/1280) was an associate of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274),
a teacher of ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī, and the author of an important commentary on
the Nahj al-balāgha.89 He is credited with having led the Shīʿī renaissance in
Bahrain in the late seventh/thirteenth century. Al-Baḥrānī stipulates:

We reject the notion that the Hidden Imam cannot appear to his intimate
friends (awliyāʾihi). He does appear to them and they take legal rulings
(aḥkām) from him. In fact, legal rulings, answers to [legal and theologi-

87 [= walladhī arāhu annahu in kāna yarāhu aḥadun fa-qad ʿulima minhum annahum lā
yaddaʿūna ruʾyatahu wa-mushāhadatahu wa-inna alladhī yaddaʿīhā kadhdhābun fa-lā
munāqaḍa idhan wa-llāhu aʿlam] Al-Irbilī, Kashf al-ghumma2, 3:347. The text of al-Irbilī,
Kashf al-ghumma1, 2:1031, is defective, as it is missing the conjunction in in the protasis in
kāna yarāhu aḥad.
88 Al-Irbilī, Kashf al-ghumma1, 2:1034. This reason was repeated by other scholars who men-
tion accounts encounters during the Greater Occultation, e.g., al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār,
51:196; al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 150–1. It is also mentioned in al-Ṭabrisī, Iʿlām
al-warā, 2:303.
89 On him, see Mavani, “Doctrine of Imamate,” 221–45, esp. ch. 6; Oraibi, “Shīʿī Renaissance”;
Oraibi, “Rationalism in the School of Bahrain,” 331–43; Corbin, History, 320–1; Lawson,
“Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy,” 128. Nasr, “Shiʿism and Sufism,” 238, refers to al-Baḥrānī’s
famous commentary on the Nahj al-balāgha. Note that Kamāl al-Dīn Maytham al-Baḥrānī
should not be mistaken for his teacher, ʿAlī. b. Sulaymān Kamāl al-Dīn (or Jamāl al-Dīn)
Baḥrānī (fl. late seventh/thirteenth century), one of the scholars often credited with bridg-
ing the divide between tashayyuʿ and taṣawwuf in the period following the Mongol inva-
sion. On the latter, see Madelung, “Baḥrānī, Jamāl al-Dīn (also Kamāl al-Dīn),” EIr, 3:529.
154 chapter 4

cal] questions (masāʾil), and other things have come to them from him in
the form of prayers and letters as is well known among the Twelver Shīʿa.90

Al-Baḥrānī does not provide any examples to support this statement. He may
be alluding to the aforementioned letters to al-Mufīd; however, these letters do
not contain legal rulings on behalf of the Imam. As a sign of how controversial
the question remained, with his next breath, al-Baḥrānī backtracks and con-
cedes that that the Imam may in fact not appear to any of his intimate friends
(awliyāʾ), even if they may be worthy of the honor of meeting the Imam, may
love him deeply, or may be in urgent need of his help. However, al-Baḥrānī con-
tends that if the Imam chooses not to appear to anyone, it is due to one of two
reasons. First, no matter how virtuous a person may be, he is inclined to achieve
fame and acquire social rank and status ( jāh). If the Imam appears to someone
who might, for instance, be poor, that person might boast about his encounter
with the Imam to others and may not be able to resist divulging this secret to
people close to him like his brother, son, or wife. The secret would inevitably
circulate and result in social disorder and corruption ( fasād). Second, in order
for the Hidden Imam to prove his identity, he must perform miracles (karā-
māt) in the presence of his closest friends. Should his friends entertain doubts
about these miracles, they would be forced to seek the help of others to deter-
mine their veracity. And if the enemies of the Imam are among the people from
whom they seek help, they would betray the Imam to his enemies.91
It merits noting in this connection that although al-Irbilī and al-Baḥrānī
leave open the possibility of seeing the Imam during the Greater Occultation,
their more famous student, the celebrated scholar Ḥasan b. Yūsuf b. ʿAlī b.
Muṭahhar, known as ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325)—perhaps the most impor-
tant figure in the development of Shīʿī fiqh—adopted the position of the early
traditionists.92 Although later hagiographical sources, written after the tradi-
tion of encountering the Imam had become solidified, claim that al-Ḥillī twice
encountered the Hidden Imam, he himself maintained in Nahj al-mustarshidīn
fī uṣūl al-dīn that “The (Hidden) Imam has concealed himself for a reason
known only to God or because he fears for his life, from both his enemies and

90 Al-Baḥrānī, al-Najā fī l-qiyāma, 50–1. On this work, see al-Oraibi, “Shīʿī Renaissance,” 54;
Mavani, “Doctrine of Imamate,” 227.
91 Oraibi, “Shīʿī Renaissance” 157. I have slightly modified Oraibi’s summary after consulting
the original language text in al-Baḥrānī, al-Najā fī l-qiyāma, 51.
92 On him, see Jafri, “al-Ḥillī (1),” EI², 3:390; Schmidtke, “Ḥelli, Ḥasan b. Yusof b. Moṭahhar,”
EIr, 12:164–9.
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 155

his friends. He thus does not appear to anyone, publicly or privately.”93 More-
over, al-Ḥillī chose not to address the issue of encountering the Imam in any
form in his reason-based defense of the imamate, Minhāj al-karāma fī maʿrifat
al-imāma,94 or in the chapter on the imamate of another apologetic work,
Nahj al-ḥaqq wa-kashf al-ṣidq, or in the section of his popular theological work
and highly influential summary of Shīʿī beliefs and doctrines.95 This summary
has attracted scholarly attention (in the form of over twenty commentaries)
as a concise presentation of Shīʿī doctrines, and superseded every other Shīʿī
creed in modern times.96 Al-Miqdād b. ʿAbdallāh al-Suyūrī al-Ḥillī (d. 826/1423),
known as al-Fāḍil al-Miqdād, also avoids the issue of contact with the Imam in
his commentary on al-Ḥillī’s creed, though al-Fāḍil al-Miqdād maintains that
all of the Imams performed miracles; on this he refers readers to al-Rāwandī’s
al-Kharāʾij wa-l-jarāʾiḥ.97
Only a small number of stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam have
come to light from the eight/fourteenth or ninth/fifteenth centuries.98 The
period between the Mongol invasion and conquest of Persia and Iraq and the
establishment of the Safavid dynasty witnessed the growth of Shīʿī Sufi orders

93 [= fa-lā yaẓhar ʿāmman wa-lā khāṣṣan] This passage from al-Ḥillī’s Nahj al-mustarshidīn
is available in al-Miqdād al-Ḥillī’s commentary, Irshād al-ṭālibīn, 377. Cooper provides a
slightly different translation: “He does not appear in public or privately because of fear
for his life from his enemies, and of fear for his friends.” See al-Ḥillī, “ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī on
Imamate and Ijithād,” 242.
94 On this work and Ibn Taymiyya’s (d. 728/1328) famous, vehement response to it, see
Michot, “Ibn Taymiyya’s Critique of Shīʿī Imāmology.”
95 Al-Ḥillī, al-Bâbuʾl-Ḥâdî ʿAshar (trans. Miller), 78 [for a revised translation of his creed, see
Watt, Islamic Creeds, 103–4].
96 See Schmidtke, “Ḥelli, Ḥasan b. Yusof b. Moṭahhar,” EIr, 12:164–9; Firouzi and Brown, “al-
Bāb al-Ḥādīʿashar,” EIO; Jafri, “al-Ḥillī (1),” EI², 3:390.
97 See al-Ḥillī, al-Bâbuʾl-Ḥâdî ʿAshar (trans. Miller), 80–1. On al-Miqdād al-Ḥillī, a well-known
scholar and jurist and one of the most prominent students of al-Shahīd al-Awwal, see
McAuliffe, “Legal Exegesis,” 69–71 (see the section titled “al-Miqdād al-Ḥillī”); Dihkhudā,
Lughatnāmih, s.v. “Fāḍil-i Miqdād”; Modarressi, An Introduction to Shīʿī Law, 49; Karajī,
“Fāḍil-i Miqdād.”
98 For example, an account is recorded in a tile at the shrine of the footprint (qadamgāh)
of Imam ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib near Kashan, which dates to 711/1311–2. The account describes
an unnamed believer who sees Imam ʿAlī in a dream. ʿAlī proceeds to lead him into a
tent where he encounters an ineffably beautiful, comely, and radiant youth ( javānī dar
ghāyat-i ḥusn va jamāl va bahāʾ). The believer soon learns that this youth is none other
than the Hidden Imam, “the lord of the [final] age.” A photograph of the tile is published in
Komaroff and Carboni (eds.), The Legacy of Genghis Khan, Courtly Art and Culture in West-
ern Asia, 1256–1353, 58. Referred to in Amanat, Apocalyptic Islam and Iranian Shiʿism, viii;
Allan, The Art and Architecture of Twelver Shiʿism: Iraq, Iran and the Indian Sub-Continent,
81; Ghaemmaghami, “Numinous Vision, Messianic Encounters,” 63.
156 chapter 4

(such as the Marʿashī), the founding of Shīʿī millenarian movements, and

the rise of claimants to messianic authority (such as Faḍl Allāh Astarābādī
(d. 796/1394), Muḥammad b. Falāḥ Mushaʿshaʿ (d. ca. 866/1462), and Muḥam-
mad Nūrbaksh (d. 869/1464)).99 It is possible that the few stories of encounters
with the Hidden Imam that exist from this period, circulated, in part, to refute
some of these competing claims to authority. The only collection of stories of
encounters with the Hidden Imam of which I am aware, from the eight/four-
teenth or ninth/fifteenth century, is the one compiled by the Iraqi scholar
Bahāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Nīlī al-Najafī (fl. late eighth/fourteenth to
early ninth/ fifteenth century; d. after 803/1400–1). This collection is entitled al-
Sulṭān al-mufarrij ʿan ahl al-īmān ( fī-man raʾā ṣāḥib al-zamān) [The sovereign
who delivers the faithful from difficulties (concerning those who have seen the
lord of the [final] age)]. Al-Nīlī was a student of Fakhr al-Muḥaqqiqīn al-Ḥillī
(d. 771/1369–70; son of the aforementioned al-ʿAllamā al-Ḥillī).100 Al-Sulṭān al-
mufarrij has not survived101 but was reassembled and published in 1426/2005–6
from the stories that have been quoted from it in al-Majlisī’s Biḥār al-anwār and
al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī’s Jannat al-maʾwā. The work is mostly a compilation of sto-
ries of encounters with the Imam from the Lesser Occultation, but the first six
accounts are stories the author heard from his contemporaries and thus date
from the period of the Greater Occultation. Each of these short accounts con-
tains the record of a healing miracle performed by the Imam. For example,
account number six tells the story of a Shīʿī who tussled with a rival Sunnī. Just
when it seemed the Shīʿī was about to lose, a stranger (who turned out to be
the Hidden Imam) appeared, killed the rival Sunnī, and miraculously healed a
wound suffered by the Shīʿī during the fight.102
Al-Nīlī also devoted a chapter of a different work which has survived, his
Muntakhab al-anwār al-muḍīʾa ( fī dhikr al-qāʾim al-ḥujja ʿalayhi al-salām), to

99 See Arjomand, The Shadow of God, 66–77. On Faḍl Allāh Astarābādī and the Ḥurūfīs, see
Mir-Kasimov, “Astarābādī, Faḍlallāh,” EI³ (online) and Mir-Kasimov, Words of Power, 13,
403, where Mir-Kasimov notes that although Astarābādī was ambiguous about the iden-
tity of the Mahdī, he was called “the master of time” (sayyid-i zamān) by his disciples,
a term with clear messianic overtones. On Muḥammad b. Falāḥ Mushaʿshaʿ, see Bashir,
“The Imam’s Return,” 22–6. On Muḥammad Nūrbakhsh, see Bashir, Messianic Hopes and
Mystical Visions, 29ff.
100 On al-Nīlī, see al-Nīlī, al-Sulṭān al-mufarrij, 6–17; al-Nīlī, Muntakhab al-anwār al-muḍīʾa, 11–
43; Dihkhudā, Lughatnāmih, s.v. “ʿAlī Nīlī.” His nisba, al-Nīlī, is derived not from the River
Nile but rather from the Iraqi town of al-Nīl, situated on the Euphrates River between
Baghdad and Kufa. Dihkhudā, Lughatnāmih, s.v. “Nīl.”
101 Al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 12:217–8 (no. 1439).
102 Al-Nīlī, al-Sulṭān al-mufarrij, 37–50.
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 157

“those who saw [the Imam].” This chapter includes fourteen accounts, all of
which are found in earlier works that include stories of sightings of the Imam
during the Lesser Occultation.103 The chapter ends with a list of the names of
those who served as the Imam’s deputies (wukalāʾ) in various regions during the
Lesser Occultation, cited from al-Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-dīn.104 Al-Nīlī then responds
to those who claim that these are all isolated accounts (akhbār āḥād) which
may as well be unfounded fables and superstitions that do not prove that the
Imam lives. Al-Nīlī’s response is quite telling. In answering this assertion, he
appeals to the power of deduction (istidlāl). He argues that just as the recogni-
tion of God, the Prophet, and the previous Imams is not conditioned on visual
sightings, one can recognize and believe in the Hidden Imam without seeing
him, because “the imamate and seeing (the Imam) are not mutually exclusive.
Rather, each one is sufficient in and of itself.”105 In other words, al-Nīlī argues
that it is not necessary for the Imam to be seen, though it is also not impossi-
ble.106

3 The Proliferation of Accounts and the Consolidation of a Tradition

The establishment of a Twelver Shīʿī state (the Safavid Empire) accelerated the
appropriation by Twelver Shīʿī clerics of many of the rights, functions, and pre-
rogatives of the Hidden Imam, a process that gained momentum in the Qajar
period.107 It remained to justify this appropriation and suppress any compet-
ing attempts to represent the Imam’s authority. The initial reticence to affirm
ongoing contact with the Hidden Imam in the Greater Occultation soon gave
way to an accelerated, prodigious effort to begin writing, collecting, and pro-

103 Al-Nīlī, Muntakhab al-anwār al-muḍīʾa, 251–95.

104 See chapter 3 of this book.
105 [= fa-l-imāma wa-ruʾya lā yatawaqqaf aḥaduhumā ʿalā l-ākhar bal kull wāḥid thābit ʿalā
ḥidatihi] Al-Nīlī, Muntakhab al-anwār al-muḍīʾa, 299.
106 The well-known jurist and scholar Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 965/1557–8 or 966/1558–9),
known as al-Shahīd al-Thānī, similarly does not refer to encounters with the Imam in
explicating the core doctrines of Shīʿī Islam. Al-Shahīd al-Thānī invokes the argument
advanced by rationalist scholars in the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries and
states simply that since death is inevitable, God appointed the Imams to succeed the
Prophet Muḥammad until the appearance of “the best of them,” that is, the Mahdī, who
is “the Imam of the age,” and whose life has been prolonged so that God may guide the
faithful, an act of grace that He is obliged to perform. Al-ʿĀmilī, Mawsūʿat al-shahīd al-
thānī, 4:37–9. Other ulama have presented the same argument. One example is Mīrzā
Rafīʿā Nāʾinī (d. 1083/1672). See Rizvi, “‘Seeking the Face of God,’ ” 403.
107 On this development, see the comments provided in the introduction of this book.
158 chapter 4

liferating stories of encounters—an effort that gained momentum in the thir-

teenth/nineteenth century but owed its success to, more than any other person,
the well-known and powerful Safavid authority Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī
(d. 1111/1699–1700).108
In his works, al-Majlisī does not cite many accounts of encounters with the
Hidden Imam during the Greater Occultation. This again shows that such sto-
ries continued to be uncommon in his time. For example, in a chapter of the
volume of his Biḥār al-anwār [The ocean of lights] devoted to the ghayba
of the Hidden Imam (completed in Rajab 1078/1667–8),109 he cites only six
accounts of encounters with the Hidden Imam, including a story of a miracu-
lous pomegranate that has been mentioned in numerous subsequent books.110
The chapter is titled “Rare are the accounts of those who have seen [the Hidden
Imam] during the Greater Occultation close to our time.”111
However, al-Majlisī’s most significant and far-reaching contribution to the
question of encounters with the Hidden Imam was his attempt to negotiate the
palpable epistemological tension between the “lying impostor” warning of the
final tawqīʿ and the few stories of encounters with the Imam during the Greater

108 On him, see Davānī, ʿAllāmah Majlisī; Mahdavī, Zindigīnāmih-yi ʿAllāmah Majlisī; Ṭārimī,
ʿAllāmah Majlisī; Kohlberg, “Majlisī, al-,” ER, 8:5623; Hairi, “Mad̲ jl̲ isī, Mullā Muḥammad
Bāḳir,”EI², 5:1086; Brunner, Majlesi, Moḥammad-Bāqer,”EIr (online); Kiyānī-Farīd, “Majlisī,
Muḥammad-Bāqir,” DMT, 15:77–8.
109 Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 53:197. On Biḥār al-anwār, see Pampus, “Die theologische En-
zyklopädie Biḥār al-Anwār”; Kohlberg, “Beḥār al-anwār,” EIr, 4:90–93; Ṭārimī, ʿAllāmah
Majlisī; Ṭārimī, “Biḥār al-anwār,” DJI (online). The volume on the ghayba of the Hidden
Imam was translated into Persian in 1260/1844 by Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥasan b. Muḥam-
mad Valī Bīk Afshār Bukshāvalī Urūmiyyih-ʾī (d. after 1260/1844), al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa,
16:76 (no. 383 under Kitāb al-Ghayba). On Urūmiyyih-ʾī, see al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd
(trans. Urūmiyyih-ʾī), 1:17–8. This translation was published in the Qajar period, then again
in 1329/1911 in Tehran, and in 1418/1997 in Qum. In the introduction, Urūmiyyih-ʾī dedicates
the translation to Muḥammad Shāh, al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Urūmiyyih-ʾī),
1:20–1. The same volume on the ghayba of the Hidden Imam was retranslated into Persian
by ʿAlī Davānī and extensively annotated with anti-Bahāʾī material. See al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i
mawʿūd (trans. Davānī).
110 This story is quoted in numerous other books. See e.g., al-Baḥrānī, Kashkūl al-Baḥrānī
aw-anīs al-musāfir wa-jalīs al-khāṭir, 110–2; Jalālī-ʿAzīziyān, Nigāh-i sabz, 63–77; al-Badrī,
Gharāʾib al-akhbār, 62–4; al-Ṣaffār al-Najafī, Mawsūʿat al-imām, 3:28–31; Faqīh, Karāmāt al-
imām al-mahdī, 142–5; Faqīh, Liqāʾāt al-ʿulamāʾ bi-l-imām al-ḥujja, 124–7; ʿĀshūr, Mawsūʿat
ahl al-bayt, 19:74–6. For English translation, see Dewji, Imame Zaman Hazrat Mehdi, 51–3.
For Persian translation, see ʿIrāqī-Maythamī, Dār al-salām, 492–7 (no. 8); Bābāʾī, Dāstānhā
va karāmāt-i khāndanī, 130–4.
111 For a discussion of some of the accounts mentioned in this chapter, see Ghaemmaghami,
“Numinous Vision.” The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to the story of the Green Island in
the White Sea. On this account, see Ghaemmaghami, “To the Abode of the Hidden One.”
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 159

Occultation. Al-Majlisī concluded that the final tawqīʿ did not preclude the pos-
sibility of seeing the Hidden Imam and receiving guidance from him during the
Greater Occultation. Rather, the purpose of the final tawqīʿ was to abolish the
institution of sifāra (“emissaryhood”) with the death of the fourth emissary,
and thus, negate the appearance of any future special intermediary who could
claim to know the Imam’s location and contact him at any time. Al-Majlisī
argued that the trusted and pious believers, that is, the ulama, who by now
constituted the general representatives (al-nuwwāb al-ʿāmma) of the Imam,
could see him, provided they did not advance any simultaneous claim to being
the Imam’s authorized intermediary, a position that was reserved for the four
sufarāʾ of the Lesser Occultation, who were recast as the Imam’s special repre-
sentatives (al-nuwwāb al-khāṣṣa).112 Al-Majlisī concluded,

Perhaps the last tawqīʿ was written for those who claim to be the Imam’s
representative [and] to convey information to the Shīʿa [from the Imam],
as was the case with the [four] sufarāʾ (“emissaries”), for if this were not
the case, [the final tawqīʿ] would contradict the stories of those who have
seen [the Hidden Imam during the Greater Occultation].113

112 On the distinction between al-niyāba al-ʿāmma (general representation) and al-niyāba
al-khāṣṣa (special representation) developed during the Safavid period, see Abisaab, Con-
verting Persia, index, s.v. “niyaba”; Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God, 140, 142; Amanat,
Apocalyptic Islam, 50, 155, 190; Algar, “Iran ix (2.3),” EIr, 8:456–74; Anzali, “Mysticism” in
Iran, 132.
113 Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:151. Persian translation: al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans.
Urūmiyyih-ʾī), 1:746; al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī), 929. Over a century before
al-Majlisī, al-Muqaddas al-Ardabīlī (on whom, see below) also negotiated the tension
between the final tawqīʿ and the stories of accounts during the Greater Occultation, two
of which he mentions in a work that has been attributed to him titled Ḥadīqat al-shīʿa.
After translating the final tawqīʿ of the Imam into Persian, al-Ardabīlī states: “We have rec-
onciled (tawfīq) [the tension] between hadiths like [the final tawqīʿ] and the accounts of
those who have seen the Qāʾim during the Greater Occultation in our book [al-]Naṣṣ [al-]
jalī fī imāmat mawlānā ʿAlī. Whoever wishes to know more about this issue should consult
that book.” Ardabīlī (attrib.), Ḥadīqat al-shīʿa, 2:990. Al-Ardabīlī’s al-Naṣṣ al-jalī fī imāmat
mawlānā ʿAlī, on which, see al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 24:172 (no. 893), does not appear to have
survived. Moreover, the editor of Ḥadīqat al-shīʿa points out that the sentence above is
missing from an early manuscript of another work that cites extensively from Ḥadīqat
al-shīʿa, including the passages that come directly before and after the above sentence.
See Ardabīlī, Ḥadīqat al-shīʿa, 2:990 n. 2. On the differing viewpoints that have been pre-
sented about the attribution of parts or all of Ḥadīqat al-shīʿa to al-Muqaddas al-Ardabīlī,
see Dhākirī, “Nādurustī-yi intisāb.” Cf. Newman, “Sufism and Anti-Sufism in Safavid Iran:
The Authorship of Ḥadīqat al-Shīʿa Revisited.”
160 chapter 4

After translating the tawqīʿ in his last completed work, Ḥaqq al-yaqīn dar
uṣūl va furūʿ-i iʿtiqādāt [The truth of certitude (Quran 56:95, 69:51) concern-
ing the roots and branches of faith], an extensive Persian summary of the main
tenets and doctrines of Shīʿī Islam,114 al-Majlisī makes the same argument, then
adds,

Many trustworthy scholars (thiqāt)115 have narrated that they have seen
[the Hidden Imam] during the Greater Occultation without having rec-
ognized him at the moment [of seeing him]. Therefore, it is possible that
the intention of this hadith [that is, the final tawqīʿ] is that if they claim to
see him and simultaneously recognize him, they are lying; conversely, if
they claim to be [the Imam’s] representative (niyābat) by virtue of having
seen [the Imam], they are [likewise] lying.116

Al-Majlisī also comments on the question of the well-known hadith of the sun
and the clouds mentioned in chapter 1: “The sun can partially emerge from the
clouds and when it does, one person may see it while another person does not.
In the same way, during the days of his ghayba, [the Hidden Imam] may appear
to some people and not to others.”117 Al-Majlisī provides the same explanation
in Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, but then refers to two of the hadiths discussed in chapter 2:

Imam al-Ṣādiq said that the Qāʾim will have two ghaybas, one short and
the other long. He said that during his [first] ghayba, only the select
among his Shīʿa (khavāṣṣ-i shīʿiyān-i ū) would know his location, while
during the second ghayba, only the privileged elite (makhṣūṣān) and

114 Ḥaqq al-yaqīn was completed one year before al-Majlisī’s death and is said to have been
the cause of the conversion of 70,000 Sunnīs to Shīʿī Islam, though it is a stringently anti-
Sunnī work. See Hairi, “Mad̲ jl̲ isi, Mulla Muḥammad Bāqir,” EI², 5:1087; Brunner, “Majlesi,
Moḥammad-Bāqer,” EIr (online), both of which cite a report from Qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamāʾ (com-
pleted in 1290/1873–4) by Muḥammad b. Sulaymān Tunkābunī (d. 1302/1885).
115 In works of hadith, thiqāt refers to ulama whose character is believed to be above reproach
and who are therefore considered reliable in transmitting the hadiths of the Imams.
116 Al-Majlisī, Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, 316. For a different translation, see Amir-Arjomand, The Shadow
of God, 162. In a separate work, al-Majlisī is said to have compiled and translated all of the
tawqīʿāt attributed to the Hidden Imam, see ʿAlī, al-Mahdī l-muntaẓar, 47. On al-Majlisī’s
decision to write several of his works in Persian, see Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam,
116.
117 [= fa-kadhālik yumkin an yaẓhar fī ayyām ghaybatihi li-baʿḍ al-khalq dūn baʿḍ] Al-Majlisī,
Biḥār al-anwār, 52:94; Kawrānī, Ḥawl ruʾyat al-mahdī l-muntaẓār, 54; al-Shāhrūdī, al-Imām
al-Mahdī, 176; Kohlberg, “Authoritative Scriptures,” 308–9. The metaphor has inspired the
writing of a book by contemporary scholar Hādī al-Mūsawī titled Shams al-imāma.
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 161

the mawālī of [the Imam] would know his location. And in a different
hadith, it has been mentioned that thirty of [the Imam’s] privileged elite
(sī nafar az makhṣūṣān) are perpetually in his service, that is, when one
dies, another takes his place.118

Since his time al-Majlisī’s opinion has served as the established position on
the “lying impostor” passage of the final tawqīʿ, and it is mentioned or alluded
to in most works that include stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam or
deal with questions surrounding the ghayba.119 Yet not everyone is persuaded.
In the early thirteenth/nineteenth century, Shaykh Jaʿfar al-Najafī, known as
Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ (d. 1227/1812), the polemical champion of the Uṣūlī school and
opponent of Mīrzā Muḥammad al-Akhbārī (d. 1232/1816–7), the leading expo-
nent of the Akhbārī cause in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century,120
openly called into question the veracity of stories of encounters with the Hid-
den Imam from the Greater Occultation, many of which were cited in works of
Akhbārī scholars.121 In his al-Ḥaqq al-mubīn fī taṣwīb al-mujtahidīn wa-takhṭiʾat
juhhāl al-akhbāriyyin (The conspicuous truth in vindicating the Mujtahids
[that is, the Uṣūlīs] and refuting the ignorant among the Akhbārīs), Kāshif
al-Ghiṭāʾ denounces Shīʿī scholars before him—and in particular, “unenlight-
ened” Akhbārīs—for, among other things, their indiscriminate use of hadiths
and uncritical reliance on strange stories and narrations.122 To make his point,
he adduces the story of the Green Island in the White Sea, recorded by al-Majlisī
in Biḥār al-anwār and by a host of scholars before and after al-Majlisī. Kāshif

118 Al-Majlisī, Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, 345–6. Cf. the discussion of the substituted friends of God
known as the abdāl above.
119 See appendix II.
120 On Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ and his role in opposing the Akhbārīs, see Algar, “Kāšef al-ḡeṭāʾ,” EIr
(online); Madelung, “Kās̲h̲if al-G̲ h̲ iṭāʾ,” EI², 4:703; Halm, Shiʿism, 97; Kohlberg, “Aspects of
Akhbari Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” 152; Momen, An Introduc-
tion to Shiʿi Islam, 135–6, 191. On the Akhbārī-Uṣūlī divide, see Stewart, “The Genesis of the
Akhbārī Revival”; Kohlberg, “Aḵbārīya,” EIr, 1:716–8; Gleave, “Akhbāriyya and Uṣūliyya,”EI³
(online); Litvak, “Iraq xi.,” EIr, 13:588–99. On Muḥammad al-Akhbārī, see Algar, “Aḵbārī,
Mīrzā Moḥammad,” EIr, 1:716.
121 See, e.g., al-Kāshānī (d. ca. 1091/1680), Nawādir al-akhbār, 300–5 (no. 2); al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī,
Ithbāt al-hudā, 5:335–6 (no. 159); H. al-Baḥrānī (d. 1107/1695–96 or 1109/1697–98), Tabṣirat
al-walī (on this work, see Appendix I); al-Jazāʾirī (d. 1112/1701), Riyāḍ al-abrār, 3:135–45; Y.
al-Baḥrānī (d. 1186/1773), Kashkūl al-Baḥrānī, 98–108.
122 On this work, see Algar, “Kāšef al-ḡeṭāʾ,” EIr (online); Rajabī, ʿUlamā-yi mujāhid, 381; al-
Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 7:37–8 (no. 190). Al-Ṭihrānī points out that Mīrzā Muḥammad al-
Akhbārī promptly wrote a response to al-Ḥaqq al-mubīn called al-Ṣayḥa bi-l-ḥaqq ʿalā man
alḥada wa-tazandaqa (The cry for truth against the one who abandoned his faith and
became a heretic), but this work does not appear to have survived.
162 chapter 4

al-Ghiṭāʾ accuses al-Majlisī, al-Akhbārī, and Akhbārī-leaning scholars of trans-

mitting stories from unreliable sources. He is incredulous at what he considers
an overly lax attitude on the part of these scholars toward the final tawqīʿ of the
Hidden Imam and other hadiths that he does not identify (though it seems, in
all likelihood, that he is referring to the hadiths discussed in chapter 1): “It is as
if they have never seen the hadiths affirming that no one can see [the Imam]
during the Greater Occultation and refuse to follow the words of the ulama who
have affirmed this [to be the truth].”123 In this regard, Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ rebukes
Akhbārī scholars for their “strange, improbable accounts (al-aqwāl al-ʿajība)
and bizarre, varnished falsehoods (al-muzakhrafāt al-gharība) that not even
an ignoramus would dream of publishing, let alone the sane of mind.”124
A contemporary of Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, the Bahraini hadith scholar Muḥammad
Āl ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. after 1250/1834–5) adopted a more sober tone while argu-
ing in his Hady al-ʿuqūl ilā aḥādīth al-uṣūl (Guiding the minds of men to the
hadiths [of the ahl al-bayt] concerning the principles [of religion]) that stories
of reputed contact with the Imam during the Greater Occultation are incon-
sistent with the doctrine of the Imam’s concealment ( yunāfī l-ghayba) and
cannot be substantiated by rational or traditional proofs.125 Other Shīʿī schol-
ars in recent years have likewise rejected outright the stories of encounters with
the Imam during the Greater Occultation, frequently citing the final tawqīʿ of
the Imam and restating the view of early traditionists like al-Nuʿmānī and al-
Ṣadūq.126
The tension between the stories of encounters with the Imam and the final
tawqīʿ of the Imam is perhaps best illustrated in an account transmitted about
Muḥammad Mahdī b. Murtaḍā al-Burūjirdī l-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, known as Baḥr al-

123 [= wa-ka-annahu lam yara al-akhbār al-dālla ʿalā ʿadam wuqūʿ al-ruʾya min aḥadin baʿd
al-ghayba al-kubrā … wa-lā tatbaʿ kalimāt al-ʿulamāʾ al-dālla ʿalā dhālik] Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ,
al-Ḥaqq al-mubīn, fol. 87. Muḥammad-ʿAlī Qāḍī Ṭabāṭabāʾī (d. 1358 Sh./1979) cites Kāshif
al-Ghiṭāʾ’s statement in the margins of al-Jazāʾirī, al-Anwār, 2:64 n. 1. The Persian transla-
tion of this statement is cited in Dhākirī, “Irtibāṭ bā imām-i zamān,” 96; Ṭabasī, “Jazīrih-yi
khaḍrā.” See also Amir-Moezzi, “Contribution à la Typologie,” 131 n. 80. Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ’s
criticism of the Akhbārīs foreshadowed the disapproval (some two centuries later) of Aya-
tollah Khumaynī and other Uṣūlī jurists who used the term Akhbārī “only as a pejorative
label to designate the apolitical, ‘stagnant,’ and ‘superstitious’ orientation of those clerics
who [did] not subscribe to the politicized and ideological Islam of the militant ‘ulamā’,”
Amir Arjomand, “Ideological Revolution in Shiʿism,” 196.
124 Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, al-Ḥaqq al-mubīn, fol. 88.
125 Āl ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Hady al-ʿuqūl, 9:113. On Āl ʿAbd al-Jabbār, a student of Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī
and al-Waḥīd al-Bihbihānī, see Hady al-ʿuqūl, 1:1–22.
126 See, for example, al-Tustarī, al-Akhbār al-dakhīla, 128; al-Dūzdūzānī, Taḥqīq laṭīf ; Dhākirī,
“Irtibāṭ bā imām-i zamān.”
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 163

ʿUlūm (“the ocean of knowledge”) (d. 1212/1797), a leading Shīʿī scholar and early
luminary of the revived Uṣūlī school of Shīʿī jurisprudence, by one of his stu-
dents:

I was present that day in ʿAllāma al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī Baḥr al-ʿUlūm’s class. As he

smoked his water pipe, someone asked whether or not it is possible to see
the comely countenance [of the Hidden Imam] during the Greater Occul-
tation. [Baḥr al-ʿUlūm] did not respond. He dropped his head and grew
pensive. I then heard him whisper to himself: “What can I say? How can I
tell him that [the Imam], the blessings of God rest upon him, held me in
his arms and embraced me, knowing as I do that according to a hadith, we
must repudiate anyone who claims to see him during his occultation?” He
repeated these words under his breath several times. Finally, he answered
the questioner: “The hadiths of the Holy Family teach us that we must
disbelieve anyone who claims to see the [Hidden Imam].” He said noth-
ing more and did not make the slightest allusion to the words I had heard
him say under his breath.127

Despite the few voices of protest, al-Majlisī’s interpretation of the final tawqīʿ
opened the floodgates. Two of al-Majlisī’s contemporaries, Mīr Lawḥī (fl. elev-
enth/seventeenth century) and Hāshim al-Baḥrānī (d. 1107/1695–96 or 1109/
1697–98), wrote books, after the completion of volume 13 of al-Majlisī’s Biḥār
al-anwār, that refer to accounts of meetings with the Imam during the Greater
Occultation.128 In addition, one of al-Majlisī’s most gifted students Abū l-Ḥasan
Muḥammad Ṭāhir al-ʿĀmilī al-Futūnī, known as al-ʿĀmilī al-Iṣfahānī (d. ca. 1139/
1726–27), followed in his master’s footsteps in writing Ḍiyāʾ al-ʿālamīn [or al-
ʿālamayn] fī bayān imāmat al-aʾimma al-muṣṭafīn (The light of the worlds [or
the two worlds (i.e., earth and heaven)] in explicating the imamate of the cho-
sen Imams).129 Al-ʿĀmilī al-Iṣfahānī maintained that there are “many credible
reports” (al-manqūlāt al-muʿtabara … kathīra jiddan) of those who, near his
own time, saw the Hidden Imam.130 He refers or alludes to the stories men-

127 Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 51–2 (account no. 10); al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib,
2:23–4 (no. 12). Persian translation: al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:727 (no. 74).
128 See appendix I, nos. 8 and 10.
129 On al-ʿĀmilī al-Iṣfahānī, see Corbin, “ʿĀmelī Eṣfahānī,” EIr, 1:931–2; Lawson, “Akhbārī Shīʿī
Approaches to tafsīr,” 195–201; Amir-Moezzi, “al-ʿĀmilī al-Iṣfahānī, Abū l-Ḥasan,” EI³ (on-
line).
130 Al-ʿĀmilī al-Iṣfahānī, Ḍiyāʾ al-ʿālamīn, 5:248. His words are cited by al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī,
Jannat al-maʾwā, 95; al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:694; and Kawrānī, Ḥawl ruʾyat al-mahdī l-
muntaẓār, 55 (via al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī).
164 chapter 4

tioned by al-Majlisī in the above-mentioned chapter of al-Majlisī’s Biḥār al-

anwār entitled “Rare are the accounts of those who have seen [the Hidden
Imam] during the Greater Occultation close to our time,” including the story
of the Green Island in the White Sea.131 He accuses anyone who rejects these
stories of suffering from “pure bigotry” (maḥḍ al-ʿaṣabiyya).132
In the centuries that followed, scholars cited, and continue to cite, al-
Majlisī’s explanation of the final tawqīʿ to justify their work of compiling and
publishing collections of accounts of encounters with the Imam during the
Greater Occultation, in particular as a means of responding to competing
claims of authority advanced by “heterodox” movements. This was the main
motivating force behind the encyclopedic collections of stories of encounters
with the Hidden Imam from the Greater Occultation published by the late
thirteenth/nineteenth-century scholar Maḥmūd b. Jaʿfar al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī
(d. 1306/1888–9, 1308/1890–1 or 1310/1892–3), the sedulous traditionist Ḥusayn
al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, and several of the latter’s prolific students.133 It is noteworthy
that al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī’s Arabic collection of encounters with the Imam dur-
ing the Greater Occultation, titled Jannat al-maʾwā, has been appended, since
the late nineteenth century, to the volume of al-Majlisī’s Biḥār al-anwār that
deals with the life, occultation, and return of the Hidden Imam, thus giving the
impression that such encounters have always been a part of the story of the
Hidden Imam.134
In some accounts of encounters, the Imam no longer simply cures seemingly
incurable ailments or helps groups of Shīʿa threatened by highwaymen, as some
of the earlier stories relate. Rather, he is transformed or, most aptly, returns as
the source of religious knowledge for his representatives, the ulama.135

131 Al-ʿĀmilī al-Iṣfahānī, Ḍiyāʾ al-ʿālamīn, 5:244–9.

132 Al-ʿĀmilī al-Iṣfahānī, Ḍiyāʾ al-ʿālamīn, 5:249.
133 See Ghaemmaghami, “The Abode of Peace”; Ghaemmaghami, “Arresting the Eschaton.”
The most comprehensive biography of al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, by Yāsīn al-Mūsawī, can be
found in al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, al-Najm al-thāqib (trans. al-Mūsawī), 1:5–112. See also, Ṭāliʿī,
Az nūr tā nūr: ʿAllāmih Muḥaddith-i-Nūrī; Iʿtimād al-Salṭanih, ʿUlamā-yi, 77–9; Daryābīgī,
“Muḥaddith-i Nūrī,” DMT, 15:101. On the collections of al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, al-Nūrī al-
Ṭabarsī, and al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī’s students, see appendix I. In addition to collecting stories
of encounters with the Imam, al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī also called into question the veracity of
the final tawqīʿ of the Imam. For his argument and a response to it, see al-Khazrajī, Sufarāʾ
al-mahdī, 256–9.
134 Al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 53:199–336.
135 In a popular work, Rāhī bisūy-i nūr pīrāmūn-i irṭibāt-i rūḥī bā imām-i zamān, 3,000 copies
of which were printed in its tenth printing, the author recounts several stories of contact
with the Hidden Imam and avers that the path to the Imam is open; the Shīʿa must refer
to “the godly ulama” who have connected (muttaṣil) themselves with the “Imam of the
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 165

The stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam are adduced as one of
the main proofs, if not the main proof, of the Imam’s continued existence.136
In speaking about his collections of encounter stories, al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, for
example, proudly boasted: “We elucidated the possibility of seeing [the Hidden
Imam] during the Greater Occultation in a conclusive manner in our work Jan-
nat al-maʾwā and in our book Najm-i thāqib. We mentioned so many proofs and
evidences [i.e., stories of encounters with the Imam] that not a trace of doubt
exists about [this matter].”137 In addition to “proving (the) weighty matter of the
Imam’s existence and the fact that he appears from time to time to meet with
his most pious disciples,”138 al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī and other compilers have sought
to consolidate the faith of believers, draw them closer to the Hidden Imam,
and strengthen the authority and charisma of the ulama. Additionally, the nar-
ratives compiled by these scholars often serve a polemical agenda, to prove the
continued existence of the Hidden Imam to three groups of “opponents”: the
“weak” followers of the Imam who entertained doubts about his existence, the
unbelievers in the Imam (viz., non-Shīʿī Muslims and non-Muslims), and any
group that challenges the authority of the ulama or ruptures the eschatologi-
cal tension caused by the ghayba, such as groups founded by individuals who
claimed to be the Mahdī or his representative.139
Most of the stories employ the same topoi and follow a similar cadence. One
of the largest collections is Muḥammad-Riḍā Bāqī-Iṣfahānī’s ʿInāyāt-i ḥaḍrat-i
mahdī bih ʿulamāʾ va ṭullāb (The manifold favors of the Mahdī to ulama and stu-
dents of the Shīʿī seminary), which contains 218 accounts, divided into twenty-
six chapters with the following headings:
1. The Imam responds to questions posed by ulama [accounts 1–8]
2. The Imam provides guidance to the ulama in specific cases [accounts 9–
23]
3. The Imam teaches prayers [accounts 24–30]

Age,” inasmuch as they reflect the light of God, by which is meant the light of the Imams.
Niʿmatī, Rāhī bisūy-i nūr, 268.
136 See for example, Gulpāyigānī, Navīd-i amn va-amān, 290–1; Gulpāyigānī, Iṣālat-i mah-
daviyyat, 55–70; Āl Muḥsin, Dalīl al-mutaḥayyirīn, 326–7.
137 Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Khātimat mustadrak al-wasāʾil, 3:229.
138 Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 11.
139 For example, the Niʿmatullāhī Sufi order holds that the spiritual leader of the order, as
the “special representative” of the Hidden Imam, is in direct contact with the Imam. See
Scharbrodt, “The quṭb as Special Representative of the Hidden Imam.” On similar claims
among Sufi groups, see van den Bos, Mystic Regimes, 46, 59–60, 86–7, 92, 217, 222. For an
account of some individuals who claimed to be the Mahdī, especially in the years between
1979 and 2004, see al-Sāda, al-Nūr al-ghāʾib, 129ff.
166 chapter 4

4. The Imam corrects prayers [accounts 31–33]

5. The Imam encourages the ulama to pursue knowledge [accounts 34–37]
6. The Imam protects and defends the ulama [accounts 38–43]
7. The Imam appoints “sources of emulation” (marājiʿ al-taqlīd) to serve as
his agents [accounts 44–54]
8. The Imam appoints instructors [accounts 55–57]
9. General commands issued by the Imam [accounts 58–69]
10. The Imam commands the writing of a book [accounts 70–73]
11. The Imam warns the ulama [accounts 74–80]
12. The healing of illnesses through the blessings of the Imam [accounts 81–
95]
13. Ultimatums [accounts 96–101]
14. The Imam provides stipends to seminary students [accounts 102–109]
15. The Imam gives cash gifts to ulama and seminary students [accounts 110–
123]
16. The Imam provides non-cash gifts to ulama and seminary students
[accounts 124–126]
17. The Imam provides special gifts to ulama and seminary students
[accounts 127–134]
18. The Imam fulfills wishes and alleviates the problems of ulama and semi-
nary students [accounts 135–141]
19. The Imam exalts the faith [= Islam] and glorifies the places of worship-
ping God [accounts 142–145]
20. The Shīʿa are saved through the blessings of the Imam [accounts 146–152]
21. The ulama are saved from the hands of wrongdoers through the blessings
of the Imam [accounts 153–163]
22. The ulama are saved from death through the blessings of the Imam
[accounts 164–168]
23. The Imam visits ulama and seminary students who are sick [accounts
169–172]
24. The Imam participates in funeral services [accounts 173–179]
25. The ulama witness the beauty of the Imam [accounts 180–204]
26. The Imam rescues ulama who have lost their way [accounts 205–218]

In the following section, I will mention four representative examples of promi-

nent ulama who are said to have encountered the Imam during the Greater
Occultation.

(1) ʿAllama al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325): As noted, two accounts of al-Ḥillī’s encounters
with the Hidden Imam are transmitted in later sources. The first is an account
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 167

of a stranger who accompanies al-Ḥillī from al-Ḥilla to Karbala. Al-Ḥillī poses a

number of legal questions to his companion, all of which he ably answers. The
stranger goes so far as to mention a hadith, of which al-Ḥillī was unaware, citing
the book, page number, and line where the hadith occurs. (Al-Ḥillī, it is said,
later finds the hadith in the exact location the stranger mentioned.) Al-Ḥillī
then asks him whether or not the Imam can be seen during the Greater Occul-
tation (showing once again the critical nature of this question). Just then, his
whip falls to the ground. As the stranger bends to pick up the whip and hand
it to al-Ḥillī, he reveals himself to be the Hidden Imam and disappears.140 In
the second account, it is said that an unnamed Sunnī scholar had written a
polemical book against the Shīʿa, to which al-Ḥillī wished to respond. Through
dissimulating his faith, al-Ḥillī is able to beguile the Sunnī scholar into loaning
him the book for one night in order to read and copy it, so that he may write a
response. Yet al-Ḥillī falls asleep midway through the night. The Imam appears
(either in a dream or while al-Ḥillī is awake, the text is unclear) and tells al-
Ḥillī that he himself will copy the book—a task that would have taken al-Ḥillī
almost a year to complete. The next morning, the book is fully copied.141

140 See Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr, 176–7, who gives as his source, Muḥammad
b. al-Amīr al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī al-Ḥāʾirī (d. 1242/1826), Mafātīḥ al-uṣūl wa-manāhil al-fiqh. On
Mafātīḥ al-uṣūl wa-manāhil al-fiqh, on which see al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 21:300 (no. 5173).
Al-Ṭihrānī claims to have seen the account in al-Ḥillī’s own handwriting on the mar-
gins of one of al-Ḥillī’s books. I am unable to verify this claim. The account is also cited
in Ishtihārdī, “Guzarī bar zindigī-i ʿAllāmah Ḥillī,” 22–4; al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-
salām, 506–9 (from Tunkābunī’s (d. 1302/1885) Qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamāʾ); Jaʿfarī, Dīdār dar ʿaṣr-i
ghaybat 313–4 (from Tunkābunī); al-Mūsawī, al-Liqāʾ al-mahdawī, 144 (from Tunkābunī);
al-Mūsawī, Shams al-imāma, 429. William M. Miller (d. 1993), an American Presbyterian
missionary in Iran, mentions this account in the introduction to his 1928 translation of
al-Ḥillī’s creedal statement. See al-Ḥillī, al-Bâbu ʾl-Ḥâdî ʿAshar (trans. Miller), xiii–xiv. Cf.
a similar story related about Muḥammad Taqī al-Majlisī (d. 1070/1659–60). It is said that
on a journey to Karbala, al-Majlisī met two strangers on horses. As they traveled together,
the two men posed questions about religious matters to al-Majlisī. Al-Majlisī then learned
that the two men were none other than Imam al-Ḥusayn and the Hidden Imam. See al-
Ṣaffār al-Najafī, Mawsūʿat al-imām, 3:77–80; Babayan, Mystics, Monarchs, and Messiahs,
426, 463; Rahnema, Superstition as Ideology, 175.
141 See al-Shūshtarī, Majālis al-muʾminīn, 1:573 (on this work, see Rizvi, “Shīʿī Polemics,” 56); al-
Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 69–70 (no. 22), who concludes that the encounter took
place in a dream; al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 346–7 (no. 15); Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-
i ʿaṣr, 179–80; Dhākirī, “Irtibāṭ bā imām-i zamān,” 101; al-Mūsawī, al-Arbaʿūn fī l-mahdī, 42;
Ishtihārdī, “Guzarī bar zindigī-i ʿAllāmah Ḥillī,” 24–5; ʿAlīpūr, Jilvahhāy-i pinhānī-i imām-
i ʿaṣr, 130–1 (from al-Shūshtarī’s Majālis al-muʾminīn); Faqīh, Liqāʾāt al-ʿulamāʾ, 224–5;
Faqīh, Manāmāt al-ʿulamāʾ, 130–1; al-Mūsawī, al-Liqāʾ al-mahdawī, 242–3; Jalālī-ʿAzīziyān,
Nigāh-i Sabz, 7–14; al-Mūsawī, Shams al-imāma, 430; Kohlberg, “Authoritative Scripture,”
309. Cf. al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:531–2 (no. 15), who cites a different version of this story
168 chapter 4

(2) Al-Muḥaqqiq Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Ardabīlī, known as al-Muqaddas al-

Ardabīlī (d. 993/1585),142 was a scholarly giant of the Safavid period from Najaf
who “developed his own special and independent legal method which gave
rise to a distinct and significant school.”143 His epithet, Muqaddas (meaning
holy), is said to refer to the many miraculous stories that have been narrated
about him.144 In a frequently cited account, one of his students secretly follows
him one night from the shrine of Imam ʿAlī in Najaf to the central mosque in
Kufa.145 The student watches as al-Ardabīlī spends an extended period of time
at the mosque’s miḥrāb, where Imam ʿAlī was fatally wounded. Al-Ardabīlī then
leaves the mosque and returns to Najaf. When the student confronts al-Ardabīlī
about what he has seen, al-Ardabīlī reveals the following, on condition that the
student not divulge what he shares with anyone as long as al-Ardabīlī is alive.
Al-Ardabīlī confides that he was grappling with a number of questions (masāʾil,
a term that refers in this context to theological or legal questions) that he was
unable to answer. It occurred to him to visit the shrine of Imam ʿAlī and present
his questions to the Imam. In the shrine, he was instructed by a voice that issued
from the sepulcher to proceed to the mosque of Kufa and pose his questions to
the Imam of the Age at the mosque’s miḥrāb. He did so, and his questions were
answered. Al-Ardabīlī thus indicates that he encountered the Hidden Imam at
the miḥrāb and received answers to his questions.146

from the Kashkūl of a certain ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-Māzandarānī, a contemporary of al-Majlisī.

In Māzandarānī’s version, the stranger who assists al-Ḥillī in copying the book is simply
described as someone resembling the people of Hijaz. There is no mention or allusion to
the stranger being the Hidden Imam. For an Arabic translation, see al-Mūsawī, al-Liqāʾ
al-mahdawī, 243.
142 On al-Ardabīlī, see Madelung, “Ardabīlī,” EIr, 2:368–70; Fānī, “Muqaddas-i Ardabīlī,” DMT,
15:453–4; Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, 311.
143 Modarressi, An Introduction to Shīʿī Law, 51.
144 This epithet conjures up the location of the Hidden Imam which, as noted previously, is
often called “the sacred region” (al-nāḥiya al-muqaddasa).
145 The Great Mosque of Kufa is one of the oldest and most famous mosques in the world.
According to some hadiths, it will serve as the seat of power for the awaited Qāʾim. See
Khudābandihlū, “Masjid-i Kūfah,” DMT, 15:294–6.
146 The account is cited in al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 52:174–5, who states that he heard
it from a number of people who heard it from al-Ardabīlī’s student, a certain Amīr
ʿAllām. Also cited in al-Baḥrānī, Kashkūl al-Baḥrānī, 108–9; al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:694–
6 (account no. 63), who cites as his source al-ʿĀmilī al-Iṣfahānī’s Ḍiyāʾ al-ʿālamīn, who
cites it from al-Jazāʾirī’s (d. 1112/1700–1) (a student of al-Majlisī) al-Anwār al-nuʿmāniyya.
On the same pages, al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī provides a second version of the story (from a
different source) that is similar to the first version. The first version of the account is
also cited or referred to in Ardabīlī (attrib.), Ḥadīqat al-shīʿa2, dāl (from the publisher’s
introduction); al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 497–9 (no. 9; Persian translation of
Biḥār al-anwār); al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 2:42–3 (from Biḥār al-anwār); Nahā-
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 169

(3) The aforementioned Baḥr al-ʿUlūm (d. 1212/1797) is alleged by his students
and later ulama to have been favored with several miraculous encounters with
the Hidden Imam.147 When asked by Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim al-Qummī (d. 1231/
1816), author of the influential legal work al-Qawānīn al-muḥkama fī l-uṣūl,148
how he became so knowledgeable, Baḥr al-ʿUlūm responded that he would tell
him on the condition that he did not disclose the secret to anyone. He pro-
ceeded to credit an encounter with the Imam who transferred “knowledge,
holiness, inspiration, and learning” (al-ʿilm wa-l-qudsiyya wa-l-waḥy wa-l-faḍl)
to his heart by embracing him inside the central mosque in Kufa.149

(4) Murtaḍā al-Anṣārī (d. 1281/1864) was the first universally recognized “source
of emulation” (marjiʿ al-taqlīd), a title of the supreme Shīʿī jurist and highest
religious authority. He was also the founder of a new school of Shīʿī law that
still predominates today.150 According to an account transmitted by a student,

vandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr, 72; ʿAlīpūr, Jilvahhāy-i pinhānī-i imām-i ʿaṣr, 131–3 (from
al-Jazāʾirī, al-Anwār); Kawrānī, Ḥawl ruʾyat al-mahdī l-muntaẓar, 51; al-Mūsawī, al-Liqāʾ
al-mahdawī, 144; al-Jahrumī, Riʿāyat al-imām al-mahdī, 75–6; Faqīh, Karāmāt al-imām al-
mahdī, 110 (citing Ḥasan Abṭaḥī as his source); al-Badrī, Gharāʾib al-akhbār, 71–2; al-Ṣaffār
al-Najafī, Mawsūʿat al-imām, 3:137; Bābāʾī, Dāstānhā va karāmāt-i khāndanī, 67–8. See also
Amir-Moezzi, “Visions d’Imams,” 103.
147 On Baḥr al-ʿUlūm, see Algar, “Baḥr-al-ʿOlūm,” EIr, 3:504; Gleave, “Baḥr al-ʿUlūm, Muḥam-
mad Mahdī al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī,” EI³ (online); al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Khātimat mustadrak al-wasāʾil,
2:45.
148 On al-Mīrzā al-Qummī, see al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-shīʿa, 2:411–3.
149 Faqīh, Karāmāt al-imām al-mahdī, 109–10 (citing Abṭaḥī as his source). As Amir-Moezzi,
“Visions d’Imams,” 103, notes about him, “l’immensité de sa science et ses nombreux pou-
voirs miraculeux étaient, selon ces sources en grande partie dus à ses expériences de
contacts suprasensibles avec les imams [especially, the Hidden Imam].” See also Anzali,
“Mysticism” in Iran, 167 n. Other sources that have transmitted accounts of Baḥr al-ʿUlūm’s
encounters with the Imam include al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:727 (no. 74); al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī,
Jannat al-maʾwā, 51–2 (no. 10); al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib, 2:23–4 (no. 12); al-Jahrumī,
Riʿāyat al-imām al-mahdī, 90; ʿAlī, Baḥr al-ʿUlūm, 82–6; al-Mūsawī, al-Arbaʿūn fī l-mahdī,
28, 29, 63–4, 126, 185–6, 27; Faqīh, Karāmāt al-imām al-mahdī, 81–2; al-Baḥrānī and al-
Marzūq, Mawsūʿat al-qiṣaṣ wa-l-ḥikāyā, 138–9; Jalālī-ʿAzīziyān, Nigāh-i sabz, 221–3; al-Ṣaffār
al-Najafī, Mawsūʿat al-imām, 3:56–8.
150 On him, see Murata, “Anṣārī, Shaikh Mortażā b. Moḥammad Amīn,”EIr, 2:102–103; Modar-
ressi, An Introduction to Shīʿī Law, 57; Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet, s.v. index
“Ansari, Sheikh Mortaza”; Cole, “Imami Jurisprudence”; Litvak, Shiʿi Scholars, passim;
Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam, 311; Heern, Shiʿi Law and Leadership; al-Anṣārī,
al-Shaykh Murtaḍā al-Anṣārī. On the title and function of the “source of emulation,”
see Calmard, “Mard̲ ja̲ ̲ʿ-i Taḳlīd,” EI²; Kazemi-Moussavi, “The Struggle for Authority in the
Nineteenth Century;” Shiʿite Community Kazemi-Moussavi, “The Institutionalization of
Marjaʿ-i Taqlīd.”
170 chapter 4

he used to leave his home in Najaf in the middle of the night and meet the
Imam at his home—the location of which only al-Anṣārī knew. In an account
that resembles the above-mentioned story of al-Muqaddas al-Ardabīlī, when
al-Anṣārī was confronted, one night, by his student who was following him, he
revealed that whenever he is faced with a theological or legal question that he
cannot resolve, he visits the home of the Hidden Imam and poses his question
to him. Like al-Ardabīlī, al-Anṣārī makes his student swear an oath to keep what
he has told him a secret as long as al-Anṣārī is alive.151

The direct contact with the Hidden Imam described in these accounts (includ-
ing knowing his location) parallels the accounts of encounters from the Lesser
Occultation. As I showed, in the earliest Greater Occultation accounts, the
Imam was portrayed predominantly as a consoler, healer, miracle worker, and
savior of those in danger. The first of these accounts, the story of the youth
and the Black Stone, is said to have occurred some ten years after the death
of the last emissary and the start of the Greater Occultation, in what I argue
is an attempt to portray the Greater Occultation as a natural and uncompli-
cated extension of the Lesser Occultation. Not enough is yet known about Shīʿī
Islam in the late Abbasid period to draw definitive conclusions as to why such
accounts begin to appear at this time, especially in the works of Ibn Ṭāwūs. The
fall of Abbasid caliphate may have provided the requisite space to foreground
the Hidden Imam and emphasize his authority and temporal presence. It is
also clear from the various messianic movements that appeared after the fall of
Baghdad that the Mongol invasion significantly heightened messianic suscep-
tibilities. In this light, it is possible to read Ibn Ṭāwūs’s attempts to accentuate
encounters with the Imam as a way of preparing his readers for what he per-
ceived to be the Imam’s imminent return. In any case, it was only in the Safavid
and Qajar periods that the accounts became more embellished and the Imam

151 Al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 511–2 (no. 17). Al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī was himself a stu-
dent of al-Anṣārī. He states that he heard this account from another student Mīrzā Ḥasan
Āshtiyānī. The account is also mentioned in Anṣārī-Ahwāz, Zindigānī va-shakhṣiyyat-i
Shaykh Anṣārī, 106–7; Anṣārī, Shaykh-i Aʿẓam-i Anṣārī, 57–8; Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i
valī-i ʿaṣr, 177–8; ʿAlīpūr, Jilvahhāy-i pinhānī-i imām-i ʿaṣr, 134–5; al-Mūsawī, al-Arbaʿūn fī l-
mahdī, 30–1 (from Ḥasan Abṭaḥī’s al-Kamālāt al-rūḥiyya); Faqīh, Liqāʾāt al-ʿulamāʾ, 145–6;
Jalālī-ʿAzīziyān, Nigāh-i sabz, 54–7; al-Ṣaffār al-Najafī, Mawsūʿat al-imām, 3:139. For a sim-
ilar account of al-Anṣārī secretly meeting the Hidden Imam in Karbala, see Bāqī-Iṣfahānī,
ʿInāyāt-i ḥaḍrat-i baqiyat Allāh, 139–41. In another story, in a dream, an Arab is told by
Imam ʿAlī to seek guidance from al-Anṣārī. See Bābāʾī, Dāstānhā va karāmāt-i khāndanī,
70.
from youth and stone to proliferation of accounts 171

was transformed, in effect, from being primarily a miracle worker to a teacher,

scholar, and recourse for the ulama to strengthen their influence as the Imam’s
“general representatives.”
The dominance of the Uṣūlī school and the emergence of a hierarchy of
mujtahids (Muslim scholars who formulate decisions in legal or theological
matters) in the Qajar period created an atmosphere of intolerance for alterna-
tive thought. The revival of stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam in the
thirteenth/nineteenth century also coincided with the emergence of the Bābī
movement. It is perhaps not surprising that most of the ulama who compiled
narratives of encounters with the Imam also wrote scathing attacks denounc-
ing the Shaykhī and Bābī movements, not to mention Sufis. These scholars lived
at a time in which many of the eschatological tensions regarding the occulta-
tion of the Hidden Imam—tensions that had remained unresolved since the
Lesser Occultation—exploded onto the Shīʿī religious landscape.
 chapter 5

Conclusion

In late 2003, Ayatollah ʿAlī Mishkīnī (d. 2007) saw the Hidden Imam. In the
course of the weekly sermon in Qum on 11 June 2004, Mishkīnī, the first chair-
man of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s powerful Assembly of Experts and, at
the time, one of the most influential ulama in the country’s clerical oligarchy,
described how, seven months earlier, angels presented the Imam with a list of
the names and addresses of each member of the new parliament. The Imam
proceeded to sign the list, sealing it with his stamp of approval. Mishkīnī’s state-
ment came on the heels of a parliamentary election marked by controversy.
In the run-up to the election, most reformist candidates were disqualified by
a peremptory ban issued by twelve jurists that compose Iran’s supreme leg-
islative body, the Guardian Council. The implication of Mishkīnī’s claim was
not lost. He was privy to the will of the Hidden Imam, namely, that only allies
of the clerical conservatives could serve in parliament. The public disclosure
of Mishkīnī’s statement garnered the attention of national and international
press agencies. Mishkīnī later attempted to qualify his remarks, but only after
they were criticized by other government officials.1
In an ethnographic study based on extensive field research, Swedish anthro-
pologist David Thurfjell observed that while Iran’s current supreme leader Aya-
tollah ʿAlī Khāminiʾī (b. 1939) has never made such a claim publicly, many Shīʿa
firmly believe that “he has direct contact with the hidden Imam. Stories ver-
ifying such notions are not uncommon in the community .… One such story
relates an incident when Khāmeneʾi was overheard talking to a mysterious
stranger who was supposedly Imam Mahdi himself.”2

1 See Jamshīd Barzugar, “Namāyandigān-i majlis: muntakhabān-i mardum yā manṣūbīn-i

imām-i zamān?” (Members of Parliament: Elected by the People or Appointed by the Imam
of the Age?), BBC Persian.com, 13 June 2004, http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/story/2004/
06/040613_v‑meshkiniremarks.shtml; Shahi, “Paradoxes of Iranian Messianic Politics,” 119. It
has long been alleged that the Imam offers support for political change through appearing
to ulama. During the constitutional movement, the influential “source of emulation” (marjiʿ
al-taqlīd) Ayatollah Muḥammad-Ḥusayn Nāʾīnī (d. 1936), one of the famous advocates of con-
stitutionalism among the Shīʿī clerics, claimed that the Hidden Imam appeared to him in a
dream and voiced support for a constitutional form of government. Brunner, “Le charisma
des songeurs,” 110. Cf. The prominent anti-Constitutionalist cleric Faḍl Allāh Nūrī (d. 1909) is
also said to have compiled a collection of stories of prominent clerics who encountered the
Hidden Imam. See Mundhir, Tanhā-yi shakībā, 185.
2 Thurfjell, Living Shiʾism, 163. In an audio recording that has been transcribed, Ayatollah

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413153_007

conclusion 173

Indeed, stories of encounters with the Imam have been attributed to many
of the famous and influential Shīʿī clerics of the twentieth century, such as Aya-
tollah Shihāb al-Dīn Marʿashī-Najafī (d. 1990)3 and the founder of the Islamic
Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Rūḥ Allāh Khumaynī (d. 1989).4 During the Iran-Iraq
War, a rumor spread that the Hidden Imam was seen on the horizon in major
battles, leading the troops.5 In 2006, reports that the influential Iraqi militia
leader Muqtadā al-Ṣadr (b. 1973) was in intimate contact with the Hidden Imam
were not denied by his office.6 In June 2009, the prominent Ayatollah Abū l-
Qāsim Khazʿalī (d. 2015), a former member of the Guardian Council, told his
son, Mahdī Khazʿalī (b. 1965), that he received a letter from the “sacred precinct”
of the Hidden Imam commissioning him to defend Maḥmūd Aḥmadīnizhād
(b. 1956) in the controversial 2009 Iranian presidential election.7 Others have
gone even further and claimed, based on their visions of the Hidden Imam, to

Mahdī Aḥadī (b. 1962–3) recounts another story of Ayatollah Khāminiʾī meeting the Hidden
Imam. See Mahdī Aḥadī, “Tasharruf-i Ayatollah Khāminiʾī bih maḥḍar-i mubārak-i ḥaḍrat-i
mahdī” (Ayatollah Khāminiʾī attains the blessed presence of the Mahdī), Salehat.ir, 19 August
2010, http://salehat.ir/index.php/97‑khamenei/agha‑va‑mahdi/54‑1389‑05‑28‑12‑48‑16. Aya-
tollah Khāminiʾī’s official website states that there are some “who are lucky enough and have
the capacity sometimes [to] meet [the Hidden Imam] without recognizing him.” “Who is
Imam Mahdi? Is he the Savior promised by all religions?”, Khamenei.ir, 17 August 2008, http://
english.khamenei.ir/Opinions/Imam_mahdi.
3 Four stories of his encounters with the Imam are recorded in Kawrānī (ed.), Karāmāt Ayatol-
lah, 97–112.
4 Kawrānī, al-Karāmāt al-ghaybiyya, 82. For example, in 1973–4, while he was in prison, Aya-
tollah Ḥāʾirī-Shīrāzī claimed to have dreamt of Ayatollah Khumaynī delivering a sermon. In
the dream, a man entered while he was speaking and Ayatollah Khumaynī cried out that
the man was the Hidden Imam and asked him for assistance. The next day, Ayatollah Ḥāʾirī-
Shīrāzī began to receive better treatment from the prison guards and later learned that on
the night of his dream, Ayatollah Khumaynī had prayed to the Hidden Imam for his pro-
tection. See Kawrānī, al-Karāmāt al-ghaybiyya, 73–4. Another cleric Shaykh Māzandariyān,
who did not trust Ayatollah Khumaynī and refused to attend his classes in Qum, dreamt
of the Hidden Imam whispering to Ayatollah Khumaynī and remarked that they were the
same height. He awoke with a realization of the station of Ayatollah Khumaynī in the eyes
of the Hidden Imam. See Kawrānī, al-Karāmāt al-ghaybiyya, 75–8; Hage Ali, Nationalism,
158.
5 Amanat, Iran, 838. See also Cook, “Waiting for the Twelfth Imam,” 130.
6 Visser, “The Sadrists,” 121, citing an unpublished paper by Amatzia Baram titled “Muqtada al-
Sadr, the Mahdi and Shiʾi Messianic Expectations.”
7 The personal website of Mahdī Khazʿalī, 18 June 2009, http://www.drkhazali.com/articles‑and
‑mails/572‑1388‑03‑28‑18‑48‑48.html# (site discontinued). On the upsurge of messianic fervor
in Iran during the presidency of Maḥmūd Aḥmadīnizhād and in the Middle East generally,
see the references provided in Kazemzadeh, “Foreign Policy Decision Making,” 213, nn. 44–5;
Cook, “Messianism in the Shiite Crescent.”
174 chapter 5

be his messenger or representative.8 Still others who hold views inimical to the
Iranian government and have claimed, albeit indirectly, that they have seen the
Imam, have been jailed or marginalized.9
The proliferation of stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam and their
publication in Lebanon as part of Hizbullah’s propaganda initiatives have been
documented and analyzed.10 Numerous books have appeared with chapters
outlining what believers can do to attain the Imam’s presence.11 One writer par-
ticularly interested in the accounts of encounters with the Hidden Imam, the
author of Kayfa taltaqī bi-l-imām al-mahdī (How you can meet Imam Mahdī),
maintains that most ulama in the contemporary period affirm that seeing the
Hidden Imam in the Greater Occultation is possible.12 He goes on claim that
“the same rate [of appearances of the Hidden Imam] in the Lesser Occultation
reoccurs in one form or another in the Greater Occultation. And all of this is,
God willing, unquestionable.”13 The same argument is advanced by numerous
other writers, including contemporary Shīʿī scholars in Iran14 and Bahrain.15
Thus has the Greater Occultation been construed as a natural extension of
the Lesser Occultation, the “lying impostor” passage of the final tawqīʿ been
explained away, and a tradition gradually “invented” and consolidated is now
being presented as “unquestionable.”

8 Such is the case with an Iraqi Shīʿī cleric Aḥmad al-Ḥasan, known as al-Yamāni (b. 1968).
See Golkar, “Clerical Militia,” 230.
9 One example is the cleric Ḥasan Abṭaḥī (d. 2015). See Shahi, “Paradoxes of Iranian Mes-
sianic Politics,” 122.
10 See Hage Ali, Nationalism, 149ff.; Cook, “Waiting for the Twelfth Imam,” 131–2.
11 See, for example, al-Nāṣirī, Nisāʾ taltaqī bi-ṣāḥib al-zamān, 23–8.
12 Al-Zubaydī, Kayfa taltaqī bi-l-imām al-mahdī, 94. See also, by the same author, a collection
of stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam during the Greater Occultation entitled
Arwaʿ al-qiṣaṣ fī man raʾā l-mahdī fī l-ghayba al-kubrā, and the chapter on seeing the Imam
in his book of 500 questions about the Hidden Imam entitled 500 suʾāl ḥawl al-imām al-
mahdī.
13 Al-Zubaydī, Kayfa taltaqī bi-l-imām al-mahdī, 32; translation (slightly modified), cited in
Hage Ali, Nationalism, 153.
14 Khādimī-Shīrāzī, Tuḥfih-yi imām mahdī, 140: “It is an indisputable fact (qaṭʿī va bī-tardīd)
that hundreds of eminent ulama (ṣadhā az ʿulamā-yi buzurg) have encountered our
Imam.” See also the comments of Ali Hussain: “It is the privilege of Imam that when and
where he deems necessary he meets his representatives to clarify and explain any ideo-
logical or jurisprudential issues, which are beyond the perception of ordinary mortals.”
Hussain, The Awaited Savior, Question 25.
15 Āl ʿUṣfūr, Ẓāhirat al-ghayba wa-daʿwā l-sifāra fī ẓill imāmat al-mahdī l-muntaẓar, 20 (of
the appendix): “It is certain and well-known among all Imāmī Shīʿa that is it possible to
see the lord of the [final] age during the Greater Occultation.”
conclusion 175

No issue has posed a greater intellectual challenge to Twelver Shīʿī Islam than
the ghayba of the Imam. The history of Twelver Shīʿī Islam, or what some con-
temporary Shīʿī ulama call “the unadulterated Islam of Muḥammad” (islām-i
nāb-i Muḥammadī),16 has been dominated, during the ghayba of the Hidden
Imam, by attempts to deal with the abrupt loss of the divine guide, to ratio-
nalize why he does not reappear, and paradoxically, to exploit his absence and
the intellectual space it left for the ulama. Let us recall that unlike the Imams
who preceded him—and distinct from some of the central figures of other
religious traditions who appear in dreams to their followers—most of his fol-
lowers believe that the Hidden Imam is alive in every sense of the word: he
is spiritually and physically present in the world—present and yet concealed.
A person reading the above-mentioned anecdotes from recent history might
assume the Imam is believed, throughout the ghayba, to have been in direct
contact with certain of his leading votaries, in particular the ulama. In this
book I have sought to rethink this and other suppositions, to explore in the pro-
cess the incremental invention and development of the tradition of encounters
with the Imam, and to contribute to a better understanding of the role of the
Hidden Imam in the history of Islamic thought.
On examining the works of hadith and tafsīr that have survived from the
period that came to be known as the Lesser Occultation (or shortly thereafter),
and exploring their implications for the doctrine of ghayba and the question
of contacting the Hidden Imam, it became clear that the overwhelming major-
ity of these hadiths affirm that not even the Imam’s closest followers can see
him during his ghayba, while a small number suggest that he can be seen but
not recognized. Three hadiths adduced by Shīʿī scholars as traditional proof
to validate their position that some believers can see and recognize the Imam
during the Greater Occultation are understood as justifying the stories of those
who have met him. The most important conclusion of the analysis of these
hadiths is that all three appear to have emanated from the Wāqifī followers of
al-Kāẓim and were later absorbed into Twelver sources and brought into line
with emerging dogmas about the ghayba of the Hidden Imam. Interrogation of
the semantic multivalency of the word mawlā in two of these hadiths suggests
that although a number of interpretations are plausible, evidence favors either
“client” or “servant” as the primary connotation of mawlā in these hadiths.
In the initial years of the Greater Occultation, Shīʿī authorities, naql (tradi-
tion) oriented in their approach, declared that the door to contact with Hidden
Imam in a wakeful state was closed practically and permanently. The most

16 See, e.g., Dāvarī (ed.), Taṣvīr-i imāmān-i shīʿih dar dāʾirat al-maʿārif-i islām, 223.
176 chapter 5

important text that reflects this position is the final tawqīʿ of the Hidden
Imam, which declares anyone who claims to see him before the end of time
a “lying impostor.” The decision to disallow any possibility of physically seeing
or encountering the Imam in a wakeful state was a reflection of existing his-
torical and political exigencies. We can discern in the writings of the Twelver
Shīʿī scholars from this period an implicit, if not at times explicit, dialogue with
the rival Shīʿī groups who posed political and military challenges to the Buyid
confederacy. The decision to sunder all contact with the Imam and introduce
the notion of a second ghayba was made as Twelver Shīʿī scholars framed their
nascent community as a politically non-threatening alternative branch of Shīʿī
Islam.
The subsequent generation of rationalist-leaning, ʿaql (reason) oriented
ulama partially opened the door that the final tawqīʿ had sought to close. These
scholars moved the issue of contacting and seeing the Imam from the realm of
the impossible to the realm of the theoretically possible. Through interrogat-
ing the nuances of their philosophical and theological speculations concerning
the ghayba, it became evident that by permitting the possibility of encounters
with the Imam, ʿaql-oriented scholars performed a discursive and an apolo-
getic function: to rationalize the ghayba of the Imam before their Muʿtazilī
interlocutors. While some earlier researchers tended to assume that stories of
encounters with the Imam in a wakeful state were transmitted in the first cen-
tury of the Greater Occultation, it was shown that none of the scholars from
this period, even those who permitted the possiblity that some may see the
Imam, transmit accounts of anyone physically seeing the Imam in person while
awake.
The earliest extant accounts of encounters with the Imam in a wakeful state
from the Greater Occultation appeared in the next two centuries, foreshad-
owed as they were by the rationalist scholars discussed previously. Though
these accounts appear some two centuries after the start of the Greater Occul-
tation, the events they relate are said to have occurred in the first decades of
the Greater Occultation, in what may be construed as an attempt to portray
the Greater Occultation as a natural and uncomplicated extension of the Lesser
Occultation. At this stage the accounts are quite rare. It was only later, begin-
ning in the Safavid period, that the number of accounts increased, and the
stories became more embellished. This shift is traced to a new interpretation
of the “lying impostors” passage of the final tawqīʿ—an interpretation that was
tantamount to a carte blanche for ulama who cited it and continue to cite it
to justify their work of writing, compiling, publishing, or confirming the verac-
ity of collections of stories of contact and encounters with the Imam during
the Greater Occultation. In some of these stories, the Imam is, in effect, trans-
conclusion 177

formed from primarily a miracle worker into a doctrinal and legal teacher of the
ulama, buttressing their newly defined station as his “general representatives.”
The analysis offered in this book takes a modest step toward appreciating
the significance of the question of encountering the Hidden Imam, as well
as the nature and dynamic of authority in Shīʿī Islam in light of its doctrinal
modalities, in the hope of paving the way for future studies that will focus
on the development of this tradition and the provenance, ramification, and
consequences of stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam since the mid-
nineteenth century.
 appendix 1

A Descriptive Catalogue of Some Key Sources That

Deal with the Subject of Encounters with the
Hidden Imam

What follows is an annotated catalogue of some of the main collections of stories

of encounters with the Hidden Imam and other books that emphasize these stories,
mentioned by Āqā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī (d. 1970) in his al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-shīʿa, a com-
prehensive bibliography of works written up to 1950–1.1

1. Al-ʿAbqarī l-ḥisān fī aḥwāl (var., tawārīkh) mawlānā ṣāḥib al-zamān (The fine won-
ders of beauty concerning the circumstances [var., chronicles] of our master, the lord of
the [final] age) (Persian), by ʿAlī-Akbar Nahāvandī (b. 1280/1863–4, d. 1950),2 a student
of al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī.3 It is one of the lengthiest works on the Hidden Imam.4 One of the
main sections of the work is entitled al-Yāqūt al-aḥmar fī-man raʾā l-ḥujja al-muntaẓar
(The red ruby concerning those who have seen the eagerly awaited Proof [of God]).
This section was republished as a separate book under the title Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i
ʿaṣr (The blessings of the Guardian of the Age). The book is divided into seven chap-
ters: (1) encounters with the Hidden Imam, in a wakeful state, during which the person
has seen and simultaneously recognized the Imam (80 accounts); (2) encounters with
the Hidden Imam, in a wakeful state, during which the person sees the Imam but only
later realizes this fact (109 accounts); (3) sightings and unveilings, concerning people
who saw the Imam in a state between wakefulness and sleep (16 accounts); (4) veridi-
cal dreams (29 accounts); (5) traces of the Hidden Imam, concerning accounts of those
who saw the light of the Imam, heard his voice, or inhaled his fragrance (52 accounts)
(this chapter also includes the tawqīʿāt of the Imam and accounts of miracles performed

1 On al-Ṭihrānī, see Algar, “Āqā (or Āḡā) Bozorg Tehrānī,” EIr, 2:169–70. On his al-Dharīʿa, see
Kohlberg, al-Ḏarīʿa elā Taṣānīf al-Šīʿa, EIr, 7:35–6.
2 On al-ʿAbqarī l-ḥisān, see al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 15:215–6 (no. 1419). Henry Corbin is among the
few Western scholar who have taken note of this work. See Corbin, Histoire, 108 [= Corbin,
History, 69], where he calls it “al-Kitâb al-ʾabqarî,” and Corbin, En Islam iranien, 4:303–4 n. 2,
where he calls it, “al-Kitâb al-ʿabqarî al-hossan fi ithbât Mawlânâ Sâhib al-zamân.”
3 Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr, 16. On Nahāvandī, see Miṣbāḥ, “Ḥājj Shaykh ʿAlī-
Akbar Nahāvandī.” Nahāvandī also recorded stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam in
his Khazīnat al-jawāhir, 1:378–80; 2:1047–55.
4 Al-ʿAbqarī l-ḥisān has been republished by the Jamkarān publishing house in nine volumes,
comprising 4,400 pages.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413153_008

180 appendix 1

by him); (6) accounts of those who prayed to the Hidden Imam to intercede for them
(tavassulāt) and whose prayers were answered (19 accounts); and (7) accounts of those
who met the servants, the four emissaries (sufarāʾ) or deputies (wukalāʾ) of the Imam
(47 accounts—all from the Lesser Occultation).
Most of the accounts are of prominent or less well-known ulama who are said to have
encountered the Imam, especially clerics from the time of Nahāvandī or the previous
century, including al-Waḥīd al-Bihbihānī (d. 1791), Baḥr al-ʿUlūm al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (d. 1797),
Muḥammad Ḥasan al-Najafī—known as “Ṣāḥib al-Jawāhir” (d. 1850), Murtaḍā al-Anṣārī
(d. 1864), Ḥasan Shīrāzī, known as Mīrzā-yi Shīrāzī (d. 1895), Āqā Najafī Iṣfahānī (d. 1914),
Muḥammad-Ḥusayn Nāʾīnī (d. 1936), ʿAbd al-Karīm Yazdī Ḥāʾirī (d. 1937)—the influen-
tial marjiʿ al-taqlīd who founded the modern ḥawza in Qum, and Abū l-Ḥasan Iṣfahānī
(d. 1946).
The editor of Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr, Sayyid Javād Muʿallim, maintains that
there are so many stories of people who have seen the Imam that the matter no longer
needs to be proven.5 He emphasizes that anyone, regardless of learning or piety, can see
the Imam, though in fact most of the stories are of scholars and students of knowledge.6
According to Muʿallim, the accounts serve to prove that the Imam “truly is among us”
(ān ḥaḍrat vāqiʿan dar bayn-i mā hastand).7 Stories of prominent ulama encountering
the Imam are included throughout the work, though sources are not cited for any of
the accounts.8 A report is also related of Nahāvandī’s scribe, a certain Muḥammad-ʿAlī
Ḥāʾirī, seeing the Hidden Imam.9

2. Badāʾiʿ al-kalām fī-man fāza bi-liqāʾ al-imām ʿalayh al-salām (Wondrous words
concerning those who have attained the presence of the Imam, peace be upon him)
(Arabic?), by Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. Murtaḍā al-Yazdī al-Ḥāʾirī al-
Ṭabāṭabāʾī (d. ca. 1313/1895–6).10 According to al-Ṭihrānī, al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī mentioned this
book in a list of his written works found at the end of his Akhbār al-awāʾil, published in

5 Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr, 13 (from the intro. by Muʿallim).

6 Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr, 14 (from the intro. by Muʿallim).
7 Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr, 18 (from the intro. by Muʿallim).
8 Page references for stories about the following individuals appear in the parentheses after
their names: Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (366–9); Muqaddas al-Ardabīlī (72); ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī (176–
7, 179–80); al-Shahīd al-Thānī (179); al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī (360); Murtaḍā al-Anṣārī (177–8); Āqā
Najafī Iṣfahānī (178–9); ʿAlī al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī (192–3).
9 Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr, 359. Nahāvandī describes miracles and encoun-
ters with the Imam in other works as well, e.g., his Rāḥat al-rūḥ yā kishtī-i najāt, 144–5,
170–4.
10 Al-Qazwīnī, al-Imām al-mahdī, 254, lists the title of the book as Badāʾiʿ al-kalām fī-man
ijtamaʿ bi-l-imām. Al-Qazwīnī’s introduction was plagiarized by al-Ibrāhīmī, Iʿraf imām
zamānika, 83–4.
a catalogue of key sources 181

1312/1894–5.11 According to al-Amīn, a section of this work was published in Bombay in

1308/1890–1 and featured an endorsement (taqrīẓ) by al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī.12

3. Bahjat al-awliyāʾ fī-man fāza bi-liqāʾ al-ḥujja (The delight of the friends of God con-
cerning those who attained the presence of the proof [of God]) (Persian), by Muḥam-
mad Taqī b. Mīrzā Kāẓim b. Mīrzā ʿAzīz Allāh b. al-Mawlā Muḥammad Taqī al-Majlisī
al-Iṣfahānī, known as al-Almāsī (b. 1089/1678–9, d. 1159/1746–7), a maternal grandson
of Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī. According to al-Ṭihrānī, this title was mentioned in the
work of one of al-Almāsī’s students. It has never been published and no manuscripts
are known to exist.13

4. Bughyat al-ṭālib fī-man raʾā l-imām al-ghāʾib ʿalayh al-salām (The object of the
seeker’s desire concerning those who have seen the Hidden Imam) (Persian), by
Muḥammad Bāqir al-Birjandī al-Qāʾinī (b. 1276/1859–60, d. 1933–4). This work was
printed in Mashhad in 1923–4.14 An autograph is available in the library of Ayatollah
Marʿashī-Najafī in Qum. Another manuscript exists, presumably in the same library,
under the title Tadhkirat al-ṭālib. The author was a student of Mīrzā-yi Shīrāzī and al-
Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, among others.15 According to al-Ṭihrānī, this work mentions or makes
use of an anti-Bābī polemical work entitled al-Radd ʿalā l-bābiyya by Shaykh Muḥam-
mad Ḥasan al-Khūsufī al-Qāʾinī, another student of Mīrzā-yi Shīrāzī.16

5. Dār al-salām fī man fāza bi-salām al-Imām (The abode of peace concerning those
who attained the peace of the Imam) (Persian), by Maḥmūd b. Jaʿfar al-Maythamī al-

11 Al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 3:65 (no. 190).

12 Al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-shīʿa, 9:254.
13 Al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 3:160 (no. 567). Al-Qazwīnī, al-Imām al-mahdī, 254, lists the title of
the book as al-Bahja fī-man fāza bi-liqāʾ al-ḥujja. The book is said to include an account
about an unnamed believer from Baghdad (alive in 1136/1723–4) who, while stranded on
an island, sees a giant snake killed by a rabbit, then encounters a group of people and real-
izes, after being transported back to his home, that one of them was the Hidden Imam.
Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī (d. 1902) read this account in Nūr al-ʿuyūn, a work written by one of
al-Almāsī’s students. Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 76–9 (no. 29) [Persian transla-
tion: al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:632–4 (no. 38)]. This suggests that al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī did not
have access to Bahjat al-awliyāʾ. The story is also cited in al-Ḥāʾirī al-Yazdī, Ilzām al-nāṣib,
2:41–2 (no. 26), who gives the title of the book as Bahjat al-awliyāʾ fī dhikr man raʾāhu fī l-
ghayba al-kubrā. Similar stories of island encounters with the Hidden Imam are recorded
in Najm-i thāqib, 2:462–72 (no. 2), 2:597–615 (no. 37), 2:739–41 (no. 83).
14 Al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 3:133 (no. 449).
15 Mahdīpūr, Kitāb-nāmih-yi ḥaḍrat-i mahdī, 1:175 (no. 398).
16 Al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 10:189 (no. 453).
182 appendix 1

ʿIrāqī (b. 1240/1825 in Tehran; d. 1306/1888–9, 1308/1890–1 or 1310/1892–3 in Najaf).17

The author is often referred to in Shīʿī biographical sources as “Ṣāḥib-i Dār al-salām”
(“the author of Dār al-salām”).18 Completed by al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī in 1301/1884, two
years later, Dār al-salām was published by the official state printing house in Tehran,
with the blessing of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah and the imperial court, in lithograph form and a
generous initial printing of 1,000 copies. It was first typeset in Tehran in 1333 Sh./1954.
An abridged form of the book has been published under the title Ruʾyā-yi nūr (Visions
of the light),19 and the monograph itself has been published repeatedly, including in
2008 by the Jamkarān Mosque outside Qum. In recent printings, the title of the book
appears as Dār al-salām dar aḥvālāt-i ḥaḍrat-i mahdī va-ʿalāʾim-i ẓuhūr va-kisānī kih dar
khwāb yā bīdārī bih maḥḍar-i ān ḥaḍrat-i mubārak sharafyāb shudih-and (The abode of
peace concerning the Mahdī, the portents of his advent, and [the accounts of] those
who were honored to attain his presence in dreams or while awake). Many of the sto-
ries recounted in Dār al-salām are reproduced in subsequent books on the subject of
encounters with the Imam.
Dār al-salām is composed of six parts. The first three are short and devoted to restat-
ing popular apologetic themes in ghayba works, such as rationalizing the need for an
infallible guide in every age. Part 5 constitutes the largest section of the book and is
devoted mainly to stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam. The third chapter of
this section is devoted to stories of those who encountered the Hidden Imam during
the Greater Occultation. Here, al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī provides a Persian translation of
two accounts: the story of the Green Island in the White Sea and the story of five islands
ruled by sons of the Hidden Imam.20 He then records a number of accounts of those
who saw the Imam while awake and those who saw him in dreams and visions.21 In the
category of those who saw the Imam while awake, he introduces a further taxonomy
of those who recognized the Imam while seeing him and those who, after having seen
him, recognized that they had seen the Hidden Imam. The accounts in this section are
mainly of eminent ulama from the Safavid and Qajar periods, including al-Ardabīlī and
Baḥr al-ʿUlūm al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī. In addition, in this work, al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī provides, for
the first time, a now famous account of his teacher Murtaḍā al-Anṣārī encountering the
Hidden Imam in Najaf (see chapter 4, above). This account appears in virtually all the

17 On this work, see al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 8:20–1 (no. 18); Mahdavī, Zindigīnāmih-yi ʿAllāmah
Majlisī, 2:284. An 1886 lithograph copy is available in the Princeton University Library (call
number: 2465.4985.328q) under the title Dār al-salām al-mushtamil ʿalā dhikr man fāza bi-
salām (344 fols.).
18 On al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, see Iʿtimād al-Salṭanih, ʿUlamā-yi, 126; al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-shīʿa,
10:103; Ṣaḥrāʾī, “Maythamī-ʿIrāqī,” DMT, 15:568; Ghaemmaghami, “The Abode of Peace.”
19 Al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Ruʾyā-yi nūr.
20 Al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 448–64, 464–72.
21 Al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 474–85.
a catalogue of key sources 183

biographical works on al-Anṣārī and has strengthened his reputation as a pious jurist
with access to the Hidden Imam. Perhaps most significant of all, al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī
provides two accounts of himself encountering the Imam. In one report, he looks back
to a time when he was deeply disturbed by a number of ulama “who had strayed
from the path” (munḥarif shudand) of the Imams and died clinging to “corrupt beliefs”
(ʿaqāʾid-i fāsidah). This is a reference to ulama that al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī branded as
heretics, that is, ulama who embraced the Shaykhī school and the Bābī movement,
including at least one of al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī’s colleagues from the time he was a stu-
dent of al-Anṣārī.22 While troubled by this trend, he claimed to have experienced a
vision of the Hidden Imam one night in a mosque in Najaf. As the Imam was leaving the
mosque, al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī threw himself at his feet weeping. He begged to know:
“What will happen to me?” The Imam gently helped him to his feet and responded in
Persian: “I will not leave without you (bī-tū nimīravam).” Al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī under-
stood the Imam’s words to mean that the Imam would not enter paradise without
al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, perhaps suggesting that al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī would live to wit-
ness the Imam’s appearance, then die with him.23

6. Hidāyat al-anām fī-man laqiya al-ḥujja fī l-manām (Guidance to humanity con-

cerning those who met the Proof [of God] in dreams) (Persian), by the prolific scholar
Ḥusayn b. Naṣr Allāh b. Ṣādiq al-Ḥusaynī al-Mūsawī al-ʿArab-Bāghī, also known as
Ḥusayn Urūmiyyih-ʾī and ʿArab-Bāghī Urmavī (d. 1950).24 According to al-Ṭihrānī,
Hidāyat al-anām was completed on 6 May 1913 and printed in Tabriz the following
year. Al-Ṭihrānī notes that it was also appended to Urmavī’s al-Tuḥfa al-mahdawiyya
fī aḥwāl al-imām al-mahdī, which was completed in 1330/1911–2 and printed in Tabriz
in 1335/1916–7.25 Hidāyat al-anām has been reprinted at least five times. In the intro-
duction, Urmavī explains that having written al-Tuḥfa al-mahdawiyya the previous year
and included forty stories of those who attained the presence of the Hidden Imam,

22 See Ghaemmaghami, “The Abode of Peace.” Al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī also wrote an anti-
Shaykhī polemic called Kifāyat al-rāshidīn fī l-radd ʿalā jamāʿa min al-mubdiʿīn. Al-Ṭihrānī,
al-Dharīʿa, 18:91–2 (no. 825).
23 The two accounts are also cited in Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr, 393–4. Another
collection of encounter stories attributed to al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, though not mentioned
by al-Ṭihrānī in al-Dharīʿa, is Tadhkirat al-ṭālib fī-man raʾā l-imām al-ghāʾib. This work has
never been published, and I know of no extant manuscripts, but it is mentioned in pass-
ing in al-Qazwīnī, al-Imām al-mahdī, 254; al-Zanjānī al-Najafī, ʿAqāʾid al-imāmiyya, 1:248;
Ṭayyib, Kalim al-ṭayyib, 537; al-Gulpāyigānī, Muntakhab al-athar, 381.
24 On ʿArab-Bāghī Urūmī, see Khiradmand, Gudhar-i āftāb.
25 Al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 25:174 (no. 114); 3:475 (no. 1748), calls the book al-Tuḥfa al-mahdiyya.
Chapter 11 includes accounts of forty individuals who encountered the Hidden Imam
( fāzū bi-ziyāratihi).
184 appendix 1

it occurred to him to write a separate work and compile forty accounts of those who
dreamt of the Hidden Imam.26 Many of the accounts are taken from the works of al-
Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī.

7. Jannat al-maʾwā fī dhikr man fāza bi-liqāʾ al-ḥujja aw muʿjazātihi fī l-ghayba al-
kubrā (The garden of refuge concerning those who attained the presence of the Proof
[of God] or [witnessed] his miracles during the Greater Occultation) (Arabic), by al-
Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī (d. 1902), completed on 13 Shawwāl 1302/26 July 1885.27 This work
includes fifty-nine accounts not mentioned by al-Majlisī in his Biḥār al-anwār.28 Al-
Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, in fact, hoped that his work would serve as an addendum to the volume
of Biḥār al-anwār that is devoted to the Hidden Imam, in order to “prove [the] weighty
matter of the Imam’s appearance, from time to time, to meet with his most pious dis-
ciples.” He prayed that these stories could serve “as a means [for the faithful] to draw
closer to [the Imam].”29

8. Kifāyat al-muhtadī fī maʿrīfat al-mahdī ʿalayh al-salām (That which suffices the
rightly guided in knowing and recognizing the Mahdī, peace be upon him) (Persian),
by Muḥammad Hādī b. Muḥammad Mīr Lawḥī Sabzavārī (fl. eleventh/seventeenth cen-
tury).30 Also known as Arbaʿīn-i Mīr Lawḥī,31 Kifāyat al-muhtadī is a Persian translation
of, and commentary on, forty hadiths about the twelfth Imam, twenty-five of which are
found in Ithbāt al-rajʿa, a work ascribed to Faḍl b. Shādhān al-Nīshābūrī (d. 260/873).32
In the introduction, Mīr-Lawḥī states that he began writing Kifāyat al-muhtadī after see-
ing a dream of either the Prophet or the Imam on 14 Shaʿbān 1081/27 December 1670.33

26 Urmavī, Hidāyat al-anām, 1.

27 See al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 5:159–60 (no. 675).
28 On this work, see E. Kohlberg, “Behar al-Anwar,” in EIr, 4:90–3.
29 Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jannat al-maʾwā, 11. Jannat al-maʾwā continues to be regularly pub-
lished as an addendum to the volume of al-Majlisī’s Biḥār al-anwār on the Hidden Imam.
See al-Majlisī, Biḥār al-anwār, 53:199–336.
30 On the author, see Hairi, “Mīr Lawḥī,”EI²; Turner, Islam without Allah?, 212–3; Turner, “Still
Waiting for the Imam?” 45–7; Ṭāwūsī-Masrūr, “Mīr-Lawḥī, Sayyid Muḥammad b. Muḥam-
mad,” DMT, 15: 586–7.
31 Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 112.
32 Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 132. Cf. al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 16: 78 (no. 395), who seems to
regard al-Nīshābūrī’s books, al-Ghayba and Ithbāt al-rajʿa, as one and the same book, in
the possession of Mīr-Lawḥī, but no longer available. See also Amīnī, “Kitāb-i ghaybat-i
Shaykh Ṭūsī,” 472.
33 Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 427. The text is ambiguous about whether he saw the
Prophet or the Hidden Imam though it is likely the latter considering that the dream took
place on the eve of the Imam’s putative birth.
a catalogue of key sources 185

The book was completed two years later.34 The chapter on hadith no. 37 (a hadith
ascribed to al-Ṣādiq which says that all the miracles that were performed by the
prophets and their successors will also be performed by the Qāʾim) is the longest chap-
ter of the work. This chapter comprises accounts of encounters with the Hidden Imam
and stories of miracles ascribed to the Imam.35
On encounters during the period of the Greater Occultation, Mīr Lawḥī states,
“There have been many Shīʿa and mawālī who have attained [the Hidden Imam’s] pres-
ence.” He refers readers to the three works I have discussed in this book (al-Ṣadūq’s
Kamāl al-dīn, al-Rāwandī’s al-Kharāʾij, and al-Irbilī’s Kashf al-ghumma) as well as al-
Fuṣūl al-muhimma.36 Regarding the final tawqīʿ of the Imam, he states, “What has been
mentioned in the hadith, ‘Anyone who claims to have seen [me] before the appearance
of al-Sufyānī and [the sounding of] the Cry is a lying impostor,’ does not contradict
these accounts (bā īn akhbār munāfāt nadārad).” Mīr Lawḥī directs readers to his work
Riyāḍ al-muʾminīn for a more detailed discussion of the issue.37 He also states that an
unnamed Shīʿī scholar has stated in a work on the virtues of the Imams that there are so
many stories of the Hidden Imam meeting his followers, healing the sick, and assisting
the helpless that were they all to be collected, it would become a large tome (kitābī ʿaẓīm
mīshavad).38 He then cites two accounts from this unnamed author, transmitted from
al-Irbilī’s Kashf al-ghumma: the story of Ismāʿīl al-Hirqilī and the story of the father of a
certain al-Bāqī b. ʿAṭwa al-ʿAlawī al-Ḥusaynī.39 The only other account from the period
of the Greater Occultation he cites is the story of the youth and the Black Stone (see
chapter 4 for this account).40 Mīr-Lawḥī adds, “I know a sick person who has seen the
Imam multiple times (mukarrar ān ḥaḍrat rā dīdih). At one point, he suffered from a
terminal illness, but the Imam fully healed him.”41 Mīr-Lawḥī then refers to the hadith

34 On the work, see al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 18: 101–2 (no. 867).

35 Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 585–641.
36 This is a reference to al-Fuṣūl al-muhimma l-maʿrifat al-aʾimma al-ithnī -ʿashar wa-faḍlihim
wa-maʿrifat awlādihim wa-naslihim by Nūr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. al-Ṣabbāgh al-
Mālikī al-Makkī (d. 855/1451–2), a Sunnī scholar from the Maghrib whose testimony in
support of the twelfth Imam being the Mahdī is often referred to by Shīʿī apologists.
See Madelung, “al-Mahdī,” EI². On al-Fuṣūl al-muhimma, see al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 16: 246
(no. 978). Al-Fuṣūl al-muhimma has been published, but there are no accounts of encoun-
ters with the Hidden Imam from the period of the Greater Occultation. Ibn al-Ṣabbāgh,
al-Fuṣūl al-muhimma, 2:1095–1136.
37 The full title of this work is Riyāḍ al-muʾminīn wa-ḥadāʾiq al-muttaqīn but it does not
appear to have survived. See al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 11:329 (no. 2011). Mīr-Lawḥī wrote this
work in his youth. Hairi, “Mir Lawḥī,” EI², 7:94.
38 Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 628.
39 Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 629–34.
40 Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 625–7.
41 Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 634.
186 appendix 1

that states that when the Imam attends the pilgrimage, people see him but are unable
to recognize him. It appears that he understands this hadith to be applicable for the
period of the Greater Occultation as well. He also quotes the account of Ibn Fāris al-
Adīb (see chapter 3 for this account), though he does not say whether this account
is from the Lesser or Greater Occultation. With the exception of the three accounts
referred to above, all of the remaining accounts he cites are from the Lesser Occulta-
tion. It is thus odd that Mīr-Lawḥī states, at this point, that “most of the stories that have
been mentioned took place during the Greater Occultation” (va ḥikāyātī kih madhkūr
shud akthar dar ghaybat-i kubrā būd).42

9. Al-Najm al-thāqib fī aḥwāl al-imām al-ghāʾib (also called Najm-i thāqib) (The
star of piercing brightness, concerning the circumstances of the Hidden Imam) (Per-
sian), by al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, completed shortly after Jannat al-maʾwā on 14 Dhū l-Qaʿda
1302/25 August 1885.43 Chapter seven, by far the longest chapter of the book, features
one hundred stories of those who encountered or contacted the Hidden Imam during
the Greater Occultation. According to al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, his teacher Mīrzā-yi Shīrāzī
urged him to write Najm-i thāqib, gave the manuscript his seal of approval, and asserted
that no other work on the Hidden Imam rivals it.44 Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī states that his
main purpose in compiling the stories is to prove the existence of the Imam, demon-
strate that he lives among the people, and show how his presence benefits them. That
the work was written in Persian betrays a desire to make the stories available to the
educated public in al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī’s native land. Najm-i thāqib has been published
and reprinted numerous times in the original language. It has also been published in
abridged form under the title Khūrshīd-i ghāʾib (The hidden sun).45 The one hundred
stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam during the Greater Occultation have also
been extracted and published as a separate volume.46 Additionally, Najm-i thāqib has
been translated into Arabic (twice) and English.

10. Tabṣirat al-walī fī-man raʾā l-qāʾim al-mahdī (The mental perception of the
guardian [of the age] concerning those who have seen the Qāʾim, the Mahdī) (Arabic),
by Hāshim b. Sulaymān al-Baḥrānī (d. 1107/1695–96 or 1109/1697–98).47 Completed in

42 Sabzavārī, Kifāyat al-muhtadī, 637.

43 Al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 24:69 (no. 352). See a recent edition with the Persianized title: al-
Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib dar aḥvāl-i imām-i ghāʾib.
44 Al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 1:36–7.
45 [Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī], Khūrshīd-i ghāʾib.
46 [Al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī], Mā imām-i zamān.
47 On the author, see Tabrīziyān, al-ʿAllāma al-Sayyid Hāshim al-Baḥrānī, 17–87; al-Bāḥrānī,
Tabṣirat al-walī, dāl-nūn (from the book’s introduction); Madelung, “Baḥrāni, Hāšem,”EIr,
3:528–9; Lawson, “Akhbārī Shīʿī Approaches to tafsīr,” 187.
a catalogue of key sources 187

1099/1688, this work contains seventy-six accounts of encounters with the Imam, most
of which took place during the period of the Lesser Occultation.48 Al-Baḥrānī states
in the introduction that it occurred to him to compile the reports of those who had
seen or heard the Imam’s voice during the lifetime of his father, the eleventh Imam
(al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī), and then during “the first and second occultations,” adding that
there are numerous such accounts “in dependable books and reliable works.”49 A sepa-
rate work by al-Baḥrānī called Faṣl muʿtabar fī-man raʾā l-imām al-thānī ʿashar al-qāʾim
al-muntaẓar (A credible chapter concerning those who have seen the twelfth Imam,
the awaited Qāʾim) has been published as an addendum to Tabṣirat al-walī. According
to Tabrīziyān, Faṣl muʿtabar was likely intended to be a condensed version of Tabṣirat
al-walī with some additional accounts.50

48 The comment by al-Ṭihrānī, al-Dharīʿa, 3:326 (no. 1192), cited by Madelung, “Baḥrāni,
Hāšem,” EIr, 3:529, that the work includes accounts of “about 76 persons who saw the
twelfth Imam down to the year 664/1265–66” is incorrect, since al-Baḥrānī includes the
story of the Green Island in the White Sea, which is clearly much later. For information
about manuscripts, abridgements, and translations, see Tabrīziyān, al-ʿAllāma al-Sayyid
Hāshim al-Baḥrānī, 111–4. For a partial Persian translation, see Baḥrānī, Rawzanihʾī bih
khūrshīd.
49 Al-Bāḥrānī, Tabṣirat al-walī, 4.
50 Tabrīziyān, al-ʿAllāma al-Sayyid Hāshim al-Baḥrānī, 141.
 appendix 2

Al-Majlisī’s Gloss of the “lying impostor” Passage of

the Final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam

The Safavid scholar Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī interpreted the “lying impostor” pas-
sage of the final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam as applying only those who claim to see the
Imam and be his exclusive representative (like the four emissaries (sufarāʾ) from the
Lesser Occultation). Al-Majlisī’s gloss of this phrase has served as the established posi-
tion on the issue, as evidenced by the fact that it is quoted, alluded to, or referred to by
numerous scholars after him. To illustrate this point, I list thirteen ulama and scholars
whose writings about the Hidden Imam embrace or reiterate al-Majlisī’s interpretation
of the final tawqīʿ. The list is not meant to be exhaustive.

1. The scholar and Quran commentator ʿAbd Allāh al-Shubbar (d. 1242/1826–7) cites al-
Majlisī’s explanation almost verbatim to validate stories from the time of the Greater
Occultation of “large numbers of pious and trustworthy scholars of the past and
present” who have met the Hidden Imam.1

2/3. Maḥmūd al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī (d. 1306/1888–9, 1308/1890–1 or 1310/1892–3) and

Ḥusayn al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī (d. 1902) both quote al-Majlisī’s explanation verbatim in the
chapters of their collections devoted to reconciling the final tawqīʿ and hadiths stating
that the Hidden Imam cannot be seen with stories of those who have encountered him
during the Greater Occultation.2

4. The celebrated reformist Lebanese scholar and Shīʿī biographer Muḥsin al-Amīn
(d. 1957–8) concedes that “there are hadiths that establish the impossibility of see-
ing [the Imam] (dālla ʿalā ʿadam imkān al-ruʾya) during the Greater Occultation.” He
argues that the way to reconcile these hadiths with the accounts describing encoun-

1 Al-Shubbar, al-Anwār, 36. In the chapter on the Hidden Imam in his exposition of core Shīʿī
doctrines and beliefs, al-Shubbar does not refer to any of the encounter stories during the
period of the Greater Occultation, see al-Shubbar, Ḥaqq al-yaqīn, 283–91. On the author,
see the introduction to his Quran commentary, al-Shubbar, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm, 56–7;
Anṣārī, Tashayyuʿ-i imāmī, 81–120.
2 Al-Maythamī al-ʿIrāqī, Dār al-salām, 193; al-Nūrī, Najm-i thāqib, 2:852; al-Nūrī al-Ṭabarsī, Jan-
nat al-maʾwā, 146. See appendix I for descriptions of these works.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413153_009

al-majlisī’s gloss of the “lying impostor” passage 189

ters with the Imam is to declare as unbelievers anyone who claims to have both seen
the Imam and “to deliver information on his behalf as the [four] representatives did
[during the Lesser Occultation].”3

5. Mujtabā Qazvīnī-Khurāsānī (d. 1967) argues that the hadiths indicating that the peo-
ple cannot recognize the Imam do not contradict (tanāfī nadārad) the stories of people
who have seen the Imam “because the meaning [of those hadiths] is that while the
Imam is amongst the people, the generality of people cannot recognize him. There-
fore, there is no contradiction between these hadiths and the fact that a small number
(ʿiddih-yi qalīlī) of people have seen (the Imam).”4 Qazvīnī-Khurāsānī maintains that
the final tawqīʿ sought not only to prevent harmful innovations and heretical teachings
(bidʿat-hā) from being introduced into Shīʿī Islam, but also to anathematize anyone who
claimed to be the Imam’s special representative during the Greater Occultation “like
the Ṣūfī poles, the Shaykhī fourth pillar (rukn-i rābiʿ-i shaykhiyyih), as well as those who
claim to be the Mahdī [himself].” He then decries the fact that “this blessed narration”
issued by “the source of inspiration and the dawning place of revelation (maʿdin-i vaḥy
va-maṭlaʿ-i tanzīl)” has not been studied, reflected on, and accepted by all of the Shīʿa,
for if it had, such claimants who divided the Shīʿī community and caused great suffering
to the Shīʿa would never have appeared.5

6. ʿAlī Davānī (d. 2007) asserts that the tawqīʿ anathematizes anyone who claims to
be the Imam’s representative or the Imam himself. He adds that it is entirely possi-
ble for pious and righteous Shīʿa and the devoted friends (dūstān-i khāliṣ) of the Imam
to see him during the Greater Occultation but choose not to tell anyone.6 Davānī then
argues that eminent scholars like al-Murtaḍā, al-Ṭūsī, and Baḥr al-ʿUlūm al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī
all affirmed that

the Shīʿī ulama do not believe that the Imam of the Age cannot appear to his
righteous friends (dūstān-i pāksirisht). On the contrary, it is certainly possible
for them to see the Imam and either recognize him or not recognize him. All

3 [= wa-īṣāl al-akhbār min jānibihi ʿalā mithāl al-sufarāʾ] Al-Amīn, Aʿyān al-shīʿa, 2:71, also cited
in Kawrānī, Ḥawl ruʾyat al-mahdī l-muntaẓār, 57–8. On al-Amīn’s monumental biography of
prominent Shīʿī figures and scholars, see Ende, “Aʿyān al-Šīʿa,” EIr, 3:130–1.
4 Qazvīnī-Khurāsānī, Bayān al-furqān, 901.
5 Qazvīnī-Khurāsānī, Bayān al-furqān, 902, also cited in al-Majlisī, Mahdīʿi mawʿūd (trans.
Davānī), 928 (no. 1). On the Shaykhī doctrine of the ‘fourth pillar,’ see Amir-Moezzi, “An
Absence Filled with Presences,” 40–52.
6 Davānī adds an explanation to his translation of al-Majlisī’s explanation. See al-Majlisī,
Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī), 929 n. 1, 943 n. 1.
190 appendix 2

of our great scholars like al-Kulaynī and al-Ṣadūq narrated stories of such encoun-
ters in their works.7

7. The prolific Iraqi scholar Bāqir Sharīf al-Qurashī (d. 2012) argues that there are many
ways to reconcile the tension between the final tawqīʿ and the well-attested (tawātur)
stories transmitted by “many people from among the greatest and most righteous Shīʿī
ulama” who have definitely (min al-maqṭūʿ) seen the Imam. However, he mentions
only one, which he considered the best explanation: anyone who claims to have seen
the Imam and likewise claims to be the Imam’s representative is a lying impostor.8
Elsewhere, al-Qurashī avers that during the Greater Occultation, “the great jurists (al-
fuqahāʾ al-ʿiẓām) became the “sources of emulation” and received [the position of] the
most great representation (al-niyāba al-ʿuẓmā) from the eagerly awaited Imam. During
[the Greater Occultation], the [Hidden] Imam had numerous encounters and corre-
sponded often with prominent ulama.”9 He names only one such scholar: al-Mufīd,
who, as mentioned in chapter 4, is alleged to have received letters from the Hidden
Imam.

8. Contemporary scholar Ḥabīb Ṭāhirī concedes that “some” reject the stories of
encounters with the Imam based on hadiths (rivāyāt) that state that whoever claims
to have seen the Imam or encountered him should be declared a liar. He does not say
explicitly who these are, but he does mention that we are living at a time when “the
enemies of the Imam claim that [these stories] are lies.”10 Ṭāhirī responds to these
naysayers by first arguing that it is not hadiths, plural, but rather one hadith, the last
tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam, that declares that all those who claim to have seen the Imam
are frauds. He then argues that the key word in the final tawqīʿ is “impostor” (muftar)
which suggests that the tawqīʿ does not condemn everyone who has encountered the
Imam as liars but rather only those who have seen him and claim to be his exclusive
representative.11
Elsewhere, Ṭāhirī adds a parenthetical note to his Persian translation of the “lying
impostors” passage: “Anyone who claims to have seen (in the sense that the four rep-
resentatives saw me) is a lying impostor.”12 In other words, Ṭāhirī asserts that anyone
who claims to have seen the Imam and likewise claimed to be his representative is a

7 Al-Majlisī, Mahdī-i mawʿūd (trans. Davānī), 943 n. 1.

8 Al-Qurashī, Ḥayāt al-Imām al-Mahdī, 130–1, 134.
9 [= kānat lil-imām ʿiddat iltiqāʾāt wa-murāsalāt maʿa ʿuyūn al-ʿulamāʾ] Al-Qurashī, Ḥayāt
al-Imām al-Mahdī, 133–4.
10 Ṭāhirī, Sīmā-yi āftāb, 308.
11 Ṭāhirī, Sīmā-yi āftāb, 309.
12 Ṭāhirī, Sīmā-yi āftāb, 231.
al-majlisī’s gloss of the “lying impostor” passage 191

liar. Otherwise, if one does not claim to be the Imam’s representative, this sentence of
the tawqīʿ does not apply.
Responding to the question of why the Imam did not appoint specific ulama as
his special representatives during the Greater Occultation as he did during the Lesser
Occultation with the sufarāʾ, Ṭāhirī reasons that it is because “the enemies of the Imam”
would attempt to apprehend and torture such representatives in order to force them to
reveal the Imam’s location (so that they might kill him); and if they refused, the enemies
would incarcerate them for life.13

9. The contemporary Najaf-based scholar ʿAlī al-Sabzavārī, son and student of the
“Grand Ayatollah” ʿAbd al-Aʿlā al-Sabzavārī (d. 1993), argues that the final tawqīʿ “estab-
lished the position of general representation (al-niyāba al-ʿāmma) for the fuqahāʾ and
the mujtahids.”14 Al-Sabzavārī goes on to say that the ulama who have been blessed to
meet the Hidden Imam have attained a level of spiritual maturity (kamāl), truthful-
ness (ṣidq), and loyalty (wafāʾ) that others can attest to; he cites the examples of al-
Muqaddas al-Ardabīlī and Baḥr al-ʿUlūm al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī.15 He maintains that the ulama
who saw the Imam were ordered to keep their encounters with him secret (maʾmūr
bi-l-kitmān) as long as they lived. After they died, their students and close associates
revealed that their teacher or colleague had met the Imam.16

10. In his short work Ḥawl ruʾyat al-mahdī l-muntaẓar (an introduction to a longer book),
ʿAlī Kawrānī, a Lebanese scholar and the author of numerous books about the Mahdī,
argues that “without a doubt, the clearest proof that settles any disagreements about
his existence or nonexistence is seeing him.” He then adds, “fortunately, the accounts
of those who have been honored by seeing him number in the hundreds and cover all
periods of time from both the Lesser and Greater Occultation.”17 He refers to the one
hundred accounts compiled in al-Nūrī’s Najm-i thāqib and states that al-Nūrī “bore wit-
ness to the truth of each and every account and still there are those among us who reject
the truth of these stories!”18 Kawrānī contends that the ulama have not denied the pos-

13 Ṭāhirī, Sīmā-yi āftāb, 219. As of 19 July 2012, Ṭāhirī was the chair of the Department
of Islamic Propagation at the Islamic Development Organization, an institution of the
Islamic Republic of Iran. Website of the Islamic Development Organization, 14 July 2012,
http://www.ido.ir/n.aspx?n=13910424353. Among some Shīʿī ulama and scholars today,
“the enemies of the Imam” is code for Israel, the United States, and their agents.
14 Al-Sabzavārī, ʿUmr al-imām al-mahdī, 68.
15 Al-Sabzavārī, ʿUmr al-imām al-mahdī, 65–6.
16 Al-Sabzavārī, ʿUmr al-imām al-mahdī, 65.
17 Kawrānī, Ḥawl ruʾyat al-mahdī l-muntaẓar, 9.
18 Kawrānī, Ḥawl ruʾyat al-mahdī l-muntaẓar, 70.
192 appendix 2

sibility of meeting the Imam.19 He adds that “there is no room whatsoever to reject
the possibility of meeting [the Imam]; whoever attempts to reject [this possibility] has
adopted an aberrant opinion that does not deserve any consideration ( fa-raʾyuhu shād-
hdh lā yultafat ilahyi).”20
In a different work, Kawrānī writes:

Some adduce the [final] tawqīʿ of the Imam to the fourth safīr, al-Samurī, as proof
that [the Imam] cannot be seen during the Greater Occultation. However, from
the beginning of the Greater Occultation until now, the most eminent of our
jurists and scholars among the foremost “sources of emulation” have affirmed the
possibility of seeing [him] or the reality of seeing him. They do not believe that
the final tawqīʿ [of the Hidden Imam] to al-Samurī represents proof of the impos-
sibility [of seeing the Imam]. Rather, [the tawqīʿ] negates seeing [the Imam] in
the sense that [the favor of seeing him] was granted to al-Samurī as a special
representative (ka-nāʾib khāṣṣ) [of the Imam]. In other words, the tawqīʿ negates
anyone seeing [the Imam], if that claim is followed by a claim to be the special
representative [of the Imam].

Kawrānī then argues that we know that this is the meaning of the tawqīʿ because,
according to the opinion of the ulama, the “stories of seeing [the Imam] with sound
chains of transmission” (qiṣaṣ al-mushāhada al-ṣaḥīḥa al-sanad) settle the matter of
seeing the Imam and verify it beyond doubt. Moreover, Kawrānī asserts that “many of
those who were honored to meet him are among the most eminent ulama and the most
venerable of the pious.”21

11. After repeating al-Majlisī’s interpretation of the final tawqīʿ, the contemporary
“Grand Ayatollah” Luṭf Allāh Gulpāyigānī (b. 1918) cites the many “famous, well-authen-
ticated stories” of ulama who have met the Imam as proof that the final tawqīʿ does not
reject the possibility of seeing the Imam during the Greater Occultation.22 He went
as far as to declare that “an intelligent person would never entertain any doubt about
the soundness” of these stories. Gulpāyigānī speculates that perhaps the intent of the

19 Kawrānī, Ḥawl ruʾyat al-mahdī l-muntaẓar, 58. Later, he states that with the exception of al-
Murtaḍā and al-Ṭūsī who speak about “the possibility” (imkāniyya) of meeting the Imam,
all the other ulama speak about the occurrence (wuqūʿ) of seeing the Imam, Kawrānī,
Ḥawl ruʾyat al-mahdī l-muntaẓar, 63.
20 Kawrānī, Ḥawl ruʾyat al-mahdī l-muntaẓar, 59.
21 Kawrānī, Ādāb ʿaṣr al-ghayba, 179–81.
22 Gulpāyigānī, Imāmat va-mahdaviyyat, 2:475; Gulpāyigānī, Pāsukh-i dah pursish, 64–5.
al-majlisī’s gloss of the “lying impostor” passage 193

tawqīʿ was to reject anyone who claims that he has the ability to see the Imam at will,
that is, to meet the Imam whenever he wishes. He also considers the possibility that
the tawqīʿ is meant as a reminder to those who see the Imam, that they must not
divulge the secret of their encounter. However, Gulpāyigānī leaves open the possibility
that certain individuals are capable of seeing the Imam at will, but even these peo-
ple should never reveal that they have this power; otherwise, according to his reading
of the tawqīʿ, they must be denounced as liars.23 Elsewhere, Gulpāyigānī asserts that
along with hadiths ascribed to the previous Imams foretelling the ghayba of the Qāʾim,
the stories of encounters with the Hidden Imam constitute the greatest proof of his
existence.24

12. The prolific Quran commentator and cleric Muḥammad Muḥammadī Ishtihārdī
(d. 1385 Sh./2006) asserts that the Imams decreed that whoever claims to see the Hid-
den Imam should be declared a liar. It is not clear what hadiths or reports he is referring
to when he says “the Imams.” He goes on to write that claimants to encounters with the
Imam have been condemned as liars throughout history because many of those claimed
to see the Imam also claimed to be the Imam’s representative. He adds that anyone who
brings a law or commandment from the Imam should be declared a liar. He argues that
many of the accounts of those who have met the Imam have been related after the per-
son died; but if the person does not have a bad intention, there is no harm in his telling
others that he has met the Imam even while he is still alive.25 Elsewhere, Ishtihārdī,
after the citing the final tawqīʿ, contends that the claim of anyone who alleges to be
the Mahdī, the gate to the Mahdī (bābiyyat), or to have seen the Imam (mushāhadih) is
“invalid and rejected” (bāṭil va mardūd).26

13. Javād Muʿallim, a contemporary Shīʿī scholar, attempts to reconcile the critical pas-
sage of the tawqīʿ, which declares anyone who claims to have seen the Imam a liar,
with the many stories of ulama who claimed to have encountered the Hidden Imam
in the modern period. Muʿallim translates the critical sentence of the tawqīʿ into Per-

23 Gulpāyigānī, Imāmat va-mahdaviyyat, 2:475; Gulpāyigānī, Pāsukh-i dah pursish, 65.

24 Gulpāyigānī, Imāmat va-mahdaviyyat, 2:45–6; see also Gulpāyigānī, Iṣālat-i mahdaviyyat,
55–70.
25 Ishtihārdī, Ḥaḍrat-i Mahdī: Furūgh-i tābān-i wilāyat, 95.
26 Ishtihārdī, Bābīgarī va Bahāʾīgarī: mawlūd-i muddaʿīyān-i durūghīn-i niyābat-i khāṣṣ az
imām-i zamān, 19. In a footnote, Ishtihārdī comments that according to the interpretation
of “some,” by mushāhadih is meant those who claim to see the Imam, yet abuse this favor,
“like those who have claimed to be the gate of the Imam (bābiyyat).” Ishtihārdī, Bābīgarī
va Bahāʾīgarī, 19 n. 1.
194 appendix 2

sian as follows: “Whoever claims to have seen me in the same manner that you, the four
representatives, saw me, which was of your own volition [i.e., anytime the four emis-
saries (sufarāʾ) wished to meet with the Imam, they could], is a liar and a charlatan.”27

27 Nahāvandī, Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr, 13–4 (from the introduction by Javād Muʿallim);
see also idem, 74 n. 1. In a footnote, Muʿallim adds that in translating the tawqīʿ, he used
other hadiths/reports (rivāyāt-i dīgarī) on the same issue, but he does not provide any
further information about these hadiths. Idem, 14 n. 1. In recent years, other writers have
repeated al-Majlisī’s explanation, though they have not always given al-Majlisī credit. They
include al-Shīrāzī, Kalimat al-imām al-mahdī, 203 n. 2, who claims that what the final
tawqīʿ actually negates is “constantly seeing [the Imam] and continually being in contact
[with him]” (al-mushāhada al-dāʾima wa-l-ittiṣāl al-mustamirr); al-Mūsawī, al-Arbaʿūn fī
l-mahdī, 13; al-ʿAṭṭār, “Muqaddimat al-muḥaqqiq,” 22; al-Kawrānī, al-Muʿjam al-mawḍūʿī,
1102; al-Shāhrūdī, al-Imām al-mahdī, 176 n. 1; Āl ʿUṣfūr, Ẓāhirat al-ghayba wa-daʿwā l-sifāra
fī ẓill imāmat al-mahdī l-muntaẓar, 20 (of the appendix); Khādimī-Shīrāzī, Tuḥfih-yi imām
mahdī, 138–40; al-Khazrajī, Sufarāʾ al-mahdī, 258; Faqīh, Karāmāt al-imām al-mahdī, 13
(referenced in Hage Ali, Nationalism, 152); Kamarihʾī, Davāzdahumīn, sīn-ḥāʾ; Mutlaq, The
Last Luminary, 39–42; and Ayatollah Muḥsin Arakī (b. 1956), who writes, “No one has the
power to see Imam Mahdi in [the] latter’s Ghaybet [i.e., the Greater Occultation]. Ghaybet
itself means being inaccessible/invisible to the people at large. However, it is the privilege
of the Imam that when and where he deems necessary he meets his representative(s)
to clarify/explain any ideological or jurisprudential issue, which is beyond the percep-
tion of an ordinary human being. Therefore, it is not acceptable if one claims to see the
Imam, but the possibility about someone’s contact with the Imam cannot be ruled out.
There are people who have the blessing of having an audience with the Imam, and these
[accounts] are usually mentioned in the authentic Shia books on ideology.” Araki, Ideo-
logical and Jurisprudential Frontiers (trans. Shīrāzī), 28–9. Ayatollah Arākī is a prominent
Iraqi-born mujtahid, a prolific writer, and a politician. He is a current member (elected
2016) of the Assembly of Experts, has previously served as Ayatollah Khāminiʾī’s personal
representative in London, and, since 2012, heads the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic
Schools of Thought, an organization that seeks to promote rapprochement among Islamic
sects and legal schools. Ayatollah ʿAlī Karīmī Jahrumī gives a different interpretation of the
“lying impostor” passage of the final tawqīʿ. Rather than disallowing others from claiming
to be the Imam’s representative, Jahrumī argues that the final tawqīʿ sought to prevent the
malicious from using their claim to encounter the Imam for selfish reasons. The curious
example he gives is of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (d. 1980), the former shah of Iran who,
according to Jahrumī, “in his writings formally claimed to have seen the Imam of the Age
and has spoken about this in his speeches.” Al-Jahrumī, Mahdī muqtadā-yi masīḥ, 108, 111.
I am not aware of any evidence to support this claim.
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Index of Quran Citations

Chapter:Verse Page reference

2:255 71 21:97 46
3:40 80 n.129 22:45 31
4:50 99 n.75 23:38 99 n.75
4:158 37 n.78 25:7 52
5:1 32 n.53 25:20 52
5:54 62 n.42 26:21 89
5:64 27 27:62 35
6:21 99 n.75 28:5 30
6:60 137 28:18 30 n.44
6:89 62 n.42 28:21 30 n.44
8:33 94 n.58 31:20 45
10:69 99 n.75 34:8 99 n.75
11:86 2 37:7 28
12:19 80 n.129 37:101 80 n.129
12:58 51 38:81 46
12:71–2 48 n.127 39:60 92
12:90 51 50:41 42 n.101, 46, 89
15:38 46 50:42 99 n.74
15:53 80 n.129 52:24 80 n.129
16:1 26, 139 n.26 54:1 109
16:33 26 56:95 160
16:68 83 n.159 61:8 2
18:59–81 33 n.54 65:3 100
18:74 80 n.129 67:30 32
18:80 80 n.129 69:51 160
18:82 80 n.129 76:11 46
19:7–8 80 n.129 78:2 24 n.6
19:19–20 80 n.129 78:18 65
20:12 35 n.66, 109 n.111 79:16 35 n.66
20:85–97 120 81:5 65 n.57
21:61 99 n.75 92:12 50 n.132
Index of Quoted Hadiths

[After he enters into ghayba … the Qāʾim’s] “body will not be seen and he will not called
by his name until all of creation sees him, his name is announced, and [everyone] hears it”
45
[After the Imam enters into hiding,] “no eye will see him until every person and every eye sees
him …” 47 n.121
“As for Joseph, his brothers spoke with him and paid homage to him but could not recognize
him” 52
“By God, the earth will continue to have a Proof (ḥujja) [i.e., an Imam] …” 25 n.9
[A caller (cf. Quran 50:41) will proclaim to the world:] “This is the Mahdī, the caliph of God!
Follow him!” 42 n.102
“… except the mawlā who is in charge of his [the Imam’s] affairs …” 72, 75–7, 119
“O God, befriend him who befriends [ʿAlī] and be an enemy to those who show enmity toward
him” 77 n.103
“Gracious God! The Messenger of God died, but Mūsā [al-Kāẓim] cannot die?” 39 n.88
[Al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, when asked where to look for his successor should something happen to
him, answered,] “in Medina” 61
“He who dies without having an Imam [var., without having known (or recognized) his Imam]
…” 1 n.4
“[The Hidden Imam] moves from east to west, listening to the people and greeting them. He
sees but is not seen …” 46
“I asked [Imam al-Bāqir] about this amr, when will he appear?” 26
“If your Imam vanishes, who will bring you an Imam like him?” 32
[The Imam] “will be concealed from his Shīʿa and his closest friends/initiates …” 45
[The Imam] “will not appear to them [i.e., his followers], and they will not know his location
…” 46
“I never leave the earth bereft of a walī …” 24
“I swear by God, beside whom there is no other God, that [al-Kāẓim] perished (halaka)!” 39
[Al-Kāẓim classified humanity into three categories:] “the true genuine Arab, the mawlā, and
the uncouth (ʿilj) [person] …” 76–7
[The Mahdī will depart from Medina] “‘fearful and vigilant’ until he arrives in Mecca” 30 n.44
“The master of this amr will be forced into ghayba …” 54
“The master of this amr will be forced into isolation …” 55–6
“The master of this amr will be missed for a time …” 48 n.127
“The master of this amr will have a ghayba …” 88–9
“The master of this amr will have two ghaybas … No one will know his location …” [with two
variations] 72–4
“The master of this amr will have two ghaybas. One of them will be longer than the other. The
first (ghayba) will last forty days while the other (ghayba) will last six months or something
close to that” 44–5
[The mawālī are] “from us” 77
“… none will see him” Or, “his body/person/corporeal form will not be seen” 46–7
“The people said to the Messenger of God: ‘O Messenger of God! Will we see our Lord on the
Day of Resurrection?’ …” 46 n.117
“Praise be to God who did not cause me to leave the world before …” 42 n.102
[The Prophet foretells the coming of] “the concealed one who will appear after a lengthy
ghayba” 30
248 index of quoted hadiths

[The prophetic precedent of Joseph, which the Qāʾim will manifest, is] “ghayba from his family
such that he will not recognize them and they, in turn, will be unable to recognize him” 52
n.138
[The Prophet said that ʿAlī and eleven of ʿAlī’s descendants] “are like me except that they are
not prophets” 24 n.4
“The Qāʾim must go into hiding …” 54 n.9
“The Qāʾim [who will appear] from my descendants is like the Hour [of the Day of Judgment]”
94 n.58
“[The Qāʾim] will proclaim a dīn that has been effaced, manifest a truth that was hidden, and
fearlessly rise through the power of Truth/God …” 27
“The Qāʾim will have two ghaybas. One of them will be short, while the other will be long …”
67–8
“… solitude is a mode of worshiping (God)” 57 n.25
“There are three categories of people: those who possess knowledge, those who seek knowl-
edge, and the flotsam (ghuthāʾ) …” 77 n.104
[There will be one ghayba that will last] “six days, six months, or six years …” 45
“This verse [Quran 67:30] has been revealed about the Qāʾim (nazalat fī l-qāʾim). When your
Imam vanishes, you will not know where he is. Who then will bring you an unconcealed
Imam? …” 32
“Were it not for the learned (ʿulamāʾ) who will live after the ghayba of your Qāʾim …” 28
“[When he appears], the Qāʾim will take out a book (kitāban) which has been sealed with a
golden seal …” 64 n.52
“[When] a man from among my descendants appears at the end of time …” 56 n.20
“When the fifth descendant of the seventh goes missing ( fuqida) …” 48 n.127
“[While pointing toward the region of Dhū Ṭuwā, al-Bāqir said,] the master of this amr will
hide in one of these gorges …” 35
“In the year 260 [/873–4], my Shīʿa will become divided ( yaftariq shīʿatī)” 87
“The year that the master of this amr does not attend pilgrimage …” 47
Index of People and Places

ʿAbdallāh b. Jabala (d. 210/834) 74 hadith ascribed to 46

ʿAbdallāh al-Mahdī (d. 322/934) 91 on the imamate of 42 n.101
Abṭaḥī, Ḥasan (d. 2015) 174 n.9 as mawlā (“For whomever I am their
Mulāqāt bā imām-i zamān 6 n.19 mawlā, ʿAlī is [also] their mawlā”) 76
Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad al-Ganjī l-Shāfiʿī seen in a dream 155 n.98, 170 n.151
(d. 658/1260) 151 n.78 shrine of (in Najaf) 150 n.71, 168
Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī [nephew of second shrine of footprint of (near Kāshān) 155
safīr] 103 n.98
Abū l-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās 30 n.43 ʿAlī al-Hādī (d. 254/868) [tenth Imam] 28,
Abū l-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Abī 148 n.62
l-Layth 136–7 ʿAlīpūr, Ḥusayn 81
Abū l-Ḥasan Zurāra b. Aʿyān b. Sunsun ʿAlī al-Riḍā (d. 203/818) [eighth Imam] 27,
(d. 148–9/765–7) 47, 47 n.125 38–9, 66 n.64
Abū Hurayra (d. ca. 58/678) 46 n.117 al-Almāsī = Muḥammad Taqī b. Mīrzā Kāẓim
Abū Muḥammad al-Washshāʾ = al-Ḥasan b. al-Majlisī l-Iṣfahānī (d. 1159/1746–7); Bah-
ʿAlī b. Ziyād 54 n.6 jat al-awliyāʾ fī-man fāza bi-liqāʾ al-ḥujja
Abū l-Shaʿthāʾ Qanbar b. Kādān al-Dawsī 181
[ʿAlī’s mawlā and groom] 79 Amanat, Abbas 14, 25 n.10, 27
Abū Shuʿayb Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr (fl. al-ʿĀmilī, Zayn al-Dīn (known as al-Shahīd
third/ninth century) 104 al-Thānī) (d. 965/1557–8 or 966/1558–9)
Abū Sufyān (d. ca. 32/653) 99 n.73 47 n.124, 157 n.106
Abū Ṭāhir [Qarmaṭī leader] 138 n.20 Manāsik 47 n.124
ʿAḍud al-Dawla (d. 372/983) 115 al-ʿĀmilī l-Iṣfahānī = Abū l-Ḥasan Muḥam-
Aḥadī, Mahdī (b. 1382/1962–3) 172 n.2 mad Ṭāhir al-ʿĀmilī l-Futūnī (d. ca. 1139/
Aḥmadīnizhād, Maḥmūd (b. 1956) 173 1726–27) 31 n.47
al-Aḥsāʾī, Aḥmad (d. 1241/1826) 64, 78 Ḍiyāʾ al-ʿālamīn [or al-ʿālamayn] fī bayān
Kitāb al-Rajʿa 63 imāmat al-aʾimma al-muṣṭafīn 163
al-Aḥsāʾī, Ibn Abī Jumhūr (fl. ninth/fifteenth al-Amīn, Muḥsin (d. 1957–8) 181, 188
century) 58 n.30 Amīnī, Ibrāhīm (b. 1925) 79, 81, 88 n.21
Ahwāz 110 Dādgustar-i jahān 12
Akbar-Nijād, Muḥammad Taqī; Mawsūʿat Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali 8, 19 n.75, 23,
tawqīʿāt 96 n.64 29 n.35, 77–8, 111, 136 n.13
Akhbār al-qāʾim 40 n.92 “Contribution á la Typologie des Rencon-
al-Akhbārī, Mīrzā Muḥammad (d. 1232/1816– tres avec l’ Imâm Caché” 108
7) 161 on encounters with the Imam 15, 18–20,
al-Ṣayḥa bi-l-ḥaqq ʿalā man alḥada wa- 42, 111, 148 n.65
tazandaqa 161 n.122 on the final tawqīʿ of the Hidden Imam
Āl Āqā (d. 1269/1852–3); Tanbīh al-ghāfilīn 106–7
141 n.34, 142 n.36 Le guide divin dans le shîʿisme originel 1
Aleppo 86, 128 on the meaning of amr 25, 27
Ali, Jawad; Der Mahdī der Zwölfer-Schiʿa und on taqiyya 70
seine vier Safire 10 al-ʿAmrī, Muḥammad b. ʿUthmān (d.
ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661) [first Imam] 34 ca. 305/917) [second safīr of the Hidden
declaration that he is al-ṣayḥa 99 n.74 Imam] 46 n.117, 49, 50 n.131
epithets of 31 n.47 Anas b. Mālik (d. 93/712) 79
ghulām of 79 n.124 Ansari, Hasan [Anṣārī, Ḥasan] 143
250 index of people and places

Barrasīhā-yi tārīkhī 94 n.58 al-Baghl al-Kātib, Abū l-Ḥusayn b. Abī 134–

L’imamat et l’Occultation selon l’ima- 5
misme 10 Bahāʾ al-Dawla (r. 379–403/989–1012) 134
al-Anṣārī, Murtaḍā (d. 1281/1864) 169–70, Bahjat, Muḥammad Taqī (d. 2009); Ḥikāyāt
180, 182–3 ʿan al-imām al-mahdī 6 n.19
ʿArab-Bāghī, Ḥusayn (also known as Ḥusayn Bahrain 91 n.41, 153, 174
Urūmiyyih-ʾī and ʿArab-Bāghī Urmavī) al-Baḥrānī, Hāshim b. Sulaymān (d. 1107/
(d. 1950) 1695–96 or 1109/1697–98) 143 n.41, 154,
Hidāyat al-anām fī-man laqiya al-ḥujja fī 163
l-manām 183 Faṣl muʿtabar fī-man raʾā l-imām al-thānī
al-Tuḥfa al-mahdawiyya fī aḥwāl al-imām ʿashar al-qāʾim al-muntaẓar 187
al-mahdī 183 Tabṣirat al-walī fī-man raʾā l-qāʾim al-
Arafat mahdī 186
Mount 65 al-Baḥrānī, Kamāl al-Dīn Maytham (d. after
plain of 41 681/1280) 153
Arākī, Muḥsin 194 n.27 al-Baḥrānī, Maytham (d. 699/1299–1300)
al-Ardabīlī, al-Muḥaqqiq Aḥmad b. Muḥam- 123 n.172
mad (d. 993/1585) 159 n.113, 168, 170, 182, al-Baḥrānī, Yūsuf (d. 1186/1772) 141 n.31
191 al-Bāqī b. ʿAṭwa al-ʿAlawī l-Ḥusaynī 152, 185
Arjomand, Said Amir 14, 34, 103 Bāqī-Iṣfahānī, Muḥammad-Riḍā; ʿInāyāt-i
Asadābād 112 ḥaḍrat-i mahdī bih ʿulamāʾ va ṭullāb 6,
al-Asadī, Abū Muḥammad Yaḥyā b. al-Qāsim 165
(d. 149–50/767) 54 n.8 Bar-Asher, Meir M. 29
al-Ashʿarī, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā (d. al-Barqī, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Khālid
between 274/887 and 280/893) 54 (d. 274/887 or 280/893); Kitāb al-Maḥāsin
n.5 23, 28, 34
Ashʿarī-Qummī, Ḥasan (d. ca. 378/988–9); al-Baṭāʾinī, Abū Muḥammad Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b.
Tārīkh-i Qum 144 Abī Ḥamza
al-Ashtarī, Warrām Abī Farrās (d. 605/1208– Kitāb al-Fitan/al-malāḥim 38 n.79
9) 137 n.15 Kitāb al-Ghayba 38 n.79
Astarābādī, Faḍl Allāh (d. 796/1394) 156 Kitāb al-Qāʾim 38 n.79
al-Astarābādī, Muḥammad Amīn (d. 1033/ al-Baṭāʾinī, ʿAlī b. Abī Ḥamza (d. ca. 201–
1623–4 or 1036/1626–7) 2/816–8) 32, 38–9, 56–7, 69
al-Fawāʾid al-madaniyya 148 n.65 al-Bayāḍī (d. 877/1472–3); al-Ṣirāṭ al-
al-Ḥāshiyya ʿalā uṣūl al-kāfī 58 mustaqīm 50 n.132
al-ʿAyyāshī, Abū l-Naḍr Muḥammad (fl. late Bayān b. Samʿān (d. 119/737) 82 n.155
third/ninth to mid fourth/tenth century) al-Bihbihānī, al-Waḥīd (d. 1205/1791) 142
34–5 n.36, 180
al-Azdī, Muḥammad b. Ziyād 45 Blichfeldt, Jan-Olaf 11
Browne, E.G. (d. 1926) 8 n.22
Bābulī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Bāqirzādih Brunner, Rainer 14
Karāmāt-i ʿulamāʾ 6 n.19
Tavajjuhāt-i valī-i ʿaṣr bih ʿulamāʾ va Clarke, Lynda G. 27
marājiʿ-i taqlīd 6 n.19 Cook, David 27
Baghdad 37–8, 83 n.159, 86, 91, 102 n.85, 117, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic 26 n.11
170 Cooper, John 155 n.93
cemetery in 134 Corbin, Henry (d. 1978) 7–8, 15, 25 n.10, 107
debates in 118 n.103, 108 n.109, 111, 179 n.2
freedom of Shīʿa in 115 contributions of 20
index of people and places 251

En Islam iranien 18 Die Schia and Der schiitische Islam: von

studies on the Hidden Imam 16, 18 der Religion zur Revolution 10
Hamadan 16, 108, 112–13
Dabashi, Hamid; Shiʾism: A Religion of Protest al-Hamadānī, Muḥammad Bāqir al-Bahārī
10 (d. 1915) 8 n.22
Daftary, Farhad; A History of Shiʿi Islam 10 al-Hamadānī, Qāḍī Quḍāt ʿAbd al-Jabbār
Damascus 86 (d. 415/1024–5) 124
Davānī, ʿAlī (d. 2007) 76, 189 Kitāb al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-tawḥīd wa-l-
Dhākirī, ʿAlī-Akbar 81 ʿadl 123
Dhū Ṭuwā 35 n.66, 36 al-Hamadhānī, Aḥmad Badīʿ al-Zamān
Dihkurdī, Majīd Jalālī (d. 1934–5) 8 n.22 (d. 398/1008) 112 n.125
Donaldson, Dwight (d. 1976) 10 Ḥammūd = Muḥammad Jamīl Ḥammūd (al-
al-Dūzdūzānī, Yad Allāh (b. 1935) 81 ʿĀmilī) 60 n.36
Hārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170–190/786–809) 37
Egypt al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (d. 260/874) [eleventh
Joseph in 51 Imam] 23, 70, 102, 139 n.25, 187
nuqabāʾ from 64 death/passing of 86–7, 90–1
and factions 32 n.53, 87
al-Fāḍil al-Miqdād = al-Miqdād b. ʿAbdallāh servants and attendants of 79, 111
al-Suyūrī l-Ḥillī (d. 826/1423) 155 shrine of 148 n.62
Fahrī-Zanjānī, Aḥmad 81 successor of 34, 111, 118
Fars 119 tafsīr ascribed to 28–9
Fāṭima [daughter of the Prophet Muḥam- al-Ḥasan [b. ʿAlī] (d. 50/670) [second Imam]
mad] 31 n.47, 92, 114 n.134, 135 n.12 34, 150
al-Fazārī, Asmāʾ b. Khārija b. Ḥisn 48 n.129 al-Ḥasan b. Maḥbūb al-Sarrād or al-Zarrād
al-Fazārī, Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad b. Mālik b. ʿĪsā (d. 224/838–9) 67–8, 69
b. Sābūr 48 n.129 Kitāb al-Mashyakha 66 n.64
Ḥaydar Āmulī (d. after 787/1385) 32 n.53
Ghaffārī, Muḥammad Javād 79, 81 al-Ḥibarī, al-Ḥusayn b. al-Ḥakam (d. 286/
al-Ghaffārī, ʿAlī-Akbar 105 899–900) 29 n.36
Gobineau, [Le Comte Arthur Joseph de] Hijaz 109
(d. 1882); Trois ans en Asie 8 n.22 al-Hilālī, Sulaym b. Qays (d. 76/695–6) 62
Goldziher, Ignác (d. 1921) 8–9 al-Ḥilla 152, 167
Vorlesungen über den Islam 8 al-Ḥillī, Fakhr al-Muḥaqqiqīn (d. 771/1369–
Graham, William A. 25 n.8 70) 156
Gulpāyigānī, Luṭf Allāh al-Ṣāfī (b. 1918) 108, al-Ḥillī, al-Miqdād (d. 826/1423); Irshād al-
135 n.9, 192–3 ṭālibīn 155 n.93
Muntakhab al-athar 108 n.109 al-Ḥillī = Ḥasan b. Yūsuf b. ʿAlī b. Muṭahhar
(known as ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī) (d. 726/1325)
Ḥāʾirī, ʿAbd al-Karīm Yazdī (d. 1937) 180 155, 166–7
Ḥāʾirī, Muḥammad-ʿAlī 180 Minhāj al-karāma fī maʿrifat al-imāma
al-Ḥāʾirī l-Yazdī (d. 1915) 113, 135 n.9 155
al-Ḥalabī, Abū l-Ṣalāḥ (d. 447/1055) 68, Nahj al-ḥaqq wa-kashf al-ṣidq 155
130–1 Nahj al-mustarshidīn fī uṣūl al-dīn 154
Taqrīb al-maʿārif 55, 128 Hobsbawm, Eric 7 n.20
al-Ḥalawānī, Ḥusayn; Nuzhat al-nāẓir wa- al-Hujwīrī, ʿAlī (d. between 465/1072 and
tanbīh al-khāṭir 130 n.206 469/1077) 64 n.51
al-Ḥallāj, Manṣūr (d. 309/922) 103 al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī (d. 1104/1693) 25 n.8, 52
Halm, Heinz 90 n.35 n.138, 143 n.41
252 index of people and places

Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (fl. late fifth/ on encounters with the Imam 149–50
eleventh century); ʿUyūn al-muʿjizāt 143 Faraj al-mahmūm fī maʿrifat al-ḥalāl wa-l-
al-Ḥusayn [b. ʿAlī] (d. 61/680) [third Imam] ḥarām min ʿilm al-nujūm 147
150, 167 n.140 Jamāl al-usbūʿ bi-kamāl al-ʿamal al-
Hussain, Ali 174 n.14 mashrūʿ 149
Hussain, Jassim 12, 29 n.35, 82–3 Kashf al-maḥajja li-thamarat al-muhja
The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam: A 146
Historical Background 11 Miṣbāḥ al-zāʾir wa-janāḥ al-musāfir 149
n.70
Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 638/1240) 32 n.53, 64 n.51 Muhaj al-daʿawāt wa-manhaj al-ʿibādāt
al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya 72 136 n.13, 149
Ibn Bābūya = ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Bābūya al-Muwāsaʿa wa-l-muḍāyaqa 148
(d. 329/940–1) [father of al-Shaykh al- al-Ṭarāʾif fī maʿrifat madhāhib al-ṭawāʾif
Ṣadūq] 103, 110 145
al-Imāma wa-l-tabṣira min al-ḥayra 42, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328) 155 n.94
92, 102 Ibn ʿUqda, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Saʿīd
Ibn Baṭūṭa (d. 779/1368–9) 148 n.62 (d. 333/944–5) 68
Ibn Fāris = Aḥmad b. Fāris al-Adīb (d. Ibn al-Zabīdī 65
ca. 395/1004–5) 111–13, 186 Ilyās (Elijah) 52 n.140
Ibn al-Ghaḍāʾirī (fl. mid. fifth century/ Iran 127. See also Persia
eleventh century); al-Rijāl li-Ibn al- Iraq 57, 83, 109, 127, 155
Ghaḍāʾirī 48 n.129 al-Irbilī, Bahāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Abī l-Fatḥ
Ibn Ḥayyān, Abū Yaʿqūb Isḥāq b. ʿAmmār (d. (d. 692/1292–3 or 693/1293–4) 122 n.169,
ca. 181/798) 66 n.65 133, 145, 152–4
Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282); Wafayāt al-aʿyān Kashf al-ghumma fī maʿrifat al-aʾimma
wa-anbāʾ al-zamān 147 n.60 151, 185
Ibn al-Khashshāb al-Baghdādī (d. 567/1172); Iṣfahānī, Abū l-Ḥasan (d. 1946) 180
Tārīkh al-aʾimma wa-wafayātihim Iṣfahānī, Āqā Najafī (d. 1914) 180
144 al-Iṣfahānī, Mīrzā Muḥammad-Taqī l-Mūsawī
Ibn Mahziyār, Ibrāhīm 110–11 (d. 1930); Mikyāl al-makārim fī fawāʾid al-
Ibn Mahziyār = ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār duʿāʾ li-l-qāʾim 114 n.134
al-Ahwāzī 70 n.78, 108, 109, 110, 111 Isḥāq b. ʿAmmār al-Ṣayrafī 67–8
Ibn al-Munādī (d. 336/947); Kitāb al-Malāḥim Ishtihārdī, Muḥammad Muḥammadī
83 n.159 (d. 2006) 65, 193
Ibn Qūlawayh, Abū l-Qāsim Jaʿfar b. Muḥam- Ismāʿīl b. al-Ḥasan al-Hirqilī 152
mad (d. 368/978–9 or 369/979–80) 137– story of 185
40 Ismāʿīl b. Jaʿfar 92
Kāmil al-ziyārāt (or Kamāl al-ziyāra) Ismāʿīl [Prophet] 80 n.129
139
Ibn Shahrāshūb, Zayn al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Jābulqā/Jābulsā 8 n.22
ʿAlī (d. 588/1192) 141, 143 Jacob [Prophet] 51
Maʿālim al-ʿulamāʾ 141 n.34 Jaʿfar b. ʿAlī [brother of the eleventh Imam;
Manāqib āl Abī Ṭālib 141 n.33 referred to as al-Kadhdhāb] 99 n.75
Ibn Ṭāwūs = Raḍī l-Dīn ʿAlī (d. 664/1266) 97 Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman; Kitāb al-Kashf
n.67, 107 n.104, 133, 145–6, 170 (attrib.) 32 n.53
collection of prayers attributed to 149 Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765) [sixth Imam] 24,
n.70 26, 36 n.70, 38, 67–8, 83 n.159
on corporeal sightings of the Imam in a on al-Kāẓim as Qāʾim 61
wakeful state 147 Jahrumī, ʿAlī Karīmī 194 n.27
index of people and places 253

ʿInāyāt-i ḥaḍrat-i mahdī-i mawʿūd bih Khātūnābādī, Mīr Muḥammad Ṣādiq

ʿulamāʾ va marājiʿ-i taqlīd 6 (d. 1272/1856); Arbaʿīn-i Khātūnābādī
Jalālī, ʿAbbās 66, 81 108 n.109
Jalālī-ʿAzīziyān, Ḥasan; Nigāh-i sabz: Mulāqāt Khazʿalī, Abū l-Qāsim (d. 2015) 81 n.134,
bā imām-i zamān 6 n.19 173
Jamkarān 19 n.75 Khazʿalī, Mahdī (b. 1965) 173
mosque of (outside Qum) 143 al-Khūʾī, Abū l-Qāsim (d. 1992) 142–3
pilgrimage to the mosque of the Hidden Khulāṣat al-naẓar 121 n.166
Imam in 19 Khumaynī, Rūḥ Allāh (d. 1989) 162 n.123,
story of encounter with the Hidden Imam 173
in 11 n.32 Khurasan 95, 119
Jerusalem 139 n.26 Kitāb al-Ishhād 90 n.34
Jesus [Prophet] 5 n.14, 80 n.129 Klemm, Verena 82
nature of 71–2 Kohlberg, Etan 12, 23, 25 n.10, 29 n.35, 69,
John the Baptist [Prophet] 80 n.129 84, 140 n.28
Joseph [Prophet] 50–1, 80 n.129 study of Ibn Ṭāwūs 133 n.1
al-Juʿfī, al-Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUmar (d. before Kramer, Robert S. 15 n.51
179/795–6) 50 n.132, 72–3, 73 n.90 Kufa 38, 62, 79 n.124
central mosque in 168–9
Kamarihʾī, Muḥammad Bāqir 81 as cradle of Shīʿī Islam 83
Karʿa (village in Yemen) 42 n.101 al-Kūfī, Furāt b. Furāt Ibrāhīm (fl. late
al-Karājukī, Abū l-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. third/ninth century) 30
ʿUthmān (d. 449/1057) 127–8, 131 al-Kulaynī (d. 328–9/940–1) 67, 84, 122, 137,
Kanz al-fawāʾid 127 190
Karbala 65, 148 n.62, 152, 167 n.140 on Imam’s ghayba 40
Kashan 155 n.98 al-Kāfī 8 n.22, 28, 32, 34, 40, 40 n.91, 42–
al-Kāshānī, Muḥsin al-Fayḍ (d. 1090/1679) 4, 54, 66, 70, 72, 77 n.104, 86, 92, 102, 143
59 n.32, 72, 80 n.41
ʿIlm al-yaqīn 58 Kitāb al-Radd ʿalā l-Qarāmiṭa 92
Kalimāt-i maknūna 59 al-Kulyanī, ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b.
Nawādir al-akhbār 58 Abbān al-Rāzī (known as ʿAllān) 55 n.15
Tashīl al-sabīl bi-l-ḥujja fī intikhāb kashf
al-maḥajja li-thamarat al-muhja 146 al-Lāhījī, Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad (fl.
n.54 eleventh/seventeenth century) 26
al-Wāfī 32 n.53, 58 Lawson, Todd 27
Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ = Shaykh Jaʿfar al-Najafī Levant 127
(d. 1227/1812) 162
al-Ḥaqq al-mubīn fī taṣwīb al-mujtahidīn MacDonald, Duncan Black (d. 1943) 9
wa-takhṭiʾat juhhāl al-akhbāriyyin MacEoin, Denis Martin 14
161 al-Madāʾin (previously Ctesiphon) 41, 41
al-Kashshī (d. 367/978); Kitāb maʿrifat al- n.95
nāqilīn ʿan al-aʾimma al-ṣādiqīn 56 n.22 Madelung, Wilferd 14, 39, 74, 83–4, 141 n.31
Kawrānī, ʿAlī; Ḥawl ruʾyat al-mahdī l- Maḥmūd b. Āqā Muḥammad ʿAlī (d. 1269/
muntaẓar 191 1852–3) 142 n.36
Kaysān Abū ʿAmra 83 al-Majlisī, Muḥammad Bāqir (d. 1111/1699–
Kāẓimayn (in Iraq; originally al-Mashhad 1700) 50 n.131, 56, 59 n.32, 80, 107, 135
al-Kāẓimī) 147 n.60, 148 n.62 n.9, 143 n.41, 164 n.135, 181, 188, 194 n.27
Kennedy, Philip 51 n.137 Biḥār al-anwār 63–4, 68, 76, 125, 156, 158,
Khāminiʾī, ʿAlī (b. 1939) 172 161, 164, 184
254 index of people and places

Ḥaqq al-yaqīn dar uṣūl va furūʿ-i iʿtiqādāt Arbaʿīn-i Mīr Lawḥī = Kifāyat al-muhtadī fī
63, 160 maʿrīfat al-mahdī ʿalayh al-salām 108
interpretation of the final tawqīʿ 163 n.109, 110 n.113, 184
Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl 61 Riyāḍ al-muʾminīn 185
al-Majlisī, Muḥammad Taqī (d. 1070/1659– Mīrzā-ʿAlī Bābāʾī; Dāstānhā va karāmāt-i
60) 44, 59 n.32, 167 n.140 khāndanī az imām-i zamān va aʿimmih-
Lavāmiʿ-i ṣāḥib-qirānī 8 n.22 yi maʿṣūmīn 6 n.19
al-Makkī, Nūr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Mīrzā-yi Shīrāzī = Ḥasan al-Shīrāzī (d. 1895)
al-Ṣabbāgh al-Mālikī (d. 855/1451–2) 180, 181, 186
al-Fuṣūl al-muhimma 185 Mishkīnī, ʿAlī (d. 2007) 172
al-Manṣūr bi-Llāh [Zaydī Imam of the early Modarressi, Hossein 30 n.43, 38
seventh/thirteenth century] 90 n.34 Momen, Moojan 150 n.71
Manṣūr al-Yaman = Ibn Ḥawshab (d. 302/914) An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam 10
91 Moses [Prophet] 27, 33 n.54, 80 n.129, 109
Mary [mother of Jesus] 5 n.14 n.111
Marian apparitions 5 prophetic precedent of 30 n.44
Marʿashī-Najafī, Shihāb al-Dīn (d. 1990) 173 sacred valley where he encountered God
al-Mashhadī (d. 610/1213–4); al-Mazār al- 35 n.66
kabīr 136 n.14 tabernacle where he met with God 109
al-Masʿūdī (d. 345/956) 87 n.110
Matar, Zeina 150 n.71 Muʿallim, Sayyid Javād 82, 193
al-Maythamī l-ʿIrāqī, Maḥmūd b. Jaʿfar (ed.), Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr 180
(d. 1306/1888–9, 1308/1890–1 or 1310/1892– Muʾassasat al-Imām al-Hādī; al-Bushrā fī
3) 113, 164, 183, 188 dhikr man ḥaẓiya bi-ruʾyat al-ḥujja al-
Dār al-salām fī man fāza bi-salām al- kubrā 6 n.19
Imām 181–2 al-Mufīd = Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. al-
Ruʾyā-yi nūr 182 Nuʿmān al-Baghdādī l-Karkhī (known as
al-Māzandarānī, ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm 167 n.141 al-Shaykh al-Mufīd) (d. 413/1022) 12, 27,
al-Māzandarānī, Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ (d. 1080/ 79, 85, 87, 93 n.51, 115–17, 119, 126, 131,
1669 or 1081/1670) 59–60, 63 n.46 137, 140, 190
Mecca 16, 114 n.134 on authority 120 n.161
Hidden Imam [seen in/near] 12, 50 n.151 defense of the ghayba 121
Muḥammad concealed himself in the al-Irshād fī maʿrifat ḥujaj Allāh ʿalā l-ʿibād
ravine of Shiʿb Abī Ṭālib 36 = Kitāb al-Irshād 116
pilgrimage to 47, 112 Kitāb al-Ghayba 118 n.149
Shīʿa who lost their way en route to 152 Kitāb Mukhtaṣar fī l-ghayba 118 n.149
Medina 37, 41, 64 letters to 143, 154
as the abode of the Qāʾim 61 al-Masāʾil al-ʿashar fī l-ghayba 118
as the birthplace of Mūsā al-Kāẓim [sev- received epithet from the Hidden Imam
enth Imam] 61 141 n.34
Mahdī departs from 30 n.44 Muḥammad Āl ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. after
Muḥammad lived in 61 1250/1834–5); Hady al-ʿuqūl ilā aḥādīth
Miller, William M. (d. 1993) 167 n.140 al-uṣūl 162
Mīr Dāmād, Muḥammad al-Bāqir (d. 1040/ Muḥammad al-Bāqir (d. 114/732, 117/735 or
1630); al-Rawāshiḥ al-samāwiyya fī sharḥ 118/736) [sixth Imam] 32, 35, 92
aḥadīth al-imāmiyya 71 n.83 prophesied that al-Kāẓim would return as
Mīr Lawḥī Sabzavārī, Muḥammad Hādī b. Qāʾim 61
Muḥammad (fl. eleventh/seventeenth Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya (d. 81/700–1)
century) 108 n.106, 163, 185 83
index of people and places 255

Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. Abī l-Khaṭṭāb Muṣṭafavī, Sayyid Javād 63 n.49

al-Zayyāt (d. 262/876) 66 n.60 Mutāqil b. ʿAṭiyya (d. 505/1111–2); Muḥāwala
Muḥammad b. Ḥusayn Bahāʾ al-Dīn al- ḥawl al-imāma wal- khilāfa 144
ʿĀmilī (known as al-Shaykh al-Bahāʾī)
(d. 1030/1621) 59 n.32 Nahāvandī, ʿAlī-Akbar (d. 1950) 179
Muḥammad b. Manṣūr al-Mahdī (r. 158– al-ʿAbqarī l-ḥisān fī aḥwāl (var., tawārīkh)
169/775–785) [Abbasid caliph] 37 mawlānā ṣāḥib al-zamān 179
Muḥammad al-Jawād, al-Taqī (d. 218/834) Barakāt-i ḥaḍrat-i valī-i ʿaṣr 6 n.19, 179
[ninth Imam] 66 n.64, 147, 147 n.60 Khazīnat al-jawāhir 179 n.3
Muḥammad [Prophet] 24–5, 30, 31 n.47 Rāḥat al-rūḥ yā kishtī-i najāt 180 n.9
appears at the death of the pious and the Nāʾinī, Mīrzā Rafīʿā (d. 1083/1672) 157
sinners 59 n.31 n.106
dreams and visions of 5 Nāʾīnī, Muḥammad-Ḥusayn (d. 1936) 172
family of 26 n.1, 180
forced into two periods of ghayba 36 Najaf 170, 183
in Medina 61 shrine of ʿAlī in 150 n.71, 168
miracles attributed to 137 al-Najafī, Muḥammad Ḥasan (known as
Qāʾim compared to 50 “Ṣāḥib al-Jawāhir”) (d. 1850) 180
raised after a break in the sequence of al-Najāshī (d. 450/1058–9) 92, 133 n.1
messengers 32 Kitāb al-Radd ʿalā l-Ismāʿīliyya 93
as seal of the prophets 24 n.5 Kitāb al-Rijāl 56 n.22
al-Mukattib, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Nakshawani, Sayed Ammar; The Fourteen
Aḥmad 98 Infallibles 11
al-Mukhtār b. Abī ʿUbayd Allāh al-Thaqafī Nasr, Seyyed Hossein 15 n.52
(d. 67/686–7) 82–3 The Garden of Truth 15 n.52
Mullā Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. ca. 1045/1635– al-Nawbakhtī, al-Ḥasan b. Mūsā (d. between
6) 58 n.30, 71 300/912–3 and 310/922–3) 86
Sharḥ uṣūl al-kāfī 32 n.53 Kitāb Firaq al-Shīʿa 28, 32 n.53
al-Murtaḍā, al-Sharīf (d. 436/1044) 85, 93 al-Nawbakhtī, al-Ḥusayn b. Rūḥ (or Rawḥ)
n.51, 107 n.104, 121, 130–1, 133 n.1, 153, (d. 326/938) [third safīr of the Hidden
189, 192 n.19 Imam] 91 n.40, 93 n.52, 102–3
on the ghayba 122, 125–6 Newman, Andrew; Twelver Shiism 10
influence of 127 al-Nīl (in Iraq) 156 n.100
Masʾala wajīza fī l-ghayba 123 al-Nīlī l-Najafī = Bahāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-
al-Muqniʿ fī l-ghayba 125 Karīm al-Nīlī (d. after 803/1400–1) 157
al-Shāfī fī l-imāma 124 Muntakhab al-anwār al-muḍīʾa 156
Tanzīh al-anbiyāʾ 124 al-Sulṭān al-mufarrij ʿan ahl al-īmān ( fī-
Mūsā al-Kāẓim (d. 183/799) [seventh Imam] man raʾā ṣāḥib al-zamān) 156
37–8, 45, 66 n.64, 79 Nīshābūr 40, 117
on the claim that he did not die, would al-Nīshābūrī, Faḍl b. Shādhān (d. 260/873)
reappear as Qāʾim 37–8, 57, 61 55 n.16
ghayba of 38 n.79, 75 Ithbāt al-rajʿa (attrib.) 184
shrine of 147 al-Radd ʿalā l-bāṭiniyya wa-l-Qarāmiṭa
two ghaybas of, one short, one long 69 91–2
and Wāqifīs 84, 110 n.117, 175 al-Nīshābūrī, Muḥammad b. al-Fattāl
al-Mūsawī, Hādī; Shams al-imāma 160 n.117 (d. 508/1114–5) 143
Musaylima (d. ca. 12/633–4) 99 n.75 Rawḍat al-wāʿiẓīn wa-baṣīrat al-muttaʿiẓīn
Mushaʿshaʿ, Muḥammad b. Falāḥ (d. 144
ca. 866/1462) 156 Noah [Prophet] 94 n.58
256 index of people and places

al-Nuʿmānī, Ibn Abī Zaynab (d. 345/956 or Kitāb al-Maqālāt wa-l-firaq 1 n.5, 28, 32
360/971) 38 n.79, 67, 74, 77, 84, 85–6, n.53
105–6, 117–18, 122, 126, 131, 162 al-Qurashī, Bāqir Sharīf (d. 2012) 190
Kitāb al-Ghayba 32, 55, 69, 69 n.73, 73,
79, 81, 86, 88–9, 92, 95, 102 al-Raḍī. See al-Sharīf al-Raḍī
Nūrbaksh, Muḥammad (d. 869/1464) 156 Ranger, Terence 7 n.20
Nūrī, Faḍl Allāh (d. 1909) 172 n.1 Rasekh, Ali Ahmad 120 n.161
Nūrī-Ṭabarsī, Ismāʿīl Aḥmad (d. 1900–1) 113 al-Rāwandī, Quṭb al-Dīn Saʿīd b. Hibat Allāh
al-Nūrī l-Ṭabarsī, Ḥusayn (d. 1902) 10, 20, (d. 573/1178) 133, 140, 143
43 n.103, 53, 60, 80, 108, 111, 141 n.31, 179, al-Kharāʾij wa-l-jarāʾiḥ 137, 185
181, 181 n.13, 188 al-Rāzī, Abū l-Ḥasan Aḥmad b. Fāris b.
Jannat al-maʾwā fī dhikr man fāza bi-liqāʾ Zakariyyā l-Qazwīnī l-Hamadhānī (d.
al-ḥujja aw muʿjazātihi fī l-ghayba al- ca. 395/1004–5) 111
kubrā 156, 164–5, 184 Muʿjam maqāyīs al-lugha 112 n.125
Khūrshīd-i ghāʾib 186 al-Rāzī (fl. fourth/tenth century); Kifāyat al-
Najm-i thāqib / al-Najm al-thāqib fī aḥwāl athar fī al-naṣṣ ʿalā al-aʾimma al-ithnā
al-imām al-ghāʾib 113, 136 n.14, 165, ʿashar 42 n.101
186, 191 Richard, Yann; L’ islam chiite: Croyances et
idéologies 10
Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza (d. 1980) 194 Rukn al-Dawla (d. 366/976) 94
n.27
Persia 104, 155. See also Iran al-Sabzavārī, ʿAbd al-Aʿlā (d. 1993) 191
al-Sabzavārī, ʿAlī 191
al-Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān = Abū Ḥanīfa al-Nuʿmān Sachedina, Abdulaziz 27, 29 n.35, 82, 88
b. Muḥammad al-Tamīmī l-Maghribī n.21, 117 n.141
(d. 363/974) 87 Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi
Sharḥ al-akhbār 32 n.53 in Twelver Shiʿism 12
al-Qādir bi-Allāh (r. 381–422/991–1031) 134 The Just Ruler (al-Sulṭān al-ʿĀdil) in Shīʿite
al-Qāʾinī, Muḥammad Bāqir al-Birjandī Islam 13
(d. 1933–4); Bughyat al-ṭālib fī-man raʾā al-Ṣadr, Muḥammad Ṣādiq (d. 1999) 60
l-imām al-ghāʾib ʿalayh al-salām 181 Tārīkh al-ghayba al-ṣughrā 96 n.66
Qarmaṭ, Ḥamdān (d. after 286/899) 37 al-Ṣadr, Muqtadā (b. 1973) 173
Qazvīnī-Khurāsānī, Mujtabā (d. 1967) 80–1, al-Ṣadūq, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. ʿAlī
189 (d. 381/991), 85, 93, 93 n.51, 95, 106, 111,
Qum 11 n.32, 180 118, 122, 126, 131, 134 n.4 162, 190
mosque of Jamkarān outside 16 birth credited to miraculous intervention
al-Qummī, ʿAbbās (d. 1940) 113 of Hidden Imam 93 n.52
al-Qummī, Abū Jarīr 39 and core Shīʿī beliefs 94
al-Qummī, ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm (fl. fourth/tenth debates of 94 n.57, 94 n.58
century) 26, 31 al-Iʿtiqādāt fī l-imāmiyya 93
tafsīr ascribed to 30–2 Kamāl al-dīn wa-tamām al-niʿma 32, 95,
al-Qummī, Mīrzā Abū l-Qāsim (d. 1231/1816) 96–8, 105, 108, 113–14, 117, 118 n.151, 143
al-Qawānīn al-muḥkama fī l-uṣūl 169 n.41, 157, 185
al-Qummī, Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh b. on “lying impostor” passage of final tawqīʿ
Jaʿfar al-Ḥimyarī (known as Abū Jaʿfar 115
al-Qummī) (fl. late third/ninth to early al-Ṣaffār al-Qummī, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan
fourth/tenth century) 40 n.93 (d. 290/902–3); Baṣāʾir al-darajāt 8 n.22,
al-Qummī, Saʿd b. ʿAbdallāh al-Ashʿarī 23–5, 28, 70
(d. 299/911–2 or 301/913–4) 86 al-Ṣāliḥān, Abū Manṣūr 134–5
index of people and places 257

Salmān al-Fārisī (d. 35/655–6 or 36/656–7) al-Suhrawardī, Shihāb al-Dīn (d. 587/1191)
34 58 n.30
Samarra 8 n.22, 96 n.66, 148 n.62 al-Ṭabarī, al-Ḥasan b. Ḥamza al-ʿAlawī (fl.
believers saw the Imam as an infant in fourth/tenth century); Kitāb al-Ghayba
41 108 n.109
as model of Jābulqā and Jābulsā 8 n.22 al-Ṭabarī l-Imāmī (fl. early fourth/tenth cen-
underground chamber/cellar (sirdāb) in tury); al-Mustarshad fī l-imāma 42
136 n.14, 148–9, 151 al-Ṭabarī l-Ṣaghīr = Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad
Samar [village] 96 n.66 b. Jarīr b. Rustam al-Ṭabarī l-Āmulī l-
al-Samurī, ʿAlī b. Muḥammad (d. ca. 329/941) Māzandarānī (fl. early fifth/early eleventh
[fourth safīr of the Hidden Imam] 96, century) 134
97 n.67, 98, 100–1, 102–3, 130, 145, Dalāʾil al-imāma 133, 133 n.2, 136
192 Nawādir al-muʿjizāt 133 n.2
al-Sayyārī, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad (fl. Tabaristan (northern Iran) 140 n.28
third/ninth century) 26 al-Ṭabarsī, Abū Manṣūr Aḥmad (d. late
Kitāb al-Tanzīl wa-l-taḥrīf (or simply, al- sixth/twelfth century) 133
Tafsīr) 29 al-Iḥtijāj ʿalā ahl al-lajāj 105, 140
Schimmel, Annemarie 62 Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Muḥammad; Mulāqāt-i ʿulamāy-i
Sell, Edward (d. 1932) 10 buzurg-i islām bā imām-i zamān 6
al-Shaftī, Asad Allāh (d. 1290/1873) 60, al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, ʿAllamā Muḥammad Ḥusayn
113 (d. 1981) 15 n.52
al-Shahrastānī (d. 548/1153–4); al-Milal wa-l- Shiʿite Islam 11 n.32
niḥal 32 n.53 al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b.
al-Shalmaghānī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn b. Murtaḍā l-Yazdī l-Ḥāʾirī (d.
(d. 323/934) 96 n.64, 103 ca. 1313/1895–6)
Sharaf al-Dawla (r. 350–79/961–89) 134 Akhbār al-awāʾil 180
al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā. See al-Murtaḍā Badāʾiʿ al-kalām fī-man fāza bi-liqāʾ al-
al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1015) 133 n.1 imām ʿalayh al-salām 180
al-Shaykh al-Mufīd. See al-Mufīd al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Muḥammad Mahdī b. Mur-
Shiraz 86 taḍā l-Burūjirdī (known as Baḥr al-ʿUlūm)
al-Shīrāzī, Ḥasan (d. 1983); Kalimat al-imām (d. 1212/1797) 15 n.52, 142, 162–3, 169, 180,
al-mahdī 96 n.64, 114 n.134 182, 189, 191
Shomali, Mohammad Ali; Shiʿi Islam 11 n.32 al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī l-Ḥāʾirī, Muḥammad b. al-Amīr
al-Shubbar, ʿAbd Allāh (d. 1242/1826–7) 188 (d. 1242/1826); Mafātīḥ al-uṣūl wa-manāhil
Ḥaqq al-yaqīn 99 n.71 al-fiqh 167 n.140
Shūshtarī, al-Qāḍī Nūr Allāh (d. 1019/1610–11); Ṭabris (village of) 140 n.28
Majālis al-muʾminīn 94 n.58 al-Ṭabrisī, ʿAlī b. Raḍī l-Dīn al-Ḥasan b. Amīn
Simmar (in southern Iraq near Kashkar al-Dīn (fl. late sixth/twelfth century);
between Wasit and Basra) 96 n.66 Kunūz al-najāḥ 136
Sipihrī, Muḥammad (b. 1965) 76 al-Ṭabrisī, Amīn al-Dīn (or Amīn al-Islām)
Sīstānī, ʿAlī (b. 1930) 81 n.134 Abū ʿAlī l-Faḍl b. al-Ḥasan (d. 548/1154)
Stewart, Devin 14, 143 122 n.169, 135
Subḥānī, Jaʿfar; Manshūr-i ʿaqāyid-i imāmiy- Iʿlām al-warā bi-aʿlām al-hudā 125, 135,
yih 11 135 n.12
al-Sudābādī (fl. fifth/eleventh century); al- Tāj al-mawālid fī mawālīd al-aʾimma wa-
Muqniʿ fī l-imāma 143–4 wafayātihim 135
al-Sufyānī [chief opponent of Mahdī] 99 Tabrīziyān, Fāris 187
n.73 Ṭāhirī, Ḥabīb 190–1
appearance of 4, 101, 125 Taif, mountains of 109
258 index of people and places

Takim, Liyakat 13 Kitāb al-Rijāl 56 n.22

al-Tallaʿukbarī, Abū l-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. Talkhīṣ al-shāfī 129
Hārūn b. Mūsā (fl. late fourth/tenth cen- al-Ṭūsī, Naṣīr al-Dīn (d. 672/1274) 153
tury) 134, 134 n.4 al-Tustarī, Muḥammad Taqī (d. 1995) 29
Majmūʿ al-daʿawāt 134 n.4 n.34
al-Tamīmī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Najrān
55 n.17 ʿUbayd b. Zurāra b. Aʿyan 47
Ṭayba [i.e., Medina (madīnat al-nabī)] 54, ʿUmar b. ʿUthmān 68
56–7, 60–1 Umīdiyān, Muḥammad-Taqī; Imām-i zamān
al-Taymulī, ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan (d. 224/838–9) dar kalām-i Ayatollah Bahjat 6 n.19
68 Urūmiyyih-ʾī, Ḥasan (d. after 1260/1844) 64,
Thurfjell, David 172 76, 78
al-Ṭihrānī, Āqā Buzurg (d. 1970) 30 n.43, 133
n.1, 180, 181 Velji, Jamel 15 n.53
al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-shīʿa 179
Tripoli (on Levantine coast) 127 al-Ward, Jawād 94 n.58
Tunkābunī, Muḥammad b. Sulaymān Weber, Max 13
(d. 1302/1885); Qiṣaṣ al-ʿulamāʾ 160 n.114
al-Ṭurayḥī, Fakhr al-Dīn (d. 1087/1676–7); al-Yamāni = Aḥmad al-Ḥasan (b. 1968) 174
Majmaʿ al-baḥrayn 58 n.8
al-Ṭūsī, Ibn Ḥamza (d. 585/1189–90 or Yathrib 36. See also Medina
588/1192–3); al-Thāqib fī l-manāqib 144 Yemen 40, 104
al-Ṭūsī, Muḥammad b. Ḥasan (known as Yūsufī, Muḥammad-Ḥasan; Arvāḥ-i mihra-
Shaykh al-Ṭāʾifa) (d. 459 or 460/1066–7) bān: Ḥālāt-i maʿnavī-i buzurgān bā imām-i
69, 74–5, 121, 128–31, 133 n.1, 143, 153, zamān 6 n.19
189, 192 n.19
Ikhtiyār maʿrifat al-rijāl 56 n.22 al-Zubaydī, Mājid Nāṣir
al-Iʿtiqādāt 131 Arwaʿ al-qiṣaṣ fī-man raʿā l-mahdī fī ghay-
Kitāb Fihrist kutub al-Shīʿa 56 n.22 batihi al-kubrā 6
Kitāb al-Ghayba 55, 73, 81, 88, 97–8, 103 Kayfa taltaqī bi-l-imām al-mahdī 174
n.90, 105, 108, 125, 130
Index of Subjects

Abbasid(s) 83, 91 apocalyptic

caliphate/Empire 150, 170 act (to usher in the end of the era of the
abdāl (“substitutes”) sharīʿa) 138 n.20
number of (seven) 64 n.51 hadiths about the Mahdī 42 n.102
number of (thirty) 63–4 text of Daniel 83 n.159
absence [of the Imam] 13, 114 apostasy, instances of 96 n.64
exploiting 3, 175 appearance
prolonged length of 44, 103, 131 of the Mahdī 82
abwāb (sing. bāb; gate(s)) 117 of the Prophet and the twelve Imams, at
advent (of the Imam) 144 n.45. See also the death of pious and sinners 59 n.31
appearance; khurūj; ẓuhūr of the Qāʾim 51, 99 n.74
agents. See deputy(ies); emissary(ies); repre- of al-Sufyānī 4, 99, 101, 125
sentation/representative(s) ẓuhūr 47, 51, 124, 139 (See also ẓuhūr)
ahl al-bayt 42 n.101, 121, 150 Arab tribe(s) 82
ahl al-ḥaqq (“people of truth”/“people of Arafat, plain of (as halting station; al-
God”) 90 n.35 mawqif ) 41
ahl al-imāma 112 arguments
Akhbārī dialectical 123
principle [re. knowledge] 32 n.48 for existence of the Hidden Imam 145
scholars 161–2 traditional 117
school 58 argumentum e silentio 94
akhyār (outstanding people) [from Iraq] 64 asceticism 145
ʿālam al-mithāl 59 n.31. See also world Ashʿarīs 127
ʿAlid (= Shīʿat ʿAlī) currents (viz., the Zaydiyya bi-lā kayfa “solution” 59 n.31
and the Ismāʿīliyya) 1 n.5. See also ʿĀshūrā, night of (laylat al-waḥsha) 65
Shīʿa associates, close 83, 102 n.86, 191
allegiance authenticity
to Ismāʿīlī Imam 91 lack of, of tawqīʿāt 143
to Qāʾim 139 of reports and hadith 141
alms, voluntary (ṣadaqāt) 79 authority
ʿāmma (commoners, ordinary folk), non- juristic 120 n.161
Shīʿa (esp. Sunnīs) 70 of ulama/clerics 7, 13, 165
amr (command, order, divine cause, affair) awake/in wakeful state
defined 26–7 encounters/contacts with the Hidden
of God 100, 139 n.26 Imam 175–6, 179
jadīd (new) 25, 25 n.10, 27 during the second ghayba [i.e., the
master of 36 n.70, 51, 54, 56, 74 Greater or Major Occultation]
protecting/guarding of 78 133, 137, 176
angels possibility of seeing/encountering the
descending to earth on the night of the Imam 95, 131, 176
Hidden Imam’s birth 139 n.25 seeing/sightings of the Hidden Imam
presented names of Iranian parliament 147, 182
172 awliyāʾ (intimate friends or initiates) 63,
animals 68, 75, 124, 153–4
camels/horses 151 of God 5
giant white bird/white rooster 139 Imam can appear to 126
260 index of subjects

Bābī (movement) 171, 181, 183 and its routinization 13

Badr, Battle of 62 chief (naqīb, pl. nuqabāʾ) 64
Banū Rāshid 112 of the ʿAlids 150
belief(s) chosen ones (among [Imam’s] assis-
in the Hidden Imam 7, 17, 91 tants/friends) 77, 82
[Imāmī/Twelver] Shīʿī 11, 93–4, 131, 155 Christians 5, 127
in the line of the Imams 86 claims
in the Mahdī 143 n.41, 151 n.78 of authority advanced by “heterodox”
in the Qāʾim 36 movements 164
questions on 120 to be the Hidden Imam 104
believer(s) 87, 108, 120–1 to be the Mahdī 193
are tested 89, 145 to have seen [the Imam] 99, 101, 106,
benefit from concealed Imam 126 108, 125, 188, 190
faith of 165 and represent him 101–2, 108, 188–
hierarchy among 78 90, 193
seeing/saw the Imam to messianic authority 156
as an infant in Samarra 41 clerics/clerical 172 n.1
but should not claim it publicly 125 authority 7
during the Lesser Occultation 72, conservatives 172
113–14 client 75, 82–4, 110, 175. See also mawlā (pl.
special cadre of 22, 53, 62 n.42 mawālī)
biography, of Muḥammad 138 coming forth (khurūj) 26. See also appear-
and Fāṭima, and the twelve Imams 135 ance
n.12, 151 commentary(ies) 36, 155, 184. See also tafsīr
Black Stone of al-Baḥrānī 153
and close association with the Qāʾim 139 of al-Majlisī 61, 80
of the Kaʿba 114, 138 of al-Mufīd 93 n.56
and the story of the youth 137–40, 152, of Mullā Ṣadrā 70–1
170, 185 of al-Qummī 33
blessings (outward and inward) 45 Quran 21, 23, 28, 30–2
blogs 6 communication. See also letters; tawqīʿ (pl.
book(s) 114 n.134, 167 tawqīʿāt)
contemporary, on the Hidden Imam 6, between believers and the Hidden Imam
112 n.126 10 n.30, 104, 131
Qāʾim will introduce a new 25 means of 89
Buyid(s) 115, 176 written (tawqīʿ) 96
as pro-Shīʿī 104 community 15 n.53
Shīʿī 2, 86, 104
caliph-imams 104 companion(s) 74, 147
cave (where Prophet and Abū Bakr hid) 36 of al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī 102, 118
cellar (sirdāb) (underground, in Samarra) of Imam, during his ghayba 63 n.49
136 n.14, 148, 149 of Moses 80 n.129
cemetery 134–5 of the ninth and tenth Imams 66 n.64,
certainty 125 111
of Imam’s concealment 128 of the Qāʾim (313) 61
chain(s) of transmission 140, 192 thirty (of the seventh Imam and the
isnād, pl. asānīd 36 Prophet) 62
multiple 54 n.4 compendium(s), of Shīʿī beliefs (Jaʿfar Sub-
charisma 165 ḥānī, Manshūr-i ʿaqāyid-i imāmiyyih) 11
index of subjects 261

compilations saved from, by the Hidden Imam 152,

of hadith 23, 28, 32 n.53, 44 166
of tawqīʿāt 96 n.64 debates 118
concealment 126 of al-Ṣadūq 93–4
of Dhū l-Qarnayn 35 deduction (istidlāl) 157
ghayba defined as 2, 15 n.52 deputy(ies) (wakīl, pl. wukalāʾ) 3 n.11, 95,
of God’s Proof [i.e., the Hidden Imam] 103, 180. See also emissary(ies); repre-
51 sentation/representative(s)
of the Imam 70, 120, 126–8, 162 of the eleventh Imam 111
of knowledge (ikhtifāʾ al-ʿilm) 89 of the Hidden Imam 57 n.26, 88 n.20,
of master of the amr 36 n.70 89, 157
of Muḥammad, in the ravine of Shiʿb Abī descendants 48 n.127
Ṭālib 36 of Abū Sufyān 99 n.73
and presence 126, 175 of ahl al-bayt 150
of the Qāʾim 30, 39 of ʿAlī 24 n.4, 42, 56 n.20, 92
conflicts, among followers 146 one of Muḥammad’s 94 n.58, 99 n.71
confusion 42 n.102, 89 of the Qāʾim 8 n.22, 149
about the existence/identity of the Dhū l-Qarnayn 35
twelfth Imam 42 dialecticians 131
and doubt 114, 117 dialogue
ḥayra (uncertainty, helplessness, loss, and with Muʿtazilī scholars of Iraq 118
perplexity) 44, 86 with rival Shīʿī groups 90, 93 n.55, 176
consensus (ijmāʿ) 141 dīn al-ḥaqq (“religion of truth”) 90 n.35
conversion disappearance
of 70,000 Sunnīs to Shīʿī Islam 160 of the Hidden Imam 17, 138, 152, 167
n.114 of the Imam 32
of Banū Rāshid, to Shīʿī Islam 113 of prophets and messengers 114, 127
of Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿa from their faith [story] of youth, during hajj 41
95 disciples, closest/elite 39, 52, 65, 121 n.166,
convert(s) 82, 110 165, 184
corruption ( fasād) 154 discursive (function)
covenant, primordial 139 of ʿaql-oriented scholars 176
creed. See also belief(s); doctrines of Imam 132
earliest extant work on Shīʿī 93 dissimulation. See also taqiyya
Shīʿa cling steadfastly to 90 of faith, al-Ḥillī 167
Cry (al-ṣayḥa) 99 n.74 of Shīʿī identity 102 n.85
sounding of 99, 101, 125 doctrines, Shīʿī 155. See also belief(s); creed
doubts
ḍaʿīf (“weak”) 56 n.21, 57 (shubha), about the ghayba 146
daʿwat al-ḥaqq (“call to truth”) 90 n.35 about al-Samurī’s claim to be the Imam’s
dawlat al-ḥaqq (“the empire [or cycle] of emissary 103
truth”) 90 n.35 and confusion 114, 117
death dreams 17, 109, 115, 133, 135–7, 146, 167 n.141,
denial of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya’s 170 n.151, 173 n.4, 175, 182, 184
83 and/or visions 5, 14 n.46, 14 n.50, 15 n.53
of the eleventh Imam, marking the start of Ibn Ṭāwūs, seeing the Imam in 150
of the first ghayba [i.e., Lesser or of Khumaynī, by Ḥāʾirī-Shīrāzī 173 n.4
Minor Occultation] 3 n.8, 86 receiving guidance/confirmation from the
of Mūsā al-Kāẓim 37, 38 n.81 Imam in 146–7
262 index of subjects

of al-Ṣadūq 114 between the Hidden Imam and al-

seeing Imam ʿAlī in 155 n.98 Khiḍr/al-Khaḍir 16
veridical 179 Ibn Ṭāwūs on 149–50
with the Imam/Hidden Imam 5, 18, 29,
earth/Earth 101, 102, 130, 132, 141 n.34, 145, 148, 158,
Hidden Imam alive and existing on 71–2 175, 185
Hidden Imam hidden between heaven belief in the possibility of 7
and 17 books on 6
Imam as a Proof (ḥujja) on 25 n.9, 32 direct 121, 170
n.53 in dreams 115, 167 n.141 (See also
Imam’s men, as foundations of 56 n.20 dreams)
al-Khiḍr/al-Khaḍir and Ilyās alive on 52 during the first ghayba [i.e., Lesser or
n.140 Minor Occultation] 12, 151, 170,
mountain of Qāf encompasses 36 n.70 187
elections (Iranian parliamentary) 172 generality vs. special group could/have
elite. See also khāṣṣa; special had 59
believers 70, 84 genesis and evolution of 21
followers (khāṣṣa, pl. khawāṣṣ) 62–3, 70, in/near Mecca 12, 16
85, 118–19 invention/development of the tradi-
friends/servants of the Hidden Imam tion of 175
78–9, 130 in Jamkarān 11 n.32, 16
of his Shīʿa 67–8 by al-Kulaynī (re. al-Kāfī sanctioned
al-khāṣṣa, Shīʿa often called 69–70 by) 43
mawlā (pl. mawālī) of [Imam] 60 n.36, in last two centuries 5
67–8, 75, 79, 81 during the second ghayba [i.e, the
privileged (makhṣūṣān) 160–1 Greater or Major Occultation] 7,
emissary(ies)/“emissaryhood” (safīr, pl. 14 n.49, 18, 22, 66, 72, 77, 94–5, 106,
sufarāʾ/al-sifāra) 3, 49, 70, 88, 102–3, 130 n.206, 133, 135 n.9, 137, 162, 176,
116–17, 144, 149 n.70, 188, 191, 194. See 185, 186
also deputy(ies); representation/repre- by Shīʿa and non-Shīʿa 146
sentative(s) and ulama 10
final 85, 102 in a wakeful state 133, 137, 175–6,
four 3, 49, 86, 97, 101, 159, 180, 188, 179
194 (must be) kept secret 126, 127, 191, 193
fourth = ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Samurī with the Mahdī 42 n.101, 42 n.102
102, 192 writing, collecting, and proliferating sto-
of the Hidden Imam 42 n.101, 49, 114 ries of 157–8, 164–5
n.134, 141 endorsement (taqrīẓ) 181
second = Muḥammad b. ʿUthmān al-ʿAmrī end times/end of the world 99 n.74, 150
46 n.117 enemies
third = al-Ḥusayn b. Rūḥ (Rawḥ) al- Imam hides from/fears 120, 122
Nawbakhtī 91 n.40, 93 n.52, 102–3 of the Imam(s) 129–30, 154, 191
emulation, source(s) of (marjiʿ al-taqlīd) 8 Muʿtazilīs as 117
n.22, 166, 169, 172 n.1, 180 entourage (ḥasham) 151
encounter(s)/contact(s) epithet(s)
of ʿAlī Khāminiʾī with the Hidden Imam “al-Mufīd” 141
172 “the deserted well” 31 n.47
devices, images, and tropes to describe equity 34, 42 n.102
4 filling the earth/world with 99 n.71, 112
index of subjects 263

eschatological Imam hides from 122, 129

and apocalyptic connotations of amr 26 mawlā (pl. mawālī) 76–8
dimension 18–19 question of Imam appearing to [or not]
modes of expression 82 125
opponent and doppelgänger of the Mahdī fuqahāʾ 191
[i.e., al-Sufyānī] 99 n.73 as intermediaries (wasāʾiṭ) 128
tensions, in Shīʿī Islam 7, 171
eschatology 7, 14 n.46 Gabriel, descends to earth 139
esoteric 25 n.10 gate(s) (bāb, pl. abwāb) 103, 117
doctrines 70 of the Imam (bābiyya) 103 n.90
interpretations 21, 59 n.31 Gehenna 92
knowledge 78 ghayba 9, 32 n.53, 34, 101, 143 n.41
evil (spirits) 28 apologias/apologetic themes on 44,
existence, vs. nonexistence (of Imam) 124– 182
5 commentaries on 36
defense of 85, 86–7, 94 n.58, 106, 121, 125,
fables 157 127, 135
of believers who received signed letters defined 15 n.52, 194 n.27
(tawqīʿāt) from the Hidden Imam 8 doctrine of 7, 36, 118, 122, 125, 127, 135,
factions. See also sects 162, 175
number of 86–7 end of 135 n.12, 151
that split after al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī 32 first/short [i.e., Lesser or Minor Occulta-
n.53, 87 tion] 57–8, 67–8, 69, 75, 88–9
faith 67, 94, 165–6 forced 61
dissimulation of 167 of the Imam/Hidden Imam 3, 30, 74
in the Hidden Imam’s existence 7 n.93, 86, 89, 93, 128, 175–6
of the Shīʿa, test of 47, 89 of knowledge (al-ʿilm) 32, 89
faithful 74–5, 88 al-Kulaynī on 40
believers 77–8 length of 69, 88
religious guidance for 120 of the means (al-sabab) 89
falsity (buṭlān) [of Ismāʿīlī Imams] 93 n.51 al-Mufīd’s works on 117, 121
fame 154 al-Murtaḍā’s speculations about 122
family of Mūsā al-Kāẓim 38 n.79, 75
on Imam having 74, 135 n.12 nature of 5, 45, 72
of Muḥammad 26 notion/concept of 24, 28–30, 83
Fatimid(s) 27, 91 n.41, 93 n.55, 127 prophetic precedent for 35–6
dynasty (297–567/909–1171) 90 n.35, 91 of the Qāʾim 28, 35
Ismāʿīlīs 104 rationale/justification for 124–5, 145
fear references to 21, 23, 29 n.36, 30, 31, 34
of the Imam 120, 126, 128 second or complete [i.e, the Greater or
notion of 145 Major Occultation] 58, 67–8, 69, 75,
fiqh, development of Shīʿī 154 79, 85, 88–90, 98–9, 102, 103, 105–6, 117,
fraud(s) 4, 91, 190 126, 145, 176
friends. See also mawlā (pl. mawālī) two 37, 44, 67–8, 69, 75, 88, 116
devoted/righteous 189 ghulām (young male servant or slave) 79
elite (of the Imam) 78–9, 130 n.124, 80
of God (abdāl) 161 n.118 gnostic (ghulāt) tendencies 104
of God, intimate/closest (walī, pl. awliyāʾ) God
109, 124, 126, 127, 153–4 amr of 26, 139 n.26
264 index of subjects

greatest name of 145 of the Qāʾim 36, 39, 71, 193

and the Imam’s ghayba 129 on the Imam attending the pilgrimage
as just 118 (seeing, but not recognizing him)
as obliged to act with kindness 131 185–6
preserves the Qāʾim 138 n.21 on the impossibility of seeing [the Imam]
Throne of 139 143, 188
government on al-Khiḍr/al-Khaḍir 33, 65
constitutional form of 172 n.1 on the Mahdī 30, 42 n.102
(dawla) Imam is to establish 144 n.45 on nujabāʾ and abdāl 64 n.54
grace [divine] (luṭf ) 131 on the number thirty [re. companions of
Greater or Major Occultation (al-ghayba al- the seventh Imam and the Prophet]
kubrā) 60, 85, 106, 152. See also ghayba 62
as extension of Lesser Occultation 170, principles of ʿilm dirāyat al-ḥadīth (field
174, 176 concerned with investigating, eval-
first two centuries of 22 uating, and comprehending hadith)
period of 156 56
as the Second Occultation (al-ghayba al- on Prophet’s encounter with God in the
thāniya) or the Complete Occultation form of a handsome youth (shābb)
(al-ghayba al-tāmma) 3 wearing sandals 42 n.99
start of 101 on the Qāʾim wearing the shirt of Joseph
Guardian Council 172 50 n.132
guidance 89, 120, 128, 165 on Quranic verses about the Imam 144
benefiting/receiving from the Imam 118, n.45
147 on seeing/recognizing the Imam 21–2,
guide 49
“absent” or invisible 15 n.52 Sunnī, that the Mahdī was the twelfth
loss of the divine 175 Imam 151 n.78
rationalizing the need for an infallible and tafsīr from the Lesser Occultation
182 175
spiritual that all the miracles performed by the
Imam as 1, 20 prophets and their successors will also
al-Khiḍr/al-Khaḍir as 33 n.54 be performed by the Qāʾim 185
on theology and fiqh [of al-Kulaynī] 44 that anticipate the appearance of a
prophet (nabī) after Muḥammad and
ḥadīth qudsī (divine saying; lit., sacred or the line of Imams 24
holy hadith) 24, 25 n.8 that compare the Shīʿa to cattle searching
hadith(s) 8 n.22, 20, 48 n.129, 56 n.21 for pasture 46
anti-Ismāʿīlī 92 that everything that occurred in the past
apocalyptic 30, 42 n.102 will be repeated in his [Muḥammad’s]
on birth, ghayba, and proving existence of community 94 n.58
Hidden Imam 144 that Gabriel will appear at the time of the
collections/compilations 23, 28, 32 n.53, Imam’s appearance (ẓuhūr) 139
40 n.91, 108 n.109 that God will raise up one of Muḥam-
corrupted (muḥarraf ) 74 mad’s descendants at the end of time
on Dhū l-Qarnayn 35 99 n.71
on encountering the Imam during that if all the people of the world aban-
Greater Occultation 53 don the Qāʾim … 62 n.42
“forged” 122 that it is not prohibited for [the Imam] to
on the ghayba 29, 71 n.83, 89 have children and a family 135 n.12
index of subjects 265

that mention only one ghayba for the ignorance, people of (ahl al-jahl) 90
Qāʾim 88 Illuminationism (al-ishrāq), school of 58
that prohibit mentioning the Hidden n.30
Imam’s name 57 n.26 imaginal realm/world (ʿālam al-mithāl;
that the Qāʾim will appear with an ʿālam-i mithāl) 16, 18, 21
entirely new amr 26 imamate 38, 46, 163
that the Qāʾim will manifest the beauty of ʿAlī 42 n.102
and magnanimity of Joseph 50 n.132 of Ismāʿīl, right to 92
that the Qāʾim will only appear after necessity of 122
an interval or break in the series of Imam/Hidden Imam 1, 2, 15 n.52, 17 n.62,
Imams 32 18, 32, 40 n.93, 86 n.5, 90, 120, 122,
that three hundred believers will take an 138, 165–6, 167 n.140, 169, 171, 173. See
oath of allegiance to the Qāʾim when also encounter(s)/contact(s); sto-
he appears at the Kaʿba 64 ries/accounts
that when the master of the amr attends agents/deputies of 88 n.20, 89
the pilgrimage, Iblīs does not 47 ʿAlī Khāminiʾī’s contact with 172
n.124 as alive 175
on two ghaybas for the Qāʾim 74, 84, 119 as always present 25
use of 130, 161 answers prayers 146
of Wāqifī origin 31, 36, 75, 83–4 appearance of [re. as someone who is
hajj thirty years old] 63
festival (al-mawsim) 48 appears
performing 41–2, 109 in dreams 115, 135
ḥasan (good) 56 n.21 to a dying person 59
ḥawza (in Qum) 180 to [elite] friends 125, 130
ḥayra (confusion, uncertainty, helplessness, to his Shīʿa 120
loss, and perplexity) 44, 86 at the Kaʿba 52
healing 12, 18, 166 at a time of God’s choosing 101
hearing (the Imam’s voice) 187 arguments/proofs of existence of 145,
heart, abodes of (manāzil-i qalbiyyih) 21 186
heretic (mulḥid) 94 as “a supernatural being” 17
hierarchy authority of, and ulama 9
among believers 78 cannot be recognized 84, 189
of mujtahids 171 cannot be seen
spiritual 64 n.55 as body/person/corporeal form 46–7
hierohistory 18 during the second ghayba 89
Hizbullah, propaganda initiatives of 174 in a wakeful state 95
Hour [i.e., Day of Judgment] 94 n.58, 109 contact with 14 n.49, 29, 102, 145, 148,
humanitarian (role, function of Imam) 18 150, 175 (See also tawqīʿ)
hūrqālyā 17 n.62, 59 n.31 days of [his] complete appearance 151
dwells on the Green Island in the White
Iblīs 28 Sea 17
identity eleventh = al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī 187
dissimulation of Shīʿī 102 n.85 emissaries/representatives of 31, 89, 110
of the Hidden Imam 42, 146 n.113, 159, 171
of the Imam 31 enemies of 120, 129
of the Mahdī 24, 156 n.99, 157 n.106 epithets of 31 n.47
revealing Imam’s 95 family of [i.e., children, wife] 74, 74 n.94,
ideological (issues) 174 n.14, 194 n.27 135 n.12
266 index of subjects

final words of 4 travels to the island and waits for return

ghayba (concealment) of 31, 57, 70, 120, 48 n.127
128–9, 148 n.62 vanished and manifest 31–2
companions with him in 63 n.49, 64 voice of 149, 187
two, one longer than the other 116 will of 172
between Heaven and Earth (in the ʿālam work(s) on 114 n.134
al-mithāl) 17 Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿī/Shīʿa. See Twelver
hidden from followers/friends and adver- Shīʿa/Shīʿī
saries/enemies 52, 120, 122 Imams 2, 10, 20, 31–2, 77 n.104, 79, 104, 133
and al-Ḥillī 153–5, 166–7 n.2, 151, 157, 164 n.135, 175, 183
identity of 31, 34, 146 appearance of other 149
and intercession 42 n.101, 180 appear to a dying person 59
and al-Kulaynī 40–1, 43, 48 n.129, 72, 92, belief in the line of 86
116 and the Black Stone 138 n.23
location of 12, 68, 70, 78, 90, 120, 151, 170 break in series of 32
longevity of 94 n.58 called possessor of the amr 26
as the Mahdī or Qāʾim 24, 29 n.35 hadiths of 85 n.1, 86, 96, 116–17, 119, 130
and miracles 12, 137 n.15, 171 n.206, 160 n.115
miraculous birth of 137 miracles and supernatural abilities of
miraculous powers/knowledge of 92, 111 133, 137, 155
need for an absent Imam 94 n.58, 126 predicted/prepared believers for ghayba
ninth = Muḥammad al-Taqī al-Jawād 70, 89–90, 193
147 station of 48 n.129
as a normal human 52 to succeed Muḥammad 157 n.106
partisans of, illuminated by his light and as true Arabs 76
benefit from his walāya 45–6 twelve 23–5, 34, 42 n.102
path to 146, 164 n.135 visiting tombs of 140
present on hajj/pilgrimage 11, 47–8 warnings from 88
as the proof of God 96 impostors 107, 190. See also lying impos-
rationale for him not appearing 129 tor
residence of, called bayt al-ḥamd 109 initiatory [role/function of Hidden Imam]
n.110 18–19
resides in/around Medina during the injustice 42 n.102, 99 n.71
ghayba 61 innovations
return of (imminent) 170 and heretical teachings 189
rights, functions, and prerogatives of 157 religious 117
seeing intercession 42 n.101, 180
but not disclosing 153 intermediaries 3
as possible 129, 150 fuqahāʾ as 128, 131
and recognizing/not recognizing 21, wasāʾiṭ 88–9, 119, 128
175, 189 intiẓār [waiting], purposes of 47
as unnecessary 126 invisible
servants of 85 guides 15 n.52
seventh = Mūsā al-Kāẓim 37 presence (of Imam) in imaginal realm
sixth = Muḥammad al-Bāqir 32 18
as source of knowledge 1, 19, 164, 169 and unreachable Imam 104–5
as a spiritual guide 20 Iran-Iraq War 173
tenth = ʿAlī al-Hādī, appointed son as next irtifāʿ, ahl al-irtifāʿ 48 n.129
Imam 77 islām/Islam
index of subjects 267

of Muḥammad (islām-i nāb-i Muḥam- khādim [servant] 79

madī) 175 khāṣṣa(t) [special/elite]
Qāʾim will call people to 26 mawālīhi (slaves/servants/friends [of the
island(s) Imam]) 78–9, 80–2
and the Hidden Imam 181 n.13 meaning of 69–70
Imam travels to, waits until return 48 khawf (fear) 65
n.127 al-Khiḍr (or al-Khaḍir; lit., ‘the green man’)
ruled by sons of Hidden Imam 58, 133 15 n.52, 33 n.54, 34, 52 n.140, 65
n.2, 135 n.12, 149, 182 khums (a tax intended for pious purposes)
stories of the Green Island in the White 13, 38, 40
Sea 8 n.22, 16–17, 65, 158 n.111, 161, khurūj [emergence/coming forth] 24–6, 35
164, 182, 187 n.48 knowledge 44, 72, 88 n.21, 166
ʿiṣma, doctrine of 124 n.176 esoteric 78
Ismāʿīlī(s) 90 n.35 Hidden Imam as 89
caliphate (Fatimid dynasty) 90 n.35 ʿilm 32
mission/“call to truth” (daʿwat al-ḥaqq) al-dirāya/dirāyat al-ḥadīth (field
90–1 concerned with investigating,
propaganda (daʿwa) 91 n.38, 93, 104 evaluating, and comprehending
Qarāmiṭa 91, 138 hadith) 56
refutation of 92 ikhtifāʾ al- (concealment of) 89
scholars 127 Imam as source of 1, 5, 32 n.48, 85, 117,
Shīʿa 90, 115 164, 169
texts/sources 26, 32 n.53 of Imam(s) 17 n.62, 24, 31–2, 77 n.104,
isnād (pl. asānīd) 30, 41, 48 n.129, 56, 140–1 92
iʿtikāf [seclusion] 57 people of (ahl al-maʿrifa) 90
and reason 116, 121
Jābulqā/Jābulsā 8 n.22 religious 116, 164
Jews 27, 127 secret, of spiritual elite 70
Judgment, Day of 99 n.74 spiritual 19, 169
jurisprudence 131
issues of 174 n.14, 194 n.27 languages, Western 7–8, 11, 77, 82
principles of (uṣūl al-fiqh) 116 law(s)/legal 89, 193
Shīʿī 163 from the Imam 193
jurists 12 questions 5, 13, 128, 167–8
fuqahāʾ 120, 128 rulings (aḥkām) 25, 128, 153–4
Uṣūlī 162 n.123 laylat al-waḥsha (also laylat al-waḥda; first
justice 34, 42 n.102, 117 night after the burial of a loved one) 65
filling earth/world with 99 n.71, 112 Lesser or Minor Occultation 21, 28, 58, 111,
and order, closely connected to Qāʾim 130 n.206, 134
62 accounts/stories of encounters with the
Imam during 12, 41, 43, 72, 113–14, 133,
Kaʿba 143 n.41, 151, 156, 170, 186, 187
on believers taking an oath/pledge at 50 emissaries (safīr, pl. sufarāʾ) during 49,
n.131, 64 159
Black Stone of 114, 138–9 end of 101
Imam appears at 52, 109 as first ghayba 3, 57
kalām (Muʿtazilī) 123, 135 Greater/Major Occultation construed as
Kaysāniyya 83 extension of 103, 170, 174, 176
khāʾ-dāl-mīm [root] 80 hadiths and tafsīr from 175
268 index of subjects

miracles Imams performed during 108 of final tawqīʿ 115, 137, 143, 149, 161, 174,
n.109 176, 188, 194 n.27
representatives of Imam, during 110 ignored/omitted 100–1, 108
n.113
start of, from death of the eleventh Imam Mahdī 15 n.51, 26 n.11, 29, 104, 193
(260/874) 3 n.8 accounts of meeting/seeing 145, 147
letters 12, 142–3, 154. See also tawqīʿ appearance of 82
final tawqīʿa 106–7 belief in 143 n.41
as “forgeries” 143 exists today 71
from/to Hidden Imam 3, 8, 10 n.30, 78, hadiths on 30, 30 n.44, 42 n.102, 151
92, 95, 96 n.64, 147–8, 173 n.78
to al-Mufīd 12, 96 n.64, 140–3, 154, Ibn al-ʿArabī on 32 n.53, 64 n.55
190 identity of 24, 42 n.102, 156 n.99, 157
placed in cellar (sirdāb) in Samarra 148 n.106
liar (kadhdhāb) 48 n.129, 107. See also lying pious sons of, rule over islands 149
impostor [passage] and al-Sufyānī as opponent of 99 n.73
nomen agentis al-kādhib (liar or one who title of 29 n.35, 83
lies, deludes and misleads) 99 n.75 mahdīs (twelve Imams called) 24 n.4
life/longevity Major Occultation. See Greater or Major
miraculously prolonged by God 104, 114 Occultation
prophetic precedent of 94 n.58 Marʿashī [Shīʿī Sufi order] 156
of the Qāʾim 129 marjiʿ al-taqlīd [source of emulation]. See
light 109 emulation
of God, Hidden Imam as 2, 164 n.135 mawlā (pl. mawālī) 35, 77–8, 81, 82–4
of the Imam 45, 179 of (the Imam) 78, 161
location [of Imam] 68, 70, 74, 78, 90, 120, of Asmāʾ b. Khārija b. Ḥisn al-Fazārī 48
140 n.30, 159, 161, 170 n.129
in an underground chamber (sirdāb) in as client or ally 82–3, 175
Samarra 151 defined 75–6, 175
believers who know 62 n.42, 160–1 elite of [the Imam] 60 n.36, 67–8, 75
during the longer (ghayba) 79, 119 as intimate friend of the Imam 76–8,
revealing 95, 120, 126, 191 110
in a sacred region (al-nāḥiya al-muqad- as a reference to God 76
dasa) 168 n.144 as responsible for [Imam’s] affairs 74, 75
unknown, during the Greater Occultation as servant(s) 79, 80, 82, 175
75–6 thirty of 62
locum tenentes [of the Imam] 120 meeting(s). See also encounter(s)/contact(s)
locus classicus (for proscribing the possibil- the Imam/Hidden Imam 106, 109, 170
ity of seeing the Imam during the second of Moses and God 109 n.110
ghayba) 22, 96 the tenth Sikh Guru 5
loneliness 60 messages (from Imam) 147. See also letters;
during ghayba 65–6 tawqīʿ (pl. tawqīʿāt)
and thirty mawālī 54–6, 58 n.29, 61–3, messengers 89
65–6 break in the sequence of 32
loss ( fiqdān) [of the Imam] 88 of Imam, claims to be 173–4
loyalty (wafāʾ) 191 and prophets who disappeared for a time
luṭf (grace), from God 118, 121 n.166, 131 127
lying impostor [passage] 99, 125, 131, 145, messianic
190 /apocalyptic Shīʿī hadiths 27
index of subjects 269

authority, claims to 156 See also prayers

beliefs in the Qāʾim 36 Muʿtazilī(s) 127, 131
fervor in Iran 173 n.7 as enemies of the Imams 117
figure 83 n.159 kalām 123, 135
Mahdī or Qāʾim, twelfth Imam as 24 -leaning ulama 121
modes of expression/connotations 82–3 principles 118, 129
movements 170 rationalizing ghayba to 176
millenarian (movements) 156 muwaththaq (“reliable/dependable”) 56
millenarianism 14 n.46 n.21, 57
minority 87 mystical
of faithful believers 78 encounters 14 n.45
of khāṣṣa 70 speculation 16, 20
miracles 114, 180 n.9 mystic(s) 19–20
karāmāt 6, 154 pole [i.e., the Imam] 19 n.75
performed by Imams 108 n.109, 113, 137,
148, 155–6, 177 nabaʾ (“news”) 24 n.6
miraculous al-nabaʾ al-ʿaẓīm (“the great news” or “the
encounters 169 great announcement”) 24 n.7
intervention of the Hidden Imam (re. al- nabī (prophet) 24–5
Ṣadūq’s birth) 93 n.52 al-nāḥiya al-muqaddasa (“the sacred region”)
powers 78 140, 168 n.144
stories/tales 133, 168 naql (tradition) [-oriented approach] 175
modern narrations 161. See also encounter(s)/con-
accounts [of Imam] 22, 43 n.103, 114 tact(s); stories/accounts
n.134, 193 narrative(s) 8, 165. See also encounter(s)/
period, and Shīʿī doctrine 155 contact(s); stories/accounts
scholars, on veracity of letters 142 of the Hidden Imam 4, 18–20, 52 n.140,
Mongol (invasion) 150, 155, 170 171
mosque structure 41
central (in Kufa) 168, 169 nature (kayfiyya) of [the Hidden Imam] 71
of Jamkarān (outside Qum) 143 Nawbakhtī(s) 105, 116
in Najaf 183 Niʿmatullāhī (Sufi order) 165 n.139
mountains/trees non-Muslims 165
Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s interpretations of 83 number 313. See also thirty
n.159 abjad value of 62 n.42
of Taif 109 of Qāʾim’s companions 61
movements nuqabāʾ (chiefs) 64
Bābī 171, 183 Nuṣayrīs 36 n.70, 91
heterodox 164
Kaysāniyya 156 obligation(s)
messianic 82, 170 to know and recognize the Imam 90
millenarian 156 to obey [the Imam] 128
Qarāmiṭa (Ismāʿīlī revolutionary) 91–2 religious 126, 130
Shaykhī 18–19, 171 occultation. See also ghayba; Greater or
of Shīʿī/proto-Shīʿī Islam 82 Major Occultation; Lesser or Minor
mujtahids (Muslim scholars who formulate Occultation
decisions in legal or theological matters) Complete (al-tāmma) 105
171, 191 defense of 93
munājāt (prayers; while praying) 146 n.57. Second (al-thāniya) 3
270 index of subjects

symbolic and theological hermeneutics of possibility

19 of encountering/meeting the Imam 7,
as two distinct [periods] 40, 89 118, 126–7, 131–2, 191–2
opponents 165. See also enemies of seeing the Imam 85
al-Sufyānī as 99 n.73 during the Greater Occultation 150,
152, 154, 159, 174, 192
palace 112 in a wakeful state 131, 176
lofty, as similitude 31 that [the Imam] may appear 124, 126
perplexity (ḥayra) 23, 44, 86. See also con- prayer(s) 65, 149 n.70, 154, 165–6
fusion for divine aid/assistance (called duʿāʾ al-
Persian faraj) 134
mawla, mawālī 82–3 Friday congregational (ṣalāt al-jumʿa) 13
translation 8 n.22, 63 n.47, 64, 69 n.73, Imam answers 146
71 n.84, 76, 81, 88 n.21, 94 n.58, 105 n.98, for intercession 42 n.101
109 n.112, 135 n.9, 140 n.29, 144, 151 n.79, progeny
158 n.109, 184, 186 of ʿAlī and his Shīʿa 46
of the tawqīʿ 100, 101 n.81, 141 of lord of the amr 8 n.22
n.31 proof/Proof(s) 24, 25 n.9, 32 n.53
works published in 5–6, 7, 16 concealment of [the Hidden Imam] 51
philosophical of God [Hidden Imam as] 96
commentary on al-Kāfī 71 n.83 of [the Imam’s] existence 118, 140, 145–
speculation (on the ghayba) 176 6, 165, 193
system (of Mullā Ṣadrā) 71–2 of imamate of ʿAlī 42 n.102
pilgrimage 1 n.2, 65, 112. See also hajj of the impossibility [of seeing the Imam]
farewell, of Muḥammad 75–6 192
Imam attends 9, 11–12, 47–8, 49, 65, 185– of the possibility of contacting the Imam
6 during Greater Occultation 66, 81
to mosque of Jamkarān 16, 19 rational 117–18
to Shīʿī shrines 147 n.60, 148 n.62 that the Hidden Imam had children dur-
pilgrims 19 n.75, 41, 112 ing ghayba 74 n.92
Imam as guide to lost 4 traditional 53, 94 n.58
incapable of seeing the Imam/Qāʾim 48 propaganda
pledges/oaths 114 n.134 of Hizbullah 174
of allegiance to Qāʾim 139 Ismāʿīlī (daʿwa) 91 n.38, 93
of believers at Kaʿba 50 n.131, 64 of Shīʿa, for Absent One 91 n.41
pole, mystic [i.e., the Imam] 19 n.75 prophetic precedent. See also hadiths
polemics/polemical for ghayba of Qāʾim 35
agenda 165 of Joseph 52 n.138
anti-Bābī work 181 of longevity 94 n.58
anti-Ismāʿīlī 91 of Moses 30 n.44
anti-Shīʿī works 123, 148 n.62, 167 sunna 39, 52
anti-Sunnī works 140, 145 prophet(s) 114, 184
Zaydī work, against Twelvers 90 n.34 appears at the death of pious and sinners
political 59 n.31
authority 120 n.161 disappearance of 127
change 172 n.1 followers of previous 120
quietism 104 longevity of earlier 129, 143 n.41
portents, of the appearance of the Qāʾim miracles performed by 185
99 n.74, 138 n.24, 144 n.45 nabī 24–5
index of subjects 271

Qāʾim, as prophet-like 25–6 seat of power for [i.e., Great Mosque of

successor of (waṣī) 34 Kufa] 168 n.145
tales about [Qaṣaṣ/Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ] 137 seeing/knowing/recognizing 44, 51, 114
as the surviving son of the eleventh Imam
Qāf, mountain of 36 n.70 42
Qāʾim 25–6, 32–4, 40 n.92, 48 n.129, 50 twelfth Imam, as messianic 24
n.132, 71, 93 word 71 n.85
as amr (command, order, cause, affair) of Qajar (period) 9 n.22, 141 n.34, 157, 158
God 26, 139 n.26 n.109, 170–1, 182
and the Black Stone 139 Qarāmiṭa 91 n.40, 93 n.55, 102 n.85
coming/appearance of 26, 51, 99 n.74, Ismāʿīlī revolutionary movement 91–2,
138 n.21, 150 138, 138 n.24
after interval/break in series of Imams questions 128
32 on belief 120
at the end of time 112 of finance 96 n.64
companions of (313) 61 for the Imam 88, 101, 165
compared to Joseph 50–2 of the imamate and the ghayba 116
compared to Muḥammad 50 theological or legal 154, 168
as continually renewed and recreated by Quran(ic)
God 71 commentaries (tafsīr) 23
descendants of 8 n.22, 149 legal punishments or sanctions of 13
and doctrine of return (rajʿa) 72 n.87 on longevity (and story of Noah) 94
ghayba of 28–30, 35–6, 40, 44, 51–2 n.58
hadiths 36, 39, 71, 88, 193 and references to ghulām 80 n.129
preparation of believers for 70 variant readings of 29
two 37, 40, 49, 67–9, 74–5, 84, 119 Quraysh cemetery, encounter in 136
God keeps him company 65
hadiths rajʿa (return), doctrine of 2 n.6
on ghayba of 36, 39, 71, 88, 193 rationale
that even if all the people of the world for the ghayba 124–5
abandon the Qāʾim … 62 n.42 for Imam not appearing 129
that miracles of prophets and succes- rationalist
sors will be performed by 185 Baghdad school 85
that three hundred believers will take methods 130
oath of allegiance to, at the Kaʿba -oriented scholars 22, 116, 121, 176
64 realm. See also world
is successor of al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī (al-ʿAskarī, of the Hidden Imam 17
the eleventh Imam) 34 of the placeless (nā-kujā-ābād) 16
and justice and order 62 of the theoretically possible 131–2
life/longevity of 129 reappearance 121. See also appearance;
Medina as abode of 61 coming forth (khurūj)
messianic beliefs in 36 of the Imam 2, 4, 104, 138 n.24
pledges/oaths allegiance to 139 threat of [Imam’s] 126
portents of appearance of 99 n.74 ẓuhūr 89
present on pilgrimage 48 reason 120
as prophet-like 25–6 ʿaql 116, 176
as protected from doing wrong 131 -based defense of the imamate 155
references to 29 as insufficient to attain knowledge 121–2
representatives of 104 as source to define law 120
272 index of subjects

recognition rijāl
hadiths on seeing, not recognizing the al-ghayb (“absent” or invisible guide; Men
Imam 21–2, 49, 160, 185–6 of the Unseen) 15 n.52, 64
of the Imam 175, 182, 189 works 39, 56, 66 n.64, 69, 75, 102, 110
during the ghayba 84
as obligation 90 sacred
of the Qāʾim during his ghayba 44, figures in Islam 5
51 land 109
refutation precinct of the Hidden Imam 143, 173
of ghayba of the final Twelver Imam 90 region (al-nāḥiya al-muqaddasa) 140,
n.34 168 n.144
of Ismāʿīlīs 91–2 Safavid
religious dynasty 155, 157
duties/obligations 126, 130 period 9 n.22, 22, 88 n.20, 102, 136, 140
guidance for 120 n.29, 141 n.34, 143 n.41, 146 n.54, 151
innovations 117 n.79, 159 n.112, 168, 170, 176, 182
knowledge safīr (pl. sufarāʾ). See emissary(ies)
acquisition of 116 ṣāḥib (master, lord, and possessor of) al-amr
Imam as source of 164 27
report(s). See also hadiths; stories/accounts al-ṣayḥa. See Cry
cited by Yūsuf al-Baḥrānī 141 n.31 secret
from Lesser Occultation 130 n.206 of encountering the Imam 95, 154, 191,
narrative structure of 41 193
of sightings/encounters with the Hidden knowledge 70
Imam 42 sects 32 n.53
reprehensible acts (qabāʾiḥ) 123 firqa [i.e., the Imāmiyya] 1 n.5
representation/representative(s) (al- numerous 86–7
niyāba/nāʾib, pl. nuwwāb) 102, 106, 107 seeing/sightings of
n.104, 160. See also deputy(ies); emis- final tawqīʿ negates 194 n.27
sary(ies) hadiths on 22, 49
general (al-ʿāmma) 12–13, 102, 159–60, the impossibility of 143, 188
191 Imam ʿAlī, in dreams 155 n.98
of the Imam 31, 107–8, 188–94 the Imam/Hidden Imam 15, 85, 129, 157,
ulama as 7, 164 159, 192 n.19
most great (al-ʿuẓmā) 190 but not disclosing it 153
special (al-khāṣṣa) 101–2, 159, 191–2 and claiming to be his exclusive repre-
residence sentative 190
of the Hidden Imam in dreams 150
in/around Medina during ghayba 61 during the first ghayba [i.e., Lesser or
near Mecca 12, 35 n.66 Minor Occultation] 43, 95, 151
of the twelfth Imam (called bayt al-ḥamd) proof of the impossibility of 192
109 n.110 question of 21
Resurrection, Day of 24 n.6 and recognizing/not recognizing him
return 3, 74 175, 189
doctrine of (rajʿa) 2 n.6, 72 n.87 during the second ghayba [i.e, the
of Imam 48 n.127, 164, 170 Greater or Major Occultation] 22,
of Qāʾim 49, 61 96, 114, 150, 152, 154, 160, 174 n.15, 192
revelation 27 n.28, 94 n.58, 189 between wakefulness and sleep 179
a new 25 n.10, 27 while awake 131, 147, 176, 182
index of subjects 273

the Mahdī 147 lore, and Black Stone 138

pilgrims cannot 48 majority = ʿāmma 70
select, among Shīʿa (khavāṣṣ-i shīʿiyān-i ū) met the Mahdī 145
160. See also elite millenarian movements 156
self-protection, principle of 127 mystics 20
seminary students, Imam’s assistance to Nuṣayrī 36 n.70
166 obliged to know and recognize their
servants 33 n.54, 56 n.20, 84, 112, 180 Imam 90
of the Imam 85, 109 n.112, 148 Quran commentaries 28
khadam, khādim 36, 151 saved by the Hidden Imam 152
mawlā (pl. mawālī) 75, 79–82, 84, 175 split into numerous branches 86–7
nawkarān 81 Sufi orders 19, 155
responsible for/overseeing [the Imam’s] -Sunnī riots 115
affairs 81–2, 119 supplications 66 n.60, 142 n.36
shāhada 118 n.151 test of faith of 47, 89
sharīʿa 128 theology 127, 131
end of the era of 138 n.20 threats posed by Ismāʿīlīs 92
Imam will bring new 25 n.10 traditionists 85, 116
Shaykhī ulama 13, 15 n.52, 104, 120–1, 131
masters 78 Weberian analysis of 14 n.46
movement 18, 19, 171 Zaydī 90, 104, 115
pillars 189 shrines
school 64 n.55, 183 of footprint of Imam ʿAlī (near Kashan)
Shīʿa/Shīʿī 46, 80, 109, 119–20, 126, 134 n.8, 155 n.98
150–1. See also sects; Twelver Shīʿa/Shīʿī of Imam ʿAlī (in Najaf) 168
apologists 151 n.78, 185 n.36 of Imam al-Hādī and Imam al-ʿAskarī
and benefit from [the Imam’s] existence 148 n.62
123 of Imam Mūsā al-Kāẓim 147
Buyids, as pro-Shīʿī 104 sifāra (“emissaryhood” or representation)
cannot keep secrets 95, 120 83, 145. See also representation/repre-
categories of [i.e., learned (ʿulamāʾ) and sentative(s)
weak (ḍuʿafāʾ)] 29 n.33 institution of 70, 103, 105, 159
classical rijāl works 56 n.22 signs (of the Imam’s parousia) 101
conversion of Imāmī/Twelver from 95, similitude (mathal), of the Commander of
113 the Faithful [i.e., Imam ʿAlī] 31
conversion to 113, 160 n.114 sin, protected from committing (maʿṣūm)
creed/beliefs 11, 90, 93–4, 131, 151 n.78, 118, 131
155 Sitz im Leben 53
dialogue 90, 93 n.55, 176 social rank and status (al-jāh) 154
dissimulation 102 n.85 solitude. See also loneliness
doctrines 7, 59 n.31, 155 as a mode of worshiping (God) 57 n.25
elite of/select among 67–8, 69–70, 70 waḥsha (loneliness, forlornness, desola-
n.78, 160 (See also elite) tion, sadness) 65
encounter with Imam 146, 151, 164 sources 53, 141
eschatological tensions 7, 171 classical/primary 8 n.22
fiqh, development of 154 contradictions in 44
freedoms of, in Baghdad 115 to define law 120
history 2, 21 early Shīʿī 21, 99 n.73
Imāmī/Twelver 1 n.5, 7, 91, 104 of emulation 190
274 index of subjects

for hadiths about the Qāʾim 40 n.92 of Fāris al-Adīb 113, 186
Ismāʿīlī 26 of the father of al-Bāqī b. ʿAṭwa al-ʿAlawī
of knowledge 1, 32 n.48, 164 al-Ḥusaynī 185
secondary literature, lacunae in 8 of five islands ruled by Hidden Imam and
of Shīʿī theology 127 sons 16, 149, 182
Twelver Shīʿa 175 of the Green Island in the White Sea 8
sovereignty (sulṭān) 25 n.22, 16, 65, 161, 164, 187 n.48
speaker-prophets, ghayba as interregnum of the Hidden Imam’s birth 144
between 32 n.53 of Ismāʿīl al-Hirqilī 152, 185
special. See also elite; khāṣṣa(t) of miracles 113, 158, 185
cadre of believers 22, 53, 62 n.42 performed by the Hidden Imam 4,
individuals (afrād-i khāṣṣī) 81 16, 30, 179
person [i.e., the mawlā] 75 of Muḥammad concealing himself 36
representatives [of the Imam] 101–2, of al-Muqaddas al-Ardabīlī 170
159, 189, 191–2 as rare, then more numerous 4–5, 176
servant [of the Imam], youth as 109 strange, improbable accounts and bizarre,
n.112 varnished falsehoods 162
spiritual of ulama who met the Imam 192
allegiance 105 during the Greater Occultation 6
beings 64 n.55 well-attested (tawātur) 190
elite 70 of the youth and the Black Stone 137,
exercises/practices 57 139–40, 152, 170, 185
guide substitutes (abdāl), thirty 63–4
Imam as 1, 20 successor(s) 42 n.102, 101, 185
al-Khiḍr/al-Khaḍir as 33 n.54 of al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī (al-ʿAskarī) 34, 61, 111,
hermeneutics 19 118
knowledge, of Imam 19 of Mūsā al-Kāẓim 62
maturity (kamāl), level of 191 of the Prophet 34, 95 n.58
realm 58 n.30 Sufi(s) 19, 171
stations 137 concept [Hidden Imam as] 15 n.52
halting (al-mawqif ) [in the plain of Dhahabī and Khāksārī Shīʿī orders 19
Arafat] 41 hierarchical order of awliyāʾ 63
of the Imams 48 n.129 Marʿashī order 155–6
of Khumaynī 173 n.4 Niʿmatullāhī order 165 n.139
of al-Mufīd 142 n.35 poles 189
of ulama 177 Shīʿī orders 155–6
stories/accounts 15–16, 42 n.102, 161–2 Sunnī(s) 70
of ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm b. Mahziyār al-Ahwāzī attacks 115
109–10 conversions to Shīʿī Islam 160 n.114
of contact/encounters with the Hidden hadiths that the Mahdī was the twelfth
Imam 5, 7, 13, 16, 20, 53, 72, 130, 143, Imam 151 n.78
151–2, 158, 174, 185 polemics against 140, 145
in the desert near Mecca 16 supernatural
during the Greater Occultation 18, abilities [of the Imam] 133
106, 108, 111, 130 n.206, 133, 135 n.9, acts 137
144, 163, 186 being [i.e., Hidden Imam as] 17
and al-Khiḍr/al-Khaḍir 143 event 12
during the Lesser Occultation 41, 113, realm 15 n.52
133, 156, 157, 170, 186, 187 superstitions 157
index of subjects 275

supplications people (re. Men of the Unseen, rijāl al-

duʿāʾ al-faraj 137 ghayb) 64–5
Kunūz al-najāḥ 136 people are never lonely 54–6, 57, 62–3,
support(s) 65–6
awtād 65 of [the Imam’s] servants/elite 58, 62, 82,
al-sinād 89 161
symbolism 17, 112 threats
forced [Imam] into hiding 127
tafsīr (Quran(ic) commentaries) 23 of the Imam’s reappearance 126
of Abū l-Naḍr Muḥammad al-ʿAyyāshī posed by Ismāʿīlī Shīʿa 92
34–5 tracts
ascribed to al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī 28–9 anti-Imāmī/Twelver 90
ascribed to al-Qummī 30–4 anti-Ismāʿīlī 90 n.34
bi-l-maʾthūr and bi-l-raʾy 30 tradition
of Furāt b. Furāt Ibrāhīm al-Kūfī 30 defined 7 n.20
genre of 36 of encounters with the Imam 175
of al-Ḥusayn b. al-Ḥakam al-Ḥibarī 29 inspired [i.e., aḥādīth of the ahl al-bayt]
n.36 121
Imāmī/Twelver Shīʿī/Shīʿa 135 “invented” 7
written during the first ghayba [i.e., the -oriented approach 22, 175
Lesser Occultation] 175 traditionists 85, 122 n.167, 130, 162
taqiyya 39, 70, 122–3, 145 classical Shīʿī 116
taṣawwuf, and tashayyuʿ 153 n.89. See also defined [i.e., ulama who privileged the
Sufi(s) hadiths/reports of the Prophet and the
taʾwīl (esoteric interpretation) 21, 25 n.10 previous Imams] 85 n.1
tawqīʿ (pl. tawqīʿāt) 44, 141, 143 n.41, 144, 179 trope(s) 4, 137
authenticity of 143 trustworthy (thiqa) 56
ceased 75 scholars 53, 160, 188
compilations of 96 n.64 truth 27, 89, 128
final/last 125 call to (daʿwat al-ḥaqq) 90
to fourth safīr (al-Samurī) 192 master of (ṣāḥib al-ḥaqq) 89
gloss of 22, 188–94 people of (ahl al-ḥaqq) 90 n.35
of the Hidden Imam 4, 22, 84, 85, 97, truthfulness (ṣidq) 191
98, 100, 118 n.151, 131, 137, 142, 143, Truth/God 27
145, 149, 152, 159, 185, 190 Ṭuwā, as enigmatic term 35 n.66
warning of 10 Twelver Shīʿa/Shīʿī 7, 87, 91, 127, 175
interpretation of 107, 163 clerics 157
meanings of 96 n.64 community 86, 121
passage [re. a “lying impostor”] 176, 193 conversion of/to 95, 113
test (tamḥīṣ, imtiḥān), of the Shīʿa 47, 89 core beliefs of 131
theology hadiths 23, 31 n.47
source of Shīʿī 127 intellectual challenge to 175
treatise on, anonymous Shīʿī-Muʿtazilī political quietism of/as apolitical 104–5,
121 n.166 115
theosophists 19–20 as rāfiḍa 91 n.41
theurgic acts (karāmāt) 103. See also mira- state [i.e., Safavid Empire] 157
cles Sufis 19
thirty 62–3, 80 tafsīr of 135
believers, in the Imam’s presence 60–1 term “Ithnā-ʿashariyya” (Twelver) 1 n.5
276 index of subjects

typology, three-part 18 and Mūsā al-Kāẓim 37 n.78, 84, 110 n.117,

tyranny 42 n.102, 99 n.71 175
origin/provenance 31–2, 36, 37, 50, 61,
ulama 84, 85, 96, 115, 166, 177, 182 69, 74–5, 83
anti-traditionist, rationalist, and Wāqifiyya 37–40, 56
Muʿtazilī-leaning (of Baghdad) 121 proponents of 83
authority of 13, 165 war, defensive ( jihād) 13
blessings from the Imam for 165–6 wasāʾiṭ (intermediaries). See intermediaries
claiming to have seen/contacted the wāw-ḥāʾ-shīn [root] 65 n.57
Imam 11, 60, 164 n.135 waw-lām-yāʾ [root] 75
contemporary 174–5 weak 71
as representatives [of the Imam] 7, 159 ḍaʿīf 38 n.79, 48 n.127, 48 n.129, 56
tradition-oriented 22 ḍuʿafāʾ 28, 29 n.33
unbelievers faith 72, 165
are those who claim to have seen the websites 6
Imam and be his representatives 189 Western
in the Imam 165 scholars 12, 14 n.49, 16, 22, 33–4, 53, 103,
uncertainty 23, 42, 44, 86, 125, 126 124 n.179, 127 n.184, 141 n.31, 143, 150, 179
underground n.2
cellar (sirdāb) in Samarra 136 n.14, 149 sources 8 n.22, 79 n.124
city, inhabited by companions of the Hid- worldview 18
den Imam 19 n.75 widely attested (mutawātir) 89
unity 117 world 50 n.132, 94 n.58, 130
of God 27 end of 99 n.74
uns (companionship) 65 of images (ʿālam al-mithāl; ʿālam-i mithāl)
unseen/Unseen 15 n.52, 16, 21, 58
Men of the (rijāl al-ghayb) 64 outward 15 n.52
reality of 18 physical/empirical 16–17, 58 n.30, 175
upheaval ( fitna) 89 wukalāʾ. See deputy(ies)
Uṣūlī
jurists 162 n.123 youth 80 n.129, 109
school 161, 163, 171 and Black Stone, story of 137–41, 152, 170,
ʿuzla (withdrawal; seclusion) 57 185
fatā 112
veil 70 as the Imam/Hidden Imam 109 n.112,
figurative (ḥijāb) 51 155 n.98
vigil (at Mount Arafat) 65 mysterious 138, 140
visions 5, 114 n.134. See also dreams shābb 41–2
and/or dreams 5, 14 n.46, 14 n.50, 15 n.53 as special servant of the Imam 109 n.112
of the Hidden Imam 173, 183–4
visitation prayer (ziyāra) 149 n.70 zakāt taxes 40
Zaydī(s) 90, 93 n.55, 104, 115, 118
waḥda (loneliness) 65 polemical works (against Twelvers) 90
waḥsh (waḥsha; loneliness; solitude; forlorn- n.34
ness; desolation; sadness) 65 ẓuhūr (appearance) 35, 47, 51–2, 89–90, 99,
walāya 1, 24 124, 138 n.21, 139
walī 24, 78
Wāqifī(s) (lit., “those who stop or put an end
to” [the imamate]) 37–40, 54 n.6, 88