Episode 81: Splintering of the Shi’a

Cataloguing the tapestry of Islamic traditions is a task that lies well beyond our scope, but every now and again the topic overlaps with the subjects we are interested in. It’s important to understand where the Qaramita and Fatimids came from, because these two foes will face the Abbasid Caliphate until its effective takeover by a rival dynasty. As these two communities emerged from Ismaili Shi’ism, we’ll take the time to properly define and ground these terms before moving on. Please keep in mind that you are in no way getting a round-up of the religious or sectarian situation at the time; there were many more groups than the ones we’re discussing. Refer back to the start of this paragraph for more information. 

Glossary

• Ja’far al Sadiq: Ja’far ibn Mohammad ibn Husayn ibn Ali ibn Husayn ibn Ali ibn abi Talib was the sixth Imam of his time, and the man who properly articulated the framework of the Imamate. He was and remains a massive figure in Shi’ism; for example Shi’ite religious courts are called Ja’fari courts because they follow his jurisprudence. Sunnism has four traditions related back to religious elders: two of these studied directly under Ja’far, and a third studied under one of his students. There’s no easy way of summarizing the achievements of this towering figure in the history of the faith.
• Isma’il ibn Ja’far: the would-be seventh imam predeceased his father; either by a few months or a few years. Some believers refused to believe that he died and immediately accepted teachings that he was in fact the hidden imam and would return. Many thought he would reappear when his father died and turned to Ja’far’s son when he failed to make a second coming. It’s because Isma’il is such a pivotal figure for Ismaili Islam that we find much controversy surrounding him, making it difficult to be very certain of what we do and don’t know about him unfortunately. 
• Abdallah al Fatimi: this is a very dismissive name for the man who declared himself to be Isma’il’s living heir in 899. I’m not trying to diss him or his effort, but we chose to call him Abdallah in the show and I wanted to clarify that this was the guy who was on the Fatimid side. Abdallah was his old name, he gave his real name as Sa’id ibn Husayn ibn Ahmad ibn Abdallah ibn Mohammad ibn Isma’il. He fled from Salamiya in Syria to the deserts of western Algeria, where he allied with the local Berbers and bested the local dynasties in North Africa. 
• Hamdan ibn Qarmat: the Ismaili preacher who spread the creed in and around Iraq. His name is associated with the faction of Ismailism that rejected the Fatimids and waited for the son of Isma’il to reappear as the world’s savior instead.
• Sa’id al Jannabi: the leader of the Isma’ilis in Bahrain. If the early definition of Qaramita is just a diss for Isma’ilis, and the middle definition of the term is the Isma’ilis who rejected the Fatimids; then the third and final definition of Qaramita derives from the behavior of al Jannabi’s bunch of outlaws. They flagrantly desecrated islam’s holiest shrines, repeatedly engaged in brigandry, slavery, and more. Sa’id played no small part in this, and is said to have been thuggish and violently inclined. The problem clearly went far beyond him however, as the worst behavior comes after his son takes the reins, decades down the line.
• Husayn ibn Hamdan: this tribal chief went from being a minor annoyance in al Mu’tadid’s Mesopotamia to one of the caliphate’s most important commanders in only a decade or so. His leadership was critical in ending the kharijite rebellion in Mesopotamia in the 890’s, and it was equally crucial when the time came to fight against the Qaramita in Syria. Husayn’s Arab descent meant that he was someone these tribes could do business with, and their alliance wasn’t strong enough to withstand his presence. The connections he built with these tribes will go on to serve his own descendants well. The Syrian bedouin tribes will one day form an integral part of the Hamdanid armies; a dynasty that almost recaptured the essence of Umayyad political culture.