Offers fascinating insights into the careers of the first leaders of Twelver Shiʿism: agents who claimed to speak for the 'hidden Imam'.

Reconstructing the roles and careers of key actors in the drama of early Occultation politics and the emergence of the first leaders of Twelver Shiʿism, this book demonstrates how they established the doctrines and institutions of Twelver Shiʿism, the dominant branch of Shiʿi Islam in the world today.

In Encounters with the Hidden Imam in Early and Pre-‎Modern Twelver Shīʿī Islam, ‎Omid ‎Ghaemmaghami traces the history of one of the core ideas that animate and form the highly ‎influential and instrumental belief in ‎the Hidden Imam, the central figure of Twelver Shīʿī ‎messianic expectation.‎

Islam's fourth caliph, Ali, can be considered one of the most revered figures in Islamic history. His nearly universal portrayal in Muslim literature as a pious authority obscures centuries of contestation and the eventual rehabilitation of his character. In this book, Nebil Husayn examines the enduring legacy of the nawasib, early Muslims who disliked Ali and his descendants. The nawasib participated in politics and scholarly discussions on religion at least until the ninth century. However, their virtual disappearance in Muslim societies has led many to ignore their existence and the subtle ways in which their views subsequently affected Islamic historiography and theology. By surveying medieval Muslim literature across multiple genres and traditions including the Sunni, Mu'tazili, and Ibadi, Husayn reconstructs the claims and arguments of the nawasib and illuminates the methods that Sunni scholars employed to gradually rehabilitate the image of Ali from a villainous character to a righteous one.

Sociology of Shiʿite Islam is a comprehensive study of the development of Shiʿism from its sectarian formation in the eighth century through its establishment as Iran’s national religion in the sixteenth to the Islamic revolution Iran in the twentieth century.

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