Agents of the Hidden Imam

Forging Twelver Shi‘ism, 850-950 CE

Edmund Hayes

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781108834391
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108999229
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

In 874 CE, the eleventh Imam died, and the Imami community splintered. The institutions of the Imamate were maintained by the dead Imam's agents, who asserted they were in contact with a hidden twelfth Imam. This was the beginning of 'Twelver' Shi?ism. Edmund Hayes provides an innovative approach to exploring early Shi?ism, moving beyond doctrinal history to provide an analysis of the socio-political processes leading to the canonisation of the Occultation of the twelfth Imam. Hayes shows how these agents cemented their authority by reproducing the physical signs of the Imamate, including protocols of succession, letters and the alm taxes. Four of these agents were ultimately canonised as "envoys" but traces of earlier conceptions of authority remain embedded in the earliest reports. Hayes dissects the complex and contradictory Occultation narratives to show how, amidst the claims of numerous actors, the institutional positioning of the envoys allowed them to assert a quasi-Imamic authority in the absence of an Imam.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The Rise of the Agents in the Late Imamate (830–874 ce)
• 2 The Crisis before the Crisis: The Feud between Imamic Contenders and the Power of the Agents
• 3 Crisis!: The Mother, the Brother, the Concubine, and the Politics of Inheritance
• 4 The Agents of the Nāḥiya in the Era of Perplexity
• 5 The Creation of an Envoy: The Rise of Abū Jaʿfar al-ʿAmrī
• 6 Rise and Fall: Ibn Rawḥ, Shalmaghānī, and the Rise and Fall of the Envoyship
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index