ʿAbdallāh al-Akbar

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ʿAbdallāh al-Akbar ( Arabic عبد الله الأكبر, DMG ʿAbdallāh al-Akbar ; died shortly after 878 ) was the founding father of the Shia of the Ismailis in the 9th century , the most important religious group of Shiite Islam alongside the Twelve Shia . In the historiographical memory of this Shia, he himself was posthumously placed in the line of their imams , as their eighth in the dynastic succession to the prophet Mohammed .

The Ismaili Mission

Abdallah al-Akbar ("the elder") came from the village of Qūraǧ al-ʿAbbās near Ahwaz in the province of Chusistan , but had settled in the nearby Askar Mukram , where he owned two houses. Presumably he already belonged to the numerically small primitive community of the Ismailis, the so-called "Seven Shiites" , that supporter of the seventh imam Muhammad ibn Ismail , who was recognized by them and who had died half a century at that time, or, according to them, to the Hidness ( ġaiba ) was rapt and whose return has been expected since then. Anyway, Abdallah had in Askar Mukram the middle of the ninth century with the proclamation of the "true religion" (dīn al-Hajj) started by the imminent return of the seventh Imam as the "rightly guided" ( al-Mahdi ) announced that oust the hated usurpers of the Abbasids in the proxy ( ḫilāfa ) of the Prophet, repeal the law ( ṣarīʿa ) and restore the paradisiacal original state of people's faith in God. Both from the standpoint of the ruling Sunnah and the teachings of the Twelve Shia, such statements were considered heretical and Abdallah quickly turned the local population against him, who drove him out of the city.

Initially, Abdallah was able to continue his propaganda in Basra, Iraq , but was soon forced to flee here too after his opponents from Askar Mukram had tracked him down here. Disguised as a merchant, he settled in Salamiyya , Syria , where he was able to organize his mission (daʿwa) from underground . The first of his followers were sent out as “callers” ( dāʿī ) to recruit new followers for the hidden Mahdi, for whom he himself vouched as living “proof” (ḥuǧǧa) of his existence. During Abdallah's lifetime, the mission was able to record a considerable increase in followers. The origin of the first religious communities in Iraq is located in Islamic historiography in the year 875 to 878, which also marks the oldest known date for the Ismaili mission. Further churches have sprung up in the northern Persian region of Tabaristan and Dailam . The advertising for the Ismaili seventh imam was able to benefit from the simultaneous crisis in the competing Shia of the Twelve, whose eponymous twelfth imam ( Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ) had vanished into obscurity at that time, which apparently unsettled large parts of his followers and motivated to change into the allegiance of the seventh imam, whose imminent return was propagated. Communication between the Ismaili communities, the so-called “islands” (ǧazīra) , and the headquarters in Salamiyya was primarily accomplished by messengers and carrier pigeons, but Abdallah probably also undertook inspection trips to the followers of his teaching. At least his eldest son Ahmad was born in Chalus on the south coast of the Caspian Sea , who also succeeded him in the leadership of the mission after the death of his father in the years around 880.

Imam of the Ismailis

The shrine of the eighth Imam Abdallah al-Akbar in Salamiyya.

Abdallah's family ancestry is obscure and cannot be verified with certainty. For reasons of caution ( taqīya ) he and his immediate descendants have lived under different aliases and identities in order to be able to advance their mission unmolested by the state authorities. In Basra he had presented himself as a descendant of Aqil , a brother of the Prophet's son-in-law and first Imam of the Shiites Ali , and was recognized as such by members of the clan. But in 910, Abdallah's great-grandson of the same name ( Abdallah al-Mahdi , † 934) emerged from the secrecy as the longed-for, rightly guided imam and founded the Ismaili caliphate of the Fatimids . This and his successors presented divergent genealogical representations, which underline their classification in a direct line of descent to Ali and should give their caliphate and imamate the necessary dynastic legitimacy. The extent to which this claim to the imamate was compatible with the personal view of Abdallah “the elder”, who himself only did missionary work for the seventh imam, can no longer be clarified. In any case, Abdallah “the Younger” and his descendants failed to officially proclaim a family tree during their entire reign as Fatimid caliphs. But their juggling with various genealogies had already raised doubts among contemporaries about the credibility of their ancestry, which is why the legitimacy of their imamate and caliphate could be denied by opponents from the ranks of the Sunnah such as the Abbasids .

The genealogy of the line of Ismaili imams that still exists today is still a controversial point in the historical-scientific dispute, depending on the different standpoints of the various Islamic denominations. But in the Ismailis' constitution, the filiation of Abdallah al-Akbar from the seventh Imam is considered an irrefutable dogma, which is why he is also recognized as the eighth Imam of their Shia in his and Ali's successors.

sanctuary

In the 11th century, the Fatimid governor Chalaf ibn Mulaib built a shrine in Salamiyya to honor the religious founding father of the Ismailis and eighth Imams of the Shia, for whom a cenotaph was also laid out. For all Ismailite splinter groups that exist today, this shrine is the most important shrine alongside the two pilgrimage sites in Najaf and Karbala, which are mandatory for all Shiites . After centuries of disintegration, the forty-ninth imam of the Nizari-Ismailis Aga Khan IV had the shrine extensively renovated. During the Syrian civil war , Salamiyya was repeatedly attacked by the Sunni terror syndicate Daesh ("Islamic State") , but the place and the sanctuary were defended by Ismaili militias.

literature

predecessor Office successor
Muhammad ibn Ismail 8. Imam of the Ismailis Ahmad ibn Abdallah
personal data
SURNAME ʿAbdallāh al-Akbar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Founder of the Ismaili Fatimid Movement
DATE OF BIRTH 9th century
DATE OF DEATH 9th century