al-hadi (imam)

Ali al-Hadi ( Arabic الهادى, DMG ʿAlī al-Hādī ) was the 20th Imam of the Shia of the Nizari-Ismailis .

According to Ismaili historiography, al-Hadi (the peacemaker) was a son of the Fatimid prince Nizar († 1095), the eldest son of the imam caliph al-Mustansir († 1094) who had passed over to the throne . Imam was considered. The 23rd Imam Hassan II identified himself to his followers in 1164 as the son of " al-Qahir ibn al-Muhtadi ibn al-Hadi ibn Nizar ". However, the existence of al-Hadi and his two successors is considered obscure. On the one hand because they are said to have lived in secrecy ( ġaiba ) and on the other hand because contemporary historiographical works by the Ismailis were destroyed in the Middle Ages. The oldest genealogies of the imams following Nizar date from the 15th and 16th centuries. Sunni chroniclers like Juwaini consider this historiography to be a fiction. According to them, Hassan II was a son of Muhammad ibn Buzurg-Umid († 1162), the ruler of Alamut, and therefore a false imam.

According to a copy of a letter from the 21st Imam al-Muhtadi from the 16th century, the proper name of al-Hadi Ali was .

Al-Hadi is commonly referred to as being identical to Abu Abdallah al-Hussain ( Arabic أبو عبد الله الحسين, DMG Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn ), one of the sons of Nizar, about whose fate there are two diverging traditions of Sunni historians. According to Juwaini , he and his father fell into captivity in 1095 with his uncle Caliph al-Mustali and his vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah and died or murdered in prison at an unknown point in time.

According to al-Maqrīzī, however, he and other family members are said to have managed to flee to the Maghreb after the end of his father , where he gathered followers and waited for an opportune time to assert his right to the throne in Cairo . When his cousin, Caliph al-Amir , was murdered in 1130 by Nizarites ( fidāʾī ) who were ready to make sacrifices , al-Hussain / al-Hadi believed the right time had come in the year 526 AH (1131/32) and marched with his army to Egypt . But before the fight could start, he was betrayed by his supporters and handed over to the now ruling caliph al-Hafiz , who had paid high bribes for it. In whose dungeon he was finally executed.

Regardless of the fate of al-Hussain / al-Hadi, the line of descendants of Nizar is said to have continued. The son and successor of al-Hadi, al-Muhtadi , is said to have been evacuated to Alamut on the advice of the leader of the Persian Ismailis Hasan-i Sabbāh , or even to have been born directly there, where he was able to continue the line of imams in secret.

He is not to be confused with the 4th Abbasid Caliph al-Hādī († 786) or the 10th Imam of the Twelve Shiites Ali al-Hadi († 868).

literature

• Farhad Daftary , The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines. Cambridge University Press 1990.
• Farhad Daftary, The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismaʿilis. London 1994.
• Farhad Daftary, Ismaili Literature: A Bibliography of Sources and Studies. London 2004.
• Paul E. Walker and Paul Walker, Succession to Rule in the Schiite Caliphate, in: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 32 (1995), pp. 239-264.

swell

• Abū Isḥāq Quhistānī († after 1498), "Seven Chapters" (Haft bāb) , ed. and translated into English by Wladimir Ivanow (1959), p. 23.
• Khayrkhwāh-i Harātī († after 1553), “Wise Speeches” (Kalām-i pīr) , ed. and translated into English by Vladimir Ivanov (1935), p. 44.
• Ata al-Mulk Dschuwaini , "History of the World Conqueror" ( Ta'rīkh-i Jahāngushāy ) : ed. as a translation into English by John Andrew Boyle, Genghis Khan, the history of the world conqueror (1958), pp. 662-663.
• al-Maqrīzī , "Exhortation of the Muslims with the news of the Fatimid Imam-Caliphs" (Ittiʿāẓ al-ḥunafāʾ bi-aḫbār al-aʾimma al-Fāṭimīyīn al-ḫulafāʾ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In this letter Imam al-Muhtadi calls himself "Muhammad (I) ibn Ali ibn Nizar". See Mustafa Ghalib, Tarikh ad-Daw'ah al-Ismai'liyyah (1975), pp. 255-256.
2. ↑ See Walker, pp. 255-256.

predecessor	Office	successor
Nizar	20. Imam of the Nizari Ismailis	Muhammad (I.) al-Muhtadi