al-Qahir (Imam)

Hassan al-Qahir , or Hassan I. ( Arabic حسن القاهر, DMG Ḥasan al-Qāhir ), was the 22nd Imam of the Shia of the Nizari-Ismailis . He lived in secrecy ( ġaiba ) in the northern Persian Ismaili state around Alamut , which was represented externally by Kiya Buzurg-Umid († 1138) and Muhammad ibn Buzurg-Umid († 1162).

Not much is known about al-Qahir (the Almighty) except that he was the father of the 23rd Imam Hassan (II) according to the traditional doctrine of his Shia . In 1164 he identified himself to his followers as the son of " al-Qahir ibn al-Muhtadi ibn al-Hadi ibn Nizar ". The existence of al-Qahir and his two predecessors, however, is considered obscure. On the one hand because they are said to have lived in secrecy and on the other hand because recent 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. In his opinion, Hassan II was actually a biological son of Muhammad ibn Buzurg-Umid and therefore a false imam. He and his followers had constructed his descent from Nizar († 1095) in order to preserve the right to exist for their Shia.

Al-Qahir is said to have had the same proper name as his alleged son and successor. Juwaini reports of the assumption that they could even have been one and the same person, which is excluded in Ismaili historiography. Because Hassan II stepped out of the shadows as Imam in the summer of 1164, al-Qahir must have died in or shortly before that year.

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.

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. 692-695.

predecessor	Office	successor
Muhammad (I.) al-Muhtadi	22. Imam of the Nizari Ismailis	Hassan (II.) Ala dikrihi s-salam