Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar

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Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar ( Arabic إسماعيل بن جعفر, DMG Ismāʿīl b. Ǧaʿfar ; * in the early 8th century; † around 760 ) with the surname al-Mubārak ("the blessed") was the namesake and sixth Imam of the Ismailites . He was the eldest son of Imam Jafar as-Sādiq and his first wife Fātima, a granddaughter of al-Hasan ibn ʿAlī .

Ismāʿīl was designated as successor by his father Jafar, but died before his death. This led to an ousting movement among his father's followers, who believed that a true imam could not be wrong. Jafar defended himself by saying that a divine change of will ( badāʾ ) had occurred that he could not foresee. However, the supporters who had turned away from him thought this was an excuse.

The party that clung to the Imamat of Jafar after Ismāʿīl's death split into several groups after his death. One group suggested that Ismāʿīl was now the Imam. They denied that he died while his father was alive, assuming that the father faked his death out of fear for his son and then hid him. This group, referred to as the "pure Ismāʿīlīya" ( al-Ismāʿīlīya al-ḫāliṣa ), claimed that "Ismāʿīl does not die until he has taken possession of the earth and taken command of the people, and that he is the Qā'im is because his father pointed out his imamate. "

A second group claimed that after Jafar's death the imam was Ismāʿīl's son Muhammad , whom the father fathered with a slave. The followers of this group said that after the death of his son, Jafar transferred the imamate to his son Muhammad, on the grounds that after al-Hasan and al-Husain the imamate was no longer from one brother to another brother, but always will only be transmitted in the respective offspring. Therefore, it could not now be transferred to Ismāʿīl's brothers ʿAbdallāh or Mūsā , just as after al-Husain's death the imamate passed on to his son ʿAlī , but al-Husain's brother Muhammad ibn al-Hanafīya had no right to it. The followers of this doctrine were known as Mubārakīya after a leader of theirs who was called Mubārak and was a client of Ismāʿīl.

From a group of the Mubārakīya later developed the main stream of Ismāʿīlīya, which the Imamate continues in the descendants of Muhammad and regards Ismāʿīl as their sixth Imam. The Twelve Shiites , on the other hand, see Ismāʿīl's half-brother Mūsā, who is 25 years his junior, as the heir of the Imamate and continue their imam series in his descendants.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See an-Naubachtī 55.
  2. ↑ Cf. an-Naubachtī 57f.
  3. ↑ See an-Naubachtī 58.
personal data
SURNAME Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ismail ibn Jafar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Imam of the Sevens Shiites or Ismailis
DATE OF BIRTH at 736
DATE OF DEATH around 760