Ismailis

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The Ismailis ( Arabic الإسماعيلية al-Ismāʿīlīya , Persian اسماعیلیان Esmāʿīlīyān , Sindhi اسماعیلی Ismā'īlī ) form a religious community in Shiite Islam that emerged in the 8th century as a result of a split in the Imamite Shia. After the Twelve Shia , which also emerged from this split , the Ismailis now represent the second largest Shiite denomination with a little more than 20 million followers.

This Shia ( šīʿa ) acquired historical significance through the Caliphate of the Fatimids in North Africa and Egypt that it founded ; the only one in the history of Islam that emerged from Shi'aism. This caliphate was proclaimed in 910 and claimed rule over the entire Muslim world ( umma ) in competition with the Sunni Abbasid caliphate . The Fatimid caliphate was ended in 1171 by the Sunni ruler Saladin .

Since the end of the 11th century, the Ismailis themselves have been divided into different religious communities, each of which claims the continuation of true Ismailishness, which is why they also have an almost identical doctrine of faith. The crucial difference between these groupings lies in the question of legal leadership over the church, so that each Ismaili stream follows its own line of "chiefs" ( imām ) . Of the three Ismaili groups still in existence today, the Nizarites are numerically the largest; they unite the majority of all Ismailis under their spiritual leader Imam Aga Khan IV. , which is why the collective term “Ismailis” is used today as a preferred synonym for the Nizarites. In addition to them, however, there are still the numerically significantly smaller groups of the Tayyibites and Mu'minites , who do not recognize the imam line of the Nizarites and each follow their own.

Ismaili Mosque in Dushanbe , Tajikistan

Another religious group that learned its genesis from Ismailism is the Druze , whose doctrine, however, has diverged from that of the Ismailis.

distribution

Today Ismailis live mainly in India ( Gujarat and Maharashtra ) and Pakistan (see Hunza ), where they form a significant minority. In addition, there are communities in Afghanistan , Tajikistan and Syria , in Yemen , Iran , in Oman and Bahrain , in eastern Turkey , in East Africa and scattered throughout the western world - in a total of more than 25 countries.

Around 1,900 Ismailis live in Germany . In 2008 there were a total of four places of prayer ( Jama'at Khana ) of this religious community in Germany. In addition to the Jama`at Khana in Berlin, there are three more in Bösel , Essen and Frankfurt .

One of the best-known Germans belonging to this religious community is Gabriele Princess zu Leiningen (formerly Begum Aga Khan), from 1998 to 2014 married to Karim Aga Khan IV , the religious head of the 20 million Ismaili Nizarites .

Doctrine of faith

The real religion

The Ismailis refer to their beliefs as “the true religion” (dīn al-ḥaqq) , or simply “the truth” (al-ḥaqq) . They also call themselves “people of truth” (ahl al-ḥaqq) and their preaching is the “call to truth” (daʿwat al-ḥaqq) . Their teaching is probably influenced by pre-Islamic models such as Gnosticism and Manichaeism , which were widespread in the regions of origin of Ismaili, southern Iraq and Persia. In fact, the earliest of their propagandists were also referred to as "Manicheans" by anti-Ismaili polemics.

The theological background of their doctrine of salvation is formed by a cosmic original sin that led to the creation of the world. In his omnipotence (qadar) God ( Allāh ) created all being through the creator word “Be!” (Kun!) ( Sura 36:82 ). According to Ismaili doctrine, omnipotence and the creator word form an original pair , with qadar representing the masculine principle and kūnī - as the feminine form of the imperative - representing the feminine principle. Through a sin, this feminine principle set the fatal creation process in motion when, blinded by hubris , it did not recognize its creator and believed itself to be God. In order to humiliate kūnī , God created other beings that she is not able to create, whereby the cosmos unfolded and matter came into being.

Ismailis consider the real disaster associated with creation to be the fact that human souls are distant from God and have been trapped in matter since then. Only knowledge (ancient Greek: gnō̂sis , Arabic: ʿilm ) can lead the human soul back to its origin, but it is not capable of knowledge on its own and therefore remains in a state of helplessness and unconsciousness. In order to bring redeeming knowledge to mankind, God must reveal himself to it. Carriers of this revelation were the six successive "speakers" (nāṭiq) Adam, Noah , Abraham , Moses , Jesus and finally Mohammed , each of whom conveyed the divine revelation to mankind, which codified it in the form of a religion of the law ( šarīʿa ) Was able to tame and curb people. The revelation transmitted by Mohammed represents the latter to which the believing person now has to surrender ( islām ) .

For the Ismailis, however, the six religions with their rites, ceremonies, commandments and prohibitions that have been brought to man in this way are only external (ẓāhir) covers through which the ignorant human souls are tamed. But the true religion, i.e. the original form of belief in God before the Fall, is hidden inside (bāṭin) of his revelation, which man alone is not capable of recognizing and therefore cannot participate in it alone.

The imamate

The Koranic revelation brought by Mohammed is at the center of the Ismaili belief, the reading ( qurʾān ) of which is based on allegorical interpretation , since the message is not presented in plain text but in encrypted form. The actual message of the Koran emerges from the inner / secret (bāṭin) meaning that is hidden behind the external (ẓāhir) wording. Every verse, every name and every word contains a hidden message that can only be learned through methodical decoding (taʾwīl) . As "people of the inner / secret" (ahl al-bāṭin) , or "batinites" ( al-Bāṭiniyya ) , the Ismailites were preferred by outsiders in medieval historiography. But no one has the necessary knowledge to recognize this inner message.

A representation of Ali with the "sword with the backbone" (Ḏū l-faqār) resting on his knees . He is the "foundation" (asās) of all Ismailite imam lineages.

Following the Ismaili doctrine, God provided each of his speaker-prophets with an authorized representative (waṣī) who alone is able to recognize and preserve the inner meaning. To Adam his son Seth (or Abel ), to Noah his son Shem , to Abraham his son Ishmael , to Moses his brother Aaron , to Jesus his apostle Simon Peter and to Mohammed his cousin and son-in-law Ali . Only those initiated into the doctrine of the “true religion” know of that authorized person, who has been given the necessary charisma ( baraka ) and the associated abilities of “knowledge” (ʿilm) and “wisdom” (ḥikma) , what is for him alone Enables reading of the inner message. Through the mediation of this agent, the believers thus partake of the true message of divine revelation, while the rest of mankind stupidly and ignorantly follows the rites and regulations of his outer shell.

Following the doctrine further, the congregation of believers in each cycle of the prophets after the death of the “speaker” and the “authorized representative” was led by a series of seven chiefs ( imām ) , of whom the seventh emerged as the new “speaker”. In the sixth and final cycle, the Islamic, these imams were the immediate descendants of Ali. The seventh of them should be assigned the role of the seventh and last prophet of divine revelation, the “rightly guided” ( al-Mahdī ) and the “appearing” (al-Qāʾim) , to whom the messianic proclamation of the end-time resurrection (qijāmah) , the abolition of the law (rafʿ aš-šarīʿa) and thus the restoration of the paradisiacal original state of faith in God before the fall, that state in which the first man Adam prayed to God. The charisma inherent in the authorized representative is passed on to the respective successor in the imamate by designation (naṣṣ) , which guarantees access to the inner message for the believer in the future. As a first designation, used as a precedent, the Ismailis, like all Shiites, recognize the delivery of the “sword with the backbone” ( Ḏū l-faqār ) , also called the “two-edged sword”, sent by God and proven with divine powers Mohammed to Ali before the Battle of Uhud in 625. In their opinion, this gesture represents a religious and testamentary expression of will by the Prophet, with which he, in God's blessing, offered his son-in-law the substitution ( ḫilāfa ) in the leadership of the believers after his death. And last but not least, the Ismailis, like all Shiites, could refer to the saying of the Prophet ( ḥadīṯ ) at the pond of Chumm , who is said to have confirmed to his cousin the future rule over the believers shortly before his death in 632:

“ Ali should also command everyone I command! "

The dynastic succession in the Imamate among the descendants of Ali from his marriage to the prophet's daughter Fatima takes place with the Ismailis in a strictly linear form from father to son. The inherited charisma can only be passed on from one generation to the next and not from one brother to another. As an exception, the medieval Ismailis only allowed the brothers Hassan (d. 670) and Hussein (X 680) to apply by first elevating Ali to a more lofty special position as the “foundation of the Imamate ” (asās al-imāma) and his eldest son Hassan regarded as the first imam, after whose death the charism passed on to the brother Hussein. It was only the Nizari Ismailis who corrected their counting in the sense of a strict linearity of inheritance, in which the foundation Ali is now also the first imam and Hassan was completely banished from the line. In any case, however, the Ismailis counting method differs from other Shiite groups such as the "Twelve", who count both Ali and Hassan, which means that different counting methods can occur, especially among the early Imams.

The imamate's inherent charism is considered indivisible and can therefore only be passed on to one son, while other sons are excluded from it. An explicit birthright does not exist, the decisive factor is the will of the imam, who chooses from among his sons the one whom he considers worthy of leadership over the believers. Such a designation does not necessarily have to be in writing, it can also be in the form of a particularly distinctive gesture, following the example of the prophet and his son-in-law. It was precisely this that turned out to be the cause of various disagreements, succession disputes and divisions in the history of the Ismailis.

The pillars of Islam

The legal compendium of the Ismailis, called “way of the members of the (prophetic) house” (maḏhab ahl al-bait) , knows seven “pillars of Islam” (daʿāʾim al-islām) . First and foremost, belief ( īmān ) in the true Imam stands; whoever does not recognize the imam is indeed a submissive ( muslim ) of revelation, but not an actual believer ( muʾmin ) . The other pillars are cultic purity ( ṭahāra ) , ritual prayer ( ṣalāt ) , the alms tax ( zakāh ) , fasting ( ṣaum ) , the pilgrimage to Mecca ( ḥaǧǧ ) and the "commitment" ( ǧihād ) in the holy struggle.

This Ismaili law, which still applies today to the Shia, is the sixth major Islamic law school alongside the four Sunni and the twelve Shia schools. It does not differ essentially from the law of the twelve - its compiler an-Nu'man was even assumed to have been a secret twelve - and with a few exceptions only contains sayings of the first five imams of the Shia, those of the twelve be acknowledged. Presumably, the intention was to put Ismaili law on a basis that could also be accepted by other Shiites in order to simplify their conversion to Ismaili teachings.

story

The early community or "The Seven"

The imams of the "sevens"
1. Ali (ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib) X 661
(1.) al-Hasan ibn ʿAlī died 670
2. al-Hussain ibn ʿAlī X 680
3. ʿAlī ibn Husain Zain al-ʿĀbidīn died 713
4th Muhammad ibn Ali al-Bāqir died 732 or 736
5. Jafar ibn Muhammad as-Sādiq died 765
6th Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar al-Mubarak died around 760
7th Muhammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Muktum raptured before 809

The establishment of the allegiance to Ismail (šīʿat Ismāʿīl) , or simply the "Ismailites" (al-Ismāʿīlīya) , resulted from the split in the great Imamite Shia after the death of Imam Jafar as-Sadiq in 765, whereupon his followers differed views about the regulation of the succession. Two doctrines, which were to serve several times as blueprints for new schisms, faced one another. The model of the "raptured" or "secret" ( Gaib , Plu. Ghayba ) competed with the bodily, physically present Imamat. The late imam had three sons. The eldest Abdallah al-Aftah died without offspring of his own just a few months after the father and the middle Ismail "the blessed one" (al-Mubarak) even before him, with which only the youngest son Musa "the silent one" (al-Kāzim) stayed behind. The overwhelming majority of the Shiites insisted on a present imam and consequently recognized the surviving son Musa as the new imam. The line of imams that continued through him was to enter into obscurity after the rapture of its twelfth imam in the year 873, which is why the Shia attached to it is still referred to as that of the "twelve" to this day. Because the "Twelve" made up the numerical majority of all Shiites when they were founded, their community is still often described as the original Imamite Shia, from which only a small group called the "Ismailites" split off.

In fact, at the time of the split, the followers of the Imam lineage derived from Ismail, who died young, represented a vanishingly small minority who were spatially concentrated in some communities in southern Iraq and Persia and had no particular form of organization. Decisive for her standing up for an Imamate of Ismail was her conviction that the father was designated in his favor, which, in her opinion, meant that the charisma necessary for leadership over the believers was passed on to Ismail and his descendants, regardless of his untimely death . Other than serving as an eponym, Ismail played no particular role in either its history or its teaching system. His surviving son Muhammad "the hidden one" (al-Muktum) , who, following their teaching, would be the expected seventh imam, i.e. who will also be the final seventh prophet of divine revelation, was significant for this . In their imagination, he did not die some time before the year 809, but rather escaped into secrecy in order to leave them in a state of joyful anticipation of his messianic return as the rightly guided ruler ( al-imām al-mahdī ) . At this event, he was supposed to be responsible for the proclamation of the “end times / resurrection”, the unification of the Muslim community (umma) through the annihilation of all usurpers, the repeal of the law and thus the restoration of the original state of faith in God. Because Muhammad ibn Ismail is the seventh of their imams in the counting of the Ismaili Old Believers (Proto-Ismailis), they were also referred to as “the sevens”, analogous to the “twelve” who compete with them. For the Ismailis existing today, however, this designation is considered misleading, since their imam line did not end with the seventh imam after all.

Beginning of the mission

Around the middle of the 9th century, about fifty years after the rapture of the seventh Imam, the local Abdallah al-Akbar (the elder) appeared as a preacher in the southern Persian town of Askar Mukram , who publicly announced the imminent appearance of the rightly guided Imam Muhammad ibn Ismail which, however, drew the anger of the majority of the population and the attention of the state authorities of the Sunni Abbasid Caliphs . Soon forced to flee, he was able to resume his sermons in Basra , with the same reaction as in Askar Mukram. Finally he decided to move to the Syrian Salamiyya , which was recolonized by an Abbasid prince at that time. Disguised as a merchant with a false identity, he resumed the proclamation of his message here, but now propagated in secret and directed from the underground, with which the Ismaili mission ( daʿwa ) , which is still carried out today, began.

Abdallah already sent the first followers who had been missionary as "callers" ( duʿāt , Sing. Dāʿī ) to all regions of the Islamic world, such as Iraq , Persia , Yemen , Bahrain , Egypt and the distant Maghreb . In secret teaching sessions they spread the religious constitution of their Shia there and organized the regional networking of the congregations they had evangelized. The believers were settled in fortified places in self-sufficient congregations, the “places of emigration” (dār al-hiǧra) , which exchanged information with other congregations. They hoarded supplies, assets and weapons for the upcoming battles with the state authorities and opponents of the faith. In addition, the levying of the "fifth" (hūms) was introduced, a tax that every believer has to pay to the Imam to this day, to which he is entitled according to divine revelation ( Sura 8:41 ). The believer was bound to absolute secrecy towards the outside world and absolute loyalty to the still hidden Imam. The communities were organizationally integrated into regional networks, called "islands" (ǧazīra) , each of which was politically and spiritually led by a Da'i. These in turn obtained their instructions from the headquarters in Salamya, where Abdallah the elder and his descendants immediately following him in the mission leadership as living “proofs / guarantors” (ḥuǧǧa) vouched for the approaching return of the seventh imam.

The return of the Mahdi and first crisis

The hidden imams
8th. ʿAbdallāh al-Akbar
9. Ahmad ibn ʿAbdallāh
10. Hussein ibn Ahmad died 881/882
11. Said ibn Hussein aka Abdallah al-Mahdi

A chain of events began in 899, which culminated in the emergence of the Ismaili imamate, the establishment of a caliphate, and the first significant schism of the Shia. In that year the fourth Grand Master of the Mission, Abdallah the Younger, residing in Salamya (actually Said, a great-grandson of the elder Abdallah) revealed himself to the Da'i of the Iraqi religious community Hamdān Qarmat as the rightly guided head expected by the Shia (al-imām al- mahdī) . He and his predecessors should have hidden their true identity as imams for reasons of caution in order to avoid persecution by the Abbasid usurpers . For Qarmat, however, this revelation was blatantly incompatible with the teaching propagated by the mission of the physical return of the seventh Imam Muhammad ibn Ismail as the last expected prophet. Rejecting the revelation of the Mahdi, who was false from his point of view, Qarmat renounced the mission leadership in Salamiyya and with him the entire Iraqi and Bahraini religious community. The so formed Shia of the “ Qarmatians ” considered themselves to be the keepers of the teachings of the Ismaili Old Believers and thus their only legitimate heirs. The formation of the Qarmatians was connected with their violent uprising against the state authorities in Baghdad . With the overthrow of the Sunni Abbasids, they intended to enforce their religious constitution as the only one valid in the Islamic world, before the supposedly false Mahdi succeeded in doing so.

In the decades to come, the Qarmatians put Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula in a state of perpetual war, which was primarily waged against Baghdad, but ultimately also against their former Ismaili co-religionists. Almost all other religious communities, especially in Syria, Yemen, Egypt, North Africa and the Maghreb, continued to express their loyalty to Abdallah the Younger, whose revelation as the actual Mahdi they considered to be compatible with the teaching propagated up to now. The idea of ​​a further dynastic inheritance of the charism took on an increasingly concrete form in their religious constitution. No longer the physical return of the seventh imam - who had actually died - as the Mahdi was expected, but an Alide descended from him , to whom the charisma was assigned by designation. The secrecy in which the Seventh Imam once stepped was from now on no longer understood as a physical detachment from the material world, but as a retreat from the public, as an emigration into the underground to avoid persecution by enemies. Abdallah the Younger and his successor imam caliphs were supposed to present several genealogical representations, some of which differed from one another, which were intended to underpin their descent from Ali via the seventh imam. However, they have always refrained from officially proclaiming a family tree, thus offering their critics and opponents of faith a target for their credibility and the truthfulness of their teaching. Their line of descent from Ali was and is declared by their opponents as a deceptive fiction, but in the Ismaili religious doctrine it has since been considered an irrefutable religious and historiographical dogma. The eighth imam and founder of the Ismaili mission ʿAbdallāh al-Akbar is considered to be the biological son and designated successor of the seventh imam. The Qarmatian uprising in Iraq had also led to unrest in Syria. The religious communities there also saw the time to revolt against the Abbasids in 903 and took up arms. The incognito of the Mahdi as a simple merchant could no longer be maintained in Salamiyya under these circumstances, which is why he fled to the Palestinian ar-Ramla . His followers, however, had succeeded in taking Salamiyya, Homs and other cities along the Orontes , in which they established a first short-lived state in the name of the Mahdi. However, she did not comply with her request to finally step out of the hiding place. Before the year was over, they were militarily defeated by the Abbasids and their leaders were cruelly punished. In Baghdad they had given the Mahdi identity under torture after a wanted list had been searched throughout the Islamic empire. In the context of this uprising, the Syrian followers of the Mahdi, mainly Bedouin tribes, referred to themselves as "Fatimids" (al-Fāṭimīyūn) .

While the Syrian "island" collapsed under the reaction of the Abbasids, the religious communities in Yemen and North Africa remained largely unaffected by the events. From ar-Ramla, the Mahdi had to resume his flight, much to the surprise of his small followers, not in Yemen, but in the distant Maghreb, whose Berber population was still considered barbarically overgrown and only superficially Islamized at that time.

The establishment of the caliphate and renewed crisis

The Imam-Caliphs of the Fatimids to the Schism
11. al-Mahdi died 934
12th al-Qa'im died 946
13. al-Mansur died 953
14th al-Muʿizz died 975
15th al-ʿAzīz died 996
16. al-Hākim died 1021
17th az-Zahir died 1036
18th al-Mustansir died 1094

Parallel to the uprising of the Syrian Ismailis, their fellow believers also rose up in the far west under the leadership of the energetic Da'i Abu Abdallah Hussein, "the Shiite" (asch-Shīʿī) . In the previous decades he had evangelized the Kutāma Berber tribes, who were notorious for their warlike sentiments , and who inhabited the mountains of today's Algeria . With the Kutama as the military backbone, asch-Shi'i now also dared to rise against the provincial governors of "Africa" (Ifrīqiyā) from the Aghlabid dynasty . After hard and eventful battles, the royal seat of Raqqada was captured in March 909 and the last Aghlabide was driven out. The establishment of the Mahdi State began immediately, the second after the unsuccessful attempt in Syria four years earlier.

The Mahdi himself had traveled through the war zone disguised as a merchant at the same time as these events, until he reached Sidschilmasa , located on the edge of the Sahara in what is now Morocco , to await the outcome of the fighting. It was only after Africa had been conquered and the new Ismaili regime established that he was able to identify himself on August 26, 909 to his believers, who were rising from Sidschilmasa. In triumphal procession he was led to Raqqada, where finally on January 5, 910, his public proclamation as the new commander of all believers (amīr al-muʾminīn) in proxy (ḫilāfa) of the Prophet through the establishment of his ruler name "the one guided by God" (al- Mahdī billāh) in the Friday sermon ( ḫuṭba ) . This established the first caliphate in opposition to the Sunni Abbasids in Baghdad , which should also remain the only one in history that emerged from Shi'aism. In the same year al-Mahdi was praised as the “son of Fatima” and as a “Fatimid imam” in a poem in praise in reminiscence of his claimed descent from the prophet's daughter Fatima , which is why the historiography of this new caliph dynasty with the name “ Fatimids ” used to name. The caliph family preferred to call themselves the “dynasty of truth” (daulat al-ḥaqq) .

The emergence of the Mahdi from concealment was fraught with existential risks for him, which were based on the expectations of his believers. Indeed, the first year of the dynasty he founded threatened to be its last. Because in his appearance and worldly demeanor, the Mahdi neither corresponded to the asceticism and piety of Da'is Hussein, "the Shiite", nor did the conduct of his office that was expected of a caliph from the beginning. He did not take part in the ritual activities such as breaking the fast or the festival of sacrifice, and he sent his son to stand in for the festive prayer. Above all, however, the law's repeal did not occur when it appeared, which was a central component of Ismaili teaching. The Da'i quickly realized that the Mahdi could indeed be a deceiver, similar to Hamdān Qarmat's a decade earlier . The Da'i secretly pawed other disappointed believers and old servants of the displaced Aghlabids around to carry out a coup against the Mahdi. Before the conspirators could strike, they were denounced to the Mahdi. His wavering in faith cost the “Shiite” his life on February 28, 911; The Ismaili historiography nevertheless honored the actual founding father of its caliphate, who had been misled by busy traitors.

In the decades that followed, the new dynasty in North Africa had to assert itself against further rebels and "counter-Mahdis". The Shia experienced a serious setback in Yemen when their local missionary Ibn Hauschab "the victor of Yemen" died in 914, whereupon the Yemeni "island" collapsed and most of their followers returned to the Sunnah. In Africa, the Fatimid regime was finally able to stabilize and expand in 947 at the latest with the bloody suppression of the "man on the donkey" uprising, Abu Yazid . Even during al-Mahdi's lifetime, Sicily was subjugated and the first forays as far as Egypt were made, where an influential “island” of the mission still operated underground. In order to profile itself as true believers in Revelation, the jihad could be led to southern Italy against the Christian Byzantines , but the main thrust remained Baghdad, where the usurpers of the Abbasids still ruled. Because the caliphate included undivided command and rulership over all believers in Revelation, which forbade coexistence with a second caliphate.

The Ismaili doctrine of the Faith underwent a change to that effect at that time, in that the promised repeal of the law was declared by the action of God, which should no longer be proclaimed by the person of the Mahdi, but rather by one of his future successors, who was to be proclaimed by inspiration God’s all rightly guided imams. In the meantime, however, all Muslims, including the devout followers of the Shia, would still have to obey the Sharia ; the Fatimid Empire remained an “Islamic State” throughout its existence .

The height of power

The rulership of the Fatimid Caliphate in the phases of its expansion
The al-Azhar Mosque ("the radiant one") in Cairo, inaugurated in 972 by Caliph al-Mu'izz

On the morning of July 6, 969, the Fatimid general Dschauhar as-Siqilli marched with his expeditionary army consisting of the tried and tested Kutama Berbers into the provincial capital of Egypt "the city of tents" (al-Fusṭāṭ Miṣr) and took it in the name of his caliph al-Mu'izz owned. In the first Friday sermon (ḫuṭba) that followed on July 9, the name of the Fatimid was used instead of the Abbasid al-Muti in the prayer formula, with which the change of rule was officially completed. In previous years, public order in this province of the Abbasid Caliphate had collapsed in bloody power struggles between the governors. The population could not expect help from the Caliph from Baghdad at that time, as their power began to erode even in power struggles and as a result of the new expansion of Christian Byzantium. The enterprising in Egypt Ismaili mission took advantage of the anarchic conditions in order to promote their Imam-Caliphs as new regulatory hand that this is the Capable alone, the Nile to pacify and lead to new prosperity. The court moved from “Africa” (now Tunisia ) to Egypt only four years later. On June 10, 973 Caliph al-Mu'izz moved with his court and ministers rather than to the ancient capital, but in the north she founded "the Victorious of Mu'izz" (al-Qāhira al-Mu'īzzya) one whose Foundations have already been laid by Dschauhar.

Al-Qāhira , aka "Cairo", became the most important architectural legacy of the Fatimids. Originally only founded as a palace city for the caliph and his state, it grew into one city in the 11th century with al-Fusṭāṭ (aka "Old Cairo"). To this day it has remained the capital of Egypt, which was able to maintain this status even after the end of the Fatimids in 1171. In the Fatimid's claim, however, Cairo should only remain one stage to the final goal, namely the expulsion of the Sunni usurpers in Baghdad. Indeed, this ultimate goal seemed to be realized under the subsequent Fatimid caliphs. Until the early 11th century, their territory could be extended over Palestine, Syria, Yemen and even over the Hejaz with the holy places Mecca and Medina; from 969 to 1071 the name of the Fatimid caliph was to be read out in Mecca in the Friday sermon. The main opponents of the Fatimid armies in Syria and the Hejaz were not those of the Abbasids, but those of the Qarmatians who had renounced their Shia. The real sphere of power of the Abbasids had shrunk to Iraq at that time. Under these circumstances, a final blow against Baghdad seemed only a matter of time.

Accompanied by the secular gain in power, the Ismaili mission had also experienced a new upswing in the entire Muslim umma, even beyond the actual territory of the Fatimid caliphs. New "islands" could be founded again in Syria and Yemen (under the governor dynasty of the Sulaihids ). The mission in Persia was very popular and new congregations were also able to establish themselves in distant India . Even some Qarmatian congregations could be reunited with the Ismaili mission, even if they only viewed the Fatimids as secular representatives of the still awaited seventh imam. Since the beginning of their existence, the strict hierarchical structure of the mission in the imams had its spiritual and organizational center, where ultimately all the lines of communication between the individual "islands" came together. Since the time of their concealment in Salamiyya, the imams have entrusted the day-to-day business of the mission to the office of "caller of callers" (dāʿī d-duʿāt) , to which the regional missionaries who directed the "islands" and the for them acted as the “gate” (bāb) to the Imam. Usually only the most learned authorities of the Shia were appointed to the office of "Ober-Da'i", and they also had the trust of the Imam. These people were always close to the Imam, for example during his adventurous escape from Salamiyya to Sidschilmasa. After the Imam-Caliph's move to Cairo, the office was also permanently installed there.

The new upswing in missions in the late 10th and 11th centuries should not hide the fact that Ismailism was only accepted as a doctrine by a minority in all regions of the Islamic world. Even in the core countries of the Fatimid Empire, in Egypt, "Africa", Syria and Yemen, the majority of the population remained loyal to the Sunna despite all the missionary work, so that everyday life there settled in a kind of parallel society. While the state and clerical hierarchy was permeated by Ismaili, the majority of the population continued to live apart from it according to the commandments and prohibitions of the Sunni schools of law. In addition to the Sunni majority, the Imam-Caliphs were also subject to other religious groups, above all the ancient Oriental and Coptic churches in Palestine and Egypt. The lot of the Christians under the Fatimids did not differ much from that which they suffered under the Abbasids; they still had to pay a poll tax, but initially remained largely unmolested. This state of coexistence experienced a momentous turning point under Caliph al-Hakim when he initiated a policy of discrimination against Christians and Jews, as a demonstrative commitment to his unconditional devotion (islām) to the Koranic revelation. The resulting wave of persecution against these religious minorities resulted in the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem in 1009 . After al-Hakim, the situation on the ground normalized again, but the Christians of the European West in particular should long remember the outrage; in 1095 it was listed as one of the reasons for calling for a crusade at the Synod of Clermont .

Splitting off of the Druze

Regardless of its failure and despite the imam caliphs' insistence on observance, the repeal of Sharia law has remained the great temptation for enthusiasts among the believers since the emergence of the Mahdi, whose impatience the imams have repeatedly faced with challenges in taming their impatience. From the beginning the Ismaili teaching was characterized by a latent antinomism , since in all revealed religions of the law - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - it only recognizes the outer coverings of the "true religion", which itself is freed from all cultic duties, rites, commands and prohibitions ; which, as the original form of religion before the fall of man, only knows the pure worship of God. This teaching has always made Ismailis prone to heresies . It was especially Neoplatonic ideas that exerted a great fascination on scholars and propagandists of the Shia, with which they had come into contact early in today's Eastern Iran and Central Asia and which they passed on from there to North Africa in the immediate vicinity of the Imam caliphs.

So it was then also a Persian Da'i, Hamza "the felt maker" (al-Labbād) , who saw the dawn of the end times under the "appearing" (al-Qāʾim) , the eschatological ruler in Cairo at the beginning of the 11th century , with which the abrogation of the Koranic revelation and its Ismaili interpretation in favor of a mere confession of God's uniqueness ( tauḥīd ) goes hand in hand, which makes acts of worship superfluous. And God did not incarnate in material existence in any person other than the ruling Caliph al-Hakim . The Turk from Bukhara , Anuschtekin, “the tailor” (pers .: ad-Darzī ) , after whom her followers were named “the tailors / Druze ” (Durūz) , emerged as a particularly keen propagandist of this new doctrine .

About a century earlier, al-Mahdi had rigorously stopped such enthusiastic goings-on in Africa, but the Druze doctrine of al-Hakim was now tacitly tolerated in Cairo. His disappearance without a trace during a ride on the night of February 13, 1021 served the Druze as the final proof of his true identity as God, according to which he had returned from physical incarnation to the disembodied state after leaving matter . The Druze mission then spread rapidly in all regions of the Islamic world and threatened to compete with the official Ismaili teaching as " daʿwa in the daʿwa ". In the area of ​​power of the Fatimids she was therefore persecuted by al-Hakim's successor az-Zahir , she was officially hired in 1034 and her followers withdrew to the mountains of Lebanon , where their descendants still live in autonomous settlements to this day.

The decline

With the death of the Imam caliph az-Zahir in 1036, the Fatimid caliphate had passed its zenith after a triumphant advance of a little over a hundred years. The following almost sixty years of reign of the eighteenth Imam al-Mustansir was marked by state disintegration, territorial retreat and ultimately culminated in a split in the Ismaili Shia, which continues to this day. It all started with the defection of the governors of "Africa", the Zirids , who broke away from the Fatimids in 1045 and placed themselves under the suzerainty of the Abbasids. This favored the triumph of the strictly Sunni movement of the Almoravids , who, starting from Mauritania , subjugated the entire Maghreb and in 1045 also conquered Sidschilmasa, the place where the Ismaili imamate emerged. In the following years they penetrated as far as "Africa" ​​before they shifted their urge to expand to the Iberian Peninsula. The island of Sicily was lost forever to the Fatimids and thus also to Islam in 1072 after it was conquered by the Christian Normans .

The Fatimid's white banner waved over Baghdad for a little over a year.

The most dangerous enemy of the Fatimids, however, had grown up for them from distant Central Asia in the form of warlike Turkic peoples led by the Seljuq clan . A few generations before they had been pagan themselves, they had adopted Sunni Islam and set themselves up to protect the Abbasids of Baghdad, who had recently been hard hit by the Fatimids. The displacement of the Persian Buyids from the patronage of the Abbasids by the Seljuk clan leader Tughrul Beg and the ensuing turmoil for a year actually led to the overthrow of the Abbasids and the establishment of the Fatimid caliphate in Baghdad, without them doing anything actively contributed. The mercenary general al-Basasiri , who had reneged on the Abbasids , had formally submitted to the Fatimid caliphate and was able to move into Baghdad on December 27, 1058 while the Tughrul Beg was absent. He ended the Abbasid caliphate by deposition of al-Qaim and instead had the name of the Fatimid al-Mustansir read out in the first Friday sermon on January 1, 1059. To do this, he had coins struck in his name and the Abbasid rulers' insignia sent to Cairo. The triumph of the Fatimids, however, only lasted for the duration of the Seljuk's absence. When he returned with his army from Iran to Iraq in December 1059, the defeated al-Basasiri had to flee from Baghdad, into which Tughrul Beg, in turn, was able to move back on January 3, 1060 and restore the Abbasid caliphate.

The direct confrontation of the Fatimids with the Seljuks began in 1071, when they invaded Syria under Sultan Malik Shah I with their entire army crossing the Euphrates ; In 1076 they conquered Damascus . They declared their campaign against the Fatimids and their, from their point of view, heretical teaching of Ismailis as a religious struggle in favor of Orthodox-Sunni Islam. The struggle against the "Turks" for control of Syria required the Fatimid generals all the attention in the following decades. So it happened that on April 15, 1071 in Mecca the name of the Abbasid caliph was read out again for the first time and the holy place was therefore lost to the Fatimids for the first time. But also in Egypt itself the influence of Turks had a destructive effect, who for some time had been recruited as military slaves ( mamlūk ) in large numbers , but showed little loyalty to the state authority. In ongoing power struggles between Turkish and Sudanese troops, Egypt sank into perpetual anarchy during these years. Imam Caliph al-Mustansir did not have the authority to reconcile the conflicting parties, so as a last resort he called on the help of Badr al-Jamali , who was of Armenian descent and was one of the last loyal generals on the Syrian theater of war. In 1073 Badr landed with his troops in Damiette and entered Cairo on January 27, 1074. In the following years he was able to end the anarchy in Egypt with the strictest severity and pacify the state internally. In July 1075 he was even able to get the name of the Fatimid caliph read out again in Mecca.

Badr al-Jamali had thus advanced to become the actual ruler of the Fatimid caliphate, which combined unrestricted state authority in his person. In addition to the function of head of government ( wazīr ) , he had also acquired that of the military commander-in-chief, chief judge and, in 1078, that of the "caller of the callers", the organizer of the Ismaili mission, although he did not come from the ranks of their clergy. Such a union of competencies did not previously exist with the Fatimids, who until then always paid attention to a strict separation of powers, but now the “vizārat of execution” (wizārat at-tanfīḍ) had changed to a “vizārat of authorization” (wizārat at -tafwīḍ) experienced. Because of Badr's mastery of power, historiography tends to recognize him as the first “ruler” ( sulṭān ) of Egypt and thus as a model for the future ruling dynasties of the Ayyubids and Mamluks . The person of the Imam-Caliph had resigned to him as a mere alibi to legitimize the ruler; a condition that the last Fatimids tried to fight against, but ultimately failed.

The schism

The first attempt to change the balance of power in Cairo in favor of the caliph's family resulted in the split of the Ismaili Shia in 1094. In the first months of that year al-Afdal Shahanshah succeeded his father in the office of vizier without any problems and at the end of that Imam Caliph al-Mustansir passed away this year. The new vizier seized the opportunity to increase his personal power by enthroning one of the younger sons of the deceased chief as al-Mustali , who was to remain a puppet in his hands, as the new Imam-Caliph and by completing his older brothers Facts. Allegedly, al-Mustansir once issued his designation for al-Musta'li, but the eldest of the brothers, Prince Nizar , an intimate enemy of the vizier family, claimed to have received such an order from his father before. For the first time ever, a succession to the throne within the Fatimid dynasty was contested. Nizar holed himself up in Alexandria and had his followers proclaim himself caliph there, but the following year he was militarily defeated and then disposed of in a dungeon.

The relatively quick clarification of the struggle for succession to the throne, however, had not been able to close the rift that this succession dispute opened up within the Ismaili Shia. Similar to the death of the Imam Jafar al-Sadiq 330 years earlier, the followers of the Shia now grouped behind the claims of the pretender appearing on the Imamate and the imam lineages that extended from them. The fault line of this rupture ran almost along the immediate domains of the Imam Caliphs, i.e. Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Yemen, and the Shia living beyond them, i.e. especially in Persia. While the Shia within the Fatimid Empire almost unreservedly recognized the successor to al-Mustali as Imam and Caliph, the Shia in Persia and parts of Syria supported Prince Nizar's claim to successor. The two groups of Mustali-Ismailis and Nizari-Ismailis that emerged in this way claimed the continuation of Ismailis for themselves and consequently retained a common doctrine of faith, only now they each followed their own line of imams, which from the respective point of view was the rightful one from which the Imam to be expected should emerge, with whose appearance the end times and the return of faith to its paradisiacal archetype would come along.

The Ismaili schism has remained permanent to this day and further subdivisions should take place in both splinter groups in the further course of history. This disintegration of unity was one of the reasons for the end of the Fatimid caliphate.

The descendants of the 18th Imam:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 Caliph al-Mustansir
18th Imam 1036-1094
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Nizar
 1094-1095
 
 Caliph al-Mustali
1094-1101
 
 Muhammad
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Caliph al-Amir
1101-1130 (X)
 
 Caliph al-Hafiz
 1130-1149
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Nizarites
 
 
 Tayyibites
 
 Hafizites
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Aga Khans
 
 Mu'minites
 
 
 
 
 
 

Mustalites

The dedicatory inscription above the entrance to the al-Aqmar Mosque ("the moonlight") in Cairo, which was inaugurated by Caliph al-Amir in 1125.

The Imams of the Musta'li Ismailis provided the first two Fatimid caliphs after the split. While al-Mustali (d. 1101) remained only a puppet of the vizier, al-Amir (d. 1130) tried to regain the old power of the caliphate. However, he was murdered while on horseback by an assassination squad of the enemy Nizari-Ismailis. His death not only weakened the caliphate again, it led to a renewed division of his Shia.

Tayyibites

Imam-Caliph al-Amir had left only one son ( at-Tayyib ) in infancy who disappeared without a trace in the year of his murder. The staunch followers of his imamate recognized the boy as their rightful imam, who had been raptured into secrecy and whose return has been awaited ever since. The Tayyibi Ismailis, or Tayyibids, did not recognize al-Hafiz's succession to the throne and thus his imamate, which particularly affected the communities of Yemen and India. The Shia of the Tayyibites still exists in these countries today, whose congregations are spiritually led by a missionary family ( Dawudi Bohras ).

Hafizites

The Hafizi Ismailis, or Hafizites, were left with the historical role of providing the last Fatimid caliphs. The credibility of their imamate, however, was doubtful from the start, den al-Hafiz was the first caliph who was not immediately succeeded as the son of a caliph. The designation he presented by the murdered al-Amir was already weak in the eyes of contemporaries. The imam caliphs of the Hafiziden had only received recognition from the supporters living in Egypt itself, corresponding to the ever-shrinking territory of the Fatimid caliphate. And under their aegis, Egypt sank into another epoch of anarchy. In order to maintain their nominal rule, the last caliphs even had to place themselves under the protection of the Christian Franks of the Kingdom of Jerusalem .

Before Egypt threatened to be finally lost to Islam, the general Asad ad-Din Shirkuh , coming from Syria, entered Cairo on January 20, 1169 and restored general order. The last Fatimide al-Adid had to appoint the Sunni general as a vizier and after his death on March 23, 1169, install his nephew Salah ad-Din (Saladin) Yusuf in this office. On September 10, 1171, he had the name of the Sunni Abbasid caliph of Baghdad read out for Friday prayers, when al-Adid had not even died but was still on his deathbed. It was not until September 13, 1171, the day of Ashura , that the last Fatimid caliph died. After about 202 years of predominance of a Shiite doctrine in Egypt, the land was returned to the Sunna without any noteworthy resistance from the population. Ultimately, Ismailism remained only a minority in Egypt and in other regions of the Islamic world, with correspondingly low support among the masses of the population. In 1173, the remaining functionaries of the Fatimid state attempted a coup to revive the previous order, but Saladin was able to uncover and suppress the coup while he was still in the planning phase.

In Egypt, the last princes of the “Dynasty of Truth” lived in prisons or under princely house arrest for a little over a hundred years. The last news about them comes from the time of the Mamluk sultan Baibars I (1260–1277). The Shia of the Hafizi Ismailis only existed here in small communities in Upper Egypt for some time with a hidden imam after their last known imam, Suleiman, died in 1248. But their trace was already lost in the late Middle Ages. Today this Schia is considered to be non-existent. All Ismailis of the Mustali branch still living today are therefore Tayyibites.

Nizarites

The mountain fortress of Alamut in northern Iran was the headquarters of the Nizari Ismailis ("Assassins") until the Mongol conquest in 1256.

In the fateful year of 1094, the Persian and a large part of the Syrian Ismailis refused to recognize the succession to the throne in Cairo by al-Musta'li and only recognized Prince Nizar as the legal successor in the Imamate . The spiritual father of this attitude was the Da'i Hassan-i Sabah , who was the undisputed leading authority of the Persian mission and directed it from the mountain fortress of Alamut . The Shia of the Nizarites , which he founded in this way, was to prove to be the most successful of all factions of Ismaili and still represents the majority of all followers of the doctrine today. One reason for her success is her adherence to a physically present imamate, which has been essential for Ismailism since it was founded, although the credibility of her imam lineage, which originated from Nizar, is controversial in modern historical research.

The Ismaili doctrine of the Faith experienced a decisive development among the Nizarites when their Imam Hassan II. When he emerged from concealment on August 8, 1164 at Alamut, the "resurrection" (qijāmah) of the "appearing" (al-Qāʾim) and with it the dawn of the end times and the repeal of the law (rafʿ aš-šarīʿa) , with which faith in God found its way back to its original paradisiacal state. With this, the expected promise of salvation was kept by the Nizarites, which had not yet materialized when the Mahdi appeared in 969. The state of lawlessness then experienced a theological further development among the Nizarites insofar as it is subject to the cyclical alternation of "veiling" (satr) and "final veiling" (kašf) . According to this, the believer is subject to the commandments and prohibitions (šarīʿa) of the external (ẓāhir) wording of divine revelation only in times of veiling , while this is subject to revelation in times of revelation and thus the emergence of the "true religion" from the inner (bāṭin) sense of the divine Revelation are canceled.

The Nizarites of the Middle Ages became known less for their theology than for their knife attacks against enemies of the faith, especially in the historiography of Christians, first among those of the Crusader states and then also in Europe. Here they are known as “ Assassins ” - a corruption of the Arabic swear word “hashish people” (al-Ḥašīšiyyūn) - in historiographical memory, which tells a “black legend” well into the 21st century.

Mu'minites

In 1310, the Nizari-Ismailis also saw a split into two imam lines. The Muhammad Shahi Nizarites, or simply called "Mu'minites", initially made up the majority of all Nizarites. Their imams first lived in Persia and from 1520 in India. In 1796 the congregation lost contact with its last imam, whereupon he was declared to have gone into secrecy. Nevertheless, the majority of the followers switched to the following of the imams of the Qasim Shahi Nizarites in the course of the 19th century, which resulted in an extensive reunification of the Nizarites. Today the Mu'minites only exist in small communities in Syria around the old castles of Masyaf and Qadmus .

Aga Khans

The Shia of the Qasim-Shahi-Nizarites, which originated in 1310, today with an estimated 20 million followers not only represents the majority of all Nizari-Ismailites, but of all Ismailis in general. Their imams lived in Persia until the 19th century, where they were bestowed the hereditary nobility title Aga Khan . But already Aga Khan I was forced to flee to India in 1841. The line of imam continues to this day; the current head is Imam Aga Khan IV.

See also

literature

  • Farhad Daftary : Brief History of the Ismailis. Traditions of a Muslim Community (=  culture, law and politics in Muslim societies . Volume 4 ). Ergon, Würzburg 2003, ISBN 3-89913-292-0 (English: A Short History of the Ismailis . Translated by Kurt Maier).
  • Farhad Daftary: The Isma'ilis: Their History and Doctrines , Cambridge University Press, 1992, ISBN 978-0-521-42974-0 (2nd edition 2007)
  • Farhad Daftary: The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismaʻilis , IB Tauris, 1994, ISBN 978-1-85043-705-5
  • Farhad Daftary: Ismaili literature , IBTauris, 2004, ISBN 978-1-85043-439-9
  • Farhad Daftary: Ismaili Literature. A Bibliography of Sources and Studies . Tauris, London 2004, ISBN 1-85043-439-5 .
  • Heinz Halm : The Schia . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1988. pp. 193–243.
  • Heinz Halm: The Empire of the Mahdi. The rise of the Fatimids 875–973. CH Beck, Munich 1991 ISBN 3-406-35497-1 .
  • Heinz Halm: The caliphs of Cairo. The Fatimids in Egypt 973-1074. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-48654-1 .
  • Heinz Halm: The Shiites . Beck'sche Reihe, 2358. CH Beck, Munich 2005 ISBN 3-406-50858-8 .
  • Heinz Halm: The Assassins. History of an Islamic secret society . Beck'sche Reihe, 2868. CH Beck, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-406-70414-7 .
  • Markus Wachowski: Rational Shiites. Ismaili world views based on a postcolonial reading of Max Weber's concept of rationalism (=  attempts at religious history and preliminary work . Volume 59 ). De Gruyter, Berlin, Boston 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-027374-8 .

Web links

Commons : Ismailis  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Number of members: Islam , in: Religionswissenschaftlicher Medien- und Informationsdienst e. V. (Abbreviation: REMID) , accessed on January 30, 2016
  2. ↑ Livenet: 30 days of prayer: A ruler without a country
  3. ↑ bestinfosite: Jamatkhanas of the World (Ismaili Community Centers)
  4. ↑ ismaili.net: Jamatkhanas of the World - Search by Name & Country
  5. ↑ My life goes on as before . Focus on July 25, 2005, accessed February 21, 2016
  6. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 25.
  7. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 18.
  8. ↑ a b See Halm (1988), p. 203 f; (1991), p. 26; Daftary (2007), p. 134.
  9. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 25.
  10. ↑ See Halm (1988), p. 203; (1991), p. 27; Daftary (2007), p. 132.
  11. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 308 f.
  12. ↑ See Halm (1988), p. 203; (1991), p. 29.
  13. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 313 f.
  14. ↑ See Halm (2005), p. 11.
  15. ↑ See Daftary (2007), p. 97.
  16. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 247.
  17. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 330; Daftary (2007), pp. 167-172.
  18. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 329.
  19. ↑ See Daftary (2007), p. 88.
  20. ↑ See Daftary (2007), p. 95 f.
  21. ↑ See Halm (1988), p. 206.
  22. ↑ See Daftary (2007), pp. 96, 116-119.
  23. ↑ See Halm (1988), pp. 194-197.
  24. ↑ See Halm (1988), p. 211; Daftary (2007), pp. 99-105.
  25. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 71; Daftary (2007), p. 123.
  26. ↑ See Halm (1991), pp. 125-132.
  27. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 138; Daftary (2007), p. 128.
  28. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 138; Daftary (2007), p. 128.
  29. ↑ See Halm (1988), p. 209.
  30. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 311.
  31. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 366; Daftary (2007), p. 159.
  32. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 371; Daftary (2007), p. 162.
  33. ↑ See Halm (1991), p. 61.
  34. ↑ See Halm (1988), pp. 215-219.
  35. ↑ See Halm (1988), p. 221.
  36. ↑ See Halm (1988), p. 222.
  37. ↑ See Halm (2003), pp. 391-395.
  38. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 32.
  39. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 35 ff.
  40. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 261; (2017), p. 68 f.
  41. ↑ See Halm (2014), p. 256 ff; Daftary (2007), p. 358 ff.
  42. ↑ See Halm (1988), p. 227; (2014), p. 337 f; (2017), p. 63 f; Daftary (2007), p. 380 ff.