Muhammad ibn Buzurg-Umid

Muhammad ibn Buzurg-Umid ( Persian محمد بن بزرگ امید; † February 20, 1162 ) was the third chief ( dāʿī ) of the Nizari-Ismailites of Alamut .

In February 1138, his dying father, Kiya Buzurg-Umid, entrusted him with the leadership of the Nizarite community. This succession was unreservedly recognized by the community. One of his first measures in June 1138 was the murder of the exiled Abbasid caliph ar-Rashid , whose father had already fallen victim to an assassination squad ( fidāʾī ) , which resulted in a massacre of the Nizarite community of Isfahan . Persistent attacks by the Seljuks were rewarded with the murder of Sultan Dawud in Tabriz in 1143 .

In Syria, Masyaf Castle was won in 1141 with the murder of its previous owner , which from then on became the center of a semi-autonomous Nizarite principality, which was led by the Dāʿī Raschid ad-Din Sinan from 1162 .

In his later years there was increasing dissatisfaction with the leadership of Muhammad in the Nicarite Shia. Especially the young followers increasingly referred to the teaching of the founder Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ , who had announced a physical presence (“resurrection” / qijāmah ) of the imam and thus the dawn of the “ end times ”. In this way, Muhammad's son Hassan, who was born in 1126, was viewed by many followers as the coming imam, who was actually not his biological son, but a direct descendant of Nizar († 1095). Muhammad condemned these prophecies and imposed the severest penalties on those who propagated them.

Muhammad died in the month of Rabi I 557 (March 1162) and was buried next to his father and Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ. The ruler who succeeded him, Hassan (II.), Revealed himself as an imam in 1164 and thus ended the “imamate of secrecy” ( ġaiba ) .

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.

source

• 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. 685-686, 692-695.

predecessor	Office	successor
Kiya Buzurg-Umid	Ruler of Alamut 1138–1162	Hassan (II.)