Sevens Schia

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As a seven-schia ( Arabic سبعية, DMG Sabʿīya ) is a religious community of Shiite Islam that existed from the late 8th century on in historical studies . It was the original community of the Shia of the Ismailis , which still exists today , which is why its followers are also known as Proto-Ismailis, or Ismaili Old Believers.

The followers of the Sevens were united in their belief in their eponymous seventh imam Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Maktum , whose appearance as Mahdi was expected of them. As a result of a schism that took place in 899, the Sevens split up into two new groups, which, although they continued to represent an identical doctrine of faith, were in dispute over the question of “rulership” ( imāma ) . The group of " Qarmatians ", who live in what is now Iraq and along the Gulf coast of what is now Saudi Arabia ( Bahrain ) , held fast to their belief in the seventh imam and thus assumed the religious legacy of the Ismaili Old Believers until they disappeared in the 14th century. In contrast, the group of Ismailis, the "followers of truth" (aṣḥāb al-ḥaqq) , continued their line of imam beyond the seventh imam.

history

After the death of the fifth Imam Jafar al-Sadiq in 765, the Seventh Shia split from the great Imamite Shia . Her followers took the view that his eldest son Ismail al-Mubarak would be the legal successor as the imam of the religious community. Although he died before his father, his followers were convinced of the designation (naṣṣ) granted in his favor for the succession, according to which the blessing power ( baraka ) associated with the imamate and decisive for the religious doctrine of the community was passed on to Ismail and his descendants be. The great majority of Shiites, on the other hand, had recognized Ismail's younger brother, Musa al-Kazim (d. 799), as the new imam. This following, formed around him and his descendants, continues to this day as the " Zwölfer-Schia ".

The relatively small Shia of the Sevens was mainly present in the south of what is now Iraq and Iran . Due to their small number, their followers were mostly only able to practice their faith underground, as they were exposed to persecution by the state authorities of the Sunni Abbasid caliphs , but also to attacks from the competing "twelve", who viewed them as apostates. The central point of crystallization in the faith of the Sevens became their seventh imam Muhammad al-Maktum , who, according to their understanding, left the physical world into "concealment" ( ġaiba ) in the period before 809 , whereupon his messianic return as "the one who appears" (al -Qāʾim) and “the right one” ( al-Mahdī ) was expected, who on the occasion of his return proclaimed the dawn of the end times and the associated abolition of the law ( rafʿ aš-šarīʿa ) , with which the original faith in God would be restored.

Around the middle of the 9th century, in the southern Persian town of Askar Mukram, the preacher Abdallah the Elder (al-Akbar) began to campaign for the belief in the seventh imam, whose early return from secrecy he predicted. Persecuted by the authorities for this, he moved his work to the Syrian Salamiyya , from where he now spread his “call to truth” ( daʿwat al-ḥaqq ) for the seventh imam from underground to the Muslim world. Within a few years, the organized mission that began in this way was able to gain a large following, who made preparations for the return of the seventh Imam and prepared for the upcoming fight against the Sunni Abbasid caliphs.

Abdallah al-Akbar and the son and grandson who followed him immediately in the leadership of the mission still regarded themselves as living guarantors (ḥuǧǧa) for the return of the seventh imam they had predicted. In 899, however, his great-grandson Abdallah the Younger revealed himself to the missionary of the Iraqi religious community Hamdan Qarmat as the expected rightly guided Imam, which meant a break with the doctrine of the physical return of the seventh Imam Muhammad ibn Ismail, which had been propagated up until then. Rejecting this 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 ” held fast to their belief in the seventh imam and therefore regarded themselves as the legitimate guardians of the doctrine of original Ismailism. The great remainder of the Shia of the Sevens, however, recognized Abdallah the Younger as the Mahdi they expected and thus as the legitimate new Imam of their community, thus continuing the Ismaili Imamate with them. Already in 909 it emerged from obscurity with Abdallah al-Mahdi, whereupon he was proclaimed caliph of a new dynasty ( Fatimids ).

Imams of the "sevens"

  1. Hassan ibn Ali († 670)
  2. Hussein ibn Ali (X 680)
  3. Ali ibn Hussein Zain al-Abidin († 713) - secession of the Zaidites
  4. Muhammad ibn Ali al-Baqir († 732/36)
  5. Jafar ibn Muhammad as-Sadiq († 765) - splitting off of the twelve
  6. Ismail ibn Jafar al-Mubarak († 760)
  7. Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Maktum (hidden)

literature