Zaydism Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

- by Mohsen Feyzbakhsh
- •
- Islamic Studies, Shi'ism, Ismailism, Twelver Shi'ism

The Yemen, is the birth place and hub for a number of monotheistic religious convictions . In its North West region, just 243 kilometers away from San'aa, the official capital of the Republic of Yemen , lies a spiritual center, a holy metropolis known as Saa'da .
It is to Zaidi Islam as Qum is to Shia Islam and Mecca is to Sunni Islam. It is where the scholars dwell, to read, learn and teach their disciples to carry on the doctrine and preserve the faith throughout history.
It is here that the Houthi phenomenon first appeared.
This study focuses on the very beginnings of Houthism as a phenomenon, it's source and affiliations. It is but the first part of a series of papers that will delve into the movement as it expands over time.

- by Nancy Jamal
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- History, Jewish Studies, Middle East Studies, Social Identity
- by Laurent Bonnefoy
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- Political Violence and Terrorism, Yemen, Authoritarianism, Zaydism

Определены и проанализированы три основных обвинения, которые йеменское правительство и радикальные сунниты выдвигали в 2000-х годах против хуситов: стремление к восстановлению имамата, получение помощи от Ирана и обращение в... more

- by Timofey Bokov
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- Yemen, Yemen (History), Zaydism, Zaydiyya
- by Jan Thiele
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- Rare Books and Manuscripts, Islamic Studies, Yemen, Zaydism

Commonly described by Western media as a Shi’i Zaydi revivalist movement, a rebel group and an Iranian proxy, the Huthis (or Ansar Allah) exist marginally in the Western consciousness. The little knowledge that is recycled about the movement is typically misleading, and conducive to stereotypes and an underestimation of the group’s military and strategic capabilities. The reality of today’s Ansar Allah is both a skilled paramilitary force that has internalized the lessons of a decade and a half of war, as well as a political organization with the veneer of a social justice movement, which excels in the production of propaganda on the local and regional stages. The Huthis may, in fact, be the band of slogan-chanting tribesmen occasionally seen on major news networks, but they are also a remarkably resilient and dynamic entity that adapts to Yemen’s ever-changing political landscape.

- by Hannah Porter
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- Propaganda, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Identity
- by James King
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- Shi'ism, Yemen, Zaydism, Zaydiyya
- by Dr. Mohammad * * * Meftah
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- Zaydism, Zaydiyya, Sects, Diniminations
- by Marieke Brandt
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- Middle East Studies, Yemen, Middle East Politics, Zaydism
- by John Møller Larsen
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- Yemen, Arabic Manuscripts, Zaydism, Islamic Manuscripts

History, Theology and subgroups of Shia Islam

- by Georgios Gaitanos
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- Ismailism, Twelver Shi'ism, Zaydism, History of Shia Islam

This article analyzes reports about the capture and torture of the companion ʿAmmār b. Yāsir and their later use in the exegesis of Kor 16,106. It also shows why the reports were generated by different sectarian communities (Imamī Šīʿites, Zaydites, Murǧiʾītes) in the different parts of the early Islamic empire (Kufa, Mecca, Medina, Basra, and Jazira) in the late first/seventh and early second/eighth centuries. Through a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the isnāds of reports, the article shows that it is possible to correlate information about the sectarian affiliations of reports’ transmitters with the contents of the reports and in the process show why different communities remembered and transmitted the specific forms of the reports that they did. The article shows how literary Islamic sources are susceptible to a much more granular historical analysis than previously assumed.

- by Mairaj Syed
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- Religion, History, Islamic Law, Orality-Literacy Studies
- by Gregor M Schwarb
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- Semiotics, Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy, Jewish Studies

- by Mairaj Syed
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- Islamic Law, Kalam (Islamic Theology), Historical memory, Medieval Islam

The catastrophic Mongol incursions into the heart of the Muslim world during the thirteenth century left a path of death and destruction in their wake. Though the assaults succeeded in vanquishing Baghdad, toppling the Muslim caliph himself, it is notable that the famous contemporary historian, 'Ata-Malik Juwayni, does not describe this as the pinnacle of Mongol conquest. Rather, for this Sunni historian, the zenith and culmination of the Mongol invasion is the obliteration of the tiny rival enclave of the Ismailis, a Shi'i sect centered at the mountain fortress of Alamut. It is to this singular event that Juwayni dedicates the concluding one-third of his History of the World Conqueror. The Mongols sought a complete destruction of Alamut and the extermination of the Ismailis. Many of the Persian historians, led by Juwayni, believed that they were successful in this endeavor. Until recently, the complete extermination of the Ismailis in the face of the Mongol behemoth was also accepted as fact in Western scholarship. In this article it is maintained that Ismaili activity in the region in the aftermath of the Mongol invasions was even greater than previously suspected. Inconsistencies and exaggerations in Juwayni's testimony; a correction of his narrative based on other historians, including Rashid al-Din; and the evidence of regional histories, geographical tomes and inscriptions clearly point to sustained Ismaili presence in the region. This evidence is further supported by the fifteenth-century Nasa'ih-i Shah-rukhi, a hostile Khurasani source that clearly indicates that Alamut was a center of the Ismaili da'wa to which community funds were sent. The testimony of the Nasa'ih is supported by that of the da'wa literature of the Indian subcontinent, which provides very suggestive evidence that the residence of the Imam Islam Shah was Alamut. From this, it becomes clear that the south Caspian region continued, perhaps sporadically, as an important center of the Ismaili community for over a century after the Mongol irruption. The eagle had, so to speak, returned.

- by Shafique Virani
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- Islamic Studies, Iranian History, Ismailism, Mongols

This chapter studies Zaydite ḥadīth scholarship, including the collection, transmission and use of the specific Zaydite corpus of ḥadīth literature as well as Zaydite scholars' engagement with Sunni ḥadīth. It surveys the collection of Zaydite ḥadīth by members of the 'school of Kūfa', who compiled a corpus of primarily legal Traditions that were transmitted by members of the ahl al-bayt, that is, descendants of the Prophet Muḥammad. It then analyses how scholars of the emerging scripturalist Nāṣiriyya school and the rationalist Qāsimī-Hādawī school relied on this material in their theological and legal thought. We argue that Zaydī scholars increasingly used Sunni ḥadīth as authoritative sources in their legal literature. During the fourth/tenth century, Zaydite scholars in the city of Rayy and northern Iran incorporated significant portions of Sunni material in their collections of ḥadīth (Amālī), with which they became acquainted in the framework of their formation in Ḥanafī law. Among their Yemeni co-religionists, Sunni ḥadīth remained widely unknown until the sixth/twelfth century. This changed, however, with the transmission of literature from northern Iran as well as increasing contacts with scholars patronised by the Sunni dynasties of Yemen. From the ninth/fifteenth century onwards, a new Zaydite trend rose in Yemen that has been labeled by Michael Cook and others as the 'Sunnisation' of Zaydism. The protagonists of this inner-Zaydite reform movement propagated a focused study of the primary sources, that is, apart from the Qurʾān, the corpus of Sunni ḥadīth.

- by Jan Thiele and +1
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- History of Iran, Yemen, Hadith Studies, Mu'tazilites
- by Hannah C Erlwein
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- Islamic Studies, Islam, Mu'tazilites, Zaydism

The Zaydīs in Yemen are the only current within Islam that fostered the continuous transmission and study of Muʿtazilī kalām up to the present time. This article aims to examine the presence and quality of Muʿtazilī kalām in a major Zaydī composition of the 20th century, namely ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-ʿAǧrī’s (1320-1407/1902-1987) Miftāḥ al-saʿāda, which was completed in May 1952. The Miftāḥ and other works of Zaydī scholars written during the first half of the 20th century provide us with valuable insights into Zaydī-Hādawī scholarship in Northern Yemen in the wake of the so-called "Sunnisation of Zaydism" and prior to the Republican revolution of 1962; they furnish important information about the education of 20th century Zaydī-Hādawī scholars and the contents of their libraries. The wide range of Muʿtazilī and non-Muʿtazilī sources used and quoted in the Miftāḥ sheds light on the distinct impact of various phases of a centuries-old school- and teaching-tradition. Last but not least, the article highlights inextricable links between this scholarly milieu and the so-called "Ḥūthī"-movement in contemporary Yemen.

For five centuries, Yemeni Zaydī scholars composed theological works that adhered to a thirty-topic framework. This article identifies the origins of this framework in a treatise by Qāḍī Jaʿfar al-Buhlūlī (d. 573/1177-1178) and shows that four Zaydī scholars who lived in the decades following him adopted it in at least some of their writings. I then trace the development of commentaries and versifications on the two core texts of the thirty topics tradition, Aḥmad al-Raṣṣāṣ's (d. 621/1224) Miṣbāḥ al-ʿulūm and his al-Khulāṣa al-nāfiʿa. Altogether, I identify eighteen Zaydī writings that follow the thirty-topic framework, seventeen of which are held in manuscript in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. The article concludes with critical editions of excerpts from three commentaries on Miṣbāḥ al-ʿulūm on the topic of the Prophet Muḥammad's intercession on Judgement Day.

- by Scott Lucas
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- Kalam (Islamic Theology), Islamic Studies, Zaydism, Shiism

While Mutazilism had become marginalized in Sunni Islam by the VIth/XIIth century, the reception of Basran Mutazilī thought experienced a sudden rise among the Zaydīs of Yemen. Their Imams began officially supporting the transfer of Basran Muʿtazilī texts and doctrines to Yemen. As a result, an indigenous Basran Mutazilī school emerged and preserved numerous Mutazilī theological sources, which would otherwise have been lost. One of the most important representatives of this school was al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 584/1188). This article provides an outline of al-Raṣṣāṣ' biography and of his extensive body of works in order to show his importance for the spread of Basran Muʿtazilī thought among the Zaydī community.

- by Jan Thiele
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- Kalam (Islamic Theology), Islamic Studies, Zaydism, Zaydiyya

Толкование «Источников вопросов и ответов» — важнейший памятник средневековой арабо-мусульманской мысли, крупнейшая энциклопедия классического калама, принадлежащая перу зайдита ал-Хакима ал-Джишшами (ум. 494/1101). Впервые публикуемая на языке оригинала четвертая часть этого сочинения содержит подробное изложение натурфилософии, гносеологии и антропологии мутакаллимов Басры и Багдада и, сопровожденная вводным исследованием и комментариями издателя, будет интересна специалистам-арабистам, философам и всем интересующимся интеллектуальной историей Востока.

- by Faris O Nofal
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- Medieval Philosophy, Islamic Philosophy, Kalam (Islamic Theology), Ilm al-Kalam

“I’m Zaydi, no problem. But when you come and tell me, ‘You are a polytheist (mušrik) an innovator in religion (mubtadiʾ), and your forefather went astray (aid l-dalāl),’ I will automatically question who I am and begin returning to my... more

- by Matthias Sulz
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- Yemen, Zaydism, Houthi, Houthism

This chapter reviews Zaydī theology in Yemen, from the period before and after the unification of the Yemeni and the Caspian imamates to theologians from the ninth/fifteenth century. It traces the foundation of the Zaydī imamate in the northern highlands of Yemen by Imam al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq, and how the Yemeni Zaydīs developed a canon of doctrinal writings of the Imams which remained authoritative over the coming centuries. It considers the role played by Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Buhlūlī in the intellectual development of Yemen’s theological landscape, as well as the legacy of al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ with respect to Bahshamite theology in the country. It also examines the continuity of Bahshamite theology from the seventh/thirteenth century and concludes with a discussion of the emergence of growing opposition among the Zaydīs of Yemen against Muʿtazilism in general and the theological views of the Bahshamiyya in particular.

- by Jan Thiele and +1
- •
- Kalam (Islamic Theology), Islamic Studies, Mu'tazilites, Zaydism

"Our standard 40-minute debate format, could not do justice to the rich history of Yemen, so I invited him to write a short piece on the history of Yemen. --Sandra Gionas Producer TVO "The Agenda with Steve Paikin""

- by Sayyid Ali Al-Zaidi
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- Yemen, Zaydism, Zaydites, Zaydiyya

This study highlights a hitherto neglected trope of Muslim apocalyptic literature—namely, that there awaits the future Mahdī in a region known as al-Ṭālaqān a great treasure that will gain him a mighty army to aid him to triumph in the final battle against evil. Tracing the trope’s origin in Zoroastrian apocalypticism and its subsequent dissemination in a wide array of Muslim apocalyptic traditions, this paper argues that this apocalyptic trope ultimately entered into Muslim apocalypticism—in particular Šīʿite apocalypticism—during a Zaydī revolt against the ʿAbbasids led by the Ḥasanid Yaḥyā b. ʿAbdallāh in the year 176/792. The paper then explores how the revolt of Yaḥyā b. ʿAbdallāh shaped the function of the ‘treasures of al-Ṭālaqān’ trope in Muslim apocalypticism and how Yaḥyā’s personality and the revolt he inspired continued to leave an indelible imprint on Imāmī apocalypticism thereafter.

- by Sean W . Anthony
- •
- History, Zoroastrianism, Eschatology and Apocalypticism, Islamic Studies

This article offers a critical edition of the surviving parts of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ's al-Ṭarāʾiq al-mustaḥdaṯa, a work on miscellaneous theological topics. A unique fragment of this treatise is preserved in the manuscript collection of the Ambrosiana Library in Milan (ar. E 208, fols 151b-160b). Al-Raṣṣāṣ quotes al-Ṭarāʾiq al-mustaḥdaṯa in several of his works. We provide these crossreferences in this article in order to confirm our identification of ar. E 208, fols 151b-160b.

- by Jan Thiele and +1
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- Kalam (Islamic Theology), Mu'tazilites, Zaydism, al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ

This study explores the intellectual legacy of the Kūfan jurist Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Kūfī (d. early 4th/10th century) who eventually settled in Yemen and was part of the intellectual circle surrounding al-Hādī ilā l-Ḥaqq Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn (d. 298/911). It offers an analysis of his most important work, Kitāb al-Muntaḫab, through a singular ritual law case study that focuses on the use of the basmala in the daily prayer. The conclusion points towards the Muntaḫab’s value as a possible conduit for accessing a stream of Kūfan jurisprudence which has not survived into the modern period.

- by Najam Haider
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- Islamic Law, Islamic Studies, Islamic History, Zaydism

Wasiat adalah salah satu bentuk nasihat, yang ditinggalkan selaku persiapan sebelum pulang ke alam Baqa’. Harta yang ditinggalkannya samada bersifat hakiki atau maknawi. Harta maknawi berupa pesanan-pesanan bagaimana menguruskan kehidupan... more

- by Syafiq atTauhidi
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- Leadership, Islamic Studies, Yemen, Islam

ToC Actualités, p. 6 : including: ʿArafat al-Hadhrami, libération Articles Aurélia Hetzel (EPHE, Paris) Arthur Rimbaud : poétique des lettres d’Aden et du Harar, p. 35 Anas Baqievich Khalidov (The Leningrad [St. Petersburg] branch of... more

- by anne regourd
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- Yemen (History), Zaydism, Zaydiyya, Arthur Rimbaud

Zaydī scholars have a rich tradition of defending the authority of both universal consensus and the consensus of the family of the Prophet in their legal texts. Two of the earliest Yemeni-Zaydī scholars whose writings on legal theory and law are extant are Imam Aḥmad b. Sulaymān (d. 566/1170) and Qāḍī Ǧaʿfar b. Aḥmad al-Buhlūlī (d. 573/1177–1178). This article provides critical editions, along with English translations, of selections from four texts on the topic of consensus written by these scholars. These texts shed insight into Zaydī jurisprudence in Yemen and the complex topic of consensus in Islamic legal theory. The original manuscripts belong to the collection of Giuseppe Caprotti (1862–1919) held by the Ambrosiana Library in Milan and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

- by Scott Lucas
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- Islamic Law, Yemen, Arabic Manuscripts, Zaydism
- by Scott Lucas
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- Islamic Law, Kalam (Islamic Theology), Yemen (History), Zaydism
- by Christoph Rauch
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- Yemen (History), Arabic Manuscripts, Zaydism, Zaydites
- by Serkan Çetin and +1
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- Zaydism, al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ, Bahshamiyya, Ahval Teorisi

Zaydī-Muʿtazilī religious thought in Yemen (9th/15th through 12th/18th centuries)
The article offers a bibliographical aperçu of Zaydī-Muʿtazilī Kalām-studies from the 15th through 18th centuries based on MS Munich, Bavarian State Library, Cod. arab. 1294. This codex contains ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad al-Naǧrī’s as yet unedited K. Mirqāt al-anẓār, a major kalām textbook which for almost three centuries constituted the backbone of Zaydī kalām-studies. The body of the text is surrounded by extensive marginal notes (ḥawāšī) which mostly consist of quotations from a wide variety of Zaydī and Sunnī sources dating from the 4th/10th century up to the copy date of the manuscript in 1108/1696. In contrast to the early reception of Bahšamī kalām among the Zaydīs in Yemen during the 6th/12th and 7th/13th centuries, which has been the focus of several studies over the last few decades, the subsequent periods remain largely unexplored. The sources of this period, which have yet to be investigated, provide a window into an important moment in the history of Muslim Kalām. They are remarkable for their intellectual vitality, their engagement with and critical reception of multiple rival intellectual traditions and contemporaneous scholarly trends and the accordingly dense network of intertextualities they display. This article represents the first step toward filling this lacuna in the intellectual history of the Islamic world in general and of Yemen in particular. The article also discusses the structure and reception history of Ibn al-Murtaḍá's (d. 840/1436-37) al-Baḥr al-zakhkhār and Ghāyāt al-afkār, Zaydī scholars studying with Sunnī teachers and engaging with the later Ashʿarite tradition; Sunnī-Ashʿarī commentaries on and refutations of Zaydī theological manuals, culminating in al-Quwayʿī's (d. 1068/1658) pseudonymic Kitāb al-Nibrās and the ensuing Zaydī counter-refutations such as Kitāb al-Iḥtirās ʿan nār al-Nibrās.

Zeydîlerin Sahâbe Hakkındaki Görüşleri

The views of Zaydiyya about the companions

آراء الزيدية حول الصحابة

- by Najam Haider
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- Islamic Studies, Shi'ism, Islamic History, Zaydism
- by Marieke Brandt
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- Middle East Studies, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Middle East Politics
- by Kerstin Hünefeld
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- Jewish-Muslim Relations, Yemen (History), Otherness, Zaydism
- by I-Wen Su
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- Islamic Studies, Zaydism, Redaction Criticism, Shiism

Among the great diversity of source material and multiple historio- and biographical works covering the history of the early Qāsimī state , Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim’s (d. after 1100/1687) Bahǧat al-zaman fī tārīḫ al-Yaman occupies a position of paramount importance. For the political, economic, social, cultural and intellectual history of Yemen in the five decades following the end of the first Ottoman occupation in 1046/1636, it amounts to an exceedingly rich mine of unique information. Even though it is referred to as ‘appendix’ (ḏayl) to the author’s overarching history of Yemen (Anbāʾ al-zaman fī tārīḫ al-Yaman) and its general introduction (al-ʿIbar fī aḫbār man maḍā wa-ghabar), it in many respects eclipses the Anbāʾ in importance, not least because it contains a substantial amount of data collected during the author’s lifetime from a wide range of sources and informants (travellers, tradesmen, students, men of learning, and commoners) from Yemen and all over the Islamic world. An equally amusing and intriguing section of Bahǧat al-zaman is the entry dedicated to ʿAbd al-Hādī al-Quwayʿī, a Ṣanʿāʾ based Šāfiʿī bibliophile. The article offers an annotated translation of passages extracted from that entry and are designed to prepare the ground for an in-depth study of K. al-Nibrās and a ramified network of related texts.

- by Gregor M Schwarb
- •
- History of Medicine, Book History, History of the Book, Shi'ism

The Muʿtazila was not an exclusively Muslim phenomenon, since their teachings were also adopted by medieval Jewish savants. In recent years, a number of Muʿtazilī works were rediscovered or substantially completed by adopting a comparative methodology, which was based on both Muslim and Jewish sources. This article deals with a lost work composed by qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, entitled al-Jumal wa-l-ʿuqūd. I will give an overview of the sources in Zaydī and Karaite collections that provide us with a more detailed picture of the dissemination of the text. On the basis of quotations by later theologians, I will propose a hypothesis on the content of al-Jumal wa-l-ʿuqūd. I will then discuss a possible relationship between ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s text and a manuscript from the Firkovitch collection in the National Library of Russia, which has recently been identified as a work entitled Taʿlīq al-Jumal wa-l-ʿuqūd.‬

- by Jan Thiele
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- Kalam (Islamic Theology), Islamic Studies, Ilm al-Kalam, Islam
- by Marieke Brandt
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- Middle East Studies, Yemen, Zaydism

The paper analyses the Mishkāt in the context of Qāḍī Jaʿfar's biography, his riḥla fī ṭalab al-ʿilm to Iraq and Khorasan, his propagating Bahšamī Muʿtazilī kalām among Zaydī scholars after his return to Yemen in 553/1158 and his public disputations with leading Muṭarrifī and Sunnī scholars.
The Mishkāt is an autocommentary in 7 abwāb on fuṣūl 1–3 of the author's K. Miftāḥ al-naẓar wa-miṣbāḥ al-fikar fī ’l-iʿtiqād (also known as "al-Muqaddima [al-laṭīfa]”).
The texts on the handout are based on the following mss.:
(a) München, BSB, Cod. arab. 1191; fols. 3b–85a; date: 4 Šaʿbān 579/22 Nov 1183; cat. Sobieroj, p. 285f., no. 133/1. — (b) München, BSB, Cod. arab. 1192; fols. 7–91; not identified in cat. Sobieroj, p. 285f., no. 134. — (c) Milano, BA, ar. D 544/I; fols. 1–107a; date: 555/1160; cat. Löfgren II:406, #800/I; plate XI (fols. 93a); fols. 107f. of this MS include extracts from various works by Ǧaʿfar b. ʾAḥmad (= cat. Löfgren II:406, #800/II). — (d) Milano, BA, ar. E 269; fols. 2–187; cat. Löfgren III:110, #1099.

- by Gregor M Schwarb
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- Kalam (Islamic Theology), Islamic Theology, Zaydism, Muatazila and Zaydis