Reason, Esotericism, and Authority in Shiʿi Islam (Shii Islam: Texts and Studies)

276 Pages·2021·1.419 MB·English

by  Rodrigo Adem, Edmund Hayes

Reason, Esotericism, and Authority in Shiʿi Islam
Shii Islam: Texts and Studies
Editorial Board
Rula Abisaab (McGill)
Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (ephe)
Hassan Ansari (ias, Princeton)
Robert Gleave (Exeter)
Tahera Qutbuddin (Chicago)
Sabine Schmidtke (ias, Princeton)
volume 2
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/sits
Reason, Esotericism, and
Authority in Shiʿi Islam
Edited by
Rodrigo Adem
Edmund Hayes
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Adem, Rodrigo, editor. | Hayes, Edmund (Edmund Philip), editor.
Title: Reason, esotericism, and authority in Shiʻi Islam / edited by
Rodrigo Adem, Edmund Hayes.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2021] | Series: Shii Islam : texts
and studies, 2468–5879 ; volume 2 | Includes bibliographic references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021024126 (print) | LCCN 2021024127 (ebook) |
ISBN 9789004464391 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004465503 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Shiʻ̄ah—Doctrines. | Shiʻ̄ah—Customs and practices. |
Imamate. | Authority—Religious aspects—Islam. | Faith and
reason—Islam. | Mysticism—Islam.
Classification: LCC BP194 .R43 2021 (print) | LCC BP194 (ebook) |
DDC 297.2/042—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021024126
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021024127
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 2468-5879
isbn 978-90-04-46439-1 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-46550-3 (e-book)
Copyright 2021 by Rodrigo Adem and Edmund Hayes. Published by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden,
The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink,
Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress.
Koninklijke Brill nv reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for
re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com.
This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
Contents
Note on Transliteration vii
Abbreviations Employed viii
Introduction: On the Use and Abuse of Reason and Esotericism
in Islamic Studies 1
Rodrigo Adem and Edmund Hayes
1 Early Ismailism and the Gates of Religious Authority: Genealogizing the
Theophanic Secret of Early Esoteric Shiʿism 24
Rodrigo Adem
2 The Imam Who Might Have Been: Jaʿfar “the Liar” between Political
Realism and Esoterist Idealism 73
Edmund Hayes
3 Explaining Prayer: Hadith and Esotericism in al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq’s
ʿIlal al-Sharāʾiʿ 107
George Warner
4 The Doctrine of Ta ʾwīl in Fatimid Ismaili Texts 137
Paul Walker
5 Principles of Fatimid Symbolic Interpretation (Ta ʾwīl): An Analysis Based
on the Majālis Muʾayyadiyya of al-Muʾayyad al-Shīrāzī (d. 470/1078) 151
Tahera Qutbuddin
6 Esoteric Shiʿi Islam in the Later School of al-Ḥilla: Walāya and
Apocalypticism in al-Ḥasan b. Sulaymān al-Ḥillī (d. after 1399) and Rajab
al-Bursī (d. c. 1411) 190
Sajjad Rizvi
7 Sufi Mysticism and Uṣūlī Shiʿism: Practical Authority in Modern Iranian
Shiʿi Sufism 242
Alessandro Cancian
Index 259

Note on Transliteration
This volume generally follows ijmes transliteration guidelines, with, however,
all but the most commonly anglicized names being fully transliterated from
Arabic and Persian. Thus:
ʿAbbasid, not ʿAbbāsid
Dinar and dirham
Hadith
Imam (not Imām)
Ismaili
Shiʿa
Shiʿi
Sunni
Baghdad
Kufa
Samarra
Basra instead of Baṣra
Abbreviations Employed
bsoas Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London
ei Encyclopedia of Islam, 1st edition, 4 vols, and supplement, Leiden, 1913–42
EI2 Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition, 1960–2005
EI3 Encyclopedia of Islam, 3rd edition, 2007–
EIr Encyclopedia Iranica, 1996
ijmes International Journal of Middle East Studies
ja Journal Asiatique
jal Journal of Arabic Literature
jaos Journal of the American Oriental Society
jras Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
Introduction: On the Use and Abuse of Reason and
Esotericism in Islamic Studies
Rodrigo Adem and Edmund Hayes
This volume brings together contributions on the relationship between rea-
son, esotericism, and authority in Shiʿi Islam from its earliest recorded expres-
sions up to the 20th century ce. Although the interrelationship of these three
elements has not been neglected in Islamic studies,1 all too often, scholarship
has been impeded by the casting of rationalism and esotericism as diametri-
cally incongruent. Far from arguing consequently for the deletion of “reason”
and “esotericism” from the lexicon of Islamic studies altogether, in this intro-
duction we aim to reflect critically on how these terms have been employed,
thereby highlighting how key trends in Shiʿi thought still have more to teach us
about the sociohistorical conditions which have guided them.
A critical locus for the intersection of reason and esotericism is the construc-
tion of authority, whether this authority refers to the socially-situated gate-
keepers of an interpretive tradition, or a metaphysical guarantor of legitimate
knowledge. The actual negotiation of such socio-epistemic norms takes place
in living contexts. Within these living contexts, religious traditions which are
typically studied apart interpermeate and coincide. This holds for the study of
Shiʿism and beyond. Within Shiʿi studies itself, much energy has been devoted
to the specifically political framework of authority underlying the Imamate,
a paradigm which separates Shiʿism from Sunnism and Shiʿi sects from one
another, yet more work remains to be done on the various socio-epistemic pre-
commitments underlying Shiʿi religious normativity more broadly speaking.
While a certain intellectual orientation may manifest as more dominant for
a given Shiʿi group at a particular time, it is our contention that it is a mistake
to quarantine discussions of a particular idea or doctrine to a particular sect.
Part of the viability of Shiʿism as a term for groups of co-religionists is that con-
versations on basic principles are shared, contested, and influence one other,
just as what it means to be Muslim involves a broader contestation of terms
1 See, for example, the excellent recent volume edited by Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Maria
De Cillis, Daniel De Smet, and Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, L’Ésotérisme shi’ite, ses racines et ses pro-
longements: Shi’i Esotericism: Its Roots and Developments (Turnhout: Brepols 2016).
© Rodrigo Adem and Edmund Hayes, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004465503_002
2 Adem and Hayes
and concepts over time and in multiple contexts. In this volume, we focus pri-
marily on Ismaili and Twelver Imami Shiʿi thought, but the contributions of
these groups must be understood as discursive acts within a larger ecosystem
of truth claims, social configurations, and political mobilizations.
1 The “Esoteric” in Islamic Studies
For many scholars of Islam, the “esoteric” in Islam is limited to associations
with the Arabic word bāṭin, with its counterpart ẓāhir standing in for the “exo-
teric”. The terms bāṭin (literally “inward” or “concealed”) and ẓāhir (“apparent”,
“manifest”) are a well-known hermeneutical binary underlying not only the
interpretation of texts, but also the interpretable signs and events manifest
in the world. In this framework, the bāṭin refers to that interpretation which
is not clearly evident, not accessible through common sense or the mundane
operation of reason.
Yet the terms bāṭin and ẓāhir fail to convey the full array of social and intel-
lectual phenomena denoted by “esotericism” in the history of ideas. Within
Islamic studies proper, “esotericism” has often been arbitrarily applied, in a
catch-all manner irresponsibly reductive of real difference and detail between
schools of Islamic thought.2 Islamic thought’s emic hermeneutical distinction
between bāṭin and ẓāhir translates only tenuously with any outside etic analyt-
ical value presupposed by the terms “esoteric” and “exoteric.”3 In the academic
study of Qūrʾānic exegesis in particular, this hermeneutic dichotomy has been
used inconsistently, allowing the “esoteric” to figure as a negative concept of
what is not “exoteric,” while the meaning of “exoteric” itself remains similarly
ill-defined.4 Using such imprecise tools, scholars group “mystical,” “Sufi,” and
Shiʿi hermeneutical practice into a catch-all category of esotericism to set
them apart from presumed interpretive norms, and reinforce these perceived
norms despite the fact that these boundaries are not fixed in actual practice
and human life.
The habit of placing at odds the “esoteric” and the “rationalist” aspects of
Shiʿi thought is evident in the divergent research patterns concerning the orig-
inal core of Imami Shiʿism in the authoritative studies of H. Modarressi and
2 See Feras Hamza, “Locating the ‘Esoteric’ in Islamic Studies,” in Islamic Studies Today: Essays
in Honor of Andrew Rippin, ed. Majid Daneshgar and Walid A. Saleh (Boston: Brill, 2017),
354–56.
3 Hamza, 357, 363. See Amir-Moezzi, L’Ésotéricisme Shiʿite, 2.
4 Hamza, 362–66.