From Khalaf (beginning of the 4th/10th century?) to Ḥasan al-Ṣabbāḥ (d. 518 H/1124 CE): Ismailism in Rayy before and under the Seljūqs
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Daniel De Smet
Abstract:
In the last decades of the 3rd/9th and the first decades of the 4th/10th centuries, the city of Rayy seems to have been an important center of Ismāʿīlī missionary activity not only in West Persia, but also in Mesopotamia, in Khurāsān and the southern region of the Caspian Sea (Daylam). Organized as a secret society, the Qarmaṭian mission in Rayy, preparing the advent of the Mahdī Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, left only a few traces in Ismāʿīlī sources, but has been described by hostile authors trying to prove that the Ismāʿīlī movement is the offshoot of an old Zoroastrian conspiracy against Islam. When, during the 4th/10th century, the daʿwa in Rayy recognized the authority of the Fāṭimids in Cairo, it still remained a secret organisation shrouded in obscurity. Dating from this period, however, we have an important document, al-Mīmadhī’s Risāla ilā jamāʿat ahl al-Rayy. The seize of Rayy by the Seljūqs in 446/1054 coincides with the birth of Ḥasan al-Ṣabbāḥ, the founder of Nizārī Ismailism, who profoundly reformed the Fāṭimid doctrine and transformed the daʿwa into an activist and military movement whose aim it was to create a Nizārī state inside the Seljūq empire.
© 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- The Legacy and Influence of Patricia Crone (1945–2015)
- Special Issue: The Religious and Intellectual History of Rayy from 900 Through the Seljūq Period, Guest Editors: Hassan Ansari/Sabine Schmidtke/D. G. Tor
- Preface
- Rayy and the Religious History of the Seljūq Period
- The Linguistic History of Rayy up to the Early Islamic Period
- The Urbanisation of Rayy in the Seljūq Period
- From Khalaf (beginning of the 4th/10th century?) to Ḥasan al-Ṣabbāḥ (d. 518 H/1124 CE): Ismailism in Rayy before and under the Seljūqs
- Sunnism in Rayy during the Seljūq Period: Sources and Observations
- The Zaydīs and Rayy: The Path to Inclusion and Back
- Articles
- Nomads and Bukhara. A Study in Nomad Migrations, Pasture, and Climate Change (11th century CE)
- Reviews
- Bibliographie raisonnée zur arabischen Papyrologie: Neuerscheinungen 2015 und Nachträge 2013–2014
- Eleazar Birnbaum, Ottoman Turkish and Çaĝatay MSS in Canada. A Union Catalogue of the Four Collections, Islamic Manuscripts and Books
- Christopher Braun, Das Kitāb Sidrat al-muntahā des Pseudo-Ibn Waḥšīya. Einleitung, Edition und Übersetzung eines hermetisch-allegorischen Traktats zur Alchemie
- Angelika Brodersen, Der unbekannte kalām. Theologische Positionen der frühen Māturīdīya am Beispiel der Attributenlehre
- Julia Gonnella / Rania Abdellatif / Simone Struth (Hrsg.), Beiträge zur Islamischen Archäologie 4
- Johannes von Segovia, De gladio divini spiritus in corda mittendo Sarracenorum
- Linda G. Jones, The Power of Oratory in the Medieval Muslim World
- Amr Osman, The Ẓāhirī Madhhab (3rd/9th–10th/16th Century): A Textualist Theory of Islamic Law, Studies in Islamic Law and Society
- A.C.S. Peacock, Mediaeval Islamic Historiography and Political Legitimacy: Balʿamī’s Tārīkhnāma
- Anton Spitaler / Kathrin Müller, Erste Halbverse in der klassisch-arabischen Literatur
- Jutta Wintermann, Dichtung und Historie. Aspekte der Herrschaft Ḫosrous II. in Neẓamīs Ḫosrau-o Šīrīn
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- The Legacy and Influence of Patricia Crone (1945–2015)
- Special Issue: The Religious and Intellectual History of Rayy from 900 Through the Seljūq Period, Guest Editors: Hassan Ansari/Sabine Schmidtke/D. G. Tor
- Preface
- Rayy and the Religious History of the Seljūq Period
- The Linguistic History of Rayy up to the Early Islamic Period
- The Urbanisation of Rayy in the Seljūq Period
- From Khalaf (beginning of the 4th/10th century?) to Ḥasan al-Ṣabbāḥ (d. 518 H/1124 CE): Ismailism in Rayy before and under the Seljūqs
- Sunnism in Rayy during the Seljūq Period: Sources and Observations
- The Zaydīs and Rayy: The Path to Inclusion and Back
- Articles
- Nomads and Bukhara. A Study in Nomad Migrations, Pasture, and Climate Change (11th century CE)
- Reviews
- Bibliographie raisonnée zur arabischen Papyrologie: Neuerscheinungen 2015 und Nachträge 2013–2014
- Eleazar Birnbaum, Ottoman Turkish and Çaĝatay MSS in Canada. A Union Catalogue of the Four Collections, Islamic Manuscripts and Books
- Christopher Braun, Das Kitāb Sidrat al-muntahā des Pseudo-Ibn Waḥšīya. Einleitung, Edition und Übersetzung eines hermetisch-allegorischen Traktats zur Alchemie
- Angelika Brodersen, Der unbekannte kalām. Theologische Positionen der frühen Māturīdīya am Beispiel der Attributenlehre
- Julia Gonnella / Rania Abdellatif / Simone Struth (Hrsg.), Beiträge zur Islamischen Archäologie 4
- Johannes von Segovia, De gladio divini spiritus in corda mittendo Sarracenorum
- Linda G. Jones, The Power of Oratory in the Medieval Muslim World
- Amr Osman, The Ẓāhirī Madhhab (3rd/9th–10th/16th Century): A Textualist Theory of Islamic Law, Studies in Islamic Law and Society
- A.C.S. Peacock, Mediaeval Islamic Historiography and Political Legitimacy: Balʿamī’s Tārīkhnāma
- Anton Spitaler / Kathrin Müller, Erste Halbverse in der klassisch-arabischen Literatur
- Jutta Wintermann, Dichtung und Historie. Aspekte der Herrschaft Ḫosrous II. in Neẓamīs Ḫosrau-o Šīrīn
