The Spirituality of Shiʿi Islam Beliefs and Practices
I.B. Tauris in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies
The second largest branch of Islam, with between 130 and 190 million adherents across the globe, Shi‘i Islam is becoming an increasingly significant force in contemporary politics, especially in the Middle East. This makes an informed understanding of its fundamental spiritual beliefs and practices both necessary and timely. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi is one of the most distinguished scholars of Shi‘i history and theology, and in this volume he offers a wide-ranging and engaging survey of the core texts of Shi‘i Islam. Examining in turn the origins and later developments of Shi‘i spirituality, the author reveals the profoundly esoteric nature of the beliefs which accrued to the figures of the early Imams, and which became associated with their interaction between the material and spiritual worlds. Many of these beliefs have remained much misunderstood even within the wider Muslim world. Furthermore, Western scholarship has tended to follow the lead of the earlier orientalists and critics, viewing Shi‘i teachings as marginal. In this study the author shows, by contrast, how central and creative the very nature of spirituality was to the development of Shi‘i Islam, as well as to classical Muslim civilisation as a whole. In this comprehensive treatment, the esoteric nature of Shi‘i spirituality emerges as an essential phenomenon for understanding Shi‘i Islam.
Preface and Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Part I: Early Emergence and Ancient Convergence
1. Reflections on the Expression of dīn ʿAlī: The Origins of the Shiʿi Faith
2. Shahrbānū, Lady of the Land of Iran and Mother of the Imams: Between Pre-Islamic Iran and Imami Shiʿism
Part II: On the Nature of the Imam: Initiation and Dualism
3. Some Remarks on the Divinity of the Imam
4. The Pre-Existence of the Imam
5. The Imam in Heaven: Ascension and Initiation
6. Knowledge is Power: Interpretations and Implications of the Miracle in Early Imamism
7. Notes on Imami Walāya
8. Only the Man of God is Human: Theology and Mystical Anthropology According to Early Imami Exegesis
Part III: Hermeneutic and Spiritual Practice
9. ‘The Warrior of Taʾwīl’: A Poem about ʿAlī by Mollā Ṣadrā
10. Visions of the Imams in Modern and Contemporary Twelver Mysticism
11. Notes on Prayer in Imami Shiʿism
Part IV: Aspects of Individual and Collective Eschatology
12. The End of Time and the Return to the Origin
13. A Contribution on the Typology of Encounters with the Hidden Imam
14. An Absence Filled with Presences: Shaykiyya Hermeneutics of the Occultation
Bibliography
Index
Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi is a Director of Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne, where he is Professor of Shiʿi Muslim Exegesis and Theology and joint Director of the Centre d’Etude des Religions du Livre/Laboratoire d’Etudes sur les Monotheismes (CNRS-EPHE).