The Essentials of Ibadi Islam by Valerie J. Hoffman (review)

The Essentials of Ibadi Islam is a long-overdue overview of one of the most understudied and misunderstood sects in Islam. Having emerged in the early Islamic period, Ibadism, a sect that is neither Sunni nor Shiʾi, is influential today mainly in North Africa and Oman and is rich not only in history, but also in theology, philosophy, and jurisprudence. Although several works on Ibadism do exist in the English language—most notably Adam R. Gaiser’s Muslims, Scholars, Soldiers: The Origin and Elaboration of the Ibadi Imamate Traditions—none of them explains Ibadi theology. Valerie J. Hoffman, whose volume is the first book-length work on the theology of modern Ibadism in English, has done a superb job in introducing Ibadi literature—a literature that “is often very long, dry, dense, and difficult to understand” (5)—to Western audiences.

The Essentials of Ibadi Islam is divided into three parts: the first part is a long and detailed introduction of Ibadi history as well as of the role of Ibadism in the development of Islamic thought. Parts 2 and 3 provide annotated translations of two complementary modern Ibadi theological texts. In the introduction, the author discusses the origin and political history of the Ibadiyya, the development of Ibadism as a distinct sect of Islam, and the distinctive teachings of Ibadi Islam. In the introduction’s section on the political history of Ibadism, Hoffman lays out the Ibadi perspective on the early Caliphate and how this perspective differs from that of the Sunnis and the Shiʾa.

The author then moves to discuss how the Ibadis identify with much of the Kharijite history, which is evident in a theological primer entitled Al-ʿAqida ʾl-Wahbiyya, or The Wahbi Creed. Hoffman presents Ibadism as a moderate Khariji sect that emerged under the leadership of ʿAbdallah b. Ibad (or Abad) who broke with the more violent and extreme Kharijites. This section concludes with a discussion of the emergence of the first Ibadi state in the eighth century in the Hadramawt region, the establishment of the Ibadi imamate in North Africa, and the role of Ibadism in the political history of modern Oman.

In the next section of the introduction, Hoffman provides the reader with a list of Ibadi theological, legal, historical, and poetical works written between the eighth and twentieth centuries. This section serves as a great reference for those interested in early and modern Ibadi literature. The following is a list of the topics discussed: the status of sinning Muslims; religious affiliation (walaya) and dissociation (baraʾa); reward and punishment in the afterlife; free will and predestination; the anthropomorphic descriptions of God; reason and revelation; the unity of God, his essence, and attributes; the creation of the Qurʾan; and jurisprudence. This section by itself is a great contribution to the field of theological studies and is quite useful for those interested in Islamic theology.

In part 2, Hoffman provides an annotated translation of Al-ʿAqida ʾl-Wahbiyya (The Wahbiyya Doctrine) by Nasir b. Salim b. ʿUdayyam al-Rawahi (d. 1920). This primer in Ibadi doctrine is divided into seven chapters with an introduction by the author. Al-Rawahi’s primer covers many different Islamic theological schools as well as differences between the Ibadis of North Africa, Oman, and Zanzibar. In this text, al-Rawahi offers a brief introduction to Ibadi doctrine as well as a thorough discussion of many different Muslim groups, past and present. Some of the theological issues that interested the Ibadis and are discussed in the primer are God’s unity, essence, and attributes and the creation or eternity of the Qurʾan. Hoffman notes that the Ibadis retain an interest in these topics as a way to “defend doctrines that set them apart from other Muslims” (48). The primer is written in the form of a student’s questions and the teacher’s answers.

The theological primer contains lessons ranging in topics from the science in theology and the definition of tawhid...