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CHAPTER 4 The Shi˜ite Community in the Aftermath of the First Civil War If the historical sources indicate that the Shi˜ite camp united fiercely behind ˜Al¥ toward the end of his life, expressing their absolute devotion, or walåyah, toward him and ˜adåwah or barå˘ah toward all of his many enemies, they also detail the gradual disintegration of this unity in the ideological and leadership confusion that followed his death. The figure of al-¡asan b. ˜Al¥, his successor, could not command a similar degree of loyalty, nor could the non-˜Alid Shi˜ite leader¡ujr b. ˜Ad¥ unite the scattered Shi˜ite discontents of Kufa in a successful protest against the official desecration of ˜Al¥’s name under the Umayyad regime. The poisoning of al-¡asan b. ˜Al¥, allegedly through the designs of the Caliph Mu˜åwiyah, and the arrest and execution of¡ujr b. ˜Ad¥ and his associates drew no effective reaction from Shi˜ite sympathizers in Kufa, and only powerless statements of protest from al-¡usayn b. ˜Al¥ and other Medinan notables.1 When al-¡usayn himself made his stand against the Umayyad Yaz¥d b. Mu˜åwiyah, largely at the instigation of Shi˜ite sympathizers in Kufa, the Kufan support failed to materialize, and he and his small band of followers were infamously massacred on the plains of Karbala. A group of Kufan Shi˜ites were later remorseful for their failure to aid al-¡usayn in his plight and organized a small, but morally significant, movement that sought to exact revenge for al-¡usayn, even if it meant their own death—for many of them, it did, and little vengeance was accomplished. Al-¡usayn’s death was indeed avenged, but only later, by the ambivalent and controversial figure of al-Mukhtår b. Ab¥ ˜Ubayd, who successfully hunted down and killed many of the perpetrators of the murder of the “grandson of the Prophet,” but all 71 72 The Charismatic Community the while calling for allegiance to a non-Få†imid son of ˜Al¥ (and therefore , a non-Prophetic descendant), Mu±ammad b. al-¡anafiyyah. In fact, much, if not most, of the Shi˜ite activity in ˜Iraq through the end of the first century and early decades of the second was focused on the spiritual heritage of this non-Få†imid son of ˜Al¥; while the Få†imid descendants of ˜Al¥ and al-¡usayn—˜Al¥ b. al-¡usayn Zayn al-˜≈bid¥n and Mu±ammad al-Båqir—led quiet, pious, and scholarly lives in Medina. ˜Al¥ Zayn al-˜≈bid¥n seems to have been surrounded primarily by nonactivist sympathizers with the cause of his family in Medina, while Mu±ammad al-Båqir, still based in Medina, became the focus of Shi˜ite loyalties among a growing number of ˜Iraqis. Shi˜ite sources indicate that numerous Shi˜ite individuals and delegations traveled from Kufa to Medina—often under the cover of, or in conjunction with, their fulfillment of the ÷ajj ritual—to attend al-Båqir’s teaching circle, and ask him specific questions on their own behalf or on behalf of their Shi˜ite brothers back in Kufa. It is only under the influence of al-Båqir that we begin to see the more activist Shi˜ite community in Kufa emerging (or reemerging) along proto-Imåm¥ lines, even as devotion to the figure of Mu±ammad b. al-¡anafiyyah and his spiritual descendants continued for several more decades in ˜Iraq. The period between the death of ˜Al¥ b. Ab¥ †ålib and the rise to prominence of Mu±ammad al-Båqir was undoubtedly a painful and troubled one for those with Shi˜ite sympathies, and it is a confusing one for the student of early Shi˜ism. Imåm¥ doctrine portrays a clear and unbroken line of Shi˜ite Imåms from ˜Al¥ b. Ab¥ †ålib to Mu±ammad al-Båqir, but even Imåm¥ sources contend that the intervening Imåms had relatively few close followers who fully recognized their authority;2 and Shi˜ite ÷ad¥th sources clearly reflect this. The overwhelming majority of Shi˜ite traditions are related from the Prophet and ˜Al¥ on the one hand, and al-Båqir and his successor, al- Œådiq on the other, while significantly fewer traditions are related from ˜Al¥ Zayn al-˜≈bid¥n, and only a relative handful are related from either al-¡asan or al-¡usayn. Despite the apparent retirement of the ˜Alid-F...

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