The Charismatic Community: Shi'ite Identity in Early Islam

Introduction

Introduction The emergence and existence of the Shi˜ite community within the larger body of the Islamic ummah is a rather unique phenomenon in the history of Islamic civilization. Shi˜ism cannot adequately be described as either a “sect” or a “school” of Islam or Islamic thought. Shi˜ites have always considered themselves to be an integral part of the fabric of the Islamic religious community—and in fact, to represent the elite believers within that community—rather than a detached sect or offshoot of Islam. At the same time, they represent more than merely one of the many schools of Islamic thought. It is true that one can speak of a “Shi˜ite” theology, a “Shi˜ite” school of law or system of jurisprudence, or a “Shi˜ite” philosophy or mysticism as one of so many other perspectives within these respective disciplines. But these are really aspects of a larger and more comprehensive phenomenon. Shi˜ism embodies a completely independent system of religious and political authority and historical interpretation that profoundly informs its views within the various religious disciplines and is perpetuated through its own highly structured intellectual and religious hierarchy. It thus exists as a kind of permanent and well-established minority within the Islamic religious universe—a kind of loyal (or occasionally not-so-loyal) opposition to the majority Sunni consensus. However, it is a minority that has made no small contribution to Islamic civilization ; and the intellectual achievements of this group far outweigh its relative size. In fact, the impact of Shi˜ite ideas and beliefs on early Islamic political and religious thought can hardly be overestimated, and to ignore this contribution, or to dismiss Shi˜ite ideas as merely those of a “heterodox sect,” is to profoundly misunderstand the nature and development of early Islamic society. Marshall Hodgson was the first to state this so explicitly, in his early and important article “How Did the Early Shi˜a Become Sectarian?,” in which he notes that, in its reverence for the descendants of the Prophet (and therefore also ˜Alid descendants), Sunnism can be considered “at least half Shi˜ite.”1 Most Western studies of Shi˜ism have been concerned with Shi˜ite political history and theory or else with the distinctive points of Shi˜ite 1 2 The Charismatic Community theology, law, or philosophy. Moreover, until recently, relatively little of this research has concerned Shi˜ism in its earliest incarnation. Most general studies of Shi˜ism focus primarily on Twelver Imåm¥ Shi˜ism, although “Imåm¥” Shi˜ism cannot really be dated before the establishment of a recognized and coherent doctrine of the “imåmate” in the time of Ja˜far al-S . ådiq (d. 148); and, as the work of Etan Kohlberg has clearly established, “Twelver” Shi˜ism cannot be dated much before the onset of the “major occultation” in the early fourth Islamic century .2 Etan Kohlberg3 and Wilferd Madelung4 have done some of the most substantial work in early Shi˜ism, bringing to light many of the more obscure and difficult aspects of early Shi˜ite theology. More recently, a number of scholarly monographs on the early and formative periods of Shi˜ite thought have appeared, including Hossein Modarressi’s Crisis and Consolidation (1993), Amir-Moezzi’s penetrating study of the spiritual and mystical conceptions of the imåmate in The Divine Guide in Early Shi˜ism (1994), Meir Bar-Asher’s Scripture and Exegesis in Early Imåm¥ Shi˜ism (1999), Arzina Lalani’s study of the legacy of the fifth Imåm, Mu±ammad al-Båqir, in Early Sh¥˜¥ Thought (2000), and Andrew Newman’s The Formative Period of Twelver Shi˜ism (2000). Many of these studies have made pioneering use of very early source material, supplementing the more formulaic and systematic information found in heresiographical literature with material drawn from a variety of early ÷ad¥th and tafs¥r works; and many have deepened our understanding of the religious and spiritual—rather than narrowly political—content of early Shi˜ite tradition. However, surprisingly little research has been done on one of the most interesting and unique aspects of Shi˜ism, namely, the emergence of a distinct Shi˜ite communal identity within the larger Islamic ummah in the early centuries of Islam—that is to say, a specific Shi˜ite awareness of their own group as constituting a community within a community. Very little indeed has been written about the spiritual meaning or cosmological significance they attached either to...