The Geographical Spread of the Imamiyyah Shiite Population According to Naqd

Maedeh Bakhshandeh [1]

The study of the political, social and cultural situation of the Shiites in the fifth century After Hijrah based on the valuable book of Naqd plays a very important role in identification and illustration of the political, social and cultural situation of the Shiite society. Naqd is the first critical book which can be considered as a historical/theological critique, and such a coherent historical critique is unprecedented. This book is one of the works in the intellectual treasury of Muslims and it is one of the ancient Persian books which were written only a few years after the books: The Four Article by Aruzi and Maqalat by Hamidi. The book contains important historical, literary, theological, geographical, social, demographical and … material. Naqd is not an important work just in explanation of jurisprudential and religious affairs; rather, beside responding to and rejecting the accusations, the author has referred to the names of numerous Shiite cities and neighborhoods of the first century After Hijrah, and he has also mentioned the names of important Shiite scholars and families along with lots of other issues about the Shiite culture and civilization. This reveals the significance of the present discussion. Therefore, the present article tries to deal with the geography of the Shiites population so that in this way it can study the internal structure of the Shiite society and therefore explain their presence in the social scene.

Key Words: Twelver Shiites, population geography, Seljuqs of Iran, Naqd.

[1] M.A. student in the major of The History of Islamic Iran, Al-Zahra University, Tehran.