Supporting Imamiyyah and Rejecting Isma'iliyyah in the Book of Naqd

Dr. Rasool Razavi [1]

At the period when 'Abd al-Jalil authored the book of Naqd, the Islamic states had been divided between the two caliphates: the eastern Fatemid and the western Abbasid. These two ruling systems tried to remove their opponents by means of politics, culture, religion, denomination and any other tools, so that they could control all the territory of Islam. Meanwhile, the followers of Ahl al-Bayt PBUT, i.e. the Imamiyyah Shiites, who had lost their political and military support after the fall of Buids and Hamdanids, had to resist against the pressure from both sides, and at the mean time they had to defend their denomination. On the one hand, the Abbasids accused them of following the Qarmatians and Isma'ili school and killed them and on the other hand, the Nazarids and Qarmatians accused them of concealing their belief and accompanying Sunnites and killed them. In a situation like this, the scholars of Imamiyyah played a vital role. They had to both clarify the principles and details of the school of the Ahl al-Bayt and refuse the accusations by the opponents. They needed to discourage the weak believers of their school from showing tendency to the opposite schools; besides, they had to stop the prevalence of the opponents' ideas among the Imamiyyah Shiites. This is exactly what 'Abd al-Jalil Razi succeeded at perfectly through the book of Mathalib al-Nawasib fi Naqd Ba’d Fada’ih al-Rawafid, known as Naqd. In order to support Imamiyyah, he presents an accurate and clear clarification about the beliefs and rules of the school of Ahl al-Bayt and determines the boundaries between Imamiyyah and Nazari Isma'iliyyah, Musta'lavid and Qarmatians; meanwhile, he does not forget to launch attacks: first, he tries to separate the lines of the "Hanafi Saljouqids" and the fatalist "Hanbalids" and "Ashab al-Hadith"; then he tries to reveal that the ideas of the naives are against the goals and intentions of the Abbasid caliphate.

Key Words: Shiite, Heathen, Qarmatians, Sabahids, Imamiyyah, Batiniyyah.

[1] Assistant professor of the department of The Islamic Theology, College of Hadith Sciences.