# Shi'i Islam

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Moojan Momen, Shi'i Islam, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Shi`i Islam
> 
> Moojan Momen
> 
> 1995
> 
> Islam, Shi`i. The branch of Islam that accepted
> `Ali ibn Abi-Talib, Muhammad's son-in-law, as the Prophet's legitimate
> successor. The Twelver Shi`is, the branch of Shi`ism that accepted a line
> of twelve hereditary successors called Imams, are the majority of modern
> Shi`is. The Babi and Bahá'í Faiths arose in the Twelver Shi`i milieu in
> Iran and are related in many ways to Shi`i belief, practice, and concepts.
> 
> 1. History. The origins of Shi`i
> Islam are controversial. Traditional Sunni and Shi`i histories differ in
> many respects. These are considered by many Western scholars to be the
> result of historians of the third Islamic century reading back into the
> past the concerns and orthodoxies of their own time. The following account
> will give something of the traditional accounts of the majority group of
> the Shi`is, the Twelvers.
> a. Early history. Shi`i historians tell that during the
> lifetime of Muhammad, there were a number of indications that he intended
> `Ali--who was his cousin, foster-brother, and son-in-law--to succeed him
> as leader of the Muslim community. In particular, during the return to
> Medina from his last pilgrimage to Mecca, Muhammad announced to all of
> his companions: "Whoever has Me as his Lord, also has `Ali as his Lord.
> O God! Be Thou the supporter of whoever supports `Ali and the enemy of
> whoever opposes him." (Momen 15)
> It appears, however, that the nomination of `Ali was not
> sufficiently clear, for after the death of Muhammad in 632, an ad hoc
> assembly of Muslims elected Abu-Bakr as Caliph. `Ali, for the sake of Muslim
> unity, did not oppose Abu-Bakr but retired from public life during the
> caliphates of Abu-Bakr, `Umar, and `Uthman.
> After the murder of `Uthman in 656, the people of Medina
> proclaimed `Ali Caliph. `Ali accepted the Caliphate but was immediately
> opposed by a number of factions. The most serious opposition came from
> the family of `Uthman, headed by Mu`awiyah, who claimed that `Ali had given
> protection to `Uthman's murderers. The Battle of Siffin in 657 between
> the armies of `Ali and Mu`awiyah resulted in a stalemate and an agreement
> to submit the dispute to arbitration. `Ali's problems then intensified
> when a part of his army repudiated him for having submitted to arbitration.
> These seceders, the Khawarij, were defeated at the Battle of Nahrawan,
> but one of them avenged this defeat by assassinating `Ali at the Mosque
> of Kufih in 661.
> `Ali's elder son, Hasan, succeeded to the Caliphate but
> was soon forced to abdicate in favor of Mu`awiyah, who became the first
> of the Umayyad dynasty of Caliphs. Thus the Caliphate passed out of the
> hands of the descendants of `Ali. But there was a small group of people
> who continued to believe that leadership in Islam belonged by right to
> the family of `Ali. After Hasan's death in 669, these gathered around the
> latter's brother, Husayn.
> After Mu`awiyah's death and the accession of his son Yazid
> to the Caliphate, Husayn was persuaded to leave Medina and set out for
> Kufih, where he had been promised support for his claim to leadership.
> But Yazid acted quickly in arresting Husayn's emissary in Kufih, intimidating
> the Kufans, and intercepting Husayn on his way. Husayn was surrounded at
> a place called Karbala and there killed, together with all of his companions,
> in 680.
> The martyrdom of Husayn became the rallying point of the
> party of `Ali (Shi`at `Ali), and continues to this day to be the most important
> commemoration in the Shi`i calendar. After this event, there was some disagreement
> among the Shi`is over the identity of their spiritual leader, the Imam,
> for the next few generations. Modern Twelver Shi`is regard the eldest son
> of the each Imam to have succeeded to the Imamate. But in the lifetime
> of Husayn's son, `Ali Zaynu'l-`Abidin, the majority of the Shi`is of the
> time, under the leadership of Mukhtar ath-Thaqafi, gave their allegiance
> to the third son of `Ali, Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya (whose mother was not
> Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet). Again, after Zaynu'l-`Abidin's death
> in about 713, the next Imam is considered by modern Shi`is to have been
> the latter's son, Muhammad al-Baqir. But many Shi`is supported al-Baqir's
> half-brother, Zayd, who rebelled against the Umayyads in 740. The modern
> Shi`i sect of the Zaydis are named after this man. They are to be found
> in north Yemen. The Zaydi Imam in the Yemen was overthrown in the revolution
> of 1962.
> In the time of Muhammad al-Baqir's son and successor,
> Ja`far as-Sadiq, who inherited the Imamate in about 735, the descendants
> of Muhammad's uncle, al-`Abbas, rose in rebellion against the Umayyads
> and succeeded in gaining the Caliphate to form the Abbasid dynasty. Some
> Shi`is considered that their objective, which was to see someone from the
> family of Muhammad leading the Islamic world, had been achieved. But many
> Shi`is did not consider this situation satisfactory, and the Abbasids reciprocated
> by persecuting the descendants of `Ali. As-Sadiq himself was a highly respected
> figure in the Islamic world until his death in 765.
> After as-Sadiq's death there was a further split among
> the Shi`is because his eldest son, Isma`il, had died before him. Some held
> that since as-Sadiq had first appointed Isma`il as his heir, the rightful
> inheritor of the Imamate was Isma`il's son. This split is the origin of
> the Isma`ili sect of Shi`ism, which is itself divided into a number of
> sects: the Musta`lis who are in turn divided into Sulaymani and Da'udi
> factions and are mainly found in the Yemen and India, where they are called
> Bohras; and the Nizaris, who are led by the Aga Khan and are to be found
> in India, Syria, Iran, Central Asia, and East Africa. The Druse are a faction
> that broke away from the Isma`ilis.
> The Twelver Shi`is maintain, however, that after Isma`il's
> death, as-Sadiq appointed his next son, Musa al-Kazim to the Imamate. On
> al-Kazim's death in 799, the Imamate passed to his son `Ali ar-Rida. For
> a time there was the hope of a rapprochement between the Shi`is and the
> Abbasids on the basis of ar-Rida's appointment as the heir to the Caliphate.
> But ar-Rida died prematurely (by poisoning, the Shi`i historians maintain)
> in 818 in northeast Iran, and nothing came of this.
> The next three Imams were kept under close surveillance
> by the Abbasids. They were: Muhammad at-Taqi (died 835); `Ali al-Hadi (died
> 868), and Hasan al-`Askari. After the death of Hasan al-`Askari in A.H.
> 260/A.D. 874, some said that Hasan's son, Muhammad, who was but a child,
> had gone into occultation (hiding) in order to escape from his enemies
> and that his life has been miraculously prolonged until the time is right
> for his return as the Imam Mahdi (the Qa'im). But Ja`far, the brother of
> Hasan al-`Askari, refuted this whole story, claiming that his brother had
> had no children at all. Some asserted that the Imam Qa'im had not yet been
> born but would be born in the Last Days and would bring justice to the
> world. It is difficult to know what proportion of the Shi`is of that time
> followed each of the various factions that arose.
> Those Shi`is who held to the occultation of Hasan's son--i.e.
> what was to become the official Twelver position--asserted that the Hidden
> Imam had appointed a series of four intermediaries between himself and
> the Shi`is, called the four Babs (gates) or Safirs (ambassadors). This
> situation came to be called the Lesser Occultation and lasted until 329/941.
> There were then no further intermediaries, and the Shi`is entered into
> what is called the Greater Occultation.
> This then was the main course of Shi`i history as related
> in the traditional histories. At the succession of each Imam, these histories
> record numerous factions and sects splitting off; only the main ones have
> been mentioned above. Modern Western scholars question this traditional
> account. The neat pattern of the succession of Imams with branching dissident
> factions at each generation seems to have been a retrospective recasting
> of history in order to satisfy theoretical considerations current in the
> third Islamic century (see Momen 61-75).
> b. History in medieval times. By the middle of the fourth
> century A.H. (tenth century C.E.), the Shi`is had made great strides politically.
> Large parts of the Muslim world were under the control of Shi`i dynasties
> of one sort or another. In Iran and Iraq the Shi`i Iranian dynasty of Buyids
> held sway, even controlling the Caliph in Baghdad. The Shi`i Hamdanid dynasty
> ruled Syria. The Fatimids who held Egypt and much of North Africa were
> Isma`ili Shi`is; in north-west Africa, the Idrisids were inclined to Shi`ism;
> while Shi`is of the Zaydi sect controlled parts of northern Iran and the
> Yemen. But despite this political dominance, the Shi`is were unable to
> sway the religious affiliations of the urban masses in the Islamic heartlands;
> and when the Shi`i dynasties fell towards the end of the tenth century,
> Sunni dominance re-established itself.
> In the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, Shi`ism began
> to influence the Sunni world again, through the medium of Sufism. The latter
> became a major movement in Islam after the Mongol invasions. Sufism had
> many inter-connections with Shi`ism. Many of the leading Sufi shaykhs of
> this period had Shi`i leanings in their teachings. In the fifteenth century,
> a number of minor Shi`i states were set up in Khurasan and Mazandaran,
> and Shi`ism also spread into India.
> c. Shi`ism in modern times. The sixteenth century saw
> the establishment of a Shi`i state in Iran (see below) and a number of
> small Shi`i states in central India. Later in the eighteenth century, the
> rulers of Oudh (Awadh) in northeast India created an important center for
> Shi`ism there.
> Today, the majority (88%) of Iranians are Shi`is as are
> the majority of the populations of Iraq (57%), Bahrain (54%), and the Republic
> of Azerbaijan (66%). Shi`is are the largest religious community in the
> Lebanon (30%). There are also important Shi`i communities in Pakistan,
> India, Afghanistan, Turkey, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
> 
> 2. Shi`ism in Iran. Shi`ism had
> had a following in Iran from the earliest period. The first Shi`is were,
> of course, Arab residents of Medina who favored `Ali's claim to the Caliphate.
> But even among these, one of the most prominent was the Iranian Salman.
> Later, as the Arab armies advanced and the newly-conquered and converted
> peoples were given an inferior position in the Islamic polity, Mukhtar
> ath-Thaqafi (see above) is credited with being the first to attract Iranians
> to the Shi`i cause on the base of full equality.
> When `Ali ar-Rida was elevated to the position of heir
> to the throne, his sister, Fatimah al-Ma`suma, set out to visit him in
> Khurasan. On the way she died and was buried in the town of Qum. Around
> this shrine an important Shi`i community arose. There were also Shi`i communities
> between Qum and the Caspian coast to the north. In Khurasan around the
> shrine of `Ali ar-Rida near Tus (now Mashhad) and in other towns of east
> Khurasan there were important Shi`i communities. In western Iran, there
> were communities of Ahl-i-Haqq, a Shi`i sect that is considered extremist
> by orthodox Shi`is (because it is considered to elevate `Ali to a station
> equal to or above that of Muhammad). But the rest of Iran was almost completely
> Sunni in orientation.
> The situation remained thus until the dawn of the sixteenth
> century when the leader of the Sufi order of the Safavids conquered the
> whole of Iran and made Twelver Shi`ism the state religion. Over the next
> two centuries, the people of Iran were gradually converted to Shi`ism until
> it became the majority religion. Although Iran came under Sunni rulers
> after the fall of the Safavids, the Shi`ism of the people did not waver,
> and Shi`i rule was reestablished under the Zand and Qajar dynasties in
> the eighteenth century.
> 
> 3. Doctrines and practices of Twelver
> Shi`ism.
> a. Fundamentals of the religion. Twelver Shi`is hold that
> the Qur'anic verses that forbid blind imitation (taqlid) in matters
> of religion refer to the fundamentals of the religion (usul ad-din).
> The five fundamentals of the religion (usul ad-din) are: Divine
> Unity (tawhid); Prophethood; the Resurrection; the Imamate; and
> Divine Justice. They consider it obligatory that each Shi`i who has not
> undertaken the necessary study should imitate (taqlid) a scholar
> who is an authority on the application of religious law (furu` ad-din).
> 
> b. The Imamate. For Sunnis, the leader of the Muslims
> after the death of Muhammad was a temporal leader chosen by consensus,
> although hereditary succession became the norm. For Shi`is, leadership
> belonged to the successor designated by Muhammad and subsequent designated
> successors. The authority of each successor derived from this designation,
> which made him entitled to both spiritual and temporal leadership. Whether
> the holder of this station actually exercised temporal power made no difference
> to his station. The Imam was the Guide (hadi) for mankind and the
> Proof (hujjat) of God. In their mystical dimensions, Muhammad, Fatimah,
> and the Twelve Imams ("the Fourteen Pure Ones") were a light that God created
> before the creation of the material world. This light then became the cause
> and instrument of the rest of creation and descended upon each of the Prophets
> until it became embodied in the Fourteen Pure Ones.
> The Imams are, in Shi`i doctrine, the authorized interpreters
> of the Qur'an as well as the supreme arbiters of the Holy Law. Thus it
> is necessary for the people of each age to recognize the Imam of the Age
> in order to receive correct guidance on these matters. Indeed, in one Tradition,
> Husayn is reported to have said that "God created mankind in order that
> they might know Him". When asked "What is knowing God?", he replied, "It
> is that the people of each age know their Imam." (Momen 158). The Qur'an
> contains no direct reference to the Imamate. But the Imams have interpreted
> a large number of verses of the Qur'an as referring to themselves (see
> Momen 151-153).
> 
> c. Eschatology. The Shi`is, along with other Muslims,
> believe in a Day of Judgment and a physical resurrection at the end of
> the world. Shi`is also believe that just before the end of the world the
> Hidden Twelfth Imam will appear and fill the earth with justice when it
> had been filled with injustice.
> There are numerous prophecies about the signs of the coming
> of the Hidden Imam recorded in the books of Shi`i tradition. One of the
> events that will occur is the return (q.v., raj`a) of Muhammad,
> the Imams, and the prophets of old, together with all those who have either
> supported Muhammad and the Imams or opposed them. The first to return after
> the appearance of the Mahdi will be the Imam Husayn and Jesus Christ. There
> will then be a great battle between the forces of the Imam and those of
> his opponents, thus eliminating all injustice from the world.
> 
> d. Ritual elements and laws. The ritual elements in Shi`ism
> are very similar to Sunni Islam. They are traditionally divided into eight:
> obligatory prayer (salat or namaz); fasting (siyam
> or sawm); obligatory alms (zakat); the one-fifth tax (khums),
> which is not practiced by Sunnis; pilgrimage (hajj); religious war
> (jihad); enjoining others to do good (amr bi'l-ma`ruf); exhorting
> others to desist from evil (nahy `an al-munkar).
> 
> e. Shi`i practices. In addition there are a number of
> characteristically Shi`i practices:
> i. Visitation (ziyarat)--visiting the shrines of
> the Imams and the family of the Imams.
> ii. Temporary marriage (mut`a)--temporary marriage
> for a pre-determined period and for an agreed fee.
> iii. Religious dissimulation (taqiyya)--dissimulation
> of one's religious beliefs while maintaining mental reservation in times
> of danger to life or property.
> iv. Recitals of the sufferings of the Imams and in particular
> the martyrdom of Husayn (rawdih-khani,
> majlis, qirayah).
> These are very emotional events at which there is much wailing and beating
> or flailing of chests and backs. There are also a number of other commemorations
> of the sufferings of the Imams including the performance of passion-plays
> (ta`ziyah), though the exact practices vary between countries.
> 
> 4. Shi`i law and the `ulama. The
> principal intellectual discipline in religion in the Islamic and Shi`i
> world is not theology as in Christianity but rather the application of
> the Holy Law. Thus the religious professionals in the Islamic world--the
> "learned," `ulama'--are mainly concerned with applying the Holy Law to
> the situations of everyday life. Shi`i law differs only in minor ways from
> the law of other Muslim groups. Shi`is accept the authority of traditions
> attributed to the Imams and reject traditions transmitted by non-Shi`is.
> The `ulama are trained in Islamic religious law (fiqh)
> and the principles for applying it to everyday life (usul al-fiqh).
> This training is done at religious colleges called madrasas, where
> the full course can last for as long as fifteen years. The most important
> of these colleges in the Shi`i world are at Qum and Mashhad in Iran and
> at Najaf and Karbala in Iraq.
> At the end of training, the student is certified as being
> able to perform ijtihad, the process of deriving judgments on points
> of religious law through the processes of usul al-fiqh. Such a person
> is called a
> mujtahid, a rank which relatively few Shi`i `ulama reach.
> In Shi`i theory, although taqlid in relation to the fundamentals
> of religion is forbidden (see 3.a above), it is necessary and obligatory
> that each Shi`i who has not undertaken the necessary training to become
> a mujtahid must follow (taqlid) the judgment of someone who
> has in matters of the application of religious law (furu` ad-din).
> A mujtahid whose legal guidance is followed by a significant number
> of believers becomes a marja` at-taqlid (reference point for imitation)
> or, more commonly today, Ayatu'llah (sign of God).
> 
> 5. Schools and sects of Twelver Shi`ism.
> Although various other Shi`i sects have been described above, Twelver Shi`ism
> is itself divided into a number of schools:
> 
> a. Usuli. This school is the one to which the majority
> of Twelver Shi`is today belong. It is founded on certain principles (usul)
> of jurisprudence that allow the `ulama to deliver judgments on almost any
> question that comes before them. This school was revived in the 18th century
> by Vahid Bihbihani (1706-1792), but its current practices are based on
> the legal norms evolved by Shaykh Murtada Ansari (1799-1864).
> 
> b. Akhbari. This school holds that legal rulings can only
> be given by the `ulama in cases where there are clear precedents established
> by the Traditions (akhbar) of the Imams. It was revived by Mulla
> Muhammad Amin Astarabadi (d. 1623) as a reaction to the great freedom given
> to jurists by the Usuli school. During the 17th and early 18th centuries,
> it became the predominant school in most parts of the Shi`i world but was
> then driven back by the resurgent Usulis under Bihbihani.
> 
> c. Shaykhi. Whereas the Usuli majority and the Akhbaris
> disagree about jurisprudence, the Usulis and the Shaykhis disagree about
> doctrine. The Shaykhis assert that many of the doctrines that in orthodox
> circles are understood literally--for example, the concepts of Heaven,
> Hell, Resurrection, and the return of the Twelfth Imam--are all concepts
> that are to be fulfilled at the level of spiritual imagery (see "Shaykhism.2.c"
> and "Return.2").
> 
> 6. The Bahá'í Faith and Shi`ism.
> a. Shi`i interactions with the Babi and Bahá'í Faiths.
> From the earliest days, the Shi`i `ulama have opposed the Babi and Bahá'í
> Faiths. Apart from the obvious challenge to the authority of the `ulama
> posed by the new religion, there were a number of doctrinal disagreements
> (see "Islam.3"). Shoghi Effendi condemns the Shi`i `ulama strongly and
> predicts their downfall (PDC 8-95). He refers to Bahá'u'lláh's statement
> that were it not for them, the Babi Faith would have triumphed in Iran
> in two years (PDC 85).
> 
> b. Bahá'í teachings concerning Shi`ism. The Babi and Bahá'í
> scriptures support the Shi`i interpretation of the events of early Islamic
> history by upholding `Ali's claim to the position of religious and temporal
> leadership after Muhammad, as well as the succession of Imams among the
> descendants of `Ali. `Abdu'l-Bahá, for example (in Lawh-i-Hizar-Bayti),
> writes that the words of `Umar, the second Caliph: "The Book of God is
> enough for us" (said in refutation of `Ali's claim), undermined the very
> foundations of Islam and brought bloodshed and discord to the Muslim world.
> They became, metaphorically, the weapon that killed the Imam `Ali; they
> caused the death of the Imam Husayn at Karbala; and they even became the
> bullets that pierced the breast of the Bab, the chains around the neck
> of Bahá'u'lláh, and the cause of his exile.
> One major point of disagreement is the Twelfth Imam. Bahá'u'lláh
> and `Abdu'l-Bahá considered the story of the occultation of the Twelfth
> Imam to have been a pious fraud conceived by a number of the leading Shi`is
> in order to maintain the coherence and continuity of the Shi`i movement
> after the death of Hasan al-`Askari (See MAS 1:7, 2:50-52; 4:90-91).
> 
> c. Shi`ism as a background for the Bahá'í Faith. The Bahá'í
> Faith was born into a Shi`i environment in Iran and almost all of the early
> converts were from Shi`i Islam. Thus, in the same way that a number of
> Jewish institutions were grown up within Christianity, some of the institutions
> of Shi`ism were carried forward into the Bahá'í Faith. Some of the teachings
> of the Bahá'í Faith are also to be found in embryonic form in Shi`i Islam.
> There is no need to mention in detail the more obvious
> parallels such as the daily obligatory prayer, the fast, religious taxes,
> and the pilgrimage since these institutions are also to be found in Sunni
> Islam and indeed in other religions. However, the Shi`i practice of visiting
> the shrines of the Imams and the family of the Imams, together with the
> reading of Tablets of Visitation, finds parallels with the Bahá'í "pilgrimage"
> to Haifa and the reading of Tablets of Visitation at the shrines there
> (see "Pilgrimage and Visitation" and "Visitation, Tablets of"). Bahá'ís
> also visit the graves of prominent Bahá'ís and locations associated with
> Bahá'í history.
> The Bahá'í teaching of the independent investigation of
> truth is to be found in embryonic form in the Shi`i prohibition of taqlid,
> blind imitation, in matters of the principles of religion. Based on certain
> passages from the Qur'an (5:104-5; 17:36; 21:52-4), Shi`is maintain that
> each person has the obligation to investigate the fundamentals of religious
> truth (see 3.a above) for himself or herself. An embryonic form of the
> Bahá'í teaching of the harmony of religion and science can be seen in the
> Shi`i insistence that all theological statements should be compatible with
> rationality as well as with revealed truth (Shii theology was much influenced
> by the rationalist Mu`tazili theology). Even in areas such as the equality
> of men and women, the Shi`i legal code allows women more rights in such
> matters as inheritance, than Sunni law (this being probably related to
> the important position of Fatimah through whom the line of Imams was descended
> from the Prophet).
> Some Shi`i concepts have been taken and radically re-interpreted
> in the Bahá'í scripture. For example, the Bab in the Persian Bayan (q.v.)
> and Bahá'u'lláh in the Book of Certitude (q.v.) re-interpret the concept
> of raj`a, return (see above), to refer to a typological or archetypal
> return of the Imam Mahdi, Imam Husayn, and the others as the key persons
> in Babi and Bahá'í history (see "Return").
> One last important area in which the Bahá'í Faith has
> a significant precedent in Shi`ism is in the concept of the Covenant (q.v.).
> Each Imam was considered to have appointed his successor by verbal designation.
> This process is called in the Shi`i sources the formation of a "Covenant"
> (ahd, mithaq).
> 
> d. Shi`i prophecy and the Babi and Bahá'í Faiths. A great
> deal has been written by both the central figures of the Babi and Bahá'í
> Faith and by their followers seeking to establish that the Bab and Bahá'u'lláh
> fulfill the Shi`i prophecies relating to the appearance of the Hidden Twelfth
> Imam and the return of the Imam Husayn. These prophecies are held to have
> predicted the time, place, and manner of the coming of the Bab and Bahá'u'lláh,
> as well as their names, the opposition that they would encounter, and some
> of the events that would occur in that time. (Some of these prophecies
> are translated in Momen 166-170).
> 
> Bibliography: For an overall view
> of Shi`i Islam, see M. Momen, Introduction to Shi`i Islam: the history
> and doctrines of Twelver Shi`ism (Oxford and New Haven: George Ronald,
> 1985. Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i, Shi`ite Islam (tr. Seyyed Hossein
> Nasr), Persian Studies Series, Albany: State University of New York Press,
> 1975 is a summary of Shi`i history and belief by an eminent Shi`i philosopher.
> Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Shi`ism: Doctrines, Thought, and Spirituality
> and Expectation of the Millennium: Shi`ism in History (Albany: State
> University of New York Press, 1988) are collections of excerpts from writings
> of Shi`i scholars and some academics. On the Occultation of the Twelfth
> Imam see A. A. Sachedina,
> Islamic Messianism: the idea of the Mihdi
> in Twelver Shi`ism Albany, 1981; J.M. Hussain, The Occultation of
> the Twelfth Imam London, 1982. On the concepts of martyrdom and redemptive
> suffering in Shi`i Islam, see Mahmoud Ayoub, Redemptive Suffering in
> Islam, a study of the devotional aspects of `Ashura in Twelver Shi`ism,
> The Hague: Mouton, 1978. On Iranian Shi`ism, see A. Bausani, Persia
> Religiosa Milan: Saggiatore, 1959; H. Corbin, En Islam iranien,
> 4 vols., Paris: Gallimard, 1971-2. On the `ulama, see R. Mottahedeh, The
> Mantle of the Prophet: religion and politics in Iran London, 1986.
> 
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> — *Shi'i Islam (Used by permission of the curator)*