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Abstract
This dissertation undertakes a comparative survey of Shiʿi revolutionary movements from the uprising of al-Mukhtār b. Abī ʿUbayd (d. 67/687) and the origins of the Abbasid revolution through to the rise of the Fatimid Empire, the coming to power of the Buyids, and the beginnings of the “Shiʿi Centuries” at the turn of the 4th Hijri / 10th Common Era century—a period that witnessed multiple expansionary Shiʿi dynasties rule from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean through to the Levant, Arabian Peninsula, Persian Gulf, Iranian Plateau, and Central Asia. This dissertation argues that the phenomenon of secret underground Shiʿi organizations, daʿwa (missionary) institutions, and the occultation of hidden imams were adopted by a wide range of Shiʿi and pro-ʿAlid movements during a period of “Shiʿi confessional ambiguity” by movements that were often intentionally indistinguishable from one another due to their underground organization and that later branched into Zaydi, Twelver, Ismaʿili, and other Shiʿi denominations. The roots of underground revolutionary Shiʿism can largely be dated to the revolt of al-Mukhtār and the Kaysāniyya Shiʿi movement that emerged from his supporters who claimed that their Imam, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya (d. 81/700-1), went into occultation. It could also be seen over 200 years later in the case of the hidden Fatimid Imam al-Mahdī, the last of the line of hidden imams or “al-Aʿimmat al-Mastūrīn” of that period in the Fatimid literature who emerged in 297/909, and prior to him with Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, the eleventh Imam in the Twelver Shiʿi tradition, who went into occultation in 260/874, as well as the hidden (mustatir) “proto-Zaydi” Imams, including Yaḥyā b. ʿAbdallāh (d. 189/805) and al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhim (d. 246/860), among many other cases detailed in this study.
The study argues that while generic Shiʿi sectarian identity was an early phenomenon and distinct ʿAlid political loyalties could be found during the very early years following the passing of the Prophet Muḥammad, intra-Shiʿi sectarian divisions did not form until later. Specifically, it was not until after the “Anarchy at Samarra” in 247 Hijri / 861 Common Era—occurring during what some scholars have termed the “insipient decline” of the Abbasid Empire—that the diverse factions and family lines within Shiʿism began their gradual transformation into distinct exclusive sects and interpretations of Shiʿi Islam. The distinction between processes of sectarian crystallization for Shiʿism in the early Islamic period, as I argue, therefore, was connected to the processes of state building, ʿAlid coalition formation, consecration of exclusive genealogical lineages, and dissident revolutionary underground network development undertaken by Shiʿi groups across the Near East up until the late 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th centuries. Once imperial repressive pressures relatively eased during the middle Abbasid period, the frequency of hidden Shiʿi Imams declined and previously underground competitive pressures emerged out into the open between Shiʿi factional networks and familial ʿAlid lines claiming universal sovereignty through the Imamate and restricted lineages that took on more clear exclusive claims to legitimacy. This contentious process of previously underground Shi’i factional competition, in turn, manifested in the proliferation of various exclusionary Shiʿi dynastic sovereign governments and the emergence of distinct Shiʿi sectarian crystallization.