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About the Ismaili Imamat
Islam:
General Introduction
The last in the line
of the Abrahamic family of revealed traditions, Islam emerged
in the early decades of the seventh century. Its message,
addressed in perpetuity, calls upon a people that are wise,
a people of reason, to seek in their daily life, in the
rhythm of nature, in the ordering of the universe, in their
own selves, in the very diversity of humankind, signs that
point to the Creator and Sustainer of all creation, Who
alone is worthy of their submission.* It was revealed to
Prophet Muhammad (s.a.s.) in Arabia from where its influence
spread rapidly and strongly, bringing within its fold, in
just over a century after its birth, inhabitants of the
lands stretching from the central regions of Asia to the
Iberian peninsula in Europe. A major world religion, Islam
today counts a quarter of the globe's population among its
adherents, bound to their faith by the affirmation of the
witness that there is no divinity except God, and Muhammad
is His messenger.
| 1The
Holy Quran 2:164; 3:190-191; 30:22 etc; 51:20-21.
2The
Holy Quran 2:143; 2: 256; 109:2-6; 16:125; 49:13;
107:1-7; 42:40, 43. |
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Muslims are those
who submit to God. They are a community of the middle path,
of balance, which is taught to avoid extremes, to enjoin
good and forbid evil, using the best of arguments. Such
a community eschews compulsion, leaves each to their own
faith and encourages all to vie for goodness: it is the
nobility of conduct which endears one in the sight of God.
In its pristine sense, Islam refers to the inner struggle
of the individual, waged singly and in consonance with fellow
believers, to engage in earthly life, and yet, to rise above
its trappings in search of the Divine. But that quest is
only meaningful in tandem with the effort to do good for
the kin, the orphan, the needy, the vulnerable; to be just,
honest, humble, tolerant and forgiving.**
The spiritual dimension
of Islam varies from individual to individual according
to their inner capacities as conditioned by the external
environment. Equally in the collective domain, a divergence
of views has persisted, since the demise of the Prophet,
among the pious and the learned, on what constitutes the
best community. The very comprehensiveness of the vision
of Islam, as it has unfolded over time and in a multiplicity
of cultures, has rendered a monolithic conception of the
ideal society difficult. Nevertheless, whatever the cultural
milieu in which Islam takes root, its central impulse of
submission to the Divine translates into patterns of lifeways
and acts of devotion, which impart a palpable impress of
an Islamic piety to whichever spheres Muslims occupy.
Shia
Islam: Historical Origins
Within its fundamental
unity, Islam has elicited, over the ages, varying responses
to its primal message calling upon man to surrender himself
to God. Historically, these responses have been expressed
as two main perspectives within Islam: the Shia and the
Sunni. Each encompasses a rich diversity of spiritual temperaments,
juridical preferences, social and psychological dispositions,
political entities and cultures. Ismailism is one such response
integral to the overall Shia perspective which seeks to
comprehend the true meaning of the Islamic message, and
trace a path to its fulfilment.
All Muslims affirm
the unity of God (tawhid) as the first and foremost article
of the faith, followed by that of Divine guidance through
God's chosen messengers, of whom Prophet Muhammad was the
last. The verbal attestation of the absolute unity and transcendence
of God and of His choice of Muhammad as His Messenger constitutes
the shahada, the profession of faith, and the basic creed
of all Muslims.
During his lifetime,
Prophet Muhammad was both the recipient of Divine revelation
and its expounder. His death marked the conclusion of the
line of prophecy, and the beginning of the critical debate
on the question of the rightful leadership to continue his
mission for the future generations. The debate ensued as
a result of the absence of consensus, in the nascent Muslim
community, on the succession to the Prophet.
A variety of viewpoints
on the nature of the succession continued to be expressed
before being consolidated into systematic doctrine, propounded
by legal scholars and theologians, towards the end of the
ninth century. From the beginning, however, there was a
clear distinction of views on this matter between those,
known as shi'at Ali or the "party" of Ali, who believed
that the Prophet had designated Ali, his cousin, as his
successor, and those groups which followed the political
leadership of the caliphs. These latter groups eventually
coalesced into the majoritarian, Sunni branch, comprising
several different juridical schools.
In essence, the Sunni
position was that the Prophet had not nominated a successor,
as the revelation, the Quran, was sufficient guidance for
the community. Nevertheless, there developed a tacit recognition
that the spiritual-moral authority was to be exercised by
the ulama, a group of specialists in matters of religious
law, the shariah. The task of the ulama came to be understood
as that of merely deducing appropriate rules of conduct
on the basis of the Quran, the Hadith or the Prophetic tradition
and several other subordinate criteria. The role of the
caliph, theoretically elected by the community, was to maintain
a realm in which the principles and practices of Islam were
safeguarded and propagated.
The Shia or "party"
of Ali, already in existence during the lifetime of the
Prophet, maintained that while the revelation ceased at
the Prophet's death, the need for spiritual and moral guidance
of the community, through an ongoing interpretation of the
Islamic message, continued. They firmly believed that the
legacy of Prophet Muhammad could only be entrusted to a
member of his own family, in whom the Prophet had invested
his authority through designation. That person was Ali,
Prophet Muhammad's cousin, the husband of his daughter and
only surviving child, Fatima, and his first supporter who
had devoutly championed the cause of Islam and had earned
the Prophet's trust and admiration. Their espousal of the
right of Ali and that of his descendants, through Fatima,
to the leadership of the community was rooted, above all,
in their understanding of the Quran and its concept of qualified
and rightly guided leadership, as reinforced by Prophetic
traditions. The most prominent among the latter were part
of the Prophet's sermon at a place called Ghadir Khumm,
following his farewell pilgrimage, designating Ali as his
successor, and his testament that he was leaving behind
him "the two weighty things", namely the Quran and his progeny,
for the future guidance of his community.
Among the early Shia
were the pious Quran readers, several close Companions of
the Prophet, tribal chiefs of distinction and other pious
Muslims who had rendered great services to Islam. Their
foremost teacher and guide was Ali himself who, in his sermons
and letters, and in his admonition to the leaders of the
tribe of Quraysh, reminded Muslims of his family's right,
in heredity, to the leadership for all time "as long as
there is among us one who adheres to the religion of truth".
The Shia, therefore,
attest that after the Prophet, the authority for the guidance
of the community was vested in Ali. The Sunni, on the other
hand, revere Ali as the last of the four rightly-guided
caliphs, the first three being Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman.
Just as it was the prerogative of the Prophet to designate
his successor, so it is the absolute prerogative of each
Imam of the time to designate his successor from among his
male progeny. Hence, according to Shia doctrine, the Imamat
continues by heredity in the Prophet's progeny through Ali
and Fatima.
Evolution
of Communities of Interpretation
In time, the Shia
were sub-divided. The Ismailis are the second largest Shia
Muslim community. The Ismailis and what eventually came
to be known as the Ithna ashari or Twelver Shia parted ways
over the succession to the great, great grandson of Ali
and Fatima, Imam Jafar as-Sadiq, who died in the year 765.
The Ithna asharis transferred their allegiance to as-Sadiq's
youngest son Musa al-Kazim and after him, in lineal descent,
to Muhammad al-Mahdi, their twelfth Imam who, they believe,
is in occultation and will reappear to dispense perfect
order and justice. Led by mujtahids, the Ithna asharis are
the largest Shia Muslim community, and the majority of the
population in Iran.
The Ismailis gave
their allegiance to Imam Jafar as-Sadiq's eldest son Ismail,
from whom they derive their name. Throughout their history,
the Ismailis have been led by a living, hereditary Imam.
They trace the line of Imamat in hereditary succession from
Ismail to His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan, who is their
present, 49th Imam in direct lineal descent from Prophet
Muhammad through Ali and Fatima.
There was also divergent
growth among the Sunnis. From the early decades, various,
embryonic systems of law began to emerge in response to
concrete situations of life, reflecting initially the influence
of regional custom in the way the Quran was interpreted.
Eventually, these were consolidated into four major schools,
which came to command the allegiance of the majority of
Sunni adherents.
The history and evolution
of Islam, thus, witnessed the growth of different communities
of interpretation with their respective schools of jurisprudence.
However, whatever the differences between the Shia and the
Sunni or among their sub-divisions, they never amounted
to such fundamental a divergence over theology or dogma
as to result into separate religions. On the other hand,
in the absence of an established church in Islam, and an
institutionalized method of pronouncing on dogma, a proper
reading of history reveals the inappropriateness of referring
to the Shia-Sunni divide, or to interpretational differences
within each branch, in the frame of an orthodoxy-heterodoxy
dichotomy, or of applying the term "sect" to any Shia or
Sunni community.
Principles
of Shiism
The essence of Shiism
lies in the desire to search for the true meaning of the
revelation in order to understand the purpose of human existence
and its destiny. This true, spiritual meaning can never
be fettered by the bounds of time, place or the letter of
its form. It is to be comprehended through the guidance
of the Imam of the time, who is the inheritor of the Prophet's
authority, and the trustee of his legacy. A principal function
of the Imam is to enable the believers to go beyond the
apparent or outward form of the revelation in search of
its spirituality and intellect. A believer who sincerely
submits to the Imam's guidance may potentially attain the
knowledge of self. The tradition attributed to both the
Prophet and Imam Ali: "He who knows himself, knows his Lord",
conveys the essence of this relationship between the Imam
and his follower. The Shia thus place obedience to the Imams
after that to God and the Prophet by virtue of the command
in the Quran for Muslims to obey those vested with authority.
The succession of
the line of prophecy by that of Imamat ensures the balance
between the shariah or the exoteric aspect of the faith,
and its esoteric, spiritual essence. Neither the exoteric
nor the esoteric obliterates the other. While the Imam is
the path to a believer's inward, spiritual elevation, he
is also the authority who makes the shariah relevant according
to the needs of time and universe. The inner, spiritual
life in harmony with the exoteric, is a dimension of the
faith that finds acceptance among many communities in both
branches of Islam.
Intellect
and Faith
The intellect plays
a central role in Shia tradition. Indeed, the principle
of submission to the Imam's guidance, explicitly derived
from the revelation, is considered essential for nurturing
and developing the gift of intellect whose role in Shiism
is elevated as an important facet of the faith. Consonant
with the role of the intellect is the responsibility of
individual conscience, both of which inform the Ismaili
tradition of tolerance embedded in the injunction of the
Quran: There is no compulsion in religion.
In Shia Islam, the
role of the intellect has never been perceived within a
confrontational mode of revelation versus reason, the context
which enlivened the debate, during the classical age of
Islam, between the rationalists who gave primacy to reason,
and the traditionalists who opposed such primacy without,
however, denying a subordinate role for reason in matters
of faith.
The Shia tradition,
rooted in the teachings of Imams Ali and Jafar as-Sadiq,
emphasizes the complementarity between revelation and intellectual
reflection, each substantiating the other. This is the message
that the Prophet conveys in a reported tradition: "We (the
Prophets) speak to people in the measure of their intelligences".
The Imams Ali and Jafar as-Sadiq expounded the doctrine
that the Quran addresses different levels of meaning: the
literal, the alluded esoteric purport, the limit as to what
is permitted and what is forbidden, and the ethical vision
which God intends to realise through man, with Divine support,
for an integral moral society. The Quran thus offers the
believers the possibility, in accordance with their own
inner capacities, to derive newer insights to address the
needs of time.
An unwavering belief
in God combined with trust in the liberty of human will
finds a recurring echo in the sermons and sayings of the
Imams. Believers are asked to weigh their actions with their
own conscience. None other can direct a person who fails
to guide and warn himself, while there is Divine help for
those who exert themselves on the right path. In the modern
period, this Alid view of Islam as a thinking, spiritual
faith continues to find resonance in the guidance of the
present Imam and his immediate predecessor. Aga Khan III
describes Islam as a natural religion, which values intellect,
logic and empirical experience. Religion and science are
both endeavours to understand, in their own ways, the mystery
of God's creation. A man of faith who strives after truth,
without forsaking his worldly obligations, is potentially
capable of rising to the level of the company of the Prophet's
family.
The present Imam
has often spoken about the role of the intellect in the
realm of the faith. Appropriately, he made the theme a centrepiece
of his two inaugural addresses at the Aga Khan University:
"In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that
revealed through the Holy Prophet and that which man discovers
by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve
any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind
is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no
balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers. Indeed,
one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that
creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific
and other endeavours, God has opened, and continues to open,
new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation".
Muslims need not
be apprehensive, he said, of these continuing journeys of
the mind to comprehend the universe of God's creation, including
one's own self. The tendency to restrict academic inquiry
to the study of past accomplishments was at variance with
the belief in the timeless relevance of the Islamic message.
"Our faith has never been restricted to one place or one
time. Ever since its revelation, the fundamental concept
of Islam has been its universality and the fact that this
is the last revelation, constantly valid, and not petrified
into one period of man's history or confined to one area
of the world."
Crossing the frontiers
of knowledge through scientific and other endeavours, and
facing up to the challenges of ethics posed by an evolving
world is, thus, seen as a requirement of the faith. The
Imam's authoritative guidance provides a liberating, enabling
framework for an individual's quest for meaning and for
solutions to the problems of life. An honest believer accepts
the norms and ethics of the faith which guide his quest,
recognises his own inner capacities and knows that when
in doubt he should seek the guidance of the one vested with
authority who, in Shia tradition, is the Alid imam of the
time from the Prophet's progeny.
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