Shii News – ‘A Lost Shīʿite Sect: The Faṭḥiyya’
Sindawi, K.,(2015). “ A Lost Shīʿite Sect: The Faṭḥiyya: Name, Origins, Doctrine” , al-Karmil: Studies in Language and Literature. 34, 57- 107. (Arabic).
Abstract
This study aims to present an extinct Shīʿite group, called the Faṭḥiyya. It emerged after the year 148/765. Its adherents called for giving the post of imam to ʿAbdullāh al-Afṭaḥ after the death of the latter’s father, the sixth imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, because he was the imam’s eldest son and had participated in the affairs of the imamate, in light of the constant supervision by the Abbasid rulers of the imam Mūsā al-Kāẓim. The study addresses the source of the name of the sect, the factors that led to its emergence, the political circumstances that helped it evolve, its most prominent personalities, its most important doctrinal principles and ideas, the places to which it spread and where it possessed influence. It also discusses the views towards it of the imams Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq and Mūsā al-Kāẓim and the dispute among Shiite scholars whether or not one should accept traditions in whose chain of transmission members of the Faṭḥiyya sect appeared. It turns out in fact that according to some Shiite scholars there are some transmitters among the Faṭḥiyya who are trustworthy in their transmissions despite the unacceptability of their doctrinal positions.
The study also discusses the “second Faṭḥiyya” which, according to al-Majlisī, is a continuation of the first and appeared after the death of the tenth imam ʿAlī al-Hādī in the year 260/874. That movement called for passing on ʿAlī al-Hādī’s position to his son Jaʿfar rather than to al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī.
Posted in: Field-specific (academic)- February 22, 2016
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