Preliminary Syllabus: SHI`ITE : Thought and History

Hartford Seminary

Fall 2015

Instructor: Dr. Sayed Ammar Nakhjavani

E-mail: [email protected]

Course Description:

This course will be based on the assumption that Islam is both a belief system and a world civilization. Therefore, all movements, sects and schools of thought will be treated as an integral part of Islam, broadly understood. The course will introduce Shi`ism as a general phenomenon within Muslim history, but will concentrate on Imami

Shi’ism, as it is the most developed and influential Shi’ite legal school (). We will study Shi’ism in Muslim history from its beginning to the present. We will examine primary texts in translation, and when possible, in original languages. We will also read and discuss a good sampling of secondary literature.

This is a graduate seminar that will be based on class participation and lectures.

Grading will be based on class attendance and participation, weekly readings and discussions, and a class presentation of an individual research of a topic that will be developed into a 12-15 page final term paper.

Grading:

Grades will be computed as follows: class participation, discussion and leading weekly book discussions 30%; class presentation of research topic 20%; and final term paper

50%.

Email Policy:

The instructor will use the official Hartsem student email addresses for all communications. Please check your Hartsem email account regularly.

Office Hours: Office hours will be determined by the needs and schedules of the students.

Required Readings:

1. Abu Mikhnaf, Lut ibn Yahya ibn Sa’id. (Hamid Mavani, trans. And ed.). Kitab Maqtal al-Husayn: Narrative of the Martyrdom of al-Husayn. Montreal: Privately Printed, 2002.

2. Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad . (David Streight, trans. And ed.). The Divine Guide in

Early Shi'ism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam. Albany, NY: State University of New

York Press, 1994.

3. Ayoub, Mahmoud. Redemptive Suffering in Islam: A Study of the Devotional Aspects of `Ashura’ in Twelver Shi`ism. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1978.

4. Bayhom-Daou, Tamima. Makers of the : Shaykh Mufid. Oxford, UK:

Oneworld Publications, 2005.

5. Crone, Patricia. God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam.

Cambridge University Press, 2003.

6. Daftary, Farhad. A Short History of the Ismailis. Edinburgh University Press, 1998.

7. Daftary, Farhad. The Study of Shi'i Islam: History, Theology and Law. I. B. Tauris,

2014.

8. Haider, Najam. Shi'i Islam: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 2014.

9. Hussain, Jassim M. The Occultation of the Twelfth : A Historical Background.

Muhammadi Trust of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1982.

10. Madelung, Wilferd. The Succession to Muḥammad: A Study of the Early .

Cambridge University Press, 1998.

11. Mavani, Hamid. Ayatullah Khomeini's Concept of Governance (Wilayat al-Faqih) and the Classical Shi‘i Doctrine of Imamate. Published online, 2011.

12. Modarressi, Hossein. Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shi’ite

Islam. Princeton, NJ: The Darwin Press, Inc., 1993.

13. Momen, Moojan. An Introduction to Shi’i Islam: The History and Doctrines of

Twelver

Shi’ism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.

14. Nasr, Seyyed Vali Reza. The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam will Shape the Future. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.

15. Newman, Andrew J. The Formative Period of Twelver Shi'ism: as Discourse

Between Qum and Baghdad. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000.

16. Sachedina, Abdulaziz A. Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the in Twelver

Shi’ism. Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1981.

17. Schmidtke, Sabine. The Theology of Al-ʻAllāma Al-Ḥillī. Berlin: K. Schwarz, 1991.

Recommended Readings:

1. al-Sistani, Ayatullah Ali al-Husayni. (Hamid Mavani, trans. And ed.).

Contemporary Legal Rulings in Shi’i Law. Montreal: Organization for the Advancement of Islamic Knowledge, 1996.

2. Amir-Moezzi, Mohammad Ali. The Spirituality of Shi'i Islam: Beliefs and Practices.

London: I.B. Tauris, 2011.

3. Arjomand, Said Amir. The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam. Chicago, IL:

University of Chicago Press, 1984.

4. Arjomand, Said Amir. The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in .

Oxford Paperbacks, 1989.

5. Bill, James A. and John Alden Williams. Roman Catholics and Shi’i Muslims: Prayer,

Passion, and Politics. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

6. Brunner, Ranie and Werner Ende, eds. The Twelver Shia in Modern Times: Religious

Culture and Political History. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001.

7. Corbin, Henry. Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis. London: The Institute of Ismaili

Studies Ltd., Kegan Paul Int’l with Islamic Publications, 1985.

8. Dabashi, Hamid. By What Authority? The Formation of Khomeini's Revolutionary

Discourse, 1964-1977. Social Compass. 1989.

9. Dakake, Maria. The Charismatic Community: Shi’ite Identity in Early Islam. Albany

NY: State University of New York Press, 2007.

10. Gleave, Robert. Conceptions of Authority in Iraqi Shiism: Baqir al-, Ha'iri and

Sistani on , and Marja'iyya, Theory, Culture and Society, vol. 24, no. 2,

2007, 59-78.

11. Gleave, Robert. Early Shi'i Hermeneutics: Some Exegetical Techniques Attributed to the Shi'i , in The Development of Method in Islamic Exegesis. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2012.

12. Gleave, Robert. Inevitable doubt: Two Theories of Shi'i Jurisprudence, Leiden, Brill

Academic Pub, 2000.

13. Gleave, Robert. Recent Research into the History of Early Shi'ism, History

Compass, vol. 7, no. 6, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2009, 1593-1605.

14. Gleave, Robert. Political aspects of modern Shi'i legal Discussions: Khumayni and

Khu'i on ijtihad and qada', Mediterranean Politics, vol. 7, no. iii, Routledge, 2002, 96-

116.

15. Halm, Heinz. Shi’a Islam: From Religion to Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Markus

Wiener, 1997.

16. ibn Musa al-Nawbakhti, al-Hasan. (Abbas Kadhim, trans. And ed.). SHI'A SECTS:

Kitab Firaq Al-Shi’a. ICAS PRESS LTD, 2007.

17. Jafri, S. Husain M. The Origins and Early Development of Shi’a Islam. Oxford, UK:

Oxford University Press, 2002.

18. Khumayni, Ayatu’llah Seyyid Ruhu’llah (Hamid Algar, trans. And ed.) Islam and

Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini. Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981.

19. Kohlberg, Etan. The Abu Basir tradition: Qur'anic verses on the merits of the Shi`a, in: Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought: Studies in Honor of Professor

Hossein Modarressi. 2013.

20. Kohlberg, Etan. Authoritative scriptures in early Imami Shi`ism, in: Les Retours Aux

Ecritures: Fondamentalismes Presents Et Passes. 1994.

21. Kohlberg, Etan. Belief and Law in Imami Shi`ism. Aldershot, Variorum Reprints,

Collected Studies CS. 1991.

22. Kohlberg, Etan. Early attestations of the term “Ithna-'ashariyya," in: Jerusalem

Studies in and Islam. 2000.

23. Kohlberg, Etan. Imam and community in the pre- Ghayba period, in: Authority and

Political Culture in Shi’ism. 1988.

24. Kholberg, Etan, ed. Shi’ism. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003.

25. Kohlberg, Etan. Shi`i views of the death of the Prophet , in: Medieval

Arabic Thought: Essays in Honour of Fritz Zimmermann. 2012.

26. Kohlberg, Etan. Taqiyya in Shi`a theology and religion, in: Secrecy and

Concealment: Studies in the History of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Religions.

1995.

27. Kohlberg, Etan. Western studies of Shi`a Islam, in: Shi’ism, Resistance, and

Revolution. 1987.

28. Madelung, Wilferd, and Sabine Schmidtke. Studies in Medieval Shi'ism. Farnham:

Ashgate Variorum, 2012.

29. Mavani, Hamid. (Abbas Ahmadvand, ed.). Crystallization of the Doctrine of

Imamate: The Theology of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and ‘ Hilli,” in Shi‘i

Historiography. I. B. Taurus and ICAS, 2015.

30. Mavani, Hamid. Religious Authority and Political Thought in Twelver Shi‘ism: From

Ali to Post-Khomeini. New York and London: Routledge, 2013.

31. Modarressi, Hossein. Tradition and Survival: A Bibliographical Survey of Early

Shi'ite Literature vol.1, 2003.

32. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, Hamid Dabashi and Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, eds.

Expectation of the Millennium: Shi’ism in History. Albany, NY: State University of New

York Press, 1988.

33. Newman, Andrew J. Fayd Al-Kashani and the Rejection of the Clergy/State Alliance:

Friday Prayer as Politics in the Safavid Period. The Most Learned of the Shiʿa. 2001.

34. Newman, Andrew J. Minority Reports: Twelver Shi`i Disputation and Authority the

Buyid Period. In The Study of Shi'i Islam: History, Theology and Law. I.B. Tauris, 2014.

35. Newman, Andrew J. The Myth of the Clerical Migration to Safawid Iran: Arab Shiite

Opposition to Ali Al-Karaki and Safawid Shiism. Die Welt Des 33.1, 1993.

36. Newman, Andrew J. and Anti-Sufism in Safavid Iran: The Authorship of the

"Hadiqat Al-Shia" Revisited. Iran 37, 1999.

37. Rizvi, Sajjad. Political Mobilization and the Shi'i Establishment. International Affairs, vol. 86, no. 6, Chatham House, 2010, 1299-1313.

38. Rizvi, Sajjad. Shi’ism in Bahrain: Marja'iyya and politics. Orient, vol. 50, no. 3, 2009,

16-24.

39. Saanei, Ayatullah Yusef (Hamid Mavani, trans. And ed.). Paradigm Shift in Twelver

Shi‘i Legal Theory ( Uṣūl Al- ). The Muslim World, 2009.

40. Sachedina, Abdulaziz A. The Just Ruler in Shīʻite Islam: The Comprehensive

Authority of the Jurist in Imamite Jurisprudence. New York: Oxford University Press,

1988.

41. Tabataba’i, ‘Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husain. (Seyyed Hoseyn Nasr, trans. And ed.). Shi’ite Islam. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1975.

42. Takim, Liyakat. Ijtihad: A Brief History of Ijtihad in Twelver Shi’ism.

43. Takim, Liyakat. The Origins and Evaluations of Hadith Transmitters in Shi`i

Biographical Literature.

44. Takim, Liyakat. Shi'ism in America. New York: New York University Press, 2009.

For further research and additional readings, please consult the extensive library of

Shi`ite sources on line: www.al-islam.org and http://www.noorlib.ir/View/en/Default

All required books will be assigned for weekly readings, where two students will introduce a book and lead a discussion of it. It is of course assumed that all students will also have read each book in the assigned, and not listed order. This is an important part of your class participation, which will constitute 30% of your final grade.

Course Outline:

September 17

I - Background

A. Islam: Abrahamic legacy

B. Abu Talib

II - Formative history of the Muslim Ummah

A. The Prophet Muhammad and the theocratic community

B. The end of theocratic rule and the beginning of the Caliphate

C. The normative or “rightly guided” first four Caliphs

III - The beginnings of Shi’i history and the

A. Succession of Hassan son of Ali

B. Treaty with Muawiyah

Readings:

Amir-Moezzi - The Divine Guide in Early Shi’ism

Crone - God's Caliph

Madelung - The Succession to Muḥammad

Momen - An Introduction to Shi’i Islam (ch. 2-5)

October 8

IV – The tragedy of Karbala, and its devotional and ritualistic aspects

A. Poetic portrayals of the tragedy

B. The ziyarah or spiritual visitation to the Imam’s tomb

C. Memorial services

D. Visual portrayals, the Persian Passion Play (A video of Shi’i rituals will be

shown)

V - The Shia Imams after Karbala

A. Ali ibn Husayn, Zayn al-‘Abidin (son of Husayn)

B. Muhammad ibn Ali, al-Baqir (son of Ali)

C. Ja'far ibn Muhammad, as-Sadiq (son of Muhammad)

VI - (Dissimulation): A tool for survival

A. Quranic tradition

B. Hadith debates concerning taqiya

C. The Wikala

Readings:

Abu Mikhnaf - Kitab Maqtal al-Husayn

Ayoub - Redemptive Suffering (ch. 4-6)

Hussain - The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam

Kitab al Irshad (Imams 4-6)

October 29

VII - Shia sects and the early Shia extremist movements: penitents, avengers and rebellious mawali

A. The Kaysaniyyah

B. The Khattabiyyah

C. Other temporary fringe movements

VIII - The Isma`iliyyah

A. The rise and pre-Fatimid developments

B. The Fatimid period

C. The sect

D. Post Fatimid developments

IX - The Ithna`ashariyyah or Twelver Shia

A. The period of the Imams to the end of the (al-ghaybah al-

sughra) of the Twelfth Imam

B. Beginning of the Greater Occultation (al-ghaybah al-kubra): crisis and

consolidation

Readings:

Daftary - A Short History of the Ismailis (from pg. 21 to the end)

Hussain - The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam ibn Musa al-Nawbakhti - Kitab Firaq Al-Shi’a

Modarressi - Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shi’ite Islam

Sachedina - Islamic Messianism

November 19

X – Development of the Religious Sciences

A. The Qur’an and in the view of the Shi’ah and rise of Shi’i hadith: the

Four Books and other sources

B. Jurisprudence

C. Theology

D. Philosophy and

XI - Development of Shi’i centers of learning

A. Hilla

B. Baghdad, and Najaf

C. Reyy, Qom, Shiraz, and Isfahan

Readings:

Bayhom-Daou - Shaykh Mufid

Newman - The Formative Period of Twelver Shi’ism

Schmidtke - The Theology of Al-ʻAllāma Al-Ḥillī

December 10

XII - Safavid Iran [1600] to the 20th Century and Pahlavi Era

A. Consolidation of Shi’ite power under the Safavids and the role of the `’

B. Post Safavid developments: the religious establishment and the authority of

the supreme Mujtahid or Marja`

XIII - Iranian Islamic Revolution, 1979

A. Shi`ism in the twentieth century, before the Revolution

B. The Islamic Revolution and after: whither Shi`ism?

Readings:

Arjomand - The Turban for the Crown

Dabashi - Theology of Discontent

Khomeini - Islam and Revolution (pg. 27-167)

Mavani - Ayatullah Khomeini's Concept of Governance and the Classical Shi‘i

Doctrine of Imamate

Nasr - The Shia Revival