Agents of the Hidden Imam: Forging Twelver Shi'ism, 850-950 CE

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- 1. The Rise of the Agents in the late Imamate (830-874 CE) -- 2. The Crisis before the Crisis: The Feud between Imamic Contenders and the Power of the Agents -- 3. Crisis! The Mother, the Brother, the Concubine and the Politics of Inheritance -- 4. The Agents of the Nāḥiya in the Era of Perplexity -- 5. The Creation of an Envoy: The Rise of Abū Jaʻfar al-ʻAmrī -- 6. Rise and Fall: Ibn Rawḥ, Shalmaghānī, and Rise and Collapse of the Envoyship -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Sources -- Studies.

"The Twelvers are currently the most populous Shiʻi denomination and a hugely influential force within the diverse and complicated history of Islam, and yet relatively few careful critical studies have been made into the complex and contradictory evidence for this foundational moment of Twelver Shiʻism. Central to this story are the agents of the hidden Imam who created the conditions of possibility for the establishment and canonization of this defining doctrine of Twelver Shi'ism: the Occultation ghayba of the twelfth Imam. I aim to show how the direct leadership of the Imams collapsed, how it was replaced by the authority of agents of non-Imamic lineage,9 and why the leadership of the agents collapsed in turn, only to be canonized as a key part of Twelver doctrine"-- Provided by publisher.