From Khalaf (beginning of the 4th/10th century?) to Ḥasan al-Ṣabbāḥ (d. 518 H/1124 CE): Ismailism in Rayy before and under the Seljūqs
In the last decades of the 3rd/9th and the first decades of the 4th/10th centuries, the city of Rayy seems to have been an important center of Ismāʿīlī missionary activity not only in West Persia, but also in Mesopotamia, in Khurāsān and the southern region of the Caspian Sea (Daylam). Organized as...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
De Gruyter
2016
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| In: |
Der Islam
Year: 2016, Volume: 93, Issue: 2, Pages: 433-459 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | In the last decades of the 3rd/9th and the first decades of the 4th/10th centuries, the city of Rayy seems to have been an important center of Ismāʿīlī missionary activity not only in West Persia, but also in Mesopotamia, in Khurāsān and the southern region of the Caspian Sea (Daylam). Organized as a secret society, the Qarmaṭian mission in Rayy, preparing the advent of the Mahdī Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl, left only a few traces in Ismāʿīlī sources, but has been described by hostile authors trying to prove that the Ismāʿīlī movement is the offshoot of an old Zoroastrian conspiracy against Islam. When, during the 4th/10th century, the daʿwa in Rayy recognized the authority of the Fāṭimids in Cairo, it still remained a secret organisation shrouded in obscurity. Dating from this period, however, we have an important document, al-Mīmadhī’s Risāla ilā jamāʿat ahl al-Rayy. The seize of Rayy by the Seljūqs in 446/1054 coincides with the birth of Ḥasan al-Ṣabbāḥ, the founder of Nizārī Ismailism, who profoundly reformed the Fāṭimid doctrine and transformed the daʿwa into an activist and military movement whose aim it was to create a Nizārī state inside the Seljūq empire. |
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| ISSN: | 1613-0928 |
| Contains: | In: Der Islam
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/islam-2016-0036 |