Download PDF | (Islamic history and civilization 91) Abd Allāh ibn Saba_ Anthony, Sean W. - The Caliph and the Heretic_ Ibn Sabaʼ and the Origins of Shīʻism-Brill (2012).
368 Pages
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book represents a revised version of my 2009 University of Chicago dissertation. I must, of course, acknowledge those foundations and institutions that provided considerable financial support during the writing of this work: the Martin Marty Center at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago and also the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation. However, it is the faces of the scholars and colleagues who aided and encouraged me along the way that are dearest to me.
Indeed, it was my great fortune to have labored on this project from the very outset under an amazing group of scholars who dedicated a truly humbling amount of their time and energies to the project’s refinement. Firstly, Professor Wadad al-Qadi’s indefatigable dedication to the project accompanied and inspired me throughout, from its inception until its current form. In my mind and heart, she will always be without a peer as my advisor, editor, and (most of all) mentor. A great deal of thanks is also due to Professor Fred Donner, who contributed a great deal to the project as one its principal readers and, in particular, as a fellow compatriot in fighting the good fight to decipher the less-than-ideal Arabic prose of Sayf ibn 'Umar.
I was also quite honored to benefit from the guidance, critiques, and formidable erudition of Professor Wilferd Madelung, who kindly offered his considerable insights as a reader on my dissertation committee while serving as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago. Many others deserve many thanks as well, such as Professor Taheera Qutbuddin, who aided me in the project as it got off the ground, and Professor Patricia Crone, who was always generous with both her insights and work during our conversations and correspondences. Matthew Pierce aided me immensely to improve the final version of the book. A special note of thanks and appreciation must be offered to the 2007-2008 fellows at the Marty Martin Center, with whom I shared my work and who shared their work with me in fruitful and stimulating discussions.
In this regard, I must express special appreciation for and gratitude to the seminar’s irreplaceable and brilliant master of ceremonies, Professor William Schweiker. A note of thanks must be directed to Professor Margaret Mitchell, who encouraged me for her seminar on early Christian history to write a study on Sayf ibn 'Umar’s curious account of the Paul the Apostle, an account that would inexorably lead me to down the path towards ‘Abdallah ibn Saba’. My wife Catherine has been a constant source of support throughout the creation of this book and sacrificed much to see that my labors came to fruition. Her love and the orneriness of our children—Sawim, Suraya, and Julius—kept me sane throughout the times of leanness apd hardship and kept me focused throughout times of plenty.
INTRODUCTION
This is a study of the sect known as the Saba’iya, a sect traditionally classified by early and medieval Muslim heresiographers, regardless of sectarian loyalties, as the original manifestation of so-called extremist Shfism (al-shia al-ghaliya) and even the very fount of Shfite belief itself. This study is equally concerned with the legends surrounding the sect’s infamous, founding personality, most widely known as ‘Abd Allah ibn Saba’, or simply “Ibn Saba”. At first glance, this sect and its eponymous founder may seem to belong to only the most obscure and arcane corners of Islamic history and, therefore, to be of purely antiquarian interest. As fate would have it, however, the Sabaiya and Ibn Saba stand at the heart of a host of the most salient and intractable problems of early Islamic historiography.
This is in part because Ibn Saba is a fixture of Islam’s earliest years—the era that is, not without some irony, referred to simultaneously as the era of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs (al-khulafa al-rashidun) and the era the First Civil War (alfitna al-kubra). Inextricably linked to this formative period, Ibn Saba’ and the Saba’iya remain deeply entangled within the web of the historiographical enigmas associated with writing the history of Islamic origins. Yet, the historical importance of the sect and its founder also arises from the fact that recurrent interest in Ibn Saba’ and his sect among Muslim religious scholars—whether in works of theology, heresiography, or history—thrived for centuries:
This ensured the sect’s continued relevance for a wide spectrum of religious concerns and anxieties salient not only to the earliest articulations of Muslim identity but also the more mature developments thereof. As a result, Ibn Saba’ and the Saba’iya have remained permanent fixtures within the Muslim debates over sectarianism and dogmatic purity, particularly as they unfolded and evolved amidst the religio-political upheavals and socio-historical transformations of the first four centuries after the hijra. As with most historical persons and phenomena dating from the earliest years of the Islamic religion, there exists no indisputably contemporary witness to Ibn Saba’ and his activities. By contrast, from the 2nd/8th century onwards the quantity of portrayals depicting the life and events of Ibn Saba’ multiply to quite a considerable number. More anecdotal than biographical, these accounts also contradict each other a great deal and, as a result, pose manifold historical puzzles that are not easily resolved. Hence, to hazard an early, preparatory summary of who Ibn Saba1 was and what the Sabaiya believed risks arbitrarily prejudicing one account over a myriad, rival accounts. Indeed, a premature, prejudicial favoritism for one source or tradition over others continues to blight modern treatments of Ibn Saba1 and the Sabaiya today.
In order to avoid repeating past errors, we shall begin, therefore, with a broader question: Why are there so many accounts of Ibn Saba, and why is he so important to early Islamic historiography and heresiography? In the view of many early and medieval Muslim scholars, Ibn Saba and the Sabaiya stand at the nexus of the earliest incarnations of Islamic sectarianism. As such, Ibn Saba almost invariably appears as the nemesis of either one or two of the early community’s caliphs and as instigating some form of reprehensible or refractory innovation against them. (This caliph is usually the fourth of those whom the Sunnis revere as ‘rightly-guided’ caliphs—i.e. the Prophet’s son-in-law, ‘All ibn Abi Talib—but his predecessor, ‘Uthman ibn ‘AfFan, features grandly in one of the more well-known accounts, too. Lesser known accounts even place in conflicts with the Umayyad dynast Marwan ibn al-Hakam or the Shi! imams ‘All Zayn al-‘AbidIn and Muhammad al-Baqir.) For those medieval scholars of a non-Shi! disposition (often Sunnis or Mutazila, but not necessarily so), Ibn Saba’ represents the very fount of ‘Alid and Shi! sectarianism and, thus, the leader of the party responsible for £rst despoiling the original, pristine unity (Ar., al-jamaa) of the primitive Muslim community.
In anti-Shllte polemic, he is reviled as the first' to regard ‘All as the sole successor to and inheritor of Muhammad’s prophetic legacy (i.e., his wast); the first to curse ‘All’s three caliphal predecessors, Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, and ‘Uthman as usurpers; and the firstsfo claim that ‘All possessed a unique, even esoteric, knowledge of the Qur’an. For Imaml-Shll scholars, however, he is not a founding figure but rather the quintessential ‘extremist’ heretic (ghali; pi. ghulat)} Summarily denouncing Ibn Saba’ as a depraved corrupter of the early Shi‘I creed, Shi‘1 theologians thus vitiate him as a veritable icon of ghuluw (a term in the Shi‘ite context that usually denotes Ibn Saba’s excessive veneration for 'All as immortal or divine) and as the progenitor of all the ghulat-sects. Ibn Saba’ is, for this reason, nearly universally reviled as a noxious religiopath. He subsequently becomes a historiographical obsession because he stands at the pathological locus of Islam’s earliest sectarian moment. He is not merely Islam’s first heretic, but also (in a more literary sense) its most nefarious—its arch-heretic.
This work is necessarily, therefore, also a study about the origins of Shi'ism and the historiography thereof. While the present study makes no claims to having achieved a comprehensive account of early Shi'ism—of delineating and distilling the early Shl'i Gestalt as it were—many of the fundamental issues at stake for early Shi'ism are necessarily on the table when discussing Ibn Saba’ and the Saba’iya. Although formidable, this aspect of our study is also unavoidable inasmuch as Ibn Saba’ and the Saba’iya pertain so vividly in both modern and medieval literature to the origins of the religious reverence for Muhammad’s household (ahl al-bayt), his clan (the Banu Hashim), and the person and descendents of his son-in-law ‘All b. Abi Talib. Still, the persona of Ibn Saba is a perplexing phenomenon for the historiography of early Shi'ism, for he embodies many of the contradictions and tensions characterizing Shi'ism during the first three centuries of its development.
One could also say that he serves as a type of synecdoche for the enigmas posed by early Shiism to any modern historian. Ibn Saba’, most accounts claim, was a Jewish convert to Islam; his reverence for Muhammad’s son-in-law ‘All was allegedly derived from his attempt to conceptualize ‘All’s role vis-a-vis Muhammad within a framework adopted from biblical and Judaic paradigms concerning the succession of Joshua to Moses. This innovation of Ibn Saba’—if it indeed was his innovation—was and still is conventionally regarded by Muslims hostile to Shl'ism as a Judaizing contagion threatening to undermine autochthonous, Islamic conceptions of legitimate leadership. Many traditions assert as well that Ibn Saba’ denied ‘All’s death and professed that he would return to usher in a chiliastic utopia. Such traditions raise profound questions concerning the apocalyptic roots of early Shu reverence for the Prophet’s clan (the Banu Hashim) as well as ‘All and his descendants—not to mention the palpable Jewish influences on Shn eschatology.
Other medieval Muslim scholars further claim that Ibn Saba’ regarded ‘All not only as imam but also as Godincarnate, raising profound questions as to the place of esotericism and the belief in the supra-human powers and identity of the imams in early Shn thought. Hence, although Ibn Saba’ is a figure often pushed to the margins,2 the controversies surrounding him stand at the center of the most important developments of early Shi! beliefs. Numerous Orientalists and Islamicists have already undertaken several studies of considerable consequence for any investigation into Ibn Saba and the Sabaiya. All of these studies serve as a reminder of the salience of the topic in the study of Islamic origins. Among these scholars, one can mention such pioneers and luminaries of the field as Julius Wellhausen,3 Israel Friedlander,4 Leone Caetani,5 Heinz Halm,6 and Josef van Ess.7 Obviously, one may wonder whether there remains any more to be said on the issue given the pedigree of previous studies, but in fact much more does remain to be said, as I hope id demonstrate.
This is mostly due to the fact that the above scholars rarely treated the sect and its founder as a topic of study on its own terms, being contented to discuss the aspects or features of the sect’s beliefs and founder (and/or the historical traditions about them) only insofar as they relate to other interests. Not surprisingly, then, one would search in vain to locate an occidental monograph on Ibn Saba’ and the Saba’iya. Although a concentrated, focused effort to analyze all the materials relevant to Ibn Saba’ has indeed been attempted in Western scholarship, this was done only once—by Israel Friedlander—and that was over a century ago. The considerable time that has passed since Friedlander’s admirable attempt has brought with it the discovery, publication, and wider accessibility of numerous sources unavailable to him. These sources (not to mention the studies they inspired) have since transformed the study of early Islam profoundly and, moreover, bear within them the possibility of shedding considerable new light upon the origins, development, and spread of the accounts of ‘Abd Allah ibn Saba, the Sabaiya, and their religious beliefs and practices in ways hitherto unrealized or unappreciated. This study has been structured with the express purpose of elucidating the portrayals of Ibn Saba and, subsequently, the Sabaiya that remain enshrined within medieval Islamic literary sources.
These sources are diverse, encompassing historical annals, prosopographical compendia, compilations of belle-lettres, and treatises of theological and heresiological dispositions. The considerable demands that these diverse genres exact from the historian require flexibility in both approach and methodology. As a result, the reader of this study will find that, although essentially united in its topical aim, the various chapters of the present work often assume considerably different approaches depending on the materials given the most preeminent place in any given chapter. My approach to the body of materials I shall hereafter refer to as ‘the Ibn Saba tradition* divides into three main parts. Part I of this study marks our first foray into the tradition and begins with the most well-known and most influential (in modern times at least) portrayal 6f Ibn Saba and the Sabaiya: that of the 2nd/9th century Kufan historianlakhbdri Sayf ibn ‘Umar al-Tamimi.
Chapter 1 sets the ground work by reviewing the place of Sayf b. ‘Umar in scholarly debates over early Muslim historiography, and chapters 1 and 2 explores Sayf3 s utilization of Ibn Saba and his Sabaiya in his narrative of the caliphate of ‘Uthman and the events leading up to and culminating in the Battle of the Camel. Sayf’s version of Ibn Saba enjoys an exceedingly prominent, and even notorious, place in the modern iterations of the Ibn Saba* tale—a prominence and notoriety matched perhaps only by Sayfs own place in the debates over the modern historiography of Islamic origins, more generally speaking. For this reason, I have accorded to his account the honor of first place in my study. This is despite the fact that the ‘Sayfian* account of Ibn Saba*, though extensive, is in reality quite idiosyncratic and often uncannily at odds with the broader Ibn Saba* tradition as it came to coalesce over the centuries. Yet, the importance of Ibn Saba and Sabaiya for comprehending Sayf1s historical corpus is paramount. Not only did Sayfs obsession with Ibn Saba as the heretical provocateur of the early Islamic caliphate produce a substantial body of narratives about the heresiarch and his acolytes, their story within his narrative is, in fact, conterminous with the religious and ideological outlook characteristic of the broad strokes of his narratives of the first Muslim civil war, or fitna. His work is also exceptionally early, and given the recent discovery of an incomplete manuscript of his historical writings, it is also of revitalized importance insofar as his work was previously known only through the redactions of later authors.
Thus, despite the tendentiousness of the Sayfian materials on Ibn Saba and the Sabaiya, they provide an indispensible testimony to the earliest strata of the Ibn Saba tradition as a whole. Even though the Sayfian depiction of Ibn Saba and the Sabaiya is fundamental to understanding the evolutionary trajectory ofthe overall tradition, a Sayfian baptism into the Ibn Saba* lore by no means comes close to exhausting the ocean of extant Ibn Saba materials. Sayfs materials, rather, represent one exceptional moment in this tradition’s evolution. To fully appreciate the significance of the Ibn Saba’ tradition and the light it sheds on Shi'ism, particularly as it evolved from the 2nd/7th through 3rd/8th centuries, one requires a more comprehensive view that does not merely concentrate on a single author’s corpus. Hence, after addressing the unique problems posed by Sayf’s corpus, Part II of this study sets aside the Sayfian corpus in order to examine the origins and evolution of the medieval Muslim heresiographers’ and theologians’ diverse portrayals of Ibn Saba. With this in mind, Chapters 4 through 6 broaden the focus considerably and examine* the persona of Ibn Saba’ through the panoramic perspective of the evolution of a corpus of legends and tropes that form the structural features of the Tbn Saba’ tradition’. In so doing, however, this section of the study focuses nearly exclusively on the persona of the heresiarch himself and the archetypal, narrative tropes that eventually gave rise to the portrayal of Ibn Saba’ as the founder of Shi'ism or, alternatively, of the Shfl ghulat.
These chapters have at their heart a twofold aim: 1) to map out the principal features of the Ibn Saba* tradition and 2) to establish a chronology of the tradition’s evolution as well as the origins of its earliest components. Our approach in these chapters, therefore, is both source- and traditioncritical. Chapter 6 in particular concludes with an attempt to evaluate the historicity of the earliest extant materials on Ibn Saba’ and their significance for illuminating our understanding of early Shi'ism in light of the conclusions our analysis of the Ibn Saba’ lore. Part III marks our final shift in methodological focus, turning away from source- and tradition-critical analyses towards a focused reconstruction of the history of the Saba’iya in the Umayyad period.
Thus, chapter 7 takes up the issue of the Saba’iya as a sectarian movement removed from the considerable shadow cast by its eponymous founder. Gathering together a diverse corpus of materials attesting to the’ existence of groups and/or individuals known collectively as the Saba’iya, this chapter attempts to evaluate the historicity of the Saba’iya as they appear in the pages of early Muslim annals at various moments throughout the history of the Sufyanid era of the Umayyad caliphate and, subsequently, the Second Civil War (ca. 40-72/661-691). Our final aim, therefore, is to determine the identity of the Saba’iya, what ultimately comprised their earliest beliefs, and (inasmuch as it is possible) to surmise the ultimate fate of the sect and its influence on Shi'ism in the wake of the resurgence of Umayyad caliphate under the Marwanid dynasty after the Second Civil War.
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