Ismailism

Overview

Ismailis are a branch of Shia Islam distinguished, as the Shia profile explains, by following the line of imams through Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar rather than his brother Mūsā. Two communities carry that line into the present. Nizārīs, the larger group, follow a living imam, the Aga Khan, and read scripture and law with an eye to an inner, esoteric meaning alongside the outer law. Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibīs, known as Bohras, hold that their imam has been hidden since the twelfth century and are led in his name by a dāʿī. Both trace their history through the Fatimid caliphate and, for the Nizārīs, a dramatic medieval state at Alamūt. Today Ismailis live across South and Central Asia, East Africa, Syria and the Gulf, and Nizārīs worship not in mosques but in jamāʿat khānas.^[1–5]

History

The Nizārī-Mustaʿlī split and Alamūt 1090–1256

In 1090, Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ seized the mountain fortress of Alamūt in northern Iran, founding a Nizārī Ismaili state independent of Cairo. When the Fatimid caliph al-Mustanṣir died in 1094, the vizier al-Afḍal installed a younger son, al-Mustaʿlī, as caliph-imam, passing over the elder son Nizār; Nizār's supporters, centred on Alamūt, refused to recognise him, splitting the Ismaili movement into Nizārī and Mustaʿlī branches that persist today. The Nizārī state at Alamūt, feared and mythologised in equal measure, survived until the Mongols destroyed the fortress in 1256.^[7–9]

Rāshid al-Dīn Sinān and the Syrian Nizārīs 1166–1193

From the fortress of Maṣyāf in Syria, seized by Nizārī Ismailis in 1141, Rāshid al-Dīn Sinān ruled the Syrian Nizārī community in near independence from Alamūt between 1166 and 1193. Crusader chroniclers, who knew the Nizārīs' use of political killing, dubbed Sinān "the Old Man of the Mountain" and spread tales of hashish-fuelled assassins; the Venetian traveller Marco Polo later popularised the legend in Europe, well after the Mongols had already ended the Nizārī state in Persia.^[10–12]

The Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī split and the dāʿīs 1130–1592

After the Mustaʿlī caliph-imam al-Āmir died in 1130, most Mustaʿlīs outside Egypt recognised his infant son al-Ṭayyib as imam and held that he, too, had gone into concealment; this Ṭayyibī line has been led ever since by a deputy, the dāʿī al-muṭlaq. Missionaries carried the Ṭayyibī daʿwa to Yemen and then to Gujarat in western India, where the community became known as Bohras. A succession dispute in the 1590s split the Bohras into Dāʾūdī and Sulaymānī branches, each with its own dāʿī; the larger Dāʾūdī line has been based in Mumbai ever since.^{[5, 13–14]}

Aga Khan III and the modern Nizārī community 1877–1957

Born in Karachi in 1877, Sulṭān Muḥammad Shāh became Nizārī imam, the Aga Khan, in 1885 and led the community for 72 years. He represented India at the League of Nations and was elected its president in 1937. At home, his educational and philanthropic initiatives helped found the institutions that grew into today's Aga Khan Development Network, reshaping the Nizārī community's public life.^[15–17]

Beliefs

Ẕāhir and bāṭin · ظاهر / باطن

outer and inner

Ismailis distinguish the ẕāhir, the outward, literal sense of scripture and law, from the bāṭin, its inner, unchanging meaning. The imam, Ismailis hold, has unique authority to expound this inner meaning through taʾwīl, interpretation that moves from the surface of a text to its deeper reality.^[18]

Imamate: living or concealed

Nizārīs hold that their imam, the Aga Khan, is always present and accessible; Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibīs hold that their imam has been hidden from the world since the twelfth century and is represented in his absence by the dāʿī al-muṭlaq, who exercises the imam's authority without claiming the office itself.^[2]

Practice

Jamatkhana worship and ginans · جماعت خانه

Rather than mosques, Nizārīs gather in jamāʿat khānas for communal prayer and religious instruction. In South Asia, the Khoja community, converted from the 14th century by missionary pirs, built a devotional tradition of ginans, hymns sung in Gujarati, Sindhi and other regional languages that teach Ismaili belief through local idiom and melody.^{[3, 19–20]}

People

Places

Alamūt

IRN

The mountain fortress Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ seized in 1090 became the capital of an independent Nizārī Ismaili state until the Mongols destroyed it in 1256, and remains the most storied site in Nizārī history.^{[7, 9]}

Maṣyāf

SYR

Seized by Syrian Nizārīs in 1141, this fortress was the seat from which Rāshid al-Dīn Sinān ruled the Syrian Nizārī community in the later 12th century.^[10–11]

Art & objects

Public-domain objects from museum collections. Select one to see it at the museum.

Bowl Fragment with Hare DecorationOld Cairo, Fatimid dynasty (969–1171), 11th-12th centuryFragment of a TirazEgypt, Fatimid period, Caliphate of al-Mustansir, 1000s, 1058–60Luster Bowl with AntelopeEgypt, Fustat (Old Cairo), Fatimid period (909–1171), 1000sFragmentary roundel with eagle in gold groundEgypt, Fatimid period, 1000sTurban end with tirazEgypt, Tinnis, Fatimid period, datable to 983-90, 983–990Roundel with seated princeEgypt, Fatimid period, 1000sTiraz with gold, probably from a wide sleeveEgypt, Fatimid period, reign of Caliph al-Hakim, 1013–20, 1013–1020Tiraz with goldEgypt, Fatimid period, reign of Caliph al-Musta‘lī, 1094–1101, 1094–1101

Numbers

Ismailis worldwide

Several million^[6]

No independent count; estimates vary widely

Common misconceptions

Glossary

Ismāʿīliyya · إسماعيلية

Ismailis: the Shia branch following the line of imams through Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar.^[1]

Dāʿī al-Muṭlaq · الداعي المطلق

"The absolute summoner": the deputy who leads the Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Ismailis (Bohras) in the name of their concealed imam.^[5]

Jamāʿat khāna · جماعت خانه

The Nizārī Ismaili place of communal prayer and gathering, distinct from a mosque.^[3]

Ẕāhir / bāṭin · ظاهر / باطن

The outward, literal sense of scripture and law, and its inner, esoteric meaning, a core distinction in Ismaili thought.^[18]

Taʾwīl · تأویل

Esoteric interpretation that moves from a text's outward sense to its inner meaning, a role Ismailis assign to the imam.^[18]

Ginān · گنان

A devotional hymn of the South Asian Nizārī Ismaili (Khoja) tradition, sung in regional languages.^[20]