ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam (A Historical Background) Survey of the Sources Books on the question of the Ghayba It is indeed an old idea in Imamite history that one Imam from the progeny of the Prophet would go into hiding to prepare for the day when he would rise again under the title al-Qa’im al - Mahdi and fill the world with justice.

The concealment (al - Ghayba) was considered a sign of the true al-Qa’im al - Mahdi and both before and after the occultation of the Twelfth Imam in 260/874. Many Shi’ite writers collected traditions attributed to the Prophet and the Imams concerning this issue. These traditions were used by many Shi’ite groups to back up the claims of their leaders who aspired to power by adopting the title of al-Qa’im al - Mahdi .

Before 260/874 they were used even by some Imamites themselves as evidence that one or another of their deceased Imams was in fact al-Qa’im al - Mahdi. Finally the same traditions have been used by the Imamites to support their claims that the Twelfth Imam was al-Qa’im al - Mahdi himself. These works on the subject of the Ghayba can be divided into three groups based on the dates of their authorship. A.

Books on the question of the occultation written before 260/874 The Imamite scholars wrote about four hundred books (al - Usul al­ Arba’mi'a )during the lifetimes of the first eleven Imams. Some of these dealt with the subject of the Imam's concealment, recording traditions on the authority of the Prophet and the Imams predicting that an Imam would go into occultation. These traditions, however, neither named the Imam nor fixed the time at which his occultation would begin.

The ambiguity of these traditions encouraged many Shi’ites to apply them to different Imams. Hence the Waqifa sect held that Musa al-Kazim, the seventh Imam, was the hidden Imam whereas al - Imamiyya al - Qat’iyya and al - Zaydiyya al - Jarudiyya [^1] held that the hidden Imam would be the Twelfth, but they did not identify him by name.

Despite the fact that a great majority of these early works are not extant, it appears that during the fourth and fifth centuries the Imamite authors based their works concerning al­- Ghayba on these early writings. The following works are examples of the Waqifite, Zaydite and Imamite views on this matter. The Waqifa Al-Anmati Ibrahim b. Salih al-Kufi, was a companion of the fifth Imam, al-Baqir (d. 114/732).