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Explores the relationship between revelation and reason in medieval Islamic intellectual history.

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9781438466279

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In this original study, Elizabeth R. Alexandrin examines the complex relationships that can be inscribed between medieval Isma`ili thought as an intellectual tradition with a devotional practice of reliance on the imam, and as a politico-esoteric system that redefined governance during the Fatimid caliphate in the eleventh century. Alexandrin's work is a departure from recent Western scholarship that focuses on similarities among early Islamic traditions. She argues instead that, under the guidance of the Fatimid Isma`ili chief missionary al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi (d. 1078 CE), the concept of walayah (divine guidance) became closely associated with religio-political authority, on the one hand, and the perfection of the individual human being, on the other. By signaling and affirming how the Fatimid caliph-imams were the heirs of walayah and by proposing new definitions of the seal of God's friends (khatim al-awliya' Allah), al- Mu'ayyad broadened the contexts of making esoteric knowledge public and shifted the apocalyptic frameworks of Islamic messianism.

Alexandrin's book is an important intervention in the field ... [and] the most extensive study to date of the concept of walayah in the writings of al-Mu'ayyad. The work is a must-read for scholars seeking to understand the nature of divine authority and leadership in Islam, particularly in Shia and Sufi contexts. - Reading Religion

Author Information

Elizabeth R. Alexandrin is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Senior Fellow at St. John's College, the University of Manitoba, Canada.

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