Abdal Hakim Murad - The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology

The early creed 41
energy with which they promoted their imam’s political leadership, and
quiescent groups tended to survive longer. From the point of view of
their Sunnı opponents, the most moderate group was the Zaydıs, descended
from Zayd ibn ‘Alı, who held that an imam could be elected, and
that the imamate of an inferior candidate (mafd _
ul) could be accepted.
Such a doctrine readily validated the rule of Abu Bakr and ‘Umar I, and
thus raised few problems for the rulers and the Sunnı majority. They
were opposed by the emerging group of the Imamıs, also called the
Twelvers after the death of their eleventh imam, and the disappearance,
or ‘‘occultation’’ (ghayba), of their twelfth in 874. A major catalyst in the
emergence of Twelver Shı‘ite thought was the Kufan Hisham ibn
al-H _
akam (d. 795 or later). Hisham held that each imam had been designated
by his predecessor by a specific appointment (nas _
s _
). All the
imams were infallible, and the imamate was confined to the descendants
of ‘Alı and Fat _
ima. Thus, every elected imam was a usurper, even
when ‘‘acclaimed’’ by the troops. Such a hard-line stance necessarily
brought the Imamıs into conflict with the Abbasid state, which had
supplanted the Umayyads in the year 750.
Hisham is also thought to have entertained anthropomorphic ideas
that Twelvers later discarded, such as the belief that God is contained in
a physical body, since only bodies can have existence. He rejected,
however, the extreme anthropomorphism which taught that God had a
form like a man, which doubtless was too redolent of Christian belief
ever to be acceptable among Muslims. Hisham also seems to have been
the first to have described the divine attributes as substantives, a theme
later taken up in Sunnı discourse. Like proto-Sunnı traditionists,
Hisham also favoured predestination over free will, although he also
assigned to humans responsibility for their actions. Interestingly, most
of these early metaphysical views came to be reversed among the Shı‘a,
whose continuity was assured more by their definitions of political
legitimacy than by an abstract theological programme.
A further important subdivision of Shı‘ism after 850 was the
Isma‘ılıs, who recognised seven imams culminating in Isma‘ıl ibn Ja‘far
al-S _
adiq (d. by 765). Once politically inactive, and engaged in esoteric
speculations whose history is now obscure, they began an intense and
well-organised revolutionary activity around 878, and for much of
Islamic history the Isma‘ılıs were the most significant of the many
Shı‘ite branches. In later times, Abu’l-H _
asan al-Nasafı and others
brought them the Neoplatonist doctrines which have distinguished
them since, but which had little or no influence on other Muslims in the
early period.
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