The Syrian Nizārī Ismā̔īlīs after the Fall of Alamūt. Imāmate’s Dilemma

Abstract

The collapse of the Nizārī Ismā̔īlīs’ state with its centre in Alamūt and the elimination by the Mongols of Rukn ad-Dīn Huršāh, the last Hudāwand of their state and imām, in 655/1257, meant breaking away by the Syrian Nizārī Ismā̔īlīs with the Iranian tradition of their movement. Therefore, as professor Daftary notices: “The news of the execution of Rukn ad-Dīn in Mongolia (…) must have dealt another demoralizing blow to the confused and displaced Nizārīs who had been accustomed to having access to their imām or his local representatives.” Now the imām was gone or at least nothing was known of his temporal existence. Referring to ideas from the times of Rašīd ad-Dīn Sinān, the most famous Nizārī leader in Syria, it can be assumed that in the face of collapse of Persian Nizārīs’ state and Huršāh’s death, Radī ad-Dīn Abū al-Ma’ālī, the chief da’i of Syrian Nizārīs, started to aspire to obtain imām’s charisma. His cooperator and then successor, Naǧm ad-Dīn Ismā̔īl acted in a similar way. There are certain reasons which support the thesis that in the face of the end of the Alamūt centre and annihilation of Rukn ad-Dīn Wuršāh, the imām of Alamūt, Naǧm ad-Dīn acknowledged himself as “a visible imām” of the Nizārīs. A certain suggestion indicating caliph-imām aspirations of the leaders of Syrian Nizārī Ismā̔īlīs can be found in Naǧm ad-Dīn’s letter which was sent to Manfred, the king of Sicily, towards the end of 1265. This letter, published by professor H.M. Schaller in a fairly indirect Latin translation, points to caliph- oriented, which for the Ismā̔īlīs was synonymous with imām-oriented, aspirations of the issuer. The hypothesis arising from this article cannot be considered as a decisive one, since only yet unknown (or not used) medieval Arabic sources could be considered as such.