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Ghulat

The ghulāt (Arabic: غُلَاة, lit. 'exaggerators, extremists')[a] were a branch of early Shiʿa. The term mainly refers to a wide variety of extinct Shiʿi sects active in 8th and 9th-century Kufa in Lower Mesopotamia, and who despite their sometimes significant differences shared several common ideas.[1] These common ideas included the attribution of a divine nature to the Imams, metempsychosis (the belief that souls can migrate between different human and non-human bodies), a particular gnostic creation myth involving pre-existent 'shadows' (aẓilla) whose fall from grace produced the material world, and an emphasis on secrecy and dissociation from outsiders.[2] They were named ghulāt by other Shiʿi and Sunni Muslims for their purportedly "exaggerated" veneration of Muhammad (c. 570–632) and his family, most notably Ali (c. 600–661) and his descendants, the Imams.[3]

The ideas of the ghulāt have at times been compared to those of the late antique gnostics,[4] but the extent of this similarity has also been questioned.[5] Some ghulāt ideas, such as the notion of the Occultation (ghayba) and return (rajʿa) of the Imam, have been influential in the development of Twelver Shi'ism.[6] Later Ismaʿili Shiʿi authors such as Ja'far ibn Mansur al-Yaman (died c. 957) and Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani (died after 971) also adapted ghulāt ideas to reformulate their own doctrines.[7] The only ghulāt sect still in existence today are the Alawites, historically known as 'Nusayris' after their founder Ibn Nusayr (died after 868).[8]

A relatively large number of ghulāt writings have survived to this day. Previously, only some works preserved in Ismaʿilism were available to scholars such as the Umm al-Kitāb "Mother of the Book", which was published in 1936 (8th–11th centuries),[9] the Kitāb al-Haft wal-aẓilla "Book of the Seven and the Shadows" published in 1960 (8th–11th centuries),[10] and the Kitāb al-Ṣirāṭ "Book of the Path" published in 1995 (c. 874–941).[11] However, between 2006 and 2013 numerous ghulāt texts that have been preserved in the Alawite tradition were published in the Alawite Heritage Series.[12]


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  1. ^ Asatryan 2017, p. 11.
  2. ^ Halm 2001–2012. On secrecy and dissociation, see Asatryan 2017, pp. 163–178.
  3. ^ On the ghulāt in general, see Halm 2001–2012; Hodgson 1960–2007b; Anthony 2018. On their cosmology and theology, see Asatryan 2017, pp. 137–161.
  4. ^ See, e.g., Tijdens 1977; Halm 1982.
  5. ^ See, e.g., Bayhom-Daou 2003; Asatryan & Burns 2016.
  6. ^ Turner 2006.
  7. ^ De Smet 2020, pp. 303–304, 307–308. The ghulāt influences on Ja'far ibn Mansur al-Yaman's Kitāb al-Kashf are discussed by Asatryan 2020. The influence of these ideas was pervasive in Tayyibi Isma'ilism (see De Smet 2020, pp. 320–321).
  8. ^ Halm 2001–2012. On Ibn Nusayr, see Friedman 2000–2010; Steigerwald 2010. On Alawism-Nusayrism in general, see Bar-Asher 2003; Bar-Asher & Kofsky 2002; Friedman 2010.
  9. ^ Ivanow 1936. Full Italian translation in Filippani-Ronconi 1966, partial German translations in Tijdens 1977, Halm 1981, Halm 1982.
  10. ^ Tāmir & Khalifé 1960. New editions of the full text were published by Ghālib 1964 and Tāmir 2007, and a critical edition of chapter 59 by Asatryan 2020, pp. 196–198.
  11. ^ Capezzone 1995. New edition by Ibn ʿAbd al-Jalīl 2005.
  12. ^ Anthony 2018. For the texts, see Abū Mūsā & al-Shaykh Mūsā 2006–2013. The first major study to take the newly available texts into account is Asatryan 2017.

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