Description
The Ismailis In The Middle Ages / A History Of Survival, A Search For Salvation / Shafique N. Virani / Hardcover / Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199731411 / 978-0199731411
- ISBN-10: 0195311736
- ISBN: 9780199731411
- Format: Hardcover
- Language: English
- Year of Publication: 2007
"None of that people should be spared, not even the babe in its cradle." With these chilling words, the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan declared his intention to destroy the Ismailis, one of the most intellectually and politically significant Muslim communities of medieval Islamdom. The massacres that followed convinced observers that this powerful voice of Shi'i Islam had been forever silenced. Little was heard of these people for centuries, until their recent and dramatic emergence from obscurity. Today they exist as a dynamic and thriving community established in over twenty-five countries. Yet the interval between what appeared to have been their total annihilation, and their modern, seemingly phoenix-like renaissance, has remained shrouded in mystery. Drawing on an astonishing array of sources gathered from many countries around the globe, The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, A Search for Salvation is a richly nuanced and compelling study of the murkiest portion of this era. In probing the period from the dark days when the Ismaili fortresses in Iran fell before the marauding Mongol hordes, to the emergence at Anjudan of the Ismaili Imams who provided a spiritual centre to a scattered community, this work explores the motivations, passions and presumptions of historical actors. With penetrating insight, Shafique N. Virani examines the rich esoteric thought that animated the Ismailis and enabled them to persevere. A work of remarkable erudition, this landmark book is essential reading for scholars of Islamic history and spirituality, Shi'ism and Iran. Both specialists and informed lay readers will take pleasure not only in its scholarly perception, but in its lively anecdotes, quotations of delightful poetry, and gripping narrative style. This is an extraordinary book of historical beauty and spiritual vision.
"The book offers a discerning and sensitive portrayal of the struggle for survival and the spiritual life of a religious community that endured severe persecution and extreme defamation during much of its history. The author in particular succeeds in bringing to light the esoteric spirituality and profound devotion to the living Imam prevalent in the centuries of concealment following the catastrophic Mongol attempt to annihilate Nizari Ismailism, relying on the evidence of fragmentary source material that has only recently been recovered."
-Wilferd Madelung, author of The Succession to Muhammad
"Drawing on an exhaustive array of Arabic, Persian, and South Asian sources, as well as the scattered results of modern scholarship on the Ismailis, Virani has produced a comprehen- sive and readable account of the complex, and often obscure, medieval history of the Nizari Ismailis. This book represents a major contribution to modern Ismaili studies."
-Farhad Daftary, author of The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines
"In order to show how the Ismaili Shi'is survived the Mongol onslaught of the thirteenth century, Shafique Virani employs a wide variety of sources in many different South-and Southwest-Asian languages. Some of these sources provide historically useful information only in the most oblique ways, and Virani's great achievement is to tease out meaning from what appear to be intractable materials. The resulting reconstruction of medieval Ismaili history is both scholarly and tender, subtle as well as moving."
-Robert Wisnovsky, Director, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University
Dr. Shafique N. Virani is an Assistant Professor of Historical Studies and the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto.
