Table of Contents

Introduction I. Shiʿi Communities in History II. The Study of the Ismailis: Phases and Issues III. Ismaili History and Literary Traditions IV. Idris ʿImad al-Din and Medieval Ismaili Historiography V. A Major Schism in the Early Ismāʿīlī Movement VI. The Ismaili daʿwa under the Fatimids VII. The Concept of ḥujja in Ismaili Thought VIII. Cyclical Time and Sacred History in Medieval Ismaili Thought IX. ʿAlī in Classical Ismaili Theology X. Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān, Ismāʿīlī Law and Imāmī Shiʿism XI. The Iranian School of Philosophical Ismailism XII. The Medieval Ismāʿīlīs of the Iranian Lands XIII. The ‘Order of the Assassins’: J. von Hammer and the Orientalist Misrepresentations of the Nizari Ismailis XIV. Ismaili-Seljuq Relations: Conflict and Stalemate XV. Sinān and the Nizārī Ismailis of Syria XVI. Hidden Imams and Mahdis in Ismaili History XVII. Religious Identity, Dissimulation and Assimilation: The Ismaili Experience

About the Author

Farhad Daftary is currently Director and Head of the Department of Academic Research and Publications at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. An authority in Ismaili studies, he has written more than 200 articles and encyclopaedia entries and 20 acclaimed books which have been translated into numerous languages.