User:Ismailism786/sandbox/Muhammad-Shahi Nizari Ismailis

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The Muhammad-Shahis are a branch of no longer extant Nizari Ismailis which formed a splinter group after the death of Nizari Ismaili Imam Shams al-Din Muhammad in 1310 AD. The Muhammad-Shahis follow his son, ‘Ala’ al-Din Mum’in Shah b. Muhammad and for this reason are sometimes known as Mum’in-Shahis.

History of the Schism

According to the Russian Orientalist Vladmir Ivanow, the earliest mention of the Muhammad-Shahis is a Persian treatise named Irshadu’t-talibin fi-dhikr a’immati’l-Isma’iliyya (Guidance for the Seekers of the Recollection of the Ismaili Imamate). The treatise relates the existence of this schism without giving much reason behind the nature of the dispute simply stating that the schism was over a disagreement to the succession of Shams al-Din Muhammad in 1310.^[1]

Shah Tahir al-Husayni Dakkani

The most well known Muhammad-Shahi Imam was Shah Tahir al-Husayni Dakkani. His reputation as a religious man instigated an invitation to the court of the Safavid Shah Shah Ismaili, but he soon became suspicious of his religious leanings. After later settling in Kashan, he was accused by the Twelver ulema of heretical teachings, giving Shah Ismail the pretext he needed, who ordered for his execution. Shah Tahir fled and eventually met Khwaja Jana, the vizier of the Bahmanid kings who served the Nizam-Shahs of Ahmadnagar. He also met Pīr Muhammad Shirwani, a Hanafi scholar also from Ahmadnagar who advocated that Burhan Nizam Shah invite Shah Tahir to Ahmadnagar, which he then did in 1522. He soon acquired a highly privileged position in the court. His religious teachings and accounts of a miraculous healing of Burhan Nizam Shah’s son led Burhan to convert from Sunnism to Shi’ism, though not Muhammad-Shahi Ismailism, but Twelver Shi’ism, which all the sources agree was the version of Sh’ism Shah Tahir has propagated since the beginning perhaps as part of a strategy of taqiyya (protective dissimulation).^[2]

Relations with the Qasim-Shahis

The Haft Nukta (Seven Aphorisms) associated with the Qasim-Shahi Imam, Islamshah, mentions that the death of Imam Qasim-Shahi was due to the Muhammad-Shahis whose murdered him. It states,

This is what happened in the time of the lord of the age and caliph of the Mericful, ‘Ala al-Haqq wa-al-Dunya wa-al-Din, Khudawand Qasim Shah the first, one whose mention be prostration, peace and glorification A group of the accursed who, on the face things, were among his family members, led several servant in every region, who were soldiers, on the path to hell. […] What beauty or intellect could consider reasonable the imamate of someone who was so immersed and seduced by status in this world that from the height of envy and jealousy, by deadly poison he made sweet life bitter on the palate of his brother and gave his paternal cousin a drink of diamond, cutting off his hope for life?^[3]

Muhammadshah b. ‘Alal al-Din Mu’minshah’s brother was Qasimshah and his paternal cousin, Nizarshah, was also known as Qasim, were likely the two victims.^[4]

The Haft Nutka also specifies the existence of an “adversary” who had influence in four areas: Badakshan, the fort of Zafar (likely in Badakshan as well), Egypt and Narjawan.^[5] The Muhammad-Shahis achieved political success in Badakshan, as it is believed that the Pamiri Ismailis were Muhammad-Shahis until the sect’s extinction in the eighteenth century. The Muhammad-Shahi Imam Shah Radi al-Din was able to visit the region and established political rule in the area until he was defeated by the local Timurid ruler Mirza Khan in 1509.^[6] It was also during this period that the Qasim-Shahi Imam Mustansir bi’llah dispatched the Pandiyat-i Javanmardi (Counsels of Spiritual Chivarly) to Badakshan, among other regions, in order to reinforce allegiance to their line.^[7]

The last known Muhammad Shahi Imam was Amir Muhammad al-Baqir, whose final contact with his followers in Syria was in February 1796. A search effort was undertaken to find him, but in 1887, the majority of the Syrian Muhammad-Shahis pledged their allegiance to the Qasim-Shahi Imam of the time, Aga Khan III. The Muhammad-Shahi community in Persia, on the other hand, mainly turned to Twelver Shi’ism. Currently, the only known members of this community are centred in Maysaf and Qadmus in Syria, who are awaiting the appearance of their Imam Amir Muhammad al-Baqir whom they believe has gone into occultation. They number 15,000 and follow the Shafi’i madhab in their legal affairs.^[8]

List of Muhammad-Shahi Imams

19. Nizar b. Mustansir bi’llah (d. 1095)

20. Hasan b. Nizari (d. 1139)

21. Muhammad b. Hasan (d. 1194)

22. Jalal al-Din Hasan b. Muhammad (d. 1221)

23. ‘Ala’ al-Din Muhammad b. Hasan (d. 1255)

24. Rukn al-Din Mahmud b. Muhammad (d. 1257)

25. Shams al-Din Muhammad b. Mahmud (d. 1310)

26. ‘Ala al-Din Mu’min Shah b. Muhammad

27. Muhammad Shah b. Mu’min Shah

28. Radi al-Din b. Muhammad Shah

29. Tahir b. Radi al-Din

30. Radi al-Din II b. Tahir (d. 1509)

31. Shah Tahir b. Radi al-Din II al-Husayni Dakkani (d. 1539)

32. Haydar b. Shah Tahir (d. 1586)

33. Sadr al-Din Muhammad b. Haydar (d. 1622)

34. Mu’n al-Din b. Sadr al-Din (d. 1644)

35. ‘Atiyyat Allah b.Mu’in al-Din (Khudaybakhsh) (d. 1663)

36. Aziz Shah b. ‘Atiyyat Allah (d. 1691)

37. Mu’in al-Din II b. Aziz Shah (d. 1715)

38. Amir Muhammad b. Mu’in al-Din II al-Musharraf (d. 1764_

39. Haydar b. Muhammad al-Mutahhar (d. 1786)

40. Amir Muhammad b. Haydar al-Baqir.^[9]

References

^ Ivanow, Vladimir (1938). "A Forgotten Branch of the Ismailis". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 70: 65–66.
^ Daftary, Farhad (2007). The Ismailis, Their History and Doctrines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 452–455.
^ Virani, Shafique (2007). The Ismailis in the Middle Ages. Oxford University Press. pp. 86–87.
^ Virani, Shafique (2007). The Ismailis in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 87.
^ Virani, Shafique (2011). The Ismailis in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 38.
^ Illoliev, Abdulmamad (2008). The Ismāʿīlī-Sufi Sage of Pamir: Mubārak-i Wakhānī and the Esoteric Tradition of the Pamiri Muslims. Amherst: Cambria Press. p. 38.
^ Daftary, Farhad (2008). The Ismailis, the History and Doctrine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 433.
^ Daftary, Farhad (2007). The Ismailis, their History and Doctrines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 455–456.
^ Daftary, Farhad (2007). The Ismailis, their History and Doctrines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 509–510.

[1] Ivanow, Vladimir (1938). "A Forgotten Branch of the Ismailis". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 70: 65–66.

[:0-2] Daftary, Farhad (2007). The Ismailis, Their History and Doctrines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 452–455.

[:1-3] Virani, Shafique (2007). The Ismailis in the Middle Ages. Oxford University Press. pp. 86–87.

[4] Virani, Shafique (2007). The Ismailis in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 87.

[5] Virani, Shafique (2011). The Ismailis in the Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 38.

[6] Illoliev, Abdulmamad (2008). The Ismāʿīlī-Sufi Sage of Pamir: Mubārak-i Wakhānī and the Esoteric Tradition of the Pamiri Muslims. Amherst: Cambria Press. p. 38.

[7] Daftary, Farhad (2008). The Ismailis, the History and Doctrine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 433.

[8] Daftary, Farhad (2007). The Ismailis, their History and Doctrines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 455–456.

[9] Daftary, Farhad (2007). The Ismailis, their History and Doctrines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 509–510.

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