Besides the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and the literature of the Fatimid daʿwa, Ṭayyibī authors used a third type of source, including traditions about 'the apparitions and the shadows' (alashbāḥ wa'l-aẓilla), the pre-existence of Muhammad and ʿAlī (sometimes extended to the other 'People of the Cloak', Fāṭima, al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn), along with the distinction between the 'divinity' (lāhūt) and the 'humanity' (nāsūt) of the prophets and the imams, who appear on earth in a bodily 'envelope' (ghilāf) or 'garment' (libās), serving as a veil (hijāb) for the divine principle they are manifesting. These traditions, which are attributed to the The present investigation will undertake a preliminary exploration of the intellectual interactions of Yemeni Ṭayyibism with this ghulāt tradition that is characteristic of early Shiʿism. But, first of all, it is necessary to determine its relationship with Ismailism in general.

The 'Mufaḍḍal tradition' and Ismailism

During the second and third/eighth and ninth centuries, Shiʿi circles from Iraq, mainly based in Kūfa and surroundings, as well as from Persia, issued a set of doctrines presented as the 'secret revelations' of the first imams to some of their chosen disciples. Prominent among these 'revelations' is the esoteric teaching of the sixth imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765) that the generation of our terrestrial world is the result of a long process of degradation, caused by a series of revolts of the creatures against the commands of their Creator. The first thing that God, as a pure light, created out of his will (mashīʾa) was shadowy light (al-nūr alẓillī) which gave rise to a great number of shadows (aẓilla). These shadows were dressed (libās) in 'apparitions' (ashbāḥ): corpses of light animated by souls or spirits (arwāḥ). Seven heavens, each ruled by a figure called Adam, were inhabited by these 'apparitions'. Hidden behind a veil (ḥijāb) of light, God transmitted his commands and teachings directly to these 'apparitions'. Nevertheless, the 'apparitions' disobeyed the divine orders, so that their light was transformed into obscurity. Endowed with a material body, they fell down into this world of generation and corruption, deprived of direct contact with God. Out of mercy for his fallen creatures, God sent a series of messengers to them, the first of which was Muhammad.

Originally, these messengers were apparitions, covered successively with a 'ghostly veil' (alḥijāb al-shabaḥī) and a 'spiritual veil' (al-ḥijāb al-rūḥī), before manifesting themselves in a human body. The human body of the messengersprophets and imamsis thus described as a veil (ḥijāb, satr), a 'mould' (qālab), a 'shirt' (qamīṣ) or an 'envelope' (ghilāf), being at the same time hiding, receiving and manifesting their divine nature, the 'apparition' or 'shadow' proceeding from the light of the Creator. 6 Closely linked to this conception is the idea, widespread in early Imāmī ḥadīth, about the pre-existence of Muhammad and the imams. Before the creation of the world, they were 6 Al-Mufaḍḍal al-Juʿfī (attrib.), Kitāb al-Haft al-sharīf, ed. Muṣṭafā Ghālib (Beirut, 1964) shadows and apparitions of light proceeding from the light of God. 7 According to another version, fully developed in the Umm al-Kitāb, five luminous limbs (jawāriḥ) proceeded from God's light long before the generation of the world: Muhammad, ʿAlī, Fāṭima, al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn. During the successive cosmic eras, this pentad took different forms, before entering into human bodies at the moment that our material world was generated. The bodies of the prophets and imams resemble statues (literally 'temples', hayākil) or moulds (qawālib), housing the divine essence of the different members of the pentad. 8 The 'Mufaḍḍal tradition' and the Umm al-Kitāb are connected with the second/eighth century Shiʿi movements of the Khaṭṭābiyya and the Mukhammisa. 9 Both are considered to be precursors of the Ismāʿīliyya, which only appeared in the next century. 10 Nevertheless, it is commonly thought today that the doctrines exposed in the Kitāb al-Haft, the Umm al-Kitāb and related texts have nothing to do with Ismailism. 11 7 Uri Rubin, 'Pre-existence and light. Aspects of the concept of Nūr Muḥammad', Israel Oriental Studies, 5 (1975), pp. 62-119; idem, 'Prophets and Progenitors in the Early Shī'a Tradition', Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 1 (1979), pp. 41-65; Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Le guide divin dans le shîʿisme originel (Lagrasse 1992), pp. 81-83.

8 Umm al- Kitāb, ed. Wladimir Ivanow, Der Islam, 23 (1936), § 39-42, 70-72, 81-83, 101-103, 116-118; German translation in Heinz Halm, Die islamische Gnosis. Die extreme Schia und die 'Alawiten (Zurich and Munich, 1982), pp. 132-134, 142, 145, 150-151, 154. 9 Halm, 'Buch der Schatten (II) ',[58][59][60][61][62][63][64]Halm,Islamische Gnosis,Asatryan,Controversies,[154][155][156] Al-Nawbakhtī, Firaq al-Shīʿa, ed. M. Ṣ. Āl Baḥr al-ʿUlūm (Najaf 1936), p. 69: 'The Ismailis are the Khaṭṭābiyya, the disciples of Abu l-Khaṭṭāb'; Umm al-Kitāb, ed. Ivanow, §52-53, p. 97: 'The Ismaili doctrine was founded by the disciples of Abu l-Khaṭṭāb'; cf. Farhad Daftary, 'The Earliest Ismā'īlīs ', Arabica, 38 (1991), pp. 216-226. 11 Thus, according to Heinz Halm, Kosmologie und Heilslehre der frühen Ismā'īlīya. Eine Studie zur islamischen Gnosis (Wiesbaden, 1978) the Ismaili pentad of Intellect, Soul, al-Jadd, al-Fatḥ and al-Khayyāl, 15 whereas the old theme of the cosmic rebellion and subsequent fall once again surfaces in some Ismaili texts from the Fatimid period, to be fully elaborated in the dissident Druze literature. 16 A similar continuity also exists concerning the nature of the prophets and the imams, or the succession of different Adams and pre-adamite peoples. 17 In short, the doctrinal boundaries between the second and third/eighth and ninth century Shiʿi movements of the so-called ghulāt and fourth to fifth/tenth to eleventh century Ismailism are not so clear-cut as is commonly believed.

The Kitāb al-Haft and related texts were adopted by the Nuṣayrīs, who introduced them into Syria during the fourth/tenth century. 18 by Guyard strong affinities with Nuṣayrī doctrine and attributed it to the influence of the Syrian Nuṣayrīs on Rashīd al-Dīn Sinān. 20 The presence of the 'Mufaḍḍal tradition' in Syrian Nizārī writings (including the texts translated by Salisbury) was finally confirmed by Heinz Halm, who explained it as the result of a 'Nuṣayrī-Ismaili syncretism' going back to the sixth/twelfth century. 21 Direct contacts between the two communities would also account for the fact that manuscripts of the Kitāb al-Haft and related texts seem to be preserved in Syrian Nizārī libraries. 22 Although the Umm al-Kitāb does not belong to the Nuṣayrī literature, the Nizārīs are supposed to have discovered this book in Syria; they subsequently introduced it into Central Asia, where it was translated into Persian. 23 Without denying the possibility that Nuṣayrī doctrine influenced Syrian Ismailism, the interest of the Nizārīs in these texts and the ideas they contain could also be due to the fact that they still belonged to a living tradition among the Ismailis in the Fatimid period preceding the emergence of the Nizārīs. This could explain the otherwise puzzling phenomenon that in the same sixth/twelfth century a similar revival of the 'Mufaḍḍal tradition' occurred in the rival branch of the Ṭayyibiyya in Yemen, far remote from Syria and from any possible Nuṣayrī influence, and also that 'Mufaḍḍal books' were kept in Bohra collections in India. 24 This is, for instance, the case with the Kitāb al-Ashbāḥ wa'l-aẓilla. 25 20 René Dussaud, 'Influence de la religion noṣairī sur la doctrine de Râchid ad-Dîn Sinân', Journal Asiatique, 9, 16 (1900), pp. 61-69. 21 Halm, 'Buch der Schatten (I)', pp. 263-265. 22 Asatryan, Controversies, pp. 134-135; Asatryan, 'Shiite Underground Literature', pp. 130, 153 notes 24 and 25. Unfortunately, the private libraries of the Syrian Nizārīs, inaccessible to outsiders, have never been catalogued. 23 Halm, 'Buch der Schatten (II)', p. 42 and note 115; Anthony, 'The Legend of Abdallāh Ibn Saba'', p. 9. In fact, the exact circumstances of the adoption of the Umm al-Kitāb by the Nizārīs remain unknown; see Wladimir Ivanow, 'Notes sur l'Ummu'l-Kitab des Ismaëliens de l'Asie Centrale', Revue des Études Islamiques, 6 (1923), pp. 419-426. exactly Ṭayyibī authors mean when claiming that their doctrine about the imams has nothing to do with ghuluww.

a. The shadows, the apparitions and their fall

In accordance with the plea for continuity between Ismailism and early Shiʿi traditions, as expressed in the first part of this paper, al-Ḥāmidī introduces the notion of the 'apparitions and the shadows' in his Kanz al-walad by quoting Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī's Kitāb al-Bishāra, a work that seems to be lost today. 28 In the quoted passage, al-Sijistānī develops the Ismaili topic of the heptads, presented as seven concentric circles moving around a central point. The Creator (who manifestly remains outside the system) produces the Command (alamr), located in the centre of seven circles representing its seven attributes: the unity (alwaḥda), the first (al-awwal), the cause (al-ʿilla), the eternal (al-azal), the thing (al-shayʾ), the word (al-kalima) and the intellect (al-ʿaql), the latter forming the outer circle encompassing all the others. In its turn, the intellect is the centre of a new set of seven circles: the soul (alnafs) or the spiritual lights (al-anwār al-rūḥāniyya), the shadows (al-aẓilla), the apparitions (al-ashbāḥ), the forms (al-ṣuwar), the persons (al-ashkhāṣ) and the species (al-ajnās), the latter enveloping the other circles. The species are identified with Adam, who is at the centre of a heptad of prophets (nuṭaqāʾ), ranking from Adam to the Resurrector (qāʾim). All these circles are moving; just as the prophets succeed each other the spiritual lights become (ṣāra) shadows, the shadows become apparitions, the apparitions become forms, the forms become persons, and the persons become species. 29 This progression, from the most luminous to the more compact substances, recalls the cosmology described in the Kitāb al-Haft. Moreover, the passage from Kitāb al-Bishāra associates the members of the different heptads with letters of the alphabet (ḥurūf), organised in sets of seven, following an early Shiʿi tradition widespread in Ismaili literature. 30 33 Al-Ḥāmidī, Kanz, pp. 65-69, 83-89, 295-296; De Smet, Quiétude, pp. 248-251; De Smet, Philosophie ismaélienne, pp. 82-88. terminology which recalls the ancient 'Mufaḍḍal tradition'. The 'radiating divine light' (alnūr al-shaʿshaʿānī al-ilāhī) of the first Intellect is hidden behind a veil (ḥijāb). The nine Intellects emanating from the first are qualified as 'pure luminous and formal apparitions' (ashbāḥ ṣūriyya maḥḍa nūrāniyya), bearing inside (fī ḍimn) their essence a plurality of 'formal apparitions' (ashbāḥ ṣūriyya). After the error and subsequent fall of the third Intellect, followed by the latter's repentance, the first Intellect organised a daʿwa, summoning the 'formal apparitions' inside the different Intellects to profess tawḥīd in a correct way. All responded positively, except the 'formal apparitions' belonging to the fallen tenth Intellect.

They continued their rebellion, fell further down and became forms (ṣuwar) mixed with matter (hayūlā). Nevertheless, there was a gradation in the disobedience of these apparitions, so that they split in three groups: those who were close to repentance and correct tawḥīd, those who were half on the way to it, finally those who rejected the call and were guilty of pure kufr. Out of the first two groups and their corresponding matter, the tenth Intellect formed the celestial bodies and spheres, whereas the third group served as material for the generation of the four elements and their mixtures, causing the appearance of the three natural reigns: minerals, plants and animals. The tenth Intellect, acting as demiurge (mudabbir), generated the sense perceptible world in order to save the 'spiritual apparitions' (ashbāḥ rūḥāniyya) mixed with matter. Their redemption (khalāṣ) is only possible through the production of the 'alif-like persons' (ashkhāṣ alifiyya), meaning the human species whose upright position is similar to the form of an alif. Directed by the 'eminent person' (shakhṣ fāḍil) of the prophet or the imam, the process of purification allows the tenth Intellect to save the 'formal apparitions' that were lost during its fall from their admixture with matter, in order to reintegrate them into its essence, thus returning gradually to its initial third position in the cosmic hierarchy. This final return will be achieved with the formation of the most eminent of the eminent persons: the 'perfect child' (al-walad al-tāmm), the qāʾim inaugurating the final resurrection. 35 Notwithstanding the absence of the shadows (aẓilla), al-Ḥārithī's Kitāb al-Anwār allaṭīfa describes a succession of entities similar to those we find in texts related to the 'Mufaḍḍal tradition': 'radiating divine light' hidden behind a veil, 'pure luminous and formal apparitions', 'formal apparitions', 'forms' mixed with matter, 'persons' incorporated in the prophets and the imams.36

b. five aspects of the deity and their pre-existence

Echoing Shiʿi traditions about the apparition of the imams as apparitions of light (ashbāḥ nūr) long before the creation of the world, 37 Idrīs ʿImād al-Dīn (d. 872/1468) explained a saying of Muḥammad al-Bāqir by stating that the friends of God (awliyāʾ Allāh) manifest themselves to mankind 'as apparitions and in their human natures' (bi'l-ashbāḥ wa'lnawāsīt), so that people can see them and receive their guidance. However, only the friends of God are able to perceive these apparitions as they really are, 'with their subtle, luminous 35 and noble forms' (bi ṣuwarihim al-laṭīfa al-nayyira al-sharīfa), and this in accordance with the purity of their own forms and the radiance of their essence. 38 Following the creation of the luminous apparitions of Muhammad, ʿAlī, Fāṭima, al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, God created the angels out of light. As He remained hidden behind these apparitions, the angels erroneously held them to be God himself and glorified them.

Thereupon, God put the angels to the test by sending clouds of obscurity, so that they were no longer able to see any of the apparitions. Thus, they addressed a new glorification to God, asking him to remove these veils while recognising the fact that He is the real agent (al-faʿʿāl) who does what He wants. 39 In other terms, the deity manifests himself in a pentad of apparitions, five entities of light, which are created by and subjected to the uncreated, hidden isnādʾ, Israel Oriental Studies, 5 (1975), pp. 143-149; cf. Amir-Moezzi, Guide divin, p. 63 n. 130). He is mentioned in the Umm al-Kitāb, where he is sometimes mixed up with Jābir b. Yazīd al-Juʿfī, and in isnāds of Nuṣayrī texts (Halm, Islamische Gnosis, pp. 125, 128, 134-137, 155, 164, 188, 190-191, 320; Anthony, 'The Legend of Abdallāh Ibn Sabaʾ', pp. 13-14).

God created me and He created my brother ʿAlī when there was no heaven, no earth, no Paradise, no Hell, no Tablet and no Pen. When He wanted to create us, He uttered a word (kalima) and it became a light and a soul (nūran wa rūḥan). He mixed them Although much work remains to be done, it is clear that the intellectual interactions between the different branches of Shiʿi Islam are much more complex than was once thought.

  France) -PSL -LEM, UMR 8584) Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥāmidī (d. 557/1162), the second Ṭayyibī dāʿī muṭlaq in Yemen, is generally considered to be the founder of the esoteric doctrine (the so-called ḥaqāʾiq or 'truths') of Ṭayyibī Ismailism. In his Kitāb Kanz al-walad, a work that served as a model for later authors dealing with the ḥaqāʾiq, he integrated the legacy of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾboth the Rasāʾil and the Risāla al-Jāmiʿainto the philosophical system developed by the Fatimid dāʿī Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī (d. after 411/1020), whose Kitāb Rāḥat al-ʿaql is extensively quoted as a highly authoritative source. 1 Futhermore, he sought to link al-1 Daniel De Smet, 'La Risāla al-Ǧāmi'a attribuée aux Iḫwān al-Ṣafā: un précurseur de l'ismaélisme ṭayyibite?', in A. Straface, C. De Angelo and A. Manzo (ed.), Labor limae. Atti in onore di Carmela Baffioni, vol. 1 (Studi Magrebini, 12) (Naples, 2018), pp. 269-298; Daniel De Smet, 'L'auteur des Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ selon les sources ismaéliennes ṭayyibites', Shii Studies Review, 1 (2017), pp. 151-166. On Ṭayyibī doctrine in general, see Daniel De Smet, La philosophie ismaélienne: un ésotérisme chiite entre néoplatonisme et gnose (Paris, 2012).

  Kirmānī's worldview to the quite different cosmology developed by the Fatimid dāʿī al-duʿāt, al-Muʾayyad fi'l-Dīn al-Shīrāzī (d. 470/1078). 2

  Prophet and the first Shiʿi imams, are transmitted by authorities such as Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣarī, Jābir b. Yazīd al-Juʿfī, al-Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUmar al-Juʿfī or Muḥammad b. Sinān, who are well known in the so-called ghulāt literature. 3

  as conveyed to al-Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUmar al-Juʿfī. This 'Mufaḍḍal tradition' consists of a large number of ḥadīth often transmitted as stemming from al-Mufaḍḍal by Muḥammad b. Sinān, a contemporary of the imams Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, Mūsā al-Kāẓim (d. 183/799) and ʿAlī al-Riḍā (d. 203/818). Quoted by heresiographers, they are often included in Imāmī collections, even when they are usually rejected as ghuluww by mainstream Twelver Shiʿism. Above all, they were incorporated into books and treatises now belonging to the literature of the Nuṣayrīs, mainly the Kitāb al-Haft al-sharīf (or al-Haft wa'l-aẓilla) and related texts, such as Kitāb al-Ṣirāṭ, Kitāb al-Ashbāḥ wa'l-aẓilla and Kitāb al-Aẓilla. 4 Similar traditions were collected in the Umm al-Kitāb and are supposed to reflect the secret teachings of the fifth imam Muḥammad al-Bāqir (d. ca. 114/732) to another member of the Juʿfī clan, Jābir b. Yazīd al-Juʿfī. 5 One of the most characteristic features of the 'Mufaḍḍal tradition' is the notion of the shadows and apparitions. According to the Kitāb al-Haft, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq taught al-Mufaḍḍal 4 The seminal study on the 'Mufaḍḍal tradition' is Heinz Halm, 'Das "Buch der Schatten". Die Mufaḍḍal-Tradition der Ġulāt und die Ursprünge des Nuṣairiertums' (I), Der Islam, 55 (1978), pp. 219-266; (II), Der Islam, 58 (1981), pp. 15-86. Halm's pioneering work has been updated with new material by Mushegh Asatryan, Controversies in Formative Shiʿi Islam. The Ghulat Muslims and their Beliefs (London and New York 2017); Mushegh Asatryan, 'An Early Shī'i Cosmology. Kitāb alashbāḥ wa l-aẓilla and its Milieu', Studia Islamica, 110 (2015), pp. 1-80; Mushegh Asatryan, 'Shiite Underground Literature Between Iraq and Syria. "The Book of Shadows" and the History of the Early Ghulat', in Y. Tzvi Langermann and Robert G. Morrison (ed.), Texts in Transit in the Medieval Mediterranean (Pennsylvania, 2016), pp. 128-161.

  , p. 167, the 'Mufaḍḍal tradition' had not the slightest importance ('ohne Bedeutung') for the development of Ismaili doctrine; cf. Farhad Daftary, Ismaili Literature. A Bibliography of Sources and Studies (London and New York, 2004), p. 163: '[The Kitāb Of course, these doctrines are not those of 'standard' Ismailism as it would be developed in the Qarmaṭī and Fatimid traditions. Muḥammad al-Nasafī (d. 332/943), for instance, in his Kawn al-ʿālam mocked the speculations about the shadows and the apparitions, ascribing these 'nonsensical stories' (khurāfāt) to a 'demented fool'. In the eyes of the learned Qarmaṭī dāʿī, Neoplatonic philosophy was without a doubt a more rational and 'scientific' way to explain the generation of the universe. 12 At the other hand, elements belonging to the 'Mufaḍḍal tradition', including the quotation of chapter 59 of the Kitāb al-Haft, appear in the Kitāb al-Kashf, attributed to the Fatimid dāʿī Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman (d. ca. 346/957). 13 Beside these two contradictory attitudes of rejection and adoption, the speculations of the second and third/eighth and ninth century ghulāt influenced later Ismaili thought, although they were often reformulated and hidden under the guise of Neoplatonism. For instance, the role of Muhammad as first created being to whom God delegated the governing of the universethe doctrine of tafwīḍ, held by the Mufawwiḍa, a movement close to the Khaṭṭābiyya and the Mukhammisawas taken by the cosmic Intellect, to which the Creator delegated his power, a position that was accepted by the Ismaili Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī (d. after 361/971). 14 The five 'wings' of the deity distinguished by the Mukhammisa survive in al-Haft] does not contain any Ismaili ideas'; ibid., p. 165: 'The Umm al-Kitāb, which does not contain any Ismaili doctrines'; cf. Anthony, 'The Legend of ʿAbdallāh Ibn Sabaʾ', p. 3. 12 Wilferd Madelung, 'Kawn al-ʿĀlam: The Cosmogony of the Ismāʿīlī dāʿī Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Nasafīʾ, in Bruce D. Craig (ed.), Ismaili and Fatimid Studies in Honor of Paul E. Walker (Chicago, 2010), pp. 28-29. 13 Halm, 'Buch der Schatten (II)', pp. 83-84; Asatryan, 'Shiite Underground Literature', pp. 140, 156 n. 102. 14 Compare the exposition of the doctrine of the Mufawwiḍa by Saʿd b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Qummī, Kitāb al-Maqālāt wa'l-firaq, ed. M. Jawād Mashkūr (Tehran, 1963), p. 61, with Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī, Kitāb Ithbāt al-nubūwwāt, ed. Wilferd Madelung and Paul Walker (Tehran, 2016), pp. 2-3. On the links between the 'Mufaḍḍal tradition' and the Mufawwiḍa, see Asatryan, Controversies (passim).

  Two centuries later, the Nizārī Ismailis, led by Rashīd al-Dīn Sinān, took possession of fortresses such as Maṣyāf, Qadmūs and al-Kahf, ruling over a region with a major Nuṣayrī population. In the nineteenth century, an American missionary, Henry de Forest, acquired a Syrian Nizārī manuscript and sent it to the Orientalist Edward Salisbury for translation. Nearly at the same time, the French consul Jean-Baptiste Rousseau obtained another manuscript in Maṣyāf; deposited in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, it was edited and translated by Stanislas Guyard in 1874. 19 René Dussaud, the founder of modern research about the Nuṣayrīs, discovered in some of the Nizārī fragments published 15 Daniel De Smet, 'La fonction noétique de la triade al-Jadd, al-Fatḥ et al-Khayāl. Les fondements de la connaissance prophétique dans l'ismaélisme', in Hinrich Biesterfeldt and Verena Klemm (ed.), Differenz und Dynamik im Islam. Festschrift für Heinz Halm zum 70. Geburtstag (Würzburg, 2012), pp. 319-336. 16 Halm, Kosmologie, pp. 75-90. 17 De Smet, 'Les racines docétistes', pp. 87-112; Daniel De Smet, 'Le mythe des préadamites en islam chiite', Intellectual History of the Islamicate World, 6 (2018), pp. 252-280. 18 Asatryan, Controversies, pp. 123-135; Asatryan, 'Shiite Underground Literature', pp. 143-147. 19 Edward Salisbury, 'Translation of Two Unpublished Arabic Documents Relating to the Doctrines of the Ismāʿilis and Other Bāṭinian Sects, with an Introduction and Notes', JAOS, 2 (1851), pp. 257-324; Edward Salisbury, 'Translation of an Unpublished Arabic Risāleh by Khālid ibn Zeid al-Juʿfy with Notes', JAOS, 3 (1852), pp. 165-193; Stanislas Guyard, Fragments relatifs à la doctrine des Ismaélis (Paris, 1874).

  A similar doctrine can be found in the Kitāb al-Fatarāt attributed to Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman, a source often quoted in Ṭayyibī literature. After stressing the role of the letters in the generation of the universe and the emanation of the 'letters of the prophets' from the Pen and the Tablet, each of the seven prophets having his own set of seven letters, the author cites and approves a tradition transmitted by the adepts of transmigration (ahl al-tanāsukh) from Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, who is supposed to have said: God Most-High created shadows. The first of the shadows was Adam, who was the first to respond. Then [comes] the second until the seventh [...] and from them were produced the seven letters: the letter of the legatee (waṣī) of Adam, the letter of the legatee of Noah, the letter of the legatee of Abraham, the letter of the legatee of Moses, the letter of the legatee of Jesus, the letter of the legatee of Muhammad and 29 Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥāmidī, Kitāb Kanz al-walad, ed. Muṣṭafā Ghālib (Wiesbaden, 1971), pp. 258-261. The text continues with another series of heptads: every prophet is the centre of seven concentric circles representing the seven imams of his cycle. As is often the case with Ṭayyibī authors quoting from otherwise unknown sources, it is difficult to establish where the fragment from Kitāb al-Bishāra ends and where al-Ḥāmidī's comments and elaborations start. the letter of the proof (ḥujja) of the qāʾim. Then were produced from them the seven letters of the imams of Adam. 31 Al-Ḥāmidī's cosmic system is based on the theory of the ten Intellects borrowed from al-Fārābī by the Fatimid philosopher Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī. 32 Claiming to reveal the true meaning (ḥaqīqa) of al-Kirmānī's Rāḥat al-ʿaql, al-Ḥāmidī introduced the notion of the 'primordial error' (al-khaṭīʾa al-ūlā) made by the third Intellect (or second emanated being, al-munbaʿith al-thānī). Out of inadvertence and confusion, the third Intellect worshipped the first Intellect or first created being (al-mubdaʿ al-awwal) as the Creator (al-mubdiʿ) and refused to acknowledge the role of the second Intellect or first emanated being as an intermediary between the first Intellect and itself. In other terms, the third Intellect professed the tawḥīd in an erroneous way, so that it no longer received the divine influx (mādda) necessary for its actualisation. After the emanation of seven other Intellects in actuality out of the second Intellect, it remained an Intellect in potentiality at the tenth and last level of the cosmic hierarchy. 33 This cosmic drama and the subsequent fall (hubūṭ) due to an error or an act of insubordination to the divine commands, are well known from early Shiʿi literature (for instance Kitāb al-Haft and Umm al-Kitāb); it left traces in Fatimid Ismailism and was fully elaborated in the Druze writings. 34 Following al-Ḥāmidī's interpretation of Rāḥat al-ʿaql, Muḥammad b. Ṭāhir al-Ḥārithī (d. 584/1188) introduced in the theory of the ten Intellects a 31 Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman, Kitāb al-Fatarāt, passage published in Halm, Kosmologie, pp. 219-220. 32 On this theory, see Daniel De Smet, La Quiétude de l'Intellect. Néoplatonisme et gnose ismaélienne dans l'oeuvre de Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī (Leuven, 1995).

  Muḥammad b. Ṭāhir al-Ḥārithī, Kitāb al-Anwār al-laṭīfa, ed. Ḥussām Khuḍūr (Salamiyya, 2011), pp. 46-64, 76-77. The Ṭayyibī system as revealed by al-Ḥāmidī and al-Ḥārithī is close to Manichaeism; see Daniel De Smet, 'La colonne de lumière, une notion manichéenne dans l'ismaélisme ṭayyibite', in Anna Van den Kerchove and Luciana G. Soares Santoprete (ed.), Gnose et manichéisme. Entre les oasis d'Égypte et la Route de la Soie. Hommage à Jean-Daniel Dubois (Turnhout, 2017), pp. 349-375.

(

  ghayb) God. The story about the glorification of the angels is part of a long ḥadīth reporting the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad to his uncle al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭallib, as transmitted by Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣarī. 40 In response to al-ʿAbbās' question about the superiority of the Ahl al-Bayt over his own family, the Prophet said: 38 Idrīs ʿImād al-Dīn, Kitāb Zahr al-maʿānī, ed. Muṣṭafā Ghālib (Beirut, 1991), p. 182. 39 Idrīs, Zahr, p. 177. 40 This companion of the Prophet (d. ca. 77-78/696-697), favourably disposed towards ʿAlī and the first imams, was a prolific transmitter of ḥadīth, including ghulāt traditions; he appears, for instance, as the first authority in the isnād of ḥadīths transmitted by Jābir al-Juʿfī from al-Bāqir or in traditions transmitted by al-Mufaḍḍal al-Juʿfī and Muḥammad b. Sinān (Etan Kohlberg, 'An Unusual Shīʿī

  together and created me and ʿAlī from it. From my light He created the Throne -I am superior to the Throne -and He created from ʿAlī's light the light of the heaven, as ʿAlī is superior to the heavens. From the light of al-Ḥasan He created the light of the moon and He created from the light of al-Ḥusayn the light of the sun, establishing both [the sun and the moon] as a light for the inhabitants of the earth[...].41 From the light of Fāṭima God Most-High created something resembling the form of the candlestick and He suspended it at the ring (qurṭ) of the Throne, so that it illuminates (azharat) the heavens and the earth. For this reason, Fāṭima was named 'the radiant' (al-zahrāʾ).42 According to another tradition quoted by Idrīs ʿImād al-Dīn, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq responded to a question about the Lord (al-rabb) by saying, 'The five words of God are one.' He then appeared to the person who had asked this question successively in the forms of the moon (ʿAlī), Fāṭima, Muhammad, al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, declaring, 'They are all one; they speak with one tongue and take the form they want, with the power of God, the Lord of the worlds.' 43 41 Follows the passage about the glorification of the angels.42 Idrīs, Zahr, pp. 176-177. 43 Idrīs, Zahr, p. 167. This tradition recalls the so-called 'school anecdote' in the Umm al-Kitāb ( § 39-43) where Muḥammad al-Bāqir appeared to his teacher ʿAbd Allāh b. Sabaʾ successively in the forms of the five of the Ahl al-Bayt, each time proclaiming his divinity; see a German translation of the passage in Halm, Islamische Gnosis, pp. 132-134, and an English one in Antony, 'The Legend of Abdallāh Ibn Sabaʾ', pp. 12-30. In a similar way, ʿAlī manifested himself to Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣarī under the form of the letter mīm, then he took the form of the letter fāʾ, two times the form of the ḥāʾ, before returning to the form of the ʿayn: This is the noble, magnificent, eminent and apparent form under the veils, the form by which are established the true meanings (maʿānī) of the books. He said, 'Jābir, these are my veils and my garments in which I appear in every age and at any time.' 44 In another version of this tradition, also quoted by Idrīs, the imam (in this case ʿAlī Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn) after accomplishing the 'miracle of the letters' (muʿjizat al-ḥurūf), said, 'Jābir, they are shirts (qumuṣ) for every age and any time. The shirts change, but I do not change.' 45 These traditions accord to ʿAlī and the corresponding letter ʿayn a certain prominence over Muhammad and 'his' letter mīm. However, this ʿayniyya trend does not seem to be a theological issue for Ṭayyibī authors, as they also quote mīmiyya traditions, which present Muhammad as the first created being manifesting himself through the other members of the pentad. 46 Thus, in the same chapter, Idrīs mentions a tradition of al-Bāqir transmitted by Jābir 44 Idrīs, Zahr, p. 254; cf. Ibid., pp. 167, 216-217 (here, it is the fourth imam ʿAlī Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn who appears to Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣarī). 45 Idrīs, Zahr, pp. 216-217; for similar traditions, see De Smet, 'Racines docétistes', pp. 95-99. 46 Al-Shahrastānī, Kitāb al-Milal wa'l-niḥal, ed. Muḥammad Kīlānī (Beirut, n.d.), vol. 1, pp. 175-176: 'Some believe in the divinity of both [ʿ, ī and Muhammad], but give precedence to ʿAlī concerning the prerogatives of divinity; they are called al-ʿayniyya. Others believe also in the divinity of both [ʿAlī and Muhammad], but consider Muhammad as superior in divinity; they are called al-mīmiyya. Yet others believe in the divinity of all the members of the Companions of the Cloak, Muhammad, ʿAlī, Fāṭima, al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn. They consider these five as one single thing; the spirit (rūḥ) inheres in each of them in an equal way, and no one of them is superior to the others'. These are exactly the doctrines reflected in the different traditions quoted side by side in Idrīs' Zahr al-maʿānī.supreme elixir which never ends'. For the ghulāt, this means that ʿAlī is the Creator and God, the Ultimate reality, whereas in fact the sentence refers to the imam as representing the Intellect responsible for the actualisation of the human soul.67 Al-Ḥāmidī accuses the Nuṣayriyya of holding such ghulāt beliefs about ʿAlī's divinity.68 Along with the related sect of the Isḥāqiyya (the followers of Isḥāq al-Aḥmar) the Nuṣayrīs were already depicted in al-Kirmānī's Kitāb Tanbīh al-hādī as incorporating kufr or ghuluww par excellence. Although, as a representative of moderate Fatimid Ismailism, al-Kirmānī abstains from quoting traditions about the lāhūt and the nāsūt of the imam, he has exactly the same conception of ghuluww as al-Ḥāmidī. 69 Conclusion Ṭayyibī authors, starting with al-Ḥāmidī's Kanz al-walad, included in their version of the Ismaili doctrine a set of notions going back to early Shiʿi movements which appeared in al-Kūfa and surroundings during the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries, in particular the Khaṭṭābiyya and the Mukhammisa. Themes such as the shadows and the apparitions, the 67 Al-Ḥāmidī, Kanz, p. 221. The imam as a manifestation or incorporation of the Agent Intellect (the tenth Intellect in al-Kirmānī's system) giving the human intellect its second perfection (its complete actualisation) is a standard doctrine in Fatimid Ismailism; see De Smet, Quiétude, pp. 151-159, 355-360. 68 Al-Ḥāmidī, Kanz, p. 225, where the doctrine of the Nuṣayriyya is qualified as kufr. Elsewhere (Kanz, p. 286), al-Ḥāmidī distinguishes different 'erring sects': the ghulāt, the muqaṣṣira, the Nizāriyya, the Ḥākimiyya and the Ithnā ʿashariyya. If the Ḥākimiyya refers to the Druze, this would mean that al-Ḥāmidī did not regard them as part of the ghulāt.

69

  Daniel De Smet, 'Kufr et takfīr dans l'ismaélisme fatimide. Le Kitāb Tanbīh al-hādī de Ḥamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī', in Camilla Adang, Hassan Ansari, Maribel Fierro and Sabine Schmidtke (ed.), Accusations of Unbelief in Islam. A Diachronic Perspective on Takfīr (Leiden and Boston, 2016), pp. 92-97. cosmic drama and the subsequent fall, the five aspects of divinity, or the distinction between the divinity and the humanity of the imam, although not totally unknown to Fatimid Ismailism, were introduced into al-Kirmānī's system, expanded by the heritage of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ. A large number of ḥadīth reporting the sayings of Muhammad, ʿAlī and the first imams, transmitted by Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣarī, Jābir b. Yazīd al-Juʿfī, al-Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUmar al-Juʿfī and Muḥammad b. Sinān, are quoted as authoritative sources. These transmitters, along with the doctrines they attribute to the Prophet and the imams, are usually suspected of ghuluww by mainstream Shiʿism. Some of the works containing this type of ḥadīth (for instance the Kitāb al-Haft) have been adopted by the Nuṣayrīs. However, for the Ṭayyibī authors, the traditions in question have nothing to do with ghuluww; it is only their interpretation by ghulāt sects such as the Nuṣayriyya that deserves the label of kufr. As far as the author of Kanz al-walad was concerned, the ghulāt mixed together the different levels of manifestation of God, ascribing to the Creator what belongs to the imam, considering the imam as the Creator or confusing the divinity of the imam with his humanity. The intellectual interactions of Yemeni Ṭayyibism with the early Shiʿi tradition, of which the present paper only gives some examples, deserve further research. A more systematic exploration of Ṭayyibī literature, including many still unpublished works, is necessary in order to assess the influence of the Kitāb al-Haft and related ʿMufaḍḍal textsʾ, some of which are kept in Ṭayyibī libraries. The striking presence of Mukhammisa traditions, close to those found in the Umm al-Kitāb, a book that was at some point introduced into the Nizārī community, raises the question of the parallel transmission of this text in Ṭayyibī circles.

The influence of al-Muʾayyad, who after al-Kirmānī is the most often quoted Fatimid author in Ṭayyibī sources, still needs investigation. This is hampered by the fact that we lack an integral and critical edition of al-Muʾayyad's Majālis, along with a thorough study of his thought.

The terms ghuluww (exaggeration, extremism) and ghālī/ghulāt (exaggerator[s], extremist[s]) are of course in scholarly, academic terms inadequate, as they are labels used by heresiographers and polemicists in order to stigmatise movements they consider as 'heretical'. They are only used here for the sake of convenience; at the end of this paper, we will see what exactly the Ṭayyibī authors meant when speaking themselves about ghuluww.

For an overview of the research on this important text, see Sean Anthony, 'The Legend of ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Sabaʾ and the Date of Umm al-Kitāb', JRAS, Series 3, 21 (2011), pp. 2-4.

On Kitāb al-Bishāra, mentioned by al-Sijistānī inKitāb al-Iftikhār, ed. Ismail Poonawala (Beirut, 2000), pp. 193, 201 and Kitāb al-Maqālīd, ed. Ismail Poonawala (Tunis, 2011), p. 205, see Paul Walker, Early Philosophical Shiism. The Ismaili Neoplatonism of Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 20-21, 164; Poonawala, Biobibliography, p. 86. For the interest Ṭayyibī authors took in Kitāb al-Bishāra, see François de Blois, Arabic, Persian and Gujarati Manuscripts. The Hamdani Collection in the Library of The Institute of Ismaili Studies (London and New York, 2011), p. 90 (the Risālat rawḍat al-ḥikam by ʿAlī b. Ḥātim al-Ḥāmidī).

Halm, Kosmologie,

Halm, Kosmologie,

The Risālat al-Mabdaʾ wa'l-maʿād by al-Ḥusayn b. al-Walīd (d. 667/1268) (ed. with French translation by Henry Corbin, Trilogie ismaélienne (Tehran and Paris, 1961)) is in fact a summary of al-Ḥārithī's al-Anwār al-laṭīfa. However, for some reason the author avoids using this terminology, for instance replacing ashbāḥ with ṣuwar (thus pp. 102-104 of Corbin's edition).

b. Yazīd al-Juʿfī. The imam, in response to a question about the real essence (ḥaqīqa) of the Prophet, said that his rank corresponds to the 'Preceder' (sābiq), the first created being, the first Intellect, directly generated by Gods command (amr). This essence is hidden 'in the cave' (fī ghār) of the body and cannot be seen. Muhammad's person (shakhṣ) in reality never ceased to exist; it did not disappear, it never fled, and no harm overtook it: all this only happened in appearance (tashbīh). At the other hand, his humanity (nāsūt) is subjected to pain and suffering, as is the case with every human body. The same is true for Fāṭima, al-Ḥasan, al-Ḥusayn, and supposedly also for ʿAlī (although he is not named here): their essence is one and the same, inalterable and hidden in a corporeal envelope, which is corruptible. 47

c. The divinity (lāhūt), the humanity (nāsūt) and the bodily envelope (ghilāf) of the imam

The distinction between the 'divinity' (lāhūt) and the 'humanity' (nāsūt) of the imam is treated in most of Ṭayyibī doctrinal works, in contrast with the earlier Fatimid literature, which generally avoided this sensitive issue. 48 In his Kanz al-walad, al-Ḥāmidī devoted a faṣl to the question, piling together sources belonging to different Shiʿi traditions.

As is often the case, he started from al-Kirmānī's Rāḥat al-ʿaql, with its clear distinction between the Creator (al-Mubdiʿ) and the act of creation (ibdāʿ), the latter being identical with the first created being (al-mubdaʿ al-awwal), the first Intellect. 49 However, he introduced a third level to al-Kirmānī's system, 'the manifest spiritual form' (al-ṣūra al-47 Idrīs, Zahr, pp. 179-180. I suppose that Khālid b. Zayd al-Juʿfī in Ghālib's edition is a mistake for Jābir b. Yazīd al-Juʿfī. 48 Habib Feki, Les idées religieuses et philosophiques de l'ismaélisme fatimide (Tunis, 1978), pp. 205-209; Daniel De Smet, 'La naissance miraculeuse de l'imam ismaélien. Nourritures célestes et corps camphré ', Acta Orientalia Belgica, 28 (2015), pp. 323-333. 49 On the identification of the act of creation with the first created being, see De Smet, Quiétude, pp.

148-150.

rūḥāniyya al-ẓāhira), and claims that these three levels are connected by a chain (silsila).

Thus, the Creator is linked to the act of creation or first created being and the latter is linked to the spiritual form. 50 What al-Ḥāmidī intends to prove is that the ibdāʿ-mubdaʿ or first Intellect represents the divinity (lāhūt) of the imam, and that the 'manifest spiritual form' is his humanity (nāsūt).

In order to make this point, he provides a quote introduced by the phrase, qāla al-ḥakīm ('the sage says'): 51 Know that the Hidden (al-ghayb)may He be praised!is united with his act of creation (ibdāʿ), speaks through it and is veiled by it. It [the ibdāʿ] is his greatest name and the greatest named thing, that which is named by all the existents; it summons (al-dāʿī) to its essence by its essence; it is the first before everything and the last after everything; it transfers the designation (al-nāṣṣ) from the past imam upon the next imam [...]; it is not hidden by a twinkling of an eye, being eternal, everlasting and perpetual, manifesting itself with what it wants and how it wants, by the most outstanding of its temples of light, bringing them closer with the assistance of its spiritual dignitaries (ḥudūdihi al-rūḥāniyya). 52 50 Al-Ḥāmidī, Kanz, p. 193. This notion of a 'chain' is alien to al-Kirmānī and contrary to his thought, as he would never have accepted the notion that the Creator remains linked to his creature after the act of creation is accomplished; for al-Kirmānī, there is a gap between the Creator and his creation (De Smet, Quiétude, pp. 101-110). 51 In Kanz al-walad and other Ṭayyibī sources, al-ḥakīm often (but not exclusively) refers to the imam who is supposed to be the author of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and the Risāla al-Jāmiʿa (De Smet, 'L'auteur des Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ', p. 156). However, this passage does not occur in Ghālib's edition of the Risāla al-Jāmiʿa.

52 Al-Ḥāmidī, Kanz, p. 193. In other terms, the transcendent hidden Creator manifests himself through the first created being (ibdāʿ -mubdaʿ) or first Intellect, God's representative to whom He has delegated all his powers, and who is at the same time the principle of the imamate. In its turn, the first Intellect manifests itself in the 'temples of light', the uninterrupted chain of imams assisted by the dignitaries of their daʿwa.

Al-Ḥāmidī further specifies this doctrine by distinguishing three levels in the divine manifestation, each level serving as a veil hiding the higher level: (1) the Hidden is manifested as well as veiled by the first Intellect, the principle of the imamate; (2) the first Intellect is manifested as well as veiled by the 'separated luminous form' (al-ṣūra almujarrada al-nūrāniyya) or temple of light, which is the imamate; (3) this separated form is manifested as well as veiled by the 'envelope' (ghilāf), which is the imam in his corporality, being a man from flesh and blood. 53 Then there follows a quote taken from Jaʿfar b. Mansūr al-Yaman, who is supposed to have said 'somewhere' (fī baʿḍi awḍāʿihi), glorifying God Most-High, that his inward aspect (bāṭin) is hidden and not perceptible, whereas his outward aspect (ẓāhir) is the imamate. 54 Al-Ḥāmidī has now all the elements he needs to formulate his doctrine about the lāhūt and the nāsūt of the imam. The Creator remains hidden in his essence, inaccessible to his creatures. He manifests himself through his act of creation, the first created being, the first Intellect, which is the principle of the imamate, corresponding to the divinity (lāhūt) of the imam. This lāhūt remains hidden to the believer, but manifests itself through its spiritual 53 Al-Ḥāmidī, Kanz, pp. 193-194. 'Separated' (mujarrad) means here separated from matter, incorporeal.

54 Al-Ḥāmidī, Kanz, p. 194. form, which is the humanity (nāsūt) of the imam. In order to make this manifestation possible, the spiritual form or nāsūt appears in the ghilāf, the bodily envelope of the imam. 55 Praised be his [the imam's] divinity which is veiled for us, whereas he manifests himself to us by his humanity. He appears to his creature by his creature in so far that he is his creature. This means that his veiled divinity is the act of creation (ibdāʿ), which is the [first] created being (mubdaʿ); his humanity appearing to us is this separated form; his appearance to his creature by his creature means 'by the envelope' (bi'l-ghilāf), as it falls inside the limits of creation. 56 As a final legitimation of this doctrine, al-Ḥāmidī quotes Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq who said, 'Our outward aspect is the imamate, our inward aspect is hidden and cannot be perceived' (ẓāhirunā imāma, bāṭinunā ghayb lā yudrak), 57 followed by a tradition reported on the authority of Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣarī: ʿAlī appeared to Salmān and Abū Dharr 'in his luminous form' (bi'l-nūrāniyya), whereas al-Ḥusayn appeared in the same way to Jābir.

Asked about such apparitions, Muḥammad al-Bāqir warns his disciples: 55 The distinction between these three levels is not al-Ḥāmidī's invention, as it is already present in the beginning of the 5th/11th century in the writings of the Druze dāʿī, Ḥamza b. ʿAlī: God remains hidden in his lāhūt but reveals himself through his nāsūt, which took the bodily appearance of al-Ḥākim. There is much confusion about this matter in modern scholarship on the Druze doctrine, as the person of caliph al-Ḥākim is often incorrectly identified with the nāsūt of God; see Daniel De Smet, Les Épîtres sacrées des Druzes (Leuven 2007), pp. 39-40. 56 Al-Ḥāmidī, Kanz,p. 195. 57 This ḥadīth is also quoted in al-Ḥāmidī, Kanz, p. 165; Idrīs, Zahr, p. 254.

Do not invoke us as gods, but say about our excellence what your minds can bear. All

this is only a part of the signs of your Lord. Do not say about God what pertains to us, and do not say about us what belongs to the most eloquent of our party. 58 Manifestly in order to honour 'the most eloquent' of the Shiʿa, al-Ḥāmidī then cites some verses describing the 'spiritual form' (ṣūra rūḥāniyya) and the 'envelope form' (ṣūra ghilāfiyya) of the imam, verses that are taken from a Kitāb al-Ibtidāʾ wa'l-intihāʾ which might belong to the 'Mufaḍḍal tradition'. 59 As a matter of fact, the Ṭayyibī doctrine about the lāhūt and the nāsūt of the imam is based on the ḥadīth: 'Our outward is the imamate, our inward is hidden and cannot be perceived', as interpreted and transmitted by the 'Mufaḍḍal tradition'. This is particularly clear from Idrīs's Zahr al-maʿānī. The author reports that Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq was questioned by Muḥammad b. Sinān, 'a man belonging to the elite of his friends' (khāṣṣat awliyāʾihi), 60 about Muhammad and ʿAlī.

Jaʿfar answers that the name Muhammad refers to Allāh, because he proceeds from God's light. Hence, Muhammad is the inward divinity (al-lāhūt al-bāṭin), hidden but manifested by the name of ʿAlī, the latter referring to the apparent form (al-ṣūra al-ẓāhira).

Muhammad and ʿAlī are the two faces of the same reality: the bāṭin manifested in the ẓāhir, the lāhūt manifested through the nāsūt. This is the esoteric meaning of the ḥadīth of Ghadīr 58 Kanz,Kanz,note 7)

d. 'No exaggeration (ghuluww) and no reduction (taqṣīr)'

Heinz Halm considered paradoxical the fact that Ṭayyibī authors transmitted a set of ideas and even whole books belonging to the 'Mufaḍḍal tradition' of the ghulāt, although they vehemently rejected ghuluww. 63 Indeed, the central issue in Ṭayyibī Ismailism is how to determine the right way to profess tawḥīd, an obligation incumbent on the whole of creation, from the first Intellect to the lowest being in the sublunary world. Attesting to God's unity and uniqueness implies avoiding the two extremes of 'exaggeration' (ghuluww) and 'reduction' (taqṣīr). According to al-Ḥāmidī, the 'primordial error' of the third Intellect, causing its fall and provoking the 'drama in heaven', was due to its faulty tawḥīd, which was at the same time corrupted by 61 Idrīs, Zahr, pp. 163-164. According to the Imāmī heresiographer Saʿd b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Qummī, Kitāb al-Maqālāt wa'l-firaq, ed. Muḥammad Jawād Mashkūr (Tehran, 1963), pp. 56-57, the Mukhammisa professed that the bāṭin of God is Muhammad, whereas his ẓāhir is the imamate. See also De Smet, Quiétude, pp. 177-180. ghuluww and taqṣīr. The third Intellect acted as a ghālī, an 'extremist', when it identified the first Intellect or first created being with the Creator (mubdiʿ); it behaved as a muqaṣṣir when rejecting the role of the second Intellect as a necessary intermediary. In other words, as a Shiʿi ghālī would have done, the third Intellect assimilated the lāhūt with the Creator, and, resembling a Sunni Muslim, it rejected the nāsūt or the imamate. 64 Al-Ḥāmidī describes the ghulāt as people who believe in the divinity of man (ilāhiyyat al-bashar). They claim that God, the Creator, is present in the world of generation and corruption, incorporated in a human body; at every moment, He needs water and food, He may become ill, suffer pain and die, or be killed by his enemies. 65 In this perspective, the traditions about the Prophet Muhammad and the imams, transmitted by Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣarī, al-Mufaḍḍal, Muḥammad b. Sinān and others who are generally considered as ghulāt, have in fact nothing to do with ghuluww, as the divine principle or lāhūt manifested through the prophets' and the imams' nāsūt and ghilāf does not refer to the Creator, but to his first creature, the first Intellect. Despite their divine character, the prophets and the imams are distinct from God or, at the most, they can be considered as 'created divinities' to which God has delegated a large part of his powers. On the other hand, considering that the prophets and the imams are deprived of divinity means 'reducing' their nature as divine messengers: this is taqṣīr. 66 According to al-Ḥāmidī, the ghulāt misunderstood expressions such as: 'The Commander of the faithful [ʿAlī] is the creator of the forms of religion; he produces them, gives them life and lets them grow; he forms them with the eternal, everlasting form of the second perfection, that gives life to the intellects and the souls; he actualises them with the 64 Kanz,[88][89]in particular p. 67. 65 Ibid.,p. 31.