Original post by Dr. Hassan Ansari¹ References for this article are published in the printed version.

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Imami Shi’ism, during the rule of the Buyids and especially through the efforts of the jurists and theologians of Baghdad, such as Shaykh al-Mufid and his two students, Sharif al-Murtada and Shaykh al-Tusi, largely set aside the esoteric Shi’ism and the tendencies toward the beliefs of the Ghuluw movements. These tendencies had their roots in the early stages of Shi’ism’s formation in Kufa and had seen significant growth in the mid-2nd and early 3rd centuries AH. Instead, the Imami tradition increasingly emphasized a jurisprudential and theological framework aligned with broader Islamic traditions.

Earlier, the traditionists (muhaddithun) of Qom had already delineated clearer boundaries with Shi’i ghali (exaggerated) groups. Developments related to the occultation of the Twelfth Imam, particularly during the period of the so-called “Minor Occultation” (Ghaybat al-Sughra), further widened this gap. This period highlighted the necessity for reforms in Imami Shi’i thought.

Several groups opposing the institutionalized concept of wakala (deputyship) in Baghdad during the Minor Occultation maintained a stronger affinity for the esoteric and ghali-influenced heritage of early Shi’ism. However, because they did not align with the mainstream developments in Baghdad’s Shi’i circles, they were sidelined from the aforementioned jurisprudential and theological reforms. These groups continued to adhere to their older ghali Shi’ism.

The era of the Tenth and Eleventh Imams marked a deepening of internal divisions among various Shi’i factions in Baghdad, Kufa, Khurasan, and Qom regarding the nature and status of the Imam. New theories emerged on this topic, influenced by broader political and social conditions among Shi’as and the Abbasid persecution of Shi’is in general. These circumstances pushed some Shi’i groups toward more extreme ghali tendencies.

In intra-Shi’i disputes among Imamis and groups that originally accepted the continuation of the imamate in the lineage of Imam Ja‘far al-Sadiq, certain factions incorporated ghali teachings into their claims regarding the continuity of the imamate or identifying the rightful Imam. Consequently, in the late Imamic period and during the Minor Occultation, ghali Shi’i tendencies grew in Baghdad and other Shi’i centers. These groups especially preserved the legacy of early ghali groups from the 2nd century AH, such as the Khattabiyya or the Mukhammasa. They narrated hadiths from both well-known and obscure Imami and Shi’i transmitters, which were filled with the teachings of the Ghuluw.

In some other hadith collections among Kufi, and later Qomi and Baghdadi traditionists, while not recognized as part of the ghali heritage, the hadiths of their narrators—particularly those associated with extreme ghali factions or groups known as the Mufawwida and those close to their thought—found their way into these collections. Even the Qomis, who were the most opposed to the main ghali Shi‘i groups, included some of these hadiths in their books.

In Qom, Ray, and Baghdad, alongside Kufa, there were tendencies more sympathetic to ghali groups. These tendencies facilitated the incorporation of older Shi‘i teachings, often part of the ghali Shi‘i heritage, into hadith collections. This corpus became part of the general Shi‘i heritage, and although some Shi‘i jurists and theologians from the early days, particularly in the second and early third centuries AH, did not favor these hadiths or teachings, by the early third century, some of these teachings gained broader acceptance in Shi‘ism. Notably, even in a book like Kitab al-Kafi, a comprehensive collection of Shi‘i hadiths, some of these teachings and narrations were included. However, al-Kulayni himself was primarily committed to Shi‘i jurisprudential and theological hadiths, dedicating most of Kitab al-Kafi to legal narrations rather than esoteric, interpretive, or ghali Shi‘i teachings. Moreover, it appears that al-Kulayni, who resided in Ray and later in Baghdad, had no clear or direct association with ghali Shi‘i groups.

Nevertheless, certain traditions within the Imami Shi‘a preserved the esoteric Shi‘i heritage more comprehensively. A comparison between Basair al-Darajat attributed to Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Saffar and Kitab al-Hujja within Kitab al-Kafi illustrates this point clearly. Several Imami traditionists, especially in Baghdad in the early fourth century AH, represented this inclination. This tendency persisted within the mainstream Imami circles in Baghdad until the mid-fifth century, among traditionists deeply invested in narrating works and hadiths about the supernatural attributes of the Imams, their miracles, and their extraordinary powers and knowledge.

Some traditionists, even if not originally aligned with this group, were inclined to collect as many hadiths as possible, which led them to narrate such works. Scholars of biographical evaluation, jurists, and theologians in Baghdad during this period, led by Shaykh al-Mufid, Sharif al-Murtada, and Husayn ibn ‘Ubayd Allah al-Ghadha’iri, critiqued these hadiths and their narrators in their works. Many hadith collections and notebooks were thus either sidelined or selectively accepted. Books like Rijal al-Najashi, al-Du‘afa by Ibn al-Ghadha’iri, and al-Fihrist by al-Tusi reflect many of these criticisms.

In the abridgment of Ma‘rifat al-Naqilin by Abu ‘Amr al-Kashshi, as edited by Shaykh al-Tusi, the early ghali Shi‘i groups are clearly identified. Consequently, in later periods, books from the ghali Shi‘i tradition were rarely available to the Imami community. Occasionally, Imami scholars came across books and notebooks containing hadiths and narrations from the ghali Shi‘i tradition (or groups close to them), relied on them, and incorporated their narrations into their collections.

By the fourth century, distinctions between the mainstream Imami Shi‘a and other movements, including several active ghali Shi‘i factions, had become clear, and their connections were almost entirely severed. Such connections, which had previously existed to some extent, largely ceased.

One of the most significant of these movements is the Nusayri sect, whose origins trace back to the final years of the Imams’ presence. Due to their disagreements, and in truth, the divergence of their predecessors with the institution of wakala (deputyship) during the Minor Occultation—a matter about which we know very little—this movement gradually distanced itself from the mainstream Imami community in Baghdad.

The Nusayri school, which undoubtedly shared common sources with other currents of Imami Shi‘ism and utilized mutual resources and hadith collections with the mainstream Imami tradition, gained a clear identity as a distinct school under Husayn ibn Hamdan al-Khasibi. The Nusayris, inheritors of the legacy of ghali Shi‘i groups from the second and early third centuries AH, were particularly attached to the teachings, works, and narrations of the Khattabiyya, the Mukhammasa, and especially the hadiths of Mufaddal ibn Umar al-Ju‘fi.

We have little information about the relationship between al-Khasibi’s group and the moderate Imamis in Baghdad during the early fourth century. However, it is known that the Imami community was aware of him, although it remains unclear to what extent they were informed about his activities. From al-Khasibi’s works and the quotes preserved in later books, it is evident that al-Khasibi was familiar with prominent narrators and traditionists of the Baghdad community at the beginning of the fourth century. He directly utilized sources from some of these figures, who also served as hadith sources for the Imami community, including figures like al-Kulayni, author of al-Kafi.

Al-Khasibi transmitted sources, narrations, and traditions that clearly demonstrate his and other Nusayris’ connections with the ghali Shi‘i communities of Kufa and Baghdad from the second and third centuries. The “chains of transmission” (isnads) in many cases bear similarities to those found in “official” hadith collections. Some of these narrations and sources were familiar to the Imami community and its jurists by the late fourth and fifth centuries AH. However, these sources were often set aside or deemed unreliable and accused of ghuluw and tafwid (delegation of divine authority). Naturally, with their awareness of al-Khasibi, these jurists considered his narrations and books unacceptable, labeling his beliefs as ghuluw.

It is unclear how well the Usuli jurists and the school of Imami theologians in this period understood Nusayri beliefs. Still, it is evident that they were familiar with some accounts about the Nusayris as recorded in sectarian studies. Although it is unknown to what extent scholars of rijal in this tradition were aware of al-Khasibi’s foundational role in the Nusayri school or whether they followed the sect’s later developments during his time and that of his followers in Baghdad and then Syria (Aleppo and Latakia), it is clear that their criticisms of al-Khasibi extended beyond his hadith collections to include his major works that discussed the foundational doctrines of the Nusayri sect. This indicates that they were at least somewhat familiar with the intellectual foundations of the Nusayris or, at the very least, those of al-Khasibi.

If we rely solely on the existing books for judgment, it seems that apart from Muhammad ibn Nusayr, al-Khasibi was the only leader of the Nusayris recognized by the Imami tradition. The fact that al-Najashi and al-Tusi mentioned al-Khasibi in their biographical works suggests that at that time, al-Khasibi could still be considered a Shi‘i, albeit with heretical inclinations. In any case, he was a transmitter of Shi‘i hadiths, which could justify the mention of his name among Shi‘i narrators. However, his inclusion in these books served primarily to critique his narrations and beliefs.

Considering that Muhammad ibn Nusayr and some others regarded as figures of the Nusayri tradition before and after al-Khasibi (up until the composition of Rijal al-Najashi) had their own writings, but were not mentioned in Rijal al-Najashi or Fihrist al-Tusi—books dedicated to Shi‘i authors—it becomes evident that al-Khasibi had a more recognized position among the Imamis, warranting his inclusion. Nevertheless, al-Khasibi’s presence in Aleppo and the court of Sayf al-Dawla al-Hamdani could have also heightened the sensitivity of the moderate Imami community in Baghdad and Aleppo toward him.

Despite the recognition of al-Khasibi by the mainstream Imami community in Baghdad, it is clear that their overall policy was to distance themselves from opposing ghali Shi‘i groups, including the Nusayris. The intellectual and doctrinal developments of the Nusayri sect, characterized by esoteric interpretations infused with elements of Gnostic thought and even certain philosophical terms and teachings, as reflected in al-Khasibi’s works, naturally widened the gap between the Nusayris and the moderate Imami community in Baghdad during the fourth and fifth centuries. This gap was further reinforced by the fact that the Nusayris, due to their isolation, did not connect with the intellectual, jurisprudential, and theological developments of the Imami tradition, which had begun to incorporate a Mu‘tazilite inclination and systematically codify its teachings. Gradually, the Nusayris became completely alienated from the Imami community.

In later periods, especially due to the presence of Imamis in scattered regions of Greater Syria from Tripoli to Tyre, Aleppo, and Damascus, Imami scholars naturally became more familiar with the Nusayri school and its intellectual developments. However, this familiarity only served to further the divide, as subsequent intellectual developments among the Nusayris transformed them into a completely distinct sect, making them an unfamiliar and unacceptable phenomenon for the Imami tradition.

It is evident that some Shi‘i authors and scholars in later periods were familiar with certain writings and hadith collections attributed to al-Khasibi and referenced him to a limited extent. Most of these scholars, despite being considered as having been trained in the established jurisprudential traditions of the Imami school, displayed clear inclinations toward ghali Shi‘i ideas. The reasons behind the resurgence of certain ghali tendencies in later centuries are beyond the scope of this article, but it is worth briefly mentioning the influence of Shi‘i millenarian and messianic movements, as well as the school of Sufism represented by Ibn Arabi.

During the Safavid era, efforts to compile large collections of Shi‘i hadiths, along with the financial, political, and social opportunities that facilitated the gathering of Shi‘i books and the strengthening of connections among Shi‘i communities in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, and the Levant, provided a new avenue for the Imamis to become acquainted with Husayn ibn Hamdan al-Khasibi. In this period, a manuscript of a book attributed to al-Khasibi, known as al-Hidaya al-Kubra, became available to Imami scholars and was widely cited in their works. This book, which is a collection of narrations and hadiths about the Twelve Imams, received considerable attention despite the criticisms directed at its author in some sources of that time.

The name of this book does not appear in earlier Nusayri sources, and the attribution of its current form to al-Khasibi still requires further investigation. However, it is generally assumed that this book is the same as the Kitab Tarikh al-A’imma mentioned by al-Najashi in his Rijal. In contemporary Nusayri works, the book al-Hidaya al-Kubra is also attributed to al-Khasibi under this name.

How Imami scholars of the Safavid period gained access to this book is unclear, especially since no evidence suggests that this book was widely available to earlier Shi‘i scholars, except in rare instances. Moreover, no older manuscript predating the Safavid era appears to exist. It is plausible that a copy of this book reached the scholars of Jabal ‘Amil in the Levant and, through them, made its way to Iran and into the hands of Shi‘i scholars there and in Bahrain during the Safavid period.

For Safavid-era scholars, who either did not recognize the Nusayris or did not consider them significant, the fact that al-Khasibi was one of their main figures was either unknown or unimportant. In any case, they do not mention this aspect. What they found in the book were narrations and hadiths, many of which had chains of transmission familiar to them or, at least, content that resembled hadiths they had encountered in other works by their own scholars.

The teachings al-Khasibi expressed in his other works, which formed the core of the Nusayri school, did not appear to these Imami scholars. Instead, he was represented through a book of narrations focusing on the history, virtues, and miracles of the Imams, which made many of the narrations in it acceptable to these scholars. However, some expressed reservations about certain narrations, primarily due to the criticisms and weakening of al-Khasibi’s credibility by al-Najashi. Nonetheless, the book as a whole was not entirely unfamiliar to them.

During the same Safavid period, several other hadith books were available to Imami scholars. Although the identities of some of these books were not entirely clear, they often contained similar content. Some of these books had been in the possession of Imami scholars even before the Safavid era and had been quoted without the exact identity of the works being well-known. In some of these books, the same content found in al-Khasibi’s al-Hidaya al-Kubra was reproduced, sometimes even with explicit attribution to him.

Naturally, this facilitated the acceptance of al-Hidaya al-Kubra within the Imami community. However, even after this period, the book did not gain widespread fame and was primarily referenced by a segment of hadith-oriented or Akhbari scholars. Most citations of the book came through other works, such as Bihar al-Anwar by al-Majlisi and the writings of Sayyid Hashim al-Bahrani. Even the author’s name was often recorded incorrectly, with variations such as al-Hudhaini or al-Hudhaybi instead of al-Khasibi.

Interestingly, some modern movements with an affinity for reviving esoteric and ghali Shi‘i teachings, such as the Shaykhi movement, have shown great interest in citing al-Hidaya al-Kubra and al-Khasibi in their works. They often reference the book, despite occasionally criticizing its author and generally opposing Muhammad ibn Nusayr (the figure to whom the Nusayris trace their lineage) as the Bab (gateway) to the Twelfth Imam.

In contemporary times, especially in recent decades, the rise to power of the Nusayris (Alawis) in Syria and the increasing prominence of Imami Shi‘ism in Lebanon—particularly after the Islamic Revolution in Iran—has accelerated interactions between Imami Shi‘as and the Alawis. Early efforts were made by Shi‘i scholars in Lebanon to have the Nusayri (Alawi) sect officially recognized as a branch of Shi‘ism. Similarly, at least some factions among the Alawis have shown consistent efforts to draw closer to Imami Shi‘ism during this period, fostering familiarity with Imami religious texts, including their books.

The publication of al-Hidaya al-Kubra in Beirut created an opportunity for Imamis to become more familiar with the book and to gain a better understanding of al-Khasibi. However, in this edition, a section of the book—the final chapter—was censored. This section contained information about the Abwab (gates) of the Imams, including Muhammad ibn Nusayr, reflecting Nusayri beliefs that were naturally contrary to Imami doctrines. In some manuscript copies of the book, this section is also absent, indicating that Imami scholars copying the text had no interest in preserving it. In recent years, a complete edition of al-Hidaya al-Kubra has been released, and the censored section has also been published separately. However, this section remains unacceptable to Imami scholars.

Additionally, in recent years, new texts connected to the Nusayris and al-Khasibi have been published within the Imami communities in Qom and Beirut. Some of these texts explicitly refer to al-Khasibi as an authoritative figure and source. In the past few decades, there has been a limited tendency within the Shi‘i community to return to older ghali and esoteric Shi‘i teachings. At the same time, books and articles on al-Khasibi and the Nusayris have been written or translated from European languages into Persian and Arabic by Imami Shi‘as, aiming to increase familiarity with these figures and movements.

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