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The Esoteric Shiite Tradition: Imams, Hidden Knowledge, and the Inner Meaning of Revelation
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ISBN13: 9798191559605
Publisher: Independently Published
Pages: 514
Weight: 1.94
Height: 1.03 Width: 7.00 Depth: 10.00
Language: English
Publisher: Independently Published
Pages: 514
Weight: 1.94
Height: 1.03 Width: 7.00 Depth: 10.00
Language: English
This is a very large-format hardcover volume, designed to offer a substantial and visually imposing reading experience. The Esoteric Shiite Tradition: Imams, Hidden Knowledge, and the Inner Meaning of Revelation is a wide-ranging historical and doctrinal study of one of the most complex dimensions of Shiite Islam: the conviction that revelation possesses interior depths and that the Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt are the privileged heirs and interpreters of a knowledge extending beyond ordinary religious learning.
Beginning with the disputes over authority that followed the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the book traces the gradual formation of the Imamite conception of the Imam as bearer of inherited and divinely granted knowledge. It examines traditions concerning al-jafr, al-jami'a, the Mushaf of Lady Fatima al-Zahra, inspired knowledge, the distinction between zahir and batin, ta'wil, primordial light, walaya, divine names, sacred letters, numerical symbolism, and the sciences of the hidden.
Particular attention is given to historical development. Early Imamite hadith is carefully distinguished from doctrines that emerged centuries later in philosophy, Sufism, occult literature, and Iranian metaphysics. The book examines the problem of the ghulat and the limits established by Twelver scholars against deification of the Imams, independent cosmic power, renewed prophecy, and antinomianism. Figures such as Abu'l-Khattab and al-Mughira ibn Sa'id are placed within the political and religious world of early Abbasid Iraq rather than treated as representatives of a timeless Shiite esotericism.
The study then follows the transformation of Shiite metaphysics through Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Mir Damad, Mulla Sadra, and the intellectual culture of Safavid Iran. It explores the relationship between Shiism and Sufism, the authority of Imam 'Ali within mystical lineages, the influence of Ibn 'Arabi, the work of Haydar Amuli, and the later emergence of 'irfan as a distinct language of spiritual knowledge.
The final historical sections move through Safavid institutionalization, Qajar Iran, the Usuli-Akhbari controversy, Shaykhism, the Babi crisis, philosophical revival, modern 'irfan, and twentieth-century interpretations of Shiite spirituality. Henry Corbin receives particular attention as a major interpreter whose work recovered neglected dimensions of Iranian philosophy while also reshaping them through phenomenology, comparative religion, and the modern category of gnosis.
Throughout the volume, theological ideas are connected with texts, historical figures, political circumstances, institutions, and processes of transmission. Al-Kafi, Basa'ir al-Darajat, Kitab al-Ghayba, al-I'tiqadat, Tashih al-I'tiqadat, Firaq al-Shi'a, Bihar al-Anwar, the works of Mulla Sadra, and numerous other sources form part of a documented reconstruction extending from formative Imamism to the modern period.
The result is a history of continuity and transformation: an investigation of how concepts of sacred authority, hidden knowledge, interior interpretation, and spiritual perfection changed across more than a millennium while remaining centred upon the exceptional place of the Ahl al-Bayt within Twelver religious thought. About the Author Roberto Minichini was born in Mainz, Germany, in 1973, to an Italian father and a Croatian mother. He is a writer, poet, essayist, astrologer, and independent scholar whose interests include religion, philosophy, esotericism, intellectual history, Islamic thought, Shiite traditions, Hinduism, Western esotericism, mysticism, and astrology. His work combines historical reconstruction, doctrinal analysis, comparative study, and sustained attention to the ways religious and philosophical ideas are transmitted and transformed across cultures and historical periods.
Particular attention is given to historical development. Early Imamite hadith is carefully distinguished from doctrines that emerged centuries later in philosophy, Sufism, occult literature, and Iranian metaphysics. The book examines the problem of the ghulat and the limits established by Twelver scholars against deification of the Imams, independent cosmic power, renewed prophecy, and antinomianism. Figures such as Abu'l-Khattab and al-Mughira ibn Sa'id are placed within the political and religious world of early Abbasid Iraq rather than treated as representatives of a timeless Shiite esotericism.
The study then follows the transformation of Shiite metaphysics through Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Mir Damad, Mulla Sadra, and the intellectual culture of Safavid Iran. It explores the relationship between Shiism and Sufism, the authority of Imam 'Ali within mystical lineages, the influence of Ibn 'Arabi, the work of Haydar Amuli, and the later emergence of 'irfan as a distinct language of spiritual knowledge.
The final historical sections move through Safavid institutionalization, Qajar Iran, the Usuli-Akhbari controversy, Shaykhism, the Babi crisis, philosophical revival, modern 'irfan, and twentieth-century interpretations of Shiite spirituality. Henry Corbin receives particular attention as a major interpreter whose work recovered neglected dimensions of Iranian philosophy while also reshaping them through phenomenology, comparative religion, and the modern category of gnosis.
Throughout the volume, theological ideas are connected with texts, historical figures, political circumstances, institutions, and processes of transmission. Al-Kafi, Basa'ir al-Darajat, Kitab al-Ghayba, al-I'tiqadat, Tashih al-I'tiqadat, Firaq al-Shi'a, Bihar al-Anwar, the works of Mulla Sadra, and numerous other sources form part of a documented reconstruction extending from formative Imamism to the modern period.
The result is a history of continuity and transformation: an investigation of how concepts of sacred authority, hidden knowledge, interior interpretation, and spiritual perfection changed across more than a millennium while remaining centred upon the exceptional place of the Ahl al-Bayt within Twelver religious thought. About the Author Roberto Minichini was born in Mainz, Germany, in 1973, to an Italian father and a Croatian mother. He is a writer, poet, essayist, astrologer, and independent scholar whose interests include religion, philosophy, esotericism, intellectual history, Islamic thought, Shiite traditions, Hinduism, Western esotericism, mysticism, and astrology. His work combines historical reconstruction, doctrinal analysis, comparative study, and sustained attention to the ways religious and philosophical ideas are transmitted and transformed across cultures and historical periods.
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