Historical setting

The arrival of the Shiʿi Būyids in Baghdad in 945 represented a historic turning point for the Imami community; for although the new dynasty may have been originally of another Shiʿi affiliation, the Būyids of Baghdad favoured the Imamis over other Shiʿis. The ʿAbbāsid caliphate had been weakened by mercenaries and had lost the iron grip under which Imamis had lived, but their participation in authority was limited to a few notable families whose members held bureaucratic offices. The death of the Eleventh Imam, Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, in 874 had left Imamis for the first time without a present Imam, generating a major crisis that compelled the community to devise new forms of management to sustain itself. The effects of this crisis, later known as the ‘Minor Occultation’ (al-ghayba al-ṣughrā) and taken to have ended in 941, were still very much in evidence when the Būyids arrived. Their advent and the ensuing improvement in the Imamis’ political position alleviated the strain that the Imamis were experiencing. The Būyids were to maintain control of Baghdad for a long century, to be replaced by the Saljuqs only in 1055.

The Būyid age was marked by tolerance and constituted a heyday of intellectual activity. Termed both ‘the Shiʿi century’ and ‘the renaissance of Islam’, the period witnessed some of the greatest masters of philosophy, theology, language and literature of medieval Islam; these were the days of Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037), Qāḍī al-Quḍāt ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Ibn Jinnī (d. 1001), al-Tawḥīdī (d. 1023) and al-Mutanabbī (d. 965), to name but a few. Probably owing to both their sectarian status as members of a minority and their non-Arab origins, the Būyids showed exceptional acceptance of religious and cultural diversity. Accordingly, debates on various matters, including doctrinal questions, were often held at the monarch's court and in his presence. Many members of the ruling elite were men of learning, especially the viziers, some of whom, such as Ibn al-ʿAmīd (d. 970) and al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād (d. 995), were among the great belletrists of Islam.