Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2026
This study explores how Hijazi Sunnis have strengthened the theoretical development of the Sunni veneration of the Twelve Shiʿi Imams (imamophilism) with a focus on two faḍāʾil works written by the Medinese scholar Shams al-Dīn al-Zarandī (fl. 747/1346): Naẓm Durar al-Simṭayn on ʿAlī and his close family, and Maʿārij al-Wuṣūl on the Twelve Imams. In the Naẓm, a work dedicated to the Injuid ruler of Shiraz, Abū Isḥāq (r. 1343–1357), in 747/1346, Shams al-Dīn adopted a critical stance towards another imamophilic Sunni scholar, Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī (d. 722/1322), for his inclusion of unreliable traditions and justified Sunni imamophilism by excluding Shiʿi traditions and selectively mentioning famous Sunni sources. In Maʿārij al-Wuṣūl, he also denied the Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan (the twelfth imam)-Mahdī theory, which is a pivotal doctrine in Twelver Shiʿism, while considering it to be Shiʿi. These two works could be regarded not merely as a first attempt to theorise Sunni imamophilism through the rejection of certain Shiʿi doctrines but also as a by-product of a rivalry between Shams al-Dīn and the Ḥammūyī family, and between the Injuids and the Muẓaffarids. Shams al-Dīn spread imamophilism among the Shirazi population, and his views on the imams influenced later imamophilic Sunnis.
1 John Woods proposed the term ‘confessional ambiguity’ to describe society and politics under the Aqquyunlu Dynasty (J. Woods, The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire, rev. and exp. edn (Salt Lake City, 1999), pp. 1–23). Ryo Mizukami has outlined relevant studies in detail. See R. Mizukami, ‘Interconfessional dialogue on faḍāʾil of the Twelve Imams: rethinking the confessional boundary between Sunnism and Shiʿism in medieval and early modern Islam’, Orient: Journal of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan 58 (2023), pp. 171–186, esp. pp. 172–174. Toby Matthiesen also wrote one chapter titled ‘Polemics and confessional ambiguity’ in his general history of Sunni–Shiʿi relations (T. Matthiesen, The Caliph and the Imam: The Making of Sunnism and Shiism (Oxford, 2023), pp. 74–104). Although this concept tends to lump interconfessional reverence for the Twelve Imams together with that for the ʿAlids, the latter dates back to the early history of Islam. To distinguish between these two types of veneration, I use the term ‘imamophilism’ proposed by Matthew Melvin-Koushki (M. S. Melvin-Koushki, ‘The Quest for a Universal Science: The Occult Philosophy of Ṣāʾin al-Dīn Turka Iṣfahānī (1369–1432) and Intellectual Millenarianism in Early Timurid Iran’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, Yale University, 2012), pp. 69–77).
2 R. Jaʿfariyān, Tārīkh-i Tashayyuʿ dar Īrān: az Āghāz tā Pāyān-i Qarn-i Nuhum-i Hijrī [History of Shiʿism in Iran: from its beginning to the end of the AH ninth century], Vol. II, rev. edn (Tehran, 2016–2017), pp. 1362–1378, esp. p. 1365; R. Jaʿfariyān, ‘Az Madīna tā Shīrāz: Sharḥī dar bāb-i Khāndān-i Zarandī Anṣārī wa Kitāb al-Iʿlām bi-Sīrat al-Nabī az Shams al-Dīn Mūḥammad b. Yūsuf Zarandī (693–747)’ [From Medina to Shiraz: a study of Zarandī Anṣārī’s family and Informing About the Life of the Prophet by Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Yūsuf Zarandī (693–747)], Āyina-yi Pazhūhish [Mirror of research] 198 (2023), pp. 5–49; M. Dādāshnizhād, Sīmā-yi Dawāzdah Imām dar Mīrāth-i Maktūb-i Ahl-i Sunnat: az āghāz tā pāyān-i sada-yi dawāzdah qamarī [The expression of twelve Shiʿa imams in the written heritage of the Sunnites: from the beginning to the end of the AH twelfth century], two vols (Qom, 2016), vol. i, pp. 111–141, 223–252, 265–292; K. Morimoto, ‘The Prophet’s family as the perennial source of saintly scholars: Al-Samhūdī on ʿIlm and Nasab’, in Family Portraits with Saints: Hagiography, Sanctity, and Family in the Muslim World, (eds.) C. Mayeur-Jaouen and A. Papas (Berlin, 2014), pp. 106–124.
3 Jaʿfariyān, ‘Az Madīna tā Shīrāz’.
4 M. G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, Vol. II: The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods (Chicago, 1974), pp. 283–284; A. Hartmann, An-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh: Politik, Religion, Kultur in der späten ʿAbbāsidenzeit (Berlin, 1975), pp. 101, 166–167; M. Dānishpazhūh, ‘(Intiqād-i Kitāb) Kashf al-Ḥaqāyiq’ [(Review of book) Unveiling of truths], Farhang-i Īrān-zamīn [Culture of the land of Iran] 13 (1966), pp. 299–310, esp. p. 307.
5 Al-Ẓāhir (r. 1225–1226) and al-Mustaʿṣim (r. 1242–1258) restored the mausoleum of Mūsā al-Kāẓim in Baghdad (Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqā, al-Fakhrī fī al-Ādāb al-Sulṭāniyya wa-al-Duwal al-Islāmiyya [al-Fakhri, on the systems of government and the Muslim dynasties], (ed.) W. Ahlwardt (Gotha, 1858), p. 379; Ibn al-Fuwaṭī (attri.), Kitāb al-Ḥawādith [Book of events], (eds.) Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf and ʿImād ʿAbd al-Salām Raʾūf (Beirut, 1997), p. 288). Al-Mustanṣir (r. 1226–1242) and al-Mustaʿṣim visited there (ibid, pp. 124, 213). Al-Mustanṣir dedicated a decorative box (ṣandūq) bearing his name to that mausoleum (B. Fransīs and N. al-Naqshbandī, ‘Al-Āthār al-Khushub fī Dār al-Āthār al-ʿArabiyya’ [Wooden artifacts in the Dār al-Āthār al-ʿArabiyya], Sumer 5 (1949), pp. 55–64, esp. pp. 55–56). According to Kashf al-Ghumma, a Shiʿi faḍāʾil work written in the late thirteenth century, al-Mustanṣir visited the mausoleums of ʿAlī al-Hādī and al-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī in Sāmarrā (ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā al-Irbilī, Kashf al-Ghumma fī Maʿrifat al-Aʾimma [Dispelling of grief in the knowledge of the imams], (ed.) ʿAlī Āl Kawthar, four vols (Beirut, 2012), vol. iv, p. 271).
6 Al-Muwaffaq b. Aḥmad al-Makkī, Manāqib Abī Ḥanīfa [Virtues of Abū Ḥanīfa] (Hyderabad Deccan, 1903–1904).
7 Dādāshnizhād, Sīmā-yi Dawāzdah Imām, vol. i, p. 134; Al-Muwaffaq b. Aḥmad al-Makkī, Maqtal al-Ḥusayn [Martyrdom of al-Ḥusayn], Vol. I, (ed.) Muḥammad al-Samāwī (Qom, 1997–1998), pp. 144–145, 146–147, 212–213.
8 F. Bauden, ‘Les Ṭabariyya: Histoire d’une importante Famille de la Mecque (fin XIIe–fin XVe s.)’, in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras: Proceedings of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd International Colloquium Organized at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in May 1992, 1993 and 1994, (eds.) U. Vermeulen and D. De Smet (Leuven, 1995), pp. 253–266, esp. p. 261; Muḥibb al-Dīn al-Ṭabarī, Les trésors de la postérité, ou, Les fastes des proches parents du Prophète, (trans.) F. Bauden (Cairo, 2004), pp. 1–5 (intro.); Dādāshnizhād, Sīmā-yi Dawāzdah Imām, vol. i, pp. 215–223.
9 As I have mentioned, the veneration of the ʿAlids has been widespread even among non-Shiʿi Muslims since the early period of Islam. Compared with imamophilism, which is more directly connected with Shiʿi thought, it is likely that pro-ʿAlid attitude was easier to accept for Sunnis without special vindication.
10 Dādāshnizhād, Sīmā-yi Dawāzdah Imām, vol. i, pp. 265–281. Al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497), who obtained a certificate (ijāza) from Ibn al-Ṣabbāgh, wrote his biographical information. See al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-Lāmiʿ li-Ahl al-Qarn al-Tāsiʿ [Shining light for the people of the ninth century], 12 vols (Cairo, 1935–1937), vol. v, p. 283.
11 Concerning al-Samhūdī and his Jawāhir al-ʿIqdayn, see Morimoto, ‘The Prophet’s family as the perennial source of saintly scholars’.
12 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-Kāmina fī Aʿyān al-Miʾa al-Thāmina [Hidden pearls on the notables of the eighth century], (ed.) ʿAbd al-Wārith Muḥammad ʿAlī, five vols in three pts (Beirut, 1997), vol. iv, p. 279.
13 Concerning ʿIzz al-Dīn, see Jaʿfariyān, ‘Az Madīna tā Shīrāz’, pp. 10–12; Ibn al-Fuwaṭī, Majmaʿ al-Ādāb fī Muʿjam al-Alqāb [Compendium of adab in a dictionary of honorific titles], (ed.) Muḥammad al-Kāẓim, six vols (Tehran, 1995–1996), vol. i, p. 370; al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad al-Birzālī, al-Muqtafī ʿalā Kitāb al-Rawḍatayn al-maʿrūf bi-Tārīkh al-Birzālī [Continuation of the Book of two gardens, known as the History of al-Birzālī], (ed.) ʿUmar ʿAbd Allāh Tadmurī, four vols (Beirut, 2006), vol. iv, pp. 60–61; Ibn Rāfiʿ al-Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʿUlamāʾ Baghdād, al-musammā bi-Muntakhab al-Mukhtār [History of the scholars of Baghdad, entitled the Selection of the chosen], (ed.) ʿAbbās al-ʿAzzāwī (Beirut, 2000), pp. 189–190; Ibn Farḥūn, Tārīkh al-Madīna al-Munawwara, al-musammā bi-Naṣīḥat al-Mushāwir wa-Taʿziyat al-Mujāwir [History of the Illuminated City (Medina), entitled Counsel for the adviser and consolation for the Holy-Site resident], (ed.) Ḥusayn Muḥammad ʿAlī Shukrī (Beirut, [1996]), p. 95.
14 ʿA. ʿĀshūr and M. K. al-Maḥmūdī, the editors of Shams al-Dīn’s Naẓm Durar al-Simṭayn and Maʿārij al-Wuṣūl respectively, wrote Shams al-Dīn’s laqab (honorific title) ‘Jamāl al-Dīn’ (Jamāl al-Dīn al-Zarandī, Naẓm Durar al-Simṭayn fī Faḍāʾil al-Muṣṭafā wa-al-Murtaḍā wa-al-Batūl wa-al-Sibṭayn [Stringing of the pearls of the two necklaces on the virtues of the chosen, the approved, the chaste, and the two grandsons], (ed.) ʿAlī ʿĀshūr (Beirut, 2004); Jamāl al-Dīn al-Zarandī, Maʿārij al-Wuṣūl ilā Maʿrifat Faḍl Āl al-Rasūl wa-al-Batūl [Ladders of attainment to the knowledge of the merits of the family of the messenger and the chaste], (ed.) Muḥammad Kāẓim al-Maḥmūdī ([Qom], 2004–2005)). Although the reason why they chose Jamāl al-Dīn as his laqab was not mentioned, it was probably based on the accounts of al-Fuṣūl al-Muhimma and Jawāhir al-ʿIqdayn (Ibn al-Ṣabbāgh, al-Fuṣūl al-Muhimma fī Maʿrifat al-Aʾimma [Important chapters on the knowledge of the imams], (ed.) Sāmī al-Ghurayrī, two vols (Qom, 2010–2011), vol. i, p. 106; al-Samhūdī, Jawāhir al-ʿIqdayn fī Faḍl al-Sharafayn [Jewels of the two necklaces on the merits of the two kinds of nobility], (ed.) Mūsā Bināy al-ʿAlīlī, two vols in three pts (Baghdad, 1984–1987), vol. ii, p. 75). However, as Jaʿfariyān called him Shams al-Dīn based on historical sources in the fourteenth century, which are mentioned below, this laqab seems more popular for Shams al-Dīn’s contemporaries. Therefore, I also used Shams al-Dīn as his laqab.
15 Shams al-Dīn had two younger brothers, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad (fl. 749/1348–1349) and Nūr al-Dīn ʿAlī (d. 772/1371) (Jaʿfariyān, ‘Az Madīna tā Shīrāz’, pp. 13–14; Ibn Farḥūn, Tārīkh al-Madīna al-Munawwara, p. 95; al-Sakhāwī, al-Tuḥfa al-Laṭīfa fī Tārīkh al-Madīna al-Sharīfa [Subtle gift concerning the history of the Exalted City (Medina)], (ed.) Asʿad Ṭarābzūnī al-Ḥusaynī, three vols (Beirut, 1979), vol. i, pp. 272–273; Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-Kāmina, vol. iii, p. 84).
16 Ibn Farḥūn, Tārīkh al-Madīna al-Munawwara, p. 95.
17 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-Kāmina, vol. iv, pp. 180–181.
18 Ibn Rāfiʿ al-Sallāmī, Tārīkh ʿUlamāʾ Baghdād, pp. 169–170.
19 A 40-hadith collection, or Arbaʿūn ḥadīth, is one of the most common forms of hadith collections compiled to display the elevation of a scholar’s hadiths or to cover specific topics. See J. A. C. Brown, Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World, 2nd edn (London, 2018), pp. 57–58. In the Naẓm, Shams al-Dīn mentioned the year he visited Shiraz and completed Bughyat al-Murtāḥ, dedicating it to Abū Isḥāq, to whom the Naẓm was subsequently dedicated (Al-Zarandī, Naẓm, pp. 8–11). Concerning Bughyat al-Murtāḥ, see Jaʿfariyān, ‘Az Madīna tā Shīrāz’, pp. 30–33.
20 Ibid, pp. 33–40.
21 Al-Zarandī, Maʿārij al-Wuṣūl, p. 48; Jaʿfariyān, ‘Az Madīna tā Shīrāz’, p. 29.
22 Muʿīn al-Dīn Junayd al-Shīrāzī, Shadd al-Izār fī Ḥaṭṭ al-Awzār ʿan Zuwwār al-Mazār [Girding the waistcloth for the removal of sins from visitors to the shrines], (ed.) Muḥammad Qazwīnī (Tehran, 1949–1950), pp. 411–414. Although Junayd al-Shīrāzī wrote that Shams al-Dīn came to Shiraz in 750/1349, this does not correspond with the year mentioned by Shams al-Dīn himself. He also mentioned Mawlūd al-Nabī as one of four Shams al-Dīn works instead of the Iʿlām (ibid, p. 412). It is possible that these two titles refer to the same work.
23 Ibn Farḥūn, Tārīkh al-Madīna al-Munawwara, p. 96. Jaʿfariyān, who wrote 747 as Shams al-Dīn’s death year, seems to adopt this account.
24 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-Kāmina, vol. iv, p. 180.
25 Ibn Farḥūn, Tārīkh al-Madīna al-Munawwara, p. 96. Ibn Farḥūn did not concretely mention the names of the cities or rulers Majd al-Dīn visited.
26 For his life and journeys, see V. Strotmann, Majd al-Dīn al-Fīrūzābādī (1329–1415): A Polymath on the Eve of the Early Modern Period (Leiden, 2016), pp. 10–164.
27 Al-Zarandī, Naẓm, pp. 8–11. This expression of Shams al-Dīn’s purpose of writing, ‘to magnify his noble deeds and to receive his compassion’, is also found in the introduction to the Bughyat al-Murtāḥ.
28 Ibid, pp. 13–14.
29 About Saʿd al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī’s life, see J. J. Elias, ‘The Sufi lords of Bahrabad: Saʿd al-Din and Sadr al-Din Hamuwayi’, Iranian Studies 27.1–4 (1994), pp. 53–75, esp. pp. 58–60. With regard to the Ḥammūyī family, see Sayyid S. A. Muqaddam, Khāndān-i Ḥammūʾīyān: Barrasī-i Kārnāma-yi ʿIlmī, Farhangī, wa Siyāsī-i Khāndān-i Ḥammūʾīyān-i Khurāsān, Shām wa Yazd [The House of Ḥammūʾīs: the scientific, cultural, and political achievements of the Ḥammūʾī of Khurāsān, Syria, and Yazd] (Tehran, 2020).
30 For Ṣadr al-Dīn’s life and travels, see Mizukami Ryō 水上遼, ‘13–14 Seiki ni okeru Sunna-ha no Jūni-imāmu-sūkei to Hirra no Shīa-ha Gakusya-shūdan: Sadoruddīn Hanmūyī cho Nihon-himo no Kubikazari no Shinju ni mirareru Shūha wo koeta Denshō-juju’ 13–14 世紀におけるスンナ派の十二イマーム崇敬とヒッラのシーア派学者集団:サドルッディーン・ハンムーイー著『二本紐の首飾りの真珠』に見られる宗派を越えた伝承教授 [Spread of reverence for the Twelve Imams among Sunnis in the thirteenth–fourteenth centuries and the response of the Shiʿi scholarly circle of Ḥilla: trans-sectarian tradition learning in the Farāʾid al-Simṭayn of Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī], Ajia Afurika gengo-bunka kenkyū アジア・アフリカ言語文化研究 [Journal of Asian and African Studies] 99 (2020), pp. 5–25. For the descriptions of Ṣadr al-Dīn by al-Dhahabī and al-Birzālī, see Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām [History of Islam], (ed.) ʿUmar ʿAbd al-Salām Tadmurī, 55 vols (Beirut, 1987–1999), vol. liii, p. 202; Al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad al-Birzālī, al-Muqtafī, vol. ii, p. 439. If we adopt al-Dhahabī’s account of Ṣadr al-Dīn’s ḥajj in 721/1321–1322, just before his passing, it would mark his third journey to the Hijaz.
31 Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī, Farāʾid al-Simṭayn fī Faḍāʾil al-Murtaḍā wa-al-Batūl wa-al-Sibṭayn wa-al-Aʾimma min Dhurriyyatihim [Pearls of the two necklaces on the virtues of the approved, the chaste, the two grandsons, and the imams among their descendants], (ed.) Muḥammad Bāqir al-Maḥmūdī, two vols (Beirut, 1978), vol. ii, p. 342.
32 Al-Dhahabī stated in Tārīkh al-Islām that Ṣadr al-Dīn’s place of death was Iraq, but in another work, al-Muʿjam al-Mukhtaṣṣ, he also wrote that Ṣadr al-Dīn died in Khorasan (Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī, al-Muʿjam al-Mukhtaṣṣ [The select biographical dictionary], (ed.) Muḥammad al-Ḥabīb al-Hīla (al-Ṭāʾif, 1988), p. 66).
33 In Ṣadr al-Dīn’s chains of transmission, Saʿd al-Dīn is always separated from him by a single intermediary (Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī, Farāʾid al-Simṭayn, vol. i, pp. 56, 99, 122, 214, 222, 310, and vol. ii, p. 45).
34 M. Molé, ‘Les Kubrawiya entre sunnisme et shiisme aux huitième et neuvième siècles de l’Hégire’, Revue des études islamiques 29 (1961), pp. 61–142, esp. pp. 75–76.
35 Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī, Farāʾid al-Simṭayn, vol. i, p. 12.
36 Mizukami, ‘13–14 Seiki ni okeru Sunna-ha no Jūni-imāmu-sūkei’, pp. 15–18.
37 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. liii, p. 203; C. Melville, ‘Pādshāh-i Islām: the conversion of Sultan Muḥammad Ghāzān Khān’, Pembroke Papers 1 (1990), pp. 159–177, esp. p. 165. However, al-Dhahabī held Ṣadr al-Dīn in high esteem as his own teacher in another work (Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī, Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffāẓ, Vol. IV, (ed.) The Bureau from the Meccan Library Ms. Under the Auspices of the Ministry of Education Government of India (Hyderabad Deccan, 1956–1958), pp. 1505–1506).
38 Al-Zarandī, Naẓm, pp. 155–157; Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī, Farāʾid al-Simṭayn, vol. i, pp. 238–241. Jalāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd’s father, Fikhār b. Maʿadd (d. 630/1233), was also a notable Shiʿi scholar and learned ʿAbbasid caliph al-Nāṣir’s faḍāʾil work on ʿAlī directly from this caliph (Al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmilī, Amal al-Āmil, Vol. II, (ed.) al-Sayyid Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī (Qom, 1965–1966), pp. 253–254; E. Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work: Ibn Ṭāwūs and His Library (Leiden, 1992), p. 155).
39 Al-Zarandī, Maʿārij al-Wuṣūl, pp. 39–42.
40 Al-Zarandī, Naẓm, p. 11.
41 Ibid, pp. 35–37, 39–40, 118–119, 122, 127, 241–242, 280.
42 Ibid, pp. 261, 263–264, 272, 279, 282.
43 Ibid, pp. 37, 149–151.
44 Ibid, pp. 148–149, 214–215.
45 Ibid, pp. 124, 144, 210, 212, 214, 217, 241. Here, I have only listed the names of scholars who were mentioned more than three times in the Naẓm. Shams al-Dīn also cited a poem from his Hijazi predecessor, Akhṭab Khwārazm (ibid, p. 154).
46 M. Salmāsī, ‘Abū al-Shaykh Iṣfahānī’, in Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī [The great Islamic encyclopaedia], Vol. V, (ed.) Kāẓim Mūsawī Bujnūrdī (Tehran, 1989), p. 601.
47 Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-Awliyāʾ wa-Ṭabaqāt al-Aṣfiyāʾ [Ornament of the saints and biographical dictionary of the pure ones], (ed.) Muṣṭafā ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā, 12 vols (Beirut, 1997), vol. i, pp. 100–128, vol. ii, pp. 43–48, and vol. iii, pp. 157–170, 211–224, 225–240. Ḥilyat al-Awliyāʾ was often cited in Shiʿi faḍāʾil works as an example of Sunni agreement with the virtues of the Shiʿi imams. For example, R. Mizukami, ‘Writing the imam’s virtues under the interconfessional policy of al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh: Ibn al-Biṭrīq al-Ḥillī and his Faḍāʾil works’, in Knowledge and Power in Muslim Societies: Approaches in Intellectual History, (eds.) K. Morimoto and S. Rizvi (Berlin, 2023), pp. 193–220, esp. p. 206.
48 Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Maʿrifat al-Ṣaḥāba [Knowledge of the Companions], (eds.) Muḥammad Ḥasan Ismāʿīl and Masʿad ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Saʿdanī (Beirut, 2002); Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Imāma wa-al-Radd ʿalā al-Rāfiḍa [Book of the imamate and the refutaion of the Rafidites], (ed.) ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Nāṣir al-Faqīhī (Medina, 1987).
49 E. Dickinson, ‘Al-Bayhaqī, Abū Bakr’, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE (Leiden, 2007–); Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī, Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī [Virtues of Shāfiʿī], (ed.) al-Sayyid Aḥmad Ṣaqr (Cairo, 1970).
50 Each is mentioned once in the Naẓm. Respectively, al-Zarandī, Naẓm, pp. 39, 40, 241, 278.
51 Al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, vol. li, pp. 268–270. Al-Dhahabī called him ‘the shaykh of the Hijaz of his day’ (shaykh al-Ḥijāz fī waqtihi).
52 Regarding al-Nawawī and al-Dimyāṭī, see W. Heffening, ‘al-Nawawī’, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn, 12 vols (Leiden, 1954–2002) [hereafter EI2], vol. vii, pp. 1041–1042; and G. Vajda, ‘al-Dimyāṭī’, in EI2, vol. ii, pp. 292–293. With respect to al-Fākihī, see Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-ʿAṣr wa-Aʿwān al-Naṣr [Notables of the age and the servants of the victory], six vols, (eds.) ʿAlī Abū Zayd, Nabīl Abū ʿAmtha, Muḥammad Mawʿid, and Maḥmūd Sālim Muḥammad (Damascus, 1998), vol iii, p. 644.
53 Ghiyāth al-Dīn Hibat Allāh al-Ḥammūyī, Murād al-Murīdīn [Desire of the followers], (eds.) Sayyid ʿAlī Aṣghar Mīr Bāqirī’-fard and Zuhra Najafī (Tehran, 2011), pp. 9, 22 (intro.). Because the manuscript itself lacked both a preface and an afterword, it does not mention the name of the author except in this copyist’s note. However, we can verify Ghiyāth al-Dīn’s authorship of Murād al-Murīdīn in the mashyakha of the Ḥammūyī family in Yazd (Khāndān-i Ḥammūyī Yazdī, al-Mashyakha: Kanz al-Sālikīn [List of teachers: treasure of the wayfarers], (ed.) Sayyid Muḥammad Ṭabāṭabāyī Bihbahānī (Tehran, 2020), p. 138).
54 Dānishpazhūh, ‘(Intiqād-i Kitāb) Kashf al-Ḥaqāyiq’, pp. 300–301.
55 Ghiyāth al-Dīn Hibat Allāh al-Ḥammūyī, Murād al-Murīdīn, p. 112.
56 Ibid, pp. 149–150.
57 Jalāl al-Dīn Yūsuf-i Ahl’s (fl. fifteenth century) epistolary collection, Farāʾid-i Ghiyāthī, includes Ghiyāth al-Dīn’s letter to the ruler of the Kart Dynasty of Herat, Muʿizz al-Dīn (r. 1331 or 1332–1370 or 1371) sent from Kirman (Jalāl al-Dīn Yūsuf-i Ahl, Farāʾid-i Ghiyāthī [The Ghiyāthī pearls], (ed.) Ḥishmat Muʾayyad, two vols (Tehran, 1977–1979), vol. i, pp. 476–482). Although this text indicates that he stayed in Kirman after Muʿizz al-Dīn’s enthronement (732/1331–1332), his activities in Kirman and relationship with the Muẓaffarids remain unclear.
58 See J. Limbert, ‘Inju Dynasty’, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. VIII, (ed.) E. Yarshater (London, 1982–), pp. 143–147. According to Ghiyāth al-Dīn, Bardsīr of Kirman was safe from the events at that time (ḥawādith al-zamān) when he lived there. This ḥawādith al-zamān might have referred to the conflict between the Injuids and the Muẓaffarids.
59 Al-Zarandī, Maʿārij al-Wuṣūl, p. 14. At the end of the work, Shams al-Dīn again referred to himself as ‘al-muḥaddith bil-Ḥaram al-sharīf al-nabawī’ (ibid, p. 201).
60 Ibid, p. 201.
61 Ibid, pp. 21–56.
62 Ibn Ṭalḥa, Maṭālib al-Saʾūl fī Manāqib Āl al-Rasūl [Seeker’s pursuits of the virtues of the family of the Messenger], (ed.) al-Sayyid ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī (Beirut, 1998–1999), pp. 63–224 (of 290 pp.); Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, Tadhkirat al-Khawāṣṣ min al-Umma bi-Dhikr al-Khaṣāʾiṣ al-Aʾimma [Reminder for the elite of the community through mentioning the distinctive qualities of the imams], Vol. I, (ed.) Ḥusayn Taqī-zāda (Beirut, 2011–2012), pp. 105–686 (of 1121 pp.); Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Kanjī, Kifāyat al-Ṭālib fī Manāqib ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, wa-yalīhi al-Bayān fī Akhbār Ṣāḥib al-Zamān [Sufficiency of the seeker concerning the virtues of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, followed by the Exposition on the traditions on the Lord of the age], (ed.) Muḥammad Ḥādī al-Amīnī (Tehran, 1983–1984), pp. 50–413 (of 435 pp.); Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī, Farāʾid al-Simṭayn, vol. i, pp. 23–429 (of 756 pp.).
63 Al-Zarandī, Maʿārij al-Wuṣūl, p. 48.
64 About Abū al-Shaykh al-Ḥayyān, see ibid, pp. 80, 87; about Abū Nuʿaym, see pp. 125, 135, 140, 165, 166; and about al-Bayhaqī, see pp. 34, 36, 53.
65 Ibid, p. 35.
66 Ibid, p. 115.
67 ʿAbd Allāh Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt al-Ṣūfiyya [Biographical dictionary of the Sufis], (ed.) Muḥammad Sarwar Mawlaʾī ([Tehran], 1983–1984), p. 624; N. Pourjavady, ‘Abū Manṣūr al-Iṣfahānī’, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE (Leiden, 2007–).
68 Abū al-Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī, Ḥilyat al-Awliyāʾ, vol. x, pp. 372–373. Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq has been considered a significant figure in Sufism and esoteric knowledge (J. B. Taylor, ‘Jaʿfar al-Sādiq, spiritual forebear of the Sufis,’ Islamic Culture 40.2 (1966), pp. 97–113; M. A. Masad, ‘The Medieval Islamic Apocalyptic Tradition: Divination, Prophecy and the End of the 13th Century Eastern Mediterranean’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, Washington University in St. Louis, 2008), pp. 118, 132–137). These images could have facilitated the spread of imamophilism among Sunnis.
69 ʿAbd Allāh Anṣārī, Ṭabaqāt al-Ṣūfiyya, pp. 369–370; Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya al-Kubrā [Great biographical dictionary of the Shāfiʿīs], (eds.) ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad al-Ḥilw and Maḥmūd Muḥammad al-Ṭanāḥī, ten vols ([Cairo], 1964–1972), vol. iii, pp. 42–43.
70 Although historical sources described Shams al-Dīn’s younger brother Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad and Shihāb al-Dīn’s son as Sufis (al-Sakhāwī, al-Tuḥfa al-Laṭīfa, vol. i, pp. 272–273; Ibn Farḥūn, Tārīkh al-Madīna al-Munawwara, p. 96), details about their Sufi practices remain unclear.
71 Al-Zarandī, Maʿārij al-Wuṣūl, pp. 169–170. A similar story, suggesting that al-Muʿtaṣim poisoned the imam, was introduced in Iʿlām al-Warā of al-Faḍl al-Ṭabrisī (d. 548/1153–1154), and ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā al-Irbilī cited it in Kashf al-Ghumma (al-Faḍl al-Ṭabrisī, Iʿlām al-Warā bi-Aʿlām al-Hudā [Informing humanity of the beacons of guidance], Vol. II, (ed.) Muʾassasat Āl al-Bayt li-Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth (Qom, 1996), p. 106; al-Irbilī, Kashf al-Ghumm, vol. iii, p. 530). Shams al-Dīn did not always deny ʿAbbasid caliph’s poisoning of the imam; for example, despite introducing the theory that al-Manṣūr (r. 754–775) poisoned Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, he neither denied it nor attributed it to Shiʿis (al-Zarandī, Maʿārij al-Wuṣūl, p. 137).
72 Ibid, p. 201.
73 Ibid, p. 200.
74 Ibid, p. 181.
75 W. F. Madelung, ‘Mahdī’, in EI2, vol. v, pp. 1230–1238, esp. p. 1235; M. Momen, An Introduction to Shiʿi Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shiʿism (New Haven, CT, 1985), p. 45; N. Haider, Shīʿī Islam: An Introduction (New York, 2014), pp. 96–97.
76 Al-Zarandī, Maʿārij al-Wuṣūl, p. 183.
77 In Twelver Shiʿism, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan’s lessor occultation (al-ghayba al-ṣugrā) began in 260/874, and the greater occultation (al-ghayba al-kubrā) was from 329/941 onwards. Thus, the ‘occultation in 296’ theory deviates from Twelver Shiʿi belief, and it is uncertain from which sources Shams al-Dīn obtained this notion.
78 Ibid, p. 185.
79 Ibid, pp. 187–188.
80 Ibid, p. 188.
81 Ibid, pp. 188–189.
82 Ibn Taymiyya, Minhāj al-sunna al-nabawiyya [The path of the Prophetic Sunna], (ed.) Muḥammad Rashād Sālim, nine vols (Riyadh, 1986), vol. iv, pp. 87–94; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya wa-al-Nihāya [The beginning and the end], (eds.) ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Arnāʾūṭ and Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf, 2nd edn, 20 vols (Damascus, 2010), vol. vi, p. 369. Regarding Ibn Taymiyya’s understanding of the Shiʿi imams, see N. Husayn, Opposing the Imām: The Legacy of the Nawāṣib in Islamic Literature (Cambridge, 2021), pp. 156–160.
83 Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī, Farāʾid al-Simṭayn, vol. ii, pp. 155–159, 334–335, 337–338.
84 With regard to al-Junābadhī and Maʿālim al-ʿItra, see M. Dādāshnizhād, ‘Barrasī-yi Kitāb-i Mafqūd Maʿālim al-ʿItra al-Nabawiyya-yi Junābadhī’ [A study of Junābadhī’s lost work, the Guideposts of the Prophetic family], Muṭālaʿāt-i Islāmī: Tārīkh wa Farhang [Islamic studies: history and culture] 84 (2010), pp. 123–140. Al-Irbilī cited traditions from Maʿālim al-ʿItra and two other Sunni works, Tārīkh al-Mawālīd of Ibn al-Khashshāb (d. 567/1172) and Maṭālib al-Saʾūl of Ibn Ṭalḥa (d. 652/1254), at the beginning of his description of each imam. See Mizukami Ryō 水上遼, ‘Irubirī cho Hitan no Jokyo ni okeru Sunna-ha Bunken no Senryakuteki Inyou: Chou-shūhateki Shinkou toshite egakareru Jūni-imāmu Sūkei’ イルビリー著『悲嘆の除去』におけるスンナ派文献の戦略的引用:超宗派的信仰として描かれる十二イマーム崇敬 [Strategical quotation of Sunni sources in the Kashf al-Ghumma by al-Irbilī: describing reverence for the Twelve Imams as trans-sectarian piety], Seinan Ajia Kenkyū 西南アジア研究 [Bulletin of the Society for Western and Southern Asiatic Studies] 91 (2020), pp. 1–24, esp. pp. 12–17.
85 Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī, Farāʾid al-Simṭayn, vol. i, p. 13. Here, Ṣadr al-Dīn also showed his respect for ‘all of … his (i.e. the Prophet’s) sons-in-law’ (jamīʿ … aṣhārihi). Although this word is in parentheses in the printed edition because of differences between the two manuscripts that the editor depended on, it can be found even in an old manuscript, Marʿashī library MS 2906, which was copied during Ṣadr al-Dīn’s lifetime. This manuscript was not used for the printed edition (Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī, Farāʾid al-Simṭayn fī Faḍāʾil al-Murtaḍā wa-al-Batūl wa-al-Sibṭayn wa-al-Aʾimma min Dhurriyyatihim (Kitābkhāna-yi Marʿashī, MS 2906), p. 4). ‘Sons-in-law’ definitely includes ʿUthmān, who was called ‘the Possessor of Two Lights’ (Dhū al-Nūrayn) because he wed two daughters of the Prophet. Concerning this Marʿashī MS 2906, see ʿA. Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Ahl al-Bayt fī al-Maktaba al-ʿArabiyya [Ahl al-bayt in Arabic literature] (Qom, 1996–1997), p. 344.
86 See Mizukami, ‘Interconfessional dialogue on faḍāʾil of the Twelve Imams’, pp. 176–177. Concerning the interpretation of the Ghadīr Khumm tradition, neither Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī nor Shams al-Dīn al-Zarandī offers a detailed interpretation. However, both quote a poem on Ghadīr Khumm by Ḥassān b. Thābit (d. 40/659, 50/669, or 54/673). In al-Ḥammūyī’s version, the poem includes the line, ‘I am pleased with you as an imam and a guide after me’ (raḍītuka min baʿdī imāman wa-hādiyan), whereas in al-Zarandī’s version the word imām is replaced with walī (walīyan) (Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī, Farāʾid al-Simṭayn, vol. i, pp. 73–75; Al-Zarandī, Naẓm, p. 147). This suggests that al-Zarandī avoided the word imām as the meaning of mawlā in this context. As Maria Massi Dakake explains, Sunnis have interpreted this tradition as the Prophet’s emphasis on ‘love’ (maḥabba) or ‘support’ (nuṣra) for ʿAlī rather than as a statement of ʿAlī’s political authority over the other Muslims (M. M. Dakake, The Charismatic Community: Shiʿite Identity in Early Islam (Albany, NY, 2007), pp. 44–45). Therefore, although he does not explain how he understood the ambiguous term walī, al-Zarandī’s avoidance of the word imām may reflect his Sunni identity.
87 Mizukami categorised the attitudes of imamophilic Sunnis towards the Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan-Mahdī theory into de-Shiʿitised affirmance (e.g. Ibn Ṭalḥa), Sunni-Shiʿi mixed affirmance (e.g. Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ḥammūyī), and denial (e.g. Shams al-Dīn). See Mizukami Ryō 水上遼, ‘Sunna-ha no Jūni-imāmu Sūkei to Mafudī’ スンナ派の十二イマーム崇敬とマフディー [Is Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan the Mahdī? Diversity of confessional self-identities among medieval imamophilic Sunnis], Tōyō-bunka 東洋文化 [Oriental culture] 103 (2023), pp. 157–180.
88 Shihāb al-Dīn only mentions his activity in Nayrīz in 820 (Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Ījī, Faḍāʾil al-Thaqalayn min Kitāb Tawḍīḥ al-Dalāʾil ʿalā Tarjīḥ al-Faḍāʾil [Virtues of two weighty things, from the Elucidation of the proofs for the superiority of the virtues], (ed.) Ḥusayn al-Ḥasanī al-Bīrjandī (Tehran, 2007), p. 353). Although al-Sakhāwī provides some information, he only mentions his Shāfiʿī orientation, the names of his brother and nephew, and the teachings of his brother (al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-Lāmiʿ, vol. i, p. 367). In Tawḍīḥ al-Dalāʾil, Shihāb al-Dīn mentions his grandfather, Quṭb al-Dīn Muḥammad (d. 785/1384 or 786/1384), who was a famous Shāfiʿī-Sufi scholar in Shiraz and visited Mecca several times. Shāh Shujāʿ of the Muẓaffarids (r. 1366–1384) is said to have been a devoted follower of Quṭb al-Dīn (Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Ījī, Tawḍīḥ al-Dalāʾil, pp. 25, 89, 99, 150; Muʿīn al-Dīn Junayd al-Shīrāzī, Shadd al-Izār, pp. 453–454, 457–458; Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Durar al-Kāmina, vol. iii, p. 293). Shihāb al-Dīn’s sister was married to ʿAfīf al-Dīn Mūḥammad (d. 855/1452), a Shāfiʿī scholar from Nayrūz, who migrated to Mecca (al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-Lāmiʿ, vol. ix, pp. 126–127).
89 For quotation from Dhakhāʾir al-ʿUqbā, see Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Ījī, Tawḍīḥ al-Dalāʾil, pp. 149,153, 154, 163, 165 passim. For quotation from al-Khujandī, see ibid, pp. 158, 159, 207, 212, 220, 244, 320. For al-Khujandī’s life, see al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-Lāmiʿ, vol. ii, pp. 194–201.
90 Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Ījī, Tawḍīḥ al-Dalāʾil, pp. 146, 149, 157, 165, 166 passim. Shihāb al-Dīn also cites Shams al-Dīn’s Bughyat al-Murtāḥ once (ibid, p. 122).
91 Although not necessarily an imamophilic Sunni, al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497)—who travelled across West Asia and visited the Hijaz—also refers to al-Zarandi’s Naẓm in explaining why al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī was buried next to his mother Fāṭima, in Baqīʿ cemetery in Medina (K. Otsuya, ‘Historiography and Identity in the Late Medieval History’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Liège, 2024), p. 122).
92 Dādāshnizhād, Sīmā-yi Dawāzdah Imām, vol. i, pp. 281–282; Mizukami, ‘Interconfessional dialogue on faḍāʾil of the Twelve Imams’, p. 182.
93 Ibn al-Ṣabbāgh, al-Fuṣūl al-Muhimma, vol. i, pp. 106–108. Ibn al-Ṣabbāgh called the Naẓm ‘Durar al-Simṭayn fī Faḍāʾil al-Muṣṭafā wa-al-Murtaḍā wa-al-Sibṭayn’, or just ‘al-Durar’ (ibid, vol. i, p. 151).
94 Ibid, vol. i, pp. 108–110; Mizukami, ‘Interconfessional dialogue on faḍāʾil of the Twelve Imams’, p. 184.
95 Al-Samhūdī, Jawāhir al-ʿIqdayn, vol. ii, p. 65, 64, 75, 76, 108 passim.
96 Morimoto, ‘The Prophet’s family as the perennial source of saintly scholars’, p. 122; al-Samhūdī, Jawāhir al-ʿIqdayn, vol. ii, pp. 419–434.
97 Ibid, vol. ii, pp. 201–205.
98 V. Erginbaş, ‘Problematizing Ottoman Sunnism: appropriation of Islamic history and Ahl al-Baytism in Ottoman literary and historical writing in the sixteenth century’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 60 (2017), pp. 614–646, esp. pp. 623–625, 633–634. In contrast to the Ottoman historians who rejected the Twelve Imams’ eschatological implications, Ottoman historian Muṣṭafā ʿAlī (d. 1008/1600) ardently supported the Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan-Mahdī theory (ibid, pp. 638–640).
99 Shams al-Dīn Ibn Ṭūlūn, al-Aʾimma al-ithnā-ʿashar (al-Shajarāt al-dhahabiyya) [Twelve imams (the Golden geneology)], (ed.) Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Munajjid (Beirut, 1958); Kashfī Tirmidhī, Manāqib-i Murtaḍawī [Virtues of the Approved one], (ed.) Kūrush Manṣūrī (Tehran, 2001–2002); Sulaymān b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥusaynī al-Qundūz, Yanābīʿ al-Mawadda li-Dhawī al-Qurbā [Wellsprings of love for the close relatives (of the Prophet)], (ed.) Sayyid ʿAlī Jamāl Ashraf al-Ḥusaynī, four vols (Qom, 2001–2002).
