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��ĀṬE��Ī�۴�, a generic term for all groups and sects which distinguished the ����ṭe�� and the ẓāh��� of the Koran and the Islamic law (&���������Dz�;����īʿ��). The Arabic word ����ṭe�� (inner, hidden, q.v.) was used to denote non-literal meanings of Koranic verses and Islamic legal commands and prohibitions, its opposite, the Arabic word ẓāh��� (outer, visible), to denote literal or obvious meanings presented by the wording of the texts or the implementation of the laws. This distinction was fundamental to the thinking of a number of mainly Shiʿite sects, whose origins are traceable to 2nd/8th century Iraq. Christian, Jewish, and Gnostic influences on their thinking cannot be ruled out but are hard to prove in particular cases.

The first Islamic sect which professed to find allusions to the imamate of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭāleb and his descendants in certain verses of the Koran was the Kaysānīya (q.v.), who expected ʿAlī’s third son Moḥammad b. al-Ḥanafīya (d. 81/700) to come forth as the Mahdī. In particular, one branch of this sect, under the leadership of Moḥammad b. Ḥarb at Madāʾen, based its teachings on this type of Koranic exegesis (e.g., 95:1; see Qomī, p. 30). During the 2nd/8th century the Shiʿite radicals (ḡo�����, sing. ḡālī) in Iraq switched their allegiance to the imams of the line of Ḥosayn, the second son of ʿAlī, and they credited these imams with ability to impart secret knowledge, holding that the Prophet Moḥammad only transmitted the outer (ẓāh���) wording of the divine revelation (�ٲ��Գ�ī��), whereas ʿAlī as his heir and executor (�ɲ�ṣī) possessed knowledge of its inner (����ṭe��) meaning. It was also believed that ʿAlī’s successors, i.e., the imams, kept possession of the knowledge of the ����ṭe�� and that they entrusted the interpretation (�ٲ�ʾ��ī��) of the outer working to only a small number of initiates. The word pair �ٲ��Գ�ī�� �ٲ�ʾ��ī�� was first used in this sense by the Kufan ḡālī Abū Manṣūr ʿEjlī, who claimed to be the plenipotentiary of the fifth imam, Moḥammad al-Bāqer (d. 114/732 or 117/735; �����ɲ���ḵtī, pp. 34f.; Qomī, pp, 46f.).

Two literary sources, both originally written at Kūfa, show how the Kufan ḡo����� identified their own secret doctrines with what they took to be inner meanings of the Koran. One is the Omm al-ketāb, preserved only in a Persian translation. The other is the Ketāb al-haft wa’l-aẓella, written probably by Moḥammad b. Senān, a Kufan ḡālī contemporary with the imams ʿAlī al-Reżā (d. 203/818) and Moḥammad al-Jawād (d. 220/835). In these texts the interpretation (�ٲ�ʾ��ī��) or unveiling (kašf) of the ����ṭe�� is not an achievement of scholarly effort and human exegesis but a divine disclosure made known by the imams to a small number of initiates. Both texts therefore belong to the genre of apocalyptic literature. In the Omm al-ketāb the imam Moḥammad al-Bāqer tells secrets of the ����ṭe�� to a select group of pupils; in the Haft wa’l-aẓella the imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādeq initiates his confidant Mofażżal Joʿfī into hidden meanings.

For the Kufan ḡo�����, perception of the ����ṭe�� usually implied complete neglect of the ẓāh���. The outer commands and prohibitions of the &���������Dz�;����īʿ�� had no importance for a person acquainted with their inner meanings. Such a person therefore ceased to be bound by them and became exempt from all the ritual and legal obligations of the religion. Antinomianism (�����ḥa) of this type was expressed in a widely repeated saying that Koranic commands and prohibitions are really “men who must be followed or avoided” (e.g. Qomī, p. 47), i.e., that they are only allusions to imams and enemies of imams, their literal meanings being unimportant. This argument entered into the teachings of the Kufan ḡālī Abu’l-Ḵaṭṭāb (put to death ca. 138/755), who based it on the Koranic verse (4:28): “God wishes to make (burdens) lighter for you” (Qomī, p. 52). The Ḵaṭṭābīya described Moḥammad, the bringer of the ẓāh���, as “speaking” (����ṭe��) and ʿAlī, the keeper of the ����ṭe��, as “silent” (ṣām���; Qomī, pp. 50-52; for examples of Ḵaṭṭābīya �ٲ�ʾ��ī��, see pp. 54f.).

The ḡo����� sects in Iraq encountered strong opposition from the Twelver Shiʿites and at the end of the 3rd/9th century split into two groups: the Esḥāqī (named after Esḥāq al-Aḥmar, d. 286/899 at Baghdad) and the Noṣayrī (named after Moḥammad b. Noṣayr). The latter still survives. The sect’s teachings were carried by wandering shaikhs to the coastal mountains of Syria, where its adherents today call themselves ʿAlawīs (q.v.). They are the only remaining heirs to the centuries-old legacy of the Kufan ḡo�����. It is by them that the Ketāb al-haft wa’l-aẓella has been handed down. As initiates acquainted with the ����ṭe��, they consider themselves exempt from all ritual obligations and therefore refrain from formal prayers, pilgrimage to Mecca, fasting in Ramażān, etc. (see Halm, 1982, pp. 315ff.).

Beside, but apart from, the extreme Bāṭenīs of the ḡo����� sects, who believed the ẓāh��� to be invalidated by the ����ṭe��, stood the moderate Bāṭenīs of the Ismaʿili sects, whose missionary activity (�岹ʿ�ɲ�) began in Iraq in the middle years of the 3rd/9th century. The distinction between ẓāh��� and ����ṭe�� was likewise central to Ismaʿili doctrine, according to which six “speakers” (����ṭe��) in the course of human history successively brought a &���������Dz�;����īʿ�� (i.e., a combined system of religion and law). The six were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Moḥammad. Assigned to each of these was an “heir-executor” (�ɲ�ṣī; also termed ������� “foundation”), respectively Abel (or Seth), Shem, Ishmael, Aaron (or Joshua), Simon Peter, and ʿAlī. Only a small circle of initiates knew the secret of the ����ṭe�� —which was identical with the Ismaʿili doctrine of the Mahdī and his coming (��ī�峾��)—and the few knowers were bound by their initiatory oath (��īṯāq) to keep the ����ṭe�� secret and to adhere strictly to the ẓāh���, i.e., to the commands and prohibitions of the &���������Dz�;����īʿ��. Believers would not be exempted from this obligation (�ٲ�����ī��) until the last day (yawm al-��ī�峾��), when the Mahdī would come forth, order abolition (������ʿ) of the &���������Dz�;����īʿ��, and reinstate the original religion of Adam, namely pure monotheism (�ٲ���ḥīd) without laws, commands, and prohibitions.

The earliest Ismaʿili literature consists mainly of �ٲ�ʾ��ī�� works in which justification is found in verses of the Koran for every detail of Ismaʿili doctrine: e.g., the Ketāb al-rošd wa’l-hedāya, ascribed to the missionary (����ʿī) Ebn Hawšab Manṣūr al-Yaman (d. 302/915), or the Ketāb al-kašf, a collection of six tracts from the first phase of the Ismaʿili �岹ʿ�ɲ� said to have been compiled by Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr Yaman. Inner meanings of sets of words or chapters of the Koran and prescribed rituals are expounded in numerous Ismaʿili monographs bearing titles such as Taʾwīl ḥorūf al-moʿjam, Taʾwīl al-basmala, Taʾwīl Sūrat al-nesā, Taʾwīl al-ṣalāt wa’l-ṣawm, Taʾwīl al-zakāt (Poonawala, pp. 73, 144, 317, 331). Nevertheless the “outer” &���������Dz�;����īʿ�� was always binding on Ismaʿilis. For them, ẓāh��� and ����ṭe�� were inseparable, as shown for example in the two chief works of the Fatimid jurist Qāżī Noʿmān (d. 363/974), namely his great compendium of law Daʿāʾem al-Eslām (ed. A. A. Fyzee, 2nd ed., Cairo, 1963-67), which is the foundation of Ismaʿili jurisprudence, and the subsequent Taʾwīl al-Daʿāʾem (ed. Mohammad Aʿẓamī, Cairo, 1968-72). In Egypt the Fatimid caliphs, in their role as imams of the Ismaʿilis, always strictly applied the &���������Dz�;����īʿ��. This is confirmed by their readiness to build mosques (al-Azhar, al-Ḥākem, and others) at Cairo and by their concern for the holy places at Mecca and Medina. They only allowed the ����ṭe�� to be explained by a ����ʿī to oath-bound initiates at weekly teaching sessions (������������ al-ḥekma; Maqrīzī, Ḵeṭaṭ, Būlāq, 1853, I, p. 391). Several written accounts of such sessions are known (Poonawala, index, p. 509, s.v. ������������). Only on rare occasions did the inherent antinomianism of the Ismaʿili doctrine lead to heretical adjuration of the law, as in the disturbances of the Druzes at Cairo in 408-11/1017-21 during the Fatimid caliph al-Ḥākem’s reign, or the proclamation of the ��ī�峾�� at the fortress of Alamūt in 559/1164.

Polemics against the Bāṭenīs and their methods came not only from Sunnites such as Ḡazālī (d. 505/1111) but, above all, from Shiʿites such as the Jaʿfarī (Twelver) authors Nowbaḵtī and Qomī in their books on sects and the Zaydite author Moḥammad b. Ḥasan Daylamī (who wrote ca. 707/1308).

(H. Halm)

Originally Published: December 15, 1988

Last Updated: December 15, 1988

This article is available in print.
Vol. III, Fasc. 8, pp. 861-863