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ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad Abū Hāshim (d. c. 98/716–7?), a grandson of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and son of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya, is an enigmatic Shīʿī figure known principally for his alleged “testament” transferring the imāmate from the ʿAlids to the ʿAbbāsids. He is said to have died without male issue. Most of the information we have about him seems to support the ʿAbbāsid claim that they had acquired from him hereditary rights to the caliphate, while some texts support counter-claims by their opponents. The authenticity of the information is thus suspect. Abū Hāshim's father, Ibn al-Ḥanaf…

Abū l-Ḥasan ʿ Alī b. Mūsā b. Jaʿfar al-Riḍā (d. 203/818) was the eighth Imām of the Imāmī (Twelver) Shīʿa. According to Imāmī sources, he was born in Medina in 148/765 or 153/770. His mother was a Nubian umm walad (concubine) and his father was the Imām Mūsā al-Kāẓim (d. 183/799). After the latter's death, ʿAlī was recognised as his designated successor, though apparently not by all of Mūsā's followers. Some are said to have denied that Mūsā had died, claiming that he had gone into occultation and would return as the Mahdī (“the righ…

Abū Muḥammad al-Faḍl b. Shādhān b. Khalīl al-Azdī al-Naysābūrī  (d. 260/ 873–4), a traditionist, jurisprudent, and theologian, is regarded in the Imāmī Shīʿī tradition as one of the leading Imāmī scholars of his time. Nothing certain is known about his early life. His name suggests that his origins were in Nīshāpūr and that he was of Arab stock, from the tribe of Azd. He appears to have travelled as a young man with his father to Baghdad, where, according to a report from him, he studied Qurʾān recitation and then moved to Kufa, where he studied ḥadīth with al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Faḍḍāl (d. 2…

Bāb (in Shīʿism), literally “gate” or “entrance,” is a term applied most commonly to a leading disciple and authorised representative of the Imām. The prophet Muḥammad, other prophets, and the Imāms themselves are also, though much less commonly, described as “gates.” In third/ninth-century Imāmī heresiographical literature the characterisation of a leading disciple of the Imām as a “gate” reflects his status as a messenger of the Godhead (who was thought to be incarnated in Muḥammad and the Imāms) and a key to esoteric knowledge. Salm…