Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

1. The Doctrine of Qadr. All opposition movements in the
Umayyad times laid emphasis on the doctrine of Qadr, i.e. free-will. They maintained that it is their religious duty to use tneir own intelligence and free-will in order to chose between right and wrong. They derived a political lesson from this, i.e. if the Umayyad rulers were bad, it is the religious duty of the Muslims to change them for better
F’arhad Daftary. The Isma’ihs, P 70

750 Political and Cultural History of Islam

rulers. This suited the interests of the Shia. and although this doctrine was first developed in the circle of Hassan al-Basri it was adopted by Imam Jafar Sadiq. It also became, later a central principle of the Fatimid movement.
2. The Doctrine of Tawil. About the end of trie Uma>yad period foreign works, mainly from Greece and Persia, on science and philosophy were being translated into Arabic. The new ideas contained in them were challenging the simple Islamic principles of the Qur’an. The Rationalists of the time, such as the Muatazilities, were trying to reconcile foreign thought with Qur’anic principles by the method of Tafsir, i.e. commentaries of the Qur’an. The knowledge of the inward meaning can be obtained by interpretation, i.e. Tawil. This interpretation was not an ordinary commentary of the Qur’an but a definite philosophical teaching given by the Shi’ite Imams. This idea of Tawil, developed in the time of Jafar Sadiq. became also another central principle of the Fatimid movement.
3. Haqaiq and Iniamat. In the time of Jafar Sadiq the Muatazilities and the Muslim philosophers were introducing much of the Greek philosophy. As applied to Muslim doctrines their philosophy was called by the Sliia. Haqaiq, which means the Truth. They also asserted that the only way to arrive at this truth of life was to follow an Imam. The Shia theory of the Imamat was different from the Sunni one. With Sunnis a leader in prayer and a leader of jurisprudence can be called Imam. But for the Shia the Imam was the one and the only interpreter of law as well as life. He was considered a teacher and thus the Shia movement was also called the Taalimiya. The Fatimid movement of later times was built on the idea of the teaching of the Fatimid Imams who also became the political Caliphs.
4. With the change-over from Umayyad to Abbas id times the social conditions also changed. Now there was no only a conflict between Muslims of foreign nationalities and the Arab Muslims, but there was also a conflict on economic basis. The Arabs of the South and of the Persian Gulf area as well as the poor Persian peasants now began to j oin the Shia movement, in position to both the Arab and the Persian aristocracy. The Persian converts from the orthodox
The Ffltiniids
751
Zoroastrian religion became now orthodox Muslims and those belonging to Persian heresies like the followers of Mazdak and Mani proceeded to join the Muslim heresies like the Shia. Thus we find that both economically and religiously the Shia represented a revolt against the established authority of the Abbasids.
The Shia revolt was a culmination of many revolts that had gone before. In the Umayyad times there had been the violent revolts of Zaky and the followers of Abu Muslim al-Khurasani like Bihafarid. Muqanna and Babak. to mention only the most important. The rising sentiment of revolt had challenged the very succession of the Imamat of Jafar Sadiq, to which we shall return later.
5. By the time of Jafar Sadiq the Shia had developed a
disciplined organization like that of the Abbasids. It was called tine Daawa. It was a religious mission as well as a political organization. The officers of the Daawa who were called tlie Dais were missionaries, authors of Shia teachings, helpers in administration of the Fatimid Caliphs, political agitators in the Abbasid Empire were they wanted to see that the Abbasid authority was subverted. The Dais served many purposes and were systematically spread out in a large network throughout the Muslim Empire These were the main features of the Shia movement in the time of Jafar Sadiq vwhich were adopted later by the Ismail! Fatimid movement and Caliphate.
On the death of Jafar Sadiq, there was a great split in the Shia movement- Two definite policies were adopted by the two contenders for succession to the Imamat: one was Ismail and the other was Musa al-Kazim. The Shi’ite organization was split in supporting either of these two. Those who followed Musa al-Kazim and the Imams who caine in his line (twelve in all) were called the Ithna Ashariya, I.e. Twelvers. They represented a mild policy of not opposing the Abbasid Caliphs violently. It was for this reason that Mamun could find it convenient at one time to appoint as his successor the Imam Ali Raza, son of Musa a’-Kazim, as the next Caliph after him . The other son of Jafar Sadiq, Ismail, was supported by the more violent and revolutionary wing of t’?e Shia. They wanted to overthrow th^ Abbasid Caliphate and establish a Fatimid one. Ismail had the support of such important Deis of Jafar Sadiq as

Political and Cultural History of Islam
and Abdul Khattab. Ismail, or his son Muhammad being thp se’ssev-w©enth Imam in their line gave another name to the Ismaili