29
Early sixth/twelfth century to the mid-eighth/fourteenth century
The mountains of western Syria
|
c. 493/c. 1100 |
al-Ḥakīm al-Munajjim, d. 496/1103 |
|
496/1103 |
Abū Ṭāhir al-Ṣā‘igh, d. 507/1113 |
|
c. 507/c. 1113 |
Bahrām, leader of the Syrian Ismā‘īlī community, d. 522/1128 |
|
522/1128 |
Ismā‘īl al-‘Ajamī, d. 524/1130 |
|
524/1131 |
Abu ’l-Fatḥ |
|
? |
Abū Muḥammad |
|
? |
Khwāja ‘Alī b. Mas‘ūd |
|
557/1162 |
Sinān b. Salmān or Sulaymān al-Basrī, Abu ’l-Hasan Rashīd al-Dīn, d. 588/1192 or 589/1193 |
|
589/1193 or 590/1194 |
Abū Mansūr b. Muhammad or Nasr, al-‘Ajamī |
|
620–56/1223–58 |
al-Ḥasan b. Mas‘ūd, Kamāl al-Dīn, together with Majd al-Dīn; Muẓaffar b. al-Ḥusayn, Sirāj al-Dīn; Abu ’l-Futūh b. Muḥammad, Tāj al-Dīn; and Abu ’l-Ma‘āll, Radi ‘l-Dīn |
|
660/1262 |
Ismā‘īl b. al-Sha’rānī, Najm al-Dīn, d. 672/1274, aided by Shams al-Dīn b. Najm al-Dīn and Mubārak b. Raḍī ’l-Dīn, Ṣārim al-Dīn |
|
669/1271 |
Shams al-Dīn b. Najm al-Dīn |
|
Submission of the Ismā‘īlī fortresses to the Mamlūk Baybars by 671/1273 |
The Nizārī da’wa arose out of a split within the Fāṭimid caliphate at the death in 487/1094 of al-Mustanṣir, when his heir Nizār was set aside in a putsch in favour of his brother, who became the caliph al-Musta’lī and continued the Fāṭimid line (see above, no. 27). Nizār’s cause was taken up by the dā‘ī Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ, who had already towards the end of al-Mustanṣir’s lifetime established Ismā‘īlī power in certain regions of Persia (see below, no. 101, for the heads of this da‘wa, the subsequent Grand Masters and the history of the movement in Persia). The now independent Nizārī da‘wa jadīda or ‘new mission’ was then implanted in Syria by agents from Alamūt, and Ismā‘īlism henceforth played a role in the tortuous political rivalries and strife of the Syrian cities, although it was not until the mid-twelfth century that the Syrian Ismā‘īlīs succeeded in acquiring fortresses, as in Persia, but here in the mountains of western Syria, the later Jabal Ansāriyya.
These garrisons and communities at times played a role in the struggles of the Crusaders and the Muslim principalities. Under their greatest head, the Iraqi dā‘ī Rashīd al-Dīn Sinān, they achieved in effect independence from the Persian Ismā‘īlī leadership which normally controlled the Syrian movement. The leaders of the latter tended to have friendly relations with the Ayyūbids (see below, no. 30). They survived the Mongol onslaught on Syria but became tributary to the Mamlūks, and their fortresses were gradually reduced by Baybars, that of Kahf surrendering in 671/1273. Nevertheless, the Syrian Ismā‘īlī community itself survived largely intact, though with its centre subsequently at Salamiya to the east of the Syrian mountains, maintaining its cohesion and traditions through the succeeding centuries, whereas the Persian Ismā‘īlī communities never really recovered from the violence of the Mongol invasions.
Zambaur, 103.
EI2 ‘Ismā‘iliyya’ (W. Madelung).
Farhad Daftary, The Ismā‘īlīs: Their History and Doctrines, Cambridge 1990, 357–61, 374–80, 396–403, 419–21, 430–4.