Lika presents an Arab edition with commentary of the anti-
Isma'ili statements in a work by al-Mu'ayyad bi-llah, an important scholar of the Zaydi community in Tabaristan, a region south of the Caspian Sea in modern northern Iran, where the
Isma'ili movement spread continuously.
He seems to have a somewhat confused understanding of the various strands of Shi'ism and sees the
Isma'ili branch as having originated with the Fatimids, when in fact the Fatimids were just one group that grew out of the
Isma'ili movement.
The Fatimids belonged to the
Isma'ili Shiite sect and came from al-Maghreb (present day Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) to conquer Egypt.
In 909, a claimed descendant of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Abdullah al-Mahdi, declared himself Imam of the
Isma'ili Shi'a community and the rightful leader of the Muslim world.
He also authored two books in Urdu: Tdrikh-i Fatimiyyin-i Misr (Hyderabad: Osmaniya University, 1948) and Hamdre
Isma'ili madhhab ki haqiqat aur uska nizdm (Hyderabad: The Islamic Academy of Islamic Studies, 1954), the latter on the Ismaili faith and its organization.
Iran has forged latent links with Turkish Alevis (mostly
Isma'ili, Ja'fari Shi'ites and Arabic-speaking Alawites) in the opposition represented by the People's Republican Party (CHP), the intensely secular organisation founded in the 1920s by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
The other branch that arose after the death of Ja'far followed his second son
Isma'ili and were known as the
Isma'ili group, which inherited the extremist and revolutionary character of the earlier movement.
The
Isma'ili, Druze and other Shi'ites refuse to have anything to do with Safawism.
With startup funds from the Agha Khan Foundation (the Agha Khan is leader of the
Isma'ili community, which is prevalent in northern Afghanistan), the highly successful Roshan cellphone company was founded.
As usual, there are always exceptions or partial similarities--in this respect we can perhaps compare the early Joachites to the Mahdist movements in the peripheries of the Islamic world or to the doctrine of the militant Nizari
Isma'ili Shi'ites.
He was martyred at the hands of members of the
Isma'ili cult in the central mosque of Amol on Friday, the 11th of Muharram, 501/502 AH.
Nahzat-e-Nawin: modernization of the Badakhshani
Isma'ili communities in Badakhshan.
