The Struggle for the Soul of Twelver Shiʿism in Qajar Iran

Abstract

Abstract From the 1770s onwards, there was a struggle for the soul of Shiʿism in Iran – a struggle over what the true nature of religion should be. On one side was the dominant Uṣūlī religious hierarchy, focused on the Shariʿa and asserting that its rationalist methodology was the path to true knowledge. On the other side was a succession of four movements: Akhbārī, Shaykhī, Bābī, and Bahāʾī. This paper examines the evidence for the continuity between these four movements by looking at patterns of affiliation among individuals and families in Iran. It also describes how, despite different ideas regarding the source of true knowledge, the factors that united these four movements were their rejection of excessive clerical control of individual and social life and their belief that religious life should be focused on love for the representative of the Divine among humanity and on the development of personal spiritual qualities.