The Other Islam

Shi’Ism: from Idol-Breaking to Apocalyptic Mahdism

The reputation of Shi'ism in the Islamic world, as elsewhere, has undergone many vicissitudes, but it is now higher than ever. In this important new study, The author moves us toward an understanding of the social, intellectual, and theological crises that Prophet Muhammed and Ali, together with some of the early Muslims (the precursors of Shi'ism) were struggling to solve. The issues were many: the Idols; their social and economic crystallizations in class, tribalism, gender and ethnicity attitudes; the necessity of the revolutionary; the continuity of the rebellious ethos; the question of the non-Arab converts to Islam; the exaggeration of the status of the imams (Shi'i extremism); the extension of the Shi'i idol-Breaking spirit to encompass modern issues and novel contemporary phenomena. The author brings to the discussion of these complicated questions the lively investigation that many readers are not expected to know and comprehend within the context of the contemporary sectarianism which penetrates and segments the Islamic world.