The Ismailis in the Middle Ages:

A History of Survival, A Search for Salvation

Drawing on an astonishing array of sources gathered from many countries around the globe, this book is a work of remarkable erudition and an essential reading for scholars of Islamic history and spirituality, Shi’ism and Iran.

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“None of that people should be spared, not even the babe in its cradle.” With these chilling words, the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan declared his intention to destroy the Ismailis, one of the most intellectually and politically significant Muslim communities of medieval Islamdom. The massacres that followed convinced observers that this powerful voice of Shiʿi Islam had been forever silenced. Little was heard of these people for centuries, until their recent and dramatic emergence from obscurity. Today they exist as a dynamic and thriving community spread throughout the world. Yet, the interval between what appeared to have been their total annihilation, and their modern, seemingly phoenix-like renaissance, has remained shrouded in mystery.

Drawing on an astonishing array of sources gathered from many countries around the globe, The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, A Search for Salvation is a richly nuanced and compelling study of the murkiest portion of this era. In probing the period from the dark days when the Ismaili fortresses in Iran fell one by one before the marauding Mongol hordes, to the emergence at Anjudan of the Ismaili Imams as the spiritual centre of a community scattered across much of the Muslim world, the work boldly explores the motivations, passions and presumptions of historical actors. With penetrating insight, it contemplates the remarkable esoteric thought that animated the Ismailis and gave them the wherewithal to persevere. A work of remarkable erudition, this landmark book is a must-have for scholars of Islamic history and spirituality, Shiʿism and Iran. Both specialists and informed lay readers will take pleasure not only in its scholarly perception, but in its charming anecdotes, quotations of delightful poetry, and gripping narrative style. This is an extraordinary book of historical beauty and spiritual vision.

AWARDS

REVIEWS

“A masterful reconsturction”

Prof. Ali Asani, Harvard University

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“This is a masterful reconstruction of the history of the Ismailis of Iran, a minority Shi‘i community that was forced underground in the thirteenth century by intense persecution. Reliable data on the Ismailis has been hard to come by – their libraries were destroyed and their reputations besmirched by hostile propaganda. Through painstaking archival research and careful readings of previously unknown sources, Shafique Virani has significantly revised the traditional accounts of this community’s history.”

Prof. Ali Asani is the author of Ectasy and Enlightenment: The Isamaili Devotional Literatures of South Asia

“DISCERNING AND SENSITIVE”

Prof. Wilferd Madelung, Oxford University

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“The book offers a discerning and sensitive portrayal of the struggle for survival and the spiritual life of a religious community that endured severe persecution and extreme defamation during much of its history. The author in particular succeeds in bringing to light the esoteric spirituality and profound devotion to the living Imam prevalent in the centuries of concealment following the catastrophic Mongol attempt to annihilate Nizari Ismailism, relying on the evidence of fragmentary source material that has only recently been recovered.”

Prof. Wilferd Madelung is the author of The Succession to Muhammad.

“A major contribution”

Dr. Farhad Daftary, Institute of Ismaili Studies

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“Drawing on an exhaustive array of Arabic, Persian and South Asian sources as well as the scattered results of modern scholarship on the Ismailis, Virani has produced a comprehensive and readable account of the complex, and often obscure, medieval history of the Nizari Ismailis. This book represents a major contribution to modern Ismaili studies.”

Dr. Farhad Daftary is the author of The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines.

“Scholarly and tender, subtle as well as moving”

Prof. Robert Wisnovsky, McGill University

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“In order to show how the Ismaili Shi‘is survived the Mongol onslaught of the thirteenth century, Shafique Virani employs a wide variety of sources in many different South – and South west – Asian languages. Some of these sources provide historically useful information only in the most oblique ways, and Virani’s great achievement is to tease out meaning from what appear to be intractable materials. The resulting reconstruction of medieval Ismaili history is both scholarly and tender, subtle as well as moving.”

Prof. Robert Wisnovsky is the Director of Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Professor Shafique Virani is an award-winning author and internationally recognized public speaker who has addressed people from over 50 countries and audiences of over 15,000. He has served on the faculty at Harvard, Zayed and the University of Toronto, including in senior leadership positions, and his work has been translated into over twenty languages. An avid volunteer around the world, he has consulted for Cirque du Soleil, the History Channel, Lord Cultural Resources and numerous other organizations. Describing him as “a visionary,” the United Nations honored him for dedicating his efforts “to the cause of extending the frontiers of knowledge and the welfare of humankind.”