When the miracle fails

I missed this one in 2021 - Kumail Rajani, on ʿUbaydullāh b. ʿAlī al-Ḥalabī. This is a Shīʿ author ascribed with a hadith-collection, lost now except in quotations by the famed Kulaynī and others. Rajani is here to check up on Modarressi, Tradition and Survival.

If Ḥalabī was cited in independent transmissions, then he was widely-cited. Problem: why wasn't he copied in his own line-of-transmission, after Kulaynī et al.? Rajani would go further still: Kulaynī used nawādir works which had used Ḥalabī's book, not this book itself.

It may be we're dealing with the crises of the Shīʿa itself. This Islamic subreligion bore an inherent fragility: it relied on an unbroken chain of a'imma. The Imām of Ḥalabī's time was Jaʿfar called the Sādiq. It was said that Jaʿfar himself caught wind of Ḥalabī's work, found a copy, and endorsed it personally. But eventually the line of a'imma stuttered; one was a minor when his father died, and sectarians split from the mainline (Rajani takes advantage of the Ismailite tradition, with Ḥalabī as a point of sectarian agreement). For Twelvers like Kulaynī, in the end came the Occultation, sealing that line.

Twelver dogma first had to explain-away a toddler "Imām" in no position to lead any prayers; it now must explain the difference between an imām of the state and religion, like Khomeini, who - as an Iranian! - can hardly be Qurāshī, let alone ʿAlid. Ismailites have their own baggage.

Alongside this we have that ancient Shīʿite relation with the Qurān text, that text now associated with ʿUthmān. As time marches on, the canon's text hardens; rivals grow increasingly vulnerable as protoSunnites tout their text as unchanging, even coëternal. Under a true Imāmate, Shīʿites can argue for their text robustly. Under a minority Imām, or under bickering rival A'imma, or - as now - under an occulted Imām: it became more tempting to slip into accepting the Sunnite version, pivoting to "but y'all the REAL racistscorrupters!". They could use some of the monarchist suwar, like 27 and 38, to support the ahl al-bayt just as easily as the Umayyads had used them centuries earlier.

I am guessing that Ḥalabī's work was rife with potential anachronism of this sort, hailing the Imāmate as miraculous by dint of always presenting a mature and wise Imām for the Prophet's people. Students like Kulaynī, given the choice between processing nawādir and copying Ḥalabī, can perhaps be forgiven for taking the route of safety.

BACKDATE 7/4