The Divine Imam as Uncreated Qurʾan: The Late Medieval (ca. 1300-1500) Reconstruction of Shiʿi “Extremism” (ghuluww) with Sunni Theology

This paper presents is one of the first comparative textual studies of the “messianic” religious movements of late medieval Islam (ca. 1300-500), who are often assumed to have been isolated from intellectual traditions.  Scholars have thus compared these movements to the early (8th-9th c.) “extremist” Shiʿi sects, particularly because both viewed the Shiʿi Imams as divine figures.  However, taking the examples of the Hurufis and the Safavids, I show the belief in the Imam’s divinity among these later groups to have arisen from a particular indebtedness’ to a major point of Sunni dogma, the uncreated nature of the Qurʿan, which Shiʿi groups in turn commonly equate with the Imam.  Ironically, while their “extremist” belief in Imams’ divinity has invited these movements’ characterization as manifesting a “popular” Shiʿism unchanging throughout history, I show how it emerged from the highly connected, interconfessional intellectual milieu historically specific to late medieval Islam.