Maẓlūm and Manṣūr: Early Messianic Interpretation of Quran al-Isrāʾ 17:33

Messianic interpretations of the Qurʾān and its hermeneutical manifestations (taʾwīl) remain underexplored. This paper examines the messianic reception history of the seemingly legal verse Q 17:33 in early Shīʿī exegetical sources. I demonstrate how second/eighth-century Shīʿī Imams, Muḥammad al-Bāqir (d. 114/732) and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), reportedly interpreted maẓlūm (“the oppressed one”) in Q 17:33 as their martyred forefather, Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī (d. 61/680), and manṣūr (“the helped one”) as the Qāʾim/Mahdī from their progeny. The Qāʾim is depicted as defeating the Sufyānī, a descendant of Yazīd I (d. 64/683), in a conflict limited by the verse’s principle of “no excess.” I also show how the Imams align the Qāʾim’s eschatological events and locations with those of Ḥusayn’s final months. This early typological reading presents Ḥusayn as a prefiguration of the Qāʾim’s movement, offering deeper insight into the development of messianic interpretations of the Qurʾān.