With the right imagination the history of our Ismaili friend reads like a train-station-filler thriller. The plot is laced with intrigue, secrecy, conniving, murder and power-games; the heroes and villains are kings and sheikhs; the settings are castles, deserts, mosques and souks. And so it is with the first significant turning point.
Jafar, great-great-grandson of Ali (Muhammad's successor) and 6th Imam (spiritual leader) was poisoned. His sudden death brought confusion and with it the Ismaili split from the mainline Shia' tradition. Ismailis claim Jafar's son Ismail was the rightful successor followed by his son. Most Shia', however, claim Ismail died before his father and so the line of succession passed to Ismail's younger brother.
If he does his research, an Ismaili will find he has two main rebuffs: 1) that Ismail's death was staged in anticipation of a power struggle with his brother and so to protect him, 2) that regardless of when he died, he and his son are still the rightful 'successors'.
Regardless, from this point on Ismailis were a distinct group and so called for the man at the centre of the whole controversy. But for the next one and a half centuries the Ismaili community had no visible Imam. Had he been taken by God or were they in hiding from the persecution?
Originally published 2 years ago