Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

Scholarship on the history and doctrines of Shi‘i Ismaili Muslims has progressed at a dizzying pace over the last few decades. Most publications in the field to date are historical studies of particular periods of Ismaili history analysing Ismailism’s socio-political activities, such as the famed Fatimid era or the Nizari state of Alamut. Relatively speaking, the study of Ismaili doctrine – theology, cosmology, hermeneutics and soteriology – remains in the early stages. In this context, David Hollenberg’s monograph is a penetrating study focused on the intellectual contributions of Ismaili thinkers, primarily Jaʿfar ibn Manṣūr al-Yaman (d. ca. 349/960), as well as a methodological intervention into the way Ismaili spiritual hermeneutics, known as taʾwīl, is studied. Hollenberg’s main argument, based on his analysis of tenth-century Fatimid Ismaili texts, is that Ismaili taʾwīl is best conceptualized as a form of cognitive training and intellectual conditioning that brings about ‘new habits of mind’ among members of the Ismaili movement and engenders in them a sectarian sense of special identity.