Ghulat

The ghulāt (Arabic: غُلَاة, lit. 'exaggerators, extremists')^[a] were a branch of early Shi'a Islam. The term mainly refers to a wide variety of extinct Shi'i sects active in 8th- and 9th-century Kufa in Lower Mesopotamia, and who, despite their sometimes significant differences, shared several common ideas.^[1] These common ideas included the attribution of a divine nature to the Imams, metempsychosis (the belief that souls can migrate between different human and non-human bodies), a particular gnostic creation myth involving pre-existent 'shadows' (azilla) whose fall from grace produced the material world, and an emphasis on secrecy and dissociation from outsiders.^[2] They were named ghulat by other Shi'i and Sunni Muslims for their purportedly "exaggerated" veneration of Muhammad (c. 570–632) and his family, most notably Ali (c. 600–661) and his descendants, the Imams.^[3]

The ideas of the ghulat have at times been compared to those of the late antique gnostics,^[4] but the extent of this similarity has also been questioned.^[5] Some ghulat ideas, such as the notion of the Occultation (ghayba) and return (raj'a) of the Imam, have been influential in the development of Twelver Shi'ism.^[6] Later Isma'ili Shi'i authors such as Ja'far ibn Mansur al-Yaman (died c. 957) and Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani (died after 971) also adapted ghulat ideas to reformulate their own doctrines.^[7] The only ghulat sect still in existence today are the Alawites, historically known as Nusayris after their founder Ibn Nusayr (died after 868).^[8]

A relatively large number of ghulat writings have survived to this day. Previously, only some works preserved in Isma'ilism were available to scholars such as the Umm al-Kitab (Mother of the Book, 8th–11th centuries), which was published in 1936,^[9] the Kitab al-Haft wa-l-azilla (Book of the Seven and the Shadows, 8th–11th centuries) published in 1960,^[10] and the Kitab al-Siraṭ (Book of the Path, c. 874–941) published in 1995.^[11] However, between 2006 and 2013 numerous ghulat texts that have been preserved in the Alawite tradition were published in the Alawite Heritage Series.^[12]

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