Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: The use and abuse of reason and esotericism in Islamic studies / Rodrigo Adem and Edmund Hayes -- Early Ismailism and the gates of religious authority : genealogizing the theophanic secrets of early esoteric Shiʻism / Rodrigo Adem -- The imam who might have been : Jaʻfar "the liar" between political realism and esoterist Idealism / Edmund Hayes -- Explaining prayer : hadith and esotericism in al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq's ʻIlal al-Sharāʼiʻ / George Warner -- The doctrine of Taʼwīl in Fatimid Ismaili texts / Paul Walker -- Principles of Fatimid symbolic interpretation (Taʼwīl) : an analysis based on the Majālis Muʼayyadiyya of al-Muʼayyad al-Shīrāzī (d. 470/1078) / Tahera Qutbuddin -- Esoteric Shiʻi Islam in the later School of al-Ḥilla : Walāya and apocalypticism in al-Ḥasan b. Sulaymān al-Ḥillī (d. after 1399) and Rajab al-Bursī (d. c. 1411) / Sajjad Rizvi -- Sufi mysticism and Uṣūlī Shiʻism : practical authority in modern Iranian Shiʻi Sufism / Alessandro Cancian.

This volume advances the critical study of exegetical, doctrinal, and political authority in Shiʿi Islam. Naive dichotomies of "reason" and "esotericism" in Islamic Studies have often marginalized Shiʿi thought or impeded its understanding. The studies presented here aim to foster more exacting frameworks for interpreting the diverse modes of rationality and esotericism in Twelver and Ismaili Shiʿism and the socio-epistemic values they represent within Muslim discourse. The volume's contributions highlight the cross-sectarian genealogy of early Shiʿi esotericism; the rationale behind Fatimid Ismaili Quranic taʿwīl hermeneutics; the socio-political context of religious authority in nascent Twelver Shiʿism; authorial agency wielded by Imami hadith compilers; the position of esoteric Shiʿi traditions in Timurid-era Ḥilla; and Shiʿi-Sufi relations with Uṣūlī jurists in modern Iran. Contributors : Rodrigo Adem, Alessandro Cancian, Edmund Hayes, Sajjad Rizvi, Tahera Qutbuddin, Paul Walker, George Warner.

Description based on print version record.