Ali ibn Hanzala ibn Abi Salim al-Mahfuzi al-Wadi'i al-Hamdani () was the sixth Tayyibi Isma'ili '' Dāʿī al-Muṭlaq'' in

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

, from 1215 to his death in 1229.

Life

A member of the

Banu Hamdan Banu Hamdan ( ar, بَنُو هَمْدَان; Musnad: 𐩠𐩣𐩵𐩬) is an ancient, large, and prominent Arab tribe in northern Yemen. Origins and location The Hamdan stemmed from the eponymous progenitor Awsala (nickname Hamdan) whose desce ...

tribe, Ali ibn Hanzala had been active within the Tayyibi '' daʿwa'', already during the tenure of the third ''Dāʿī al-Muṭlaq'',

Hatim ibn Ibrahim Hatim ibn Ibrahim al-Hamidi () (died 16 Muharram 596 AH, 6 November 1199 AD), Al-Hutaib, Yemen) was the third Tayyibi Isma'ili '' Dāʿī al-Muṭlaq'' (Absolute Missionary). He was of the Banu Hamdan tribe of Yemen and succeeded his father, th ...

(1162–1199). Under the fifth ''Dāʿī al-Muṭlaq'', Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Walid (1209–1215), he served as his senior deputy ('' maʾdhūn'') and succeeded him when the latter died in 1215. The position of ''Dāʿī al-Muṭlaq'' ("absolute/unrestricted missionary") was the supreme authority of the Tayyibi community in their capacity as vicegerents of the absent

Imam Imam (; ar, إمام '; plural: ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a worship leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Islamic worship services, lead prayers, ser ...

, the eponymous

at-Tayyib Abu'l-Qasim Al-Ṭayyib Abūʾl-Qāsim ibn Al-Manṣūr ( ar, ٱلطَّيِّب أَبُو ٱلْقَاسِم ابْن ٱلْمَنْصُوْر) was, according to the Tayyibi Isma'ili- Musta'li sect of Isma'ilism, the twenty-first Imam and the last Ca ...

, who remained in

occultation An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden from the observer by another object that passes between them. The term is often used in astronomy, but can also refer to any situation in which an object in the foreground blocks ...

. Like most of his predecessors and successors, Ali enjoyed good relations with the

Hamdanid dynasty The Hamdanid dynasty ( ar, الحمدانيون, al-Ḥamdāniyyūn) was a Twelver Shia Arab dynasty of Northern Mesopotamia and Syria (890–1004). They descended from the ancient Banu Taghlib Christian tribe of Mesopotamia and Eastern Ara ...

ruling Sanaa and their

Ayyubid The Ayyubid dynasty ( ar, الأيوبيون '; ) was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni ...

overlords, which allowed him to reside both in Sanaa and in the Hatimid Hamdanid stronghold of Dhu Marmar. He sent junior ''dāʿī''s to assist the growing Isma'ili community in western

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. At the same time, he confronted the attempts of the rival Hafizi Isma'ili '' daʿwa'' and the

Zaydi Zaydism (''h'') is a unique branch of Shia Islam that emerged in the eighth century following Zayd ibn Ali‘s unsuccessful rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphate. In contrast to other Shia Muslims of Twelver Shi'ism and Isma'ilism, Zaydis, ...

imams Imam (; ar, إمام '; plural: ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a worship leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Islamic worship services, lead prayers, serve ...

to expand their influence in his territories. His own chief aides (''maʾdhūn'') were both relatives of his predecessor, Ali ibn Muhammad: Ahmad ibn Mubarak, Ali's nephew, and Ali's son

al-Husayn Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib ( ar, أبو عبد الله الحسين بن علي بن أبي طالب; 10 January 626 – 10 October 680) was a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a son of Ali ibn Abi ...

. Both would succeed him as ''Dāʿī al-Muṭlaq'' after his death on 8 February 1229.

Writings

Ali ibn Hanzala was very well educated, with a particular interest in

astrology Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of Celestial o ...

and natural sciences. He wrote two theological works on Tayyibi esoteric doctrine (''ḥaqāʾiq''): * the ''Simṭ al-ḥaqaʾiq'' ("Banquet of reality"), a work on Tayyibi concepts on '' tawḥīd'',

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...

and

eschatology Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or of the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that negati ...

, written as a poem of 663 verses. It has been edited and published in Damascus in 1953 by Abbas al-Azzawi at the ''Institut Français de Damas''. * the ''Risālat ḍiyāʾ al-ʿulūm wa-miṣbāʿ al-ʿulūm'' ("Treatise on the radiance of reason and the light of knowledge"), divided into four chapters, it also deals with matters of ''tawḥīd'', cosmology and eschatology, as well as other theological questions.

References

Sources

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ali ibn Hanzala Yemeni Ismailis Tayyibi da'is Year of birth unknown 1229 deaths Banu Hamdan Ismaili theologians 13th century in Yemen 13th-century Arabs 13th-century Ismailis 13th-century Islamic religious leaders