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Concept
Ghulat
Summary
The ghulāt (غُلَاة, 'exaggerators', 'extremists', 'transgressors', singular ghālin) were a branch of early Shi'i Muslims. The term mainly refers to a wide variety of now extinct Shi'i sects who were active in 8th/9th-century Kufa (southern Iraq), and who despite their sometimes significant differences shared a number of common ideas. These common ideas included the attribution of a divine nature to the Imams, the belief that souls can migrate between different human and non-human bodies (tanāsukh or metempsychosis), a particular creation myth involving pre-existent 'shadows' (aẓilla) whose fall from grace produced the material world, and an emphasis on secrecy and dissociation from outsiders. They were named ghulāt by other Shi'i and Sunni Muslims for their purportedly "exaggerated" veneration of the prophet Muhammad (570–632) and his family, most notably Ali ibn Abi Talib (600–661) and his descendants, the Shi'i Imams.
The ideas of the ghulāt have at times been compared to those of the late antique gnostics, but the extent of this similarity has also been questioned. Some ghulāt ideas, such as the notion of the occultation (ghayba) and return (rajʿa) of the Imam, have been influential in the development of Twelver Shi'ism. Later Isma'ili Shi'i authors such as Ja'far ibn Mansur al-Yaman (died 957) and Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani (died after 971) also adapted ghulāt ideas to reformulate their own doctrines. The only ghulāt sect still in existence today are the Alawites, historically known as 'Nusayris' after their founder Ibn Nusayr (died after 868).
A relatively large number of ghulāt writings have survived to this day. Previously, only some works that were preserved in the Isma'ili tradition were available to scholars, such the Mother of the Book published in 1936 (Umm al-kitāb, 8th–11th centuries), the Book of the Seven and the Shadows published in 1960 (Kitāb al-Haft wa-l-aẓilla, 8th–11th centuries), and the Book of the Path published in 1995 (Kitāb al-Ṣirāṭ, 874–941).
Official source
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