Baha al-Din al-Muqtana

Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Ahmad al-Sammuqi (Arabic: أبو الحسن علي بن أحمد السموقي, romanized: Abu al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Sammuqī; died after 1042), better known as Baha al-Din al-Muqtana (Arabic: بهاء الدين المقتنى, romanized: Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-Muqtanā), was an 11th-century Isma'ili missionary, and one of the founders of the Druze religion.

The disappearance of Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, considered by the Druze to be the manifestation of God, in 1021, inaugurated a period of anti-Druze persecution.

Al-Muqtana took over the leadership of the remnants of the Druze movement in 1027, and led the missionary activity (the "divine call") of the widely scattered Druze communities until 1042, when he issued his farewell epistle (Risālat al-Ghayba, 'Epistle of Occultation'), in which he announced his retirement and the closing of the divine call due to the imminence of the end times.

Sami Nasib Makarim identified him with the Fatimid general and governor of Apamea, Ali ibn Ahmad al-Dayf, who captured Aleppo in 1015/16,[2] but this identification is considered spurious by other scholars.

At this point, the intensity of the persecution may have been reduced somewhat, allowing the scattered and decimated Druze movement to begin reconstituting itself in secret, now under al-Muqtana's leadership.

[1][10] He even sent letters to the ruler of Multan, the Byzantine emperors Constantine VII and Michael IV the Paphlagonian, Jewish communities and Christian Church leaders, as well as the leader of the Qarmatians of Bahrayn, either admonishing them for having abandoned the true faith, or exhorting them to repent and convert before the imminent end times.

[11] As the long-standing feud with Sukayn shows, al-Muqtana's main concern was to keep the various Druze communities loyal and united in doctrine.

[13] A shrine dedicated to Baha al-Din, probably identical with al-Muqtana, is located at the Druze village of Beitegen in Upper Galilee, Israel.

Al-Muqtana remained the head of the Druze missionary movement until 1042, when he issued his farewell epistle (Risālat al-Ghayba, 'Epistle of Occultation'), in which he announced his retirement into concealment (ghayba).

[1][a] In this final epistle, he again reiterated the imminent coming of the end times and the Last Judgment under al-Hakim, where truth would be made manifest, so that his own activity was no longer necessary.