Hafizi Isma'ilism

The Hafizi branch of Isma'ilism has its origin in the assassination of the tenth Fatimid caliph, and twentieth Musta'li Isma'ili imam, al-Amir bi-Ahkam Allah (r. 1101–1130) on 7 October 1130.

[6] Modern scholars speculate that al-Tayyib may have died in infancy, possibly even before his father; but at least one contemporary anonymous Syrian source maintains that he was murdered on Abd al-Majid's orders.

Thus the sijill proclaimed al-Hafiz's right to the imamate, likening it to the sun, which had been briefly eclipsed by al-Amir's death and Kutayfat's usurpation, but had now reappeared in accordance with the divine purpose.

Earlier examples of breaks in the direct succession of the imamate, chiefly the designation by Muhammad of his son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib, were brought up to buttress his claim.

The Sulayhid queen, Arwa, upheld the rights of al-Tayyib, whose birth had been announced to her in a letter by al-Amir, while the regional dynasties of the Hamdanids and the Zurayids recognized al-Hafiz's claims.

[27] As Stern emphasizes, the issue was "not so much the person of the claimant that weighed with his followers [...] (this is, of course, obvious in the case of the infant al-Tayyib) — it was the divine right personified in the legitimate heir that counted".

A series of abortive conspiracies and uprisings under pro-Fatimid sympathizers or Fatimid pretenders erupted in the 1170s and continued sporadically, with much diminished impact, until the end of the century.

[33][34] By 1188, however, an attempted uprising by a small group who called out the Shi'a cry 'Family of Ali' during the night, found no response from the people of Cairo.

[35] When the real Dawud died as a prisoner in Cairo in 1207/8, the Hafizis asked the Ayyubid sultan al-Adil I for permission to mourn him in public.

[33] Despite the separation of male and female prisoners, Dawud apparently managed to beget two sons in secret, the eldest of whom, Sulayman, was recognized by the Hafizi faithful as his successor.

[33][37] As late as 1298, a pretender claiming to be the son of Sulayman ibn Dawud appeared in Upper Egypt,[38] but by this time the Hafizis—and Isma'ilism in general—had been reduced to small isolated enclaves.

Both engaged in warfare with the Zaydi imamate of Saada, while Ali also attacked the Tayyibis under Hatim ibn Ibrahim al-Hamidi in 1166–1169, pushing them out from Shibam Kawkaban into Haraz.

[47] The slow and gradual Ayyubid conquest allowed Hafizi Isma'ilism to survive for some time in Yemen, as related by Ali's grandson, Badr al-Din Muhammad Ibn Hatim, who died c. 1300.