ABSTRACT

IT IS WELL known that the recruiting officers of the Hashimiya in Khurasan called to kitab Alliih wa-sunnat nabiyihi wa'l-bay'a lil-ritf.a min iillahl bayt MuiJ.ammadlrasill Alliih. 1 What did contemporaries take this to mean? Apparently they took the first half of the slogan to mean that the movement involved principles. Whoever called to the book of God and the sunna of his Prophet in early Islam proclaimed himself to be acting "out of anger on behalf of God" (gha4aban lilliih), as opposed to out of anger on his own behalf.2 The principles involved would be specified after the call to book and sunna, and the second half of the Hashimite slogan duly identified the Hashimiya as a movement committed to ahl-baytism. But what did the word al-rif!ii mean? That is the question to which this birthday offering is devoted.