ABSTRACT
The Shi'a appeared on the historical stage in the formative period of Islam with their own distinct identity and ideas on religious authority and leadership revolving around the sanctity of the Prophet Muhammad's family or the ahl al-bayt. In theory, taqiyya tactics could take different forms, ranging from the temporary or short-term concealment of one's religious identity or belief to long-term dissimulation and disguises under various other religious identities. In time, such influences may manifest themselves in different forms, ranging from total acculturation or full assimilation of the dissimulating group in a particular locality into a dominant community or religious tradition chosen initially as a dissimulating cover, to various degrees of interfacing with 'other' traditions without the actual loss of the specific original identity of the dissimulating group. In a sense, Satpanth Ismailism represented a complex form of dissimulation and acculturation adapted to the religious, social, cultural and political realities of South Asia.
