ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews Ibâḑîya basic doctrines, identify it in relation to other groups in Islam, and to explain briefly its internal tensions in the context of Umân. The doctrines reviewed in this chapter were the common ground of those ulamâʾ opposed to the ruling power and formed a baseline from which secular deviation could be measured. The Ibâḑîya is more distinctive in the realm of theology. It is not as easy to draw a line between theology and law in Islam as it is in the Judea-Christian tradition, but for convenience the term is used here for those disputations directly concerning God or man's relationship to God. The similarities in the concepts of imâm and shaykh must have facilitated acceptance of the Ibâḑîya. Since the Ibâḑîya had developed in the Arab interior of ʿUmân, the ʿulamâʾ of the inland towns were hesitant to accept the ethnic and cultural mélange of the ports, particularly, in the eighteenth century, at Masqat.
