Professors al-Salimi and Madelung add an impressive and important volume in Ibāḍī Texts from the 2nd/8th Century to the growing body of newly edited and published early Ibāḍī material. This collection of fourteen letters (rasā’il, kutub), and epistles (siyar) represent the earliest strata of Ibāḍī writings, whose authors hail from Iraq (primarily Basra) and the Arabian Peninsula. As second/eighth-century Islamic texts remain rare in general, these works will surely find a wider audience among scholars of the early periods. Their 13-page introduction does the work of quickly contextualizing the texts, authors, and manuscripts for newcomers to Ibāḍī studies. However, a fuller portrait will require non-specialists to consult the growing secondary literature on Ibāḍism. Several helpful indices accompany the end of the work, making it a useful scholarly tool. Moreover, the volume complements some of al-Salimi and Madelung's other recently published editions, such as that on ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd al-Fazārī (al-Salimi and Madelung, Early Ibāḍī Theology, Leiden, 2014), Abū al-Mundhir (al-Salimi and Madelung, Early Ibāḍī Literature, Wiesbaden, 2011), and even Qatāda b. Diʿāma al-Sadūsī (al-Salimi, Early Islamic Law in Basra in the 2nd/8th Century, Leiden, 2018). Patricia Crone and Fritz Zimmerman's edition and translation of The Epistle of Sālim Ibn Dhakwān (Oxford, 2001) should be considered the sister volume to this collection, as Ibn Dhakwān's epistle dates from the same period (and can be found in the same manuscripts).
Beyond the strict academic import of the collection, it is worth noting that these texts remain enormously important to the self-understanding of modern Ibāḍīs, who can rightly point to them as evidence for a long and rich intellectual history. As such, some of the works have appeared in print before (e.g. Ibn Ibāḍ’s letters, Shabīb b. ʿAṭiyya and Wā’il b. Ayyūb's epistles), while many appear for the first time. In both cases, al-Salimi and Madelung's critical editions will become the standard editions of these texts. The volume opens with the two letters of Ibn Ibāḍ. Although the dating, audience and even authorship of Ibn Ibāḍ’s letters has been highly debated, there is little doubt that the letters themselves illumine valuable aspects of early Ibāḍī thought. More important than Ibn Ibāḍ’s work, perhaps, are the epistles and writings of Abū Mawdūd Ḥājib b. Mawdūd al-Ṭā’ī al-Azdī and Abū ʿUbayda Muslim b. Abī Karīma, which comprise the third to eighth texts of the volume. Appearing for the first time (with the exception of Abū ʿUbayda's treatise on zakāt), these texts, some of which are co-authored, come from the pens of two of the most important early Ibāḍī scholars and leaders: the first, Abū Mawdūd, led the early Ibāḍī community with Abū ʿUbayda for a time and was the main organizer of ʿAbdallāh b. Yaḥyā's (Ṭālib al-Ḥaqq's) uprising in the Yemen in 129/748. The second, Abū ʿUbayda, is considered one of the first imams, and Ibāḍīs attribute to him the training of the early Ibāḍī missionaries (known as the ḥamalāt al-ʿilm, the “carriers of knowledge”) as well as the organization of the treasury in Basra. Although these claims may be historically misplaced (see John C. Wilkinson, Ibāḍism, Oxford, 2010), there is no doubt that Abū ʿUbayda functioned as an important leader/scholar of the Basran Ibāḍī community. So too the two texts of Shabīb b. ʿAṭiyya, the epistle of Khalaf b. Ziyād al-Baḥrānī (which appears for the first time in print), and also that of Wā’il b. Ayyūb (who led the Basran Ibāḍīs after al-Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb) provide glimpses into the minds of key Ibāḍī scholars from the formative period. Two anonymous texts end the collection: a reply (radd) to the “people of uncertainty” (ahl al-shakk), who appear to be similar to the Murji'a, and a summary of a work describing ʿUthmān's misdeeds.
Textual clues from the various selections add credibility to the argument for dating these works to the early period: for example, Abū ʿUbayda's emphasis on communal sunna in his treatise on zakāt (pp. 120–46) lends credence to an early date for this text. Similarly, the terminology for referring to non-Ibāḍī Muslims, whom the Ibāḍīs considered less-than-full Muslims, is not yet standardized across these writings. By the third/ninth century most Ibāḍīs employed the concept of nifāq (hypocrisy) to describe the shortcomings of non-Ibāḍī Muslims (the notion of kufr al-niʿma (disbelief stemming from “ingratitude”) does not appear in Ibāḍī writings until after the third/ninth century): its absence in the writings of Abū ʿUbayda and Abū Mawdūd makes a strong case for dating their work to the second/eighth century. Additionally, the siyar of Wā’il b. Ayyūb and Khalaf b. Ziyād use the language of nifāq alongside other methods of describing non-Ibāḍīs, suggesting that such terminology was in the process of being agreed upon. While none of these clues, in and of themselves, offer definitive proof for early composition, there are more instances that could be mentioned and the mounting weight of this evidence progressively convinces.
The manuscripts upon which the edition is based are Omani, and they date from the end of the seventeenth to the latter quarter of the nineteenth centuries. In other words, the manuscripts were produced at a time when Ibāḍism was thriving once again in Oman, and thus Ibāḍīs were concerned to preserve and study their “heritage”. This period of time coincides with the beginnings of the Ibāḍī “renaissance” (nahda), and the extent to which nahda-era concerns may have driven the selection of which texts to preserve in the first place remains an open question. This is a matter for further research, as the edition herein reviewed is a classic (and expertly done) text-critical project and does not engage with newer methodologies in text technology or manuscript studies. As much as this reviewer hopes that Drs al-Salimi and Madelung will continue their text-critical editions of early Ibāḍī material, it is also hoped that the manuscripts be examined for what insights they may yield about the early nahda period in Oman.
