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The Guide, Pivot of Creation: The Sources of Shi’i Gnosis
The aim of the article is to explore the relationship between cosmo-anthropogony and Imamology in Shi’ism through its earliest sources in the corpus of pre-Buyid hadiths. It shows that the figure of the Divine Guide is the axis around which creation revolves. Early Shi’ism thus seems to inherit certain major doctrines from the spiritual and intellectual traditions of Late Antiquity.
L’objectif de l’article est d’explorer la relation entre la cosmo-anthropogonie et l’imamologie du chiisme à travers ses sources les plus anciennes dans le corpus de hadiths pré-bouyides. Il montre que la figure du Guide Divin est l’axe autour duquel la création gravite. Le chiisme primitif semble donc hériter de certaines grandes doctrines des traditions spirituelles et intellectuelles de l’Antiquité tardive.
هدف المقالة هو استكشاف العلاقة بين الكوزموأنثروبوجونية والإمامية في المذهب الشيعي من خلال أقدم مصادرها في مجموعة الأحاديث قبل البويهيين. وهي تظهر أن شخصية المرشد الإلهي هي المحور الذي تدور حوله الخليقة. لذلك يبدو أن التشيع الأصيل يرث بعض العقائد الكبرى للتقاليد الروحية والفكرية في العصور القديمة المتأخرة.
Resources of this researcher
videos
Christian Thought, Muslim Thought and Societal Issues: Launch of the “Theologies in Dialogue” Chair
On Wednesday, September 25, 2024, this inaugural conference presents a new chair entitled "Theologies in Dialogue" at the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic University of Lyon. The speakers, Miche...
article
The Guide, Pivot of Creation: The Sources of Shi’i Gnosis
The aim of the article is to explore the relationship between cosmo-anthropogony and Imamology in Shi'ism through its earliest sources in the corpus of pre-Buyid hadiths. It shows that the figure o...
publication
Islam and Scientific Examination: A Renewed Quest
“How can we establish an objective, rigorous, and detached study of Islam in the face of the excesses generated by its politicization? It is to answer this burning question that the French In...
videos
The Quran of Historians
How is historical research on the Qur'an received in the Muslim world? What do we know about the historical figure of Muhammad? Interview with Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, co-director of the “Qur'an o...
videos
The Hidden Imam and religious and spiritual authority in Shia Islam
Conference « Religious Authority in Islam », organised by the Centre for the Study of Cultures and Religions and the Research Unit of the Catholic University of Lyon (UCLy), on 18 and 19 November 2...
videos
New researches on the Qur’an and the origins of islam (French)
Speaker : Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi Moderator : P. Diego Sarrió Cucarella Introduction : P. Laurent Basanese S.J. Conference organized by the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome, 28 Feb...
Resources related to
Shia Islam
videos
Spiritual poetry, hermeneutics and theology in contemporary Shi’i Iran: Soroush, Shabestari, Malekian and Rūmī
Paper presented at the fifth international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme "Ethics and Aesthetics in Is...
article
“An Anthropology of Imamite Love among Iranian Believers”, by Sepideh Parsapajouh
- Sepideh Parsapajouh
In the volume honouring the Islamic-studies scholar Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, De la lettre à l'esprit (eds. Orkhan Mir-Kasimov and Mathieu Terrier, Brepols, 2025), Sepideh Parsapajouh, an anthropol...
article
The Guide, Pivot of Creation: The Sources of Shi’i Gnosis
- Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi
The aim of the article is to explore the relationship between cosmo-anthropogony and Imamology in Shi'ism through its earliest sources in the corpus of pre-Buyid hadiths. It shows that the figure o...
videos
Unity of God and unity in God – a possible perspective and way of dialogue between the believers?
- Vanessa Breidy
A shῑ‘ῑ perspective of dialogue developed by D. Mohammad Ali Shomali. Talking about unity between believers and calling them to act upon it is not new in Islam. The Qur’ān and the early history o...
article
“A Religious Cosmopolitanism: The City of Qom in the Mirror of Transnational Circulations”, by Sepideh Parsapajouh
- Sepideh Parsapajouh
In the collective volume Un Moyen-Orient ordinaire (eds. Thierry Boissière and Yoann Morvan, Diacritiques Éditions, 2022), Sepideh Parsapajouh, an anthropologist at the CNRS (CéSor-EHESS), devotes ...
videos
The Hidden Imam and religious and spiritual authority in Shia Islam
- Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi
Conference « Religious Authority in Islam », organised by the Centre for the Study of Cultures and Religions and the Research Unit of the Catholic University of Lyon (UCLy), on 18 and 19 November 2...
publication
MIDEO 36 – Iǧtihād and taqlīd in Sunnī and Šīʿī Islam
- Emmanuel Pisani
The theme of iǧtihād and taqlīd, by pointing to the notional antagonism between independent reasoning on the one hand and submission to the argument of authority on the other, plunges us into the h...
article
“The Power of Place, the Mediation of the Text: Anthropological Remarks on the Pious Visit to Karbalā”, by Sepideh Parsapajouh
- Sepideh Parsapajouh
In the journal Studia Islamica (Brill, 2021), Sepideh Parsapajouh, an anthropologist at the CNRS (CéSor-EHESS), offers an anthropological analysis of the ziyāra, the pious visit to Shia holy places...