The Proof of God

Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, professor at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes/PSL (Sorbonne). Member of the Advisory Board of the Societas Iranologica Europaea, Scientific Consultant of the Encyclopaedia Iranica, Encyclopaedia Islamica and Senior Fellow at the Institute of Ismaili Studies. Also member of the Ambrosian Academy and the scientific committees of numerous journals and reviews. Among his mongraphs: The Divine Guide in Early Shi'ism (State University of New York Press, 1994), The Spirituality of Shii Islam (IIS, I.B. Tauris, 2013), The Silent Quran and the Speaking Quran (Columbia University Press, 2015), La Preuve de Dieu. La mystique shi'ite à travers l'œuvre de Kulayni (Cerf, 2018) and Ali, The Well-Guarded Secret (Brill, 2022). Among the collective works directed by him: Le Dictionnaire du Coran (Robert Laffont, 2007) and le Coran des historiens (Cerf, 2019, co-directed by Guillaume Dye). Maria De Cillisis a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, where she is also a Series Editor of the Shi?i Heritage Series. She has authored Salvation and Destiny in Islam: The Shi?i Ismaili Perspective of ?amid al-Din al-Kirmani (2018), Free Will and Predestination in Islamic Thought: Theoretical Compromises in the Works of Avicenna, al-Ghazali and Ibn ?Arabi (2014) and has co-edited L’ésotérisme shi?ite, ses racines et ses prolongements/Shi?i Esotericism: Its Roots and Developments (2016). Orkhan Mir-Kasimov is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ismaili Studies. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and teaches on the IIS graduate programmes. Previously, he lectured at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO) in Paris and worked at various research centres in France and Germany, including the Institute for Advanced Study of Nantes and the Free University of Berlin. Since 2020, he is the Series Editor of the Ismaili Texts and Translations Series.

Translators’ Preface
· Notes on the English Translation
· Glossary
Preface to the French Edition
Note on Transliteration
Note to the Reader (French Edition)
Introduction to the French Edition
Acknowledgments (French Edition)
Important dates and milestones (1st/7th-4th/10th centuries)

(Translated by O. Mir-Kasimov)

PART ONE: Religion of the Divine Word Made Man

Chapter I
At the Beginnings of the History

Chapter II - The Religion of the imam
II-1. Some specific features of the Shi?i spirituality
II-2. At the heart of the doctrine of the imam: the concept of walaya

Chapter III - About some historical imams
(Translated by O. Mir-Kasimov)
Chapter IV - The Proof Beyond Time
III-1. From the Origin of the World and its Development
III-2. The End of Times (Eschatology)
· The Collective Dimension
· The Personal Dimension

Chapter V - The Proof’s Dual Nature
V-1. The Imam as a Religious Scholar
V-2. The Imam as the Master of Initiation and as Thaumaturge
V-3. The Imam as the Locus of God’s Manifestation

Chapter VI – The Continuity of Prophecy
VI-1. The Need for Discretion
VI-2. Perpetual Communication between God and Mankind
VI-3. ‘The Sealing of the Prophecy’ and its Meaning
(Translated by M. De Cillis)


PART TWO: The Mystical Nature of the Imam in
The Book of the Proof

Chapter I - Brief Remarks on Shi?i Holy Scriptures
I-1. The Qur’an according to Shi?ism
I-2. Shi?i Hadiths

Chapter II - Al-Kulayni and the Book of the Proof
II-1. The Historical Context in Several Important Cities
II-2. A Quest for Knowledge in Iran and Iraq
II.3 Al-Kulayni’s Works

Chapter III - Excerpts from the Book of the Proof
III-1. Some Remarks on Our Translation
III-2. The Book of the Proof (Kitab al-?ujja): Translated and Commented Excerpts
(Translated by O. Mir-Kasimov)
Epilogue

Return to History: Between Mystical Wisdom and Political Temptation
1. Legacy of the Antique Gnosis
2. Shi?is at the heart of the Abbasid Empire
3. Consolidation of the Jurist-Theologians’ Power
4. The State Religion in Iran
4.1. Rationalist Current and the Temptation of Political Power
4.2. Loyalty to the Origins

(Translated by O. Mir-Kasimov)

Appendices

Table I: The Banu Hashim (major protagonists) and the Prophet’s Family
Table II: The Banu ?Abd Shams (major protagonists)
Table III: Genealogy of the major Imams and the main divisions in Shi?sm

Bibliography and Abbreviations
General Index
Index of Qur’anic Citations