Jewish Magic and Mysticism in Shi`ah Narrations of the Ahl al-Bayt

For centuries rumors and incendiary allegations have persisted that the Shī`ah branch of Islām had its origins in Jewish sectarianism. Today self described Salafists offer as evidence for this legends of a figure in ḥadīth literature named `Abdullāh ibn Sabāʾ, who was said to be from a prominent family of rabbis, as well as citing, sometimes incorrectly referenced quotes that do in fact indicate Shī`ah origins in the Jewish sectarian milieu of Late Antiquity Arabia, from ḥadīth collections as `Usūl al-Kāfī and Biḥār al-Anwār.

The character of `Abdullāh ibn Sabāʾ, or even the question of the historicity of such a figure, is far beyond the scope of the discussion that follows. Instead, we will here provide a short introduction to some of the quotes typically used to argue for the Jewish sectarian origins of the Shī`ah. This will be presented not as giving validity to the Salafist claim of Shī`ah origins with `Abdullāh ibn Sabāʾ, as for every narration that Sunnis muster to this end, Shī`ah haven twice as many disowning the figure (all being late narrations and useless for determining historicity in this case). Leone Caetani explains, for instances, that Ibn Saba was a purely political supporter of `Ali, “around whom later generations imagined a religious conspiracy like that of the Abbasids”. Instead, this discussion is within the context of an ongoing academic discourse, inaugurated by Israel Friedlander’s comparison of what Ronald Paul Buckley, and scholars in general, call “early proto-Shī`ism” with the Jewish `Īṣūnīyah (or `Īsāwīyah) sect of Persia and Arabia.