The Way of Nobility: Knowledge of the Imam (Minhāj al-karāma fī maʿrifat al-imāma) is one of the most celebrated works in favour of the Shīʿī belief in the Imāma. Apparently authored for the Mongol ruler Öljeitü Khān, this work by al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī presents a concise but crucial summary of key arguments in favour of the Imamate of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and his descendants. The work also contains detailed evidence from Sunnī historical and ḥadīth sources to establish the lack of qualifications for leadership of the Muslim community by those persons whom the majority of Muslims followed, namely, the first three so-called ‘rightly guided caliphs’ (al-khulafāʾ al-rāshidūn).
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Saiyad Nizamuddin Ahmad is currently the Prophet Muhammad University Professor of Shīʿa Islam Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA. He is the author of Fatwās of Condemnation: Islam and the Limits of Dissent (Kuala Lumpur: 2006) and has prepared a critical edition of Muḥyī l-Dīn Ibn al-ʿArabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (Cairo: 2015).
