الأبترية : تاريخها و فكرها و رجالها

الملخص EN

Al- Abtariyya is an Islamic school of thought, considered by ancient historians as an Islamic sect, which emerged in the late Umayyad period, but flourished in the first three decades of the Abbasid period.

Kuthayyer al-Nawwa’, nicknamed al-Abtar, was a co- founder of the school, which was named after him, besides AI-Hasan ibn Saleh, a prominent jurisprudent and traditionist.

Nevertheless, the latter was the one who better developed, and eventually promulgated its ideas.

Some of the ancient historians deemed the Abtariyya as a Shi’ite sect.

Others specified by affiliating it with the Zaydiya (so named after the Alawid imam Zayd who instigated a revollt against the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malek in which he was killed).

Nonetheless, an in-depth investigation in the ideas of the main figures of this school, which the present author has carried out, shows that there had been major differences between the Abtariyya and the Shi’a, on one side and the Zaydites, on the other.

All of them met on one point: preferring one of the progeny of Ali ibn Abi Talib to be an imam.

Except that, their views differed basically towards the very substance of the imamate, who actually deserves it and on what conditions and how it could be obtained.

In addition to that, though the Abtariyya were preferring to see an Alid in the post of Imam, they singularized themselves by stressing the idea that any Qurahite (and some said any Arab), and not the Alids only, could assume the post of Caliph if he possessed the qualifications that entitled him to.

Apart from the lmamate, the Abtariyya’s jurisprudence was mainly an amalgamation of the Mu’tazilite doctrines and the Ilanafite jurisprudence.

This certainly was another reason to exclude them from the Shi’ite trend of throught.

The present study deals with these subjects by following the history of the Abtariyya, examining its theory on the lmamate and its religious ideas and throwing lights on its prominent figures.