Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs

Synonyms

Khojas; Nizari Ismailis; Nizāriyya; Shīʿa Imāmī Ismāʿīlis

Definition

Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs are a branch of Ismāʿīlī Shīʿa Muslims dating back to the eighth century, in the formative period of Islam.

Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs are a branch of Ismāʿīlī Shīʿa Muslims. The Ismāʿīlīs are the second largest Shī‘ī Muslim community after the Ithnāʿasharīs, or Twelvers, and date back to the eighth century. Today, Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs are found across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America and represent a diversity of ethnic groups and literary traditions. The largest Nizārī communities are in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, India, China, and Syria, There are smaller communities in Iran, and throughout the Middle East, East Africa, Europe, and North America [1, 2].

Until the mid-eighteenth century, the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs were studied almost exclusively on the basis of caricatures of them in heresiographies, stemming from both polemical Sunni- and Crusade-era Christian texts. In these...