From Eschatology to Empire: Fatra as a Driving Force in Rewriting the Early Ismaʿili Movement

Abstract The concept of fatra , which has its basis in the Quran as the interim time between prophets, was marshalled and reimagined by the early Ismaʿili movement as a way to explain the absence of the awaited mahdī , Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl. In this understanding, the imam may go into hiding during times of heightened persecution or perhaps even die before the next imam has been designated. However, the establishment of the Fatimid state complicated the idea that there could be a time when the imam is absent. The K. al-Fatarāt wa-l-qirānāt , attributed to the tenth-century Fatimid author Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman, captures the Fatimid reckoning with the implications of fatarāt . It rewrites the history of the early movement to claim that since the advent of the cycle of the Prophet Muhammad there has not been a fatra , nor will there be one again so long as the Fatimids reign.