An intriguing academic seminar, hosted by the Markaz-e Takhaṣṣuṣī-e Mahdawīyat and Pažōheškade-ye Mawʿūdgara’ī-ye Enteẓār-e Pūyā, recently convened to delve into a critical theological discussion. The seminar specifically focused on analyzing and critiquing the recently published book, “Agents of the Hidden Imam: Forging Twelver Shiʿism: 850–950 CE, by Dr. Edmund Hayes. The seminar specifically concerned the significant role and position of the Four Emissaries during the Minor Occultation as presented in this book. This paper will explore the key arguments presented by the main speaker, Dr. Zuhayr Dehghani Arani, and the subsequent critiques offered by Dr. Seyyed Tavousi Masroor and Dr. Majid Ahmadi Kachaei, providing insight into the diverse perspectives surrounding this pivotal period in Islamic history. This summary captures the key points raised by each speaker and incorporates relevant material from the PowerPoint slides that were not discussed due to time constraints. In certain sections, I have included direct quotations from Hayes’ book for accuracy and added brief explanatory notes to provide necessary context. The perspectives outlined here reflect the views of the speakers, and this essay aims solely to represent the ideas expressed in the seminar.
Dr Dehghani
Before delving into the main discussion, a few preliminary points are in order. First, it is essential to recognize the contributions of western scholars of Islam who addressed this topic prior to Hayes. Among the most significant is Verena Klemm, whose article, “The Four Sufarāʾ of the Twelfth Imam: On the Formative Period of the Twelver Shīʿa” (originally published in German in 1984), argued that it was the third emissary, Ḥusayn ibn Rūḥ, who first conceptualized the institution of sifārah (envoyship). Klemm also summarized her views in a concise entry titled “The Deputies of the Mahdī,” published in the Encyclopædia Iranica in 2007. She writes:
“An analysis of the accounts of Ebn Ruḥ Nowbaḵti and their transmitters (see Klemm, pp. 147 ff.) leads one to assume that Ebn Ruḥ seems to have laid claim to recognition as the only deputy of the Twelfth Imam in his time. On the other hand, available information about the ʿAmris suggests that they were forced posthumously into the institution of ‘deputyship’ or sefāra, which, in order to be credible, had to begin as early as the death of the eleventh Imam.”[1]
Although earlier scholars such as W. Montgomery Watt had examined the institution of sifārah (envoyship) before Klemm, her work remains the most comprehensive and has become a key reference for subsequent Western academics, including the likes of Etan Kohlberg. It was not until 2022 that Edmund Hayes published his findings, arguing that it was in fact the second emissary, Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān, who founded the institution of sifārah.
Several underlying assumptions appear to inform the conclusions drawn by these researchers. Chief among them is the tendency to question or even deny the historical existence of Imam al-Mahdī during the ghayba al-ṣughrā (Minor Occultation). The Imam is frequently treated as a figure excluded from the domain of verifiable history.
Other presuppositions include a diminishing of the authoritative role of the later Imams in favour of the growing influence of the religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ), as well as an emphasis on the internal fragmentation of the Shīʿī community during this period—often to the point of suggesting that rival sects enjoyed greater influence than the Imamiyya. These assumptions have underpinned alternative scholarly interpretations—most notably those of Etan Kohlberg, Hossein Modarressi, and Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi—concerning the formation of Twelver Shīʿism in the period of the Occultation.
Introducing Edmund Hayes
Dr. Edmund Hayes is a scholar affiliated with Radboud University and Leiden University in the Netherlands. His doctoral and postdoctoral research has centred on the institution of sifārah (envoyship) during the ghayba al-ṣughrā (Minor Occultation), with particular focus on the Four Emissaries (al-nuwwāb al-arbaʿa) of the Hidden Imam (ʿa). His ongoing research continues to explore related themes, most recently under a European Union-funded project titled “Embodied Imamate: Mapping the Development of the Early Shiʿi Community 700-900 CE (ImBod)”.[2]
According to his academic résumé, Dr. Hayes earned his undergraduate degree in Arabic and Persian from the University of Oxford, followed by a Master’s and PhD from the University of Chicago. He also spent over two years working with various international organizations in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. In addition to English, he possesses notable proficiency in Arabic, Persian, Italian, French, German, and some Russian.
Dr. Hayes is the author of Agents of the Hidden Imam (Brill, 2022), a monograph based on his doctoral research. He has also co-edited volumes such as Reason, Esotericism, and Authority in Shiʿi Islam (2021) and Mechanisms of Social Dependency in the Islamic Empire (2024). His peer-reviewed articles include:
- “Wujūhāt and the Human: Property and Resistance in the Legal Pronouncements of the Shiʿi Imams” (2017)
- “Institutions of Shiʿi Imamate: Toward a Social History of Early Imamī Shiʿism” (2021)
- “Between Practice and Prescription: The Letter of Khums Request from the Shiʿi Imam Muḥammad al-Jawād, 220 AH / 835 CE” (2021)
- “The Imam Who Might Have Been: Jaʿfar al-Kadhdhāb Between Political Realism and Esoteric Idealism” (2021)
- “‘Smash His Head with a Stone’: Imamī Takfīr and the Production of Deviance in Late 9th-Century Imamī Shiʿism” (2023)
Given the scope of his research, I will not elaborate further on his biography here. Instead, I will focus on the arguments presented in his 2022 monograph, Agents of the Hidden Imam.
I will begin by summarizing his central arguments and then offer a few critical observations.
The introduction to the book is particularly significant, as it lays the conceptual groundwork for Hayes’s study, revealing his underlying assumptions and methodological lens. He begins by discussing the unique situation of the Shīʿa following the martyrdom of Imam al-ʿAskarī (ʿa), particularly the crisis surrounding his succession. Hayes argues that the vacuum of authority led to intense competition among various actors seeking to assume the leadership role previously occupied by the Imams. These contenders included agents, family members, household servants, bureaucrats, extremists (ghulāt), theologians, and ḥadīth transmitters.
Hayes diverges from traditional Shīʿī historiography, which tends to treat the Minor Occultation (al-ghayba al-ṣughrā) as a singular and cohesive phase. Instead, he proposes a tripartite division:
- First phase (until ~280–290 AH): This period includes general representatives who had already operated during the lifetimes of the Imams and continued their duties afterward.
- Second phase: Begins with the death of the last of those early agents, when certain individuals began to claim sifārah (envoyship). This phase continues until the end of the third deputy’s term.
- Third phase: Commences with the tenure of the fourth deputy, Abu al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Samurī, whom Hayes characterizes as presiding over a period of decline, culminating in the collapse of the formal structure of envoyship.
This progression—from general agents to exclusive deputies and ultimately to institutional dissolution—is, for Hayes, analytically crucial. He challenges the historiographical criteria traditionally used to validate the existence of the sifārah institution, preferring sparse but earlier sources over later Shīʿī traditions, which he often views as shaped by retrospective theological concerns.
Hayes also critiques the failure of earlier studies to scrutinize the earliest reports about this period. He advocates a re-examination of these sources based on the following methodological principles:
- Preference for earlier sources, even if fragmentary;
- Viewing reports that align too neatly with later Shīʿī doctrine as potentially retrojected;
- According greater historical value to conflicting or nonconforming reports.
In Chapter One, The Rise of the Agents in the Late Imamate (830–874 ce), Hayes discusses the role of Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) in establishing the wakālah network. He argues that the Imam sought to consolidate the Shīʿī community through a formal, proto-bureaucratic system of representation—laying the groundwork for the later structure of the occultation period. This chapter examines:
- The consolidation of Imamī theological doctrines;
- The formation and institutionalization of the network of agents (wakālah);
- The collection of religious funds (wujūhāt) through this system.
Hayes further argues that this bureaucratic structure not only empowered the network of agents but also began to influence the criteria for recognizing legitimate Imams. During this phase, the role of Shīʿī scholars became increasingly prominent—to the point where they could purportedly “test” or evaluate the legitimacy of a claimant to the Imamate.
Chapter Two, The Crisis before the Crisis: The Feud between Imamic Contenders and the Power of the Agents, centres on the era of Imam al-ʿAskarī (ʿa), which Hayes characterizes as a period of deep crisis. He attributes this to both internal and external pressures — notably the challenge posed by Jaʿfar, the Imam’s brother, and the ongoing political surveillance and repression from the ʿAbbāsid regime. According to Hayes, the very doctrine of the Imamate came under strain during this time, and the structural integrity of the wakālah network was severely tested.
Hayes argues that Imam al-ʿAskarī’s position became increasingly precarious due to several factors: the deviant activities of figures like Fāris ibn Ḥātim, the untimely death of the Imam’s brother Muḥammad (who may have been viewed as a potential successor), and the delicate balancing act required to preserve the line of succession under intense political pressure.
Chapter Three, Crisis! The Mother, the Brother, the Concubine, and the Politics of Inheritance, offers a detailed examination of the turbulent period immediately following the death of Imam al-ʿAskarī (ʿa). Hayes discusses key events such as the Imam’s burial, the inheritance dispute between his brother Jaʿfar and his mother, and the reaction of the Imamī community to various succession claims. He scrutinizes the widespread uncertainty surrounding the Imam’s heir, including the conflicting narratives about the existence of a hidden child.
A major focus of this chapter is the alleged pregnancy of the Imam’s slave-woman, Narjis. Hayes claims that although Abbasid investigations attempted to deny the existence of a child, belief in the Imam’s son did not vanish. Rather, alternative narratives began to emerge — particularly the claim that the child had already been born prior to the Imam’s death. Hayes writes:
“When the phantom pregnancy was disproved through ʿAbbasid intervention, the belief in a child of Ḥasan did not disappear, and stories of the child’s birth before Ḥasan’s death gained increasing currency. The ultimately canonized idea that a child was born to Ḥasan during his lifetime by “Narjis” must have taken several decades to gain consensus.”[3]
Hayes thus argues that belief in the existence of the hidden Imam was not immediate or universally accepted among the Shiʿa. Instead, it evolved gradually over decades through narrative consolidation, theological elaboration, and institutional reinforcement.
Chapter Four, The Agents of the Nāḥiya in the Era of Perplexity, shifts the focus to the early agents (wukalāʾ or sufarāʾ) of the Imam during the initial phase of the Minor Occultation (al-Ghaybah al-Ṣughrā). Hayes explores how these figures, many of whom were already over twenty years of age and had served under earlier Imams — particularly Imam al-Hādī (ʿa) and Imam al-ʿAskarī (ʿa) — were entrusted with sustaining the network of communication, conveying the directives of the Hidden Imam (ʿa), and administering financial affairs.
Hayes dedicates considerable attention to the work al-Tanbīh, attributed to Abū Sahl al-Nawbakhtī — although the text itself is no longer extant, fragments of it are preserved in Shaykh al-Ṣadūq’s Kamāl al-Dīn. According to Hayes, this early source suggests a decentralized model of leadership during the onset of the occultation.
He argues that, based on al-Tanbīh, Abū Sahl does not depict a single, definitive leader guiding the Shiʿi community in the immediate aftermath of the occultation. Rather, leadership was exercised collectively by a cohort of elder agents — some of whom were informal or even marginal figures. Hayes writes:
“The Tanbīh, indeed, provides no conception of a single agent or envoy leading the community in the first years. This again undermines the very idea of the individual envoyship of ʿUthmān b. Saʿīd, or his son in the first phase of the Occultation era. By contrast, its depiction of the leadership belonging to a group of several men is consistent with the picture presented by the earliest narrative reports in Kulaynī’s Kāfī, Ibn Bābūya’s Kamāl, and Ṭūsī’s Ghayba in which several uncanonized, sometimes anonymous men acted in no particular hierarchy to maintain the institutions of the Imamate in the name of an absent Imam. If we are to believe Abū Sahl, then, we must either reject the testimony of Ibn Barniya and the canonized conception of a sequential succession of authority through the canonical envoys, or we must at least acknowledge that there were competing visions of authority in this era.”[4]
Hayes maintains that this period — which lasted roughly until 280–290 AH — did not yet witness the full ascendancy of Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān as the exclusive ṣafīr. Instead, he remained subordinate to the influence of this earlier generation.
According to Hayes, two core functions were institutionalized during this transitional phase:
- Affirmation of the Hidden Imam’s existence — that is, convincing the Shiʿi community that the Imam was alive and in occultation (rather than accepting Jaʿfar’s claims).
- Continuation of the administrative systems associated with the Imamate— particularly the collection of religious dues (wujūhāt) and the transmission of signed edicts (tawqīʿāt) attributed to the Hidden Imam.
Chapter Five, The Creation of an Envoy: The Rise of Abū Jaʿfar al-ʿAmrī, presents the core of Hayes’s argument and central thesis. He contends that following the death of the earlier generation of agents — those with direct authorization from the Imams — Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān al-ʿAmrī (the 2nd ṣafīr) rose to prominence. However, Hayes challenges the traditional Shiʿi narrative that portrays Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān as a formally designated wakīl or ṣafīr of Imam al-ʿAskarī (ʿa). Instead, he argues that this legitimacy was a later construction, carefully cultivated by Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān himself.
According to Hayes, Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān fabricated and disseminated tawqīʿāt (signed epistles) attributed to the Hidden Imam (ʿa) in order to reinforce his exclusive authority. Through these letters, he positioned himself as the sole conduit to the Imam, gradually marginalizing rivals and consolidating his claim to leadership.
Hayes outlines several strategies allegedly employed by Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān in this self-legitimating process:
- Issuing tawqīʿāt that honored both his father and himself, thereby constructing a familial continuity of authority.
- Discrediting dissenting figures, such as Aḥmad ibn Hilāl al-Karkhī and al-Billālī, who resisted his growing influence.
- Attempting to persuade or absorb other influential agents, such as Ibn Mahziyār and al-Asadī, into his network.
- Portraying himself as a “gate” (bāb) to the Hidden Imam, echoing earlier notions of exclusive access to divine authority.
- Implementing a formal financial policy, whereby the collection of wujūhāt (religious dues) was regulated through appointed intermediaries.
Hayes argues that it was through these deliberate moves that the institution of the ṣafīr (envoyship) — with all the theological and socio-political attributes it carries today — became institutionalized during the latter years of Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān’s life. Only at this stage, he claims, can one meaningfully speak of a fully developed sifārah (envoyship) as a structured and widely accepted system within the Shiʿi community.
Chapter Six, Rise and Fall: Ibn Rawḥ, Shalmaghānī, and the Rise and Fall of the Envoyship, shifts the focus to the third emissary, al-Ḥusayn ibn Rūḥ al-Nawbakhtī, whom Hayes identifies as the first to explicitly refer to himself as a ṣafīr (envoy) of the Hidden Imam. Hayes examines both his role within the Shiʿi community and his complex relationship with the political authorities of the time, highlighting how his tenure marked both the institutional peak and the beginning of the decline of the sifārah.
A central topic in this chapter is the conflict involving Ibn Abī al-ʿAzāqir al-Shalmaghānī, a rival claimant who once operated within the Shiʿi bureaucracy. Hayes gives substantial attention to this episode, arguing that the controversy surrounding al-Shalmaghānī — despite its divisive nature — ultimately reinforced the legitimacy of al-Ḥusayn ibn Rūḥ. He suggests that managing such internal rivalries was crucial to preserving the appearance of institutional continuity and cohesion in the office of representation.
Hayes further argues that by the end of the tenure of the fourth deputy, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Samurī, the leading Shiʿi elite consciously decided to terminate the institution of the sifārah. Contrary to the traditional Shiʿi belief that the end of the Minor Occultation was marked by a divine decision communicated through the Imam’s final tawqīʿ, Hayes views this as a strategic and pragmatic move by the community’s intellectual leadership. In his view, this marked a transition from a system based on direct representation (wakālah/sifārah) to one rooted in the authority of transmitted knowledge (ʿilm) and legal interpretation by the scholarly class (ʿulamāʾ).
Chapter Six, aptly titled “Rise and Fall,” encapsulates this development: the sifārah reaches its zenith under al-Ḥusayn ibn Rūḥ, and then, due to both internal challenges and shifting communal dynamics, begins its decline. Hayes notes that al-Shalmaghānī and his faction — described as more intellectually sophisticated and respected than Ḥusayn ibn Rūḥ — as well as other critical episodes (such as doubts about al-Samarī’s capability and the emergence of rival claimants to the role of ṣafīr) contributed to the erosion of the institution’s credibility.
Ultimately, Hayes concludes that the Shiʿi elite determined that the institution of sifārah had become unsustainable. They replaced it with the authority of ʿilm and the leadership of the ʿulamāʾ, who thereafter assumed the responsibility of guiding the community. These scholars continued to draw upon the legacy of the Imams and their deputies, particularly the corpus of tawqīʿāt, but their leadership did not constitute a continuation of the ṣafīr model. In Hayes’s reading, Twelver Shiʿism achieved doctrinal stability by the end of the fourth deputy’s tenure — but the era of formal representation through designated agents had definitively come to a close.
[1] https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/islam-in-iran-ix-the-deputies-of-mahdi/
[2] For more details on this project, see their website: https://embodiedimamate.hcommons.org/
[3] Hayes, Agents of the Hidden Imam, p. 67
[4] Hayes, Agents of the Hidden Imam, p. 86
