Mubarakiyya

Mubarakiyya is recorded within Shia Islam and is no longer extant. Also written Mobārakīya, proto-Ismailis.

Origin

No founding year is given below, because the sources read do not agree on one and a date has not been chosen for them. The earliest named grouping in the Ismaili line of descent. Encyclopaedia Iranica: at least two groups split from the rest of the Imamiyya at Kufa on the death of Jaʿfar al-Sadiq in 148/765, and the bulk of the early Ismailis traced the imamate through his son Ismaʿil to Ismaʿil's son Muhammad; 'This group became known as the Mobārakīya after Mobārak (i.e., the Blessed), evidently the epithet of Esmāʿīl b. Jaʿfar al-Ṣādeq.' The name is therefore an epithet-derived label, not a founder's name, and no founder is listed. On the death of Muhammad b. Ismaʿil, during the caliphate of Harun al-Rashid (170-193/786-809), the Mubarakiyya split again: a small group continued to trace the imamate in his progeny, while the majority 'refused to acknowledge the death of Moḥammad b. Esmāʿīl' and regarded him as their seventh and final imam, awaited as Mahdi. Iranica identifies that majority as the group 'the Imami heresiographers' name as the predecessors of the Carmatians. No founding year is asserted; 148/765 is Jaʿfar al-Sadiq's death.