Muhammad-shahi Nizaris

Muhammad-shahi Nizaris is a living tradition within Nizari Isma'ilism. Also written Moʾmen-šāhi, Muʾmin-shahi, Jaʿfariyya (local name in Syria).

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 other line from the succession dispute after the death of Shams al-Din Muhammad around 710/1310. Encyclopaedia Iranica: 'The Moḥammad-šāhi imams, who initially had more followers in northern Persia and Central Asia, transferred their seat to India in the 10th/16th century and by the end of the 12th/18th century this line had become discontinued.' The line of imams is therefore extinct while the community is not. Its most famous imam, Shah Tahir Husayni (d. ca. 956/1549), was persecuted under Shah Ismaʿil (907-30/1501-24), fled to India in 926/1520 and settled in the Deccan in the service of the Nizam-shahs of Ahmadnagar, where he advocated Twelver Shiism as a form of disguise; he 'achieved his greatest success in the Deccan when Borhān Neẓām-šāh proclaimed Twelver Shiʿism as the official religion of the state in 944/1537', and his successors continued that form of taqiyya in India.