Nasiriyya (Zaydi)

Nasiriyya (Zaydi) is recorded within Zaydi Shia Islam and is no longer extant. Also written Nāṣerīya, Nasirite Zaydis.

Origin

Founder named in the sources: al-Hasan b. ʿAli al-Utrush, al-Nasir li'l-Haqq (d. 304/917). No founding year is given below, because the sources read do not agree on one and a date has not been chosen for them. A Zaydi legal community formed among al-Nasir al-Utrush's converts in the Caspian region. Encyclopaedia Iranica: after two failed campaigns into Tabaristan, al-Utrush 'undertook successfully to convert the Daylamites north of the mountains and the Gilites east of the Safīd-rūd to Islam. Since his legal doctrine differed in some points from that of Qāsem b. Ebrāhīm, which had been adopted by the Zaydīs in Rūyān and eastern Daylamān, his converts came to form a separate Zaydī community known as the Nāṣerīya.' He defeated the Samanids on the Burrud west of Chalus in 301/914 and took Tabaristan; Tabari, a Sunni contemporary, praised his reign for its justice; 'The later Zaydīs universally considered him as one of their Imams in recognition of his outstanding scholarship and exemplary conduct.' He died in 304/917 and was buried at Amul, where his shrine became a place of pilgrimage for the Nasiriyya. No founding year is asserted.