COMMENTS ON DOCTRINE OF THE CLAY USED TO CREATE THE SELECT IN IMĀMĪ SHĪʿISM

Abstract

The present article discusses the Twelver Shīʿī doctrine of the special substance, clay taken from a "good and pure soil", from which the imams and Shīʿī believers were created, as propagated in their writings. The doctrine was frequently kept in secret, but after the establishment of the Buwayhid state in the tenth century CE many Shīʿī scholars, now that it was safe to disseminate the principles of their faith, openly promoted this doctrine. The article sheds light on the roots of this doctrine and its emergence in Twelver Shīʿism. It surveys the role of clay in pagan beliefs as well as in Judaism and Christianity. It discusses the Jewish belief in the clay from which Jews are made and the difference between the Jewish and the Gentile soul, as well as the difference between Jewish and non-Jewish sperm, and the belief that Jews are superior to the angels. Christians, too, maintain that they are God's favorite children, that God's spirit inheres in them and that they are thus the lords of the world and of the angels. The paper examines the sources from which Shīʿism derived its doctrine of the clay. It shows that this doctrine has gone through a number of different stages. In the first stage the clay was initially mentioned in Twelver Shīʿism, in the second stage the doctrine was elaborated and disseminated, and in the third stage it became firmly established. The study shows that initially the doctrine consisted merely of a number of ḥadīths associated with the issue of the imamate and the right of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and his descendants to it. Subsequently it evolved into a doctrine that encompassed Twelver Shīʿism as a whole, perhaps in order to attach a spirit of sanctity and purity to the ideas, doctrines and policies of the Shīʿī believers.