al-Aḥsāʾī

al-Aḥsāʾī (born 1753, Al-Hasa, Arabia [now in Saudi Arabia]—died 1826, near Medina) was the founder of the heterodox Shīʿite Muslim Shaykhī sect of Iran.

After spending his early years studying the Islāmic religion and traveling widely in Persia and the Middle East, al-Aḥsāʾī in 1808 settled in Yazd, Persia, where he taught religion. His interpretation of the Shīʿite faith (one of the two major branches of Islām) soon attracted many followers but aroused controversy among the orthodox religious leaders of the day. A central idea of Shīʿite Islām is that the greater imam, the leader of Islām, is descended from the male offspring of ʿAlī (the Prophet Muḥammad’s son-in-law) and Fāṭimah (the Prophet’s daughter) and is divinely appointed and divinely inspired. After 874 the spiritual functions of the imam were performed by wakīls, or agents, who were in contact with the mahdi, the last imam and a messianic deliverer. But following the death of ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad as-Sāmarrīʾ in 940, this direct contact between the community and the mahdi ceased. The Shīʿites believed that some day prior to the apocalyptic end of the world, the mahdi would establish a reign of justice.

Al-Aḥsāʾī taught that at all times there must be direct human contact between the mahdi and the community and probably believed himself to be the medium of that contact. The doctrine brought him into conflict with the orthodox Shīʿite theologians of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, who regarded themselves as the spiritual caretakers of the community during the mahdi’s absence. Al-Aḥsāʾī’s final breach with the established and orthodox Shīʿite theologians occurred in 1824, when he was formally denounced as an infidel. Following his excommunication, the Shaykh left the area and died during a pilgrimage to Mecca. He was succeeded as the leader of the Shaykhī sect by Sayyid Kāẓim Rashtī (d. 1843).