Page 210 - Arabiab Studies (IV)

200 Arabian Studies IV
closely bound up with problems concerning soundness of doctrine,
reliability of sources and early schisms, the subject had been a
matter for scholarly consideration in Oman. Now, as A. Sa‘Id
(W.39) in the Mu'tabar states (if not perhaps in these exact terms),
every Tom, Dick and Harry has got in on the act and people do
not know what they are talking about: hence his major work
(analysed in section Vb) al-lstiqamah fi ’I-wilayah wa-’l-bara’ah.
The rigid determination of whether a person is in a state of
excommunication or positive association is also reflected in the
drawing up of lists by the Rustaq party. One of the earliest traced
is in Book III of the K. al-Qiya’ (W.42a): in this only early figures
of the ilk of al-Hasan al-Ba$ri feature in the wuquf list but Musa b.
Musa and the Imam Rashid b. al-Na^r are excommunicated. The
Nizwa party on the other hand has no Omanis in its dissociation
list: in this way there can be no schism.

B. The Imam's authority
The constitution of the imamah and the authority of the Imam
have been treated by the writer in a recent article (cf. fn. 2), largely
based on an eighteenth century work by Salim b. Sa‘Id al-$a’ighl.
While a study of the relevant treatises in these early works, such as
Book LXVIII of the Bayan al-shar‘ (W.49a), the section on the
imamah in the Ziyadah to the Jami‘ A. ’l-IIasan al-BisyawI (W.33),
and some of the commentary to the Da'a’im (W.48b), shows little
basic difference from this later treatment, it is clear that the
distinction between a shan and difa‘1 Imam was of considerable
importance in this earlier period, as might be expected from the
fact that the mi$r itself was continuously expanding or under
attack in its early days.
Since this mi$r ideally should be the Dar al-Islam itself, it was
the duty of the Iba<jl communities to expand and link up so that
one true Muslim state was re-created. For the Omanis the natural
war front4 was al-Baljrayn so that at least ‘Umar’s original
(sub-)mi§r of al-Bafrrayn and ‘Uman was reconstituted. They also
had another frontier in southern Arabia, where they should be able
to link up with the IjadramI imamah. But whereas the Omanis
brought Mahrah territory under their control and, at least twice,
took possession of Soqotra, the Uadramls always elected defensive
Imams. Hence an interesting letter by A. ‘Abdullah Muhammad b.
Mahbub (W.40b) upbraiding them on this: ‘In our opinion the
path you are on ought to be that of the Omanis who have
elected/contracted for expansion (‘aqd al-shira) and this is the
more advanced status (al-darajah al-‘ulya) ...’ In fact it was not
s