Ibadism first developed in Basra in the second century A.H. among groups of Arabian origin, especially from Oman. The earliest Ibadi texts were produced there; some have been lost, while others have been found in private Ibadi libraries in North Africa. It seems that the Ibadi community in North Africa wrote to the sect’s leaders in Basra for guidance, and that these early texts came into existence for that reason. Most of these texts remained unknown in Oman for centuries. The Ibadi textual tradition in the Arabian peninsula developed somewhat later and separately, after persecution in the late Umayyad period led to the dissolution of the Basran leadership and the migration of many Ibadis to Oman, and some to Yemen. The earliest Ibadi texts in the Arabian peninsula are letters or short treatises known as siyar (singular sira) that deal with a broad number of issues, from law and theology to rules for the Imamate. In the 3rd/9th century Ibadis produced the earliest Ibadi collections (jawami‘) of legal opinions. Abu Sa‘id al-Kudami (3rd/9th to 4th/10th century) produced the first monograph on a single topic, in which he tried to heal wounds in the Ibadi community of Oman that had been precipitated by disagreements over the deposal of an aged Imam in 272/886. Ibn Baraka (second half of the 4th/10th century) may have been the first to compose comprehensive works of Ibadi theology and law. His works were incorporated into a series of encyclopedias composed in the 5th/11th and 6th/12th centuries that consolidated Ibadi doctrine in Oman. It was only in the late 19th century that Nur al-Din al-Salimi led Ibadi theological literature in Oman toward convergence with that of North Africa, in the process creating a major change in the official Omani-Ibadi doctrine on the creation or eternity of the Qur’an. This paper will trace the development of Ibadi theological literature and the process of consolidation of an Ibadi theological tradition in the Arabian peninsula, especially with regard to three issues: association and dissociation (walaya and bara’a), free-will versus predestination, and the creation or eternity of the Qur’an.