Except for a small number of original ghulat writings, the teachings of 8th-9th cc. ghulat were hitherto mainly known from outsider accounts, i.e. heresiographic texts, which are necessarily biased and skewed. The very few original texts, on the other hand, such as Kitab al-sirat, Kitab al-haft wa l-azilla, or Umm al-kitab, have very uncertain origins and are extremely difficult locate in time and space. This is why the recent publication of a multivolume series of Nusayri texts titled "Silsilat al-turath al-‘alawi" is a more than welcome news for the students of early ghuluw, as it contains a treasure trove of excerpts from texts written by representatives of earlier ghulat groups. The texts published in this series not only shed light on the teachings of various ghulat groups, but also help us better understand the convoluted fates of the already known texts written by Shi'a “extremists.” In my presentation I will discuss the value of the newly-published Nusayri corpus as a source for studying early Shi'a ghuluw. In particular, I will demonstrate how it helps us better understand the teachings of two 9th century ghulat groups, the Muhammadiyya and the Ishaqiyya, and how it enables us to revise our knowledge about the date, authorship, and history of two of the aforementioned ghulat texts, Kitab al-sirat and Kitab al-haft wa l-azilla. One of the findings that I have been able to make thanks to those Nusayri texts, e.g., is that Kitab al-haft wa l-azilla, a text attributed to Ja'far al-Sadiq’s mysterious companion Mufaddal al-Ju'fi, is but one of the numerous writings of a similar genre, all of them likely written by 9th century ghul?t. I was further able to discover that this treatise consists of at least seven distinct textual layers, the earliest of which could have been written as early as the 8th century, and the latest, in the 11th, and that the book itself was finally put together in the second half of the 11th century. Careful study of this Nusayri corpus is yet to turn up many more discoveries about the history, teachings, and literature of the Shi'a ghulat.

Most studies on early Isma'ilism have given considerable emphasis to the debate on the lineage of the Fatimid caliphs, whereas the origins of Isma'ilism's unique theological doctrines have gone relatively neglected. Rejecting the two prevalent depictions of Isma'ilism as either 1) doctrine faithfully transmitted since the 2nd/8th century or 2) a completely new doctrine emerging in 3rd/9th century, this presentation instead 3) argues for the vindication of earlier theories proposed by Massignon and Corbin in exploring Isma'ili doctrine's doctrinal dependency on the esoteric Imamism (commonly referred to as Ghulat Shi’ism) contemporary to its emergence. In fact, it will be demonstrated that the emergence of Isma’ili doctrine can only be understood in as an adaptation of Mukhammisa and Mufawwida forms of Ghulat Shi’ism. This will be illustrated by a brief survey on such shared doctrines as the Silent/Speaking Imam, the seven cycles of religion, the perennial hierarchy in religion, and the “tafwid” understanding of negative-theology.

The Javdan-nama of Fadlallah Astarabadi (d. 796/1394) is the foundational text of the Hurufi group, which emerged in Iran in the second half of the 14th century. The Javdan-nama is a voluminous and complex work, a corpus of fragments rather than a coherent and thematically structured presentation of the doctrines. This work is regarded by the Hurufis as a sacred text (Javdan-nama-yi ilahi), resulting from the specific revelation Fadlallah would have received in the course of his spiritual career. The wish to present his work as the fruit of an independent mystical experience would also explain the quasi-absence of explicit references to any other works or authors. Notwithstanding this lack of direct references, the text of the Javdan-nama shows that Fadlallah was well-versed in the traditional Islamic disciplines, such as Hadith, both Sunnite and Shiite, Qur’anic exegesis, and jurisprudence. Some fragments of the Javdan-nama contain Sufi terminology, and more specifically the symbolic imagery of the Persian mystical poetry. But some of the central doctrinal positions of the Javdan-nama are very similar to the ideas usually associated with the early esoteric Shiism, the Ghulat and the Ismaili currents. Theory of the spiritual exegesis (ta’wil) based on the elaborations upon the cosmological and ontological role of letters and sounds, divinity of human being, holy triad, elements of the theory of transmigration, religious syncretism, in particular, integration of the symbolism of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures into the doctrinal discourse are examples of the Ghulat coloration of the Javdan-nama. In the light of the new sources becoming available, the role of the esoteric Shiism in the Islamic intellectual history is being reassessed in the contemporary scholarship, as is shown, for example, by the recent studies on the Nusayris. The Hurufi doctrine, which had a wide and lasting influence on many currents in Muslim lands, in particular, in Ottoman Empire, might be another channel through which the ideas of the early esoteric Shiism were transmitted into the modern and contemporary periods.

Claims that the Shiite ghulat engage in sexually libertine rituals are almost de rigueur in the Islamic firaq literature. Meant to convey the moral depravity of the ghulat, these charges have generally been dismissed by modern scholars as polemical slander. However, in her forthcoming book The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran, Patricia Crone begins to deconstruct this assumption by pointing to actual social customs that underlie the sensationalized accounts of the heresiographers. This paper continues in this vein by presenting the first internal evidence in a ghulat text of what the heresiographers called ibahat al-nisa'. This text is a newly discovered nineteenth century Nusayri -'Alawi manuscript that provides explicit instructions and theological rationale for the practices of guest prostitution, wife sharing, and the orgiastic night. After determining the authenticity of this text, we will discuss its implications for our understanding of the concept of ibaha and for our reading of heresiographical texts in general.