This volume contains twenty-three texts, most of which were written between the end of the 2nd/8th century and the end of the 3rd/9th century.

In this volume newly discovered, re-edited texts by al-Fazārī are presented, with previously lacking fragments included, texts that had already begun to offer new perspectives on Islamic ʿilm al-kalām, including on its origins and the sources of its concepts and debating techniques.

Ziel dieses Band ist, verschiedene Themen der ibaditischen Religion von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart zu untersuchen. Der Ibadismus entstand in der frühen islamischen Epoche und spielte eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Entwicklung der islamischen Rechts- und Glaubenslehre. Bis heute hat er einen großen Einfluss auf den Mittleren Osten und Nordafrika. Trotz seiner langen Tradition ist der Ibadismus und vor allem die ibaditische Glaubenslehre noch immer wenig bekannt und vielfach auch verkannt. Da bis jetzt nur wenige bedeutende umfangreiche Arbeiten zur Ibaditischen Glaubenslehre in europäischen Sprachen vorliegen, versucht dieser Band Abhilfe zu schaffen, indem er die charakteristische theologische Lehre dieser einflussreichen islamischen Strömung einem breiten Publikum bekannt macht und sich sowohl an Fachleute als auch an Laien wendet. Anhand vieler Beispiele aus verschiedenen Epochen und Quellen und mit einem interdisziplinären Ansatz behandeln die Autoren Fragen zu Dogma und Bekenntnis, Glaubensverständnis, theologischen Kontroversen, Neubewertung theologischer Quellen und zum ibaditischen „Modernismus“ im Oman und Nordafrika des vergangenen Jahrhunderts. Mittelalterliche ibaditische Quellen sind ausschlaggebend, um die frühe Entwicklung der Bewegung und die Dispute über Lehre und Politik zu verstehen, die die ibaditische Glaubenslehre vom sunnitischen Islam unterscheiden. Auf der anderen Seite unterstreicht der vorliegende Band auch, dass es wichtig ist, die ibaditischen Quellen aus dem 19. und 20. Jahrhundert in den Blick zu nehmen, als die ibaditische Reformbewegung begann, sich um eine Annäherung zwischen dem Islam und der Moderne zu bemühen. The aim of this volume is to explore different issues of Ibadi theology from the early beginnings until the present day. Ibadi Islam emerged in the early Islamic period and played a pivotal role in the development of Islamic law and theology. Today, it continues to be an influential force in the contemporary Middle East and North Africa. Despite its antiquity, Ibadi Islam – and particularly Ibadi theology – remains little known and has often been misunderstood. Up to now only few prominent book-length works devoted to Ibadi theology in European language; this volume aims at redressing this gap by introducing the distinctive theological teachings of this influential Islamic school to a broad public, specialists and non-specialists alike. Dealing with a series of cases, from different periods and different sources and using an interdisciplinary approach, the authors address questions such as dogma and creed, conception of faith, theological controversies, reassessment of theological sources, the Ibadi “modernism” in last century Oman and North Africa. Medieval Ibadi sources are crucial to understand the early development of the movement and the doctrinal and political disputes which differentiate Ibadi doctrine from Sunni Islam, on the other hand the volume emphasize the importance of also focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries Ibadi sources, when the Ibadi reform movement started looking for reconciliation between Islam and modernity.

The Ibadi Muslims, a little-known minority community, have lived in North Africa for over a thousand years. Combining an analysis of Arabic manuscripts with digital tools used in network analysis, Paul M. Love, Jr takes readers on a journey across the Maghrib and beyond as he traces the paths of a group of manuscripts and the Ibadi scholars who used them. Ibadi scholars of the Middle Period (eleventh–sixteenth century) wrote a series of collective biographies (prosopographies), which together constructed a cumulative tradition that connected Ibadi Muslims from across time and space, bringing them together into a 'written network'. From the Mzab valley in Algeria to the island of Jerba in Tunisia, from the Jebel Nafusa in Libya to the bustling metropolis of early-modern Cairo, this book shows how people and books worked in tandem to construct and maintain an Ibadi Muslim tradition in the Maghrib.

This book is a study of the origin and development of the Ibadi Imamate ideal into its medieval Arabian and North African articulations, this study traces the distinctive features of the Ibadi imama to precedents among the early Kharijites, Rashidun Caliphs and pre-Islamic Arabs.

Early Ibāḍī Theology presents the critical edition of six Arabic theological texts recently discovered in two manuscripts in Mzāb in Algeria dating from the middle of the 8th century. The texts were sent by their author, the prominent Kūfan Ibāḍī kalām theologian ‘Abd Allāh b. Yazīd al-Fazārī to North Africa where he had a large following in the Ibāḍī community later known as the Nukkār. They constitute the earliest extant body of Muslim kalām theology and are vital for the study of the initial development of rational theology in Islam. The sophisticated treatment of the divine attributes in these texts indicates that this subject developed considerably earlier in Islamic theology than previously accepted in modern scholarship.

Ibadi Islam is a distinct sect of Islam, neither Sunni nor Shi‘ite, that emerged in the early Islamic period and remains active today in small pockets of North Africa and as the dominant sect of Oman. Despite its antiquity, it has often been misunderstood and remains little known. Seeking to redress this gap and to introduce this Islamic school to the non-Arabic-speaking world, Hoffman offers the first book-length overview of Ibad.i theology published in English. Beginning with a concise overview of Ibadi history, Hoffman delineates the movement’s role in the development of Islamic thought, tracing its distinctive teachings and literary history. In the second section, she provides annotated translations of two complementary modern Ibadi theological texts. This unique volume elucidates Ibadi religious and political thought by allowing its tradition to speak for itself. The Essentials of Ibadi Islam gives readers, specialists and nonspecialists alike, a rare opportunity to understand the major teachings of Ibad.i Islam.