The Twelver Shi’ah, the Zaydiyyah & the Imamate

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The Zaydiyyah follow Imam Zayd ibn ‘Ali ibn al-Husayn (r.a.), and are the Shi’ite denomination most similar to the Ahl as-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ah.  They agree with the Ahl as-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ah, and contend with the Twelver Shi’ah that the question of imamiyyah is a branch of religion which does admit rational interpretation and is, likewise, subject to independent judgement.  The Twelver Shi’ah hold their opinion to be established through express textual support, that is, authentically-narrated reports indisputably indicating the person of the imam.  Zaydiyyah recognise texts indicating the person of the Imam but hold them to be less definitive, both in their transmission and their signification, and to describe the attributes of the Imam but not specify him by name. 

Further distinctions between the Twelver Shi’ah and Zaydiyyah are logically entailed by these differences, in that the former hold that one who denies the Imamate of Sayyidina ‘Ali ibn Abu Thalib (k.w.) and his descendants in effect denies decisive proof-texts and are disbelieves; while the latter hold that denying these matters means rather that one has sinfully erred in judgement but remains within the fold of faith.  The Zaydiyyah hold that Sayyidina ‘Ali (k.w.) had precedence over Sayyidina Abu Bakr ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Utsman asw-Swiddiq (r.a.), Sayyidina Abu Hafsw ‘Umar ibn al-Khaththab al-Faruq (r.a.), and Sayyidina Abu ‘Amr ‘Utsman ibn ‘Affan (r.a.) in that he had more right than them to the title of caliph, but due to his younger age and the perilous conditions in the troubled state of the time, it is permissible to admit the caliphate of those before him.  This again is opposed to the Twelver Shi’ah, who hold that the prior three Caliphs were flagrant usurpers. 

The Twelver Shi’ah, Isma’iliyyah, and certain Zaydiyyah affirm a doctrine of the awaited Mahdi (a.s.), as opposed to the Ahl as-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ah, of whom the majority believe in the Mahdi (a.s.) and another party do not, but in neither case, make this doctrine foundational to their creed.