Reviews for Short History of Solicitors

The average rating for Short History of Solicitors based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-05-07 00:00:00 Daniel Urban In the mind-bogglingly complicated world of Islam there is perhaps no more difficult group to understand than the Ismailis. Yet Daftary has made a good fist of doing so here and gets top marks for his efforts. Make no mistake, this is an extremely dense book with a wealth of academic detail. It would be easy to lose the reader with a subject such as this, but Daftary has that rarest of skills - he writes extremely well and has great style, even though this is most definitely a scholarly work. That combination alone is a rare thing indeed... The Ismailis are one of many Shiite groups and one of the smaller and less understood Shiite groups at that. The majority of Shiites today are to be found in Iran, where the so-called "Twelver" system prevails. What this means is that most Shiites believe that there were twelve Imams, the first being Ali, the twelfth being the Mahdi, who is currently in a state of occultation and will return on the day of judgement. By contrast, the Ismailis are known as "Seveners", after a schism within the Shiite sphere following a disagreement about who should be the seventh Imam. The "Seveners" proclaimed Ismail to be the rightful Imam, hence their name. Another major group within the Shiite world are the "Fivers", who also disputed the succession of Imams and followed Zayd - hence their being known as the Zaydis. The Zaydis are still commonly found today in Morrocco and Yemen, but up until the time of the Safavids, some 500 years ago, they were the largest Shiite group. Of these major Shiite denominations the "Ismaili Seveners" have the most colorful history. The epicenter of Ismailism migrated around the countryside in the most unusual way, first to Syria and then Tunis, before conquering Egypt and establishing Cairo as their capital. From Cairo the "Ismaili Fatimids" ruled as the most powerful dynasty in Islam, the only time that a Shiite dynasty has been the foremost power in the Islamic World. From this peak the Ismaili movement suffered a series of setbacks, including a major schism once again over who should be the Imam - Nizar or Mustaali. The Nizaris established themselves in the mountains northen Iran and Syria, and it is from them that we get the Assassin legends. The Egyptian Fatimids broke down into ever smaller groups, and now exist mainly in northen India as the Bohras. There is no doubt that this is a great book but the funniest part of it is found in the title "Short History" for it is anything but that. In fact, I would only recommend this book for readers who already have a fairly fundamental grasp of Islamic history. To dive into this book without it might just leave you shaking your head. Explanations of Ismaili belief systems, such as Neo-Platonic cosmology can be difficult to understand at the best of times. Background reading required first. That being said, I loved reading this book.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-12-26 00:00:00 William Schimmelfennig Very dense and very comprehensive. If you're looking for a broad introduction to the many Ismaili groups from the dawn of Islam until the dawn of the 21st century, this book's for you.