Today is #15Shaban the traditional date of the birth of the 12th Imam in #ShiiIslam in the year 255/ 869 - a short thread on the #TwelfthImam 1/ 
One of the earliest texts is al-Imama wa-l-tabsira min al-hayra of Ali b. al-Husayn Ibn Babawayh (d. 329/941) that tried to collect all the reports on the Imam and his absence in a time of confusion alfeker.net/library.php?id… 2/
Other reports are in the chapter on the #TwelfthImam in #KitabalHujja of #alKafi by his contemporary Abu Jafar al-Kulayni (d. 329/941) 3/
This was followed by the major works on the process of the #occultation or absence of the Imam #ghayba starting with Kamal al-Din of al-Saduq (d. 380/991) and K. al-ghayba of al-Nu’mani (d. c. 970) and al-Tusi (d. 1067) 4/
This corpus was studied by Jassim Hussain in his @EdinburghUni PhD published in 1982 by the Muhammadi Trust in London al-islam.org/occultation-tw… 5/
Another study was Abdulaziz Sachedina’s Toronto PhD published as #IslamicMessianism which deals more with the theology of messianism and not so much the historical sources 6/
Traditionally period of the occultation of the Imam is divided into a shorter one of hiddenness in which system of representatives administered the religious dues and affairs of the community as studied by Verena Klemm and more recently Ed Hayes in Chicago PhD 7/
The second or longer period of absence #GhaybaKubra is one in which the present falls and lasts in the theology of absence until the parousia of the Imam in the messianic moment at end of time 8/
An obvious question in the period of absence is whether believers have access to the imam as studied in this recent book by Omid Ghaemmaghami 9/
What is noticeable is how later texts have brought together #ghayba with what I call a #maximalistImamology starting with texts such as Muntakhab Basa’ir al-darajat of al-Hasan b. Sulayman al-Hilli and Rajab Bursi in the later 14th C on the messianic moment and apocalypse 10/
This maximalist notion is what Corbin meant by sacred history in which the ahistorical person of the Imam defines history 11/
A culmination of such works is the early 20th C of ‘Ali al-Yazdi al-Ha’iri Ilzam al-nasib a polemical defence of the longevity of the period of absence and the necessity of the Imam as cosmic face of God on earth 12/
Another trajectory is among messianic #Fadail literature by an #Ottoman #Naqshbandi Sunni author of Yanabi al mawadda which includes sections on the Imam and even on his encounter 13/
It of course goes without saying that messianism tends to spike in times of turmoil and uncertainty - and this age of #covid19 is no different 14/
