The post-Alamūt centuries and modern developments in Nizārī Ismāʿīlī history

This final chapter will present a survey of the main developments and trends in the history of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs during the entire post-Alamūt period, from the fall of Alamūt in 654/1256 to the present time, covering more than seven centuries. In this period, several Nizārī communities developed in various regions and more or less independently of one another. These communities, scattered widely from Syria to Persia, Central Asia and South Asia, elaborated a diversity of religious and literary traditions in different languages. Patterns and research problems in post-Alamūt Nizārī history The first five centuries after the collapse of the Nizārī state in Persia and the fall of Alamūt represent the longest obscure phase in the entire history of the Ismāʿīlīs. Many aspects of Nizārī activities and thought in this period are still not sufficiently studied, due mainly to lack of primary sources and to a certain degree of complexity in the issues involved. A variety of factors, related to the very nature of post-Alamūt Nizārī Ismāʿīlism, have combined to create special research problems here. In the aftermath of the destruction of their state, the Nizārīs, who had in fact survived the Mongol catastrophe, were essentially deprived of the centralized leadership they had enjoyed during the Alamūt period. The Nizārī imamate had, indeed, continued in the progeny of Rukn al-Dīn Khurshāh, the last lord of Alamūt. But the imams remained in hiding and inaccessible to their followers for about two centuries.