Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i (founder of the Shaykhi school, 1753–1826)

Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i (1753–1826) founded the Shaykhi school within Twelver Shi'ism. He was accused of unorthodoxy over his teaching on the resurrection, and his school led to the Babi movement.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), article signed A. Bausani, describes Shaykh Ahmad b. Zayn al-Din al-Ahsa'i as the founder of the theological school known as Shaykhi, which took its name from him and was a school within Shi'ism (more properly a sect, after his excommunication by the Shi'i muditahids). He was born at al-Ahsa' in Arabia in 1166/1753, and was known for great piety from his childhood. At twenty, already learned in the religious sciences, he went on pilgrimage to the Shi'i sanctuaries in Iraq, where he obtained from their muditahids licences to teach. He settled in Bahrain and then in Basra, made journeys in Iraq and, from 1221/1806, in Persia, where he went on pilgrimage to Mashhad and settled at Yazd as a teacher, enjoying great veneration. The shah, Fath 'Ali Shah Qajar, summoned him to Tehran and honoured him. ¹

His popularity roused the jealousy of the divines of Yazd, and reports of unorthodoxy circulated, especially about his eschatological doctrines, in which orthodox theologians said he denied the bodily resurrection and held a purely spiritual one. In 1229/1814 he settled at Kermanshah, and in 1232/1817–18 he went to Mecca. His definitive break with the muditahids came at Qazvin about 1239–40/1824 after a discussion with the fiery Mulla Taqi Baraqani, uncle of the Babi poetess Tahira. Mullas accused him of doctrines he had never held, such as the divinity of 'Ali and the doctrine of tafwid. He died in 1241/1826 on pilgrimage near Medina, at about seventy-five, and was buried there. His theological works number about a hundred. His school was led by his successor Sayyid Kazim Rashti, and out of it the Babi movement later developed. ¹