Ismaelian, Ismaïlian, n. and a.
(ɪsmeɪˈiːlɪən, -ˈɪlɪən)
[f. pr. name Ismael or Ismaïl, the former being the Gr., L., and F. spelling of Ishmael, sometimes also used, in place of the more correct Ismaïl, to represent the Arabic ismaﻋīl. The Arabic adjective is ismaﻋīliy.]
A member of a sect of the Shiite (Shīﻋite) branch of Islam which held that, at the death of Djafar Madeck, the sixth Imam from Ali, in the second century of the Hijrah, the Imamship ought to have descended to the posterity of his deceased elder son Ismail, and not to the surviving younger son Mousa, to whom his father left it. b. as adj.
To them belonged the powerful Fatimite dynasty in Egypt, and the fanatical sect of the Assassins.
| 1839 Penny Cycl. XIII. 47 The Druses..are a distinct people..from the present Ismaelians. In 1809 the Nosaïris..murdered the Emir, with most of the Ismaelian inhabitants. 1883 Encycl. Brit. XVI. 587/1 {nfasper}Obaid Alláh was really descended from a certain {nfasper}Abdalláh b. Maim{uacu}n el-{Kdotbl}addáḥ, the founder of the Ismailian sect;..This {nfasper}Obaid Alláh had himself become pontiff of the Ismailians. Ibid. 593 The Ismailians, like all the other Sh{iacu}ites, believed in the coming of a Messiah, whom they call the Mahd{iacu}. 1884 Ibid. XVII. 771/1 Hasan ibn Ṣabbáḥ who founded afterwards the terrible sect of the Isma{nfasper}{iacu}l{iacu}s or Assassins. |