In the wake of the American invasion of Iraq, the election of Mahmud Ahmadinejad to the presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the rise of Hizballah (Party of God) to prominence and power in Lebanon, the Shi‵ite community of the Middle East seems poised to assume a far more significant role than they have hitherto enjoyed in the region. One sees now in this respect the appearance of important books bearing such titles as Reaching for Power: The Shi‵a in the Modern Arab World and The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future, probably the two best-known volumes analyzing the rise of Shi‵ite political and geo-strategic importance. What, if anything, does this contemporary Shi‵ite experience have to do with sects examined in the present study?

Notwithstanding the differences in time, place, political situations, and so on, there are clearly significant parallels between the medieval and the modern groups. First of all, however, it should be emphasized that the Shi‵ite political-religious movements of today are emphatically not similar to Ghulat sects in any meaningful theological or doctrinal sense. The Shi‵ite leaders of the Iranian Islamic revolutionary groups, the Shi‵ite political figures in Iraq, and the clerical leaders associated with Hizballah in Lebanon would be aghast at any suggestion that they countenance such teachings as tanāsūkh (transmigration of souls), hulūl (incarnationism), or ibāha (antinomianism), all ideas we have noted among our Ghulat sects.