As the Zaydis and the ʿAbbāsids sought leadership from members of the Prophet’s family who would assert it, many of the Shiʿah were embracing an idea that leadership of the community could not be earned but must be inherited by divine designation. Some movements focused on other male descendants of ʿAlī’s sons Ḥasan and Ḥusayn and venerated them as heirs of the spiritual and political mantles of the Prophet. Some of these movements appear to have endowed Ḥasan and Ḥusayn with near-divine powers, while others saw Muhammad—and, therefore, Ḥasan and Ḥusayn—as possessing superhuman knowledge. At the deaths of Ḥasan and ...(100 of 3802 words)