SHAYKHĪYAH. Shaykhīyah was a controversial school of theology within Twelver or Imāmī Shiism, originally inspired by the teachings of Shaykh Aḥmad al-Ahsāʾī (1753–1826), a leading scholar of the early Qājār period, and his immediate followers. His thought is a creative synthesis of considerable merit and complexity, selectively drawing from the mystical philosophy (ḥikmat-i ilāhī) of Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī (1579–1641) and other famous Shīʿī heretics, from certain elements of the Akhbārī school of Shīʿī scholarship with its emphasis on the exclusive authority of the words of the imāms, and apparently from Ismāʿīlī eschatological theories. Though advancing several criticisms of the ḥikmat tradition and of Sufism, the Shaykhīyah may be regarded as the most powerful expression of spiritual dissent from the theology and claims to authority of the dominant Uṣūlī ʿulamāʾ of...