Muḥammad ibn Falāḥ

Muḥammad ibn Falāḥ (born c. 1400, Wāsiṭ, Iraq—died 1461, Hoveyzeh, Iran) was a Muslim theologian who founded the extremist Mushaʿshaʿ sect of Shīʿism.

Muḥammad ibn Falāḥ was reputed to be descended from the seventh Shīʿite imam, Mūsā al-Kāẓim. He received a traditional Islāmic religious education in al-Ḥillah, a famous centre for Shīʿite studies. As a student he was noted for his extremist religious views, which bordered on heresy, and he was excommunicated from the faith by his teacher, himself a noted Shīʿite theologian.

From 1436 onward Muḥammad ibn Falāḥ actively propagated his views among Arab tribesmen, trying to create a coalition of discontented Arab tribes on what is now the border between Iraq and Iran. This coalition was held together by his contention that he was the mahdi (the “divinely guided one”) and the representative of ʿAlī (whom the Shīʿites regarded as the legitimate successor to the Prophet Muḥammad). In 1440 he and his followers were defeated in a clash with the authorities, but in February 1441 they managed to capture the city of Hoveyzeh, which became the seat of the Mushaʿshaʿ movement. Warfare persisted for the next 10 years, during which time Muḥammad ibn Falāḥ was able to consolidate his power in the vicinity of Hoveyzeh and the Tigris River. He owed his success as much to the weakness and division of his opponents as to his own messianic zeal and doctrinal propaganda.

The doctrinal foundations of the Mushaʿshaʿ are found in Muḥammad ibn Falāḥ’s Kalām al-mahdī (“The Words of the Mahdi”). Written in the style of the Qurʾān, the book contains a rigid code of conduct regulating the affairs of the community. Beside acting as the spiritual leader of the Mushaʿshaʿ, he was also the military and temporal ruler of the movement. On his death he was succeeded by his son ʿAlī as the head of the movement.