Ismaili Esotericism

The named grades of initiation Sunni authors ascribed to Ismailis came from Ibn Rizam's and Akhu Muhsin's polemics; Daftary (1993) found no evidence of them in Ismaili texts.

Farhad Daftary, 'Dāʿī', Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. VI (1993), pp. 590–93, 'Methods and Pedagogy'

A branch of Shiʿi Islam holding that scripture has an inner (bāṭin) meaning.

Sources3 sources

Scholarship

Farhad Daftary, Dāʿī, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. VI (reprinted by the Institute of Ismaili Studies), 1993, pp. 590–93, 'Methods and Pedagogy'The seven or nine named stages of initiation in Sunni accounts derive from the polemics of Ibn Rizam and Akhu Muhsin and have no trace in surviving Ismaili literature
There is, however, no evidence of such stages in the extant

The tradition itself

The Institute of Ismaili Studies, Glossary: asāsThe Ismaili cycle doctrine: seven eras, each opened by a speaking prophet whose legatee (asās) teaches the spiritual meaning
divided history into seven eras, each inaugurated by a ‘speaking prophet’ (nāṭiq)
The Institute of Ismaili Studies, Glossary: bāṭinī taʾwīlIsmaili reading of scripture as having an outer (ẓāhir) and inner (bāṭin) meaning, whose interpretation rests with the imam
the knowledge of its taʾwīl rests with the imam