RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESBut his arrival would not be a return either, and contemporary Magian
apocalyptic literature was more concerned with the arrival of the
warrior Bahram Varjavand. Nor can the arrival of the Jewish Messiah
be considered a return. The figure of the Sunni Mahdi in the escha-
tological ~adtth, which began to circulate about this time, was much
closer to the Magian and Jewish concepts than was the Shl'i figure.
Some contemporaries saw the caliph 'Umar II (717-20) as the Mahdi
whose arrival in the year 100 of the Hijra (A.D. 718-19) would spread
justice throughout the earth.11°
However, the idea that the Messiah was already on earth but in
hiding had been current among some Jews since the second century.
For those who identified Elijah as the precursor of the Messiah, his
arrival could be considered a return. Elijah was also said to be the
interpreter of the law in the next world when his relationship to Moses
would be the same as Aaron's had been. These similarities suggest that
Elijah may have been a prototype for the later development of the
Shi'i concept of the Imam-Mahdi. The Islamic tradition that Elijah
will appear at the end of the world and that he or one of his descendents
will await the Mahdi inside a mountain seems to be related to the
O'ccultation of Mul}.ammad ibn al-J:Ianafiyya.1l1 The contemporary
claim that the Jewish Messianic rebel, 'Abii '{sa of Isfahan, had gone
into hiding may have been related. Together they suggest that ideas
about occultation and return date from about the turn of the century.
By the early eighth century, Kufa and Mada'in were the main Shi'i
centers in Iraq. Small, extremist (ghuliit) subgroups of the Kaysaniyya
were formed at both places during the eighth century and began to
use ideas of a generally gnostic nature which were current in Iraq.
There were at least five such groups at Kufa: the followers of Bayan
ibn Sam'an (d. 737), of Mughira ibn Sa'id al-'Ijli (d. 737), and of
Abii Man~iir al-'Ijli (d. 742); the Janal}.iyya who followed 'Abdullah
ibn Mu'awiya (d. 747); and the circle of Abii I-Khanab (d. 755) in
the entourage of Ja'far a~-Sadiq. There were two groups at Mada'in:
the followers of 'Abdullah ibn al-J:Iarith, who may have been a branch
of the Janal}.iyya, and the followers of Isl}.aq ibn Mul}.ammad an-
Nakha'i (called Isl}.aq al-Al}.mar). Bayan probably belonged to the
Yamani clan of Nahd which had supported al-Mukhtar. When he and
Mughira rebelled against Khalid al-Qa~ri in 737, they were followed
110 Van Ess, "Umar n," p. 25.
111 M. Buttenwieser, "Messiah," fE, VIII, 511; L. Ginzberg, "Elijah," 126-27;
M. Seligsohn, "Elijah," fE, V, 127.