Rahat al-arwah wa-mu?nis al-ashbah

In Islam, Twelver-Shi?ism is based on the claim that the rightful successors to the Prophet were his son-in-law ?Ali b. Abi Talib (d. 40/661) and eleven of his descendants through his marriage with Fatima, ending with the grand occultation of the twelfth and last imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi in 329/940. In the centuries following the occultation of the last imam, there emerged a special type of hagiographic literature glorifying the lives and wonders of the Prophet, his daughter Fatima, and the twelve infallible imams. The importance of these works was not just informative and apologetic; they also had a didactic side insofar as the imams were regarded as a channel for God's grace to man, it being through them that man could learn how to fulfil God's wish of obeying Him. Composed around 755/1355 for the Sarbadar ruler of Sabzawar by Hasan Shi?i Sabzawari, this elegantly written Persian volume is a fine specimen of this particular type of writings.