Doctrines

The Ismaili Doctrine of Dawr

Cosmology and World-Structure

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "The Ismaili Doctrine of Dawr." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/doctrines/ismaili-doctrine-of-dawr.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). The Ismaili Doctrine of Dawr. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/doctrines/ismaili-doctrine-of-dawr

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-the-ismaili-doctrine-of-dawr,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {The Ismaili Doctrine of Dawr},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/doctrines/ismaili-doctrine-of-dawr},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Dawr is the Ismaili doctrine that sacred history unfolds through a sequence of cyclical prophetic eras, each opened by a speaking prophet, a natiq, who brings a revealed law, and carried in its inner sense by a line of imams. Nizari Ismaili thought treats the era of Islam as an era of concealment, dawr al-satr, within which a resurrection, qiyama, unveiling the era's hidden truth, can be proclaimed before the era's own natural end.

Facts

Origins

Held By

Ismaili Shia Islam generally holds the dawr framework; the proclamation of a qiyama within history is a specifically Nizari Ismaili teaching. 1

Defining Momentthe subject's own account

On 8 August 1164 CE the Nizari Ismaili imam Hasan II, known as ala dhikrihi's salam, proclaimed the qiyama, the resurrection, at the fortress of Alamut, declaring the era's veil of concealment lifted; a second proclamation that October went further, identifying him as God's khalifa. 2

The Claim

That history unfolds as a sequence of dawrs, prophetic eras, six of them historically associated with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, each carrying its own esoteric line of imams and its own alternation between concealment and manifestation, and that within an era of concealment a transitory qiyama, resurrection, can be declared, offering believers a foretaste of the era's own final unveiling. 1

Status

Current Statusthe subject's own account

The qiyama era at Alamut was itself reversed within a generation: Jalal al-Din Hasan III, who led the Nizari community from 1210 to 1221, reimposed sharia in its Sunni form and sought reconciliation with the Sunni establishment. The wider dawr framework of cyclical prophetic eras carried by natiq and imam remains part of Ismaili doctrine. 2

Cross-Tradition Connections