Shi'ism is Not a Political Party

The western scholarship that only view Shi'ism as a political movement is factually incorrect. The concept of separation of church and state did not yet exist in the Muslim community, in the 6th century AD. S.H.M Jafri, the author of The Origin and Early Development of Shi'a Islam writes

Those who thus emphasize the political nature of Shi'ism are perhaps too eager to project the modern Western notion of the separation of church and state back into seventh century Arabian society, where such a notion would be not only foreign, but completely unintelligible. Such an approach also implies the spontaneous appearance of Shi'ism rather than its gradual emergence and development within Islamic society. [1]

Reference
Jafri, S.H Mohammad. "The Origin and Early Development of Shi'a Islam,”, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 6, ISBN 978-0-19-579387-1

Misconceptions about Ghulats

are sometimes spread by so-called western scholars of Islam.

If you see the wikipedia entry under Ghulat, the main reference used for Ghulat is a study done by a western scholar by the name of Marshall G. S. Hodgson.

 

Hodgson has written quite a bit about Ghulats. I attempted to read one of his paper about Druze 6 months ago. I stopped halfway. Not sure why. Maybe it wasn't that good.

The problem with Hodgson's work on Ghulat is that it is not very accurate.

I am currently reading the book [1]. On page 232, the author pointed out that the greatest number of Ghulat was not in the entourages of the fifth or sixth Imams but in the entourages of the tenth and eight Imams.

The author then added that the heresiographers are mostly lying (Note: He didn't really used the word lying) when they say that the Imams of Ahlul Bayt nourished and sheltered these extremist disciples.

And that is exactly what Hodgson's did with his work on Ghulats.

Through an injustifiable twisting of the situation, and in contradiction to the texts, Hodgson (who authored an article on Ghulât) states that it was the imams who were influenced by "extremist" ideas; he thus turns disciples into teachers and teachers into disciples.

This is contradictory to what has been reported in the Shia Imamiyyah corpus and by heresiographical works

Ideas like raj'a, the impeccability of the imams, or spiritual wasiyya, were also ideas professed for the first time by the ghulât.

Reference

[1] Moezzi, Mohammad Ali Amir. The Divine Guide in Early Shi'sm : The Sources of Esotericism in Islam, 1994. State University of New York Press ISBN 9780791421222