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Doctrine of taqiya

Taqiya is a form of religious dissimulation, where an individual can hide one's beliefs under persecution. Taqiya was introduced by al-Baqir and later advocated by al-Sadiq to protect his followers from prosecution at the time when al-Mansur, the Abbasid caliph, conducted a brutal campaign against the Alids and their supporters. This doctrine is based on verse 16:106 of the Quran, where the wrath of God is said to await the apostate "except those who are compelled while their hearts are firm in faith." According to Amir-Moezzi, in the early sources, taqiya means "the keeping or safeguarding of the secrets of the Imams' teaching," which may have resulted at times in contradictory traditions from the Imams. In such cases, if one of the contradictory reports matches the corresponding Sunni doctrine, it would be discarded because the Imam must have had agreed with Sunnis to avoid prosecution of himself or his community. Armstrong suggests that taqiya also kept conflict to a minimum with those religious scholars (ulama) who disagreed with the Shia teachings.