Ibāḍī Studies in Naples. Rereading the Works of Last Century Italian Scholars

The last century Italian ‘Orientalists’ (Laura Veccia
Vaglieri, Carlo Alfonso Nallino, Mario Martino Moreno
and Roberto Rubinacci, together with Vanna Cremonesi
and Generosa Crupi La Rosa) were among the first scholars
to underline that the Ibāḍis made an important contribution
to Islamic thought and to the whole formation
of Islamic culture. As Rubinacci states in his work on
ritual purity among the Ibāḍis, they had a dominant role
in developing both the law and the dogma, as they were
driven by a particularly strict ethical code, inflamed by an
intense religiosity. The early definitions of the Khārijis
and the points they brought up for discussion may have
provided the first impulse for the formation of the oldest
juridical schools as well as spurred the debate from which
the Mu‘tazilī dogma originated. What is certain is that in
the field of dogma as well as in the legal field, the Ibāḍis
elaborated a system of their own.