Lit. ‘riser’ or ‘resurrector.’ Used in early Shi‘i thought for a member of the family of the Prophet Muhammad who was expected to restore justice on earth by rising against a regime considered as illegitimate. It also came to mean the eschatological mahdī. The title al-Qāʾim bi amr Allāh was adopted by the second Fatimid Imam-Caliph (d. 946) and later by the 26th Abbasid caliph (d. 1075). Some early Ismailis expected Imam Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl to return as the qāʾim or mahdī. In the writings of al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān, qāʾim designated the Fatimid imam-caliphs, who had assumed the functions of the qāʾim to elucidate the hidden meaning (see bāṭin) of the prescribed laws. However, some groups continued to expect the second coming of Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl as the qāʾim who would end the last era of mankind. These Ismailis are sometimes called seveners (see Sabʿiyya). The doctrine of qiyamā in Alamut gave a central role to the Imam as the qāʾim and gateway to the divine world (see qāʾim al-qiyāma and khudāwand-i qiyāmat).
