Zulaikhiyya

Zulaikhiyya (Abbasian: زليخية) is an esoteric belief system principally centered on Al-Khāṭiʾa, the female Hamin deity believed to be the creator of the material world. While having been subject to intense persecution by Hamin authorities, Zulaikhi congregations exist across South Abaria, primarily in urban areas and among women and sexual minorities.

Zulaikhi beliefs heavily vary between congregations, and much spiritual knowledge is held secret from the uninitiated. However, a common thread is that Al-Khāṭiʾa's unassisted creation of the material world (termed the Great Perversity in Hamin theology) was an act of unmitigated creation that cemented humanity's existential freedom from divine control. Zulaikhites view humans as having a resulting creative and spiritual energy, called the Ruh (Abbasian: الروح), which must be maintained and developed through a series of secretive Rites. Over the past century, a diverse set of modern beliefs (termed Neo-Zulaikhiyya) have emerged, adopting an atheistic viewpoint while revering the qualities embodied in Al-Khāṭiʾa.

The Zulaikhi faith seems to have originated as a divergent Mutatariff sect during the chaos of the Great Fitna. One of the first texts to reference Zulaikhi tenets was the Initiation of Zulaikha, a 14th century work consisting of a discourse between the eponymous shepherd-girl and an entity implied to be the manifestation of Al-Khāṭiʾa herself. Early Zulaikhi sects included the infamous Ghasibites, a millenarian sect most notable for their campaigns of conquest in western Shiraq in the early 1400s and their defacement of several significant Hamin shrines. Following the suppression of the Ghasibites in the 1440s, the Zulaikhis seemed to have undergone a fundamental shift, denouncing Ghasibite extremism and transitioning into the more reclusive structure typical of Zulaikhis today. During the Kumur Empire, Zulaikhi beliefs appear to have gained inroads among the upper class, particularly among noblewomen, the Kumur imperial harem, and the eunuch class, an arrangement that seemed to have drawn significant consternation among the Kumurid Jurists.

The Spring of Nations, the fall of the Kumur Empire, and the conclusion of the Great War brought a new challenges and opportunities for Zulaikhiyya. The new revolutionary republics associated Zulaikhi beliefs with the corruption of the Kumur nobility, leading to intermittent campaigns of persecution through the late 19th century and early 20th century. This trend only exacerbated with the installment of a theocratic government in Mizbeh during the Pegeyon Realignment and the associated increased popularity of pan-Shiraqi and pan-Hamin ideology. At the same time, Zulaikhi beliefs began to be seen as an antithesis to Taqlidi legalism and Mutatariff fanaticism by republicans. This, together with increasing levels of female agricultural and industrial workforce participation, together with the introduction of Women's Lodges, spread Zulaikhi beliefs among both the urban middle class and secessionist agricultural communes. The late 20th century and early 21st centuries has seen the rise of Neo-Zulaikhiyya and the increased popularity of Zulaikhi beliefs among sexual minorities.