Etan Kohlberg’s paper—“From Imāmiyya to Ithnā-ʿAshariyya”— was seen by the Twelver tradition to pose a challenge to the belief that the chain of Imams would end with the twelfth Imam. Building upon Kohlberg’s observations, Hossein Modarressi’s Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shīʿite Islam emphasised that hitherto overlooked Sunnī traditions supporting the doctrine of twelve Imams came to a timely rescue of a community in crisis, and since its publication (and subsequent translation in Persian), critiques still appear in print in Persian and Arabic. The critiques in the present paper concentrate on the responses offered in defense of the belief in Imams being twelve in number, and make three central arguments. First: the aḥādīth affirming the number of Imams as twelve were in circulation much before the occultation. Second: the doctrine was not considered important for the generation of Shīʿas living prior to the occultation. Third: the socio-political conditions necessitated the practicing of taqiyya which led to a cautious dissemination of this doctrine. This paper also discusses the efforts made to publish works offering alternative historical models of Shīʿī intellectual history. These efforts—coupled with the novel questions brought to the fore during debates surrounding Crisis and Consolidation—shaped the emergence of a rich discourse in Iranian scholarly circles. The paper’s final section outlines the emerging discourse on the relationship between history and theology, demonstrating how modern intellectual history intersects with the development of a religious intellectual tradition.

KEYWORDS: Twelve Imams, Twelver Doctrine, Occultation, Hossein Modarressi, theology, intellectual history.