This study focuses on the significance of the Dīwān al-Daʿāʾim (Pillars) – an anthology of poetry by Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. Sulaymān b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. al-Khiḍr b. Sulaymān, known after the name of his clan as Ibn al-Naẓar. The anthology presents poems steeped in Ibāḍī theology and doctrine. However, rather than focusing on those aspects, this study intends to analyse commentaries on the Dīwān from a historical angle so as to obtain a general picture of the ideas supporting it, as well as the questions it has raised at various times over the centuries since it was written. The commentaries on al-Daʿāʾim reveal a centuries-long intellectual interaction between Oman and North Africa (which lasted from the time they first appeared right up to the last century), as well as the close ties which existed between the eastern and western Ibāḍī schools. Al-Daʿāʾim was regarded as a significant work and it – together with its commentaries ‒ is indeed a unique example of Omani scholarship.
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