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SHIʿI JURISPRUDENCE, SUNNISM, AND THE TRADITIONIST THOUGHT (AKHBĀRĪ) OF MUHAMMAD AMIN ASTARABADI (D. 1626–27)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2015

Rula Jurdi Abisaab
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Abstract

In the early 17th century, the Shiʿi juristic tradition experienced the first coherent refutation of uṣūliyya, the ijtihādī rationalism used by the mujtahids, at the hands of Mulla Muhammad Amin Astarabadi (d. 1626–27). The latter rejected the efforts of leading Iraqi and Syrian jurists to apply ijtihād (rational legal inference), hadith categorization, and dirāya (scrutiny and stratification of accounts) in deriving Shiʿi law. The main studies on Astarabadi's akhbārī (traditionist) movement treat it as a reaction to the “influence” of Sunnism on the mujtahids or to their excessive “borrowings” from it, and stress the traditionists’ abhorrence of assimilating any aspect of Sunnism. Underlining the shortcomings of these explanations, this article presents Astarabadi's thought as a discursive development within the Shiʿi juristic tradition, which is part of the grand Islamic tradition. Astarabadi became skeptical of the mujtahids’ epistemology and methodology and was concerned that they jeopardized God's law and hence the believer's salvation. He protested the Safavid monarchs’ legitimation of uṣūlī legal authority, the latter's hierarchical features, and, ultimately, the sociopolitical domination of the ʿAmili mujtahids from Jabal ʿAmil in Syria (or modern-day South Lebanon), starting with al-Muhaqqiq al-Karaki (d. 1534).

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International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , February 2015 , pp. 5 - 23
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

NOTES

1 See Calder, Norman, “Doubt and Prerogative: The Emergence of an Imami Shiʿi Theory of Ijtihad,” Studia Islamica 70 (1989): 61–62, 67Google Scholar. On the one hand, Calder insisted that the seminal phase of ijtihādī rationalism “owed much if not everything to Sunni tradition.” On the other hand, he accurately noted that this phase was shaped by an internal need to refine Shiʿi legal authority. By contrast, Devin Stewart and Robert Gleave presented such adaptations as passive borrowings from Sunnism. Stewart argued that Astarabadi rejected such “borrowings” due to his hostility toward Sunnism and his fear that the Shiʿa would find some merit in Sunni works. See Stewart, Devin J., Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite Responses to the Sunni Legal System (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah Press, 1998), 127Google Scholar; Stewart, , “The Genesis of the Akhbari Revival,” in Safavid Iran and Her Neighbors, ed. Mazzaoi, Michel M. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Utah University Press, 2003), 170–71, 184Google Scholar; and Stewart, “Notes on Zayn al-Din al-ʿAmili's Munyat al-Murid fi Adab al-Mufid wa-l-Mustafid,” Journal of Islamic Studies 21 (2010): 235–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Gleave, Robert, Scripturalist Islam: The History and Doctrines of the Akhbari Shiʿi School (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 6, 12, 157CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Gleave, , “Imami Shiʿi Refutations of Qiyas,” in Studies in Islamic Legal Theory, ed. Weiss, Bernard G. (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 274Google Scholar.

2 The term traditionist is used in this paper specifically to mean akhbārī.

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5 See Anjum's assessment of Asad's ideas in “Islam as a Discursive Tradition,” 659, 661–62.

6 See Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 115–17.

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8 Khalid al-Barqi, Ahmad b. Muhammad b., al-Mahasin, vol. 1 (Qum: al-Majmaʿ al-ʿAlami li-Ahl al-Bayt, 1995), 338Google Scholar; al-Kulayni, Usul al-Kafi, 1:56–58. On al-Baqir, see Lalani, Arzina, Early Shiʿi Thought: The Teachings of Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004), 116–18Google Scholar.

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10 For a nuanced account of methods and ways of reasoning nurtured within the early Shiʿi tradition, see Aun Hasan Ali, “Imamite Rationalism in the Buyid Era” (master's thesis, McGill University, 2006), 13–35.

11 Al-Saduq wrote numerous jawābāt (responsa) to legal questions raised by Shiʿa in regions like Wasit, Basra, Kufa, Baghdad, Nishapur, and Egypt. See also Man La Yahduruhu al-Faqih, vol. 1 (Mashhad: Majmaʿ al-Buhuth al-Islamiyya, 1988), 2–3. Al-Saduq conveyed the ʿilla (reason) for doctrines and legal obligations through the aḥādīth. See al-Saduq, ʿIlal al-Sharaʾiʿ (Beirut: Manshurat al-Fajr, 2007), 194–214Google Scholar.

12 Wilfred Madelung delineated an early Shiʿi self-awareness on questions of Islamic law, which played an indirect role in the verification of legal sources. See Madelung, Wilfred, The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 108Google Scholar. See also Modarressi, Tradition and Survival, 153–55.

13 Al-ʿAllama, , Mabadiʾ al-Wusul ila ʿIlm al-Usul, ed. ʿAli Baqqal, ʿAbd al-Husayn Muhammad (Tehran: al-Matbaʿa al-ʿIlmiyya, 1984), 64–88Google Scholar; al-Thani, al-Shahid, Munyat al-Murid fi Adab al-Mufid wa-l-Mustafid, ed. al-Mukhtari, Rida (Qum: Maktab al-Iʿlam al-Islami, 1989), 289–90, 365–83Google Scholar.

14 See al-Karaki, al-Muhaqqiq, Tariq Istinbat al-Ahkam, ed. al-Fadli, ʿAbd al-Hadi (Najaf: Matbaʿat al-Adab, 1971), 8–16Google Scholar.

15 Al-Karaki, Tariq Istinbat, 9.

16 Logic was a main area of study among the scholars of Hilla during the 13th and 14th centuries. Al-Jawhar al-Nadid, al-ʿAllama's commentary on the section dealing with logic in Nasir al-Din Tusi's Tajrid al-Iʿtiqad, was studied at the Shiʿi madrasas. On works of logic, see Haydar Watwat al-Husayni, “Madrasat al-Hilla wa-Tarajim ʿUlamaʾiha min al-Nushuʾ ila al-Qimma (500–950 H),” part 5, Turathuna, nos. 3 & 4 [99–100], Year 25 (Qum, 1430), 204, 207–8.

17 Al-Karajaki, Kanz al-Fawaʾid, 29–30; Mufid's, Shaykhal-Iʿlam (bi-ma Ittafaqat ʿalayhi al-Imamiyya min al-Ahkam al-Sharʿiyya) (Qum: Kungareh-yi Jahani-yi Shaykh Mufid, 1992)Google Scholar is a comprehensive account of Sunni and Shiʿi instances of consensus. On conditions of consensus, see al-ʿAllama, Mabadiʾ, 195–98.

18 Al-ʿAllama, Mabadiʾ, 219; al-Karaki, Tariq Istinbat, 17.

19 Hallaq, Wael, A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunnī Usūl al-Fiqh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 113–15Google Scholar. One type of istiṣḥāb is al-barāʾa al-aṣliyya, namely, the continued annulment of a legal state until an indicant about it appears. See also Modarressi, Hossein, Introduction to Shiʿi Law (London: Ithaca Press, 1984), 10Google Scholar; and al-ʿAllama, Mabadiʾ, 242, 250–52.

20 See al-Shaykh al-Tusi, al-Istibsar, 1:97–98; al-Shaykh al-Tusi, al-Istibsar, 2:165–66; al-Shaykh al-Tusi, al-Istibsar, 3:60; al-ʿAllama, , Kitab Nahj al-Haqq wa-Kashf al-Sidq (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Tibaʿa wa-l-Nashr Dar al-Hijra, 2001), 379Google Scholar; and Aun Ali, “Imamite Rationalism,” 9–11, 61–77.

21 Hallaq, Wael, “Usul al-Fiqh: Beyond Tradition,” in Hallaq, Law and Legal Theory in Classical and Medieval Islam, vol. 12 (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 1994), 178Google Scholar.

22 This was evident through al-Shaykh al-Tusi's verification of consensus as a source for the law and al-ʿAllama's development of ijtihād.

23 The approach to “discursive tradition” developed in this paper owes no small part to my conversations with my students, Aun Ali and Pascal Abidor.

24 Lane, George Edmund, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A Persian Renaissance (New York: Routledge, 2003), 32–35, 220–23, 250–52Google Scholar; Spuler, Bertold, The Muslim World: The Mongol Period, trans. Bagley, F.R.C. (Leiden: Brill, 1969), 19–43Google Scholar.

25 al-Gharifi, Muhyi al-Din al-Musawi, Qawaʿid al-Hadith (Qum: Muʾassasat Al al-Bayt, 1988), 15–16Google Scholar; al-Aʿraji, “Tarikh al-Nazariya al-Fiqhiyya,” 270–71.

26 Al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, Maʿarij al-Usul, 179–85.

27 Calder, “Doubt and Prerogative,” 61–67.

28 Al-ʿAllama, Mabadiʾ, 215–17, 223–24, 244–45. The adaptation of particular Shafiʿi features was facilitated by the similarities between the Jaʿfari and the Shafiʿi schools of law. See al-Karaki, Husayn b. Shihab al-Din, Hidayat al-Abrar ila Tariq al-Ayimma al-Athar, ed. al-Din, Raʾuf Jamal (Baghdad: Muʾassasat Ihyaʾ al-Ahyaʾ, 1977), 152–53Google Scholar.

29 Al-ʿAllama, Mabadiʾ, 246–47.

30 Compare Shiʿi jurisprudence to its Sunni counterpart. See Hallaq, Wael, Authority, Continuity, and Change in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 85, 121–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 ʿAllama, Mabadiʾ, 240. If an Imami jurist is silent on a particular ruling, the consensus of his contemporaries is void.

32 Tabatabaʾi, ʿAli, Riyad al-Masaʾil, vol. 1 (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islami, 1992), 77–82Google Scholar.

33 Ibid., 78–97. On the works of Ibn Tawus, see Kohlberg, Etan, A Medieval Muslim Scholar at Work: Ibn Tawus and His Library (Leiden: Brill, 1992)Google Scholar.

34 al-Thani, Al-Shahid, al-Diraya (Tehran: al-Majmaʿ al-ʿIlmi al-Islami, 1984), 4–8Google Scholar; al-Bahaʾi, al-Wajiza fi al-Diraya, ed. Majid al-Gharbawi, no. 32 & 33, Year 8 (Qum, 1992), 387–439.

35 Kohlberg, A Medieval Muslim Scholar, 55.

36 al-Thani, Al-Shahid, Rasaʾil al-Shahid al-Thani, ed. al-Mukhtari, Rida, vol. 2 (Qum: Markaz al-Abhath wa-l-Dirasat al-Islamiyya, 2001), 762–67Google Scholar.

37 Al-Shahid al-Thani, “Tahqiq al-Ijmaʿ fi Zaman al-Ghayba,” in Rasaʾil, 2:841–42.

38 Al-Shahid al-Thani notes other reasons for the invalidity of their consensus. See “Mukhalafat al-Shaykh al-Tusi li-Ijmaʿat Nafsihi,” 847–58.

39 Al-Shahid al-Thani, “Tahqiq al-Ijmaʿ,” 843.

40 Al-Shahid al-Thani, “Takhfif al-ʿIbad fi Bayan Ahwal al-Ijtihad,” eds. Rida al-Mukhtari and Husayn al-Shafiʿi, in Rasaʾil, 1:10–12; al-Shahid al-Thani, “Taqlid al-Mayt,” eds. Rida al-Mukhtari and Abbas al-Muhammadi, 34–35. In agreement with al-ʿAllama, al-Shahid al-Thani argued that it was permissible to emulate a dead mujtahid whenever living jurists are prevented from practicing ijtihād. See pp. 20–21.

41 See Asad's discussion of power and shifts in orthodoxy in “The Idea,” 14–17.

42 Al-Karaki, Tariq Istinbat, 18; al-Shahid al-Thani, “Takhfif al-ʿIbad,” 20–21.

43 Modarressi, Introduction, 49–51.

44 Tabatabaʾi, Riyad al-Masaʾil, 1:78–79.

45 See al-Shahid al-Awwal, al-Qawaʿid wa-l-Fawaʾid. It is useful to compare it with al-Mabsut by Shaykh al-Taʾifa.

46 Munshi, , ʿAlam-arayi ʿAbbasi, ed. Rizvani, M. I., vol. 1 (Tehran: Dunya-yi Kitab, 1998–99), 237–40Google Scholar; C. E. Bosworth and S. Blair, Encyclopedia Iranica, s.v. “Astarabad,” vol. 2, Fasc. 8, 838–39; Jaʿfariyan, Rasul, Kavishha-yi Tazeh dar Bab-i Ruzgar-i Safavi (Qum: Markaz-i Tahqiqat-i Adyan va-Madhahib-i Howzeh-yi ʿIlmiyyah, 1964–65), 269–300Google Scholar.

47 The scholarship of al-Muqaddas al-Ardabili, the teacher of Sahib al-Madarik, shaped the latter's critique of some features of the uṣūlīs’ approach to hadith.

48 Astarabadi, Muhammad Amin, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya (Qum: Mu’assasat al-Nashr al-Islami, 2005), 13–14Google Scholar; al-Isbahani, Mirza Afandi, Riyad al-ʿUlamaʾ wa-Hiyad al-Fudalaʾ, ed. al-Husayni, al-Sayyid Ahmad, vol. 2 (Qum: Matbaʿat al-Khayyam, 1981), 44, 399Google Scholar; Mirza Afandi al-Isbahani, Riyad al-ʿUlamaʾ, 5:35–37; Ansari, Hasan, “Zindigi-namah va-Athar-i ʿAllama Muhammad Amin Astarabadi,” in Daʾirat al-Maʿarif Buzurg Islami, vol. 10, no. 4002 (Tehran: Markaz-i Daʾirat al-Maʿarif Buzurg Islami, n.d.)Google Scholar.

49 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 27–28; Isfahani, Muhammad Yusuf Walih, Khuld-i Barin: Iran dar Ruzgar-i Safaviyyan, ed. Muhaddith, Mir Hashim (Tehran: Bunyad-i Mawqufat-i Duktur Mahmud Afshar, 1993), 412Google Scholar; Khatunabadi, Sayyid ʿAbd al-Husayn, Waqaʾiʿ al-Sinin wa-l-Aʿwam (Tehran, 1973), 489Google Scholar.

50 Pourjavady, Reza, Philosophy in Early Safavid Iran: Najm al-Din Mahmud al-Nayrizi and His Writings (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Muhammad Amin Astarabadi, “Danishnamah-yi Shahi,” Kitabkhana-yi ʿUmumi-yi Marʿashi Najafi, Qum, MS no. 10144, 10–21. Astarabadi discusses questions of ontology (existence and essence) and epistemology (mental existence, the thing in and of itself [nafs al-amr]) defending the commentary of Qushchi on Tusi's Tajrid al-Iʿtiqad and Jurjani's glosses on Qutb al-Din al-Razi's commentary on Urmawi's Mataliʿ al-Anwar. See Reza Pourjavadi, Philosophy in Early Safavid Iran, 97n85.

52 Rula Jurdi Abisaab, “Karaki,” Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. 15, Fasc. 5, 544–47.

53 Abisaab, Rula Jurdi, Converting Persia: Religion and Power in Safavid Iran (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004), chap. 1 and 2Google Scholar.

54 al-Biladi, ʿAli b. al-Hasan, Anwar al-Badrayn fi Tarajim ʿulamaʾ al-Qatif wa-l-Ahsaʾ wa-l-Bahrayn, ed. al-Tabsi, M. (Najaf: Matbaʿat al-Nuʿman, 1957–58) 119–20Google Scholar.

55 Ibid., 85–88; al-Bahrani, Yusuf, Luʾluʾat al-Bahrayn, ed. al-ʿUlum, M. S. Bahr (Manama: Maktabat Fakhrawi, 2008), 15–17Google Scholar.

56 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 59.

57 Astarabadi, “Danishnamah-yi Shahi,” 5.

58 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 28.

59 See Ansari, “Zindigi-namah,” 1–2.

60 Ibid., 2.

61 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 364–65.

62 The quarrel between Mir Jamal al-Din and al-Karaki took place around the time when the latter was advancing his commentary on al-ʿAllama's al-Qawaʿid. See Jaʿfariyan, Kavishha-yi Tazeh, 287.

63 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 49–50, 78.

64 Ibid., 542. See also pp. 532–34.

65 Ibid., 542.

66 Ibid., 573.

67 Rula Jurdi Abisaab, “Epistemic and Legal Questions: the akhbārism of Mulla Muhammad Amin Astarabadi (d. 1626–7)” (paper presented at the ISIS Biennial Conference, Los Angeles, Calif., 27–29 May 2010).

68 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 183; Ibn Shihab al-Din, Hidayat al-Abrar, 12–13.

69 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 105–6.

70 Gleave, Scripturalist Islam, 276. Gleave highlighted Ibn Shihab al-Din al-Karaki's view that humans supplement God's original role in assigning meaning to utterances on the basis of madhhab al-tawzīgh (al-tawzīʿ) (“allotment”—i.e., God and humanity are “allotted” certain roles in the development of language). “He [Astarabadi] claims it to be the chosen opinion of most scholars (akhtārahu [ikhtārahu] al-akthar).” See Hidayat, 240–41.

71 Ibn Shihab al-Din, Hidayat, 14.

72 Gleave, Scripturalist Islam, 88.

73 The traditionist jurist, al-Hurr al-ʿAmili (d. 1692–93) did not consider the akhbārī-uṣūlī disagreement to be terminological. See his al-Fawaʾid al-Tusiyya (Qum: al-Matbaʿa al-ʿIlmiyya, 1983), 445–50.

74 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 258–59.

75 Hidayat, 193–94.

76 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 456–68; Modarressi, Introduction to Shiʿi, 3–4.

77 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 104–5.

78 In private discussions with the author, Mohammad Tavakoli-Targhi made an interesting connection between 19th- and 20th-century akhbārī trends and canonization as a response to the powers of the state.

79 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 569–71; Astarabadi, “Danishnamah-yi Shahi,” 9.

80 Modarressi, Introduction to Shiʿi, 53.

81 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 59.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid.; Jurdi Abisaab, “Epistemic and Legal Questions.”

84 Modarressi, Introduction to Shiʿi, 10.

85 Al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 100, 230, 276–77, 289.

86 Ibid., 122–23; Sahib al-Maʿalim developed the categorization of hadith formally started by Ibn Tawus. See al-Maʿalim, Sahib's work, Maʿalim al-Din wa-Maladh al-Mujtahidin, ed. al-Hakim, Sayyid Mundhir (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Fiqh li-l-Tibaʿa wa-l-Nashr, 1997–98)Google Scholar; Tabatabaʾi, Riyad al-Masaʾil, 1:78–79; Astarabadi, , “al-Hashiya ʿala Usul al-Kafi,” collected by Mawla Khalil Qazvini and ed. Fadili, ʿAli, Mirath-i Hadith-i Shiʿa, vol. 8 (Qum: Muʾassasa-yi Farhangi-yi Dar al-Hadith, 1961–62): 262Google Scholar.

87 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-madaniyya, 128.

88 Khabar al-wāḥid is translated at times as “a solitary account.” Al-Shaykh al-Tusi accepted khabar al-wāḥid, arguing that if it is supported by a dalīl qatʿī, a proof that provides certainty, then it is possible to derive God's law on its basis. al-Tusi, Al-Shaykh, ʿUddat al-Usul, ed. Najaf, Muhammad Mahdi, vol. 1 (Qum: Muʾassasat Al al-Bayt, 1982–83), 337, 367–72Google Scholar. Al-ʿAllama presented this position in Mabadiʾ, 205.

89 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 479.

90 Ibid., 135.

91 Ibid., 132–37.

92 Ibid., 495.

93 Ibid., 312.

94 See al-Shahid al-Thani, “al-Iqtisad wa-l-Irshad ila Tariq al-Ijtihad fi Maʿrifat al-Mabdaʾ wa-l-Maʿad wa-Ahkam Af ʿal al-ʿIbad,” in Rasaʾil, 2:776, 779–81.

95 Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories, 83–86.

96 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 313.

97 Ibid., 313–14. Compare to al-Shahid al-Thani, “al-Iqtisad,” Rasaʾil, 2:779–81.

98 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 319.

99 Ibid., 301, 318–25.

100 Khwansari, Rawdat, 1:316.

101 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 195–98. Astarabadi also quotes several hadith from al-Mahasin and Basaʾir al-Darajat stressing the moral implications of issuing legal opinions without certainty not only for the believer but also for the mufti. Bahrani, , Luʾluʾat al-Bahrayn, ed. al-ʿUlum, M. S. Bahr (Beirut: Dar al-Adwaʾ, 1986), 117–19Google Scholar.

102 ʿAllama, Mabadiʾ, 248; al-Shahid al-Thani, “Takhfif al-ʿIbad,” 1:10–12; al-Shahid al-Thani, “Taqlid al-Mayt,” 34–35. In agreement with al-ʿAllama, al-Shahid al-Thani argued that it was permissible to emulate a dead mujtahid whenever living jurists are prevented from practicing ijtihād. See pages 20–21.

103 Rula Jurdi Abisaab, “al-Karaki,” Encyclopedia Iranica, 544–47; Ansari, “Zindiginamah va Athar-i Allama Muhammad Amin Astarabadi,” 2.

104 Arjomand, S. A., The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 126–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rasul Jaʿfariyan, Kavishha-yi Tazeh, 86–90.

105 Abisaab, “al-Karaki.”

106 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 495.

107 Ibid., 532–34, 542.

108 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 573; al-Kashani, Fayd, Dah Risalah, ed. Jaʿfariyan, Rasul (Isfahan, 1992), 281Google Scholar; Shihab al-Din al-Karaki, Hidayat al-Abrar, 3–4. See also Newman, “Fayd al-Kashani and the Rejection of the Clergy/State Alliance,” in The Most of the Shiʿa: The Institution of Marjaʿ al-Taqlid, ed. Walbridge, Linda (London: Oxford University Press, 2001), 34–52Google Scholar.

109 Abisaab, “Karaki,” Encyclopedia Iranica; al-Karaki, “Salat al-Jumʿa,” in Rasaʾil al-Muhaqqiq al-Karaki, ed. al-Hassun, M., vol. 1 (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islami, 1988), 158–60Google Scholar; al-Shahid al-Thani, “Salat al-Jumʿa,” ed. R. Mukhtari and G. al-Qaysari, in Rasaʾil, 1:1–78; “al-Hath ʿala Salat al-Jumʿa,” ed. M. al-Nawruzi, in Rasaʾil, 1:3–31; Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 557, 573.

110 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 190–91, 204–30.

111 See al-Bahrani, Luʾlu ʾat, 117–18.

112 Private discussions with the author.

113 Jaʿfariyan, Kavishha-yi Tazeh, 42.

114 Al-Amin, Aʿyan al-Shiʿa, 3:82–83; Modarressi, Hossein, “Rationalism and Traditionalism in Shiʿi Jurisprudence: A Preliminary Survey,” Studia Islamica 59 (1984): 155Google Scholar.

115 Majlisi, Muhammad Taqi, Lawamiʿ-i Sahibqarani (Qum: Ismaʿiliyan, 1994–99), 38Google Scholar.

116 Cook, Michael, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)Google Scholar, 294n276, 294n279, 295n284, 296n296.

117 Gleave, Robert, Inevitable Doubt: Two Theories of Shiʿi Jurisprudence (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 247–48Google Scholar.

118 See Gleave, Scripturalist Islam, xix–xx, 156–57, 296.

119 Gleave, Inevitable Doubt, 4.

120 Ibid., 2–3, 32; Gleave, Scripturalist Islam, 6, 12, 156–57, 157n67; and Gleave, “Imami Shiʿi Refutations,” 274.

121 Stewart, “The Genesis of the Akhbari Revival,” in Safavid Iran and Her Neighbors, ed. Michel M. Mazzaoui (Salt Lake City, Utah: Utah University Press, 2003), 184. See also p. 169.

122 Momen, Moojan, Introduction to Shiʿi Islam (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985), 222Google Scholar.

123 Rula Jurdi Abisaab, Converting Persia, 107–14; Hasan Ansari, “Jayigah-i Fiqhi/Usuli-yi Sayyid ʿAbdu-llah Shubbar wa Sahm-i u dar Nizaʿ-i Usuli/Akhbari,” accessed 2 January 2013, http://ansari.kateban.com/entry1878.html; Ansari, “Jayigah-i al-Kafi dar mayan-i Imamiyya,” accessed 2 January 2013, http://ansari.kateban.com/entry842.html; Gleave, Scripturalist Islam, 237–44.

124 Astarabadi, Muhammad Amin, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya (wa-bi-Dhaylihi al-Shawahid al-Makkiyya by Nur al-Din al-Musawi al-ʿAmili) (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islami, 2005), 328–29Google Scholar. See al-Zarkashi, Badr al-Din, Tashnif al-Masamiʿ bi-Jamʿ al-Jawamiʿ, ed. b. ʿAbd al-Rahim, Abi ʿAmr al-Husayni b. ʿUmar, vol. 1 (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2000), 45–48Google Scholar; and al-Subhani, Jaʿfar, Risala fi al-Tahsin wa-l-Taqbih al-ʿAqliyayn (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Imam al-Sadiq, 1999–2000), 127–29Google Scholar.

125 See Hallaq, Wael, Ibn Taymiyya against Greek Logicians (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, introduction; Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 34, 192–93, 256–58.

126 See Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya, xlii–xliii.

127 Lawson, Todd, “Akhbari Shiʿi approaches to tafsīr,” in Approaches to the Qurʾan, ed. Hawting, G. R. and Shareef, A. A. (New York: Routledge, 1993), 176, 186–87Google Scholar.

128 See Kashani, Muhsin Fayd, al-Mahajja al-Baydaʾ fi Tahdhib al-Ihyaʾ, ed. al-Ghaffari, ʿAli Akbar (Qum: Muʾassasat al-Nashr al-Islami, 1994), 1Google Scholar.

129 See al-Husayni, Muhammad, al-Ruh al-Mujarrad (Tehran: n.p., 2002), 326Google Scholar; ʿAli al-Shahidi, “al-Siham al-Mariqa,” fol. 8a–12b.

130 al-Shahidi, ʿAli, “al-Siham al-Mariqa min Aghrad al-Zanadiqa,” MS, in al-Husayni, Ahmad, Fihrist-i Nuskhaha-yi Khatti-yi Kitabkhana-yi ʿUmumi-yi Marʿashi, collection 1576 (Qum, 1975)Google Scholar, fol. 8a–12b; Sabzavari, Muhammad ʿAli Muʾadhdhin, Tuhfah-yi ʿAbbasi: The Golden Chain of Sufism in Shiʿi Islam, trans. Faghfoory, M. H. (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2008), 157n37Google Scholar.

131 Asad, “The Idea,” 15–16.

132 Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 136–39.

133 He argued that the hadith of various Sunnite groups lacked certainty, that is, being of the khabar al-wāḥid type. See Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 123.

134 Al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 98–99, 104–5, 192–201.

135 Abisaab, Converting Persia, 106–9.

136 Madelung considered Kitab al-Naqd by ʿAbd al-Jalil al-Qazwini (d. 12th century) to be proof for an akhbārī-uṣūlī division at least since the 12th century. See Madelung, , “Imamism and Muʿtazilite Theology,” in Le Shiʿisme Imamite, ed. Fahd, T. (Paris: Paries Presses Universitaires de France, 1970), 13–30Google Scholar. Stewart accepted Madelung's position in Islamic Legal Orthodoxy (pp. 182–84) but in “The Genesis,” he attributed the division to al-Shahid al-Thani's Sunni “borrowings” (pp. 170–71). Newman argued earlier that the akhbārī-uṣūlī division existed during the 9th century, noting its political significance. See Newman, “The Akhbari/Usuli Dispute in Late Safawid Iran, Part 2,” BSOAS 55 (1992): 250–53, 259–60.

137 Ibn Abi ʿAqil, for instance, is described as “awwal-i kesī ast az mujtahidān-i Imāmiyya” (one of the first imami mujtahids) and someone who used syllogistic reasoning even if he did not develop Shiʿi ijtihād as we know it. See Shushtari, Qadi Nurullah, Majalis al-Muʾminin (Tehran: Kitabfurushi-yi Islamiyya, 1955), 427–28Google Scholar; al-Fiqhi, Markaz al-Muʿjam, Hayat ibn Abi ʿAqil al-ʿUmani (Qum: Sharaf, 1992), 6–8Google Scholar; and Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 91, 97, 111–13. In Rijal al-ʿAllama, Muhammad b. Zakariyya b. Dinar (d. 910) is described as an “akhbārī” though he was distinguished from narrators of hadith (p. 156). To be sure, the meanings of akhbārī and ūṣūlī changed over time and across genres and scholarly contexts, but they gained a specific meaning in the Safavid period.

138 Asad, “The Idea of an Anthropology,” 14–15.

139 See Astarabadi, al-Fawaʾid al-Madaniyya, 104–5, 325–27, 332–40.