A Responsum by the Fifth/Eleventh-Century Imāmī Theologian Abū Yaʿlā Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. Ḥamza al-Jaʿfarī on the Number of the Imams

The present study discusses the scarce available data about Abū Yaʿlā al-Jaʿfarī and shows that he, rather than al-Murtaḍā, is the author of the tract, which circulated under titles such as Risālat al-ḥujja fī l-imāma and Masʾala fī bayān imāmat al-aʾimma al-ithnay ʿashar ʿalayhim ṣalawāt Allāh wa-l-malāʾika wa-l-bashar.

MS Tehran, Dānishgāh-i Tihrān 5396, a multitext codex dating to the eleventh/seventeenth century, includes a tract entitled Risālat al-ḥujja fī l-imāma by the little-known fifth/eleventh-century Imāmī theologian Abū Yaʿlā Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. Ḥamza al-Jaʿfarī. The text is transmitted in two additional witnesses, and in both it is attributed to al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044). The tract was recently published as a work by al-Murtaḍā on the basis of one of these witnesses, which was believed to be a unique copy. The present study discusses the scarce available data about Abū Yaʿlā al-Jaʿfarī and shows that he, rather than al-Murtaḍā, is the author of the tract, which circulated under titles such as Risālat al-ḥujja fī l-imāma and Masʾala fī bayān imāmat al-aʾimma al-ithnay ʿashar ʿalayhim ṣalawāt Allāh wa-l-malāʾika wa-l-bashar. Finally, we present a critical edition of the tract, one of the earliest extant Imāmī writings on the question of the number of the imams, on the basis of all three witnesses.

Bibliographic Information

Title: A Responsum by the Fifth/Eleventh-Century Imāmī Theologian Abū Yaʿlā Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. Ḥamza al-Jaʿfarī on the Number of the Imams

Author(s):  Hassan Ansari, Hamid Ataei Nazari, and Sabine Schmidtke

Published in:  Shii Studies Review , Volume 6: Issue 1-2, 28 Jul 2022 .

Language: English

Length: 31 page

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