Where some religious environmentalisms deploy traditional concepts according to the practical needs of cosmology, usul al-fiqh (jurisprudence) envisions an alternative practical strategy for....
Read More »Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī in Modern Scholarship
Although al-Sijistānī was a leading figure in the development of Ismāʿīlī philosophy, particularly its Neoplatonism, serious investigation of his writing has been slow to enter modern scholarship, in part because his works have remained inaccessible until...
Read More »Classical Naṣṣ Doctrines in Imāmī Shīʿism: On the Usage of an Expository Term
This article reexamines the use of the term naṣs, which since Marshall Hodgson has been used in modern historiography to refer to an indigenous Shīʿī mechanism of succession to the imamate....
Read More »Was Muḥammad Amīn al-Astarabādī a Mujtahid?
Since the turn of the twentieth century, the main biographical sources and studies dealing with the life and thought of Muḥammad Amīn al-Astarabādī (d. 1036/1626-7) have upheld the view that he....
Read More »Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī’s Kashf al-Rība ʿan Aḥkām al-Ghība and Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn
The treatise Kashf al-rība ʿan aḥkām al-ghība (“The Removal of Doubt from the Rules concerning Malicious Gossip”) was composed in 949/1542 by the famous Twelver jurist Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 965/1558), known as...
Read More »Shiʿi Educational Traditions and Systems in Early Modern Iraq and Iran
The formation of the Safavid state (1501-1722) in Iran was transformative for Shī‘īism and its educational systems. The sixteenth century, therefore, was a turning point for the proliferation of Shill scholarship and educational institutions in Iran and the shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala' in southern.....
Read More »Ashura: Uprising as Struggle for Justice to Uphold Humanity
Ashura has always been a school where the character of a man has been tested and developed and Imam Hussein (A.S) has been the greatest teacher of humanity in this school....
Read More »Karbala Mourning among the Fāṭimid-Ṭayyibī Shīʿa of India
The Sayyid al-Shuhadāʾ lament—a poignant fifty-one-stanza Arabic marthiya composed by the Ṭayyibī Dāʿī l-Muṭlaq Sayyidnā Ṭāhir Sayf al-Dīn (d. 1385/1965)—holds an iconic status in the Karbala tradition of the Fāṭimid-Ṭayyibī Shīʿa of...
Read More »Analysis of the Attribution of Tazkirāt Al-A’ima to Allāma Muhammad Bāqir al-Majlesi
Disagreement exists among historical biographers in attributing the authorship of Tazkirat al-A’ima to either Allāma Muhammad Bāqir Bin Muhammad Taqii Majlesi or his contemporary scholar of the same name, Muhamad Bāqir....
Read More »Resistance, Jihad, and Martyrdom in Contemporary Lebanese Shi‘a Discourse
This article examines the contemporary Shi‘a understanding of jihad, martyrdom, and resistance through an analysis of the writings of two leading Lebanese Shi‘a scholars: Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah and...
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