فصلنامه تحقیقات کلامی
پیاپی 2 (پاییز 1392)

To speak about the relationship of knowledge resources in the system of religious knowledge is of special importance. The available views in this respect, exploited various approaches; some have seen the reason independent in both states of establishment and discovering, and some others have regarded narration as self-sufficient. Both views, in this essay, have been seen as incomplete, and it defended the intertwined authority of reason and narration. In understanding the propositions, in explaining and reasoning them and defending them, reason accompanies the narration. Narration also assists the reason in the communicating, elaborating, noticing and teaching the facts to others, and also aids it in completion of method. Otherwise, in one hand, reason will result in the irregular interpretation, suspension and reduction of religious teachings, and narration, on the other, also will lose its inter-subjective place. Since the reason affirms the aids of narration and digests them in its structure, the final accepted methodology is rational.

Discussion about the describability or indescribability of the Divine Nature to the names and attributes is one of the first questions that there have been always various viewpoints about it from the different Islamic thinkers. The current writing explains and analyses the narrations that directly (obviously) and/or indirectly relates to the issue of the attributes negation. The comparison of the two groups of the narrations leads to the result that the attribution of any attribute to the Divine Nature entails limitation and anthropomorphism. So God has no attribute in the Nature level, and is unadorned and bare of any meaning or concept showing the Nature. Therefore, all the names and attributes that are positively used to God, are negative or act attributes.

Although the pure and monotheistic thinking of Bada’ existed in the early Muslim community, it continued, based on some reasons, in the Shi’i community. There was not any disagreement between the Shi’a theologians in the explanation of Bada’ to the end of the Imams’ (p.b.u.t.) era. After this period, and in the stagnation and inactivity period of Shi’i Kalam, a group of the Mu’tazilites converted to Shi’ism as well as some rationalist Shi’i theologians offered a new explanation of the Bada’, and regarded it as equal to Naskh (abrogation of legislations). This new thinking that, at first, a few thinkers advocated it, gradually found an important place between Shi’a scholars so that towards the middle of the fifth Islamic century /12th century CE it got all pervasive. The Explanation of this new thinking continued by Sheikh al-Mufid, and his disciples also continued this course of thinking.

The Mu’tazilites converted to Shi’ism are a culture-making group in the course of Imami thought in the third/tenth and fourth/eleventh centuries that their comparison to the theologian heritage of Imami theologians in Baghdad can aids to recognition of their place and role in the history of Shi’a thought. The current writing, by examining the available reports in the works of the Nawbakhtis, Sheikh Mufid and Seyed Murtaza, tries to analyses the kind of their encounter to Abu Eisa Warraq and Ibn Rawandi from the two aspects of personality and scholarship. It also tries to map out their place through explaining the judgments of Baghdadi theologians about the Mu’tazilites converted to Shi’ism. Furthermore, in a more enormous view, it tries to show the trend of Imami Kalam from the third/tenth century to fifth/twelfth century and reconstruct a scene of the history of Shi’a Kalam. The result is that one cannot see a homogeneous position about Abu Eisa Warraq and Ibn Rawandi in the remained heritage of Imami theologians in Baghdad; although there can be seen some signs of kinship in the issue of Imamah.

Comparison of the theological thoughts of Nawbakhtis and Sheikh Mufid in the field of theological heritage of Imamiyyah and Mu’tazilah, in addition to explaining the disagreement points between the opinions of Nawbakhtis and Sheikh Mufid, will show the role of each of them in this theoretical development. This study shows that one cannot see the empathy and nearness of Nawbakhtis to Mu’tazilah more than the nearness of the thoughts of Sheikh Mufid to Mu’tazilah; but in proportion to their theological bases and presuppositions in different theological areas, each of them offered views that is identical sometimes to Mu’tazilah and sometimes to the Kufi Imami theologians. Thus, just as Nawbakhtis are in agreement with Mu’tazilah in theories like some secondary parts of Wa’d (promise) and Wa’id (threat), Sheikh Mufid also have chosen opinions near to the thoughts of Mu’tazilah in discussions such as Knowledge and power of man. According to this study, although one can see some agreements between Nawbakhtis and Sheikh Mufid with Mu’tazilis, the roots of these thoughts are founded in the views quoted from the Imami theologians in the Kufah School. So, this agreement to Mu’tazilah is not necessarily to mean the impressionability and borrowing the thoughts from the Mu’tazilah and moving away from the Imami theological background.

Sometimes the ignorance and/or non-awareness in the trend of explaining the revealed teachings brought about the emergence of the misgiving that the Shi’i teachings have changed or transformed. Thus an exact cognition of the course of the Ahl ul-Bayt (p.b.u.t.) teachings explanation needs paying attention to all effective historical elements and conditions in the age of the Prophet and Imams in that the gradual development of the teachings with two quality of (first) concise-detailed process and (second) drawing four relative periods in the age of Ahl ul-Bayt’s (p.b.u.t.) presence, will get clear. The present writing, by focusing on the teaching of Imamah, tries to explain the state of the process of explaining this principle with regard to the historical circumstances in the Presence Age, and also shows the revealed content in its course has not changed nor transformed.

With a historical-descriptive method in his study, Uri Rubin attributed a hereditary Imamah to Shi’ism. For documenting the theory of hereditary Imamah, he resorts to the hadiths (narrations) of brotherhood between the Prophet and Imam ‘Ali (p.b.u.t.), not having a son by the Prophet (p.b.u.h.), and the family tie between Imam ‘Ali and the Prophet (p.b.u.t.). What can be remarked as a criticism to Rubin’s claim is that, without examining the Qur’anic verses related to inheritance and a comprehensive analysis of the narrations about it, he attributed the belief in hereditary Imamah to the Shi’a just on the basis of a historical event and some narrations related to the light creation that is related to the superiorities of the Ahl ul-Bayt (p.b.u.t.). Furthermore, it seems that religious presupposition and the secular sight to the issue of Imamah caused him to attribute such a belief to Shi’ism. In the criticism of this theory, by resorting to some related Qur’nic verses and narrations written in authentic books, in addition to rejecting the above mentioned attribution, the correct view in the Shi’i arguments for the Imamah of the Imams is stated.