Mamiyya Kalam after the Presence Period; the First Divergences

When the Imamiyya school of Kalam in Kufa declined in the middle of the third century A.H., some Imamiyya and Mutazila scholars of Kalam-who converted to Shiism and are not much known-came to represent the Imamiyya Kalam; they had tendencies towards Mutazila thoughts and turned away from the Imamiyya Kalam in the Presence Period (the period when Shiite Imams were present). In this paper we rely on Abu al-Ḥasan al-Asharī's Maqālāt al-Islāmīyyīn (written in the last decade of the third century A.H.) to rediscover some views of this school of Kalam and investigate the approach of scholars of the School of Baghdad, from Nawbakhtīs, who are almost contemporary to the above-mentioned school of Kalam, to the age of al-Shaykh al-Mufīd and Sayyid al-Murtaḍā. The upshot is that since this school shared Mutazila views in many issues of Kalam and turned away from the official positions of the early Imamiyya Kalam, the School of Baghdad reacted differently to their views, but, eventually in the age of Sayyid al-Murtaḍā, the Imamiyya Kalam fully agreed with their views.