Having a Look at the Theological Writings (6): Al-Risālat as-Sa dia

One of Allame Hasan bin Yousef bin Ali bin Motahhar Helli’s valuable works is an interdisciplinary and rather brief work called Al- Risālat as-Sa’dia, also known as as-Sa’dia. This treatise begins with some preliminary explanations of the principles of jurisprudence followed by a chapter which is about the five principles of Shiite religion and also several jurisprudential issues. Finally, the treatise ends with two short chapters, one of which is on persuading people into doing some of the ethical works, and the other one is on deterring people from vices. Therefore, Al- Risālat as-Sa’dia includes a number of topics on the principles of jurisprudence, theology and jurisprudence, and ethics. As Allame states at two points in the introduction to this treatise, he wrote this work for Sa’doddin Muhammad bin Ali Sāvoji and dedicated the reward of its writing to him. The treatise is surely named Sa’dia after this person. The following paper intends to ntroduce this treatise and explain some of its writing features and peculiarities. Regarding this, the author firstly scrutinizes the issue of the treatise attribution to Allame Helli and the date of its wirting. Following this, he presents other issues such as the structure, content, versions, translations, explanations, and prints. In the last part he criticizes the second edition of Abdolhossein Muhammad Ali Baqāl’s correction of Al-Risālat as-Sa’dia, and provides some examples from the text to show some of the mistakes.