The Quality and Quantity of Imām’s Knowledge in Narrations

There are different views about the quality and quantity of Imām’s knowledge. There are three positions of “unlimited-ness”, “limitedness” and “silence” about the quantity of Imām’s knowledge and two views of “being immediate (ḥuḍūrī)” and “being by will” about its quality. By a descriptiveanalytic method, this research has examined the views of ‘Allāmah Ṭabāṭa’ī and Ayatollah Salehi on the Imām’s knowledge. The result is that ‘Allāmah’s point of view, Imām has an unlimited inclusive knowledge of the unseen (ghayb), and from Salehi’s point of view, Imām has a limited willingly knowledge of the unseen. To criticize the two views it must be said: documental weakening or regarding as exaggerating the texts of narrations denoting unlimited-ness as well as regarding Imām’s knowledge as including the most detailed and partial affairs are not acceptable, but because the knowledge of Imām is a divine benefit (luṭf) and Imām is the people guide, everywhere the guidance demands, the domain of Imām’s knowledge would extend or get narrow. Thus, application of terms such as “limited” or “unlimited” for it is not exact, because the Imām’s knowledge is not something like a tank but like flow and a flow is not limitable.