A study of the cognitive style of the Jami' ahadith al-Shi'a

The work Jami' ahadith al-Shi'a by Seyyed Hossein Tabatabai Boroujerdi (d. 1961), the supreme Shiite Marja, is one of the treasured collections of narrations from the Infallibles in the field of jurisprudence. It was compiled with the intention to eliminate the flaws and drawbacks of the Wasa'il al-Shi'ah and other collections of narrations. This research aims to investigate the principles and style used in Jami' ahadith al-Shi'a. The result of the present study suggests that the chapters of the book are arranged according to the jurisprudential order, the primacy of fundamental (Usuli) subjects over jurisprudence and the description of verses related to the Islamic religious rules. The principles governing the narration of hadiths in Jami' ahadith al-Shi'a cover the exhaustiveness of the narrations in each chapter, quotation of the source and text of the hadith, description of the meanings of hadiths without distortion, giving priority to general narrations over specific ones and prioritizing absolute narrations over the conditional ones. This research adopts a descriptive-analytical method and data collection is performed using the library research method.