Ghafari's Methodology of Skepticism in the Book Uṣūl Madhhab ShiʾaCase Study: Citations to ʾUyun Akhbār al-Riḍā

The first step to respond to doubts is to know the methods of doubting the opponents. One of the methods of skepticism of the opponents of Shia doctrines is to refer to Imami hadith sources. Dr. Nasser Ghafari, the author of the book Uṣūl Madhhab Shiʾa, Naghdun wa ʾArḍun (Religious Principles of the Shiite, Criticism and Commentary) has also benefited from this method. Using library sources and using the analytical descriptive method, this article seeks to find the methods of Ghafari's skepticism on those Shia doctrines that are documented in the book ʾUyun Akhbār al-Riḍā (as). For this purpose, all his references to this book have been checked from the methodology perspective. The result of the research is that his doubts has a methodological evaluation in three categories: the possibility of conflict between hadiths, the possibility of hadith conflict with Qurʿan and fallacy. Things like fragmenting the text, improper understanding of words, not paying attention to the hadith family, and exaggerating the problems of the hadith are included in the first category. Also, misunderstanding of Quranic concepts and fragmenting the texts of hadith has caused the possibility of conflict between hadiths and Qurʾan. In the field of fallacies, cases such as exclusivity, lexical fallacies, as well as the fallacy of extraneous reason, three frequent types are evaluated in Ghafari's method of skepticism.