معتصم

The debates between Shi’a Imams and different religious sects and groups have always been considered as a proper way in understanding Twelvers’ thoughts. Such discussions with oppositions in scientific environment can introduce a suitable way in recognizing Shi’ite beliefs. In the time of Imam Al-Jawad (a) scientific environment was dominated in which Abbasid caliphs tried their best to hold debates between religious leaders and scholars. In the present paper, historical changes of the debates of Imam Al-Jawad (a) will be analyzed based on historical, narrative, Kalam and interpretive sources. Therefore, the mentioned nine discussions in sources will be studied in the aspects of addressee, text, the narrator of discussion, differences between texts of discussions, the age of Imam and the place of discussion in order to specify the historical changes. The present paper has applied a descriptive – analytical approach and it concluded that the differences between Imam’s discussions in different sources was insignificant which represents the political environment of the government of the time.

Nearly 75 years after the foundation of Baghdad as the Abbasid's capital by the Caliph Mansur,the policy of the transition of the capital was adopted by one of his successors namely Mutasim.He transferred the political center of his caliphate to the new founded city of Samarra and left Baghdad which was achieved the highest cultural and political position in the Islamic world. This study tries to examine the background of above-mentioned policy and analyse its wanted and unwanted aftermaths in order to clarify the success and unsuccess of the Caliph Mutasim.

The study of the history of various schools of thought plays an important role in coming into grasps with social and polictical developments in Islamic history. The Mutazilah school, with its prominent feature of rationalism, was one of the most important trends of thought in early Islamic centuries. The mutazilites who played a major role in advancing Islamic thought became the dominant ideological force in part of the Abbasid period during Mamun and Mutasim's rules. At their peak of power, they adopted a strict policy against their opponents, mainly the Sunni jurists and hadith relators who reacted negatively to the pressures, and tried to spread their line of thought through means of power at their disposal. This period, known as "Mihnah", or "Hardship", is the subject of study of this investigative article.