An Examination of the Theory of Transformation of the Concept of Reason (Aql) in the Views of Early Imamieh

In a paper titled “Saffar Qomi and Basa’ir al-Darajat”, Mohammad Ali Amirmo’ezzi –a contemporary schor of Shiism- has examined the career of Muhammad ibn Hassan Saffar (Shiite muhadith of third century) and his book Basa’ir al-Darajat. According to him, after the demise of Saffar, some Shiite scholars were doubtful of him and took his book to contain exaggerations about Imams. This arises from the transformation of the concept of reason for late scholars in comparison with early scholars. Reason for the late scholars is a instrument for the discovery of logical propositions and thus many hadiths which contained super-logical propositions and were taken by the early scholars to be correct, were in doubt by the transformation in the concept of reason. This paper elaborates the concept of divine reason and examines Amirmoezzi’s claim about the doubts of Shiite scholars about Saffar’s book. Also we have considered Amirmoezzi’s view about the meaning of “knowledge” in the hadiths narrated in Basa’ir al-Darajat.