A Method for Reconstructing al-Ash ari's Kitab al-Mazar

Access to primary sources is necessary for studying the history of Islamic civilization and sciences. Many of these sources have gone missing over time and no manuscript of them has remained. In some cases، we can reconstruct these works by pursuing the old excerpts of them more recent works. This study aims at methodological reconstruction of the Kitab al-Mazar by Sa‘d bin ‘Abdullah al-Ash‘ari، which nearly a thousand years has passed since its disappearance. To do this، regarding his position as a prominent shi‘a theologian and muhaddith، we first investigate the survival of Sa‘d''s works. We then attempt to distinguish the excerpts of Kitab al-Mazar from his other remaining qoutes in more recent works of other scholars. The final step will be to find a way for reconstructing the work by identifying its general structure، based on the current method of putting together and classifying traditions in his time.