Historical Changes of Debates of Imam Al-Jawad (a)

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.