Sheikh Saduq and Sheikh Mofid's Approaches to the Reliability of the Weak Akhbar-e Ahad in the Field of Beliefs

The reliability of akhbar-e ahad in the field of beliefs is one of the most controversial issues among the scholars in the field of religious knowledge. The authenticity of such hadiths has two main problems from the perspective of Usul al-Fiqh: the lack of inherent illuminativeness in such hadiths, which distinguishes them from the frequently-narrated hadiths and makes them doubtful and devoid of practical effect on beliefs. The present study, which was conducted using the descriptive-analytical method, seeks to examine Sheikh Saduq and Sheikh Mofid’s different approaches to relying on doubtful akhbar-e ahad in the field of beliefs. Apparently, one of them believes in the authority of such hadiths, but another does not give any credit to them. In this regard, some factors underlie their different approaches in dealing with akhbar-e ahad and hence weak hadiths and their reliability: 1) Sheikh Saduq had obtained some documents about the meaning and examples of akhbar-e ahad, which had not been known to Sheikh Mofid. 2) Sheikh Mofid, too, considered akhbar-e ahad to be reliable, except for those which had been made-up by Sunnis. 3) Sheikh Saduq, like the Shiite theologians of his time, did not consider akhbar-e ahad to be illuminative and did not believe in them. 4) One of the concepts of akhbar-e ahad-e thaqeh is weak hadith, and the two sheikhs had different views about this concept due to the evidence considered by them, and obviously this differential approach to the concept of weak hadith has influenced their acceptance or rejection of the reliability or unreliability akhbar-e ahad.