The background of knowledge of the late Ayatollah Mirza Mahdi Isfahani about the Islamic narrations (1)

The writer explains about the bases of narrative knowledge of Ayatollah Mirza Mahdi Isfahani (1885- 1944) according to his works, and reveals as follow:A: The Shia history can be divided in to 2 parts. In the first part, the holy Imams were present; and the second part relates to the period of absence of Imam Mahdi (p.b.u.h.).The practice of issue of religious opinions by the scholars has been performed in both times.B: The practice of issue of jurisprudence law, on the bases of the holy Quran and Islamic traditions, has been performed through 2 methods, which are popular as "Osouli" (rationalists), and "Akhbari" (fundamentalists).C: The high rank leaders of these 2 systems do not have very important conflicts or discrepancies.However, the ignorant and low informed people in both systems have insulted to the respected scholars in the counter group. D: During the time of the infallible Imams, and next during the absence of the infallible Imam, the narrators of the traditions have been in different levels of faith and knowledge. So, we can say that some of the religious leaders have been more aware and more knowledgeable than the others. Those Islamic scholars, who were more informed, had more power, and were more able to issue religious laws from the original sources. The Shia jurisprudence has been produced and gathered in this manner. The first group of the above scholars have been the fundamentalists (Akhbari), and the latter shcolars are mainly rationalists (Osouli). We believe that some backgrounds and viewponts in both schools are discussable, and could be criticized.The adopted approach of the late Ayatollah Isfahani will be analyzed in the next part of this essay.