Sheikh Mufid and his Historiography in K. Al-Irshad Regarding some of his Theological and Usuli bases

Sheikh Mufid is one of the greatest Imami theologians in the second part of the fourth century and the first part of the fifth century A.H. that had the most important role in establishing the creed of the school. He has numerous historical books including Al-Irshad. This book, which wants to survey the lives of the twelve Imams along with their virtues and praise-worthy qualities, has been mostly impressed by Sheik's theological beliefs. As the title of the book, Al-Irshad ila Marefat-i Hujaj-i Allah 'ala al-'Ibad (A Guidace to Know the Demonstrations of Allah to the Servants), shows, Sheikh Mufid wants to demonstrate the Imams imamate and their being God's demonstrations by this historiography.In spite of its great importance in the Shii historiography course, yet there has not been performed a methodically inclusive critical examination about the book's content, sources and documents; because of the magnificence of the author's character, the book from the very beginning of its writing to the moment mainly been accepted by the Imami community. Research in its content, sources and documents, however, confirms that, like other Imami traditional works, this book also went out of uncriticizablity and is criticizable in source and content. It seems that the first step to examine and criticize the historiography of the book depends on knowing some theological bases of Sheikh Mufid on the place and attributes of the Imams. Knowing his usuli bases about the acceptability of a single hadith (hujjiat-i khabr-i wahid), can also assist us in criticizing his historical reports. Regarding these two components, one can see that Sheikh's historiography in Al-Irshad is completely consistent to his theological bases; in another word, one can see a kind of theological priority on history.