فصلنامه تحقیقات کلامی
پیاپی 26 (پاییز 1398)

Nowadays the discussion of “principles of faith” (Usūl ul-Dīn) forms one of the most important Islamic kalām discussions. The question which is existed here is that whether the concept of “principles of faith” have been existed in this same shape from the first or it appeared in a specific period and passed a certain history. In order to answer this question, the history of the development of “principles of faith” must be studied. The kalāmī thoughts of the Zaydī and Isma’īlī Shi’a are counted of the preceded Shi’ī kalām thoughts. Therefore in the present article, the development of the concept of “principles of faith” in kalām of the Zaydī and Isma’īlī Shi’a is examined so that in addition to clarification of the roots of forming of this concept in the Shi’ī tradition, the historical bases for the development of this concept in the Imāmī Shi’a kalām also been established. Those Zaydī works that had set forth the concept of principles of faith, usually named six items as principles of faith: monotheism, justice, prophecy, Imāmah, the stance between the two stances (manzalatun bayn al-manzalatayn) and promise and threat (al-wa’d wal-wa’īd). The Isma’īlī Shi’as counted seven items as their principles of faith that consist in: guardianship (wilāyah), purification (ṭahārah), prayer (ṣalāt), alms (zakāt), fast (ṣawm), pilgrimage to Mecca (ḥajj) and Jihād (religious war). Among these seven items, there are items like prayer, alms, fast, ḥajj and Jihād that are counted by other denominations such as the twelver Shi’a as the subdivisions (furū’) of faith. Of course each of these items passed its own historical development.

One of the tumultuous and challenging philosophical discussions which caused the theologians and Traditionists to react to is the issue of createdness (ḥudūth) or eternity of the world and universe. The Greek philosophers and the Naturalists believed in the eternity of the world in many ways and the religions opposed this belief. Regardless of interpretations and explanations, in this research we try to examine the appearance of the Imāmī narration texts. In a large collection of these narrations there explained the createdness of the world and mutual implication of temporal limitedness of all things other than God with their being created, and argued for. Therefore if we don’t esoterically interpret these narrated texts widely and if, philosophically, we regard the issue of temporal createdness as bilateral dialectical, the narrated stance in this issue is that everything other than God has a “being started temporal continuation”. This attitude is different of both the interpretations of some theologians and the opinions of most of the philosophers and is based on the study of application of the word “ḥudūth” and its meaning network in narrated literature.

There are different views about the quality and quantity of Imām’s knowledge. There are three positions of “unlimited-ness”, “limitedness” and “silence” about the quantity of Imām’s knowledge and two views of “being immediate (ḥuḍūrī)” and “being by will” about its quality. By a descriptiveanalytic method, this research has examined the views of ‘Allāmah Ṭabāṭa’ī and Ayatollah Salehi on the Imām’s knowledge. The result is that ‘Allāmah’s point of view, Imām has an unlimited inclusive knowledge of the unseen (ghayb), and from Salehi’s point of view, Imām has a limited willingly knowledge of the unseen. To criticize the two views it must be said: documental weakening or regarding as exaggerating the texts of narrations denoting unlimited-ness as well as regarding Imām’s knowledge as including the most detailed and partial affairs are not acceptable, but because the knowledge of Imām is a divine benefit (luṭf) and Imām is the people guide, everywhere the guidance demands, the domain of Imām’s knowledge would extend or get narrow. Thus, application of terms such as “limited” or “unlimited” for it is not exact, because the Imām’s knowledge is not something like a tank but like flow and a flow is not limitable.

Dividing the divine speech into lafẓī (literal) and nafsī (essential), Ibn Kullāb believed in meaning revelation and counted the words as the human cloth for revelation. In the discussion of the nature of speech (kalām), he thinks that speech is applied only to meaning and its application to the words is metaphorical. Like the Ash’rites, he applied speech to the eternal divine knowledge and counted its literal form as a human cover. The results achieved by this research is that Ibn Kullāb’s point of view is incorrect for the following reasons: the application of the derivations of Arabic verb “n-zl” (coming down or descending) in the Qur’an that denotes the word descend of the Qur’an; forbidding the Prophet of hurrying up in repetition of the Qur’an as well as the application of words like talāwah (recitation), ḳirā’ah (reading) and tartīl (chanting) that explicitly shows reading of a text for the Prophet and the Qur’an specifying a unilateral status of revelation. Therefore all of these reasons emphasize that text of the Qur’an is exactly the same propositions reveled to the Prophet. This article is of fundamental studies kind that examines this topic by a descriptive-analytic method.

Etan Kohlberg is a critic of the previous method of the Orientalists for using and referring to non-Shi’ī sources in Shi’a studies. Most sources he used in his Shi’a studies are Shi’ī sources including Kalāmī, ḥadith, historical, exegetical and judicial sources. With a descriptive-analytic approach and library method, the present research tries to answer these questions that Kohlberg in his studies about Imāmiyyah, which Imāmī sources and how he used. For this purpose, it tries to categorize the Imāmī sources used in Kohlberg’s studies and evaluate correctness and efficiency of the method of this researcher of Shi’a in using them. In this examination one can see that in all topics examined, using Imāmī sources despite of the huge number of Imāmī sources, especially Kalāmī, ḥadith and exegetical sources and praiseworthy mastery of Kohlberg upon them, these sources mainly have been used and referred to in a way that both in subject and in content details helps him in proving and confirming his presuppositions. Ignoring some evidences, mistakes in understand and little attention to the validity of the sources or their authors as well as the dominance of various presuppositions such political origin of Shi’a and forging the narrations are of the defects of Kohlberg’s work.

According to most of the latter-day reports, the view of most of the Imāmī scholars about the essential (dhātī) attributes of God is the theory of “oneness of the attributes with the Nature” or “existential oneness and conception distinction”. This perspective, although is apparent in ‘Allāmah Ḥillī theological line and, with some ontological regards, in Mullā Ṣadrā’s thought, contemplation on the first hand sources of the predecessors shows the prevalence of the idea of “negation of the attributes of the Nature” or “deputyship” (niyābah) amongst various groups of Shi’ī thought. It seems that these two terms include one single idea and their distinction is merely in the position of being and appearance. Usually this view, especially the term “deputyship”, is attributed to some Mu’tazilī thinkers; but among the Imāmīs narrationists (Muḥaddithūn) like Kulaynī, Ṣadūḳ, and subsequently, theologians such as Fāḍil Miḳdād, Majlisī and Shubbar tried to spread it. In this regard, the best explanation of the theory of “negation of the attributes” is seen in Gohare Morād, because it solves the problem of the One Nature being empty of perfections.