فصلنامه شیعه شناسی
پیاپی 18 (تابستان 1386)

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.

There are three approaches on the women political participation in contemporary Shii thought: agreement, disagreement and narrow agreement. Because these approaches are based on common texts and documents, the author believes that they have social determination; that is the social changes make it possible to deduce new thoughts. Belief in the idea of social determination, of course, does not require absolute negation of the out-of-mind reality, but it explains the causality, quality and characteristics of different understanding from one single text.

History and beliefs of Twelver Shia is one of the issues that the orientalists, especially in the last century, have been interested in. And the book Shia Creed ('Akidat ul-Shia) is one of their works in this context that has been written in the early of the twentieth century. Its English writer, D. Donaldson, provided the main part of the book as his/her PhD thesis and then, by adding complementary parts, offered it in its present form. It is translated to Arabic and in this paper, because of unavailability of the original text, the translation is used. Reporting objective observations, analysis of the data, comparative method in expressing beliefs, using various and numerous sources, including Shii and non-Shii and Islamic and non-Islamic language works, are the positive points of the book. But it suffers from unacceptable mistakes and defects in relation to the Shii beliefs. In this paper, it is tried to briefly explain, in addition to introducing it, some of mistakes and defects of the book.

Imam Khomeini is one of the great characters in various theoretical and practical aspects. Today's generation is more familiar with his political and jurisprudential character and it appears that his role in founding the Islamic revolution has cast a shadow on other dimensions of his character; so it is necessary to explain other aspects of this super-character of the century, especially his moral and mystical dimensions that are the basis of his other theoretical and practical activities, to the young generation and the youth. In this paper it is tried to discuss the pest of devotion (afat-i iklas) and Imam Khomeini's viewpoint on its emergence, factors, effects and the ways to control it.

Oppression is a blameworthy and is opposite to human innate and humans do not desire it. Islam also always emphasized on protection of human honor and esteem. Although opposing oppression is reflected in Persian literature and is not specific characteristic of Shii poetry, because of its training effects and Shias sensitivity, it distinguishably represented in Shii poets works.In this paper, at first, opposing oppression and injustice from the viewpoint of Quranic verses and traditions as the spring of Shii thinking is mentioned and then the poems of more than twenty Shii poets, from Kasaei Marwazi (fourth century A.H) to Hakim Safai Isfahani (fourteenth century A.H) are examined in this field. In mentioning the poets, in order to introduce the reader to the course of this theme during a history of thousand years, the chronicle order is observed.

In this article, after elementary discussions, four basic aspects of social changes as divine traditions are examined. The factors of social changes are the first aspect which is examined and these factors divided into three types of cognitive, psychological and behavioral. The agents of changes are surveyed and the two groups of the elite and the sideliners are discussed. The third aspect, that is the obstacles of social changes are categorized in three kinds of cultural, social and psychological, each has some subsets. At the end the purpose of social changes from a Quranic viewpoint is examined. The Holy Qoran aims to bring about changes in the individual level not in the groups and structures.

Salvation is one of the most important issues in the faiths and religions and even in the intellectual-philosophical schools of the world. For each faith and religion thinks of its practical and ideological way as the only way to salvation. Judaism has seen its chosen faith the only way to salvation. Within this religion, various sects also introduced their own practice and thought the only way to happiness and negate salvaging power from the others. Such a claim has been existed in other religions like Christianity and Islam and even in polytheist religions.This writing, in addition to referring to the Shii claim to salvation, discusses the rationality of rightfulness and tries to enlighten this issue. Therefore, to examine and analyze this claim, it mentions some Islamic arguments in order to demonstrate it, and then, by reminding some doubtless logical and religious principles, rationally explains and analyzes the issue. Regarding non-separation of the world and the afterworld, in searching for rightfulness, and its separation in practice power from one hand, and separation of inner guardianship (Wilayati bateni) and apparent guardianship (Wilayati zaheri) from the other, the chance to access to rightfulness is not restricted in this world. So although it demonstrates the rationality of Shii belief in salvation, it does not negate the capacity of followers of other religions and faiths to access to salvation.