PREFACE

 The whole field of Islamic studies, and especially as it concerns the Twelve Imam Shī‘ism, has suffered until now from the paucity of reliable translations of primary sources in English. Analyses and descriptions have abounded while the arduous task of translating basic writing from Arabic, Persian and other Islamic languages has attracted relatively few scholars. It is therefore with particular joy that one is confronted in the pages that follow with a rendering into English of one of the most famous works of Shī‘ism by one of the pillars of Shī‘ite learning, the Shaykh al-Mufīd.

Abū Abdullāh Muḥammad al-Ḥārithī al-Baghdādī, known as al-Shaykh al Mufīd and also Ibn al-Mu‘allim (the Son of the Teacher), who was born in 336/948 or 338/950 and who died in 413/1022, is one of the foremost figures of Shī‘ite history. A student of the Ibn Bābūyah al-Qummī, the great teacher of jurisprudence, the science of traditions (ḥadīth) and theology in the 4th/10th century, Shaykh al-Mufīd was in turn the teacher of such celebrated Shī‘ite theologians as al-Shaykh al-Murtaḍā. The author of some 170 treatises concerned almost completely with theology, jurisprudence, ḥadīth and sacred history, Shaykh al-Mufīd soon became one of the main figures of Shī‘ism and his works came to occupy a priviledged position in the traditional schools of Shī‘ite learning. Over the centuries his writings have continued to enjoy great prominence in scholarly circles and also popularity as far as certain of his less obstruse treatises are concerned. To this day his writings remain, along with those of his teacher Ibn Bābūyah, al-Kulaynī and Shaykh Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī the core of the theological and juridicial curricula of Shī‘ite madrasahs.

 The particular significance of Shaykh al-Mufīd in the history of Shī‘ism is that he constitutes a bridge between the school of earlier Shī‘ism adhering strictly to the ḥadīth and usually referred to as “traditional” and the more rational interpretation of theology to be seen in the later period. Moreover, Shaykh al-Mufīd lived at a time of intense intellectual activity that permitted the composition of the imposing edifice which constitutes his writings. His life coincided with the Buyid domination of Persia and Iraq. Being Shī‘ite and yet ruling over a pre-dominantly Sunni population, the Buyids sought to deal even-handedly with the two major denominations over whom they ruled and gave much greater freedom to intellectual activity among Shī‘ites than had been hitherto possible. The city of Baghdād from which they ruled their empire, was a notable center of both Sunni and Shī‘ite learning. Their court was witness to the presence of both Abu Bakr al-Bāqillānī, who was the most outstanding propagator of Ash‘arite theology of the late 4th/10th and early 5th/11th centuries and Shaykh al-Mufīd who stood as foremost among the scholars of the Shī‘ite community. History has in fact recorded some of the interactions, debates and controversies between these two leading authorities of Sunni and Shī‘ite theology.

 Shaykh al-Mufīd resided in Baghdād and occasionally even suffered political persecution as in 409/1018 when he was banished from the city following a violent riot caused by clashes between certain segments of the Sunni and Shī‘ite community. But he was intellectually more an heir to the centers of Shī‘ite learning in Qum and Khurasan whose “traditional” perspective he combined with the more “rational” approach of the Nawbakthī family which has often been compared with the perspective of the Mu‘tazilites. Shaykh al-Mufīd introduced into Shī‘ite kalām the element of “intellectual introspection” or naẓar, usually translated as reason, which was to mark the work of his immediate student Shaykh al-Murtaḍā and which was to lead finally to the first systematic exposition of Shī‘ite kalām by Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī in the 7th/13th century in his Kitāb al-tajrīd.

The concept of naẓar itself in its full meaning as used in Shī‘ite kalām on the one hand and in Islamic philosophy on the other, is of great importance for an understanding of the incessant debates between the mutakallimūn and the philosophers and also the Shī‘ite scholars and the Mu‘tazilites. As far as Shaykh al-Mufīd himself was concerned, he did not display much interest in philosophy and was in fact opposed to it to the extent that he dealt with its teachings in contrast to later Shī‘ite theologians such as al-Ṭūsī, ‘Allāmah al-Ḥillī, Sayyid Ḥaydar Āmulī and ‘Abd ar-Razzāq Lāhījī, who were at once mutakallim and faylasūf, or in certain cases at least sympathetic to falsafah.

Shaykh al-Mufīd was, however, much more interested in the relation between Shī‘ite kalām and Mu‘tazilite teachings which constitutes the subject matter of several of his works, the most important being Awā’il al-maqālāt fi’l-madhāhib al-mukhtārāt which deals with the difference between Shī‘ites and Mu‘tazilites concerning the doctrine of Divine Justice (al-‘adl). Shaykh al-Mufīd was also anxious to delineate and accentuate the points of difference between himself and the strictly “traditional” Shī‘ites of the earlier generations who were even further removed from the Mu‘tazilite position. His famous Sharh ‘aqā’id al Ṣadūq, which is a commentary upon the i‘tiqādāt of his teacher Ibn Bābūyah and which has remained a popular theological text to this day, is concerned more than anything else with those theological interpretations that distinguish him from the earlier “traditional” authorities.

 While being a master jurisprudent (faqīh) and theologian (mutakallim), Shaykh al-Mufīd was also concerned with ḥadīth and sacred history to which he devoted many works. Among this category of his writings, the Irshād remains the most famous and perhaps the most important. Devoted to the life and sayings of the twelve Imams, it has been used as a definitive traditional reference by numerous later hagiographers and scholars of ḥadīth as well as being a standard source by preachers and religious orators. The treatment of the Imams is in chronological order with the greatest space devoted to the first Imam. Each section moreover deals not only with the life of an Imam but also his sayings which in Shī‘ism form a part of ḥadīth literature and serve as one of the foundations for not only jurisprudence and theology but all the traditional sciences. The translation of this work into English therefore makes available a work concerned not only with Shī‘ite history, but also with nearly the whole of Shī‘ite studies.

 The world of scholarship should be grateful to Doctor Howard for understanding the difficult task of translating this major opus into a very readable and at the same time scholarly English, combining exactitude in the translation from the original Arabic with faithfulness to the particular nature and genius of the English language, a feature that is unfortunately lacking in many present day translations. Dr. Howard has made available to the English speaking public a major work of Shī‘ite learning which is important for all students of early Islamic history, and thought as well as those concerned with the later development of Islamic theology and philosophy in the Shī‘ite world. The work is also of great value in that it provides an authentic account of how Shī‘ism has always seen its Imams who play such a central role in not only Shī‘ite theology but also in the everyday religious life of the Shī‘ite community.

We must also be thankful to the Muḥammadi Trust which has undertaken the laudable task of making available the authentic sources of Shī‘ism in English and is making possible the appearance of Shaykh al-Mufīd’s Kitāb al-Irshād following its publication of the anthology of the sayings of the Imams. Such publications are necessary not only for a better understanding of a basic aspect of Islam by the outside world, but also for a more fruitful dialogue between Sunnism and Shī‘ism which is being carried out in certain quarters with the hope of bringing about that harmony and unity which is the earnest desire of all Muslims seriously concerned with their own tradition and the future of the Islamic world in the family of nations. It is our hope and prayer that this important translation receives the wide attention that it deserves and that the Muḥammadi Trust will continue to enrich the field of Islamic studies with works of authentic traditional character and high scholarly quality.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr