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    The Shi I Tradition: Baqar Hassan Syed

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    ahmed
    The Shi'i tradition views religious authority differently than the Sunni tradition. For Shi'is, religious authority is inherited through the Imams, who are considered infallible in their understanding of religion. Hadith reports in Shi'i collections can originate directly from the Prophet or from one Imam to another. Shi'i Hadith criticism examines content and isnad, but places more emphasis on content criticism informed by reason. Major Shi'i Hadith collections were compiled after the 12th Imam's occultation, when the community took on authoritative interpretation.

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    The Shi I Tradition: Baqar Hassan Syed

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    ahmed
    53 views8 pages
    The Shi'i tradition views religious authority differently than the Sunni tradition. For Shi'is, religious authority is inherited through the Imams, who are considered infallible in their understanding of religion. Hadith reports in Shi'i collections can originate directly from the Prophet or from one Imam to another. Shi'i Hadith criticism examines content and isnad, but places more emphasis on content criticism informed by reason. Major Shi'i Hadith collections were compiled after the 12th Imam's occultation, when the community took on authoritative interpretation.

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    The Shi'i tradition views religious authority differently than the Sunni tradition. For Shi'is, religious authority is inherited through the Imams, who are considered infallible in their understanding of religion. Hadith reports in Shi'i collections can originate directly from the Prophet or from one Imam to another. Shi'i Hadith criticism examines content and isnad, but places more emphasis on content criticism informed by reason. Major Shi'i Hadith collections were compiled after the 12th Imam's occultation, when the community took on authoritative interpretation.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    53 views8 pages

    The Shi I Tradition: Baqar Hassan Syed

    Uploaded by

    ahmed
    The Shi'i tradition views religious authority differently than the Sunni tradition. For Shi'is, religious authority is inherited through the Imams, who are considered infallible in their understanding of religion. Hadith reports in Shi'i collections can originate directly from the Prophet or from one Imam to another. Shi'i Hadith criticism examines content and isnad, but places more emphasis on content criticism informed by reason. Major Shi'i Hadith collections were compiled after the 12th Imam's occultation, when the community took on authoritative interpretation.

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    THE SHI‘I TRADITION

    Baqar Hassan Syed


    Approaching the Shi'i Tradition
    ◦ From a more neutral historical perspective: The Sunni bias in our
    framing of Orthodox Islam, Mainstream Islam, Islam and the Shi'i
    Perspective as an Extra/Afterthought
    ◦ The limitations of this course
    ◦ The Sunni and Shi'i reading of history: justifications in textual sources: it
    was not just a political disagreement
    ◦ Alternative Histories: Different communities of interpretation with their
    own histories, represent different expressions of Muslim ideals or
    different points of stress; come from the ambiguity of the Prophet’s
    life
    ◦ It’s up to you if you want to accept or reject this approach to history, but
    at least recognize the value in hearing the other out on their own terms
    and through the authoritative voices in that community
    ◦ Remember how Muslims always get upset about being represented by extremists
    The Shi'i Hadith Tradition: Religious
    Authority after the Prophet
    ◦ A lot of what has been said of the reason for the existence of the Hadith tradition and how it
    worked in the Sunni context is relevant in the Shi'i context as well
    ◦ But the Shi'i tradition deserves to be studied in on its own terms
    ◦ We focus on the Twelver Shi'i because they’ve made the most significant and well-
    developed contribution to the Hadith tradition and because they are the most historically
    numerous
    ◦ The Shi'i Hadith differ from that of the Sunnis because of the differences between the two
    over the question of who has religious authority after the Prophet and what is the nature of
    that religious authority (remember earlier discussion about the religious context of al-
    Shafi‘i’s text and the debates that influence the development of the Hadith
    tradition)
    ◦ For the Sunnis, it is the community, represented by its scholars, who are vested with the authority of
    interpreting revelation (and collecting in terms of the Hadith)
    (Continued)
    ◦ For the Twelver Shi'i, religious authority is inherited by the Imams, whose religious
    authority is unique and much more than the Sunni understanding of religious
    authority which is mostly limited to interpretation:
    ◦ According to the Twelver Shi'i, just as for the Sunnis, Muhammad (PBUH) is the last
    Prophet and the last to receive wahy from Allah
    ◦ The imams have unique access to the knowledge of the Prophet (think of them as
    having access to the same pool of knowledge as the Prophet)
    ◦ Because they are masum (sinless), they are infallible in their understanding and
    interpretation of the religion
    ◦ For the Twelvers, the communication of the Prophet’s knowledge is not completed with
    the death of the Prophet, but continues even afterwards
    ◦ Because the imams speak with the inherited authority of the Prophet, the Shi'i
    Hadith reports are different, specifically in the origins of the chains of
    transmissions
    ◦ The Shi'i tradition generally refers to these reports as akhbar (reports/news), not
    Hadith
    The Twelver Shi'i Imams
    Types of Hadith Reports in Imami Shi'i
    Collections
    ◦ Three most common kinds of Twelver Shi‘ite Hadith reports:
    1. From the Prophet through an Imam (and then on through the Imam’s followers)
    2. From an Imam through an Imam (and then on through the Imam’s followers)
    3. From an Imam through his followers
    ◦ Whether a report originates from the Prophet or an Imam, it makes no difference
    ◦ Whether the chain of transmission between the Prophet and an Imam or between two Imams is
    complete or not, it makes no difference

    ◦ Reports from the companions are generally rare; why?


    ◦ The imams were infallible transmitters while the companions were fallible
    ◦ Far more importantly, the companions were unreliable transmitters in matters of religion
    because of their failure/refusal to accept the legitimate religious and political authority
    of ‘Ali after the death of the Prophet (some companions are held to have actively
    suppressed this truth)
    ◦ Such reports were mostly used for polemical purposes to argue for the status of ‘Ali and his family
    from within Sunni Sources
    The Imami Shi'i Hadith Tradition:
    Transmission and History of Collection
    and Compilation
    ◦ Shi‘ite Hadith transmission takes a similar form to that of the Sunnis (with partial records
    gradually taking a more definitive and comprehensive form)
    ◦ The most important stage of compilation takes place after the 12th Imam goes into
    ghayba occultation in 874 CE, after the death of his father, the 11th Imam, Hasan al-
    ‘Askari, while in Abbasid captivity
    ◦ The 12th Imam is expected to return as the Mehdi at an unknown date
    ◦ This is followed by the line of the safirs (Ambassadors) of the 12th Imam, which ends in
    app. 941 CE, leaving it to the scholars of the community to collect and interpret their
    legacy, and to come up with a justification of their authority in the absence of the
    Imam
    ◦ The Shi‘ite Hadith Cannon:
    ◦ The collection by al-Kulayni (d. 939)
    ◦ The collection by Ibn Babawayh (d. 991)
    ◦ The two collections by al-Tusi (d. 1067)
    ◦ Naturally, Bukhari and Muslim do not enjoy the kind of prestige, respect and acceptance among the
    The Imami Shi'i Hadith Tradition:
    Unique Content and Hadith Criticism
    ◦ One major difference in content between the two is over Hadith reports in the Shi'i
    tradition which mention the coming of the Imams, or which have versions of reports
    mentioning the virtues of Ali that also mention him as Imam and Caliph after the
    Prophet
    ◦ Shi‘ite Hadith Criticism
    ◦ Has generally been more comfortable with content criticism because of Mutazilite influence
    which emphasizes the ability of human reason to know religious truth
    ◦ Isnad criticism has been similar to that of the Sunnis; has had a distrust of anti-Shi'i Sunnis and
    ghulat Shi'i (the word ghulat refers to those Shi'i groups and tendencies who held views that
    came to be rejected by the mainstream Shi'i)
    ◦ Sunni Hadith critics have generally had less of a problem accepting Shi'i or Shi'i-leaning transmitters
    unless they tried to convert people to the cause (in which case they might have had incentive to
    forge Hadith)
    ◦ But judging narrator reliability is an intuitive, not mechanical, process and a transmitter might find that
    a zealous transmitter is a reliable transmitter and accept her/him

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