The Nature of Sayyid Murtada’s Interaction with the Buyid Government

With the rise of Buyids in the fourth century, the field for the political and cultural development was paved for the Shiites because the Buyids formed a government with a claim to support Shiism; throughout a period of ۱۱۳ years of governance and expanding the territory under their jurisdiction from Iran to Baghdad, they provided a relative freedom for the development of the Shiite thoughts and beliefs by the help of great scholar such as Sheikh Mufid, Seyyid Radi, Sayyid Murtada, and Sheikh Tusi. In this period, these scholars enjoyed an opportunity of service or education of students in the Muslim world. Among jurists and Shiite thinkers in the history of Islam, there have been two views concerning the cooperation with the rulers. Some believe in the conditioned cooperation and others believe in absolute lack of cooperation. Sayyid Murtada, was among the first group. In cases of impossibility of fighting against governors, when the cooperation resulted in bringing about divine regulation, he believed in the permissibility of cooperation. Therefore, the activities in the political, social, scientific and cultural aspects were performed as a result of the cooperation and interaction of this great scholar and Buyids with each other. That is to say that the rulers called for Sayyid Murtada’s cooperation to legitimize their socio-political affairs in the Islamic society; and this Shiite Muslim scholar took the advantage of the rulers’ need, and utilized it to solve the political, social and economic problems of the Shiites.

Keywords: Sayyid Murtada, Buyids, sultan, guardianship, organization of Hajj, mediation, court of justice

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* Lecturer of the feminine seminary school and member of the Institute of Jami’at al-Zahrah