The Main Reasons of the Invalidity of Isolated Traditions Concerning the Beliefs from the Viewpoint of the Imamiyah Theologians of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries
The study of traditions is one of the sources of knowledge in various branches of the religious sciences, such as fiqh, theology and interpretation of the Qur’an. The thinkers have paid attention to this field of knowledge. They have classified the traditions into two classes of the “unanimous assertions” and “isolated traditions”. Unanimous assertions have generally been approved about the issues concerning fiqh, interpretation and part of theology, especially in regard with resurrection, prophethood and Imamate. However, there are different views concerning the isolated traditions. Generally, such traditions have been initially disapproved, but in a second thought they have been accepted concerning the subdivisions of fiqh under some conditions. Still, the scholars have been divided into the pros and cons.
The pros have been generally from among the rationalist theologians from various historical backgrounds; while the cons have been from among the traditionists. The rationalists, including the theologians and the legal dogmatists, have disapproved the isolated traditions based on some effective argumentations. The same disagreement exists in a minor degree about the issues concerning the interpretation of the Qur’an.
The trend of the development of the thoughts in these two approaches through the history is worth of being studied. It seems that the best research approach is the study of the subject in historical periods. The available researches have commonly neglected the point that the reasons offered, especially concerning the criticism and invalidity of the isolated traditions, consist of the citations by the former scholars and thinkers and the current researchers. On the one hand, some of the reasons offered in this regard have never been noticed by the former scholars; on the other hand, some other reasons provided in the former intellectual atmosphere are currently disregarded.
The present article, as a large-scale research, deals with one of the earliest periods in which this issue was raised in the Imamiyah theology. The chosen theologian Imamiyah period developed in Baghdad, and it is specifically concerned with the thoughts of the most important characters of the fourth and fifth centuries, including Sayyid Murtada and Sheikh Tusi. The purpose is to answer the following questions: did they all have the same idea about this issue? What reasons did they notice? And what were their most important concerns in this regard?
Keywords: isolated tradition, unanimous assertion, beliefs, awareness and certainty and doubt, knowledge, idea, imitation
* Ph.D. Candidate in Shiite Studies, University of Religions and Denominations
