Al-Usul al-Arba Mia

Etan Kohlberg

Translated by Muhammad-Kazim Rahmati

 The article is made up of four sections: Section One: In it, the writer defines asl in Shiite hadith sciences, which is applied to a collection of traditions, which the rawi reporter heard them directly from the Infalliable Imam, and then reported them. He then points to the famous number of the Shiite asls (pl. usul), recorded by the Infalliable Imam’s direct students, which amount to four hundred. Following this, he indicates two methsds of organizing hadiths as applied by the editors or comppilers of the usul; they are mubawwab, categorized; and jami, collected. He next renders the history of transmission of usul by Shiite ulema in brief. In section two, there is a discussion on the (un-)certainty of the usul as viewed by Shiite ulema.  Section three is conerned with introducing some usul reporters where names are recorded in rijal literature; some information is rendered about them and that from which Imam did they report their hadiths, and so on. Section four is devoted to introducing some manuscripts in which the usul are mentioned, presently housed at public and/or private libraries; they were used by the Shiite ulema in the past.

Key Words: Shiite Hadith Sciences, Usul, Mubawwab, Categorized, Jami, Collected.

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