Special Section: The Opening of the College of Hadith Sciences

The College of Hadith Sciences, situated by the Shrine of ‘Abd al-‘Azim al-Hasani at Shahr-i Ray, is the first university centre dealing specifically with hadith sciences in Iran.
In was officially opened on 14 Rajab 1420 AH 24 October 1999, attended by professors of hawzahs and universities as well as students.
In this section, the inaugural lectures of Ayatullah Muhammad Muhammadi-Ray Shahri, the founder and dean of the College, and that of Ayatullah Akbar Hashimi-Rafsanjani are included. The former dealt with defining the hadith sciences and the aims of its learning. The latter pointed to the necessities of having such a college, the phases of its shaping, and the needs of our present society to hadith scholarship.
The address is: The College of Hadith Sciences, ‘Abd al-‘Azim al-Hasani’s Shrine, Ray, Tehran, Iran; Tel. 0098-21-5659354.

Muhammad-Kazim Mahmudi:

A Review of cUyun al-Hikam wa’l-Mawaciz (Qum: Dar al-Hadith,

1377AH Solar/1999). 566 pp

The book cUyun al-Hikam wa’l-Mawaciz, written by cAli b. Muhammad al-Laythi al Wasiti (6th c. AH), is one of Shiite hadith sources. It consists of over 10,000 short quotations from Imam cAli, compiled alphabetically in twenty-nine chapters. There is a chapter specially for the hadiths beginning with the negative article ‘La’ The last chapter, viz. the thirtieth chapter which contained 30,000 miscelleneous hadiths and khutbas, was no longer in existence since the 11th c.AH.
The writer of the article raises some objections concerning the book under review, among them, quoting from Ghurar al-Hikam, weak scholarship, confusing Imam cAli’s hadiths with those of others, imbalanced length of hadiths, and so forth. The book was edited by Husayn Hasani-Birjandi.