and its benefits here and there. They have recommended drinking rainwater which its most important result is curing many diseases. Hadiths have beautifully depicted the connection between rain and spirituality and listed those sins which cause this blessing not to be sent down. But are clouds the source of rain? Or precipitation is done in a layer higher than clouds and clouds act as a sieve. There are some hadiths in this regard which need more investigation. Some regard them as incongruent with the holy Quran or science and reject them due to weakness in their chains of documents. The present paper verifies these hadiths from two perspectives: text and chain of documents.
Key Words: Rain, Cloud, Sky, Sieve.
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Mahdi Gholamali

Ahmad Gholamali

Role of Ancient Central Asia in Dissemination of Shiite Hadith

The author of the present paper tries to retell the history of Shiite hadith during the first five centuries in parts of central Asia (Transoxiana). To do so, he studies the key factors — which play an important role in the history of hadith in this region — and investigate them separately. These factors are as follows: Number of hadith reporters, hadith meetings, hadith books and their contents, connection with other hadith schools, their hadith interactions with the people of that region.
Since this region – which has been located in the east of Islamic world – is very large, it has seen many ups and downs. While investigating these factors much importance has been attached to the elements of time and geographical area.
Key Words: Hadith History, Hadith Book, Hadith Meetings, Reporters, Transoxiana, Ashrosana, Bukhara, Sughd, Ilaq, Fargana, Kash and Nasf.
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