Seeking the meaning of "Battle of Ta’wīl” traditions

Muhammad Moradi

Ta’wīl (esoteric interpretation) is one of fundamental religious concepts proper understanding of which requires a particular knowledge. By making use of the Prophetic hadith: "[O Ali] You will fight them for ta’wīl as same as I fought them for tanzīl (revelation)” this article intends to explain this hadith and its related issues, and also to elucidate one of the dimensions of ta’wīl by making use of the descriptive-analytical method and by invoking the hadith itself and the viewpoints of their commentators. This tradition - mentioned in many Shi‘a and Sunni hadith resources - contains one of the merits of Imam Ali (A.S) and is interrelated with the events of battles taken place during the Imam’s time, and this fact is one of important elements of understanding it.

Keywords: the hadith of battle for ta’wīl, battle with the Kharijites (extremists), battle with the Qāsiṭīn (deviators), battle with the Māriqīn (renegades), battle for the revelation of the Qur’an.

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A study on ascription of some newly-published works to Abu Muhammad Hasan b. Shu‘ba Ḥarrānī, the well-known Shi‘a traditionist

Hamid Baqeri

Abu Muhammad Hasan b. Shu‘ba Ḥarrānī, is a Shi‘a traditionist in the 4th/10th century about whom little information is available. The earliest source in which he was mentioned dates back to the tenth/sixteenth century. Familiarity of most of the Shi‘a scholars with him is – more than any other reasons – because of a wijāda-type access of Allamah Majlisī and Shaykh Ḥurr ‘Āmilī to his famous book called Tuḥaf al-‘Uqūl; a work because of which he has been admired by later Twelver Shi‘a scholars. In addition to these two books, among the written works of the Nuṣayriyya denomination some other works attributed to Ibn Shu‘ba are available: Haqā’iq Asrār al-Dīn, Risāla Mūḍiḥa, and Masā’il. These works have completely been compiled within the Nuṣayriya’s intellectual aura and are different in style of writing from Tuḥaf al-‘Uqūl. In case the attribution of these works to Ibn Shu‘ba proves true, a remarkable amount of our information about him will be corrected and even completed. This article attempts to study the attribution of these works to Ibn Shu‘ba by pursuing different evidences.

Keywords: Hasan b. Shu‘ba Ḥarrānī, compilations, Haqq’iq Asrar al-Din, Risāla Mūḍiḥat Haqā’iq Asrār al-Dīn, and Masā’il li Ibn Shu‘ba al-Ḥarrānī,