SHIITE STUDIES
Year:2009 | Volume:6 | Issue:4 (24)|Papers Count:7

Any research on Bahār al-Anvār (a twenty-five volumes encyc10paedic collection of hadith. history of Islam and... by 'Allama Mohammad Bāqir Majlisi) cannot be carried out without examining its social and historical background. In this paper, the social and historical environment in which such a cultural phenomenon was composed is examined. For this purpose, the social, political and religious structures of Iran under the Safavids, as well as 'Allāma Majlisi's way of socialisation, his connections and political experiences are considered. Majlisi's motive for writing the book, the structure of the book and the methodology used by him are also discussed, while his other writings and similar works by other contemporary authors are touched upon. It is argued that 'Allama Majlisi in his official position as Sheikh ul-Islam, the superior religious authority in Iran under the Safavids, in order to help the state to expand and maintain its authority had to respond to a variety of audiences.

In order to prepare the Shi'a for the occultation era and enable them to have a proper intellectual and social life vis-à-vis their opponents, Shi'ite Imams organized the Shi'ite community from intellectual, social and political points of view, and made it self-reliable. Hence, the religious authority (the institution of marja'iyya) supported the Shi'a intellectually; and the institutions of representation (wikālat) and deputyship (niyābat) respectively regulated their social and political affairs. Also, the institution of chieftainship (niqābat) provided the community with a type of autonomy.

Taqi al-Din Ahmad al-Maqrizi (766-845 H) was a prominent Egyptian historian who wrote widely on various issues of Islamic and particularly Egyptian history and culture. In his various researches, he worked on different aspects of the history of the Fatimid Caliphs, from the fourth to sixth centuries Hijri. In his al-Khitat and Ette'aaz al-Honafa, he explored the administrative and cultural system of Egypt and their development, providing the reader with valuable and first-hand information about the history of Egypt, under the Fatimids. In this paper, the author examines certain factors that may have influenced Maqrizi's account of history, such as his connections and sympathy with Ismaili Fatimid Caliphs. Maqrizi's used first hand sources of the Ismaili faith, but so far as the complexity of their teachings allowed him; and when anti-Fatimid feelings of his own time rose, he did not follow his works on the Fatimid caliphate and the Ismaili movement. Having a critical approach, the translator of this paper, whose original title is "Maqrizi and the Fatimids", explains more extensively some important points that are mentioned by the author only briefly.

In 907 Hijri, Shah Ismail of the Safavids defeated the Aq Quyonlos (the White Sheep Turks), and conquered Tabriz, with the help of his Sufi followers from Ardabil and Anatolian Turkish tribes. This was a turning point in the history of Iran; the Shi'ite denomination became the country's official faith. Safavid sources describe the event using epic narrations and tales. Such a literature has led some contemporary researchers and particularly orient lists to argue that the prevalence of the Shi'ite faith in Iran has been the result of violence inflicted by Shah Ismail and his Qizilbash forces. However, historical researches on the developments leading to the spread of the faith in Iran indicate that it followed a gradual though steady trend.

The Quranic verse on wodho (the minor ritual ablution for prayer), which states the requirements for performing wodho, is one of the verses that have widely attracted the attention of Quranic researchers, from the literary, jurisprudential and interpretive points of view. For a long period of time, various Muslim denominations have interpreted the verse differently, according to their own doctrinal and interpretative accounts. In this paper, the author explains the Shi'ite account of the verse, and discusses why it is preferred to those put forward by the Sunnis.

The event of 'Ashoora, as an important event in the history of Islam and particularly that of the Shi'a, has been explored by many historians. Since the establishment of the Safavid Empire, which made the Shi'ite faith the official dominant denomination in Iran, the event has been widely commemorated throughout Shi'ite communities all over the world. Mourning for the martyrs of the event of 'Ashoora and the sorrow of its survivors has also been the subject of lamentations in verse and prose, giving the commemoration an emotional aspect. In this paper, this affectional aspect of the remembrance of the event of 'Ashoora among the Iranian Shi'a, from the Safavid period to the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, is examined. Then, it is discussed why the rituals representing such an aspect have been expanded and promoted.

Lebanon is a complicated society comprising various ethnic and religious communities the relations among which led to a civil war in the country for more than a decade. Because of colonialism, the Shi'ite community, despite its numerical significance, used to be neglected by the rulers, and enjoyed lower political weight than it deserves proportionally. However, under the leadership of Imam Moosā Sadr, the Lebanese Shi'a's self-awareness increased, and when the tide of the Iranian Islamic Revolution reached Lebanon, the community turned into one of the most powerful communities in the country. In this paper, the author compares the social and political position of the Lebanese Shi'a before and after the leadership of Imam Moosā Sadr.