Muhammad Baqir ibn Muhammad Akmal al-Wahid Bihbahani, also Vahid Behbahani (1706–1791), was a

Twelver Twelver Shi'ism (), also known as Imamism () or Ithna Ashari, is the Islamic schools and branches, largest branch of Shia Islam, Shi'a Islam, comprising about 90% of all Shi'a Muslims. The term ''Twelver'' refers to its adherents' belief in twel ...

Shia Islamic scholar. He is widely regarded as the founder or restorer of the ''

Usuli Usulism () is the majority school of Twelver Shia Islam in opposition to the minority Akhbarism. The Usulis favor the use of (reasoning) in the creation of new rules of jurisprudence; in assessing hadith to exclude traditions they believe u ...

'' school of

Shi'a Islam Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood ...

and as playing a vital role in narrowing the field of orthodoxy in Twelver

by expanding "the threat of ''

takfir ''Takfir'' () is an Arabic language, Arabic and Glossary of Islam, Islamic term which denotes excommunication from Islam of one Muslim by another, i.e. accusing another Muslim of being an Apostasy in Islam, apostate. The word is found neither ...

''" against opposing scholars "into the central field of

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

and

jurisprudence Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...

The dispute

In the eighteenth century there was a dispute between the

Akhbari Akhbarism () is a branch of Twelver Shia Islam, whose adherents do not perform imitation ( ''taqlid'') of an islamic jurist ( ''marja''). Akhbaris rejects the use of intercessory reasoning via trained Islamic jurists to derive verdicts in ...

and

schools of Shia Islam. Briefly, the Akhbari believed that the sole sources of law were the

Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...

and the

Hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...

, in particular the Four Books accepted by the Shia: everything in these sources was in principle reliable, and outside them there was no authority competent to enact or deduce further legal rules. The Usuli believed that the Hadith collections contained traditions of very varying degrees of reliability, and that critical analysis was necessary to assess their authority. On this view, the task of the legal scholar is to establish intellectual principles of general application (''

Usul al-fiqh Principles of Islamic jurisprudence () are traditional methodological principles used in Islamic jurisprudence (''fiqh'') for deriving the rulings of Islamic law (''sharia''). Traditional theory of Islamic jurisprudence elaborates how the scri ...

''), from which particular rules may be derived by way of deduction: accordingly, legal scholarship has the tools in principle for resolving any situation, whether or not it is specifically addressed in Quran or Hadith (see Ijtihad). Traditionally these intellectual principles were analysed through the procedures of Aristotelian logic. The Akhbari scholar Muhammad Amin al-Asterabadi criticised this approach, arguing that since the alleged general principles were arrived at by way of generalisation from the existing practical rules, the whole process was circular.

The role of Behbahani

Analysis of probability

Behbahani led the Usuli intellectual challenge to Akhbari dominance in Karbala in the 1760s. With the defeat of the Safavid state following the Afghan invasion in 1722 and the rise of a new generation of Bahraini Akhbari clerics, state-centric Usulism lost its self-confidence. The most influential Bahraini cleric, Yusuf Al Bahrani, was installed as the dean of scholarship in Karbala, where he led an intellectual onslaught on Usuli scholarship in the mid-eighteenth century. Behbahani's role in the 1760s was at first to tentatively challenge Al Bahrani's neo-Akhbarism before building up the supporters, confidence (and financial support) to eventually lead an Usuli revival following Al Bahrani's death in 1772.Juan Cole, ''Sacred Space and Holy War'', IB Tauris, 2007 p 72. Behbahani's main contribution to legal theory was the analysis of probability. Granted that general principles cannot be arrived at with complete syllogistic certainty, there are still presumptions, sufficient in ordinary life, for deciding on the better view. For example, where there is doubt whether a given situation (such as ritual purity) exists but it has certainly existed in the past, one can rely on a presumption that it is more likely to have continued the same than to have changed. Given the probabilistic nature of this approach, and the need for practical certainty, it followed that there must be people with the authority to decide on the application of these principles to particular facts. Accordingly, the role of Islamic jurist (''mujtahid'') becomes one of political and judicial authority, and not merely one of scholarly expertise. Behbahani is blamed, in particular by Akhbaris, for having used physical force to enforce his authority and for having laid the intellectual foundations of Iranian Shi'a

theocracy Theocracy is a form of autocracy or oligarchy in which one or more deity, deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries, with executive and legislative power, who manage the government's ...

. The principles of probability were further analysed by Shaykh Murtada al-Ansari in the mid-nineteenth century, and the Usuli school remains the dominant force in Shi'ite Islam.

Takfir

According to scholar Moojan Momen, Behbahani played a very important role in Shii Islam by bringing in "the threat of ''

''" — i.e. declaring the opponent an apostate, apostasy being a capital crime —

into the central field of theology and jurisprudence where previously only '' ikhtilaf'' (agreement to hold differing opinions) had existed. Bihbahani was now to exclude by takfir all who disagreed with the principles of reasoning ( 'Aql) and ijtihad as sources of law. This paved the way for a great increase in the power and influence of the mujtahids in Qajar times and for the evolution of the concept of the marja at-taqlid.

References

*Mottahadeh, Roy, ''The Mantle of the Prophet''

External links

Allama Waheed Behbahani - Islamic Insights
{{Authority control 1706 births 1791 deaths People from Behbahan 18th-century Muslim scholars of Islam Iranian grand ayatollahs