Shaykh Tusi (), full name ''Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi'' (), known as Shaykh al-Ta'ifah () was a Persian scholar of the

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 ...

school of

Shia Islam Shia Islam is the second-largest Islamic schools and branches, branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political Succession to Muhammad, successor (caliph) and as the spiritual le ...

. He is the author of two of the

Four Books The Four Books and Five Classics are authoritative and important books associated with Confucianism, written before 300 BC. They are traditionally believed to have been either written, edited or commented by Confucius or one of his disciples. S ...

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 ...

; namely, '' Tahdhib al-Ahkam'' and ''

al-Istibsar () is the fourth hadith collection of the Four Books of Shia Islam. it was compiled by Persian scholar al-Tusi It includes the same subjects as (Rectification of the Statutes) but in a shorter form. Author Al-Tusi lived during the first ha ...

'', and is believed to have founded the Hawza of Najaf. In addition, he was a scholar of '' ʾUṣūl al-Fiqh'' and is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential thinkers in Shi’i history.

Life

Shaykh Tusi was born 995 AD in Tus,

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

, and by 1018 AD he was living under the rule of the

Buyid dynasty The Buyid dynasty or Buyid Empire was a Zaydi and later Twelver Shi'a dynasty of Daylamite origin. Founded by Imad al-Dawla, they mainly ruled over central and southern Iran and Iraq from 934 to 1062. Coupled with the rise of other Iranian dyn ...

. Tusi's birth is considered a miracle, as he was born after the twelfth Imam of Shia, al-

Mahdi The Mahdi () is a figure in Islamic eschatology who is believed to appear at the Eschatology, End of Times to rid the world of evil and injustice. He is said to be a descendant of Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad, and will appear shortly before Jesu ...

's, supplications. He started his education in Tus, where he mastered many of the Islamic sciences of that period. He later studied in Baghdad, which was taken by Tughril-bek in 1055 AD. There he entered into the circles of Shaykh Al-Mufid as a paramount teacher. He started writing some of his earlier works in his twenties. By the time he was forty-two, he had learned from Shaykh Murtaza, attended the scholarly circle of Sunni scholars, and studied ''shafi fiqh''. At this time many Muslim scholars in Baghdad were killed and Tusi's house burned down, along with his books and the works he had written in Baghdad. After the fall of Baghdad, he moved to al-Najaf, where he died on 2 December 1067.

Influence

Tusi had an important role in the formation and revival of Shia jurisprudence and law, as his life coincided with the burning of books and libraries. It is even said that he revived

and Islamic jurisprudence. He defended the application of jurisprudence in respect to religious laws. One of his main accomplishments was that he was successful in propagation and making his methodology of argumentation and inference coherent: he had given to Shaykh Mufid a definite formulation of i''jtihad''. His dominance was unrivaled for a long time and nearly all Islamic jurisprudence was affected by Tusi's opinions. Some of Tusi's works show that he was influenced by precedent jurists like

Sallar Deylami Sallar Deylami (Persian:سلار دیلمی) is one of the first Iranian Shia jurists during the fifth century of the Islamic calendar (11th century CE). He is considered a jurist of the class of Shaykh Tusi. Birth Abu Ali Hamzeh Ibn Abdul Aziz, ...

. Tusi's influence persisted until Ibn Idris Hilli, who criticized some of Tusi's views. He also produced biographies (''ilm-rijal),'' traditions, and compendia of knowledge (''Fihrist''). He started developments that allowed Shia clerics to assume some of the roles previously permitted to only imams, such as collecting and distributing religious taxes, and organizing Friday prayers.

Usuli School

In conflict 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

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 ...

schools, Tusi defended the Usuli and claimed that the rival Akhbari were literalists. He believed in principles of jurisprudence as the fundamental knowledge in acquiring judgment in Islam, and wrote in the introduction to one of his works: He compared the positions of the different legal schools of Islam and showed that there is little difference between them. Tusi, like his masters, refuted the legal analogy (''Qiyyas Fiqhi'') in his manual of ''Usul Fiqh''.

Importance of reason

His emphasis was on the rational dimension of religion, underlining that principles like the commandment to good and prohibition of evil are indispensable according to reason. Shaykh Tusi also used rational arguments to validate consensus (''ijma'') as derived from the principle of ''lutf''. According to ''lutf'', God must provide believers with the conditions for religious obedience.

Najaf Seminary

According to some scholars, Tusi established the Hawzeh of Najaf after migrating from

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

Works

Tusi wrote over fifty works in different Islamic branches of knowledge such as philosophy, hadith, theology, biography, historiography, exegesis, and tradition. Of the four authoritative sources of the Shiites, two are by Tusi: the basic reference books '' Tahdhib al-Ahkam'' and ''Al-Istibsar''. Both of them pertain to hadiths of Islamic jurisprudence. Other books include: * Al-Nihayah * Al-Tibyan Fi Tafsir al-Quran *

Al-Istibsar () is the fourth hadith collection of the Four Books of Shia Islam. it was compiled by Persian scholar al-Tusi It includes the same subjects as (Rectification of the Statutes) but in a shorter form. Author Al-Tusi lived during the first ha ...

in 4 volumes * Tahdhib Al-osul in two volumes * Oddat Al-osul * Al-fatawa * Al-Mabsut * Al-Iqtisad Al Hadi Ila Tariq Al Rashad *Kitab al-Ghayba * Ekhtiyar Ma'refat Al- Rijal

References

External links

Shaykh Tusi
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tusi, Shaykh 996 births 1067 deaths People from Tus, Iran Iranian Shia scholars of Islam Iranian scholars 11th-century Iranian people Scholars under the Buyid dynasty 11th-century Muslim scholars of Islam Muslim scholars of Islamic jurisprudence 11th-century Twelvers