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  • 4 - The Curative Book on the Imamate: A Paraphrastic Rendering by al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī

  • from Selected Theological Writings
  • Edited by Hassan Ansari, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, Nebil Husayn, University of Miami
  • Book:
    Caliphate and Imamate
    Published online:
    19 October 2023
    Print publication:
    02 November 2023, pp 67-106

  • Summary

    Chapter four presents the views of the prominent Twelver Shiʿi scholar Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067). Like other Zaydis and Twelver Shiʿis of his era, al-Ṭūsī incorporated Muʿtazili doctrines into his writings on theology. His seminal work on the imamate is an abridgment of The Curative Book (al-Shāfī) by al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044). Al-Ṭūsī’s work was similarly entitled The Curative Book on the Imamate: A Paraphrastic Rendering (Talkhīṣ al-Shāfī fī al-imāma) and reflected his own understanding of the text. Both al-Murtaḍā and al-Ṭūsī ground the Twelver conception of the imamate in Bahshamī Muʿtazili theology to argue for the rational necessity of the imamate and its necessity according to the Qurʾan and hadith. They accomplish the former by tying the existence of imams to the existence of moral obligations (taklīf) in the sight of God. As long as moral obligations exist, humans need imams who function as a type of divine assistance (luṭf).