A new book

Hassan Ansari & Amin Ehteshami, Seeking Certitude: Scriptural Authority in Early Shiʿi Jurisprudence.



In this monograph, Hassan Ansari and Amin Ehteshami provide a synoptic examination of epistemological discussions concerning the authority of scriptural sources (akhbār) in Shiʿi jurisprudence during the third to sixth centuries AH. Seeking Certitude: Scriptural Authority in Early Shiʿi Jurisprudence provides the first book-length study of this under-examined topic of the Shiʿi intellectual tradition. Through close readings of primary texts, the authors trace and evaluate the views of the period’s most prominent thinkers such as Ibn Qiba, al-Kulaynī, Ibn Junayd, Ibn Bābawayh, al-Mufīd, al-Murtaḍā, al-Ṭūsī, Ibn Zuhra, and Ibn Idrīs. The subjects discussed include the developments of Shiʿi legal theory during the third/ninth to sixth/twelfth centuries; various ways of conceptualising what constitutes a ‘scriptural’ source; justifications offered for including the reports attributed to the Prophet and the Imams as the second most authoritative source of law after the Qurʾan; frameworks elaborated for evaluating the authenticity of scriptural sources; epistemological discussions regarding the reliability of historical reports in general and scriptural reports in particular; solutions proposed for resolving disagreeing and contradictory reports; and the legitimacy of using a scriptural report of uncertain origins as evidence for determining a legal ruling as binding. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in Islamic law and legal theory, theology, scriptural hermeneutics, medieval intellectual history, and Islamic studies.