ʻAbd al-Hādī al-Faḍlī, Min Maṣādir al-Fikr al-Islāmī fī al-ʻAqīdah wa al-Tashrīʻ, Beirut: Dār al-Rāfidayn, 1430 AH/ 2009. 70 pp.
The author provides a selected, basic, and annotated bibliography of Shii Islamic sources mainly in Arabic. This short handlist contains over 85 books and treatises in the realm of Shii religious studies. Cataloguing eighteen sources in the Shii Islamic doctrines, it starts with Awāʼil al-maqālāt, a doctrinal book of Sheikh Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. al-Nuʻmān “Sheikh al-Mufīd” (d. 413 AH/ 1022). It then lists twelve tafsir books, starting from al-Tibyān of Sheikh Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī (d. 460 AH/ 1067). In the realm of Shii hadith collections, it renders a list of nine major sources, the first of which is al-Kāfī of Muḥammad b. Yaʻqūb al-Kulaynī (d. 329 AH/ 940). In al-dirāyah, i.e., hadith verification, it lists seven sources. Here the book mentions al-Bidāyah fī ʻilm al-dirāyah of Sheikh Zayn al-Dīn al-ʻĀmilī (Shahīd II) (d. 965 AH/ 1557).
As there are many homonymic names that must be clearly distinguished so as not to confuse this author with another one, the branch of Asmāʼ al-Rijāl (Scholars’ Names and Designations) has long been created. In this fascinating field, the book starts with Ikhtīyār maʻrifah al-rijāl of of Sheikh Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī (d. 460 AH/ 1067) and lists eleven sources, the last of which is Muʻjam rijāl al-ḥadīth of the contemporary scholar Sayyid Abu al-Qāsim al-Mūsawī al-Khūʼī (d. 1413 AH/ 1992). In the rijāl branch which deals with the lives of hadith transmitters, the book provides a list of six sources. It starts with al-Fawāʼid al-rijālīyyah of Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdī Baḥr al-ʻUlūm (d. 1212 AH/ 1797).
In the vast field of Shii fiqh scholarship, eight main sources are listed. The first of them is al-Mutūn al-fiqhiyyah of Sheikh Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. al-Nuʻmān “Sheikh al-Mufīd” (d. 413 AH/ 1022). On the subject of the principles of fiqh, i.e., jurisprudential scholarship, it lists twelve sources. It starts with Kifāyah al-uṣūl of Muḥammad Kāẓim al-Khurāsānī “Ākhund al-Khurāsānī” (d. 1329 AH/ 1911).
In the field of Islamic philosophy, there only three books are listed. This short list contains al-Asfār of Mulla Ṣadrā (d. 1050 AH/ 1640), Manẓūmah of Mulla Hādī Sabzivārī (d. 1289 AH/ 1872), and Uṣūl al-falsafah of Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Ṭabāṭabāʼī (d. 1402 AH/ 1981).
This short handlist can and should be updated and extended to include more recent works, a task that awaits the endeavors of the contemporary and forthcoming generations of scholars in Shii religio-academic circles.
