436\/1044)...

436\/1044), the Qur\u2019an and the hadith are recognized as being the only bases of law. Ijtihad (the “personal interpretation” of the doctor\/theologian), of great importance in later Imamism, was rejected as being a disguised form of the “reasoning by analogy” that was criticized by the imams.696bis The “consensus” (ijma) of the Doctors of the Law, as it is described by these two authors, comes in a typically Shiite form: the “consensus” is of no value unless it includes the will of the imams, a will that must be shown through their words.

The value of the “consensus” is thus “effaced” by the validity of the hadith.697 The same opinions of ijtihad and ijma are found in Abu Jafar al-Tusi (d. 460\/1067), but in his case we can already see the first influences of Mu\u2019tazilism: \u2018aql\u2019 begins to lose its early definition and approaches the reasoning faculty of the dialecticians.698 It appears as though the somewhat later al-Allama al-Hilli (d.

726\/1325) was the first of the great Imamite scholars to have classified ijtihad, and consequently \u2018aql\u2019 (in its acceptation as dialectical reasoning) as methodological principles of jurisprudence to be used along with the Qur\u2019an and the hadith. 699 In its early stage, then, the bases of Imamite law were practically limited to the Qur\u2019an and the hadith.

7oo As we will see, it will not be until about the tenth\/sixteenth century, that the two ideas of ijtihad and \u2018aql\u2019 are effectively considered to be two bases for jurisprudence, that the doctor\/theologians will acquire significant political and social power. \n As far as “applicable branches” (furu) are concerned, transactions (mu\u2019amalat) in Imamite law are with very few exceptions identical to those in Sunni schools of law.

701 Problems become more thorny when we get into the field of duties regarding worship (‘ibadat) and precepts (ahkam); here, even in Imamism, scholars have long debated certain points. Let us begin with duties regarding worship, divided into prayer (both individual and collective), fasting, the religious “taxes,” pilgrimage, jihad (in the sense of “holy war”), and ordering what is good and forbidding what is evil.

From what can be gleaned from the notes of Aqa Bozorg al-Tihraru in his al-Dharia, a colossal collection of Shiaite works, fierce debates were waged on the practice of two of these, collective prayer and holy war.