A well-known book that is often spoken of in jurisprudence...

A well-known book that is often spoken of in jurisprudence is Muhaqqiq Karaki’s Jam’i ul-Muqasid , which is a commentary on the Qawa’id of Allamah Hilli. The arrival of Mutaqqiq Thani in Iran and his establishing a religious university in Qazvin and then in Isfahan, together with his training of outstanding pupils in jurisprudence, caused Iran for the first time since the time of the Saduqayn to become a center of Shia jurisprudence. He died between the years 937 A.H. and 941 A.H.

He had been the pupil of Ibn Fahd Hilli, who had been the pupil of the pupils of Shahid Awwal, such as Fazlel Miqdad. Shaykh Zayn ud-Din known as Shahid Thani, the “Second Martyr”, was another of the great Shia jurisprudents. A master of several sciences, he was from Jabal ‘Amal and a descendant of a man called Saleh who was a student of Allamah Hilli. Apparently, Shahid Thani’s family was from Tus, and sometimes he would sign his name “At-Tusi Ash-Shami”. He was born in 911 A.H.

and martyred in 966 A.H. He travelled widely and experienced many teachers. He had been to Egypt, Syria, Hejaz, Jerusalem, Iraq, and Istanbul, and wherever he went he learnt. It has been recorded that his Sunni teachers alone numbered twelve. Besides jurisprudence and principles, he was accomplished in philosophy, gnosis, medicine, and astronomy. Very pious and pure, his students wrote that he used to carry wood at night to support his household and, in the mornings, sit and teach.

He compiled and wrote many books, the most famous of them in jurisprudence being Sharh Lum’a , his commentary on the Lum’a of Shahid Awwal. He was a pupil of Muhaqqiq Karaki (before Muhaqqiq migrated to Iran), but Iran was one place that he himself never went to. The author of M’alim which is about the Shia ‘ulema was Shahid Thani’s son. Muhammad ibn Baqer ibn Muhammad Akmal Bahbahani, known as Wahid Bahbahani, who came in the period after the fall of the Safavi dynasty of Iran.

After that overthrow, Isfahan was no longer the center of religion, and some of the ‘ulema and jurisprudents, amongst them Seyyid Sadr ud-Din Razawi Qumi, the teacher of Wahid Bahbahani, left Iran as the result of the Afghan turmoil and went to the atabat , the holy centers of Iraq. Wahid Bahbahani made Karbala the new center and there he tutored a number of outstanding pupils, many of them famous in their own right.

Besides this, it was he who led the intellectual combat against the ideas of the akhbariyyin , which in those days were extremely popular.