Nur al-din al-Bahrayni...

Nur al-din al-Bahrayni, al-Sayyid Ni’mat Allah al-Jaza’iri and Amina Khatun, sister of al-‘Allama al-Majlisi, helped him. (8) Al-Majlisi could well manage all the works needed, so he only sent his students to collect and write verses of the Qur’an and hadiths under the titles he organized. The rest of selections from text and writing the final draft was done by Allama himself. (9) However, the whole book was finished by his students after he passed away.

(10) Al-Majlisi chose titles for the front cover of every book and organized titles in every book. He began every chapter with verses of the glorious Qur’an, which were either directly related or through different historical, hadith and exegetical evidences they were related with the title; then he brought quotations from different exegetes (usually Amin al-Islam al-Tabrisi and Fakhr al-Din al-Razi) and then he mentioned hadiths related with any title together with their references.

He sometimes narrated a part of a hadith and brought it in full elsewhere more appropriate (he sometimes mentioned where he had brought the hadith in full) and also, if necessary, he explained the meaning of hadiths. His explanations are not found in the volumes copied by his students.

Although al-Majlisi benefited from the assistance of some scholars, financial help of Safavid government, and different privileges and facilities for gathering sources for the process of writing Bihar al-anwar, according to available manuscripts and other evidences, he-after achieving scientific degrees and writing most of his books-did the main job himself.

Authenticity As an encyclopedia of the legacy of the (a), Bihar al-anwar has always had a great and important position in the scientific tradition of Shi’a.