Motive for Writing Ibn Babiwayh says that he had written...

Motive for Writing Ibn Babiwayh says that he had written this book to respond to the enemies or critics of Shi’a who accused Shi’a of believing in divine corporeality or predestination, because of their propaganda, and caused many not to join this sect. To understand the root of such a problem one needs to look into some of the Ghulats who fabricated many narrations about divine corporeality and predestination.

Such accusations were mainly made by Mu’tazilas of the time, like Khayyat who repeatedly mentions these allegations in his book Intisar . Sometimes even some Shi’a theologians criticized the theological school of Qom, which was largely founded on narrative basis in matters of theology, with the fact that these bases would lead to the aforementioned problems.

In early fourth century, Abu al-Hasan Ash’ari attributed to Shi’a the belief in Tajsim (divine corporeality) and Tashbih (divine anthropomorphism) even the traditionalist and narrative-inclined body of Sunnis that was remarkably involved in more excessive forms of belief in corporeality and predestination, accused Shi’a of exaggerations in affirming divine attributes and corporeality.

Book’s Content The book al-Tawhid in which al-Saduq has used narrations as substantive bases for proving or explaining theological concepts is in fact a well-established theological discipline founded on the bases of the texts of hadith with the least interference possible.

However, in this work al-Saduq has put greater emphasis on the issue of Divine attributes from among various topics related to Tawhid and the Divine Being; this in turn shows the polemic attitude of the book towards other opposing movements or its defensive nature amid accusations against Shi’a theological structure.

The main opponents in such polemic discussions are Mushabbiha (those who believe in analogous anthropomorphism of the Divine essence) and Mujassima (those who believe in divine corporeality) although this does not necessarily reflect that Shi’a and Mu’tazilas are in the same theological stances.

The topic of this book is Tawhid in its general sense, therefore in addition to discussing the Unity of Divine Being and its attributes, it comprises issues like: Eternity and temporality (of the creation) Predestination and divine providence Determinism and absolute freewill and the related topics with divine justice and human freewill Latter topics in later periods of theological discussions, turned to be a subdivision of Divine actions.