According to them...

According to them, only the hadith are authoritative, and since there is no right of ijtihad or deriving of opinions, people must necessarily have recourse directly to the texts of the traditions and act upon them, no scholar calling himself a mujtahid or a marja` al­taqlid [^23] can act as an intermediary.

Mulla Amin al­Astarabadi, the founder of this school, and personally a very gifted man, learned and well­travelled, wrote a book called "al-Fawa'id al­Madaniya" in which he went to war with the mujtahids with astonishing stubbornness. He particularly tried to refute the principle of the authority of `aql.

He claimed that it was only a proof in matters which had their origin in the senses, or which were related to sensory objects (such as in mathematics), and that in matters other than these it was inadmissible as a proof.[^24] It so happens that this idea was practically contemporary with the appearance of empirical philosophy in Europe. The latter denied the validity of pure reason, and al­Astarabadi denied its validity in religion. Now where did he get this idea?

Was it his own original idea, or did he get it from elsewhere? We cannot say. I remember that in the summer of 1322 [Sh./1943] I went to Burujird, and at that time the late Ayatullah Burujirdi was still living there, not yet having come to Qum. One day, the talk was of this idea of the Akhbaris, and he criticised it, saying that the appearance of this idea among them was the effect of the wave of empiricism that had arisen in Europe. I heard this from him at that time.

Afterwards, when he came to Qum, and his lessons in usul al­fiqh reached this topic, i.e., the validity of certainty as a proof (hujjat al qat`), I was waiting to hear this opinion again from him, but unfortunately he did not say anything about it.

Now, I cannot say if this had only been a conjecture which he had voiced, or whether he had evidence, but I, myself, have not till now found any evidence for it, and I feel it is extremely unlikely that empirical thinking had then reached the East from the West. However, against this is the fact that Ayatullah Burujirdi never spoke without evidence. I now regret that I never asked him for an explanation at the time. Previous…