The house of al-Shaikh al-Tusi was burnt down...

The house of al-Shaikh al-Tusi was burnt down, as were his books and the works he had written in Baghdad, together with important libraries of Shi'ite hooks. Fanaticism against the Shi'a was great. Al-Shaikh al-Tusi, seeing the danger of remaining in Baghdad, left and went to al-Najaf. Al-Najaf, the city where 'Ali b. Abi Talib had been martyred, was already a very important city in the hearts of Shi'ite Muslims.

However, it was al-Shaikh al-Tusi's arrival which was to give that city the impetus to become the leading centre of Shi'ite scholarship. This is a role, which it has maintained down to the present day. Al-Shaikh al-Tusi died in al-Najaf in 460 A.H. His body was buried in a house there, which was made into a mosque as he had enjoined in his will. Even today his grave is a place of visitation in al-Najaf.

Al-Tusi was succeeded by his son al-Hasan, who was known as al-Mufid al-Thani, and was himself an outstanding scholar.[^5] The learning of al-Shaikh al-Tusi extended over the whole of Islamic studies.

He was a learned traditionist, whose two compilations will be discussed below; but he was not only a traditionist, he was also an authoritative jurist, who could interpret traditions to meet the needs of jurisprudence, and many of his works on jurisprudence and the principles of jurisprudence still survive, in particular al-Mabsut and al-Nihaya. In addition, he was the leading Shi'ite theologian of his time.

As well as writing works of a general theological nature, he also wrote specific works on individual topics. On the Imamate, he wrote Talkhis al-Shafi, which was based on al-Sharif al-Murtada's al-Shafi fi 'l-imama. He wrote a work on al-Ghaiba, the occultation of the 12th Imam. As a traditionist, he naturally had an interest in the men who related traditions, in his Kitab al-rijal, he tries to list most of the important Shi'ites. His Fihrist is an important work of Shi'ite bibliography.

In it he lists many of the works of early Shi'ite writers and sometimes gives an account of their writers and the contents of the works. This work may to some extent reflect al-Tusi's own library before it was so tragically destroyed. Tahdhib al-ahkam fi sharh al-muqni 'a The title of this work could be translated as "The Refinement of the Laws (as Discussed) in Terms of the Explanation of the Sufficiency".

"The Sufficiency" or al-Muqni'a was a work on traditions by al-Shaikh al-Mufid, the teacher of al-Tusi, who has been mentioned earlier.