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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Jesus on Ethics: Forty Ahadith Sources for this Work Sources for this Work [^1] Biharul Anwar is a collection of ahadith in ‘Arabic compiled by Mawla Muhammad Baqir ibn Muhmmad Taqi, known as Majlisi the Second, or simply ‘Allamah Majlisi (d. 1110 A.H./1689 C.E.). He is one of the most prolific Shi’i writers, and was Shaykh al-Islam during the Safavid period. He authored thirteen books in ‘Arabic and fifty-three in Farsi.

His largest and most important work is Biharul Anwar, al-Jami’ah li-Durar Akhbar al-A’immah al-Athar. This is the most comprehensive of all collections of Shi’i ahadith, and it includes almost all ahadith attributed to the Prophet through Shi’i chains of transmission, almost all of the ahadith Qudsi (narrations of the words of God revealed to the Prophet not included in the Qur’an), and other narrations attributed to the Imams (peace be upon all of them).

One of the features of this work is that ‘Allamah Majlisi went to great pains to separate his own views from the transmission of the ahadith. It took him thirty-six years to compile the work, from 1070 A.H. to 1106 A.H. (1649 C.E. to 1685 C.E.), with the cooperation of other scholars of the day and students. In the first volume, he identifies his sources, and later in the same volume he evaluates their reliability.

His sources include close to four hundred titles, among which are sixteen works of Shaykh Saduq, sixteen works of Shaykh Tusi, eighteen works of Shaykh Mufid, twelve works of Sayyid Murtadha, twelve works of Shahid Awwal, twenty-one works of Sayyid ibn Tawus, twenty-three works of ‘Allamah Hilli and twelve works of Shahid Thani.

He also made use of ninety works by Sunni authors for correcting the words of the narrations or determining their meanings, and he mentions each of these sources by name in his introduction. There are three extant editions that have been published of Biharul Anwar. One is a lithograph print in twenty-five volumes, known as the old edition. The second is that of Dar al-Kutub al-Islamiyyah, Tehran, Bazar Sulaimani, in one hundred ten volumes (no date), known as the new edition.

In the Tehran edition, volumes 54, 55 and 56 contain a table of contents. The third edition is really just a reprint of the Tehran edition published by Mu’assasah al-Wafa’ of Beirut.