nearly two months before Imam Hasan al-'Askari...

nearly two months before Imam Hasan al-'Askari, (peace be upon him) who was martyred on the eighth of Rabi'u 'l-awwal, 260. His mausoleum is in old Nishapur, a short distance from the present town.[^11] The Book Unfortunately, almost all books of Ibn Shadhan are now lost.[^12] Their fate was not different from thousands of other books written by the companions of the Imams (Peace be upon them).

It appears from an-Najashi's book that Ibn Shadhan had written two books on the subject of Raj'at (Return): lthbiitu 'r-Raj'ah and ar-Raj 'ah badith while ash-Shaykh at-Tusi has mentioned only the former. The Shaykh of our mashayekh, late Agha Buzurg Tehrani (died 1389) has mentioned the two books and their abridgements in five places in his magnum opus, adh-Dhari 'ah: a. as lthbiitu 'r-Raj'ah (vol. 1. No. 450) b. as ar-Raj'ah wa abiidithuha (vol. 10. No. 294) c. as Kitiibu 'l-Ghaybah (vol.

16, No. 395) d. as Mukhta$aru 'l-Ghaybah (vol. 20, No 2574) e. as Muntakhabu lthbiiti 'r-Raj'ah (vol.22 No. 7472) On pondering on the above entries in conjunction with the recently published Kitiib Sulaym ibn Qays al-Hilali,[^13] the following informations have been gleaned: A. A manuscript of lthbatu 'r-Raj'ah was with as-Sayyid Muhammad ibn Muhammad Mir Lawhi al-Husayni al-Musawi as-Sabzawari, who was a contemporary of al-'Allamah al-Majlisi and both lived in the same city, Isfahan.

Mir Lawhi refused to show it to al-Majlisi or to allow him to make its copy. The relations between them were not good. If he had given its copy to al-Majlisi he could have saved one more treasure from extinction; perhaps he would have preserved it in its original form by putting it in a separate chapter, as he had done with at-Tawhid of Mufaddal and many such books.

Mir Lawhi has written a book, Kifayatu 'l-Muhtadi fi Ma'rifati 'I-Mahdi, in which he has collected forty ahadith from lthbatu 'r-Raj 'ah of al-Fadl ibn Shadhan, Kitabu 'l-Ghaybah of al-Hasan ibn Hamzah al-Mar'ashi, and al-Faraj al-Kabir of Muhammad ibn Hibatullah at-Tarabulisi.[^14] The traditions quoted from lthbatu 'r-Raj'ah support the view that he had access to the complete book, not just its selection. Let us pray that someone unearths that manuscript-if it is still existent.

Mukhtasaru lthbiiti 'r-Raj'ah: This abridgement of lthbatu 'r-Raj 'ah was made by, "a learned traditionalist". Possibly, it was done by as-Sayyid Baha'u 'd-Din 'Ali ibn Ghayathu 'd-Din 'Abdu '1-Karim ibn 'Abdu '1-Hamid an-Nili an-Najafi (9th century).