Furthermore...

Furthermore, the book generally combines complete utilization, with brevity and concentration on the points that the author intends to convey to the readers, which is the objective of researchers in the books of the Shi`ah. Such being the case, this book is a comprehensive reference that touches on all extremes of the subject matter in a highly concentrated and brief form.

Through my current writing, I do not mean to praise or honor the author but to treat the truth fairly and reveal it before the readers of this magnificent yet small book, since, in my conception, it contains the primary scientific principles which researchers aim at when they depict the facts and attempt to put them where they must be.

In view of that, this book will acquaint the readers with some outstanding viewpoints which the author has presented, then filled it with proofs and points of evidence and embroidered it with arguments and instances from the Holy Qur'an, the Holy Prophet’s traditions, or the sayings of the Twelve Imams, (may Allah’s pleasure be upon them).

Undoubtedly, these outstanding views, which I shall provide the readers, will definitely strike the sight of the well-informed readers in the same way as they have caught my eyes, and will attract them as they have attracted me even if the readers will not peruse my introduction to the book.

The objectives of researchers and readers are usually the same, because the truth is invariably the same as long as those who communicate with it and build their conceptions on it judge with their intellects and brains, not their hearts and personal whims, and, as long as they act fairly and leave no place for fanaticism in their minds. One of these questions that attracts a reader is the question of ijtihad in the view of the Imamiyyah Shi`ah.

The view inherited from Sunni authorities about ijtihad is that the door of absolute ijtihad was closed after the four master scholars of jurisprudence; namely, Abu-Hanifah, Malik ibn Anas, al-Shafi`i, and Ibn Hanbal. However, the attempts of ijtihad that took place after these four imams at the hands of certain jurisprudents were no more than partial or inner ijtihad that fell under a certain sect or school of Islamic law [ madhhab ].

Such secondary ijtihad in Sunnism scarcely continued until the fifth century of Hijrah.