ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books A Shi'ite Anthology Introduction Despite the vast amount of scholarship carried out by Western orientalists since the nineteenth century and the analyses and translations made of various Islamic sources, very little attention has been paid thus far to the collection of religious sayings, sermons, prayers, proverbs and didactic expositions which comprises the corpus of Hadith as understood by Twelve Imam Shi'ite Muslims.

It is of course true that much of the substance of the Shi'ite hadith collection resembles the Sunni collection,[^1] and to the extent that the latter has been studied the former has also been dealt with in an indirect manner. But in as much as Shi'ite hadiths possess a form, style and "perfume" of their own, no indirect treatment of their substance and content can replace the direct translation and analysis of this collection itself.

It is in fact rather amazing that despite the extreme importance of Shi'ite Hadith for the development of Shi'ite law and theology as well as many fields of the "intellectual sciences" ( al-'ulum al-'aqliyyah ), not to speak of its role in piety and the spiritual life, the sayings of the Imams of Shi'ism have not been rendered into English until now. Nor have they been studied as a whole and as a distinct body of religious writings of an inspired nature within the general context of Islam itself.

The present volume represents, therefore, a pioneering effort to present a sample of this extensive body of writings to the English speaking world. The Shi'ite hadith literature includes all the sayings of the Prophet of Islam accepted by Shi'ites as well as the traditions of the twelve Imams from 'Ali ibn Abi talib to the Mahdi. This collection is thus considered to be, after the Holy Quran, the most important body of religious texts for Shi'ites.

As in Sunni Islam, so in this case: the Hadith forms along with the Revealed Book the basis of all the religious sciences, including of course the Shari'ah as well as religious life in both its intellectual and devotional aspects. No aspect of the life and history of the Shi'ite community would be comprehensible without a consideration of this body of inspired writings.

What is particular to this collection, however, is that although it is a part of the foundation of Islam as seen by Shi'ism, its "composition" stretches over a period of more than two centuries. In Sunni Islam, Hadith is limited to the sayings of the Blessed Prophet.