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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books About Imam Reza (a.s) Preface: Our Belief in (a.s.) Imam ar-Ridha’ is one of the bed-rocks of Islamic thought and one of its main rich sources of knowledge. After the demise of his father Imam Musa ibn Ja’far (a.s.), the secrets of the Divine Message and the keys to its treasures became attainable to him, so he quenched his thirst there from and derived the source of his intellectual contribution from the same.

He is one of the Twelve Imams of the (a.s.) who enriched the Islamic thought with various types of knowledge due to the knowledge they instructed their students to write down, or in providing their answers to the questions put forth to them by others, or to what history has narrated to us of their scientific and theological discourses with followers of other Muslim sects.

The distinction which characterized the Imams of the (a.s.) and which attracts our attention when we study their biographies is the fact that they were obligated to others to provide them with knowledge while nobody was obligated to accept it from them.

This is a divine bliss with which God endowed them in order to achieve through them the establishment of His Proof against His creation, something with which they were credited even by the rulers among their contemporary opponents and by the most prominent thinkers among their contemporaries.

Supporting this phenomenon is the fact that some sciences and their details were not distinctly clear during their time, nor were their effects obvious, but they became clear and their ambiguities were dispelled by the teaching of the Imams of the (a.s.) such as the science of chemistry of which Imam Ja’far As-Sadiq (a.s.) is considered as the very first pioneer and founder of its principles and rules, and the science of medicine about which Imam ar-Ridha’ provides us, in his letter to al-Ma’mun, with a glorious system and an innovative approach in the way he explained its particularities and regulations, in addition to various other sciences of which their legacy is full and to which their contribution surpassed that of anyone else in setting their corner-stones and in pointing out their various requirements.

None among the contemporary scientists was credited for being the instructor of Imam As-Sadiq (a.s.) in chemistry, or of Imam ar-Ridha’ (a.s.) in medicine.