All the evidence which has come to light in recent years...

All the evidence which has come to light in recent years goes against the corruption theory; it is a form of Islam of interest from various points of view and it should be studied in its historical setting principally through Shiite sources, in comparison with all the other material available.

Sunnite scholars of the olden days had neither the knowledge nor the will to give a purely objective account of the Shi'a faith, this is a factor which must impel one to go to the Shiite originals themselves. As to “orthodoxy”, a minority, however small, may well have retained a very close touch with the original tradition; the majority, however preponderant, may conceivably have lost it in the stress of political conflicts.

While it is not at all easy to determine how much weight is to be given to the plausible doctrine of the Shi'a that 'Ali, by virtue of his relationship and affinity to the Prophet, had a better insight into religion than others.

It is also not possible to dismiss contemptuously the possibility of the personal religious tradition of the Prophet, at least in some important matters, being carefully handed down to the Imams of the House of the Prophet, the people who undoubtedly had the best opportunity of knowing the true interpretation of many a principle of Islam,[^13] Hence a historical, objective, critical and comparative study of the Shi’ite sources is greatly to be desired.

In order to obtain an insight into the Shi'ite religion in general, we must first of all look at their creed. For this purpose we must go to their own authorities and find that we have only two sources available to us. The first is al-Babu'l-Hadi 'Ashar by Hasan bin Yusuf bin 'Ali bin al-Mutahhar al-Hilli, known as 'Allama Hilli (died 726/1326). The original text, together with its commentary an-Nafi' Yawmi'l-Hashr by Miqdad-i-Fadil al-Hilli (eighth century A.H.) was translated by W. M.

Miller, and published by the Royal Asiatic Society, London, in 1928. This little treatise is a very popular creed and has practically superseded every other in modern times. The second creed, of which a brief summary is before us, is the Aqa'idu 'sh Shi'a by 'Ali Asghar bin 'Ali Akbar, composed in the middle of the 19th century A.D. This is a book of 438 pages and Professor F. G. Browne gives an admirable summary in his Persian Literature in Modern Times (381 - 402).

He says: “Such an outline is the Shi'a creed of contemporary Persia in its crudest and most popular form.