Whenever we quote a hadith from the Imams of Ahlu'l-bayt...

Whenever we quote a hadith from the Imams of Ahlu'l-bayt, it is not actually from themselves, instead it is the hadith of the Prophet which they have preserved as the true successors of the last messenger of God.

Imam Ja'far as-Sadiq (a.s.) says: "My hadith is the hadith of my father, the hadith of my father is that of my grandfather, the hadith of my grandfather is that of al-Husayn [bin 'Ali], the hadith of al-Husayn is that of al-Hasan [bin 'Ali], the hadith of al-Hasan is that of Amiru 'l-mu'mimin ['Ali bin Abi Talib] (a.s.), the hadith of Amiru'l-mu'minin is that of the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w), and the hadith of the Messenger is a statement of Allah, the Almighty, the Great."[^2] Ijtihad & Taqlid: After the twelfth Imam al-Mahdi (a.s.) went into occultation, the responsibility of guiding the Shi'ahs in the shari'ah matters came upon the mujtahids, the religious scholars specializing in Islamic laws.

The mujtahids derive the Islamic laws from the two sources mentioned above. This may sound very simple, but it is not so. They do not just open the Qur'an and the books of hadith , and start giving fatwas . They must first of all come up with a methodology of ijtihad (discussed in a subject known as usulu 'l-fiqh ). In their methodology, the mujtahids decide how to study the Qur'anic verses and the ahadith . Should they take the literal meanings only?

Have they to find out which verse came first and which came second on the same issue? Will the latter verse abrogate the former, or will it just put some limitations on it? Is every hadith to be considered authentic? If not, what are the means of verifying the authenticity of a given hadith ? If they come up on two authentic but contradictory ahadith on a single issue, what recourse should be followed?

All such problems have to be solved while designing the methodology of ijtihad , and only then can a mujtahid correctly and responsibly derive a law from the Qur'an and the sunnah . It is obvious that not all have the ability or the time to specialize in the shari'ah laws; and therefore, for such people it is necessary to follow a mujtahid in the matters of shari'ah . This "following" is known as taqlid . [^1]: Ibn Hajar al-Makki, as-Sawa'iqu 'l-Muhriqah, chapter 11 section 1. Also see S.

Saeed Akhtar Rizvi, Imamat, Sharafu 'd-Din al-Musawi, The Right Path, and S.M.H. Jafri, The Origin and Early Development of Shi'a Islam. [^2]: In Shi'ah sources, see al-Kulayni, Usulu 'l-Kafi, book 2 chapter 17, hadith No.