Abstract
The author pursued two main objectives. The first was to analyze the conceptualization of wilāya in certain key texts of the Shı̄ʿı̄ thinkers from Shaykh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾı̄ to Ayatollah Khomeini, with emphasis on the influence of Ibn ʿArabı̄ and his mysticism on later scholars. Parallel to this is the importance of studying the nature of authority in Shı̄ʿa Islam. Has authority in Shı̄ʿı̄sm, which is crystalized in the concept of wilāya, changed and developed over time? Or can the fallible, visible, representative/vicegerent of the authority of the imām, himself the infallible, invisible, bearer of the esoteric wisdom and divine wilāya, claim the same authority as the imām? Pertinent to this is the question of whether Shı̄ʿa Islam is a faith of subordination, submission, and subjugation.
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Notes
- 1.
Fazlur Rahman has a very helpful discussion on this topic and his critical eye on Shīʿīsm would help Shīʿa reader/researcher to reach impartial conclusions. See:
Fazlur Rahman, Islam, 2nd edition, 1968 (New York: Anchor Books), passim.
- 2.
Tirmidhī is the first and also the only ʿārif in the entire history of Islamic mysticism that coins and uses such a term, as neither before nor after him has this term (walī-yi ḥaqq allāh) been used. Besides, he uses this term in only one of his books entitled Sīrat al-Anbīyāʾ. See:
Muḥammad Sūrī, Ḥakīm Tirmidhī wa Naẓarīyayi Wilāyat, (Ḥakīm Tirmidhī and the Theory of Wilāya), the Journal of Falsaphah wa Kalām, Vol 4, Winter 1385, p. 96.
- 3.
Ḥakīm clarifies that ʿibāda and ʿubūdīyyah are different as the former refers to the optional tasks of man, while the latter indicates man’s as well as the whole creation’s indigence and dependence on God. Muḥammad Sūrī, Ibid., 1385, p. 96.
Bibliography
Persian Books
Sūrī, Muḥammad, Ḥakīm Tirmidhī wa Naẓarīyayi Wilāyat (Ḥakīm Tirmidhī and the Theory of Wilāya), the Journal of Falsafah wa Kalām, Vol 4, Winter 1385, p. 96.
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Chamankhah, L. (2019). Conclusion. In: The Conceptualization of Guardianship in Iranian Intellectual History (1800–1989). Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22692-3_7
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