Day 3

The lesson

1. Al-Shaykh al-Tusi names about 3,200 people who narrated from him (Rijal al-Tusi); al-Shaykh al-Mufid (al-Irshad) and al-Irbili (Kashf al-Ghumma) give four thousand, more than for any other Imam. Ibn 'Uqda is said to have named four thousand in a book on his students (al-Kuna wa l-Alqab of al-Qummi).
2. For this reason the school of the Twelver Shia, above all its jurisprudence, is called the Ja'fari school after him. In the Shia view it is not a school he invented but the school of Imam Ali, which kept the teaching of the Prophet; there is evidence the name was already used in his lifetime (al-Ma'arif of Ibn Qutayba; Qurb al-Isnad of al-Himyari). In 1378 AH (1959) Shaykh Mahmud Shaltut, head of al-Azhar, declared following it permissible (Hambastigi-yi Madhahib-i Islami of Biazar Shirazi).
3. Aban ibn Taghlib said that when the Shia differed over a saying of the Prophet they turned to the words of Imam Ali, and when they differed over the words of Imam Ali they turned to the words of Imam al-Sadiq (Rijal al-Najashi).

Questions

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Questions are written by AI from the lesson’s facts, and each answer was checked against its fact.