Qada' Amir al-Mu'minin (book)

Qada' Amir al-Mu'minin

Author	Muhammad Taqi Shushtari
Original title	قَضاءُ أمیرالمؤمنین علی بن ابی طالب
Language	Arabic
Series	1 volume
Subject	Judicial Judgments of Imam Ali (a)

Qaḍāʾ Amīr al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭalib (Arabic: قَضاءُ أمیرالمؤمنین علی بن ابی طالب), that is, Imam Ali's (a) judicial judgments, is an Arabic book written by Muhammad Taqi Shushtari, a Shiite scholar of 'ilm al-rijal in the 14th/20th century.

Author

Main article: Muhammad Taqi Shushtari

Shaykh Muhammad Taqi b. Muhammad Kazim b. Muhammad 'Ali b. Shaykh Ja'far al-Shushtari (b. 1320/1902-3 - d. 1415/1995), known as 'Allama Shushtari, was a contemporary Shiite scholar of 'ilm al-rijal. Shushtari immigrated from Iran to Iraq in 1314 Sh/1935-6 in objection to Kashf-i Hijab. In 1320 Sh/1941-2, when Reza Shah's rule was over, he returned to Shushtar and started teaching and writing about Islamic disciplines. He endowed his library to Astan Quds Radawi.

He had studied in Islamic seminaries of Iran, Najaf, and Karbala.

Books Regarding Imam Ali's (a) Judicial Judgments

Given Prophet Muhammad's (s) hadiths in which Imam 'Ali's (a) judicial judgments are praised and several events in which he issued judgments, since the early centuries of Islam, Shiite and Sunni authors wrote many books about Imam 'Ali's (a) judgments either independently or in books concerning the virtues of Imam 'Ali (a). Bibliographers such as al-Najashi mentioned many books in this regard. In recent centuries, scholars such as al-Sayyid Muhsin al-Amin and Muhammad Taqi Shushtari wrote books about Imam 'Ali's (a) judicial judgments.

Motivation for Writing

According to the author in the preface of the book, since no independent book was written on Imam 'Ali's (a) judgments and the subject-matter was very important, he decided to write a book in this regard.

Structure

Shushtari's book has a novel and different classification and organization of issues. Most authors who wrote about the issue or people such as al-Shaykh al-Mufid in his book, al-Irshad, classified Imam 'Ali's (a) judgments in terms of different periods, such as the period of the Holy Prophet (s) or that of the Rashidun Caliphs and that of his own caliphate, but Shushtari classified the judgments in terms of topics (and not chronologically). He classified the book into 54 chapters as the following:

• Judgments in which Imam 'Ali (a) discovered the truth by means of particular methods.

• Events that involved different rulings but others could only grasp one of these rulings.

• A chapter regarding severe predicaments.

• Puzzling responses, and …

There is an epilogue to the book in which judgments of Rashidun Caliphs are cited in order to be compared with those of Imam 'Ali (a).

Shushtari eliminated the chains of narrations of hadiths he cited, but he did mention the books from which the relevant hadiths were cited. He cited numerous and various Shiite and Sunni sources. Since the author is also a scholar of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), he presented scholarly discussions of many cases in detail.