Al-Tawhid (book): Difference between revisions

The book '''Al-Tawhid''' is one of early and significant [[Shi'a]] [[Imamiyya]] theological sources which is compiled by the reputable [[Muhaddith]] of fourth/tenth century, Muhammad b. Ali b. Babiwayh, famously known as: [[al-Shaykh al-Saduq]]. This book is about [[Tawhid]] in its general sense (knowing about [[Allah]]) and comprises narrations about the unity of the Divine essence, affirmation and negation attitudes in understanding Divine attributes, attributes of essence and attributes of action and their relation to the Divine essence, eternity and temporality, predestination and divine providence, determinism and absolute freewill and the related topics.

This book is a Hadith collection wherein al-Shaykh al-Saduq, with the slightest degree of interference in the texts of Narrations, presents theological discussions. His motive for compiling such a book was to respond to accusations which were made against Shi'a beliefs by the enemies of Shi'a. this book has always been at the center of Shi'a scholars' attention as one of the most authentic Hadith sources whose content would be cited for various theological discussions.

There's no doubt that this book was compiled by al-Shaykh al-Saduq and he himself mentions such a book in his other works. According to [[al-Majlisi]], the reliability of attribution all available works of al-Saduq to him, except for few, is not less than the reliability of attribution of [[the Four Books]] to their authors.

Ibn Babiwayh says that he had written this book to respond to the enemies or critics of Shi'a, who accused Shi'a of believing in divine corporeality or predestination, and because of their propaganda, many would not join this sect. The root of such problem goes back to some of [[Ghulat]] who fabricated some narrations about divine corporeality and predestination. Such accusations were mainly made by [[Mu'tazilite]]s of the time, like Khayyat who repeatedly mentions these allegations in his ''Intisar''. Sometimes even some Shi'a theologians criticized the theological school of Qom, which was mainly founded on narrative basis in matters of theology, with the fact that these bases would lead to the aforementioned problems. In early fourth century, [[Abu al-Hasan Ash'ari]] attributed to Shi'a the belief in [[Tajsim]] (divine corporeality)  and [[Tashbih]] (divine anthropomorphism) even the traditionalist and narrative-inclined  body of Sunnis that was remarkably involved in more excessive forms of belief in corporeality and predestination, accused Shi'a of exaggerations in affirming divine attributes and corporeality.