EBN DĀʿĪ RĀZĪ, ABŪ TORĀB ṢAFĪ-AL-DĪN MORTAŻĀ

 

EBN DĀʿĪ RĀZĪ, ABŪ TORĀB ṢAFĪ-AL-DĪN MORTAŻĀ b. Dāʿī b. Qāsem Rāzī Ḥosaynī (or Ḥasanī), known as ʿAlam-al-Hodā (d. after 525/1132), Imami traditionist and author of a heresiography in Persian. He and his brother Mojtabā transmitted Hadith directly from Jaʿfar b. Moḥammad Dūryastī and, through ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān b. Aḥmad Nīšābūrī, from Shaikh Ṭūsī, Sayyed Rażī, and Sayyed Mortażā. The famous traditionist and biographer Montajab-al-Dīn Qomī (504-85/1110-80) studied with and transmitted from him and from his brother. Among his other students were Sayyed Żīāʾ-al-Dīn Fażl-Allāh Rāvandī Kāšānī (d. 570/1174), Qoṭb-al-Dīn Saʿīd Rāvandī (d. 574/1178), and Ebn Šahrāšūb (d. 588/1192). He had various disputations (monāẓarāt) with Abū Ḥāmed Ḡazālī, seemingly in Mecca (al-Ḏarīʿa III, p. 319; Ḵᵛānsārī,VII, p. 165).

The Persian Tabṣerat al-ʿawāmm wa maʿrefat maqālāt al-anām is the only work attributed to him. It was probably written toward the end of the 5th/11th century, for there are quotations from Ḡazālī’s Mīzān al-ʿamal. Its twenty-six chapters contain “the explanation of religions (melal) and sects (neḥal); the detailed exposition of the opinions held by different groups of mankind (ṭawāʾef al-anām): philosophers, physicists, astrologers, Zoroastrians, Sabaeans, Kharijites, Muʿtazilites, the Shiʿite sects, and Sufis; the discourses of the Sunnis and the Imami tenets; the sayings of the followers of jabr (predestination) and ʿadl (divine justice)” (al-Ḏarīʿa III, p. 318), and of the Jahmites, Murjiʾites, and Karremites; the doctrines of anthromorphists, those who believe in metempsychosis, Ašʿarī and the Ashʿarites; and the sayings of Jonayd as collected by ʿAbd-al-Karīm Qošayrī (d. 1073) in his Resāla fi’l-taṣawwofá. An exposition of the dispute over Fadak, some infamous actions (fażāʾeḥ) of the Omayyads, and brief explanations of several questions posed to the Shiʿites are also included.

According to the author of al-Ḏarīʿa, Ebn Dāʿī subsequently produced an Arabic version of al-Foṣūl al-tāmma fī hedāyat al-ʿāmma, although the actual translation of the Tabṣera into Arabic was made by a certain Ḥosayn b. ʿAlī Baṭīṭī. The Tabṣera was printed in 1304/1886-87 and 1319/1901-02 at the beginning of Moḥammad Tonokābonī’s Qeṣaṣ al-ʿolamāʾ.

 

Bibliography: (For cited works not given in detail, see “Short References.”)

Aʿyān al-šīʿa XLVIII, pp. 41.

Brockelmann, GAL, S. I, p. 711.

Mīrzā ʿAbd-Allāh Afandī Eṣbahānī, Rīāż al-ʿolamāʾ, ed. A. Ḥosaynī, Qom, 1401/1980, V, pp. 207-08.

Moḥammad b. Ḥasan Ḥorr ʿĀmelī, Amal al-ʿāmel, ed. A. Ḥosaynī, Beirut, 1403/1983, II, p. 319.

Moḥammad-Bāqer Ḵᵛānsārī, Rawżāt al-jannāt, Tehran, 1390/1970, VII, pp. 164-67.

Āqā Bozorg Ṭehrānī, Ṭabaqāt aʿlām al-šīʿa. al-Ṯeqāt al-ʿoyūn fī sādes al-qorūn, Beirut, 1392/1972, p. 297.

(Marco Salami)

Originally Published: December 15, 1997

Last Updated: December 6, 2011

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