| Abstrakt: |
The history of Sunni–Shiʿi relationship is usually characterized as one of opposition. The fundamental difference between these two confessions is explained that Sunnis support the Rightly Guided Caliphs after the Prophet Muḥammad, whereas Shiʿis support the Imams. However, it is known that not a few medieval and early modern Sunnis respected the Twelve Imams, the symbolic figures for Twelver Shiʿism, and several Sunni scholars compiled faḍāʾil (virtues) works on the Imams, like Shiʿis did. By analyzing faḍāʾil works written by Sunnis and Shiʿis in the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries, this study investigates the interconfessional dialogue concerning the Imams and various understandings of the confessional boundary. Although special respect for ʿAlī and several ʿAlid (Shiʿi) Imams can be found in early Sunni texts, reverence for the Twelve Imams as a group (imamophilia) became salient among Sunnis from the twelfth century onward. Ibn Ṭalḥa (d. 652/1254), a Shāfiʿī scholar, compiled the Maṭālib al-Saʾūl, one of the earliest Sunni faḍāʾil works on the Twelve Imams, keeping his Sunni standpoint. ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā al-Irbilī (d. 692 or 693/1293 or 94), an Iraqi Shiʿi scholar, completed the Kashf al-Ghumma depending on both Sunni and Shiʿi traditions and used the Maṭālib al-Saʾūl as the most important Sunni source. Later, imamophilic Sunnis favored the Kashf al-Ghumma as a collection of Sunni and moderate Shiʿi traditions on the Twelve Imams, and they compiled their works citing the Maṭālib al-Saʾūl via the Kashf al-Ghumma. As a result of this interconfessional transmission of traditions, the Maṭālib al-Saʾūl and its traditions were circulated across Hijaz, Iran, Central Asia, and Mughal India. Both Ibn Ṭalḥa and the Sunnis who used the Kashf al-Ghumma showed their Sunni identities in their work, sometimes by “Sunnitizing” the imamophilia. Utilizing Sunni works reflecting such imamophilia, Iraqi Shiʿi scholars could justify their Shiʿi beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
