Authentic Source and its Evidences to Early Imāmī Ĥadīth Scholars: The Position of “Written Sources” in Ĥadīth Studies of Early Scholars

Writing of Shī‘ā traditions in the same Imams’ (P.b.u.h) era is one of the prominent characteristics of these traditions. In this era, a lot of works were produced titled “Book” (Kitāb), “Original” (Aŝl), “Component” (Joz’) and “Version” (Noskhah), and etc. that played a significant role in the early Imāmī Ĥadīth scholars’ tradition studies. Relying on the systematic method called "evidential system", the scholars used several evidences in the evaluation of traditions, of which some significant proportion can be titled “source cognition”. Sometimes, depending on different reasons, they considered some writings reliable thereupon the Ĥadīths included in these writings were regarded “reliable” too. Regardless of the specifications of their authors, the features of these sources, themselves, have played an important role in their validation. In addition to indicating the earlier scholars’ attention to the evidences of source reliability, this paper, through analytical study and historical analysis of earlier reports remained, attempts to provide an appropriate answer to this question with an emphasis on “source features”. It also attempts to address the major indications of authentic writings and to illustrate the evidences of each one with a few examples. Some of the features of Ĥadīth books that affected their validation were to submitting the book to the Imam and its verification by him, acceptability of the book by Ĥadīth scholars and schools, reputation of the book and its agreement with standard books.