درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

 The account of the martyrdom of Ḥusayn (AS) in al-Masʿūdī’s Murūjal-Dhahab (d. 346 AH) holds a special place among extant ʿĀshūrāʾ sources due to both its antiquity and the author’s stature in Islamic historiography. Part of al-Masʿūdī ’s report reflects the concise narrations of earlier authorities, while another part contains solitary reports found only in his transmission. An analysis of these unique reports, constituting the central problem of this study, shows that some of them suffer from textual inconsistencies and conflict with established historical and transmitted accounts. Nevertheless, these reports influenced later historians’ narratives. Hence, al-Masʿūdī’s Maqtal is at once a valuable source and a subject of caution and scrutiny. Using a descriptive-analytical method and a critical approach, this article seeks to clarify al-Masʿūdī ’s method and perspective in narrating the events of ʿĀshūrāʾ and, through comparison of his unique reports with other historical and narrative sources, to evaluate their content reliability. The findings show that assessing al-Masʿūdī ’s solitary narrations is only possible through historical-narrative analysis; without such scrutiny, parts of ʿĀshūrāʾ literature remain confused and ambiguous. Accordingly, this study reexamines and evaluates these unique reports.

The occultation of Imam al-Mahdī (AS) is a key issue in Mahdavi thought, for which various reasons have been stated in Shia narrative sources. In an article entitled " al-Ghaybah ʻinda al-Shīʻah al-Ithnā ʻAsharīyyah wa Asbābuhā; Dirāsatun Taḥlīlīyyatun Naqdīyyah " written by Ṭāriq ibn Saʻīd ibn ʻAbdullāh al-Qaḥṭānī, " it is claimed, by adhering to these very narrations, that Shia narrations regarding the reason for the occultation are unreliable, contradictory, and irreconcilable. The present study, with the aim of responding to the doubts raised in the aforementioned article regarding the reason for the occultation of Imam al-Mahdī (AS) and using the descriptive-analytical method, first, while stating the claim made, examines the authenticity of the narrations' chains of transmission based on two approaches: "Narrator-centric and evidence-centric authentication." It demonstrates that, with the exception of one narration, the rest are capable of being considered authentic and sound. Then, by examining their implications, it concludes that since all the reasons for the occultation mentioned in the narrations are of the nature of incomplete causes (causa sine qua non) and not complete causes, therefore, a semantic reconciliation can be made between them, and there is no need to prioritize them over each other. In this way, we can consider some of them as the cause of the occurrence of the occultation and others as the cause of the continuation of the occultation, or consider one of the causes as the principle and the rest as its branches.