The Time and Origin of the Emergence of Shiism: Review and Criticism of Ghaffari's Claims

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Student in Twelver Shiism History, University of Religions and Denominations, Qom, Iran

2 Associate Professor, Department of Shiite Studies, University of Religions and Denominations, Qom, Iran

Abstract

The book "The Fundamentals of the Twelver Imami Shiism: A Review and Critique" by Naser Ghaffari has criticized the fundamentals of Shiite belief, including the spatial and temporal origin of the emergence of Shiism. The present study, with the aim of investigating Ghaffari's claim regarding the introduction of Kufa as the origin of Shiism after the assassination of Othman, first draws strategic rules in argumentation and then tries to provide a reasoned criticism of his opinions based on the search for the self-contradiction of the proposition, criticize the foundations and check the adequacy of the reason. The result shows the claim that Shiism arose in Kufa due to the lack of Sunni scholars in that city is in contradiction with another statement by Ghaffari mentioning the names of influential people in that region as Sunni scholars. Similarly, adducing Kufa's distance from Medina and also the non-acceptance of Shiism in other places without proving the absence of signs of Shiism in other cities before or at the same time as Kufa is flawed in its foundations due to the lack of reason and also the presupposition of Shiism as a movement separate from Islam.
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Keywords


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