Allamah Sayyid Ja’far Murtadha al-‘Amili passes away

Allamah Sayyid Ja’far Murtadha al-‘Amili a religious scholar, an expert in the history of ‎Islam and Shi’ism, a Shi’ah biographer, and a scholar of the Islamic seminary of Qom and ‎Najaf passed away at the age 75 in the capital Beirut.‎

News ID: 447584

Date: 28 October 2019 - 22:48

RNA – al-Sayyid Ja’far Murtadha al-‘Amili was born on Safar 25, 1364 (February 9, 1945) in the ‎village ‘Ayt al-Jabal 110 kilometres away from Beirut south of Lebanon. His paternal lineage ‎goes back to al-Husayn Dhul-Dam’ah, the son of Zayd the son of Imam al-Sajjad (a).‎

His Education

He began his informal education with his father, who was a teacher. In 1382/1962, he ‎migrated to Najaf in order to study religious disciplines. He resided in the Seminary School of ‎Ayatollah Boroujerdi and seminary of Najaf. In 1388/1968, he moved to Qom. In the ‎seminary of Qom, he first studied the rest of his intermediate courses with Ayatollah ‎Mirmohammadi. He then attended the lectures of scholars such as Sayyid Musa Shobayri-‎Zanjani, Fani, Murtadha Haeri-Yazdi and Mirza Hashem Amoli. In the meanwhile, he studied ‎historical and theological issues of Shi’ism.‎

His Scholarly and Social Activities

Qom: Remarkable activities of Ja’far Murtadha during his stay in Qom was his research about ‎the history and beliefs of the Shi’ah, the establishment of “Muntada” or the “Seminary of ‎Jabal ‘Amil” and teaching master students at Tarbiat Modarres Univeristy in Qom. During his ‎years of teaching, he was a research adviser of Lebanese students and facilitated their ‎education in Qom. During twenty five years of stay in Qom, Murtadha sponsored and ‎educated Lebanese students, supported the ideological foundations of the Islamic ‎Revolution, and wrote about the foundations of government by appealing to the practice of ‎Ahl al-Bayt (a).‎

Lebanon: Late in 1993 he returned to his homeland, Lebanon, after twenty five years of stay ‎in Qom. He continued his research and teaching in southern Lebanon—which was occupied ‎by Israeli regime at the time. In addition to his research in history and the foundation of a ‎research center in Beirut, he held different assemblies for Shi’ah youths in Lebanon, thus ‎training a generation of religious activists among Lebanese Shi’ahs. One of his main ‎educational activities was the foundation of a Shi’ah seminary in Beirut in 1998. During years ‎of his stay in Lebanon, he defended imamate and wilayah and constantly tried to reply to ‎objections to Shi’ah principles.‎

His Prophetic Biography and Book’s Writing Style

al-Sayyid Ja’far Murtadha is a Shi’ah historian whose expertise is the early Islamic period. He ‎has revived Islamic history within Shi’ah seminaries. His historical works is characterized as ‎follows:‎

Ijtihadi approach to the study of history,‎
Drawing upon historical facts to defend Shi’ah theological principles and criticize Sunni ‎theological foundations,‎
Wide-ranging searches,‎
Precise assessments,‎
Intelligently tracing historical events to their origins,‎
Explicit specifications of fabrications and distortions,‎
Disclosing people who have provided dishonest accounts of history,‎
Profound knowledge of historical sources,‎
Fluent writing and a peculiar organization of contents.‎
His work is not edited by content editors—all his work thus represents his own style of ‎writing.‎

His Works

al-Sayyid Murtadha has written some books about the history of Islam and Shi’ah beliefs, ‎including:‎

al-Sahih min Sirat al-Nabi al-A’dham:‎

This book that is al-Sayyid Ja’far Murtadha’s most important work, is about history of Islam ‎and the Prophet’s (s) tradition. Regarding criticism of hadiths narrated the Prophet’s tradition, ‎this book is outstanding. The author has tried to purify the written works of the Prophet’s (s) ‎tradition from unauthentic hadiths, doing his utmost to author a history based on reliable ‎hadiths after being critical of former hadith references. Taking a special and Shi’ah look at ‎the Prophet’s (s) tradition and his history into consideration, Ja’far Murtadha utilized ‎numerous references of both Shi’ah and Sunni (1683 books) to restore the narrated ‎Prophet’s (s) tradition. ‎

At first, this work was released gradually and one by one up to eleven volumes and currently ‎it’s been reached to thirty five volumes altogether. The early volumes were published first by ‎Islamic Publications Office and republished repeatedly in upcoming years. Furthermore, this ‎book had the chance to win Iran’s book of the year awards.‎

Ma’sat al-Zahra’ (a)‎:

This book has been authored about incidents of the late life of Lady Fatimah (a). The writer ‎attempted to quell the misgivings raised about Lady Fatimah’s (a) life and martyrdom. ‎According to the Persian translation of the book, titled as “Ranjha-ye Hazrat Zahra” (Lady ‎Zahra’s (a) Pains), the book aimed primarily to relieve doubts of al-Sayyid Muhammad-‎Husayn Fadhlullah‎.‎

Source: IjtihadNet

‎112/940‎