Muhammad bin al-Ḥasan b. Ali b. al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmili al-Mashghari, commonly known as Al-Ḥurr Al-ʿĀmili , was a muhaddith and a prominent TwelverShi’a scholar. He is best known for his comprehensive hadith compilation known as Wasa'il al-Shia and as the second of the “Three Great Muhammads” in later Shi’a Islamic history.
Biography
Early life and education
He was born on Friday, 8th of Raj̲ab 1033AH/26 April 1624 CE in the village of Machghara in the ʿĀmil mountains of southern Lebanon, a center of Shi’i Lebanese in the region. His early education began with a family of teachers that included his father, his paternal uncle, his maternal grandfather, and one of his father's maternal uncles. He also studied under Ḥusayn b. Hasan b. Yunus Ẓahīr and Ḥasan b. Zayn al-Dīn ʿĀmili, who was the great-grandson of al-Shahid al-Thani, in al-Jaba, a nearby village. Ḥusayn Zahir was the first to give al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmili ijaza, a license to teach and transmit ahadeeth.
Later life and travels
Al-Ḥurr Al-ʿĀmili performed the hajj twice and went on ziyarat, visiting of holy Shi’a shrines, in Iraq. Other than these trips, he remained in the Jabal ʿĀmil for the first forty years of his life. He lived during the era of the Safavid Empire, which at the time was pushing Imami Shi’ism upon the people of Iran. When Sunni ulama fled from the Safavid Empire, specifically the religious centers of Iran, the empire brought in many Shi’i scholars to replace them, a large amount coming from Jabal ʿĀmil. Al-Ḥurr Al-ʿĀmili was one of the many scholars that migrated to take religious leadership positions in Iran at the time, eventually journeying to Mashhad, Iran and settling there in 1073/1663 where he became Shaykh al-Islam in the shrine of the 8th Imam, Ali al-Ridha. He settled after traveling first to Isfahan, Persia where he became acquainted with Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, the third of the Great Muḥammads. The meeting between these two scholars left an impression on them both and they mutually granted each other ijāza to transmit hadiths. Majlisi also introduced al-ʿĀmili to Shah Sulayman of the Safavid Empire. Al-ʿĀmili died in Mashhad on the 21st of Ramadhan 1104 AH / 26 May1693 CE and is buried there. He was succeeded by his brother Ahmad as shaykh al-Islam in Mashhad. Some have claimed that al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmili actually died in Yemen in 1079/1669, but there is no evidence in support of this. Al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmili was not only known as a scholar, but also as a poet. He is credited with a diwān of approximately 20,000 verses, which includes several didactic poems, most of which constitute panegyrics to the ProphetMuḥammad and to his descendants. However, in two verses, he also expressed his inner struggle between his poetic and scholarly leanings: “My scholarship and my poetry fought one another, then were reconciled / poetry reluctantly surrendering to scholarship” ; “My scholarship objected to my being considered a poet / poetry, however, conceded that I be regarded as a scholar”. The above lines suggest that poetry and scholarship were at odds in terms of the ideal of knowledge and in the degree of piety assigned to them. Judging by the vast amount of literary work he completed, it is clear that his scholarly work had precedence over his non-scholarly works of poetry.
Works
Wasā'il al-Shīʿa: a vast but concise compilation and classification of Hadith based on the Four Books as well as on many later sources. It took 18 years to compose.
al-Jawāher al-saniya fī al-aḥādith al-qudsiya: considered the first collection exclusively devoted to Sacred Hadith, or aḥādith qudsiya.
Isbāt al-Hudāt bin al-Noṣuṣ wa al-Muʿjizāt: describes the miracles of the 12 Imams and deals with the question of the divine right of the Imams to rule
Risala fī Tawatur al-Qur'an
Risala fī Mas'ala al-Rija't
Risala fī Khalq al-Kafir
Risala ithnā ʿashariya fī al-radd ʿalā al-ṣufiya : an anti-Sufi treatise representing much of his literary activities regarding them.
