Abstract
Muhammad b. 'Ali b. Husayn b. Babuyah al-Qummi (d. 381/991-2), known as Ibn Babuyah or al-Shaykh al-Saduq, is the author of the Man la yahdurh al-faqih, one of the four canonical collections of Shi'ite hadith, and regarded as one of the foremost traditionists among the Twelver Shi'a. However, in the early rijal works, Ibn Babuyah had been authorized merely as “jalil”, that is, important. On the other hand, two other compillers of the four canonical collections, al-Kulayni and al-Shaykh al-Ta'ifah al-Tusi (d. 460/1067-8), enjoyed the highest esteem “thiqah” which means fully trustworthy in the transmission of hadith.
To find the reason of his appparently lower evalutaion, the present study focuses on the question of ghaybah, comparing Ibn Babuyah's approach to traditions in Kamal al-din wa-tamam al-ni'mah with that of al-Shaykh al-Ta'ifah al-Tusi in Kitab al-ghaybah, who himself appreciated Ibn Babuyah “jalil” in his Fihrist.
Ibn Babuyah made the best use of traditions to define, clarify and verify the twelfth Imam's ghaybah as a corporeal incident, claiming that only through ‘hearing’ traditions, the words of the Prophet and Imams, man can obtain true knowledge with the help of Divine grace.
On the other hand, al-Tusi had much less confidence in traditions and made them supplementary. Following the rational method of his teachers such as al-Shaykh al-Mufid and al-Murtada, he tried to solve the problems caused by Imam's ghaybah by using mainly human reason.
Considering the differece of their approaches to traditions, it can be said that the split between pre-Akhbaris and Usulis had already started since then, and that this caused the judgement of Ibn Babuyah as jalil.
