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Shaykh al-Tusi

Shaykh al-Tusi

995 CE–1067 CE · Tus

Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi (385-460 AH / 995-1067 CE), known by the honorific Shaykh al-Ta'ifa ("leader of the [Shia] community"), was one of the most influential scholars of Twelver Shia Islam. He was a faqih (jurist), a traditionist who collected hadith (reports of the words and deeds of the Prophet and the Imams), a Qur'anic commentator, and a theologian.

Born in Tus in Khurasan (north-east Iran), he moved to Baghdad around 408 AH / 1018 at the age of twenty-three. There he studied first with al-Shaykh al-Mufid and then, after al-Mufid's death, with al-Sharif al-Murtada. When al-Murtada died in 436 AH / 1044, al-Tusi was widely recognised as the foremost scholar of the Imami Shia.

His lasting fame rests on his books. Two of his hadith collections, the Tahdhib al-Ahkam and al-Istibsar, became two of the "Four Books" that Twelver Shia tradition regards as its principal canonical hadith collections. His legal works al-Mabsut and al-Nihaya, his Qur'an commentary al-Tibyan, and his works on the evaluation of hadith narrators (rijal) shaped Shia scholarship for centuries.

In the upheavals of 447-448 AH, amid Sunni-Shia disturbances in Baghdad's Karkh quarter following the Seljuk takeover, his house and library were reportedly burned. He relocated to Najaf, where Shia tradition credits him with establishing the religious seminary (hawza) that remains a major centre of Shia learning. He died in Najaf in 460 AH / 1067 and was buried there.

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Stop 1 of 3995–1018Born

Tus

What they did here

Born in Tus in Khurasan (north-east Iran) in Ramadan 385 AH / 995 CE, where he received his early education before emigrating. Sources describe him as of Persian (Khurasani) origin.

About Tus

Tus, in the Khurasan region of northeastern Iran near modern Mashhad, was a major medieval city, birthplace of the poet Firdawsi (d. c. 1020) and of the theologian al-Ghazali (d. 1111), who was born and died there. Nearby is the shrine that grew up around the tomb of the imam Ali al-Rida (d. 818); the polymath Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (d. 1274) also took his nisba from the city.

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The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Shaykh al-Tusi’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(15)