| This dissertation studies a textual tradition which documents the earliest and hitherto little known phase of two formative processes in Shi'i thought which are tied together in a dialectical bond. One of the processes was, broadly speaking, the opposition between the believers in the Imams' divinity and the proponents of their humanity, ending with the eventual defeat of the former. The other was the introduction of the Mu'tazili theological school's rational methods into Shi'i theology.;Both processes are documented very scantily. Only three original complete works by the ghulat have been published, two of which --- Kitab al-haft wa-l-az&dotbelow;illa and Kitab al-s&dotbelow;irat&dotbelow; --- contain detailed descriptions of the ghulat theology of the 2 nd/8th-4th/10th centuries. Of the writings of the earliest phase of Mu'tazili-influenced Imami thought, too, we know very little. There are two texts, however, which do appear to be very early specimens of this school of theology. They are preserved in the third volume of Majlisi's Bih&dotbelow;ar al-anwar, and are called Kitab al-ihlilaja (The Book of the Myrobalane Fruit) and Kitab al-tawh&dotbelow;id (The Book of Divine Unicity).;The similarity of style and content unifies each of the mentioned pairs of texts; each pair originated in roughly the same religious milieu, discusses similar ideas, and uses similar terminology. There is one thing, however, which unifies all four texts --- their alleged authorship. In all four, the main narrator is Mufad&dotbelow;d&dotbelow;al b. 'Umar al-Ju'fi, the companion of the sixth and seventh Shi'i Imams Ja'far al-S&dotbelow;adiq (d. 148/765) and Musa al-Kaz&dotbelow;im (d. 183/799).;This dissertation, then, analyzes the two strands of the Mufad&dotbelow;d&dotbelow;al-tradition --- his "extremist" legacy, and his "rationalist" one. It places them in time and space, studies the histories of their composition, and situates them in their historical context. It also studies their alleged author's life and religious and social environment through a novel interpretation of all available primary sources.;I begin my work with the study of Mufad&dotbelow;d&dotbelow;al's life and his religious and social milieu. In Chapter 1 I examine all the available information about Mufad&dotbelow;d&dotbelow;al in primary sources. I study Mufad&dotbelow;d&dotbelow;al's role as a member of the Shi'i community of Kufa and as a companion of the sixth and seventh Imams, while also trying to understand his religious views. I also inquire into the nature of the group which in heresiographic sources is called "Mufad&dotbelow;d&dotbelow;aliyya" after him.;In my Chapter 2 I analyze one of the two major treatises of the Mufad&dotbelow;d&dotbelow;al-tradition's "extremist" strand --- Kitab al-s&dotbelow;irat&dotbelow;. I begin the chapter by addressing (and ultimately rejecting) existing views about its authorship. I then situate it in space and time by combining scant references in the text itself with the comparison of its various features to other works; this allows me to situate the text somewhere between the years 260/874 and 329/941. Finally, I analyze the theology and cosmology of the work.;In Chapter 3, I study Kitab al-haft wa-l-az&dotbelow;illa --- the second "extremist" Mufaddal-work. Here I also begin by analyzing, and again rejecting, the existing views of its authorship. I further demonstrate that the text consists of at least seven separate layers, which were composed over two or three hundred years, beginning probably from the 2nd/8th century to the 5th/11 th. Emerging in the ghulat milieu of Kufa, the book was transplanted to Syria by the Nusayris, who added several textual layers to it.;Since the two works forming the rational strand of the Mufad&dotbelow;d&dotbelow;al-tradition are relatively short, have very similar theologies and vocabularies, and present similar challenges for determining their authorship and date, I analyze them together in Chapter 4. As before, I begin by studying their authorship and date through the comparison of some of their features to other texts of known authorship. I combine this information with some textual features of the two texts and with references to them in bibliographic literature. The chapter ends with the analysis of the theological arguments of the two works.;The conclusion sums up the findings of all the chapters and offers some further reflections on the relations between the various parts of the Mufad&dotbelow;d&dotbelow;al-tradition on the one hand, and on the relation between the works and their alleged author on the other. It also looks at the later trajectories of the Mufad&dotbelow;d&dotbelow;al-tradition's two strands by examining their manuscript histories. |
