The Words of the Imams

The study of early Twelver Shi‘ism is rife with reductionist and deterministic analysis that emphasizes a smooth evolution from a community led by an Imam to one with its Imam in occultation. It is pleasure then to come across Warner’s new book on al-Shaykh al-?aduq which is brimming with a complexity and nuance that is rare in the field. Utilizing the full range of al-?aduq’s surviving literary output, Warner paints a portrait of the development of Twelver Shi‘ism that gives lie to the tired binary of traditionalism versus rationalism. Through it all, Warner asks all the right questions: Why did al-?aduq’s work survive? What led to its veneration by future generations? What can we learn by comparing his literary works with his legal writings? Rather than a narrowly focused biography of al-?aduq (as is typical), Warner uses al-?aduq to shed light on a Shi‘i community at a moment of radical transition and transformation. This book promises to rewrite our understanding of early Twelve Shi‘ism and model a new approach to communal histories of early Islam. * Najam Haider, Barnard College, USA * ‘This is an excellent book and an important contribution to the study of hadith and early Twelver Shi’ism. It is one of the few thoroughgoing analyses of an individual Imami author’s oeuvre, and it takes as its object an author whose work richly deserves to be discussed in detail.’ * Edmund Hayes, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands *