Transmitting imĀmĪ ḤadĪth, preserving knowledge: Remarks on three amĀlĪ works of the buwayhĪ period

One of the sub-genres of the Imāmī ḥadīth literature to which very little attention had been paid in scholarship so far is known by the term amālī, that is, “dictations”. The centrality of amālī works within the Shīʿī corpus is easily discernable due to the repeated references to, and numerous quotations from, four amālī works that bear the names of four prominent scholars of the Buwayhī period (334/945-447/1055): Ibn Bābawayh, al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq (d. 381/991), al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022), Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067), and al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā (d. 436/1044). Unlike al-Murtaḍā’s Amālī, the three Amālīs attributed to the other scholars clearly belong within what seems to constitute a well-defined, though understudied, sub-genre of ḥadīth literature. Referring to thematic, stylistic, and technical aspects characteristic of these works, the present article sets out to explore unfamiliar sides of this sub-genre and evaluate its importance for the transmission and preservation of knowledge following the onset of the twelfth Imām’s greater occultation (329/941).