The interaction of Mu'tazila-Imâmiyya in the Buwayhids period

The Buwayhids are a Shiite dynasty that emerged in a geography with Zaidi-Mu'tazilite tradition and dominated on the Sunni Abbasid administration for more than a century. During this time, they played an active role in the spread and fusion of Imâmiyya and Mu'tazila ideas by protecting Imâmiyya and Mu'tazila scholars. Scholars such as al-Sheikh al-Sadûq, al-Sheikh al-Mufîd, al-Sharîf al-Murtadâ, al-Sharîf al-Radî and Abû Ja'far al-Tûsî, who were influential in the Imâmiyya's at-taining a rational identity, were educated during the Buwayhids period. Except for al-Sheikh al-Sadûq, all of these scholars were educated by the important Mu'tazila scholars of the time, such as Abû Abd Allah al-Basrî, Ali b. Îsâ al-Rummânî, Mu-hammad b. Imrân al-Marzubânî and al-Qâdî Abd al-Jabbâr, and they learned the Mu'tazilite thought from them. While Imâmiyya thought had a traditional structure based on akhbâr in the early period, it experienced a rational transformation under the influence of Mu'tazilite ideas during the Buwayhids period. The Imâmiyya scholars of the period brought the ideas of Mu'tazila into their own thought systems and created a rational knowledge system. They adopted Mu'tazilite ideas in the whole issue of tawhîd and justice, in some of the issues of wa'd-waîd and prophethood. They differed on the imâmate issue, but they benefited from the Mu'tazilite method in explaining the issue. This rational transformation, which took place on the axis of Mu'tazilite ideas in Imâmiyya, took place gradually in time from al-Sheikh al-Sadûq to Abû Ja'far al-Tûsî. The most influential names of this transformation were al-Sheikh al-Mufîd and al-Sharîf al-Murtadâ. In this con-text, the political-historical background of the Mu'tazila-Imâmiyya interaction that took place in the Buwayhids period has been examined in the first part of our study, its scientific basis in the second part and its intellectual structure in the third part. Keywords: Buwayhids, Imâmiyya, Mu'tazila, tawhîd, justice, al-Sheikh al-Sadûq, al-Sheikh al-Mufîd, al-Sharîf al-Murtadâ, Abû Ja'far al-Tûsî, al-Qâdî Abd al-Jabbâr.