The text-orientated state of Allamah Majlisi's approach in selecting the sources and traditions of Biḥār al-Anwār with an emphasis on traditions dealing with Imamate

Amongst Shia hadith collections Biḥār al-Anwār has gained a greater significance due to its total comprehensiveness from the aspect of subjects, sources and its hadith content, as well as the scholarly presence of his compiler, 'Allamah Muhammad Baqir Majlisi in the book. By studying this book and the comments furnished by the compiler one clearly notices the selective treatment of 'Allamah Majlisi with regard to the sources and the traditions. Following in footsteps of the earlier traditionists in assessment of the validity of hadiths, he considered textual indications more important than the isnad-orientated indications. This article by making use of a descriptive-analytical method on the seventh volume of the book Biḥār al-Anwār dealing with the traditions addressing divinely appointed leadership (imamate) shows that the compiler was text-orientated in selecting the traditions, and mostly benefited from genuine early Shia sources which contained musnad hadiths (traditions furnished with isnads). His method in most of the cases was taking advantage of a collection of traditions of a chapter from a particular source to complete a hadith family on a particular subject. However, in certain cases, the reason for giving precedence to a source over another is not clear.