A Research on the Periodography of the Imamiyah Jurisprudence

The science of jurisprudence has witnessed many ups and downs and has gone through different periods since its emergence. However, periodography of jurisprudence is a newborn field of study.Knowledge of the historyof jurisprudence and its periods and the status of jurisprudential practice in different periods can assist in a better understanding of jurisprudence and factors affecting its ups and downs. Sunni scholars have begun to write distinctly about the history of jurisprudence before Shia scholars, but they have failed to refer to the Shia history as an independent phenomenon. Shia jurisprudence historians have categorized Shia jurisprudence into different periods each using their own specific criterions. For instance, Shehābi has investigated different periods of jurisprudence based on time criterion, while Āsefi has studied the history of jurisprudence based on location criterion. This study used an analytical-descriptive method and contains two parts: the first part reports on ten cases of general periodographies of Imamiyah jurisprudence and then the related works has been analyzed following each case. In the second part of the paper, the authors have discussed Imamiyah jurisprudence within thirteen periods with respect to the development of jurisprudence due to the gradual evolution of jurisprudents' views.