An Examination of the Content of Muntakhab al-Athar and Its Place in Contemporary Mahdiism Studies

A content analysis of the book "Muntakhab al-Athar fi al-Imam al-Thani Ashar" written by Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpayegani can introduce an outstanding work in this field to those interested in Mahdiism. This book, in various editions, has narrated different numbers of Mahdiism narratives. In the one-volume edition of 830 narratives, the three-volume edition of 1287 narratives with Persian translation and the six-volume edition of 1301 narratives have been narrated from about three hundred Sunni and Shiite sources in Mahdism. The present article aims to answer this basic question, what is the most prominent feature of this work, which has led to serious attention in Mahdiism studies in the past seven decades? The finding suggests that this work has played a prominent role in Mahdiism studies after it, due to the inclusion of narratives in most Mahdiism topics with a new arrangement and relevant analyses. The hadiths of this book are arranged in ten chapters in various topics. What makes this work stand out from other hadith books is the significant number of analyses that the author has expressed in the footnotes about some hadiths. In this book, instead of repeating each hadith in each chapter, at the end of each chapter, the hadith that was mentioned before is referred to by citing its position and number.