The Core Concept of Astarābādī's Intellectual System and its Reflection in Biography (Tarājum) Sources

In analyzing the scholarly achievements، Muslim writers make extensive use of biography books. The information of people’s life and their geographical conditions، which are included in their specific intellectual inclinations، is usually extracted from these books، which can be used for quantitative analysis for presenting a portray of the overall figure of a society، in general، and its academic walks of life، in particular. Four centuries ago، in eleventh/seventeenth century، Muḥammad Amīn Astarābādī، brought up one of the scholarly achievements in a modern، and of course، extremist form. This idea greatly influenced the scholars of his time and afterwards and was considered a dominant Shī‘ī thinking for over a hundred years. Astarābādī is sometimes remembered as the founder and، at other times، as the regenerator of the traditionalists’ (akhbāriyūn) school. As to which of the above titles is appropriate for him، depends on tracing the history of traditionalism back to the early periods of Twelver Shī‘ism after the Occultation; or، it is considered as a new phenomenon. It is not important which of these titles (founder or regenerator) is true for Astarābādī، the important point is that the traditionalists’ way of thinking in the Safavid period challenged the procedure of jurisprudence and legal reasoning (ijtihād). After giving an overall picture of the core concepts of Astarābādī’s school of thought and the advances he made in the sources and principles of legal reasoning، the present article seeks to study the point that despite the efficacy of this school in the Safavid period and the comprehensive conflict of the traditionalists and legal theorists (uṣūlīs) for over a century (eleventh/seventeenth)، why has this issue been rarely spoken of in the biographies up to 150 years after the death of Muḥammad Amīn Astarābādī?