A Comparative Study of the Historical Origins of the Emergence of the Tafkik and Akhbari Schools

The present paper is a comparative study of the historical origins of the emergence of the two Tafkik (Khorasan School of Gnostic Knowledge) and Akhbari schools. This paper is a prerequisite and an introduction to a simultaneous examination of the principles of Quranic interpretation in these two schools. In recent years, some research papers have named the Tafkik School a neo-Akhbari school and claimed that this school is nothing but an eleventh century Akhbari school, which has once again appeared in the fourteenth century with a new covering. Prior to examining the interpretive principles of these two schools, the present paper analyzes the likely backgrounds of their emergence in order to pave the way for a comparative study of these principles in the light of correct understanding. The results of this study reveal that intending to protect the authentic and revelational sources, the Tafkik and Akhbari schools emerged during a period in the history of Shiite thought to confront extremism; they both abandoned almost the whole Quran and Sunnah and turned to philosophical and theological deliberations. In fact, the spirit governing the emergence of the two schools was very similar, but apparently some of the factors influencing the emergence of these two schools were different