Akhbari school

Akhbari school is a living tradition within Twelver Shia Islam. Also written Aḵbāriyya, Akhbariyya.

Origin

Founder named in the sources: Mulla Muhammad Amin b. Muhammad Sharif al-Astarabadi (d. 1033/1624 or 1036/1627), of the later school only. No founding year is given below, because the sources read do not agree on one and a date has not been chosen for them. Two distinct things carry this name and the entry keeps them apart. (1) An early school: Encyclopaedia Iranica defines Akhbariyya as 'a school in Imamite Shiʿism which maintains that the traditions (aḵbār) of the Imams are the main source of religious knowledge, in contrast to the Oṣūlī school', and finds the earliest reference to it as a distinct school in al-Shahrastani's Ketab al-melal wa'l-nehal, composed 521/1127. 'No contemporaneous defense of the beliefs of the Aḵbārīs is known to have survived', so the early school is known almost entirely through its opponents. (2) The later school, which does have a founder: 'The first exponent of the full-fledged Aḵbārī position is Mollā Moḥammad Amīn ... Astarābādī (d. 1033/1624 or 1036/1627), the founder of the later Aḵbārī school' - two death years, neither chosen. His al-Fawaʾed al-madaniya was completed at Mecca in 1031/1622, and he states he wrote it at the instruction of his teacher Muhammad b. ʿAli al-Astarabadi (d. 1028/1619), who told him he had been predestined to 'revive the ṭarīqa of the Aḵbārīs'. Astarabadi therefore presents himself as a restorer, not an innovator, and the entry records that self-description rather than adjudicating it. No founding year is asserted for either.