Light Increase of the Commander of the Faithful (pbuh) In the written heritage of Imamiyah

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Abstract

Light increase of the Commander of the Faithful (pbuh), which is
qualitatively of the kind and accompanied by the Holy Prophet’s
light increase, is among the usages of the term “light” in the Islamic
written heritage. Data for this have been presented in the two
large scale fields of reports and its scholars’ approaches. Reports
concerning this pointـalso wellـknown as the hadith of lightـmay be
seen in many authentic written Imami texts (though their authors
followed various hadith and theological movements). Documents
for this hadith may be traced back, through eighteen ways, to the
Holy Prophet (PBUH) and some Infallible Imams, and according to
the criteria to evaluate authenticity of a hadith, this one is classified
under the most authentic ones, “hadiths with a successive chain
of narrators”. In the Imami scholars’ approach to the aboveـ
mentioned heritage, in addition to agreement with reports, some
functions of it have been recorded among which we may mention
historical, theological, and interpretive ones.

Keywords