Marja system

[Furkan]

Assalamu alaykoum.

How did the marja come into existence? Is it something which their imams explained and commanded?

I had read that this whole system of following a marja is actually something very new invented some hundred years or a bit more ago. Don't know if it's true.

[Hani]

What you stated is true, one of their biggest scholars who was a part of the group that invented this concept wrote about it in his book.

[Furkan]

Is there an article about this?

If not, can you give basis information about this issue, brother?

So actually all twelvers were akhbari ?

[Hani]

Is there an article about this?

If not, can you give basis information about this issue, brother?

So actually all twelvers were akhbari ?

No not necessarily, originally all Imamiyyah were tribal folks who followed certain men who claimed to be "supporters of Ahlul-Bayt" and "scholars taught by the Imams". Each man would have his followers and each group had variant beliefs to an extent. This Akhbari/Usooli stuff happened later I suppose.


I forgot the name of the scholar and his book, but I remember reading it and so it's as you described.

[Furkan]

Hmm ok, seems like they went back to the times of jahiliya and reviving the tribal traditions of Quraish

[Furkan]

Brother Hani, look what I found:

https://books.google.be/books?id=OUpAxUCviY8C&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&ots=8TIAjKBFJf&focus=viewport&dq=marja+system&hl=nl&output=html_text

[Taha]

I'm not an expert and what I'm saying is strictly from memory, so don't lynch me if I'm wrong.


No, the modern-day practice of taqleed was not commanded by the Imams.  Basically, starting with the latter half of the 12 Imams, they would send very knowledgeable companions of theirs out and they commanded their followers to ask these "scholars" questions if the Imam was unavailable.  That's where it first started.  When the 12th went into occultation, the same general idea continued.  The scholars were those that narrated and collected hadeeths.  Ask a question, get a hadeeth from the Imam.  Later, scholars started using ijtihad to determine on certain new issues.  Eventually this evolved into the Marjiyyat that we have today under the Safavids.  There have been more recent developments, too, such as the whole WF nonsense in Iran.


It will be interesting to see what the future holds.

[Hadrami]

I'm not an expert and what I'm saying is strictly from memory, so don't lynch me if I'm wrong.


No, the modern-day practice of taqleed was not commanded by the Imams.  Basically, starting with the latter half of the 12 Imams, they would send very knowledgeable companions of theirs out and they commanded their followers to ask these "scholars" questions if the Imam was unavailable.  That's where it first started.  When the 12th went into occultation, the same general idea continued.  The scholars were those that narrated and collected hadeeths.  Ask a question, get a hadeeth from the Imam.  Later, scholars started using ijtihad to determine on certain new issues.  Eventually this evolved into the Marjiyyat that we have today under the Safavids.  There have been more recent developments, too, such as the whole WF nonsense in Iran.


It will be interesting to see what the future holds.

This is what I don't understand about the concept of after Rasulullah shallallahu alaihi wasallam "we need infallible imam" because shia say ONLY IMAM CAN NEVER MAKE MISTAKE in religion (hence truth will be preserved) and yet everything that shia knows today about their religion came from NON INFALLIBLES.

So either shia agree with us that sahaba can convey & preserve the truth or shia belief that shiaism is MAJORITY falsehood & MAYBE a very tiny of it are truth because MAJORITY of it comes from non infallibles

[Furkan]

^ true