Waqafat ma Kitab al-Murajaat
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- Waqafat ma Kitab al-Murajaat
Waqafat ma‘a Kitab al-Muraja‘at (Critical Reflections on the Book of al-Muraja‘at) is a Sunni polemical critique by the Kuwaiti scholar Uthman al-Khamis, dedicated to refuting the Shi‘i book al-Muraja‘at authored by Abd al-Husayn Sharaf al-Din al-Musawi .
Origin and Structure
The work originated as a series of five audio lectures delivered by al-Khamis in an online voice chat room (Paltalk) . The recordings were subsequently transcribed and published in written form after being reviewed and linguistically edited by the administration of al-Manhaj, the official website of al-Khamis . The text is divided according to the original audio installments into five parts (tapes), concluding with question-and-answer segments addressing listener inquiries .
Content and Arguments
In the work, al-Khamis characterizes al-Muraja‘at as a promotional work designed for proselytization rather than an authentic representation of internal Twelver doctrine, noting its extensive circulation . He undertakes a critical analysis of its claims, disputing the authenticity of the alleged correspondence between al-Musawi and the grand imam of al-Azhar, Salim al-Bishri .
To substantiate this argument, al-Khamis presents several structural and textual points based on the third edition of al-Muraja‘at (published by Dar al-Islamiyyah in Beirut, 1406 AH / 1986 CE, edited by Husayn al-Radi) :
- Structural disproportion: Excluding the sixty-page introduction, al-Bishri's contributions comprise only 42 pages out of the book's 678 body pages, whereas al-Musawi's arguments span 636 pages .
- Tone and portrayal: Al-Bishri is depicted throughout the text in an attitude of continuous deference and praise, acting as an inquiring student before al-Musawi despite being over thirty years his senior .
- Stylistic unity: The linguistic phrasing of both correspondents is virtually identical, supported by al-Musawi's own prefatory admission that the written text was composed by his own pen decades after the purported meetings took place .
Al-Khamis also examines specific hadith citations and claims within al-Muraja‘at, analyzing their isnads and evaluating their status according to traditional Sunni hadith methodology, highlighting what he considers weak, misrepresented, or fabricated narrations . In the concluding questions, al-Khamis mentions other Sunni treatments of the book, such as Mahmud al-Zu‘bi's al-Bayyinat fi al-Radd ‘ala Kitab al-Muraja‘at, a Persian rebuttal by Abu al-Fadl al-Burqa‘i, and Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani's evaluation of the hadiths cited in al-Muraja‘at .
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