Introduction

Not much is known of Muhammad Salih al-Mazandarani’s life (hereon Mazandarani). His name suggests that he descended from the Mazandaran region in the north of Iran. His date of birth is unknown; in light of a report that at the time of his death in 1285/1868 he was around eighty- years old, he was likely born at the beginning of the thirteenth century AH, which coincides with the first decades of the Qajar dynasty (1789-1925).¹ In addition to receiving seminary training in Isfahan, he studied in Karbala and Najaf with some of the prominent scholars of the time, in­cluding Muhammad Sharif al-Mazandarani (d.

Mazandarani has received scant attention in biographical dictionaries and none of his writings are available in print. Besides a few brief treatises on legal topics and a work comprised of his notes (taqriraf) taken from the lectures of his teacher Sharif al-'Ulama³ (d. 1245/1829),³ Mazandarani wrote two books on jurisprudence. The first, titled Usul al-fiqh (‘On Jurisprudence’), was written early in his career; it encompasses only two chapters, one on linguistic postulates and theories of scriptural interpretation (alfaz), and the other on rational proofs (adilla 'aqliyya). The book’s unorganised presentation, a lack of uniform style, and the fact that it was left unfin­ished has led some to suspect that it was written as a preliminary to his more elaborate work on jurisprudence, Kawashif al-hujub 'an mushkilat al-kutub (‘Removing the Veils from Obscurities of Books’).⁴ Mazandarani does not mention when he completed this work, although in a biographi­cal work 1247/1832 is reported as a completion date.⁵

As Mazandarani remarks in the preface, compared to other texts of jurisprudence, Kawashif al-hujub is a book of medium length.

Mazandarani’s approach to the issues he discusses in Kawashif al-hujub is representative of the Usuli jurisprudence.⁷ The Usuli jurisprudential paradigm had faced a serious challenge at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Muhammad Amin al-Astarabadi (d. c. 1033/1623), ac­knowledged as the founder of the Akhbari movement, had undermined the central juristic prin­ciples of his contemporaries.⁸ This was met with a concerted effort to counter the Akhbari cur­rent, which had become increasingly popular.

The fact that Kawashif al-hujub still remains in manuscript form and a critical edition is yet to be published indicates its lack of widespread readership or impact.¹⁰ Mazandarani may have been overshadowed by his influential contemporaries like Murtada al-Ansari (d. 1281/1864), who is considered one of the most prominent Shi'i jurists in history.¹¹ Despite its unenthusiastic reception thus far, Kawashif al-hujub remains an appealing text. For our part, we have chosen two of its sections. Following Mazandarani’s preface to the book, Section 39 examines whether non-believers can become experts in Islamic law; Section 12 is on the probative force of the prima facie sense (zawahir) of the Qur’an.¹² It is hoped that the passages presented here will kindle the interest of a reader to pursue the entire text.

In keeping with the volume’s overarching aim, we have avoided a word-for-word translation of the Arabic text; instead, the following is a close paraphrase, accompanied with commentary whenever necessary. The following edition is based on the MS #1443 of Kashif al-Ghita' Library in Najaf.