''The Four Books'' ( ar-at, ٱلْكُتُب ٱلْأَرْبَعَة, '), or ''The Four Principles'' (''al-Uṣūl al-Arbaʿah''), is a
Twelver Shia
Twelver Shīʿīsm ( ar, ٱثْنَا عَشَرِيَّة; '), also known as Imāmīyyah ( ar, إِمَامِيَّة), is the largest branch of Shīʿa Islam, comprising about 85 percent of all Shīʿa Muslims. The term ''Twelver'' refers t ...
term referring to their four best-known
''hadith'' collections:
Most Shi'a
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
s use different books of hadith from those used by other Muslims, who prize the
six major hadith collections. In particular, Twelver Shi'a consider many Sunni transmitters of hadith to be unreliable because many of them took the side of
Abu Bakr,
Umar,
Uthman and
Ali instead of only Ali (and the rest of Muhammad's family) and the majority of them were narrated through certain personalities that waged war against
Ahlul Bayt
Ahl al-Bayt ( ar, أَهْل ٱلْبَيْت, ) refers to the family of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, but the term has also been extended in Sunni Islam to apply to all descendants of the Banu Hashim (Muhammad's clan) and even to all Muslims. ...
or sided with their enemies such as
Aisha
Aisha ( ar, , translit=ʿĀʾisha bint Abī Bakr; , also , ; ) was Muhammad's third and youngest wife. In Islamic writings, her name is thus often prefixed by the title "Mother of the Believers" ( ar, links=no, , ʾumm al-mu'min, muʾminīn), ...
that fought Ali at Jamal, or
Muawiya
Mu'awiya I ( ar, معاوية بن أبي سفيان, Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān; –April 680) was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than thirty years after the de ...
who did so at Siffin.
Hussain (grandson of Muhammad and son of Ali ibn Abi Talib) was martyred at the Battle of Karbala. Shia trust traditions transmitted through the
Imams, Muhammad's descendants through
Fatima Zahra.
Momen, Moojan
Moojan Momen is a retired physician and historian specializing in Baháʼí studies who has published numerous books and articles about the Baháʼí Faith and Islam, especially Shia Islam, including for Encyclopædia Iranica*
*
* the British Li ...
, ''Introduction to Shi'i Islam'', Yale University Press, 1985, p.174
See also
*
List of Shi'a books
Notes
References
Shia hadith collections
{{Islam-book-stub