علم الرجال : مسائله و فوائده و الحاجة إليه عند الإمامية

Abstract EN

Knowledge of Men: A science which researches on the conditions of the narrator from the point of view of accepting or rejecting the information based on upon his characteristics.

The most important issue is knowing the situation of the narrator from the standpoint of their being fair or unfair, trusted or not trusted, praised or reprised, neglected or forgotten.

There is also a necessity to consider their teachers, their students, their lives, their status in society and other factors upon which depend the accepting of the news by the deriver of the law.

There is also the topic of gathering the names of the narrators of the traditions and researching their situations as it is related to accepting the news based upon trust, status in society, sect and other factors that have an influence on accepting or rejecting the news.

The conclusion to this knowledge is to know which narrator to accept from and which to reject from.

That is to take a standpoint on the situation of the narrators from the point of view of trust or lack thereof and from here is shown what is accepted from what isn't.

The benefits of knowing the science is knowing the level of strength or weakness in the chain of narrators, the characteristics of the narrators, the level of trust in him, establishing the proofs for the narrators, encompassing the entire heritage of the traditions, the study of all the stray sects and the straight sects, along with the study of all the creeds of the different sects.

There is also the benefit of knowing the most significant issues that the Imamia Sect is known for and knowing the speech of the early scholars and expressing them in various scientific topics and the benefits it offers to the other Islamic Sciences and that is to protect the heritage of the narrators and the practices (sunnah) from being lost, changed, deleted from and that is the greatest advantage it has.

And the need for the Knowledge of Men is clear because knowledge of the Sharia rulings isn't enough as compared to the whole of logical rulings and the continuous news that comes from many different sources.

Therefore, nothing comes from it except knowledge of the main rulings and what follows and not all the details.

And those who believe there is a need for the Knowledge of Men continue to point two main things: First is the proof of the trusted news.

Second is the referring to the characteristics of the narrator in the news.

Third is the presence of the liars in the narrators.

Fourth is the presence of differences in the chains of the narrations.

Fifth is the biographies of the scholars.