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, Āyatullah Sayyid Muḥammad Kāẓim , a high-ranking and influential Iranian cleric (d. 1986). He was born in 1905 in Tabrīz where he started his theological studies. In 1924 he continued his studies in Ḳum, and in 1935 he went to Nad̲j̲af. His return to Tabrīz was the starting-point of a career as a teacher, first in his native city and subsequently in Ḳum, where he had moved toward the end of the forties, at the invitation of Āyatullāh Burūd̲j̲irdī [ q.v. in Suppl.]. Here he became one of the most respected leaders of the S̲h̲īʿī community and in his capacity as Mard̲j̲aʿ-i Taḳlīd [ q.v.] he drew h…

, influential Iranian intellectual (1933-77). He was born at Mazīhān (K̲h̲urāsān), as the son of Muḥammad Taḳī S̲h̲arīʿatī, a preacher. His secondary education he received in Mas̲h̲had and in 1951 he qualified as teacher. His first publications and ¶ translations, as well as his involvement in politics, date from this period. In 1956 he enrolled as a student at the Faculty of Letters in Mas̲h̲had. Receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1959, he was rewarded with a scholarship. A year later he went to Paris where he studied religious his…

, the twelfth imām according to the It̲h̲nā ʿAs̲h̲ariyya [ q.v.] or Twelver S̲h̲īʿa. When the eleventh imām, al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-ʿAskarī [ q.v.], died in 260/874, the question who was to be recognised as his successor split the [proto-] S̲h̲īʿī community into numerous factions. Al-S̲h̲ahrastānī ( K. al-Milal wa ’l-niḥal ) counts eleven, al-Nawbak̲h̲tī ( Firaḳ al-s̲h̲īʿa ) fourteen, Saʿd al-Ḳummī ( K. al-Maḳālāt wa ’l-firaḳ ) fifteen and al-Masʿūdī ( Murūd̲j̲ al-d̲h̲ahab ) as many as twenty different factions. The opinions put forward by these fac…

(a.), literally “permission”, dispensation”. 1. In law. ¶ Here, ruk̲h̲ṣa is a legal ruling relaxing or suspending by way of exception under certain circumstances an injunction of a primary and general nature ( ʿazīma [ q.v.]). The general obligation to fast during Ramaḍān is, by way of rukhṣa , suspended during the days of an illness or a journey, under condition that these days are made up after Ramaḍān. Similarly, the general prohibition to eat meat that has not been ritually slaughtered is suspended if a Muslim could …