KARBALĀʾ HERITAGE Quarterly Authorized Journal Specialized in Karbalāʾ Heritage

Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdi bin Hidayat Allāh al-Musawi al-Isfahani al-Khurāsānī, known as the Fourth Martyr, is counted among the most prominent students of the great scholar al-‘Allāma al-Wahīd al-Bahbahānī (d. 1205 AH), having studied under him for years in the holy city of Karbala.
After completing his studies in the seminary of holy Karbalā’, he traveled to the holy city of Mashhad, where he assumed the leadership of its religious seminary. Many students of knowledge and distinguished scholars studied under him, such as al-‘Allāma Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdī Baḥr al-‘Ulūm (d. 1212 AH) and Sayyid Dildār ‘Alī al-Naqawī (d. 1235 AH).

Sayyid the Fourth Martyr was martyred during the events that occurred in Mashhad as a result of Nādir Mīrzā bin Shāhrokh Mīrzā Afshār (d. 1218 AH) and the Qājār government, at the hands of Nādir Mīrzā or someone close to him; thus he was given the title the Fourth Martyr. He left behind numerous works in various branches of knowledge, and multiple manuscript copies of them exist in different libraries across Iran.

This study aims to shed light on his scholarly efforts and his manuscript writings and to introduce them, hoping to enrich the Shi‘i library with beneficial information.

The Arabic language is the language of the Noble Qur’an, and this is what granted it diversity in its styles and multiple levels. We were honored to study this language and belong to it, and we found no choice but to select a style that suits the nature of the material chosen for study, namely the phonetic style. Since the scholars of Karbalā’ across successive periods served and enriched this language through their sources, the choice fell on a work by our well-known scholar, the gnostic Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn ibn ʿAlī al-Kaf‘amī, one of the scholars of the tenth Hijrī century, specifically the book (Muḥāsabat al-Nafs al-Lawwāmah wa Tanbīh al-Rūḥ al-Nawwāmah), due to the values it contains that serve the Islamic religion on one hand and the Arabic language on the other. The phonetic style had the greatest presence in this book, and we adopted it due to the presence of rhyme-prose, repetition, paronomasia, and other phonetic features that the research will reveal.

Before the esteemed reader is the biography of Shaykh Muḥammad Bāqir al-Maḥmūdī, his valuable scholarly contributions, his role in documenting and preserving heritage, a description of his methodology, and how he actively contributed new additions to Islamic culture. Shaykh al-Maḥmūdī belongs to a scholarly family that produced a generation of notable figures who offered their great services with full dedication and sincerity.
The researcher presented an introduction to the shaykh, listing the names of his teachers, his students, his works, his writing methodology, and his scholarly standing; Shaykh al-Maḥmūdī devoted great care to this study, exerting commendable effort in verification and precision, which is no easy task, especially since this output is scattered across many years in numerous sources that require significant effort to obtain.
This attention to the creative legacy left to us by Shaykh al-Maḥmūdī is worthy of respect and care, and he recorded a clear presence in the Karbalā’ school, in addition to his sincerity in work, his preservation of heritage, and his pride in it.

This shaykh was one of the scholars who had an important impact on the scholarly movement, yet pens overlooked him, failing to shed light on his life and experience. He was a man of much study, abundant knowledge, skilled in his craft, well-informed of the subtleties of heritage texts. This study required returning to a number of diverse sources and references, varying between printed and manuscript works, as well as books and scholarly studies.

This beautiful work is one of the badī‘iyyāt composed by their authors in praise of the Greatest Messenger (peace be upon him and his family). It is among the books that offer its reader an artistic delight, abundant scholarly and literary benefits, and sweetness to the mind and the ear through the poetry composed about the personality of the Greatest Messenger (peace be upon him and his family).
Its value and status increased because its composer explained its verses and clarified what they contain of badī‘ lines and their types, in the style of a literary critic, a learned scholar proficient in the art of badī‘ in its forms and branches. He analyzes the verse, then interprets its meaning, then lists diverse examples from the verses of the Noble Book, the sayings of the Noble Prophet (peace be upon him and his family), Arabic poetry, and the words of eloquent speakers. And this is not surprising, for our shaykh al-Kaf‘amī is an innovative author, knowledgeable in the sciences and fields of knowledge.

The construction of any literary work resembles the construction of a house; any flaw in that structure will inevitably lead to its collapse and downfall. The same can be said about these majālis: any defect that occurs in the construction of the literary text—whether in its introduction, its middle, or its conclusion—will affect its aesthetic quality, the receiver’s inclination toward it, and its impact upon him.

Classical critics paid great attention to the structure of the text. Ibn Rashīq al-Qayrawānī (d. 456 AH) dedicated a separate chapter in his book al-ʿUmda fī Maḥāsin al-Shiʿr wa Ādābih wa Naqdih entitled “Chapter on the Beginning, the Transition, and the Ending,” in which he defines the main components upon which the literary text is built in every time and place.

Textual verification occupies a broad place in Islamic heritage due to its great importance in preserving the legacy and transmitting it to the contemporary reality, in order to enrich the Islamic library with the knowledge offered by earlier scholars who excelled in their fields. Among such verifications is the editing of what Shaykh al-Kaf‘amī wrote of marginal notes and commentaries on some sections of the two books Irshād al-Adhhān ilā Aḥkām al-Īmān by al-‘Allāmah al-Ḥasan ibn Yūsuf ibn al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī (726 AH), and al-Durūs al-Sharʿiyyah fī Fiqh al-Imāmiyyah by the First Martyr Muḥammad ibn Makkī al-‘Āmilī (786 AH). These are among the most important jurisprudential works authored in the eighth Hijrī century. The research includes the biography of Shaykh al-Kaf‘amī, his scholarly life, some of his works and manuscript copies, followed by the verified text of the marginalia.

Three major paradigms have consistently shaped moral philosophy over the centuries: virtue ethics, deontological ethics, and consequential ethics. Virtue ethics emphasizes the cultivation of moral character as the key to achieving happiness (eudaimonia). Deontological ethics centers on adherence to moral law and the inherent worth of treating humanity as an end rather than a means. Consequential ethics, in contrast, assesses moral actions primarily through their outcomes rather than their intrinsic nature. Although each paradigm offers valuable insights, their distinct emphases often generate philosophical tensions, as each highlight particular ethical dimensions while overlooking others. Virtue ethics refrains from invoking submission to a higher power and does not ground happiness within such a framework. Deontological ethics, while emphasizing duty, often neglects the deeper synthesis of humanity, virtue, and spirituality. Consequential ethics focuses only on consequences and neglects virtues of moral agents. In this context, an integrated model can reconcile these three paradigms. Dr. Chris Hewer, an Irish-Christian theologian, provides a meta-historical interpretation of the life of Imam Hussain (PBUH) that seeks to transcend these divisions. His reading presents the Imam’s life and martyrdom in Karbala as a moral framework in which essential ethical components—reason, emotion, and virtue—are brought into meaningful coherence. Drawing on Hewer’s meta-historical analysis, the present paper proposes, perhaps for the first time, an integrated ethical model that harmonizes at least three foundational elements—submission, humanity, and happiness—offering a potential integrative model of the classical paradigms of moral thought.