The title "al-Mufid" was given to him either by Muhammad al-Mahdi, the twelfth Shia Imam,[3] or by al-Rummani, a Sunni scholar, after a conversation with him.
He was taught by Al-Shaykh al-Saduq, Ibn Qulawayh, Abu Abdallah al-Basri and al-Rummani, and Sharif al-Murtaza and Shaykh Tusi were among his students.
[4] Commonly known as the leader of the Shia,[5][8][9] Al-Mufid is regarded as the most famous scholar of the Buyid period and an eminent jurist,[2][5] mainly due to his contributions in the field of kalam.
After the lecture, al-Mufid visited al-Rummani and asked him about Aisha, Talha, and Zubayr, who had rebelled against Ali, "a legitimate Imam".
[4] However, according to Ibn Shahr Ashub, in his Ma'alimul Ulamaa, the name was given to him by Muhammad al-Mahdi, the twelfth Shia Imam.
[1][3] Taught by Abdallah al-Basri, the Mutazili theologian and hanafi jurist,[10] al-Mufid adopted many theological opinions.
[11] Macdermott believes[citation needed] that al-Mufid's theology is closer to the old Baghdad school of Mutazilism than to Abdul Jabbar's late Basran system.
Al-Mufid tried to defend the role of reason – he described it as Al-Nazar – and also disputed for the truth and put away faults with the help of argument and proofs.
According to al-Mufid, Imams can "take the place of the prophets in enforcing judgments, seeing to the execution of the legal penalties, safeguarding the Law, and educating mankind", a definition which makes an Imam not only "the head of the community in administrative, judicial, and military matters", but an "authoritative teacher of mankind".
Not limiting himself to theological matters, al-Mufid rejected al-Saduq's resort to akhbar al-ahad (single tradition), particularly when a legal statement is to be issued.
According to the Shia writer Shaykh Tusi, "The day of his death drew the largest crowd ever seen in any funeral, and both friends and foes wept uncontrollably".