al-Allama al-Hilli

[4] Al-Hilli also known as "the sage of Hilla",[5] was born in Hillah, Iraq, commonly viewed as the centre of Shia Islam when Sunni leaders were in control over Baghdad during his lifetime.

[8] After mastering philosophy, theology and astrology as a pupil of the eminent scholars of his time, he began a prolific career as an authoritative writer in his own right.

[7] According to some sources, Al-Hilli wrote more than a thousand works (including short treatises and epistles) on Islamic law, jurisprudence, theology and tafsir, or Qur'anic commentary.

[7] Also due to his work in Tajrid ul-I'tiqad, Al-Hilli has been noted as one of the first Shia Imamiyyah scholars to use the term, ijtihad (i’tiqad) in the sense of “putting in of the utmost effort in acquiring the knowledge of the laws of the Shariah”.

In them, he was largely concerned with espousing and defending the Shia view of the Imamate and Mutazilite notions of free will (as opposed to Asharite determinism).

[7] According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, “his services were so much appreciated by the Shi'is that soon after his death his grave in Mashhad became one of the centres of veneration for those who go on pilgrimage to the tomb of Imam 'Ali-al-Rida”.

[7] Al-Ḥillī's contribution to jurisprudence, the Mabādiʾ al-wuṣūl ilā ʿilm al-uṣūl was translated in a dual Arabic-English edition as The Foundations of Jurisprudence: An Introduction to Imāmī Shīʿī Legal Theory by Sayyid Amjad H. Shah Naqavi and published by the Shīʿa Institute Press's Classical Shīʿah Library imprint in collaboration with Brill Publishers in 2016.

"[12] In his introduction, Naqavi states that the first chapter of the Mabādiʾ concerns the philosophy of language, including discussions regarding "the nature of the relationship between meaning (or sense) and reference, that is, how the semantic properties of an utterance relate to its syntactic properties, the relationship between meaning and use, the question of wheth- er or not connotation outstrips denotation, as well as an extended inquiry into, and theorisation upon, the proposed origins of language."

For Naqavi, al-Ḥillī's 'contribution to the development of Imāmī legal theory and the distinctive stance he takes upon certain jurisprudential matters [...] can be summarised in the following manner', namely that 'ʿAllāmah upholds: the principle of indifferency (al-ibāḥah) regarding the state of all things prior to the revelation of divine law (al-sharʿ); that some utterances are legally veritative (al-ḥaqīqah al-sharʿiyyah); that the command (al-amr) neither signifies a one-off (al-marrah) nor a repeat performance (al-takrār); that with respect to social interactions the prohibition (al-nahy) does not demand the unsoundness (al-fasād) of the thing which is prohibited; that the utterances of generality (alfāẓ al-ʿumūm) are assigned for the arrival at a general meaning (al-maʿnā al-ʿāmm); that it is permissible to act in accordance (taʿabbud) with the solitary narration on the basis of intellection (ʿaql) and the divine law (sharʿ); and that the term juristic reasoning (al-ijtihād) ought to be understood according to the new nomenclature (iṣṭilāḥ) first employed by his uncle al-Muḥaqqiq al-Ḥillī: as an utmost scientific endeavour undertaken in order to infer a legal ruling (al-ḥukm al-sharʿī) from the evidence.

Besides various treatises on religious law, 'Allamah established a systematic version of the science of tradition (hadith and akhbar), based on principles which were later to antagonise the usuliyun[clarification needed] and the akhbariyun.

In the kalam tradition, he left a commentary on one of the first treatises to be written by one of the oldest Imamite mutakallimun, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim al Nawbakhti, who died about 350/961.

Similarly, he wrote commentaries on the two treatises by Nasir mentioned above, Tajrid and Qawa'id-commentaries which have been read and re-read, studied and commentated by generations of scholars.

Using the methods both of a man of the kalam and of a philosopher, he wrote studies on Avicenna's Al-Isharat wa-‘l-tanbihat (Remarks and Admonitions) and Kitab Al-Shifaʾ (The Book of Healing); attempted to solve the difficulties (hill al-mushkilat) of al-Suhrawardi's Kitab al-talwihat (Book of Elucidations); wrote a treatise comparing (tanasub[clarification needed]) the Ash'arites and the Sophists; two other encyclopaedic treatises, The Hidden Secrets (al-Asar al-khaffyah) in philosophical sciences, the autographed version of which is at Najaf, and a Complete Course of Instruction (Ta'lim tamm) on philosophy and the kalam, etc.

He casts doubt on the principle Ex Uno non fit nisi Unum (only One can proceed from the One), as his teacher Nasir Tusi, inspired by al-Suhrawardi, had done before him, and he concedes the existence of an intra-substantial motion which heralds the theory of Mulla Sadra.