In His Name, the Most High
The hawza’s words, and ours, explained plainly.
How the seminary teaches, and the stages a student climbs.
Persianحوزه علمیهArabicالحوزة العلمية
Also: al-hawza al-‘ilmiyya
The seminary: an educational community of schools, teachers, senior jurists, libraries and students in which the Islamic sciences are taught, above all in Qom and Najaf. Al-hawza al-‘ilmiyya means the circle of learning. The Hawza describes how a student learns there.
See also: Dars, Bahth al-kharij
PersianدرسArabicدرس
A lesson: the teacher's explanation and analysis of a text or, at the advanced level, of a problem. Students prepare the passage before class and review it afterwards. A lesson may be recorded if the teacher and the students choose, and Daftar keeps what it teaches.
See also: Mubahatha
PersianمباحثهArabicمباحثة
Discussion with fellow students after a lesson, reconstructing its arguments and testing objections. A student who can follow an explanation may still be unable to reproduce the argument or answer a serious objection; peer discussion exposes that gap.
See also: Dars
PersianمقدماتArabicالمقدمات
The foundations, the first stage: Arabic morphology (sarf), syntax (nahw) and rhetoric (balagha); logic (mantiq); basic beliefs, ethics and practical law. They are the tools for reading scholarly texts precisely.
PersianمنطقArabicالمنطق
Also: logic
Logic: the discipline of sound definition and valid inference, that is, how a concept is defined, how a judgment is formed, and when a conclusion follows from its premises. It is studied in the first stage, often in al-Muzaffar's al-Mantiq, and every later science reasons with it.
See also: Muqaddimat, Usul al-fiqh
PersianسطوحArabicالسطوح
Also: sath (singular)
Text-based intermediate study: understanding and critically analysing established works of law and legal theory, such as Sharh al-Lum‘a and al-Muzaffar's Usul al-Fiqh, with a teacher.
See also: Muqaddimat, Sutuh ‘ulya
Persianسطوح عالیArabicالسطوح العليا
Higher intermediate study: mastering difficult analytical texts, above all al-Makasib, al-Rasa’il and Kifayat al-Usul, before advanced research. Some descriptions count it as part of sutuh.
See also: Sutuh, Bahth al-kharij
Persianدرس خارجArabicبحث الخارج
Also: dars-e kharij, kharij
Advanced research, the highest stage. A senior jurist presents a problem, examines the sources, reconstructs earlier scholars' arguments and argues to a conclusion. Kharij means outside: outside dependence on a prescribed textbook, not outside the seminary. Attending it does not by itself make a person a mujtahid.
PersianاجازهArabicإجازة
A permission in writing from a teacher: that a student may transmit the teacher's hadith, for example, or has reached ijtihad.
How a ruling is reached, and who may reach it.
PersianفقهArabicالفقه
Islamic jurisprudence: the rulings of God's law for human acts, from worship to trade and family life, understood from their sources. It is the heart of the hawza's training.
See also: Usul al-fiqh, Fatwa
Persianاصول فقهArabicأصول الفقه
Also: usul
The theory and methods of legal reasoning: how a jurist can responsibly move from evidence (the Qur’an, the Sunna of the Prophet and the Imams, consensus and reason) to a ruling, and what to do where the evidence is silent. It is the methodological centre of the advanced hawza.
PersianاجتهادArabicالاجتهاد
The scholarly capacity, and the effort, to derive rulings from their sources by the methods of usul al-fiqh. It is recognised through demonstrated ability and sometimes an ijaza. Our model does not attempt it: it explains reasoning, with its sources.
PersianمجتهدArabicالمجتهد
A scholar who has reached ijtihad, and derives rulings from their sources rather than following another's.
Persianمرجع تقلیدArabicمرجع التقليد
Also: marja‘ al-taqlid, maraji‘ (plural)
A recognised authority for emulation: a senior mujtahid whose rulings believers follow in their religious practice. Becoming one is a further matter, not the final grade of a course of study. Our tools send every question about a personal ruling to the reader's own marja‘.
See also: Taqlid, Fatwa, Risala ‘amaliyya
PersianتقلیدArabicالتقليد
Following the rulings of a qualified mujtahid in matters of practice: the way most believers, who are not mujtahids themselves, act on the law.
PersianفتواArabicفتوى
Also: fatawa (plural)
A mujtahid's ruling on a question of practice. IlmFlow issues none.
See also: Marja‘, Risala ‘amaliyya
Persianرساله عملیهArabicالرسالة العملية
A marja‘'s practical treatise: his rulings on everyday religious practice, arranged by subject, for those who follow him.
How the sources were handed down, and how their reliability is weighed.
PersianحدیثArabicالحديث
Also: ahadith (plural)
A report of the words or deeds of the Prophet or of the Imams, handed down through a chain of narrators. With the Qur’an, the hadith are the textual sources of the law.
See also: Sanad, ‘Ilm al-rijal, The Four Books
PersianسندArabicالسند
Also: isnad
The chain of narrators through whom a hadith reached the book that records it: who heard it from whom. Sanad, our tool for the study of narrators, takes its name from it.
See also: Hadith, ‘Ilm al-rijal, The chain
Persianعلم رجالArabicعلم الرجال
Also: rijal
The science of narrators: it evaluates transmitters and chains of transmission, investigating identities, reliability assessments, possible gaps and disputed judgments. A report appearing in a major Shi‘i collection is not thereby accepted as authentic by every jurist.
Persianکتب اربعهArabicالكتب الأربعة
Also: al-Kutub al-Arba‘a
The four great Shi‘i collections of hadith: al-Kulayni's al-Kafi, al-Saduq's Man la yahduruhu al-faqih, and al-Tusi's Tahdhib al-ahkam and al-Istibsar.
See also: Hadith, The major occultation
Persianغیبت کبریArabicالغيبة الكبرى
Also: al-ghayba al-kubra
The long absence of the Twelfth Imam, which began in 329 AH (941 CE). The great scholars at its start (al-Kulayni, al-Saduq, al-Mufid, al-Sharif al-Radi and al-Tusi) handed on what they knew with its chain: who said it, and from whom.
See also: The Four Books, The chain
PersianکلامArabicعلم الكلام
Theology: the discipline that develops and defends religious doctrines.
PersianفلسفهArabicالفلسفة
Also: hikma
Philosophy: questions about existence, causation, knowledge and the soul. Its place in a student's training depends on the institution and the scholarly circle.
PersianعرفانArabicالعرفان
Theoretical mystical thought, or practical spiritual formation; taught alongside the main curriculum, its place depending on the institution and the scholarly circle.
The words IlmFlow uses for its own work.
PersianنوشتهArabicمدوَّن
A question, its answer and the sources the answer rests on, written in Daftar by a teacher or student of the hawza, with a record of who wrote it and who reviewed it. A teaching example, not a ruling.
See also: Review, Training pair
PersianبازبینیArabicالمراجعة
A second scholar's reading of a record: a teacher, or a student at the level of bahth al-kharij, asks whether the reasoning holds and whether each source says what is claimed. The record is accepted, held until a page is checked, returned for changes or refused, always with a reason its author can act on.
See also: Record
Persianجفت آموزشیArabicالزوج التدريبي
An accepted record in the form a model learns from: the question, and the reasoned answer with its evidence. Each pair keeps its whole history: what it is about, what it says, what it rests on, and who stands behind it.
PersianمدلArabicالنموذج
A computer program that learns patterns from many examples. Ours is learning the hawza's method from reviewed training pairs: how evidence is weighed, not a list of rulings. It runs on our own machines. The Model says more.
See also: Training pair, Ijtihad
Persianخوانش ماشینArabicالقراءة الآلية
Text a machine produced: a transcript, a translation, or the reading of a printed page. It is always labelled as a machine's work, and is not quotable until a person has checked it against the page.
See also: Quotable, Fingerprint
Persianقابل نقلArabicقابل للاقتباس
Fit to quote: a passage a person has checked against the page itself. Until then it is marked as a machine's reading.
See also: Machine reading, The chain
Persianسلسله سندArabicالسلسلة
Our word for where a passage came from: the source (a book's page, or a scholar's lecture as his own site published it), its exact words with their fingerprint and place, which of our tools did what and when, and the writing that cites it. A reader can follow it back, as the scholars of hadith followed a report back through its sanad.
See also: Sanad, Fingerprint
Persianاثر انگشت دیجیتالArabicالبصمة الرقمية
A short code computed from a text's exact letters. Change a single letter and the code changes, so a passage carried with its fingerprint can be shown to be unaltered.
See also: The chain
Persianکلید عبورArabicمفتاح المرور
A way to sign in to our tools without a password. Your device checks that it is you, with your fingerprint, your face or the code that unlocks it, and tells our tools only that it is satisfied; nothing secret leaves it. How passkeys work (opens in a new tab).
Tell us which word, and we will add it: the glossary grows with the questions people ask.
