Al-Hurr al-Aamili

Muhammad bin al-Ḥassan b. Ali b. al-Ḥusayn al-ʿĀmili al-Mashghari (Arabic: محمد بن الحسن بن علي بن الحسين العاملي المشغري‎‎), commonly known as Al-Ḥurr Al-ʿĀmili (الحر العاملي) (1033/1624 - 1104/1693), was a muhaddith and a prominent Twelver Shi’a scholar. He is best known for his comprehensive hadith compilation known as Wasael ush-Shia (also known as Wasa’il ush-Shi’a) and as the second of the “Three Great Muhammads” in later Shi’a Islamic history.

He was born on Friday, 8th of Raj̲ab 1033AH/26 April 1624 CE in the village of Mashghara in the ʿĀmil mountains of southern Lebanon, a center of shi’i Lebanese Arabs in the region. His early education began with a family of teachers that included his father, his paternal uncle, his maternal grandfather (shaykh ʿAbd Salām b. Muḥammad), and one of his father's maternal uncles (shaykh ʿAlī b. Maḥmūd; at Ḏj̲abʿ). He also studied under Ḥusayn b. Hasan b. Yunus Ẓahīr and Ḥasan b. Zayn al-Dīn ʿĀmili (d.1011/1602), who was the great-grandson of al-Shahid al-Thani, in al-Jaba, a nearby village. Ḥusayn Zahir was the first to give al-Ḥurr al-ʿĀmili ijaza, a license to teach and transmit ahadeeth.

Al-Ḥurr Al-ʿĀmili performed the hajj twice and went on ziyarat, visiting of holy Shi’a shrines, in Iraq. Other than these trips, he remained in the jabal ʿĀmil for the first forty years of his life. He lived during the era of the Safavid Empire, which at the time was pushing Imami Shi’ism upon the people of Iran. When Sunni ulama fled from the Safavid Empire, specifically the religious centers of Iran, the empire brought in many Shi’i scholars to replace them, a large amount coming from jabal ʿĀmil.

Al-Ḥurr Al-ʿĀmili was one of the many scholars that migrated to take religious leadership positions in Iran at the time, eventually journeying to Mashhad, Iran and settling there in 1073/1663 where he became shaykh al-Islam in the shrine of the 8th Imam, Ali al-Ridha. He settled after traveling first to Isfahan, Persia where he became acquainted with Muhammad Baqir Majlisi, the third of the Great Muḥammads (the first of the Three Great Muḥammads of later centuries is Muhammad Kashani, also known as Muhsin al-Fayz). The meeting between these two scholars left an impression on them both and they mutually granted each other ijāza to transmit ahadeeth. Majlisi also introduced al-ʿĀmili to Shah Sulayman of the Safavid Empire.

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