Sayyid Abdullah Shubbar in his book Masabih al-Anwar fi Halli Mushkilat al-Akhbar tries to give a description of problematic traditions and solve their complicated aspects using different approaches. They include the use of vocabulary, grammar, history, natural sciences; paying attention to literary techniques and arrays; relying on the Quran and hadith; attempts at resolution of conflicts and scholarly criticism of commentaries of the past. The author of Masabih al-Anwar also took into consideration the impact of elements of tashif (slip of pen, misspelling, misplacement of diacritical marks etc.), religious dissimulation, and discrepancy in reporters' hadith and causes for issuance of hadith in order to verify content of traditions.

Key Words: Sayyid Abdullah Shubbar, Masabih al-Anwar, Principles of Hadith Scholarship, Problematic Traditions.

* * * * *

Concept Analysis and Validity of Traditions
concerning Women's Failure of Reason

Mahmood Karimian

Traditions concerning women's failure of reason have been reported considerably in Sunni and Shia hadith sources. Old and reliable sources of Shia hadith such as al-Kafi, Man la Yahzaruh al-Faqiyh and Nahj al-Balaghah have reported them in weak and mursal documents. Documents of traditions are in a condition that does not form mustafid hadith, not even literal mustafid. This group of accounts have been reported by the books of Bukhari, Muslim and other appropriate sources of Sunni hadith, and considered as reliable by them. Due to extent of issue and its importance and due to text and document conditions of traditions, they can not be regarded as authentic. Implications of these traditions are also discussed. Some hold that these traditions are external cases which deal with certain people in the age of hadith issuance. Some regard the word `Aql in these traditions as empirical one, some as theoretical and some other as instrumental. It seems that they imply the differences between men and women in their creation, that is, their innate differences of reasoning and feeling for administering