Ibn Bābawaih’s al-Faqīh has received much attention by scholars in the field of Shiʻi studies, especially, Western-language authors. However, his several other collections of the Imams’ aḥādith have received less attention. Focusing on Ibn Bābawaih’s Kamāl ad-Din and ʻUyūn Aḫbār ar-Riḍā, texts assembled in the first suggest that what seem today to be some very basic points of Twelver Shiʻi doctrine were, in fact, both disputed within the community and under challenge from other discourses outwith that community. According to this study, portions of the second (ʻUyūn Aḫbār ar-Riḍā) suggest that some segments of the community were coming out of the period of al-Ḥaira addressed by Kamāl.
