Mediating Ethics in the Scholarly and Practical Conduct of Mullā ʿAbdallāh Bahābādī Yazdī: Reflections on Argumentative Style and Social Practice

Mullā Najm al-Dīn ʿAbdallāh Bahābādī Yazdī (d. ۹۸۱ AH), widely known through the “Ḥāshiya-ye Mullā ʿAbdallāh,” stands at a pivotal intersection of scholarly traditions and Safavid-era socio-political realities. This article asks whether his argumentative style and practical conduct can be described through a coherent ethical pattern that may be called “mediating ethics.” By mediating ethics, we mean a cluster of epistemic virtues and practical dispositions through which a religious scholar, while remaining faithful to inherited tradition, reduces the intensity of conflict between competing poles (reason and transmission, Shiʿi and Sunni learning, seminary and state) and seeks workable forms of coexistence. Using a descriptive–analytical method and drawing on biographical sources alongside close reading of selected passages from his legal gloss on al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī’s Irshād al-Adhhān, the study identifies epistemic, normative, and institutional dimensions of his mediation. The findings suggest that Bahābādī combined critical traditionalism in scholarship with a measured engagement in public administration in Najaf, thereby offering a historically grounded model for contemporary debates on legal reasoning, religious authority, and relations with confessional “others.”

کلیدواژه ها:

Mullā ʿAbdallāh Bahābādī Yazdī ، Mediating Ethics ، Dialogical Scholarly Conduct ، Tradition-Constituted Rationality ، Inter-Confessional Coexistence