Shaykh al-Ṣadūq (d. 381/991) assembled this for the Buyid vizier al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād, gathering everything he could find on ʿAlī b. Mūsā al-Riḍā, the eighth Imam. The project was biographical rather than topical, and it is the only book of its kind among his works: sayings and correspondence, the journey to Khurāsān, the appointment as heir apparent by al-Maʾmūn and the politics behind it, the recorded debates at court with Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian scholars, the report known as the Golden Chain, and the circumstances of his death at Ṭūs. It remains the main source for the period it covers.
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ʿUyūn Akhbār al-Riḍā
Al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq (d. 381/991) compiled this for the Buyid vizier al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād, gathering what he could find on ʿAlī b. Mūsā al-Riḍā, the eighth Imam. It is the only book among his works built around a single figure rather than a subject, and runs in this edition to 951 narrations across 68 chapters.
Its contents are biographical in the widest sense: the Imam’s sayings and correspondence, reports on his virtues and his lineage, the journey from Medina to Khurāsān, the appointment as heir apparent by al-Maʾmūn and the politics behind it, the debates held at court with Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian and Muslim scholars, the tradition known as the Golden Chain, and the circumstances of his death and burial at Ṭūs.
Because the eighth Imam’s public life was documented as no other’s was — he held a formal position in the caliphal state, and his court disputations were written down — the book carries a density of historical and theological material with no equivalent elsewhere in the corpus. It remains the principal source for the period it covers.