Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Peter Bergen, The Osama Bin Laden 

I Know: An Oral History of al-Qaeda’s Leader (New 

K  698  

Usama bin Ladin

---

York: Free Press, 2006); Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens: 

An Arabian Family in the American Century (New York: 

Penguin Press, 2008); Raymond Ibrahim, ed., The Al 

Qaeda Reader (New York: Doubleday, 2007); Osama 

bin Laden, Messages to the World: The Statements of 

Osama bin Laden. Edited by Bruce Lawrence, translated 

by James Howarth (New York: Verso, 2005); Lawrence 

Wright,  The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 

9/11 (New York: Vintage Books, 2006).

Usuli School

The Usuli School is a tradition of jurisprudence 

(

fiqh

) in t

Welve

-i

mam

 s

hiism

 that has its roots in 

the 10th century, when different Sunni and Shii 

legal theories were being formally constituted. 

Its name comes from the Arabic word usul, which 

means “roots” or “foundations,” of law, but in 

the case of the Shia, it was used with special ref-

erence to a type of legal theory that recognized 

the use of human reason (aql) and unrestricted 

legal reasoning (

ijtihad

) by qualified 

Ulama

. The 

forerunner for the rationalist approach to fiqh

within Shii circles was the scholar Muhammad 

ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi (905–1066/67) of Khurasan 

and Baghdad, but the tradition was first fully 

elaborated in the teachings of al-Muhaqqiq al-

Hilli (d. 1277), who lived most of his life in the 

town of Hilla in southern i

raq

, and his student 

Allama al-Hilli (d. 1325).

When the s

aFavid

 

dynasty

 (1501–1722) 

established Shiism as the state religion in i

ran

,

usuli jurists, who came to be known as mujtahids 

because of their preference for ijtihad, promoted 

the view that ordinary Shiis should without ques-

tion follow the authority of a living jurist before 

that of a dead one. Additionally, the mujtahids

claimed that they were deputies of the messianic 

12th  i

mam

, the m

ahdi

. These doctrines gave 

qualified jurists far-reaching authority among the 

Shia, especially in Iran and Iraq. They also set 

them apart from the Sunni ulama, who admitted 

only limited use of ijtihad and could not claim 

to be agents of a hidden messiah. However, the 

Usulis also provoked a reaction among tradi-

tionist ulama among the Shia, who feared that 

the fundamental principles of Shiism, based on 

the  q

Uran

 and the teachings (akhbar) of the 

Imams, would be undermined by unrestricted 

Usuli rationalism. These traditionally minded 

ulama formed what is called the a

khbari

 s

chool

of Shii jurisprudence. The Usulis and Akhbaris 

engaged in factional disputes with each other at 

the madrasas of Iran and Iraq, even in distant 

Mecca, in the early 19th century. The Usulis 

emerged triumphant by the middle of the cen-

tury, and soon organized themselves into a hier-

archy of religious experts, from ordinary mullahs 

and  akhunds at the bottom to grand ayatollahs 

at the top. The supreme 

ayatollah

, determined 

by reputation and networks of relations with 

bazaar

 merchants, was known as the marjaa al-

taqlid (source of imitation), whose legal rulings 

were considered to be the most binding by other 

Shiis. The political mobilization of Usuli ulama 

became apparent in the late 19th century, when 

Mirza Hasan al-Shirazi called for a boycott of the 

British tobacco monopoly in 1891–92. Ayatollah 

r

Uhollah

  k

homeini

 (d. 1989) and the ulama 

who founded the revolutionary Islamic Republic 

of Iran in 1979 were all Usulis. Indeed, Khomei-

ni’s ideology of government by the jurist (wilayat 

al-faqih), encompassing the political as well as 

the religious spheres, marked the logical culmi-

nation of the Usuli idea that supreme authority 

was vested in the person of the leading mujtahid.

Outside of Iran, Usulis today have large follow-

ings among the Shia of Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, 

Pakistan, and India.

See also 

FatWa

; 

madrasa

; 

mUllah

.