--- title: "The Beneficial One: Shaykh al-Mufid" event: "The Lantern of the Path" session_number: 64 published_at: "2026-04-15" canonical_url: "https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-beneficial-one-shaykh-al-mufid" event_url: "https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-lantern-of-the-path" type: "event-session" scripture_reference: "Sahifa Sajjadiyyah, Prayer 20: His Supplication on Noble Moral Traits and Acts Pleasing to God, Verse 28" --- # The Beneficial One: Shaykh al-Mufid *Session 64 of [The Lantern of the Path](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-lantern-of-the-path) — 15 April 2026* Mahdawiyyah, Part 20 · The Architecture of Guidance, Part 4 A letter arrived in Baghdad from a man the world could not see, for a man the world would never forget. Born in 336 AH in the small town of Ukbara, the boy first called Ibn al-Mu'allim, "son of the teacher", was brought to Baghdad by his father to study. He sat in the circles of Shia scholars and, deliberately, in the classroom of the city's most formidable Mu'tazilite judge. One day he raised a point so precise the judge could not answer it, invited him to sit in the teacher's own place, and told the class: "you are truly mufid — truly beneficial." The name held. The boy from Ukbara became the scholar who took two centuries of preserved hadith and armed it with rational argument, writing roughly two hundred works of theology, jurisprudence and history, without ever seeing a printing press. But it is not the scholarship alone that marks his story. During the years the door to the Imam was supposedly sealed, letters kept arriving, addressed to him as "friend" and "supporter of the truth". One recounts a ruling he issued wrongly, corrected by a stranger on the road who carried a message from no one he had sent, and a life saved because of it. Shaken, he nearly stopped issuing rulings altogether. Then another letter came, telling him to continue. What happens when a scholar gets something wrong — and someone unseen corrects him? What the evening covers The classroom. How a young student earned the name al-Mufid from the very judge he had just out-argued. Two hundred books. What Shaykh al-Mufid built for Shia theology and jurisprudence, by hand, before print. Letters from the unseen. Communications across three decades, and what the Imam called him. The correction. A wrong ruling, a stranger on the road, and a scholar who nearly stopped speaking for good. ## Scripture > اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَآلِهِ، وَارْزُقْنِي صِحَّةً فِي عِبَادَةٍ، وَفَرَاغاً فِي زَهَادَةٍ، وَعِلْماً فِي اسْتِعْمَالٍ، وَوَرَعاً فِي إِجْمَالٍ > > O God, bless Muhammad and his Household and provide me with soundness in worship, detachment in renunciation, knowledge put into action, and abstinence in measure! — *Sahifa Sajjadiyyah, Prayer 20: His Supplication on Noble Moral Traits and Acts Pleasing to God, Verse 28* ## Programme - [Watch the full session](https://youtu.be/0BBo18N56I0) - [Sermon: The Beneficial One: Shaykh al-Mufid](https://youtu.be/0BBo18N56I0) - [Nohe: Ja'fari Beloved Imam — written](https://www.shiasounds.com/p/jafari-beloved-imam-sadiq) - [Ziyarah: Ziyarat Aal-e-Yasin](https://youtu.be/uSJNHMq3oYs?si=PKBRrMLLZOtXX_Hq) ## Other sessions in this event - [Session 69 — Shaykh al-Ta'ifa](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/shaykh-al-taifa) — 12 August 2026 - [Session 26 — Imam Hasan al-Mujtaba: A Life of Strategic Sacrifice](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/imam-hasan-al-mujtaba-a-life-of-strategic-sacrifice) — 20 May 2026 - [Session 68 — The World That Surrounded Them](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-world-that-surrounded-them) — 13 May 2026 - [Session 67 — Sayyed al-Murtada and the Twenty-Three Years](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/sayyed-al-murtada-and-the-twenty-three-years) — 6 May 2026 - [Session 66 — The Pen and the Sword of the Intellect](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-pen-and-the-sword-of-the-intellect) — 29 April 2026 - [Session 65 — Two Sons, One Mother, One Teacher](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/two-sons-one-mother-one-teacher) — 22 April 2026 - [Session 63 — When the Light Was Hidden: The Preservers](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/when-the-light-was-hidden-the-preservers) — 8 April 2026 - [Session 62 — The University of al-Sadiq: Four Thousand Students and a Living Imam](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-university-of-al-sadiq-four-thousand-students-and-a-living-imam) — 1 April 2026 - [Session 61 — Building Before the Builder Returns](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/building-before-the-builder-returns) — 25 March 2026 - [Session 60 — The Antidote Applied](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-antidote-applied) — 18 March 2026 - [Session 59 — The Poison Identified](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-poison-identified) — 11 March 2026 - [Session 58 — The Contemporary Codification](https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-contemporary-codification) — 25 February 2026 --- _Read this session on the web: https://www.truthpromoters.com/events/the-beneficial-one-shaykh-al-mufid_