Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi is an Islamologist at the ÃÂcole pratique des Hautes ÃÂtudes. He is one of the leading academics within the study of early Twelver Shiÿism.
One of Amir-Moezzi's fundamental arguments is that the supra-natural and supra-rational beliefs about the Twelve Imams were the core of Twelver Shiÿism. This puts him in conflict with the prevailing interpretation that it was the rational tradition, led by figures such as Al-Shaykh Al-Mufid, that constituted this core. This argument was initially put forward in Le guide divin dans le Shiisme original (The Divine Guide in Early ShiâÂÂism), and continued to be developed in his later work. This view is generally contrasted with the views of Hossein Modarressi. Amir-Moezzi describes this early Shiÿi view as such:<blockquote>Without the Imam, the universe would crumble, since he is the Proof, the Manifestation, and the Organ of God, and he is the Means by which human beings can attain, if not knowledge of God, at least what is knowable in God. Without the Perfect Man, without a Sacred Guide, there is no access to the divine, and the world could only be engulfed in darkness. The Imam is the Threshold through which God and the creatures communicate. He is thus a cosmic necessity, the key and the center of the universal economy of the sacred: "The earth cannot be devoid of an imam; without him, it could not last an hour." </blockquote>
In order to offer a new understanding of early Shiÿi viewpoints, Amir-Moezzi's begins by reconstructing the concept of rationality. The standard understanding considers Imami thought as being a rational theology similar to the Muÿtazila. Amir-Moezzi argues that this assumption distorts the understanding of the early Shiÿi narrations, especially the narrations on ÿaql, which is often translated as reason. The narrations state that the ÿaql is the means through which the doctrine of the Imams is understood. However, ÿaql was equated with rationality later on due to the influence of Greek philosophy, but in the early sources ÿaql was rather what he labels as "hiero-intelligence." This "hiero-intelligence" has four dimensions: cosmogonic, ethical-epistemological, spiritual, and soteriological. The cosmogonic dimension is that the ÿaql proceeded "from the God's Light, was the first of God's creations; it is characterized by its submission and its will to be near God." The epistemological dimension is that the ÿaql "is not just an acquired quality, but a gift from God." The spiritual dimension is that ÿaql is the "inner proof" and while the Imams are the "exterior proof." The soteriological dimension means that "the absence of ÿaql, the 'organ' of religion, there can only be false religiousness, an appearance of piety, hypocrisy."
Most of Amir-Moezzi's publications are in French, but some have been translated to English and Italian.