Shia Research Library

Shia Research Library is a research tool over the classical Twelver Shia tradition. Ask a question in plain language; it retrieves relevant passages from the primary sources and composes an answer in which every claim is cited to a specific passage you can check.

WHAT IS INSIDE

At the centre are around 162,000 hadith passages, alongside every verse of the Qur'an, sermons and letters, supplications, works of commentary, and the biographical literature on the narrators themselves. The classical and canonical layer currently contains over 227,000 passages.

The larger collections include Wasa'il al-Shi'a and Mustadrak al-Wasa'il, both complete, and the Four Books: al-Kafi, Man la yahduruhu al-Faqih, Tahdhib al-Ahkam and al-Istibsar; alongside Nahj al-Balagha, al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya, the major commentaries, and selections from Bihar al-Anwar.

CITED, AND GRADED

Every claim in an answer carries a citation to the passage it came from, so you can read the source rather than take the answer on trust. Where the data is available, narrations carry hadith assessments from sources including al-Majlisi's Mir'at al-'uqul, Muhammad Baqir Behbudi, and Muhammad Asif Muhsini. An ungraded report is shown as ungraded, never silently treated as reliable.

Arabic and English are both searched. Some works are bilingual; some currently exist in only one language, so translation coverage varies by collection.

READ THE SOURCES, NOT ONLY THE CITATIONS

The library is browsable as a shelf of books, and a work opens into a reader you can read straight through — chapter by chapter, in Arabic, in English, or both where a passage carries them. A citation under an answer opens the book it stands in, at the passage it came from. You can keep the chapters you mean to return to, set the text size and typeface to something you can actually read for an hour, and choose a light or dark page. Reading needs a free account and nothing more; it is not a paid feature.

HONEST ABOUT ITS LIMITS

Coverage is substantial but not complete, and texts continue to be added. Answers are generated and can be wrong — the citation is there so you can check. This is a research aid, not a source of religious rulings, and it is no substitute for a qualified scholar.

ASK WITHOUT AN ACCOUNT

No sign-in is needed to ask. Your questions are not sold, not advertised against, and not attached to your identity. Nothing you ask becomes public unless you choose to publish it, and you are shown exactly what would appear before that happens.

A membership adds saved conversations across your devices, highlights and notes in the margins of what you read, asking a question about the passage in front of you without leaving the book, and reading two works side by side. Read the privacy policy at https://shiaresearch.org/privacy

Recent changes:
A big update that brings Android in line with the iPhone app.

• A cleaner Ask box, and Qurʾan verse cards inside answers
• Duʿāʾ Study: a redesigned home, recitation that keeps the screen awake, and easier ways to find a text
• A step-by-step guide to the app
• New Language settings for the app, answers and dictation
• Clear back buttons on every screen
• Many layout fixes, smoother scrolling and faster screens