The issue of “the matter between the two matters” (al-amr bayn al-amrayn) is one of the most important Shiʿa Imāmī hadith-based theological topics, addressing the relationship between human action and divine agency. Throughout history, Shiʿa scholars have offered diverse interpretations of this concept. In the early periods, Imāmī scholars generally approached these narrations from a normative (shar‘ī) perspective, but from the later periods onward, their interpretations took on an ontological (takwīnī) dimension, resulting in a complete transformation of how this concept was understood.



This study, by examining the development of Imāmī scholarly views, demonstrates that changes in their intellectual and methodological foundations were the source of these interpretive differences. Early Imāmī scholars, influenced by the theological debates between the Muʿtazilites and Ashʿarites, shaped their theological school accordingly, and their interpretation of these narrations was based on that framework. However, with the entrance of Islamic philosophy and mysticism in the 7th and 8th centuries (AH), and their consolidation through the emergence of Transcendent Philosophy (ḥikmat al-mutaʿāliyah) in the 11th century (AH), the views of Imāmī scholars gradually acquired philosophical and mystical dimensions. Thus, the earlier Muʿtazilite-leaning interpretation of these narrations evolved into a philosophical and mystical explanation in later periods.