marja taqlid مرجع تقليد, Persian marja) or less exaltedly as an "imitated one" (Arabic مقلَد muqallad). However, his verdicts are not to be taken as the only source of religious information and he can be always corrected by other muqalladeen (the plural of muqallad) which come after him. Obeying a deceased muqallad is forbidden in Usuli. Taqlid has been introduced by scholars who felt that Quranic verses and traditions were not enough and that ulama were needed not only to interpret the Quran and Sunna but to make "new rulings to respond to new challenges and push the boundaries of Shia law in new directions." History By their debates and books, Al-Mufid, Sayyid-al Murtada, and Shaykh al-Tusi in Iraq were the first to introduce the Uṣūl al-fiqh (principles of Islamic jurisprudence) under the influence of the Shafe'i and Mu'tazili doctrines. Al-Kulayni, in Rey, and al-Sadduq, in Qom, were concerned with a traditionalist approach. The second wave of the Usuli was shaped in the Mongol period when al-Hilli introduced the term mujtahid, meaning an individual qualified to deduce ordinances on the basis of authentic religious arguments. By developing the theory of the usul, al-Hilli introduced more legal and logical norms which extended the meaning of the usul beyond the four principal sources. Amili was the first scholar to fully formulate the principles of ijtihad''. These traditional principles of Shi'a jurisprudence were challenged by the 17th-century Akhbari school, led by Muhammad Amin al-Astarabadi. A reaction against Akhbari arguments was led in the last half of the 18th century by Muhammad Baqir Behbahani. He attacked the Akhbari and their method was abandoned by Shia. The dominance of the Usuli over the Akhbari came when Behbahani led the Usuli to dominance and "completely routed the Akhbaris at Karbala and Najaf", so that "only a handful of Shi'i ulama have remained Akhbari to the present day." See also Marja' List of marjas References Twelvers / Ithna Ashari Islamic Schools of Thought Twelver Shi'ism Ja'fari jurisprudence Fatwas