This text is in English and Arabic. This is a collection of narrations from the honourable Prophet of Islam and the Twelve Imams (AS). This compendium of Shi'a 'a hadith aims at traditions which are central to understanding the teachings of the Holy Qur'an and the ethical foundations of Islam. The ten-volume edition, for which the present volume serves as an abridged edition, was first published in March 1983 in Arabic. The remarkable reception of Mizan al-Hikmah by researchers in the Islamic world shows a keen interest of the new generation of scholars in the pure knowledge of Islam. To simplify the use of this collection, a selection of its most important narrations was published in 1987. This book offers the translation of this Arabic selection and has undergone several years of appraisal and reappraisal by a group of translators at the Islamic College in London in order to make the work accessible to a wider audience.