Scholarly pursuits
He possessed unlimited eagerness for scholarly pursuits and gaining of knowledge and he did not leave any stone unturned in this way. He had hairsplitting expertise in researching intellectual subjects and he never felt exhausted; such was his stamina for pursuit of knowledge and sciences.
The proof is the wide range of books and writings, which studied for the writing of Al-Ghadeer.
With this aim in mind, he sifted through books in Kerbala, Baghdad, Kazmain and Samarrah, and in the end traveled to Iran, India, Syria and Turkey for his research, in order to obtain the sources of his subject. Whenever it was possible, he obtained a copy of the book for himself
Due to his intense love for the world of books and libraries, it is narrated from him that he paid no attention to the discomfort of this intellectual pursuit. So, there was no pleasure in his life except studying and researching. He forsook all pleasures of life for this aim; and did not give priority to his personal health and family life.
It is also narrated about him that so engrossed he was in his pursuit that he did not pay attention to food and personal needs. Many a times his family members had to call him at dinner times and he was found immersed in his books. He did not care if the food went cold or even if he was given the leftovers of the previous day. He did not care what he ate and drank. Even during meals, he was immersed in his thoughts concerned with the topics of his research.
He never relied solely on quotations from written manuscripts of the past scholars. He made it a point to himself go through the source, so that there is no scope of doubt and uncertainty.
Even great scholars do not go to such extent when they are compiling books, because it is known that source books are dispersed in various libraries around the world. But this was not a big problem for the Shaykh. With this aim he traveled to far off places in order to gain direct access to the books of reference.
Regarding this, it is narrated that he traveled to India and sifted through the books present in the libraries there. He obtained the manuscripts available and referred to the books, whose copies were not available anywhere else.
Incident
Some of his close friends have narrated an incident, which shows his deep efforts in pursuit of knowledge. Its gist is that one day he was weeping, because an important books concerned with his subject was not obtainable.
The Shaykh sought the mediation of Ameerul Momineen (a.s.) to help him to obtain the book as it was meant as a reference for his book of Al-Ghadeer
Allamah Amini says: I woke up after a short sleep as someone was knocking at the door and found that it was my neighbor. He said: “I have purchased a new house and shifted my things over there. This book was found in a corner of my house and my wife suggested that I should present it to Allamah Amini.”
It was the same manuscript that Allamah Amini had been searching for.