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The idea that the world is composed of four or five elements (fire, water, earth, wind, and aether) was almost universal in the ancient world. The science and mythology of many ancient civilizations, from Greece to Japan, operated on this understanding.
While Islam is not really married to the idea of four elements (it is not supported in an explicit way in the Quran or hadiths), it is interesting to note that Islamic metaphysics and cosmology use this system.
This is especially the case in the spiritual world. The jinn are made from a smokeless Fire, the humans are made from Earth (Teen), and the soul (ruH) comes from the word for Wind (reeH). The Throne of Allah was settled upon Water (11:7), until that water was separated into the heavens and earth. The angels are from light (Noor, a word related to Nar).
Allah does not raise a prophet except that he speaks the language of his people. He may have used these literary devices to explain a realm that is ultimately beyond our understanding (ghayb). The Quran is a book that needs to be intelligible to people, especially when speaking on the unseen and unknown.
While the universe is simply not made up of H2O, the image of Water as a fluid, clear, shapeless structure is befitting to understanding the world. In physics, the concept of fields (gravitational, spatial) operate largely on fluid mechanics. “Water” is a chaotic substance that was then categorized, compartmentalized and distinguished into the world we know today.
Similarly, a simple sample of the water (saliva) in your body can create an entire profile of who you are: your DNA, and therefore, your family lineage, your appearance, your susceptibility to diseases, and even parts of your personality.
There are some things that are beyond literal and metaphorical. The dichotomy of literal and metaphorical is sometimes not just inaccurate, but harmful to our readings of scripture.
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[This will be a series of blog entries on the history of ShiaChat.com; how it was founded, major ups and down, politics and issues behind running such a site and of course, the drama! I will also provide some feedback on development efforts, new features and future goals and objectives]
Part 1 - The IRC (#Shia) Days!
Sit children, gather around and let me speak to you of tales of times before there was ever high-speed Internet, Wi-Fi, YouTube or Facebook; a time when the Internet was a much different place and 15 yearold me was still trying to make sense of it all.
In the 90s, the Internet was a very different place; no social media, no video streaming and downloading an image used to take anywhere from 5-10 minutes depending on how fast your 14.4k monster-sized dial-up modem was. Of course you also had to be lucky enough for your mom to have the common courtesy not to disconnect you when you’re in the middle of a session; that is if you were privileged enough to have Internet at home and not have to spend hours at school or libraries, or looking for AOL discs with 30 hour free trials..(Breathe... breathe... breathe) - I digress.
Back in 1998 when Google was still a little computer sitting in Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s basement, I was engaged in endless debates with our Sunni brothers on an IRC channel called #Shia. (Ok, a side note here for all you little pups. This is not read as Hashtag Shia, the correct way of reading this is “Channel Shia”. The “Hashtag” was a much cooler thing back in the day than the way you young’uns use it today).
For those of you who don’t know what IRC was (or is... as it still exists), it stands for Internet Relay Chat, which are servers available that you could host chat rooms in and connect through a client. It was like the Wild West where anyone can go and “found” their own channel (chat room), become an operator and reign down their god-like dictator powers upon the minions that were to join as a member of their chat room. Luckily, #Shia had already been established for a few years before by a couple of brothers I met from Toronto, Canada (Hussain A. and Mohammed H.). Young and eager, I quickly rose up the ranks to become a moderator (@Ali) and the chatroom quickly became an important part of my adolescent years. I learned everything I knew from that channel and met some of the most incredible people. Needless to say, I spent hours and dedicated a good portion of my life on the chatroom; of course, the alternate was school and work but that was just boring to a 15-year-old.
In the 90’s, creating a website was just starting to be cool so I volunteered to create a website for #Shia to advertise our services, who we are, what we do as well as have a list of moderators and administrators that have volunteered to maintain #Shia. As a result, #Shia’s first website was hosted on a friend’s server under the URL http://786-110.co.uk/shia/ - yes, ShiaChat.com as a domain did not exist yet – was too expensive for my taste so we piggybacked on one of our member’s servers and domain name.
The channel quickly became popular, so popular that we sometimes outnumbered our nemesis, #Islam. As a result, our moderator team was growing as well and we needed a website with an application that would help us manage our chatroom in a more efficient style. Being a global channel, it was very hard to do “shift transfers” and knowledge transfers between moderators as the typical nature of a chatroom is the fact that when a word is typed, its posted and its gone after a few seconds – this quickly became a pain point for us trying to maintain a list of offenders to keep an eye out for and have it all maintained in a historical, easily accessible way.
A thought occurred to me. Why not start a “forum” for the moderators to use? The concept of “forums” or discussion boards was new to the Internet – it was the seed of what we call social media today. The concept of having a chat-style discussion be forever hosted online and be available for everyone to view and respond to at any time from anywhere was extremely well welcomed by the Internet users. I don’t recall what software or service I initially used to set that forum up, but I did – with absolutely no knowledge that the forum I just set up was a tiny little acorn that would one day be the oak tree that is ShiaChat.com.
[More to follow, Part 2..]
So who here is still around from the good old #Shia IRC days?
"And your Lord has commanded that you shall not serve (any) but Him...."
Each and every creation (makhlooq) in this universe has a natural innate attachment with the creator. Every being that is created, itself carries a signature of the creator in every form and shape and also submits to the reality of existence of its creator. This is not something for which a creature needs something from outside his being. His existence itself contains those elements that lead his way towards his creator. If we try to specify those elements within a human being, our first attention goes towards the conscience (fitrah) of a human being. This conscience is captured in our soul and is completely intrinsic to our being. The spirit is the being which is the home of conscience while body is just the outer representation of our being.
Our conscience is the one which tells us the right and wrong and all such moral principles. Hence, it needs to have an orientation or inclination. Orientation will set a direction for a being and finally a direction will have no end without an inspiration. So, basically, every spirit has a conscience which sets the moral principles and in order to do that, we ultimately and naturally need an ultimate inspiration. The entity that might act as an inspiration can have a scope. But there needs to be one entity, neither more nor less, which needs to be above every entity. To explain this mess, I would like to take an example of a student pursuing a career:
Let's suppose that a person has an orientation of caring and healing others. A sudden thought comes to his/her mind that he/she should become a doctor. Also, he/she defines certain objectives to achieve his/her career. This is the direction that was taken according to the orientation. According to the scope of final objective, inspiration or motivation is also recognized. And finally, he/she goes to the school and college and studies to become a doctor which is the path to reach the inspiration.
If we carefully notice this example, everything is clear-as-sky that the career path selected is due to the orientation which acts as a cause and it is pointing towards a direction to become something which is guided by the inspiration. And the inspiration here can be multiple but one, the ultimate is definitely needed. So, that states our point of view that the idea of God is an idea of ultimate inspiration which is undeniable if we have a conscience that is willing to set it's moral principles. Now, because taking care of morality is intrinsic to our conscience, the idea of god is also intrinsic and an innate reality which cannot be denied by our conscience.
This argument stated above begs a question. What about the conscience of a person who denies the existence of God? The simple answer is that it is impossible. Because it is not our words that testify to the idea of God but it is our conscience and our conscience doesn't work exactly according to us. Every being has an ultimate inspiration within his self. If someone denies that ultimate inspiration, his self will start recognizing something else as an inspiration and if he still denies this new inspiration then his self will cling to something else and so on. So, denying the idea of God means ultimately denying the idea of existence or submitting to something at some point by stopping the loop of denial. My physics teacher in school once said that most of the scientists our athiests and they don't believe in god. But he was forced to conclude his statement by saying that there god is nature. So, one can say that 'his idea of god is different than others' but cannot deny the idea itself. So, we conclude that atheism by definition has no value and it is fundamentally impossible to deny the existence of God. And the Holy Quran states in this context:
"The seven heavens declare His glory and the earth (too), and those who are in them; and there is not a single thing but glorifies Him with His praise, but you do not understand their glorification; surely He is Forbearing, Forgiving." Al Isra (17:44)
The above verse shows how the idea of God is within every creation. And another verse which states that how our conscience says opposite to what a proponent of athiesm might say:
"Read your book; your own self is sufficient as a reckoner against you this day." Al Isra (17:14)
Our self definitely contains this fundamental idea of god and that is the reason it will be a proof against us finally. Also, Imam Ali (عليه السلام) states, "The one who recognized his self, recognized his lord" implying that ultimately our self consists all those fundamentals we need to understand the idea of God in its entirety. So, now let us go further to address what is left with us.
We see that ultimately we now have to see what can be the possible reality of God. And we shall only use the most basic rational ways to reach the results inshallah. We can easily think of some possiblilities. Either God is one or more than one. Within these two broad categories of reality of God lies a long list of classifications. We are not going to mention them as it is not at all necessary to ponder on each and every speculation regarding these categories. Definition of more than one gods is followed in the polytheistic systems. This is a possibility but let us match this idea with what our self testifies. It doesn't matter for us over here whether Gods are two, three or more than that but the fact of the matter is that does our pure and perfect self which is the essence of our being accept it? Our self contains the innate idea of God which must be an ultimate inspiration. Can we have more than one ultimate inspiration? If we have many inspirations within our idea of God, those inspirations should either be absolutely equal or they should differ from each other. If they are equal then why are they having multiple forms? There multiple forms is a proof of the fact that they are different. Even if there forms are identical in a way that they are exactly a replica of each other then they cannot be absolute or independent. Because a replica needs to have an original version which means it depends on it's original form and that implies that it is not absolute but rather relative to the existence of the original version. Another proof is there similarlity which itself testifies that they are not unique.
So, absoluteness with exact equality is impossible and hence we are left with another option that they are different. Now, being different is itself a proof that one inspiration is better than another and one is best of all of them. So, again the multiplicity of the inspiration will finally melt down into a single inspiration which is best of all of them. We see this in the polythiestic faiths where one god is better than other and one of them is best of all. Because establishing such an idea is possible but it will not sustain. It will finally break into a hierarchy. This defeats the argument of multiple gods. As the gods which are different, comparative and have a hierarchy can be an inspiration but not ultimate inspiration. Our soul is traversing on a path which should end up on the absolute, the ultimate inspiration and objective rather than a passer-by-checkpoint or a short term goal. A doctor will never settle alone with a medical science degree. He/she will explore more unless and until he reaches a point where he doesn't need to strive further.
The Holy Quran challenges the idea of multiple gods or even a lower form of god by stating:
Do not associate with Allah any other god, lest you sit down despised, neglected. Al Isra (17:22)
This verse is not neglecting the possibility of a human being to accept multiple gods but rather it is clarifying that one would not achieve and would be finally neglected and despised if they do so. Because, naturally it means lowering the bar of the objective and inspiration which will be problematic for none but the self of the person as his soul will loose the ability to explore, think and ascend further. Finally, submitting to something less than the ultimate inspiration actually means submitting to someone who carries it's own inspiration. As Quran says:
"Those whom they call upon, themselves seek the means of access to their Lord-- whoever of them is nearest-- and they hope for His mercy and fear His chastisement; surely the chastisement of your Lord is a thing to be cautious of." Al Isra (17:57)
So, we notice how beautifully these verses state which is extremely fundamental to our souls. How these verses convert the fundamentals of every being into words and negate the reality of polythiestic ideologies. The verses of Quran are definitely speaking the voice of our self here which we don't listen. Concluding the above argument, we stand clear that atheism is impossible and an athiest has a god which he submits but is unaware of his own submission. And polytheism which might be a possible inclination will vanish if we deeply ponder upon the fundamentals of our self. We will understand if we ponder carefully that all the entities that we accidently thought of as gods were short of being an ultimate inspiration.
Now, if we enter into the realm of monotheism, we again need to deal with several questions. Now, the focus of discussion has shifted from 'what is the suitable idea of god?' to 'how should we define a single inspiration/God?' There can be a few possibilities. But those possibilties are not what we are looking to identify but rather what our soul will find to be the best. We need to understand that we are not forcing our conscience to accept something which is not asked for and is inferior. The concept of a single inspiration is proven but that inspiration should fit into the exact criteria of what our conscience fundamentally wants. It was stated in the above discussion that there must be atleast one ultimate inspiration above all that should suffice the requirement of our final destiny or objective on this journey of our soul. Further, we also stated while having an argument on polytheism that inspiration can be comparative and different but such inspiration cannot be considered ultimate inspiration. It might be the best among all but if it is comparable then it is not unique. Our ultimate inspiration should be one, unique, independent and above everything while being the origin of everything. Can an entity within the realm of creation fulfill such a criteria? Can we call a creation, an origin of other creation? Even if this creation is not known to us or it is something really amazing and out of the box? The problem over here is that, whatever it might be, it is still a creation and hence it doesn't fulfills the criteria of being above all. Because, it lies withing the realm of creation and is remotely comparable to something even if the comparison is not that close. A star we see in the sky might be a million light years apart but the distance is still finite and it can be compared to other stars because it is has all the features of a star. So, this short example shows that our conscience will never settle with an ultimate inspiration which is not unique in all aspects and has nothing remotely similar. One might say, what about this universe as a single entity? Well, this universe is a system which is dependent upon several physical forces and natural phenomenas and if we contemplate the origin of these forces we are left with a question mark. It doesn't suffice the criteria of the self that the inspiration should be independent. So, whatsoever we might imagine and regardless of how much we move ahead, our self searches for more.
We our left with nothing but to take an option of this ultimate inspiration which is away from all bounds. This process of reasoning to reach the final conclusion is quite clear in the Holy Book (Qur'an) where Prophet Ibrahim (عليه السلام) says:
So when the night over-shadowed him, he saw a star; said he: Is this my Lord? So when it set, he said: I do not love the setting ones.
Then when he saw the moon rising, he said: Is this my Lord? So when it set, he said: If my Lord had not guided me I should certainly be of the erring people.
Then when he saw the sun rising, he said: Is this my Lord? Is this the greatest? So when it set, he said: O my people! surely I am clear of what you set up (with Allah).
Al Anaam (6:76-78)
As Imam Ali (عليه السلام) states the definition of that one god, the ultimate inspiration below:
Praise is due to Allah whose worth cannot be described by speakers, whose bounties cannot be counted by calculators and whose claim (to obedience) cannot be satisfied by those who attempt to do so, whom the height of intellectual courage cannot appreciate, and the divings of understanding cannot reach; He for whose description no limit has been laid down, no eulogy exists, no time is ordained and no duration is fixed. He brought forth creation through His Omnipotence, dispersed winds through His Compassion, and made firm the shaking earth with rocks......
He is a Being, but not through phenomenon of coming into being. He exists but not from non-existence. He is with everything but not in physical nearness. He is different from everything but not in physical separation. He acts but without connotation of movements and instruments. He sees even when there is none to be looked at from among His creation. He is only One, such that there is none with whom He may keep company or whom He may miss in his absence.
(excerpts of Nahj ul Balagha sermon 1)
As Amir al Mumineen (عليه السلام) defines, this is the ultimate destiny and inspiration our self is looking for and this is the only inspiration which can set pure moral standards for our conscience. Hence, this is the best and most beautiful definition of monotheism as it is testified by the soul and it is fundamental and intrinsic within ourselves.
Concluding this entire discussion now, we reach a conclusion which is solely given to us by our pure soul and our conscience. Similar to this, as described in the above verses, every particle in this entire universe is in complete servitude to Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) (the ultimate inspiration). Hence, while setting up moral principles, they should be derived from this inspiration and nothing else. Such should be the fundamental of the religion of our conscience. Therefore, monotheism in theory and in action is our fundamental principle whether we accept it or deny it. As the verse below says:
"Whoever goes aright, for his own soul does he go aright; and whoever goes astray, to its detriment only does he go astray...." Al Isra (17:15)
At last, the acting upon this principle just means pure servitude. We end on where we started. Serving the commandment of Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) is the only way to act upon the principle of monotheism and for this Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) has given commandments in his book of principles i.e Quran. Along with this he has brought the guiding inspirations which are not the ultimate inspirations but just the checkpoints on the path. Not the destiny but the bridge that connects to destiny. These are the prophets and Ahlulbayt (عليه السلام). This is just a brief Islamic point of view to elaborate the principle of monotheism and not necessarily the scope of our discussion for now. In this way we conclude our discussion by claiming from the purity of our soul that:
"Verily, we belong to Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) and verily to him do we return."
[Al Baqarah (2:156)]
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آؤ ذرا لہر و ہوا دیکھنے چلیں
ساحل سے ذرا کچھ لینے چلیں
جیب میں اشیاء نہ کہیں ملیں
بس آس کا علم ساتھ لے کے چلیں
آؤ اس راہ پر قدم تو رکھیں
باب الحوئج سے ذرا ملنے چلیں
ہاتھوں سے تڑپتی آنکھوں کو ملیں
کچھ اشک ذرا کوثر تک چھوڑنے چلیں
دل کھول کر اس کریم کو مخاتب کریں
واسطہِ عظیم پھر دیتے چلیں
بےبازو سے ہاتھ جوڑ کے کہیں
اس چھپے کو سامنے رکھ کے چلیں
سانسِ سکون لے کر اب آگے بڑھیں
آؤ منتظر اب سفر طے کر کے چلیں
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Hello.First book I would to anyone who is looking to fight with his Nafs is to read book Self Building by Ayatullah Ibrahim Amini.It is published in urdu as well.
A few words about my experience.I found this book tough to get through.I stopped in the middle two times before finally finishing it.Well worth the time spent.
The author develops his arguments by going through material and immaterial aspects of our existence.
After this short introduction the book is divided into three parts namely self refinement, self perfection and finally means of perfection.
I would prefer you go through it slowly highlighting parts and rereading them at times. Here is link to english edition.
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A ferocious warrior, a soft spoken sage,No other man could be both in any era or age,A servant so humble, an emperor so great,Never has a man possessed both traits so innate,
The father of orphans, the prince of a nation,
Two faces in this world which have no relation,
And yet, my Master, you were all of these things,
Everything and more, your virtues gushing like springs,
A man has only one heart, so how were you, you?
How are you everything, how can you be true?
I sat at the gate of my heart just as you sat at yours,
And He showed me how all this in your heart flows.
For if a man sits as watchful as you of his heart,
And no iota of doubt can take it apart,
Then that man is not certain, but certainty itself,
And if he defeats the whole of disbelief alone,
Then that man is not faithful, but the very faith itself,
And if you lifted the gate which forty men couldn't,
Then you are not strong but rather strength itself,
And if you demonstrate the impossible,
Then surely you are the hand of God Himself,
And I have no words to describe your words,
Suffice to say you are the word of God itself.
An eternity could pass yet your mystery will always be,
You are the blinding light that allows us to see,
The deafening truth that allows us to hear,
The saint whom we call in any worry or fear,
No words can describe you and no mind can perceive,
Your justice no judge or wise man can achieve,
And your lineage...where can I even begin?
Divinity and godliness and cures are found therein,
And why not, when their mother is their mother,
The radiant soul, and there will never be another,
And your light is the light of God's most adored,
The messenger you guarded with your life and your sword,
You are Ali- elevated in every way,
Second to none but one, no matter what they say,
The spark that ignites every beat of my heart,
The beauty of both worlds- God's own work of art,
The victor in battle and of the hearts of the pure,
Your allegiance is the promise of a future secure,
Your name is my cure in affliction and pain,
And I will call out to you again and again,
Let them mock and deny and say what they please,
I'll smile as you rescue me from hardship to ease.
Tonight and always, my heart overflows,
Your love is infinite and within me it grows,
The more I know you, the less I can contain,
Abu Thar was in love- he wasn't insane,
A badge of honour and a mark of pride,
He couldn't conceal it even if he tried,
You are the wealth which can't be taken away,
And so we will praise you all night and all day,
Judgement will come and still we won't finish,
Your virtue and glory will never diminish.
So I ask one last time, how are you, you?
A sage and a lion, how can both be true?
How can these virtues fit in one heart?
And I have only one answer- you are God's work of art.
The Zaydi scholar, Yusuf Abdul'ilah Ad-Dahyani al-Hassani, may Allah grant him success, addresses some points
concerning the science of Hadith within the Zaydi school in this post of his. The post addresses two assertions
which have been levelled against the madhab. The first is that the school does not have any early books of ‘ilm alRijal, and the second is that it does not have the necessary prerequisites to authenticate hadiths.
The Shaykh’s response is as follows:
As for the claim that the Zaydi school does not have any early books of ‘ilm al-Rijal, this is false. A lot of early
material was produced by Zaydi scholars on the subject of ‘ilm al-Rijal. Although some of these works have been
lost, the material contained in these works can still be located within other books. Moreover, a number of works are
still intact and are in print, such as:
1. Maqatil al-talibiyyin (which includes the biographies of those who gave their pledge of allegiance to an-Nafs azZakiyyah)
2. Tasmiyah man Rawa’an al-Imam Zayd min at-Tabi’een
3. Tasmiyah man Istash’hada ma’a al-Imam Zayd ibn Ali fil Amali al-Ithnayniyah
This is in addition to many other collections and books by our Imams. These works provide accounts of discredited
narrators (majrooh), those who have hatred for the Ahl al-Bayt (nawasib), and those who were liars. On that basis,
the Zaydi madhab possess enough biographical data on narrators and does not require the use of works produced
outside of the madhab. Praise be to Allah, we are capable of knowing who narrators are, and differentiating between
them. Those who call themselves Ahl al-Hadith have based their entire religion on every hadith they’ve ever heard,
resulting in them accepting hadiths from dozens of narrators who have only transmitted one single report, with
On the other hand, our Imams have relieved us from a huge burden by passing down entire hadith-related books
down to us, which have been narrated with a golden chain (Sanad as-Silsila ad-Dhahabiyya) on the authority of their
forefathers, such as:
1. The Musnad of Imam Zayd
2. The Amali of Ahmad ibn Isa
4. Silsilat al-Ibreez
As for the claim that the Zaydi school is incapable of ascertaining the authenticity of hadiths, this is also false.
There are a number of good books and pieces of research which have been produced by our school which shed light
on this, such as:
1. Al-Falak ad-Dawwar
3. Lawami’ al-Anwar
4. Ulum al-Hadith ‘inda az-Zaydiyyah wa al-Muhadditheen
In addition to this, there are also other works produced on the subject by Abdullah Hamoud al-‘Azzi, as well as
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Qudsiyaa Taahera sardaar-e-nisaa hai Zehraa,
Himmat-e-hasti-e-aurat ki sada hai zehraa,
Aalam-e-jehl ke toofaañ na bujhaa paaye jise,
Khalq-e-zan meiñ quvvat-e-shamm-e-haya hai zehraa
Apna haqq jaanna laazim hai so ye yaad rakheñ
Markaz-e-haqq-e-haqiiqi ka pata hai Zehraa,
Ilm-o-Irfaan ka meyaar khirad se hai pare,
Ilm ke shehr ki raunaq hai ana hai zehraa,
Malka-e-khalq kahaañ or kahaañ baagh-e-fadak,
Past-fitrat ko khaber kya ho ke kya hai Zehraa
Majlis-e-sheh meiñ jab aao to khuloos-e-dil se,
Mehv-e-riqqat jo sar-e-Farsh-e-aza hai Zehraa
Gulshan-e-Ahmed-e-mursal hai mu.atter jis se,
Paiker-e-sabr-o-gul-e-arsh-e-ulaa hai Zehraa
Fakhr-e-rab ruu-e-muqaddas hai saraapaa ismat,
Dasht-e-pasti meiñ balandi ki naba hai Zehraa,
shakl-o-seerat meiñ baseerat ki har ek jumbish meiñ,
Apne hi aap meiñ qur.aan-e-khudaa hai Zehraa
Parda-e-azmat-e-niswaañ pe likha ho goya,
Deen-e-islam ki zeenat ki ridaa hai Zehraa
Shafqat-o-rehmat-e-khaaliq ki ziyaa hai Zehraa,
noor ko noor ki naayaab ata hai Zehraa
Zikr jinka hai ibadat ki har ek zeb-o-'zain',
Lauh-e-mehfooz paa tehreer-e-baqaa hai Zehraa
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It's been a while since I last posted a blog but I would like to share my thoughts on Joe Biden's first day as president.
Words cannot describe how great it is to see Donald Trump leave. Donald Trump was one of the worst presidents in American history. He caused nothing but trouble to America. He is the one who resulted in Qassim Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (both men who were responsible for removing terrorism) getting killed which happened early last year. His policies on the Covid-19 disaster were horrible. Joe Biden addressed the Covid-19 matters very nicely on Day 1 and getting rid of the issues Trump caused since he became president. He is going to make America recover from the issues that Trump caused in the last 4 years.
Edit: I've changed my stance on Biden. He is not that much better than Trump after all. He has caused more trouble than Trump has in the Middle East, in Syria with his strikes. He only has better Covid-19 policies and he is only stopping Trump's racist policies and his border wall for Mexicans.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
I was engaged in a discussion with a Sunni brother and he requested that I bring forward ahaadith whose chains are strong by our own standards regarding the very explicit appointment of Imam Ali (عليه السلام) by the Prophet (s). What follows is some research I've collected. I have not personally graded these chains nor have I even confirmed their strength; most of these ahaadith are graded by Ayatollah Zanjani, some by Ayatollah Aasif Muhsini or others. At any rate, I request the brothers here to post in the comments if they have anything to say about the chains or the correctness of the sanad evaluation. Note also, that these translations are not mine; anything from Al-Amaali of al-Saduq was done by @Qa'im, may Allah reward him, and most of the ahaadith from Uyoon Akhbar al-Ridha were taken from thaqalayn.net; other translations were found spuriously from various sources.
It is worth mentioning that in Bihar al-Anwar there are 528 hadiths in the section "chapters on the texts appointing the Commander of the Faithful (Ali) and on the 12 Imams." The vast majority of these ahaadith, however, have weak chains (as is usually the case with ahaadith generally, even in Sunni books.) For this reason, I have compiled a few ahaadith with stronger chains in which Imam Ali (عليه السلام) is clearly being mentioned as the Prophet's successor in a clear manner so that we can use the plethora of weak ahaadith to show that the meaning indicated in these ahaadith is mutawaatir. The plethora of weak hadiths act as additional proof to raise our confidence to certainty. This is because it is impossible for so many independent chains of narrators to have conspired and agreed upon a lie, throughout different times, locations, etc. The existence of even a single sahih hadith in addition to dozens of independent weak chains pointing to the same meaning means that there is no room for doubt about the correctness of that meaning. This would mean that it is beyond doubt that the general teaching that Imam Ali (عليه السلام) was appointed directly from the Prophet (s) was indeed taught by the Imams, as the Rafidha claim.
الأمالی للصدوق ج1، ص 360، ح12
حدثنا جعفر بن محمد بن مسرور قال حدثنا الحسين بن محمد بن عامر عن عمه عن محمد بن أبي عمير عن سليمان بن مهران عن الصادق جعفر بن محمد ع عن أبيه محمد بن علي ع عن أبيه علي بن الحسين ع عن أبيه الحسين بن علي ع عن أبيه علي بن أبي طالب ع قال قال رسول الله ص [ يا علي أنت أخي و أنا أخوك يا علي أنت مني و أنا منك يا علي أنت وصيي و خليفتي و حجة الله على أمتي بعدي لقد سعد من تولاك و شقي من عاداك.]
Ja`far b. Muhammad b. Masrur narrated to us. He said: Al-Husayn b. Muhammad b. `Amer narrated to us from his uncle from Muhammad b. Abi `Umayr from Sulayman b. Mehran from al-Sadiq Ja`far b. Muhammad (عليه السلام) from his father Muhammad b. `Ali (عليه السلام) from his father `Ali b. al-Husayn (عليه السلام) from his father al-Husayn b. `Ali (عليه السلام) from his father `Ali b. Abi Talib (عليه السلام).
He said: The Messenger of Allah (s) said: O `Ali! You are my brother and I am your brother. O `Ali! You are from me and I am from you. O `Ali! You are my deputy, my vicegerent, and the Proof of Allah over my Nation after me. Whoever aligns with you will be happy, and whoever opposes you will be wretched.
عيون أخبار الرضا (ع) ج2 ص6 ح13
حَدَّثَنا حَمْزَة بْنِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ أَحْمَدِ بْنِ جَعْفَرِ بْنِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ زَيد بْنِ عَلِىِّ بْنِ الحُسَيْن بْنِ علي بن أَبي طالِب عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ بقم فِي رَجَب سِنَةَ تِسْعَ وَثَلاثِينَ وَثَلاثِمائَةٍ قالَ: حَدَّثَني أَبي عَنْ ياسر الخادِم، عَن أَبي الحَسَن عَلِىِّ بْنِ مُوسَى الرِّضا عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ، عَن أَبيهِ، عَن آبائِهِ، عَن الحُسَيْنِ بْنِ عَلِى عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ قالَ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِهِ لِعَلِيٍّ: يَا عَلِيُّ أَنْتَ حُجَّةُ اللَّهِ وَأَنْتَ بَابُ اللَّهِ وَأَنْتَ الطَّرِيقُ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَأَنْتَ النَّبَأُ الْعَظِيمُ وَأَنْتَ الصِّرَاطُ الْمُسْتَقِيمُ وَأَنْتَ الْمَثَلُ الأَعْلى. يَا عَلِيُّ أَنْتَ إِمَامُ الْمُسْلِمِينَ وَأَمِيرُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَخَيْرُ الْوَصِيِّينَ وَسَيِّدُ الصِّدِّيقِينَ. يَا عَلِيُّ أَنْتَ الْفَارُوقُ الأَعْظَمُ وَأَنْتَ الصِّدِّيقُ الأَكْبَرُ. يَا عَلِيُّ أَنْتَ خَلِيفَتِي عَلَى أُمَّتِي وَأَنْتَ قَاضِي دَيْنِي وَأَنْتَ مُنْجِزُ عِدَاتِي. يَا عَلِيُّ أَنْتَ الْمَظْلُومُ بَعْدِي يَا عَلِيُّ أَنْتَ الْمُفَارِقُ بَعْدِي يَا عَلِيُّ أَنْتَ الْمَهْجُورُ بَعْدِي. أُشْهِدُ اللَّهَ تَعَالَى وَمَنْ حَضَرَ مِنْ أُمَّتِي أَنَّ حِزْبَكَ حِزْبِي وَحِزْبِي حِزْبُ اللَّهِ وَأَنَّ حِزْبَ أَعْدَائِكِ حِزْبُ الشَّيْطَانِ. (`Uyoon Akhbar ar-Rida)|
The Messenger of Allah [s] said to Ali [a]: "O Ali, you are the Proof of Allah and you are the Gate of Allah and you are the Path to Allah and you are the great tiding and you are straight path and you are the supreme example! O Ali, you are Imam of the Muslims and the Commander of the Faithful and the best of the trustees and the master of the truthful! O Ali, you are the great criterion and you are the great saint! O Ali, you are my caliph upon my nation after me and you are the judge in my religion and you are the one who will fulfill my promises! O Ali, you will be oppressed after me! O Ali, you will be abandoned after me! O Ali, you will be forsaken after me! I testify to Allah and take those who are present in my community as witnesses that your party is my party and my party is the party of Allah and the party of your enemies is the party of Satan."
(Translation by @Qa'im)
عيون أخبار الرضا (ع)، ج2، ص13، ح30
30 - حَدَّثَنا مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عَلِى ماجِيلوَيْه وَأَحْمَدِ بْنِ عَلِىِّ بْنِ إِبراهِيمِ بْنِ هاشِمٍ وَأَحْمَد بْنِ جَعْفَر الْهَمَذانيّ - رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمْ - قالُوا: حَدَّثَنا عَلِىِّ بْنِ إِبراهِيمِ بْنِ هاشِمٍ، عَنْ أَبيهِ، عَنْ مَعبَدٍ عَنِ الحُسَيْنِ بْنِ خالِدٍ عَنِ الرِّضا عَلِىِّ بْنِ مُوسَى، عَنْ أَبيهِ مُوسَى بْنِ جَعْفَر، عَنْ أَبيهِ جَعْفَرِ بْنِ مُحَمَّد، عَن أبِيهِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عَلِىٍّ، عَنْ أَبيهِ عَلِىِّ بْنِ الحُسَيْن، عَنْ أَبيهِ الحُسَيْنُ بْنُ عَلِىٍّ، عَنْ أَبيهِ عَلِىِّ بْنِ أَبي طالِب عَلَيْهِمُ السَّلاَمُ قالَ: قالَ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِهِ: لِكُلِّ أُمَّةٍ صِدِّيقٌ وَفَارُوقٌ وَصِدِّيقُ هَذِهِ الأُمَّةِ وَفَارُوقُهَا عَلِيُّ بْنُ أَبِي طَالِبٍ إِنَّ عَلِيّاً سَفِينَةُ نَجَاتِهَا وَبَابُ حِطَّتِهَا إِنَّهُ يُوشَعُهَا وَشَمْعُونُهَا وَذُو قَرْنَيْهَا مَعَاشِرَ النَّاسِ إِنَّ عَلِيّاً خَلِيفَةُ اللَّهِ وَخَلِيفَتِي عَلَيْكُمْ بَعْدِي وَإِنَّهُ لامِيرُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَخَيْرُ الْوَصِيِّينَ مَنْ نَازَعَهُ فَقَدْ نَازَعَنِي وَمَنْ ظَلَمَهُ فَقَدْ ظَلَمَنِي وَمَنْ غَالَبَهُ فَقَدْ غَالَبَنِي وَمَنْ بَرَّهُ فَقَدْ بَرَّنِي وَمَنْ جَفَاهُ فَقَدْ جَفَانِي وَمَنْ عَادَاهُ فَقَدْ عَادَانِي وَمَنْ وَالاهُ فَقَدْ وَالانِي وَذَلِكَ أَنَّهُ أَخِي وَوَزِيرِي وَمَخْلُوقٌ مِنْ طِينَتِي وَكُنْتُ أَنَا وَإِيَّاهُ نُوراً وَاحِداً.
30-30 Muhammad ibn Ali Majiluwayh, Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Ibrahim ibn Hashem, and Ahmad ibn Ziyad ibn Ja’far al-Hamadani - may God be pleased with them - narrated that Ali ibn Ibrahim ibn Hashem quoted on the authority of his father, on the authority of Ali ibn Ma’bad, on the authority of Al-Husayn ibn Khalid, on the authority of Al-Ridha’ Ali ibn Musa ((عليه السلام).), on the authority of his father Musa ibn Ja’far ((عليه السلام).), on the authority of his father Ja’far ibn Muhammad ((عليه السلام).), on the authority of his
father Muhammad ibn Ali ((عليه السلام).), on the authority of Ali ibn Al-Husayn ((عليه السلام).), on the authority of his father Al-Husayn ibn Ali ((عليه السلام).), on the authority of his father Ali ibn Abi Talib ((عليه السلام).), “God’s Prophet (S) said, There is a companion and one who distinguishes truth from falsehood for every nation. The one for this nation is Ali ibn Abi Talib. He is the ship of salvation. He is its gate of repentance. He is like its Yosha’, Sham’oon, and Thul-Qarnayn. O people! Ali is God’s vicegerent and my Caliph after me. He is the Commander of the Faithful. He is the best of the Trustees. Whoever fights with him has indeed fought with me. Whoever oppresses him has indeed oppressed me. Whoever overcomes him has indeed overcome me. Whoever does him good has indeed done good to me. Whoever mistreats him has indeed mistreated me. Whoever is his enemy is indeed my enemy. Whoever is his friend is indeed my friend, since he is my brother and Vizier. He has been created from the same essence that I have been created from. He and I are but one and the same light.’”
كمال الدين، ج1، ص260، ح6
/ صحیح /
حدثنا محمد بن علي ماجيلويه قال حدثنا علي بن إبراهيم عن أبيه عن علي بن معبد عن الحسين بن خالد عن علي بن موسى الرضا ع عن أبيه ع عن آبائه ع قال قال رسول الله ص [ من أحب أن يتمسك بديني و يركب سفينة النجاة بعدي فليقتد بعلي بن أبي طالب و ليعاد عدوه و ليوال وليه فإنه وصيي و خليفتي على أمتي في حياتي و بعد وفاتي و هو إمام كل مسلم و أمير كل مؤمن بعدي قوله قولي و أمره أمري و نهيه نهيي و تابعه تابعي و ناصره ناصري و خاذله خاذلي ثم قال عليه السلام من فارق عليا بعدي لم يرني و لم أره يوم القيامة و من خالف عليا حرم الله عليه الجنة و جعل مأواه النار و بئس المصير و من خذل عليا خذله الله يوم يعرض عليه و من نصر عليا نصره الله يوم يلقاه و لقنه حجته عند المساءلة ثم قال عليه السلام الحسن و الحسين إماما أمتي بعد أبيهما و سيدا شباب أهل الجنة و أمهما سيدة نساء العالمين و أبوهما سيد الوصيين و من ولد الحسين تسعة أئمة تاسعهم القائم من ولدي طاعتهم طاعتي و معصيتهم معصيتي - إلى الله أشكو المنكرين لفضلهم و المضيعين لحرمتهم بعدي و كفى بالله ولي ا و ناصرا لعترتي و أئمة أمتي و منتقما من الجاحدين لحقهم و سيعلم الذين ظلموا أي منقلب ينقلبون.]
6 - Narrated to us Muhammad bin Ali Majilaway: Narrated to us Ali bin Ibrahim from his father from Ali bin Mabad from Husain bin Khalid from Ali Ibn Musa al-Reza (a.r.) from his father from his forefathers that the Messenger of Allah (S) said:
“Whoever desires to fasten unto my religion and board the ark of salvation after me, must follow Ali Ibn Abi Talib ((عليه السلام).), bear enmity against his enemies and befriend his friends. For sure, he is my successor and my caliph on my followers in my life and after my death. He is the chief of every Muslim and the chief of every believer after me. His saying is my saying, his command is my command, his prohibition is my prohibition, his follower is my follower, his helper is my helper and one who forsakes him has forsaken me.”
Then he continued, “Whoever separates from Ali ((عليه السلام).) after me, shall not see me and I will not see him on the Day of Judgment. Whoever opposes Ali ((عليه السلام).), Allah will make Paradise forbidden for him, his abode will be the Hell-fire, and evil will be his fate. Whoever forsakes Ali ((عليه السلام).), he will be forsaken on the Day of Presentation, and whoever helps Ali ((عليه السلام).) Allah will help him on the day he will meet Him. The Divine Proof (Hujjat) will prompt his answers to him on the day of questioning.”
Thereafter he said, “Hasan ((عليه السلام).) and Husain ((عليه السلام).) are the two Imams of my Ummah after their father and the leaders of the youth of Paradise. Their mother is the chief of the women of universe, and their father is the chief of the successors. From the descendants of Husain ((عليه السلام).), there will be nine Imams, and the ninth of them will be the Qaim of my progeny. Their obedience is my obedience and their defiance is my defiance. I will complain to Allah against those who challenge their superiority and deny their sanctity after me. Allah suffices as a Master and as a Helper for my progeny and the Imams of my Ummah, and as an Avenger for those who have denied them their rights.
وَسَيَعْلَمُ الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا أَيَّ مُنْقَلَبٍ يَنْقَلِبُونَ
And they who act unjustly shall know to what final place of turning they shall turn back.
عيون أخبار الرضا (ع)،ج۱،ص۲۹۵،ح۵۳
48 - حَدَّثَنا مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ بَكْرِ ان النقاش وَأَحْمَدِ بْنِ الحَسَن القَطَّانُ وَمُحَمَّدِ بْنِ أَحْمَدِ بْنِ إِبْراهِيم المعاذي وَمُحَمَّدِ بْنِ إِبْراهيمِ بْنِ إِسْحاق المكتب قالُوا حَدَّثَنا أَبُو العَبَّاسِ أحْمَد بْنِسَعِيدُ الهَمْدانِيَّ مَوْلى بَنِي هاشِم قالَ: حَدَّثَنا عَلِىِّ بْنِ الحَسَنِ بْنِ عَلِىِّ بْنِ فضال، عَن أَبيهِ، عَن أَبي الحَسَن عَلِىِّ بْنِ مُوسَى الرِّضا عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ، عَن أَبيهِ مُوسَى بْنِ جَعْفَر عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُعَنْ أَبِيهِ الصَّادِق مُحَمَّد عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ عَن أَبيهِ الباقِر مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عَلِى عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ عَنأَبيهِ زَيْنُ العابِدِينَ عَلِىِّ بْنِ الحُسَيْن عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ، عَن أَبيهِ سَيِّد الشُّهَداءِ الحُسَيْنِ بْنِ عَلِى عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ، عَن أَبيهِ سَيِّد الوَصِيِّين أَمِيرِ الْمُؤْمِنين عَلِىِّ بْنِ أَبِي طالِب عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ قالَ: إِنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِهِ خَطَبَنَا ذَاتَ يَوْمٍ فَقَالَ أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّهُ قَدْ أَقْبَلَ إِلَيْكُمْ شَهْرُ اللَّهِ بِالْبَرَكَةِ وَالرَّحْمَةِ وَالْمَغْفِرَةِ شَهْرٌ هُوَعِنْدَ اللَّهِ أَفْضَلُ الشُّهُورِ وَأَيَّامُهُ أَفْضَلُ الأَيَّامِ وَلَيَالِيهِ أَفْضَلُ اللَّيَالِي وَسَاعَاتُهُ أَفْضَلُ السَّاعَاتِ هُوَشَهْرٌ دُعِيتُمْ فِيهِ إِلَى ضِيَافَةِ اللَّهِ وَجُعِلْتُمْ فِيهِ مِنْ أَهْلِ كَرَامَةِ اللَّهِ أَنْفَاسُكُمْ فِيهِ تَسْبِيحٌ وَنَوْمُكُمْ فِيهِ عِبَادَةٌ وَعَمَلُكُمْ فِيهِ مَقْبُولٌ وَدُعَاؤُكُمْ فِيهِ مُسْتَجَابٌ فَسَلُوا اللَّهَ رَبَّكُمْ بِنِيَّاتٍ صَادِقَةٍ وَقُلُوبٍ طَاهِرَةٍ أَنْ يُوَفِّقَكُمْ لِصِيَامِهِ وَتِلاوَةِ كِتَابِهِ فَإِنَّ الشَّقِيَّ مَنْ حُرِمَ غُفْرَانَ اللَّهِ فِي هَذَا الشَّهْرِ الْعَظِيمِ وَاذْكُرُوا بِجُوعِكُمْ وَعَطَشِكُمْ فِيهِ جُوعَ يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ وَعَطَشَهُ وَتَصَدَّقُوا عَلَى فُقَرَائِكُمْ وَمَسَاكِينِكُمْ وَ قِّرُوا كِبَارَكُمْ وَارْحَمُوا صِغَارَكُمْ وَصِلُوا أَرْحَامَكُمْ وَاحْفَظُوا أَلْسِنَتَكُمْ وَغُضُّوا عَمَّا لا يَحِلُّ النَّظَرُ إِلَيْهِ أَبْصَارَكُمْ وَعَمَّا لا يَحِلُّ الاسْتَِماعُ إِلَيْهِ أَسْمَاعَكُمْ وَتَحَنَّنُوا عَلَى أَيْتَامِ النَّاسِ يُتَحَنَّنْ عَلَى أَيْتَامِكُمْ وَتُوبُوا إِلَى اللَّهِ مِنْ ذُنُوبِكُمْ وَارْفَعُوا إِلَيْهِ أَيْدِيَكُمْ بِالدُّعَاءِ فِي أَوْقَاتِ صَلَوَاتِكُمْ فَإِنَّهَا أَفْضَلُ السَّاعَاتِ يَنْظُرُ اللَّهُ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ فِيهَا بِالرَّحْمَةِ إِلَى عِبَادِهِ يُجِيبُهُمْ إِذَا نَاجَوْهُ وَيُلَبِّيهِمْ إِذَا نَادَوْهُ وَيَسْتَجِيبُ لَهُمْ إِذَا دَعَوْهُ أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّ أَنْفُسَكُمْ مَرْهُونَةٌ بِأَعْمَالِكُمْ فَفُكُّوهَا بِاسْتِغْفَارِكُمْ وَظُهُورُكُمْ ثَقِيلَةٌ مِنْ أَوْزَارِكُمْ فَخَفِّفُوا عَنْهَا بِطُولِ سُجُودِكُمْ وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّ اللَّهَ تَعَالَى ذِكْرُهُ أَقْسَمَ بِعِزَّتِهِ أَنْ لا يُعَذِّبَ الْمُصَلِّينَ وَالسَّاجِدِينَ وَأَنْ لا يُرَوِّعَهُمْ بِالنَّارِ يَوْمَ يَقُومُ النَّاسُ لِرَبِّ الْعالَمِينَ أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ مَنْ فَطَّرَ مِنْكُمْ صَائِماً مُؤْمِناً فِي هَذَا الشَّهْرِ كَانَ لَهُ بِذَلِكَ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ عِتْقُ رَقَبَةٍ وَمَغْفِرَةٌ لِمَا مَضَى مِنْ ذُنُوبِهِ. قِيلَ: يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ! وَلَيْسَ كُلُّنَـا يَقْـدِرُ عَلَى ذَلِــكَ. فَقَالَ صَلَّى اللهُ عَلَيْهِ وآلِهِ: اتَّقُوا النَّارَ وَلَوْ بِشِقِّ تَمْرَةٍ.إتَّقُوا النَّارَ وَلَوْ بِشَرْبَةٍ مِنْ مَاءٍ. أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ مَنْ حَسُنَ مِنْكُمْ فِي هَذَا الشَّهْرِ خُلُقُهُ كَانَ لَهُ جَوَازاً عَلَى الصِّرَاطِ يَوْمَ تَزِلُّ فِيهِ الأَقْدَامُ وَمَنْ خَفَّفَ فِي هَذَا الشَّهْرِ عَمَّا مَلَكَتْ يَمِينُهُ خَفَّفَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ حِسَابَهُ وَمَنْ كَفَّ فِيهِ شَرَّهُ كَفَّ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ غَضَبَهُ يَوْمَ يَلْقَاهُ وَمَنْ أَكْرَمَ فِيهِ يَتِيماً أَكْرَمَهُ اللَّهُ يَوْمَ يَلْقَاهُ وَمَنْ وَصَلَ فِيهِ رَحِمَهُ وَصَلَهُ اللَّهُ بِرَحْمَتِهِ يَوْمَ يَلْقَاهُ وَمَنْ قَطَعَ فِيهِ رَحِمَهُ قَطَعَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ رَحْمَتَهُ يَوْمَ يَلْقَاهُ وَمَنْ تَطَوَّعَ فِيهِ بِصَلاةٍ كَتَبَ اللَّهُ لَهُ بَرَاءَةً مِنَ النَّارِ وَمَنْ أَدَّى فِيهِ فَرْضاً كَانَ لَهُ ثَوَابُ مَنْ أَدَّى سَبْعِينَ فَرِيضَةً فِيَما سِوَاهُ مِنَ الشُّهُورِ وَمَنْ أَكْثَرَ فِيهِ مِنَ الصَّلاةِ عَلَيَّ ثَقَّلَ اللَّهُ مِيزَانَهُ يَوْمَ تَخِفُّ الْمَوَازِينُ وَمَنْ تَلا فِيهِ آيَةً مِنَ الْقُرْآنِ كَانَ لَهُ مِثْلُ أَجْرِ مَنْ خَتَمَ الْقُرْآنَ فِي غَيْرِهِ مِنَ الشُّهُورِ.أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّ أَبْوَابَ الْجِنَانِ فِي هَذَا الشَّهْرِ مُفَتَّحَةٌ فَسَلُوا رَبَّكُمْ أَنْ لا يُغَلِّقَهَا عَلَيْكُمْ وَأَبْوَابَ النِّيرَانِ مُغَلَّقَةٌ فَسَلُوا رَبَّكُمْ أَنْ لا يُفَتِّحَهَا عَلَيْكُمْ وَالشَّيَاطِينَ مَغْلُولَةٌ فَسَلُوا رَبَّكُمْ أَنْ لا يُسَلِّطَهَا عَلَيْكُمْ.قَالَ أَمِيرُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ: فَقُمْتُ فَقُلْتُ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ مَا أَفْضَلُ الأَعْمَالِ فِي هَذَا الشَّهْرِ؟فَقَالَ يَا أَبَا الْحَسَنِ أَفْضَلُ الأَعْمَالِ فِي هَذَا الشَّهْرِ الْوَرَعُ عَن مَحَارِمِ اللَّهِ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ. ثُمَّ بَكَى. فَقُلْتُ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ مَا يُبْكِيكَ؟ فَقَالَ يَا عَلِيُّ أَبْكِي لِمَا يَسْتَحِلُّ مِنْكَ فِي هَذَا الشَّهْرِ. كَأَنِّي بِكَ وَأَنْتَ تُصَلِّي لِرَبِّكَ وَقَدِ انْبَعَثَ أَشْقَى الأَوَّلِينَ شَقِيقُ عَاقِرِ نَاقَةِ ثَمُودَ فَضَرَبَكَ ضَرْبَةً عَلَى قَرْنِكَ فَخَضَبَ مِنْهَا لِحْيَتَكَ.قَالَ أَمِيرُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ فَقُلْتُ: يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ وَذَلِكَ فِي سَلامَةٍ مِنْ دِينِي؟فَقَالَ عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ فِي سَلامَةٍ مِنْ دِينِكَ.ثُمَّ قَالَ: يَا عَلِيُّ مَنْ قَتَلَكَ فَقَدْ قَتَلَنِي وَمَنْ أَبْغَضَكَ فَقَدْ أَبْغَضَنِي وَمَنْ سَبَّكَ فَقَدْ سَبَّنِي لأنَّكَ مِنِّي كَنَفْسِي رُوحُكَ مِنْ رُوحِي وَطِينَتُكَ مِنْ طِينَتِي إِنَّ اللَّهَ تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَى خَلَقَنِي وَإِيَّاكَ وَاصْطَفَانِي وَإِيَّاكَ وَاخْتَارَنِي لِلنُّبُوَّةِ وَاخْتَارَكَ لِلإِمَامَةِ وَمَنْ أَنْكَرَ إِمَامَتَكَ فَقَدْ أَنْكَرَ نُبُوَّتِي.يَا عَلِيُّ أَنْتَ وَصِيِّي وَأَبُو وُلْدِي وَزَوْجُ ابْنَتِي وَخَلِيفَتِي عَلَى أُمَّتِي فِي حَيَاتِي وَبَعْدَ مَوْتِي أَمْرُكَ أَمْرِي وَنَهْيُكَ نَهْيِي أُقْسِمُ بِالَّذِي بَعَثَنِي بِالنُّبُوَّةِ وَجَعَلَنِي خَيْرَ الْبَرِيَّةِ إِنَّكَ لَحُجَّةُ اللَّهِ عَلَى خَلْقِهِ وَأَمِينُهُ عَلَى سِرِّهِ وَخَلِيفَتُهُ عَلَى عِبَادِهِ.
28-48 Muhammad ibn Bakran an-Naqash, Ahmad ibn Al-Hassan al-Qattan, Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Mo’azi and Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ishaq al-Mokattib narrated that Abul Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Sa’eed al-Hamdani - a servant of the Hashemites - quoted on the authority of Ali ibn Al-Hassan ibn Ali ibn Fadhdhal, on the authority of his father, on the authority of Abil Hassan Ali ibn Musa Al-Ridha (s), on the authority of his father Musa ibn Ja’far (s), on the authority of his father As-Sadiq Ja’far ibn Muhammad (s), on the authority of his father Al-Baqir Muhammad ibn Ali (s), on the authority of his father the Ornament of the Worshippers Ali ibn Al-Hussein (s), on the authority of his father the Master of the Martyrs Al-Hussein ibn Ali (s), on the authority of his father the Master of the Trustees and the Commander of the Faithful Ali ibn Abi Talib (s) that one day God’s Prophet (s) delivered a sermon and said, “O people! The month of God (Ramadan) has come to you with blessings, mercy, and forgiveness. This is the noblest of the months to God. Its days are the noblest of the days. Its nights are the noblest of the nights. It is the month in which you have been invited to be God’s guests. You have been established as those honored by God in that month. Your breathing in this month is considered to be saying His Glorifications. Your sleeping in it is considered to be His worshipping, your deeds are accepted by Him and your supplications to Him are fulfilled. Then ask God - your Lord - with sincere intentions and pure hearts to help you succeed in His fasting and reciting His Book. Whoever gets deprived of God’s forgiveness in this great month is at a real loss. Remember the thirst and hunger of the Resurrection Day by experiencing this thirst and hunger. Give charity to your poor and indigent ones; respect your elder ones; be kind with the younger ones; visit your relations of kin; watch your tongues; lower your eyes from what your eyes are forbidden to look at; and guard your ears from what your ears are forbidden to hear. Be kind to other people’s orphans so that others may be kind to your orphans. Repent to God for your sins. Raise up your hands towards Him in supplication at the times of saying your prayers. These times are the noblest of the hours during which the Honorable the Exalted God looks upon His servants with Mercy, responds when they make supplications, replies to them when they call Him, and fulfills for them what they ask for. O people! You are tied down by your deeds. Free yourselves with your supplications. Your backs are overburdened with your sins. Make them lighter with extended prostrations. Know that the Sublime God has sworn by His Honor that He will not punish or throw into the Fire those who pray and fall in prostration on the Day on which all the people will rise for the Lord of the Worlds. O people! The reward with the Honorable the Exalted God for whoever provides for the breaking of the fast of any believer in this month is like that of freeing a slave and the forgiveness of all past sins.” The people said, “O Prophet of God! Not all of us are able to do that.” Then the Prophet (s) said, “Fend off the Fire from yourselves (by providing for the breaking of the fast of any believer) - even if it be with a piece of a date. Fend off the Fire from yourselves (by providing for the breaking of the fast of any believer) even if it be with a sip of water. O people! Whoever is good-tempered in this month will easily cross the Bridge on the Day (of Judgment) on which one’s steps are not firm. God will ease the reckoning of whoever takes it easy with those whom his right hand possesses (slaves) in this month. On the Day one meets God, God will withhold His Wrath from whoever controls his wickedness in this month. On the Day one meets God, God will honor whoever honors an orphan in this month. On the Day one meets God, He will shower His Mercy upon whoever maintains family ties in this month. God will deprive from His Mercy whoever breaks off his family ties in this month. God will record freedom from the Fire for whoever says one unit of recommendable prayers. The reward of whoever performs an obligatory deed in this month is seventy times that of one who performs the same deed in other months. The Balance of Deeds of whoever sends blessings upon me a lot will be more positive on the (Judgement) Day on which the Balance of Deeds are negative. The reward of whoever recites one verse of the Quran in this month is like the reward of one who recites the whole Quran in other months. O people! The gates of Paradise are open in this month. Then ask your Lord not to close them on you. And the gates of the Fire are closed. Then ask your Lord not to open them up to you. Satan is chained down. Then ask your Lord not to let him overcome you.” The Commander of the Faithful (Imam Ali) (s) said, “I stood up and said, ‘O Prophet of God! What are the noblest of the deeds in this month?’ The Prophet (s) said, “O Abul Hassan (s)! The noblest of the deeds in this month are abstaining from what the Honorable the Exalted God has forbidden.” Then the Prophet (s) cried. I asked him (s), “O Prophet of God! Why did you cry?” The Prophet (s) said, “O Ali! I cried for what will be done to you in this month. It is as if I see you while you are praying to your Lord and the nastiest of those of old or those of later times - as nasty as he who killed the she-camel of Thamud - will stand up and deliver such a blow to your head that your beard will get stained (with blood).” The Commander of the Faithful (Imam Ali) (s) said, “O Prophet of God! Will my religion remain intact in this situation?” The Prophet (s) said, “Your religion is intact.” The Prophet (s) then added, “O Ali! Whoever kills you has indeed killed me. Whoever despises you has indeed despised me. Whoever swears at you has indeed sworn at me. This is because you are from me and just like myself. Your spirit is from my spirit. Your clay is from my clay. In fact, the Blessed the Sublime God has created you and me, and appointed you and me. God chose me for the Prophethood and chose you for the Divine Leadership. Whoever denies your Divine Leadership has, in fact, denied my Prophethood. O Ali! You are my Trustee, the father of my grandchildren, the spouse of my daughter, the Caliph over my nation during and after my life. Your orders are just like my orders. Your admonishing is just like my admonishing. I swear by Him who has appointed me to the Prophethood and established me as the best of the people that you are God’s Proof for His creatures, the one entrusted with His Secrets and His Successor over His servants.”
Muwatthaq (Zanjani's rating)
Shaykh Asif al-Mohseni: معتبر - Mashra’at Bihar al-Anwar (2/458)
Same hadith with slightly different isnad:
فضائل الأشهر الثلاثة،ج۱،ص۷۷،ح۶۱ / موثق / حدثنا محمد بن إبراهيم بن إسحاق قال حدثنا أحمد بن محمد الهمداني قال حدثنا علي بن الحسن بن علي بن فضال عن أبيه عن أبي الحسن علي بن موسى الرضا ع عن أبيه موسى بن جعفر ع عن أبيه الصادق جعفر بن محمد ع عن أبيه الباقر ع عن أبيه زين العابدين ع عن أبيه سيد الشهداء الحسين بن علي ع عن أبيه سيد الوصيين أمير المؤمنين علي بن أبي طالب ع قال إن رسول الله ص خطبنا [ إن رسول الله صلى الله عليه و آله خطبنا ذات يوم…
حدثنا محمد بن زياد بن جعفر الهمداني رضي الله عنه قال حدثنا علي بن إبراهيم بن هاشم عن أبيه عن محمد بن أبي عمير عن غياث بن إبراهيم عن الصادق جعفر بن محمد عن أبيه محمد بن علي عن أبيه علي بن الحسين عن أبيه الحسين بن علي ع قال سئل أمير المؤمنين ص عن معنى قول رسول الله ص إني مخلف فيكم الثقلين كتاب الله و عترتي من العترة فقال أنا و الحسن و الحسين و الأئمة التسعة من ولد الحسين تاسعهم مهديهم و قائمهم لا يفارقون كتاب الله و لا يفارقهم حتى يردوا على رسول الله ص حوضه
Translation: Ameer al-Mu'mineen was asked about the Messenger of Allah's (SAWAS) words "I am leaving among you two weighty things, the Book of Allaah (Quran) and my progeny" 'Who is the progeny (`itrah)?'. So he (Imam `Alee) said I, Hasan, Husayn and the 9 Imams from the children (i.e lineage) of Husain and the 9th from them is Al-Qaa’im and the Mahdee, and they will not separate from the Book of Allaah until they reach Messenger of Allaah at the Hawd (Pond of Kawthar).
Source: Shaykh Sadooq, Kamaal al-Deen, pg. 240-241 Hadith # 64
This hadeeth has a great chain and would be graded Hasan Kal-SaHeeH (Hasan like a SaHeeH (hadeeth)), and that is only because of Ibraaheem bin Haashim Al-Qummee. All narrators in the isnaad are thiqaat (pl. thiqah).
One correction Muhammad bin Ziyaad bin Ja`far Al-Hamadaanee is actually aHmad bin Ziyaad bin Ja`far Al-Hamadaanee, there seems to be a mistake in the transcription in the hadeeth, but the tabaqah (path) of their narration are the same.
There were some other ahaadith I could have included here, but inshaAllah this suffices to prove the point. We have multiple attestations in Shi'i books that the Prophet (s) explicitly and implicitly appointed Imam Ali (عليه السلام) such that this is considered one of the musalaamaat (things taken from granted) within the madhhab. We are therefore certain that the Imams themselves taught this central doctrine. The following questions then emerge:
- Why do the majority of Ahlul Sunnah deny that the Imams (عليه السلام) taught this doctrine? Is it really reasonable to deny hundreds of ahaadith as being the lies of the raafidha, while claiming the Imams had no hand in spreading this doctrine?
- If one acknowledges that the Imams indeed taught this doctrine, do they believe that the Imams were liars? For example, did Imam al-Ridah or Imam al-Sadiq simply fabricate this view from thin air? Why were they considered to be trustworthy by their contemporaries - indeed their chain of transmission is called the Golden Chain?
- Why is it that even in Sunni books, we find indications that Imam Ali (عليه السلام) believed himself to be the rightful caliph after the Prophet? Was Imam Ali (عليه السلام) mistaken?
- Why is it that these hundreds of ahaadith from the Shi'i side are not taken as a qareenah (corroborating evidence) as to what the Prophet (s) meant in the many ahaadith found in Sunni books which seem to indicate that the Prophet was appointing Imam Ali (عليه السلام)? Why is there is an insistence that hadith al-thaqalayn meant merely to love the household (not follow them), or that the meaning of "mawlaa" in hadith al-ghadeer does not mean master, when the Ahlul Bayt themselves are clearly saying otherwise?
A Clarification: Is this post pointless?
A brother reached out to me asking for some clarification as to the point of this post, as it is a circular argument. I thought I had made it clear in the very first sentence of this post that a Sunni brother requested that I show him a shi'i hadith that:
- Is strong by shi'i standards
- Goes back to an explicit statement of the Prophet (i.e. it is not Imam al-Sadiq saying the Prophet appointed Imam Ali in his view, but rather Imam al-Sadiq quoting the Prophet, for example.)
- It should indicate the appointment of Imam Ali without there being any other reading of the text (unlike in strong sunni versions of hadith al-thaqalayn or hadith al-ghadeer in which there is a debate about what certain words mean etc.)
The reason is because he felt that if the Shia did not have a strong hadith going back to the Prophet (s) in which the appointment of Imam Ali was not crystal clear, our argument fails before it even gets off the ground because, in his words, "succession is not indicated by ambiguous statements from which we must infer what is meant." Upon his request I tried looking through 3 or 4 baabs of al-kaafi only to be disappointed (the hadiths either didn't quote the Prophet directly, or else they did not contain the explicit words that the Sunni brother was looking for, or they were weak by our own standards). I looked online, thinking that surely someone must of done this before me, but in fact I couldn't find anything. I therefore decided to put together what I found in this post for others to benefit, in case they are ever asked this question in the future.
The only inference I actually *do* think is a valid one is that the 500+ ahaadith in Bihar amount to evidence that the followers of the Imams were not the ones who made up the doctrine that Imam Ali was explicitly appointed, but rather that this was what their Imams taught them. In other words, if Sunnis want to call the Raafidha liars, they should start with Imam al-Sadiq rather than Hisham ibn al-Hakam. The reason for this is because even by secular historical standards, the sheer volume of narrations, chains etc that lead back to the Imams with this explicit claim make it hard to believe that dozens of independent individuals fabricated the whole thing. Furthermore, most of the chains go back to one of the known companions of an Imam which means that the burden of proof is on Sunnis to show, in an academic manner, how all of the main companions of Al-Baqir, Al-Sadiq, Al-Kadhim and al-Ridha - who came from multiple locations and throughout the span of decades, conspired to fabricate what the Imams were teaching. They must also show where the Imams denied believing in this specific doctrine (the appointment of Imam Ali), why the Imams were put under house arrest or actual prison if the Khalifa did not believe they were pinning their claim to succession on this doctrine, etc. I don't think any neutral historian can come to the conclusion that the Imams did not actually teach this point of doctrine. At the very least, it puts the burden of proof back on the Sunni who wants to conveniently claim that all of the closest companions of Imams 5-8 happened to teach the exact opposite central doctrine of what those Imams actually taught (which in their view was in fact agreeable with post-Imam Ahmad canonization.) Note: this claim is significantly different than what Shias claim about the companions of the Prophet (s) for reasons I will not get into here.
Do I think this is an argument to end all arguments? No. I don't. It's simply a corroborating piece of evidence that one makes in their overall case. I hope this clarifies the reason behind this post.
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I will start by giving a very simplified functional subdivision of the human Central Nervous System. Based on function, human brain can be divided into three areas
1. Brain stem: Brain stem is an upward continuation of spine. It is concerned with functions like controlling heart rate, regulation of blood pressure, breathing and some digestive functions to name just a few. Some of these are vital functions so an injury to brainstem could mean immediate death. That is why special care is taken to stabilize the neck in road traffic accidents.
2. Limbic System: This is a group of structures in our brain which together are involved in controlling behavior and emotions- Anger, pleasure, fear and punishment, reward, rage, curiosity, hunger, satiety, sexual drive, motivation and passivity, all of these come from the limbic system.
3. Cerebral Cortex: This is what we call the higher brain in laymen terms. It performs the ‘executive functions’. The prefrontal cortex(PFC) occupies the anterior portion of the frontal lobes and is thought to be one of the most complex anatomical and functional structures of the mammalian brain.
- All living creatures have some system for maintain vital body functions like breathing in place of brainstem.
- All vertebrates possess a limbic system so dogs, cats and other animals are able to feel and express emotions.
- Amongst vertebrates the only classes to possess the characteristic cerebral cortex are mammals (and some reptiles, lolz, so the conspiracy theories about the world being controlled by an elite group of reptiles could turn out to be true)
- Amongst the mammals Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) bestowed the humans with the most highly developed cerebral cortex of all its creations on earth. When I say highly developed I don’t mean size or surface area relative to body, I mean functionally development and intellectual capabilities. Humans are probably intellectually highest of all the earthly species created by Allah.
It is because of this highly developed cortex that humans sit at the top of the hierarchy and have been called ‘Vicegerents of Allah’ on earth. Of course, not any two footed being in human form can be the vicegerent of Allah(سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى). He also has to manifest divine attributes in both his private and social life.
So our cerebral cortex is capable of ‘higher mental functions’ like thinking, abstraction, planning, decision making and controlling the limbic system! This last function is probably its most important function.
The brainstem functions are not under our conscious control. Obviously we cannot tell our bodies increase or decrease the heart rate or blood pressure.
Higher mental functions are almost always voluntary.
The limbic system sits on the the borderline between brain stem and cerebral cortex both structurally and functionally (the word limbic means borderline in latin) What does this mean? This means that we can choose to exercise control over our behavior and emotions using the executive powers of cerebral cortex or we can let the limbic system run loose and let it do whatever it wants in which case a human would be expressing a range of unbridled emotions anger, curiosity, sexual drive etc
Let’s look at some differences in capabilities of humans vs animals which are manifested by virtue of an intellectual cortex and are important from a religious perspective.
- Animals are incapable of differentiating between haram and halal. That’s why Allah(سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) didn’t make it obligatory on them to respect these boundaries. It is the cerebral cortex and its associated areas which give the humans the capability learn this and differentiate between the two in various life situations. But if the humans choose not to utilize the cerebral cortex for this purpose and let their limbic system(emotions) take over, they lose the differentiation and in those instances they are acting like animals. This can easily be observed in the most primal of behaviours like consuming food and copulating and also in advanced actions like earning rizq through unlawful means.
- Animals cannot be taught moral and ethics. If your pet dog steals a piece of meat you can arouse feelings of fear and punishment in it but you cannot teach him why stealing is wrong. This is again due to the absence of the cerebral cortex that humans possess and probably this is the reason why animals won’t get punished for misconducts in the akhirah like humans.
- Animals cannot differentiate between tahara and nijasat. Again this is something which is a function of cerebral cortex. Physical purity is something which is very crucial in Islamic faith.
- The principles of mahram/namehram can only be comprehended by humans.
Looking at the above we can see how intellect elevates humans from the level of animals to vicegerents of Allah. Maybe this is why most of things that are counted as sins in islam are in principle limbic system(emotions) overriding the cortex(intellect)
- Anger- limbic system taking charge,
- Zina and haram lust – limbic system taking over humans,
- Consuming haram food and even stuffing yourself with halal food- limbic system satiety centre gone out of control,
- Curiosity- Even though the mechanism behind curiosity isn’t very well understood because it is difficult to differentiate curiosity from information seeking but what research has discovered so far is that a part of the limbic cortex is involved in both regulation and reward that is associated with curiosity(1). In Surah Hujraat (49:12) Allah forbids us from spying and ‘Tajassus’ but if limbic system is not controlled the person could be snooping around other people’s affairs, just like an animal would sniff and examine any object in vicinity.
- Gambling – During gambling intellectual areas of the brain like prefrontal cortex show less activity than limbic areas depicting a link between gambling and limbic system(2) What’s interesting is that in an animal study conducted on gambling ,some species of animal demonstrated the same choices and psychological behavior as pathological gamblers. So, when Allah(سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) made gambling haram it was probably to not let humans reduce themselves to animals.
- Drinking –Alcohol impairs functioning on the prefrontal cortex, disrupts normal pattern of neuronal activity required for decision making and thinking and hence leads to limbic system taking over. This is manifested a as lack of inhibition in people commonly observed in people who has ingested alcohol.(3)
If we look at Jihad bil nafs in medical terms it’s just a battle between limbic system and cerebral cortex.
Looking at the lives of Ahlulbayt (عليه السلام) we won’t find any instance where we see limbic system ruling over them. There is a famous incident where in the battle of Khandaq, where Imam Ali(عليه السلام) was on Amr bin abde Wud’s chest and about to kill him but then he abused Imam Ali(عليه السلام). At this Imam Ali (عليه السلام) moved from Amr’s chest and walked away. After the battle was over people asked Imam Ali(عليه السلام) the reason why he had spared Amr’s life when he had overpowered him. At this he replied,” When I had floored him, he abused me, as a result of which I was overcome by rage. I feared that if I were to kill him in that state of anger, it would be for pacifying my anger. So I stepped away from him till my fury subsided.Then I returned to sever his head from his body only for the happiness of Allah and in obedience to Him.” (Manaqib Al Abi Talib by Ibn Shahrashub)
In Sahifa e Sajjadiya, Imam Sajjad (عليه السلام) has described three types of worshippers
i. Those who worship Allah because of fear of hell
ii. Those who worship Allah to get to Jannah
iii. Those who worship Allah because they find Allah worthy of worship.
He(عليه السلام) says the third is the highest form of worship. Why? Because the first two are worship of punishment and reward (limbic system worships) while the third is the worship of intellect (Prefrontal cortex).
So if we learn to control our limbic systems through reflection and worship gradually, we gain power over our nafs and then no amount of worldly temptation and desires can then take us away from out true purpose, that is submission to Allah(سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى).
[In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful]
Some people may object to my embrace of Islam. "Oh, Islam is such a difficult and demanding religion" they will say "It's too difficult to be a Muslim, especially in the West". I wholeheartedly disagree.
Islam is not difficult at all, unless you allow it to be. Submission to Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) is the natural state that humans were created for, so I have not found it terribly difficult at all thus far and even if it was, that doesn't mean that it's not worth pursuing (actually, challenges are good for us because they force us to persevere and grow in the process of overcoming). Religion and faith are not toys to be played with and put away on a shelf until the next time that you have a job interview, wind up in jail, or face an illness- Religion and faith are aspects of the human experience that should fundamentally change us as people, and always for the better.
This is the difference between a fulfilling life and a life of constant desire for the cheap thrills of this world (which never satisfy), religion is the difference between heaven & hell; as Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) sees all we do + his judgment of us will ultimately come down to how perfectly we submitted, how closely we followed his commands, and the weight of our sins of both commission & omission in this life (sins of omission would be neglecting salah, charity, or treatment of his creation, etc).
I honestly never thought I was going to be able to embrace Islam. There are enough posts on SC where I sound apprehensive and lean in that direction. What I have noticed is that within the past week, I have thrown myself into developing my practice of Islam with a much greater sense of mindfulness than I ever did with my Christianity. I believe that this is because in Christianity, we expect God/Jesus/Holy Spirit to "work within us" and change us without having to put in much effort ourselves besides reading the bible and praying daily. If we expect someone else, even our concept of God, to do this work for us it will likely not be done. We have to put forth the effort to change ourselves and develop our religion and Insha'Allah, we will become better, more complete human beings. In just a week, I have gone from near-total ignorance of the Quran, inability to pray without reading off a sheet, and praying "when I remembered" to keeping salah, memorizing the process of offering my five daily prayers, and setting five alarms on my phone (complete with an adhan for added immersion). I've even been able to commit short surahs to memory (in Arabic nonetheless!) so that I can offer my prayers properly as they were modeled by the Prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم). I never in my wildest dreams even two weeks ago, imagined that I would be capable of doing this, so I am both excited and at the same time, feeling a sense of serenity- that this really is "it" and that I have found the path that I belong on in order to develop as a person.
Today, I received my misbaha (dhikr beads) and have begun to offer dhikr, starting with the tasbih of Fatima (صلى الله عليه وآله وسلم) this afternoon. I have also ordered a modest prayer rug. Now I find myself wondering what my next steps are to improve my practice of Islam; namely what other parts of my religion can I begin to practice and what parts of myself I can work on improving. Although I am just a "baby Muslim", I truly feel as if I am changing for the better and that perhaps I should give myself just a bit more credit than I do for how far I have personally come in such a short period of time.
However, as easy as practicing Islam has been for me + as natural as it feels, I realize that my experience is just that- my experience. Brothers and sisters all across the planet, many in this nation of mine (America), may not have such an easy time adhering to their faith. For some (Uyghurs in China, Bosnians), the practice of Islam comes with the very real risk of persecution & death from the unjust & tyrannical, but nonetheless they keep the faith without probably ever making blog posts like this one. I believe that all of us, including the People of the Book (Christians and Jews) can learn something about fidelity, devotion, perseverance and not least of all courage, from these brave brothers and sisters in these countries that are much more hostile to Islam.
How do you think I can improve my religious practice from here on out?
How can you improve yours?
This is a comment often made by the apologists for European slavers.
Their defence is that the Europeans simply entered into a pre-existing tradition of slaving that existed in Africa and indeed all they did was provide an outlet for people who had already been taken into slavery by their fellow Africans.
I won't go into the obvious rebuttal that providing a demand for something is obviously going to increase its supply. The latter is the logic for making various goods illegal in consuming countries - so as to dry up the supply.
My interest is with another issue.
If slavery were so prevalent in Africa and the Middle East and after all you'd expect a larger number of slaves in those countries compared to North America, given their geographic proximity, why don't those countries have the same level of social and ethnic unrest as the United States does?
Or indeed if there was even institutional racism in Muslim countries, you'd expect to see the riots that flare up in the banlieues of Paris?
Surely we should have an underclass based on race in countries such as Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and so on?
My assessment is that there was a distinct difference in the nature of slavery as practiced in Africa/Arabia and what was undertaken in the western Hemisphere. In the former countries slaves would be members of a household. They lived worked and worshipped with their masters. In the Western Hemisphere the owners were typically enjoying the proceeds of slavery in countries many thousands of miles away. The slaves were simply machines for industrial production in a pre-industrial era. They were disenfranchised and dehumanised. The basis for this was the ideology of their masters which held that they were inferior.
As I have previously said, it's difficult to assess historical morality from a modern lens, given that we do not really have much idea about the, social, economic, demographic and other factors that were relevant at the time.
Here's one attempt to add some flesh to that point, sorry no URL. I'll see if I can add more in due course. The quotations that follow, come from the following article and I've tried to keep them short to protect copyright.
Shatzmiller, M Economic Performance and Economic Growth in the Early Islamic World Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 54 (2011) 132-18Quote
More evidence comes from estimates of the numbers of plague victims and the decline in cultivated areas, which explain the attempts made by the Islamic administrations to remedy the situation by purchasing slaves and forcing settlements...recurring plagues, which visited not only the Syrian coast but also Iraq.
The impact of plagues was not helped by what I presume was an increased control over reproduction, by women in Muslim countries:Quote
Evidence from legal and medical sources shows that the practice of birth control was common. Furthermore, small families, of 1.5 to 3 off-spring per family, were the norm well before the 14th century.
Now we come to the issue of the supply of slaves. Here's one explanation:Quote
Spufford...observed that the decline in the money supply in Europe during the late 9th century and the early 10th century, the considerable decline in the use of money and the quantity of coin in circulation may all be explained by the cessation of slave exports from Europe to the Islamic lands. According to him, slaves were paid for in Islamic gold coins of the mancus fame, money which was then used by nobles and churchmen to buy oriental goods, particularly spices, but also garments.
if the purchase of slaves is accepted as a factor in the Islamic population growth, then it may be interpreted in another way by adding the legal admonition for setting slaves free upon the master’s death. Slaves in Islam were eventually manumitted and incorporated into society.
OK here's another one. It's a review of the following book:
Islam and the Abolition of Slavery. By WILLIAM GERVASE CLARENCE-SMITH. London : Hurst & Company, 2006. Pp. xxvi+293. £26.40 (ISBN 1-85065-708-4).
The review is written by Ehud Toledano of Tel Aviv university and was published here: Journal of African History, 48 (2007), pp. 481–5.Quote
Also, the very question of abolition is a dubious topic to pursue as part of the history of enslavement and has always been a problematic topic to investigate. Many of the well-known polemics pitted a self-righteous, enlightened-liberal Occident against a denial-ridden, defensive and apologetic Orient. One discourse was moralizing, patronizing, fault-finding, while the other was seeking to redefine the very notion of bondage and to recast the problem in terms of value-free sociocultural difference. Unfortunately, no real dialogue between the two has evolved, since much was believed to be at stake – the very reputation of civilizations as humane and virtuous versus inhumane and barbaric. It is not the ‘facts’ themselves that need to be unearthed, but rather their implications that need to be faced and owned up to.
My own strong impression, however, is that a huge and frustrating disconnection exists between serious scholarship and the stuff we see on the Internet ...
1. If Muslim countries historically faced population devastation due to plague and women not having enough kids AND there was also a possible supply of slaves e.g. European countries wanting to buy Muslim products but having nothing to sell them except people - then buying slaves would seem to me to be a legitimate exercise. Couple that with the idea that in Islamic law, manumission (freeing of slaves) was an important element of slavery, then that makes the deal better still.
2. But the reality of slavery was that Muslims would often not follow Islamic laws (as in your Khaleej example) and often cultural and other non-Islamic beliefs would drive their behaviour. For example, in Africa, Muslim slaveowners would prefer that their slaves DID NOT become Muslims because of the rights that this would give them. I don't think you can blame the religion for the non-observance of believers.
Some people may find this text to be useful, if you are too impatient to read it all, the summary is one page long and is on page xxiii. For the really time poor here's a snippet:
It's a book called, 'The structure of slavery in India, Africa and Asia', it was published in 2004 and although Google restricts how many pages you can see for free, there's more than enough to inform anyone who is interested.
My take away from what I have read so far and which also reinforce my pre-existing opinions, is that:
definitions of slavery vary,
practice of slavery varies between different Islamic schools;
Muslims often practice slavery NOT in accordance with sharia;
slavery was at certain times considered preferable to other forms of control e.g. corvee
one of the reasons for Islamic trade in slaves was the high levels of manumission, which enabled slaves to be freed, and also the relative lack of racial prejudice in Muslim societies which allowed slaves to integrate into society
But most importantly of all it explicitly reinforces the idea that I have been presenting in all these slavery discussions on Shiachat that if your image of slavery is based Kunta Kinte, you're basically starting off on the wrong premise.
To have a rational discussion referring to facts can be helpful. From the book I referred to earlier in the thread (emphasis my own):
"During catastrophes people often entered slavery either voluntarily or propelled by their kin group as a survival strategy p. xxiv...the British in 19th century India even described types of slavery as a form of poor relief" pxxii.
Perhaps the Muslims on this board who question how Imams ((عليه السلام).) could have held slaves, may reflect on that answer given by non-Muslims?
To have a rational discussion you also need to be clear about the terms you use and what they mean, as I have repeatedly shown, this can be problematic, as this quotation underlies:
"In sum, conventional western notions of 'slave' and 'free' are not particularly helpful tools of historical analysis in most of the IOW" p. xxvi
If I think back to the earliest debates on SC that I took part in, on slavery, I could see the hypothetical benefits. My posts are in the archives.
For this thread I did some digging around amongst academic studies undertaken by Westerners and found evidence backing up my hunch. So there's the quotation I found and posted earlier in this thread that the British colonial rulers who encountered one form of slavery in India considered it to be a form of social welfare.
These threads go in circles.
My original hunch and based on actually reading the Islamic materials posted by others and the historical material I have found, my conclusion is that slavery (like any other contract) can be done fairly and it can be done badly. All the critics ever do is give examples of the most abusive kinds of slavery. Similarly it would be easy to find examples of exploitative employment - does that mean anyone who has ever held a job in Human Resources will automatically go to hell?
Another little snippet, to show that some people may not really know the concept that they think they are talking about, this is from one study dealing with a Muslim country:Quote
Unlike genuine chattel slaves in ancient Greece and Rome, in the United States, and in Brazil and Haiti, who were always totally devoid of rights, farm-slaves in rural Hausaland normally enjoyed so many rights (including those of self-ransom) that it is reasonable to ask whether the term "slave" is, in fact, an appropriate translation of the Hausa bawa
distinctions have to be drawn between different varieties of slavery according to:
1) the type of owner,
2) the existence or otherwise of certain rights (including statutory freedom), and
3) the social structure within which slavery functioned.
Polly Hill. From Slavery to Freedom: The Case of Farm-Slavery in Nigerian Hausaland, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Jul., 1976), pp. 395-426
Anyone at university should be able to get the above free, or you'll have to pay US$30, here:
BTW Polly Hill is an interesting academic in her own right, here is her obituary:
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Sometimes we forget to be grateful for many of the blessings God has decreed upon us that if we were to thank him for countless days and nights, it would never be sufficient. Some of us may not realise that despite living in a house where our parents have different mindsets that complicate many aspects in life, perhaps during their time they had it far more worse. We forget that they have gone through immense pressure trying to give us a life far more opportunistic than theirs, yet they fail to realise how a lot of their customs prevents us from seeking opportunities in the first place. Think about the conservative societies they used to live in the past century and how difficult it was to overcome. Perhaps our parents think that their way of upbringing will lure us away from the demonised world, to save our mental stability and hence they carry their past teachings and culture to the next generation. On the contrary, that belief has torn us apart.
Our parents have survived war, signed myriad of papers and fought with the Western laws to seek a better environment for themselves and future offspring. We know that our families cannot seem to fathom our changes as we develop. They believe we are steering out of the line of honour and family reputation that if a slight error was committed then it would be spread throughout the entire community. You end up hearing tales and calumnies from storytellers who often find it entertaining to dwell in the affairs of others. The values and customs I have been raised in believe that a family's dignity and privilege is held by the eldest daughter where her wrongdoings mean familial destruction. Whilst having a good reputation at some point is crucial to living a substantial life, parents forget that our unexpressed feelings matter more than pleasing an egoistic community.
In Islam, one of the major sins is the displeasing of parents, where their anger is equatable to God's. Surely we must strive to respect them as they become elders, despite the levels of irritability we receive almost everyday. We are taught to maintain patience and that is further learnt more deeply during adolescence. Even so, a lot of the times one has knowledge of what is right yet still choose to divert into the path of wrong. An example is when our parents infuriate us, it results in retaliation rather than remaining quiet and calm. Understandably, nobody wants to hear someone create quite vague assumptions and further jump to the worst conclusions. That is one of the nuisances we normally find within parents.
From past personal experience, despite my OCD was likely of being genetic, I discovered that the strategies my parents used to make the entire family adhere to religion were often uncompromising. They believe using threats will make their children stand firm towards God and whilst I partially agree, the end result may be discrepancy. I've always loved being a Muslim. Observing full hijab from a very young age, praying at night outside the backyard beneath His illuminating creation whilst holding the sacred Qur'an in my hands. I thought I felt undeniable peace, but was it truly as peaceful as it sounded like? I was on attack the minute I stood onto my prayer mat or opened a supplication prayer. Those rampaging thoughts destroyed my inner peace. It seemed like I was a saintly servant of God, but the reality was that I was hurting deep down without even figuring out the cause. After recovery, a part of me came to conclusion as to what had led to these doubts and whispers in the first place. It somewhat was in relation towards my parent's upbringing, where I had noticed the number of threatening remarks they used in relation to God made me believe that I was obliged to add in the extra effort and consistency towards my prayers and other obligations. However, a number of times they had caught me in such a state and tried to give me solid advice that I am already pious enough in the eyes of God. And yet I always felt like I did a mistake in my ablution that led to repetitive cleansing.
Then again, we are far more mature than to be constantly blaming parents for our actions. I criticise myself for being too naive and turning small situations into extreme ones. The truth is nobody else is at fault but ourselves because we have full control over our own actions. We are willing to blame others for our mistakes in order to escape guilt or responsibility. Parents may have played some role in the way we have turned out to be, yet we know ourselves way too well as adults that most of it is our own fault, Maybe we did not realise that controlling our thoughts and actions could have been taken into our own hands if only we did not let all that negativity consume us.
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Original post: https://www.iqraonline.net/dialogue-with-believers/
An epidemic harming our communities is the general inability, hesitance & fear of engaging in dialogue with one another. In fact, in recent years, it appears there has been a significant increase in our communities engaging and initiating inter-faith dialogue, yet we do not see this phenomenon within our own communities. This is while we need such initiatives perhaps even much more so than inter-faith. We lack the ethics and etiquette of engaging in dialogue with other believers and this naturally weakens, distances and breaks up our communities on various fronts. This is of utmost concern particularly for the diaspora that is already in a vulnerable position – and things do not seem to be getting any better. Dialogue is not simply “speaking” – speaking is not the issue, in fact, many of us speak and have a lot to say, and our pulpits are occupied all year long with trained scholars, untrained lecturers and academics speaking.
A dialogue will generally have these three elements:
1) Two or more people
2) A subject of dispute or a subject that needs clarification
3) An expectation that the result of dialogue will either be in favour of you and/or the other party, or not (depending on the conclusion).
When dialogue does not take place, the results we observe are usually the belittlement of others, insults, accusations and rumours, swearing, and in fact, a lack of dialogue can even lead to physical confrontations, wars and bloodshed. These are of course all horrible consequences, particularly when the victims are no other than our selves. These consequences show that the subject of dispute was not resolved or there was no capacity to engage in a dialogue to begin with.
Why do we not engage in dialogue amongst ourselves? Are those who we disagree with amongst the believers so off the mark that we need to maintain a position against them like we should do with those who are genuine enemies of our belief? This is most often not the case at all and only in extremely exceptional circumstances do we have to encounter such groups of people – at which point it would be difficult to even classify them as believers. In the Treatise of Rights, Imam Sajjad (a) says that people of your creed enjoy the following rights over you:
The right of the people of your creed is harbouring safety for them, compassion toward them, kindness toward their wrong-doer, treating them with friendliness, seeking their well-being, thanking their good-doer, and keeping harm away from them. You should love for them what you love for yourself and dislike for them what you dislike for yourself. Their old men stand in the place of your father, their youths in the place of your brothers, their old women in the place of your mother, and their young ones in the place of your children.
Neglecting dialogue over matters of contention, more often than not, results in the trampling of some or all of these rights. So what prevents us from engaging in dialogue? Perhaps one or more of the following preliminaries required for dialogue do not exist:
1. The need to recognize other believers as noble creations of Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى). Verse [17:70] says Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) has given the children of Adam nobility and honour. In some of our communities, we see believers giving a lot of respect to Sayyids and this is not for any reason except for the fact that they are connected to the Prophet (p) through a chain of many generations. However, it behooves us to realize that we (and creation as a whole) are connected to Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) directly (or as per certain schools of philosophy, we are the very connection itself). Looking at another believer through the lens of dishonour and painting them as ignoble will not lead us anywhere and signifies a much greater spiritual problem.
2. Acknowledging that humans are different from certain aspects – gender, ethnicities, tribes, physical and spiritual capacities, affinities, tastes etc. We have two types of Sunnah (pl. Sunan) – the Sunnah of the Prophet and the Sunnah of Allah. The Sunan of Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) are divided into two: there are some Sunan that only become applicable when humans bring them upon themselves through their free-will; for example, the increased bestowal of guidance once we have wilfully chosen to come into Islam -
[47:17] As for those who are [rightly] guided, He enhances their guidance.
[19:76] Allah enhances in guidance those who are [rightly] guided.
There are some Sunan of Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى) that are absolute, not conditioned to the free-will of man. One of these Sunan is His creating us different. These differences are one of the necessary conditions for trial and tribulation to have any meaning in this world.
[5:48] …and had Allah wished He would have made you one community, but [His purposes required] that He should test you in respect to what He has given you…
[6:165] It is He who has made you successors on the Earth, and raised some of you in rank above others so that He may test you in respect to what He has given you.
As such, it is normal that even within the same worldview, there will be times people reach different conclusions and do things differently. Acknowledging this opens the door to considering certain points of contention worthy of engagement. On the contrary, allowing these contentions to break us apart may very well be a sign that the believers are failing in their trials.
3. The lack of desire to engage in Ṣulḥ - to reach a conciliation and compromise. Ṣulḥ is often discussed in the context of resolving personal disputes and ironing out details of settlements, or as a treaty for halting warfare. But the general principles of Ṣulḥ can also be used to resolve larger community disputes – as was common in the Muslim world in the past and continues to be the case in many rural places. However, this generic understanding of Ṣulḥ only works if parties involved have a desire to discuss their disputes in a sincere manner (the details and mechanisms of Ṣulḥ have been discussed in detail in their appropriate places). One should not see the mere existence of differences as necessarily going against the command of holding on to the rope of Allah [3:103] - these two are reconcilable on many occasions as the scholars have mentioned. The absence of Ṣulḥ breaks and fragments the communities of the believers.
4. Reality is too vast and not all of it is in our hands. At any given point we have only understood certain aspects of it and that as well to a certain degree, not absolute reality –
[17:85] and you have not been given of the knowledge except a little.
We need to acknowledge that there are other perspectives and there is genuine room for these perspectives to be justified within an Islamic framework. The vastness of reality should alone be enough to humble and soften us to engage in dialogue with another party amongst the believers. The delusion of having uncovered all of the truth regarding a certain matter and behaving as if no one else could possibly say anything that would add anything to our knowledge is a deterrent and barrier for dialogue.
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I wish to share my thoughts on the concept of Unity. To do that, I have a perspective which is a cumulation of all the experiences of my life put together. My perspective may have a bias since it is a combination of the realities that I have lived and observed at different points in time.
In order to explain my thoughts, I am compelled to make the best use of my language skills. I believe the English Language is one of the most, if not THE most spoken languages in contemporary times. I start off by introducing myself to the reader. I like to think of myself as a being that is subject to constant evolution. Evolution in the form of mind, body, brain, soul, spirit, etc.
So in order to understand me, the reader should have a basic understanding of the concept of Unity, Duality, Multiplicity, and Infinity.
Since only certain things can be explained at any one point in time (because time is relative), my goal here is to explain the concept of Unity.
In Arabic (the language of the Arab people), Unity is analogous to the concept of 'Tawhid'.
But in order to continue in English, I will have to proceed and due to my limitations to explain this concept, and the readers' limitations to understand this concept, I will have to improvise.
Understanding Unity via Duality can be done in countless ways. The way I wish to do so is through the relativity of time. Basically, in order to explain Unity to you, I will keep time as a constant for a short period of time. It is at my discretion (at present) to pick a point in time to explain to you the concept as I am the speaker and you are the listener (presumably).
The point of time that I pick is one from history. I have picked it because of its significance in countless ways, depending on the observer of time. The date I've picked is the 10th of October 680 C.E (Common Era).
Since I am explaining Unity through Duality, I would now like to divide the recording of time in history via two methods already used. The Gregorian Calendar (the 12 months commonly used today, supposed to have marked the beginning of the Common Era, following the birth of Jesus Christ) and The Hijri Calendar (the 12 months commonly used by the Muslim population of the world, following the migration of Muhammad to Mecca).
10th of October in the Gregorian Calendar coincides with the 10th of Muharram in the Hijri Calendar. More specifically, 10th October 680 C.E = 10th Muharram 61 A.H.
Since we are now keeping 'time' a 'constant', we have limited 'space' to keep making progress.
So, in a few words, Unity explained via Duality means that at it's most basic, yet Absolute, Unity means two things (keeping in mind that time is NOT a constant). As we understand, Unity exists via space relative to time. I repeat, Duality of Unity is known in contemporary times as the Space-Time continuum.
Do we understand the Space-Time continuum? Maybe, maybe not. I'd prefer to think that we do understand this continuum. You, me, we, all of us understand it in a different way.
Coming back to time. To conclude this, on the 10th of October 680 C.E. (10th of Muharram 61 A.H.), an event took place.
ONE event, best explained to be a combination of Infinite events, held at the same point in time for Existence to comprehend the Infinite potential of mankind in the form of Duality.
The Duality of Right vs. Wrong. The Duality of Truth vs. Falsehood. The Duality of Being a Creation Vs. The Creator.
As long as we can compel ourselves to observe all of history via the concept of Unity and applying Duality at it constantly, it will only be by a miracle that we don't/can't SEE the truth, HEAR the truth, FEEL the truth.
Anything and Everything else is just pure coincidence.
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Needless to say, before we can perform our duty against bid'ah, the pre-requisite step is to be able to see and identify it. How many people are aware of the dangers of bid'ah but due to lack of understanding are nevertheless a victim of it. The reason is that bid'ah is extremely deceptive - it is disguised as a praiseworthy act that promises to earn abundant reward for the performer and bring him closer to Ahlul Bayt (عليه السلام). The deception is increased because we see each and every Shia around us performing these acts. To add to this, the popular scholars keep promoting bid'ah as their standing and livelihood depends on it.
It is sad to say that bid'ah has been so strongly established in the Shia religion that the actions performed under it are now considered to be pillars and foundation of religion. Anyone who dares speak against these actions risks being ridiculed and ostracized. If a Shia were to give up all the innovations practiced in the name of religion, he would find himself isolated, cut-off and lonely. But such is the path on which a true Shia must tread in order to prove his loyalty to Ahlul Bayt (عليه السلام).
Please refer to our previous two articles on bid'ah:
Scholars must speak against bid'ahQuote
رسولُ الله صلى الله عليه وآله : إذا ظهَرتِ البِدعُ في اُمّتي فلْيُظهِرِ العالِمُ علمَهُ ، فمَن لَم يَفعلْ فعَلَيهِ لَعنةُ اللّهِ
Rasool Allah (s) said: When the innovations appear in my community (ummah), the scholar must manifest his knowledge (I.e. speak against them). So the one who does not do so, upon him be the curse of Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى).
[Al Kafi V 1 – The Book Of Intellect and Ignorance CH 19 H 2]Quote
امام على عليه السلام : أفضَلُ عِبادِ الله إمامٌ عادِلٌ، هُدِِِىَ، فَأقامَ سُنَّةً مَعلومَةً، وأماتَ بِدعَةً مَجهولَةً
Imam Ali (عليه السلام) said: The most virtuous of Allah's servants near Allah is a just leader, who is guided and guides others, and who has established the known traditions, and who has abolished the doubtful/problematic (majhool) innovations.
[Nahjul Balagha, Serman 164]Quote
رسولُ الله صلى الله عليه وآله : من أتى ذا بدْعةٍ فعطَّمهُ فإنَّما يَسْعى في هَدْمِ الإسلام
Rasool Allah (s) said: If one comes across an innovation and appreciates it (sides with it), so rather he has assisted in the demolition of Al Islam
[Al Kafi V 1 – The Book Of Intellect and Ignorance CH 19 H 3]
We must disassociate from the people of bid'ah
Below is a very strong hadith that highlights the danger of bid'ah.Quote
مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَحْيَى عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ الْحُسَيْنِ عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ أَبِي نَصْرٍ عَنْ دَاوُدَ بْنِ سِرْحَانَ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ اللَّهِ ع قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ص إِذَا رَأَيْتُمْ أَهْلَ الرَّيْبِ وَ الْبِدَعِ مِنْ بَعْدِي فَأَظْهِرُوا الْبَرَاءَةَ مِنْهُمْ وَ أَكْثِرُوا مِنْ سَبِّهِمْ وَ الْقَوْلَ فِيهِمْ وَ الْوَقِيعَةَ وَ بَاهِتُوهُمْ كَيْلَا يَطْمَعُوا فِي الْفَسَادِ فِي الْإِسْلَامِ وَ يَحْذَرَهُمُ النَّاسُ وَ لَا يَتَعَلَّمُوا مِنْ بِدَعِهِمْ يَكْتُبِ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ بِذَلِكَ الْحَسَنَاتِ وَ يَرْفَعْ لَكُمْ بِهِ الدَّرَجَاتِ فِي الْآخِرَةِ
The Messenger of Allah (s) said: When you will find people of bid'ah (innovation) and doubt/suspicion after me, do baraa' (disassociate) from them and increase in your insults (sabihim) to them, and oppose (them) and bring evidences against them so they may not become greedy in bringing fasaad (corruption) to Islam. You must warn people against them and do not learn their bid'ah (innovation). Allah will write for you hasanaat (good deeds) for this, and will raise you darajaat (levels) in the next life.
[Al Kafi V 2 – The Book Of Belief and Disbelief CH 163 H 4]Quote
أَبُو عَلِيٍّ الْأَشْعَرِيُّ عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عَبْدِ الْجَبَّارِ عَنْ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ بْنِ أَبِي نَجْرَانَ عَنْ عُمَرَ بْنِ يَزِيدَ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ اللَّهِ ع أَنَّهُ قَالَ لَا تَصْحَبُوا أَهْلَ الْبِدَعِ وَ لَا تُجَالِسُوهُمْ فَتَصِيرُوا عِنْدَ النَّاسِ كَوَاحِدٍ مِنْهُمْ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ص الْمَرْءُ عَلَى دِينِ خَلِيلِهِ وَ قَرِينِهِ
Abu Abd Allaah (عليه السلام) said: Do not befriend the Ahl Al-Bid'ah (People of Innovation), and do not sit with them, so you may become like one of them (according) to the people. The Messenger of Allaah (s) said: A man is upon the religion of his friends and associates.
[Al Kafi V 2 – The Book Of Belief and Disbelief CH 163 H 3]
Aabid vs AalimQuote
رسولُ الله صلى الله عليه وآله : فَضلُ العالِمِ عَلى العابِدِ بِسَبعينَ دَرَجَةً، بَينَ كُلِّ دَرَجَتَينِ حُضْرُ الفَرَسِ سَبعينَ عاماً ؛ و ذلكَ أنَّ الشّيطانَ يَضَعُ البِدْعَةَ لِلنّاسِ فيُبصِرُها العالِمُ فَينهى عَنها، و العابِدُ مُقبِلٌ عَلى عِبادَتِهِ لا يَتَوَجَّهُ لَها و لايَعرِفُها
The Prophet (s) said: The knowledgeable man (aalim) is superior to the worshipper (aabid) by seventy degrees, the distance between two degrees spanning the gallop of a horse for seventy years; and this is because Satan plants an innovation (bid'ah) amongst the people which the knowledgeable man (aalim) notices and prohibits, whilst the worshipper attends to his worship neither taking any notice of it nor recognizing it.
[Rawdhat al Waaizin, #17]
An Aalim abolishes bid'ah because of his knowledge of the hadith. His knowledge leads him to limit his actions to those dictated by the Ahlul Bayt (عليه السلام) and will never overstep the defined boundaries. Of all the popular speakers today who are quick to jump on to the Mimbar, how many are true Aalims as defined by Ahlul Bayt (عليه السلام)?
(Also published on blog: https://ahlulbaytmission.org/2019/08/24/our-duty-against-bidah/)
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Ya Rab! I never claimed that I am your absolute obedient, neither I say that I fulfill rights of my family and those around me. But, at least I keep a heart that hates my wrongdoing and is afraid of your punishment and your rejection. I am faqir in the world of piety, having no wealth to spend except remorse at my disobedience and I have always been keeping my eyes on the rich among the pious with eyes like that of a beggar who looks at the rich only if he pay attention to me and give me some from what you have granted him. I am disaster for myself, sinner who has no hope in himself. Several times you have saved me from my own mistakes yet I am not learning to be obedient. Who will help me if not you, while I have no hope in your creation among whom everyone is a player vying for their vested interests becoming trial for each other to ascertain what is his peer ? Sinner trying to find more sinners to appease his heart that he is not the only sinner and boastful good-doer trying people so that he can boast that no one is more righteous than him. I am one who say that I am absolute sinner mourning over my sins and biting my own hands as to why wasn't I much enlightened at the first place. Will you make me your humble servant, Ya Rab! knowing that I am a sinner yet I repent and feel bad and detest myself. Please forgive me for the sake of Ahlebait (عليه السلام).
This story is about a tea party, but actually it isn't about the party.
It isn't about the party that Anna Pavlovna holds, the one that many people know about but about whose subsequent events they remain unfamiliar. In fact if I wanted to I could try really hard and remind myself of the time I attended, but as I said that's not really the purpose of this story.
You see Sakina many people arrive at Anna Pavlovna's party with high hopes and expectations. They have a self-image of their literary prowess and they want to be able to tell everyone else that not only did they attend but that they experienced everything else that happened afterwards as well.
I was a bit like that to be honest. The first time I went I was about your age. I'd heard a lot about Anna Pavlovna's world and I wanted to be able to casually mention to friends and associates that I'd been. And so I would try so very very hard to get to know the attendees and to be honest it was impossible. I made many attempts and never got further than the entrance to the party itself.
So I tried a different tack.
I'd try less hard.
Instead of trying to get as far into this world as I could and meet as many people as I could, as quickly as I could, I would take the opposite approach.
I would only spend so much time at the party and I would stop, no matter how engaging the characters and no matter how interesting the stories that they had to tell.
And the next day I would come back to where I had left off and the people and the stories would still be there and slowly but surely I'd have the impetus to find out a little more about them and the following day a little bit more and so on.
In fact their lives became a little soap opera for me that went on for over a year and that's how I finished War & Peace.
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Imam Jafar al-Sadiq(عليه السلام) said: 'Allah revealed to Dawud(as): " When one of my servants resorts to me and not to anyone of My creation, I know that from his inner intention, such that even if the skies and the Earth and their inhabitants were to conspire against him, I will make an outlet for him in spite of them. And when one of My servants resorts to one of my creatures, I know that too from his intention, such that I cut off the means of subsistence of the skies from him, and I will make the Earth disintegrate from under him, and do not care in which valley he perishes."' al-Kafi,v.2, p.52,no.1.
Imam Jafar al-Sadiq(عليه السلام) said: ' Whoever from among the servants of Allah devotes himself towards that which Allah loves, Allah too devotes Himself to that which he loves. And whoever resorts entirely to Allah, Allah protects him, and whoever turns towards Allah, Allah accepts him and protects him, such that whether the sky was falling upon the Earth, or a calamity was to befall all the inhabitants of the Earth, he would in the Party of Allah, secure from all calamities. Indeed,does not Allah say: "Surely those who guard against evil are in a secure place?"' (Qur'an 44:51) al-Kafi,v.2,p.53,no.4
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Tolerance is inherently moral and necessarily social. And it can only be applied to people who are different, people you wouldn't consider part of "your" group. It is taught, a developed moral characteristic that may become part of who you are. We aren't born tolerant though, and that is why so many groups of influence have tried to develop this concept of group. Fascism itself is based on it. Our natural intolerance spreads as the worst virus if there are no forces to put an end to it. This is what sociology, so far, has been able to appreciate in the concept of tolerance at a macro-social level, and it has its reasons.
If tolerance is not natural to us, but rather "homophily" (the preference of those with similar characteristics: race, socio-economical class, ideology, etc.), then tolerance is a trait that we can only develop through education, and only if we find it any useful or right.
In the Qur'an it was already pointed that we were created in different groups:
"O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another." (Surat al Hujurat)
So I can just expect that for an early Arabic society this indeed meant a call for tolerance for a religion that was going to spread across many nations. It was useful. However, nowaday, this is not what we, as individuals, face. Living in a globalized world, being connected by the Internet and its very own culture, tolerance seems less and less necessary and useful. Ideologies and groups compete between each other, and a call for tolerance is against the efforts to reinforce that feeling of group. It isn't useful for many. Not to mention that tolerance is a highly difficult trait to acquire, as it requires great efforts of empathy. Ask yourselves to which point can you accept the different? And I don't mean their mere existence, most don't care about that. I mean tolerating someone different that is part of your life, in some way or another. We have always been taught to be tolerant when it has been useful, but not because it is good, because it is morally right. Because it is not among the interest of any group of influence. Groups, as the master of history and sociology of the Muslim world once said, Ibn Khaldun, have only one goal: power.
That's why, even revolutions, that are supposed to be the fight for ideas, end up in some sort of fascism and/or dictatorship. Even when the people that lead them truly wanted free elections (modern history is full of examples of this, it is something we can't avoid). They are still necessary, though, for the progress of ideas.
What happens, however, in our societies? In the West, tolerance has been imposed as something useful, but racism, mysogyny, LGBTphobia, etc. are still realities that many people even hate to discuss (many people attack feminism, for instance). In the Muslim world, tolerance died centuries ago, and an enormous amount of groups appeared. We are still reinforcing through our culture this intolerance, based on unreasonable discrimination: country of origin, skin color, studies, amount of money, gender, sexuality, beliefs, family/tribe name, etc. You can realize this inability to accept the different for instance in the topic of marriage, at what type of characteristic will people, parents, or ourselves if we have sons or daughters to marry, will look at. And it's not always the obvious (like don’t be racist). It is usually ideological. We can't accept other mentalities because we weren't taught about that, because the group we belong to doesn't want that.
Tolerance isn't only about accepting black people, or trans people, or seeing women as equals. People will probably try to appear as tolerant in that sense, because it is useful for them. However, as a moral trait, these people are not genuinely tolerant, but conveniently civilized. Real tolerance is being able to respect others by their opinion, beliefs, lifestyle, and of course, biological circumstances. Accept them as long as you are not tolerating the intolerant.
This conflict is paradoxical, and it is a well known paradox in social sciences (originally proposed by Karl Popper). The problem with tolerating the intolerant, as I said at the start of this entry, is precisely how fast and easily their intolerance spreads (because it is natural). As individuals and iA as free thinkers, we should fight to develop tolerance within ourselves and condemn intolerance even when it is present in those people who are part of "our" group (be it our racial "group", ideological, whatever). Intolerance isn't a joke, it's a social human and moral issue of high importance, and has always shaped our destiny.
Thus, I can only advise my readers to dedicate some time to observe that aspect of their hearts, if they behaved in a tolerant manner, identify our errors, ask for forgiveness to the Most Merciful, and ask him to guide us and make us more aware of being tolerant when we are, again, tested in life. Remember to ask Him to guide me as well, iA.
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I had the privilege and honor of going to Umrah a few weeks ago. Having completed my hajj in 2010, it was time to pay Hijaz another visit to pay my respects to the Prophet (saw) and his progeny in Madinah and visit the House of Allah in Makkah.
Hopefully the pointers below will help anyone planning on going for Umrah.
First, if you haven't been to Saudi before, it is best to go with a registered group. It will make things easier for you because other than following instructions, there shouldn't be much to worry about..Also, if you don't speak arabic or urdu/hindi/bengali, then it would be better to go with a registered group because language can be an issue in some places.
Anyway, I decided to go with my family instead of a group. The primary hurdle in going to Saudi is getting a visa. These are things to remember:
- We had to apply to a local consulate but individual travelers cannot apply on their own. The visa application has to be submitted through an authorized travel agency.
- Even though the Umrah visa is free, these agencies charge between $175 - $200 per person for visa.
- Also, note that you can only apply within 30 days of going for umrah.
- You need to buy non-refundable return tickets before applying.
- The other mandatory requirement is to get a meningitis vaccination. CVS, Walgreens or RediClinic can do this without a prescription. Without insurance, it will cost between $150-$200. Get the vaccination record from the Pharmacy and submit it with your application.
- Common sense would dictate that you buy your tickets once visa approval is obtained but not in this case.
- Visa application usually takes about 1 week to process...might take longer during busy times.
Next decision is where to fly in/out from. If you decide to go to Makkah first, you will have to fly into Jeddah. Since Jeddah is inside the meeqat***, you will have to wear your ihram from the point of origin. So we chose to fly into Madinah first.
I would recommend either Turkish Airlines or Emirates. We flew Emirates from the US. We had a 5 hour layover in Dubai so we went out of the airport and had a nice dinner. US Citizens do not need a visa for Dubai (UAE).Came back to the airport around 11p for our 105a flight to Medinah.
We arrived in Madinah around 345a, got out of the airport by 445a. Since we were not part of a group, I made arrangements transportation arrangements with or hotel. It took about 30 minutes to get to our hotel right next to Masjid Al-Nabawi (Mosque of the Holy Prophet).
We stayed at Hotel Pullman Zamzam Madinah. Fantastic 5* hotel with great rooms and awesome breakfast. The only downside to the hotel is that it is on the opposite end of the Ladies entrance to the mosque so it took the ladies about 15 minutes to walk to the mosque. The hotel did provide a shuttle service for women at regular intervals.
After checking-in, we took a quick shower and made our way to the Mosque just in time for Fajr - individual, not jama'ah.
After every salah every day, the Saudis open Jana'at Al-Baqi for an hour or so. Much to my surprise, the Saudis were fairly relaxed in letting people get in, recite dua/ziarat albeit quietly and even take pictures.
Imam Hasan (as), Imam Sajjad (as), Imam Al-Baqar and Imam Al-Sadiq are buried here.
If I am not mistaken, I think Hz Umm-al-baneen is buried where I have drawn the red circle:
Went back to our hotel around 7am. We ate breakfast and finally went to bed after a 24 hours journey.
We woke up around 3pm and went to the Prophet's mosque for zuhrain. We prayed some other prayers so got back to the hotel around 430p. We rested a bit more and then made our way back to the mosque for maghribain around 7p. Once again, we stayed there for around 2 hours and then had dinner and then back to the hotel.
We are recommended to pray full zuhr/asr/isha in Medinah.
After taking an early night, we headed to the Prophet's mosque around 2am where we prayed salat-e-layl and other prayers. Returned to our hotel just after fajr. Our schedule for the rest of the day was the same as the previous day. However, there are other ziarats in Madinah one can visit:
- Masjid al-Shams
- Masjid al-Zul Qibltayn
- Masjid al-Quba
- The Saba Saba Masjids
- Masjid al-Fatah
- Masjid Salman al-Farsi
- Masjid al-Ali A.S.
- Masjid al-Bidi Fatimah Zehra A.S.
- Ohud – Hazrat Hamza A.S.
I stayed in the Prophet's mosque from 130am - fajr. I had the honor to pray salat-e-layl in Riyad-al-Jannah (Piece of heaven) - it is adjacent to the Prophet's grave. After salah, I went to Jana'at-al-Baqi for Ziarah al-wida (Farewell ziarah).
We rested for a couple of hours, had breakfast and then made preparations to head to Makkah for Umrah.
The main thing required is to perform a ghusl with the niyyah (intention) Niyyat: “I am doing Ghusl for the following for wearing Ihram for Umra al-Mufradah Sunnat Qurbatan Ilallah”. You cannot use scented soap when doing this Ghusl.
The next step is to wear the ihram. Ihram for men - consists of two pieces of white cloth and for ladies their usual daily wear is their Ihram, but it is highly recommended that it be white as it is the sign of purity.
Please not that even though one is wearing the ihram, the niyyah for Ihram is done later.
We bought our ihram in Medinah for about $20 (60-75 Saudi Rial).
We checked out of our hotel to make our way to masjid-e-Shajarah. I made transportation arrangements while in Medinah. It cost just under $200 for a personal mini-van.
We stopped at Ohud for 15-20 minutes for a quick ziarah of Hz Hamzah's grave.
Then we made our way to masjid-e-Shajarah. This is a designated point of wearing ihram per sharia. There are 6 other places as well in different parts of Saudi.
If you are already wearing ihram, you can take off the top portion and put it on again and make the niyyah (intention):
“I am wearing Ihram for Umra al-Mufradah Qurbatan Illallah”. Immediately after making the niyya, recite the talbiya (calling) in arabic:
Labbaik, Allahumma Labbaik,
Labbaik La Sharika Laka Labbaik,
Innal Hamda WanNe’amata Laka Walmuka
La Sharika Laka Labbaik
This is to be recited as many times as possible until you reach the vicinity of Makkah.
After wearing the ihram and reciting talbiya, proceed to the inside of the Mosque and recite 2 rakat salat with the niyyah, "Offering 2 rakat salah for wearing ihram qurbatanillah".
Once you adorn the ihram and make the niyyah, there are about 25 things that become haraam upon a person.
Once we completed our prayers, we made our way towards Makkah, reciting talbiya as much as we could.
One thing to note is that in Shia fiqh, men ar enot allowed to travel under shade during the day while in ihram.so it is advisable to plan your journey such that you arrive in Masjid-e-Shajarah around maghrib. If traveling during hte day, then there is a kafarah (penalty) of 1 sheep.
We made a couple of stops on our way to Makkah which was about a 5 hour drive (430km or 250m)
Day Three - Arrival in Makkah:
We arrived in Makkah around 5pm. Since we had already prayed zuharain en route, we decided to rest a bit in our hotel. We woke up, did ghusl made our way to the Holy Kaaba around 730p. One has to be in wudu (or ghusl) for tawaf.
We prayed maghrib and isha and then started our umrah. These are the steps for umrah:
1) Perform tawaf (circumambulation) around the Kaaba 7 times. The niyyah (intention) is:
I am going round this Ka’aba seven times for Umra al-Mufradah Qurbatan Ilallah.
Since the masjid has several floors, it is important to remember that we can do tawaf on any floor as long as your height is below the top of the kaaba.
2) Upon completion of tawag, recite 2 rakat salat-e-tawaf behind the Maqam-e-Ibrahim (place of Ibrahim) - recited just like fajr
I am offering two Rakaat Salaat for Tawaaf of Umra al-Mufradah Qurbatan Ilallah
3) Perform Sa'ae (wudu not necessary). This is where you walk from Safa'a to Marwa 7 times (about 3.5km in total). Niyyah (intention) is:
I walk between Safaa and Marwah, seven times for Umra al-Mufradah Qurbatan Ilallah
Going from Safa'a --> marwa = 1
Marwa --> Safa'a = 2
Safa'a --> marwa = 3
Marwa --> Safa'a = 4
Safa'a --> marwa = 5
Marwa --> Safa'a = 6
Safa'a --> marwa = 7
So you start at Safa'a and end at Marwa.
4) Once Sa'ae is over, the next step is taqseer (cuting part of mails of hair). Niyyah is:
I am performing Taqseer so as to be relieved of Ihram for Umra al-Mufradah QurbatanIlallah
It is best to do the 4 steps without too much of a break in between them. At this point, you can take a break and even take of your ihram.
5) Whether you take a break or not, the next step is to perform tawaf-e-Nisa. Everyone has to do this - young/old, man/woman, married/unmarried, etc.). Niyyah is:
I am doing Tawaaf-un-Nissa by going round this Ka’aba seven times for Umra al-Mufradah Qurbatan Ilallah
6) Last step is to perform salat tawaf-e-Nisa. Niyyah is:
I am offering two Rakaat Salaat for Tawaaf-un-Nissa for Umra al-Mufradah QurbatanIlallah
The entire umrah took about 2 - 2.5 hours to complete.
This is the completion of the umrah.
After completing our umrah, we went back to our hotel, had dinner and went to sleep.
We went to the Kaaba about 2 hours before fajr to perform Sunnah tawaf (each tawaf is 7 rounds). After each tawaf, reciting salat-e-tawaf is obligatory. You can make the intention of perfomr tawaf for others alive or deceased. This day was spent between our hotel and performing salah+tawaf throughout the day. There are other ziarah to be performed in makkah:
- Hajr al-Ismail
- Makaam al-Ibrahim
- Zam Zam
- Hills of Safa and Marwa
- Janab al-Khadijatul Kubra
- Janab al-Abu Talib
- Janab al-Abdul Mutalib
- Hazrat Abdullah
- Hazrat Amina Bint al-Wahab
- Masjid al-Jinn
- Cave of Thawr
- Cave of Hira
- Jabal al-Rahmah
- Muzdhalifa or Ma’shar
- Masjid al-Kheef - In Munna
We were able to perform the green ones above. We also had the opportunity to pray salat in the hateem which is not always open. We were able to touch the kaaba several times including rukn-e-Yemeni (corner from where Hz Fatima bint Assad went inside the kaaba to deliver Hz Ali (as).
Pic in hateem under the kaaba
Cloth of the kaaba - it is actually pieces of cloth sewn together instead of a very large piece of cloth.
We performed our final prayers and then checked out of our hotel to go to Jeddah airport. We flew from Jeddah --> Dubai and stayed there overnight, then flew back to the US.
I was pleasantly surprised that the Saudis were pretty lenient this time.People were free to pray and take pictures as they wanted...for the most part. I would recommend taking salah, dua and ziarah information on your phones rather than books.
I will also try to upload the guidebook I used for most of the trip.
Please let me know if you have any questions. I tried to cover the most important aspects of umrah.
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