Birthday of Imam Reza (PBUH)

Heartiest congratulations to you all on a very auspicious day. There are rejoicings throughout the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially in the holy city of Mashhad, in Khorasan, where millions of pilgrims have converged to felicitate the peerless person who graced Planet Earth today, the 11th of the lunar month of Zi’l-Qa’dah.

He is none other than the 8^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (Blessings of God upon him and his progeny). Before we present you a special article on the birth anniversary of this blessed figure, here is a bezel of wisdom from him to contemplate upon for prosperity in the transient life of the mortal world and salvation in afterlife:

 “Iman (or true faith from the depth of the heart) is a superior grade than Islam (which is verbal acknowledgement of faith); piety is a degree higher than faith; while certitude and certainty are a step above piety. Nothing more elegant and excellent than certitude has been bestowed upon the children of Adam (AS)”      

Today on the 11^th of Zi’l-Qa’dah we are, as usual, basking in the blessings of the birthday of the person who defined for us the excellent formula of prosperity and salvation that we recited to you. All roads this day lead to the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, where he reposes in eternal peace in a sprawling mausoleum in the centre of which is his golden-domed shrine. Imam Reza (AS) needs no introduction. As the Prophet of Islam’s 8^th Infallible Heir, he continues to hold a magnificent court every day with people coming from all over the world to pay homage to him, including heads of state, reverend scholars, and scientists endeavouring to discover a bit of the mysteries of the universe, many of which he unraveled during his imamate of twenty years a millennium and two centuries ago.       Born in the Prophet’s city Medina in 148 AH, a fortnight after the martyrdom of his grandfather, Imam Ja’far as-Sadeq (AS), to the then 20-year old Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS), he named Ali in honour of the One and Only truthful Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS). He was 35-years old when the mantle of divine-decreed authority came to rest on his broad shoulders. He lived in a crucial era of history when the sciences of neighbouring cultures were pouring in unfiltered into the Islamic heartland, confusing scholars and laymen alike. In those suffocating days of the tyrannical rule of Haroun Rashid, the self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, he continued the path of his father and forefathers by holding aloft the torch of the genuine teachings of Islam, inherited from his Great Forbear, the Almighty’s Last and Greatest Messenger to all mankind, Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny). This was the legacy no caliph could snatch from the Ahl al-Bayt.

As the divinely-designated leader of mankind, he felt it his duty to enlighten people’s minds. At every opportunity, he imparted to the people of his age the bezels of God-given wisdom. Soon Haroun slipped into the bowels of the eternal inferno while in distant Khorasan, where he had gone to direct the campaign against the rebellion in Kabul. The next five years saw his sons Amin and Mamoun quarrel with each other over the caliphate until the latter triumphed and took charge of the Muslim realm from North Africa to Central Asia. This crafty tyrant sensed danger from Imam Reza (AS) to his illegal rule, but he dare not do open harm to him for fear of reaction from the Muslim Ummah, who revered the 8^th Imam as “Alem-e Aal-e Muhammad” (or the Most Learned of the Prophet’s Household).

He devised a plan to drive a wedge between the Imam and the Ummah, by forcing the Prophet’s righteous heir to come to his court in Marv in Khorasan in the hope of tainting him with political power by declaring him his heir apparent. In contrast to the short-sighted caliph, the Imam’s vision was piercing the future through the centuries that would follow, in which he and the teachings of the Ahl al-Bayt will be the real victor, ruling not just the hearts and minds of the people of the lands that lay in his route from Medina to Marv, but also beyond, in the farthest parts of the world, long after Mamoun and the Abbasids have vanished into oblivion.  

To sum up, At every halting place – in Arabia, in Iraq, and in Iran – the 8^th Imam warmly greeted the masses that turned up to see him – whether with reverence for him or out of curiosity – and conveyed to them part of the genuine teachings of his ancestor, the Prophet. The famous “Hadith Silsalat-az-Zahab” (or Narration of the Golden Chain of Authority) which the Imam recited to a huge gathering in Naishapur on his “wilaya” or divinely-decree authority, need not be repeated here. It would also be repetitive to recount the Eid Prayer in Marv and how an alarmed Mamoun stopped the 8^th Imam from leading it when thousands of people flocked to the Mosallah on hearing the news the Prophet’s righteous successor was to deliver the Eid sermons. It was an embarrassing situation for the Mamoun. When all his plots failed to tarnish the image of Imam Reza (AS), the exasperated Abbasid caliph, some three years after the coming of the Imam to Khorasan, had him martyred through a forced eating of poisoned grapes, and then feigned innocence by joining the funeral procession, clad in black, in order not to arouse the suspicion of the people. Interestingly, Imam Reza (AS) was laid to rest beside the despicable Haroun, the assassin of his father. Soon all traces of the Abbasid tyrant’s grave vanished, and ever since curses have been the lot of the Abbasids, whether in Khorasan or whether in Baghdad, as pilgrims to the shrines of the Prophet’s Heirs, imprecate the usurpers of the political rights of the Immaculate Ahl al-Bayt.

A brief radio programme cannot do justice to Imam Reza (AS), who possessed excellent traits. For instance, the Iranian scholar, Shaikh Sadouq, who lived over a millennium ago, writes in his famous book “Uyoun Akhbar ar-Reza”:

“In the words of Ibrahim ibn Abbas: I never saw Ali ar-Reza committing excess over anyone in talking and interrupting anybody's speech before its coming to the end. He did not stretch his legs in the presence of others. When the meal table was laid he invited the servants to it, and took his meals with them. After taking rest in the nights he got up and made himself busy with the prayers to Allah. Similar to his forefathers he carried food to the houses of the afflicted ones at the mid of nights."

These flawless characteristics of the 8^th Imam as defined by Shaikh Sadouq are an indication of not just the unsullied personalities of the Ahl al-Bayt, but indicate the Infallibility of their Immaculate Ancestor, the Prophet of Islam – the Exemplar par-excellence for all mankind. No wonder, people from all over Iran, Iraq, and the whole world flock to the holy mausoleum in Mashhad, which is open day and night for the pilgrims and along with its seven courtyards covers a total area of 598,657 square meters (or 147.931 acres). It is thus larger in area than Masjid al-Haraam in Mecca and the Masjid an-Nabawi or the Prophet’s shrine in Medina.

To end the programme, here is an admonition from the 8^th Imam to his erring brother Zayd that shows it is virtue, faith, piety and certitude that exalts a person in the sight of God, and not family connections:

“One day, when Imam Reza (AS) was delivering a speech in a grand assembly, he heard Zayd praising himself before the people, saying I am so and so. Imam Reza asked him: "O Zayd, have you trusted upon the words of the grocers of Kufa and are conveying them to the people? What kind of things are you talking about? The sons of Ali ibn Abi Taleb and Fatema Zahra (peace upon them) are worthy and outstanding only when they obey the command of Allah, and keep themselves away from sin and blunder. You think you are like Imam Musa al-Kazem, Imam Ali ibn Husayn, and other Imams (peace upon them)? Whereas, they took pains and bore hardships on the way to Allah and prayed to Allah day and night. Do you think you will gain without pain? Be aware, that if a person out of us the Ahl al-Bayt performs a good deed, he gets twice the reward. Because not only he performed good deeds like others but also that he has maintained the honour of Mohammad (SAWA). If he practices something bad and does a sin, he has performed two sins. One is that he performed a bad act like the rest of the people and the other one is that he has negated the honour of Mohammad (SAWA). O brother! The one who obeys Allah is from us the Ahl al-Bayt and the one who is a sinner is not ours. Allah said about the son of Noah who cut the spiritual bondage with his father, "He is not out of your lineage; if he was out of your lineage, I would have saved and granted him salvation.”

AS/ME