Imam Ja’far Sadeq (AS) – the manifestation of truth

Heartfelt condolences to you all on a very doleful day. Today is the tragic 25th of the month of Shawwal – a public holiday in Iran – the day on which the Manifestation of Truth, Imam Ja’far Sadeq (AS) was made to leave the world, a martyr, through a fatal dose of poisoning on the orders of an usurper Abbasid caliph. He was the 6th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

"O Musadif! It is easier to fight with a sword than to earn the livelihood lawfully (Rizq al-Halaal)”.

This gem of a saying that we recited to you are the words of the person whose martyrdom we are commemorating today. This aphorism is indeed food for thought. It enlightens our minds and souls. The more we delve into the meanings of these words, the better our minds become perceptive of the timeless wisdom of the Revealed Word of God Almighty – the Holy Qur'an – and the dynamism of the Ahadith or sayings of the Prophet and his Immaculate Ahl al-Bayt.

That was the reason these peerless personages emphasized the benefits of lawful livelihood and the dangers to the body and soul from a life fed and nourished by unlawful sustenance.

Alas, the person who bequeathed these instructions to us was the victim of those fattened on doubtful and dubious sustenance. We mean the Abbasid rulers who were usurpers, having no right to become heads of the Islamic realm. They oppressed the people, and accumulated gold, silver, precious stones and other forms of wealth by misappropriating the public treasury and looting the lands. Hence, they could not understand the words of guidance, and afraid at the influence of the Prophet’s 6^th Infallible Heir among the various sections of the Ummah, they plotted to martyr him through poisoning, since they were afraid of doing any bodily harm to him.

Imam Ja’far (AS), whose epithet “as-Sadeq” means “the Truthful” needs no introduction, Born in 83 AH, 21 years after the tragedy of Karbala, he spent 12 years with his grandfather, Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS), the Survivor of history's most heart-rending massacre, and was 31 years old when his father, Imam Muhammad Baqer (AS), fell victim to the poison administered by the Omayyad despot, Hesham bin Abdul-Malik. This tyrant tried to harass Imam Sadeq (AS) but died before he could carry out his nefarious plan. He was followed in quick succession to the netherworld by four more rulers, that is Walid II, Yazid III, Ibrahim, and Marwan al-Hemar

This means for 18 years, Imam Ja’far as-Sadeq (AS) endured with patience the Godless Omayyads before this dynasty was thrown into the dustbin of history.

The equally ungodly Abbasids now seized power of the Islamic state through unlawful means, and by deceiving the people of Iran, Iraq, Arabia, and Egypt that they intended to transfer the ruler to the Prophet’s descendants. But once in power they subjected the Prophet's 6th Infallible Heir to all sorts of pressures including imprisonment (at least five times in Iraq). 

Power erodes faith and conviction. Mansour Dawaniqi – the second Abbasid caliph and the founder of Baghdad – in spite of the fact that he had memorized since his childhood thousands of sayings of the Prophet on the unrivalled merits of Imam Ali (AS), created divisions amongst the Ummah by distorting the teachings of Islam through court mullahs and pseudo scholars.

The next seditious step taken by the knave Mansour to mislead naïve Muslims was to brand the followers of the Prophet's Ahl al-Bayt as Rafedhoun or 'Rejectors' for their logical refusal to endorse the rule of the tyrannical rulers.

Thus, in such trying times, it was left to Imam Ja'far as-Sadeq (AS) to revive the genuine Shari'ah and the real Sunnah of the Prophet to guide the ship of Islam to the shores of salvation – the more so since it was the time when self-styled jurists used to indulge in qiyas or syllogism while dealing with religious matters.

No wonder, the Imam firmly said in this regard: “The practice of qiyas (analogy) in deriving laws would lead to the obliteration of the Deen (religion)”.

A brief radio programme cannot do justice to the memorable life of Imam Ja’far Sadeq (AS), nor are volumes of books sufficient to record the person, who while still a boy of 11 years had astonished scholars of his time by saying that the Earth cannot be flat and is spherical, because of the way the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and the day and the night change in 24 hours.

The Imam used to hold classes in Medina, where at its peak his academy had 4,000 scholars learning different branches of science. Amongst these students of the 6^th Imam was the Father of Chemistry, Jabr ibn Hayyan (Gebr to medieval Europe). the Imam, whose knowledge was God-given, taught various disciplines, including jurisprudence, theology, rhetoric, ethics, hadith, exegesis of the holy Qur’an, accounts of the past Prophets (history), and natural sciences such as physics, chemistry, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, botany, etc.

In this way, he ensured the survival of the genuine teachings of Islam and safeguarded the legacy of his ancestor the Prophet, from suffering the fate of Prophet Jesus’ mission that was completely distorted by Paul the Jew to become Christianity as it is known today.

These bezels of divine wisdom emanating from Imam Sadeq (AS) were beams of guidance to those who earn their livelihood through lawful and legal means, but they were anathema to those who led their life and built their power on haraam or religiously forbidden sustenance.

In the political field and state affairs, Imam Sadeq (AS), whose God-given authority as Heir of the Prophet’s historical proclamation of the Commander of the Faithful Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS) as the divinely-designated vicegerent, was beyond the grasp of any usurper, desisted from any rash decision when one of the victorious commanders of the anti-Omayyad uprising sent him a letter offering the caliphate.

The Imam coolly burned the sealed letter in the light of a lamp because he knew that a caliphate which is offered by someone else than God is not legitimate authority.

Once an Iranian chieftain from Khorasan, named Sahl bin Hassan came to Medina and asked Imam Ja’far Sadeq (AS), as to why he wasn't actively fighting for his denied political rights, in spite of the truth being on his side, when there were thousands of supporters ready to fight with him. The Imam asked him to sit down and wait. In the meantime, a servant came and was asked by the Imam whether the fire had been kindled. On receiving the reply in the affirmative, the Imam took Sahl bin Hassan with him and went to the oven. The fire was blazing red. The Imam turned to Sahl and told him to jump into it. Sahl trembled and begged forgiveness. At this moment, Haroun al-Makki, a devoted follower of the Ahl al-Bayt came, and was told by the Imam to jump into the oven. Haroun leapt into blaze without a second thought.

The Imam then turned to Sahl bin Hassan, and as if nothing unusual had happened, started to brief him about the circumstances prevailing in Khorasan, while the eyes and the mind of the Iranian chieftain were occupied with the fate of the person who had jumped into the oven . After a while, the Imam took Sahl toward the oven to show him what had transpired for Haroun al-Makki. To his surprise, Sahl saw Haroun al-Makki sitting cross legged safe and sound in the blazing oven without being scorched or scalded by the fire.

Imam Sadeq (AS) then asked the Iranian chieftain as to how many of his followers in Khorasan were like Haroun al-Makki. Sahl replied: “No one O Master".

Mansour Dawaniqi, the self-styled caliph viewed Imam Sadeq (AS) with horror, since he knew that he was the rightful successor of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). The treacherous caliph martyred many descendants the Prophet including Nafs Zakiyya in 142 AH and his brother Ibrahim the next year. Mansour imprisoned a group of great grandchildren of Imam Hasan Mojtaba (AS), imprisoned them in Baghdad, and ordered that the roof of the prison should be made to collapse upon them.

This wretched ruler finally plotted to martyr Imam Sadeq through a dose of poison, thinking that this way he would succeed in blotting out genuine Islam. And though he martyred Imam Sadeq (AS), he miserably failed in his designs against Islam, as is clear today from the prevalence of Fiqh al-Ja’fari or the School of jurisprudence of the Ahl al-Bayt, which is indeed the pure, pristine and dynamic shari’ah of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA).

May God damn Mansour Dawaniqi and may Divine Wrath befall the schismatic Wahhabis for destroying in 1925 the Holy Mausoleum in Jannat al-Baqie that used to house the holy tombs of Imam Sadeq (AS), his father, Imam Baqer (AS), his grandfather, Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS), and the latter's uncle, Imam Hasan al-Mujtaba (AS).

We once again offer condolences to you all, pray to God for providing us halal sustenance, and before finishing this piece, we present you a wonderful saying from Imam Ja’far Sadeq (AS):

“Regard him who ruptured relations with you, give him who deprived you (of his bestowals), treat kindly him who mistreated you, greet him who reviled you, be just to him who disputed with you, and pardon him who wronged you in the same way you like others to pardon you. Take lessons from God’s pardoning you; do you not see that the sun benefits both the pious and the licentious, while the rain falls on both the virtuous and the wrongdoers!”

AS/MG/SS