The infallible guide
Sep 06, 2017 06:30 UTC
Heartiest congratulations to you on an auspicious occasion. The 15th of Zilhijjah is that blessed day in history on which was born in Medina the Tenth Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (Blessings of God upon him and his progeny).
He was named Ali in honour of his illustrious ancestor the One and Only Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS). He was a picture of piety and wisdom, and during his 34-year imamate he acquired the epithets of “an-Naqi” or the Pure and “al-Hadi” or the Guide.
Before we present you a special feature on glimpses of the life of the Tenth Imam, let us listen to ayah 5 of Surah Ankabout:
“Whoever expects to encounter Allah [should know that] Allah’s [appointed] time will indeed come, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.”
Allah the Omnipresent cannot be encompassed by the eyes of His creatures, but what the ayah that we recited means to say in the Words of the Almighty Creator Himself – Who is far too glorious to have any shape, form, or place – is the assemblage of all mankind on the Day of Resurrection on which even those who during the transient life of the mortal world had succumbed to such devilish tendencies as disbelief, polytheism, atheism, and denial of the reality of the raising of the dead, will be gathered in the Divine Court for the final judgement.
No wonder the Almighty, whose love and affection for His creatures is more than that of the physical parents through whom He decreed procreation, had sent Prophets and Imams as guides to enable us to avoid the pitfalls of perfidy as we proceed towards the straight and unwavering path of perfection in life and salvation in afterlife.
Today, on the 15th of Zilhijjah, the auspicious birth anniversary of one such divinely-sent Guide, a famous saying from the Prophet of Islam, regarding the encounter on Judgement Day with the Source of all life, comes to our mind:
“He, who likes to meet Allah (on Resurrection Day) safe, purified, and without fearing the great horror, let him follow you O Ali, and follow your two sons Hasan and Husain, and (your grandsons) Ali ibn al-Husain, Mohammad ibn Ali, Ja’far ibn Mohammad, Musa ibn Ja’far, Ali ibn Musa, Mohammad ibn Ali, Ali ibn Mohammad, Hasan ibn Ali, and al-Mahdi the last of them..”
What we narrated to you is only a part of a lengthy hadith that elaborates on the benefits of love, affection, and obedience for the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), whom the Prophet, on the express orders of God, as testified by ayah 67 of Surah al-Ma’edah, had proclaimed his vicegerent on the 18th of Zilhijja the year 10 AH at Ghadeer-Khom, while returning from his Farewell Hajj Pilgrimage.
The important point to note is that the Prophet clearly specified by name the successors of his divinely-designated successor, since he knew that a group of his disobedient companions would usurp the political right of Imam Ali (AS) and deprive the Ahl al-Bayt of the caliphate, which would become the prerogative of the unprincipled, the immoral, the unjust and the ungodly.
The narrator of this wonderful hadith from the Prophet that emphasizes the chain of authority in Islam is a member of this elite group itself. He is none other than Imam Ali al-Hadi (AS), the Prophet’s 10th Infallible Heir who was born this day in Medina in the year 214 AD, corresponding to 828 AD.
Imam Ali an-Naqi al-Hadi (AS) needs no introduction. The Tenth in line of succession to the Divine Trust of Ghadeer-Khom, he was the constant target of the successors of the seditious assembly of Saqifa Bani Sa’da, where the right of political leadership of Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS) was so unmanly usurped by persons who had spent the greater part of their life in idolatry and abominable sins.
This was also the reason why his place of eternal rest in Samarra, Iraq, was a few years ago blown up by his modern day enemies – the dastardly Salafi terrorists who ought to have realized that they cannot erase from people’s hearts the love and affection of the Chosen Ones of God whom their much more powerful progenitors (Salaf) couldn’t erase with either the sword or the pen of their court mullahs.
The powerful tyrants whose plots to harm Imam Hadi (AS) miserably failed were the self-styled caliphs of the usurper Abbasid regime, Mu’tasim and his son, Mutawakkil. Both of them base born – the former was a son of a Turkic concubine while the latter was a son of a Greek concubine – they left no stone unturned to try to tarnish the image of the Ahl al-Bayt.
Mu’tasim appointed tutors to try to brainwash the 8-year old orphan, but to his surprise his scholar-appointees were instead learning from the God-given wisdom of the boy-Imam to whom they were sent to taught.
When Mutawakkil became the caliph, he was exasperated on many an occasion when his ruse to find fault with the Tenth Imam badly boomeranged, despite the fact that he forced the Prophet’s Rightful Heir to leave Medina and come to his capital Samarra in Iraq, so that he could keep a close watch upon the Imam.
In between the stratagems of the caliphs were the academic intrigues of the court mullahs against the Tenth Imam that always ended in defeat in the debates they dared to impose on the successors of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).
One such frustrated scholar was the Mu’tazallite ideologue, Yahya Ibn Aktham, who decades earlier during the reign of Mamoun had been stuttering for words when unable to answer the questions posed to him by the Prophet’s 9th Infallible Heir, Imam Mohammad at-Taqi al-Jawad (AS), who was then a beardless boy.
Now in his middle age and scared of holding an open public debate with another Infallible Member of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt, Ibn Aktham posed complicated questions in writing, on the assumption that these would not be correctly answered. To his surprise, however, Imam Hadi (AS), not just provided the correct answers but opened the questioner’s mind to facts that were beyond Ibn Aktham’s ken. The following is the Imam’s answers to one of the questions:
“Regarding the prostration of Jacob (AS) and his sons, it was out of their obedience to God and affection of Joseph (AS). It was similar to the angel’s prostration before Adam (AS). That prostration was not intended to Adam personally. It was a sign of their obedience to God and love to Adam (AS). Thus, Jacob the prophet and his sons prostrated themselves as a sign of showing gratitude to God for the reunion with Joseph. At that very time, Joseph the Prophet (AS) shows thankfulness to God by saying (as the holy Qur’an relates):
“My Lord, You have given me the kingdom and taught me the meaning of dreams. You are the Creator of the heavens and the earth. You are my Guardian in this world and in the life to come. Make me die as one who has submitted to You.
Imam Hadi (AS), whose imamate could be roughly divided into two equal parts (about 17 years in Medina and 17 years in Samarra where he was placed under virtual house arrest by the Abbasid regime), shouldered the crucial task of grooming Muslims for the eventual start of the ghayba or period of occultation of his yet-to-be-born grandson, the 12th Imam who will rise as Mahdi al-Qa'em (AS) to cleanse the earth of all vestiges of corruption and oppression by establishing the global government of peace, prosperity and justice.
In view of the guidance of posterity, the 10th Imam groomed a great many ulema, who through a solid chain of succession have kept alive the aspirations of the faithful till this day, over a millennium and two centuries later.
AS/ME
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