Martyrdom anniversary of the Bab al-Hawa’ej
Apr 12, 2018 02:46 UTC
Heartfelt condolences to you all on a very tragic day. Today, the 25th of Rajab is the anniversary of the departure from the mortal world of Imam Musa al-Kazem (PBUH), the 7th Infallible Successor of Prophet Mohammad (Blessings of God upon him and his progeny).
Now we have an exclusive feature on the life and times of the 7th Imam
“O Allah, bless Muhammad and his Progeny, the Imams, the Founts of Wisdom, the Mediators of Divine Blessings, the Mines of Infallibility; and preserve me for their sake from all harm, and do not take me away in the state of delusion and neglect, and do not make the consequences of my deeds a cause of regret, and be pleased with me; for indeed Your forgiveness is meant for the wrongdoers and I am one of the wrongdoers! O Allah, forgive me my misdeeds, which do not harm You, and grant me Your gifts, which do not diminish You, for indeed Your mercy is expansive and Your wisdom is marvelous.”
What you heard is indeed an excellent form of supplication in the Divine Court to open the floodgates of forgiveness. It focuses on God’s Infinite Mercy and specifies the means of intercession for mankind by mentioning the status and merits the Almighty has granted to His Choicest Servants, that is the Prophet of Islam and the Infallible Imams of his progeny.
This supplication was taught to us by the person whom we mourn today and at whose resting place, the gold-plated twin-domed sprawling shrine of Kazemayn, north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, millions have assembled to pay homage to him on his martyrdom anniversary.
“As-salaamo alaika ya Bab al-Hawa’ej” (Peace upon you O Gateway of Needs) is the phrase on their lips, as the roaring see of pilgrims, tears rolling down their eyes and beating their chests in grief to the rhythmic chant of elegies, address Imam Musa Kazem (AS).
He was not an ordinary person but as the 7th Infallible Heir of the Almighty’s Last and Greatest Messenger, he was the Font of Wisdom, the Mine of Infallibility, and the Mediator of Divine Blessings. And he proved these and other qualities during his life of 55 years, which were cut short through a fatal dose of poisoning while in the state of imprisonment in Baghdad.
Allaho Akbar, God is Great, and He has bestowed lasting greatness on those whose entire life was resigned to His Will in order to make Islam triumphant in all spheres of society, even if it meant enduring bouts of imprisonment, and finally martyrdom.
One such excellent example of complete submission to God’s Will was Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS), who after four years of imprisonment in Basra and Baghdad, was given a fatal dose of poison in a bunch of delicious dates by the jailor Sindi bin Shahak, on the orders of the tyrant Haroun Rashid, the self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime.
As Haroun drank goblets of wine in his palace in celebration of his foul deed to the tune of music and dancing damsels whirling in front of him, on the assumption that the greatest impediment to his illegitimate rule was now removed, Sindi bin Shahak had porters place the body of the martyred Imam on the bridge of Baghdad and proclaimed to the public: Here lies the Leader of the Rejecters (Rafedhis) who thought of himself as Imam of the Muslims.
The wretch, who along with Haroun is now roasting in the eternal fires of hell, thought that by humiliating the noblest person of the age, he was doing a great service to his Abbasid masters.
Thanks to the timely arrival on the scene of a group of persons cognizant of the status of the Prophet’s descendant, Imam Kazem (AS) was laid to rest in the cemetery of the Quraysh, which was soon transformed into the sprawling shrine from which the 7th Imam not only rules the hearts of the people of Baghdad and Iraq but of the faithful all over the world, while there is no sign of the graves, let alone palaces of the caliphs and their courtiers.
As for Haroun the debauchee, the hero of the Arabian Nights, his rotten bones lie at the feet of the son of his victim in Mashhad, Khorasan, where for over a millennium pilgrims to the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS) have continued to curse him and his accomplices-in-crime, and every time they do the flames of the inferno become more intense.
It is obvious the tormentors and killers of the Prophet’s progeny have deprived themselves of divine mercy.
Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS) needs no introduction. Born in Abwa, between the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in 128 AH to the Reviver of the Prophet’s pure and pristine Sunnah and Seerah (practice and behaviour), Imam Ja’far as-Sadeq (AS) and the virtuous North African lady of Berber origin, Hamida (SA), during his 35-year imamate or divinely-decreed leadership of mankind, he enlightened the minds and souls by grooming a large number of disciples in the genuine sciences of Islam.
He was in his 20th year when the divine mantle of imamate came to rest on his shoulders. His father's assassin, Mansour Dawaniqi, had hatched a plot to assassinate him as well, if it became clear that he was the next Imam of the Ahl al-Bayt, but so secretly guarded was this Godly designation, the tyrant could not succeed.
Next came the rule of the perfidious Mahdi al-Abbasi, who imprisoned the 7th Imam but soon released him and sent him back to Medina, following a horrifying nightmare.
The next usurper caliph, Hadi al-Abbasi, who during his brief rule of two years plotted to take the life of Imam Kazem (AS), but fell into the bowels of hell, before he could do so.
Thus in 183 AH, the horrendous Haroun after imprisoning the Imam martyred him in 183 AH at the age of 55. But he could neither humiliate the Imam nor erase his memory, since it is God Almighty Who has ensured lasting glory for His Chosen Ones.
Here is a passage from the famous supplication to God that Imam Kazem (AS) recited on the Day of his ancestor the Prophet’s receiving of the first rays of divine revelation on the 27th of Rajab in the year 179 AH, just before Haroun kidnapped him and took him to Iraq.
“I beseech You with all the petitions whereby You have enabled an expecting servant to attain his hope, or answered distress calls of a crier who called out to You, or brought relief to any troubled and grieving soul, or forgiven an errant sinner, or completed Your bless-ing upon someone in sound health, or granted plenty to an indigent—for such calls have a right upon You and are worthy in Your estimation—to bless Muhammad and the Progeny of Muhammad and to fulfill my request and my wants pertaining to the world and the Hereafter.”
AS/ME
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