by Sayed
Mohamed Tijani Smaoui
Dedication
Foreword A Brief Look at my Life The Pilgrimage to the House of Allah In Egypt
A Meeting on Board the Ship My first Visit to Iraq Abdul Qadir al Jilani and
Musa al Kazim Sceptisism and Questioning The Visit to al Najaf A Meeting with
al Ulama (Learned Men)
A Meeting
with al Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al Sadr
Sceptisism
and Perplexity
The
Journey to Hijaz
The
Beginning of the Research
The
Beginning of the Detailed Study
The Companions
(of the Prophet) as Seen by the Shia and the Sunnis
1.The
Companions at the Peace Treaty of al Hudaybiyah 2.The Companions and Raziyat
Yawm al Khamis (The Calamity of Thursday)
3.The
Companions in the Military Detachment[SB1]
under Usamah
1.The
turning back Verse
2.The Holy
War (Jihad) Verse
3.The
Submissiveness
1.The hadith
of the Pool
2.The hadith
of the Competetion for this World
The Opinion
of the Companions about each other
2.The
Companions even made changes in the Prayers
3.The
Companions testify against themselves
4.The
testimony of the Shaykhan against themselves
The
Beginning of Change
A Dialogue
with a Scholar
The Reasons
behind enlightement
1.The text
regarding the Succession of the Caliphate
2.The
disagreement between Fatimah and Abu Bakr
3.Ali was
more entitled to the leadership
4.The
Prophetic Traditions which indicates the fact that Ali should be followed
The
Prophetic tradition: I am the city of knowledge and Ali is its gate
The
Prophetic tradition: O Ali! You hold in relation to me the same position as
Harun held
in relation to Musa except that there will be no prophet after me
The
Prophetic tradition: Ali is the master of all those whom I am master. O
Allah! Love
him who loves him and hate him who hates him, help him who
helps him
and forsake him who forsakes him, and turn justice with him
whenever he
turns
The
Prophetic tradition: Ali is from me and I am from Ali, and nobody can
discharge my
duty except myself or Ali
The
Prophetic tradition of the House on the Day of Warning
The Correct
Prophetic traditions which indicate the fact that it is Compulsory to Follow
the
Ahl al-Bayt
1.The
Prophetic tradition of the Two Weighty Things
2.The
Prophetic Tradition of the Ship
3.The
Prophetic Tradition: He who wishes to live like me
Our
Misfortune Regarding Ijtihad Against Texts
An Invitation
to Friends to join the Research
The Guidance
of Truth
The
References
Dedication
My book
is a modest[SB2]
piece of work. It is a story of a journey ... a story of a new discovery, not a
technical or natural discovery, but one in the field of religious and
philosophical schools. Since any discovery is
based primarily on a healthy mind and clear comprehension[SB3], which distinguishes
human beings from all other creatures, I would like to dedicate this book to every healthy mind.
A mind which puts truth to the
test and knows it from the wreck[SB4] of wrong. A mind which
weighs all that has been said in the scale of justice, and always comes out in
favor of reason.
and the not so logical, and
between the strong and the feeble[SB5]. Allah, the Most High,
said,
Those who listen to the saying
and follow the best of it, those are guided by and they are the mindful.
To all of those I dedicate this book, hoping that Allah, Praise be
to Him the Most High, opens our minds before our eyes, to guide us, to
enlighten our hearts, to show us clearly the right way so we follow it, and to
show us clearly the wrong way so we avoid it, and accepts us with His good
servants, for He listens and He answers.
Praise
be to Allah, Lord of the Universe. He created man from clay and shaped him in
the best possible way. He favoured him above all other creatures and made His
closest angels prostrate themselves before him. He graced him with the mind
that changed his doubt to an absolute belief. He gave him two eyes, one tongue, two lips and showed him the
two ways. He sent him messengers giving him the good news, warning him, and
alerting him, and preventing him from going astray[SB7]
with the cursed devil. He told him not to worship the Devil, for the Devil is
his enemy, and to worship Allah alone and follow His right path, with
understanding and a convincing belief, and not to imitate[SB8]
the belief of his forefathers and friends and relatives who followed those
before them without any clear reasoning. Who could say better things than he
who called for Allah and did good deeds and said that he was one of the
Muslims, may the Lord’s blessings, peace and greetings be upon the Messenger
who brought mercy unto the people ... supporter of all the Oppressed[SB9]
and the weak ... saviour of all mankind from the darkness of ignorance ... he
who will guide them to the enlightened path of the faithful and the good.
Our
master Muhammad ibn Abdulla ... prophet of the Muslims and chief of the
singularly radiant. May these
blessings and greetings be upon his good and purified posterity[SB10]
whom Allah has chosen from among all the truthful. He stated in the Quran that
we are compelled to love them, after he had purified them and made them
infallible. He promised that anybody who goes on board their ship will be
saved, and anybody who does not do so will perish. May these blessings and
greetings be upon his honourable companions who supported him, honoured him and
sacrificed themselves for him and for the victory of Islam. They knew the
truth, so they pledged[SB11]
allegiance[SB12]
to him with conviction[SB13]
and stayed on the right path without changing it and were thankful. May Allah
reward them for their services to Islam and the Muslims. May these blessings
and greetings be upon their followers and upon those who kept on their path and
were guided by their light ... to the day of Judgement.
Please Lord accept my request for You are the All hearing and
the Most Knowledgeable. Please my Lord open my heart for You are the One who
guides us to the absolute truth.
Please
my Lord help me to express myself, for you grant wisdom to any one You wish
from amongst Your faithful worshippers. Please my Lord grant me more knowledge
and join me with righteous people.
I still
remember how my father took me for the first time to the local mosque where
al-Tarawih prayers were performed during the month of Ramadan. I was then ten
years old. He introduced me to the men who could not hide their astonishment.
I knew
previously that the tutor had arranged for me to perform al-Ishfa[1] prayers
for two or
three
nights. It was customary for me to pray behind the man with some local
children, and wait for
the Imam
to arrive at the second part of the Qur’an, i.e. surat Meriam. My father made
sure that
we learnt
the Qur’an at the Qur’anic school as well as at home through private lessons
given to us
by a blind
man, who was related to us and who could recite the Qur’an by heart. Due to the
fact
that I
learnt to recite the Qur’an at an early age, the tutor tried to show his good
influence on me by
teaching
me the kneeling points in the recital. He tested me repeatedly to make sure
that I had understood his instructions.
After I
passed the test and finished performing the prayers and the recital, as well as
I was expected to do, all the men came and congratulated me and my father, and
thanked my tutor for his good efforts and blessings, and thanked Allah for
Islam.
The
memories of the days that followed are still with me today ... I acquired so
much admiration and my reputation went beyond our alley to the whole town.
Those nights of Ramadan have left their religious marks on me to this day, and
every time I go through an episode of confusion, I feel that there is a strange
power which pulls me and puts me back on the path. Every time I felt the
weakness of the soul and the meaningless of life, these memories come to me to
elevate me to a spiritual level and light in my conscience the flame of belief
so that I can carry the responsibility.
The responsibility which was given to me by my father, or more appropriately
by my tutor, to lead the group in prayers at an early age made me feel as if I
was not doing enough, or at least not up to the standard which was expected
from me.
Therefore
I spent my childhood and my adolescence in relative rectitude, but not without
some innocent playing and an eagerness to know and to imitate. Throughout that
period I was surrounded by the divine care which made me distinguishable
amongst my brothers for my calmness and composure and for being on the right
path and away from all immoral acts.
I should
not forget to mention that my mother - may Allah bless her soul - had a big
influence on me. She opened my eyes as she taught me the short chapters
(surahs) of the holy Qur’an, the prayers and the rules of ritual purity. She
took special care of me because I was her first son, and perhaps she found
pleasure in educating me, as she was sharing the household with my father’s
first wife and her sons.
The name
Tijani, which was given to me by my mother, has a special meaning in the
al-Samawi family which had adopted the Tijani sufi tariqa (order) ever since it
was visited by a son of Shaykh Sidi Ahmed al-Tijani who came from Algeria. Many
people of Gafsa - my family’s home town - adopted the Tijani sufi order,
especially the wealthy and educated families who helped to spread the order.
Because
of my name, I became quite popular in the Samawi House and outside it,
especially with those who were connected with the Tijani order. Therefore, many
of the elders who were present at the above mentioned night during Ramadan came
to congratulate my father and then kissed my head and hand and said, “These are
the blessings of our master Shaykh Ahmad al-Tijani.” It is worth noting that
the Tijani sufi order is widely spread in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lybia,
Sudan and Egypt, and those who believe in it are, somehow, fanatical about it.
They do not visit the graves of other sages because, according to their belief,
they acquired their knowledge from each other, whereas Shaykh Ahmed al-Tijani
acquired his knowledge from the Messenger of Allah Muhammad (s.a.w.) directly,
despite the fact that he came thirteen centuries after the Prophet (s.a.w.).
It has
been said that Shaykh Ahmed al-Tijani used to communicate with the great
Prophet (s.a.w.) by talking to him while he was awake and not in his sleep.
Also it is believed that the complete prayers which were devised by the Shaykh
are better than finishing the Holy Qur’an forty times.
In order
to be brief I shall stop talking about the Tijani sufi tariqa at this stage of
the book, and if
Thus I
grew up with this belief, like any other youth in our town. We were all -
praise be to Allah - Sunni Muslims following the teaching of Imam Malik ibn
Anas, Imam of Dar al-Hijra. However, we, in North Africa, are divided in our
Sufi orders. For example in Gasfa alone there are al-Tijaniyya, al-Qadiriyya,
al-Rahmaniyya, al-Salamiyya and al-Isawiyya. For each of the above orders,
there are followers and supporters who could recite the order, poems and Dhikrs
(invocation of God) in all special ceremonies such as weddings, circumcisions
and vows. Apart from some negative aspects, these Sufi Tariqas played an
important role in preserving the religious rites and in maintaining the respect
for the sages.
I was
eighteen years of age when the Tunisian national society of Scouts agreed to
send me as one of six Tunisian representatives to the first conference for
Islamic and Arab scouts which took place in Mecca. I was the youngest member of
the mission, and certainly the least educated, for there were with me two
headmasters, a teacher from the capital, a journalist and a fifth whose job I
did not know, although I later realized that he was a relative of the then
minister for education. The journey was rather indirect, our first stop was
Athens where we stayed for two days, next was Amman, the capital of Jordan, in
which we spent four days, and then we arrived in Saudi Arabia and participated
in the conference and performed the rites of pilgrimage and Umra.
beating
so fast. I felt as if it was coming gut of my chest to see this ancient House
for itself, and the
tears
kept coming out of my eyes endlessly. I imagined the angels carried me over the
pilgrims and up to the roof of the Holy Kaba and answered the call of Allah
from there: “Allah ... here I am, your servant came to you to be at your
service ... Labbayka Allahumma Labbayk. “ Listening to other pilgrims, I
gathered that most of them had waited for a long time and saved up throughout
their lives to come to Mecca.
In my
case, the journey was sudden and I was not prepared for it. I remember may
father bidding me a tearful farewell, when he saw the aeroplane ticket and knew
for certain that I was going to perform the Pilgrimage, saying,
“Congratulations, my son, Allah has willed that you should perform the
Pilgrimage before me at this age, for you are the son of Sidi Ahmed al-Tijani
... pray for me at Allah’s House to forgive me and grant me the pilgrimage to
His House...”. I felt that Allah Himself called me and cared for me and brought
me to the place where everybody longs to visit, although some cannot make it.
I
appreciated this opportunity, therefore I threw myself into my prayers and
tawaf (circling around
the Kaba)
... even when the drinking from the water of Zamzam and going up the mountains
where
people
competed to get to Hara cave in al-Nur mountain. I was only beaten by a young Sudanese
pilgrim
... so I was “second of two”. When I got there, I rolled myself on the floor as
if I was rolling
on the
Great Prophet’s lap and smelled his breathing... what great memories... they
left such a deep impression on me that I will never forget.
Allah has
cared for me in many ways, for I was liked by everybody I met in the
conference, and
many asked
for my address in order to write to me in the future. As for my Tunisian
companions,
they
looked down on me from the first meeting we had at the Tunisian Capital when we
were
preparing
for the journey. I sensed their feeling, but I was patient, for I knew that the
people of the
North
look down on the people from the South and consider them backward Soon enough
their views started to change.
Throughout
the journey and during the conference and the pilgrimage I proved myself to be
worthy of their respect due to my knowledge of poetry and my winning of many
prizes. I went back to my country with mare than twenty addresses from
different nationalities.
We
stayed twenty five days in Saudi Arabia, during which we met many learned
Muslim scholars (Ulama) and listened to their lectures. I was influenced by
some of the beliefs of the Wahahi sect and wished that all Muslims followed
them. Indeed, I thought that they were chosen by Allah among all His
worshippers to guard His House, for they were the purest and most knowledgeable
people on earth, and Allah had given them oil so that they could serve and
could care for the pilgrims, guests of the Merciful.
When I
came back from the pilgrimage to my country I wore the Saudi national dress and
was surprised by the reception that my father had prepared. Many people
gathered at the station, led by Shaykhs of the Isawiyya, Tijaniyya and the
Qadiriyya Sufi order, complete with ceremonial drums.
They
took me through the streets of our town chanting and cheering, and every time
we passed a mosque I was stopped for a short time whilst people, especially the
old folk, came to congratulate me with tears in their eyes longing to see the
House of Allah and to visit the Prophet’s grave. People looked at me as if they have not seen a young pilgrim
(Haj) of my age in Gafsa before.
I lived
the happiest days of my life during that period, and many people, including the
notables of the town came to visit and to congratulate me, and often asked me
to read al- Fatihah (the Opening Sura of the Qur’an) with the prayers in the
presence of my father, from whom I was embarrased although he kept encouraging
me. Every time a group of visitors left the house, my mother came to the
sitting area to burn incense and read some amulets in order to rid me of bad
spells.
My
father kept the celebration going for three nights in the centre of the Tijani
Sufi order, each night he slaughtered a sheep for a banquet. People asked me
all sorts of questions, and my answers were mainly to praise the Saudis for
their efforts to support and spread Islam.
Soon
people started calling me Haj (Pilgrim), and whenever somebody shouted Haj, it
only meant me. Gradually I became known amongst the various religious groups
especially the Muslim Brotherhood, and I went around the mosques lecturing on
religious issues, telling people not to kiss the graves or touch the woods for
blessing because these are signs of Polytheism. My activities started to
increase and I was giving religious lessons on Fridays before the Imam’s
speech. I moved from Abi Yakub mosque to the Great Mosque because the Friday
prayers were held in different times in those mosques; at midday in the former
and during the afternoon in the latter.
On
Sundays, my lessons were mostly attended by my students at the secondary school
where I taught Technology. They liked me and appreciated my efforts because I
gave them a lot of my time trying to help them in removing the clouds from
their minds due to the teachings of the atheist and communist teachers of
Philosophy ... and there were plenty of them! My students used to wait with
eagerness for these religious circles and some of them came to my house for I
bought a number of Islamic books and read them thoroughly to bring myself up
the standard of the questions I used to be asked. During the year in which I
did the pilgrimage to Mecca, I completed the other half of my religious duties
by getting married. It was the wish of my mother to see me married before she
passed away, for she had seen the weddings of all my half-brothers ... and
Allah gave her what she swished and I got married to a young lady that I had
never met before. My mother died after having been present at the birth of my
first and second child, and she was preceded by my father who had died two
years before her. Prior to his death he did the pilgrimage to Mecca, and two
years later before his death, he turned to Allah in repentance.
The Lybian
revolution succeeded during the period when the Arabs and the Muslims were
feeling
their
humiliating defeat at the hands of the Israelis, and we saw that young
revolutionary leader
speaking
on behalf of Islam and praying among his people calling for the liberation of
al-Ouds
I became
attracted to his ideas, as did many young Muslims and Arabs, and as a result we
organized an educational visit to Lybia by a group consisting of forty men for
the Education Department. We visited the country at the beginning of the
revolution. and when we came hack home we were very optimistic and hopeful for
a better future far Muslims and Arabs in the whole world.
During
the previous years I had corresponded with some friends, and my friendship with
a few of them became very close, so that they even asked me to visit them.
Thus, I made all the preparation for a journey during the summer vacation which
lasted three months. I planned to go to Libya and Egypt by road and from there
across the sea to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and then to Saudi Arabia. I meant to do Umra there and to renew
my commitment to the Wahabiyya in whose fervour I campaigned amongst the
students and in the mosques which were frequented by the Muslim Brotherhood.
My
reputation passed from my hometown to other neighbouring towns through visitors
who might attend the Friday prayer and listen to the lessons then go back to
their communities. My reputation reached Shaykh Ismail al Hadifi, leader of the
Sufi order in Tuzer, capital of al-Jarid and the birthplace of the famous poet
Abu al-Qasim al-Shabbi. This Shaykh has many followers in Tunisia and abroad,
especially among the working classes in France and Germany.
I
received an invitation from him through his agents in Gafsa who wrote me a long
letter thanking me fur my services to Islam and the Muslims. In the letter they
claimed that the things I was doing would not bring me nearer to Allah because
I had no learned Shaykh: He who has no Shaykh. his Shaykh will be a devil”, and
You need a Shaykh to show you the way, otherwise half of the knowledge is not
completed”. They informed me that (the greatest of his age) Shaykh Ismail
himself had chosen me among all people to he one of his closest private circle
of followers.
I was
absolutely delighted when I heard the news. In fact I cried in response to the
divine care which had elevated me to the highest and best places simply because
I had been following the steps of Sidi al- Hadi al-Hafian, who was a Sufi
Shaykh known for his miracles, and I had become one of his closest followers.
Also I accompanied Sidi Silah Balsaih and Sidi al-Jilani and other contemporary
Sufi leaders. So I waited eagerly for that meeting. When I entered the Shaykh’s
house I looked curiously at the faces, and the place was full of followers.
among whom were Shaykhs wearing spotless white robes. After the greeting
ceremony ended, Shaykh Ismail appeared and every one stood up and started
kissing his hands with great respect. His deputy winked at me to tell me that
this was the Shaykh, but I did not show any enthusiasms for I was waiting for
something different from what I saw.
I had
drawn an imaginary picture of him in my mind in accordance with what his agents
and
followers
had told me about his miracles, and all I saw was an ordinary man without dignity
or
reverence.
During the meeting I was introduced to him by his deputy, and the Shaykh
received me
warmly and
sat me to his right and gave me some food. After dinner the ritual ceremony
started
and the
deputy introduced me again to take the oath from the Shaykh, and everybody
congratulated
me and blessed me. Later on I understood from what men were saying that I was
known to
them, which encouraged me to disagree with some of the answers given by the
Shaykh
to
questions from the audience. Such behaviour led some of the men to express
their disgust and to
consider
it bad manners in the presence of the Shaykh who is usually left unchallenged.
The
Shaykh
sensed the uneasy atmosphere and tried to cool the situation by using his wit,
so he said,
“He
whose start is burning, his end will be shining.” The audience took that as a
graceful sign from the Shaykh, which would guarantee my shining end, and
congratulated me for that. Howevers the Shaykh was clever and very experienced,
so he did not let me continue with my irritable incursion and told us the
following story:
One day
a learned man attended a class held by a pious man and the pious man asked the
learned man to go and get washed, so the learned man went and washed himself
then returned to the class. The pious
man repeated his demand, “Go and get washed”. The learned man went and washed
himself again thinking that he had not done it right the first time. When he
came back to the class, the pious man asked him to wash again. The learned man
started crying and said.
“Master, I
have washed myself from my work and knowledge and I have nothing left except
that
which
Allah has granted me through your hands.” At that moment the pious man said,
“Now you
can sit
down,”
I
realized that I was the one whom the Shaykh referred to in the story, and
everyone else realized that as well, for they rebuked me when the Shaykh left
us to have a rest. They asked me to be silent and to show respect for the
Shaykh lest I fail in my work, basing their argument on the Qur’anic verse:
O you
who believe! Do not raise your voices above the voice of the Prophet, and do
not speak loud to him as you speak to one another, lest your deeds become null
while you do not perceive.
(Holy
Qur’an 49:2).
I then
recognized my limits, so I complied and obeyed the orders, and the Shaykh kept
me near him, and subsequently I stayed with him for three days, during which I
asked him many questions, some of them to test his knowledge.
The
Shaykh knew that and used to answer me by saying that there are two meanings
for the Qur’an. One revealed and another hidden to a seventh degree. He opened
his private safe for me and showed me a personal document which contained the
names of pious and learned people connecting him with Imam Ali via many people
such as Abu al-Hasan al- Shadhili.
It is
worth noting here that these meetings held by the Shaykh are spiritual ones,
and usually start
with the
Shaykh reciting and chanting some verses from the Qur’an. After that he reads a
few
poetic
verses followed by chants and “dhikrs” by the men, and these chants are mainly
centred
around
asceticism, piety and the renunciation of this life and the eagerness to seek
the life hereafter.After having finished with this part, the first man on the
right hand side of the Shaykh reads what he can from the Qur’an, and when he
says “And Allah said that truthfully” the Shaykh reads the beginning of another
piece of poetry and the whole congregation recites it after him, each person
then reading a Qur’anic verse. Shortly after that the men start leaning gently
to the left and to the right, moving with the rhythms of the chants until the
Shaykh stands up, and with him all the congregation, forming a circle with him
at the centre.
Next
they start chanting Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, and the Shaykh turns around in the centre,
then goes to each one of them, and shortly after that the tempo heats up and
the men start jumping up and down, shouting in an organized but irritating
rhythm. After some hard work, quietness gradually prevails, and the Shaykh reads
his last pieces of poetic verse, and then everybody comes to kiss the Shaykh’s
head and shoulders until they finally sit down. I have shared with those people
in their rituals but not convincingly, for they contradicted my own beliefs of
not attributing any associates to Allah i.e. not to request anything but from
Allah. I fell on the floor crying and my mind scattered between two
contradictory ideas.
One
being the Sufi ideology in which a man goes through a spiritual experience
based on the feeling of fear, on asceticism and on trying to approach Allah
through the saints and the learned men.
The
second idea was the Wahabi which had taught me that all of that was an attempt
to attribute associates to Allah, and that Allah will never forgive them.
If the Great
Prophet Muhammad (saw) cannot help, nor could he intercede, then what is the
value of those saints and pious people who came after him.
In spite
of the new position given to me by the Shaykh, for he appointed me as his
deputy in Gafsa, I was not totally convinced, although I sometimes sympathized
with the Sufi orders and felt that I should continue to respect them for the
sake of those saints and God fearing people. I often argued, basing my argument
on the Qur’anic verse:
And call
not with Allah any other god, there is no other god but He. (Holy Quran 28:88)
And if
somebody said to me that Allah said:
O you
who believe be careful of (your duty to) Allah and seek means of nearness to
Him. (Holy Quran 5:35)
I
answered him quickly in the way that the Saudi Ulama had taught me by saying
“The way to seek Allah is by doing a good deed.” In any case, my mind was
rather confused and troubled during that period, but from time to time some
followers came to my house, where we celebrated al-Imarah (a type of dhikr).
Our neighbours felt uneasy about the noises which we produced, but could not
confront me, therefore they complained to my wife, via their wives, and when I
learnt about the problem, I asked the followers to celebrate dhikr elsewhere. I
excused myself by informing them that I was going abroad for three months, so I
said farewell to my family and friends and sought my God, depending on Him, and
not believing in any other god but Him.
I stayed
in Tripoli, the Lybian Capital, long enough to obtain an entry visa from the
Egyptian
Embassy to
enter the land of Kinana i.e. Egypt. I met a few friends who helped me in this
matter,
so may
Allah reward them for their effort. The road to Cairo is a long one, it took us
three days
and
nights, during which I shared a taxi with four other Egyptians working in Libya
who were on
their way
home. Throughout the journey I chatted too them and read the Qur’an for them,
so they
liked me
and asked me to be their guest in Egypt. I chose one of them, Ahmed. I felt very
fond of
him for he
was a pious man and he gave me the highest level of hospitality. I stayed in
Cairo twenty
days
during which I visited the singer Farid al-Atrash in his flat overlooking the
Nile. I liked him for
what I
had read about his modesty in the Egyptian press, but I only managed to meet
him for twenty minutes because he was on his way to fly to Lebanon.
I
visited Shaykh Abdul Basit Muhammad Abdul Samad, the famous reciter of the
Qur’an, whose voice I liked very much. I stayed with him for three days, and
during that time I discussed with his friends and relatives many issues and
they liked me for my enthusiasm, frankness and knowledge. If they talked about art, I sang; and
if they spoke about asceticism and sufism, I told them that I followed the
Tijani order as well as the Medani; and if they spoke about the West I told
them about Paris, London, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Spain which I visited
during the summer holidays; and if they spoke about the pilgrimage, I told them
that I had made the pilgrimage to Mecca and that I was on my way to perform the
Umrah. I told them about places which were not known to people who had been on
pilgrimage seven times such as the caves of Hira and Thawr and the Altar of
Ismail. If they spoke about sciences and technology I gave them all the figures
and the scientific names; and if they spoke about politics, I told them my
views saying, “May Allah bless the soul of al-Nasir Salah al-Din al- Ayyubi who
deprived himself from smiling, and when some of his closest friends criticized
him by saying: The great Prophet (s.a.w.) was often seen smiling, he answered:
How do you want me to smile when the al-Aqsa Mosque is occupied by the enemies
of Allah...Nay...by the name of Allah I will never smile until I liberate it or
die.”
Some of
al-Azhar’s Shaykhs used to come to these meetings and liked what I recited from
the Qur’anic verses and the sayings of the Great Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.),
besides they were impressed by my strong arguments and asked me from which
university I had graduated. I used to answer them proudly that I graduated from
al-Zaituna University which was established before al-Azhar, and added, that
the Fatimids - who established al-Azhar - started from the town of al-Mahdiah
in Tunis.
One day
while I was at the office of an official responsible for the al-Azhar affairs,
a member of the Egyptian Revolutionary Command Council came to attend a mass
meeting for the Muslim and Coptic Communities in one of the biggest Railway
Companies in Cairo. The mass meeting was held in protest against Sabotage
activities in the aftermath of the June war. The member of the Command Council
insisted on my accompanying him to the meeting, so I accepted the invitation,
and sat on the VIP rostrum between father Shnoodah and the Azhari Shaykh. I was
also asked to address the meeting, which I did with ease due to my experience
in giving lectures in Mosques and Cultural Committees in Tunis.
The main
point which I have mentioned in this chapter is that I started feeling big and
somehow over confident, and I thought I had actually become learned. Why should
I not feel so when there were a number of Ulama from al-Azhar who attested for
me, some of them even told me that my place was there, i.e. at al-Azhar. What
really made me proud of myself was the fact that I was allowed to see some of
the Great Prophet’s (s.a.w.) relics. An official from Sidi al-Husayn Mosque in
Cairo took me to a room which could only be opened by himself. After we entered
he locked it behind us, then he opened a chest and got the Great Prophet’s
(s.a.w.) shirt and showed it to me. I kissed the shirt, then he showed me other
relics which belonged to the Prophet(s.a.w.), and when I came out of the room I
cried and was touched by that personal gesture, especially when the official
did not request any money from me, in fact he refused to take it when I offered
it to him. In the end, and only after my insistence, he took a small amount and
then he congratulated me for being one of those who have been honoured by the
grace of the Great Prophet (s.a.w.).
Perhaps
that visit left a deep impression on me, and I thought for a few nights about
what the Wahabis say regarding the Great Prophet(s.a.w.), and how he died and
passed away like any other dead person.
I did
not like that idea and became convinced of its falsity, for if the Martyr who
gets killed fighting
in the
name of Allah is not dead but alive (by his God), then how about the master of
the first and last. My feelings became clearer and stronger due to my early
encounters with the teachings of the Sufis who give their Shaykhs and Saints
full power to see to their affairs. They believe that only Allah could give
them this power because they obeyed Him and accepted willingly what He offered
them. Did He not state in the sacred saying: “My servant ... Obey me, then you
will be like me, you order the thing to be, and it will be.”
The
struggle within myself started to have its effect on me. By then I had come to
the end of my stay in Egypt, but not before visiting, in the last few days, a
number of mosques and I prayed in all of them. I visited the mosques of Malik,
Abu Hanifah, al-Shafii, Ahmed ibn Hanbal, al-Sayyidah Zaynab and Sidi al-Husayn;
I also visited the Zawiah of al- Tijani Sufi order, and I have many stories
about the visits, some of them are long, but I prefer to be brief.
I
traveled to Alexandria on the exact day when there was an Egyptian ship on her
way to Beirut. I felt exhausted both physically and mentally, so as soon as I
got on the ship I went to bed and slept for two or three hours. I woke up when
I heard a voice saying: “The brother seems to be tired.” I replied positively
and said: “The journey from Cairo to Alexandria made me feel so tired, because
I wanted to be on time, so I did not have enough sleep last night.” I realized
that the man was not Egyptian because of his accent, and I was, as usual,
curious about him and eager to introduce myself to him. Apparently he was an
Iraqi lecturer from the University of Baghdad and his name was Munim. He came
to Cairo to submit his Ph.D. thesis at al-Azhar University.
We
started our conversation by talking about Egypt and the Arab and the Muslim worlds,
and we talked about the Arab defeat and the Jewish victory. The topics we
covered through our conversation varied, and at one point I said that the
reason behind the defeat was because of the divisions of the Arabs and Muslims
into many small countries, so that despite the great number of their
populations, their enemies do not pay any consideration to them.
We
talked about Egypt and the Egyptians, and we both agreed about the reasons
behind the defeat. I added that I was against these divisions which were
emphasized by the colonial powers in order to facilitate our occupation and
humiliation. I said that we even differentiated between the Hanafi and the
Maliki and told him a sad story about an incident which happened to me in the
“Abu Hanifah Mosque” in Cairo. While I was there I prayed the afternoon prayer
“al- Asr” with the men, and after we finished, the man standing next to me
asked me with some anger, “Why did you not fold your hands in front of you
during the prayers?” I replied with respect and courtesy that the Malikis
prefer to drop their hands, and after all I am a Maliki. His reaction was: “Go
to Maliki mosque and pray there.” I left the mosque feeling disgusted and
bitter, and I became even more perplexed.
The
Iraqi teacher then smiled and told me that he was a Shi’i. I was a little
disturbed by his answer and thoughtlessly said, “If I knew you were a Shi’i, I
would not have spoken to you.” He asked:
“Why?.”
I replied, “Because you are not Muslims. You worship Ali ibn Abi Talib, and the
moderates among you worship Allah but do not believe in the message of the
prophet Muhammad(s.a.w.). You curse the Archangel Gabriel for betraying what he
was entrusted with. Instead of
delivering the message to Ali he gave it to Muhammad.”
I
continued with this type of anecdote while my companion listened carefully, at
times smiling and at times showing his astonishment. When I finished talking,
he asked me again, “Are you a teacher, teaching students?” I answered, “Yes.”
He said, “If that is what the teachers think, then
we cannot blame the ordinary people who barely have any edu- cation.” I said, “What do you mean?” He
answered, “I beg your pardon, but from where did you get all these false
allegations?” I told him that my information came from famous history books,
and the rest is common knowledge. Then he said, “Well let us leave the people,
but could you tell me what books have you read?” I started mentioning a few
books, such as those by Ahmed Amin “Fajr al-Islam, Duha al-Islam and Zuhor
al-Islam” and many others. He asked: “Since when has Ahmed Amin been an
authority on the Shia?” He added, “To be fair and objective, one has to refer
to the original sources of the subject.” I said, “Why should I investigate a
subject which is common knowledge to all people?” He replied, “Ahmed Amin
himself has visited Iraq, and I was one of the teachers he met in Najaf, and
when we rebuked him about what he had written about the Shia, he said that he
was sorry, and he did not know anything about the Shia, and that was the first
time he had met Shias. We told him that his excuse was worse than his mistake,
for how could he write bad things about us when he did not know anything about
us?”
He added,
“Brother, if we judge the Jews and the Christians through the Holy
Qur’an, they would
not
accept the judgement, despite the fact that the Qur’an is our absolute proof.
Therefore, we
should
show their mistakes in their books, because then the proof would be stronger,
in
accordance
to the saying: From among them, there was one who bore witness against them.”
His
speech
fell on my heart like cold water falling on the heart of a thirsty man, and I
changed from a
bitter critic to someone who is willing to listen and think, because
I felt there was a sound logic and
a strong proof. So
I had to show some modesty and listen to him. I said to him, “So you are one of
those who believe in the message of our prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.)?” He replied,
“All Shias like me believe in it. Brother, you had better investigate the
matter yourself, so you do not have any doubt about your brothers, the Shias
because perhaps some doubt is a sin.” He added, “If you really want to know the
truth and to see it with your own eyes so you could convince yourself, then I
invite you to visit Iraq, and there you will meet the Ulama of the Shia, as
well as the ordinary people, and then you will recognize the malicious lies.”
I said,
“It has been my wish to visit Iraq one day to see its famous Islamic heritage,
especially the Abbasid heritage, and in particular that of Harun al-Rashid.
But, first of all, my financial resources are limited, and I have just enough
to enable me to perform Umrah. Secondly, my present passport does not allow me
to enter Iraq”.
He
replied: “Firstly, when I invited you to come to Iraq, that meant that I will
take care of all your
traveling
costs between Beirut and Baghdad, both ways, and while you are in Iraq you will
be
staying
with me, for you are my guest. Secondly, as far as the passport which does not
allow you
to enter
Iraq, let us leave it to Allah, praise be to Him the Most High, and if Allah
has decreed that
you will
visit, then it will be, even without a passport. However, we shall try to
obtain an entry visa
for you
as soon as we arrive Beirut”.
I was
very glad about that offer, and I promised my friend to answer his question the
next day, if Allah the Most High willed it. I got out of the bedroom and onto
the ship’s deck breathing the fresh air, thinking seriously, while my mind was
taken by the sea which filled the horizon. I thanked my God, Who created the
universe, and who brought me to this place. I asked Him, praise be to Him the
Most High, to protect me from evil and the wicked and to guard me against
errors and mistakes.
My mind
wandered as I started to recall a series of events that I had experienced in
the past... I remembered that happiness of my childhood up to that day and
dreamed of a bet- ter future. . . I felt as if Allah and His Messenger were
providing me with a special care. I looked towards Egypt, whose shores appeared
from time to time on the horizon, and remembered how I had kissed the shirt of
the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.), they were my most precious memories of Egypt.
I recalled
the words of the Shi’i which brought great joy to my heart, for it would fulfill
an old
dream of
mine, that is to visit Iraq the country which reminded me of the court of
al-Rashid and
al-Mamun,
who established Dar al-Hikmah which was sought by many students from the West
in
the days
when the Islamic civilization was at its peak. In addition to that, it is the
country of Shaykh
Abdul
Qadir al-Jilani, whose reputation had reached all countries, and whose Sufi
order had entered every village ... a man whose high-mindedness surpassed
everyone else’s. That, I thought, was another divine care from Allah to fulfill
the dream. My mind wandered again until I was awoke by the sound of the
loudspeaker calling the passengers to go to the canteen for their dinner, I
made my way to the place but I found it was crowded with people, shouting and bustling
as they were trying to enter it.
Suddenly,
I felt the Shi’i pulling me by my shirt, saying: “Come here brother do not
bother yourself, we will eat later without this crowd. In fact I looked for you
everywhere.” Then he asked me, “Have you prayed?” I answered, “No, I have not
prayed yet.” So he asked me to join him in his prayers and later to come and
eat after all the hustle and bustle had gone.
I liked
the idea, so I accompanied him to an isolated place where we did our ablution,
then I asked him to lead the prayers in front to test him and to see how he
prayed, with the intention of doing my prayers later on. As soon as he called
for the obligatory prayers at sunset and started reciting (Qur’anic verses) and
reading various supplications, I changed my mind. I felt as if I was led by one
of those pious and God fearing Companions of the Prophet, about whom I had read
a lot. After he finished his
prayers he read long supplications that I had not heard either in my country or
in the countries I knew. I felt at ease every time I
heard him praising the Prophet Muhammad(s.a.w.) and his family and giving them
what they rightly deserve.
After the prayers I noticed tears in his eyes, also I heard him
asking Allah to open my eyes and to lead me to the right direction.
We went to the canteen which was almost empty, and he did not sit
down until I had sat down, and when they brought us the food, he changed his
dish for mine because his had more meat than mine.
He treated me as if I was his guest and kept telling me stories that
I had never heard before concerning food, drink and table manners. I liked his
manners. He led the evening prayers and extended it by reciting long
supplications until I started crying, then I asked Allah, praise be to Him, to
change my suspicions about the man because “Some doubt might be a sin.” But who
knows?
I slept that night dreaming about Iraq and the Arabian Nights, and I
was awoke by my friend calling the dawn prayers. We prayed together, then sat
and talked about Allah’s graces on the Muslims. We went back to sleep and when
I got up again I found him sitting on his bed with a rosary in his hand
mentioning the name of Allah, so I felt more at ease with him, and asked my God for forgiveness.
We were
having our lunch in the canteen when we heard from the loudspeaker that the
ship was approaching the Lebanese shores, and with Allah’s help, we would be in
Beirut harbour in two hours time. He asked me if I had thought about the
matter, and what I had decided. I told him if Allah willed it and I got an
entry visa, then I did not see why not, and I thanked him for his invitation.
As soon
as we got to Damascus we went to the Iraqi Embassy there and obtained a visa at
incredible speed. When we left the Embassy he congratulated me, and we thanked
Allah for His help.
We left
Damascus for Baghdad in one of the al-Najaf International Company coaches.
When we
arrived in Baghdad, where the temperature was 40 degrees, we went to the
Jamilah quarter in the district of al-Ummal, and entered my friend’s
airconditioned house. We had a rest, then he brought me a long shirt called
Dishdasha. Some fruit and food were also brought for me. Then members of
his family came to greet me with respect and politeness, and his father
embraced me as if we had known each other before. As for my friend’s mother,
who stood at the door wearing a long black coat, she also greeted me and
welcomed me. My friend apologized on behalf of his mother who could not shake
my hands, because it was not permitted. I liked their manners and said to
myself, “These people whom we accused of being deviants seem to observe the
religion more than us.” During the days of our travel together I sensed in my
friend his noble manners, his self-esteem and his generosity. I also sensed in
him modesty and piousness that I had never experienced with anybody else
before. I felt that I was not a stranger, but as if I was at home.
When
darkness fell, we went up on the roof of the house where there were some beds
prepared for us. I could not go to sleep easily for I was in a state of
delirium: Was I really in Baghdad next to Sidi Abdul Qadir al-Jilani? My friend
laughed as he asked me what do the Tunisian people think of Abdul Qadir
al-Jilani.
I
started telling him about the miracles which are attributed to him, and all the
places which are established and named after him. I told him that he is the
“Centre of the circle”, and as Muhammad the Messenger of Allah is the master of
all the prophets, Abdul Qadir is the master of all the saints. His feet are on the necks of all the
saints, and it was him who said, “Everyone goes round the house seven times,
and I will go around the house with my tents.”
I tried
to convince him that Shaykh Abdul Qadir came to see his followers and treat
them if they were ill and comfort them if they were depressed. I might have
forgotten the influence of the Wahabi ideas on me, which state that all of that
is polytheism. When I noticed the lack of enthusiasm in my friend, I tried to
convince myself that all of what I have said was not right. I also asked him
about his opinion.
My
friend laughed and said, “Tonight have a good sleep and rest your tired body,
and tomorrow, if Allah wills it, we will go and visit the grave of Shaykh Abdul
Qadir.”
I was
absolutely delighted with the news and wished it was dawn then. I was so tired
that I went into a deep sleep and did not get up until the sun was shining on
me. I missed my prayer, and my friend told me that he tried several times to
wake me up but without success, so he left me to rest.
After
breakfast we went to Bab al-Shaykh and saw the place that I had always wished
to visit. I ran to enter the place like a man who was eager to see him and to
throw myself on his lap.
I mixed
with the multitude of visitors who were gathering around the place like the
pilgrims in the House of Allah. Some of the visitors were throwing sweets, so I
quickly picked up two. I ate one for blessing and kept the other in my pocket
as a souvenir. I prayed there, recited some supplications and drank water as if
I was drinking from Zamzam.
I asked
my friend to wait for me until I wrote a few postcards to my friends in Tunisia
to show them the picture of the place of Shaykh Abdul Qadir with its green
dome. I wanted to prove to my friends and relatives in Tunisia my high state
which brought me to this place that they have never been able to reach.
We had
our lunch in a popular restaurant in the middle of the capital, then I was
taken by my friend to a place called al- Kazimiyyah. I only got to know that
name through him mentioning it to the taxi driver who took us there. When we
arrived in al-Kazimiyyah we joined a multitude of people, children, men and
women walking in the same direction. Everyone was carrying something with him
or her, which reminded me of the time of the pilgrimage. I did not know where
they were going until I noticed a glittering coming from golden domes and
minarets. I understood that it was a Shia mosque, because I knew before that
they decorate their mosques with gold and silver; something Islam has
prohibited. I did not feel at ease when we entered the mosque, but I had to
respect my friend’s feelings and follow him without choice.
When we
entered the first door I noticed that some old people were touching it and
kissing it, so I engaged myself with reading a plaque saying: “Unveiled Ladies
are not allowed to enter”, with a saying by Imam Ali: “A day will come when
women are seen wearing transparent clothes or even naked...etc.”
When we
reached the shrines, my friend started reading the permission to enter, while I
occupied myself by looking at the gate and I was astonished by all the gold and
engravings of the Qur’anic verses which covered that gate. My friend entered
first then I followed him, and my mind was full of the legends and fables which
I had read in books which condemn the Shia. Inside the shrine I saw engravings
and decorations that I have never seen before, and I was surprised by them and
felt as if I was in an unknown and unfamiliar world. From time to time I looked
with disgust at those people who were going around the grave, crying and
kissing its bars and corners, while others were praying near the grave. At that
moment a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) came to my mind, which
states: “Allah cursed the Jews and Christians for making mosques of the graves
of their saints.” I walked away from my friend, who, as soon as he entered,
started crying, and left him to do his prayers. I approached the plaque which
was written especially for the visitors and read it but could not understand
most of it because it contained strange names that I did not know. I went to a
corner and read the Opening Surah of the Qur’an (al-Fatiha) and asked Allah for
mercy on the person who is inside the grave saying: “O Allah if this dead
person is a Muslim then have mercy on him for You know him better than I do.”
My friend came near me and whispered in my ears, “If you want anything. you
better ask Allah in this place because we call it the gate of requests.” I did
not pay much attention to what he said. God forgive me, rather, I was looking
at the old men with black or white turbans on their heads and the signs of
prostration on their foreheads, with their long perfumed beards, which added to
their dignity alongside their awesome looks.
I
noticed that as soon as one of them entered the shrine, he started crying, and
I asked myself, “Is it possible that all these tears
are false? Is it possible that all these old people are wrong?.
I came
out perplexed and astonished about what I had seen, while my friend walked
backwards, as a sign of respect, so that he did not turn his back to the
shrine.
I asked
him, “Whose shrine is that?” He said, “Imam Musa al-Kazim.” I asked, “Who is
Musa al-Kazim?” He said, “Praise Allah! You, our brothers, of the Sunni sect
ignored the essence and kept the shell”.
He
calmed me down and said, “My brother, since you came to Iraq you never stopped
talking about Abdul Qadir al-Jilani, but who is Abdul Qadir al-Jilani, and why
should he attract all your attention?”
I
immediately replied proudly, “He is one of the descendants of the Prophet. And
had there been a prophet after Muhammad it would have been Abdul Qadir
al-Jilani, may Allah be pleased with him.” He said, “Brother al-Samawi, do you
know Islamic history?”
I
answered without hesitation, “Yes.” In fact what I knew of Islamic history was
very little because our teachers prevented us from learning it, for they
claimed that it was a black history, and not worth reading. I remember, for
example, when our Arabic Rhetoric teacher was teaching the Shaqshaqiyyah
oration from the book “Nahj al-Balaghah” by Imam Ali, that I was puzzled, as
were many other students, when we read it, but I dared to ask the following
question: “Are these truly the words of Imam Ali?” He answered: “Definitely,
who would have had this eloquence apart from him. If it were not his saying,
why should the Muslim scholars like Shaykh Muhammad Abduh, the Mufti of Egypt,
concern themselves with its interpretation?” Then I said, “Imam Ali accuses Abu
Bakr and Umar that they robbed him of his right to succeed as Caliph”.
The
teacher was outraged and he rebuked me very strongly and threatened to expel me
from the class, and added, “We teach Arabic Rhetoric and not history. We are
not concerned with the dark episodes of history and its bloody wars between
Muslims, and in as much as Allah has cleaned our swords from their blood, let
us clean our tongues by not condemning them”.
I was not
satisfied with the reasoning, and remained indignant towards that teacher who
was
teaching
us Arabic Rhetoric without meaning. I tried on many occasions to study Islamic
history
but I did
not have enough references nor the ability to buy books. Also I did not find
any of our
learned
people to be interested in the subject, and it seemed to me as if all of them
had agreed to
forget all
about it and not to look into the matter. Therefore, there was no one who had a
complete
history
book
When my
friend asked me about my knowledge in history, I just wanted to oppose him, so
I answered him positively, but it was as if I was saying, “It is a dark
history, full of civil strives, intrigues and contradictions.” He said, “Do you
know when Abdul Qadir al-Jilani was born?” I answered, “Approximately between
the sixth and the seventh century.”
He said,
“How many centuries then have elapsed between him and the Messenger of Allah?”
I said, “six cen- turies.” He said, “If there are two generations in a century
then there were at least twelve generations between Abdul Qadir al-Jilani and
the Messenger”.
I agreed. Then he said, “This is Musa ibn Jafer ibn Muhammad ibn Ali
ibn al-Husayn ibn Fatima al-Zahra, between him and his great-great-great
grandfather, the Messenger of Allah, there were only four generations. In fact
he was born in the second Hijra century, so, who is nearer to the Messenger of
Allah, Musa or Abdul Qadir?
He said,
“This is the point, and that is why I said, and allow me to repeat it, that you
have ignored the essence and kept the shell, so please do not blame me and I
beg your pardon.”
We
talked and talked, and from time to time we stopped until we reached a learning
place where there were teachers and students discussing ideas and theories. As
we sat there I noticed my friend started looking for somebody, as if he had
prior appointment.
A man
came towards us and greeted us then started talking with my friend, and from
the conversation I understood that they were colleagues at the university, and
that another colleague was coming to the place soon. My friend said to me, “I
brought you to this place to introduce you to a historian scholar who is a
professor of history at the University of Baghdad, and his Ph.D. thesis was about Abdul Qadir al- Jilani
and he will be of use to you, with the help of Allah, because I am not a
specialist in history”. We drank some cold juice until the historian arrived,
and I was introduced to him, then my friend asked him to give me a brief
historical view on Abdul Qadir al- Jilani. After we had more cold drinks, the
historian asked me questions about myself, my country and my job and asked me
to talk to him about the reputation of Abdul Qadir al-Jilani in Tunis.
I gave
him plenty of information in this field and told him that people think that
Abdul Qadir carried the Messenger of Allah on his neck during the night of
Mi’raj [the night of the prophet Muhammad’s (s.a.w.) ascension to the seven
heavens] when Gabriel was late for fear of getting burnt. The Messenger of
Allah told him then, “My foot is on your neck and your foot will be on the neck
of all the saints until the day of Judgement.”
The
historian laughed when he heard what I said, but I did not know whether he
laughed at those stories or at the Tunisian teacher standing in front of him!
After a
short discussion about the saints and the pious people, he told me that he had
researched for seven years, during which he traveled to Lahore in Pakistan,
Turkey, Egypt, Britain and to all the places where there are manuscripts attributed
to Abdul Qadir al-Jilani and he scrutinized them and photographed them but
could not find any proof indicating that Abdul Qadir al-Jilani was a descendant
of the Messenger. All what he found was a verse attributed to one of his
offspring in which he says, “...and my forefather was the Messenger of Allah: “
It was perhaps the interpretation of some of the learned people of the saying
of the Prophet “I am the grandfather [forefather] of every pious person.” He
also informed me that recent historical research proved that Abdul Qadir
al-Jilani was not an Arab but of a Persian origin, and came from a small town
in Iran called Jilan, and he moved to Baghdad where he studied and then taught
at a time when there was a moral decay. He was a God-fearing man and people
liked him, so when he died they established the Qadiriyyah sufi order in his
memory, as was the case with the followers of any Sufi teacher. He added,
“Truly, the Arabs are in a lamentable state with regard to this situation.”
A Wahabi
rage stormed in my mind and I said, “Therefore, Doctor, you are a Wahabi in
ideology, for they believe in what you are saying, there are no saints.” He
said, “No, I am not a follower of the Wahabi ideology. It is regretful that the
Muslims tend to exaggerate and take extreme views. They either believe in all the legends and fables which are
not based on logic or canonical law, or they deny everything, even the miracles
of our Prophet Muhammad(s.a.w.) and his sayings because they do not suit their
way of thinking.”
For
example, the Sufis believe in the possibility of Shaykh Abdul Qadir al-Jilani
being present in, let us say, Baghdad and Tunis at the same time; he could cure
a sick man in Tunis and simultaneously rescue a drowning man in the River
Tigris in Baghdad. This is an exaggeration. As a reaction to the Sufi thinking,
the Wahabis denied everything, and they said that even the pleading to the
Prophet is polytheism, and this is negligence. No my brother! We are as Allah
said in His Glorious Book:
And thus
we have made you a medium (just) nation that you may be the bearers of witness
to the people. (Holy Qur’an 2:143).
I liked
what he had said very much, and thanked him for it. I also expressed some
conviction in his argument. He opened his briefcase and got his book on Abdul
Qadir al- Jilani and gave it to me as a present. He then invited me to his
house but I excused myself, so we talked about Tunis and North Africa until my
friend came back and then we returned home after having spent the whole day
visiting friends and holding discussions.
I felt
tired and exhausted, so I went to sleep. I got up early in the morning and
started reading the book which dealt with the life of Abdul Qadir, and by the
time my friend got up I had finished half of the book. He asked me several
times to have my breakfast, but I refused until I had finished the book. I
became attached to the book which put me in a state of scepticism which lasted
until just before I left Iraq.
I stayed
in my friend’s house for three days, during which I had a rest and thought
carefully about what I had heard from these people whom I had encountered and
who appeared to me as if they were living on the moon. Why had people always
told us nasty things about them, and why should I hate them and despise them
without knowing them? Perhaps all this had come from the rumours we hear about
them that they worship Ali, and that they view their Imams as gods and believe
in reincarnation, and worship stones rather than Allah, and they - as my father
had told me after he came back from pilgrimage - came to the Prophet’s grave to
throw dirt on it, and were caught by the Saudis who sentenced them to death ...
etc ... etc ...
After
hearing all that, it is not surprising that other Muslims hate and despise,
even fight the Shia.
But
how could I believe these rumours after all I had seen with my eyes and heard
with my ears.
I
spent over a week amongst these people and I did not see or hear from them
anything that is not
compatible
with logic. In fact I liked the way they worshipped, I liked their prayers,
their manners,
and
the respect they gave to their learned people, and wished that I could be one
of them. I kept
asking
myself, “Is it true they hate the Messenger of Allah, and every time I mentioned
his name,
and
often I did that just to test them, they shouted from the heart “May Allah
bless Muhammad
and
his household”? At the beginning I thought they were hypocrites, but later I
changed my mind,
especially
after I read some of their books in which I found a great deal of respect and
veneration
for
the Messenger which I have never found in our books. For example, they
believe in the
absolute
infallibility of the Prophet Muhammad (saw), before and after his mission.
Whereas we,
the Sunnis, believe in his infallibility in delivering the Qur’an
only, and apart from that he was just
another human being, subject to committing mistakes. We have many
examples to show that the
fallibility of the Prophet while others were correct. So after
that, how could I believe that they hate
the Messenger of Allah? How could I? One day while I was talking to my
friend I asked him to answer me frankly, and the following dialogue took place:
·
You
place Ali, may Allah be please with him, and may He honour him, at the same
level as the prophets, because whenever I hear his name mentioned you say
“Peace be on him”.
·
That
is right whenever we mention the name of the Commander of the Faithful [Imam
Ali or one of the Imams of his off-spring we say “Peace be upon him”, but this
does not mean that they are prophets. However, they are the descendants of the
Prophet, and Allah has ordered us to pray for them, therefore we are allowed to
say “May Allah bless them and grant them peace” as well.
·
No
brother, we do not say “May Allah bless him and grant him peace” except on the
Prophet Muhammad (saw) and on the Prophets who came before him, and there is
nothing to do with Ali or his descendants, may Allah be pleased with them all,
in this matter.
·
I
would like to ask you to read more, so that you know the truth.
·
Brother,
which books should I read? Is it not you who told me that the books of Ahmed
Amin are not the authoritative books on the Shia, in the meantime the Shia’s
hooks are not the authoritative books on us and we do not rely on them. Do you
not see that the Christians’ hooks which they refer to, state that Jesus said,
“I am the son of Allah” while the Glorious Qur’an - which says the absolute
truth - quotes Jesus saying “I did not say anything to them except what you
have ordered me to do, and that is to worship Allah, my God and your God.”
(Holy Qur’an 5:117)
·
Well
said ! I did say that. What I want from you is this, to use one’s mind and
logic and to base one’s argument on the Glorious Qur’an and the correct Sunna
[the Prophet Muhammad’s (saw) tradition] as long as we are Muslims, and if we
were talking to a Jew or Christian then we would have based our argument on
something else.
One
night my friend told me that we were going on the next day, if Allah willed, to
al-Najaf. I asked him, “What is al-Najaf?” He said,”lt is a centre for
learning, also the grave of Ali ibn Abi Talib is in that city.”
I was
surprised that there was a known grave for Imam Ali, for all our Shaykhs say
that there is no known grave for our master Ali. We took a bus to al-Kufa and
there we stopped to visit al-Kufa Mosque, which is one of the most celebrated
Islamic monuments. My friend showed me all the historical places and took me to
the mosque of Muslim ibn Aqeel and Hani ibn Urwa and told me briefly how they
were martyred. He took me to the Mihrab where Imam Ali was martyred, then we
visited the house where the Imam lived with his two sons, our masters al-Hasan
and al-Husayn, and in the house there was a well from which they drank and did
their ablution.
I lived
some spiritual moments during which I forgot the world and imagined the
asceticism and the modesty of the Imam, despite the fact that he was Commander
of the Believers and fourth of the Rightly Guided Caliphs.
I must
not forget to mention the hospitality and the modesty of the people of al-Kufa,
since whenever we passed a group of people they stood up and greeted us, as if
my friend knew most of them. One of those we met was the director of the
Institute of al-Kufa, who invited us to his house where we met his children and
spent a happy night. I had the feeling that I was amongst my family and my
clan, and when they talked about the Sunnis they always said, “Our brothers
from the Sunna”, so I liked their talks and asked them a few questions to test
their sincerity.
We
continued our journey to al-Najaf, some ten kilometers from al-Kufa, and when
we got there I remembered al-Kazimiyyah mosque in Baghdad, for there were
golden minarets surrounding a dome made of pure gold. We entered into the
Imam’s mausoleum after having read a special reading for permission to enter
the place, which is customary amongst the Shia visitors. Inside the mausoleum I
saw more surprising things than that in the mosque of Musa al-Kazim, and as
usual, I stood and read al-Fatiha, doubting whether the grave actually
contained the body of Imam Ali.
The simplicity of that house in al-Kufa which was occupied by the Imam
had impressed me very much to the extent that I thought, “God forbid, Imam Ali
would not accept all this gold and silver decoration, when there are many
Muslims dying of hunger all over the world.” Especially when I saw many poor
people Iying on the streets asking for alms. Then I said to myself, “O Shia,
you are wrong, at least you should admit this mistake, for Imam Ali was sent by
the Messenger of Allah to demolish the graves, so what are all these gold and
silver graves, if this is not polytheism then it must be at least an error that
Islam does not allow.”
My
friend asked me as he handed me a piece of dry clay. if I wanted to pray. I
answered him sharply, “We do not pray around the graves.” He then said, “Wait
for me until I do my prayers.” While I was waiting for him I read the plaque
which hung on the grave, I also looked inside it through the engraved gold and
silver bars and saw many coins and notes of different denominations thrown by
the visitors as contributions to the charitable works which are attached to the
mausoleum. Because of the vast quantity of money, I thought it might have been
left there for months, but my friend told me that the authorities responsible
for cleaning the place collect the money every night after the evening prayer.
I went
out after my friend, astonished by what I had just seen, and wished that they
would give me some of that money, or perhaps distribute it among the many poor
people. I looked around the place, which was surrounded by a great wall, and
saw many groups praying here and there, others were listening to speakers
standing on platforms, some of them sounded as if they were wailing. I saw a
group of people crying and beating their chests, and I wanted to ask my friend
why should these people behave in such a way, but a funeral procession passed
by us and I noticed some men removing a marble flag from the middle of the
great courtyard to lower the body there. Therefore I thought that these people
were crying for their lost one.
A
Meeting with the Al Ulama
(The
Learned Men)
My
friend took me to a mosque next to the mausoleum, where the floors were covered
by carpets, and around its Mihrab there were some Qur’anic verses, engraved in
beautiful calligraphy. I noticed a few turbaned youngsters sitting near the
Mihrab studying, and each one of them had a book in his hand.
I was
impressed by the scene, since I had never seen Shaykhs aged between thirteen
and sixteen, and what made them look so cute was their costumes. My friend
asked them about the Master “al-Sayyid”, so they told him that he was leading
the prayer. I did not know what he meant by “al-Sayyid”, and thought he might
be one of the Ulama, but later I realized it was “al-Sayyid al-Khu’i” the
leader of the Shiite community.
It was
worth noting here that the title “Sayyid” - master for the Shia is given to
those who are the descendants of the family of the Prophet (saw), and the
“Sayyid”, whether he is a student or an Alim [learned man], wears a black
turban, but other Ulama usually wear white turbans and bear the title of
“Shaykh”. There are other notables [al-Ashraf] who are not Ulama and wear a
green turban.
My
friend asked them if I could sit with them, whilst he went to meet al-Sayyid.
They welcomed me and sat around me in a semi-circle and I looked at their faces
which were full of innocence and purity, and then I remembered the saying of
the Prophet (saw) “Man is born to live by nature, so his parents could make him
a Jew or a Christian or a Magus” ... and I said to myself, “Or make him a Shi’i.”
They
asked me, which countly I came from, I answered. “From Tunisia.” They asked,
“Have you got religious schools?” I answered, “We have universities and
schools.” I was bombarded by questions from all sides, and all the questions
were sharp and concentrated. What could I say to those innocent boys who
thought that the Islamic world was full of religious schools where they teach
Jurisprudence, Islamic Law, principle of Islam and Qur’anic commentary. They
did not know that in the modern world of Islam we have changed the Qur’anic
schools to kindergartens supervised by Christ- ian nuns so should I tell them
that they are considered by us as being “backward”? One of the boys asked me,
“Which Madhhab (religious school) is followed in Tunis’?” I said, “The Maliki
madhhab.” And noticed that some of them laughed, but I did not pay much
attention. He asked me, “Do you not know the Jafari Madhhab?” I said, “What is
this new name? No we only know the four Madhahibs, and apart from that is not
within Islam.”
He smiled
and said, “The Jafari Madhhab is the essence of Islam, do
you not know that Imam Abu Hanifah studied under Imam Jafar al-Sadiq?
And that Abu Hanifah said, “Without the two years al-Numan would have
perished.” I remained silent and did not answer, for I had heard a name that I
had never heard before, but thanked Allah that he - i.e. their Imam Jafar
al-Sadiq - was not a teacher of Imam Malik, and said that we are Malikis and
not Hanafis. He said, “The four Madhahibs took from
each other, Ahmed ibn Hanbal took from al-Shafii, and al-Shafii took from
Malik, and Malik took from Abu Hanifah, and Abu Hanifah from Jafar al-Sadiq,
therefore, all of them were students of Jafar ibn Muhammad, who was the first
to open an Islamic University in the mosque of his grandfather, the Messenger
of Allah. and under him studied no less than four thousand jurisprudents and
specialists in Hadith (prophetic traditions).
I was surprised by the intelligence of that young boy who seemed to
have learnt what he was saying in the same way that one recites a Surah from
the Qur’an. I was even more astonished when he started telling me some
historical references which he knew the number of their volumes and chapters,
and he continued with his discussion as if he was a teacher teaching a student.
In fact I felt weak before him and wished that I had gone with my friend
instead of staying with the young boys. I was not able to answer every question
connected with jurisprudence or history that they asked me.
He asked
me, “Which of the Imams I followed?” I said, “Imam Malik.” He said, “How do you
follow a dead man with fourteen centuries between you and him. If you want to
ask him a question about current issues, would he answer you?” I thought for a
little while and then said, “Your Jafar also died fourteen centuries ago, so
whom do you follow?” He and other boys answered me quickly, “We follow al-
Sayyid al-Khu’i, for he is our Imam.” I did not know who was more
knowledgeable, al-Khu’i or Jafar al-Sadiq. I tried my
best to change the subject so I kept asking them questions such as, “What is
the population of al- Najaf? How far is al- Najaf from Baghdad? Did they know other countries beside
Iraq ...” And every time they answered, I prepared another question for them to
prevent them from asking me, for I felt incapable of matching their
knowledge. But I refused to admit
it, despite the fact that inside myself, I accepted defeat. The days of
glory and scholarship in Egypt had dissipated here, especially after meeting
those youngsters, and then I remembered the following wise words:
Say to
him who claims knowledge in Philosophy, “You have known one thing but you are
still unaware of many things.”
I
thought the minds of those young boys were greater than the minds of those
Shaykhs whom I met in al-Azhar and the minds of our Shaykhs in Tunisia.
Al-Sayyid
al-Khu’i entered the place, and with him came a group of Ulama who looked
respectable and dignified, and all the boys stood up, and me with them, then
each one of them approached al-Sayyid to kiss his hand, but I stayed rigid in
my place. Al-Sayyid did not sit down until everybody sat down, then he started
greeting them one by one, and he was greeted back by each individual until my
turn came, so I replied in the same way. After that my friend, who had
whispered to al-Sayyid, pointed to me to get nearer to al-Sayyid, which I did,
and he sat me to his right. After we exchanged the greetings my friend said to
me, “Tell al-Sayyid the things you hear in Tunisia about the Shia.” I said,
“Brother, let us forget about the stories we hear from here and there, and I
want to know for myself what the Shia say, so I want frank answers to some
questions that I have.” My friend insisted that I should inform al-Sayyid about
what we thought of al- Shia. I said, “We consider the Shia to be harder on
Islam than the Christian and Jews, because they worship Allah and believe in
the Message of Musa-may Allah grant him peace, but we hear that the Shia
worship Ali and consider him to be sacred, and there is a sect among them who
worship Allah but put Ali at the same level as the Messenger of Allah.” Also I
told him the story about how the angel Gabriel betrayed his charge - as they
say - so instead of giving the message to Ali he gave it to Muhammad (saw).
Al-Sayyid
remained silent for a little while, with his head down, then he looked at me
and said, “We believe that there is no other God but Allah, and that Muhammad
(saw) is the Messenger of Allah, and that Ali was but a servant of Allah.” ‘He
turned to his audience and said, indicating to me “Look at these innocent
people how they have been brain-washed by the false rumours; and this is not
surprising for I heard more than that from other people - (so we say) there is
no power or strength save in Allah, the Highest and the Greatest.” Then he
turned to me and said, “Have you read the Qur’an?” I answered, “I could recite
half of it by heart before I was ten.” He said, “Do you know that all the
Islamic groups, regardless of their sects agree on the Holy Qur’an, for our
Qur’an is the same as yours?” I said, “Yes I know that.” He then said, “Have
you not read the words of Allah, praise be to Him the Sublime:
And
Muhammad is no more than a messenger, the messengers have already passed away
before him (Holy Qur’an 3:144)
Muhammad
is the Messenger of Allah, and those with him are from of heart against the
unbelievers (Holy Qur’an 48:29)
Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but he is the
Messenger of Allah and the last of the Prophets (Holy Qur’an 33:40)
I said, “Yes I know all these Qur’anic verses.” He said, “Where is
Ali then? If our Qur’an says that Muhammad (saw) is the Messenger of Allah, so
where did this lie come from?”
I remained silent and could not find an answer. He added, “As for the betrayal of
Gabriel, God forbid, it is worse than the first, because when Allah sent
Gabriel unto Muhammad (saw), Muhammad (saw) was forty years old then, and Ali
was a lad of six or seven years, so how could Gabriel make a mistake and did
not differentiate between Muhammad (saw) the man and Ali the lad?” He stayed
silent for a long time, and I started thinking about
what he had said, which appeared to me as logical reasoning, so that it left a
deep impression on me, and I asked myself why we did not base our analysis on
such logical reasoning.
Al-Sayyid
al-Khu’i added, “I would like to inform you that the Shia is the only group,
among all the Islamic groups, which believe in the infallability of the
Prophets and Imams; so if our Imams, may Allah grant them peace, are
infallible, and they are human beings like us, then how about Gabriel, who is
an angel favoured by Allah and He called him “The faithful spirit”.
I asked,
“Where did all these rumours come from?” He said, “From
the enemies of Islam who want to divide the Muslims into groups that fight each
other, otherwise Muslims are brothers, whether they were Shia or Sunnis, for
all of them worship Allah alone and do not associate any other God with Him,
and they have one Qur’an, one Prophet and one Qiblah (Direction to which Muslims
turn in praying- i.e. Kabaa). The Shia and the Sunnis only differ on issues
regarding jurisprudence, in the same way that the different schools of
jurisprudence in the Sunni school differ among each other; as Malik did not
agree all the way with Abu Hanifah who himself did not agree all the way with
al-Shafii ... and so on.”
I said,
“Therefore, all the things which have been said about you are just lies?” He
said, “You, praise be to Allah, are a sensible man and could comprehend things,
also you have seen Shi’i countries and have travelled in their midst; so did
you hear or see anything related to these lies?” I said, “No, I have not seen or heard anything but good things, and I
thank Allah for giving me the opportunity to meet Mr. Munim on the ship, since
he was the reason for my presence in Iraq, and indeed I have learnt many things
that I had not known before.”
My
friend Munim said, with a smile, “Including the existence of a grave for the
Imam Ali?” I winked at him and said, “In fact I have learnt many new things
even from those young lads and wish I had had the opportunity to learn as they
do in this Religious School.”
Al-Sayyid
said, “Welcome, if you want to study here, then there will be a place for you
in this school.” Everybody welcomed the suggestion, especially my friend Munim
whose face was full of joy.
I said,
“I am a married man with two boys.” He said, “We will take care of your
accommodation and living and whatever you need, but the important thing is
learning.”
after
having spent five years as a teacher and educationalist, and it is not easy to
take a decision so
hastily.”
I
thanked al-Sayyid al-Khu’i for his offer and told him that I would think about
the matter seriously after I came back from al-Umrah, but I needed some books.
Al-Sayyid said, “Give him the books.” A group of learned people stood up and
went to their book cabinets and after a few minutes each one of them presented
me with a book, so I had more than seventy. I realized that I could not carry
all these books with me, especially as I was going to Saudi Arabia, where the
authorities censor any book entering their countries, lest new ideas get
established, in particular those ideas which do not agree with their creed.
However, I did not want to miss the chance of having all these books which I
had never seen in all my life. I said to my friend and the rest of the people
that I had a long journey ahead of me, passing through Damascus, Jordan and
Saudi Arabia, and on the way back my journey would be even longer for I would
travel through Egypt and Lybia until I reached Tunisia, and beside the weight
of these books was the fact that most of the countries prohibit the entry of
these books to their territories.
Al-Sayyid
said, “Leave us your address and we will send them to you.” I liked the idea
and gave him my personal card with my address in Tunis on it. Also, I thanked
him for his generosity, and when I was about to leave him he stood up and said
to me, “May Allah grant you safety and if you stand by the grave of my
forefather the Messenger of Allah please pass my greetings to him.”
were coming
from his eyes, then I said to myself, “God forbid that
such a man could be wrong or a
liar; his dignity, his greatness and his modesty tell you that he is
truly a descendant of the Prophet.”
I could
not help myself but to take his hand and kiss it, in spite of his refusal.
When I
stood up to go, everybody stood and said farewell to me, and some of the young
lads from the religious school followed me and asked me for my addresses for
future correspondence, and I gave it to them.
We went
back to al-Kufa after an invitation from a friend of Munim, whose name was Abu
Shubbar, and stayed in his house where we spent a whole night socializing with
a group of intellectual young people. Among those people were some students of
al-Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr who suggested that I should meet him, and they
promised to arrange an interview with him on the day after. My friend Munim
liked the idea but apologized for not being able to be present at the meeting
because he has a prior engagement in Baghdad. We agreed that I would stay in
Abu Shubbar’s house for three or four days until Munim came back.
Munim
left us shortly after the dawn prayers and we went to sleep. I benefitted so
much from these students and was surprised about the variety of subjects they
study in the Religious School. In
addition to the Islamic studies which include Jurisprudence, Islamic Law
(Shariah) and Tawheed (Islamic Theology); they study Economics, Sociology,
Politics, History, Languages, Astronomy and a few more subjects.
I went
with Abu Shubbar to al-Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr’s house, and on the way he
honoured me and talked to me about the famous Ulama and about Taqlid (adoption
of a legal decision by the Mujtahid) and so on ... until we entered the house
where we found al Sayyid al Sadr surrounded by many young turbaned students.
Al-Sayyid stood up and greeted us, then I was introduced to him and he welcomed
me warmly and sat me next to him. After that he started asking me about Tunisia
and Algeria and about famous Ulama like al-Khidr Husayn and al-Thahir ibn
Ashoor and others. I enjoyed his talk, and despite his high position and the
great respect he commands from his students, I found myself at ease with him
and felt as if I had known him before.
I
benefitted so much from that meeting because I listened to the questions asked
by the students and his answers to them, also I appreciated then the idea of
adopting the decision of the living Ulama who could answer all sorts of
questions directly and clearly. I became convinced that
the Shia are Muslims worshipping Allah alone, who believe in the message of our
Prophet Muhammad (saw). At the beginning I suspected that what I saw was just
acting, or perhaps as they call it Taqiyyah, i.e. they show what they do not
believe; but these suspicions disappeared quickly since it was inconceivable
that the hundreds of people that I saw or heard coordinated their acting, and
why should there be acting any- way? Besides who was I, and why should they be
concerned about me to the extent that they used Taqiyyah with me? And all their
books, whether they were old ones that had been written centuries ago or the
newly published ones, all professed the unity of Allah and praise His Messenger
Muhammad (saw). There I was, in the house of al-Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr,
the famous religious authority inside Iraq and outside it, and every time the
name of Muhammad (saw) was mentioned, the entire audience shouted in one voice
“May Allah’s blessings be upon Muhammad and his household.”
When the
time for prayer was due, we left the house and went to the mosque, which was
next door, and al-Sayyid Muhammad al-Sadr led the midday and afternoon prayers.
I felt as if I was living among the Companions (of the Prophet), for there was
a solemn invocation from one of the men who had a moving voice, and when he
finished the invocation the whole audience shouted, “May Allah’s blessing be
upon Muhammad and his household.” The invocation was basically to thank and
glorify Allah, the Great Majesty, and then Muhammad (saw) and his good and
purified posterity.
After
the prayer, al-Sayyid sat in the Mihrab (the prayer niche) and people came to
greet him, some asked him private questions, others asked him general
questions, and he answered each one of them accordingly. When the person
obtained an answer for his question, he kissed the hand of al- Sayyid then
left, what lucky people to have such a dignified learned Imam who lives their
experiences and solves their problems.
Al-Sayyid
showed me so much care and generosity to the extent that I forgot all about my
family and tribe, and felt that if I stayed for one month with him, I would have become a
Shii, because of his manners, modesty and generosity. Whenever I looked at him he smiled
and asked me if I needed anything, and I did not leave his company during the
four days, only when I wanted to go to sleep. There were many visitors who came
to see him from all over the world; there were Saudi Shii from Hijaz, others
came from Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Syria, Iran,
Afghanistan, Turkey and Black Africa; and al-Sayyid spoke to each one of them
and solved their problems, later they left him feeling happy and comforted.
Here I would like to mention a case which was brought to al-Sayyid when I was
in his company, and I was very impressed by the way he dealt with it. I mention
it because of its historical importance so that the Muslims know what they have
lost by leaving the rule of Allah.
Four men,
who were probably Iraqis, judging by their accents, came to see al-Sayyid
Muhammad
Baqir
al-Sadr. One of them had inherited a house from his grandfather, who had died a
few years
ago, and
had sold that house to a second person (he was present then). One year after
the
completion
of the sale, two brothers came and proved that they were also legal inheritors
of the
dead man
(i.e. the father). The four of them sat before al-Sayyid and each one of them
produced a
number of
papers and deeds, which al-Sayyid read, and after he spoke for a few minutes
with the
men, he
passed a fair judgement. He gave the purchaser the full right to his house, and
asked the
seller
to pay to his two brothers their shares from the selling price, and after that
they stood up and
kissed
al-Sayyid’s hand and embraced each other. I was astonished about what had
happened and asked Abu Shubbar, “Has the case ended?” He said, “Yes, everyone
received his right. Praise be to Allah!” In such case, and in such a short
time, only a few minutes, the problem was solved. A similar case in our country
would have taken at least ten years to resolve, some of the plaintiffs would
die and their sons resume the case; often the legal costs exceed the price of
the house. The case would move from the Magistrate Court to the Appeal Court to
the Court of Review, and at the end no one is satisfied, and hatred between
People and Tribes are created.
Abu
Shubbar commented, We have the same thing if not worse.” I asked, “How?” He
said, if people take their cases to the state courts, then they would go
through the same troubles which you have just mentioned, but if they follow the
Religious Authority and commit themselves to the Islamic Laws, then they would
take their cases to him and the problem would be solved in a few minutes, as you
saw. And what is better than the Law of Allah for people who could
comprehend? Al-Sayyid al-Sadr did
not charge them one Fils, but if they went to the state courts, then they would
have paid a high price.”
I said,
“Praise be to Allah! I still cannot believe what I have seen, and if I had not
seen it with my eyes, I would not have believed it at all.”
Abu
Shubbar said, “You do not have to deny it brother, this is a simple case in
comparison with other more complicated ones which involve blood. Even so, the
Religious Authorities do consider them, and it takes them a few hours to
resolve.” I said with astonishment, “Therefore you have two governments in
Iraq, a government of the state and a government of the clergy. He replied,
“No, we have a government of the state only, but the Muslims of the Shii
Madhhab who follow the Religious Authorities, have nothing to do with the
government of the state, because it is not an Islamic government. They are
subjects of that government simply because of their citizenship, the taxes,
civil laws and personal status; so if a committed Muslim had an argument with a
non committed Muslim, then the case must be taken to the state courts, because
the latter would not accept the judgement of the Religious Authorities.
However, if two committed Muslims had an argument, then there is no problem,
whatever the Religious Authorities decide is acceptable to all parties. Thus,
all cases seen by the Religious Authorities are solved on a day-to-day basis,
whereas other cases linger on for months and years.”
It was
an incident that made me feel content with rule of Allah, praise be to Him the
Exalted one, which helped me to comprehend the words of Allah in His Glorious
Book:
... And
whoever did not judge by what Allah revealed, those are they that are the
unbelievers (Holy Qur’an 5:44).
... And
whoever did not judge by what Allah revealed, those are they that are the
unjust (Holy Qur’an 5:45).
... And
whoever did not judge by what Allah revealed, those are they that are the
transgressors (Holy Qur’an 5:47).
That
incident aroused in me feelings of anger and resentment about those who change
the just rules
of Allah
with some unjust, man-made rules. They even go further, and with all impudence
and
sarcasm,
they criticize the divine rules and condemn them for being barbaric and inhuman
because
it draws
the limits. cuts the hand of the thief, stones the adulterer and kills the
killer. So where did
all
these new theories, that are foreign to us and our culture come from? There is
no doubt they came from the West and from the enemies of Islam who know that
the application of Allah’s rules mean their inevitable destruction because they
are thieves, traitors, adulterers, criminals and murderers.
I had
many discussions with al-Sayyid al-Sadr during these days, and I asked him
about everything I had learnt through the friends who talked to me about their
beliefs and what they thought about the Companions of the Prophet (saw), and
about Ali and his sons ... beside many other issues that we used to disagree
upon.
I asked
al-Sayyid al-Sadr about Imam Ali and why they testify for him in the Adhan [the
call for prayers] that he is “Waliy Allah” [the friend of Allah]. He answered
me in the following way:
The
Commander of the Believers, Ali, may Allah’s blessings be upon him, was one of
those servants of Allah whom He chose and honoured by giving them the
responsibilities of the Message after His Prophet. These servants are the
trustees of the Prophet (saw), since each prophet has a trustee, and Ali ibn
Abi Talib is the trustee of Muhammad (saw).
We
favour him above all the Companions of the Prophet (saw) because Allah and the
Prophet favoured him, and we have many proofs of that, some of them are deduced
through logical reasoning, others are found in the Qur’an and al-Sunnah [the
Tradition of the Prophet Muhammad (saw)], and these proofs cannot be suspect,
because they have been scrutinized, and proven right, by our own learned people
(who wrote many books about the subject) and those of the Sunni Madhahibs. The
Umayyad regime worked very hard to cover this truth and fought Imam Ali and his
sons, whom they killed. They even ordered people, sometimes by force, to curse
him, so his followers - may Allah bless them all started to testify for him as
being the friend of Allah. No Muslim would curse the friend of Allah in
defiance of the oppressive authorities, so that the glory was to Allah, and to
His Messenger and to all the believers. It also became an historical land mark
across the generations so that they know the just cause of Ali and the wrong
doing of his enemies. Thus, our learned people continued to testify that Ali is
the friend of Allah in their calls to prayer, as something which is
commendable. There are many commendable things in the religious rites as well
as in ordinary mundane dealings, and the Muslim will be rewarded for doing
them, but not punished for leaving them aside.
For
example, it is commendable for the Muslim to say after al-Shahadah [i.e. to
testify that there is no God but Allah, and that Muhammad (saw) is His
messenger]:
And I
will testify that Heaven is true and Hell is true, and that Allah will
resurrect people from their graves.
I said
“Our learned people taught us that the priority of the succession was for our
master Abu
Bakr al-Siddiq,
then to our master Umar al-Faruq, then to our master Uthman, then to our master
Ali, may
Allah bless them all.” Al-Sayyid remained silent for a short while, then
answered me,
Let them
say what they want, but it would be impossible for them to prove it on legal
grounds, besides, what they say contradicts their books which state: The best
of the people is Abu Bakr then Uthman, and there is no mention of Ali because
they made him just an ordinary person, however, the later historians started to
mention him for the sake of mentioning the Rightly Guided Caliphs.
After
that I asked him about the piece of clay on which they put their foreheads
during the prayers
and they
call it “al-Turbah al-Husayniyyah”. He answered,
We all
prostrate on the dust, but not for the dust, as some people claim that the Shia
do, for the prostration is only for Allah, praise be to Him the Highest. It is
well established among our people, as well as among the Sunnis, that the most
favourable prostration is on earth or on the non-edible produce of the earth,
and it is incorrect to prostrate on anything else. The Messenger of Allah (saw)
used to sit on the dust, and he had a piece of clay mixed with straw, on which
he used to prostrate. He also taught his Companions, may Allah bless them all,
to prostrate on the earth or on stones, and forbade them from prostrating on
the edges of their shirts. We consider these acts to be necessary and
important.
Imam
Zayn al-Abideen Ali ibn al-Husayn [may Allah bless them both] took a Turbah [a
piece of clay] from near the grave of his father Abu Abdullah, because the dust
there is blessed and pure, for the blood of the chief martyr was spilt on it.
Thus, his followers continue with that practice up to the present day.
We do
not say that prostration is not allowed but on Turbah, rather, we say that
prostration is correct if it is done on any blessed Turbah or stone, also it is
correct if it is done on a mat which is made of palm leaves or similar
material.
I asked,
with reference to our master al-Husayn, may Allah’s blessings be upon him, “Why
do the Shia cry and beat their cheeks and other parts of their bodies until
blood is spilt, and this is prohibited in Islam, for the Prophet (saw) said: He
who beats the cheeks, tears the pockets and follows the call of al-Jahiliyyah
is not one of us.”
The
saying is correct and there is no doubt about it, but it does not apply to the
obsequies of Abu Abdullah, for he who calls for the avenging of al-Husayn and
follows his path, his call is not of the Jahiliyyah. Besides, the Shias are
only human beings, among them you find the learned and not so learned, and they
have feelings and emotions. If they are overcome by their emotions during the
anniversary of the martyrdom of Abu Abdullah, and remember what happened to
him, his family and his companions from degradation to captivity and then
finally murder, then they will be rewarded for their good intentions, because
all these intentions are for the sake of Allah. Allah - praise be to Him, the Highest
- who rewards people according to their iintentions.
Last
week I read the official reports from the Egyptian government about the suicide
incidents that followed the death of Jamal Abdul Nasser. There were eight such
incidents in which people took their lives by jumping from buildings or
throwing themselves under trains, besides them there were many injured people.
These are but some examples in which emotions have overcome the most rational
of people, who happen to be Muslims and who killed themselves because of the
death of Jamal Abdul Nasser, who died of natural causes, therefore, it is not
right for us to condemn the Sunnis and judge them to be wrong.
On the
other hand, it is not right for the Sunnis to accuse their brothers the Shia of
being wrong because they cry for the chief martyr. These people have lived and
are still living to this present day the tragedy of al-Husayn. Even the
Messenger of Allah (saw) cried after the death of his son al- Husayn, and
Gabriel cried also.
I asked,
“Why do the Shia decorate the graves of their saints with gold and silver,
despite the fact that it is prohibited in Islam?”
This is
not done just by the Shia, and it is not prohibited. Look at the mosques of our
brothers the Sunnis in Iraq or Egypt or Turkey or anywhere else in the Islamic
world, they are all decorated with gold and silver. Furthermore, the mosque of
the Messenger of Allah (saw) in al-Madinah al-Munawarah and the Kaba, the House
of Allah, in the blessed Mecca is covered every year by a cloth decorated by
gold which costs millions. So such a thing is not exclusive to the Shia.
I asked
“The Saudi Ulama say that touching the graves and calling the saints for their
blessings is polytheism, so what is your opinion?”
If
touching the graves and calling the dead is with the understanding that they
could cause harm or render a benefit, then that is polytheism, no doubt about
it, the Muslims are monotheists and they know that Allah alone could cause harm
or render a benefit, but calling the saints and Imams [may Allah bless them
all] with the understanding that they could be an intermediary to Allah, that
is not polytheism. All Muslims, Sunnis and Shias, agreed on this point from the
time of the Messenger up to the present day, except the Wahabiyyah, the Saudi
Ulama who contradict all Muslims with their new creed. They caused considerable
disturbances among the Muslims, they accused them of blasphemy, they spilt
their blood and even beat old pilgrims on their way to the House of Allah in
Mecca just because they say “O Messenger of Allah, may peace be upon you”, and
they will never let anybody touch his blessed grave. They had so many debates
with our learned people, but they persisted in their stubbornness and their
arrogance.
Al-Sayyid
Sharaf al-Din, a famous Shi’i learned man, went on pilgrimage to the House of
Allah during the time of Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, and he was one of those Ulama who
were invited to the King’s palace to celebrate with the King ‘Id al-Adhha, in
accordance with the customs there. When his turn came to shake the King’shand,
Sayyid Sharaf al-Din presented him with a leather bound Qur’an. The King took
the Qur’an and placed it on his forehead then kissed it. Al Sayyid Sharaf
al-Din said, “O King, why do you kiss and glorify the cover which is only made
out of goat’s skin?” The King answered, “I meant to glorify the Holy Qur’an,
not the goat’s skin.” Al-Sayyid Sharaf al-Din then said, “Well said, O King. We
do the same when we kiss the window or the door of the Prophet’s (saw) chamber,
we know it is made of iron and could not harm or render a benefit, but we mean
what is behind the iron and wood, we mean to glorify the Messenger of Allah
(saw) in the same way as you meant with the Qur’an when you kissed its goat’s
skin cover.
The
audience was impressed by al-Sayyid and said, “You are right.” The King was
forced to allow the pilgrims to ask for blessings from the Prophet’s relics,
until the order was reversed by the successor of that king. The issue is not
that they are afraid of people associating others with Allah, rather, it is a
political issue based on antagonizing and killing the Muslims in order to
consolidate their power and authority over the Muslims, and history is the
witness to what they have done with the Muslim nation.
There
are positive and negative aspects to them. The positive aspects include
self-discipline, austere living, renunciation of worldly pleasures and
elevating one’s self to the spiritual world. The negative aspects include
isolation, escapism and restricting the mention of Allah by verbal numbers and
various other practices. Islam, as it is known accepts the positive aspects but
rejects the negative ones, and we may say that all the principles and teachings
of Islam are positive.
The
answers of al-Sayyid al-Sadr were clear and convincing, but it was very
difficult for a person like me to comprehend them. Twenty-five years of my life
had been based on the idea of glorifying and respecting the Companions of the
Prophet, especially the Rightly Guided Caliphs. The Messenger of Allah
commanded us to follow their teachings, in particular Abu Bakr al-Siddiq and
Umar al-Farooq, but I had never heard their names mentioned since I arrived in
Iraq. Instead, I heard strange names that I had never come across before, and
that there were twelve Imams, and a claim that the Messenger of Allah had
stated before his death that Imam Ali should be his successor. How could I
believe all that (that all Muslims and the Companions of the Prophet- who was
the best of people -, after the death of the Prophet agreed to stand against
Ali - may Allah honour him) when we had been taught from childhood that the
Companions of the Prophet - may Allah bless them all - respected Ali and knew
very well what kind of man he was. They knew that he was the husband of Fatima
al-Zahra and the father of al-Hasan and al-Husayn and the gate to the city of
knowledge.
Our Master Ali knew the quality of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, who became a
Muslim before anybody else, and accompanied the Prophet to the cave, as is
mentioned by Allah, the Mighty, in the Qur’an, and whom the Messenger of Allah
charged with the leadership of the prayers during his illness, and said about
him, if I was taking a very close friend, I would have chosen Abu Bakr.”
Because of all that, the Muslims elected him as their caliph. Imam Ali knew the
position of our master Umar, with whom Allah glorified Islam, and the Messenger
of Allah called him al-Farooq, he who separates right from wrong. Also Imam Ali
knew the position of our master Uthman, in whose presence the angels of the
Merciful felt shy, and who organized al-Usrah’s army, and who was named by the
Messenger of Allah as “Dhu al-Nurayn”, the man who is endowed with two lights.
How could our brothers al-Shia ignore or pretend to ignore all that, and make
these personalities just ordinary characters subject to all worldly whims and
greed so that they deviated from the right path and disobeyed the orders of the
Messenger after his death. This was inconceivable since we know that these
people used to hasten to execute the orders of the Messenger; they killed their
sons and fathers and members of their tribes for the sake of glorifying Islam
and its ultimate victory. He who would kill his father and son for the sake of
Allah and His Messenger could not be subject to worldly and transitory
ambitions such as the position of Caliph, and ignoring the orders of the Messenger
of Allah.
Yes, because of all that I could not believe all the Shia were
saying, in spite of the fact that I was convinced about many things. I remained
in a state of doubt and perplexity: doubtful because of what the Shii learned
scholars Ulama said to me, which I found sensible and logical; and perplexed
because I could not believe that the Companions of the Prophet - may Allah
bless them all - would sink to such a low moral stand and become ordinary
people like us, neither sharpened by the light of the Message nor able to be
enlightened by Muhammad. O my God, how could that be? Could the Companions of
the Prophet be at the level described by the Shia? The important thing is that
doubt and perplexity were the beginning of weakness and the realization that
there were many hidden issues to be uncovered before reaching the truth.
My friend
came, then we travelled to Karbala, and there I lived the tragedy of our master
al-Husayn
in the same way his followers, and only then did I know that he had not died an
ordinary
death. People tend to crowd around his grave like butterflies and cry with such
sorrow
and grief
that I have never seen before, as if al-Husayn had just been martyred. I heard
speakers
who
aroused the feelings of people when describing the incident at Karbala,
accompanied by
crying and
wailing, and soon the listener loses control of himself and collapses. I cried
and cried
and let
myself go as if crushed, and felt a relief that I had never experienced before
that day; I felt
that I had
been in the ranks of al- Husayn’s enemies and had suddenly changed sides to be
one of
his
followers who sacrificed themselves for his sake. The speaker was reciting the
story of al-Hurr,
who was
one of the commanders in charge of fighting al-Husayn, who stood in the middle
of the
battlefield
shaking like a leaf, and when one of his friends asked him, “Are you afraid of
death?” He
answered,
“No, by Allah, but I am choosing between heaven and hell.” Then he kicked his
horse
and went
towards al-Husayn and asked, “Is there a repentance, O son of the Messenger of
When I
heard that, I could not control myself and fell on the floor crying and felt as
if I was in the position of al-Hurr, asking al-Husayn, “Is there a repentance,
O son of the Messenger of Allah? Forgive me O son of the Messenger of Allah. The voice of the
speaker was so moving that people started crying and wailing, and when my
friend heard my cries, he embraced me, like a mother embracing her child, and
started crying and calling, “O Husayn...O Husayn...”
These
were moments, during which I learnt that meaning of real crying and felt that
my tears washed my heart and body from the inside, and then I understood the
meaning of the Messenger’s saying: If you knew what I know, you would have
laughed little and cried more.
I was
depressed throughout the day, although my friend tried to re-assure me and
cheer me up by offering me some refreshments, but I had lost my appetite
completely. I asked him to repeat the story of the martyrdom of al-Husayn, for
I did not know much about it except the fact that our religious leaders told us
that the enemies of Islam killed our masters Umar, Uthman and Ali, and that the
same enemies killed our master al-Husayn; and that is all we knew. In fact we
used to celebrate Ashura, as one of the festival days of Islam; alms were
distributed and various types of food were cooked and the young boys went to
their elders who gave them money to buy sweets and toys.
However,
there are a few customs in some villages during Ashura: people do not light
fires or do any kind of work. People do not get married or celebrate a happy
occasion. We usually accept them at face value without any explanation given,
and strangely enough, our religious leaders talk to us about the greatness of Ashura
and how blessed it is.
After
that we went to visit the grave of al-Abbas, the brother of al-Husayn. I did
not know who he was, but my friend informed me about his bravery. We also met
many pious religious leaders whose names I cannot recall in detail, but I can
still recall their surnames: Bahr al-Ulum, al-Sayyid al-Hakim, Kashif al-Ghita,
al-Yasin, al-Tabatabai, al- Feiruzabadi, Asad Haidar, and others, who honoured
me with their company.
They are
truly pious religious leaders, possessing all the signs of dignity and respect,
and the Shia population respect them and give them one fifth of their incomes.
Through
these donations they manage the affairs of the religious schools, open new
schools, establish presses and assist students who come to them from all over
the Islamic world.
They are
independent and not connected in any way with the rulers; unlike our religious
leaders who would not do or say anything without the approval of the
authorities, who pay their salaries and appoint them, and remove them whenever
they want.
It was a
new world that I had discovered, or rather, Allah had discovered for me. I
started to enjoy it having previously kept away from it, and gradually blended
with it after I had opposed it. I gained new ideas from this new world, and it
inspired me with the quest for knowledge and research until I reached the
desired truth which always comes to mind whenever I read the saying of the
prophet: The sons of Israel were divided into seventy-one groups, and the
Christians were divided into seventy-two groups, and my people will be divided
into seventy-three groups, all of which, except one group will end up in Hell.
Here is
not the place to talk about the various religions which claim to be the right
one and that the rest are wrong, but I am surprised and astonished whenever I
read this saying. My surprise and astonishment is not at the saying itself, but
at those Muslims who read it and repeat it in their speeches and brush over it
without analyzing it or even attempting to find out which the group is going to
be saved and which are going to be doomed.
The
interesting thing is that each group claims that it is the saved one. At the
end of the saying came the following: “Who are they, O Messenger of Allah?” He
answered, “Those who follow my path and the path of my Companions.” Is there
any group that does not adhere to the Book [Qur’an] and Sunnah (the prophetic
tradition), and is there any Islamic group that claims otherwise? If Imams
Malik or Abu Hanifah or al-Shafii or Ahmed ibn Hanbel were asked, wouldn’t each
and everyone of them claim that he adheres to the teachings of the Qur’an and
the Right Sunnah’?’
These
are the Sunni Madhahib, in addition to the various Shii-groups, which I had
believed at one time to be deviant and corrupt. All of them claim to adhere to
the Qur’an and the correct Sunnah which has been handed down through Ahl
al-Bayt (the Prophets Family) who knew best about what they were saying. Is it
possible that they are all right, as they claim? This is not possible, because
the Prophets saying states the opposite, unless the saying is invented or
fabricated. But that is not possible either, because the saying is accepted by
both the Shia and Sunnis. Is it possible that the saying has no meaning? God
forbid that His Messenger (saw) could utter a meaningless and aimless saying,
as he only spoke words of wisdom. Therefore we are left with one possible
conclusion: that there is one group which is on the right path, and that the
rest are wrong. Thus, the saying
tends to make one confused and perplexed, but in the meantime it encourages research and study by those who want to be saved.
Because of that, I became
doubtful and perplexed after my meeting with the Shia, for who knows, they
might be saying the truth! So should I not study and investigate?
·
the Most High said:
And (as for) those who strive hard for Us, We will most certainly
guide them in Our ways (Holy Qur’an 29:69).
He also said: Those who listen to the word, then follow the best
of it; these are they whom Allah has guided, and those it is who are the men of
understanding (Holy Qur’an 39:18)
The
Messenger of Allah (saw) said,
Study
your religion until it is said that you are mad.
Therefore
research and comparison are legal obligations for every responsible person.
Having
reached this decision and resolution, and with this promise to myself and my
Shii friends
from Iraq,
I embraced them and bade them farewell, full of sorrow since I liked them and
they
liked
me. I felt that I had left dear and faithful friends who had sacrificed their
time in order to help
me. They
did it out of their own choice and asked for nothing except the approval of
Allah, Praise be to Him. The Prophet (saw) said, “If
Allah chooses you to guide one man (to the right path), then that is worth more
than all the riches on earth.”
I left
Iraq having spent twenty days among the Imams and their followers, and the time
had passed like a nice dream from which the sleeper was loathe to awake. I left
Iraq feeling sorry for the brevity of this period. and sorry to leave dear
friends who were full of love for Ahl-al-Bayt.
I left
Iraq for the Hijaz seeking the House of Allah and the grave of the Master of
the First and the Last (saw).
I
arrived in Jeddah and met my friend al-Basheer, who was very pleased to see me
and took me to his home and showed me the highest degree of generosity. We
spent the time by going around in his car visiting places, and did the Umrah
together, and we spent a few days together full of worshipping and other pious
works. I apologized to my friend for being late due to my long stay in Iraq and
told him about my new discovery, or rather new faith. He was open minded and
well informed, so he said to me, “This is true, for I hear that they have some
great learned scholars, but also they have many deviant groups that cause us
considerable trouble during the pilgrimage. I asked him, “What are these
problems they cause?” He said, “They pray around the graves and enter al-Baqee
in groups crying and wailing and they carry with them pieces of stones on which
they prostrate themselves; and if they visit the grave of our master al-Hamzah
in Uhud, they make up a funeral ceremony, beating their chests and wailing as
if al-Hamza had just died. Because of all that, the Saudi government prevented
them from visiting the graves.”
I
laughed and said, “Is it because of that you judge them as being deviant from
Islam?” He said, “That and other reasons. They come to visit the Prophets (saw)
grave, but at the same time they stand around the graves of Abu Bakr and Umar
and curse them, and some of them throw dirt and litter on the graves.”
When I
heard these allegations I remembered what my father had told me when he came
back from the Pilgrimage that they throw dirt on the Prophet’s (saw) grave.
There is no doubt that my father never saw them with his own eyes because he
said, “We noticed some soldiers from the Saudi Army beating a few pilgrims with
sticks and when we protested against their humiliating treatment of the
pilgrims of the House of Allah, they answered us: These are not Muslims, they
are Shia who brought dirt to throw on the Prophet’s (saw) grave. My father
said: We then left them at that, and cursed them and spat at them.”
And now
I heard from my Saudi friend who was born in al-Medinah al-Munawwarah that they
came to visit the Prophet’s (saw) grave but throw dirt on Abu Bakr’s and Umar’s
graves. I became suspicious of the two stories, for I had been on pilgrimage
and had seen the blessed room where the graves of Prophet (saw) and Abu Bakr
and Umar are locked and nobody could come near them to touch the door or window
or indeed to throw anything inside them for two reasons. Firstly there are no
gaps, and secondly there is a strict guard with tough soldiers watching each
door, and every one of them carries a whip in his hand to beat the pilgrims who
dare to enter the room. It is very likely that some of the Saudi soldiers in their
prejudice against the Shia accused them with these allegations to justify their
aggression towards them or perhaps to provoke other Muslims to fight them and
to spread rumours in their countries, that the Shia hate the Messenger of Allah
and throw dirt on his grave, thus killing two birds with one stone.
A
distinguished man whom I trusted told me the following story: We were going
around the House of Allah when suddenly a young man suffered a severe pain in
his stomach and vomited. The soldiers who were guarding the Black Stone started
beating the man and accused him of defiling al- Kaba. He was taken out in a
deplorable way then was tried and executed the same day.
All
these dramatic stories went round in my mind and I thought for a second about
the justification of my Saudi friend for blaspheming the Shia, but could not
find anything apart from the fact that they beat their chests and cry and
prostrate themselves on stones, besides the fact that they pray by the graves.
I asked myself, “Is this sufficient proof to blaspheme he who believes that
there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad (saw) is His Servant and His
Messenger? And he prays, gives alms, fasts Ramadan, visits the House of Allah
on pilgrimage, does good deeds and prevents bad deeds.
I did
not want to antagonize my friend and to enter into a useless discussion with
him so I briefly said, “May Allah enlighten us and enlighten them, and lead us
on the right path, and may Allah curse the enemies of Islam and the Muslims.”
Every
time I went around the House of Allah during al- Umrah, and during my visit to
the Blessed Mecca where I found only a few visitors, I prayed and asked Allah
genuinely to open my eyes and to lead me to the truth. I stood by the place of
Ibrahim (a.s.) and recited the following verse from the Qur’an:
And
strive hard in (the way of) Allah (such) a striving as is due to Him: He has
chosen you and has not laid upon any hardship in religion; the faith of your
father Ibrahim; he named you Muslims before and in this, that the Messenger may
be a bearer of witness to you, and you may be bearers of witness to the people;
therefore keep up prayer and pay the alms and hold fast by Allah, He is your
Guardian, how excellent the Guardian and how excellent the Helper. (Holy Qur’an
22:78).
O
Father, you, who called us Muslims. your off spring have disagreed after you,
some of them became Jews, others Christians and some others became Muslims; and
the Jews were divided among themselves into seventy one groups the Christians
were divided into seventy two groups and the Muslims were divided into
seventy-three groups; all of them are in darkness, as you told your son
Muhammad (saw). but only one group stayed faithful to your oath. O Father!
Is it
the way that Allah wants it to be for His creation, as the fatalists believe,
so Allah assigns to
each
soul its destiny, to be Jewish or Christian or Muslim or atheist or polytheist;
or is it for the love of this world and deviation from Allah’s commands, that
they forget Allah, so that He makes them forget themselves.
I could
not make myself believe in fatalism, and that Allah assigns a destiny to each
individual, rather I tend to believe that Allah has
created us and inspired us to understand what is right and what is wrong, and
sent us His messengers to explain the complicated matters and to show us what
is right or wrong. But man fell under the spell of this life’s temptation and
with all his arrogance, selfishness, ignorance, curiosity, stubbornness,
injustice and tyranny deviated from the right path and followed the devil.
He distanced himself from the Merciful, so he lost his way, and
the Holy Qur’an expressed that in the best way in the words of Allah:
O our father Ibrahim ! We cannot blame the Jews nor the
Christians for not following the right path after they have been shown the way
... Look at this nation which Allah rescued when He sent your son Muhammad
(saw) to it, who took it out of the darkness and enlightened it and made it the
best nation in the world. It too has been divided into too many warring groups,
despite the fact that the Messenger of Allah (saw) has warned them and pressed
them until he said, “It is forbidden for a Muslim not to speak to his brother
Muslim more than three times.”
Whatever happened to this nation which is divided into many small
and warring states, some of which do not even know one another. O our father
Ibrahim, whatever happened to this nation... It used to be the best nation in
the world; it ruled from the East to the West and introduced knowledge and
enlightenment to other nations.
Today it
has reached a low ebb in its history; its land has been violated and its people
have been
expelled...
Its al- Aqsa Mosque is occupied by a Zionist gang and no one is able to
liberate it. If
one visits
their countries, one will find nothing except wretched poverty, terminal
hunger, barren
lands,
diseases, bad manners, intellectual and technical backwardness, tyranny,
persecution, and
dirt. It
is enough to compare the toilets in Western Europe to that in our countries,
and see how
much
difference there is in hygiene between the two. It is ironic to find this low
level of hygiene in
our
countries despite the fact that Islam has taught us that “cleanliness is a sign
of faith, and dirt is a
sign of
the devil”. Has the faith moved to Europe and the devil come to live in our midst?
Why Muslims are frightened to declare their faith even in their own countries!
Why the Muslim cannot even be the master of his own face, since he cannot grow
his own beard! The Muslims cannot dress in Islamic costumes, whereas the sinful
publicly drink alcohol and commit awful wrongs, and the Muslim cannot even
correct them and show them the right way. In fact I have been informed that in
some Islamic countries like Egypt or Morocco there are fathers who send their
daughters to sell their bodies, out of need and poverty, may there be no power
or might but that of Allah the High and the Mighty.
O God
why have you abandoned this nation and left it in darkness? No, my God, please
forgive me, for it is this nation that abandoned You and chose the devil’s
path, and you, with all Your wisdom and might said, and Your saying is the
truth:
And
whoever turns himself away from the remembrance of the Merciful God, We appoint
for him a devil, so he becomes his associate (Holy Qur’an 43:36).
There is
no doubt that the deterioration of the Islamic nation to this low state of
submissiveness and backwardness is a sign of its deviation from the right path,
and a small minority or one group among seventy three would not effect the
destiny of a whole nation.
You are
commanded to do good deeds and to prevent any objectionable act; otherwise
Allah will put your wicked ones in charge of you, then your good people would
call, but no one will listen to them.
O God, we believe in what you have sent us and we follow the
Messenger, so will you consider us with the believers? O God, please do not
change our hearts after you have enlightened us. Please God, have mercy on us,
for you are the Giver. O God, we have unjustly treated ourselves, and if you do
not forgive us and have mercy on us, then we will certainly be among the
losers.
I left
for al-Medinah al-Munawwarah with a letter from my friend al- Basheer for one
of his relatives there, so that I could reside with him during my stay in al-Medinah.
He had
already spoken to him on the phone, and when I arrived he received me warmly
and put me up in his house. As soon as I arrived, I went to visit the grave of
the Messenger of Allah (saw), so I cleaned myself and put on my best clothes.
There were only a few visitors in comparison to those who come during the
season of Pilgrimage, therefore I managed to stand before the graves of the
Messenger of Allah (saw), Abu Bakr and Umar, something which I could not do
during the Pilgrimage because of the crowds. As I tried to touch the doors for
blessing, one of the guards rebuked me, and when I stayed for a long time to do
my supplication and salutation, the guards ordered me to leave. I tried to
speak to one of the guards, but it was in vain.
I went back
to the blessed court and sat down to read the Qur’an and to improve my
recitation of
it. I
repeated the recitation several times because I felt as if the Messenger of
Allah (saw) was
listening
to me. I said to myself: Is it conceivable that the Messenger (saw) is dead
like any other
dead
person? If so, why do we say in our prayers “May peace be with you O great
prophet, and
may
Allah’s mercy and blessings be upon you” in a form which sounds as if we were
addressing
him. The
Muslims believe that our master al- Khidr (sa) is not dead, and that he would
return the
greetings
of anybody who greets him. Also, the followers of the Sufi orders believe that
their
Shaykhs,
Ahmed al-Tijani or Abdul Qadir al-Jilani come to see them openly and not in
their sleep,
so why are
we reluctant to grant this noble deed to the Messenger of Allah, and he is the
best of all
mankind?
But the reassuring thing is that the Muslims are not reluctant towards the
Messenger of
Allah
except the Wahabis, from whom, for this and various other reasons, I started to
feel
estranged.
I found their manners very coarse, because they treat other Muslims who
disagree with
their
beliefs very harshly. I visited al-Baqee Cemetery once, and while I was calling
for mercy
upon the
souls of Ahl al-Bayt, I noticed an old man standing near me crying, and because
of that I
realized
he was a Shii. He positioned himself towards the Kaba and started to pray, and
suddenly
a soldier
rushed towards him, as if he had been monitoring his moves, and kicked him
while he
was in a
position of prostration. The man fell on his back unconscious, then the soldier
started
beating
him and cursing him. I felt so sorry for the old man and thought he might have
been killed
and so I
shouted at the soldier, “You must not do that! Why did you beat him while he
was
praying?”
He rebuked me and said, “You be quiet and do not interfere, or else I will do
to you
what I
have just done to him!” I realized that the soldier was full of aggression, so
I avoided him,
but I
felt angry at myself for not being able to help those who are unjustly treated,
and felt angry at
the
Saudis who treat the people as they like without any check or accountability
for their actions. There were some
visitors who witnessed the attack, but all that they could do was to say,
“There is no power or might but in Allah.” Others said, “He deserves what he
got because he was praying by the graves.” I could not control myself, so I
said to that particular person, “Who told you that we must not pray by the
graves ? He answered, ‘ The Messenger of Allah (saw) prevented us from doing
so.” I replied angrily. You are lying about the Messenger of Allah.” I became
aware of the dangerous situation and feared that some of the visitors might
call the soldier to attack me, so I said gently, if the Messenger of Allah
prevented us from praying by the graves, why should millions of pilgrims and
visitors disobey him and commit a sin by praying by the graves of the Prophet
(saw), Abu Bakr and Umar in the Holy Mosque of the Prophet and in many other
mosques around the Islamic world. Even if praying by the graves is a sin,
should it be prevented with such harshness? Or should we prevent it by gentle
action. Allow me to tell you the story of the man who urinated in the mosque of
the Messenger of Allah and in his presence, and some of his Companions drew
their swords to kill him, but he stopped them and said: Let him go and do not
harm him, and pour some water on the place where he urinated. We are sent to make things easy and not difficult. We are
sent to spread the good words and not to make people keep away from us.
The
Companions obeyed his orders, and the Messenger of Allah (saw) asked that man
to come and sit next to him and spoke to him nicely. He explained to him that
the place was the House of Allah and should not be dirtied, and the man seemed
to have understood the point, for he later was seen in the mosque wearing his
best and cleanest clothes. Allah - the Great - was right when He said to His
Messenger (saw):
If you had been rough and hard-hearted with them, they would
certainly have dispersed from around you (Holy Qur’an 3:159)
Some of
the visitors were moved when they heard the story, and one of them took me
aside and asked me, “Where do you come from?” I said, “From Tunisia.” He then
greeted me and said, “O brother, by Allah, take care of yourself and do not say
such things here at all, and this is my advice to you, for the sake of Allah.”
I became so angry and bitter about those who claim that they are the guardians
of al- Haramayn and treat the guests of the Merciful with such harshness, so
that no one is allowed to voice an opinion or to believe in a belief that does
not suit their way of thinking, or indeed, to recite a saying (of the Prophet)
that does not coincide with their own recitation of the sayings.
I went
back to the house of my new friend, whose name I did not then know, and he
brought me some supper and sat in front of me and asked me where I had been. I
told him my story from the beginning to the end and said, “My brother, I have started to be dissatisfied with the
Wahabis and have begun to lean towards the Shia.”
like
that again!” Then he left me without even finishing his supper, although I
waited for him, until I
went to
sleep. I woke up next morning with the call for prayers from the Mosque of the
Prophet (saw), and found the food was untouched, which meant that my host had
never come back. I became suspicious and feared that the man might have been a
member of the secret service, so I left the house quickly and went to the
Prophet’s Mosque praying and worshipping. After the afternoon prayers I noticed
a speaker giving a lesson to some worshippers, so I went towards him, and later
learnt from one of the listeners that he was the Qadi (magistrate) of al-
Medinah. I listened to him as he was explaining some Qur’anic verses, and after
he had finished his lesson and was about to leave, I
stopped him and asked him, “Please Sir, could you give me some indications as
regard the interpretation of the following Qur’anic verse:
And Allah only desires to keep away the un-cleanness from you, O
people of the House, and to purify you a (thorough) purifying. (Holy Qur’an
33:33).
I asked, “Who is being referred to as Ahl al-Bayt in this Qur’anic
verse?” He answered me immediately, “The wives of the Prophet (saw), and the
verse started by mentioning them:
I said to him, “The Shia Ulama say that it is Ali, Fatima, al-Hasan
and al-Husayn, but of course I disagree with them because the beginning of the
verse states: O wives of the Prophet. But they answered me as follows. That if
the verse meant them [i.e. the wives of the Prophet], then the grammatical form
would have been feminine throughout. But the Highest says:
You are not (like any other women) if you fear God, be not soft in
your speech, speak, stay in your houses, do not display your finery, keep up
your prayers, give the alms, obey Allah and His Messenger. (All the above verbs
are in the feminine form.)
And then, in the section of the verse which refers to Ahl al-Bayt,
the form changes, so He says: To keep away the uncleanness ... and to purify
you (in the masculine grammatical form).
He
removed his spectacles and looked at me then said, “Beware of these poisonous
ideas, the Shias change the words of Allah in the way they like, and they have
many verses about Ali and his off-spring that we do not know. In fact they have
a special Qur’an. They call it The Qur’an of Fatimah. I warn you not to be
deceived by them.”
I
replied, “Do not worry Sir, I am on my guard, and I know many things about
them, but I just wanted to find out. “ He asked, “Where are you from?” I said,
“From Tunisia.” He asked, “What is your name?” I replied, “Al-Tijani.” He
laughed with arrogance and said,”Do you know who Ahmed al-Tijani was?” I
answered, “He was the Shaykh of a Sufi order.” He said, “He was an agent of the
French Colonial authorities, and the French Colonial system established itself
in Algeria and Tunisia with his help, and if you visit Paris go to the National
Bibliothique and read for yourself in the French Dictionary under “A” and you
will find France gave the Legion de Honour to Ahmed al-Tijani who gave them
incalculable help.”
I stayed
in al-Medinah for a whole week, and I prayed forty prayers and visited all the
holy places. During my stay there
I made very careful observations, and as a result I became more and more
critical of the Wahabis.
I left
al-Medinah al-Munawwarah and went to Jordan to see some friends I had met while
on my way to the pilgrimage, as I indicated before. I stayed with them for
three days, and found them full of hatred towards the Shia, more so than the
people in Tunisia.
There
were the same stories and the same rumours, and everyone I asked for proof,
answered that “he had heard about them”, but I found nobody who had had contact
with the Shia or read a book by the Shia or even met a Shii in all his life.
From
Jordan I went to Syria, and in Damascus I visited the Umayyad Mosque, next to
which is the place where the head of our master al-Husayn is resting; also I
visited the grave of Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi and our lady Zaynab bint Ali ibn
Abi Talib.
From
Beirut I took a ship that was going directly to Tripoli. The journey lasted for
four days, during which I relaxed physically and mentally. I reviewed the whole
trip in my mind and concluded that I had developed an inclination and respect
towards the Shia; in the meantime I started to resent and keep away from the
sinister Wahabis. I thanked Allah for what He had given me and for His care.
and asked Him, Praise he to Him the Highest, to lead me to the right path.
I
arrived home eager to meet my family and friends. and found them all well. I
was surprised when I entered my house and found many books had arrived home
before me. hut I knew where they had come from. When I opened these books,
which filled the whole house, I felt grateful to those people who had not
broken their promises. In fact the books they sent me by post exceeded the
number of books that had been given to me as presents there.
I was
very grateful for the books which I organized and kept in a special place,
which called the library. I rested for a few days, and received the time-table
for the new academic year, and found out that I had to work for three consecutive
days, and that for the rest of the week I was off-duty.
I
started reading the books, so I read “The Beliefs of al-Imamiyya” and “The
Origin and Principles of al-Shia”, and felt that my mind was at ease with the
beliefs and ideas of the Shia. Then I read “al-Murajaat [correspondences]” by
al-Sayyid Sharaf al-Din al-Musawi. As soon as I read the first few pages, I
became engrossed in it and could not leave it unless it was necessary, and even
took it with me to the institute. I was surprised at the straight forward
clarity of the Shii scholar when he solved problems that appeared complicated
to the Sunni scholar from al-Azhar. I found my objective in the book, because
it is not like any ordinary book where the author writes whatever he likes
without criticism or discussion, for “al-Murajaat” is in the form of a dialogue
between two scholars, who belong to a different creed, and are critical of each
other’s statement. Both base their
analysis on the two important references for all Muslims: The Holy Qur’an and
the Right Sunnah which is approved in Sihah al-Sittah. I found that there was
something common between myself and the idea of the book: for I was an investigator searching for the truth, and was
willing to accept it wherever it was found. Therefore I found this book
immensely useful, and I owe it a great deal.
I was
astonished when I found him talking about the refusal of some of the Companions
to comply
with the
orders of the Prophet(saw), and he gave many examples, including the incident
of “Raziyat
Yawm
al-Khamis (The Calamity of Thursday)”, for I could not imagine that our master
Umar ibn
al-Khattab
had disagreed with the orders of the Messenger of Allah (saw) and accused him
of
Hajr
(talking irrationally), and I thought at the beginning that it was just a story
from the Shia
books.
However, I was even more astonished when I noticed that the Shii scholar made
his
reference
to the incident in the “Sahih of al-Bukhari” and the “Sahih of Muslim”.
I
travelled to the Capital, and from there I bought the “Sahih of al-Bukhari”,
the “Sahih of Muslim”, the “Mosnad of Imam Ahmed”, the “Sahih of al-Tirmidhi”,
the “Muwatta of Imam Malik” and other famous books. I could not wait to get
back to the house and read these books, so throughout the journey between Tunis
and Gafsah I sat in the bus looking through the pages of al-Bukhari’s book
searching for the incident of “The great misfortune of Thursday” and hoping
that I would never find it.
Nevertheless,
I found it and read it many times; and there it was, exactly as it has been
Cited by al-Sayyid Sharaf al-Din.
I tried
to deny the incident in its entirety, and could not believe that our master
Umar had played such a dangerous role; but how could I deny it since it was
mentioned in our Sihahs; the Sihahs of al-Sunnah, in whose contents we are
obliged to believe, so if we doubt them or deny some of them, it means that we
abandon all our beliefs. If the Shia scholar had referred to their books, I
would not have believed what he said, but he was referring to the Sihahs of
al-Sunnah, which could not be challenged, because we are committed to believe
that they are the most authentic books after the Book of Allah. Therefore, the
issue is a compelling one, because if we doubt these Sihahs we are left with
hardly any of the rules and regulations of Islam to rely on. This is because
the rules and regulations which are mentioned in the Book of Allah take the
form of general concepts rather than details. We are far from the time of the
Message, and have thus inherited the rules of our religion through our fathers
and grandfathers with the help of these Sihahs, which cannot be ignored. As I
was about to embark on long and difficult research, I promised myself to depend only on the correct Hadiths that are
agreed by both the Shia and the Sunnah, and that I would drop all the sayings
which are mentioned exclusively by one group or the other. Only through this just method
could I keep myself safe from emotional factors, sectarian fanaticism and
national tendencies. In the meantime I would
be able to pass through the road of doubt and reach the mountain of certainty,
and that is the correct path of Allah.
lead to the truth is the research into the life of the Companions,
their affairs, their deeds and their
beliefs; because they were the foundations of everything, and from
them we took the principles of our religion, and they enlightened our darkness,
so that we can see the rules of Allah. Many Muslim scholars- convinced of the above - embarked on the
study of the lives and deeds of the Companions, among them: “Usd al-Ghabah fi
Tamyeez al-Sahabah”, and “al-Isabah fi Maarifat al-Sahabah”, and “Mizan
al-I’tidal” and various other books which look critically and analytically at
the lives of the Companions, but all from the point of view of the Sunnis.
There is
a slight problem here, and that is that most of the
early scholars wrote in the way which suited the Umayyad and Abbasid rulers who
were well known for their opposition to Ahl al-Bayt and all their followers.
Therefore, it is not fair to depend on their works alone without reference to
the works of the other Muslim scholars who were persecuted and ultimately
killed by these governments simply because they were followers of Ahl al-Bayt
and the cause behind the revolutions against the oppressive and deviant
authorities.
The main problem with all that was the
Companions themselves, for they disagreed about the wish of the Messenger of
Allah (saw) to write
them a document which would help them to remain on the right path until the Day
of Judgement. This disagreement deprived the Islamic nation of a unique virtue,
and has thrown it into darkness until it was divided and plagued with internal
quarrels and finally ended up as a spent force.
It was they who disagreed on the issue of
the Caliphate [the successorship of the Prophet], and were divided between a
ruling and an opposing party, thus dividing the nation into the followers of
Ali and the followers of Muawiyah.
It was they who differed in the interpretations of the Book
of Allah and the sayings of His Messenger, which led to the creation of the
various creeds, groups and subgroups; and from them came many scholars of
scholastic theology and schools of thoughts and philosophies inspired by
political ambitions with one aim in mind and that was to obtain power.
The
Muslims would not have been divided and in disagreement had it not been for the
Companions, for every disagreement that has been created in the past, or is
being created at the present time is due to their disagreement about the
Companions. There is one God, one Qur’an, one Messenger and one Qiblah, and
they all agree on that, but the
disagreement among the Companions started on the first day after the death of
the Messenger (saw), in the Saqifah [house] of Bani Saidah, and has continued
up to the present day, and will continue for as long as Allah wills it.
VERY IMPORTANT
Through
my discussions with the Shiite scholars, I discovered that, in their views, the
Companions were divided into three categories:
The
first category included the good Companions who knew Allah and His Messenger
truly well, and they acclaimed him [the Messenger] to the last moments of their
lives. They were truly his friends by words and deeds, and they never abandoned
him, but rather stood their ground with him. Allah - the most High - praised
them in many places in His Holy Book, and the Messenger of Allah (saw) also
praised them in many places. This group of Companions are mentioned by the Shia
with reverence and respect, they are also mentioned by the Sunnis with the same
reverence and respect.
The
second category were the Companions who embraced Islam and followed the
Messenger of Allah (saw) either through choice or through fear, and they always
showed their gratitude to the Messenger of Allah (saw) for their Islam.
However, they hurt the Messenger of Allah (saw) on a few occasions, and did not
always follow his orders, in fact they often challenged him and challenged the
clear text with their points of view, until Allah, through the Holy Qur’an, had
to intervene by rebuking them or threatening them. Allah exposed them in many
Qur’anic verses, also the Messenger of Allah (saw) warned them in many of his
sayings. The Shia mention this group of Companions only because of their deeds,
and without respect or reverence.
The
third type of Companions were the hypocrites who accompanied the Messenger of
Allah (saw) to deceive him. They pretended to be Muslims but inside themselves
they were bent on blasphemy and on deceiving Islam and the Muslims as a whole.
Allah has revealed a complete Surah in the Qur’an about them, and mentioned
them in many other places, and promised them the lowest level in Hell. Also the
Messenger of Allah (saw) mentioned them and issued warnings about them, and
even informed some of his close friends about their names and characteristics.
The Shia and the Sunnis agree in cursing this group of Companions and have
nothing to do with them.
There was a special group of Companions who
distinguished themselves from the others by being relatives of the Prophet
(saw), in addition to having possessed ethical and spiritual virtues and personal
distinctions from Allah and His Messenger that no one else was honoured with.
These were Ahl al-Bayt (the Prophet’s Family) whom Allah cleansed and purified, and ordered us to pray for them in the same way as he ordered us to
pray for His Messenger. He made it obligatory for us to pay them one fifth of
our income, and that every Muslim must love them as a reward for the Muhammadan
Message. They are our leaders and we must obey them; and they are people firmly
rooted in knowledge who know the interpretation of the Holy Qur’an and they
know the decisive verses of it, as well as those verses which are allegorical.
They are the people of al-Dhikr whom the
Messenger of Allah equated with the Holy Qur’an in his saying “the two weighty
things” (al-Thaqalayn), and ordered us to adhere to them [2], He equated them
to Noah’s Ark: whoever joined it was saved, and whoever left it drowned [3].
The Companions knew the position of Ahl al-Bayt and revered them and respected
them. The Shia follow them and put them above any of the Companions, and to
support that they have many clear texts as proofs.
The
Sunnis respect and revere the Companions but do not accept the above
classification and do not believe that some of the Companions were hypocrites,
rather, they see the Companions as being the best people after the Messenger of
Allah. If they classify the Companions then it would be according to their
seniority and their merits and their services to Islam. They put the Rightly
Guided Caliphs in the first class, then the first six of the ten who were
promised with heaven, according to them. Therefore when they pray for the
Prophet (saw) and his household they attach with them all the Companions
without exception.
This is
what I know from the Sunni scholars, and that is what I heard from the Shii
scholars regarding the classification of the Companions; and that is what made
me start my detailed study with the issue of the Companions. I promised my God - if He led me on the right path - to rid
myself from emotional bias and to be neutral and objective and to listen to
what the two sides said, then to follow what was best, basing my conclusions on
two premises:
1. A
sound and a logical premise: that is to say that I would only depend upon what
everybody is in agreement with, regarding the commentary on the Book of Allah,
and the correct parts of the honourable Sunnah of the Prophet.
2. The
mind: for it is the greatest gift that Allah has given to human beings, and
through it He honoured them and distinguished them from the rest of creation.
Thus, when Allah protests about what His worshippers do, He asks them to use
their minds in the best possible way, and He says:
Do they
not understand? Do they not comprehend? Do they not see? . . .etc.”
Let my
Islam primarily be the belief in Allah, His angels, His Books and His
messengers; and that
Muhammad
is His servant and His Messenger; and that the Religion of Allah is Islam; and that I
will never depend on any of the Companions,
regardless of his relation to the Messenger or his
position, for I am neither Umayyad nor Abbasid nor Fatimid, and I am
neither Sunni nor Shii, and I
have no
enmity towards Abu Bakr or Umar or Uthman or Ali or even Wahshi, the killer of
our
master
al-Hamzah, as long as he became a Muslim, and the Messenger of Allah forgave
him. Since
I had
forced myself into this study in order to reach the truth, and since I had rid
myself, sincerely,
from all
my previous beliefs, I decided to start, with the blessing of Allah, by
considering the attitudes of the Companions.
[2].Kanz
al Ummal, vol 1 p 44
Ahmed’s
Musnad, vol 5 p 182
[3].al
Mustadrak, al Hakim (al Dhahabi’s abridged), vol 3 p 151
Al
Sawaiq al Muhriqah, Ibn Hajar, p 184, 234
The
Companions at the Peace Treaty of al Hudaibiyah
Briefly
the story is as follows:
In the
sixth year after the Hijrah (emigration of the Prophet from Mecca to Madinah),
the Messenger of Allah with one thousand and four hundred of his Companions
marched towards Mecca to do the Umrah. They camped in “Dhi al-Halifah” where
the Prophet (saw) ordered his Companions to put down their arms and wear the
Ihram (white gowns worn especially for the purpose of the pilgrimage and the
Umrah), then they dispatched al-Hady (an offering for sacrifice) to inform
Quraysh that he was coming as a visitor to do the Umrah and not as a fighter.
But Quraysh, with all its arrogance, feared that its reputation would be dented
if the other Arabs heard that Muhammad had entered Mecca by force. Therefore,
they sent a delegation led by Suhayl ibn Amr ibn Abd Wadd al-Amiri to see the
Prophet and ask him to turn back that year, but said that they would allow him
to visit Mecca for three days the year after. In addition to that, they put
down some harsh conditions, which were accepted by the Messenger of Allah as
the circumstances warranted such acceptance, and as revealed to him by his God,
Glory and Might be to Him.
A few of
the Companions did not like the Prophet’s action and opposed him very strongly,
and Umar ibn al-Khattab came and said to him, “Are you not truly the Prophet of
Allah?” He answered,”Yes, I am.” Umar asked, “Are we not right and our enemy
wrong?” The Prophet answered, “Yes.” Umar asked, “Why do we then disgrace our
religion?” The Messenger of Allah (saw) said, “I am the Messenger of Allah and
I will never disobey Him and He is my support.” Umar asked, “Did you not tell
us that we would come to the House of Allah and go around it?” The Prophet
answered, “Yes, and did I tell you that we were coming this year?” Umar
answered, “No.” The Prophet said, “Then you are coming to it and going around
it.” Umar later went to Abu Bakr and asked him, “O Abu Bakr, is he not truly
the Prophet of Allah?” He answered, “Yes.” Umar then asked him the same
questions he had asked the Messenger of Allah, and Abu Bakr answered him with
the same answers and added, “O Umar he is the Messenger of Allah, and he will
not disobey his God, Who is his support, so hold on to him.”
When the
Prophet had finished signing the treaty, he said to his Companions “Go and
slaughter (sacrifices) and shave your heads.” And by Allah one of them stood up
until he had said it three times. When nobody obeyed his orders, he went to his
quarters, then came out and spoke to no one, and slaughtered a young camel with
his own hands, and then asked his barber to shave his head. When the Companions
saw all that, they went and slaughtered (sacrifices), and shaved one another,
until they nearly killed one another [4].
This is
the summary of the story of peace treaty of al-Hudaibiyah, which is one of the
events whose details both the Shia and Sunnah agree upon, and it is cited by
many historians and biographers of the Prophet such as al-Tabari, Ibn al-Athir,
Ibn Saad, al-Bukhari and Muslim.
I
stopped here, for I could not read this kind of material without feeling rather
surprised about the behaviour of those Companions towards their Prophet. Could
any sensible man accept some people’s claims that the Companions, may Allah
bless them, always obeyed and implemented the orders of the Messenger of Allah
(saw), for these incidents expose their lies, and fall short of what they want!
Could any sensible man imagine that such behaviour towards the Prophet is an
easy or acceptable matter or even an excusable one! Allah, the Almighty, said:
But no! By your God! They do not believe
(in reality) until they make you a judge of that which has become a matter of
disagreement among them, and then do not and any straightness in their hearts
as to what you have decided and submit with entire submission. (Holy Qur’an
4:65)
Did Umar
ibn al-Khattab succumb to them and find no difficulty in accepting the order of
the Messenger (saw)? Or was he reluctant to accept the order of the Prophet?
Especially when he said, “Are you not truly the Prophet of Allah? Did you not
tell us? ...” etc, and did he succumb after the Messenger of Allah gave him all
these convincing answers? No he was not convinced by his answers, and he went
and asked Abu Bakr the same questions. But did he succumb after Abu Bakr
answered him and advised him to hold on to the Prophet? I do not know if he
actually succumbed to all that and was convinced by the answers of the Prophet
(saw) and Abu Bakr! For why did he say about himself, “For that I did so many
things..”. Allah and His Messenger know the things which were done by Umar.
Furthermore,
I do not know the reasons behind the reluctance of the rest of the Companions
after that, when the Messenger of Allah said to him, “Go and slaughter
[sacrifices] and shave your heads.” Nobody listened to his orders even when he
repeated them three times, and then in vain.
Allah,
be praised! I could not believe what I had read. Could the Companions go to
that extent in their treatment of the Messenger. If the story had been told by
the Shia alone, I would have considered it a lie directed towards the
honourable Companions. But the story has become so well known that all the
Sunni historians refer to it. As I had committed myself to accept what had been
agreed on by all parties, I found myself resigned and perplexed. What could I
say? What excuse could I find for those Companions who had spent nearly twenty
years with the Messenger of Allah, from the start of the Mission to the day of
al-Hudaibiyah, and had seen all the miracles and enlightenment of the
Prophethood? Furthermore the Qur’an was teaching them day and night how they
should behave in the presence of the Messenger, and how they should talk to
him, to the extent that Allah had threatened to ruin their deeds if they raised
their voices above his voice.
[4].Sahih,
Bukhari, Book of al Shurut, Chapter: Al Shurut fi al Jihad vol 2 p 122
The
Companions and the Raziyat Yawm al Khamis (The Calamity of Thursday)
Briefly
the story is as follows:
The
Companions were meeting in the Messenger’s house, three days before he died. He
ordered them to bring him a bone and an ink pot so that he could write a
statement for them which would prevent them from straying from the right path,
but the Companions differed among themselves, and some of them disobeyed the
Prophet and accused him of talking nonsense. The Messenger of Allah became very
angry and ordered them out of his house without issuing any statement.
This is
the story in some details:
Ibn
Abbas said: Thursday, and what a Thursday that was! The Messenger’s pain became
very severe, and he said, “Come here, I will write you a document which will
prevent you from straying from the right path.” But Umar said that the Prophet
was under the spell of the pain, and that they had the Qur’an which was
sufficient being the Book of Allah. Ahl al-Bayt then differed and quarrelled
amongst themselves, some of them agreeing with what the Prophet said, while
others supported Umar’s view. When the debate became heated and the noise
became louder, the Messenger of Allah said to them, “Leave me alone.”
Ibn
Abbas said: The disaster was that the disagreement among the Companions
prevented the Messenger from writing that document for them [5].
The
incident is correct and there is no doubt about its authenticity, for it was
cited by the Shii scholars and their historians in their books, as well as by
the Sunni scholars and historians in their books. As I was committed to
consider the incident, I found myself bewildered by Umar’s behaviour regarding
the order of the Messenger of Allah. And what an order it was! “To prevent the
nation from going astray”, for undoubtedly that statement would have had
something new in it for the Muslims and would have left them without a shadow
of doubt.
Now let
us leave the points of view of the Shia, that is that the Messenger wanted to
write the name of Ali as his successor, and that Umar realized this, so he
prevented it. Perhaps because they do not convince us initially with that
hypothesis. But can we find a sensible explanation to this hurtful incident
which angered the Messenger so much that he ordered them to leave, and made Ibn
Abbas cry until he made the stones wet from his tears and called it a “great
disaster”? The Sunnis say that Umar recognized that the Prophet’s illness was
advancing, so he wanted to comfort him and relieve him from any pressure.
This
type of reasoning would not be accepted by simple-minded people, let alone by
the scholars. I repeatedly tried to find an excuse
for Umar. but the circumstances surrounding the incident prevented me from
finding an excuse. Even if I changed the words “He is talking nonsense”
- God forbid - to “the pain has overcome him”, I could not find any
justification for Umar when he said, “You have the Qur’an, and it is sufficient
being the Book of Allah.” Did he know the Qur’an better than the Messenger of
Allah, for whom it was revealed? Or was the Messenger of Allah - God forbid -
unaware of what he was? Or did he seek, through his order, to create division
and disagreement among the Companions - God forbid. Even if the Sunni reasoning
was right, then the Messenger of Allah would have realized the good will of
Umar and thanked him for that and perhaps asked him to stay, instead of feeling
angry at him and telling them to leave his house. May I ask why did they abide
by his order when he asked them to leave the room and did not say then that he
was “talking nonsense”? Was it because they had succeeded in their plot to
prevent the Prophet from writing the document, so that there was no need for
them to stay any longer? Thus, we find them creating noise and difference in
the presence of the Messenger, and divided into two parties: one agreeing with
the Messenger of Allah about writing that document, while the other agreed with
Umar “that he was talking nonsense”.
The
matter is not just concerned with Umar alone, for if it was so, the Messenger
of Allah would have persuaded him that he could not be talking nonsense and
that the pain could not overcome him in matters of the nation’s guidance and of
preventing it from going astray. But the situation became much more serious,
and Umar found some supporters who seemingly had a prior agreement on their
stand, and so they created the noise and the disagreement among themselves and
forgot, or perhaps pretended to forget, the words of
Allah - the Most High:
O You who believe! Do not raise your voices above the voice of the
Prophet, and do not speak loud to him as you speak loud to one another, lest
your deeds become null while you do not perceive (Holy Qur’an 49:2).
In this incident they went beyond raising their voices and talking
loud to accusing the Messenger of Allah of talking nonsense - God forbid - then
they increased their noise and differences until it became a battle of words in
his presence.
I think
the majority of the Companions were with Umar, and that is why the Messenger of
Allah found it useless to write the document, because he knew that they would
not respect him and would not abide by the command of Allah by not raising
their voices in his presence, and if they were rebellious against the command
of Allah, then they would never obey the order of His Messenger.
Thus,
the wisdom of the Messenger ruled that he was not to write the document because
it had been attacked during his lifetime, let alone after his death.
The
critics would say that he was talking nonsense, and perhaps they would doubt
some of the orders he passed whilst on his death-bed, for they were convinced
that he was talking nonsense.
I ask
Allah for forgiveness, and renounce what has been said in the presence of the
holy
Messenger,
for how could I convince myself and my free conscience that Umar ibn al-Khattab
was acting
spontaneously, whereas his friends and others who were present at the incident
cried
until
their tears wet the stones, and named the incident “the misfortune of the
Muslims”. I therefore
decided
to reject all the justifications given to explain the incident, and even tried
to deny it so that
I could relax and forget about the tragedy, but all the books
referred to it and accepted its authenticity but could not provide sound
justification for it.
I tend to agree with the Shii point of view in explaining the
incident because I find it logical and very coherent.
I still
remember the answer which al-Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr gave me when I asked
him, “How did our master Umar understand, among all the Companions what the
Messenger wanted to write, namely the appointment of Ali as his successor- as
you claim - which shows that he was a clever man?”
Al-Sayyid
al-Sadr said: Umar was not the only one who anticipated what the Messenger was
going to write. In fact most of the people who were present then understood the
situation the same way as Umar did, because the Messenger of Allah had
previously indicated the issue when he said, “I shall leave you with two
weighty things: the Book of Allah and the members of my Family (Ahl al-Bayt)
and their descendants, if you follow them, you will never go astray after me.”
And during his illness he said to them, “Let me write you a document, if you
follow its contents, you will never go astray.” Those who were present,
including Umar, understood that the Messenger of Allah wanted to reiterate, in
writing, what he had already said in Ghadir Khum, and that was to follow the
Book of Allah and Ahl al-Bayt and that Ali was the head of it. It was as if the
holy Prophet (saw) was saying, “Follow the Qur’an and Ali.” He said similar
things on many occasions, as has been stated by many historians.
The
majority of Quraysh did not like Ali because he was young and because he
smashed their arrogance and had killed their heroes; but they did not dare
oppose the Messenger of Allah, as they had done at the “Treaty of
al-Hudaibiyah’, and when the Messenger prayed for Abdullah ibn Abi al- Munafiq,
and on many other incidents recorded by history. This incident was one of them,
and you see that the opposition against writing that document during the
Prophets illness encouraged some of those who were present to be insolent and
make so much noise in his presence.
That
answer came in accordance with what the saying meant. But Umar’s statement,
“You have the Qur’an, and it is sufficient, being the Book of Allah” was not in
accordance with the saying which ordered them to follow the Book of Allah and
the Household [Ahl al-Bayt] together. It looks as if he meant to say, “We have
the Book of Allah, and that is sufficient for us, therefore there is no need
for Ahl al-Bayt.” I could not see any other reasonable explanation to the
incident other than this one, unless it was meant to say, ‘Obey Allah but not
His Messenger.” And this argument is invalid and not sensible. If I put my
prejudices and my emotions aside and base my judgement on a clean and free
mind, I would tend towards the first analysis, which stops short of accusing
Umar of being the first one to reject the Prophet’s Tradition (al-Sunnah) when
he said, “It is sufficient for us, being the Book of Allah”.
Then if
there were some rulers who rejected the Prophet’s Traditions claiming that it
was “contradictory”, they only followed an earlier example in the history of
Islam. However, I do not want to burden Umar alone with the responsibility for
that incident and the subsequent deprivation of the nation of the guidance. To
be fair to him, I suggest that the responsibility should be borne by him and
those Companions who were with him and who supported him in his opposition to
the command of the Messenger of Allah.
I am astonished by those who read this
incident and feel as if nothing happened, despite that it was one of the “great
misfortunes” as Ibn Abbas called it. My astonishment is even greater regarding
those who try hard to preserve the honour of a Companion and to correct his
mistake, even if at the cost of the Prophet’s dignity and honour and at the
cost of Islam and its foundations.
Why do
we escape from the truth and try to obliterate it when it is not in accordance
with our whims . . . why do not we accept that the Companions were human like
us, and had their own whims, prejudices and interests, and could commit
mistakes or could be right?
But my
astonishment fades when I read the Book of Allah in which He tells us the
stories of the prophets- may Allah bless them and grant them peace - and the
disobedience they faced from their people despite all the miracles they
produced .. Our God! Make not our hearts to deviate after thou hast guided us
aright, and grant us from Your Mercy; surely You are the Most Liberal Giver.
I began
to understand the background to the Shia’s attitude towards the second Caliph,
whom they charge with the responsibility for many tragic events in the history
of Islam, starting from “Raziyat Yawm al-Khamis” when the Islamic nation was
deprived of the written guidance which the Messenger wanted to write for them.
The inescapable fact is that the sensible man who knew the truth before he
encountered the men seeks an excuse for the Shias in this matter, but there is
nothing we can say to convince those who only judge truth through men.
[5].Sahih,
Bukhari, Chapter: About the saying of the sick, vol 2
Sahih,
Muslim, End of the book of al Wasiyyah, vol 5 p 75
Musnad,
Ahmed, vol 1 p 335, vol 5 p 116
Tarikh,
Tabari, vol 3 p 193
Tarikh,
Ibn al Athir, vol 2 p 320
The Companions in the Military Detachment
under Usamah
The
story in brief is as follows:
The
Prophet (saw) organized an army to be sent to Asia Minor two days before his
death. He
appointed
Usamah ibn Zayd ibn Haritha, (who was eighteen years old), as its commander in
chief,
then the
holy Prophet attached some important men, both Muhajireen and Ansar, to this
expedition,
such as Abu Bakr, Umar, Abu Obaydah and other well-known Companions. Some
people
criticized the Prophet for appointing Usamah as the commander in chief of that
army, and
asked how
could he have appointed so young a man as their commander. In fact the same
people
had
previously criticized the Prophet for appointing Usamah’s father as an army
commander before
him. They
went on criticizing until the Prophet became so angry that he left his bed,
feverish and
with his
head bandaged, with two men supporting him and his feet barely touching the
ground (may
my parents
be sacrificed for him). He ascended the pulpit, praised Allah highly then said,
O People
! I have been informed that some of you object to my appointing Usamah as
commander of the detachment. You now object to my appointing Usamah as
commander in chief as you objected to me appointing his father commander in
chief before him. By Allah, his father was certainly competent for his
appointment as commander in chief and his son is also competent for the
appointment [6].
“Send
the detachment of Usamah; deploy the detachment of Usamah, send forward the
detachment of Usamah.” He kept repeating the exhortations but the Companions
were still sluggish, and camped by al-Jurf.
Events
like that made me ask, “What is this insolence towards Allah and His Messenger?
Why all that disobedience towards the orders of the blessed Messenger who was
so caring and kind to all the believers?”
I could
not imagine, nor indeed could anybody else, an acceptable explanation for all
that disobedience and insolence. As usual, when I read about those events which
touch on the integrity of the Companions, I try to deny or ignore them, but it
is impossible to do so when all the historians and scholars, Shia and Sunnis,
agree on their authenticity.
never
use anything but the truth as my criterion. But the truth here is so bitter,
and the holy Prophet
(s.a.w.)
said, “Say the truth even if it is about yourself, and say the truth even if it
is bitter...” The
truth in
this case is that the Companions who criticized the appointment of Usamah
disobeyed all the clear texts that could not be doubted or misinterpreted, and
there is no excuse for that, although some people make flimsy excuses in order
to preserve the integrity of the Companions and “the virtuous ancestors”. But the free and sensible person would not accept such feeble
excuses, unless he is one of those who cannot comprehend any saying, or is
perhaps one of those who are blinded by their own prejudice to the extent that
they cannot differentiate between the obligatory task that must be obeyed and
the prohibition that must be avoided. I thought deeply to find an acceptable
excuse for those people, but without success. I read the points of view
of the Sunnis which provide us with an excuse based on the fact that these
people were the elders of Quraysh, and were among the early followers of Islam,
whereas Usamah was a young man who had not fought in the decisive battles that
gave Islam its glory, such as Badr, Uhud and Hunayn; and that he was a young
man with no experience of life when the Messenger of Allah appointed him
military commander. Furthermore, they thought that human nature, by its
inclination, makes it difficult for elderly people to be led by young men,
therefore they [i.e. the Companions] criticized the appointment and wanted the
Messenger of Allah to appoint a prominent and respectable Companion.
It is an
excuse which is not based on any rational or logical premise, and any Muslim
who reads the Qur’an and understands its rules must reject such an excuse,
because Allah- the Almighty - says: “Whatever
the Messenger gives you, accept it, and from whatever he forbids you, keep
back” (Holy Qur’an 59:7).
“And it behooves not a
believing man and a believing woman that they should have any choice in their
matter when Allah and His Messenger have decided a matter; and whoever disobeys
Allah and His Messenger, he surely strays off a manifest straying” (Holy Qur’an
33:36).
So what
kind of an excuse could any rational person accept after reading all these
clear texts, and what can I say about people who angered the Messenger of
Allah, when they knew that the Messenger’s anger is Allah’s anger. They accused
him of talking “nonsense”, and they shouted and disagreed in his presence when
he was ill (may my parents be sacrificed for him), until he ordered them to leave
his room. That did not seem to be enough for them, and instead of returning to
the right path and asking Allah’s forgiveness for what they had done to His
Messenger, and asking the Messenger for forgiveness as the Qur’an taught them,
they went on criticizing him, despite all the care and kindness he had for
them. They did not appreciate him or respect him, and two days after having
accused him of talking “nonsense”, they criticized him for appointing Usamah as
military commander. They forced him to come out in the appalling condition
which the historians describe. Due
to the severity of his illness, he had to walk with the support of two men,
then he had to swear by Allah that Usamah was a competent commander for the
army. Furthermore, the Messenger informed us that they had criticized him
previously for appointing his father as a commander, which indicates that these
people had had many previous confrontations with him, and that they were not
willing to obey his orders or accept his judgement, rather, they were prepared
to oppose him and confront him, even if such behaviour went against the rules
of Allah and His Messenger.
What
leads us to believe that there was open opposition (to the orders of the
Prophet), was that in spite of all the anger shown by the Messenger of Allah,
and the fact that he himself tied the flag with his noble hand to the post and
commanded them to march immediately, they were sluggish and reluctant to move,
and did not go until he had died (may my parents be sacrificed for him). The Prophet(s.a.w.) died feeling sorry
for his unfortunate nation, which he feared would go backwards and end up in
hell, and no one would be saved except a few, and the Messenger of Allah
described them as a handful.
I am
surprised that those Companions angered the Prophet on that Thursday and
accused him of talking “nonsense”, and said, “It is sufficient for us that we
have the Book of Allah”, when the Holy Qur’an states:”Say if you love Allah, then follow me and Allah
will love you” (Holy Qur’an 3:31). As if they were more knowledgeable about the Book of Allah
and its rules than he to whom it had been revealed. There they were, two days
after that great misfortune, and two days before he [the holy Prophet] went up
to meet his High Companion, angering him even more by criticizing him for
appointing Usamah, and not obeying his orders. Whereas he was ill and
bed-ridden in the first misfortune, in the second one he had to come out, with
his head bandaged and covered by a blanket and supported by two men with his
feet barely on the ground, and address them from the top of the pulpit. He
started his speech with the profession of the unity of Allah and praised Him in
order to make them feel that he was not talking nonsense, then he informed them
about what he knew regarding their criticism of his orders. Furthermore, he
reminded them of an incident which had occurred four years previously, in which
he was criticized by them. After all that, did they really think that he was
talking nonsense or that his illness had overcome him so that he was unaware of
what he was saying?
Praise and thanks be to You, Allah, how
did these people dare oppose Your Messenger. They disagreed with him when he
signed the peace treaty, they opposed him very strongly even when he ordered them
to make the sacrifice and shave their heads, and even repeated it three times
although no one cared to obey; and again they pulled him by his shirt to
prevent him from praying for Abdullah ibn Ubay and said to him, “Allah forbade
you from praying for the hypocrites!” As if they were teaching him what had
been revealed to him, when You said in Your Holy Qur’an: “We have revealed to
you the reminder that you may make clear to men what has been revealed to them”
(Holy Qur’an 16:44).
And You
said: “We have revealed the Book to you with the truth that you may judge
between people by means of that which Allah has taught you”(Holy Qur’an 4:105).
And You
said, and Your saying is the truth: “We have sent among you a messenger from
among you who recites to you Our Verses and purifies you and teaches you the
Book and the wisdom and teaches you that which you did not know” (Holy Qur’an
2:151).
I am astonished at those people who put
themselves in a position higher than that of the Prophet. On one occasion they disobeyed his orders, and on another
occasion they accused him of talking nonsense, and then talked loudly and
without respect in his presence. They criticized him for appointing Zayd ibn
Harithah to the military command, and after him his son Usamah. How could they
leave the scholars in any doubt, after all this evidence, that the Shia are
right when they put a question mark on the position of some of the Companions,
and show their resentment towards these positions purely out of respect and
love for the Messenger and the members of his Household.
examples,
but the Shii scholars could recount hundreds of situations in which the
Companions
contradicted
the clear texts. In all this the Shia refer to sources written in books by
Sunni scholars.
When I look at a number of positions taken
by a few of the Companions with regard to the Messenger of Allah, I stand
astonished; not because of the attitudes of those Companions alone, but because
of the position of the Sunni scholars who gave us the impression that the
Companions were always right and could not be criticized. Thus they prevented
any researcher from reaching the truth and left him puzzled in the midst of all
these contradictions.
In
addition to the examples that I have mentioned above, I will bring some more in
order to establish a better picture of those Companions, so that we may
understand the position of the Shia towards them.
According
to al-Bukhari in his Sahih, Vol. 4 Page 47, section “The virtue of Patience
when one is hurt” and the words of the Almighty “...And those who are patient,
surely they will be rewarded”, in the Book of Conduct he said:
Al-Amash
told us that he heard Shaqiq saying that Abdullah told him: Once the Holy
Prophet divided something among a group of men, as he used to do, when one man
from al-Ansar stood up and said, “This division is not for the sake of Allah.”
I said, “For my part, I shall have a word with the Prophet (s.a.w.).” So I went
to see him, and I found him with his Companions. I explained my grievances, and
the Prophet’s face changed and showed signs of anger, and I wished that I had
not told him, then he said: “Moses was hurt more than that but he was patient.”
Al-Bukhari
mentioned in the same book - i.e. the book of Conduct - in the chapter
concerning smiling and laughter that Anas ibn Malik was heard saying: I was
walking with the Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.) who was wearing a Najrani cloak
with a rather thin edge to it, and suddenly a man approached him and pulled
harshly at his cloak. Anas continued: I looked at the side of the Prophet
(s.a.w.) and noticed that as a result of that harsh pull, the edge of the cloak
went up to his shoulder, then the man said, ‘O Muhammad, give me some of what
you have from Allah’s wealth!” The Prophet turned to him and laughed, then he
ordered his Companions to pay him something.
Al-Bukhari
also mentioned the following incident in the Book of Conduct and put it in the
chapter concerning “He who does not face people with blame”, he said: Aisha
said that the Prophet (s.a.w.) did something and made it permissible, but no
one followed what the Prophet did. The Prophet (s.a.w.) happened to hear about
it, so he decided to address the people. He first thanked Allah then said:
“What is the matter with people who refrain from the thing I did? By Allah, I
know more than any of them about Allah, and I fear Him most... !”
When we
look deeply at incidents like those above we find that the Companions put
themselves on a higher level than the Prophet, and thought that he was wrong
and they were right. Furthermore,
there were some historians who deliberately corrected the position of the
Companions, even if that contradicted the action taken by the Prophet, and
showed them at a level of knowledge and piety higher than that of the Prophet.
As is the case when they judge the Prophet wrong in the case of the Prisoners
of War at the battle of Badr, so it appears that Umar ibn al-Khattab was right.
They also tell wrong stories, such as the following saying attributed to the
people: If Allah decided to inflict a disaster on us, no one will escape except
Ibn al-Khattab. In other words, they were saying, “If it was not for Umar, the
Prophet would have perished.” God protect us from such
a corrupt and shameful belief, and he who adheres to this kind of belief is
surely far from Islam, and ought to review his thinking or rid himself of the
devil.
“Have
you considered him who takes his low desire for his God, and Allah has made him
err having knowledge and has set a seal upon his hear and his heart and put a
covering upon his eye. Who can
then guide him after Allah? Will not they be mindful?” (Holy Qur’an 45:23)
I
believe that those who think that the Prophet (s.a.w.) was subject to his
emotions to the extent that he deviated from the right path and made a
judgement not for the cause of Allah, or those who refrained from doing things
which were done by the Messenger of Allah thinking that they were more
knowledgeable and more pious than the Messenger, do not deserve any respect or
appreciation from the Muslims.
They were put at the same level as the angels, as the best people in the whole
of creation after the Messenger of Allah, so that Muslims are obliged to follow
them and take them as an example, just because they were the Companions of the
Messenger of Allah.
That
contradicts the belief of Ahl al-Sunnah, who pray for Muhammad and his family,
and then add all the Companions. If Allah - praise be to Him the Most High -
appreciated them and put them in their correct position and ordered them to
pray for His Messenger and the purified members of his family, they should have
submitted and known their place with Allah. Why should we then put them in a
position which is higher than they deserve. and equate them with those people
whom Allah has elevated and preferred above all people?
Let me
then conclude that the Umayyads and the Abbasids, who opposed-Ahl al-Bayt and
exiled them and killed them with their followers, got the gist of that
distinguished position and recognized its danger for them. For if Allah -
praise be to Him - would not accept the prayers of a Muslim unless he prays for
them (Ahl al-Bayt): how could they justify their opposition to them. Therefore,
they attached the Companions to Ahl al-Bayt in order to give the impression to
the public that they are equal.
Especially
when we know that their masters and dignitaries were Companions who bought some
other Companions known to have weak personalities and asked them to distribute
fabricated sayings (of the Prophet) in praise of the Companions and the next
generation, and in particular those who reached the position of Caliphs (i.e.
the Umayyad and Abbasid) and they were the direct reason behind them attaining
this position and becoming rulers over all the Muslims. History is the best
witness to what I am saying: Umar ibn al-Khattab, who was well known for his
strictness towards his governors whom used to dismiss them on mere suspicions,
was quite gentle towards Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan and never disciplined him.
Muawiyah was appointed by Abu Bakr and confirmed by Umar throughout his life,
who never even rebuked him or blamed him, despite the fact that many people
complained about Muawiyah and reported him for wearing silk and gold, which was
prohibited to men by the Messenger of Allah. Umar used to answer these
complaints by saying, “Let him be, he is the Kisra (king) of the Arabs.”
Muawiyah continued in the governorship for more than twenty years without being
touched or criticized, and when Uthman succeeded to the caliphate of the
Muslims, he added to his authority further districts and regions, which enabled
him to a mass great wealth from the Islamic nation and to raise armies to rebel
against the Imam (Leader) of the nation and subsequently take the full power by
force and intimidation. Thus he became the sole ruler of all Muslims, and later
forced them to vote for his corrupt and alcohol drinking son Yazid, as his heir
and successor.
This is
a long story so I will not go into its details in this book, but the important
thing is that we
should
understand the mentality of those Companions who reached the position of caliph
and facilitated the establishment of the Umayyad state in a direct way, so as
to please Quraysh which did not want to see both the Prophethood and the
caliphate in the House of Bani Hashim(7). The Umayyad state had the right, or
indeed was obliged to thank those who had facilitated its establishment, most
of all the “story tellers” whom it hired to tell tales about the virtues of
their masters. In the meantime it elevated them to a higher place than that of
their enemies, Ahl al-Bayt, simply by inventing virtues and merits, which if
(may Allah witness) examined under the light of logical and legal evidence
mostly disappear, unless there is something wrong with our minds or we have
started believing in contradictions.
For
example, we hear so much about Umar’s justice which the “story-tellers”
attributed to him. It
was even
said about him “You ruled with justice, therefore you can sleep.” It has also
been said
that Umar
was buried in a standing position so that justice would not die with him, . . .
and you
could go
on and on talking about Umar’s justice. However, the correct history tells us
that when
Umar
ordered that grants should be distributed among the people during the twentieth
year of
al-Hijrah,
he did not follow the tradition of the Messenger of Allah, nor did he confine
himself to its
rules.
The Prophet (s.a.w.) distributed the grants on an equal basis among all Muslims
and did not differentiate between one person and another, and Abu Bakr did the
same throughout his caliphate. But Umar introduced a new method. He preferred
the early converts to Islam to those who came later. He preferred al-Muhajireen
(immigrants from Mecca to Medinah) from Quraysh to other Muhajireen. He
preferred all the Muhajireen to al-Ansar (followers of Prophet Muhammad in
Medinah who granted him refuge after the Hijra). He preferred the Arabs to the
non-Arabs. He preferred the freeman to the slave(8). He preferred (the tribe
of) Mudar to (the tribe of) Rabia for he gave three hundred to the former and
two hundred to the latter(9). He also preferred al-Aws to al-Khazraj. (10)
We also
hear so much about Umar’s knowledge, to the extent he was described as the most
knowledgeable Companion, and it has been said about him that he agreed with his
God on many ideas that were revealed in various Qur’anic verses, and that he
disagreed with the Prophet about them. But the correct history tells us that
Umar did not agree with the Qur’an, even after it had been revealed. When one
of the Companions asked him one day during his caliphate, “O Commander of the
Believers, I am unclean, but I cannot find water to wash.” Umar answered, “Do
not pray.” Then Ammar ibn Yasir had to remind him about Tayammum [ritual
cleaning with earth], but Umar was not convinced, and said to Ammar, “You are
responsible only for the duties which have been assigned to you”(11).
Where is
Umar’s knowledge regarding the Tayammum verse which had been revealed in the
Book of Allah, and where is Umar’s knowledge of the Tradition of the Prophet
(s.a.w.) who taught them how to do Tayammum as well as Wudu [ritual ablution].
Umar himself confessed on many occasions that he was not a scholar, and that
all people, even women were more knowledgeable than him, and he was heard
saying many times, “If it was not for Ali, Umar would have perished.” And
throughout his life he did not know the rule of al-Kalalah [relatives of the
dead excluding the son and the father], although he passed various different
judgements about it, as history witnesses.
We also
hear a great deal about the courage and physical strength of Umar, and it has
been said that Quraysh feared the day when Umar became a Muslim, and that Islam
became even stronger when he entered the religion. It has also been said that
Allah glorified Islam with Umar, and that the Messenger of Allah did not call
for Islam openly until after Umar had become a Muslim.
But the correct historical references do not seem to indicate that
courage, and history does not mention one famous or even ordinary person who
has been killed by Umar in a dual or a battle like Badr and Uhud or al-Khandaq.
In fact the correct historical references tell us exactly the opposite; they
tell us that he escaped with the fugitives in Uhud, and escaped on the day of
Hunayn, and that when the Messenger of Allah sent him to take the city of
Khayber he returned defeated. He was never even the leader in the military
detachments in which he served, and in the last one (that of Usamah) he was put
under the charge of young Usamah ibn Zayd. So where is all that courage
compared to these historical facts ... O people who have minds?
We also
hear about Umar’s piety and his great fear of Allah, to the extent of crying.
It has been said that he was afraid of being accountable before Allah if a mule
tumbled in Iraq because he did not pave the road for it. But the correct
historical sources tell us that he was a rough man who lacked piety and did not
hesitate to beat a man until he bled because he asked him about a Qur’anic
verse, and even that women used to miscarry their babies out of fear when they
saw him. Why did he not fear Allah
when he raised his sword and threatened anybody who said that Muhammad had
died, and he swore by Allah that he had not died, rather, he had gone to talk
to his God in the same way as Moses did. Then he threatened to kill whoever
said that Muhammad was dead(12).
Why did
he not fear Allah when he threatened to burn Fatimah al-Zahra’s house if those
who refrained from voting for the successorship of the caliphate did not come
out(13)? It has been said that when he was told that Fatimah was inside, he
answered, “So what!” He violated the Book of Allah and the Tradition of the
Prophet and passed rules and judgements during his caliphate which contradicted
the texts of the Holy Qur’an and the noble Tradition of the Prophet
(s.a.w.)(14).
So where
was all that piety and fear of Allah in all these bitter and sad historical
facts, O good worshippers of Allah? I took this great and famous Companion as
an example, and I have summarized a great deal to avoid prolongation, but if I
wanted to talk in some detail, I could have filled many volumes. But as I said
I have mentioned these historical references as examples and not for specific
reasons.
What I
have mentioned is a small amount, but it gives us a clear
indication as to the mentalities of the Companions and the contradictory
attitudes of the Sunni scholars and historians. For on the one hand they forbid
people from criticizing them or doubting their intentions, but on the other
hand they write in their books things that make people doubt their deeds and
criticize them.
I wish
the Sunni scholars had not written about these matters in such a way that it
clearly sullies the
dignity
of the Companions and ruins their integrity. If they had not we would have been
spared all that confusion.
I still
remember meeting a scholar from al-Najaf whose name was Asad Hayder (author of
“Al-lmam al-Sadiq wa al- Madhahib al-Arbaah”) and as we were talking about the
Sunnis and the Shia he told me a story about his father. He (i.e. the father)
had met a Tunisian scholar from al-Zaytunah during the pilgrimage season some
fifty years ago, and started a debate about the Imamate of Ali - may Allah’s
peace be upon him - and his eligibility to the succession for the caliphate. The
Tunisian scholar listened attentively as the other man mentioned four or five
reasons. When he had finished, the
scholar from al-Zaytunah asked him, “Have you got any other reasons?” The man
answered, “No.” Then the Tunisian scholar said, “Get your rosary out and start
counting, then he listed some hundred reasons that my father had not known
before.
Shaykh
Asad Hayder added, “If the
Sunnis read what is in their books, then they would say similar things to what
we are saying and we would not have any differences between us for a long
time.”
By my
life! It is the inevitable truth, if only man would liberate himself from his
blind prejudice and
his
arrogance and submit to the clear proof.
First of
all, I must say that Allah - praise be to Him the Most High - commended, in
many places in His Holy Book, the Companions of the Messenger of Allah who
loved. obeyed and followed the Messenger without personal greed and without
opposition or arrogance, and only wanted the acceptance of Allah and His
Messenger; those Companions have pleased Allah and He pleased them, and that is
the way for those who fear Allah.
This
group of the Companions are appreciated by the Muslims because of their
attitudes towards the Prophet (saw) and their works with him, therefore they
are liked and respected by all Muslims, and they are appreciated whenever
people mention their names.
My study
does not concern itself with this group of Companions who are respected by both
the Sunnis and the Shia, nor is it concerned, with those who were well known
for their hypocrisy, and who are cursed by all Muslims, Shia and Sunnis,
whenever their names are mentioned.
However,
my study is concerned with the group of Companions about whom the Muslims have
expressed different views. There are verses in the Holy Qur’an where they are
rebuked and threatened because of their attitudes in certain positions, and the
Messenger of Allah (saw) warned them on many occasions, and warned other people
about them.
The
outstanding differences between the Shia and the Sunnis is concerned with this
group of Companions, because the Shia criticize their sayings and deeds and
complain about their justice, whereas they are respected by the Sunnis, in
spite of their contradictions. My study is concerned with this group of the
Companions because through it I will be able to reach the truth, or part of
it. I say that, so that no one may
think that I have neglected the Quranic verses which commend the Companions to
the Messenger of Allah, and that I exposed the verses which criticize them. In
fact through my research I discovered that some verses contain praise for the
Companions, but if you read in between the lines you find that they contain
criticism of them, and vice versa.
I shall
not write here about all the hard work that I have done in the past three years
in preparing this study, but I will confine myself to some Qur’anic verses as
examples, and not for any specific reason. For those who want to go further, I advise them to research and
compare, as I did, in order that they may find the Right Faith by themselves,
and through their own work. That is what Allah wants for everybody, and that is
what the conscience of each individual wants. Thus, one would achieve an absolute
conviction that will not be shaken by any storm. After all, the divine guidance which results
from personal conviction is far better than that which comes as a result of
external factors.
Allah -
the Most High - says in praise of His Prophet (saw): “And found you unable to
see [the way] then He showed you the way” [Holy Qur’an 93:7]. That is He found
you searching for the truth, so He led you to it.
1. The
turning back verse
Allah - the Most High - says in His Glorious Book: “And Muhammad
is no more than a messenger, the messengers have already passed away before
him, if then he dies or is killed, will you turn back upon your heels? And
whoever turns back upon his heels, he will by no means do harm to Allah in the
least, and Allah will reward the grateful.” Allah, the Great, has told the
truth [Holy Qur’an 3:144].
This
Qur’anic verse is clear about how the Companions will turn back upon their
heels, and only a few will stand their ground, as the above Qur’anic verse
indicated in the expression of Allah about them. Those who stand their ground
and do not turn back are the grateful, for the grateful are only a small
minority, as in the words of Allah- the Most High: “And very few of My servants
are grateful” [Holy Quran 34:13].
Also
there are many sayings of the Holy Prophet (saw) which explain the “turning
back”, and we will refer to some of them, and even if Allah - the Most High -
did not specify the punishment of those who turned back on their heels in this
Qur’anic verse: He glorified the grateful who deserve His reward. However, it
is important to know that those who turned back on their heels do not deserve
the reward of Allah and His forgiveness, as has been emphasized by the
Messenger of Allah (saw) in many of his sayings, some of we will discuss - if
Allah wills - in the course of this book. We could not explain the Qur’anic
verse with reference to Tulayha, Sujah and al-Aswad al-Ansi, out of respect for
the Companions, because the above-mentioned Companions have turned back and
abandoned Islam, and even claimed the prophecy during the lifetime of the
Messenger of Allahs who fought them and finally defeated them. Nor indeed can
we explain the Qur’anic verse with reference to Malik Ibn Nuwayrah and his
followers, who refused to pay Zakat (alms) in the time of the caliph Abu Bakr,
for many reasons. They refused to pay al-Zakat (alms) and give it to Abu Bakr
because they wanted to wait and see what happened, for they had accompanied the
Messenger of Allah on his farewell pilgrimage, and voted for Imam Ali ibn Abi
Talib at Ghadir Khum after the Messenger of Allah appointed him as Caliph after
him, and indeed Abu Bakr himself voted for Ali. Therefore, they were astonished
when a messenger from the caliph came to tell them the news of the holy
Prophet’s death and at the same time asked them to pay Zakat in the name the
new caliph, Abu Bakr. It is a case in which history
does not want to go too deep, for the sake of the Companion’s honour.
Furthermore, Malik and his followers were Muslims according to the testimony of
Umar and Abu Bakr themselves and other Companions who disapproved of Khalid ibn
al-Walid’s killing of Malik. History testifies that Abu Bakr paid compensation
for Malik’s death to his brother Mutammem out of the Muslim’s treasury, and
apologized for his killing. It is well established that the apostate must be
killed, and no compensation be paid out of the Muslim’s treasury for his
killing, and no apologies issued for killing him.
The
important thing is that the “turning back” verse refers to the Companions who
lived with the Messenger of Allah in al-Medinah al- Munawwarah, and indicates
the immediate “turning back” after the Prophet’s death. The Prophet’s sayings
explain all these things in such a clear way, that no one could doubt it. We
shall deal with these matters soon, if Allah wills. History also testifies for
the “turning back” that happened after the death of the Messenger of Allah, and
when we view the events which took place among the ranks of the Companions we
notice that only a few managed to come out unscathed.
Allah -
the Most High - said: “O You who believe, what
(excuse) have you that when it is said to you: Go forth in Allah ‘s way, you
should incline heavily to earth; are you contented with this world’s life
instead of the Hereafter? But the provision of this world’s life compared with
the Hereafter is but little. If you do not go forth, He will chastise you with
a painful chastisement and bring in your place a people other than you, and you
will do Him no harm; and Allah has power over all things” (Holy Qur’an
9:38-39).
This
Qur’anic verse is clear about the reluctance of the Companions to go and fight
in the Holy War [Jihad], and how they chose to be content with the life on
earth, in spite of their knowledge of its short duration. Their action
warranted a rebuke and a threat from Allah - the Almighty - that a terrible
torture was awaiting them, and that He would change them for others who were
true believers.
The
threat to change them came in many Qur’anic verses which indicate clearly that
they showed their reluctance to fight in al-Jihad- Holy War - more than once,
and Allah- the Most High - says:
“And if
you turn back He will bring in your place another people, they will not be like
you” (Holy Qur’an 47:38).
religion,
then Allah will bring a people, He shall love them and they shall love Him,
lowly before the
believers,
mighty against the unbelievers, they shall strive hard in Allah’s way and shall
not fear the
censure
of any censurer, this is Allah’s grace, He gives it to whom He pleases, and
Allah is
If we
want to investigate the Qur’anic verses which emphasize this issue and talk
about the classification of the Companions, which the Shia advocate, then we
would need a special book for it. The Holy Qur’an expressed all that in the
most direct and eloquent way: Let there arise out of you a nation, inviting to
all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong, and
these it is that shall be successful.
And be
not like those who became divided and disagreed after receiving clear signs,
and these it is that shall have a grievous chastisement.
On the day, some faces will be white (lit up) and some faces will
be black (in the gloom), to those whose faces will be black (will be said): Did
you reject the faith after accepting it? Taste then the chastisement for
rejecting the faith. But those whose faces will be white, they will be in
Allah’s mercy, therein to dwell” (Holy Qur’an 3:106-107).
These
Qur’anic verses, as every intelligent scholar knows, are addressing the
Companions, and warning them of the division and disagreement among themselves
after they have already been shown the Right Path. They also tell them that a
great torture is awaiting them, and divide them in two groups: The first group:
when they will be resurrected on the Day of Judgement, everyone of them would
have a white face, and those are the grateful who deserve the mercy of Allah.
The second group: when they will be resurrected on the Day of Judgement,
everyone of them would have a black face, and those are the apostates, whom
Allah - the Almighty - promised the great torture.
It is
well-known that the Companions were divided after the death of the Messenger of
Allah. They disagreed among
themselves to such an extent that they fought each other bloody wars which led
to the regression and the backwardness of the Muslims and made them easy target
for their enemies. The above Qur’anic verse could not be interpreted in any
other way except that which is readily accepted by people.
Allah -
the most High - said: “Has not the time yet come for those who believe that
their hearts should be submissive for the remembrance of Allah and what has
come down of the truth? And [that] they should not be like those who were given
the book before, but the time became prolonged to them, so their hearts
hardened, and most of them are transgressors”. (Holy Qur’an 57:16).
In
al-Durr al-Manthur by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, the author says: when the
Companions of the Messenger of Allah (saw) came to al-Medinah and started to
enjoy a higher standard of living after having lived through many hardships,
they seemed to slow down, so they were punished for that, and hence the verse
“Has not the time yet come for those who believe” was revealed. Another version
of the story, which came from the Prophet (saw), was that Allah- the Most High-
found some reluctance in the Muhajereen seventeen years after the first
revelation of the Holy Qur’an, and therefore Allah revealed the verse “Has not
the time yet come for those who believe”. If those Companions - who are the
best people according to the Sunnis - did not feel humble before the name of
Allah or His right revelation of seventeen years, so that Allah found them
slowing down, and rebuked and warned them for their hardened hearts which were
leading them to corruption, we cannot blame the people of Quraysh who only
entered Islam in the seventh Hijri year after the conquest of Makkah.
These
were some examples which I have selected from the Glorious Book of Allah which
give us clear indications that not all the Companions were right, as the Sunnis
believe.
If we
study the sayings of the Prophet (saw), then we will find many more examples,
but just to be brief, I shall refer to some of those examples and the
interested reader may further his own knowledge if he so wishes.
1. The
hadith of the Pool
The
Messenger of Allah (saw) said: As I was standing, there came a group of people
whom I recognized, and a man stood between the group and myself, then said:
“Let us go.” I said, “Where to?” He said, “To Hell, by Allah!” I asked, “What
have they done?” He answered, “They turned back after you had departed, and I
expect only a few will reach salvation.”[15]
[15]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 4 p 94-99, 156, vol 3 p 32
Sahih,
Muslim, vol 7 p 66
The
Messenger of Allah (saw) also said:
I shall
arrive at the pool before you, and he who passes by me will drink, and whoever
drinks from it will never feel thirsty. There will come to me people that I
know and they know me, but we shall be separated, then I shall say, “My
companions.” An answer shall come, “You do not know what they did after you
left.” Then I shall say, “Away with those who changed after me.”
When we
look deeply at the various sayings that have been referred to by the Sunnis in
their books, we will have no doubt that most of the Companions changed or even
became apostates after the departure of the Messenger of Allah, except a few
who were considered to be the minority. The above sayings could not be applied
to the third type [of Companions], for they were the hypocrites, and the text
states: I shall say, “My companions.”
These
sayings confirm and explain the Holy Qur’anic verses that we mentioned earlier
on, which talked about their retreat and their apostasy and the terrible
torture awaiting them.
2. The
hadith of the Competition of the World
I lead
you and am your witness, and by Allah I now look at my pool and have been given
the keys to the treasures of the earth [for the earth’s keys], and by Allah I
am not worried that you become polythiest after me, but I am worried that you
will compete for it” [16]
The
Messenger of Allah (saw) was right. They competed for this world to the extent
that they fought against each other, and each party accused the other of
blasphemy. Some of the famous Companions were eager to collect gold and silver,
and historians such as al-Masudi in Muruj al-Dhahab” and al-Tabari and others
stated that the wealth of al-Zubayr on its own came to fifty thousand Dinars
and a thousand horses with one thousand slaves and many holdings in Basra
al-Kufa Egypt and many other places [17].
The
agricultural products from Iraq alone brought Talhah one thousand Dinars every
day, and perhaps more than that.
Abdul
Rahman ibn Awf had one hundred horses, one thousand camels and ten thousand
sheep. After his death, quarter of
his wealth which was divided among his wives came to eighty four thousand
Dinars. [18]
Uthman
ibn Affan left on the day of his death one hundred and fifty thousand Dinars
apart from an enormous wealth of land, cattle and villages.
Zayd ibn
Thabit left an amount of gold and silver that had to be broken by hammers!
Apart from money and agricultural holdings which came to one hundred thousand
Dinars. [19]
These
were just a few historical examples. since we do not want to go into detailed
analysis of their importance at the moment, we only mentions them as a proof
and support of the sayings, that they [these companions] were more interested
in the present life.
1. Their testimony that
they themselves have changed the tradition of the Prophet
Abu
Saeed al-Khudari said: On the first days of ‘Id al-Fitr [breaking the fast of
Ramadan] and ‘Id al-Adha [celebrating the end of the Pilgrimage], the first
thing the Messenger of Allah (saw) used to do was to say his prayers in the
mosque, then he went to see the people, who sat in rows in front of him, and
then he started to deliver advice or orders or even finalize outstanding
issues, and after all that he would leave. Abu Saeed added: The situation
continued to be like that, until one day, either Fitr or Adha, I went with
Marwan, who was the governor of al-Medinah. When we arrived at the mosque,
which had a new pulpit built by Kathir ibn al-Salt, Marwan headed for the
pulpit (before praying), so I pulled him by his clothes, but he pushed me and
went up on to the pulpit. He addressed the people before he prayed, so I said
to him, “By Allah you have changed it.” He replied, “O Abu Saeed, what you know
has gone.” I said, “By Allah, what I know is better than what I do not know.”
Marwan then said, “People did not sit for us after the prayers, so I put [it]
before the prayers”. [20]
[20]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 1 p 122 (al Idayn book)
I looked
for the reasons which led those Companions to change the Sunnah [the tradition]
of the Messenger of Allah (saw), and found that the Umayyads (and most of them
were Companions of the Prophet) and Muawiah ibn Abi Sufian (writer of the
revelation, as he was called) in particular used to force people to swear at Ali
ibn Abi Talib and curse him from the pulpits of the mosques, as most of the
historians have mentioned in their books.
Muawiah ordered his governors everywhere to take the curse [of
Ali ibn Abi Talib] as tradition, and that all the speakers must include it in
their speeches. When some of the Companions protested very strongly against
such a rule, Muawiah ordered their killing and burning. Among the famous Companions
who were killed at the order of Muawiah were Hijr ibn Adi al-Kindi and his
followers, because they protested and refused to curse Ali, and some of them
were buried alive.
Abu
al-Aala al-Mawdudi wrote in his book “Caliphate and Kingdom”: Abu al-Hasan
al-Basri said:
Muawiah
had four features, and if he had only one of them, it would have been
considered a great sin:
1.Making
decisions without consulting the Companions, who were the light of virtues.
2.Designating
his son as his successor. His son was a drunkard, corrupt and wore silk.
3.He
claimed Ziyad [as his son], and the Messenger of Allah said, “There is
offspring for the
honourable
woman, but there is nothing for the whore.”
4.His
killing of Hijr and his followers. Woe unto him from Hijr and the followers of
Hijr. [21]
There
were some good Companions who used to dash out of the mosque immediately after
the prayers so that they did not have to listen to the speeches which always ended
with the cursing of Ali. For that reason the Umayyads changed the tradition of
the Messenger of Allah. They put the speech before the prayers, so that people
listened to it against their will.
What
kind of Companions were these people! They were not afraid of changing the
tradition of the Messenger of Allah, or even the laws of Allah, in order to
reach their wicked and low objectives and to satisfy their sinister desires.
They cursed a man whom Allah had kept cleansed and purified, and made it obligatory
for people to pray for him in the same way as they prayed for His Messenger.
Furthermore, Allah and His Messenger made it obligatory for people to love him,
and the Prophet (saw) said, “Loving Ali is
believing, and hating him is hypocrisy” [22].
But
these Companions changed the rules and said, “We heard, but we disobey.” And
instead of loving him, praying for him and obeying him, they swore at him and
cursed him for sixty years, as has been mentioned in the history books.
Whereas
the Companions of Moses plotted against Aaron and tried to kill him, some of
the Companions of Muhammad killed his Aaron and pursued his sons and followers
everywhere. They removed their names from the Diwan (account books of the
treasury) and prohibited anyone to be named after them. As if that was not
enough for them, they cursed him and forced the faithful Companions to do so
unjustly and by force.
By
Allah! I stand astonished and perplexed when I read in our Sihahs how much the
Messenger of Allah loved his “brother” and cousin Ali and how he put him above
all the Companions, and even he said, “You are to me as Aaron was to Moses, but
there will be no prophet after me.” [23]
He
also said the following things about Ali:
“You
are from me, and I am from you” [24].
“Loving
Ali is believing, and hating him is hypocrisy” [25].
“I
am the city of knowledge, and Ali is its gate” [26].
“Ali
is the master of all the believers after me”[28].
“Whoever accepted me as his master, then he should also accept
Ali as his master. O Allah be friendly with his friends, and be enemy to his
enemy” [28]
[23]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 2 p 305
Sahih,
Muslim, vol 2 p 356
Mustadrak,
al Hakim, vol 3 p 109
[24]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 1 p 76
Sahih,
Tirmidhi, vol 5 p 300
Sunan,
Ibn Majah, vol 1 p 44
[25]Sahih,
Muslim, vol 1 p 61
Sunan,
al Nasai, vol 6 p 117
Sahih,
al Tirmidhi, vol 8 p 306
[26]Sahih,
Tirmidhi, vol 5 p 201
Mustadrak,
al Hakim, vol 3 p 126
[27]Musnad,
Ahmed Hanbal, vol 5 p 25
Mustadrak,
Hakim, vol 3 p 134
Sahih,
al Tirmidhi, vol 5 p 296
[28]Sahih,
Muslim, vol 2 p 362
Mustadrak,
Hakim, vol 3 p 109
Musnad,
Ahmed Hanbal, vol 4 p 281
If we
study all the virtues that the Prophet (saw) attributed to Ali, which have been
mentioned and approved by our scholars in their books, then we would need to
write a whole book.
So, how
did the Companions ignore all these texts, swear at him, plot against him,
curse him from the pulpits of the mosques and then fight against him and
finally kill him?
I tried
in vain to find a reason for the behaviour of those people, but found nothing
except the love of this life and the competition for it, in addition to the
tendency to apostatize and turn back on their heels. I have also tried to
attach the responsibility to a group of bad Companions and some hypocrites, but
regrettably those were only a few among the famous and the important. The first who
threatened to burn his house - with its inhabitants - was Umar ibn al-Khattab, and the
first who fought him were Talhah, al-Zubayr, Aishah bint Abi Bakr - Umm
al-Mumineen, Muawiah ibn Abi Sufian, Amr ibn al-‘Aas and many others.
I am astonished, and my
astonishment will never end, and any responsible free thinker would agree with
me, as to how the Sunni scholars agree on the righteousness of all the Companions
and ask for the blessings of Allah to be upon them and pray for all of them
without exception, although some of them say: “Curse Yazid, and no further.”
But where is Yazid amongst all these tragedies which no religion or logic could
approve? I appeal to the Sunni people, if they truly follow the Prophet’s
tradition, to ask themselves how they could accept somebody to be righteous
when the laws of the Holy Qur’an and the Prophetic tradition judge him as being
corrupt, an apostate and an unbeliever. The Messenger of Allah (saw) said, “He
who insults Ali, insults me. He who insults me, insults Allah. And he who
insults Allah, Allah will throw him into Hell” [29]. If that is the punishment
for those who insult Ali, one wonders about the punishment of those who fought
him and ultimately killed him. What are our scholars’ opinions regarding all
these facts, or are their hearts locked solid?! Say, O God please protect us
from the tricks of the devil.
[29]Mustadrak,
hakim, vol 3 p 121
Khasais, al
Nasai, p 24
Musnad,
Ahmed Hanbal, vol 6 p 33
al Manaqib,
al Khawarizmi, p 81
al Riyadh al
Nadira, Tabari, vol 2 p 219
Anas ibn
Malik said: I knew nothing during the lifetime of the Prophet(saw) better than
the prayer. He said: Have you not
lost what you have lost in it? Al-Zuhri said: I went to see Anas ibn Malik in
Damascus, and found him crying, I asked him, “What is making you cry?” He
answered, “I have known nothing but these prayers, and they have been lost.”
[30]
[30]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 2 p 134
I would
like to make it clear that it was not the followers who implemented the changes
after all the intrigues and civil wars, rather it was the caliph Uthman who
first made changed in the Prophet’s tradition regarding the prayers.
Also Umm
al-Mumineen Aishah was involved in these changes. Al-Bukhari and Muslim, both
stated in their books that the Messenger of Allah (saw) performed two prayers
at Mina, and Abu Bakr after him, then Umar and Uthman who later performed four
prayers. [31]
[31]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 2 p 154
Muslim
also stated in his book that al-Zuhri asked ‘Urwah, “Why did Aishah complete
her prayers during the journey?” He answered, “She improvised in the same way
as Uthman did.” [32]
[32]Sahih,
Muslim, vol 2 p 134
Umar used to improvise and interpret the clear texts of the
Prophet’s tradition, and even the Holy Qur’anic texts. Like he used to say: two
pleasures were allowed during the life of the Messenger of Allah, but now I
disallow them and punish those who commit them, I tell the person who is in a
state of ritual impurity, or cannot find water not to pray. That was in spite
of the words of Allah - the Most High - in Surat al-Maidah: “If you do not find
water, then use clean sand.”
Al-Bukhari
stated in his book, in a chapter which deals with ritual impurity: I heard
Shaqiq ibn Salmah saying: I was with Abdullah and Abu Musa, and Abu Musa asked,
“What do you say about a man who is unclean but cannot find water?” Abdullah
answered, “He should not pray until he finds water.” Abu Musa then asked, “What
do you think about what the Prophet said to Ammar [regarding the issue of
impurity] when Ammar asked him?” Abdullah said, “For that reason Umar was not
satisfied with [that].” Abu Musa said, “Forget about what Ammar said, but what
do you say about the Qur’anic verse?” Abdullah did not know what to say, but he
justified his stance by saying, “If we let them do that, then whenever the
water becomes cold, they avoid using it to clean themselves, and instead they
use sand. I said to Shaqiq, “Abdullah is most certainly hated for that.” He
said, “Yes”. [33]
[33]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 1 p 54
Anas ibn
Malik said that the Messenger of Allah (saw) said to al-Ansar: You will notice
after me some great selfishness, but be patient until you meet Allah and His
Messenger by the pool. Anas said: We were not patient. [34]
[34]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 2 p 135
Al-Ala
ibn al-Musayyab heard his father saying: I met al- Bara ibn Azib - may Allah
honour them both - and said to him, “Bless you, you accompanied the Prophet
(saw) and you voted for him under the tree.” He said, “My son, you do not know
what we have done after him” [35].
[35]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 3 p 32
This
early Companion, who was one of those who voted for the Prophet under the tree,
and who received the blessing of Allah, for Allah knew what was in their
hearts, testifies against himself and his companions that they did not keep the
tradition. This testimony is confirmation of what the Prophet (saw) talked
about and predicted in that his Companions would break with his tradition and
fall back on their heels.
How
could any sensible person, after all this evidence, believe in the righteousness
of all the Companions, as the Sunnis do?
He who
believes that, is definitely reversing the order of logic and scholarship, and
there will be no intellectual criteria for the researcher to use in his quest
for the truth.
In a
chapter entitled “The virtues of Umar ibn al-Khattab”, al-Bukhari wrote in his
book: “When Umar was stabbed he felt great pain and Ibn Abbas wanted to comfort
him, so he said to him, “O Commander of the Believers, you accompanied the
Messenger of Allah and you were a good companion to him, and when he left you,
he was very pleased with you. Then you accompanied Abu Bakr, and you were a
good companion to him, and when he left you, he was pleased with you. Then you
accompanied their companions and you were a good companion to them, and if you
left them, they would remember you well.” He said, “As for the companionship of
the Messenger of Allah and his satisfaction with me, that is a gift that Allah-
the Most High - has granted to me. As for the companionship of Abu Bakr and his
satisfaction with me, that is a gift that Allah - Glory be to Him - has granted
to me. But the reason you see me in pain is for you and your companions. By
Allah, if I had all the gold on earth I would use it to ransom myself from the
torture of Allah - Glory and Majesty be to Him - before I saw Him. [36]
He has
also been quoted as saying the following, “I wish I was my family’s sheep. They
would have fattened me up to the maximum. When they were visited by friends,
they would have killed me and roasted part of me, and made qadid (meat cut into
strips and dried) from the other part of it, then they would have eaten me, and
lastly, they would have relieved me with their bowle evacuation ... I wish I
had been all that, rather than a human being.” [37]
[37]Minhaj
as Sunnah, Ibn Taymiyya, vol 3 p 131
Abu Bakr
apparently said a similar thing to the above. He looked at a bird on a tree,
then said, “Well done bird ... You eat the fruits, you stand on the trees and
you are not accountable to anybody nor indeed can anybody punish you. I wish I
was a tree by the road, and that a camel would come along and eat me. then
relieve me with his bowel evacuation ... I wish that I had been all that,
rather than a human being.” [38]
[38]Tarikh,
Tabari, p 41
al Riyadh al
Nadira, vol 1 p 134
He also
said, I wish that my mother had not given birth to me ... I wish I was a straw
in the mud.
[39] These
are some texts that I used just as examples and not for any specific reason.
[39]Tarikh,
Tabari, p 41
al Riyadh al
Nadira, Tatabri, vol 1 p 134
Kanz al
Ummal, p 361
Minhaj as
Sunnah, Ibn Taymiyya, vol 3 p 120
And this is
the Book of Allah which gives the good news to the worshippers of Allah who
believe
in Him: “Now
surely the friends of Allah - they shall have no fear, nor shall they grieve.
Those who
believe
and fear (Allah). They shall have good news in this world’s life and in the
Hereafter, there is
no
changing in the words of Allah; that is the great achievement” (Holy Qur’an
10:62-64).
Allah
also says: “(As for) those who say, our Lord is Allah, then continue in the
right way, the angels descend upon them, saying, “Fear not, nor be grieved, and
receive good news of the garden which you were promised. We are your guardians
in this world’s life and in the Hereafter, and you shall have therein what your
souls desire and you shall have therein what you ask for. An entertainment by
the Forgiving, the Merciful” (Holy Our’an 41:30-32).
How
could the two Shaykhs. Abu Bakr and Umar, wish that they were not from the
human race, which Allah honoured and put it above all His creation? Even the
ordinary believer, who keeps on the straight path during his lifetime, receives
the angels to tell him about his place in heaven, and that he should not fear
the torture of Allah, nor be depressed about his legacy in life, and that he
has the good news while he is in this life before reaching the life Hereafter.
Then how could the great Companions, who are the best of creation after the
Messenger of Allah (so we have been taught), wish they were excrement or a hair
or a straw when the angels had given them the good news that they would go to
heaven? They could not have wished to have all the gold on earth to ransom
themselves from the torture of Allah before meeting Him.
Allah -
the Most High - said: “And if every soul that has done injustice had all that
is in the earth, it
would
offer it for ransom, and they will manifestly regret when they see the
chastisement and the matter shall be decided between them with justice and they
shall not be dealt unjustly” (Holy Quran 10:54).
Allah
also said: “And had those who are unjust all that is in the earth and the like
of with it, they would certainly offer it as ransom (to be saved) from the evil
of the punishment on the day of resurrection; and what they never thought of
shall become plain to them from Allah. And the evil (consequences) of what they
wrought shall become plain to them, and the very thing they mocked at shall
beset them” (Holy Qur’an 39:47-48).
I wish
sincerely that these Qur’anic verses did not involve great Companions like Abu
Bakr al-Siddiq and Umar al-Faruq ... But I often pause when I read these texts
so that I can look at some interesting aspects of their relations with the
Messenger of Allah (saw), and how that relation went through many turmoils.
They disobeyed his orders and refused him his wishes, even in the last moments
of his blessed and honourable life, which made him so angry that he ordered
them all to leave his house and to leave him. I also recall the chain of events
that took place after the death of the Messenger of Allah, and the hurt and
lack of recognition that afflicted his daughter al-Zahra. The Messenger of Allah (saw) said,
“Fatimah is part of me, he who angers her angers me” [40].
Fatimah said to Abu Bakr and
Umar: I ask you in the name of Allah - the Most High - did you not hear the
Messenger of Allah (saw) saying, “The satisfaction of Fatimah is my
satisfaction, and the anger of Fatimah is my anger, he who loves my daughter
Fatimah loves me, and he who satisfies Fatimah satisfies me, and he who angers
Fatimah angers me?” They said, “Yes, we heard it from the Messenger of Allah
(saw).” Then she said, “Therefore, I testify before Allah and the angels that
you have angered me and did not please me, and if I meet the Prophet I will
complain to him about you.”[41]
[41]al
Imamah Was Siyasah, Ibn Qutaybah, vol 1 p 20
Let us
leave this tragic story for the time being, but Ibn Qutaybah, who is considered
to be one of the great Sunni scholars, and was an expert in many disciplines
and wrote many books on Qur’anic commentary. Hadith Linguistics, grammar and
history might well have been converted to Shiism, as somebody I know once
claimed when I showed him Ibn Qutaybah’s book “History of the Caliphs”.
This is
the type of propaganda that some of our scholars use when they lose the
argument. Similarly al-Tabari was
a Shi’ite, and al-Nisa’i, who wrote a book about the various aspects of Imam
Ali, was a Shiite, and Taha Husayn, a contemporary scholar who wrote “Al-Fitnah
al-Kubra” and other facts, was also a Shi’ite!
The fact
is that all of these were not Shiites, and when they talked about the Shia,
they said all sorts of dishonourable things about them, and they defended the
fairness of the Companions with all their might. But the fact is that whenever
a person mentions the virtues of Ali ibn Abi Talib, and admits to the mistakes
that were committed by the famous Companions, we say that he has become a
Shiite. And if you say in front of them, when you mention the Prophet, “May
Allah bless him and his Family” or say, “Ali, may Allah’s peace be upon him”
then you are branded a Shiite.
According to that premise, one day, during a debate, I asked one of our
scholars, “What do you think of al-Bukhari?” He
said, “He is one of the leading authorities in Hadith (the Prophetic tradition)
and we consider his book to be the most correct book after the Book of Allah,
as all our scholars agree.” I said to him, “He is a Shiite.” He laughed and
said, “God forbid that Imam al-Bukhari be a Shiite.” I said, “Did you not say
that whoever says Ali, may Allah’s peace be upon him, is Shiite?” He answered,
“Yes.” Then I showed him and those who were with him al-Bukhari’s book, and in
many places when Ali’s name appears, he put “May Allah’s peace be upon him” as
well as the names of Fatimah and al-Husayn. The man did not know what to say.
[42]
Let us
return to the incident mentioned by Ibn Qutaybah in which Fatimah allegedly was
angered
by Abu
Bakr and Umar. If I doubt the authenticity of that story, then I could not
doubt the
authenticity
of al-Bukhari’s book, which we consider to be the most correct book after the
Book
of Allah.
As we have committed ourselves to the fact that it is correct, then the Shiites
have the
right to
use it in their protestation against us and force us to keep to our commitment,
as is only fair
for
sensible people. In his book, al-Bukhari writes in a chapter entitled “The
virtues of the relatives
of the
Messenger of Allah” the following: The Messenger of Allah (saw) said, “Fatimah
is part of me, and whoever angers her angers me.” Also in a chapter about “The
Khaybar Raid” he wrote:
According
to Aishah, Fatimah- may Allah’s peace be upon her - daughter of the Prophet,
sent a message to Abu Bakr asking him for her share of the inheritance of the
Messenger of Allah, but he refused to pay Fatimah anything of it. Fatimah
became so angry at Abu Bakr that she left him and never spoke to him before her
death. [43]
The
final result is one, al-Bukhari mentioned it briefly and Ibn Qutaybah talked
about it in some detail, and that is: the Messenger of Allah (saw) is angry
when Fatimah is angry, and he is satisfied when Fatimah is satisfied, and that
she died while she was still angry with Abu Bakr and Umar.
If al-Bukhari said: She died
while she was still angry at Abu Bakr, and did not speak to him before she
died, then the end result is quite clear. If Fatimah is “the leading lady among
all the ladies” as al-Bukhari declared in the section al-Isti’dhan, and if
Fatimah is the only lady in this nation whom Allah kept clean and pure, then
her anger could not be but just, therefore Allah and His Messenger get angry
for her anger. Because of that Abu Bakr said, “May Allah - the Most High - save
me from His anger and Fatimah’s anger.” Then he cried very bitterly when she
said, “By Allah, I will curse you in every prayer that I do.” He came out
crying and said, “I do not need your pledge of allegiance and discharge me from
my duties.” [44]
Many of
our historians and scholars admit that Fatimah - may Allah’s peace be upon her
- challenged Abu Bakr in many cases such as the donations, the inheritance and
the shares of the relatives, but her challenge was dismissed, and she died
angry at him. However, our scholars seem to pass over these incidents without
having the will to talk about them in some detail, so that they could as usual,
preserve the integrity of Abu Bakr. One of the strange things that I have read
regarding this subject, is what one of the writers said after he had mentioned
the incident in some detail: God forbid that Fatimah should claim something
that does not rightly belong to her, and God forbid that Abu Bakr denied her
rights.
The
writer thought that through this weak reasoning, he would be able to solve the
problem and convince the researchers. He appears to be saying something similar
to the following: God forbid that the Holy Qur’an should say anything but the
truth, and God forbid that the sons of Israel should worship the calf. We have
been plagued with scholars who say things that they cannot comprehend, and
believe in the object and its antithesis, simultaneously. The point is that
Fatimah claimed and Abu Bakr dismissed her claim, so she was either a liar -
God forbid - or Abu Bakr treated her unjustly. There could be no third solution
for the case, as some of our scholars would wish.
If one
refuses to accept the logical reasoning that the leading lady among all ladies
is a liar because
her
father, the Messenger of Allah, said, “Fatimah is part of me, and who- ever
hurts her hurts me.”
purification
verse from the Holy Qur’an is another indication of her infallibility, and it
was revealed
in her
honour and the honour of her husband and her two sons, as Aishah herself
testified [45]. Hence, there is
nothing left for sensible people but to accept the fact that she was unjustly
treated, and that she was easy to be branded a liar by somebody who was willing
to let her burn unless the remaining people in her house came out to vote for
him. [46]
[45]Sahih,
Muslim, vol 7 p 121, 130
[46]Tarikh
al Khulafa, vol 1 p 20
Because of
all that, she - may Allah’s peace be upon her - refused entry to Abu Bakr and
Umar
when they
asked her permission. Even when Ali allowed them to enter, she turned her face
to the
wall and
refused to look at them [47]. Furthermore, before she died, she asked to be
buried
secretly,
and at night, so that none of them could be present at her funeral [48], and to
this day, the
grave of the
Prophet’s daughter is unknown.
[47]Tarikh
al Khulafa, vol 1 p 20
[48]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 3 p 39
I would like to ask why our scholars remain silent about these
facts, and are reluctant to look into them, or even to mention them. They give
us the impression that the Companions are like angels, infallible and sinless,
and when you ask them why the caliph of the Muslim’s Uthman was murdered, they
would say: It was the Egyptians - and they were not believers - who came and
killed him, thus ends the subject with two words.
When I
had the opportunity to carry out research into history, I found that the main
figures behind the killing of Uthman were the Companions themselves, and that
Aishah led them, calling for his death publicly and saying: “Kill Na’thal (the
old fool), for he was not a believer.” [49]
[49]Tarikh,
Tabari, vol 4 p 407
Tarikh,
Ibn Athir, vol 3 p 206
Lisan al
Arab, vol 14 p 193
Taj al
Arus, vol 8 p 141
Al Iqd al
Farid, vol 4 p 290
Also we
know that Talhah, al-Zubayr, Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr and other famous Companions
besieged him in his house and prevented him from having a drink of water, so
that they could force him to resign. Furthermore, the historians inform us that
they did not allow his corpse to be buried in a Muslim cemetery, and that he
was finally buried in “Hashsh Kawkab” without washing the corpse and without a
shroud.
O Allah, praise be to You, how could they tell us that he was
unjustly killed, and that those who killed him were not Muslims. This is
another case similar to that of Fatimah and Abu Bakr: Uthman was either
unjustly treated, therefore we may pass judgement on those Companions who
killed him or those who participated in his killing that they were criminal
murderers because they unlawfully killed the caliph of the Muslims, and threw
stones at his funeral, and humiliated him when he was alive and then when he
was dead; or that the Companions killed him because he committed certain deeds
which were not compatible with Islam, as the historical sources tell us.
There is
no third option, unless we dismiss the historical facts and accept the
distorted picture that the Egyptians, who were not believers, killed Uthman. In
both cases there is a definite rejection of the common belief that all the
Companions were right and just, without exception, for either Uthman was unjust
or his killers were not just, but all of them were Companions, and hence our
proposition becomes void. Therefore we are left with the proposition of the
followers of Ahl al-Bayt, and that is that some of the Companions were right
and some others were wrong.
We may
ask a few questions about the war of al-Jamal, which was instigated by Umm
al-Mumineen Aishah, who played an important role in it. How could Umm
al-Mumineen Aishah leave her house in which Allah had ordered her to stay, when
the most High said: “And stay in your houses and do not display your finery
like the displaying of the ignorance of yours” (Holy Qur’an 33:33).
We may also ask, how could Aishah allow herself to declare war on
the caliph of the Muslims, Ali ibn Abi Talib, who was the master of all
Muslims? As usual, our
scholars, with some simplicity, answer us that she did not like Imam Ali
because he advised the Messenger of Allah to divorce her in the incident of
al-Ifk. Seemingly these people are trying to convince us that that incident -
if it was true - namely Ali’s advice to the Prophet to divorce Aishah, was
sufficient for her to disobey the orders of her God and her husband, the
Messenger of Allah. She rode a camel that the Messenger of Allah forbade her
from riding and warned her about the barking of al-Hawab’s dogs [50], she
travelled long distances from al-Medinah to Mekka then to Basrah, she permitted
the killing of innocent people and started a war against the commander of the
believers and the Companions who voted for him, and she caused the deaths of
thousands of Muslims, according to the historians [51]. She did all that
because she did not like Ali who advised the Prophet to divorce her.
Nevertheless the Prophet did not divorce her so why all this hatred towards
Imam Ali? History has recorded some aggressive stances against Ali that could
not be explained and these are some of them. When she was on her way back from
Mekka Aishah was informed that Uthman was killed, so she was delighted, but
when she learnt that people had voted for Ali to succeed him she became very
angry and said, “I wish the sky would collapse on the earth before Ibn Abi
Talib succeeds to the caliphate.” Then she said, “Take me back.” Thus she started
the civil war against Ali, whose name she never liked to mention, as many
historians agree.
[51]Al
Tabari, Ibn al Athir and other historians who wrote about the events in the
Year 36 A.H
Had
Aishah heard the saying of the Messenger of Allah (saw): Loving Ali is
believing, and hating him is hypocrisy? [52]. To the extent that some of the
Companions used to say, “We recognized the hypocrites by their hatred of Ali.”
Had Aishah not heard the saying of the Prophet: Whoever accepts me as his
master, then Ali is his master? Undoubtedly she heard all that, but she did not
like it, and she did not like mentioning his name, and when she learnt of his
death she knelt and thanked Allah. [53]
[53]Al
Tabari, Ibn al Athir, who wrote about the events in the Year of 40 Hijri
Let us
move on, for I do not want to discuss the life of Umm al-Mumineen Aishah, but I
have tried to show how many of the Companions violated the principles of Islam
and disobeyed the orders of the Messenger of Allah (saw), and it suffices to
mention the following incident which happened to Aishah during the civil war,
and on which all historians tend to agree. It has been said that when Aishah
passed by the waters of al-Hawab and heard the dogs barking, she remembered the
warning of her husband, the Messenger of Allah, and how he prevented her from
being the instigator of “al-Jamal” war. She cried, then she said, “Take me back
. take me back!” But Talhah and al- Zubayr brought fifty men and bribed them,
then made them testify that these waters were not al-Hawab’s waters. Later she
continued her journey until she reached Basrah. Many historians believe that
those fifty men gave the first falsified testimony in the history of Islam.
[54]
[54]Al
Tabari, Ibn al Athir and other historians who wrote about the events of the
Year 40 A.H
O
Muslims! You who have enlightened minds ... assist us in solving this problem.
Were these truly the honourable Companions, of whom we were always led to
believe in their righteousness, and that they were the best people after the
Messenger of Allah (saw)! How could they give a falsified testimony when the
Messenger of Allah considered it to be one of the great sins, whose punishment
is Hell.
The same
question crops up again. Who was right and who was wrong? Either Ali and his
followers were wrong, or Aishah and her followers and Talhah and al-Zubayr and
their followers were wrong. There is no third possibility. But I have no doubt
that the fair researcher would take Ali’s side and dismiss Aishah and her
followers who instigated the civil war that devastated the nation and left its
tragic marks to the present day.
For the
sake of further clarification, and for the sake of my own satisfaction I
mention here what
al-Bukhari
had to say in his book about the civil war. When Talhah, al-Zubayr and Aishah
travelled
to Basrah, Ali sent Ammar ibn Yasir and al-Hasan ibn Ali to al-Kufah. On their
arrival,
they went
to the mosque and addressed the congregation, and we heard Ammar saying,
“Aishah
had gone
to Basrah ... and by Allah she is the wife of your Prophet in this life and the
life hereafter,
but
Allah, the Most High, is testing you to know whom you obey: Him or her.” [55]
[55]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 4 p 161
wives:
Once the Prophet (saw) was giving a speech, and he indicated the house where
Aishah was
living,
then said, “There is the trouble ... there is the trouble ... there is the trouble
... from where
the devil’s
horns come out ...” [56]
[56]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 2 p 128
Al-Bukhari
wrote many strange things in his book about Aishah and her bad manners towards
the Prophet to the extent that her father had to beat her until she bled. He
also wrote about her pretention towards the Prophet until Allah threatened her
with divorce... and there are many other stories but we are limited by space.
After
all that I ask how did Aishah deserve all that respect from the Sunnis; is it
because she was the Prophet’s wife? But he had so many wives, and some of them
were better than Aishah, as the Prophet himself declared [57]. Or perhaps
because she was Abu Bakr’s daughter! Or maybe because she played an important
role in the denial of the Prophet’s will for Ali, and when she was told that
the Prophet recommended Ali, she said, “Who said that? I was with the Prophet
(saw) supporting his head on my chest, then he asked me to bring the washbowl,
as I bent down he died, so I cannot see how he recommended Ali [58]. Or is it
because she fought a total war against him and his sons after him, and even
intercepted the funeral procession of al-Hasan - Leader of the Heaven’s youth -
and prevented his burial beside his grandfather, the Messenger of Allah, and said
“Do not allow anybody that I do not like to enter my house.”
[57]Sahih al
Tirmidhi
al Istiab,
Ibn Abd al Barr, Biography of Safiyya
[58]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 3 p 68
She
forgot, or maybe ignored the Messenger of Allah’s sayings about him and his
brother, “Allah loves those who love them, and Allah hates those who hate
them,” Or his saying, “I am at war with those who fight against you, and I am
at peace with those who appease you.” And there are many other sayings in their
honour. No wonder, for they were so dear to him!
She
heard many more sayings in honour of Ali, but despite the Prophet’s warning,
she was determined to fight him and agitate the people against him and deny all
his virtues. Because of that, the Umayyads loved her and put her in a high position
and filled the books with her virtues and made her the great authority for the
Islamic nation because she had half of the religion.
Perhaps
they assigned the second half of the religion to Abu Hurayrah, who told them
what they wanted to hear, so they bestowed on him various honours: they gave
him the governorship of al-Medinah, they gave him al-Aqiq palace and gave him
the title of “Rawiat al-lslam” - the transmitter of Islam. He made it easy for
the Umayyads to create a completely new religion which took whatever pleased
them and supported their interests and power from the Holy Qur’an and the
tradition of the Prophet. Inevitably, such a religion lacked any seriousness
and became full of contradictions and myths, hence most of the facts were
buried and replaced by lies. Then they forced the people to believe in these
lies so that the religion of Allah became a mere joke, and no one feared Allah
as much as they feared Muawiah. When we ask some of our scholars about
Muawiah’s war against Ali, who had been acknowledged by al-Muhajireen and
al-Ansar, a war which led to the division of Islam into Sunnis and Shiites and
left it scarred to this very day, they simply answer by saying, “Ali and
Muawiah were both good Companions, and both of them interpreted Islam in his
own way. However, Ali was right, therefore he deserves two rewards, but Muawiah
got it wrong, therefore, he deserves one reward. It is not within our right to
judge for them or against them, Allah- the Most High - said: “This is a people
that have passed away, they shall have what they earned and you shall have what
you earn, and you shall not be called upon to answer for what they did” (Holy
Qur’an 2:134).
Regrettably,
we provide such weak answers that neither a sensible mind nor a religion, nor
indeed a law would accept. O Allah, I am innocent of idle talk and of deviant
whims. I beg You to protect me from the devil’s touch.
How
could a sensible mind accept that Muawiah had worked hard to interpret Islam
and give him one reward for his war against the leader of all Muslims, and for
his killing of thousands of innocent believers, in addition to all the crimes
that he committed? He was known among the historians for killing his opponents
through feeding them poisoned honey, and he used to say, “Allah has soldiers
made of honey.”
How
could these people judge him as a man who worked hard to promote Islam and give
him a reward for that, when he was the leader of a wrong faction? There is a
well known Hadith of the Prophet, and most of the scholars agree its
authenticity, “Woe unto Ammar .. he will be killed by the wrong faction.” And
he was killed by Muawiah and his followers.
How
could they judge him as a promoter of Islam when he killed Hijr Ibn Adi and his
companions and buried them in Marj Adhra in the Syrian desert because they
refused to curse Ali ibn Abi Talib?
How could they judge him a just Companion when he killed al-Hasan,
leader of the Heaven’s youth, by poisoning him?
How
could they judge him as being correct after he had forced the nation to
acknowledge him as a caliph and to accept his corrupt son Yazid as his
successor, and to change the Shurah [consultative] system to a hereditary one?
[59]
How
could they judge him as a man who had worked hard to promote Islam and to
reward him, after he forced the people to curse Ali and Ahl al- Bayt, the
Family of the chosen Prophet, and killed those Companions who refused to do so,
and made the act of cursing Ali a tradition? There is no power but in Allah,
the Most High, the Great.
The
question crops up over and over again. Which faction was right, and which
faction was wrong? Either Ali and his followers were wrong, or Muawiah and his
followers were wrong, and the Messenger of Allah (saw) explained everything.
In both
cases, the proposition of the righteousness of all the Companions does not hold
ground and is incompatible with logic. There are many examples for all these
subjects. and if I want to study them in detail and discuss them for all their
aspects, then I would need volumes. But I wanted to be brief in this study so I
mentioned a few examples, but thank Allah, for they have been enough to refute
the claims of my people who froze my mind for a period of time, and prevented
me from looking at the Hadith (prophetic tradition) and the historical events
with an analytical view, using the intellect and the legal yard-sticks which
the Holy Qur’an and the honourable Prophet’s tradition taught us to do.
Therefore,
I shall rebel against myself and rid myself of the dust of prejudice with which
they engulfed me. I shall free myself from all the chains and fetters that I
have been tied with for more than twenty years, and say, “I wish my people knew
that Allah has granted me forgiveness and made me among the honourable people. I wish my people could discover the world they know nothing
about. but nevertheless oppose.”
I stayed
unsettled and perplexed for three months, even when I was asleep, my mind was
overwhelmed by doubts and fears about myself regarding the Companions whose
lives I was researching. I found many astonishing contradictions in their
behaviour, because throughout my life I had received an education based on the
respect and the veneration of those sages who would hurt anybody that spoke
badly about them or disrespected them in their absence, even if they were dead.
I had
read once in “Hayat al-Haywan al-Kubra” by alDamiri [60]: There was a man
riding in a Caravan with his friend, and during the journey he kept insulting
Umar, and his friend tried to prevent him from doing so. When he was in the
toilet, a black snake bit him, and he died immediately. When they dug his
grave, they found a black snake inside it; they dug another one, and the same
thing happened. Every time they dug a new grave, they found a snake inside it.
Then a learned man told them, “Bury him anywhere you wish, even if you dig the
whole earth, you will find a black snake. This is because Allah wants to
chastise him in this life before the hereafter, for insulting our master Umar.”
Thus,
while I was forcing myself through this difficult research, I felt fearful and
confused, especially as I had learnt in al-Zaytuna that the best caliphs were
Abu Bakr al-Siddiq then Umar ibn al-Khattab al-Farooq, whom Allah will use to
divide right from wrong. After that comes Uthman ibn Affan Dhul-Noorayn, from
whom the angels of the Merciful felt shy, and after him comes Ali ibn Abi
Talib, the gate to the city of knowledge. After these four come the remaining
six of the ten who were promised Paradise, and they are Talhah, al-Zubayr,
Sa’ad, Sa’eed, Abdul-Rahman, and Abu Ubaydah. After them come all the
Companions, and after we were recommended of the Holy Qur’anic verse “We do not
differentiate between any of His messengers” as a premise on which we should
base the assumption that we should not differentiate in our respect for all the
Companions.
Because
of that I feared for myself, and asked my Lord for forgiveness on many
occasions, and indeed I wanted to leave the issues that made me doubtful about
the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, and then made me doubtful about my
own religion.
During
that period, and throughout my conversations with a few learned people, I found
many contradictions that could not be accepted by sensible people, and then
they started to warn me that if I continued with my research about the
Companions, Allah would take His grace from me and finish me off.
Their
continuous stubbornness and their denial of whatever I said, coupled with my
scientific mind and eagerness to reach the truth, forced me to resume the
research, because I felt an inner force urging me to do so.
I said
to one of our scholars: When Muawiah killed the innocent and disgraced the
honourable, you judge him as being an interpreter of Islam who got it wrong,
and therefore has one reward. When
Yazid killed the descendants of the Messenger and authorized the sacking of
al-Medinah al-Munawwarah by his army, you judge him as an interpreter of Islam
who got it wrong, and therefore has one reward. Some of you even said about him
that “al-Husayn was killed by the sword of his grandfather.” Why should I not
then interpret Islam through this study, which is forcing me to doubt the
intentions of the Companions and to blow the cover of some of them. which would
not be equated with killings done by Muawiah and Yazid of the Prophet’s family?
If I am right I deserve two rewards, and if I am wrong, I would have only one
reward. However, my criticism of the Companions is not for the sake of
insulting them or cursing them, but it is a means through which I hope to reach
the truth. Who is the right group, and who is the wrong group. This is my duty
and the duty of each Muslim, and Allah - praise be to Him - knows what is
inside ourselves. The scholar then answered me, ‘ O my son, Ijtihad (the
interpretation of Islamic religion) has not been allowed for some time.”
l asked,
“Who disallowed it?”
I said
liberally, “Thanks be to Allah! Since neither Allah disallowed it, nor His
Messenger or the rightly guided caliphs, whom we are ordered to follow, then
there are no restrictions on me to interpret Islam, as they did.
He said,
“You may not interpret Islam unless you know seventeen disciplines, among them:
Tafsir [commentary on the Holy Qur’an], Linguistics, Grammar, Sarf
[Morphology], Rhetoric, Hadiths [ Prophetic traditions], History and others.”
I
interjected by saying, “My Ijtihad is not to show the people the rules of the
Qur’an and the Prophet’s tradition, or to be a religious leader of a new creed.
Nay! All that I want to know is who is right and who is wrong. For example, to
know whether Imam Ali was right or Muawiah, I do not need to master seventeen
disciplines. All I need to do is to study the life and works of each one of
them to know the truth.
He said,
“Why do you want to know all that?” “This is a people that have passed away;
they shall have what they earned and you shall have what you earn, and you
shall not be called upon to answer for what they did” [Holy Qur’an 2:134]
I asked,
“Do you read Tusaloon [the Arabic word for Questioned] with Dammah [the vowel
point upon the letter ta] or with Tasaloon with Fathah [the vowel] point a]?”
I said,
Thanks be to Allah, if it was with Fathah, then there would be no research. As
it is written with Dammah, then it means that Allah - praise be to Him - will
not make us accountable for what they have done, similarly, He, the Most High,
said,: “Each soul is pledged to what ever it has earned” [Holy Qur’an 74:38].
Also He
said: “There is nothing for man except what he has strived for.” [Holy Qur’an
53:39].
And the
Holy Qur’an urged us to know about the earlier nations and to learn lessons
from their histories. Also, Allah told us about the Pharaohs, Haman, Nimrod,
Quaroon, and about the early prophets and their nations, not for the sake of
pleasure, but to show us what is right and what is wrong. As for your question as to why I want to know all that? Because
it is important for me to know all that. Firstly, to know who is the friend of
Allah. so that I may befriend him, and to know who is the enemy of Allah, so
that I may oppose him, and that is what the Qur’an asked me, or indeed, ordered
me to do.
Secondly, it is important
for me to know how I should worship Allah and draw near to Him by obeying His
commands, in the way He - the Majesty - wants them to be, not as Malik or Abu Hanifah or
any other interpreter of Islam wants them to be.
I found
that Malik does not prefer the saying of “In the name of Allah the most
Merciful and the most Compassionate” during the prayers, whereas Abu Hanifah
considers it a “must”. Others say that the prayers are not valid without them.
Because prayers are a pillar of Islam, if accepted other deeds would be
accepted; but if they were rejected. other deeds would be rejected. Therefore,
I do not want my prayers to be invalid. The Shiites say that during the
ablution we must rub our feet with wet hands, whereas the Sunnis say that we
must wash them. But when we read the Holy Qur’an we find “rub your hands and
feet” which is clear about the rubbing. So how do you expect any sensible
Muslim to accept this and reject the other without research and analysis?”
He said,
“You can take what you like from each creed, because all of them are Islamic
creeds, and all of them came from the Messenger of Allah.”
“Have
you then considered him who takes his low desire for his god and Allah has made
him err having knowledge and has set a seal upon his ear and his heart and put
a covering upon his eye. Who can
then guide him after Allah? Will you not then be mindful?” [Holy Qur’an 45:23].
Sir, I
do not think that all the four lslamic religious schools (Madhahib) are
correct, as long as one of them allows something while the other forbids it;
and it does not seem logical for one thing to be allowed and frobidden
simultaneously. The Messenger of Allah (saw) did not question the rules of the
Holy Qur’an because they are revelation:
And if
it were from any other than Allah, they would have found in it many a
discrepancy. [Holy Qur’an 4:82].
Because
of the vast differences between the four religious Islamic schools, they cannot
be from Allah or from His Messenger, for the Messenger did not contradict the
Holy Qur’an.
When the
scholarly Shaykh found my argument logical and sound, he said, “I advise you,
for the sake of Allah, that no matter how doubtful you may be, do not doubt the
rightly guided caliphs, because they are the four pillars of Islam, if one of
them collapses, the whole building will collapse.”
I said,
“God forbid Sir, but what about the Messenger of Allah if those people were the
pillars of Islam?”
I smiled
when I heard his analysis, and said, “I ask Allah for forgiveness, yet again!
Sir, you are saying, indirectly, that the Messenger of Allah (saw) would not be
able to stand without the support of those four, whereas Allah - the Most High
says: “He it is Who sent His messenger with guidance and a true religion that
He may make it prevail over all the religions; and Allah is enough for a
witness” [Holy Qur’an 48:28].
He sent
Muhammad with the Message and did not involve any of the other four, or anybody
else, and Allah said with regard to this: “We have sent among you a messenger
from among you who recites to you Our communications and purifes you and
teaches you the Book and the wisdom and teaches you that which you did not
know.” [Holy Qur’an 2:151].
He said,
“That is what we have learnt from our religious leaders and teachers, and we
did not argue about what they taught us, as you the new generation do today.
You doubt everything, even the religion itself. This is one sign of the
nearness of the Hour - that is the Day of Judgement - and the Messenger of
Allah said: the Hour will come as a result of the evil in people.”
I said,
“Sir, why all this exaggeration? God forbid if I doubt the religion, I believe
in Allah, Who is
unique
and Has no partner. I believe in His angels, Books and Messengers. I believe in
our master Muhammad as His servant and Messenger, and that he is the best of all
the prophets and the last of the messengers, and that I am one of the Muslims.
So how could you accuse me of all that?”
He said,
“I accuse you of more than that, because you doubt our masters Abu Bakr and
Umar, and the holy Prophet said: If the faith of my nation and the belief of
Abu Bakr were put on a balance, the faith of Abu Bakr would have weighed
heavier. The holy Prophet also said in honour of Umar: I was shown my nation,
and each one of them was wearing a shirt that came to the chest, and I was shown
Umar and he was pulling his shirt. They said: O Messenger of Allah! How do you
interpret this? He said: The Religion.
And you
come today, in the fourteenth century (Hijri) and doubt the righteousness of
the Companions and especially Abu Bakr and Umar. Don’t you know that the people
of Iraq are the people of disunity, blasphemy and hypocrisy!”
What
could I say to this man who claimed knowledge and scholarship, and who became
so arrogant that he changed a well structured dialogue into a disordered talk
full of lies and propaganda. He said it in front of people who admired him, and
I noticed that their faces lit up with excitement and evil.
I
quickly went home and brought back two books, “al-Muwatta of Imam Malik” and
“The Sahih of al-Bukhari”. Then said, “Sir, what made me doubt Abu Bakr was the
Messenger of Allah himself.” I opened al-Muwatta and read: He said to the
martyrs of Uhud, “Those, I bear witness against.” Abu Bakr then said, “O
Messenger of Allah, are we not their brothers? Did we not become Muslims as
they did? Did we not fight as they did?”
On
hearing that, Abu Bakr cried bitterly and said, “We are going to alter many
things after your departure.” [61]
[61]Muwatta,
Malik, vol 1 p 307
After
that I opened the “Sahih” of al-Bukhari and read: Once Umar ibn al-Khattab came
to Hafsah and found with her Asma bint Umays. When he saw her, he asked, “Who
is she?” Hafsah answered, “Asma bint Umays.” Umar said, “Is she that
Ethiopian?” Asma replied, “Yes.” He said, “We emigrated [that is to say from
Mecca to Medinah] before you, so we are more entitled to the Messenger of Allah
than you.” She became very angry, then she said, “No, by Allah, you were with
the Messenger of Allah, who fed your hungry people and advised the ignorant
among you; whereas we were in a foreign land, in Abyssinia, for the sake of
Allah and His Messenger, and whenever I ate or drank anything, I remembered the
Messenger of Allah (saw) and we were hurt, and we were frightened. By Allah I
will mention this to the Prophet without Iying, adding anything or deviating
from the subject.” When the Prophet came, she said, “O Prophet of Allah, Umar
said such and such.” He asked, “What did you say to him?” She answered, “Such
and such.” He said, “I am not more entitled to him than to you.” He and his
companions had one emigration, but you, people of the ship, had two
emigrations.” She said, “I found Abu Musa and the people of the ship coming to
me in groups and asking me about the Hadith, very much delighted with what the
Prophet (saw) had said to them.” [62]
After
having read the Hadiths, the looks on the faces of the scholarly Shaykh and
that of the audience changed. They looked at each other and waited for the
scholar, who was too shocked at what he had heard, to reply. All he did was to
raise his eye brows, as a sign of astonishment and then said, “O my God grant
me more knowledge.”
I said,
“If the Messenger of Allah (saw) was the first to doubt Abu Bakr, and did not
bear witness against him, because the Messenger did not know what would happen
after him; and if the Messenger of Allah did not approve of the preference of
Umar over Asma bint Umays, but indeed preferred her to him; then it is within
my right to doubt and not to have a preference for anybody until I know the
truth. Evidently, these Hadiths contradict and nullify all the known Hadiths in
favour of Abu Bakr and Umar, because they are more realistic than these which
mention their alleged virtues.”
The
audience said, “How could that be?” I said, “The Messenger of Allah (saw) did
not bear witness against Abu Bakr and said: I do not know what they will do
after me! This sounds very reasonable. History has proved that, and the Holy
Qur’an and history bear witness that they did change after him. Because of that
Abu Bakr cried for he changed and angered Fatimah al-Zahra, daughter of the
Messenger as we explained before, and he changed until he repented and wished
that he was not a human being. As for the Hadith: If the faith of my nation and
the faith of Abu Bakr were put on balance, the faith of Abu Bakr would weigh
heavier”, it is invalid and implausible. It is not
possible for the faith of a man, who spent forty years of his life believing in
polytheism and worshipping idols, to be greater than the faith of the entire
nation of Muhammad, which has many God-fearing and pious people and martyrs and
Imams, who spent all their lives fighting for the sake of Allah.
How
could Abu Bakr fit into this Hadith? If it was true, he would not, in later
life have finished that
he was
not a human being. Further, if his faith was greater than the faith of the
entire nation of Muhammad, Fatimah, the daughter of the Messenger of Allah and
the leading lady, would not have been angry at him or asked Allah to punish him
in each prayer she prayed.”
doubtful”. Then the scholar said to me, “Is that what you wanted?
You have made these people
doubt their religion.” It sufficed me that a man from the audience
replied by saying, “No, he is right.we have not read a whole book in our life,
we followed you blindly and without any argument, and now it appears to us that
what al-Hajj has been saying is right, and it is our duty to read and
research!” Other people agreed with him, and that was a victory for truth and
justice. It was not victory by force, but by logical deduction and proof. Allah
says: “Say, bring your proof, if you are telling the truth” [Holy Qur’an
27:64].
That is
what encouraged me to undertake the study and opened the door for me, so I
entered it in the name of Allah by Allah and tracing the footsteps of the
followers of the Messenger of Allah. I hope that Allah, praise be to Him, the
Most High, grants me success and enlightenment, for He promised to enlighten
anyone who searches for the truth, and He does not break His promises.
The
study went on for three years, because I often re-read the books, right from
the first page to the last.
I read
“al-Muraja’at” by Imam Sharaf al-Din several times, since it opened new
horizons for me and enlightened me and pleased me for the love and the
fellowship of Ahl al-Bayt.
I read
“al-Ghadeer” by Shaykh al-Amini three times because of the clear cut facts it
contained. I also read Fadak in History” by al- Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr
and al-Saqifah” by Shaykh Muhammad Rida al-Muzaffar, which explained so many
vague issues.
I read
“al-Nass wal Ijtihad” - the Text and the Interpretation - and became more
convinced. Then I read “Abu Hurayra” by Sharaf al-Din and Shaykh al-Mudira” by
Shaykh Mahmud Abu Rayyah al-Misri, and learnt that the Companions who changed
after the departure of the Messenger of Allah were two types. The first,
changed the rules. because of its power and authority. The second, changed the
rules by attributing false Hadiths to the Messenger of Allah.
I read
lmam al-Sadiq the four Madhhabs” by Asad Haydar and learnt about the
differences between gifted knowledge and acquired knowledge. I also learnt
about the differences between Allahs wisdom which He grants to whom He pleases,
and the intrusion on knowledge and the belief of personal interpretation (of
Islam) which kept the nation away from the spirit of Islam.
I read
more books by al-Sayyid Ja’far Murtada al-Amili, and al-Sayyid Murtada
al-Askari, and Al Sayyid Al-Khusi,and al-Sayyid al-Tabatabai, and Shaykh
Muhammad Amin Zain al-Din, and al-Fayroozabadi, and Ibn Abi al-Hadid
al-Mu’tazili in his commentary on “Nahj al-Balagha”, and Taha Husayn’s
“al-Fitna al-Kubra”.
From the
history books I read the following Annals written by al-Tabari, Ibn al-Athir,
al-Masudi and al-Ya’qubi. And I read more, until I became convinced that the
Shia Imamiyya were right.
Thus,
with the help of Allah, I boarded Ahl al-Bayt’s ship and sought their
fellowship, because I found - thanks be to Allah - the alternative to the
Companions, who, to the best of my knowledge, regressed and only a few of them
were saved.
I
exchanged them for the Imams of Ahl al-Bayt, the Prophet’s Family, whom Allah
cleansed and purified and made it our duty to seek their fellowship.
The
Shiites are not, as some of our religious scholars claim, the Persians and the
Magus whose power and glory were destroyed by Umar in al-Qadisiyyah war, and
that is why they hate them!
restricted
to the Persians, for there are Shiites in Iraq, Hijaz, Syria, Lebanon, and all
of them are
Arabs.
In addition to that, there are Shi’tes in Pakistan, India, Africa, America, and
all of those are
neither
Arabs nor Persians.
If we
confine ourselves to the Shiites of Iran, the issue becomes clearers because I
found that the Persians believe in the leadership of the twelve Imams, all of
whom were Arabs from Quraysh from Bani Hashim, the family of the Prophet(saw).
If the Persians were prejudiced and hated the Arabs, as some people claim, they
would have been taken Salman al-Farisi as their Imam, for he was a great
Companion and respected by both Shiites and Sunnis. On the other hand I found
that most of the leading Sunni Imams were Persians, such as Abu Hanifa,
al-Nisa’i, al-Tirmidhi, al-Bukhari, Muslim, Ibn Maja, al-Ghazali, Ibn Sina,
al-Farabi and many others. If the Shiites were all Persians who rejected Umar
ibn al-Khattab because he destroyed their power, then how can we explain the
rejection of the Arabs who were not Persians? Therefore, this is an illogical
claim.
These
people refused Umar because of his role in excluding the Commander of the
Believers, Ali
ibn Abi
Talib, from the caliphate after the departure of the Messenger of Allah, and
because of the
tragic
civil wars and decline of this nation. It is high time that the truth was
unveiled to everv
free-thinking
scholar so that he may refute the allegation without any prior animosity. It is true that
the Shiites, whether they were Arabs or Persians or any other
nationality, followed closely the Qur’anic Texts and the tradition of the
Messenger of Allah and his Family, and refused to accept the alternative despite the oppressive
policies of the Umayyads and later the Abbasids for seven centuries. During
that period, they pursued the Shiites everywhere; they killed them, they made
them homeless, they denied them their rightful grants. they removed their
cultural and intellectual heritage and they spread all sorts of rumours about
them in order to keep people away from them. The legacy of these policies is still felt up to the present
day.
However,
the Shiites stood their ground, remained patient and took the blame for their
commitment to Allah and they are paying the price of their defiance to this
very day. I challenge any of our religious scholars to enter a debate with
their religious scholars without coming out of it overwhelmed by their
enlightened way.
Yes, I
found the alternative, and thanks be to Allah Who guided me to this. because I
would not he there without His Guidance. Thanks and praise be to Allah Who led
me to the saved group, for which I was eagerly searching.
·
the
link to Allah. There are many sayings by the Messenger of Allah agreed by all
Muslims, which bear witness to that. The sensible mind is, perhaps, the best
proof for anybody who is prepared to listen. Ali was the most knowledgeable
companion and certainly the bravest, as the
entire
nation testified. This is a sufficient condition to support the lawful claim of
Ali, alone and no
one
else, to the succession of the caliphate.
Allah
the Most High said: ‘And their prophet said to them, “Surely Allah has raised
Talut to be a king over you. “ They said, “How can he hold kingship over us
while we have a greater right to kingship than him, and he has not been granted
an abundance of wealth?” He said, “Surely Allah has chosen him in preference to
you, and He has increased him abundantly in knowledge and physique, and Allah
grants His kingdom to whom He pleases, and Allah is Ample giving, knowing.”
[Holy Qur an 2:247].
And the
Messenger of Allah said. “Ali is from me, and I
am from Ali, and he is the master of every believer after me.” [63]
[63]Sahih,
al Tirmidhi, vol 5 p 296
Khasai’s,
al Nisai, p 87
Mustadrak,
al Hakim, vol 3 p 110
Al-Zamakhshari
said in some of his poetry:
Doubt
and differences have increased. Every one claims that he is the right way. But
I have committed myself to: there is no other god but Allah. and my love to
Ahmed (Muhammad) and Ali. A dog
won the love of the companions of the cave, how could I be ever distressed with
the love of the Prophet’s Family.
Yes I
found the alternative, praise be to Allah. and I became a follower of - after
the Messenger of Allah - The Commander of the Believers, master of all
guardians, leader of the chosen elite, the victorious lion of Allah Imam Ali
ibn Abi Talib; and the two masters of Heaven’s youth, and the Prophet’s two
followers, Imam Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Zaki, and Imam Abu Abdullah al-Husayn;
and the daughter of al-Mustafa (Muhammad), mother of the Imams. the essence of
the Message, she, for whom Allah feels angry if she is angered. the most
honourable lady Fatimah al-Zahra.
I have
changed Imam Malik for the leader of all Imams, and teacher of the nation, Imam
Ja’far al-Sadiq.
I have
committed myself to the nine infallible men from the posterity of al-Husayn,
Imams of all Muslims and the good friends of Allah. I have changed the
Companions who turned back on their heels, like Muawiah, Amr ibn al-As,
al-Mughira ibn Shu’ba, Abu Hurayra, Ikrima, Ka’b al-Ahbar and others, for the
grateful Companions who never broke the promise they gave to the Prophet, like
Ammar ibn Yasir, Salman al-Farisi, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, al-Miqdad ibn al-Aswad. Khuzayma ibn Thabit - Dhu
al-Shahadetain - and others, and praise be to Allah for this enlightenment.
I have
changed the religious leaders of my people, who discouraged us from thinking
and whose majority followed the rules and the sultans, throughout time. I
changed them for the devoted religious leaders of the Shia who never closed the
opportunity for studying and interpreting Islam, and who neither rose to oppose
nor submitted to the oppressive rulers.
Yes, I
changed dogmatic beliefs, full of contradictions for new enlightened and
liberal ones based on logical deductions and reasoning.
As they
say now a days “I have washed my brain” of the dirt that had accumulated over
thirty years; lies of the Umayyads. I purified it with the ideology of the infallibles,
those whom Allah cleansed and purified. I have done that for the remainder of
my life.
O Allah
... please let us live our lives following their footsteps, and let our nation
follow their tradition, and gather us with them, for Your Prophet (saw) said:
Man is placed together with those whom he loves.
Thus I
have returned to my origin. For my father and uncles used to talk to us about
our family tree. and often told us that we were from al-Sada (plural of Sayyid:
a descendant of the Prophet) who escaped from Iraq under Abbasid pressure and
found refuge in North Africa until they settled in Tunisia where their marks
remain up to the present day. There are many people like us in North Africa who
are descendants from the purified posterity, and are called “Sada”, but they
went astray through the oppression of the Umayyads and the Ahbasids, and now
they have nothing of the truth except the people’s respect for them. Priase be
to Allah for his guidance ... and praise be to Allah for my enlightment and for
opening my eyes to see the truth.
The
reasons behind my enlightenment are many, but I shall only mention a few of
them here:
I have committed myself, before embarking on this study, to never
depending on any reference unless it is considered authentic by the two
parties, and to discarding those references that are solely referred to by only
one of the parties.
Thus, I
shall investigate the idea regarding the preference between Abu Bakr and Ali
ibn Abi Talib, and that the succession of the caliphate was by written text
[Dictate] for Ali, as the Shiites claim, and not by election and Shura
[consultation] as the Sunnis claim.
Any
researcher in this subject, if he considers nothing but the truth, will find
that the text in support
of Ali
is very clear, like the following saying by the Messenger of Allah: Whoever
considers me his
master,
then Ali is his master. He said it at the end of the Farewell Pilgrimage, when
it was
confirmed
that Ali would succeed, and many people congratulated him on that, including
Abu Bakr
and Umar
who were among the well-wishers, and who were quoted as having said to the
Imam,
Well
done, Ibn Abi Talib, overnight you have become a master of all the believers.”
[64]
[64]Musnad,
Ahmed Hanbal, vol 4 p 281
Siyar al
Amin, al Ghazali, p 12
Tadhkirat
al Awas, Ibn al Jawzi, p 29
Al Riyadh
al Nazarah, al Tabari, vol 2 p 169
al Bidayah
wan Nihayah, vol 5 p 212
Tarikh,
Ibn Asakir, vol 2 p 50
Tafsir, al
Razi, vol 3 p 63
al Hawi
lil Fatawi, al Suyuti, vol 1 p 112
This
text has been agreed on by both Shiites and Sunnis, and in fact I have only
referred in this study to some Sunni references. and not to all of them, for
they are so many.
If the
reader wants more information, he may read “al- Ghadir” by al-Amini (thirteen
Volumes) in which the writer classifies the sayings of the Prophet according to
the Sunnis.
As for
the alleged popular election of Abu Bakr on “The Day of al-Saqifah” and his
subsequent acclamation in the mosque; it seems that it was just an allegation
without foundation. How could it be by popular agreement when so many people
were absent during the acclamation? People like:
Ali,
al-Abbas, most of the house of Bani Hashim, Usama ibn Zayd, al-Zubayr, Salman
al-Farisi, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, al-Miqdad ibn al-Aswad, Ammar ibn Yasir,
Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman, Khuzayma ibn Thabit, Abu Burayd al-Aslami, al-Bura ibn
Azib, Abu Ka’b, Sahl ibn Hanif, Saad ibn Ubada, Qays ibn Saad, Abu Ayyub
al-Ansari, Jabir ibn Saad, Khalid ibn Saad, and many others. [65]
[65]Tarikh,
al Tabari
Ibn al
Athir
Suyuti
Baghdadi
So where
was that alleged popular agreement? The absence of Ali alone from the
acclamation is sufficient to criticize that meeting because he was the only
candidate for the caliphate, nominated by the Messenger of Allah, on the
assumption that there was no direct text regarding such a nomination.
The
acclamation of Abu Bakr was without consultation, in fact it took the people by
surprise, especially when the men in charge of the Muslim affairs were busy
preparing for the funeral of the Messenger of Allah. The citizens of al-Medinah
were shocked by the death of their Prophet, and then they forced the
acclamation [66] on the people. and even threatened to burn the house of Fatima
if those who were absent from the acclamation refused to leave it. So how could we say that the acclamation was implemented
through consultation and popular agreement?
[66]Tarikh,
Qutaybah, vol 1 p 18
Umar ibn
al-Khattab himself testified that that acclamation was a mistake - may Allah
protect the Muslims from its evil -, and that whoever repeated it should be
killed, or he might have said that if someone called for a similar action there
would he no acclamation for him or for those who acclaimed him. [67]
Imam Ali
said about that acclamation: By Allah, Ibn Abi Quhafa has got it! And he knows
that my position [regarding the caliphate] is like that of the pole in relation
to the millstone! The torrent flows from me, and the bird will never reach me!
[68]
[68]Sharh,
Muhammad Abduh, vol 1 p 34, Sermon as Shaqshaqiyah
Saad ibn
Ubada, a prominent man from al-Ansar, attacked Abu Bakr and Umar on the day of
“al-Saqifah”, and tried hard to keep them away from the caliphate, but could
not sustain his efforts, for he was ill and unable to stand, and after al-Ansar
paid homage to Abu Bakr, Saad said: “By Allah I shall never pay homage to you
until I cast my last arrow at you, and pierce you with my lance, and attack you
with my sword, with all the power in my hand, and fight you with all the
members of my family and clan. By Allah, even if all the Jinns [invisible
beings] and the human beings gathered to support you, I will never acclaim you,
until I meet my God.” He never prayed with them, he never sat in their company,
he never performed the pilgrimage with them, and if he found a group of people
willing to fight them, he would give them all his support, and if somebody
acclaimed him to fight them, he would have fought them. He remained thus until
he died in Syria during the caliphate of Umar. [69]
[69]Tarikh,
Qutaybah, vol 1 p 17
If that
was a mistake (may Allah protect the Muslims from its evil) as Umar put it (and
he was one of its architects, and knew what happened to the Muslims as a result
of it), and if that succession to the caliphate was illegal (as Imam Ali
described it when he said that he was the lawful nominee for it), and if that
acclamation was unjust (as according to Saad ibn Ubada the leader of al-Ansar
who left al-Jamaah because of it), and if that acclamation was unlawful due to
the absence of the leading figures of the Companions, including al-Abbas, the
uncle of the Prophet, so what is the evidence and proof which supports the
legality of the Abu Bakr’s succession to the caliphate?
Therefore,
what the Shiites say regarding this issue is right, because it has been
established that the
Sunnis
have the text which proves the succession of Ali to the caliphate, but they
deliberately misinterpret it to maintain the Companion’s honour. Thus, the just
and fair person has no choice but to accept the text, especially if he knows
the circumstances that surrounded the case. [70]
[70]al
Saqifah wal Khulafah by Abdul Fattah Abdul Maqsood
al Saqifah
by Muhammad Rida al Muzaffar
The
subject is agreed upon by the two parties, and the fair and sensible person has
no choice but to judge Abu Bakr as being wrong, that is if he did not admit his
injustice and bad treatment of the leading lady.
Anyone
who cares to follow the events of that tragedy and studies its various facts
will recognize that Abu Bakr deliberately hurt al-Zahra and denied her argument
so that she could not protest against him - supported by the texts of al-Ghadir
and others - regarding the lawful right for her husband and cousin to the
succession of the caliphate. There are many indications that have been mentioned
by historians which lead us to believe in accounts of these events, this is one
of them:
Al-Zahra
- may Allah’s peace be upon her - went arround the meeting places of al-Ansar,
asking for support for her cousin and husband and they said, “O daughter of the
Messenger of Allah, we have already acclaimed that man, and if your husband and
cousin had approached us before him, we would have supported him.” Ali - may
Allah honour his face - said, “Would I leave the Messenger of Allah (saw) in
his house unburied and go to argue with people about his authority?” Fatimah
said, “Abu al-Hasan did what was expected from him, and for what they did Allah
will hold them responsible and accountable.” [71]
[71]Tarikh,
Qutaybah, vol 1 p 19
If Abu
Bakr was wrong, either unintentionally or through good-will, Fatimah al-Zahara
would have persuaded him; but she was angry with him, because he refused to
accept her argument and rejected her testimony and the testimony of her
husband. She became so angry, she even prevented him in her will from being
present at her funeral. When she died, her husband buried her secretly during
the night. [72]
[72]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 3 p 36
As for
her secret burial (as) during the night, it is worth mentioning here, that
during my years of research and investigation, I went to al-Medinah to check
for myself certain points, then I discovered the following:
Firstly,
the grave of al-Zahra is unknown and nobody knows exactly where it is; some say
it is in the Prophet’s chamber, others say it is in her house opposite the
Prophet’s chamber, and there are people who think that it might be in al-Baqi’,
in the midst of Ahl al-Bayt’s graves.
This is the first fact that I deduced: al-Zahra (as) wanted the
Muslims, through generations to come, to know why she asked her husband to bury
her secretly during the night, and that not one of them attend her funeral !
Thus, every Muslim could reach certain interesting facts when researching into
historical events.
Secondly,
I discovered that the visitor who wants to visit Uthman ibn Affan’s grave has
to go a long way until he reaches the end of al-Baqi’, and there he finds it by
a wall. By contrast, he will find the burial places of most of the Companions
at the beginning of al-Baqi’, near the entry. Even Malik ibn Anas, the famous
jurist, who was a follower of the Followers, is buried near the burial places
of the Messenger’s wives. It became clear to me what the historians meant when
they said that he was buried in “Hash Kawkab”. which was Jewish land, because
the Muslims refused to bury him in the Baqi’ of the Messenger of Allah. When
Muawiya seized power, he bought that land from the Jews and included it in
al-Baqi’, so that it contains the grave of his cousin Uthman. He who visits
al-Baqi’ today will see this fact very clearly.
It is
astonishing to know that Fatimah al-Zahra (as) was the first of the Prophet’s
children to die after him, and at the most there were six months between the
departure of the father and his daughter, and despite that, she was not buried
beside her father.
Fatimah
al-Zahra, as I mentioned earlier, stated in her will that she should be buried
secretly, therefore, she was not buried beside her father. But what about her
son, al-Hasan, why was he not buried beside his grandfather? Aisha (Umm
al-Mumineen) prevented that. When al-Husayn brought his brother to bury him by
his grandfather, the Messenger of Allah, Aisha rode a mule and went around
saying, “Do not bury someone I do not love in my house.” Then, the houses of
Bani Umayya and Hashim stood opposite each other ready to fight, but al-Husayn
told her that he would only take the coffin of his brother around the grave of
their grandfather then he would bury him in al-Baqi’. That was because Imam
al-Hasan requested from his brother, that no blood should be shed for his sake.
Ibn Abbas said a few verses regarding this event:
“She
rode a camel [73], she rode a mule [74], if she had lived longer, she would
have ridden an elephant, you have the ninth of the eighth, and you took
everything.”
[73]With
reference to her mounting the Camel during the War of the Camel.
[74]With
reference to her mounting the mule on the day when she prevented the burial of
al
This is another interesting fact: How could Aisha inherit
everything, when the Prophet had nine wives? Ibn Abbas transmitted to us: If
the Prophet was not to leave any inheritance, and Abu Bakr bore witness to that
and prevented al-Zahra from inheriting anything from her father, how then could
Aisha? Is there any text which states that the wife could inherit, but not the
daughter? Or was it perhaps politics that changed everything, so it denied the
daughter everything, and gave the wife everything?
It is
worth mentioning here a story related to the subject of inheritance that has
been cited by many historians:
Ibn Abi
al-Hadid al-Mutazili said in his commentary on Nahj al-Balagha: Aisha and Hafsa
came to see Uthman, during his caliphate, and asked him to give them their
shares of what they had inherited from the Messenger of Allah (saw). Uthman was
stretched on the sofa, so he sat up and said to Aisha: You and that woman
sitting next to you brought a man who cleansed himself with his urine and
testified that the Messenger of Allah (saw) said, “We, the prophets, do not
leave an inheritance.” If the Prophet truly did not leave any inheritance, why
do you ask for it now, and if he left an inheritance, why did you deprive
Fatimah of her legal share? After that, she left him feeling very angry and
said: Kill Na’thal, for he has become an unbeliever. [75]
[75]Sharh
of Nahj al Balagha, Ibn al Hadid, vol 16 p 220-223
One of
the reasons which led to my enlightenment and ultimately made me leave the
tradition [Sunna] of my forefathers was the comparison between the positions of
Ali ibn Abi Talib and that of Abu Bakr, based on logical deductions and
historical references.
As I
started in earlier parts of this book, I only included in my research the
references which have been agreed on by both, the Shiites and the Sunnis.
I
searched in the books of both parties and found that only Ali received total
support, and both Shiites and Sunnis agreed on his leadership in accordance
with the texts they approved of.
However there is neither support nor agreement on the leadership of Abu
Bakr except by a small group of Muslims, and we have mentioned what Umar said
about his succession to the caliphate.
Furthermore. there are many virtues and good deeds attributed to Ali ibn
Abi Talib by the Shiites and cited as authentic references in the Sunni books.
The sayings are full of the virtues of Ali, more than any other Companion ever
received, and even Ahmed ibn Hanbal said: No one among the Companions of the
Messenger of Allah (saw) had more virtues than Ali ibn Abi Talib. [76]
[76]al
Mustadrak, al Hakim, vol 3 p 107
al Manaqib,
al Khawarizmi, p 3 and 9
Tarikh,
Suyuti, p 168
al Sawaiq al
Muhriqah, Ibn Hajar, p 72
Tarikh, Ibn
Asakir, vol 3 p 63
Shawahid at
Tanzil, al Haskani al Hanafi, vol 1 p 19
Qadi
Ismail, al-Nasa’i and Abu Ali al-Naisaburi said: No Companion had as many
virtues attributed to him as Ali. [77]
[77]al
Riyadh al Nazarah, Tabari, vol 2 p 282
al Sawaiq al
Muhriqah, p 118, 72
We
notice that the Umayyads tried hard to force people to curse him and insult him
and not to mention any of his virtues, and even they prevented anybody from
being named after him, but despite all that hatred, his virtues and good deeds
(as) continued to spread.
Regarding
that Imam al-Shafi’i says: I am surprised about a man whose virtues were kept
secret by his enemies, out of envy, and were kept secret by his followers, out
of fear, but nevertheless, an enormous amount of them spread.”
As for
Abu Bakr, I searched in the books of the two parties, and found that the
virtues attributed to him by the Sunnis were much less than that attributed to
Ali. The virtues of Abu Bakr that have been mentioned in historical books were
narrated either by his daughter Aisha, whose position vis-a-vis Ali is well
documented, and she tried hard to support her father, even by fabricating
sayings, or by Abdullah ibn Umar, who was never close to Ali, and he was one of
those who refused to pay homage to Ali despite the popular support he had
received. Abdullah ibn Umar used to say that the best people after the Prophet
were Abu Bakr then Uthman, and after that everybody was equal [78]. Thus, he
made Imam Ali like any other ordinary person, without preferences or virtues.
[78]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 2 p 202
What was
Abdullah ibn Umar’s attitude towards the facts that had been mentioned by the
leading personalities of the nation that “No companion had as many virtues
attributed to him as Ali”. Had Abdullah ibn Umar not heard about even one of Ali’s
virtues? Yes, by Allah, he had heard and understood, but political intrigues
tend to distort the facts.
The
virtues of Abu Bakr were also mentioned by Amr ibn al-‘As, Abu Hurayrah, Urwa
and Ikrima, and all of them hated Ali and fought him either with arms or by
plotting against him and attributing virtues to his enemies.
Ahmed
ibn Hanbal said, “Ali had many enemies who searched hard to find a fault
attributable to him, but they could not, so they brought a man whom Ali
had-fought and battled with, and praised him because of their hatred towards
Ali.” [79]. But Allah said: “Surely they will make a scheme, and I too will
make a scheme so glad the unbelievers a respite: let them alone for a while”
[Holy Qur’an 86:15-17].
[79]Fath
al Bari (Sharah al Sahih Bukhari), vol 7 p 83
al
Sawaiq al Muhriqah, p 125
It is a
miracle from Allah - praise be to Him - that the virtues of Imam Ali spread
after six centuries
of
oppression and injustice against him and Ahl al-Bayt, and the Abbasids were not
less evil than their predecessor the Umayyads in their treatment of Ahl
al-Bayt. The poet Abu Firas al-Hamdani wrote the following verses:
What
Banu Harb have done to them is nothing in comparison to what you did to them,
How many
times have you clearly violated the Religion?
And how
much of the Prophet’s [family’s] blood Has been spilt by you?
You
pretend to be his followers, but on your hands Is the blood of his purified
sons.
After
having finished with all these sayings, and having came out from the darkness,
I leave the last judgement to Allah, and there will be no more excuses from the
people after all that.
Despite
the fact that Abu Bakr was the first caliph, and had all the power and
authority, despite the bribes and gifts that the Umayyads gave to every one who
praised Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman, and despite all the alleged virtues and good
deeds that they invented for Abu Bakr, which filled many books ... despite all
that, they did not amount to a fraction of the true virtues of Imam Ali.
Furthermore,
if we analyze the alleged sayings that were in favour of Abu Bakr, we find them
incompatible with the historical facts, and no sensible man or creed could
accept them. Earlier on we explained the saying attributed to the Prophet: “If
the faith of Abu Bakr and the faith of my nation is put on the balance, the
faith of Abu Bakr will be heavier”.
If the
Messenger of Allah was aware of this high degree of faith in Abu Bakr, he would
not have appointed Usama to command the army; nor would he have refused to bear
witness for him as he did for the martyrs of Uhud, and then said to him that he
did not know what he was going to do after him”, so that Abu Bakr [80] cried.
In addition to that, the Prophet would not have sent Ali ibn Abi Talib to take
“Surat Bara’a” from him and prevented him from transmitting it. [81]
[80]Muwatta,
Malik,. vol 1 p 307
Maghazi,
al Waqidi, p 310
[81]Sahih,
al Tirmidhi, vol 4 p 339
Musnad,
Ahmed Hanbal, vol 2 p 319
Mustadrak,
al Hakim, vol 3 p 51
Nor
would the Prophet have said in Khayber while presenting the flag: “Tomorrow I
will give my flag to a man who loves Allah and His Messenger, ever going
forward and never retreating, Allah had tested his heart with the faith” then
he gave it to Ali and no one else. [82]
[82]Sahih,
Muslim (Chapter on the virtues of Imam Ali (as))
If Allah
knew that Abu Bakr had such a high degree of faith, and that his faith exceeded
the faith of all Muslims, Allah - praise be upon Him - would not have had to
threaten him that He would spoil his work when he raised his voice above the
Prophet’s voice. [83]
[83]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 4 p 184
If Ali
and the Companions who followed him knew that Abu Bakr had this high degree of
faith, they would not have hesitated to pay homage to him. If Fatimah al-Zahra,
the leading lady, knew that Abu Bakr had this high degree of faith, she would
not have been angry with him, nor would she have refused to talk to him or
return his greetings, or cursed him in her prayers [84], and even banned him -
according to her will - from attending her funeral.
[84]al
Imamah was Siyasah, Qutaybah, vol 1 p 14
He who
had such a degree of faith, and whose faith was greater than the faith of all
Muslims. would not have regretted,
in the last moments of his life, his attitude towards Fatimah, and his burning
of al-Fuja’ah al-Salami and his succession to the caliphate [85]. Also, he
would not have wished not to be a human being but to be a hair or animal
droppings. Is this man’s faith equal to, or even greater than the faith of the
entire Islamic nation?
[85]Tarikh,
Tabari, vol 4 p 52
al Imamah wa
Siyasah, vol 1 p 18
Let us
consider the saying: If I was taking a close companion, I would have chosen Abu
Bakr. This saying is like the
previous one. Where was Abu Bakr on the day of the small Brotherhood” in Mecca
before the Hijra, and on the day of the great Brotherhood” in Medinah after the
Hijra; when in both of them the Messenger of Allah (saw) chose Ali as his
brother then said to him, You are my brother in this life and in the Hereafter”
[86] and did not turn to Abu Bakr, thus depriving him of the brotherhood in the
Hereafter and from the close companionship. I do not wish to go on about this
subject, and it is sufficient to bring the above mentioned examples which I
have found in the Sunni books. As for the Shiites, they do not recognize these
sayings at all, and they have their own clear proof that they were invented
some time after the death of Abu Bakr.
[86]Tadhkirat
al Khawass, Sibt ibn al Jawzi, p 23
Tarikh,
Ibn Asakir, vol 1 p 107
al
Manaqib, al Khawarizmi, p 7
Al Fusul
al Muhimmat, Ibn al Sagh al Maliki, p 21
If we
leave the virtues aside and concentrate on the sins, we will never find a single
sin committed by Ali that has been mentioned in historical books (both Shiite
and Sunni), whereas we find that many other people have committed sins and were
mentioned in the Sunni books such as al-Sihah, the various books Sirah and
annals.
Thus, we
find total agreement from both parties regarding Ali alone, also historical
facts point out that the correct acclamation was for Ali alone.
He
abstained, but the Muhajireen and Ansar insisted on his acclamation; then when
he was finally nominated, some people refused to pay homage to him, but he
never forced them to change their minds.
On the
other hand we find that the acclamation of Abu Bakr was a “mistake” - as Umar
ibn al-Khattab put it - “may Allah protect the Muslims from its evil.” The
acclamation of Umar was based on a promise given to him by Abu Bakr. The
acclamation of Uthman was a historical comedy: Umar nominated six people for
the caliphate and told them to choose one candidate, and said if four agreed
and two disagreed, then the two should be killed, however, if the six were
divided into two equal camps, then the camp which was supported by Abdul Rahman
ibn Awf should be considered. but if after a certain time passed and no
agreement had been reached, the whole six should be killed. The story is long
and rather strange, but the important thing is that Abdul Rahman ibn Awf chose
Ali on the condition that he should rule in accordance with the Book of Allah
[the Qur’an] and the tradition of His Messenger and the tradition of the two
Shaykhs: Abu Bakr and Umar. Ali refused these conditions but Uthman accepted
them, so he became caliph. Ali came out from the conference of the acclamation
and knew in advance the result, and talked about it in his famous speech known
as al-Shaqshaqiyya.
After
Ali, Muawiya took over the caliphate and changed it to a hereditary system
within Bani Umayya, and after them came Bani al- Abbas where the caliphs
succeeded one after the other either by personal nomination [from the previous
caliph] or by means of force and seizure of power. From the beginning of the
Islamic era until Kamal Ataturk - who abolished the Islamic caliphate - there
has been no correct acclamation [87] except that for the Commander of the
Believers Ali ibn Abi Talib.
[87]i.e
by the consensus of the Muslims
The
prophetic traditions which persuaded me to follow Imam Ali were those I have
read in the Sihahs of the Sunnis and were approved by the Shiites, and they
have many more. But as usual I only referred to the prophetic traditions that
have been agreed on by both parties, and here are some of them:
A. The Prophetic tradition: “I am the city of
Knowledge and Ali is its gate.”
This
tradition [88] alone should be sufficient to indicate the example that has to
he followed after the Messenger of Allah (saw) because the educated man ought
to be followed.
[88]Mustadrak,
al Hakim, vol 3 p 127
Tarikh,
Ibn Kathir, vol 7 p 358
Allah
- the Most High - said:
Say: “Are those who know and
those who do not know alike?”
[Holy Quran 39:9]
He also
said:
“Is He then Who guides to the truth more worthy to be followed,
or he who himself does not go aright unless he is guided? What then is the
matter with you; how do you judge?” [Holy Quran 10:35]
History
has recorded many facts telling us that Ali was the most knowledgeable man
among all the Companions and they used to consult him on every important
matter, and we do not know of any event in which he declined to give his
advice.
Abu Bakr
said, “May Allah never put me in a predicament that Abu al-Hasan cannot solve.
“ And Umar said, “If it was not for Ali, Umar would have perished.” [89]
[89]al
Isti’ab, vol 3 p 39
al
Riyadh al Nadirah, vol 2 p 194
And Ibn
Abbas said, “My knowledge and the knowledge of the Companions of Muhammad(saw)
is but a drop in seven seas if compared with Ali’s knowledge.”
And this
is what Imam Ali said about himself, “Ask me before you lose me. By Allah, if
you ask me about anything that could happen up to the Day of Judgement, I will
tell you about it. Ask me about the Book of Allah, because by Allah there is no
[Qur’anic] verse that I do not know whether it was revealed during the night or
the day, or whether it was revealed on a plain or on a mountain.” [90]
[90]al
Riyadh al-Nadirah, vol 2 p 198
Tarikh,
Suyuti, p 124
al Itqan,
Suyuti, vol 2 p 319
Fath al
Bari, vol 8 p 485
Tadhib al
Tadhib, vol 7 p 338
Abu Bakr
was once asked about the meaning of the word “Abb” [herbage] in the words of
Allah, the Most High:
“And
fruits and herbage, A provision for you and for your cattle” [Holy Quran
80:31-32]
Abu Bakr
replied, “Which sky would give me shade, and which land would carry me if I say
something I do not know about the Book of Allah.” And this is Umar saying. “All
people are more knowledgeable than I am, even women.” He was once asked about
the meaning of a Qur’anic verse, and his reaction was to rebuke the man and
beat him until he bled, then he said, “Do not ask about matters which may
appear bad to you.” [91]
[91]Sunan,
al Darimi, vol 1 p 54
Tafsir,
Ibn Katheer, vol 4 p 232
Tafsir,
Suyuti, vol 6p 111
Also he
was asked about “al-Kalalah” but he did not know what it meant.
In his
“commentary”, al-Tabari stated that Umar once said the following, “My knowledge
of al-Kalalah is more valuable to me than owning a palace similar to those in
Syria.”
In one
of his books, Ibn Maja quoted Umar as saying “There are three things, if they
were explained by the Messenger of Allah, I would have loved them more dearly
than anything in the world: Al-Kalalah, usury and the caliphate.” God forbid
that the Messenger of Allah stayed silent on these subjects!
B. The Prophetic tradition: O Ali! You hold
in relation to me the same position as Haroon held in relation to Moses, except
that there shall be no prophet after me.
This
tradition, as should be apparent to every sensible person, shows the special
quality of the Commander of the Believers, Ali, which made him the right person
to be the supporter, the guardian and the deputy [or successor] of the
Messenger of Allah as Haroon was the supporter, guardian and deputy of Moses
when he went to meet his God. There is also the position of Ali vis-a-vis the
Prophet which is absolutely equal to the relation between Haroon and Moses,
except for the prophethood, which was excluded in the same tradition.
Furthermore,
we find in the tradition the fact that Imam Ali was the best Companion, who
only came second after the Messenger of Allah (saw).
C. The
Prophetic tradition: Ali is the master of all those of whom I am master. O
Allah! Love him who loves him and hate him who hates him, help him who helps
him, forsake him who forsakes him, and turn justice with him wherever he turns.
of all
the faithful. It is of no consequence for whoever tried to interpret the saying
as the friend or
the support
in order to divert it from its original meaning so that the integrity of the
Companions may be kept intact. The Messenger of Allah stood up in the terrible
heat addressing the people, saying, “Do you witness that I have a prior right
to and superior authority over all the faithful?” They replied, “Yes, O
Messenger of Allah. “ Thereupon he said, “Ali is the master of all those whom I
am a master. . . etc.” This is a clear text indicating that the Messenger of
Allah had appointed Ali as his successor to lead the nation [of Islam], and the
fair and sensible person could not but accept this interpretation and refuse
that of the others, thus preserving the integrity of the Messenger of Allah
before preserving the integrity of the Companions. Those who give an
alternative interpretation to the saying are in fact ridiculing the wisdom of
the Messenger of Allah, who gathered the multitude of people, in that
unbearable heat, to tell them that Ali was the friend and supporter of the
faithful. And what do those, who misinterpret the text in order to preserve the
integrity of their masters, say about the procession of congratulation that the
Messenger of Allah organised for Ali? It started with the wives of the
Messenger, the mothers of the faithful, then Abu Bakr and Umar came and said to
him, “Well done Ibn Abi Talib, Overnight you became the guardian [master] of
all the faithful.”
In fact
all the historical evidence gives clear indications that those who misinterpret
the above tradition are liars. Woe to those who wrote what they wrote, and woe
to them for what they are writing. Allah - the Most
High - said. “...a party of them most surely conceal the truth while they know
it” [Holy Qur’an 2:146].
D. The Prophetic
tradition: Ali is from me and I am from Ali and no one can discharge my duty
except myself or Ali.
This honourable tradition [92] is another clear indication that
Imam Ali was only one whom the Messenger authorized to discharge his duties.
The Messenger said it on the day of the great pilgrimage when he sent Ali with
Surat Bara’a instead of Abu Bakr, who came crying and asked, “O Messenger of
Allah ! Reveal something for me.” The Messenger answered, “My Lord ordered me
that nobody can discharge my duty except myself or Ali.”
[92]Sunan,
Ibn Majah, vol 1 p 44
Khasais, al
Nasai, p 20
Sahih, al
Tirmidhi, vol 5 p 300
Jami al
Usul, Ibn Kathir, vol 9 p 471
al Jami al
Saghir, al Suyuti, vol 2 p 56
al Riyadh
al Nadirah, Tabari, vol 2p 229
There is
another supporting tradition that the Messenger of Allah, said on another
occasion in honour of Ali, “O Ali! You will show them the right path when there
will be dissension among them after me.” [93] If nobody could discharge the
Messenger of Allah’s duty except Ali, and if he was the one who would show them
the right path after dissension appeared among them after him; then how could a
person who did not know the meaning of “al-Abb” and “Kalalah” be more senior to
Ali? This is sadly one of the tragedies that have been inflicted on our nation
and prevented it from doing the duties that Allah has chosen for it. We could
not blame Allah or the Messenger of Allah or the Commander of the Believers Ali
ibn Abi Talib for that, but the blame falls squarely on those who rebelled and
changed, and Allah - the most High - said: “And when it is said to them, “Come
to what Allah has revealed and to the Messenger. They say, “That on which we
found our fathers is sufficient for us. “ What! Even though their fathers knew
nothing and did not follow the right way” [Holy Qur’an 5:104].
[93]Tarikh,
Ibn Askir, vol 2 p 488
E. The Prophetic tradition of the House on
the day of Warning.
The
Prophet of Allah (saw) said, indicating Ali. This is my brother, my trustee and
my deputy [caliph] after me, so listen to him and obey him.” [94]
al Sirah
al Halabiyah, vol 1 p 311 Shawahid al Tanzil, vol 1 p 371 Kanz al Ummal, vol 15
p 15 Tarikh, Ibn Asakir, vol 1 p 85 Tafsir, Ala al Din al Shafi’i, vol 3 p 371
The Life of Muhammad by Hasanyn Haykal, First Edition (Section on: And admonish
your nearest, your kinsmen)
This is
yet another correct tradition cited by many historians at the beginning of the
prophetic mission, and considered as one of the Prophet’s miracles. However,
political intrigues distorted the facts. Then there is no wonder that the
oppression which took place then is coming back again in our lifetime. For
example, Muhammad Husayn Haykal reproduced the saying in its entirety in his
book “The Life of Muhammad”, (Page 104, First Edition 1334 Hijri). From the
Second Edition onward, the part of the tradition where the Prophet says, “He is
my trustee, my deputy [caliph] after me” has been removed.
Also, in
al-Tabari’s commentary [Tafsir], Volume 19. Page 121, when the Prophet says “My
trustee and my deputy [caliph]” was changed to “This is my brother etc. etc”,
but they failed to recognize that al-Tabari had cited the tradition in its
entirety in his Annals Volume 2, Page 319. Look how they change the words and distort the facts ...
they want to put out the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah is
spreading His light.
During
my investigation I wanted to see the truth, so I searched for the first edition
of “The Life of Muhammad”. and after some hard work - praise be to Allah -
found it, although it cost me considerably. The important thing is that I
looked at the distortion and became convinced that the evil people are trying
the best they can do to remove the facts. because there is strong evidence in
the hands of their “enemies”.
When the fair investigator comes across such a blatant
distortion, he will no doubt begin to keep away from them and become convinced
that they have no evidence except lies and distorted facts. They hire writers to whom they give
money, titles and false university degrees in order to write for them books and
articles through which they insult the Shiites and accuse them of blasphemy,
while at the same time they defend the position, even if it is unjust, of some
of the Companions who turned on their heels and exchanged right for wrong after
the departure of the Messenger of Allah.
Allah
says: “Even thus said those before them, the like of what they say; their
hearts are all alike.
Indeed We
have made the verses clear for a people who are sure.” [Holy Quran 2:118]
The
correct Prophetic Traditions which indicate the fact that it is
Compulsory
to follow the Ahl al Bayt
1. The Prophetic tradition of the two
weighty things
O People, I leave amongst you two things which if you follow, you
will never go astray. They are the Book of Allah and my Ahl al-Bayt [family].
He also said: The messenger of my God is about to come to me and
I shall answer. I am leaving with you the two weighty things: The first is the
Book of Allah, in which you find guidance and enlightenment, and the people of
my household. I remind you, by Allah, of the people of my household... I remind
you by Allah of the people of my household.” [95]
[95]Sahih,
Muslim, Chapter on the Virtues of Imam Ali (as), vol 5 p 122
Sahih, al
Tirmdhi, vol 5 p 328
Mustadrak,
al Hakim, vol 3 p 148
Musnad,
Ahmed Hanbal, vol 3 p 17
If we
examine with some care this honourable tradition, which has been cited by the
Sihahs of the Sunnis and al-Jamaah, we will find that the Shiites alone followed the two weighty things: “The Book
of Allah and honourable members of the Prophet’s Household”. On the other hand,
the Sunnis and al-Jamaah followed the saying of Umar “The Book of Allah is
sufficient for us”, but I wish they had followed the Book of Allah without
interpreting it in their own ways. If Umar himself did not understand the
meaning of al-Kalalah and did not know the Qur’anic verse regarding the
Tayammum and other rules, so how about those who came later and followed him
without the ability to interpret the Qur’anic texts?
Naturally
they will answer me with their own quoted saying, and that is: “I have left
with you the Book of Allah and my tradition [Sunnah].” [96]
[96]The
saying is cited in al Nisa’i, al Tirmdhi, Ibn Majah and Abu Dawood
This
tradition, if it were correct - and it is correct in its general meaning -
would correspond to the
tradition
of the two weighty things, because when the Prophet(saw) talked about his
Household
(Ahl al-
Bayt) he meant that they should be consulted for two reasons. Firstly, to teach
the
tradition
[Sunnah], or to transmit to people the correct tradition because they are
cleared from
telling
any lies, and because Allah - praise be to Him - made them infallible in the
purification verse.Secondly, to explain and interpret the meanings and aims of
the tradition, because the Book of Allah is not enough for guidance. There are
many parties who claim to follow the Qur’an but in actual fact they have gone
astray, and the Messenger of Allah said, “How many are the readers of the
Qur’an whom the Qur’an curses!. The Book of Allah is silent and could be
interpreted in various ways, and it contains what is vague and what is similar,
and to understand it we have to refer to those who are well endowed with
knowledge as regards the Qur’an, and to Ahl al-Bayt, as regards to the
Prophet’s traditions.
The
Shiites referred everything to the infallible Imams of Ahl al-Bayt [the
Prophet’s Household], and they did not interpret anything unless it had a
supporting text.
We refer
in every case to the Companions, whether it concerns Qur’anic commentary or the
confirmation of the Sunnah and its explanation, and we know about the
Companions and their interpretations and their personal opinions vis-a-vis the
clear texts, and there are hundreds of them, so we cannot rely upon them after
what they have done.
If we
ask our religious leaders, “Which Sunnah do you follow?” They answer
categorically, “The Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah!”
But the
historical facts are incompatible with that, for they claim that the Messenger
of Allah said, “Take my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs
after me. Hold firmly to it.” But the Sunnah they follow is often the Sunnah of
the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and even the Messenger’s Sunnah which they claim to
follow is in fact transmitted by those people.
However,
we read in our Sihahs that the Messenger of Allah prevented them from writing
his Sunnah so that it was not confused with the Qur’an. Abu Bakr and Umar did
the same thing during their caliphate, we therefore have no proof for the
saying, “I left you my Sunnah” [97]
[97]The
term ‘my Sunnah’ does NOT appear in all the six sihahs. It appears in al
Muwatta by
Malik
ibn Anas, some of the subsequent writers, such as al Tabari and Ibn Hisham
referred to the saying as transmitted by Malik.
The
examples that I have cited in this study - besides many that I have not
mentioned - are enough to refute this saying, because there are elements in the
Sunnah of Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman which contradict and negate the Prophet’s
Sunnah, as is so apparent.
The
first incident that took place immediately after the death of the Messenger of
Allah, which the Sunnis as well as the historians recorded, was the argument
between Fatimah al-Zahra and Abu Bakr regarding the alleged saying, “We, the
prophets, do not leave an inheritance, all that we leave behind should go to
charity.”
Fatimah
denied and refuted this saying, with the support of the Book of Allah, and
protested against Abu Bakr’s allegation and said that her father, the Messenger
of Allah, could not contradict the Book of Allah which was revealed to him, for
Allah - praise be to Him the Most High - said:
‘-Allah enjoins you
concerning your children. The male shall have the equal of the portion of two
females ... “ (Holy Qur’an 4:11).
She also
protested with the following words of the most High: “And Sulaiman was Dawood’s
heir” (Holy Qur an 27:16), and both of them were prophets.
Allah -
Glory be to Him - also said: “... Grant me from Thyself an heir, who should
inherit from me and inherit from the children of Yaqub, and make him, my Lord,
one with whom You are well pleased” (Holy Qur’an 19:5-6).
The
second incident that involved Abu Bakr during the early days of his caliphate,
which the Sunni historians recorded, was his disagreement with the nearest of
all people to him, Umar ibn al-Khattab. The incident evolves around Abu Bakr’s
decision to fight those who refused to pay Zakat [alms] and kill them, but Umar
protested and advised him not to fight them because he had heard the Messenger
of Allah saying: I have been ordered to fight the people until they say, “There
is no other god but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” And he who
says it can keep his wealth to himself and I have no right to his [blood], and
he is accountable to Allah.
This is
a text cited by Muslim in his Sahih: “The Messenger of Allah (saw) gave the
flag to Ali on the Day of Khayber, and Ali said, “O Messenger of Allah, what am
I fighting them for?” The Messenger of Allah replied, “Fight them until they
testify that there is no other god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger
of Allah, and if they do that then they will prevent you from killing them and
taking their wealth, except by justice, and they will be accountable to Allah.”
[98]
[98]Muslim,
Sahih, vol 8 p 151
But Abu
Bakr was not satisfied with this tradition and said, “By Allah, I will fight
those who differentiate between the prayers and Zakat because Zakat is justly
charged on wealth.” And also said, “By Allah if they refuse me a rope which
they used to give to the Messenger of Allah. I will fight them for it.” After that
Umar ibn al-Khattab was satisfied and said, “As soon as I saw Abu Bakr
determined I felt very pleased. “
I do not
know how Allah could please somebody who is preventing the tradition of the
Prophet. This interpretation was
used to justify their fight against Muslims although Allah had prohibited
making war against them, and Allah said in His Glorious Book:
O You
who believe! When you go to war in Allah’s way, make investigation, and do not
say to any one who offers you peace, “You are not a believer.” Do you seek the
goods of this world’s life? But with Allah there are abundant gains, you too
were such before, then Allah conferred a benefit on you; therefore make
investigation surely Allah is aware of what you do” (Holy Qur’an 4:94) .
Those
who refused to give Abu Bakr their Zakat did not deny its necessity, but they
only delayed it to investigate the matter. The Shiites say that these people
were surprised by the succession of Abu Bakr, and some of them had been present
with the Messenger of Allah at the Farewell Pilgrimage and had heard the text
in which he mentioned Ali ibn Abi Talib. Therefore they decided to wait for a
while until they obtained a clarification as to what had happened, but Abu Bakr
wanted to silence them lest they spoke the truth. Because I do not reason with
nor protest against what the Shiites say, I will leave this issue to somebody
who is interested in it.
However,
I should not forget to note here that the Messenger of Allah (saw) had an
encounter with Tha’alabah who asked him repeatedly to pray for him to be rich
and he promised Allah to give alms. The Messenger of Allah prayed for him and
Tha’alabah became so rich that his sheep and camels filled al-Medinah, and he
started to neglect his duties and stopped attending the Friday Prayers. When
the Messenger of Allah sent some officials to collect the Zakat, he refused to
give them anything saying that it was a Jiziah [head tax on free non-Muslims
under Muslim rule] or similar to it, but the Messenger of Allah did not fight
him nor did he order his killing, and Allah revealed the following verse about
him:
“And
there are those of them who made a covenant with Allah. If He gives us out of
His Grace, we will certainly give alms and we will certainly be of the good.
But when He gave them out of His Grace, they became niggardly of it and they
turned back and they withdrew”(Holy Qur’an 9:75-76).
After
the revelation of the above Quranic verse. Tha’alabah came to the Messenger of
Allah crying and asked him to accept his Zakat, but the Messenger of Allah
refused to accept it, according to the story.
If Abu
Bakr and Umar were following the tradition of the Messenger why did they allow
the killing of all these innocent Muslims just because they refused to pay the
Zakat?
As for
those apologists who were trying to correct Abu Bakr’s mistake when he
interpreted the Zakat as a just tax on wealth, there is no excuse for them nor
for Abu Bakr after considering the story of Tha’alabah who with held the Zakat
and thought of it as “Jiziah”. Who knows, perhaps Abu Bakr persuaded his friend
Umar to kill those who refused to pay the Zakat because otherwise their call
would have spread throughout the Islamic world to revive al-Ghadir’s text in
which Ali was confirmed as successor [to the Messenger of Allah]. Thus Umar ibn
al-Khattab wanted to fight them, and it was he who threatened to kill and burn
those who remained in Fatimah’s house in order to extract the acclamation from
them for his friend.
The
third incident which took place during the early days of Abu Bakr’s caliphate
in which he found himself in disagreement with Umar, and for which certain
Qur’anic and Prophetic texts were interpreted, was that of Khalid ibn al-Walid
who killed Malik ibn Nuwayrah and took his wife and married her on the same day.
Umar said to Khalid, O enemy of Allah, you killed a Muslim man, then you took
his wife ... by Allah, I will stone you.” [99]
[99]Tarikh,
Tabari, vol 3 p 280
Tarikh, al
Yaqubi, vol 2 p 110
Tarikh, al
Fida, vol 1 p 158
al Isabah
fi Marifat as Sahabah, vol 3 p 336
But Abu
Bakr defended Khalid, and said, “O Umar, forgive him, he made a mistake, but do
not rebuke him.”
This is
another scandal that history has recorded for a prominent Companion, and when
we talk about him, we talk with respect and reverence, we even gave him the
title ‘The ever drawn sword of Allah.” What can I say about a Companion who did
all that? Who killed Malik ibn Nuwayrah, the honourable Companion, leader of
Bani Tamin and Bani Yarbu, famous for his courage and generosity, and furthermore
the historians tell us that Khalid killed Malik and his followers after they
put down their arms and stood together to pray. They were tied by ropes and
with them was Leyla bint al-Minhal, wife of Malik, who was considered to be one
of the most beautiful Arab ladies of her time, and Khalid was captured by her
beauty. Malik said, “O Khalid, send us to Abu Bakr and he will be our
judge.”And Abdullah ibn Umar together with Abu Qutadah al-Ansari intervened and
urged Khalid to send them to Abu Bakr, but he refused and said, “Allah will
never forgive me if I do not kill him.”
Malik
then turned to his wife Leyla and said, “This is the one who will kill me.”
After that Khalid ordered his execution and took his wife Leyla and married her
that very night. [100]
[100]Tarikh,
al Fida, vol 1 p 158
Tarikh,
al Yaqubi, vol 2 p 110
Tarikh,
Ibn al Shinanah, vol 11 p 114 (On the margin of al Kamil, vol 2 p 114)
What can
I say about those Companions who trespassed on what Allah deemed to be
forbidden; they killed Muslims because of personal whims and permitted
themselves to have women that Allah had forbidden us to have. In Islam, a widow
cannot be wed by another man before a definite period of time had elapsed, and
this period of time has been specified by Allah in His Glorious Book. But
Khalid followed his whims and debased himself, for what would this period of
time [’Iddah] mean to him after he had already killed her husband and his
followers despite the fact that they were Muslims. Abdullah ibn Umar and Abu
Qutadah have testified to this, and the latter became so angry about Khalid’s
behaviour that he returned to al-Medinah and swore that he would never serve in
an army led by Khalid ibn al-Walid. [101]
[101]Tarikh,
Tabari, vol 3 p 280
As we
are talking about this famous incident, it is worth looking at what Haykal said
in his book “al-Siddiq Abu Bakr” in a chapter entitled “The opinion of Umar and
his reasoning on the subject matter”: Umar, who was an ideal example of firm
justice, saw that Khalid had dealt unjustly with another Muslim man and took
his widow before the end of her [’Iddah], therefore he should not stay in
command of the army. So that no such incident would be repeated again and spoil
the affairs of the Muslims and give them a bad name amongst the Arabs, he said,
“It is not right to leave him unpunished after his affair with Leyla.”
Let us
suppose that it was right that he passed a judgement on Malik but got it wrong,
which was something Umar would not permit, what he had done with his widow
alone would have meant that he had to be brought to justice. Furthermore, being
the “sword of Allah” and the commander of the victorious army, did not give him
the right to do what he had done, otherwise people like Khalid would abuse the
law. Worse still, they would be bad examples for all Muslims on how to respect
the Book of Allah. Thus Umar kept the pressure on Abu Bakr until he recalled
Khalid and rebuked him.” [102]
[102]Al
Siddiq al Akbar, Haykal, p 151
May we
ask Mr. Haykel and his like from our scholars, who would compromise in order to
preserve the honour of the Companions: Why did Abu Bakr not bring Khalid to
justice? And if Umar was an ideal example of firm justice, as Haykel puts it,
why did he only remove him from the command of the army, and not bring him to
justice so that he would not be a bad example for all Muslims of how to respect
the Book of Allah, as he said. And did they respect the Book of Allah and
discharge the laws of Allah? Nay! It was politics! It does wonders, it changes
the truth and throws the Qur’anic texts over the wall.
Some of
our scholars tell us in their books that the Messenger of Allah (saw) once
became very angry when Usamah tried to mediate on behalf of an honourable woman
accused of stealing, and the Messenger said, “Woe unto you! Do you mediate
about one of the laws of Allah? By Allah if it was Fatimah the daughter of
Muhammad, I would cut her hand. He destroyed those before you because they
would let the thief go if he was an honourable person, but would bring him to
justice if he was a weak one.” How could they be silent about the killing of
the innocent Muslims, and the marriage of their widows on the same night
despite the tragic loss of their husbands? I wish they had remained silent !
But they try to justify Khalid’s misdeed by inventing various virtues for him,
they even called him “The ever drawn sword of Allah” I remember being surprised
by a friend of mine, who used to like joking and changing the meaning of the
words, when I mentioned the virtues of Khalid ibn al-Walid during my days of
ignorance and called him “The ever drawn sword of Allah”. He replied, “He is
the crippled sword of the devil!”
I was
surprised then, but after my research, Allah has opened my eyes and helped me
to know the true value of those who seized the caliphate, changed the laws of
Allah and violated the boundaries of Allah.
him on a
mission to Bani Judhaymah to call them to Islam, but did not order him to fight
them. But
they did
not declare their Islam very well, instead they said, “We are turning to... we
are turning [to
Islam]”.
As a result Khalid started to kill them and took prisoners from them, and
pushed them towards his friends whom he ordered to kill those prisoners. But
some of his friends refused to do what they were told because they realized
that these people had been truly converted to Islam, and they went back and
told the Prophet what had happened. He said. “O Allah I am innocent of Khalid’s
deed.” He said it twice [103], then sent Ali ibn Abi Talib to Bani Judhaymah
with money to pay compensation for their dead and for the loss of their wealth,
even down to a dog. The Messenger of allah stood up and faced the Qiblah [the
direction of al- Ka’ba] and raised his hands to the sky then said, ‘O Allah, I
am innocent of Khalid’s deed three times”. [104]
[103]Sahih,
Bukhari, vol 4 p 171
[104]Sirah,
Ibn Hisham, vol 4 p 53
Tabaqat, Ibn
Sa’d
Usud al
Ghabah, vol 3 p 102
May we ask
where the alleged fairness of the Companions, which these people claim to have
had
is ? If
Khalid ibn al-Walid who is considered to be one of our greatest military
leaders was the
sword of
Allah, does that mean that Allah drew his sword to kill the innocent Muslims
and to
violate
the integrity of people? There is a clear contradiction here, because Allah
forbids the killing
of human
beings and prohibits the committing of vile deeds, but Khalid seems to have drawn
the sword of injustice to kill innocent Muslims and to confiscate their wealth
and to take their women.
There is
a blatant lie and a clear deception. Praise and thanks he upon You, our God ...
Blessed be You the Most High ... Praise be upon You, You did not create the
skies and the earth and what is in between them unjustly. These are the doubts
of those who blaspheme. Woe to those who committed blasphemy, for Hell is
awaiting them. How did Abu Bakr, who was the caliph of the Muslims, allow
himself to listen to all these crimes and be silent about them? Moreover he
asked Umar to stop attacking Khalid and was very angry at Abu Qutadah because
he protested strongly about Khalid’s action. Was he convinced that Khalid had
passed a judgement but got it wrong? What excuse could be given to those
corrupt criminals who violated human integrity and claimed to have passed
judgement. I do not think that Abu Bakr was trying to pass judgement on Khalid
who Umar ibn al-Khattab called “The enemy of Allah”. Umar thought that Khalid
should be killed because he had killed an innocent Muslim, or be subjected to a
hell of stones because he had committed adultery with Leyla, the widow of
Malik. But nothing like that happened to Khalid, rather he defeated Umar
because he had the full support of Abu Bakr who knew the whole truth about
Khalid more than anybody else. Historians have recorded that after this
terrible misdeed, Abu Bakr sent Khalid on a mission to al-Yamamah, from which
he came out victorious and subsequently married a girl from there in the same
way as he had Leyla, before the blood of those innocent Muslims and the blood
of the followers of Musaylama had dried. Later, Abu Bakr rebuked him about what
he had done and used stronger words than those he used during the affair of
Leyla [105]. Undoubtedly, this girl’s husband was killed by Khalid who took her
for himself, in the same way as he had Leyla, the widow of Malik. It must have
been so, otherwise Abu Bakr would not have rebuked him using stronger words
than the previous event. The historians mention the text of the letter which
Abu Bakr sent to Khalid ibn al-Walid in which he said, “O Ibn Umm Khalid. Upon
my life you are doing nothing but marrying women, and in the yard of your house
there is the blood of one thousand two hundred Muslims yet to dry!” [106]. When
Khalid read the letter, he commented, “This must be the work of al-A’sar”
meaning Umar ibn al-Khattab.
[105]Al
Siddiq al Akbar, Haykal. p 151
[106]Tarikh,
Tabari, vol 3 p 254
These
are the strong facts that made me shun these types of Companions, and their
followers who support them and defend them eagerly and invent various texts and
stories to justify the deeds of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Khalid ibn al-Walid,
Muawiyah, Amr ibn al-As and their brethren. O Allah! I am innocent of the deeds
and the sayings of those people who opposed Your rules, violated Your
prohibitions and trespassed on Your territories. I am innocent of their
followers and their supporters despite their full knowledge of the latter’s
misdeeds. Forgive me for my previous support for them because I was ignorant
and Your Messenger said, “He who does not know [the
ignorant] cannot be excused for his ignorance.”
O Allah!
Our leaders have led us astray and veiled the truth from us and presented us
with distorted pictures of those renegade Companions and led us to believe that
they were the best people after Your Messenger. There is no doubt that our
forefathers were victims of the deception and the intrigues of the Umayyads and
later the Abbasids.
O Allah!
Forgive them and forgive us hecause You know what is in our inner souls. They
loved and respected those Companions out of goodwill assuming that they were
supporters of Your Messenger, may Your blessings and peace be upon him and upon
those who love him. You know, my Lord their and our love for the purified
family, the Imams whom You cleansed and purified. and at their head. the master of all Muslims. the Commander
of the Believers, chief of the singularly radiant, Imam of all those who fear
Allah. our lord Ali ibn Abi Talib.
O Allah
! Let me be one of their followers who have committed themselves to their cause
amd followed their path. Let me be on their ship and help me to hold on to
their strong link. Let me enter their doors and assist me in dedication to
their love, help me to follow their words and their deeds, and let me be
grateful to their virtues. O Allah! Let me be with them, for Your Prophet (saw)
said, “Man is assembled together [on the day of Judgement] with those whom he
loves.”
2. The Prophetic tradition of the Ship
Behold!
My Ahl al-Bayt are like the Ark of Noah, whoever embarked in it was saved, and
whoever turned away from it was drowned. [107]
[107]Mustadrak,
al Hakim, vol 3 p 151
Yanabi
Muwaddah, Qundoozi Hanafi, p 30, 370
al Sawaiq
al Muhriqah, Ibn Hajar, p 184, 234
Majmaa
al-Zawaed, al-Haithami, v9, p168
He also
said,
My Ahl
al-Bayt are like the Gate of Repentance of the children of Israel; whoever entered
therein was forgiven. [108]
[108]1.
Majmaa al-Zawaed, al-Haithami, v9, p168
2. al-Sawaeq al-Muhriqa, ibn Hajar
al-Haithami, p193
also
in:
3. Noor al-Absar, al-Shiblinji
4. al-Ifrad, al-Darqutni
Ibn
Hajar cited the above tradition in his book “Al-Sawa’iq al-Mahriqa” and gave
the following commentary: The idea behind comparing them with the Ark [ship] is
to say that whoever loves them and reveres them as a sign of his gratitude for
their graces, and whoever is guided by their learned people, will be saved from
the darkness of contradictions. On the other hand whoever decides to stay
behind, will sink in the sea of ingratitude and will be destroyed in the
wilderness of tyranny. The reason for comparing Ahl al-Bayt with the Gate of
Repentance is that Allah - the Most High - made the Gate of Repentance [the
Gate of Jericho or Jerusalem] a sign of His forgiveness. Similarly, Ahl al-Bayt
are the means of Repentance for this nation.
I
wish I could ask Ibn Hajar if he was one of those who went on board the ship
and entered the door and was guided by the religious leaders [Ulama], or was he
one of those who order what they do not do in practice. and contradict their
belief. There are many of those unfair people when I ask them or argue with
them they say. “We are in a more favourable situation vis-a-vis Ahl al-Bayt and
lmam Ali than others, we respect and appreciate Ahl al Bayt and nobody can deny
their graces and their virtues.”
Yes,
they say with their tongues what is not in their hearts, or they respect them
and appreciate them but follow and imitate their enemies who fought them and
contradicted them, or even perhaps on many occasions do not know who Ahl
al-Bayt are, and if you ask them who Ahl al-Bayt are, they answer you
immediately, “they are the Prophet’s wives from whom Allah kept the dirt away
and purified them.” When I addressed the question to one of those people, he
solved the puzzle by giving me the following answer, “All the Sunni people and
al-Jama’ah follow Ahl al-Bayt.” I was surprised and said, “How could that be?”
He answered, “The Messenger of Allah said that we should take half of our
religion from this Humayra, meaning Aisha, therefore we took half of the
religion from Ahl al-Bayt.”
On
this basis one could understand their respect and appreciation for Ahl al-Bayt,
but when you ask them about the twelve Imams they would only know Ali, al-Hasan
and al-Husayn from them, and they would not accept the Imamate of al-Hasan nor
al-Husayn. Besides, they respect Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan who poisoned al-Hasan
and killed him [they call Muawiyah “The writer of the Revelations”], and they
also respect Amr ibn al-As in the same way as they respect Imam Ali.
This
is nothing but contradictions and confusion and an attempt to cover the right
with the wrong and the light with darkness. For how could the heart of the
believer contain the love of Allah and the devil at the same time, and Allah
said in His Glorious Book: “You shall not find a people who believe in Allah
and the Latter day befriending those who act in opposition to Allah and His
Messenger, even though they were their (own) fathers, or their sons or their
brothers or their kinsfolk; these are they into whose hearts He has impressed
faith and whom He has strengthened with an inspiration from Him: and He will
cause them to enter gardens beneath which rivers flow abiding therein; Allah is
well-pleased with them and they are well-pleased with Him; these are Allah’s
party: now surely the party of Allah are the succesful ones. (Holy Qur’an
58:22).
Allah also said: “O You who believe! Do not take My enemy and
your enemy for friends. Would you offer them love while they deny what has come
to you of truth?” (Holy Qur’an 60:1).
3.
The Prophetic tradition: “He who wishes to live like me.”
The
Messenger of Allah (saw) said: “Who ever wishes to live and die like me, and to
abide in the Garden of Eden after death should acknowledge Ali as his patron
and follow Ahl al-Bayt after me, for they are my Ahl al-Bayt and they have been
created out of the same knowledge and understanding as myself. Woe unto those
followers of mine who will deny the Ahl al-Bayt their distinctions and who will
disregard their relationship and affinity with me. May Allah never let them
benefit from my intercession.” [109]
[109]Mustadrak,
al Hakim, vol 3 p 128
Kanz al
Ummal, vol 6 p 155
al
Manaqib, Khawarizmi, p 34
Yanabi al
Muwaddah, p 149
Tarikh,
Ibn Asakir, vol 2 p 95
Hilyat al
Awlia, vol 1 p 86
Al Jami al
Kabir, al Tabrani and
al Isabah,
Ibn Hajar
As you can
see, the above tradition is one of those clear sayings which do not require any
interpretation,
nor indeed gives any scope for the Muslims to choose, rather, it eliminates any
excuse. If
he does not follow Ali and acknowledge Ahl al-Bayt, the Prophet’s Family he
will be
deprived
of the mediation of their grandfather, the Messenger of Allah (saw). It is
worth noting
here
that at the early stage of my research, I felt doubtful about the authenticity
of this tradition and
I thought
it carried a great threat to those who are not in agreement with Ali and Ahl
al-Bayt,
especially
when the tradition does not allow any scope for interpretation. I became rather
worried
when I
read the book “Al- lsabah” in which Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani gives the following
commentary
on the
tradition: “. . .I based the tradition on what Yahya ibn Ya’la al-Muharibi had
said, and he is
feeble.”
In fact Ibn Hajar removed some of the doubt that remained in my minds for I
thought that
Yahya ibn
Ya’la al-Muharihi fabricated the tradition and could not be a reliable
transmitter. But
Allah -
Praise be to Him the Most High - wanted to show me the whole truth. I read a
hook
entitled
Ideological discussions on the writings of Ibrahim al-Jabhan [110]. This book
clarified the
situation
and it became apparent to me that Yahya ibn Ya’la al-Muharibi was a reliable
transmitter
of Hadith
and the two Shaykhs, Muslim and al-Bukhari. depended on what he transmitted. I
myself
followed his case and found that al-Bukhari cited a few traditions transmitted
by him
regarding
the batttle of al-Hudaybiyah, and they were put in Volume 3, Page 31. Muslim
also cited
a few
traditions in his Sahih Volume 5 in a chapter entitled “The Boundaries” Page
119. Even
al-Dhahabi,
with all his restrictions, considered him a reliable transmitter, together with
the Imams
of al-Jurh
and al-Ta’deel (criteria applied to Hadiths to find out the reliable and
unreliable
transmitter),
and of course the two Shaykhs [Muslim and al-Bukhari] used him as a reliable
reference.
So why all this intrigue, falsification and deception about a man who was
considered to
be a
reliable transmitter by the authors of al-Sihah? Is it because he told the
truth regarding the necessity to follow Ahl al-Bayt, and was therefore branded
by Ibn Hajar as feeble and weak?