Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Argumentation in the Shīʿī Treatises

The Shīʿī texts share a number of similarities. First, unlike the Sunnī texts they do not consider any R3 recensions to be authentic and do not attempt to incorporate them into their views of Abū Ṭālib. Instead they rely on R4I’s, in which an Imam expressly characterizes such reports as false. For example, the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 232-247/846-861) asks Imam ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Hādī (d. 254/868):

O Abū ʼl-Ḥasan! Have not people narrated that when all of mankind is judged to enter heaven or hell, Abū Ṭālib will wear sandals made of flames that will fry his brains? He will be stopped, unable to enter heaven due to his unbelief and [unable to] enter hell for taking custody and care of the Messenger of God, preventing Quraysh [from harming] him, and keeping his mission secret until it became public.

Abū l-Ḥasan says to him, “Woe to you! If the faith of Abū Ṭālib were placed on a scale and the faith of all men were put on another, the faith of Abū Ṭālib would outweigh them all. 94

Al-Mūsawī and al-Amīnī wrote long and comprehensive monographs, while al-Mufīd wrote a treatise that was comparatively much shorter.95 The Shīʿī texts employ a number of proofs to establish the faith of Abū Ṭālib. Wilāya is an important concept in Shīʿism.96 Those who recognize the wilāya of the Prophet’s Household are portrayed as believers. Similarly, the loyalty of Abū Ṭālib was a manifestation of his recognition of the wilāya of God and His Prophet. He expressed his partisanship through loving and aiding the Prophet as well as sacrificing his clan, children, and self. Detractors claim Abū Ṭālib’s loyalty to the Prophet was only motivated by tribalism. Al-Mufīd responds by stating that the vast amount of poetry attributed to Abū Ṭālib explicitly mentions his faith in God and the prophethood of his nephew Muḥammad.97 Al-Amīnī argues in this regard that the customary protection of clan members would not have led Abū Ṭālib to encourage his sons to convert or worship with Muḥammad as some reports indicate.98 Third, the method by which one proves Abū Ṭālib’s unbelief could be used to dismiss the faith of many Muslims of the first century. According to al-Mufīd, it is much easier to declare the first three caliphs unbelievers. He writes,

If [faith] cannot be established for Abū Ṭālib despite his admission of it in his prose and poetry which . narrators of sīra and history transmit in addition to his obvious aid of the Prophet and the sacrifice of his children, family, wealth and self for him, public declaration of believing him, and urging others to follow him, then it would be more appropriate and reasonable not to confirm the faith of those other individuals we mentioned (Abū Bakr, ʿUmar and ʿUthman, whose virtuous deeds have also been related, but are contested). The manifestation of their [faith through deeds] and the prominence [of such deeds] cannot be compared to [the deeds of] Abū Ṭālib, may God be pleased with him . this is in addition to their delay in aiding him, their betrayal of him, their fleeing [in war], and that which is not concealed from the intelligent person who learns history and scrutinizes the past. 99

The point behind his polemically charged analogy deserves some consideration; if Muslims have no qualms in declaring someone an unbeliever despite various sources documenting words and actions of his that show otherwise, how can one prove the faith of any contemporary of the Prophet? Raḍī al-Dīn Ibn Ṭāwūs (d. 664/1266) argues that the normative practice of historians is to validate the conversion of a person to Islam by the most meager of evidence, yet despite the clearest and strongest evidence it is remarkable that Muslims refuse to corroborate the Islam of Abū Ṭālib.100 The authors mention R6 that ends with a cryptic statement of the Prophet “By God I shall intercede for my uncle with an intercession that will surprise all of creation.”101 Shīʿīs claim that ʿAlī’s administration of the final rites on his father and the Prophet’s good words regarding him belie his alleged death as an unbeliever.102

Al-Mūsawī and al-Amīnī utilize the Sunnī intellectual tradition to establish the faith of Abū Ṭālib through his words and actions. For example, Abū Ṭālib allegedly writes to the Najāshī, the king of Ethiopia, asking him to treat the Muslims well and praising Muḥammad as someone who “came with guidance just as [Moses and Jesus once] did.”103 Abū Ṭālib articulates his faith in poetry after the incident in R8, which includes the words, “Did you not know that we discovered Muḥammad to be a messenger like Moses?”104 Al-Amīnī and al-Mūsawī include numerous other incidents and examples in which Abū Ṭālib describes Muḥammad as a prophet and praises his religion.105 Al-Amīnī gathers a number of narrations in which ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, the father of Abū Ṭālib, declares his faith in monotheism and the prophethood of Muḥammad to refute interlocutors who argued that Abū Ṭālib’s wish to follow the faith of his father was unbelief.106 The Sunnī treatises similarly transmit reports about the piety and salvation of Abū Ṭālib’s father, ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib.107 These writers obviously felt that if ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib’s monotheistic faith could be proven, then the basis for which Abū Ṭālib was considered a polytheist was effectively discredited.

Al-Mūsawī and al-Amīnī would like Muslims to consider Abū Ṭālib a Companion of the Prophet, so they gather and cite ḥadīth in which Abū Ṭālib is a narrator in the chain of transmission.108 According to Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, ʿAlī would order others to perform the pilgrimage on behalf of Abū Ṭālib and repeated this request in his last testament.109 According to some scholars it is unbelief to harbor malice against Abū Ṭālib.110 Al-Amīnī and al-Mūsawī narrate numerous Shīʿī ḥadīth extolling the faith of Abū Ṭālib, for example, ʿAlī allegedly states, “my father . was a believing Muslim who hid his faith out of fear for what Quraysh would do to the Hāshimids.”111

Al-Amīnī finally turns his attention to discrediting recensions of R1S through five arguments. First, he argues the sole source of R1S is Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab (d. ca. 94/712-13), who is unreliable in information concerning ʿAlī and his family because he harbored animosity toward them.112

In Islamic historiography, Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab is portrayed as a student of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās and a Muslim who believed that another uncle of the Prophet, ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, was the most meritorious Muslim after Muḥammad and his heir.113 Whether or not Ibn al-Musayyab truly believed this about ʿAbbās, or conversely, if he actually narrated reports about the damnation of Abū Ṭālib, is not particularly important. However, the ʿAbbāsids in the second century hijrī were particularly keen on legitimizing their rule and R1S reports from Ibn al-Musayyab became authoritative proof-texts in discrediting their ʿAlid rivals.114 First, in a society that believed virtue and vice was inherited from one’s ancestors, Abū Ṭālib’s death as a pagan was viewed as a dishonorable stain on the purity and social capital of Ḥasanids and Ḥusaynids.115 The ʿAbbāsids argued that ʿAbbās, as a paternal uncle, was the closest male relative to the Prophet and thus inherited authority directly from him.116 The ʿAlids, on the other hand, were one step further removed, since they claimed descent from a cousin (ʿAlī) and a woman (Fāṭima), both of whom, could not claim to be heirs to such authority in the presence of a paternal uncle.117 Both Goldziher and Donner have noted the great incentive the ʿAbbāsids and their partisans possessed in circulating R1S reports that effectively discredited the ancestor of their rivals as a hell-bound polytheist.118

R1 and R1S reports narrate that the revelation of V1, V2, and V3 occurred soon after the death and burial of Abū Ṭālib. As a second argument, al-Amīnī presents proof-texts that indicate V2 and V3 were revealed at least eight years after the death of Abū Ṭālib.119 Al-Amīnī concludes that it would be unlikely that both verses were responses to the death of Abū Ṭālib given the large time gap. Third, many other verses of the Qurʾān forbid the Prophet and the community to love the enemies of God,120 so narratives that portray V1 and V2 as necessary correctives to the Prophet’s behavior seem redundant and out of place. Fourth, the wording of V2 is not actually a negative-imperative, but subject-predicate. The verse implies the community may have had the misconception that it was permissible for the Prophet or Muslims in general to seek forgiveness for polytheists.121 Rather than commanding the Prophet to desist from any deeds, al-Amīnī argues that V2 simply clarified to the community that it did not befit them to believe the Prophet prayed for polytheists. On that account, al-Amīnī argues that the Prophet was not guilty of any misconduct needing rectification. Finally, al-Amīnī cites other possible reports that explain the reason for revelation of V2 to be unrelated to Abū Ṭālib as likelier alternatives.122 After previously problematizing the reliability of R1S reports in the ṣaḥīḥayn, al-Amīnī argues recensions of R1 are through unreliable narrators or mursal.123 For example, the allegedly eyewitness accounts of Abū Hurarya can be discredited because at the time of Abū Ṭālib’s death he was a non-Muslim living in Yemen. Al-Amīnī adds, “the tadlīs of Abū Hurayra is well known, he claims to have witnessed an event or the wording of the ḥadīth indicates it although [historically] he was nowhere near it.”124

Al-Amīnī makes one last theological argument that our Sunnī authors similarly pose; numerous ḥadīth state that the Prophet will only be allowed to intercede for monotheists on the Day of Judgment. Verses in the Qurʾān consistently warn readers that unbelievers will not have access to any intercession on the Day of Judgment. The connotation of R3 is that an unbeliever shall benefit from the intercession of Muḥammad. According to these authors, this is clearly contradictory to the manifest meaning of those verses. Both parties are incapable of participating in such an event (Muḥammad interceding for an unbeliever or an unbeliever benefiting from intercession). Al-Amīnī concludes that R3 narratives must be fabricated.

Argumentation in the Sunnī Treatises

In the course of his book, al-Barzanjī utilizes Ashʿarī doctrines, linguistics, second-order interpretations of proof texts, reports with ḍaʿīf (unreliable) chains of transmission, exegesis, and rational proofs such as analogy to make his case. His book attempts to decisively prove the salvation of the Prophet’s parents, all of his ancestors, and in the final chapter, his uncle, Abū Ṭālib. Al-Azharī’s Bulūgh is a very short abridgment of al-Barzanjī’s book while Daḥlān’s Asnā is primarily a treatise that quotes and supplements al-Barzanjī’s final chapter. What follows is a survey of the major arguments Sunnī authors utilized in their works.

First, in response to R1, the authors wish to dismantle the popular belief that faith in God is through public declarations of faith or its pronouncement through the tongue. They appeal to the authority of influential Sunnī scholars who (allegedly) believed that īmān is affirmation (taṣdīq) in the heart of all that Muḥammad preached to be true.125 They acknowledge that many throughout history have affirmed the truth of the shahādatayn,126 but refused to convert due to obstinacy. Their affirmation in the heart does not benefit them, however, those who could not convert due to a valid reason will have their faith benefit them in the Hereafter.127 In this regard, it is permissible to keep from outwardly identifying with Islam due to fear of an oppressor who may inflict unbearable pain or death upon the person, one of his children, or his relatives.128 According to al-Barzanjī, al-Azharī, and Daḥlān there is no doubt that Abū Ṭālib was forced into this position, as the person whom he struggled to protect from the assaults of Quraysh was none other than the Prophet. To facilitate his continued protection of the Prophet, Abū Ṭālib had to maintain his position as a chief of Quraysh, which would have been impossible with a public conversion.129 Quraysh would continue to respect his position as the Hāshimid chief as long as they believed he had not converted, and his protection of the Prophet was a duty he could not relinquish due to Arab custom.130 They also mention Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥalīmī’s (d. 403/1012) belief that one did not have to recite the shahādatayn as it is commonly worded, rather faith is established for a person if he expresses his faith in monotheism and the divine inspiration of Muḥammad in other ways.131 Abū Ṭālib’s life and poetry is then presented as clear proof of his belief in the shahādatayn. After completing this section defining faith al-Barzanjī writes:

If this is all accepted then the reports are mutāwatir regarding how Abū Ṭālib used to love the Prophet, aid him, take precautions for him, help him in conveying the message, affirm what he would say as truth, order his sons like Jaʿfar and ʿAlī to follow him and help him, praise him in poetry, [and] testify to the truth of his religion. 132

Verses of poetry like:

Have you not learned that we have found Muḥammad a Messenger in the similitude of Moses? This has been verified in Scripture (lit. books) . 133

And I have learned that the religion of Muḥammad is the best religion for mankind . 134

And He Derived his name from His Own to exalt him, For the Possessor of the Throne is Maḥmūd and this is Muḥammad. 135

The authors narrate a number of incidents from the life of Abū Ṭālib in which they believe his words and actions testify to his belief. As for his actions, authors cite his efforts to end the boycott (R8) by trusting a prophecy of Muḥammad and a final will attributed to him in which he advises the listeners to follow, aid and care for the Prophet (R9).136 Abū Ṭālib is portrayed as participating in events in which the Prophet performs miracles and even depending on him.137 In one case, Abū Ṭālib becomes ill, asks the Prophet to pray to God for his health, and is subsequently cured.138 Abū Ṭālib testifies that Muḥammad was the bright light that caused mankind to prostrate in a dream ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib once experienced. In his sermon at the marriage of Muḥammad and Khadīja, Abū Ṭālib praises God as the One who honored them with descent from Abraham and Ishmael.139 Al-Barzanjī reiterates in a number of places that it is highly unlikely that Abū Ṭālib would experience such events (i.e. miracles) in his lifetime or order others to follow the Prophet and remain an unbeliever himself.140 Instances in which Abū Ṭālib publicly expressed reluctance to convert are viewed as examples of him intentionally hiding his faith in front of members of Quraysh.141 Daḥlān similarly characterizes proof-texts in which Abū Ṭālib proclaims his devotion to the “milla of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib” as dissimulation.142 Unlike the salvation of Abū Ṭālib, a larger number of Sunnī scholars accept the belief that the Prophet’s ancestors were monotheists, including his grandfather ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib.143 Thus, al-Barzanjī, al-Azharī and Daḥlān considered Abū Ṭālib’s commitment to following his ancestors as an expression of monotheism and an instance of doublespeak.144

In agreement with the Shīʿī treatises, they mention that Abū Ṭālib was a Companion who narrated ḥadīth145 and intercession only encompasses believers on the Day of Judgment.146 Unlike the Shīʿī treatises that have the option of dismissing ḥadīth of the ṣaḥīḥayn as false, al-Barzanjī and the other Sunnī writers are obliged to accept the ḥadīth of those canonical collections as true. To my knowledge, the only Sunnī authors to reject the authenticity of R1 and R1s reports, despite their presence in the collections of al-Bukhārī and Muslim are the contemporary pro-ʿAlid Sunnī thinkers Ḥasan al-Saqqāf and Ḥasan b. Farḥān al-Mālikī.147 Both scholars have become infamous for their opposition to Wahhābism, rejection of some canonical ḥadīth through the use of dialectical arguments, condemnation of Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān and the Umayyads, and staunch partisanship to the Prophet’s Household without converting to Shīʿism. Al-Saqqāf and al-Mālikī are willing to reject the prevailing canonical culture (and infallibility) imbued upon ḥadīth in the ṣaḥīḥayn for largely the same reasons that other twentieth-century Muslims have criticized ḥadīth.148

Rather than reject such reports, the other Sunnī authors artfully reinterpret R3 to substantiate the faith of Abū Ṭālib. First, they conclude that Abū Ṭālib must be a believer since it is his faith that gives him access to Muḥammad’s intercession. Second, Abū Ṭālib’s placement in the highest level of hell is a testament to his faith, as it is a level reserved only for disobedient believers. Third, according to the Qurʾān, unbelievers have no decrease or interruption in their punishment.149 Fourth, they are confined to the depths of hell and will never leave those confines. Thus, reports of Abū Ṭālib exiting the depths of hell and his punishment decreasing only testify to his faith.150 Fifth, if according to R3 the Prophet said, “Abū Ṭālib is the least punished of the people of the fire,” then no individual, believer or unbeliever, may receive a lesser punishment than him. The existence of any individual receiving lesser punishment would entail a contradiction in the words of the Prophet.151 According to al-Barzanjī, ahl al-nār must be differentiated from mukhallad al-nār, the former includes believers who will be burned for a limited period, while the latter group describes those who are destined to stay in hell forever. “Those who will experience the fire,” even for a moment, is thus al-Barzanjī’s reading of ahl al-nār. According to al-Barzanjī, if Abū Ṭālib’s punishment is located on the highest level of hell, then it cannot be for unbelief, but due to some disobedience or obligation he did not fulfill.152

As for the apparent contradiction between R1 and R2, al-Barzanjī explains that the incident of R2 abrogates and occurs after R1.153 Abū Ṭālib refused to say the testimony of faith in R1 and R1S in front of the chiefs of Quraysh to keep those individuals from harming the Prophet after his death. However, after the Prophet leaves Abū Ṭālib’s bedside, those individuals are appeased and leave as well. It is only after the unbelievers have left that Abū Ṭālib silently utters the shahāda as R2 describes.

Al-Barzanjī explains that if recensions of R7 are compared, it appears that the reports in the ṣaḥīḥayn condemning Abū Ṭālib are abridged versions of longer narratives that exist elsewhere. He compares two types of reports related to the reason for revelation of V2; narrations that allude to the Prophet’s prayer for Abū Ṭālib and others which only cite a group of Companions who began praying for their dead polytheist relatives.154 Given that recensions that condemn Abū Ṭālib appear in the ṣaḥīḥayn, he obliges himself to accept them as authentic. Al-Barzanjī then relies on a famous principle of ḥadīth specialists, namely to harmonize the recensions so that they do not contradict each other. He asserts that when the Prophet prayed for Abū Ṭālib, his followers, including some of the narrators of R7, mistakenly believed Abū Ṭālib had died without faith. This error prompted a group of Companions to begin praying for the salvation of their polytheist relatives and the narrators to believe that the stimulus for revelation of the verse was the Prophet’s prayer for Abū Ṭālib.155 However, due to the long number of years between Abū Ṭālib’s death and the revelation of the verse as well as V2’s use of the word jaḥīm, which according to al-Barzanjī signifies the sixth level of hell, V2 must be speaking of the dead relatives of others and not the Prophet’s uncle.156 Al-Barzanjī cites reports that support a combination of both narratives.157 Daḥlān agrees with al-Barzanjī’s assessment and argues that sometimes narrators of ḥadīth mistakenly add statements to a report or change its wording so that it reflects their own thinking, even in canonical collections.158 Daḥlan’s readiness to criticize the wording of some canonical ḥadīth reflects the tension some Shāfīʿīs felt in upholding the canonical culture of the ṣaḥīḥayn while disagreeing with some of their reports. Two other well-known examples are some Shāfīʿī responses to ḥadīth condemning the parents of the Prophet and others commanding Muslims to recite the basmala silently or not at all in prayer.159

Various recensions mention that the Prophet prayed for mercy upon an unidentified uncle destined for hell. Al-Barzanjī suggests that the unnamed uncle was in fact Abū Lahab, the infamous uncle of the Prophet who disassociated from him.160 Al-Barzanjī hypothesizes that a few transmitters inadvertently added Abū Ṭālib’s name to R7 reports, believing him to be the intended uncle. However, al-Saqqāf argues that anti-Ṭālibid polemicists maliciously cited Abū Ṭālib as the person for whom the Prophet could not offer prayers.161 Al-Saqqāf is especially skeptical of certain phrases that are added to the end of reports as a means to discredit the faith of Abū Ṭālib, although the entire message and theme suggests the opposite. For example, al-Saqqāf rejects the adjectives used to disparage the faith of Abū Ṭālib in R6 reports that include those of Nājiya b. Kaʿb whom he considers to have been an ʿUthmānī who despised Hāshimids. Indeed there are a few R6 recensions that do not include Nājiya, and in which Abū Ṭālib is described neither as “misguided” nor as a polytheist.162 It is possible that later transmitters either mistakenly or deliberately inserted the name of Abū Ṭālib to a set of R7 exegetical reports as al-Barzanjī and al-Saqqāf suppose. Generally, exegesis of the Qurʼān was used to infer Abū Ṭālib’s damnation where the proof-texts had been vague about the character or context.

Upon the death of Abū Ṭālib, his oldest son, ʿAqīl, became the proprietor of all his property to the exclusion of the two sons who had publicly converted, Jaʿfar and ʿAlī. Those who condemn Abū Ṭālib state this fact as evidence of him dying as an unbeliever.163 Al-Barzanjī argues that the normative practice of making a will was still in place and the promulgation of inheritance laws had not yet occurred. Thus, it was Abū Ṭālib’s prerogative to will his property to his eldest son, whom he had apparently favored over others throughout his life. Second, ʿAlī was still considered young and in the care of the Prophet, while Jaʿfar was living in Abyssinia, thus neither were eligible to succeed him as landowners.164

Daḥlān lists the pronouncements of Sunnī jurists who believed hatred for Abū Ṭālib was unbelief because it amounted to causing pain to the Prophet.

One jurist ruled that speaking ill of Abū Ṭālib was painful to the Prophet and his descendants.165 This legal opinion seems to indicate that descendants of the Prophet (and by default Abū Ṭālib) were emotionally invested in the salvation of Abū Ṭālib and that even in Sunnī communities where Abū Ṭālib’s damnation was never questioned, Muslims were commanded to revere him.

Conclusions

The controversy concerning Abū Ṭālib’s place in the hereafter stems from a wealth of reports condemning him to hell in Sunnī canonical ḥadīth collections and evidence to the contrary that appeared in sīra and Shīʿī ḥadīth literature. Although Shīʿī thinkers have upheld the faith and salvation of Abū Ṭālib from the earliest periods of Islamic history, very few Sunnīs shared this opinion despite transmitting some of the same proof-texts. Since the ninth/fifteenth century, however, a growing number of Sunnī authors have joined their Shīʿī co-religionists in their commitment to belief in the salvation of Abū Ṭālib.

It appears that some circles always considered Abū Ṭālib to have been a Muslim. Both the absence of an Imāmī rebuttal to the notion of Abū Ṭālib’s damnation in the K. Sulaym and the abundance of poetry attributed to him expressing faith as a Muslim suggest this. Abū Ṭālib appears in the K. Sulaym as a believer and a pure inheritor of sacred light. Likewise, in a hitherto ignored report transmitted on the authority of al-Wāqidī and al-Madāʾinī, Abū Ṭālib is mentioned as a Muslim in passing. ʿĀmir b. Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ witnesses a heated exchange between Muʿāwiya and a rebel exiled to Syria during the period of ʿUthmān’s caliphate. Muʿāwiya eloquently defends his right to govern due to his expertise in administration, but he does not deny the criticism of his interlocutor who argues that there was someone else in the community with a better footing in the Islamic tradition than Muʿāwiya and whose father possessed a better footing in Islam than Abū Sufyān. The pro-Alid interlocutor, Ṣaʿṣaʿa b. Ṣawḥān, is manifestly referring to ʿAlī and Abū Ṭālib.166