Kamaaluddin wa Tamaamun Ni’ma Vol. 1

Kamaaluddin wa Tamaamun Ni’ma Vol. 125%

Kamaaluddin wa Tamaamun Ni’ma Vol. 1 Author:
Translator: Sayyid Akhtar Husain S.H. Rizvi
Publisher: www.al-islam.org
Category: Various Books

Kamaaluddin wa Tamaamun Ni’ma Vol. 1
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Kamaaluddin wa Tamaamun Ni’ma Vol. 1

Kamaaluddin wa Tamaamun Ni’ma Vol. 1

Author:
Publisher: www.al-islam.org
English

This book is corrected and edited by Al-Hassanain (p) Institue for Islamic Heritage and Thought


Notice:

This book will be corrected once again specially its Quranic Verses and references.


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Chapter 17: Report of Satih the Soothsayer

Narrated to us Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Razma Qazwini: Narrated to us Hasan bin Ali bin Nasr bin Mandur Tusi: Narrated to us Ali bin Harb Musilli Tai: Narrated to us Abu Ayyub Yala bin Imran son of Jurair bin Abdullah that he said: Narrated to me Makhzum bin Hani Makhzumi from his father who lived to the age of a hundred and fifty years that he said:

“On the night of the birth of the Messenger of Allah (S) the palace of Choesroe was rocked and its fourteen arches crashed, the water of the Sawa river dried up, the fire of the temple of Fars that they worshipped, was extinguished. The greatest scholar of Fars saw in dream that some hostile camels are dragging Arabian horses and crossing the Tigris and spreading in the Persian lands.

When Choesroe saw this, he placed the crown on his head and sat upon the throne, summoned his officers and ministers and told him all that had occurred. Meanwhile news was received that the fire of Fars temple has gone out. This increased his agony, whereas the scholar said: O king, I saw a strange dream, and he related his vision. What is the interpretation of this dream? He said: A significant event has definitely taken place in the west.

Choesroe wrote a letter to Noman bin Mundhir the king of Arabs and asked him to dispatch an Arab scholar as he wanted to consult him in an important matter. On receiving the letter he sent Abdul Masih bin Amr bin Hayyan bin Nafila Ghassani. The king narrated all the events. Abdul Masih said: I have no knowledge about this dream and this secret but my uncle lives in Damascus and he can explain the interpretation.

Choesroe said: Go and ask him and then tell me what he says. When Abdul Masih reached there he had already died. Abdul Masih greeted but received no reply. So he recited some couplets that conveyed that he had undertaken a tiring journey from a distant land to ask this great personality about something.

Is he deaf that he cannot hear what the chief of Yemen says? Or is he dead and death has come suddenly upon him?

O one who know the matters don’t you know who these people are? O one who removes the grief of the faces that are full of sorrow.

A noble of the Sunan locality has come to meet you. And his mother is from the Aale Zeb bin Hujn tribe.

He rides the old, strong and blue she-camel. He is generous and very broad chested.

He has come with a message from the Persian emperor, Choesroe. Neither he dreads the lightning nor the change of times.

The strong she-camel, leaving the earth behind is taking me to the Toor and conveys me to the hard ground.

So much so that she is weak because of the arduous journey and the wind envelops her with swirling dust.

It seems that due to the speed the sandy dust of the dunes will fall upon me. And now I have lost hope.

When Satih heard this he opened his eyes and said: Abdul Masih mounted a camel and after covering the stages of journey reached Satih at a time when he (Satih) is being transferred to the grave. The Sasanid king has sent him to find the truth behind the quaking of the palace, the going out of the fire-temple, the dream of the greatest scholar and the drying up of the Sawa river.

O Abdul Masih, the time has come when it (Quran) will be recited in excess and a prophet who always carried a small staff will arise. The streams of Sawa will be full of water and the sea will dry up. Damascus and Persia will go out of the control of their rulers and the same number of kings will rule as the number of the arches of Caesar and Choesroe have fallen. After that their rule shall decline and whatever has to happen will indeed happen. After saying this Satih died and Abdul Masih recited the following couplets:

Do it as you have a firm determination and you do what you will. No separation and change should weaken your resolve.

If the king of Bani Sasan tries to do he will have to give them up because it is the time of difficulties and calamities.

And it is possible that those people may say farewell to their place when their strength declines before the ferocious lions.

And in these places live the dear Behram and his brothers and Hurmuzan, Saboor and Saboor.

And people are born of different mothers having no attachment to each other. Thus they should know that if he is deficient and becomes helpless, he would be disgraced.

These people belong to the same mother. If they see wealth and riches, they will through the unseen become safe and dominant.

And the good and the bad are found together. Thus everyone follows the good and keeps away from the bad.

After that Abdul Masih returned to the king of Persia with utmost speed and narrated all that Satih had told. Choesroe said: “It would be a long time when fourteen kings from among us complete their reigns.” But it so happened that ten of those kings passed only in four years and another four completed their reigns till the time Uthman.

Satih was born in Sail Arim (Floods of Arim) and lived till the reign of King Zi Nawas which came to be more than thirty centuries. He lived in Bahrain. Abdul Qees says that he belonged to his tribe while the Azd say he was from them. And most tradition scholars say that he was from Azd. But nothing is known about his father. However his descendants say that they are from the Azd tribe.

Chapter 18: Report of Yusuf the Jew about the Holy Prophet (S)

Narrated to us my father (r.a.) that: Narrated to us Ali bin Ibrahim from his father from Ibne Abi Umair from Aban bin Uthman in a rafa’u tradition, from his chains of reporters that he said:

“When Abdullah reached maturity, Abdul Muttalib got him married to Amina binte Wahab and lady Amina became pregnant. She says: “When I became pregnant no signs of pregnancy became apparent in me and the conditions usually seen in pregnant women were absent. Once I saw in dream that a person came to me and said:

You are carrying the best of men. At the time of delivery he was born without any discomfort to me. The Holy Prophet (S) placed his hands on the ground and came down. At that moment a caller called out: You have given birth to the best of men. Give him in refuge of Allah from the evil of every oppressor and jealous one.”

The Holy Prophet (S) was born after twelve nights of the month of Rabi I.

Lady Amina says that when he was born he placed his hands on the ground and raised his head to the sky and a light beamed out of me which illuminated the earth and the sky. When the satans tried to fly to the sky, stones rained upon them and an obstruction appeared between them and the sky. Seeing these phenomena the Quraish were terrified and exclaimed that these were the signs of the apocalypse.

They went to Walid bin Mughaira and told him about all those happenings. Walid bin Mughaira was considered a wise man. He said: Look at the stars with whose help you seek directions in the sea and on land. If you don’t find them in their original places you should know that the apocalypse is here and if they remain at the proper positions a great event has occurred.

The satans also saw this and they gathered around Iblees who cried: Throughout this night I have observed momentous changes in the heavens and earth. Some great event must have transpired on the earth, unparalleled since the ascension of Isa to heaven; fly to discover what it is. The subordinate fiends flew in all directions, on their infernal errand, but returned without making any discovery to satisfy the doubts of Shaitan, who then undertook the matter himself, glided down to the earth, and sought far and wide around, till at last, coming to Mecca, he found the sacred place encircled by a host of angels, who repelled him with a shout.

He then entered from the side of Hira mountain, but Jibraeel detected him and sternly said, Begone, accursed! He replied: Tell me what has happened? Jibraeel answered: Muhammad, the best of the prophets, is born. Have I any portion in him? Inquired the fiend. No, said Jibraeel. But have I no portion in his Ummah? added the evil spirit. Yes, replied the archangel, upon which Iblees professed himself satisfied, and departed.

There was a Jew, named Yusuf, in Mecca. When he saw these phenomena he said: This is the night of the birth of the same prophet about whom we have read in the books. He is the seal of the prophets and because of him stones were rained on the Satan. In the morning he came to Quraish and asked: Was a baby boy born in your tribe last night? No, they said. He said: A boy has definitely taken birth. He is the most superior among all the prophets and he is the last of them. The people went out in different directions to inquire about it and came to know that a son was born to Abdullah Ibne Abdul Muttalib.

They called this Jew scholar and said: Yes, a boy is born. He asked: Was he born before I mentioned it or after that? Before, they said. He said: Take me to him. They brought him to lady Amina and said: Take out your child so that we may have a look at him. Lady Amina brought the Prophet to them. Yusuf opened his shoulders and back, saw the mark of prophethood and swooned. The Quraish were amazed at this and they began to make fun of Yusuf. He said: You are making fun of me while he is that prophet who will slay you with the sword. The prophethood has been taken away from Bani Israel till the Judgment Day. The people dispersed from there and the prophecies of the Jew became a topic for discussion everywhere.”

Chapter 19: Report Ibne Hawash al-Muqbil of Damascus

Narrated to us my father (r.a.) that: Narrated to us Ali bin Ibrahim from his father Ibrahim bin Hashim from Muhammad bin Abi Umair; and Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Abi Nasr Bazanti all of them from Aban bin Uthman al-Ahmar from Aban bin Taghlib from Ikramah from Ibne Abbas that he said:

“When the Holy Prophet (S) got Kaab bin Asad of Bani Quraiza arrested and wanted him to be executed, he said: O Kaab, did the advice of Ibne Hawash the Rabbi not benefit you, who had come from Damascus and used to say: I have given up wine and luxury, I have adopted abstemiousness and started eating dates in anticipation of the prophet the time of whose advent has arrived; he will migrate from Mecca and come to Medina. His food will be dry bread and dates and he will ride a bare-backed mule. There will be redness in his eyes and the mark of prophethood will be embossed between his two shoulders.

He will carry his sword on his shoulders and not care for any enemy. His dominion will extend to every place where the hooves of the horses can reach. Kaab said: O Muhammad, it is so. If the Jews had not said that I brought faith under the threat of death I would have indeed accepted (your) faith. But I have lived on the Jewish faith so far and I shall die on it. The Messenger of Allah (S) said: ‘Come and execute him.’ The executioner stepped forward and cut off his head.”

Chapter 20: Report of Zaid bin Amr bin Nufayl

Zaid bin Amr bin Nufayl was also in search of the Hanif religion and he had information about the prophethood of the Holy Prophet (S). He was in anticipation of his advent and he went out in search of him and was killed on the way.

1 -Narrated to us Abul Hasan Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Husain Bazzaz Nishapuri that: Narrated to us Muhammad bin Yaqoob bin Yusuf that: Narrated to us Ahmad bin Abdul Jabbar Utaridi: Narrated to us Yunus bin Bukair from Muhammad bin Ishaq bin Yasar Madani that he said:

“Zaid bin Amr bin Nufayl had investigated Judaism and Christianity properly and did not like any of these faiths. So he came out of Mecca in search of the Abrahamic religion. When his wife Safiya binte Hadhrami learnt of his intention, she informed his uncle, Khattab bin Nufayl so that he may restrain him but he set out in search of the Abrahamic religion and passing through Mosul and other Arab islands and reached Damascus. Whenever he came to know about a scholar or a monk he used to go and meet. Finally, he came to know about a hermit in Balqa who possessed complete knowledge of the Christian faith. So he went to meet him and inquired from him about the Abrahamic faith.

He said apparently there was no one having correct information about this religion as it was a very ancient faith. But very soon a prophet will arise in the same town from where you have come. He shall be on the Abrahamic faith. So you must hurry back to your hometown as the time of his advent is now. And it is even possible that he has already appeared. Upon hearing this, Zaid started on the return journey with speed but was killed on the way. When Waraqa bin Naufal who also followed the same faith, came to know about his death he cried much and recited the following elegy in his honor:

O Amr you have achieved guidance and gained the bounty. And you have saved yourself from the blazing fire.

By choosing such a Lord who has no equal and by abandoning the disobedient idols who remain as they were.

And the mercy of his Lord reaches man even though he may be sixty layers beneath the earth.”

2 - From the same chain of narrators from Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Ishaq bin Yasar Madani that he said: Narrated to me Muhammad bin Khattab and Saeed bin Zaid that they said:

“O Messenger of Allah (S), shall we pray for forgiveness of Zaid? Yes, he said, you must pray for forgiveness of Zaid as on the Judgment Day he will be raised as a separate community.”

3 - Narrated to us Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Husain Bazzaz that: Narrated to us Muhammad bin Yaqoob bin Yusuf: Narrated to us Ahmad bin Abdul Jabbar from Yunus bin Bukair from Masudi from Nufayl bin Hisham from his father that his grandfather, Saeed bin Zaid that he asked the Messenger of Allah (S) about his father, Zaid bin Amr:

“O Messenger of Allah (S) Zaid bin Amr was as you have seen. He had heard the reports about you and if he had reached you he would have accepted faith. Shall we pray for his forgiveness?

The Messenger of Allah (S) replied: Yes, you must pray for his forgiveness. On the Judgment Day he will be raised as a complete community. He had belief (in me) and was in search of the true religion; and he died while in pursuit for it.”

The author says: Before the proclamation of prophethood the circumstances of the Holy Prophet (S) were same as they are of the Master of the Time (a.t.f.s.) in this age we are in. At that time also only the hermits and scholars had information regarding the prophethood of the Holy Prophet (S) and Islam was in a poor state, such that when a prophet used to pray for the advent of the Holy Prophet (S) the ignorant and deviated people used to make fun of him and said: When will that prophet arise, who according to your view will be the owner of the sword?

Whose call shall spread in the east and the west and to whom will submit the kings of the world? It is just as the ignorant people tell us today: When will this Mahdi, in whom you believe, appear? A group denies him and another group accepts him. And the Holy Prophet (S) has said: “Islam certainly began strange and it will revert to being strange. Thus blessed be the strange ones.”

Thus according to the statement of His Eminence, Islam has reached a poor state in the present age but with the reappearance of the Wali of Allah and His Proof it will again become powerful like it was strengthened by the advent of the Prophet of Allah and His Messenger and will cool the eyes of those who await for him and those who have faith in his Imamate in the same way as were cooled the eyes of those who anticipated the advent of the Messenger of Allah (S) and those who believed in him after he had appeared. And indeed Allah, the Mighty and Sublime will fulfill the promise He has made to His Awliya (saints) and exalt His word and complete His light even though the polytheists may be averse.

4 - Narrated to us Ja’far bin Ali bin Hasan bin Ali bin Abdullah bin Mughairah Kufi (r.a.) that he said: Narrated to me my grandfather Hasan bin Ali from his grandfather Abdullah bin Mughairah from Ismail bin Muslim from As-Sadiq Ja’far bin Muhammad from his father from his ancestors from Ali (a.s.) that he said: The Messenger of Allah (S) said:

“Islam certainly began strange and very soon it will revert to being strange. Thus blessed be the strange ones.”

5 -Narrated to us Muzaffar bin Ja’far bin Muzaffar Alawi Amari Samarqandi (r.a.) that he said: Narrated to us Ja’far bin Muhammad bin Masud from his father Muhammad bin Masud from Ja’far bin Ahmad from Amaraki bin Ali Bufaki from Hasan bin Ali bin Faddal from Ali bin Musa Reza from his father Musa bin Ja’far from his father Ja’far bin Muhammad from his father Muhammad bin Ali from his father Ali bin Husain from his father Husain bin Ali from his father Ali Ibne Abi Talib (a.s.) that he said: The Messenger of Allah (S) said:

“Islam certainly began strange and very soon it will revert to being strange as it started. Thus blessed be the strange ones.”

Chapter 21: Necessity of Imam in Every Age

1 - Narrated to us my father; and Muhammad bin Hasan - may Allah be pleased with them - they said: Narrated to us Saad bin Abdullah that: Narrated to us Muhammad bin Isa bin Ubaid; and Muhammad bin Husain bin Abil Khattab from Muhammad bin Fudail from Abi Hamza Thumali from Abi Abdullah (a.s.) that he asked him:

“Can the earth remain without an Imam?” He replied: “If the earth is without an Imam for a moment, it will indeed sink into itself.”

2 - Narrated to us Muhammad bin Hasan bin Ahmad bin Walid (r.a.) that he said: Narrated to us Muhammad bin Hasan as-Saffar that he said: Narrated to us Abbas bin Maroof from Ali bin Mahziyar from Muhammad bin Haitham from Muhammad bin Fudhail from Abil Hasan Reza (a.s.) that he asked him:

“Can the earth remain without an Imam?” “No,” he replied. I asked: “It has been narrated from Abi Abdullah (a.s.) that the earth will not remain without an Imam except that Allah will be angry on the people or on His servants?” The Imam said: “It will not remain except that it will sink into itself.”

3 - Narrated to us my father; and Muhammad bin Hasan - may Allah be pleased with them - they said: Narrated to us Saad bin Abdullah that: Narrated to us Muhammad bin Isa bin Ubaid from Abi Abdullah Zakariya bin Muhammad Momin from Abi Harasa from Abi Ja’far (a.s.) that he said:

“If the Imam is lifted from the earth for a moment, it (the earth) will sink along with its inhabitants like the sea sinks along with those in it.”

4 -Narrated to us my father (r.a.) that he said: Narrated to us Saad bin Abdullah that he said: Narrated to us Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Isa and Ibrahim bin Mahziyar from Ali bin Mahziyar from Husain bin Saeed from Abi Ali Bajali from Aban bin Uthman from Zurarah bin Uyun from Abi Abdullah (a.s.) that he said at the end of the tradition about Husain bin Ali (a.s.):

“If the Divine Proof does not remain on the earth, it will be destroyed along with whatever is in it and upon it. The earth cannot be devoid of Divine Proof for a moment.”

5 - Narrated to us my father (r.a.) that: Narrated to us Saad bin Abdullah: Narrated to us Muhammad bin Husain bin Abil Khattab from Abi Dawood Sulaiman bin Sufyan Mustariq from Ahmad bin Umar Hallal that he said:

“I asked Abul Hasan Reza (a.s.): “It is narrated to us from Abi Abdullah (a.s.) that he either said: ‘The earth will not remain without an Imam’ or ‘it will remain without an Imam in it’; (what is the correct version?) He replied: ‘God forbid! It will not survive for a moment but that it will indeed cave into itself.’”

6 - Narrated to us my father (r.a.) that: Narrated to us Hasan bin Ahmad Maliki from his father from Ibrahim bin Abi Mahmood that he said: Ar-Reza (a.s.) said:

“We are the proofs of Allah upon His creatures, and His vicegerents on His servants and the trustees of His secrets. And we are the word of guarding, and the firm rope and we are the witnesses of Allah and His signs among His creatures. Through us Allah has maintained the heavens and the earth from crashing. And for our sake the rain falls and the divine mercy spreads. And the earth is never devoid of a Qaim from among us, be he apparent or hidden and if it be without divine proof for a single day it will cave along with its inhabitants like the sea sinks along with those in it.”

7 - Narrated to us my father (r.a.) that: Narrated to us Saad bin Abdullah bin Ja’far Himyari that they said: Narrated to us Ibrahim bin Mahziyar from his brother Ali bin Mahziyar from Muhammad bin Abi Umair from Saad bin Abi Khalaf from Hasan bin Ziyad that he said: I heard Abu Abdillah (a.s.) say:

“The earth can never be devoid of a scholar (Divine Proof) because neither can the system of the earth run nor can the people be reformed without it.”

8 - And from the same chain of narrators from Ali bin Mahziyar from Hasan bin Ali Khazzaz from Ahmad bin Umar that he asked Abul Hasan (Imam Kazim):

“Can the earth remain without an Imam?” He replied: “No.” I asked: “It is narrated to us that it cannot be but that Allah will be furious on His servants?” The Imam said: “It cannot remain (except that) it will sink into itself.”

9 - Narrated to us my father; and Muhammad bin Hasan - may Allah be pleased with them -they said: Narrated to us Saad bin Abdullah; and Abdullah bin Ja’far, they said: Narrated to us Muhammad bin Isa and Muhammad bin Husain bin Abil Khattab from Abi Abdullah Momin and Hasan bin Ali bin Faddal from Abi Harasa from Abi Ja’far (a.s.) that he said:

“If the Imam is taken away from the earth it will sink along with its inhabitants like the sea sinks along with those in it.”

10 - Narrated to us my father and Muhammad bin Hasan - may Allah be pleased with them -they said: Narrated to us Saad bin Abdullah and Abdullah bin Ja’far they said: Narrated to us Muhammad bin Isa and Muhammad bin Husain bin Abil Khattab all of them from Muhammad bin Sinan from Hamza Tayyar that he said: I heard Aba Abdillah (a.s.) say:

“If none remains on the earth except two persons, one of them will be the Divine Proof” or he said, “The second of them is the Divine Proof”. This doubt is from Muhammad bin Sinan.

11 - And through the same chain of narrators from Muhammad bin Isa from Yunus bin Abdur Rahman from Abi Sabbah from Abi Abdullah (a.s.) that he said:

“Indeed Allah, the Blessed and the Mighty, does not leave the earth but that there is a scholar on it who is aware of every excess and deficiency so that if the believers observe excess in something he may return them (to the divine limits) and if they are deficient in something he may complete it for them. And if it had not been so, the affairs of the believers would have been unknown to them.”

12 - And through the same chain of narrators from Yunus bin Abdur Rahman from Ibne Muskan from Abi Baseer that he said: Abu Abdullah (a.s.) said:

“Allah, the Mighty and Sublime, certainly does not leave the earth without an Imam. If it had not been thus, the truth would not have been distinguished from falsehood.”

13 - Narrated to us my father; and Muhammad bin Hasan - may Allah be pleased with them -they said: Narrated to us Saad bin Abdullah; and Abdullah bin Ja’far, they said: Narrated to us Yaqoob bin Yazid from Ahmad bin Hilal - (when he was on the right faith) ¬from Muhammad bin Abi Umair from Uzainah from Zurarah that he asked Abi Abdullah (a.s.):

“Is it possible for an Imam to pass away without being succeeded by anyone?” The Imam replied: “It will never be so.” I (the narrator) asked: “Can it ever happen thus?” He replied: “No, it can never be so, except that Allah, the Mighty and Sublime will send wrath on His creatures and deal with them (immediately).”

14 - Narrated to us my father; and Muhammad bin Hasan - may Allah be pleased with them -they said: Narrated to us Abdullah bin Ja’far: Narrated to us Muhammad bin Ahmad from Abi Saeed Usfoori from Amr bin Thabit from his father from Abi Ja’far (a.s.) that he said:

“If the earth remains without an Imam from among us for a day it will cave into itself with all its inhabitants. And Allah will chastise them with His worst chastisement. Indeed Allah, the Blessed and the Mighty, has appointed us as His proofs in His earth and made us a security for the inhabitants of the earth. Thus till the time one of us is present there is security for the inhabitants of the earth. When Allah wants to destroy them without giving any respite or looking upon them with mercy, He will take us away from among them and raise us to Himself. Then Allah will do what He wants and what He likes.”

15 - Narrated to us my father; and Muhammad bin Hasan - may Allah be pleased with them - they said: Narrated to us Abdullah bin Ja’far Himyari from Ahmad bin Hilal from Saeed bin Jannah from Sulaiman Ja’fari that he asked Abul Hasan Reza (a.s.):

“Can the earth remain without a Divine Proof?” He replied: “If the earth is without a Divine Proof for a fraction of a second, it will cave into itself along with its inhabitants.”

16 - Narrated to us Muhammad bin Hasan (r.a.): Narrated to us Saad bin Abdullah; and Abdullah bin Ja’far Himyari, all of them from Muhammad bin Isa from Ali bin Ismail Mithami from Thalaba bin Maimoon from Abdul Ali bin Ayan from Abi Ja’far (a.s.) that he said:

“Allah does not leave the earth without a scholar who reduces what they (people) increase (in religion) and increases what they reduce. If it had not been thus, the affairs of the people would have become confusing for them.”

17 - Narrated to us my father (r.a.); Narrated to us Abdullah bin Ja’far Himyari from Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Isa from Husain bin Saeed from Faddala bin Ayyub from Dawood from Fudhail Rassan that he said:

Muhammad bin Ibrahim wrote to Abi Abdullah (a.s.): “Tell us about the excellence of you Ahlul Bayt (a.s.).” So Abi Abdullah (a.s.) replied to him: “Indeed the stars are placed in the sky as means of security for the folks of the heavens. If the stars go away from the sky the folks of the heavens will get what they are promised. And the Messenger of Allah (S) said: My Ahlul Bayt is appointed as the means of security for my Ummah. Thus when my Ahlul Bayt go away, my Ummah will get what it is promised.”

18 - Narrated to us Muhammad bin Umar al-Hafiz Baghdadi that he said: Narrated to us Ahmad bin Abdul Aziz bin Jaadi Abu Bakr that he said: Narrated to us Abdur Rahman bin Salih: Narrated to us Ubaidullah bin Musa from Musa bin Ubaidah from Iyaas bin Salamah from his father in a tradition traceable to an infallible that he said: The Messenger of Allah (S) said:

“The stars are (means of) security for the folks of the heavens and my Ahlul Bayt is (the means of) safety for my Ummah.”

19 -Narrated to us Muhammad bin Umar: Narrated to me Abu Bakr Muhammad bin Sirri bin Sahl: Narrated to us Abbas bin Husain: Narrated to us Abdul Malik bin Harun bin Antara from his father from his grandfather from Ali Ibne Abi Talib (a.s.) that he said: The Messenger of Allah (S) said:

“The stars are (means of) security for the folks of the heavens. Thus when the stars go away the folks of the sky shall also be gone. And my Ahlul Bayt is (the means of) safety for the inhabitants of the earth. Thus when my Ahlul Bayt go away the folks of the earth shall also be gone.”

20 -Narrated to us my father (r.a.): Narrated to us Saad bin Abdullah from Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Isa from Abbas bin Maroof from Abdullah bin Abdur Rahman Basri from Abi Maghra Humaid bin Muthanna Ijli from Abi Baseer from Khaithama Jofi from Abi Ja’far (a.s.) that he said:

“We are the Jambullah (side of Allah) and we are His chosen ones and His Pool. We are the inheritors of the prophets. We are the trustees of (secrets) of Allah, the Mighty and Sublime. We are the proofs of Allah and we are the pillars of faith and we are the foundations of Islam. We are from the mercy of Allah on His creatures. We are those through whom was the beginning and will be the end. And we are the Imams of guidance and we are the lamps of darkness and we are the minarets of guidance. We are the foremost and we are the ultimate. We are raised standard for the people.

One who got attached to us got the truth and one who left us was drowned. We are the chiefs with white-forehead. We are the best creatures of Allah and we are the clear and straight path to Allah, the Mighty and Sublime. We are from the bounties of Allah, the Mighty and Sublime on His creatures. And we are the illuminated path and we are the mines of prophethood and the site of placing prophethood. We are those to whom the angels come and go. We are lamps for those who take light from us.

We are the path of truth for those who follow us. We are the guides to Paradise and we are rope of Islam. We are that bridge, such that one who passed through would not be surpassed and one who left was destroyed. And we are the highest peaks and we are those through whom Allah, the Mighty and Sublime sends His mercy and through us sends the rain. And we are those through whom chastisement is warded off from you. Thus one who recognized and understood us and became aware of our rights and accepted our guardianship, is from us and (is heading) to us.”

21 -Narrated to us my father (r.a.): Narrated to us Saad bin Abdullah from Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Isa from Husain bin Saeed from Hammad bin Isa from Ibrahim Umar Yamani from Abi Tufail from Abi Ja’far (a.s.) that he said: The Messenger of Allah (S) said to Amirul Momineen (a.s.):

“Write down what I dictate to you.” Ali (a.s.) said: “O Prophet of Allah, do you fear that I will forget?” He replied: “No, I am not worried about your forgetfulness. I had prayed to Allah to make you remember and protect you from forgetfulness. But you write down for your partners. Ali (a.s.) asked: “Who are my partners, O Prophet of Allah?” The Prophet said: “The Imams from your progeny through whom my Ummah will get rain.

Through whom their supplications will be accepted and through whom Allah will ward off calamities from them and through them mercy will descend from the heavens.” Then he pointed to Hasan (a.s.) and said: “He shall be the first.” Then he gestured to Husain (a.s.) and said: “(The other) Imams shall be from his progeny.”

22 - Narrated to us Muhammad bin Ahmad Shaibani (r.a.) : Narrated to us Ahmad bin Yahya bin Zakariya al-Qattan: Narrated to us Bakr bin Abdullah bin Habib: Narrated to us Fadl bin Saqr Abdi: Narrated to us Abu Muawiyah from Sulaiman bin Mehran Amash from As-Sadiq Ja’far bin Muhammad from his father Muhammad bin Ali from his father Ali bin Husain (a.s.) that he said:

“We are the Imams of the Muslims, and the proofs of Allah on the whole universe. We are chieftains of the believers, and the brilliant-faced guides and we are having absolute authority on the believers. We are such a security for people on the earth, like the stars are for the dwellers of the heavens. And those for whose sake the Almighty Allah has restrained the heaven from falling into the earth and secured the earth from shaking up those who dwell upon it. The rain falls due to us and the blessings of the earth are distributed and are brought out of the earth.

If none of us remains on the earth, it would swallow its dwellers, and the Almighty Allah has not left the earth without a Proof (Hujjat) since the time of the creation of Prophet Nuh (a.s.), whether it is apparent and obvious or unseen and hidden. And the earth shall not be devoid of Proof till the Doomsday occurs. If there is no Proof of Allah, none would worship the Almighty. Someone asked: Then how would people derive benefit from an unseen and hidden proof? The Imam replied: “Just as they receive benefits from the sun that is hidden behind the clouds.”

23 -Narrated to us my father (r.a.): Narrated to us Saad bin Abdullah: Narrated to us Ibrahim bin Hashim: Narrated to us Ismail bin Marrar: Narrated to me Yunus bin Abdur Rahman: Narrated to me Yunus bin Yaqoob that:

“A group of companions were gathered round Abu Abdillah (a.s.); Humran ibn Ayan, Muhammad ibn an-Numan, Hisham ibn Salim and at-Tayyar were in that group. With them was Hisham ibn al-Hakam, who was young. Abu Abdillah (a.s.) said to him: ‘O Hisham, will you not tell me how you debated with Amr ibn Ubayd? How did you question him? Hisham replied: ‘O son of the Messenger of Allah! I respect you too much, and hence I feel shy before you, and I find myself tongue-tied in your presence.’ Abu Abdillah (a.s.) said: ‘Do as you are told.’

Hisham said: ‘I was informed of the situation of Amr ibn Ubayd, and that he was sitting in the mosque of Basrah (for teaching). This was distressing for me, so I set out to meet him and reached Basrah on Friday. When I arrived at the mosque of Basrah, I found a large circle surrounding Amr ibn Ubayd, who was wearing a black woolen cloth round his waist and another over his shoulders. People were asking him questions. I asked the people (who were standing) around him to make way for me, which they did, and I sat upon my knees in the back row of the students (who were sitting). Then I said: O learned scholar! I am a stranger. Will you allow me to ask a question? He replied: Yes. I said to him: Do you have eyes? He replied: O my son! What kind of a question is this? How can you question a thing which you see (clearly yourself)? I said: But this is my question.

He said: O my son! Ask, even though your question may be foolish. I told him: Then answer my question. He said: Ask (it). I said: Do you have eyes? He said: Yes. I said: What do you do with them? He replied: I see with them. I asked: Do you have a nose? He replied: Yes. I said: What do you do with it? He replied: I smell odors with it. I asked: Do you have ears? He replied: Yes. I said: What do you do with them?

He replied: I hear sounds with them. I said: Do you have a heart (the seat of the soul and perception)? He replied: Yes. I said: What do you do with it? He replied: I discriminate with it whatever is presented to the parts of my body and (my) senses. I asked: Are you not, with these parts of your body, without need of your heart (soul)? He replied: No. I said: How can this be when they are quite sound and health? He replied: O my son!

When the parts of the body doubt regarding anything which it smelt, tasted or heard, they refer it to the heart to remove the doubt and replace it with certainty. Hisham said: I said to him: Has Allah appointed the heart to remove the doubts of the body? He replied: Yes. I asked: The heart is necessary, otherwise the parts (of the body) cannot reach certainty. He replied: Yes. I said: O Abu Marwan! Allah, the Blessed, the Sublime, did not leave the parts of the body without appointing a guide (Imam) for them so that they might verify the truth and reach certainty about what is doubted.

How could He leave all His creatures in confusion, doubt and difference of opinion without appointing anyone as their guide (Imam), to whom they might refer their doubts and confusions, when He has given the parts of your body a guide to whom you can refer your doubt and confusions? He was completely silent, and said nothing to me. After some time, he turned towards me and said: Are you Hisham ibn al-Hakam? I replied: No. He asked: Are you one of his companions? I replied: No.

Then he said: Where do you come from? I replied: I am of the people of Kufa. He said: Then you are surely he. Then he embraced me and vacated his seat for me. And then he kept silent until I got up. The narrator said: Abu Abdillah (a.s.) smiled and said: O Hisham! Who taught you this? Hisham replied: It is something which I learnt from you and put together (in the way). He said: By Allah, this is written in the books of Ibrahim and Musa.”

The author of this book says: That which proves our contention that the system of nature depends on the existence of the Imam is that Allah, the Mighty and Sublime does not send chastisement on a community till the prophet does not go away from it. As Allah, the Mighty and Sublime says with reference to the incident of Prophet Nuh (a.s.):

    حَتَّىٰ إِذَا جَاءَ أَمْرُنَا وَفَارَ التَّنُّورُ قُلْنَا احْمِلْ فِيهَا مِنْ كُلٍّ زَوْجَيْنِ اثْنَيْنِ وَأَهْلَكَ إِلَّا مَنْ سَبَقَ عَلَيْهِ

Until when Our command came and water came forth from the valley, We said: Carry in it two of all things, a pair, and your own family- except those against whom the word has already gone forth.1

Thus Allah, the Mighty and Sublime commanded Prophet Nuh (a.s.) to take the believers with him and separate from the community and not mingle with them. And Allah, the Mighty and Sublime said:

    وَوَحْيِنَا وَلَا تُخَاطِبْنِي فِي الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا إِنَّهُمْ مُغْرَقُونَ

… and do not speak to Me in respect of those who are unjust; surely they shall be drowned.2

In the same way in the case of Prophet Lut (a.s.) He said:

    نْ يَصِلُوا إِلَيْكَ- فَأَسْرِ بِأَهْلِكَ بِقِطْعٍ مِنَ اللَّيْلِ وَلَا يَلْتَفِتْ مِنْكُمْ أَحَدٌ إِلَّا امْرَأَتَكَ- إِنَّهُ مُصِيبُهَا مَا أَصَابَهُمْ

So remove your followers in a part of the night- and let none of you turn back- except your wife, for surely whatsoever befalls them shall befall her…3

Thus Allah, the Mighty and Sublime commanded Prophet Lut (a.s.) to leave them before sending down wrath because till the time he remained among them, divine chastisement cannot descend. In the same way whenever Allah, the Mighty and Sublime decides to send punishment on a community, first He orders the prophet who is among them, to leave them and go away. Similarly when Prophet Ibrahim (a.s.) feared that divine wrath would befall his people, he went away from them saying:

    وَأَعْتَزِلُكُمْ وَمَا تَدْعُونَ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ وَأَدْعُو رَبِّي عَسَىٰ أَلَّا أَكُونَ بِدُعَاءِ رَبِّي شَقِيًّا فَلَمَّا اعْتَزَلَهُمْ وَمَا يَعْبُدُونَ مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ

And I will withdraw from you and what you call on besides Allah, and I will call upon my Lord; may be I shall not remain unblessed in calling upon my Lord. So when he withdrew from them and what they worshipped besides Allah…4

Allah, the Mighty and Sublime destroyed them and threw into the bottom¬most layer of Hell, those who had harassed Prophet Ibrahim (a.s.), tortured him, threw him into the inferno and Allah also saved Prophet Lut (a.s.) as mentioned by the Almighty Allah:

    وَنَجَّيْنَاهُ وَلُوطًا إِلَى الْأَرْضِ الَّتِي بَارَكْنَا فِيهَا لِلْعَالَمِينَ

And We delivered him as well as Lut (removing them) to the land which We had blessed for all people.5

And Allah bestowed Ibrahim (a.s.) with Ishaq and Yaqoob as Allah, the Mighty and Sublime says:

    وَوَهَبْنَا لَهُ إِسْحَاقَ وَيَعْقُوبَ نَافِلَةً- وَكُلًّا جَعَلْنَا صَالِحِينَ

And We gave him Ishaq and Yaqoob, a son’s son, and We made (them) all good.6

And the Almighty Allah said regarding the Holy Prophet (S):

    وَمَا كَانَ اللَّهُ لِيُعَذِّبَهُمْ وَأَنْتَ فِيهِمْ

But Allah was not going to chastise them while you were among them.7

It is mentioned in a correct narration from our Holy Imams (a.s.) that even if someone sees in dream that the Messenger of Allah (S) or one of the Imams (a.s.) is entering a village, this will be sufficient to secure the people of that village from that which they are afraid of.

The argument that Hisham presented to Amr bin Ubaid also proves the occultation and it is that just as the heart is concealed from all the organs. Neither is it visible to the eyes nor can it be smelt by the nose nor tasted and nor the hands can touch it. In spite of the fact that it is in occultation, it is the controller of all the organs and it assures their proper working. If the heart is absent it is not possible to control the other organs of the body and there will be total chaos in its working. Thus just as all the organs of the body are needful of the heart for their proper working in the same way the world is needful of the Imam for its survival and proper working.

Just as traditions told us about the position of the heart in the body in the same way they have informed us about the position of the hidden Proof that his advent would be from Mecca. Here, heart does not stand for a lump of our flesh because by itself it is of no use to the organs of the body. It actually denotes that subtle heart that the Almighty Allah has placed in this piece of flesh.

It is something that neither vision perceives it nor can it be touched or obtained. Its existence can be perceived only from the fact that through it one can distinguish between right and wrong and get control of the other physical organs. And the absence of this important organ will subject the whole system of the body into disarray.

Moreover just as this subtle element is powerful enough to control the physical organs in the same way the hidden Imam or the Divine Proof that is in occultation is sufficient to ensure the guidance and proper control of the creatures. That is why Allah, the Mighty and Sublime, made the creatures needful of an Imam (though in occultation) through whom calamities may be warded off from them, through whom they may receive sustenance and through whom they may receive rain. And there is no strength except by Allah.

Notes

1. Surah Hud 11:40

2. Surah Hud 11:37

3. Surah Hud 11:81

4. Surah Maryam 19:48-49

5. Surah Anbiya 21:71

6. Surah Anbiya 21:72

7. Surah Anfaal 8:33

Ahlul Sunnah are not Familiar with the Prophet's Sunnah

Do not let this heading intimidate you, dear reader, for you are, by the Grace of Allah, walking on the path of righteousness so that you may in the end reach what pleases Allah, Glory and Exaltation to Him. Do not, therefore, let Satan's whispering, or your own conceit, or any abominable fanaticism control you or divert you from arriving at the anticipated goal, at the lost right, at the Garden of Eternity.

As we have already indicated, those who call themselves “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`a” are the ones who believe in the legitimacy of the four “righteous caliphs,” namely Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali. This is known to everyone in our time. But the sad fact is that Ali ibn Abu Talib was not originally counted by “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” among the “righteous caliphs;” they did not even recognize the legitimacy of his caliphate; rather, his name was added to the list at a very late time in history: in 230 A.H./844 A.D., during the lifetime of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

As for the sahaba who were not Shi`as, as well as the caliphs, kings, and princes who ruled the Muslims from the time of Abu Bakr and till the reign of the Abbaside caliph Muhammad ibn al-Rasheed al-Mu`tasim, they never recognized the caliphate of Ali ibn Abu Talib at all. Moreover, some of them used to curse him and regard him non-Muslim; otherwise, how did they justify cursing him from their pulpits?!

We have already come to know how Abu Bakr and Umar treated him with excluding and expelling him from their government, then Uthman came after them to go to extremes in demonstrating his contempt for him, more than both of his friends, underestimating him to the extent that he once threatened to banish him just as he had banished Abu Dharr al-Ghifari.

When Mu`awiyah became the ruler, he went to the extreme limits in cursing him and ordering people to do likewise. Umayyad rulers, therefore, were consistent in every town and village in doing so for as long a period as eighty years.1

Actually, the cursing, charging, and dissociation from him and his Shi`as, went on beyond that. The Abbaside caliph al-Mutawakkil, for example, went as far in his hatred for Ali as desecrating his grave and the grave of his son Imam al-Husayn ibn Ali in the year 240 A.H./854 A.D.

Al-Waleed ibn Abd al-Malik, who was the “commander of the faithful” of his time, delivered a sermon one Friday in which he said, “The hadith saying that the Messenger of Allah once said (to Ali, as): `Your status to me is like that of Aaron to Moses' was altered from: `Your status to me is like that of Qarun to Moses' because the listener became confused.”2 Such was the malice of these rulers against the Brother of the Prophet.

During the reign of al-Mu`tasim, when there was a substantial increase in the number of atheists, apostates, and fabricators of hadith, who ascended the seat of the “righteous” caliphate, and when people were distracted during al-Mu`tasim's time by marginal problems, in addition to the dilemma caused by Ahmad ibn Hanbal labelling the Holy Qur'an as being infinite in its pre-existence..., people blindly followed the creed of their kings, believing that the Holy Qur'an was “created.”

When Ahmad ibn Hanbal withdrew his theory regarding the Holy Qur'an, being apprehensive of al-Mu`tasim, he became after that quite famous among scholars of hadith3 like a shining star. It was then decided to add the name of Ali ibn Abu Talib to the list of the “righteous caliphs.”

It is quite possible that Ahmad ibn Hanbal was dazzled by the authentic ahadith enumerating Ali's virtues which surfaced against the wish of the rulers of the time, especially since he is the one who has said, “Nobody among all people has received as many ahadith in his favor as Ali ibn Abu Talib.” It was then that the number of the “righteous caliphs” was increased to four, and Ali's caliphate was regarded as “legitimate” after being rejected due to its “illegitimacy.”

The Proof:

In the Tabaqat, regarded by the Hanbalis as their main reference, Ibn Abu Ya`li quotes Wadeezah al-Himsi as saying:

I visited Ahmad ibn Hanbal after having added the name of Ali, Allah be pleased with him,4 to the list of the three [“righteous caliphs”]. I said to him, “O Abu Abdullah! What you have done discredits both Talhah and al-Zubayr!” He said, “What a foolish statement you have uttered! What do we have to do with those folks' war, and why do you mention it now?” I said, “May Allah lead you to righteousness, we have mentioned it only after you added the name of Ali and mandated for him (of honors because) of the caliphate what is mandated to the Imams before him!” Said he, “And what stops me from doing so?” I said, “One tradition narrated by Ibn Umar.” He said to me, “Umar [ibn al-Khattab] is better than his son, for he accepted (i.e. recommended) Ali's caliphate over the Muslims and listed him among the members of the (consultative) council of shura, and Ali referred to himself as the Commander of the Faithful; am I the one to say that the faithful did not have a commander?!” So I left.5

This incident clarifies for us the fact that the narrator is the leader of “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” and their spokesman, and that they rejected Ali's caliphate because of what Abdullah ibn Umar, the Sunnis' faqih, says, a statement which al-Bukhari records in his Sahih. Since they claim that al-Bukhari's Sahih is the most authentic book next to the Book of Allah, it is mandatory on them to reject Ali's caliphate and not to recognize it.

We have discussed this “tradition” in our book So Ask the People of Remembrance, and there is no harm in repeating it here in order to make the benefit general.

In his Sahih, al-Bukhari quotes Abdullah ibn Umar saying, “During the lifetime of the Prophet, we used to regard Abu Bakr most, then Umar ibn al-Khattab, then Uthman ibn Affan, may Allah be pleased with them.”6

Al-Bukhari quotes another tradition narrated by Ibn Umar which is more frank than this one. In it, Abdullah ibn Umar says:

During the lifetime of the Prophet, we did not regard anyone as being the peer of Abu Bakr, then Umar, then Uthman, then we leave the rest of the Prophet's companions without making any distinction among them.7

Upon the premises of this “tradition,” which the Messenger of Allah neither mandates nor endorses, but one which is no more than the brainchild of Abdullah ibn Umar and his biased views and well known grudge and animosity towards Ali, do “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” base their sect and justify their attitude as to why they did not recognize Ali's caliphate.

It is through “traditions” such as this one that Banu Umayyah permitted cursing, condemning, taunting, and belittling Ali. Their rulers since the reign of Mu`awiyah and till the days of Marwan ibn Muhammad ibn Marwan in 132 A.H. ordered the cursing of Ali from the pulpits. All those who supported him or did not endorse such animosity were killed.8

Then the Abbaside government started in 132 A.H./750 A.D. with the reign of Abul-Abbas al-Saffah [the blood-shedder]; it was then that dissociation in various means from Ali and from those who supported him continued, and the means of this dissociation varied according to the then prevailing conditions and circumstances because the Abbaside dynasty was erected on the ruins of Ahlul Bayt and those who followed their line. Some rulers, if the government's interest demanded, did not publicly curse Ali but were secretly doing more than what the Umayyads did.

They learned from the historic experience which highlighted the oppression to which Ahlul Bayt and their supporters were subjected: such oppression drew the sympathy of people to them; therefore, the rulers cunningly tried to tilt the situation in their favor.

They, therefore, sought to be close to the Imams from Ahlul Bayt not out of love for them, nor recognizing their confiscated rights, but in order to contain the public uprisings which broke out near the borders and which threatened the government's very existence.

This is what al-Ma'mun son of Haroun al-Rasheed had done to Imam Ali ibn Musa al-Rida. But when the government was in full control, and internal dissent was contained, it went to extremes in insulting these Imams and their Shi`as as the Abbaside caliph al-Mutawakkil did. He became quite famous for his hatred of Ali and for cursing him and even desecrating his grave and the grave of his son al-Husayn.

It is because of these facts that we have said that “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” refused to recognize the legitimacy of Ali's caliphate till many years after Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

It is true that Ahmad ibn Hanbal was the first person to promote this notion, but he could not convince the scholars of hadith, as we have pointed out to adopt his view due to their following in the footprints of Abdullah ibn Umar. A long time was needed to convince people of it and to let them accept Ahmad ibn Hanbal's view, a view which might have presented the Hanbalis as seeking justice and nearness to Ahlul Bayt. This distinguished them from other Sunni sects such as the Malikis, Hanafis, and Shafi`is who were vying to gain supporters. They, therefore, had no choice except to accept the view and adopt it.

As time passed by, “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” became unanimous in endorsing Ahmad ibn Hanbal's view, and they agreed to make Ali the fourth of the “righteous caliphs,” requiring the faithful to respect him as much as they respected the other three.

Is this, then, not the greatest proof that “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” were Nasibis who hated Ali and tried their best to belittle and disrespect him?

One may ask the following question: “How can this be true while we nowadays see `Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah' loving Imam Ali and seeking Allah to be pleased with him?”

We say: Yes, after the passage of time, and the death of the Imams from Ahlul Bayt, the rulers had no worry, nor did they face any threat against their government, and when the dignity of the Islamic government disappeared and the Mamlukes, Moguls, and Tatars took control of it, and when the creed weakened and many Muslims were diverted with arts, singing, amusement, promiscuity, wine and concubines..., and when one generation succeeded another that lost the prayers, followed its own low desires..., when right seemed wrong and wrong seemed right, when corruption prevailed on the land and the sea..., it was then and only then that Muslims eulogized their ancestors and sung the praise of their glory.

It was then that they yearned for their past history and legacy, calling them their “golden ages.” The best of times, from their viewpoint, is the age of the sahaba who conquered many lands, expanded the Islamic kingdom in the east and the west, subduing the Kaisers and Caesars.

It was then that they started praying to Allah to be pleased with all of them, including Ali ibn Abu Talib, became acceptable. Because “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” believe in their justice, all of them, they could not exclude Ali from their list of sahaba.

Had they excluded him, their scheme would have become evident to everyone who is wise and who researches, so they misled the public into believing that the fourth caliph was the gate of knowledge Ali ibn Abu Talib, Allah glorified his countenance. We ask them, “Why do you then refuse to emulate him with regard to your religious and secular matters if you truly believe that he was the gate of knowledge?

Why did you deliberately forsake that gate and prefer to emulate Abu Hanifah, Malik, al-Shafi`i, and Ibn Hanbal, as well as Ibn Taymiyyah, those who do not even come close to the loftiness of Ali's deeds, merits, and honorable descent, for what is the distance between the earth and Pleiades, or how can one compare the sword with the sickle, or how can one compare Mu`awiyah to Ali, if you only follow reason?”

All this can be said were one to set aside all the ahadith narrated about the Messenger of Allah mandating upon all Muslims to follow Imam Ali after the Prophet and to emulate him. Someone among Ahlul Sunnah may say, “Ali's merits, his being the foremost in embracing Islam, his jihad in the cause of Islam, his deep knowledge, his great honors, and his asceticism are known to all people; rather, Ahlul Sunnah know and love Ali more than Shi`as do.”

Such is the statement repeated by many of them these days. To these we say: Where were you9 , and where were your ancestors and scholars when Ali was being cursed from the pulpits for hundreds of years? We never heard, nor does history document any fact, that even one single person among them resented it or prohibited it or was killed because of his loyalty and love for Ali.

Nay! We will never come across even one name among all the scholars of Ahlul Sunnah who did so. Instead, they were close to the monarchs, rulers, and governors because of the allegiance they had sworn to them, because of being pleased with them, and because they issued for them verdicts legalizing the killing of all “rejectionists” who were loyal to Ali and his progeny, and such people are present even in our own time.

Christians have for many centuries borne enmity towards the Jews whom they regarded as criminals. They accused them of being responsible for killing Jesus Christ son of Mary. But these Christians weakened, and the tenets of their creed disappeared, and many of them became apostates. The Church was consigned to the waste basket due to its opposing stand towards science and scientists.

In contrast, the Jews gained power, and such power gained momentum when they occupied Arab and Islamic lands by force. Their influence spread in the east and the west, and they established the “state of Israel...” It was only then that Pope John Paul II met Jewish rabbis and cleared them of the crime of killing Jesus, for such are some people, and such is our time.

Notes

1. They all did so with the exception of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, may Allah be Merciful to him.

2. Tarikh Baghdad, Vol. 8, p. 266.

3. That is to say, such scholars belonged to “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah.”

4. Notice how the speaker says: “Allah be pleased with him,” yet he refuses to accept his name to be added to the list of “righteous caliphs” and protests to Ahmad ibn Hanbal for having done so. Notice also how he says: “We have mentioned it, etc.,” implying his speaking on behalf of Ahlul Sunnah who had sent him to Ahmad ibn Hanbal to register their protest.

5. Tabaqat al-Hanabila, Vol. 1, p. 292.

6. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 4, p. 191, Vol. 4, in the book of the genesis of creation in a chapter dealing with Abu Bakr's merits being next only to those of the Prophet .

7. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 4, p. 203, in a chapter dealing with the merits of Uthman ibn `Affan in the book of the genesis of creation.

8. The only exception are the couple of years during which Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz ruled. He stopped the nefarious custom of cursing, but after his murder, they resumed the cursing and went beyond that to desecrate his grave. They went as far as prohibiting anyone to be named after him...

9. I have deliberately said “Where were you?” to address contemporary Muslims from “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah,” for they read in Muslim's Sahih that Mu`awiya used to curse Ali and order the sahaba to do likewise, and they do not find it objectionable. Rather, they plead to Allah to be pleased with their master Mu`awiyah to whom they refer as “the revelation's scribe.” This proves that their love for Ali is not genuine at all and unworthy of being taken seriously.

Ahlul Sunnah and the Obliteration of the Sunnah

In this chapter, we would like to explain something very important which researchers ought to deeply investigate in order to find out, beyond any shadow of doubt, that those who call themselves Ahlul Sunnah in all reality have very little to do with the Sunnah of the Prophet.

This is so because they, or rather their predecessors among the sahaba and “righteous caliphs,” whom they emulate, and through loving for and allegiance to whom they seek nearness to Allah, took a negative stand towards the Prophetic Sunnah to the extent that they burnt that Sunnah and prohibited anyone from recording it or narrating its ahadith.1

Moreover, we have to unveil the mean plot woven against the pure Prophetic Sunnah in order to prohibit its dissemination, and in order to kill it in its infancy and substitute it with innovations, personal views, and interpretations of the rulers and the sahaba. Early rulers did the following:

FIRST: They fabricated false ahadith to support their stand to prohibit the recording of the Prophet's Sunnah and the sacred ahadith. Imam Muslim, for example, records in his Sahih what is quoted by Haddab ibn Khalid al-Azdi who cites Humam citing Zayd ibn Aslam citing Ata ibn Yasar citing Abu Sa`id al-Khudri saying that the Messenger of Allah has said, “Do not record anything which I say, and whoever quotes what I tell you besides the Qur'an should erase what he writes, and [orally] narrate about me without any hesitation.”2 The purpose of fabricating this alleged “hadith” is to justify what Abu Bakr and Umar did to the Prophet's ahadith written down and recorded by a number of companions of the Prophet. This “tradition” was fabricated many years after the end of the period of the “righteous caliphs,” and the fabricators, professional liars, overlooked the following issues:

1) Had the Messenger of Allah actually said so, the sahaba would have acted upon his orders (not to write traditions down), and they would have erased all traditions many years before Abu Bakr and Umar had burned them.

2) Had this tradition been authentic, Abu Bakr would have first cited it, and then Umar, in order to justify their prohibition of recording hadith, and they would have erased them, and those who had recorded them would have sought an excuse for having done so either due to their ignorance [of such a “tradition”] or to their lapse of memory.

3) Had this tradition been authentic, Abu Bakr and Umar would have had to erase all traditions, not burn them.

4) Had this “tradition” been authentic, the Muslims, who were contemporary to Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, till our time, would have been committing the sin of disobeying the Messenger of Allah, particularly their chief, namely Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz who had ordered the scholars of his time to record hadith, in addition to al-Bukhari and Muslim who regarded this tradition as authentic yet they did not act upon it but wrote thousands of the Prophet's ahadith.

5) Finally, had this “tradition” been authentic, it would not have been missed by the gate of knowledge Ali ibn Abu Talib who compiled the ahadith of the Prophet in one saheefa the length of whose pieces reached seventy yards which he called al-jami`a, the one that includes everything, and which we will discuss later by the help of Allah.

SECOND: Umayyad rulers spared no efforts to underscore their theory that the Messenger of Allah was not protected by Allah against falling into error as is the case with all other human beings who sometimes are right and sometimes are wrong, fabricating several “traditions” to support their claim.

The purpose of fabricating such “traditions” was to make sure that the Prophet used to follow his own personal views; therefore, he often erred to the extent that some of his companions had to correct him, as indicated in the incidents of palm tree pollination, the revelation of the verse referring to the issue of hijab (veil), the case of accepting fidya (ransom) from the captives seized after the Battle of Badr, in addition to many such incidents claimed by “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” and included in their Sahih books in support of such an attitude towards the Messenger of Allah, peace and the best of blessings be upon him and his progeny.

We argue with “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” thus:

If such is your creed and attitude towards the Messenger of Allah, how do you claim to be upholding his Sunnah, believing that you and your predecessors regarded such Sunnah as unprotected from Allah from error, even unknown and unrecorded?!3 Yet we reject these claims and false charges and are able to refute them by quoting your own references and Sahih books.4 Examples:

In a chapter on recording knowledge in his Kitab al-`Ilm (Book of Knowledge) of his Sahih, al-Bukhari quotes Abu Hurayra saying, “None among the companions of the Prophet narrates more hadith than me except Abdullah ibn Umar, for he can write whereas I cannot (i.e. am illiterate).”5

This statement clearly indicates that there were among the Prophet's sahaba those who wrote his ahadith down. Since Abu Hurayra narrated more than six thousand traditions of the Prophet orally (because he could not write), Abdullah ibn Umar quoted more traditions of the Prophet because of his ability to write them down.

Undoubtedly, there were among the sahaba those who could write the Prophet's traditions and whom Abu Hurayra did not mention because they were not famous for being so prolific. Add to the above Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib who used to spread out from the pulpit a scroll which he used to call al-jami`a in which he compiled all what people need of the Prophet's traditions, and which was inherited by the Imams of Ahlul Bayt who often referred to it. Examples:

Imam Ja`far al-Sadiq has said, “We have the saheefa; it is seventy yards long: it is the dictation of the Messenger of Allah written down in the hand-writing of Ali. Nothing permissible or prohibitive the knowledge thereof is needed by people, nor any other issue, except that it is in it, even the penalty for inflicting an offense as minor as a tiny scratch on someone's cheek.”6

Al-Bukhari himself has referred to this saheefa, which was in Ali's possession, in many chapters of his book, but he, as was quite often his habit, curtailed a great deal of information about its nature and contents. In his Kitab al-`Ilm, al-Bukhari records the following:

Al-Sha`bi has quoted Abu Juhayfa saying, “I asked Ali: `Do you have a book in your possession?' He said, `No, except the Book of Allah, or some knowledge bestowed upon a Muslim man, or what this saheefa quotes of the Prophet.' I asked him, `And what is in this saheefa?' `It contains reason,' he said, `the ransoming of the captives, and that no Muslim should kill another Muslim.'“7

In another place, al-Bukhari quotes Ibrahim al-Taymi quoting his father quoting Ali saying, “We have nothing except the Book of Allah and this saheefa which quotes the Prophet.”8 In yet another place in al-Bukhari's Sahih, the author quotes Ibrahim al-Taymi quoting his father saying, “Ali delivered a sermon once to us in which he said, `We have no book to read except the Book of Allah and what is recorded in this saheefa.'“9

In another place of his Sahih, al-Bukhari quotes Ali saying, “We did not write down from the Prophet except the Qur'an and this saheefa.”10 In yet another place of his Sahih, al-Bukhari says, “Ibrahim al-Taymi quotes his father saying, `Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, delivered a sermon to us once from a pulpit built of baked bricks, and he was carrying a sword from which a saheefa was draping and said, `By Allah! We do not have any book to read except the Book of Allah and what is recorded in this saheefa.'“11

Al-Bukhari, however, did not indicate that Imam Ja`far al-Sadiq had said that this saheefa was called “al-jami`a” due to the fact that it contained all what is permissible and prohibitive, and it had all what people need, even the penalty for scratching one's cheek, that it was dictated by the Messenger of Allah and hand-written by Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib.

Instead, he only made a casual reference to it. He has said once that it has reason, the ransoming of the captives, and that no Muslim man should be killed on account of a non-Muslim. And once he says, “Ali spread it out, and it had a reference to camels' teeth, that Medina is not to be entered by non-Muslims, that the Muslims' security is their collective responsibility, and that if someone followed certain people without the permission of his masters..., etc.”

This is nothing but forgery and the adulteration of facts; otherwise, does it make sense to say that Ali wrote only those four statements on it then draped it to his sword to the extent that it was with him even whenever he preached from the pulpit, making it second only to the Holy Qur'an as his reference, telling people, “We have not quoted of what the Prophet has said except the Qur'an and what this saheefa contains”?!

Was Abu Hurayra's mind greater than that of Ali ibn Abu Talib to the extent that he learned by heart one hundred thousand traditions from the Messenger of Allah without having written a single one of them down?!

Strange, by Allah, is the case of those who accept one hundred thousand traditions narrated by Abu Hurayra who did not accompany the Prophet except for three years, the illiterate that he was, while claiming that Ali was the gate of the city of knowledge from whom the sahaba learned various branches of knowledge.

Yet, according to them, Ali was carrying a scroll containing only four ahadith that remained with him during the Prophet's lifetime till his own caliphate, so he ascended the pulpit and it was draping from his sword...! What a big statement they make, and what lies they fabricate...

Yet what al-Bukhari has recorded suffices the researchers and any discreet person especially since he mentioned that that saheefa contained many topics relevant to the human mind and to the Islamic intellect. Our point is not to prove or disprove what the saheefa contained, for the residents of Mecca best know its valleys, and the family members know best what their house contains, but what concerns us in this research is the fact that the sahaba were indeed writing down the traditions of the Prophet.

Abu Hurayra's statement that Abdullah ibn Umar used to record the Prophet's traditions, in addition to the statement of Ali ibn Abu Talib saying, according to al-Bukhari's Sahih, “We have not quoted of what the Prophet has said except the Qur'an and what this saheefa contains,” irrevocably proves that the Messenger of Allah never prohibited anyone from recording his ahadith; rather, it proves the opposite.

The tradition recorded in al-Bukhari's Sahih quoting the Prophet saying, “Do not quote me, and anyone who quotes anything from me other than the Qur'an must erase it” is a false tradition fabricated by those who supported the caliphs so that they might support them. It was fabricated in order to justify what Abu Bakr and Umar and Uthman had done: the burning of Prophet's ahadith and the prohibition of the Sunnah from being disseminated.

What increases our conviction is the fact that not only did the Messenger of Allah refrain from prohibiting the writing of his ahadith, but that he even ordered them to be recorded. Imam Ali, who was the closest person to the Prophet, said: “We have not quoted of what the Prophet has said except the Qur'an and what this saheefa contains.” This statement is quoted by al-Bukhari in his Sahih.

If we add to the above what Imam Ja`far al-Sadiq has said, that is, that al-saheefa al-jami`a was the dictation of the Messenger of Allah in the hand-writing of Ali, we will conclude by saying that the Prophet had ordered Ali to quote him.

In order to dispel any doubt which may still linger in the mind of the dear reader, I would like to shed more light and state the following:

Al-Hakim in his book Al-Mustadrak, Abu Dawood in his Sahih, Imam Ahmad in his Musnad, and al-Darimi in his Sunan have all quoted a very important hadith regarding Abdullah ibn Umar to whom Abu Hurayra referred and whom he described as having written down a larger number of the Prophet's ahadith than he himself had quoted; it is as follows:

Abdullah ibn Umar has said: “I used to write down whatever I heard from the Messenger of Allah, so Quraysh prohibited me from doing so saying, `Do you write everything you hear from the Messenger of Allah who is a human being talking in anger or when pleased?' So I stopped writing, then I told the Messenger of Allah about it, whereupon he pointed to his mouth and said, `Keep writing, for by the One Who holds my soul do I swear that nothing comes out of it except the truth.'“12

This tradition clearly tells us that Abdullah ibn Umar used to write down everything he heard from the Messenger of Allah who did not prohibit him from doing so; rather, such a prohibition came from Quraysh. Abdullah did not want to identify those who prohibited him from writing what he was writing, for their prohibition contradicted what the Messenger of Allah had told him.

It is also quite clear that his generally ambiguous reference to “Quraysh” means the leaders of Quraysh [who were then present in Medina], that is, the Meccan Muhajirs, immigrants, led by Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Abdul-Rahman ibn Awf, Abu Ubaydah, Talhah, al-Zubayr, and all those who followed their line.

We also notice that their prohibiting Abdullah took place while the Prophet was still alive: this by itself emphasizes the depth of the conspiracy and its gravity; otherwise, why should these men prohibit Abdullah from writing hadith without first consulting with the Prophet himself in this regard? This can also be understood from their statement that the Messenger of Allah was an ordinary human being who talked when angry and when pleased. It indicates how weak their belief in the Prophet was to the extent that they expected him to say something wrong, or pass an erroneous verdict, especially in the state of anger.

The fact that the Prophet said the following when Abdullah ibn Umar mentioned to him Quraysh's prohibition and what they said about him, he pointed to his mouth and said, “By the One Who holds my soul do I swear that nothing comes out of it except the truth” is another proof of the Prophet's knowledge of their doubting his justice, and that they expected him to err and to utter falsehood (Astaghfirullah! [We seek forgiveness of Allah]); therefore, he swore by Allah that he said nothing except the truth. This is the accurate interpretation of the verse saying,

“Surely he does not utter anything of his own desire; it is but a revelation revealed” (Holy Qur'an, 53:3-4),

and that he was protected against erring or uttering falsehood.

Because of all the above, we emphatically state that all “traditions” fabricated during the time of the Umayyads which implied that he was not divinely protected against erring are not authentic at all. The tradition cited above also gives us the impression that their influence on Abdullah ibn Umar was so great that he stopped writing hadith down as he himself admitted when he said, “... so I stopped writing...”

He remained so till an occasion came wherein the Messenger of Allah interfered in person to dispel the doubts circulated against his infallibility and equity, the doubts which were quite often articulated even in his own presence such as their asking him: “Are you really a prophet?!”13 or: “Are you the one who claims to be a prophet?!”14 or: “By Allah, he did not seek in this distribution the Pleasure of Allah!”15 or Ayesha's statement to the Prophet: “Your God is sure swift in fulfilling your desires!”16 or her asking the prophet once to be fair..., up to the end of the list of impertinent statements which demonstrate the fact that they doubted his infallibility, believing that he was liable to be unfair, to oppress, to err, to lie...; we seek Allah's protection.

He, indeed, possessed sublime morals; he was kind and compassionate as he tried to dispel such doubts by saying once, for example, “I am only a servant receiving orders from his Master,” and once, “By Allah! I am kind for the sake of pleasing Allah Whom I fear,” and at another time he said, “By the One Who controls my life! It utters nothing except the truth.” He used quite often to say: “May Allah have mercy on my Brother Moses! He was subjected to more afflictions than this, yet he persevered.”

Those impertinent statements which cast doubts about the Prophet's infallibility and about his Prophethood were not made by those who were outcasts or hypocritical; rather, they were unfortunately made by very prominent companions of the Prophet, and by the Mother of the Believers, and by those who are still regarded by “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” as role models of conduct; so, there is no power nor might except in Allah, the Sublime, the Great.

What confirms our conviction that the tradition which supposedly prohibited the recording of hadith is fabricated and was baseless, and that the Prophet never said so at all, is the fact that Abu Bakr himself used to write down the traditions of the Prophet during his lifetime. Yet when he ascended to the post of caliph, he decided to burn them for a reason with which the researchers are familiar.

Here is his daughter Ayesha saying, “My father gathered the ahadith of the Messenger of Allah, and they totalled five hundred, then he spent his night sleeplessly turning on his sides. I thought that he was upset because of someone's complaint, or because of some news which he had heard. The next morning, he said to me, `Daughter! Bring me the ahadith in your possession,' so I brought them to him, and he set them on fire.”17

And here is Umar ibn al-Khattab, also upon becoming caliph, delivering a sermon one day to people in which he said, “Anyone who has in his possession a book must bring it to me so that I may tell him what I think of it.” People thought that he simply wanted to verify their contents to remove from them any discrepancy, so they brought him their books whereupon he set them on fire.18 Then he dispatched his orders to Islamic lands ordering people thus: Anyone who has any ahadith written down has to erase them.19

This is the greatest evidence testifying to the fact that all the sahaba, had they lived in Medina or in the rest of Muslim lands, had in their possession books in which they compiled sacred ahadith of the Prophet which they had recorded during the Prophet's lifetime. They were all burnt according to the orders first of Abu Bakr then of Umar. All other books found in other lands were erased during Umar's caliphate as he had ordered.20

Based upon the above, we cannot, nor can any sane person, believe that the Messenger of Allah had prohibited them from writing them down, having come to know that most sahaba possessed books containing traditions especially the saheefa with which Imam Ali never parted, and whose length reached seventy yards, and which he used to call al-jami`a [literally meaning: the university] because it contained all sorts of knowledge.

Since the interests of the ruling authority and the dominant political line dictated the obliteration and the burning of the Sunnah and the prohibition of quoting hadith, the sahaba who supported such caliphate obeyed those orders and burnt such Sunnah and ceased quoting hadith.

Thus, they left themselves and their followers no option except resorting to personal views expressed as ijtihad, or following the “sunnah” of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Mu`awiyah, Yazid, Marwan ibn al-Hakam, al-Waleed ibn Abd al-Malik, Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik.... This continued till [Umayyad caliph] Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz came to power and asked Abu Bakr al-Hazmi to write down what he remembered of the ahadith and Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah or the “sunnah” of Umar ibn al-Khattab.21

Thus does it become clear to us that even during the circumstances that permitted the recording of the Sunnah, a hundred years after the obliteration and prohibition of the Sunnah, we can see the moderate Umayyad caliph whose name was added by “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” to the list of the “righteous caliphs” ordering the compilation of the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah in addition to the “sunnah” of Umar ibn al-Khattab, as if Umar ibn al-Khattab was a partner of Muhammad in his Prophetic mission and prophethood...!

And why did Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz not ask the Imams from Ahlul Bayt, who were his contemporaries, to give him a copy of al-saheefa al-jami`a? And why did he not put them in charge of collecting the Prophet's ahadith especially since they knew best what their grandfather had said? But verifiers and researchers know the secret.

Can those traditions which were compiled by “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” be taken for granted especially since those who compiled them belonged to Banu Umayyah and their supporters who represent Quraysh's caliphate? Can we rely on them after having already come to know the truth about Quraysh and its attitude towards the Messenger of Allah and his purified Sunnah? It remains obvious, having come to know all of that, that the ruling authority across the centuries acted only upon the principles of ijtihad, analogy, and mutual consultation...

Since the said authority had expelled Imam Ali from the stage of public life and ignored him, it had nothing against him to require him to burn what he had recorded during the Prophetic Message according to the dictation of the Prophet himself.

Ali remained in possession of that saheefa in which he compiled everything people need, even the penalty for slightly scratching one's cheek. When he became caliph, he was still letting it drape from his sword as he ascended the pulpit to deliver a sermon to people to acquaint them with its importance.

Consecutive stories told by the Imams of Ahlul Bayt kept indicating that their sons inherited that saheefa from their fathers, chronologically one from another, and that they used to refer to it in order to issue religious decisions (fatawa) with regard to questions raised to them by their contemporaries who were guided by the light of their guidance. For this reason, Imam Ja`far al-Sadiq, Imam al-Rida, and many other Imams, used to always repeat the same statement in its regard.

They used to say, “We do not issue verdicts to people according to our own views; had we been issuing verdicts to people in the light of our own views and according to the dictates of our own inclinations, we would surely have been among those who perish. Rather, they are legacies of the Messenger of Allah of knowledge which sons inherit from their fathers, and which we treasure as people treasure their gold and silver.”22 Imam Ja`far al-Sadiq said once,

My hadith is my father's, while my father's hadith is my grandfather's, and the hadith of my grandfather is that of al-Husayn; al-Husayn's hadith is that of al-Hasan; al-Hasan's hadith is that of the Commander of the Faithful; the hadith of the Commander of the Faithful is the hadith of the Messenger of Allah, and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah is the speech of Allah, the Lord of Dignity and Greatness.23

Based on such premises, the tradition of the Two Weighty Things (al-Thaqalain) becomes consecutively reported (mutawatir), and its text is as follows:

I have left among you the Two Weighty Things: the Book of Allah and my Progeny; so long as you (simultaneously) uphold both of them, you shall never stray after me.24

Notes

1. Read in this regard from page 200 and beyond in my book Ask Those Who Know.

2. Muslim, Sahih, Vol. 8, p. 229, “Kitab al-Zuhd” (Book of Asceticism) in a chapter dealing with verification of hadith and the injunction regarding the recording of knowledge.

3. This is so due to the fact that recording the Sunnah was postponed till the time of caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz or even thereafter. As for the caliphs and rulers who preceded him, they burnt it and prohibited anyone from writing it down or quoting it.

4. What is strange is that Ahlul Sunnah often narrate one hadith and its antithesis in the same book. Yet even more strange is that they quite often follow false traditions and neglect authentic ones.

5. Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 1, p. 36, “Kitab al-`Ilm” (Book of Knowledge).

6. Usul al-Kafi, Vol. 1, p. 239, and also on p. 143 of Basair al-Darajat.

7. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 1, p. 36, [original Arabic text].

8. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 2, p. 221.

9. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 4, p. 67, and Muslim, Sahih, Vol. 4, p. 115.

10. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 4, p. 69.

11. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 8, p. 144.

12. Al-Hakim, Mustadrak, Vol. 1, p. 105. Also Abu Dawud, Sunan, Vol. 2, p. 126. Also al-Darimi, Sunan, Vol. 1, p. 125, and Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Musnad, Vol. 2, p. 162.

13. This statement was made by Umar ibn al-Khattab during the Treaty of Hudaybiya, and it is recorded on p. 122, Vol. 2, of al-Bukhari's Sahih.

14. This statement was made by `Ayesha daughter of Abu Bakr; see p. 29, Vol. 2, of al-Ghazali's book Ihya al-`Ulum.

15. This was the statement made to the Prophet by an Ansar companion as recorded on p. 47, Vol. 4, of al-Bukhari's Sahih.

16. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 6, p. 24, and also Vol. 6, p. 128, of the same reference.

17. See p. 237, Vol. 5, of Kanz al-`Ummal. Refer also to Ibn Kathir's book Al-Bidaya wal-Nihaya as well as p. 5, Vol. 1, of al-Dhahabi's Tadhkirat al-Huffaz.

18. Ibn Sa`ad, Al-Tabaqat al-Kubra, Vol. 5, p. 188. It is also recorded in Taqyeed al-`Ilm by al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi.

19. Refer to Ibn Abd al-Birr's book Jamai` Bayan al-`Ilm.

20. Look, may Allah protect you, at such a horrible act committed by the caliphs Abu Bakr and Umar towards the Prophetic Sunnah! Imagine the greatly immeasurable loss which they inflicted upon the Islamic Ummah which very badly needed such ahadith in order to understand the Holy Qur'an and the commandments of Allah, the Most Glorified One. They were, by my life, authentic ahadith because they were direct quotations from the Prophet recorded in the absence of a second narrator. As for the “traditions” which were compiled after that period, these were mostly fabrications because dissension had already taken place, and Muslims killed one another, and they were manufactured according to the specifications provided by various oppressive rulers...

21. Malik, Al-Muwatta', Vol. 1, p. 5.

22. `Allama al-`Askari, Ma`alim al-Madrasatayn, Vol. 2, p. 302.

23. Al-Kulayni, Al-Kafi, Vol. 1, p. 53.

24. Muslim, Sahih, Vol. 5, p. 122, also al-Tirmidhi, Sahih, Vol. 5, p. 637.

Ahlul Sunnah are not Familiar with the Prophet's Sunnah

Do not let this heading intimidate you, dear reader, for you are, by the Grace of Allah, walking on the path of righteousness so that you may in the end reach what pleases Allah, Glory and Exaltation to Him. Do not, therefore, let Satan's whispering, or your own conceit, or any abominable fanaticism control you or divert you from arriving at the anticipated goal, at the lost right, at the Garden of Eternity.

As we have already indicated, those who call themselves “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`a” are the ones who believe in the legitimacy of the four “righteous caliphs,” namely Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali. This is known to everyone in our time. But the sad fact is that Ali ibn Abu Talib was not originally counted by “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” among the “righteous caliphs;” they did not even recognize the legitimacy of his caliphate; rather, his name was added to the list at a very late time in history: in 230 A.H./844 A.D., during the lifetime of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

As for the sahaba who were not Shi`as, as well as the caliphs, kings, and princes who ruled the Muslims from the time of Abu Bakr and till the reign of the Abbaside caliph Muhammad ibn al-Rasheed al-Mu`tasim, they never recognized the caliphate of Ali ibn Abu Talib at all. Moreover, some of them used to curse him and regard him non-Muslim; otherwise, how did they justify cursing him from their pulpits?!

We have already come to know how Abu Bakr and Umar treated him with excluding and expelling him from their government, then Uthman came after them to go to extremes in demonstrating his contempt for him, more than both of his friends, underestimating him to the extent that he once threatened to banish him just as he had banished Abu Dharr al-Ghifari.

When Mu`awiyah became the ruler, he went to the extreme limits in cursing him and ordering people to do likewise. Umayyad rulers, therefore, were consistent in every town and village in doing so for as long a period as eighty years.1

Actually, the cursing, charging, and dissociation from him and his Shi`as, went on beyond that. The Abbaside caliph al-Mutawakkil, for example, went as far in his hatred for Ali as desecrating his grave and the grave of his son Imam al-Husayn ibn Ali in the year 240 A.H./854 A.D.

Al-Waleed ibn Abd al-Malik, who was the “commander of the faithful” of his time, delivered a sermon one Friday in which he said, “The hadith saying that the Messenger of Allah once said (to Ali, as): `Your status to me is like that of Aaron to Moses' was altered from: `Your status to me is like that of Qarun to Moses' because the listener became confused.”2 Such was the malice of these rulers against the Brother of the Prophet.

During the reign of al-Mu`tasim, when there was a substantial increase in the number of atheists, apostates, and fabricators of hadith, who ascended the seat of the “righteous” caliphate, and when people were distracted during al-Mu`tasim's time by marginal problems, in addition to the dilemma caused by Ahmad ibn Hanbal labelling the Holy Qur'an as being infinite in its pre-existence..., people blindly followed the creed of their kings, believing that the Holy Qur'an was “created.”

When Ahmad ibn Hanbal withdrew his theory regarding the Holy Qur'an, being apprehensive of al-Mu`tasim, he became after that quite famous among scholars of hadith3 like a shining star. It was then decided to add the name of Ali ibn Abu Talib to the list of the “righteous caliphs.”

It is quite possible that Ahmad ibn Hanbal was dazzled by the authentic ahadith enumerating Ali's virtues which surfaced against the wish of the rulers of the time, especially since he is the one who has said, “Nobody among all people has received as many ahadith in his favor as Ali ibn Abu Talib.” It was then that the number of the “righteous caliphs” was increased to four, and Ali's caliphate was regarded as “legitimate” after being rejected due to its “illegitimacy.”

The Proof:

In the Tabaqat, regarded by the Hanbalis as their main reference, Ibn Abu Ya`li quotes Wadeezah al-Himsi as saying:

I visited Ahmad ibn Hanbal after having added the name of Ali, Allah be pleased with him,4 to the list of the three [“righteous caliphs”]. I said to him, “O Abu Abdullah! What you have done discredits both Talhah and al-Zubayr!” He said, “What a foolish statement you have uttered! What do we have to do with those folks' war, and why do you mention it now?” I said, “May Allah lead you to righteousness, we have mentioned it only after you added the name of Ali and mandated for him (of honors because) of the caliphate what is mandated to the Imams before him!” Said he, “And what stops me from doing so?” I said, “One tradition narrated by Ibn Umar.” He said to me, “Umar [ibn al-Khattab] is better than his son, for he accepted (i.e. recommended) Ali's caliphate over the Muslims and listed him among the members of the (consultative) council of shura, and Ali referred to himself as the Commander of the Faithful; am I the one to say that the faithful did not have a commander?!” So I left.5

This incident clarifies for us the fact that the narrator is the leader of “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” and their spokesman, and that they rejected Ali's caliphate because of what Abdullah ibn Umar, the Sunnis' faqih, says, a statement which al-Bukhari records in his Sahih. Since they claim that al-Bukhari's Sahih is the most authentic book next to the Book of Allah, it is mandatory on them to reject Ali's caliphate and not to recognize it.

We have discussed this “tradition” in our book So Ask the People of Remembrance, and there is no harm in repeating it here in order to make the benefit general.

In his Sahih, al-Bukhari quotes Abdullah ibn Umar saying, “During the lifetime of the Prophet, we used to regard Abu Bakr most, then Umar ibn al-Khattab, then Uthman ibn Affan, may Allah be pleased with them.”6

Al-Bukhari quotes another tradition narrated by Ibn Umar which is more frank than this one. In it, Abdullah ibn Umar says:

During the lifetime of the Prophet, we did not regard anyone as being the peer of Abu Bakr, then Umar, then Uthman, then we leave the rest of the Prophet's companions without making any distinction among them.7

Upon the premises of this “tradition,” which the Messenger of Allah neither mandates nor endorses, but one which is no more than the brainchild of Abdullah ibn Umar and his biased views and well known grudge and animosity towards Ali, do “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” base their sect and justify their attitude as to why they did not recognize Ali's caliphate.

It is through “traditions” such as this one that Banu Umayyah permitted cursing, condemning, taunting, and belittling Ali. Their rulers since the reign of Mu`awiyah and till the days of Marwan ibn Muhammad ibn Marwan in 132 A.H. ordered the cursing of Ali from the pulpits. All those who supported him or did not endorse such animosity were killed.8

Then the Abbaside government started in 132 A.H./750 A.D. with the reign of Abul-Abbas al-Saffah [the blood-shedder]; it was then that dissociation in various means from Ali and from those who supported him continued, and the means of this dissociation varied according to the then prevailing conditions and circumstances because the Abbaside dynasty was erected on the ruins of Ahlul Bayt and those who followed their line. Some rulers, if the government's interest demanded, did not publicly curse Ali but were secretly doing more than what the Umayyads did.

They learned from the historic experience which highlighted the oppression to which Ahlul Bayt and their supporters were subjected: such oppression drew the sympathy of people to them; therefore, the rulers cunningly tried to tilt the situation in their favor.

They, therefore, sought to be close to the Imams from Ahlul Bayt not out of love for them, nor recognizing their confiscated rights, but in order to contain the public uprisings which broke out near the borders and which threatened the government's very existence.

This is what al-Ma'mun son of Haroun al-Rasheed had done to Imam Ali ibn Musa al-Rida. But when the government was in full control, and internal dissent was contained, it went to extremes in insulting these Imams and their Shi`as as the Abbaside caliph al-Mutawakkil did. He became quite famous for his hatred of Ali and for cursing him and even desecrating his grave and the grave of his son al-Husayn.

It is because of these facts that we have said that “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” refused to recognize the legitimacy of Ali's caliphate till many years after Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

It is true that Ahmad ibn Hanbal was the first person to promote this notion, but he could not convince the scholars of hadith, as we have pointed out to adopt his view due to their following in the footprints of Abdullah ibn Umar. A long time was needed to convince people of it and to let them accept Ahmad ibn Hanbal's view, a view which might have presented the Hanbalis as seeking justice and nearness to Ahlul Bayt. This distinguished them from other Sunni sects such as the Malikis, Hanafis, and Shafi`is who were vying to gain supporters. They, therefore, had no choice except to accept the view and adopt it.

As time passed by, “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” became unanimous in endorsing Ahmad ibn Hanbal's view, and they agreed to make Ali the fourth of the “righteous caliphs,” requiring the faithful to respect him as much as they respected the other three.

Is this, then, not the greatest proof that “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” were Nasibis who hated Ali and tried their best to belittle and disrespect him?

One may ask the following question: “How can this be true while we nowadays see `Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah' loving Imam Ali and seeking Allah to be pleased with him?”

We say: Yes, after the passage of time, and the death of the Imams from Ahlul Bayt, the rulers had no worry, nor did they face any threat against their government, and when the dignity of the Islamic government disappeared and the Mamlukes, Moguls, and Tatars took control of it, and when the creed weakened and many Muslims were diverted with arts, singing, amusement, promiscuity, wine and concubines..., and when one generation succeeded another that lost the prayers, followed its own low desires..., when right seemed wrong and wrong seemed right, when corruption prevailed on the land and the sea..., it was then and only then that Muslims eulogized their ancestors and sung the praise of their glory.

It was then that they yearned for their past history and legacy, calling them their “golden ages.” The best of times, from their viewpoint, is the age of the sahaba who conquered many lands, expanded the Islamic kingdom in the east and the west, subduing the Kaisers and Caesars.

It was then that they started praying to Allah to be pleased with all of them, including Ali ibn Abu Talib, became acceptable. Because “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” believe in their justice, all of them, they could not exclude Ali from their list of sahaba.

Had they excluded him, their scheme would have become evident to everyone who is wise and who researches, so they misled the public into believing that the fourth caliph was the gate of knowledge Ali ibn Abu Talib, Allah glorified his countenance. We ask them, “Why do you then refuse to emulate him with regard to your religious and secular matters if you truly believe that he was the gate of knowledge?

Why did you deliberately forsake that gate and prefer to emulate Abu Hanifah, Malik, al-Shafi`i, and Ibn Hanbal, as well as Ibn Taymiyyah, those who do not even come close to the loftiness of Ali's deeds, merits, and honorable descent, for what is the distance between the earth and Pleiades, or how can one compare the sword with the sickle, or how can one compare Mu`awiyah to Ali, if you only follow reason?”

All this can be said were one to set aside all the ahadith narrated about the Messenger of Allah mandating upon all Muslims to follow Imam Ali after the Prophet and to emulate him. Someone among Ahlul Sunnah may say, “Ali's merits, his being the foremost in embracing Islam, his jihad in the cause of Islam, his deep knowledge, his great honors, and his asceticism are known to all people; rather, Ahlul Sunnah know and love Ali more than Shi`as do.”

Such is the statement repeated by many of them these days. To these we say: Where were you9 , and where were your ancestors and scholars when Ali was being cursed from the pulpits for hundreds of years? We never heard, nor does history document any fact, that even one single person among them resented it or prohibited it or was killed because of his loyalty and love for Ali.

Nay! We will never come across even one name among all the scholars of Ahlul Sunnah who did so. Instead, they were close to the monarchs, rulers, and governors because of the allegiance they had sworn to them, because of being pleased with them, and because they issued for them verdicts legalizing the killing of all “rejectionists” who were loyal to Ali and his progeny, and such people are present even in our own time.

Christians have for many centuries borne enmity towards the Jews whom they regarded as criminals. They accused them of being responsible for killing Jesus Christ son of Mary. But these Christians weakened, and the tenets of their creed disappeared, and many of them became apostates. The Church was consigned to the waste basket due to its opposing stand towards science and scientists.

In contrast, the Jews gained power, and such power gained momentum when they occupied Arab and Islamic lands by force. Their influence spread in the east and the west, and they established the “state of Israel...” It was only then that Pope John Paul II met Jewish rabbis and cleared them of the crime of killing Jesus, for such are some people, and such is our time.

Notes

1. They all did so with the exception of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, may Allah be Merciful to him.

2. Tarikh Baghdad, Vol. 8, p. 266.

3. That is to say, such scholars belonged to “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah.”

4. Notice how the speaker says: “Allah be pleased with him,” yet he refuses to accept his name to be added to the list of “righteous caliphs” and protests to Ahmad ibn Hanbal for having done so. Notice also how he says: “We have mentioned it, etc.,” implying his speaking on behalf of Ahlul Sunnah who had sent him to Ahmad ibn Hanbal to register their protest.

5. Tabaqat al-Hanabila, Vol. 1, p. 292.

6. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 4, p. 191, Vol. 4, in the book of the genesis of creation in a chapter dealing with Abu Bakr's merits being next only to those of the Prophet .

7. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 4, p. 203, in a chapter dealing with the merits of Uthman ibn `Affan in the book of the genesis of creation.

8. The only exception are the couple of years during which Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz ruled. He stopped the nefarious custom of cursing, but after his murder, they resumed the cursing and went beyond that to desecrate his grave. They went as far as prohibiting anyone to be named after him...

9. I have deliberately said “Where were you?” to address contemporary Muslims from “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah,” for they read in Muslim's Sahih that Mu`awiya used to curse Ali and order the sahaba to do likewise, and they do not find it objectionable. Rather, they plead to Allah to be pleased with their master Mu`awiyah to whom they refer as “the revelation's scribe.” This proves that their love for Ali is not genuine at all and unworthy of being taken seriously.

Ahlul Sunnah and the Obliteration of the Sunnah

In this chapter, we would like to explain something very important which researchers ought to deeply investigate in order to find out, beyond any shadow of doubt, that those who call themselves Ahlul Sunnah in all reality have very little to do with the Sunnah of the Prophet.

This is so because they, or rather their predecessors among the sahaba and “righteous caliphs,” whom they emulate, and through loving for and allegiance to whom they seek nearness to Allah, took a negative stand towards the Prophetic Sunnah to the extent that they burnt that Sunnah and prohibited anyone from recording it or narrating its ahadith.1

Moreover, we have to unveil the mean plot woven against the pure Prophetic Sunnah in order to prohibit its dissemination, and in order to kill it in its infancy and substitute it with innovations, personal views, and interpretations of the rulers and the sahaba. Early rulers did the following:

FIRST: They fabricated false ahadith to support their stand to prohibit the recording of the Prophet's Sunnah and the sacred ahadith. Imam Muslim, for example, records in his Sahih what is quoted by Haddab ibn Khalid al-Azdi who cites Humam citing Zayd ibn Aslam citing Ata ibn Yasar citing Abu Sa`id al-Khudri saying that the Messenger of Allah has said, “Do not record anything which I say, and whoever quotes what I tell you besides the Qur'an should erase what he writes, and [orally] narrate about me without any hesitation.”2 The purpose of fabricating this alleged “hadith” is to justify what Abu Bakr and Umar did to the Prophet's ahadith written down and recorded by a number of companions of the Prophet. This “tradition” was fabricated many years after the end of the period of the “righteous caliphs,” and the fabricators, professional liars, overlooked the following issues:

1) Had the Messenger of Allah actually said so, the sahaba would have acted upon his orders (not to write traditions down), and they would have erased all traditions many years before Abu Bakr and Umar had burned them.

2) Had this tradition been authentic, Abu Bakr would have first cited it, and then Umar, in order to justify their prohibition of recording hadith, and they would have erased them, and those who had recorded them would have sought an excuse for having done so either due to their ignorance [of such a “tradition”] or to their lapse of memory.

3) Had this tradition been authentic, Abu Bakr and Umar would have had to erase all traditions, not burn them.

4) Had this “tradition” been authentic, the Muslims, who were contemporary to Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, till our time, would have been committing the sin of disobeying the Messenger of Allah, particularly their chief, namely Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz who had ordered the scholars of his time to record hadith, in addition to al-Bukhari and Muslim who regarded this tradition as authentic yet they did not act upon it but wrote thousands of the Prophet's ahadith.

5) Finally, had this “tradition” been authentic, it would not have been missed by the gate of knowledge Ali ibn Abu Talib who compiled the ahadith of the Prophet in one saheefa the length of whose pieces reached seventy yards which he called al-jami`a, the one that includes everything, and which we will discuss later by the help of Allah.

SECOND: Umayyad rulers spared no efforts to underscore their theory that the Messenger of Allah was not protected by Allah against falling into error as is the case with all other human beings who sometimes are right and sometimes are wrong, fabricating several “traditions” to support their claim.

The purpose of fabricating such “traditions” was to make sure that the Prophet used to follow his own personal views; therefore, he often erred to the extent that some of his companions had to correct him, as indicated in the incidents of palm tree pollination, the revelation of the verse referring to the issue of hijab (veil), the case of accepting fidya (ransom) from the captives seized after the Battle of Badr, in addition to many such incidents claimed by “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” and included in their Sahih books in support of such an attitude towards the Messenger of Allah, peace and the best of blessings be upon him and his progeny.

We argue with “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” thus:

If such is your creed and attitude towards the Messenger of Allah, how do you claim to be upholding his Sunnah, believing that you and your predecessors regarded such Sunnah as unprotected from Allah from error, even unknown and unrecorded?!3 Yet we reject these claims and false charges and are able to refute them by quoting your own references and Sahih books.4 Examples:

In a chapter on recording knowledge in his Kitab al-`Ilm (Book of Knowledge) of his Sahih, al-Bukhari quotes Abu Hurayra saying, “None among the companions of the Prophet narrates more hadith than me except Abdullah ibn Umar, for he can write whereas I cannot (i.e. am illiterate).”5

This statement clearly indicates that there were among the Prophet's sahaba those who wrote his ahadith down. Since Abu Hurayra narrated more than six thousand traditions of the Prophet orally (because he could not write), Abdullah ibn Umar quoted more traditions of the Prophet because of his ability to write them down.

Undoubtedly, there were among the sahaba those who could write the Prophet's traditions and whom Abu Hurayra did not mention because they were not famous for being so prolific. Add to the above Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib who used to spread out from the pulpit a scroll which he used to call al-jami`a in which he compiled all what people need of the Prophet's traditions, and which was inherited by the Imams of Ahlul Bayt who often referred to it. Examples:

Imam Ja`far al-Sadiq has said, “We have the saheefa; it is seventy yards long: it is the dictation of the Messenger of Allah written down in the hand-writing of Ali. Nothing permissible or prohibitive the knowledge thereof is needed by people, nor any other issue, except that it is in it, even the penalty for inflicting an offense as minor as a tiny scratch on someone's cheek.”6

Al-Bukhari himself has referred to this saheefa, which was in Ali's possession, in many chapters of his book, but he, as was quite often his habit, curtailed a great deal of information about its nature and contents. In his Kitab al-`Ilm, al-Bukhari records the following:

Al-Sha`bi has quoted Abu Juhayfa saying, “I asked Ali: `Do you have a book in your possession?' He said, `No, except the Book of Allah, or some knowledge bestowed upon a Muslim man, or what this saheefa quotes of the Prophet.' I asked him, `And what is in this saheefa?' `It contains reason,' he said, `the ransoming of the captives, and that no Muslim should kill another Muslim.'“7

In another place, al-Bukhari quotes Ibrahim al-Taymi quoting his father quoting Ali saying, “We have nothing except the Book of Allah and this saheefa which quotes the Prophet.”8 In yet another place in al-Bukhari's Sahih, the author quotes Ibrahim al-Taymi quoting his father saying, “Ali delivered a sermon once to us in which he said, `We have no book to read except the Book of Allah and what is recorded in this saheefa.'“9

In another place of his Sahih, al-Bukhari quotes Ali saying, “We did not write down from the Prophet except the Qur'an and this saheefa.”10 In yet another place of his Sahih, al-Bukhari says, “Ibrahim al-Taymi quotes his father saying, `Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, delivered a sermon to us once from a pulpit built of baked bricks, and he was carrying a sword from which a saheefa was draping and said, `By Allah! We do not have any book to read except the Book of Allah and what is recorded in this saheefa.'“11

Al-Bukhari, however, did not indicate that Imam Ja`far al-Sadiq had said that this saheefa was called “al-jami`a” due to the fact that it contained all what is permissible and prohibitive, and it had all what people need, even the penalty for scratching one's cheek, that it was dictated by the Messenger of Allah and hand-written by Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib.

Instead, he only made a casual reference to it. He has said once that it has reason, the ransoming of the captives, and that no Muslim man should be killed on account of a non-Muslim. And once he says, “Ali spread it out, and it had a reference to camels' teeth, that Medina is not to be entered by non-Muslims, that the Muslims' security is their collective responsibility, and that if someone followed certain people without the permission of his masters..., etc.”

This is nothing but forgery and the adulteration of facts; otherwise, does it make sense to say that Ali wrote only those four statements on it then draped it to his sword to the extent that it was with him even whenever he preached from the pulpit, making it second only to the Holy Qur'an as his reference, telling people, “We have not quoted of what the Prophet has said except the Qur'an and what this saheefa contains”?!

Was Abu Hurayra's mind greater than that of Ali ibn Abu Talib to the extent that he learned by heart one hundred thousand traditions from the Messenger of Allah without having written a single one of them down?!

Strange, by Allah, is the case of those who accept one hundred thousand traditions narrated by Abu Hurayra who did not accompany the Prophet except for three years, the illiterate that he was, while claiming that Ali was the gate of the city of knowledge from whom the sahaba learned various branches of knowledge.

Yet, according to them, Ali was carrying a scroll containing only four ahadith that remained with him during the Prophet's lifetime till his own caliphate, so he ascended the pulpit and it was draping from his sword...! What a big statement they make, and what lies they fabricate...

Yet what al-Bukhari has recorded suffices the researchers and any discreet person especially since he mentioned that that saheefa contained many topics relevant to the human mind and to the Islamic intellect. Our point is not to prove or disprove what the saheefa contained, for the residents of Mecca best know its valleys, and the family members know best what their house contains, but what concerns us in this research is the fact that the sahaba were indeed writing down the traditions of the Prophet.

Abu Hurayra's statement that Abdullah ibn Umar used to record the Prophet's traditions, in addition to the statement of Ali ibn Abu Talib saying, according to al-Bukhari's Sahih, “We have not quoted of what the Prophet has said except the Qur'an and what this saheefa contains,” irrevocably proves that the Messenger of Allah never prohibited anyone from recording his ahadith; rather, it proves the opposite.

The tradition recorded in al-Bukhari's Sahih quoting the Prophet saying, “Do not quote me, and anyone who quotes anything from me other than the Qur'an must erase it” is a false tradition fabricated by those who supported the caliphs so that they might support them. It was fabricated in order to justify what Abu Bakr and Umar and Uthman had done: the burning of Prophet's ahadith and the prohibition of the Sunnah from being disseminated.

What increases our conviction is the fact that not only did the Messenger of Allah refrain from prohibiting the writing of his ahadith, but that he even ordered them to be recorded. Imam Ali, who was the closest person to the Prophet, said: “We have not quoted of what the Prophet has said except the Qur'an and what this saheefa contains.” This statement is quoted by al-Bukhari in his Sahih.

If we add to the above what Imam Ja`far al-Sadiq has said, that is, that al-saheefa al-jami`a was the dictation of the Messenger of Allah in the hand-writing of Ali, we will conclude by saying that the Prophet had ordered Ali to quote him.

In order to dispel any doubt which may still linger in the mind of the dear reader, I would like to shed more light and state the following:

Al-Hakim in his book Al-Mustadrak, Abu Dawood in his Sahih, Imam Ahmad in his Musnad, and al-Darimi in his Sunan have all quoted a very important hadith regarding Abdullah ibn Umar to whom Abu Hurayra referred and whom he described as having written down a larger number of the Prophet's ahadith than he himself had quoted; it is as follows:

Abdullah ibn Umar has said: “I used to write down whatever I heard from the Messenger of Allah, so Quraysh prohibited me from doing so saying, `Do you write everything you hear from the Messenger of Allah who is a human being talking in anger or when pleased?' So I stopped writing, then I told the Messenger of Allah about it, whereupon he pointed to his mouth and said, `Keep writing, for by the One Who holds my soul do I swear that nothing comes out of it except the truth.'“12

This tradition clearly tells us that Abdullah ibn Umar used to write down everything he heard from the Messenger of Allah who did not prohibit him from doing so; rather, such a prohibition came from Quraysh. Abdullah did not want to identify those who prohibited him from writing what he was writing, for their prohibition contradicted what the Messenger of Allah had told him.

It is also quite clear that his generally ambiguous reference to “Quraysh” means the leaders of Quraysh [who were then present in Medina], that is, the Meccan Muhajirs, immigrants, led by Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Abdul-Rahman ibn Awf, Abu Ubaydah, Talhah, al-Zubayr, and all those who followed their line.

We also notice that their prohibiting Abdullah took place while the Prophet was still alive: this by itself emphasizes the depth of the conspiracy and its gravity; otherwise, why should these men prohibit Abdullah from writing hadith without first consulting with the Prophet himself in this regard? This can also be understood from their statement that the Messenger of Allah was an ordinary human being who talked when angry and when pleased. It indicates how weak their belief in the Prophet was to the extent that they expected him to say something wrong, or pass an erroneous verdict, especially in the state of anger.

The fact that the Prophet said the following when Abdullah ibn Umar mentioned to him Quraysh's prohibition and what they said about him, he pointed to his mouth and said, “By the One Who holds my soul do I swear that nothing comes out of it except the truth” is another proof of the Prophet's knowledge of their doubting his justice, and that they expected him to err and to utter falsehood (Astaghfirullah! [We seek forgiveness of Allah]); therefore, he swore by Allah that he said nothing except the truth. This is the accurate interpretation of the verse saying,

“Surely he does not utter anything of his own desire; it is but a revelation revealed” (Holy Qur'an, 53:3-4),

and that he was protected against erring or uttering falsehood.

Because of all the above, we emphatically state that all “traditions” fabricated during the time of the Umayyads which implied that he was not divinely protected against erring are not authentic at all. The tradition cited above also gives us the impression that their influence on Abdullah ibn Umar was so great that he stopped writing hadith down as he himself admitted when he said, “... so I stopped writing...”

He remained so till an occasion came wherein the Messenger of Allah interfered in person to dispel the doubts circulated against his infallibility and equity, the doubts which were quite often articulated even in his own presence such as their asking him: “Are you really a prophet?!”13 or: “Are you the one who claims to be a prophet?!”14 or: “By Allah, he did not seek in this distribution the Pleasure of Allah!”15 or Ayesha's statement to the Prophet: “Your God is sure swift in fulfilling your desires!”16 or her asking the prophet once to be fair..., up to the end of the list of impertinent statements which demonstrate the fact that they doubted his infallibility, believing that he was liable to be unfair, to oppress, to err, to lie...; we seek Allah's protection.

He, indeed, possessed sublime morals; he was kind and compassionate as he tried to dispel such doubts by saying once, for example, “I am only a servant receiving orders from his Master,” and once, “By Allah! I am kind for the sake of pleasing Allah Whom I fear,” and at another time he said, “By the One Who controls my life! It utters nothing except the truth.” He used quite often to say: “May Allah have mercy on my Brother Moses! He was subjected to more afflictions than this, yet he persevered.”

Those impertinent statements which cast doubts about the Prophet's infallibility and about his Prophethood were not made by those who were outcasts or hypocritical; rather, they were unfortunately made by very prominent companions of the Prophet, and by the Mother of the Believers, and by those who are still regarded by “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” as role models of conduct; so, there is no power nor might except in Allah, the Sublime, the Great.

What confirms our conviction that the tradition which supposedly prohibited the recording of hadith is fabricated and was baseless, and that the Prophet never said so at all, is the fact that Abu Bakr himself used to write down the traditions of the Prophet during his lifetime. Yet when he ascended to the post of caliph, he decided to burn them for a reason with which the researchers are familiar.

Here is his daughter Ayesha saying, “My father gathered the ahadith of the Messenger of Allah, and they totalled five hundred, then he spent his night sleeplessly turning on his sides. I thought that he was upset because of someone's complaint, or because of some news which he had heard. The next morning, he said to me, `Daughter! Bring me the ahadith in your possession,' so I brought them to him, and he set them on fire.”17

And here is Umar ibn al-Khattab, also upon becoming caliph, delivering a sermon one day to people in which he said, “Anyone who has in his possession a book must bring it to me so that I may tell him what I think of it.” People thought that he simply wanted to verify their contents to remove from them any discrepancy, so they brought him their books whereupon he set them on fire.18 Then he dispatched his orders to Islamic lands ordering people thus: Anyone who has any ahadith written down has to erase them.19

This is the greatest evidence testifying to the fact that all the sahaba, had they lived in Medina or in the rest of Muslim lands, had in their possession books in which they compiled sacred ahadith of the Prophet which they had recorded during the Prophet's lifetime. They were all burnt according to the orders first of Abu Bakr then of Umar. All other books found in other lands were erased during Umar's caliphate as he had ordered.20

Based upon the above, we cannot, nor can any sane person, believe that the Messenger of Allah had prohibited them from writing them down, having come to know that most sahaba possessed books containing traditions especially the saheefa with which Imam Ali never parted, and whose length reached seventy yards, and which he used to call al-jami`a [literally meaning: the university] because it contained all sorts of knowledge.

Since the interests of the ruling authority and the dominant political line dictated the obliteration and the burning of the Sunnah and the prohibition of quoting hadith, the sahaba who supported such caliphate obeyed those orders and burnt such Sunnah and ceased quoting hadith.

Thus, they left themselves and their followers no option except resorting to personal views expressed as ijtihad, or following the “sunnah” of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Mu`awiyah, Yazid, Marwan ibn al-Hakam, al-Waleed ibn Abd al-Malik, Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik.... This continued till [Umayyad caliph] Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz came to power and asked Abu Bakr al-Hazmi to write down what he remembered of the ahadith and Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah or the “sunnah” of Umar ibn al-Khattab.21

Thus does it become clear to us that even during the circumstances that permitted the recording of the Sunnah, a hundred years after the obliteration and prohibition of the Sunnah, we can see the moderate Umayyad caliph whose name was added by “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” to the list of the “righteous caliphs” ordering the compilation of the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah in addition to the “sunnah” of Umar ibn al-Khattab, as if Umar ibn al-Khattab was a partner of Muhammad in his Prophetic mission and prophethood...!

And why did Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz not ask the Imams from Ahlul Bayt, who were his contemporaries, to give him a copy of al-saheefa al-jami`a? And why did he not put them in charge of collecting the Prophet's ahadith especially since they knew best what their grandfather had said? But verifiers and researchers know the secret.

Can those traditions which were compiled by “Ahlul Sunnah wal Jama`ah” be taken for granted especially since those who compiled them belonged to Banu Umayyah and their supporters who represent Quraysh's caliphate? Can we rely on them after having already come to know the truth about Quraysh and its attitude towards the Messenger of Allah and his purified Sunnah? It remains obvious, having come to know all of that, that the ruling authority across the centuries acted only upon the principles of ijtihad, analogy, and mutual consultation...

Since the said authority had expelled Imam Ali from the stage of public life and ignored him, it had nothing against him to require him to burn what he had recorded during the Prophetic Message according to the dictation of the Prophet himself.

Ali remained in possession of that saheefa in which he compiled everything people need, even the penalty for slightly scratching one's cheek. When he became caliph, he was still letting it drape from his sword as he ascended the pulpit to deliver a sermon to people to acquaint them with its importance.

Consecutive stories told by the Imams of Ahlul Bayt kept indicating that their sons inherited that saheefa from their fathers, chronologically one from another, and that they used to refer to it in order to issue religious decisions (fatawa) with regard to questions raised to them by their contemporaries who were guided by the light of their guidance. For this reason, Imam Ja`far al-Sadiq, Imam al-Rida, and many other Imams, used to always repeat the same statement in its regard.

They used to say, “We do not issue verdicts to people according to our own views; had we been issuing verdicts to people in the light of our own views and according to the dictates of our own inclinations, we would surely have been among those who perish. Rather, they are legacies of the Messenger of Allah of knowledge which sons inherit from their fathers, and which we treasure as people treasure their gold and silver.”22 Imam Ja`far al-Sadiq said once,

My hadith is my father's, while my father's hadith is my grandfather's, and the hadith of my grandfather is that of al-Husayn; al-Husayn's hadith is that of al-Hasan; al-Hasan's hadith is that of the Commander of the Faithful; the hadith of the Commander of the Faithful is the hadith of the Messenger of Allah, and the hadith of the Messenger of Allah is the speech of Allah, the Lord of Dignity and Greatness.23

Based on such premises, the tradition of the Two Weighty Things (al-Thaqalain) becomes consecutively reported (mutawatir), and its text is as follows:

I have left among you the Two Weighty Things: the Book of Allah and my Progeny; so long as you (simultaneously) uphold both of them, you shall never stray after me.24

Notes

1. Read in this regard from page 200 and beyond in my book Ask Those Who Know.

2. Muslim, Sahih, Vol. 8, p. 229, “Kitab al-Zuhd” (Book of Asceticism) in a chapter dealing with verification of hadith and the injunction regarding the recording of knowledge.

3. This is so due to the fact that recording the Sunnah was postponed till the time of caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz or even thereafter. As for the caliphs and rulers who preceded him, they burnt it and prohibited anyone from writing it down or quoting it.

4. What is strange is that Ahlul Sunnah often narrate one hadith and its antithesis in the same book. Yet even more strange is that they quite often follow false traditions and neglect authentic ones.

5. Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 1, p. 36, “Kitab al-`Ilm” (Book of Knowledge).

6. Usul al-Kafi, Vol. 1, p. 239, and also on p. 143 of Basair al-Darajat.

7. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 1, p. 36, [original Arabic text].

8. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 2, p. 221.

9. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 4, p. 67, and Muslim, Sahih, Vol. 4, p. 115.

10. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 4, p. 69.

11. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 8, p. 144.

12. Al-Hakim, Mustadrak, Vol. 1, p. 105. Also Abu Dawud, Sunan, Vol. 2, p. 126. Also al-Darimi, Sunan, Vol. 1, p. 125, and Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Musnad, Vol. 2, p. 162.

13. This statement was made by Umar ibn al-Khattab during the Treaty of Hudaybiya, and it is recorded on p. 122, Vol. 2, of al-Bukhari's Sahih.

14. This statement was made by `Ayesha daughter of Abu Bakr; see p. 29, Vol. 2, of al-Ghazali's book Ihya al-`Ulum.

15. This was the statement made to the Prophet by an Ansar companion as recorded on p. 47, Vol. 4, of al-Bukhari's Sahih.

16. Al-Bukhari, Sahih, Vol. 6, p. 24, and also Vol. 6, p. 128, of the same reference.

17. See p. 237, Vol. 5, of Kanz al-`Ummal. Refer also to Ibn Kathir's book Al-Bidaya wal-Nihaya as well as p. 5, Vol. 1, of al-Dhahabi's Tadhkirat al-Huffaz.

18. Ibn Sa`ad, Al-Tabaqat al-Kubra, Vol. 5, p. 188. It is also recorded in Taqyeed al-`Ilm by al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi.

19. Refer to Ibn Abd al-Birr's book Jamai` Bayan al-`Ilm.

20. Look, may Allah protect you, at such a horrible act committed by the caliphs Abu Bakr and Umar towards the Prophetic Sunnah! Imagine the greatly immeasurable loss which they inflicted upon the Islamic Ummah which very badly needed such ahadith in order to understand the Holy Qur'an and the commandments of Allah, the Most Glorified One. They were, by my life, authentic ahadith because they were direct quotations from the Prophet recorded in the absence of a second narrator. As for the “traditions” which were compiled after that period, these were mostly fabrications because dissension had already taken place, and Muslims killed one another, and they were manufactured according to the specifications provided by various oppressive rulers...

21. Malik, Al-Muwatta', Vol. 1, p. 5.

22. `Allama al-`Askari, Ma`alim al-Madrasatayn, Vol. 2, p. 302.

23. Al-Kulayni, Al-Kafi, Vol. 1, p. 53.

24. Muslim, Sahih, Vol. 5, p. 122, also al-Tirmidhi, Sahih, Vol. 5, p. 637.


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