ABANDONMENT OF THE AHL AL-BAYT; ABANDONMENT OF THE HOLY QUR'AN
ABANDONMENT OF THE AHL AL-BAYT; ABANDONMENT OF THE HOLY QUR'AN
The Muslims have actually abandoned and shunned the Holy Qur'an since the moment at which they decided to take the Ahl al-Bayt away from the position for which Almighty Allah has appointed them although the Holy Qur'an and the Ahl al-Bayt are forever inseparable matches. However, the Muslims have neglected the commission of Almighty Allah Who says, "Thy Lord does create and choose as He pleases: no choice have they in the matter. 28/68"
It is worth mentioning that the slogan of 'Sufficient for us is the Book of Allah' [1] has been still repeated although it is absolutely nonsensical and has been originated by Satan's incitements and the passions of the souls that are prone to evil. Satan is even now causing this slogan to be raised by those who aim at obliterating the handsome structure of Islam with all of its constituents including the Holy Qur'an that in reality acquires its activity and plays its proper role only when it is carried by its own people who have full acquaintance with its laws and conceptions, namely the Ahl al-Bayt and none else.
Whatever the case may be, the seditious separation between the Holy Qur'an and its spokesmen is very old;. Imam 'Ali was the first to have suffered this ordeal when he was forced to accept the arbitration. [2] On that occasion, he said, "This Qur'an is indeed a stripe that is concealed between the two covers; it does not have a tongue to speak and it thus requires an interpreter. It is (authoritative) men who speak on behalf of it."' [3]
The Holy Qur'an and the Ahl al-Bayt are such inseparable matches that it is impracticable to abide by one and neglect the other since the Ahl al-Bayt are the Door of Allah; and none is admitted to enter to Allah except through that Door. In addition, Almighty Allah has ordered us to enter the houses through their doors.
The claim that the others are more observant to the Holy Qur'an than we are is absolutely false. It is true that they have attended to the articulations and the tunes in the recitation of the Holy Qur'an more than we do and have been interested in the rules of intonation that they themselves founded although some of which are in violation of the religious laws. Yet, all such things are surface interests that are far from the main topic, which is the comprehension of the contents of the Holy Qur'an and the acting upon its instruction. In other words, articulation is the peel while the signification is the fruit. For a reciter of the Holy Qur'an, the articulation is only a container that the reciter has not created it himself, while the signification must be the actual concern. Many hadiths have condemned those who drawl the pronunciation of the Holy Qur'an's words while they know nothing about its indications. In this respect, a Hadith reads, "Too many are those who recite the Qur'an while the Qur'an is cursing them." [4] As for such people, they are actual rivals of the Holy Qur'an because they have never applied its instructions to their conducts. Imam Muhammad al-Baqir has been reported as saying, "Reciters of the Qur'an are of three categories: one category is represented by those who betake their recitation of the Qur'an as means for earning livelihood, flattering the rulers and acting arrogantly with people. Those will certainly be included with the inhabitants of Hellfire. Another category is represented by those who have memorized the letters of the Holy Qur'an but misused its instructions. Those will certainly be included with the people of Hellfire, too. The third category is represented by those who used the remedy of the Qur'an for healing the diseases of their hearts and therefore they, for the sake of the Holy Qur'an, spent their nights sleeplessly, abstained from eating and drinking in days, attended in the mosques and left their beds. Only for the sake of such people will the All-powerful and All-omnipotent Lord prevent misfortunes, back against the enemies and send down rain from the heavens. I swear by Allah that such reciters of the Holy Qur'an are more precious than red sulfur." [5]
Another hadith that is reported from Imam al-Masan reads, "Verily, the worthiest of maintaining the Qur'an are those who act upon it even if they have not memorized it. Similarly, the furthest from it are those who have not applied it to their manners even if they used to recite it regularly." [6]
The plot of separating the Holy Qur'an from the Ahl al-Bayt, which resulted in emptying it from its contents and encouraging on consecrating the efforts to its letters, was so deep-rooted that the Holy Infallibles have drawn the attentions to it. While the Holy Qur'an declares, "Thy Lord does create and choose as He pleases: no choice have they in the matter, 28/68" those who claimed observance of the Holy Qur'an omitted this holy verse when they neglected the individuals that have been divinely commissioned for the leadership of the Islamic nation and preferred unqualified ones over them although they knew that Almighty Allah has regarded the observance of His commission concerning the leadership of the nation as important as the conveyance of the Mission of Islam. In this respect, the Holy Qur'an reads, "O Messenger! Deliver what has been revealed to you from your Lord; and if you do it not, then you have not delivered His message, and Allah will protect you from the people; surely Allah will not guide the unbelieving people. 5/67"
In the same way, it is ironic to claim advocacy to the Holy Qur'an that reads, "Say, I do not ask of you any reward for it but love for my near relatives, 42/23" while the very near relatives of the Holy Prophet are being antagonized and chased everywhere. Yet, those who have antagonized the near relatives of the Holy Prophet (namely the Ahl al-Bayt) should join this holy verse, "Say: No reward do I ask of you for it but this: that each one who wills may take a straight Path to his Lord. 25/57" to the previous one so as to attain the fact that the Ahl al-Bayt is the one and only 'way' that Almighty Allah has ordered us to follow, saying, "Verily, this is My way, leading straight; follow it, and follow not other paths, they will scatter you about from His great path: thus doth He command you that ye may be righteous. 6/153"
Explaining this holy verse, Imam Muhammad al-Baqir says, "We are the (straight) way (of Allah); anyone who will reject this way will have rejected faith." [7]
The slogan of 'Sufficient for us is the Book of Allah' and its trumpeters who are still repeating it and asking for proofs from the Holy Qur'an only for each and every issue cannot be described as 'true statement but of wrong indications;' [8] rather it must be decided as 'a wrong statement and of a wrong indication.' By trumpeting this statement, those individuals only aim at devastating the foundations of Islam since they intend to adopt the Holy Qur'an alone and dispense with everything else including the Holy Prophet. Thus, dispensing with the Holy Prophet will absolutely mean ignorance of all the details of the code of Islamic law since the Holy Prophet and the Ahl al-Bayt are the custodians of the Holy Qur'an and the interpreters of its rulings.
As a general rule, one cannot be specialized in a certain field of knowledge before he will receive it from its people who are experienced in it. Similarly, the knowledge of the Holy Qur'an cannot be attained unless it is referred to the authorities. Yet, the knowledge of the Holy Qur'an is definitely more important than any other field of knowledge since it has been described by Almighty Allah as is shown in the following holy verses, "And We have sent down to thee the Book explaining all things, a Guide, a Mercy, and Glad Tidings to Muslims. 16/89"
"Nothing have we omitted from the Book. 6/38"
In addition, the Holy Qur'an comprises reformation of humankind in all ages.
Drawing the attentions to the danger of resting upon the Holy Qur'an and dispensing with anything else, the Holy Prophet has been reported as saying, "I see coming very soon that a man from you will be leaning on a couch and as my Hadith is said to him, he will answer, 'the Book of Allah is the decisive judge; I will deem lawful only what I find lawful in it and deem unlawful only what I find unlawful in it " [9]
Since the enemies of Almighty Allah and the followers of Satan realized that the Holy Qur'an has been the fort of this nation and the protector against any deviation and also recognized that the Ahl al-Bayt have been the custodians of the Holy Qur'an, they plotted for taking the Ahl al-Bayt away from the Muslim community so that the Muslims will be without any custodian, fort or protector and thus they will be an easy prey for the enemies. From this cause, we notice that the Muslim community can be shaken for the simplest spurious argument that is aroused around it and can be collapsed whenever it is exposed to an ordinary test. In reality, this is the most serious misfortune that has afflicted the knowledge of Holy Qur'an and the way of thinking that it encourages. One of the witnesses on such negligence is the fewness of the traditions of the Ahl al-Bayt. If one counts the Hadiths that are reported from Imam 'Ali, Imam al-hasan and Imam al-Husayn, especially in the field of the exegesis of the Holy Qur'an, the result will be astounding. The Holy Prophet's companions (sahabah) reported a few, unmentionable narrations from Imam 'Ali and if we count the reports that were narrated by the generation that came next (Tabiun), they will not be a hundred narrations about the whole Qur'an. As for Imam al-Hasan, they did not report even ten narrations and as for Imam al-Husayn, one can hardly find a narration reported from him although the narrations concerning the exegesis of the Holy Qur'an have amounted to seventeen thousand reports—as has been confirmed by al-Suyutiy in his famous book of al-Itqin fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an—that were narrated by Sunnite reporters only. The same number can be applied to the reports concerning the Muslim jurisprudence. [10]
The political decisions of taking the Ahl al-Bayt away from practicing their divinely commissioned roles in the Muslim community have caused great losses to the Holy Qur'an. Some of these losses can be shown in the following points:
1) The majority of the actual knowledges of the Holy Qur'an that only the Ahl al-Bayt can comprehend have been wasted.
2) The Holy Qur'an has failed to practice its genuine role in the field of individual and collective reformation since the Ahl al-Bayt and the Holy Qur'an are inseparable matches in the form that the Holy Qur'an cannot be active in the life of the Muslim community except at the hands of the Ahl al-Bayt.
3) Due to the premeditated separation between the Holy Qur'an and the Ahl al-Bayt, the earlier has been an easy prey from the dishonest ones and the opportunists who have aimed at applying the Holy Qur'an to their own passions as well as the enemies of Islam who have claimed extracting the evidences on their deviant beliefs from the Holy Qur'an. For instance, even the Khawarij [11] provided the Holy Qur'an as the evidence on their mutiny. After the incident of the arbitration, Imam 'Ali warned 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas against advancing the Holy Qur'an as his argument against the Khawarij because it can be interpreted in more than one aspect. [12] As a consequence, the actual indications of the Holy Qur'an have been the victim of the misinterpretations against which Almighty Allah, in the Holy Qur'an itself, has warned, saying "He it is Who has sent down to thee the Book: In it are verses basic or fundamental (of established meaning); they are the foundation of the Book: others are allegorical. But those in whose hearts is perversity follow the part thereof that is allegorical, seeking discord, and searching for its hidden meanings. Yet, Almighty Allah has not left the matter unsolved. Hence, the rest of the holy verse reads, "But no one knows its hidden meanings except Allah and those who are firmly grounded in knowledge. 3/7" The Ahl al-Bayt are in fact the actual firmly grounded in knowledge.
4) The Muslim community has scattered, lost and been shredded. This is because the Holy Qur'an and the Ahl al-Bayt are always the shelter and pivot of the unity of the Muslim community as is in the word of the Holy Prophet who, at explaining Almighty Allah's saying, "And hold fast, all together, by the rope which Allah stretches out for you, and be not divided among yourselves, 3/103" has said, "This rope is the Book (of Allah) and the Household (the Ahl al-Bayt). Likewise, Lady Fatimah al-Zahra, within her famous sermon that she delivered in the Masjid of the Holy Prophet, has expressed this holding fast by saying, "Almighty Allah has made our divinely commissioned leadership (Imamate) the system for the nation." [13] In plain words, Lady Fatimah meant that Almighty Allah has made the Imamate for organizing the affairs of the publics; yet, as a result of abandoning the Ahl al-Bayt (the Imams), they were annihilated at the hands of the tyrannical rulers who have prevailed over the position of the leadership of the Muslim nation and, in the name of the Holy Qur'an, have destroyed everything as they have been supported by the claques and lowly fans whose mission has been to find justifications for the rulers' evildoings. For instance, those claques have decided the faithless, tyrannical rulers as 'those charged with authority' to whom the following holy verse refers, "O ye who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger and those charged with authority among you. 4/59"
[1] This slogan was first raised by 'Umar ibn al-Khattab during the famous incident that 'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas called 'the Thursday Misfortune.' In the last hours of his honorable lifetime, the Holy Prophet summoned the chiefs of Quraysh (the tribe to which he belonged) and the Ansar (the people of Yathrib who supported his followers and him) and asked them to bring him a paper and a pen so that he would record for them an official document saving his nation against deviation forever. Unfortunately, 'Umar objected to this request and said openly, "Sufficient for us is the Book of Allah." The attendants, from people of Quraysh and the Ansar, supported 'Umar. Hence, a discrepancy broke out while the ailed Prophet was looking at them. A group supported the Holy Prophet's demand and the others supported 'Umar's. Then the latter group shouted, 'Do not give him anything! Let him not record anything.' Then, the Holy Prophet said, 'Leave me! It is inappropriate to issue disputation before a Prophet! And the pains that I am suffering are easier for me than that which you are dragging me to.' This story is above dispute because al-Bukhariy has recorded it in six positions of his book entitled al-Sahih.
[2] Not too long after Imam 'Ali holding the position of the leadership of the Islamic State due to a genuine public election after the assassination of 'Uthman ibn 'Affan, Mu'awiyah ibn Abi-Sufyan, having been the governor of Damascus since the reign of 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, declared armed mutiny against the legal authority of the Islamic State and could gather the ignorant ones, the hypocrites, the opportunists and the former officials of 'Uthman's government whose ill-gotten properties were confiscated by Imam 'Ali to be distributed fairly among all people, to form an army of mutineers.
Mu'awiyah's troops directed towards Iraq and camped in Siffin on the Syrian-Iraqi borders. First, they occupied the two banks of the River Euphrates so as to prevent Imam 'Ali's army from water. Out of their extreme inhumanity and brutality, the Umayyads used the blockade of water as a weapon against their rivalries. They did the same thing with Imam al-Husayn, his household, and his companions when they occupied the two. banks of the River Euphrates and prevented Imam al-Husayn's army from having water.
As Imam 'Ali noticed that Mu'awiyah's troops would not permit his army to have water after they had refused his calls to peace, he allowed his army to attack. They could defeat Mu'awiyah's army and occupy the two banks of the river. Some of the commanders asked Imam 'Ali to prevent Mu'awiyah's troops from having water, but he, out of his incomparable mercy and feelings of responsibility towards human beings in general and Muslims in particular, refused that request and permitted the other party to have water, which, in the conception of Imam 'Ali who represents the genuine Islam, is allowable to all creatures.
Unfortunately, Mu'awiyah, his family and his group did not thank for Imam 'Ali this unique situation. On the contrary, they rewarded Imam 'Ali's son and household evil when they prevented them, even their newborns and women, from having water.
When all efforts of peace failed, Imam 'Ali had to fight the other party. In the last stage of that war which lasted for two years causing ten thousands of casualties, Imam 'Ali was about to achieve victory and put an end to that war, but Mu'awiyah turned to a trickery. He asked his defeated soldiers to impale copies of the holy Qur'an on their lances and call that the judge of the Qur'an should be sought.
Deluded by such false cries, some divisions in Imam 'Ali's army responded to these calls and asked Imam 'Ali to submit. The Imam tried his best to convince the deluded ones, the hypocrites and the agents, but uselessly. He therefore had to submit to their demand of the arbitration of the Holy Qur'an. Mu'awiyah suggested that he would choose a man as his representative and Imam 'Ali should choose one as his representative. Under the pressure of the mutinous groups in Imam 'Ali's army, the Imam had to accept Abu-Musa al-Ash'ariy as representative. Mu'awiyah chose 'Amr ibn al-'As the disreputable swindler. Before holding the session of arbitration, 'Amr ibn al-'74 fooled al-Ash'ariy by claiming that they both should judge of denouncing both 'Ali and Mu'awiyah so as to save the Muslims from such fitnah—civil war. Moreover, 'Amr could convince al-Ash'ariy to ascend the minbar first and denounce his leader Imam 'Ali.
Before the two parties, al-Ash'ariy ascended the minbar and denounced Imam 'Ali. When he came down, 'Amr ascended and called people to follow the 'legal' leadership of his leader—Mu'awiyah! (Excerpted from Badr Shahin: Al-'Abbas, Ansariyan Publications, 2002)
[3] Nahj al-Balaghah Sermon No. 125.
[4] Al-Mirza al-Nuriy: Mustadrak al-Wasa'il 4:250.
[5] Shaykh al-saduq : al-Khisal 142.
[6] A1-Daylamiy: Irshdd al-Qulub 79.
[7] Sayyid Muhammad Husayn al-tabatabaiy al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-Qur'an 7:385.
[8] The first one to use this phrase was Imam 'Ali when the dissidents shouted with the statement 'No verdict save Allah.'
[9] Sayyid Muhammad Husayn al-tabataba'iy: al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-Qur'an 3:164 .
[10] Sayyid Muhammad Husayn al-tabataba'iy: al-Mizan fi Tafsir al-Qur'an 5:274-275.
[11] After the Battle of Siffin and the incident of the arbitration, a class of Imam 'Ali's army criticized him for accepting the opinion of the arbitration after they had obliged him to do so. After the cessation of the Battle of Siffin, those groups left the army of Imam 'Ali and adopted a new Course in thought and practice. They were called Khawarij 'the mutineers'. The Imam sent some messengers to convince them to change their opinions, but they did not respond. They went on shedding the blood of innocent people and spreading horror among Muslims.
[12] Al-Majlisiy: Bihar al-Anwar 2:245.
[13] Al-arbaliy: kashf al-ghummah 2:110