صراط عشق صراط عشق
By: Seyyed Ali Shahbaz
“When your Lord said to the angels, ‘Indeed I am going to set a Caliph (vicegerent) on the (Planet) Earth…” (Holy Qur’an 2:30)
“O David! Indeed We have made you a Caliph (vicegerent) on the Earth; so judge between people with justice…” (Holy Qur’an 38:26)
The above-mentioned Words of God Almighty are ample proof that caliphate or leadership of mankind is a Divine Trust, and it is the Creator Alone Who appoints the Caliph, as His representative to manage in the proper way the affairs of mankind.
In other words, anyone styling himself as caliph is actually an imposter, since no person or a group have the right to elect, select, designate or nominate any person as caliph.
Today, the 25th of Shawwal is that tragic day in history when another Infallible Descendent of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) was martyred by another of those imposters claiming to be caliphs, or political heirs of the Prophet.
This time in the year 148 AH (765 CE) the noble victim was Imam Ja’far (AS), whose epithet “as-Sadeq” (the Truthful) not only stands out as evidence of his unblemished righteousness and the outright falsity of whoever opposed him, but is also a constant reminder that he had inherited this undeniable truthfulness through his father Imam Muhammad al-Baqer (AS), grandfather Imam Zayn al-Abedin (AS) and forefathers – Imam Hussain (AS), Imam Hassan (AS) and Imam Ali (AS), from his illustrious ancestor, Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) – the “Sadeq al-Amin”, whom Almighty God appointed as the Last and Greatest Messenger.
The question that immediately strikes the mind is: How come the Imam’s mendacious murderer, Mansour Dawaniqi, was styling himself as caliph when neither God had decreed it, nor was there any hadith to support his claim or that of his predecessors?
Moreover, everyone knew of his bloodied rise to power, along with his elder brother and immediate predecessor, Abbas as-Saffah (the Slaughterer), by deceiving the masses (especially the Iranian Muslims of Khorasan) that the Abbasids were rising against the Godless Omayyads for the sake of returning power of the Islamic realm to the Prophet’s Infallible Progeny, the Ahl al-Bayt!
This does not mean that Imam Sadeq (AS) longed for political power and Mansour was merely eliminating a rival through a dose of poison, as all rulers do.
No, if such was the case, the Imam would have accepted the offer of caliphate that was sent to him by a victorious general of the anti-Omayyad uprising, Abu Salama Khallal, instead of burning the letter without opening it, by saying that mortals have no right to give what is of the province of God.
With these words, Imam Sadeq (AS) made it clear that not only was his God-given position of Imamate beyond the power of political intrigues, but the whole system of caliphate, starting from the scandalous gathering of Saqifa Bani Sa’da in Medina when the Prophet was being laid to rest, was illegal and an open violation of the commandment of God in the holy Qur’an and the explicit proclamation of the Prophet at Ghadir-Khom on 18th Zilhijja 10 AH: “For whomsoever I am Master, this Ali is his Master”.
To be more precise, Mansour and all those who ruined their afterlife by usurping the caliphate knew without the least doubt that as long as the Heirs of the famous Hadith of Thaqalyan were alive, their rule had no legitimacy in Sight of God Almighty, even if they continued to deceive the Ummah.
This was the reason, Mu’awiyya fatally poisoned the Prophet’s Elder Grandson Imam Hasan al-Mujtaba (AS), in Medina; and Yazid so mercilessly martyred the Prophet’s Younger Grandson Imam Husain (AS) at Karbala.
Mansour, like the ungodly Omayyads of the Marwanid branch, who were fearful of doing open bodily harm to the Prophet’s Righteous Heir, outwardly showed respect to Imam Sadeq (AS) but inwardly harboured malice towards him.
He even conveniently forgot his own pledge of allegiance three decades earlier to Imam Sadeq (AS) at the famous gathering of the Hashemites at Abwa during Omayyad misrule, when, while certain descendants of Imam Hasan (AS) voiced their ambition for political rule, the 6th Imam pointing in the direction of the then insignificant Mansour had foretold his rise to political power.
An astonished Mansour had then sworn that Imam Sadeq (AS) was the True Heir of the Prophet and that in the light of Hadith, Imam Mahdi (AS), who will rise in the end times to fill the earth with justice, will be from Imam Sadeq’s (AS) direct lineage.
Years later when the 6th Imam’s prophecy materialized and Mansour found himself at the apex of political power he became a bitter enemy of the Prophet’s Heir. He damned himself further by naming his son ‘Mahdi’ and forging the lie that it was this brat whom the Prophet had prophesied as the Saviour. In addition, Mansour imprisoned and martyred most male members of the lineage of Imam Hasan (AS).
In short, in 148 AH, Imam Sadeq (AS) attained martyrdom as a result of a fatal dose of poison administered to him on the orders of the imposter caliph, but not before foiling Mansour’s plot to find the identity of the next Infallible Heir of the Prophet and kill him as well, by naming the Abbasid ruler himself, along with the governor of Medina, among the executors of his will.
During the 34 years he was at the helm of spiritual affairs of the Ummah, the 6th Imam bore with patience 18 years of Omayyad tyranny and 16 years of Abbasid atrocities, but left no stone unturned in enlightening the Muslims with the real “Seerah” (behaviour) and “Sunnah” (practice) of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA), codifying the genuine “Shari’ah” as Fiqh al-Ja’fari or the Ja’fari School of Jurisprudence, which remains rationally dynamic to this day, in contrast to the schools of jurisprudence founded by some of his not-so-obedient students, who made the fatal mistake of relying on “qiyas” or analogy, even while admitting the brilliance of Imam Ja’far as-Sadeq (AS).
I end this brief column with the 6th Imam’s simple but logically beautiful description of God the Omnipresent, Who has no form or place and is outside the limits of time and space, and whom imagination cannot encompass, since whatever that comes to the human mind, cannot be God.
When he was asked to show God, he said, first look at the sun. The man replied that he could not look at the sun because it was too dazzlingly bright. The Imam replied: “If you cannot see the created, how can you expect to see the Creator?”
