Basma Ta’ala
Life problems with Imam
We all want to live at the time of the advent of Hazrat Hojjat Ajla Allah Ta’ala. But there is a proverb in England that says: be careful what you wish for. What do they mean by this phrase? Experience has shown that sometimes a person wants something, but when he faces it, he sees that what he wanted is not only comfort but also trouble. All married men and women know what I’m talking about. Sometimes the hardships are bearable, so we don’t say anything about it, but sometimes it is so hard that it makes us cry.
Life in the time of Imam Zaman (AS) is also of the same kind. We only imagine peace and tranquility and freedom, and when we see that the issue is not like that, we start to slander and oppose Imam Al-Ayaz. Therefore, before I get into the main discussion, we will first give a general account of the difficulty of living with all the Imams of Athar (peace be upon them).
Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him) expressed his problems on the part of Shia majority with a simple phrase. They used to say: “The calamity of the people against us is great, if we call them, they will not answer us, and if we leave them, they will not pray for us, that is, the calamity that we cause from the people.” , is a big thing. When we invite them (to their obligations and duties), they do not respond, and if we leave them alone, they are not guided. That is, Imams (peace be upon them) should suffer and guide us, and we should try as much as possible not to abandon them and follow their orders as much as possible. But that is easier said than done.
On the other side of the spectrum, that is, we see the problems that the Shiites have with the Imam in the expression of Shaabi. Shaabi interprets his own problem and the rest of the weak souls like himself as follows: What is wrong with Ali and Ali’s family? If we love them, kill us, and if we hate them, we will enter hell! – (God knows) what we will suffer from the hands of Ali and Ali’s family. If we love them, they will kill us, and if we hate them, we will go to hell.
Perhaps we think that this story is related to the past and does not include the lives of those who managed to live at the time of the advent of Hazrat Mahdi, may God bless him and grant him peace. We usually think that life in his time is a life of flowers and nightingales. We must know that this is a false impression. Life in his time is all war, bloodshed and hardship. But life with right and truth and in defense of right and truth has its own beauty. Sadr al-Islam Hamdani, in his recently published book, Takalif al-An’am fi Ghayba al-Imam, which is called “Spiritual Link with the Realm of Holy Quds Manawi”, has given three narrations that are related to this and emphasizes that life during the time of Imam Zaman, may Allah be pleased with him. Al-Sharif and Arvahana Leh al-Fida is not very easy. We narrate these three narrations exactly with the translation of the respected author.
Sheikh Nu’mani narrates from the Imam, peace be upon him, that he said: Why are they hurrying the departure of the Qaim, peace be upon him? So I swear by God that his clothes are nothing but thick, and his food is nothing but coarse or bland, and there is no work but the sword and dying under the shadow of the sword. (In other words, life during the time of Imam al-Zaman (AS) is all about war and hardship. Just like the days of the rule of Amir al-Mu’minin, peace be upon him)
And he also narrated on the authority of Khalad who said: Qaim (peace be upon him) was mentioned in the presence of Reza (peace be upon him). So they said: Today you are more comfortable and relaxed than that day, he said: How is it? They said: Whenever our Qaim goes out, there is nothing but lust, which means blood and sweat – that is, from the abundance of killing and suffering – and the people are on their saddles, and the clothes of the Qaim, peace be upon him, are nothing but thick, and his food is nothing but coarse.
He also narrated from Mufadl who said: I was serving Hazrat Sadiq (peace be upon him) in Tawaf, so he looked at me and said: O Mufadl, what happened to you that you are a guest and your color has changed? I said: I will become your sacrifice, I looked towards Bani Abbas and what is in their hands of the kingdom, the kingdom and the power. If these were for you, we would be with you. They said: O Mufadl, if the kingdom returns to us, there is nothing but fatigue at night and travel during the day. That is, for worship and Jihad, eating coarse food and wearing coarse clothes like Almir al-Mu’minin, peace be upon him, otherwise it is hell fire. So that kingdom was taken from us, we eat and drink. Have you seen an injustice that God has made a blessing like this?
So, based on these narrations, we should not only pray for the advent of the Holy Prophet, but also be very happy that we are not in the time of his rule. Because the days of his government are all difficult. Actually, if we want to be honest with ourselves, the problem is the same. It means that we really don’t know that we want the hard life of Imam’s time and we should be more happy with the life we have. Yes, of course, and of course, if we want to be a true friend of the Imam and not to criticize him often, we must really prepare ourselves for war and live in war constantly. Those who have seen the movie Glass Agency know that the director – or rather the writer of the movie – has revealed this point.
why war
We are now living in a time that may have overtaken World War III. With Russia’s attack on Ukraine and the West’s strong reaction to this attack, we see in cyberspace that there is talk of the evil of war and the question why war? Of course, we should be more alert than this and know that the psychological war is one of the real wars in which Muawiyah really had a long way and was able to use it to distance people from the Amir al-Mu’minin, peace be upon him. In general, the era of Amir al-Mu’minin, peace be upon him, can be considered similar to the reign of Imam al-Zaman (a.s.). At least from the perspective of peace and war. But before we talk about the issues of his time, it is interesting to talk about the letter that Einstein wrote to Freud and more interesting than that, about Freud’s simple answer.
Einstein, who in the years after the Second World War, briefly headed the institution that became the United Nations after the Second World War, and at the time when the drum of the Second World War was beating, and the Western society thought that with science Everything can be made better, in 1932 he wrote a letter to Freud saying, Professor! As an anthropologist, do you have a solution to prevent war? Freud also wrote to him: Why are you avoiding war? Is war a bad thing? This is an automatic purification in human generations and the emergence of stronger and superior generations! Therefore, the correspondence between them ends with the exchange of three letters.
It is true that we do not accept Freud’s principles, but the Quran’s answer is the same. God the Most High says: “If it were not for God’s repulsion of the people, some of them will be destroyed, and there will be a sale, prayers, and mosques in which the name of God is mentioned a lot, if there is a war.” If there was no, monasteries, trade, prayers and mosques would be destroyed (and as a result) God’s name would not be mentioned. Therefore, it is the creator of humans who says something like this about the necessity of war. We should not reject war in general and for its ugliness. War is a bad thing. That is, it is destructive. But it is also a good thing because it upholds the right. Humans are not very good creatures and sometimes you have to deal decisively with their bad type and fight. Even the Christians who call for peace and non-war and if you are slapped, turn the other side of your face to be slapped; These same Christians have armies in all their countries without exception. Even the Vatican has its own defense force.
Events during the reign of Amir al-Mu’minin, peace be upon him
In order to have a better idea of the rule of Imam Zaman, it is necessary to refer to several incidents that happened during the time of Amir al-Mu’minin, peace be upon him, to make the matter a little clearer.
An incident happened during the rule of Amirul Momineen that shows this problem well. Imam Ali, peace be upon him, ordered one of his policemen to arrest someone. But he made that person run away. Therefore, the imam ordered to arrest and flog this official. He said a sentence that shows both his knowledge of the Imam’s status and the difficulty of living with the Imam. He said: “But by God, the position with you is for humiliation, and for leaving you is for disbelief.” I swear to God that living with you humiliates a person, but if we leave you too, we will become disbelievers! Hearing this phrase, the Imam pardoned him, but corrected the first part of his speech in such a way that saying that living with you humiliates a person, because of the sins you have acquired. That is, if a person has no sin, there is no need for punishment in the first degree, and in the second degree, if the imam punishes a person, he must make sure that this was in his best interest. Then the Imam says, “As for the second part of your sentence, which you said, if we leave you, we will become infidels, it is actually a good thing that you have learned.” So this is good for that!
In a relatively similar story and again during the reign of Amir al-Mu’minin (AS), one of the Khawarij violated people’s property and fled with some people from Kufa and went to Bahrain. The governor of Bahrain arrested them and took some captives, the captives they brought, on the way to Kufa, they had a governor named Masqalah bin Habira Shibani, the captives told him to be a man and buy us and free us, governor. He accepted, gave one million dirhams to the commander and freed the prisoners (in fact he bought them and freed them). They reported this incident to Amir al-Mu’minin, peace be upon him, and he said: He has done a very good job with his manhood, but if it is from the public property, After doing this, he must return the property. They said that he gave it from the treasury, he was summoned and said: You who have done this, you must pay this money from your own property. He said, give me time until tomorrow. Imam said: You have time as long as you want. But since this servant of God did not have such money and was afraid of the eagle of Amir al-Mu’minin, peace be upon him, he ran away and went to Mu’awiyah. Upon hearing of his escape, Amirul Momineen said: I swear to God, if he had come and said that I don’t have anything to pay now, we wouldn’t have asked him too much. Then they went to his house and destroyed it.
In the third story, which shows that living with Imam Bar Haq is not so easy, it is the story of the poet Najashi. He, who excited the believers in the battle of Safin with his poems, had found his own popularity. But on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, he meets one of his friends who is a poet and a drinker, and after some talk, they start drinking. That evening, the sound of their mourning upsets their Shia neighbor. He complained to the Commander of the Faithful, peace be upon him, and the Imam sent some people to win them over. The main drunkard somehow escapes through the hole in the wall of the house, but Najashi gets stuck. The imam orders to give him a hundred lashes. Najashi says: The limit of drunkenness is 80 lashes, so why did you give me a hundred lashes? Imam says that the other 20 are because of the courage you showed and fasted in the holy month of Ramadan. Then the imam put him in a position that was humiliating for him. Therefore, he fled to Mu’awiyah and wrote a poem in which he said: “I fled to Muawiyah’s safe house out of fear.” Here, it is necessary to stop a little in these expressions of the poet Najashi and see if we think the same or not? He describes the life situation of Amir al-Mu’minin (peace be upon him) as a scary situation. And he considers the current situation with Muawiyah as a peaceful community. Because the imam punishes a person with the smallest sin (of course from this poet’s point of view) and takes away his honor, so the people in the imam’s society always live fearfully, while Muawiya has nothing to do with people’s work and their private lives, and man They live comfortably under their rule. If we are a little honest with ourselves and reflect, we will see that most of us think like this, and life under the reign of Imam al-Zaman, may God hasten his reign, will be really difficult for us in this sense. Whereas if we think correctly and our point of view is the same as that of Imam al-Zaman (A.S.), we are ready for any punishment. Because security is important for our future. It means that it is important to have security in the hereafter, and if it is necessary to be punished in this world for our sins and our reputation goes, so be it! We prepare ourselves for the hereafter, let our world fall apart. This is not a very important issue. Of course, as mentioned, this is easy to say, but accepting – let alone acting on it – is not so easy.
This incident affected the Yemenis living in Kufa. Tariq, Najashi’s brother, came to His Holiness and said: We did not think that you would not distinguish between ordinary people and nobles and rebuke both equally. The Imam said: Isn’t he a human being like other humans? Tariq protested to the imam and said: “You have given us a lot of money, but we have lost our affairs?” (You tempted our hearts and broke our unity). When Malik Ashtar reaches Tariq, he reprimands him and says: Rather, our hearts are listening and our hearts are united.
Anyway, what happens between Najashi, Tariq and Muawiyah when they reach Muawiyah is very interesting. When these two Shia imams arrived at Muawiyah’s court, Muawiyah took advantage of the opportunity and said: Welcome those who were deceived for a while and followed the seditionist (i.e. Commander of the Faithful, peace be upon him) who is the head of misguidance. He has nothing to do but to cause sedition and lead people astray. … Tariq, who was upset at all when he saw Muawiya’s tail and apparatus, could not bear hearing this speech of Muawiya and expressed things in defense of Amir al-Mu’minin, peace be upon him, and slandered Muawiya. Muawiyah gets angry, but he suppresses his anger and takes Tariq with him and comforts him. When the news of Tariq’s behavior reaches Imam Ali, peace be upon him, he says: If this brother of our Bani Nahd had been killed that day, he would have been a martyr. Therefore, the unhappiness of such a person, whom Amir al-Mu’minin (peace be upon him) placed in the category of living martyrs, was not due to irreligion. He and his brother were Shiites, but they could not tolerate their justice.
The problem of living with Imam has other aspects as well. One of them is mentioned in the Holy Quran. Verse 12 of Surah Al-Mujadalah has given the following command to the believers: O you who believe, if you are saved by the Messenger, then come forward in charity. O people of faith, whenever you want to speak to the Messenger of God in secret (or ask a question), before doing so, you must give an amount of charity, which is better and purer for you. In today’s terms, it was a tax on asking private questions from the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him.
In the interpretation of Majmael Bayan, it is stated: This verse was revealed about the rich people who used to come to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, and talk to him a lot, and God ordered them to give alms instead of speaking and listening to the Prophet. After the revelation of this verse, the wealthy stopped talking to the Prophet. Then the next verse was revealed, which was permission and permission in this matter, as narrated by Muqatil bin Hayyan: Imam Ali Murtaza, peace be upon him, said: There is a verse in the Qur’an that no one before me has followed, nor has anyone after me. He will not act on it, and that is the 12th verse of this surah because I had a dinar that I converted into ten dirhams when I wanted to talk to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, about this, I gave my dirham as charity. I had a discussion, then verse 13 was abrogated, and no one followed it after that, and God gave this Ummah a discount because of me, and it was not revealed to anyone before me, and it was not revealed to anyone after me either.
Do you think that we will not have such taxes or punishments at the time of the advent of the Guardian of our age, Imam Zaman Ajjal Allah Ta’ala Al-Farja Al-Sharif? Have we prepared ourselves for such difficulties? We should not only keep in mind the good things of life with Imam. Rather, we should be realistic and know that we have many weaknesses that the Imam, peace be upon him, should correct, and any correction means suffering. Life with Imam is very sweet if we are like them. But if we are the way we are, it will certainly be difficult for us to live in such a society. keep in mind In a society where people loved the Holy Prophet (PBUH), when a simple tax was imposed, there was only one person who followed it. Only one person!
Now tell me the truth, after reading what was said and especially the first three narrations, do you still want to be there at the time of the Prophet’s appearance? Of course, it should be like this, but if we do not prepare ourselves for such a life, we will be among those who speak ill of the Imam, and God forbid. May God save us from false notions and make us true companions of Imam al-Zaman, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, so that we can remain like a stable foundation and help Imam (peace be upon him) with our hearts and souls. Amen, Lord of the worlds.
Dr. Seyed Ehsan Shahristan
