Muslim Unite Sunni and Shia A ZIYARAT TRAVELOGUE (3)

 

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Subject: Fw: GREAT IMPRESSIONS --- A ZIYARAT TRAVELOGUE (3)

GREAT IMPRESSIONS --- A ZIYARAT TRAVELOGUE (3)   Syed-Mohsin Naquvi     January 2009   IN KARBALA           After four days' stay in Najaf we took a bus ride to Karbala. For security reasons our bus stopped more than a mile away from our hotel. Our baggage and all the passengers were loaded into the three-wheeler motor-rickshaws. After a twenty minute hectic ride on the unmade and broken roads of Karbala we arrived at our hotel.           Before we go any further let me explain how security has been organized in Iraq around the various shrines and why.  One member of our group told us the following story. Back in 2007 when there were no passenger flights landing inside Iraq, the Zaa-e-reen used to fly into Amman, Jordan or Damascus, Syria and then take a twelve hour bus ride to Karbala. One such caravan was proceeding towards Karbala from Amman. On the way a nineteen year old girl approached that caravan and begged them to let her come along up to Karbala. She was a simple girl clad in a long Burqa. The caravan accepted her and she came along. Some fifty miles from Karbala night fell and the caravan decided to camp there for the night.  The following morning as the members of the party were hurrying to move on, someone noticed that that girl was still sleeping. Some women in the group tried to wake her up and noticed that she was dead. So, they decide to bury her in that area before moving on. When her clothing was removed for the bathing and shrouding they saw that she was a suicide bomber fully loaded with an explosives belt. In fact a snake had bitten the young woman in her sleep and that is how she had died. The interesting thing was that the snake did not bite anyone else in the group and some people had actually noticed the snake slipping away from the area.           That incident and the bombing of the Samarrah shrine back in February 2006 had made the managers of the various shrines take extra ordinary precautions. Now every shrine in Iraq has three concentric security circles. ON the periphery of each security circle there are check points where elaborate searches are conducted on each visitor. Men are searched by men and women have to go inside a secluded enclosure where their persons are searched by female security personnel. Only people known to the security staff are allowed to carry any kind of baggage with them inside the security zones.           That way the shrines have been protected from terroristic actions against them.           Our hotel in Karbala was located inside the first security circle around the twin shrines of Imam Husayn and that of Hazrat Abbas. That is why our buses had to leave us more than a mile away from the hotel. It was a small hotel and the rooms had no windows; actually it was quite depressing. Well, we only came to our rooms for sleeping. Our hotel was located in a narrow street both sides of which were lined with shops. The road was broken and there were puddles of water and mud here and there. The shops would remain open until quite late. It was an amazing feeling. After all the destruction, rubble and mud-puddles the street (and actually every street in the inner city) was oozing with life.           Most of the workers in the hotel were Bangladeshis. We tried to converse with them in Urdu and it worked. The hotel was owned by a family of three, a father and his two sons. They tried very hard to make our stay as pleasant as possible. We were allowed internet access once a day for an hour – a facility that we did not have in Najaf. We also had two Iraqi young men as volunteers to help us find our way in the streets and in and around the shrines. They would not accept money from us. I was able to give them some warm clothes after a lot of insistence. One thing that was noticeable very clearly was the fact that there were very few beggars on the streets. Even the ten and eleven year old boys, most of whom were orphans, were running around with hand carts offering their services rather than begging. They would carry your shopping and even people in the carts for some little compensation. The Iraqi people are a proud people.           Karbala is a very crowded city. Most roads are either broken or unmade. Our hotel was located at a distance of three minutes walk from the twin shrines. We would go to the shrines either in groups or individually and spend hours at length in the holy precincts. Karbala is a very safe city. Our children would stay in the shrine until quite late in the night and some times return after the Salat-ul-Fajr walking on their own.           Every entrance to the shrines has a  Kafsh-bardaar (shoe-minder) stall. You have to leave your camera and mobile telephones as well. They do not charge any money for that service.   THE TWIN SHRINES OF KARBALA           The twin shrines have a common court yard which is as long as a foot-ball field. On either side of the open court yard porticos have been erected. After the Isha prayers hundreds of people who do not have money to rent a hotel room sleep under those porticos. Imam Husayn had arrived at the plane of Karbala on the 2nd of Muharram in the 61st year of Hijra.  He had called the tribe of Banu Asad who had been living there and asked them if they would sell that land. They had sold that land for 65,000 Dirham to Imam Husayn. The Imam then gifted the land back to Banu Asad and asked them to promise him three things. (1) He told them that there would be a short battle there in a few days in which the men in his party would all be killed. He asked the Banu Asad to come after the armies had left and bury the dead bodies of the martyrs. (2) The Imam asked them not to cultivate the land where the graves would be made. (3) He also told them that there would be visitors to the graves. The Imam asked them to be hospitable to the visitors and provide them with food and shelter.           We saw with our own eyes how the Imam's wishes were being fulfilled after all these centuries in those penniless Zaa-e-reen sleeping under those porticos. Actually it was quite cold in Karbala during the days we were there. Some philanthropist had donated hundreds of blankets to the shrine. The blankets were distributed every evening among those sleepers under the porticos and recollected every morning for reuse. The management of the shrines provides that service free of charge.           Imam Husayn's shrine is much larger than that of Hazrat Abbas. Now even that size of Imam Husayn's shrine is becoming too small to be able to accommodate the large number of Zaa-e-reen at peak times of the pilgrimage such as the day of Ashoora, the 3rd of Sha'abaan and particularly at the Arba'een time. So the management has decided to cover the outside court of Imam Husayn's shrine on all four sides of the original building. That has actually marred the original beauty of the architecture. The new roof under construction is fairly high – I guess over twenty-five feet.  Because of that, anyone standing in the open court yard cannot see the dome and the two minarets. Two main entrances on opposite sides of the building have been left exposed in the original condition. Other than that the shrine is totally surrounded by the new construction.           The roof is not finished yet. There were scaffoldings around the building and inside the building as construction work was in progress. There were exposed openings in the roof at various places. That had made the precincts very cold particularly in the evenings. However, it was not enough to deter the stream of the faithful devotees of Imam Husayn to enter the shrine and congregate in that cold. About sixteen different congregations would be held in that area around the shrine at five times for the Wajib Salat – various different ulema leading the congregations.  An announcer will announce the name of the prayer leader at each one of those congregations. No congregational prayers were done inside the main building of the shrine. That gave free access to pilgrims at all time. Inside the shrines people would be doing Ziyarat and Mustahab Ziyarat salat.           In spite of the great crowd that is always moving in and out of the shrine and the elaborate security arrangements around the shrines one does not notice the slightest trace of chaos or any mismanagement. Yes, there is a lot of pushing and pulling and rubbing shoulders but everyone is kind to every one else. I have seen Hajis fighting with shoes in their hands trying to hit each other inside the Grand Mosque in Makka. But the scene inside and around the shrines in Karbala was totally different. When you stand in or around the shrines you get a strange feeling of peace and tranquility.  It appears as if a benevolent king's court is in order and his subjects are going about their business without bothering each other.           Husayn in his martyrdom rules the hearts and minds of people. I do not know about other people but my strong feelings in Karbala were that I want to live here and die here.             AT one of the congregations at Imam Husayn's shrine we met with Hujjatul-Islam Murtada Qazweeni who had been spending time in Los Angeles. One of our group members named Mehdi Zaidi also from Los Angeles, knew him personally. Agha-e-Qazweeni was very pleased to see us. He visited us at our hotel the next morning and invited us to visit the orphanage/school he had established in Karbala. I was surprised to see that his car was allowed to drive inside the security area up to the entrance of our hotel.           Agha-e Qazweeni is doing good work in Karbala. He has established the orphanage/school which has 335 children. The school is located about 2-3 miles outside of the center city. It is a very nice purpose built modern building. He is also working on establishing a hospital in Karbala. I must emphasize that Agha-e-Qazweeni very humbly explained to us that he was not among the great Mujtahids of Iraq.  For reference I should explain to our readers that Agha-e Qazweeni's two sons live in the United States. His elder son named Mustafa Qazweeni manages an Islamic center in Los Angeles and his other son Hasan Qazweeni has established the largest mosque in the US which is situated in Dearborn, Mi.           One of my daughters was overwhelmed by the children intently working in their class rooms and the teachers busy in teaching. She shared some learning material with the kids and inquired with Agha-e Qazweeni if she could come to Karbala and teach at his school. He was pleased with the idea and said that he would help any would-be teacher to get a working permit in Iraq. I think they need most of all English teachers. All subjects are being taught in Arabic and there are Iraqi teachers available to fill those positions.   (.... to be continued)

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Muslim Unite Sunni and Shia Early Development of Shi’a Theology and Law

 

Early Development of Shi'a Theology and Law   

By: Syed Mohsin Naquvi                 April 24, 2005

 

            As long as the Prophet (may our salams and Allahs peace be unto him, his holy family and faithful companions) was alive, the Muslims would just go to him and ask any questions they had regarding prayers or any of their worldly matters. That eventually gave rise to the corpus of hadeeth, which took nearly four hundred years to collect and to be compiled. Even though, the majority of the hadeeth had been compiled by the end of the fourth century of Hijra, some more collection and compilation went on for another three hundred years. That was because the later Muhadditheen felt that some of the most authentic reports were left out of the early collections. The prime example of those is the hadeeth that are found for example in Haakim's al-Mustadrak and they are not to be found in Bukhari, Muslim and even in Tirmizi.

 A SUMMARY and an introduction to basic principles of faith:

            We have pointed this out earlier, but let us just recap it. While that work was going on, there was another movement in effect. That was the discussion on the method of collection. Most Muslim scholars were driven by the facts of history, mainly the fact as to who actually ruled the Muslim state. That had naturally drawn the scholars towards the companions (SAHAABA) and later the followers (TABI'OON) of the companions of the Prophet. The family of the Prophet was sidetracked very early on from the actual governing machine. In spite of that, the members of the Prophet's family carried a lot of respect in the community for obvious reasons. There was a thinking that some members of the family of the Prophet were the actual heirs of the Prophet's legacy, both worldly as well as spiritual. That was, of course, based on Qur'anic verses and the Prophet's own statements[1].

As time passed, the importance of the family of the Prophet was reduced. However, that thinking continued, albeit among a minority of Muslims. It was that split in the intellectual, political, and spiritual thinking in the community that gave rise to the two main sects in Islam, the Sunni and the Shi'a.

            The Sunni thinking upheld the right of the community to decide matters of spiritual as well as political dimensions by shoora, the Shi'a, on the other hand, upheld the right of the Ahlul-Bayt to rule on all matters spiritual as well as political.

 

Two Different Methodologies

            While the Sunni majority had differing opinions over time and many scholars emerged who published their works, the main thinking stayed with the basic methodology, that is, the community had the right to decide matters by shoora. That gave rise to four major schools of law, the Hanafi, the Maliki, the Shafe'i and the Hanbali, over a period of a century. The first among them, namely Abu Haneefa, died in 150 A.H., while the last of them, Ahmad b. Hanbal, died in 241 A.H.

            In parallel with that, the discussion on theology was also going on. Many different schools emerged in Sunni Islam which argued about the basic faith (other than the law for practice). The two main branches emerged as the Orthodox and the Rationalist. The orthodox school was identified with Al-Ash'ari. The Rationalist school was identified with the M'utazila.

            There are differences between the four schools of Sunni law and the two schools of Sunni theology.

            Very similar to those forces, there were forces running in the Shi'a community. However, as long as the twelve Imams lived, there was hardly any room for disagreement on the practice of law or the discussion of theology. All questions were invariably answered by the Imam of the time. Even if the Imam was living in difficult circumstances (like the fourth Imam after Karbala, the seventh Imam, and the eleventh Imam), there was always the opportunity for their followers to communicate with them. However, the Imams would encourage their disciples to engage in theological debate and watch over them. That practice has been specially identified with the fifth and the sixth Imams.

            The Eleventh Imam was martyred in Samarra, Iraq, in the year 260 A.H. It was soon after that the twelfth Imam went into his minor occultation. During the following 70 years, the Imam kept in contact through one of the four NAWWAB (Uthman bin Sa'eed Umaari, his son Muhammad bin Uthman, Husayn bin Rawh Nawbakhti and Ali bin Muhammad Simmaari). After the death of the last NA'IB (Simmaari, who died in 329), the community went through a crisis. That period has been well documented and a description of how the community leaders were able to emerge with a viable system to lead the Shica has been given by professor Hussein Mudarresi Tabatabai (Princeton University) in his excellent work titled: CRISIS AND CONSOLIDATION, published by Darwin Press, Princeton, 1993.

            The important thing to note is that the year 329, which is the beginning of the major occultation of the twelfth Imam, is also the year of the death of the famous compiler of Shica hadeeth known as Al-Kafi. That means that Al-Kafi had already been compiled before the major occultation began. In fact, reports tell us that the book was actually named as Al-Kafi by the twelfth Imam himself. Some other books of hadeeth had also been compiled and their copies were kept by some of the Shi'a leaders before the Al-Kafi of Kulayni came to be widely known.

 

The Importance of IJTEHAD

            Now that the direct communication with the living Imam had stopped, there was need to establish a new system of arriving at new and hitherto unknown problems in the community. That is the beginning of the institution of Ijtehad in the Shi'a community.

            As we said, the year of the beginning of the major occultation (ghaybat-e-kubra) is 329 Hijra. Two great Shi'a scholars passed away in that year: Muhammad bin Y'aqoob Kulayni, as we said earlier, who is the author of the monumental work of hadeeth known as Al-Kafi, and, Ali bin Babwayh Qummi (the father of Shaykh Sadooq). Their works are clear evidence that the ulema of that time were already working in earnest to collect religious literature attributed to the Imams for the benefit of the future generations.

            Not only that, the actual work of collection of hadeeth for the purpose of documenting both Usool and law had actually begun during the time of the Imams. The famous work known as Usool Arba-Mi'a  (four hundred principles) had existed among the Shica scholars from the time of the fifth Imam. That in turn, was based on a document that is reported to have been dictated by the Prophet of Islam to Imam Ali; and Imam Ali had written that down on paper (or whatever else was available as writing material).

            Two other important works that were collected during the time of the minor occultation of the twelfth Imam are:

Al-Mahaasin of Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Khalid al-Barqi (d.280 A.H.), a collection of 2606 reports.

Basa'ir ad-Darajaat of Muhammad bin Hasan al-Saffaar (d. 290 A.H.), a collection of 1881 reports.    

        While the Usool Arba-Mi'a is a collection of the utterances of the Imams written verbatim and taken as dictation by their closest disciples, the two books mentioned above are basically collections of Imams' hadeeth with the relevant chain of narrators and transmitters.

            In addition to that, we have to keep the fact in view that al-Barqi is known to have been a companion of both the ninth as well as the tenth Imams; and al-Saffaar is known to be a companion of the eleventh Imam. That means both of those scholars had the opportunity to hear the hadeeth of the Imams first hand, from the Imams themselves. Kulayni, obviously, did not have that opportunity. That is very obvious from their respective works. Both al-Barqi and al-Saffaar have compiled their books without any notes or introduction. In their view it was just important to preserve the utterances of the M'asoomeen. (Kulayni has taken reports from both of them.)

            Kulayni, on the other hand, has written a detailed introduction in his al-Kafi. We can gauge the political, religious and intellectual condition of the community from Kulayni's introduction. Apparently, he wrote the book after he received a request from a friend who complained that there was a great degree of discord in the community about the conflict in the Imams' traditions. In reply, Kulayni produced his work and also wrote to that friend.  From his introduction, it becomes obvious that the arguments between the Tradionists and the Rationalists were in progress in the community. There were discussions also on the apparent contradictions in hadeeth reports. Kulayni collected all kinds of reports in his work. According to Andrew Newman, Kulayni did not consider it his job to sort out the apparent contradiction in some reports.

            The first section in al-Kafi is Kitab al-Ilm wal-Jahl. This shows how important in Kulayni's view was the concept of reason, intelligence, or, intellect in Islamic theology. However, when you read his work closely, it appears that he repudiates the view of the Rationalists(اُصولی ) in juxtaposition to that of the Traditionist( اخباری).

            That is a clear indication that the discussion between the ideas of Rationalism and those of Tarditionism were underway in Kulayni's time. However, at this time, there were no such groups as representing the two philosophies. Scholars had ideas which they would express from time to time. Mostly, scholars themselves debated within their own thinking between the two views. That is why we find both views in the works of scholars of the time as late as Mulla Baqir Majlisi.

            The Rationalists became the Usoolis and the Tradionists came to be known as the Akhbaris in later times.

            We can also reflect upon this phenomenon. In the time just after the Major Occultation of the twelfth Imam began, the intellectuals, community leaders, jurists and scholars became concerned that the utterances of the Masoomeen which had become a very definite part of law-giving and theological writings, may be lost. So they set about preserving them in writing. They could not see one thousand years down the road, not even five hundred years. That was because the firm belief among the Shi'a was that the twelfth Imam will reappear sooner rather than later and will eventually fill this earth with justice and equity. In the meantime, it was incumbent on the faithful to stay on the right path. The place where the twelfth Imam had disappeared at age six in 260 Hijra was actually known to the faithful in Iraq (Samarra). There are reports that the Shica would assemble in the morning and wait at the mouth of the cave till dusk hoping that the Qa'em would rise on that day. This practice was found to be present among the Iraqi Shi'a for some three hundred years after the beginning of the Major Occultation. As time passed, generations went by, new generations came along and new reports were discovered as to how and when the Qa'em would re-appear, that practice died out.

            Also, as time passed and times changed, the community faced new problems; the need for Ijtehad was felt more and more. The Rationalist had always pressed for that any way. The Mujtahids were working in earnest to find solutions to new problems. However, the Traditionists view had not weakened to any considerable degree.

            In the larger Sunni community, the debate between the Rationalists (the M'utazila) and the Traditionists (i.e., the Ash'ari) had been opened up by Haroon ar-Rasheed during his reign. He himself favoured the M'utazila and declared himself to be one of them. Two famous M'utazili scholars are az-Zamakhshari, the author of the well-known tafseer al-Kash-Shaaf, and Ibn Abil-Hadeed, the author of the monumental commentary (20 volumes) on Nahjul-Balagha. Eventually, the Traditionists won the day after a lot of debate, takfeer of the opponents and some violence too, ensued. It was that debate which had brought the issue of the creation of the holy Qur'an to fore. That is how the majority Sunni Muslims have been labeled as the Orthodox, because orthodoxy (tradionism) prevailed in the community at the expense of rational thinking. There is definitely a concept of Ijtehad among the Sunni Islam but it actually ends with the last of the four Imams of FIQH, namely Ahmad bin Hanbal.

            Modern Sunni thinking, though is changing and there are forces which would want to open up the working of Ijtehad once again. Leaders like Ibn Taymiyyah, Muhammad Abduhu and Muhammad Abdul Wahhab have actually done that already by their respective works.

            In the Shi'a community things went the other way. In the beginning, most scholars debated within their own mind between the two views. They sometimes expressed their views. Then the Traditionist view prevailed and the situation remained so for nearly half-a-millennium.

            The debate really heated up at the beginning of the 11th century due to the work of Mulla Muhammad Amin Astarabadi (died 1033 A.H.).

            The Rationalists (i.e., the Usoolees) were able to win the debate for good towards the end of the 12th century Hijra. Today in the world the great majority of the Ithna 'Ashari Shi'a are Usoolees.  However, the work of Ijtehad was active all the same during that period.

            The famous Indian Shi'a scholar of Awadh named Syed Dildar Ali (better known as the Ghufran Ma'ab) was an Akhbari in the beginning. When he traveled to Najaf he had debates there and was finally convinced by the ulema of Iraq of the usefulness as well as the necessity of the Usoolee views. He converted to that view and remained so for the rest of his life. For details, see A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isna Ash'ari Shi'a of India by professor A.A. Rizvi, Canberra, 1986. 

            While the collection and compilation of the hadeeth was in progress and scholars were spending more time and effort on collecting the hadeeth reports, the work of Ijtehad had also begun. That, obviously, brought in the practice of TAQLEED. People among the laity looked for more learned men than they themselves were for religious questions. The need for TAQLEED became obvious due to the Occultation of the Imam.

            In parallel with that, the collection of hadeeth continued all the same.

            Soon after Kulayni, came the pious and learned scholars like Shaykh Sadooq (d.381) who worked on compiling the traditions relating to Usool as  well as law. His work I'tiqadatu-l-Imamiyya has listed the major aspects of the Shi'a belief. That book has been translated in to English by A.A.Fayzee and published by WOFIS, Tehran. His major work is MAN LA YAHDHRAHU AL-FAQEEH, which is one of the four major works of Shi'a Hadeeth.

            Then comes Shaykh Mufeed(d.413), an able disciple of Sadooq. Mufeed is best known for his work known as Kitab al-Irshad. It consists of the biography of the twelve Imams, but the true significance of the book is in the fact that Mufeed has recorded those specific hadeeth reports which authenticate the Imamat of each Imam. He must have felt the need for such a book in his times.


            Now both Sadooq and Mufeed are collectors of hadeeth thus they can both be viewed as the upholders of the Akhbari view. There is a curious fact about the pair. Mufeed wrote a commentary on his teacher's work cited above. In that, albeit politely and with due respect, he has disagreed with his able teacher on many points. For example, Sadooq writes that LAWH and QALAM are the names of two angels. Mufeed disagrees with that view and records his reasons. That is a very clear indication that ulema of that early a time were engaging in the practice of Ijtehad.

Then there are the two brothers Syed Murtadha (d.436) known as A'alam al-Huda and his younger brother Syed Radhi (d.410), the compiler of Nahjul-Balagha; both were taught by Shaykh Mufeed. There are some 72  known works which are attributed to Syed Al-Murtadha. One of them, Az-Zari'a fi Usool ash-Shari'a, is a book on Usool al-Fiqh. The fact that Usool-e-Fiqh (the basic principles on which Ijtehad is conducted) were being studied seriously and in detail, is an indication that the science of Ijtehad had taken definite shape by his time.

            Shaykh Abu J'afar Toosi (d.460), who is the author of the other two major books of Shi'a hadeeth, namely Al-Istibsaar and Tahzeeb, is also the founder of the school of jurisprudence at Najaf. At that time the teaching, learning and recognition of the Mujtahid had become a very valid, tangible and well-known process. Najaf became an open university where students would come from all over the world and meet their peers and then go back after having studied with the best of them for disseminating the knowledge they had thus acquired. That is yet another indication of how intense the activity of Ijtehad and Taqleed had become by that time.

            That process has continued in many famous names to our times, like:

1. Ibn Shahr Ashoob (d.588) compiler of the biographies of the Imams

2. Ibn Tawoos (d.664) collector of supplications and prayers of the Imams

3. Sh. Abul Qasim J'afar bin Hasan the Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (d.676)

4. Sh. Hasan bin Yusuf Allama al-Hilli (d.726)

5. Shaheed al-Awwal Shamsudeen Muhammad bin Makki (d.786)

6. Zayn-ud-Deen Ali bin Ahmad Shaheed at-Thani (d. 966)

7. Muqaddas Ardbeli (d.993) 

8. Muhammad Baqir Majlisi (d. 1111) the compiler of the monumental collection of hadeeth known as Bihar-ul-Anwaar (102 volumes). Majlisi gets the credit of collecting the Ziyaraat of all the Imams and giving them wide currency.

 

            The institution of Taqleed and Ijtehad owes a lot to the work of Mulla Sadra (Sadrud-Deen Shirazi, d.1050), who actually was a philosopher in Islamic sciences.

            The title of Ayatullah and Ayatullah al-Uzma for the great Mujtahid had not come into use until about early 1200's Hijra. A contemporary Iranian scholar named Aqeeqi Bakhsha'ishi has compiled a book titled Fuqh'ai Namdar-e-Shi'a. This is a compilation of the biographies of the great Shi'a jurisconsults. He begins the list with Ali bin Babwayh Qummi (father of Sh. Sadooq) and goes upto the ulema of our own time. The first name to which the title of Ayatullah is appended is that of  Syed Muhammad Mahdi Bahr-ul-Uloom who died in 1212 A.H.

            Until the middle of the 13th/19th century there would be only one great Mujtahid at a time who would be known as the Marj'a-e-Khala'iq and would be known as the Ayatullah. Beginning with the 1960's more than one Mujtahids were recognized as the Marj'a (the place of return, meaning grand mujtahid), like Ayatullah Abul Hasan al-Isfahani (d.1365/1946), Ayatullah Brujardi (d. 1381/1962), Ayatullah Muhsin al-Hakeem (d.1390/1970), Ayatullahs Khui, Khomayni and Shari'atmadar, Gulpaigaani and Shirazi, etc., who had lived and had taught mainly in the second half of the last century.

NOTES:


[1]  For a thorough and comprehensive discussion on this topic, see, Wilfred Madelung, Succession to Muhammad, Cambridge University Press, 1997

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Muslim Unite Sunni and Shia ZIYARAT (2)

 

 A personal Ziyarat narrative of 2009 ................................ continued from Part (1).

THE PREPARATION FOR THE JOURNEY: ARRIVAL IN BAGHDAD

 

                We left New Jersey on the 16^th of December onboard a Continental flight to London. From London we transferred to an Emirates flight to Dubai. In Dubai we were to meet with the rest of the group which consisted of people from Dallas, Toronto and many other US and Canadian cities. The trip was being organized by the Alamdar Group of Canada. Three days later we boarded an Iraqi Airways flight to Baghdad. This was a chartered flight run by Kazakhastan.

                The moving force in the Alamdar Group is Sister Razia Dhirani who lives in Toronto as well as in Najaf and Dubai. It was her energy, drive and commitment to serve the Zaa-e-reen; and her husband, brother Asghar's quiet but relentless workings that made our trip a great success.

                We arrived at Baghdad Airport while there was still daylight. The immediate reaction was the scenes of utter destruction around the airport and an eerie sense of desertion. The buses which took us out from the airport were security buses. They could only drive a few miles out of the airport. The road was bumpy and interspersed with security barriers. It was difficult to imagine that only a few years ago Baghdad was a metropolis with a thriving international airport. By the time we were at the edge of the security zone, it was dark and cold. The buses left us in an open space. All passengers and their baggage were then re-loaded into a different set of buses that were privately hired.

 

 

IN NAJAF

                We arrived in Najaf-e-Ashraf after a bus ride for over an hour.  The Alamdar group has its own hotel in Najaf, it is named Alamdar Hotel. It is a new purpose-built hotel. The rooms were very nice. Bathrooms were clean and modern. We had a very comfortable four-day stay in Najaf. Our specific room had a special feature: When we opened the rear window the glorious dome and the minaret of Imam Ali's shrine was right in front of us. I suppose we were very fortunate. The shrine is surrounded by rows and rows of houses and shops. IN the middle of one of such rows of buildings, the hotel stood snuggly. We could not wait any longer and after dumping our baggage in the hotel rooms we took a short walk through narrow passages and back-alleys and ended up in the courtyard of the shrine.

                It was an overwhelming moment – we were standing on the dust which had touched at one time the holy feet of Imam Ali, those of Imam Hasan and Imam Husayn. It was a surreal feeling.  As if to make sure, we made those trips to the shrine twice every day of our stay in Najaf.

                It was this same spot that had been hidden from the public eye for at least a hundred years. It was discovered as the burial site of Imam Ali only in the second century of Hijra. Successive kings, rulers and other wealthy people who were devoted to Imam Ali and his memory had made an effort to make the shrine a glorious building which had been attracting hundreds of thousands of devoted pilgrims since.

                In the fourth century of Hijra Sheikh Tusi, a devoted follower of Imam Ali and a great scholar, had established the Islamic world's greatest open university in the city of Najaf. The Iranian kings in the sixteenth century AD and the Nawabs of Avadh in the eighteenth century had invested vast sums of money to enhance the beauty of the shrine  as well as the facilities for the students and teachers in the open university of Najaf. A great number of the students at the Open University are from the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. The investment of Ghazi-ud-Deen Haider, one of the Nawabs of Avadh, with the British back in the 1800s, which has been paying up a sum of Pounds10,000 Sterling every year and is known as the TAQSEEM-E-HINDI still reaches the students of Indian origin every year.

                Najaf is going through a tremendous rebuilding process. A new international airport is also being established. Enhancements are being done to the shrine and its precincts.

                We also visited the Masjid-e-Koofa where Imam Ali was fatally wounded in the middle of a pre-morning prayer by the sword of Ibn-E-Muljim as well as the Place of Muslim ibne Aqeel, the ambassador of Imam Husayn to Koofa who was brutally killed by Ibn-e-Ziyad, Yazeed's governor in Koofa.

 

 

MEETINGS WITH THE MARAAJ^CE

                The two senior most clerics in Najaf are Ayatullah Uzma Syed Husaini Seestani and Sheikh Basheer Najafi. Well, actually there are a few more but these two are significant and these two are the ones we met.

                Sheikh Basheer Najafi hails from Lahore and he speaks fluent Urdu so it was easier to converse with him. He has lived in Najaf for the last forty years dedicating himself to teaching and learning.  I think he is the second person from the subcontinent after the late Syed Dildar Ali of Lucknow (known as Ghufran Ma^cab) to become a Marj^ca in Iraq. I told him in so many words that it was a matter of pride for all of us, the Urdu speaking public from India and Pakistan, that a person of that origin had reached that level of learning and research in the open university of Najaf.

                The meeting with the grand Ayatullah Seestani was a totally different experience.

                Ayatullah Seestani is the spiritual leader of nearly two-thirds of the world Shia population. He has been very much involved in the politics of Iraq since the removal of Saddam from Iraq. He still lives as an Iranian national. The involvement of the young firebrand cleric named Muqtada as-Sadr has complicated the situation in Iraq.  A number of attempts have been made on the Ayatullah's life.

                With that background, it is not difficult to understand why the office of the Ayatulalh is wary of visitors and extra-ordinary precautions have been taken vis-à-vis security. The office knows that in view of the Ayatullah's strictly home-bound living style the visitors are the main line of communication between the Ayatullah and the outside world. But they also realize that visitors are the only way a would-be terrorist can get through to the Ayatullah's person. Therefore security checks are elaborate and are repeated.

                We were searched three times before entering the Ayatullah's plain reception room which was furnished with just carpets on the floor. We were asked to remove all metal objects from our persons including pens and any finger-rings. In fact we had to empty our pockets completely.

                Our group sat in the reception room. Moments later the Ayatullah arrived. We stood up to greet him, he greeted us. We had Sheikh Safdar Razi with us as a member of our group. Since Sh. Safdar Razi is a fluent Arabic speaker, he acted as our interpreter.  The Ayatullah spoke only with the men, he did not converse with the women in the group. However, he did allow the women to hold his hand and kiss it – only after covering it with the hem of his ^cAba.

                The Ayatullah spoke at length. He urged his followers to strengthen their communities wherever they live. He explained that the Shia communities of the world should learn to live independently and although the Marj^ca would always be there to guide the community, the communities should build their own individual groups and strengthen them with education. He urged everyone not to shed their original culture and language since Azadari is a part of those two.

                Notwithstanding the fact that the city of Najaf is going through an ambitious reconstruction, the Maraj^ce still live in old style homes which can only be accessed by narrow passages and alleys where no vehicle can go.

Reports Time Online -The first flight from Iran in three decades landed in Iraq's holy city of Najaf today (January 12, 2009), resurrecting a direct link between the world's two major Shia communities. See: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article5501829.ece

 

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