سورة الصافات

Imam Ali (peace be upon him): Abu Basir said: Jabir al-Ju'fi asked Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him) about the interpretation of the verse وَ إِنَّ مِن شِیعَتِهِ لَإِبْرَاهِیمَ [And indeed, of his party was Ibrahim]. The Imam said: "When Allah the Exalted created Ibrahim (peace be upon him), He removed the veil from his sight and he saw a light beside the Throne. He asked Allah, 'What is this light?'" He was told: "This is the light of Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family), the chosen one of My creation." And beside that light he saw another light — the light of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) — and he again asked, "What is this light?" He was told: "That is the light of Ali ibn Abi Talib (peace be upon him), the helper of My religion." Beside these two lights he saw three more lights and asked about them. He was told: "This is the light of Fatimah (peace be upon her); those who love her will not see the fire of Hell. And the other two lights are the lights of Hasan and Husayn (peace be upon them), her two sons." Ibrahim (peace be upon him) said: "O Lord! What are the nine other lights that I see surrounding them?" It was said: "O Ibrahim! They are the Imams (peace be upon them) from the descendants of Ali (peace be upon him) and Fatimah (peace be upon her)." He said again: "My Master! I see many lights that have formed a ring around them — none but You knows their number." It was said: "O Ibrahim! They are the Shia of Ali ibn Abi Talib (peace be upon him)." Ibrahim (peace be upon him) asked: "By what feature are they recognised?" He said: "By fifty-one rak'ats of prayer, by reciting بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم [In the Name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful] aloud, by qunut (supplication) before the ruku (bowing), and by wearing the ring on the right hand."

Imam Baqir (peace be upon him): Abu Basir said: Imam Baqir (peace be upon him) said: "May this name be blessed for you!" I asked: "May I be your ransom! Which name?" He said: "Shia." It was said: "People rebuke us on account of this name." He said: "Have you not heard that Allah the Exalted said: وَإِنَّ مِن شِیعَتِهِ لَإِبْرَاهِیمَ [And indeed, of his party was Ibrahim], and He also said: فَاسْتَغاثَهُ الَّذِی مِنْ شِیعَتِهِ عَلَی الَّذِی مِنْ عَدُوِّهِ [The one who was of his party sought his help against the one who was of his enemy] (al-Qasas/15)? So may this name be blessed for you."

Imam Sajjad (peace be upon him): In the Tafsir of Imam Hasan al-Askari (peace be upon him) it is narrated: A man said to Imam Sajjad (peace be upon him): "O son of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family)! I am one of your pure Shia." The Imam (peace be upon him) said: "O servant of Allah, then you are like Ibrahim the Friend (of Allah), of whom Allah said: وَ إِنَّ مِنْ شِیعَتِهِ لَإِبْراهِیمَ* إِذْ جاءَ رَبَّهُ بِقَلْبٍ سَلِیمٍ [And indeed, of his party was Ibrahim, when he came to his Lord with a sound heart]. If your heart is like his heart, you are of our Shia; and if your heart is not like his — pure of duplicity and rancour — you are among those who love us; and if you are aware that you are lying in this claim, then until the end of your life, as a punishment for this lie you have spoken, you will be afflicted with paralysis or leprosy."

Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him): إِنَّ مِن شِیعَتِهِ لَإِبْرَاهِیمَ [And indeed, of his party was Ibrahim] means that Ibrahim (peace be upon him) is among the followers of Ali (peace be upon him).

Imam Ali (peace be upon him): Amir al-Mu'minin (peace be upon him), after returning from Nahrawan, wrote a letter and ordered that it be read to the people. Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim [In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful]; from the servant of Allah, Ali, Amir al-Mu'minin (peace be upon him), to the believers and Muslims from among his Shia. Allah the Exalted says: وَ إِنَّ مِنْ شِیعَتِهِ لَإِبْراهِیمَ [And most surely Ibrahim followed his way]. The word [Shia] is a name which Allah the Exalted has made a noble name in His Book, and you are the Shia of the Messenger of Allah, Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family), just as Ibrahim (peace be upon him) is from his Shia. And Shia is a name not exclusive [to any group] and a matter that is not an innovation. Peace be upon you.

Imam Baqir (peace be upon him): In Tafsir Imam al-Askari (peace be upon him) it is reported: Two men were boasting to one another. One of them said to the other, "Do you boast over me while I am from the Shia of the pure household of Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family)?" Imam Baqir (peace be upon him), who was listening to their words from nearby, said to him: "O servant of Allah! By the Lord of the Ka'ba, you have no ground for boasting over him; rather, you have deceived yourself and lied." Then he tested him with this question: "The wealth and property you have earned yourself — do you prefer to spend it on yourself or on your believing brothers?" [In other words, would you be happier spending it on yourself, or making it reach your believing brothers?] He said: "I spend it on myself." He said: "Then you are not from our Shia, for we ourselves — if we spend our wealth on the dependents from among our brothers, it is better for us than spending it on ourselves. [So you are not from our Shia.] But say: I am from those who love you, and from those who through loving you hope for salvation."

The Prophet (peace be upon him and his family): Our Shia is only the one who loves us, follows our traces, and takes our deeds as his model.

Hadrat Zahra (peace be upon her): A man said to his wife: "Go to Hadrat Fatima (peace be upon her), the daughter of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family), and on my behalf ask her whether I am from their Shia or not." The woman came to Hadrat Zahra (peace be upon her) and asked. She said: "Tell your husband: if you act upon what we have commanded you and abstain from what we have forbidden you, then you are from our Shia; otherwise, no." The woman returned and reported the matter to her husband. As soon as the man heard it, he said: "Woe to me! Who is there who can be free of sin and slipping?! In that case I am eternally and forever in Hellfire, for according to what Hadrat has said, I am not from their Shia, and whoever is not from the Shia of the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them) will abide eternally in the fire of Hell." The woman came again to Hadrat Zahra (peace be upon her) and conveyed her husband's words. Hadrat said: "Tell him: it is not so. Our Shia are the best of the people of Paradise, and whoever loves us, is the friend of our friends and the enemy of our enemies, and is submitted to us with heart and tongue — if he opposes our commands, he is not from our Shia; but even so, they too are from the people of Paradise. However, after being purified from sins through afflictions with the calamities of this world, or through being caught up in the plains of Resurrection and its various difficulties on that day, or by going into the upper level of Hell — and when he is purified, since he is from our friends, we will rescue him and transfer him to our own abode."

Imam al-Askari, Imam Hasan al-Askari (peace be upon him), on the words of Allah the Exalted: "Yea, whoever earns evil and his sin surrounds him — these are the inmates of the Fire; in it they shall abide" (al-Baqarah/81), said: "The sin that surrounds him is the sin that takes him out of the community of the religion of Allah, strips him of His wilayah, and casts him into His wrath. That sin is shirk (associating partners) with Allah and disbelief in Him, and disbelief in the prophethood of Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family), and disbelief in the wilayah of Ali ibn Abi Talib (peace be upon him) — every part of which surrounds him; that is, it envelops his deeds and renders them all void and destroys them. Those who commit this all-encompassing sin are the inmates of the Fire, and they shall abide therein forever."

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) said: "Loving Ali (peace be upon him) is a good deed with which no sin, however great, brings harm, except that his lover is stricken with the hardships of the world so that he may be cleansed of sin, and is afflicted with some of the punishments of the Hereafter until, by the intercession of his pure and chaste masters, he is delivered from it. And loving the enemies of Ali (peace be upon him) and opposing him is a sin with which nothing brings benefit, except that his enemies enjoy blessings, health and ease in this world on account of their acts of obedience; and when they enter the Hereafter, only lasting punishment is their share."

Then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) said: "Indeed, whoever denies the wilayah of Ali (peace be upon him) shall never see Paradise with his own eye, except that he shall look upon Paradise so as to know that, had he loved Ali (peace be upon him), it would surely have been his abode, dwelling and station — and so his regret and remorse shall be multiplied. And whoever loves Ali (peace be upon him), disavows his enemies and stands by his friends shall never see the Fire with his own eye, except that he shall look upon it and be told: 'Had you followed any way other than this, this would surely have been your abode.' And if he has committed any wrong against himself short of disbelief in Ali (peace be upon him), a touch of the Fire of Hell reaches him so that, like a bathhouse that scrubs filth from a person, it cleanses him; then, by the intercession of his friends, he is moved from there [to Paradise]."

Then the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) said: "O company of our Shia! Sooner or later Paradise shall be yours; but vie with one another in attaining its ranks." It was asked: "Does anyone from among your lovers and the lovers of Ali (peace be upon him) enter Hell?" He said: "Whoever has defiled his soul by opposing Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) and Ali (peace be upon him), fallen into what Allah has forbidden, wronged the believing men and believing women, and turned away from the rulings of the sacred law of Islam, shall come on the Day of Resurrection defiled and filthy." There Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) and Ali (peace be upon him) shall say to him: "O so-and-so! You are filthy and defiled; you are not fit to keep company with your chosen masters, nor to embrace the beautiful houris, nor [to be with] the angels of Allah's presence; and you shall not attain what is prepared here unless what is present here cleanses you of your sins." Then he is brought into the uppermost layer of the Fire of Hell and is punished for some of his sins.

Another of them is afflicted with the hardships of the gathering-place for some of his sins. Then the emissaries of his friends, from among the good ones of the Shia, pluck him out from there like a bird picking up grain. Another of them, whose burden of sins is lighter and less, is put into straits and troubles in this world at the hands of rulers and others, and pain and suffering find their way into his body, so that his sins may be wiped away, and he descends into the grave cleansed of sin. Another of them, when he stands at the threshold of death, has his death drawn out and his soul's departure made difficult, and thus he pays the price of sin. If anything of his sins remains and weighs upon him, on that same day he is stricken with stomach pain and trembling; his companions grow few, and he falls into humiliation, and thus he pays the price of sin. If anything of his sins still remains, after death he is brought and laid in the earth and left in the grave, and the people disperse from his grave — and thus he is cleansed of sin. If the burden of his sins is greater and heavier, the hardships of the fields of the Resurrection wipe them away from him; and if he is still stained with sins yet more numerous and greater, the upper layers of Hell cleanse his sins. These endure the severest punishment among our lovers and bear the greatest sins; and yet they are not called our Shia — rather they are called our lovers, friends of our friends, and enemies of our enemies. For our Shia is only he who follows us."

And Imam Hasan al-Askari (peace be upon him) said: "A man said to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family): 'O Messenger of Allah! So-and-so looks at his neighbour's wife, and if a chance for unlawful pleasure comes his way, he does not hold back.' The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) became angry and said: 'Bring him to me.' Another man said: 'O Messenger of Allah! He is one of your Shia; he believes in your wilayah and in the wilayah of Ali (peace be upon him), and disavows your two enemies.' The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) said: 'Do not say he is of our Shia — that is a lie. Indeed, our Shia is he who follows us and takes our conduct as his path; and what you have described about this man is not part of our conduct.'"

A man said to the Commander of the Faithful, Ali (peace be upon him): "So-and-so, who is one of your Shia, is destroying himself with grave sins." The Commander of the Faithful (peace be upon him) said: "With this word, one lie or two have been recorded against you. If he is destroying himself with sins, but loves us and disavows our enemies, then one lie has been recorded against you, for such a man is one of our lovers, not one of our Shia. And if he is a friend of our friends and an enemy of our enemies, but, contrary to what you said, is not destroying himself by committing sins, then again one lie has been recorded against you, for he has not fallen into ruin through sin. And if he is neither a sinner, nor a lover of us, nor an enemy of our enemies, then in this way two lies have been recorded against you."

Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him): It was said to Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him): "Today Ammar al-Duhni gave testimony before Ibn Abi Layla, the judge of Kufa, in a certain matter. The judge said to him: 'Get up, Ammar! We know you, and we do not accept your testimony, because you are a Rafidi.' Ammar rose, his shoulders trembling and weeping bitterly. Ibn Abi Layla said to him: 'You are a man of knowledge and hadith. If you do not like being called a Rafidi, give up this creed so that you may be counted among our brothers.' Ammar said to him: 'O so-and-so! By Allah! I shall never set foot on the path you tread, and I shed these tears both for your state and for my own. I weep for myself because you have ascribed to me a lofty station of which I am not worthy — you supposed that I am a Rafidi. Woe to you!' Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him) said to me: 'The first people to be called Rafida were the sorcerers who, after witnessing the miracle of the staff of Musa (peace be upon him), believed in him, became pleased with him, followed his path, abandoned Pharaoh's command, and submitted to whatever befell them. For this reason Pharaoh named them the Rafida, because they rejected (rafd) his religion. So the Rafidi is one who rejects everything Allah the Exalted has deemed detestable and acts upon everything Allah has commanded. But where in this age is such a person? Yes, I weep for my own state, for I greatly fear that Allah the Mighty and Majestic will look into my inward being while I have accepted upon myself so lofty a name, and for that reason the Lord the Mighty and Majestic will chastise me and say: "O Ammar! Are you truly, as he said, a Rafidi — have you rejected vain speech and acted upon My commands?" Then, if Allah the Exalted is lenient with me there, this claim will diminish my rank; and if the Truth the Exalted is severe with me, this claim will plunge me into a soul-crushing punishment, unless my masters reach me with their intercession. And I weep for you because you placed upon me a name of which I am not worthy, and in this way uttered so great a lie, and my heart aches for you; for you turned the most exalted of names into the most degraded of names, and thus cast yourself into the punishment of Allah the Exalted. How can your body endure Allah's punishment for such a saying?' Then Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him) said: 'If Ammar bore a burden of sins greater than the heavens and the earths, these words would without doubt wipe them all away from him. Indeed these words so increase his good deeds before Allah the Mighty and Majestic that every mustard-seed of them is made a thousand times greater than the whole world.'"

Imam al-Askari (peace be upon him): Abu Ya'qub Yusuf ibn Ziyad and Ali ibn Sayyar narrated: "One night we were in the presence of Imam Hasan al-Askari (peace be upon him) in his room. In those days the ruler of that region held him in great honour, and those around the ruler revered him greatly. Just then the ruler of the city — that is, the governor of Jisrayn — passed by, bringing with him a man whose hands were tied. Imam Hasan al-Askari (peace be upon him) was looking out from the window of his room. When the governor saw him, he dismounted from his beast out of respect for him." Imam Hasan al-Askari (peace be upon him) said to him: "Return to your place." He bowed and remounted his beast, then said: "O son of the Messenger of Allah! I seized this man tonight at the door of a money-changer's shop. Since I suspected that he wanted to break in and steal from it, I arrested him. My practice is that among those I arrest, whomever I suspect I strike with five hundred lashes, so that he may be punished for some of his sins, and so that no day comes when someone appears before me asking what I have done with such a person and I have no answer for him. When I was about to lash this man too, he said to me: 'Fear Allah, and do not expose yourself to His wrath, for I am a Shia of Ali (peace be upon him) and a Shia of the Imam of my time, the father of that noble one who rises by the command of Allah.' So I held back from him and said: 'I will take you to that noble one; if he counts you among the Shia, you will be freed, otherwise I will strike you with a thousand lashes and then cut off your hand and foot. Now I have brought him before you, O son of the Messenger of Allah! Is he indeed, as he claims, a Shia of Ali (peace be upon him)?" The Imam said: "Allah forbid! This man is not a Shia of Ali (peace be upon him), and as a punishment for imagining himself to be a Shia of Ali (peace be upon him), Allah has placed him in your hands." The governor said: "You have now made his affair easy for me. Now I will strike him five hundred lashes and I will have no scruple in doing so." He took him far off and said: "Lay this man down on the ground." When they did so, he stationed one executioner on his right and another executioner on his left and said: "Strike him." The two executioners brought their lashes down on him, but not a single blow struck his back — whatever they struck landed on the ground. The governor grew exasperated and said: "Woe to you both! Why are you striking the ground? Strike his back with the lash." They aimed again at his back, but this time their hands went astray and each one's lash struck the other, and they cried out. The governor said: "Woe to you both! Have you gone mad? Why are you striking each other? Strike this man." The two said: "That is exactly what we are doing; we are aiming only at him, but our hands go astray and our blows fall on ourselves." The governor said: "O so-and-so, and O so-and-so!" and he called four more men, who stood beside those two, and said: "Surround him." They did so, and when they tried to strike the man, their hands went astray, their lashes went up into the air, and came down upon the body of the governor. He fell from his beast to the ground and cried out: "You have killed me — may Allah kill you! What is this you are doing?" They said: "We struck only this man." The governor said to some others: "Strike this man." They came, and again they struck the governor. He said: "Woe to you! Why are you striking me?" They said: "By Allah, we are striking only this man!" The governor said: "If you are not striking me, then where have these wounds on my head and face and body come from?" They said: "May our right hands wither, if we have aimed at you!" The captured man said to the governor: "O servant of Allah! Do you not take a lesson from all this kindness by which the blows of the lash are turned away from me? Woe to you! Return me to the Imam and submit to his command concerning me." The governor took him back before Imam Hasan al-Askari (peace be upon him) and said: "O son of the Messenger of Allah! I am astonished at this man's affair. You said he is not one of your Shia, and whoever is not one of your Shia must be a Shia of Satan and belongs in the Fire of Hell. Yet I have seen from him such miracles as have only been seen from prophets!" The Imam said to him: "Say: 'or from their successors.'" [And he said: 'or from their successors.'] Then the Imam said: "O servant of Allah! This man lied when he claimed to be one of our Shia, a lie which, had he known it to be a lie and told it deliberately, would without doubt have brought upon him the full extent of your punishment and he would have remained thirty years in the dungeon. But Allah the Exalted had mercy on him and accepted that by this statement he meant something other, and did not knowingly lie. But you, O servant of Allah — know that Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, has delivered him from your hand. So release him, for he is one of our friends and lovers, though he is not one of our Shia." The governor said: "In our view all these words mean the same thing. Is there a difference between them?" The Imam said: "The difference is that our Shia are those who follow our traces and obey us in all our commands and prohibitions — such people are our Shia. But those who disobey us in many of the obligations imposed upon them are by no means our Shia." Then the Imam (peace be upon him) said to the governor: "You too have told a lie, which if you had told deliberately, Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, would have afflicted you with a thousand lashes and cast you into the dungeon for thirty years." He said: "O son of the Messenger of Allah! What lie is that?" He said: "You imagined that you had seen miracles from him, whereas miracles are not his work but ours. Allah the Exalted displayed these miracles through him in order to make plain our clear proof and to make manifest our greatness and honour. But had you said: 'I saw miracles in his case,' I would not have counted your words wrong. Was not the raising of the dead by Isa (peace be upon him) a miracle? Was that miracle the work of the dead or of Isa (peace be upon him)? Was he not the one who fashioned from clay the shape of a bird, and it became, by Allah's leave, a miracle, and the bird took flight? Was that miracle the work of the bird or of Isa (peace be upon him)? Was not the transformation of those who were turned into despised apes a miracle? Was that miracle the work of the apes or of the prophet of that age?" At that the governor said: "I seek forgiveness of Allah, and I turn to Him in repentance." Then the Imam said to the man who had said he was a Shia of Ali (peace be upon him): "O servant of Allah! You are not a Shia of Ali (peace be upon him), rather you are one of his lovers. Indeed the Shia of Ali (peace be upon him) are those about whom Allah the Exalted said: وَ الَّذِینَ آمَنُوا وَ عَمِلُوا الصَّالِحاتِ أُولئِکَ أَصْحابُ الْجَنَّةِ هُمْ فِیها خالِدُونَ [And those who believed and did righteous deeds — they are the companions of Paradise; they will abide therein forever] (al-Baqarah 82). They are those who believed in Allah and described Him with His attributes and declared Him pure and free of anything contrary to His attributes, and who accepted the sayings of Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) as true and counted all his deeds as right, and who said: 'Indeed after him, Ali (peace be upon him) is the master, the leader, the noble and valiant one, whom no one in the ummah of Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) can equal; and if all of them were gathered on one pan of a scale, they could never balance his pan — rather he would outweigh them all, as the heavens and the earth outweigh a tiny speck.' And the Shia of Ali (peace be upon him) are those who care nothing whether death overtakes them or they cast themselves upon death in the way of Allah. And the Shia of Ali (peace be upon him) are those who prefer their brothers over themselves, even if they themselves are in dire need. They are those whom Allah never sees on a path He has forbidden them, nor finds absent from a path He has commanded them to take. And the Shia of Ali (peace be upon him) are those who follow Ali (peace be upon him) in honouring their believing brothers. What I say to you is not from my own words, but from the words of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family)." Allah the Exalted said concerning them: وَ عَمِلُوا الصَّالِحاتِ [and did righteous deeds] — after affirming tawhid, prophethood and imamah, they perform all the obligations, and two matters among them are the most obligatory of all: one is the fulfilment of the rights of religious brothers, and the other is the practice of taqiyya (dissimulation) before the enemies of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic.