MUSLIMS & THE STRAIGHT PATH: Part - 3-A - Quran Misunderstood: Things that the Mullahs Don't Tell

Muslims & The Straight Path  [Published 2010]

Part - 3-A

QURAN MISUNDERSTOOD: THINGS THAT THE MULLAHS DON'T TELL

Some of the most authentic declarations of the Holy Prophet regarding his cousin Ali, who later became his son-in-law, are:

Ali is of me and I am of Ali.

Ali is with the Quran and Quran will be with Ali.

Ali is with the Right and the Right will be with Ali.

The Quran and the Ahlul-Bayt are the Two inseparable Entities, each perfect in itself reflecting then others. – (left behind among the people by the Holy Prophet for their guidance till the Day of Resurrection, assuring the Muslims of being safe from getting astray, should they stick up to these Two Inseparable Ones.)

And the Holy Prophet declared:

I am the City of Knowledge and Ali its Gate.

Moreover, the Holy Prophet before departing from this world had openly and repeatedly made the following guiding announcements, for the people to abide:

Of whomsoever I am the Lord, This Ali is the Lord.

Hadees-e-Ghadeer-e-Khumm

The Holy Prophet further announced:

The likeness of my Ahlul-Bayt is that of the Ark of Noah. Whosoever getteth into it, is saved and whosoever turneth away from it, is drowned and lost.

And in what is known as Hadees-e-Saqalain, the Holy Prophet, before his departure, had declared:

I leave behind me amidst you Two Weighty (very important) things, the Book of God (the Holy Quran) and my Ahlul-Bayt. Should ye be attached to these two, never shall ye get astray and never shall these Two be separated from one another until they meet me at the Spring of ‘Kausar’ (i.e. Paradise).

Tafsir-e-Kabir, Tafsir-e-Durre Mansur and others

(Hadees is also present in Sahih at-Tirmidhi, Ibnul-Athir, and most books of traditons.)

There is a hadees known as Hadees-e-manzilah. In the expedition of Tabuk (in the month of Rajab in the ninth year A.H.) the Prophet left Ali as his deputy in Medina. Ali exclaimed with dismay: “Are you leaving me behind?” The Prophet asked him:

 O Ali, are you not satisfied that you have the same position in relation to me as Harun had to Musa except that there is no prophet after me?

The Prophet thereby meant that as Musa had left behind Harun to look after his people when he went to receive the Commandments, in the same way he was leaving Ali behind as his deputy to look after the affairs of Islam during his absence.

Then there is the occasion of communicating the verses of Surah al-Barrah (Chapter 09) to the people of Makkah. First Abu Bakr was sent to proclaim it before the pagans. Later the Prophet sent Ali to take the Surah from Abu Bakr and announce it at Makkah. Abu Bakr returned to Medina from his journey midway en route to Makkah and asked the Prophet whether any verse or order was received from Allah against him announcing the surah. The Prophet said: “Gabriel came to me and said that no one shall deliver the message except myself or the person who is from me.”

The moral principle evident in these declarations of the Prophet is also expressed in the following tradition which has been accepted by all sects.

The Prophet said:

Ali is with the truth and the truth is with Ali; whithersoever Ali turns, the truth (also) turns with him.

Another is the hadees of “Divine Light” (Hadees an-Noor). Sayyid Ali Hamadani writes in Muwaddatul qurba, on the authority of Salman Farsi that the Prophet said:

I and Ali were both created from one and the same Noor (Divine Light) four thousand years before Adam was created, and when Adam was created that Noor was given a place in his backbone. So we continued to occupy the same place till were separated in the back of Abdul Muttalib. Therefore in me is the prophethood and in Ali is the caliphate.

In Riyadul-fadail, the last words of the above hadees are written as follows: “Then He made me a prophet and made Ali a wasiyy (vicegerent).”

So much importance was being paid to the Ahlul-bayt, the Quran guaranteed their purity (verse 33:33), several verses were revealed praising their actions, the Prophet talked of them as the lord of heaven, without them salvation was nullified, several of Prophet’s traditions highlighted their importance in his eyes as well as in the eyes of the Creator and the history showed that these Ahlul-bayt were the greatest practitioners of the teachings of Islam, the most knowledgeable and the most pious men of their times; yet the present day Muslims give no place to them in their Islam. What’s more, majority of Muslims won’t even know who the Ahlul-bayt are? Presence of the word Ahlul-bayt in Quran doesn’t raise their eye-brows, nor does the word Noor (Light) in Quran and several traditions of Prophet Mohammad elaborating who are referred to by the term Noor.

The Manifest Self descended in human form for the last time in the desert of Arabia. The special relation that Prophet Mohammad had with the God cannot be denied anymore. Unfortunately, lately we were witness to special campaigns to make the people believe that Prophet Mohammad was just an ordinary mortal and there was no need to address prayers to God through him. The tombs of the Ahlul-bayt have been razed to the ground and those who go there to pay homage to God’s proofs on earth are beaten and punished. All attempts are being made to erase the name of Ahlul-bayt from memory, to the extent that edited versions of supposedly authentic Sihah-e-Sitta (the six books that the Muslims had themselves chosen as authentic out of the innumerable books that contain Prophet’s traditions) are now in the market; the only editing being of the traditions highlighting the position of the Ahlul-bayt. 

Likewise on the occasion of Mubahila, the Holy Prophet had to invite the Christians of Najran who were not amenable to reasoning, to a spiritual contest to prove the truthfulness of Islam against Christianity, under the following command of Quran:

And unto him who disputeth with thee therein after the knowledge hath come unto thee, Say! (O’ Our Apostle Mohammad!) (Unto them) ‘Come ye, let us summon our sons, and (ye summon) your sons, and (we summon) our women and (ye) your women, and (we summon) our selves and (ye) your selves and then let us invoke and lay the curse of God on the liars!

Quran:3:60

It is the unanimous report of all historians that on that memorable occasion of proving the truthfulness of Islam against the contesting Christian world, the Holy Prophet appeared in the field with Husain who was then only a baby, in his lap, Hasan held by his hand, followed by his daughter Fatima (the Lady of Light) and behind her, her husband Ali ibn Abu Talib - his son-in-law and cousin brother. Standing in the open field with a multitude of Muslims and the Christians surrounding him, turning his face towards heaven, the Prophet declared:

Lord! These are my Ahlul-bayt.

Sahih Muslim

We may conclude that whoever is included in this verse and Verse 33:33, is undoubtedly included in the term ‘Siddeeq-e-Akbar’, i.e. The Greatest Truthful, and ‘Shaheed’, i.e. The Martyr, and if there were any others, males or females entitled to these terms at that time they would have been included. This is supported by what Ali has said:

Ana Siddeequl Akbar wa Farooqul Aazam

La Yad’aeeyahum ghairi illa Kazzab.

I am the ‘Siddeequl Akbar’ (The Greatest Truthful) and the ‘Farooqul Aazam’ (The Greatest Distinguisher of Truth and Falsehood). None shall claim this besides me save the greatest liar.

The same identical status of Ali with the Holy Prophet has been declared by the Holy Prophet for Fatima, Hasan and Husain saying:

Fatima is a part of mine, whoever annoyeth her annoyeth me.

And in some other place the Holy Prophet has been reported to have declared about Fatima:

Whoever maketh her angry hath made me angry.

Fatima is the Chief of the ladies of Paradise.

The same expression has been recorded about Hasan and Husain, that they are the Two Chiefs of the Youths of Paradise and they (both) are Imams (divinely commissioned guides), be they active or retired. The Holy Prophet has also declared:

Husain is of me and I am of Husain. 

People neglected the Ahlul-Bayt and began following their own ways and yet called their own innovated schools as Islam, and themselves the deviators from the prescribed course, as Muslims. This was despite the fact the Prophet himself took bayat or the allegiance from the Muslims, for Ali at Ghadeer-e-Khumm by commanding the Muslims to put their hand on that of Ali and call him Ameer-ul-Momineen (Commander of the Faithfuls). Also, it is recorded that Omar ibn Khattab, who later became the second Caliph of the Muslims, was the first to congratulate Ali on this nomination.

You have seen the translation of Hadees-e-Kisa in the previous Chapter. Prophet might be describing Fatima, Ali, Hasan and Husain as his Ahlul-bayt, when Quran talked of them God referred to those who had gathered under the vestment (as seen in Hadees-e-Kisa) not as the People of the House of Prophet Mohammad but as the People of the  House (of the Manifest Self)’, thereby proving that they were not the People of the House of Prophet but the People of the House of God, pure and free from all blemishes in the eyes of God. Moreover, when even Mohammad was referred to as Ahlul-bayt (People of the House), Muslims should have understood that some other house is being talked about. No doubt, this is the House of the Manifest Self of God.