The Saudis’ real ‘sin’ (ll)

Also published in Daily Trust

To understand the intricate politics surrounding Iran’s politicization of Mina deadly stampede, one has to know the historical, religious and ideological dynamics that collectively define Iranians’ attitudes and influence their policies and strategies towards Hajj, the status of Makkah, Madina and the other Islamic holy sites.

Historically, since the second rightly guided Caliph, Umar Ibn Al-Khattab-led Islamic conquest of the tyrannical Persian Empire, which was one of the two most powerful empires in the world then, and even though the Persians overwhelmingly and willingly accepted Islam, there remained some Persian supremacist elements who refused to come to terms with the collapse of their empire at the hands of Muslims, and in fact Arabs for that matter, who they had disdainfully looked down on and indeed dominated for centuries.

Ever since then, Persian supremacists have continued to harbour hatred against Islam, and have in fact pursued their ethnically motivated agenda with a view to restoring the Persian dominance at the expense of Islam and Muslims. In order to achieve this, their early religious theorizers exploited the purely political hence manageable differences that emerged among some of the Prophet’s righteous companions after his departure particularly in the wake of the unfortunate assassination of the third rightly guided Caliph, Uthman bin Affan, to fabricate hundreds of thousands of narrations that fundamentally contradict Islam, distorted and deliberately misinterpreted Qur’anic verses and prophetic Hadiths.

That resulted in the emergence of their major religious books e.g. Al-Kaafi by Al-Kulaini, At-tahzib and Al-istibsar, both by Al-Tusy, Man-la yahduruhul-Faqeeh by Ibn Babawaih Al-Qummy, Tafsir Al-Qummy etc, which are stuffed with narrations that couldn’t meet the basic criteria of hadith authentication in Mustalahul-hadith i.e. science of hadith. For instance, they are devoid of a single ‘Sanad muttasil’ i.e. an unbroken chain of identified and trustworthy narrators to the Prophet (pbuh).

In fact, Nahjul-Balaga, which they flaunt as a collection of speeches purportedly by the fourth rightly guided Caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib (R), is particularly unfounded because, contrary to the other major books which were collected through broken, inconsistent and unreliable chain of narrators, it (i.e. Nahjul-Balaga) is absolutely devoid of anything like that even though there were more than three hundred years between the death of Ali ibn Talib and the birth of its author, Ash-Sharif Ar-Radhy.

Anyway, this explains their followers’ ridiculously ridiculous ideological beliefs and worship rituals that basically contradict Islam as exclusively contained in the Qur’an and the authentic Prophetic Sunnah. For instance, as far as they are concerned, Hajj is not that important, to say the least, because, according to them, paying homage to the grave of Imam Hussain ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib (R)) in Karbala, Iraq, is much more rewarding than performing Hajj. In one of their thousands of fabricated narrations attributed to Imam Ja’afar As-sadiq, he was reported to have said “He who pays homage to the grave of Hussian on an ordinary day (not Eid) believing in his (i.e. Hussain’s) privileged status, Allah will give him the same amount of reward earned from performing accepted Hajj and Umrah twenty times.. And he who pays homage to it on an Eid day, Allah will give him the same amount of reward earned from performing accepted Hajj and Umrah hundred times Moreover, he who pays homage to it on Arafat day believing in his (i.e. Hussain’s) privileged status, Allah will give him the same amount of reward earned from performing accepted Hajj and Umrah one thousand times..” (See Al-Kaafi (Al-furu’u) v1. p324, Man-la yahduruhul-Faqeeh, v1 p182, At-tahzeeb, v2 p16 etc).

Yet, a particularly ridiculous assertion, which is also falsely attributed to Imam Ja’afar As-sadiq, summed up their beliefs in the purported superiority of paying homage to Imam Hussain’s grave in Karbala, over Hajj. According to them, Imam As-sadiq said “If I should tell you the amount of reward earned from paying homage to him (i.e. Hussain) and the virtue of his grave, you would immediately stop going to Hajj” (See Buharul-Anwar v101 p33, Kaamilu-zziyaraat p266).

Besides, Karbala is, according to them, superior, in virtue and sacredness, over Makkah, as many of such unfounded narrations claim. They claim that Imam Ja’far As-sadiq said “The land of the Ka’abah (i.e. Makkah) once boastfully wondered; being the land where the House of Allah was built, what else is superior over me, people come to me from every deep, narrow and remote valley, and I was made Allah’ sacred land and safe. Allah immediately sent a revelation to it that; you keep quiet; your virtue compared to the superior virtue of Karbala is merely like the amount of water that clings to the needle when dipped into the sea and removed. If not for the soil of Karbala I wouldn’t have attached any virtue to you, and if not for what Karbala contains (the body of Imam Hussain) I wouldn’t have created you or what you are proud of (i.e. the Ka’aba), so remain as a meek, humble and humiliated subservient not arrogant towards the land of Karbala, otherwise I will disfigure you and plunge you into the hell fire” (See Mustadrakul-wasa’il v10 p322, Biharul-Anwar v101 p109).

Though there are other so-called sacred cities in their beliefs e.g. Qum, Najaf etc, and considering how they disdainfully rate Makkah, which is the holiest city in Islam, one can imagine how they rate Madinah and Al-Quds cities, being the second and the third of the only three holy cities in Islam, respectively.

To be concluded….