Friday, 13 May 2011

Why did Abu Bakr and Umar embrace Islam?

Kamal ad din wa tamam an ni'ma

قال: أخبرني عن الصديق والفاروق أسلما طوعا أوكرها؟ لم لم تقل له: بل أسلما طمعا وذلك بأنهما كانايجا لسان اليهود ويستخبرانهم عماكانوا يجدون في التوراة وفى سائر الكتب المتقدمة الناطقة بالملاحم من حال إلى حال من قصة محمد صلى الله عليه وآله ومن عواقب أمره، فكانت اليهود تذكر أن محمدا يسلط على العرب كماكان بختنصر سلط على بني إسرائيل ولابد له من الظفر بالعرب كما ظفر بختنصر ببني إسرائيل غير أنه كاذب في دعواه أنه نبي فأتيا محمدا فساعداه على شهادة ألا إله إلا الله وبايعاه طمعا في أن ينال كل واحد منهما من جهته ولاية بلد إذا استقامت اموره واستتبت أحواله فلما آيسامن ذلك تلثما وصعدا العقبة مع عدة من أمثالهما من المنافقين على أن يقتلوه فدفع الله تعالى كيدهم وردهم بغيظهم لم ينالوا خيرا كما أتي طلحة والزبير عليا عليه السلام فبايعاه وطمع كل واحد منهما أن ينال من جهته ولاية بلد، فلما أيسانكثا بيعته وخرجا عليه فصرع الله كل واحد منهما مصرع أشباههما من الناكثين


Said [Imam al Mahdi (as)]: “You asked me about the siddiq and the farooq, they accepted Islam willingly or by force? Why did you not say to him: Rather, they accepted Islam in greed, and that they both would come and listen to jews and they(jews) informed them about what they find in the torah and in other previous books (scriptures) that spoke of the predictions of event to event, among them the story/prediction of Muhammad(pbuh) and consequences of his(pbuh) affair, so the jews mentioned that Muhammad(pbuh) would rule over the Arabs as Bakht Nasr ruled over Bani Israel, and there is no difference in the conquest over Arabs as what Bakht Nasr attained over Bani Israel (except that) the latter was a liar in his claim whereas Muhammad(pbuh)'s prophet hood was true, so they (Abu Bakr and Umar) rushed upon him(pbuh) and proclaimed the shahadah and did his(pbuh) bayah (pledge of allegiance) in greed/hope that they would gain on their part the governorship of one of the cities when his(pbub) affairs/commands are stabilized, but when that didn't materialize (lance/arrow hit the stone), they climbed on mount of uqba along with a group of their likes among the munafiqeen (hypocrites) to kill him(pbuh). So Allah(pbuh) kept off their deceit and their evil did not come good. (This is) As how Talha and Zubar came to Ali(as) to pledge his allegiance and hoped that they would obtain governorship of one of the cities, so when that didn't materialize they broke off his allegiance and came out in war upon him and Allah(swt) did with them what happens to those of their like among allegiance breakers/rebels.

8 comments:

  1. salams, thank you for this blog post. Do you have a reference for this passage ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Anonymous: Wasalam,

    I mentioned the name of the book, Kamal ad din wa tamam an ni'ma, at the top of the hadith. The full reference is as follows:

    Kamal ad din wa tamam an n'ima (compiled by Shaikh Sadooq), part 2, page 456

    I took it from this link:
    http://www.al-shia.org/html/ara/books/lib-hadis/kamal-din/a62.htm (page 456)

    ReplyDelete
  3. rotten_coconut15 May 2011 at 18:04

    What's the grading of this hadith?
    Bro, an input for you: you have to be consistent. In some posts you put the grading, but in some, such as this, you didn't. It's better if you only post reliable ahadith & put the gradings so your readers understand the status of the ahadith

    ReplyDelete
  4. @rotten_coconut: Salam,

    As for this hadith, Shaikh Sadooq considered it as well as other ahadith in this book (kamal ad din) sahih. He mentioned he'd collected sahih ahadith about Imam Mahdi(as) and his ghayba in this book. Here's what he said about it in the preface of the book:

    وتلقى ما سمعه من الآثار الصحيحه بالسمع والطاعة والقبول والتسليم

    http://www.al-shia.org/html/ara/books/lib-hadis/kamal-din/a1.htm (page 3)

    Also, in this book as well as his other books, Shaikh Sadooq usuually does indicate after recording a hadith if it is shadh (rare) or da'eef/weak in some aspect. He didn't mention anything wrong with this hadith.

    I understand where you are coming from regarding the issue of gradings of ahadith, but let me clarify that I myself do not at all consider the modern ahadith classification authoritative. Fact of the matter is that the compilers of our classical works did testify that the ahadith therein are sahih and this slogan that "none of our books are sahih" is just a modern polemical slogan of apologetic shias. I had made a post about this, you can read it for details:

    http://realtashayyu.blogspot.com/2011/05/authenticity-of-ahadith-in-kutub-al.html

    Also, keep in mind that this modern ahadith classification system is just a rip off of the sunnis, see here:

    http://realtashayyu.blogspot.com/2011/04/origins-of-modern-ahadith.html

    As for the gradings that I sometimes mention, those are not my gradings. I just mention Majlisi and Bahboodi's gradings for kafi, and Shaikh Hasan Abdullah Ali al Ajmi's gradings for Basaer al darajat. And sometimes I also quote from al Mu'atabar min ahadith al Kafi by Shaikh Muib al din Musavi al Hilli, in which he extracted authentic ahadith from Kafi. I do that only for the satisfaction of those who are extremely concerned about the gradings.

    But as far as I'm concerned, the ahadith I quote are authentic as per our classical scholars and therefore I make sure not to quote from dodgy books such as misbah ul sharia which are not accepted by our classical scholars.

    Hope that clears up some issues.

    Wasalam

    ReplyDelete
  5. Here is what Al-Khoei has said about this hadeeth:

    و هذه الرواية ضعيفة السند جدا فإن محمد بن بحر بن سهل الشيباني لم يوثق و هو متهم بالغلو و غيره من رجال سند الرواية مجاهيل
    "And this narration has a VERY WEAK sanad (chain of narrators). Muhammad bin BaHr bin Sahl al-Shaybaanee has no tawtheeq (authenticity) and he is accused of ghuluww (exaggeratoring). And the other men from the narration's sanad are (all) majhool (unknown)."

    Source:
    - Al-Khoei, Mu`jam Rijaal Al-Hadeeth, vol. 9, pg. 82, ,person # 5058

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Bhooka_bhairiya

    Salam,

    I am usuli (not akhbari), but I like your reasoning : spot on! We must remain faithful to our traditional scholars.

    You are my brother and barakallahoufik.

    A french shia.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Salaam.

    I have been visiting your website for quite sometime and read many of your posts. I found them very useful.

    About passage above, I find only one thing odd in it i.e, Imam Mehdi (a.s) referring Abu Bakr as "Siddiq" and Umar as "Faruq" because both of these titles belong to Imam Ali (a.s) only.

    Wasalaam

    ReplyDelete
  8. @Anonymous: Wa'laikummus salam,

    Actually Imam Mahdi(as) is not referring to bakr umar as siddeeq and farooq. Actually the above hadith is a part of a very long narration, I have quoted the relevant part about bakr umar.

    A summary of the full narration is (to see the background behind it), that a Shia had a debate with a very strict nasibi, who taunted the shia that how can you guys (shias) fault bakr umar even though they accepted Islam in its early days, which proves that they accepted Islam out of their own will and love for Islam, because in the early days of Islam the religion was not strong enough and was lacking followers, so bakr umar could not be accused of accepting Islam out of greed (like the Munafiqeen of Medina, i.e. the local Jews who accepted Islam after seeing it was growing fast in Medina) or due to indirect force (like the "tulaqa" i.e. the pagans of Mecca, who accepted Islam after Mecca was conquered to save their lives, for example guys like abu sufyan and muawiya). The Shia was left speechless and could find no answer.

    So the shia met the representative of Imam al Askari(as), and got arranged a meeting with him(as). There he saw his little son (i.e. Imam al Mahdi[as]). Imam al Askari(as) told the Shia to ask Imam al Mahdi(as) his questions. So Imam al Mahdi(as) himself started answering before the shia had even stated his questions. It was at this point that Imam al Mahdi(as) repeats the question posed by the nasibi to the Shia, and then proceeds to answer it.

    So basically Imam al Mahdi(as) is only repeating verbatim the question posed by the nasibi, by saying: "When he (i.e. the nasibi) asked you did Siddeeq and Farooq embrace Islam due to greed or by force, why did you not answer him that in fact the accepted Islam due to greed..............."

    I know the translation is a bit bad/unclear (as I had made this post very long while back, when the blog was new), which may have caused the confusion.

    Wassalam

    ReplyDelete