Stories from Imam al-Sadiq's Life Everyone Should Know | Sayed Ahmed Qazwini

[music] Tonight we discuss the life and legacy of Almar. Alm Jaffar was the sixth Imam of B. He was born in the city of Al Med in the year 83 after Hijra. And he was born on the same day Allah his grandfather was born 17th of so 60 years or 70 years after Allah died imam is born in the same city and he continues the message and the legacy of his grandfather Sam the parents of imaff as for his mother the mother of was a woman, a noble, righteous woman known as Omar, the wife of the fifth Imam. Her name was Fatim, daughter of Alasim. Al Kasim was one of the disciples. So Aladd's father-in-law, he was one of the disciples of Al Zim. One of the closest companions to the fourth Imam was his father-in-law, Al Kasim, the father of Al Kasim. So the grandfather of his wife was Muhammad Abi Bakr. Muhammad Abi Bakr was the son of Abu Bakr. The first Khalifa but he was a disciple of Imam Ali Alisam. Subhan Allah. How the son of Abu Bakr Muhammad became one of the closest companions to Allah to Im Ali. Imam Ali raised him in his house because he was an orphan and he turned out to be amongst the lo most loyal companions of Imam Ali Alisam. So when you look at the lineage of his wife you find that all these members who were disciples and close companions of the imams of Bim and she was his mother was known as one of the most noble and righteous woman of her time. This is the mother of Aladdin. As for his father, Almuham Bakr, the fifth im of B and we already spoke about him during the last couple of months. Als grew up with his father Al Bak and his grandfather Alm because when he was born the imam of his time was imbued. So he learned under the guidance of his grandfather Almad and then his father Alm Bak until the age of 31. When Almak was 31, this is when his father died and he became the Imam and he would continue to be the Imam until the age of 65. So for 34 years and at the age of 65 during the year 148 after the hijra I imam was martyed and thus im was the longest living member of at 65. We mentioned ali was or im jawad was the youngest at 25 and the oldest was imam at the age of 65. So you see in general did not live long lives. Most of them they lived between 40 to 50 to 60 which based on today's standard most of them were young. But yet look at the legacy that they left for eternity for mankind within those short few years. Seven boys and three girls. Now when it comes to the Shia school of thought al Bakr his father is widely seen as the founder of the Shia scholarly movement because until I im Bakr's life the Shia were not seen as a formal school of thought as an as a scholarly school of thought it was seen as more of a political group who resisted the who followed Im Ali who followed immally about their political allegiances. It wasn't a school of thought that had fundamental beliefs, theology, Jewish prudence and Albak is believed to be the founder of the scholarly movement. He began to lay the foundations of the scholarly opinions and beliefs of the Shia through his classes. And we spoke about this when we discussed the life of Im Bakar in the past. Al Bakr lived in a time where there was relative freedom for scholars to preach because before I imbak [snorts] lived in a time of repression. The government of Benny Omaya did not give freedom to scholars to teach. You had to believe in what the state believed and you had to be endorsed by the government in order to teach. So there was no freedom of teaching and disseminating your beliefs during the time of imbed. Almad could not have could not hold a class a public class and teach theology of Shiaism. Alhamd he notices that now there is freedom. Why? Because there's two factions that are fighting. Ban Abbas and Bani. Bani Omaya is declining and Banil Abbas is rising. They're fighting busy fighting. And you know when governments are busy fighting, they don't have that much time and resources to repress their own people because now they're just worrying about trying to sol solidify their power. So Almad takes advantage of this and he starts preaching and teaching the the theology the beliefs of and he starts the scholarly movement. He continues on the same path of his father and he takes he takes the of to its height in its scholarly intellectual dissemination and that's why you find knowledge began to flourish during the life of im and there were all these scholars that came and started to teach Quran theology juristprudence hadith anything that you can imagine religion because there was relative freedom. Alm took advantage of the atmosphere and he began to preach in Al Medina every day. He had classes like a university setting. He would teach everything that related to Allah that related to the Quran. All the Islamic teachings were taught by imam. and Almadik became a magnet for students. All the knowledge seekers in the Muslim world. Medina became a hub. Anyone that wanted to seek knowledge, just like now if you want to seek knowledge, you go to where? You go to Naj, you go to people would go to the city of Al Medina and they used to seek knowledge from the scholars of Al Medina. Alim had the most powerful and the greatest class such that who is an early Zi scholar he says I counted the number of students that attended Aladdak's classes and these are not normal people these are all scholars themselves soon to be scholars narrators he says I found 4,000 people 4,000 and students and knowledge seekers that attended the classes of im today when the population of Muslims is so great there is no one class that 4,000 people attend in the Muslim world a class not talking about lectures especially in the seminary academic field 1300 years ago had 4,000 people attending his class many of them they themselves would become become scholars. They would form their own madahib. They would go back to their countries and become maraj become muis for their people. So imam he took advantage of the freedom and he began to preach of tens of thousands of hadith they were narrated from imam musam. They were narrated from im. They were recorded, preserved, transmitted. And that's why today the majority of the knowledge that we have of our faith comes from whom? From imam. You find probably maybe up to 60% of the traditions that we have about anything that has to do with faith is narrated from im. This doesn't mean Almad was more knowledgeable than the other imams. No, Aladd had that exposure. Almad had that opportunity. Alm Bakr to a lesser degree had it. Almad didn't. That's why we don't have that many traditions from imb about the laws of salah aboutal and haram about the laws of for example buying and selling but with anything you can imagine you see the im so many laws he got into the intricate details of the Jewish prudence of theology because there was an opportunity to teach and his students would record his sayings They would record his hadith. They would disseminate it and it was preserved by scholars. And that's why today there is something unique about Aladd that no other human being possesses. Almad is the most quoted human being on earth. Meaning there is no one that is narrated as many times as imasool Allah. Not even rasool Allah. Meaning if you compile all the hadiths of rasool Allah, how many could you find? Maximum number maybe 5,000, maybe 10,000. Almadisam has over 50,000 hadiths narrated from him. No human being on earth has this many narrations that were recorded and transmitted over generations. And this is a miracle of Imam. And this is why you see that this that our school of thought is known to be right when they ask you what is your m sometimes you say I am but the problem is has multiple factions. So are you for example are you are you are you this or that I am Jafari Jaffari is my sect. Why is it called Jaffari? Because Almad laid the foundations of this sect and he is the one that formalized it as a sect. Because before I ime people barely knew anything about the beliefs of the Shia. This became clear through im. And thus the school of thought is what it became to be known as. Now when you look at the students of Imam Husadam, they came from all over the Muslim world. They traveled to Medina. They would sit and learn from im. He would teach. They would ask him questions and then they would write everything that the imam would say. Then they would go back to their countries and they would record them in books. And these books would be set down from generation to generation until they reached us today. the the the students of Ali imi were amongst the greatest Muslim scholars of their time. There's this famous story that Hisham Hakim Hisham Hakim is one of the students of im. He says that one day or Hisham ib Hisham ibam narrates this hadith. He says one day me and a few of the companions of IMK his students the highest level students those that had mastered the knowledge of Alam Musadak. We were sitting with the Imam and discussing some matters. He says all of a sudden someone a stranger came and he wanted to meet and greet Aladd Muhammad. They told him he's sitting here. He came and introduced himself. He said I come from Sham. I'm a scholar from Sham and your name has become so big that people speak of your knowledge even in Sham. That's how prominent im became that even in Asham. Remember Asham was a place where you rarely found followers of B because that was the capital of Muawi. People were brainwashed to hate. So Almad was able to break that propaganda such that he received respect and recognition even in Sham. People from Sham would come to Medina to learn from imaff because the knowledge that he was preaching was unheard of. They hadn't seen any scholar like that before. So this man from Sham, he comes and he says, "I'm a scholar from Sham and I have heard about you. I have come to debate you." He wants to debate im. That was the biggest mistake of his life. So he tells the imam, "I want to debate you." And I im he tells him, "What do you want to debate me about?" He says, "I want to debate you about the Quran, the book of Allah. I will debate you on the Quran, about the Quran, the teachings of the Quran, the tap of the Quran, and I'll defeat you." The Imam, he tells him, "You see this man? He's my student. You can debate him. The man from Sham was upset. He thought the Imam is being arrogant. I don't have time for you. So debate my student. So he told him, "No, I've come all this way to debate you, not your student." The imam told him, "Look, debate my student. And if you defeat him, you have defeated me. I will accept defeat. If you defeat my student," and the imam is trying to tell him, "Look, you can't even debate my students. you want to debate me? He tells him okay fine. So comes he tells him what do you want to debate about the Quran? He starts mentioning verse after verse and starts replying to him in a way he'd never seen. Every verse he brings tells him the such that he is overwhelmed defeats him. He destroys him Quran. So he says, "You know what? I chose the wrong subject." He tells Almad, "I want to debate you on the Arabic language." The Arabic, the grammar and eloquence of the Quran. He says, "Okay, you see my other student, debate him. And if you defeat him, you've defeated me." Abanib comes, he has a debate with him, and he defeats this man. He says, "You know what? No, no, no. Let's choose another topic." The Imam tells him, "What topic do you want to debate now?" He says, "I want to debate you on Islamic Jewish prudence, the laws of halal and haram, the laws of salah and fasting and so on and so forth." Mad then looks at another one of his students. Zbay come and defeat, come and debate him. Zor comes and debates this man. He easily defeats him. He keeps on insisting, "No, no, no. Let me choose another topic. What topic do you want now? I want to debate you in theology. The Imam calls one of his companions by the name of Muhamm and debate him debates him destroys him. He says no I want to debate you on another matter. What is it? Im meaning who was the rightful successor of the prophet. He calls Hisham Hakim. Hisham come and debate him. Hishn Hakim destroys him. This man debates five or six of the companions of the students of im and he's completely overwhelmed. He realizes if the students are this great, imagine how great the teacher is. He's astonished at the knowledge. And what's beautiful is you see each one of the students of im chose one area and he excelled in it and juristprudence and theology in the Arabic language. in the Quran and im. And this is how the students of they were individuals that excelled in their knowledge. They were individuals that no one could dare debate because he trained them very well. And in addition to that you find that the leaders of the madahib the Muslim madahib the founders and leaders of the other madahib almost all of them were direct students of imam. So this whole movement of madahib and knowledge, seeking knowledge and spreading knowledge, making Islam into an academic, intellectual, scholarly religion. This was all started by imam. Right now look at the Muslim world. What is the biggest mab? Anyone have an idea? >> Yes. The followers of Abu Hanifh almost onethird of the Muslim world or of Sunnis their mab is hanafi they will tell you my sect like we're they are that means they follow Abu Hanifh they do of Abu Hanifh Abu Hanifh and was a student of and there's a famous statement that is attributed to him where he said if it wasn't for the two years because Abu Hanifh studied with many teachers but after he studied with all these different teachers he said that if it wasn't for the two years that I studied with im with Muhammad I would have never became a scholar these were the two greatest years and the greatest scholar that I benefited from was so Abu Hanifh who's his teacher unfortunately the majority of the Sunni world of the Hannavis they have no idea that the leader of your madhab and the founder of your madhab was a student of imam so why did you follow the student and not the teacher why didn't you go and study the life of the teacher so anyway Abu Hanifh himself he narrates the story he says I had never seen anyone more knowledgeable than Muhammad and then he says why he says that when al- Mansour became the Khalifa al-Mans was the second or third Khalifa of Ban Abbas and he was the most powerful of the of Ban Abbas he says says Al-Mansur was bothered that Almadak had become really popular in the Muslim nation. Everyone had respect for Muhammad. His name was known by everyone special especially between the elites, the intellectuals. So he was bothered by this because he knew I imam was the rightful Imam and every any person who knows that they are holding a position they are not qualified of they will always be sensitive and insecure to the actual person who is deserving of that position. So what does he do? He wants to destroy the reputation of Almadak as this giant scholar that no one can defeat. So he hears about Abu Hanifh the student of Alam. Abu Hanifh says Mansur summon me. I went to his palace in Al in Iraq. He says, he told me that people have become obsessed with Muhammad Muhammad. That's all I hear. I want you to sit down and come up with 40 difficult questions, the most difficult questions possible. And I want you to come and present them, challenge in my presence so that some of them he will not know how to answer. He will be caught off guard and that people will say, "Oh, he's not that knowledgeable." So, it was an evil plan that he devised. Abu Hanifh says, "I sat down for maybe weeks or months trying to figure out the most deep, the most difficult, the most complicated theological Islamic questions." He says, "I prepared 40 of them and I went to the palace once again." He says, "As I entered, I see the Khalifa al-Mansur is sitting and next to him, I see Now when you enter and you meet a king, a president, a khalifa, usually you will be taken by his majesty, right? You'll be filled with awe. It's you'll have goosebumps because this is the king. This is the khalifa. He says when I saw he says the awe that I was overwhelmed with the was greater than the ha of the khalifa himself meaning was more intimidating towards me than the khalifa himself than the king. So this is how much of an aura or awe that imam used to elicit. He says I went and I sat down on the other side. Then the khalifa told me Allah present your questions to immif he he knew the answer. Not only was he ready, he says im would reply and he would tell me the different scholarly opinions in the Muslim world. So for example, I would ask him about free will versus predestination. Tell me how that works with the if there is free will then how is it that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has knows everything before he created us. If he knows everything and he has destined everything, there's no free will. But if it's predestination, then that means I was predestined to be bad if I'm evil. So how do we solve this dilemma? This is one of the matters that he presents immina this is what they say. As for the people of this place, this is he says all of the different opinions, he knew them. And then he says, "As for the opinion of the SH of B or of B, this is the opinion." He says, "I had never seen someone that knew this much information about any topic like Muhammad." He says, "I go to number two." Same thing. Number three, number four, until I finished every single one of the 40 m. This brothers and sisters debate took probably 3 to four hours. He says he just kept coming back at me. One answer more beautiful than the other. He says I was shocked. Al-Mans Mansour was shocked. Al-Mans Mansour realized that this man cannot be defeated. And this is where Abu Hanifh he says is the most knowledgeable person that I had seen. So Abu Hanifh was a student of Aladd. We the Jaffar we follow the teacher. The Hanafies they follow the student. The second largest Mab is the Maliki. The Maliki Mab follow Maliknis. Maliknas was also a student of Alisam. He attended his classes for a few years and then he became a scholar himself and he formed his own madab in North Africa. Those Muslim countries there majority follow the Malikis. Now almost 1/4 of the Sunni world follows them. So onethird almost follows Abu Hanifh almost 1/4 follows Malik. When you see the words of praise that he said about his teacher Almadik, unbelievable. He used to say that I visited and attended the class of Alamadak for a period of time. He says I had never seen someone with his iman, with his righteousness, with his piety. He says he was always in one of three states. He was either reading Quran or praying or he was fasting. If he wasn't reading Quran and praying, he was fasting. He says every time he would teach and mention a hadith of Allah, he would always be in the state of wudoo before he mentions any of his teachings. And this is brothers and sisters something that will add blessings. When you are seeking knowledge, try to always be in the state of wudoo. This is recommended in itself. Even if you're not praying or reading Quran, always be in the state of wudoo. Have woo. Use the restroom. Do woo after that. Even before you sleep, it's recommended to do wudoo. The traditions tell us that if you do woo and sleep, Allah will count your sleep as your sleep will be counted as worship. So he says every day he would come in the state of wudoo and he would teach us that hadith of saiam. He said I never saw im over the years that I studied with him. I never saw him waste any time. I never saw him engage in useless discussions, things that didn't matter, things that didn't concern him. He only spoke of knowledge. He only spoke about the Quran and the prophet and the and Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala. Never wasted his time. And then he says, truly there is no one like I in his knowledge, in his piety, and in his worship. He's like, I've never seen someone that combined all these three like im knowledge, piety and worship. Such that he used to say that the eyes have never seen, the ears have never heard and the mind cannot think of someone greater than or he used to say in his in his knowledge and in his piety. It's like I can't even imagine someone being greater than and this is this is his testimony of imam and the two other leaders of the alham they were students of the first two so they came after they didn't they weren't there during the time of im or maybe they were children but they were students of the students of imam so they all go back to imamaduk am every single one of them. So the Shia school of thought as an organized MAB it became known as a mab during the life of im because like we said Aladd was the one that founded its deep theology and Jewish prudence and that's why after that the Shia became known as Jaffaris. People would call the Shia the Jaffaris. The followers of Jaffar and this continues until today. The followers of B are called the Jaffaris because this is how much of an impact he had on forming this mad making it into an organized mab. Now obviously his teachings were all from his father from his grandfather from Allah. So he did not innovate but he taught so efficiently and so and and it was so his his teaching spread so far and wide that this is how people were known the followers of Muhammad and now what were the traits of the Jaffaris? What made someone a jaff? And this my dear brothers and sisters is a lesson for us. We the majority of us here or if not all of us we follow the mad of im our sect we are but what makes a person from the time of im when you look at his students his followers and the teachings of the imam what were the criterias that made someone a jafari and I'd like to share share this with you so that we can reflect on this so that we can test ourselves and see are we really jaffis or no is it just by name is by name three important criterias that make someone a jaff criteria number one knowledge the followers of were always known to be knowledge seekers Because Almad's legacy is a legacy of a teacher, of a professor, of someone that cared greatly for knowledge, Quran, hadith, theology, and so on and so forth. And there's a hadith from the sixth im himself, and I im he gives us a criteria on how to tell the position and the status of the Shia. Who are the Shia that have the highest status? Who are the sh that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sees them as having the highest ranks? He says he says know the positions and the ranks of the by what factor. He says know that through the amount of hadiths that they have memorized that they narrate and they understand. Meaning the more knowledge you have about the more you know their traditions the higher your position will be in the eyes of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Number two the second criteria that makes someone a is their character. It's not just knowledge. Knowledge is good but knowledge without is insufficient. And finally number three and we'll end with this a third quality of someone who is a follower of imam the im he mentions this in one hadith he says he says if someone says I am from the of im test them because not everyone that says I'm is truthful he says there are certain ways to test them one of the ways the imam says When it is time for salah, do you see them caring for their salah? Are they individuals that attend to their salah when it's salah time? Do they pray on time? Do they know how to pray? So prayer brothers and sisters the five daily prayers these are fundamental fundamental practices that makes the identity of a sh of a jafari and I im says this if you don't pray don't say I'm jafari because you have no commonality with me and I im was all about salah he cared so much for his salah he spent so much of his life teaching people the of the salah the laws of salah uh the fine details and me I don't care about salah I just don't care okay how am I a follower of IMah if you're a follow a follower of im at least you should have similar interests at least you should care for what I im cared about and there's nothing that I im cared about more than salah look at the hadith probably the majority of the a hadith that we have from im about salah the laws of salah imam says promise Promise me that you take your salah seriously and I promise you that my grandfather will help you in your grave. He'll help you the day you die. He'll help you the day Allah resurrects you on the day of judgment. He will help you in every station of the day of judgment until you enter through the shaf of Muhammad and al Muhammad in paradise. These are the teachings of our imbu. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant us the ability the we are able to follow the teachings and the footsteps of im and to give us those criterias that make us true.