25. What is the root and base of Shi′ah religion? How do some fanatics question the derivation of the Shi′a school of Muslim law from the Imams of Ahl Al-Bayt (‘a)?

Answer:

Shi′ah faith is sequentially derived from the Imams of Ahlulbay.

All those endowed with wisdom and discretion know by necessity that the derivation of the roots and branches of the Imamiyyah (Twelver Shi′ah) faith is from their ancestors and ancestors ending with the purified progeny. Their views, therefore, are conducive to those of the Imams of the purified progeny in the roots and branches of the faith, as well as all deductions arrived at from studying the Book and the Sunnah, or in any matter related to them or to all branches of theological science. They do not rely in their understanding of the latter except upon such progeny, and they refer to none other than them. They worship Allah, the Exalted, and seek nearness to Him, Praised be He, through the faith of the Imams of Ahl Al-Bayt, without seeing any deviation therefrom, nor desiring any substitute. This has been the policy of their good ancestors since the time of the Commander of the Faithful, Hasan, Husayn, and the nine Imams from the progeny of Husayn (‘a) till now.

Those who have learned the roots and branches of the faith from Ahl Al-Bayt are quite a few reliable Shi′ahs, and the number of those who learned from the latter is much larger. The number of those known for piety, verification, and correction is more than sequential. They have narrated all this to those who succeeded them (through tawatur), and after them it was thus narrated to others, and so on. This has been the case with every generation, until it reached us as clear as mid-day sun, without any cloud obstructing it.

We do not know any follower of the four Sunni Imams, for example, who authored a book during the lifetime of their Imams. Rather, people authored works in abundance dealing with their faith after those Imams had left this world, when it was decided that imitation (taqlid) should be confined to their sects alone. During their lifetime, they were just like any other contemporary jurist or traditionist, not enjoying any distinction over others of their class. Therefore, nobody among their contemporaries was interested in exerting an effort to record their speeches like that exerted by Shi′ahs in recording the statements of the Infallible Imams (‘a). Ever since the inception of the Shi′ah sect, nobody was permitted to refer in the religious matters to anyone other than their Imams. For this reason, such an effort was unavoidable, and they became the sole source of religious scholarship. A great deal of effort and resources were spent in recording their verbal statements, and many exhausted their resources in doing so in a manner that is unmatched so that they might preserve the knowledge which, according to such sect, is the only one accepted by Allah. The books authored during the lifetime of Imam Sadiq (‘a) alone numbered four hundred dealing with four hundred different topics containing the religious verdicts (fatawa) issued by Imam Sadiq (‘a) during his lifetime.

As regarding the four Sunni imams, nobody looks at them in the eyes Shi′ahs look at the Imams of Ahl Al-Bayt. They did not even have followers during their own lifetime, and they did not live to enjoy the status given to them after they had died.1

Researchers unhesitatingly accept the fact that Shi′ahs were the pioneers in recording the branches of knowledge, more so than anyone else. As a matter of fact, nobody in the first century of Islam besides ‘Ali (‘a) and those endowed with the gift of knowledge among his Shi′ahs did so. The reason for this could be attributed to the differences of opinion among the companions in permitting or forbidding the writing of knowledge.

A group of Shi′ahs who were contemporary to the Imam (‘a) followed in the footsteps of the Commander of the Faithful (‘a) and authored a number of books. Among them were Salman al-Farsi and Abu Dharr al-Ghifari.

Anyone who researches the biographies of the followers of the progeny of Muhammad (peace be upon him and them) and researches those who kept company with the nine Imams from the descendants of Husayn, counting their works contemporary to their respective Imams, will come across thousands of such men. Then if he gets acquainted with these sciences in every class as handed down from the time of the nine Infallible Imams (‘a) till our time, he will certainly be convinced then that the sect of these Imams is mutawatir (consecutively reported), dispelling any doubt he might have about the fact that Shi′a′s worship of the Almighty Allah in the roots and branches of the faith is derived from the Messenger's Household. Nobody doubts this fact except one who is arrogant and prejudiced or dumb ignorant.

Praise be to Allah Who has guided us to this, for without His guidance, we would not have been thus guided.

• 1. . As stated by Ibn Khaldun al-’Arabi in a chapter he dedicated to the science of fiqh in his famous Introduction, and it is a fact admitted by many of their renowned scholars.