The House and the Grave.. and the Secret of Patience
That house adjoining the Mosque of the Messenger of Allah (s) remained in a loftiness that cannot be approached and a greatness that cannot be attained, and it began to stir astonishment in the minds of the Muslims—indeed, envy stamped with bewilderment. It is the house of ʿAli and Fatimah, on which the shocking decision of the Prophet (s) to close all the doors opening onto the mosque except its door had a resounding impact on the horizon of awareness. It did away with objection, removed the veil of ignorance, and sealed the truth upon its reality.
That prophetic decision, born of revelation, drove a firm peg into the depth of creed, whose light settled in minds; and the Muslims had to catch its signal and its import: for what was lawful for the Prophet became lawful for ʿAli, and he was to him in the position of Aaron to Moses—at a time when the Qurʾan had engraved in its blessed verses the reality of realities, and the wellspring of all that the heart binds itself to in its faith, by its explicit text that ʿAli is the self of the Prophet. And sufficient is it as a reality that Allah sent down, and with the truth did it descend. So the house was among the greatest of the houses “Allah has allowed to be raised and wherein His Name is celebrated” (Qurʾan 24:36).
Then, in this exalted house, its mistress and its radiance is martyred, in a resounding event whose sorrow filled the horizons and the ring of whose griefs resounded in the ears; for her conduct after the martyrdom of her father the Prophet (s), and shortly before the ascent of her soul to her Maker, was griefs: not a moment of stillness from her moaning passed over her, and the tears never once stopped flowing down from the corners of her eyes. So her martyrdom is accompanied by wailing that charges the expanses of the universe, smoke that dyes the sky of this world, and the blood of a miscarried child, from the heat of whose tragedy the earth boils.
Then, after the greatness of her lofty house has become clear, and after the tragic loss of her has been felt, we have found no trace of the grave that held her pure, gentle body?!
There was a first secret for the concealment of the grave of the Mistress of all the universes: that those who lit the blaze of sedition, kindled the fire of division in the Umma, and laid the foundation for the violation of sanctity should not attend her burial and the standing at her grave. This is a wisdom of consummate soundness, for light and darkness do not come together, and the element of goodness, nobility and generosity does not unite with the element of evil, baseness and envy.
And here the days have grown long and the centuries have followed one another, and the traces of the graves of the awliyaʾ, which conditions of oppression and fear had concealed, have appeared, such as the graves of ʿAli, al-Husayn, al-Kazim and al-Rida (a). Here are their foundations rising in loftiness, their domes adorning the sky, and their minarets towering until they embraced the stars, appearing to every beholder however far journeys have taken him; so people have set out for them from every region, on foot and mounted, crowding around them in their different colors, and voices have greeted their occupants in all kinds of languages—except the grave of their Mistress and their exemplar, the Mistress of the Worlds, Fatimah al-Zahraʾ (a): no human eye has fallen upon any trace of it, let alone the raising of domes and minarets. So the intelligent, experienced person stands, carrying heaps of his astonishments, asking: Is there a secret in that? And if there is, what is the secret in that?
Come with me, let us gather the traces, follow the trail, turn our gaze about, and try to stir up what is buried; perhaps from its dust a picture close to reality may take shape before us.
(The Grave)
People crowded around the house of Fatimah (a), awaiting the procession of her funeral; but Abu Dharr looked out at them from behind the door and informed them of the decision to delay it until night, so each of them withdrew to his home. When night fell and part of it had passed, the Commander of the Faithful (a) came out, accompanied by al-Hasan and al-Husayn (a), enveloped in sorrow, their hearts filled with grief, and with them a small group of the elect, heading toward al-Baqiʿ, with a bier upon their shoulders concealing what was in it. After they had settled in Baqiʿ al-Gharqad, they dug and then buried under cover of darkness; they finished their work and set off back. When the people woke and the face of morning shone forth, they were surprised by seven fresh graves in al-Baqiʿ al-Gharqad—and it is said forty graves—so the location of the true grave became confused to them.
That plan was to disguise the location of her grave from the very foundation, and not only so that those who wronged her would not attend her funeral, as was her will, charged with anger against them; because burying her in pitch-black night, without announcing a time, would achieve the aim and fulfill the requirement. But that people should come upon seven similar graves—that is what went beyond the requirement willed by Fatimah (a), namely the concealment of the grave from the very foundation.
(The House)
The house that Allah the Exalted exalted, to honor its dwellers while they were alive—it is not unlikely that it is an eternal house for the body of the mistress of the house and the source of its greatness.
Were the Commander of the Faithful and al-Hasanayn laying her pure body to rest in a burial niche dug in one side of the house? Which would mean that all seven graves were only to keep the enemies busy with them, and so that their sight would fall short in choosing between them?
It seems that this is what happened.
Views on the location of the grave of Fatimah (a) have diverged into three opinions, as in the volumes of the masters of knowledge and inquiry: some of them said that she was buried in her house; some of them said that she was buried between the grave of the Prophet (s) and his noble pulpit, in the Rawda; and it has been said that she was buried in the cemetery of al-Baqiʿ.
It seems that the weakest of the opinions is that her grave is in al-Baqiʿ, which is well known among the ʿAmma. As for its being in the noble Rawda, that is a view some eminent scholars considered more likely, while hesitating between it and the site of her flourishing house, which a group of the scholars and masters of the sect have stated with certainty; and they adduced as evidence for that two narrations from Imam al-Rida (a), in which he informs some of his Shiʿa that the exalted house of Fatimah (a) holds her honored grave.
One of them is from al-Bazanti, who said: I asked al-Rida (a) about the grave of Fatimah (a), and he said: She was buried in her house; then, when the Banu Umayya enlarged the mosque, she came to be within the mosque.
Following that, when Shaykh al-Saduq completed the rites of his hajj in the fourth century AH, he headed for Medina the Illuminated, to complete his hajj by visiting the Prophet (s) and his pure Household. He stood facing the house of Fatimah (a) and composed a ziyarah for her, since he did not find a prescribed ziyarah for her among the narrated hadiths. His ziyarah became well known among the believers, and after him the compilers of the hadith collections recorded it. It was a ziyarah graceful in its wording, in which he followed the trace of what has been narrated in the ziyarahs of her pure children, and he included in it his recognition of her station and his blessings upon her righteous children.
So then, the house in whose corners the down of the angels used to be scattered—the angels of ziyarah have settled in it, who protect the visitors, seek forgiveness for them, and say “Amen” to their supplications. So worship in it was greater than worship in many places, among them the noble Rawda, which is a garden of the gardens of Paradise, with the pulpit of the Prophet (s) upon one of its channels. Imam Jaʿfar al-Sadiq (a) stated this explicitly and made it clear, as in al-Kulayni’s al-Kafi:
From Yunus ibn Yaʿqub, who said: I said to Abu ʿAbd Allah (a): Is prayer in the house of Fatimah (a) better, or in the Rawda? He said: In the house of Fatimah (a) .
And from Jamil ibn Darraj, who said: I said to Abu ʿAbd Allah (a): Is prayer in the house of Fatimah (a) like prayer in the Rawda? He said: And better.
(The Secret of Patience)
The practice of patience was a hallmark of the Commander of the Faithful (a), coloring his course after the Prophet (s), because of what the future of religion required: the building of its pillars and the conveying of its aims. One of its headings was that he was the one patient at parting from his wife and beloved al-Zahraʾ (a), and, before that, patient at the calamities poured upon her. He had to swallow the pains and bear all that in his great heart. He turned his face toward the grave of the Messenger of Allah (s) when he had finished burying his daughter, saying: “O Messenger of Allah, my patience over your chosen one has grown little, and my fortitude over the Mistress of the Women of the Worlds has worn away; yet in emulating your way at parting from you, I have a place of consolation.”
However, at the secrets that surround the grave of al-Zahraʾ, the endurance of patience melts, because of the heat of the calamity and the blaze of the pains. It is a wound which, if reopened, would turn the sky red on its account, and the valleys of the earth would flow with rivers of tears that would spare no hater and leave no doubter.
When there reached the hearing of the Commander of the Faithful the intention of some to dig up the effaced graves in al-Baqiʿ, in order to identify her pure grave on the pretext of performing her ziyarah, he set out in anger toward al-Baqiʿ, his eyes reddened, his sword Dhu al-Fiqar on his shoulder, and he warned them: that if anyone disturbed a single one of these graves, the flashes of the sword of Allah would appear on necks.
This incident was eloquent in meaning and clear in expression: that the limits of patience are the grave of Fatimah (a). So the people turned away from al-Baqiʿ after they had swallowed despair, dragging the tails of disappointment.
So what is the relationship of patience to the grave?
And why have we not come by heart-rending ziyarah texts, as we have come by many of them concerning the tragedy of al-Taff?
It is taken for granted that the visiting of graves, in its contents, is the refuge of the yearning, the cave of the grieving, and the shelter of the anguished one crying out among the crowds with his heartache. He pours out his testimonies concerning the occupant of the grave, a pouring of the truth into its places, and of the struggle, efforts and calamities that surrounded it, repeating: (I bear witness that you are a pure one, pure; I bear witness that you strove in Allah with the striving due to Him; I bear witness that you were killed wronged; I bear witness that you..). He keeps repeating until he has counted all the pains, enumerated all the noble deeds, reckoned every vile act the wrongdoers committed, and declared disavowal of them and of their followers.
Before this reality, it seems that the measure of what human beings can bear in tragedy does not rise to bearing the tragedy of al-Zahraʾ (a), and the force of the winds of her pains—fragile reality will not bear their intensity. So patience was surrounding the wall of the grave..
Some eminent scholars of the past held that the concealment of the grave will continue as long as the Occultation of her son, al-Hujjah, the Avenger (aj), continues. That may not be accurate in this sense, because it lacks proof and contradicts reality; but it may be so if what is meant by it is the building of her grave, the height of its dome, the elevation of its minarets, and the Infallible’s composing a text for her ziyarah that meets the need, in which he recounts the pains, unleashes the cries of the universes, and saturates faith with deep loyalty and explicit disavowal.. perhaps..
For the only text that the scholars obtained and recorded in their collections for her ziyarah is what al-Tahdhib brought, from Abu Jaʿfar al-Baqir (a), who said:
“When you come to the grave of your grandmother Fatimah (a), say: O you who were tested! Allah, who created you, tested you before He created you, and found you patient in what He tested you with. And we have claimed that we are your devotees, believing in and patient with all that your father (s) brought us and that his successor (a) brought us. So we ask you—if we have believed you—that you join us, through our belief in the two of them, to the glad tidings, so that we may give ourselves the glad tidings that we have been purified by your wilayah.”
So the heading of what the visitor fervently utters at her ziyarah is (patience): she (a) is (the patient one) in what Allah the Exalted tested her with, even before her human creation; and it is incumbent upon her visitor to be at peace with her (through patience), for he has come to her grave to affirm it. Indeed, (patience) was the proof of (belief) in the whole of religion, whose ember was kindled in the heart of her father the Prophet (s), and whose torch was carried by her husband, the Successor (a).
Except within the bounds of (the house)...
Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi
