Visiting the Commander of the Faithful (a)
A Gateway to Greatness
Source: the book White with Light, 2nd ed., Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi
The personality of Imam ʿAli, the Commander of the Faithful (a), was not hidden from anyone in its greatness. He (a) possessed a unique, godly personality that has long won the admiration even of those who differed from him in creed, who deliberately expressed their admiration through their writings and statements. They devoted great attention to intellectual excavation into the personality of the Imam (a), and to studying his positions and presenting them to others as one of the most splendidly radiant models in human history, as the Christian writer George Jordac wrote his encyclopedia entitled (Imam ʿAli, the Voice of Human Justice) in five volumes, in which he said: “The heroic deeds of the Imam were never confined to the fields of war; he was a hero in the clarity of his insight on behalf of the deprived and the oppressed against the depriver and the oppressor, and in his devotion to the truth wherever the truth manifested itself to him. These heroic deeds, however long ago they occurred, remain a rich quarry to which we return, every day, whenever our yearning to build a righteous and virtuous life grows intense.”[1].
Whoever aspires to perfection in its clearest meanings and deepest intents must not pass over Imam ʿAli (a), because of the standing he represented in Islam—indeed, in the history of humanity as a whole—because of the unparalleled efforts he made in the service of the Message, and because of the attributes of human perfection with which he was adorned. He left no mark of perfection without attaining in it the ultimate degree, to which no human being can rise except the Messenger of Allah (s).
The Commander of the Faithful (a) bears witness to his own greatness through facts in which there is no doubt, for it is he (a) who said:
“In relation to the Messenger of Allah (s), I am like the upper arm to the shoulder, like the forearm to the upper arm, and like the hand to the forearm. He raised me when I was small and took me as his brother when I was grown. You know well that I had with him a private sitting to which no one but me was privy, and that he made his bequest to me, to the exclusion of his companions and the people of his household. I shall surely say what I have not said to anyone before this day: Once I asked him to pray for forgiveness for me. He said: I will. Then he stood and prayed, and when he raised his hand in supplication I listened to him, and lo, he was saying: O Allah, by the right of ʿAli with You, forgive ʿAli. I said: O Messenger of Allah, what is this? He said: Is there anyone more honored than you in His sight, that I should seek intercession through him with Him?!”[2].
He also said: “He—the Messenger of Allah (s)—taught me a thousand doors of knowledge, from each door of which a thousand doors were opened to me[3].”
Al-Shaykh al-Saduq (rh) narrated in his Amali the dialogue of Saʿid ibn Jubayr with ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbbas about the virtues of the personality of Imam ʿAli (a), in which Ibn ʿAbbas, out of his knowledge of him and his companionship with him, set out things that bewilder the minds regarding those virtues flowing forth from the Commander of the Faithful (a).
From Saʿid ibn Jubayr, who said: I came to ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbbas and said to him: O cousin of the Messenger of Allah, I have come to you to ask you about ʿAli ibn Abi Talib and the people's disagreement about him? Ibn ʿAbbas said: O Ibn Jubayr, you have come to ask me about the best of Allah's creation in the Ummah after Muhammad, the Prophet of Allah! You have come to ask me about a man who had three thousand merits in a single night, namely the Night of the Water-skin. O Ibn Jubayr, you have come to ask me about the successor (waṣī) of the Messenger of Allah (s), his minister, his vicegerent, and the master of his Pool, his banner and his intercession.
By Him in whose hand is the soul of Ibn ʿAbbas, if the seas of the world were ink, the trees pens, and its people scribes, and they wrote down the merits and virtues of ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (a) from the day Allah, Almighty and Majestic, created the world until He brings it to an end, they would not reach a tenth of what Allah, Blessed and Exalted, has given him[4].
The personality of the Commander of the Faithful is thus the ideal personality that embodies the very substance of truth, justice, righteousness, beneficence and guidance in human form. Indeed, he is the measure of truth, which follows him wherever he goes and turns, for “ʿAli is with the truth and the truth is with him; they will not part until they come to me at the Pool[5],” as the Messenger of Allah (s) testified concerning him. This statement of the Messenger is a declaration of the infallibility and everlasting uprightness in the personality of Imam ʿAli (a): he and the truth are like a person and his shadow; he and the Qurʾan are like a living interpreter in human form; and he and the Prophet are like his own self, which never parts from him.
When we set before our eyes the goal of emulating the master of humankind, who says: “Help me with piety, striving, chastity and right conduct”[6], then visiting him and setting out on the journey to his noble grave is one of the keys to this door, as vast as the horizons, from which thousands of doors open onto human life in all its dimensions of perfection.
The Reward for Visiting Him (a)
The noble hadiths, in mentioning the visitation of the Commander of the Faithful (a) at his luminous spot, the site of his noble grave in al-Najaf al-Ashraf, have conveyed abundant merit, as an incentive to take hold of this great key of transformation, as a beginning for launching the transformation of the personality through the door and gateway of the Commander of the Faithful (a), and by holding fast to his firm rope that connects heaven and earth. Here we mention some of these narrations, so that the visitor may live yearning to visit him, anticipating merit and abundant good from his Creator.
A Garden from the Gardens of Paradise
1- Farhat al-Ghari: By the chain of transmission: Salama narrated to us, saying: Muhammad ibn Jaʿfar narrated to us, from Muhammad ibn Ahmad, from Abu ʿAbd Allah al-Razi, from al-Hasan ibn ʿAli ibn Abi Hamza, from Safwan, from Abu Usama, from Abu ʿAbd Allah (a). He said: I heard him say:
Kufa is a garden from the gardens of Paradise. In it are the grave of Noah and Abraham (a), the graves of three hundred and seventy prophets and six hundred successors (awṣiyāʾ), and the grave of the master of the successors, the Commander of the Faithful (a)[7].
The garden of Kufa, in its capacity as a garden from the gardens of Paradise, was crowned with the grave of the Imam, the Commander of the Faithful (a), after it had been the resting place of the graves of the prophets and successors; and there is no doubt that the best of them and their master is Imam ʿAli (a). It appears that Imam al-Sadiq (a) mentioned the presence of the graves of the prophets and successors only to show the goodness of the land in which the body of Imam ʿAli (a) came to rest. From this mention of his it is understood that what is primarily intended in mentioning these graves is his noble grave, and his mentioning the rest before it is a preface and a demonstration of the further honor of that blessed spot.
Allah, His Angels and His Prophets Visit Him
2- Kamil al-Ziyarat: My father and Muhammad ibn Yaʿqub narrated to me, from Muhammad ibn Yahya al-ʿAttar, from Hamdan ibn Sulayman al-Naysaburi, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Yamani, from Maniʿ ibn al-Hajjaj, from Yunus, from Abu Wahb al-Basri, who said: I entered Medina and came to Abu ʿAbd Allah (a), and I said: May I be made your ransom, I have come to you without having visited the grave of the Commander of the Faithful (a).
He said: How evil is what you have done! Were it not that you are one of our Shiʿa, I would not have looked at you. Will you not visit one whom Allah the Exalted visits along with the angels, and whom the prophets visit along with the believers [and whom the believers visit]?!
I said: May I be made your ransom, I did not know that.
He said: Then know that the Commander of the Faithful (a) is superior in the sight of Allah to all the Imams, and he has the reward of their deeds, and according to the measure of their deeds they have been granted superiority[8].
Although Abu Wahb al-Basri had gone to the infallible Imam who was present in his age, namely Imam Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad al-Sadiq (a), the Imam wanted to make clear to him, and to all the generations after him, the importance of visiting the Imam, the Commander of the Faithful (a), for every believer who believes in the Ahl al-Bayt (a) as Imams whose obedience has been made obligatory by Allah the Exalted. In view of his being a believer in them (a), he deserved the direction; otherwise, had he been other than that, he would not have deserved that the Imam look at him.
The second statement of the Imam (a) is that the merit of visiting the Commander of the Faithful, and the loftiness of its station, is by virtue of the connection with his personality through the visitation; and he is superior to the Imams among his descendants (a), since he has the merit of his own deeds as an Imam in addition to the reward of the deeds of all the other Imams, in view of their being rays of his light (a).
In the Imam's expression (and according to the measure of their deeds they have been granted superiority) there is an indication of the existence of gradations of merit among them (a), but in terms of deeds. This does not mean negating the oneness of merit that some narrations have mentioned, because the oneness of merit concerns the aspect of their being proofs (ḥujjiyya); that is, in their capacity as proofs over the servants they have a single luminous nature: the obligation to obey them and to believe in them is equal, with no difference between the first of them and the last, just as the Noble Qurʾan has made this principle clear in the words of Allah the Exalted: “Whoever obeys the Apostle certainly obeys Allah” (Qurʾan 4:80)[9]. For there is no sharing of kind (sinkhiyya) or gradation of merit between Allah the Exalted and His creation, even if it be the greatest of His creation, namely His Prophet Muhammad (s), and there is no comparison with Him in merit; yet in the aspect of obedience—which is the connection with Allah the Exalted and His Messenger in terms of being a proof—obedience to Allah and to His Messenger has become equal. The same applies to the offspring that branched off from the Prophet (s), some of them descendants of the others, in this most sublime station.
Paradise Is His
3- Al-Wasaʾil: Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Mufid in al-Muqniʿa, from al-Sadiq, from his forefathers (a), from the Prophet (s), who said:
Whoever visits ʿAli after his death, Paradise is his.[10]
The Prophet (s) directs the Muslims to a constant connection with the Commander of the Faithful (a), such that it includes even visiting his noble grave after his death, and that this visitation has a lofty value, namely Paradise, which those who labor labor to win in the Hereafter. Here there is a beautiful subtlety we draw from the expression of the Prophet (s), namely that he said: Whoever visits ʿAli after his death—that is, visitation after death, which is turning toward the grave of the deceased, is a true visitation of his person, and the grave is a sign through which the visitor connects with the occupant of the grave.
The Gates of Heaven Are Opened for His Visitor
4- Kamil al-Ziyarat: Muhammad ibn Yaʿqub narrated to me, from Abu ʿAli al-Ashʿari, from someone he mentioned, from Muhammad ibn Sinan; and Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Jaʿfar al-Himyari narrated to me, from his father, from Muhammad ibn al-Husayn ibn Abi al-Khattab, who said: Ibn Sinan narrated to me, saying: Al-Mufaddal ibn ʿUmar narrated to me, saying:
I went in to Abu ʿAbd Allah (a) and said: I long for al-Ghari.
He said: And what is your longing for it?
I said to him: I love the Commander of the Faithful (a), and I love to visit him.
He said: Do you know the merit of visiting him?
I said: No, O son of the Messenger of Allah, so make it known to me.
He said: When you intend to visit the Commander of the Faithful (a), know that you are visiting the bones of Adam, the body of Noah, and the body of ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (a).
I said: Adam descended at Sarandib, at the rising place of the sun, and they claim that his bones are at the Sacred House of Allah; so how did his bones come to be in Kufa?
He said: Allah, Blessed and Exalted, revealed to Noah (a), while he was in the Ark, that he should circumambulate the House seven times[11]. So he circumambulated as Allah had revealed to him. Then he went down into the water up to his knees and brought out a coffin in which were the bones of Adam. He carried the coffin inside the Ark until he had circumambulated the House as much as Allah the Exalted willed him to circumambulate. Then he arrived at the gate of Kufa, in the middle of its mosque, and it was there that Allah said to the earth: “swallow your water!” (Qurʾan 11:44), and it swallowed its water from the Mosque of Kufa, just as the water had begun from its mosque. The company that had been with Noah in the Ark dispersed, and Noah took the coffin and buried it in al-Ghari, which is a piece of the mountain on which Allah spoke to Moses directly, on which He sanctified Jesus thoroughly, on which He took Abraham for a dedicated friend, on which He took Muhammad as a beloved, and which He made a dwelling for the prophets. By Allah, after his pure forefathers, Adam and Noah, no one more honorable than the Commander of the Faithful (a) has dwelt in it. So when you head for the side of Najaf, visit the bones of Adam, the body of Noah and the body of ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (a), for you are visiting the first fathers, and Muhammad (s), the Seal of the Prophets, and ʿAli, the master of the successors. Indeed, the gates of heaven are opened for the one who visits him when he supplicates, so do not be one who sleeps away from good[12].
Although al-Mufaddal ibn ʿUmar's longing to visit the grave of the Commander of the Faithful (a) was great, Imam al-Sadiq (a) opens for him the doors of knowledge to show the merit of the deed he is undertaking and its results in the Hereafter, the most important of which is that the gates of heaven are opened for the visitor of the Commander of the Faithful (a) when he supplicates. This is an important distinction, for those who supplicate hope, in the moments of their supplication, to receive the answer, and in that there is much good. The Imam alerts al-Mufaddal to this aspect so that he does not neglect it through sleep or otherwise.
The Prophet (s) Delivers Him from His Sins
5- Kamil al-Ziyarat: ʿAli ibn al-Husayn narrated to me, from ʿAli ibn Ibrahim ibn Hashim, from ʿUthman ibn ʿIsa, from al-Muʿalla ibn Abi Shihab, from Abu ʿAbd Allah (a), who said:
Al-Hasan said to the Messenger of Allah (s): O father, what is the recompense of one who visits you?
He said: My dear son, whoever visits me, alive or dead, or visits your father, it becomes a right upon Allah, Almighty and Majestic, that I visit him on the Day of Resurrection and deliver him from his sins[13].
The Prophet (s) never fails to remind of the merit of Imam ʿAli (a) and to link him with his own noble person. Although Imam al-Hasan's (a) question was about visiting the Prophet (s), he added to it the clarification that visiting the Commander of the Faithful also entails the great merit he was about to mention, namely becoming deserving of a visit from the Prophet (s) on the Day of Resurrection. Nor is that visit from him (s) merely for companionship; it is a visit on the hardest day, the Day of Resurrection, full of hardships—a day on which a person longs to cross al-Sirat without Allah the Exalted holding him to account for his liabilities and sins, but rather pardoning him. This is what the Prophet's (s) visit to the visitor of the Commander of the Faithful (a) achieves: he delivers him from all his sins, and he crosses lightly burdened and triumphant, without distress.
No Distressed Person Comes to It Without His Distress Being Relieved
6- Farhat al-Ghari: By the chain of transmission from him, from Muhammad, from his paternal uncle, who said: Muhammad ibn Zayd al-Khuzaʿi narrated to me, from ʿUbayd ibn al-Hasan al-Bazzaz, who said: Hasan ibn Mughira informed me, from Dawud ibn Farqad, who said: Abu ʿAbd Allah (a) said to me:
Beside Kufan there is indeed a grave: no distressed person comes to it and prays two or four rakʿas beside it but that Allah fulfills his need and relieves his distress.
He said: I said: The grave of al-Husayn (a)?
He said: He indicated with his head: No.
So I said: The grave of the Commander of the Faithful (a)? He indicated with his head: Yes[14].
Visiting Imam al-Husayn (a) has been associated with the fulfillment of needs and the relief of distress for every anxious and grieving person, and this was firmly rooted in the awareness of the Shiʿi community. In addition, Karbala, the site of the grave of al-Husayn ibn ʿAli (a), can truly be described as being beside Kufa. For this reason, Dawud ibn Farqad's mind leapt to the idea that what was meant was the grave of Imam al-Husayn (a) when the Imam mentioned those descriptions.
However, the Imam denied that the grave of Imam al-Husayn (a) was what was meant, indicating with his head (No), and he also confirmed with his head that what was meant was the grave of the Commander of the Faithful (a). This denial is not a denial that the meanings mentioned hold true for the visitor of Imam al-Husayn (a), for the narrations conveying these meanings are mass-transmitted (mutawātir). Rather, the Imam wanted to specify that what he mentioned regarding the merit of this grave in this particular statement is the grave of the Commander of the Faithful (a). We may read from the expression that he said (No) and (Yes) with his noble head—that is, he sufficed with the gesture indicating negation and affirmation—that it was so that no one would read that there is an explicitly stated negation concerning visiting Imam al-Husayn (a), and so understand it contrary to what he intended. And Allah knows best.
The Reward of the Martyrs, and Forgiveness
7- Amali al-Tusi: Muhammad ibn Muhammad informed us, saying: Abu al-Qasim Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad (rh) informed me, from his father, from Saʿd ibn ʿAbd Allah, from Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ʿIsa, from al-Hasan ibn Mahbub, from ʿAli ibn Riʾab, from Muhammad ibn Muslim, from Abu ʿAbd Allah (a)—where it states—:
Whoever visits the Commander of the Faithful (a) knowing his right, neither tyrannical nor arrogant, Allah records for him the reward of one hundred thousand martyrs, Allah forgives his past and future sins, he is resurrected among those who are secure, the reckoning is made easy for him, and the angels receive him; when he departs, they escort him to his home; if he falls ill, they visit him; and if he dies, they follow him to his grave with prayers for forgiveness[15].
Imam Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad al-Sadiq (a) sets out a great reward for whoever visits the Imam, the Commander of the Faithful (a), while we find other narrations that mention a lesser reward. The extent of this goes back to the visitor himself: if he knows the right of the Imam—in believing in his Imamate and in his right as an Imam appointed by Allah the Exalted, whose obedience is obligatory upon all creation—and knows his merit and virtues, along with the qualities with which the visitor is adorned, among them sincerity, humility and self-abasement, and he keeps away from tyranny and arrogance—if the visitor is like this, he deserves from Allah the Exalted the greatest and most exalted reward; and the more his knowledge and sincerity increase, the more his reward increases, as many narrations have indicated that worship with knowledge is better in the sight of Allah the Exalted than worship without it.
The statement of the vast reward has another aspect, namely that when the Imam (a) mentions the reward of the visitation as a hajj or an ʿumra, for example, he does not mention it by way of restriction and precluding more; rather, he points to one aspect in this or that context, and he may point to another level in another place. We have derived this from some narrations in which the narrator finds the reward astonishing, whereupon the Imam mentions a greater reward and affirms it to the narrator.
None but the Truthful Visit Him
8- Kamil al-Ziyarat: Al-Hasan ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn ʿIsa narrated to me, from his father, from al-Hasan ibn Mahbub, from ʿAli ibn Shajara, from Sallam al-Juʿfi, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Sanʿani, from Abu Jaʿfar (a), who said:
Whenever al-Husayn (a) came in, the Messenger of Allah (s) would draw him to himself, then say to the Commander of the Faithful (a): Hold him. Then he would bend over him, kissing him and weeping. He would say: O father, why do you weep?
He would say: My dear son, I kiss the places of the swords on you.
He said: O father, and will I be killed?
He said: Yes, by Allah, and your father, your brother and you.
He said: O father, then will the places where we fall be scattered?
He said: Yes, my dear son.
He said: Then who from your Ummah will visit us?
He said: None will visit me, and visit your father, your brother and you, except the truthful ones of my Ummah[16].
The truthful, who are wholly devoted to truthfulness in faith in Allah and in the wilāyah, of whom Allah the Exalted said: “Those who have faith in Allah and His apostles—it is they who are the truthful and witnesses with their Lord; they shall have their reward and their light” (Qurʾan 57:19)[17], are the ones who take care to set out on the journey to visit the Prophet (s), the Commander of the Faithful, al-Hasan and al-Husayn (a), because they know that visiting them is a sign of allegiance, a renewal of covenant and a perpetuation of faith.
It may come to mind that their visitors are many, even from outside the circle of the wilayah, so that reality differs from the content of the hadith. However, what is meant may be (none will visit me) with a true visitation, the condition of which is that he knows his right and acknowledges his position in the divine wilayah; for in the case of others, it does not count as a visitation at all.
Whoever Comes to Him on Foot
9- Al-Wasaʾil: Muhammad ibn al-Hasan, by his chain of transmission from Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Dawud, from Muhammad ibn Hammam, who said: I found in a book that Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad wrote in Baghdad—he said: Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Razi narrated to us, from al-Husayn ibn Ismaʿil al-Saymari, from Abu ʿAbd Allah (a), who said:
Whoever visits the Commander of the Faithful (a) on foot, Allah records for him for every step a hajj and an ʿumra; and if he returns on foot, Allah records for him for every step two hajjs and two ʿumras[18].
The narrations of the Ahl al-Bayt (a) and their conduct show that walking in worship carries additional merit. For the visitor to choose to make his way to the visitation walking on his feet is evidence of greater regard on his part for the one visited, and this hardship is seen by Allah the Exalted. Whoever strives toward his pure shrine on foot, over any distance, whether far or near, has, in the measure of the steps he has taken, a hajj and an ʿumra. Nor does the reward stop at this limit; rather, the return journey after completing the visitation has merit and blessings, and they are more than what was credited to him on his way there: for every step he has two hajjs and two ʿumras. Thus the blessings of Allah and His mercy surround the visitor and watch over him from the moment he leaves his home until after he returns to it.
The Superiority of Visiting Him over Visiting al-Husayn
10- Al-Wasaʾil: ʿAbd al-Karim ibn Ahmad ibn Tawus, in the book Farhat al-Ghari, by the chain of transmission that follows: from Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Dawud, from Muhammad ibn Bakran al-Naqqash, from al-Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Maliki, from Ahmad ibn Hilal, from Abu Shuʿayb al-Khurasani, who said: I said to Abu al-Hasan al-Rida (a): Which is better, visiting the grave of the Commander of the Faithful (a) or visiting al-Husayn (a)?
He said: Al-Husayn was killed in distress, so it is incumbent upon Allah, Almighty and Majestic, that no distressed person comes to him but that Allah relieves his distress. And the superiority of visiting the grave of the Commander of the Faithful (a) over visiting al-Husayn is like the superiority of the Commander of the Faithful (a) over al-Husayn (a).
Then he said to me: Where do you live?
I said: Kufa.
He said: The Mosque of Kufa is the house of Noah. If a man were to enter it a hundred times, Allah would record for him a hundred forgivenesses. Indeed, in it is the supplication of Noah (a), when he said: “My Lord! Forgive me and my parents, and whoever enters my house in faith” (Qurʾan 71:28).
I said: Whom did he mean by “my parents”?
He said: Adam and Eve[19].
Despite all the enormous body of narrations available to us on the merit of visiting Imam al-Husayn (a), the merit of visiting his father, the Commander of the Faithful (a), is greater, because of his superiority over him, as Imam al-Husayn (a) said: (My father is better than I)[20]. It may spring to mind: what is that superiority that surpasses the visitation which the Ahl al-Bayt (a) guided their Shiʿa to undertake constantly—so much so that they set seasons for it that take up their year and all their days, so that they remain in constant connection—namely the Husayni visitation, something we have not seen in the visitation of the Imam, the Commander of the Faithful (a)?
This matter requires research in several aspects, but we will merely point to what suits the context, namely that the gradation of merit may be in its primary form: the merit of the visitation is according to the merit of the one visited, and here (the superiority of ʿAli over al-Husayn (a)) is established, so the visitation of the superior one is superior, as has preceded in an earlier narration. The gradation may be in view of the actual situation of the places of visitation, so that the direction is toward one whom few visit or whom most people do not know, so that people turn toward him, as in the visitation of Imam al-Rida (a) and the visitation of Imam al-Husayn (a) in certain times, when visiting al-Rida was superior from this aspect. The gradation may be with respect to the future of the Ummah and its revival, as in the visitation of Imam al-Husayn (a), connected with the event of Karbala and its eternal outcomes and its link with the holy Reappearance of Imam al-Mahdi (aj), so that the visitation is superior with respect to all people, with the added merit of the continuity of attachment to it, so that the Husayni values remain present in the awareness of the Ummah. Superiority may also, at another time, look to the particularity of the visitation itself and to the totality of the dimensions it provides, such as: (visitation, seeking intercession, consolation and lamentation) and the like.
These dimensions require foundational research and an elaboration in explanation for which this is not the place. We ask Allah that we be granted success in it in the time to come.
The White Spot Gleaming with Light
11- Farhat al-Ghari: Hasan ibn al-Husayn ibn Tahhal al-Miqdadi mentioned that Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a) came to Kufa and entered its mosque, in which was Abu Hamza al-Thumali, who was one of the ascetics of the people of Kufa and one of its elders. He prayed two rakʿas. Abu Hamza said: I have never heard anything sweeter than his tone, so I drew near to him to hear what he was saying, and I heard him say:
My God, if I have disobeyed You, I have obeyed You in the thing most beloved to You: acknowledging Your oneness, as a favor from You to me, not as a favor from me to You. And the supplication is well known.
Then he rose. Abu Hamza said: I followed him to the camel-kneeling place of Kufa, and I found a black slave who had with him a thoroughbred camel and a she-camel. I said: O black man, who is this man? He said: Are his qualities hidden from you? He is ʿAli ibn al-Husayn. Abu Hamza said: So I threw myself upon his feet, kissing them, but he lifted my head with his hand and said:
No, O Abu Hamza; prostration is only for Allah, Almighty and Majestic.
I said: O son of the Messenger of Allah, what has brought you to us?
He said: What you have seen; and if people knew the merit there is in it, they would come to it even if crawling. Would you like to visit with me the grave of my grandfather ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (a)?
I said: Yes. So I walked in the shade of his she-camel while he talked with me, until we came to al-Ghariyyan, which is a white spot gleaming with light. He dismounted from his she-camel, rubbed his cheeks on it, and said:
O Abu Hamza, this is the grave of my grandfather ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (a).
Then he visited him with a ziyarah whose beginning is: Peace be upon the well-pleasing Name of Allah, and the radiant light of His Face. Then he bade him farewell and went on to Medina, and I returned to Kufa[21].
The words of Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a), “if people knew the merit there is in it, they would come to it even if crawling,” give us an indication that the merit of visiting the Commander of the Faithful (a) is beyond what we know—indeed, beyond what we imagine. For one whom illness has exhausted and rendered unable to see to his needs will not burden himself with crawling except for a matter of the utmost importance, and when there is no one to help him with it—this while knowing that what he will undertake may be crawling a very short distance. Yet knowing the merit of visiting Imam ʿAli (a) can convince the exhausted, crippled person that coming from his homeland to the site of his grave is a necessity that he must reach. This is an eloquent depiction that touches the general understanding of all people, who sense the condition of the crippled sick person.
The Reward for Visiting Him on the Day of al-Ghadir
12- He said in Misbah al-Mutahajjid: Muhammad ibn Abi Nasr narrated, saying: We were with al-Rida (a), and the gathering was packed with its people. They discussed the Day of al-Ghadir together, and some people denied it.
So al-Rida (a) said: My father narrated to me from his father (a), who said: The Day of al-Ghadir is better known in heaven than on earth—and he continued the hadith until he said: O Ibn Abi Nasr, wherever you are, be present on the Day of al-Ghadir with the Commander of the Faithful (a), for Allah the Exalted forgives every believing man and believing woman, and every Muslim man and Muslim woman, the sins of sixty years, and He frees from the Fire double what He freed in the month of Ramadan, on the Night of Qadr and on the Night of Fitr. A single dirham on it to your brothers who have true recognition is worth a thousand dirhams. So be generous to your brothers on this day, and gladden on it every believing man and believing woman[22].
Visitations of Imam ʿAli (a) have been mentioned for certain specific days, such as Friday, from afar—and it encompasses all the Infallibles—which is what Misbah al-Mutahajjid mentioned from Imam al-Sadiq (a). Likewise, Ibn Tawus mentioned in Jamal al-Usbuʿ that Sunday is the day of the Commander of the Faithful (a), and he mentioned a special visitation, by a narration from someone who saw the Master of the Age (aj) visiting him with it, while awake, not in a dream. Al-ʿAllama al-Majlisi has an opinion, namely that: “Performing good deeds at noble times entails greater reward; so visiting him (a)—that is, the Commander of the Faithful (a)—on all the noble days is better, especially the days that are specially connected with him, on which a mark of honor, a virtue and a merit became manifest for him: such as the day of his birth, which according to the well-known view is the thirteenth of Rajab... the night of his sleeping in the bed of the Prophet (s), which is the first night of Rabiʿ al-Awwal... the day of the victory of Badr at his hands, which is the seventeenth of the month of Ramadan... the day of his self-sacrificing solidarity in the Battle of Uhud, which is the seventeenth of Shawwal... and the day of the conquest of Khaybar at his hands, which is the twenty-seventh of Rajab”[23].. to the end of those noble days.
Among the greatest of those days is the Day of al-Ghadir, Allah's greatest festival, when the mercy of Allah the Exalted becomes manifest on that day to his visitors, to the extent that Allah the Exalted frees on it double what He frees in all the days of the month of Ramadan, double what He freed on the noble Night of Qadr, and double what He freed on the blessed Night of Fitr. It is thus fitting for the believer to hasten toward this all-encompassing good.
Perhaps the expression that He forgives the sins of sixty years for every (believing man and believing woman) and every (Muslim man and Muslim woman) [means] that the mercy encompasses all who believe in the wilayah, from the weak in faith to the strong; or that it encompasses both the loyal (muwālī) believer and the one who is not loyal, as in the forgiveness of sins on the Day of ʿArafa in the hajj. This is not far from the mercy of Allah the Exalted: whoever comes to the grave of the Commander of the Faithful (a) humbly, without arrogance, is encompassed by the mercy, that perhaps he may be guided by his light (a).
The One Who Abandons Visiting Him
13- Al-Muqniʿa: Al-Sadiq (a) said:
Whoever abandons visiting the Commander of the Faithful (a), Allah, Almighty and Majestic, will not look at him.
The look of Allah the Exalted is His care for the believer, whether in this world through granting success and right guidance, or in the Hereafter through forgiveness and not holding him to account for what his hands have committed. So whoever abandons visiting the Commander of the Faithful (a) has deprived himself of the divine look upon him.
Breaths of Yearning for the Presence of ʿAli (a)
All this reward—the lofty reward of the martyrs on the Day of Resurrection; the reward of those who perform hajj and ʿumra, who come out as on the day their mothers bore them, without sin and without a trace of a slip recorded in their records; indeed, multiples of the reward of the month of Ramadan and the Night of Qadr; and likewise the fulfillment of needs and the healing from afflictions it contains, and all those blessings—all of it is so that a person may gather himself together, make his decision, and set out with eager longing toward the site of the grave of the Commander of the Faithful (a), his heart preceding him to the noble holy presence, so that his soul embraces his sacred grave before his body reaches it. There the visitor begins to draw inspiration from the luminous firebrand, raising it as a torch to illuminate a life that darkness has cloaked in gloom and that the ill omen of sins and misdeeds has sullied, so that he may begin a new path, lit by the radiance of guidance and the light of knowledge and uprightness.
By being aware of this divine plan for visiting the Infallibles (a), we know that visiting Imam ʿAli (a) is an effective and penetrating key among the keys of transformation, through which the doors of guidance and righteousness are opened for everyone who takes refuge in and holds fast to his pure shrine standing over his noble grave at the back of Kufa, in al-Najaf al-Ashraf.
In embodiment of this great aim, the visitor arranges his affairs and prepares what needs to be prepared, such as psychological readiness, a sincere intention, purification, cleanliness and perfuming—these being what is narrated in the etiquettes of visitation. All of this represents a preparation of the heart and a practical preparation for entering a unique formative experience.
Here is Imam al-Sadiq (a) teaching us how to approach this great act of worship, so that we prepare for it and offer the supplications that express our intentions and aims.
It is narrated from Safwan that he said: I asked al-Sadiq (a): How do you visit the Commander of the Faithful (a)?
He said: O Safwan, when you intend that, perform the ritual bath (ghusl), put on two pure garments, and apply some perfume—though if you do not apply any, it suffices you. When you go out of your house, say:
O Allah, I have gone out from my house seeking Your bounty, and I visit the successor of Your Prophet—Your blessings be upon them both. O Allah, so make that easy for me, provide the means for visiting him, and take my place among my offspring and my dependents with the best of deputyship, O Most Merciful of the merciful[24].
Whoever seeks the vast bounty of Allah the Exalted should set out on the journey to the grave of the Commander of the Faithful as a visitor, and ask Allah to make his affairs easy for him and to prepare the means for him. Attaining that all-encompassing good is not limited to setting out on the journey; rather, the believer should persist in visiting him from afar, from any place, turning with his heart toward the grave and reciting the luminous words of the blessed visitation of the Infallibles, so as to obtain whatever of its goods he is granted success in obtaining.
Among those who knew the sublimity and greatness of visiting the Commander of the Faithful (a), and found intimacy in it, was Safwan ibn Mihran, who stayed constantly at the grave of the Commander of the Faithful for twenty years, worshipping beside it and visiting it. The books of rijal attest to this Safwan's reliability. He transmitted directly from the Ahl al-Bayt (a), and most of his narrations were from Imam al-Sadiq (a). Among his methods in narration was that he would ask the Imam about the details of deeds, making the most of the Imam's presence to increase his knowledge and gain more merit. So if he said that he stayed at the grave of the Commander of the Faithful for this long period, this means that he heard much and absorbed much about the merit of that.
It is reported in Kamil al-Ziyarat:
From Safwan ibn Mihran, from Abu ʿAbd Allah (a). He said: I asked him about the location of the grave of the Commander of the Faithful (a). He said: He described its location to me, where the sand hillocks of al-Mil are. He said: So I went to it and prayed beside it. Then I returned to Abu ʿAbd Allah (a) the following year and told him of my going and my praying beside it, and he said: You have hit upon it. So I remained twenty years praying beside it[25].
Abu ʿAmir, the preacher of the Hijaz, narrates to us what passed between him and Imam Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad al-Sadiq (a) concerning the greatness of one who maintains the shrine of the Commander of the Faithful (a) and of the Imams among his descendants (a), and the merit of attending to them with visitation from time to time. He says:
“I came to Abu ʿAbd Allah (a) and said to him: What is there for one who visits his grave—meaning the Commander of the Faithful (a)—and maintains his tomb? He said: O Abu ʿAmir, my father narrated to me, from his father, from his grandfather al-Husayn ibn ʿAli, from ʿAli (a), that the Prophet (s) said to him: By Allah, you will surely be killed in the land of Iraq and be buried there.
I said: O Messenger of Allah, what is there for one who visits our graves, maintains them and attends to them? He said to me: O Abu al-Hasan, Allah has made your grave and the graves of your sons spots among the spots of Paradise and a courtyard among its courtyards. And Allah has made the hearts of noble ones from His creation and the elite of His servants yearn for you and bear humiliation and harm for your sake. They maintain your graves and visit them frequently, seeking nearness to Allah and out of love for His Messenger. Those, O ʿAli, are the ones singled out for my intercession, the ones who will come to my Pool, and they are my visitors tomorrow in Paradise.
O ʿAli, whoever maintains your graves and attends to them, it is as though he helped Solomon son of David in building Bayt al-Maqdis. And whoever visits your graves, the equivalent of that: he has the reward of seventy hajjs after the hajj of Islam, and he comes out of his sins, so that he returns from visiting you as on the day his mother bore him. So rejoice, and give glad tidings to your friends and those who love you of bliss and delight of the eye, of what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and has never occurred to the heart of a human being. But a rabble of people will reproach the visitors of your graves for visiting you, just as an adulteress is reproached for her adultery. Those are the worst of my Ummah; may Allah not grant them my intercession, and they will not come to my Pool.”[26].
[1] - George Jordac, Imam ʿAli, the Voice of Human Justice, vol. 1, p. 20
[2] - Sharh Nahj al-Balagha by Ibn Abi al-Hadid, vol. 20, p. 316
[3] - Al-Irshad fi Maʿrifat Hujaj Allah ʿala al-ʿIbad, vol. 1, p. 34
[4] - Al-Amali, al-Shaykh al-Saduq, p. 558
[5] - The same source, p. 89
[6] - Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 33, p. 474
[7] - Farhat al-Ghari fi Taʿyin Qabr Amir al-Muʾminin fi al-Najaf, p. 70
[8] - Kamil al-Ziyarat, p. 38
[9] - Surat al-Nisaʾ 80
[10] - Wasaʾil al-Shiʿa, vol. 14, p. 379
[11] - That is, seven circuits.
[12] - Kamil al-Ziyarat, p. 39
[13] - Kamil al-Ziyarat, p. 39
[14] - Farhat al-Ghari fi Taʿyin Qabr Amir al-Muʾminin fi al-Najaf, p. 69
[15] - Al-Amali, by al-Tusi, p. 215
[16] - Kamil al-Ziyarat, p. 70
[17] - Surat al-Hadid 19
[18] - Wasaʾil al-Shiʿa, vol. 14, p. 380
[19] - Wasaʾil al-Shiʿa, vol. 14, p. 382
[20] - Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 45, p. 3
[21] - Farhat al-Ghari, p. 47
[22] - Misbah al-Mutahajjid wa Silah al-Mutaʿabbid, vol. 2, 738
[23] - Bihar al-Anwar, vol. 100, p. 383
[24] - Al-Mazar, by al-Shahid al-Awwal, p. 30
[25] - Kamil al-Ziyarat, p. 37
[26] - Wasaʾil al-Shiʿa, vol. 14, p. 383
