- Author:
- Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi
- Price:
- Free
- Publication date:
- 1432
- Book file:
- alentmaa.pdf
About the book:
There is a great necessity that obliges a person to take a candid stand with his mind and heart regarding what he believes in, especially in what relates to matters of thought and creed, because these are what define the true features of a person, and these are what define the course of his thinking; indeed, they define the ultimate goal of his life.
The greatest enemies of this candor are that a person skips over speaking about what is fundamental and a matter of belief and busies himself with marginal matters at its expense, or hides behind words and phrases by embellishing them and stuffing them with terminology, so that words become bridges for escaping from realities instead of being bridges toward the truth.
This book that is in your hands, dear reader, discusses two groups through faith in Imam al-Husayn (a):
A group that has evaded belonging to the friends of Allah (awliyaʾ) by evading the root of religion, turning a blind eye to its values, and throwing itself into the arms of modernity and secularization.
And a group that has evaded belonging to the Imamate by emptying it of its content and contenting itself with the slogan of form and title, by carrying the slogan of love and of invoking Allah's good pleasure upon the personalities who embody it.
So we discuss what is current and tangible in the Islamic arena in general, in relation to what belonging to Imam al-Husayn (a) ought to lead to, in a candid manner based on the evidence and logic on which each of these groups relies.
What, then, are the results that the propositions of modernity ought to produce concerning Imam al-Husayn (a)? That is, how ought they to view connection with the Imam, and the type of that connection, through examining the human values in which a person believes and general human thought? The discussion will take place on the very basis of defining values, their methodology, and its critique and evaluation, which leads us to knowing the type of faith that the claimants of modernity and secularization, and those of their ilk, ought to have regarding Imam al-Husayn (a).
We will be candid with modernist thought about what it may describe, at the first moment it hears the name of Imam al-Husayn (a), as denominationalism, sectarianism, confinement in the past, framing, stereotyping, ideologization and similar words, which they take as mounts for escaping from being candid with themselves regarding faith. We have had some dialogues in which we acquainted some of them with these foundations, which ought to be discussed with complete clarity so that a scholarly conclusion may form for them; however, escape or generalization is their habit, unlike the path followed by Western thinkers in investigating pressing questions and paying attention to them, such as the question of faith, the type of faith, the origin of creation and others. This leads us to conclude about these claimants that they are nothing but imitators and parrots, whose concern is repeating what is ready-made and canned, without importing the root of the dialogue and the questions with which they ought to jolt their minds before they move on to adopting this or that intellectual path.
Answering these candid questions is the aim of this book in its first part, and we ask Allah that it may offer something that stirs in their souls and minds the concern for candor and for a serious stand before the type of faith to which they ought to belong.
On the other side of that, our Islamic Umma is currently witnessing a movement concerning doctrinal belonging, within the sphere of the sectarian tensions and alignments that our Islamic arena has witnessed. After it had been in limited spots, it has now become a global phenomenon that has swept through all countries without exception, in which the political, the economic and the social have intertwined, so that it affects negatively the reality of the Umma and the unity of its ranks before those who lie in wait for it with hostility. The reason for that is the use of the language of insults, the lack of fairness and the failure to adhere to the etiquette of dialogue; and the interference of the major political wills, the pumping of money for the sake of kindling the fire of sedition (fitna), and likewise fear of the truths.
In the midst of this movement, one of the Islamic sects not belonging to the school of the Ahl al-Bayt (a) became aware of the depth of its exclusion of the personalities of the Household of the Prophet Muhammad (s) in its religious discourse. For although the Ahl al-Bayt (a) have a sanctity and a special standing among all Muslims, established in their Sahih collections and their books, the discourse directed to the public over centuries of time, and the media discourse, are almost devoid even of mention of the Ahl al-Bayt (a), let alone their stations and virtues; and all the more so, they shun doctrinal inquiry regarding the type of faith in them (a) and the belonging that this faith entails, which has its own particular sanctity.
This awareness led some personalities among them to fill the striking and strange gap that has persisted throughout the centuries from the earliest eras until now. But this gap was filled only by way of solicitation, through the echo that these personalities produce and the brilliance of these names in the sky of Islam. So they raise their voices with love for Imam al-Husayn (a) and the Ahl al-Bayt (a), but they empty them of their course, their jihad and their content; thus the personalities of the Ahl al-Bayt (a) are presented in a manner drawn up in advance, so as to tell people that these are ordinary persons, or that they are merely righteous persons, their state being the state of any of the righteous figures who have passed through history.
Here we are only pursuing the approach of intellectual candor, far from the language of shouting or insults, in order to know how the Sunnis ought to view the personality of Imam al-Husayn (a), what the type of this view is, and what it ought to lead to, according to what has come in the constants on which the Muslims have unanimously agreed, from the Qurʾanic text and from the Sunna on which both parties agree, that is, by relying on the hadiths that have been reported in their sources.
In sum, we put these questions candidly to the mind:
Are you a modernist? Then what is the type of your faith in Imam al-Husayn (a)?
Are you a Muslim? Then what is the type of your faith in Imam al-Husayn (a)?
We ask Allah that these truths be on the table of serious inquiry for every seeker of truth, even if only with himself, so that he may take a candid stand with himself and arrive at convictions built on evidence and proof regarding the sacred belonging to Imam al-Husayn (a).
And I ask Allah the Exalted to grant us success in what contains goodness and righteousness.
