Why the excess in remembering the Ahl al-Bayt as opposed to remembering Allah?

In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful

And blessings and peace be upon our master Muhammad and his pure Family.

The principle of separating Allah the Exalted from His friends in remembrance is a mistaken principle. Whoever builds his views on isolating Allah from His friends in the domain of remembrance and obedience is building his edifice on flimsy foundations, because their remembrance is [the remembrance of] Allah. Yes, they are created by Allah, and Allah is such that “Nothing is like Him” (Qurʾan 42:11); but Allah the Exalted made obedience to the Prophet (s) obedience to Him, and said: “Whoever obeys the Apostle certainly obeys Allah” (Qurʾan 4:80).

These dialectics of separation, whether in the name of the duality of (the Qurʾan and the purified Sunna) or the duality of (Allah and His friends, the Prophet (s) and his Ahl al-Bayt (a)), are dialectics that lack knowledge of the Ahl al-Bayt (a), or lack serious attention to the role of the Ahl al-Bayt (a) in faith in Allah the Exalted and in bearing His message; for there is no safety from misguidance except through the Qurʾan and the ʿItra together, and there is no pure monotheism except through seeking intercession (tawassul) through the Ahl al-Bayt (a), which expresses the reality and depth of monotheism. Concerning the saying of Allah the Exalted: “To Allah belong the Best Names, so supplicate Him by them” (Qurʾan 7:180), it has been reported from Imam al-Sadiq (a), as in al-Kafi, that he said: “We—by Allah—are the Best Names, without knowledge of whom Allah does not accept any deed from the servants.” Vol. 1, p. 351.

This means that any attempt to remove the Ahl al-Bayt (a) from the arena of faith and from the spirit of acts of worship is an attempt to unsettle the concept of monotheism in a person's faith.

Hence we find that all the acts of worship by which the servant draws near to Allah the Exalted are adorned and surrounded with the remembrance of the Prophet (s) and his pure Household—before them, after them and during them. It suffices that the prayer contains the remembrance of “blessings upon Muhammad and the Family of Muhammad” at all its junctures as recommended (mustaḥabb), and in its obligatory tashahhud as obligatory (wājib); and it contains the salutation of peace upon the Messenger of Allah (s). The one praying may choose, for the supplication in its qunut and in all its formulas of remembrance by way of unrestricted remembrance, from the supplications of the Ahl al-Bayt (a) or whatever contains mention of them, as tawassul through them to Allah. From this we grasp the reality of the position of the Prophet and his pure Household in our acts of worship, and their position in our faith.

Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi