Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi presents a study of the Supplication for the People of the Frontiers by Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a), the supplication that appears in al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya and is directed toward those garrisoned at the frontiers of the Muslims.
The study discusses the circumstances and motives of the supplication, and examines the problem of the Imam’s (a) supplicating for those garrisoned in an era ruled by the Umayyads.. in a study that comprehends the political, social and juristic dimensions, so that the picture of the Imam’s aims in that supplication becomes clear, and the extent of its connection with the civilizational project of Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin’s (a) role in leading the Umma becomes evident.
The Supplication for the People of the Frontiers
Between the Circumstances of Political Reality and the Civilizational Role of Imam al-Sajjad (a)
Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi
Since the life of the Ahl al-Bayt (a) is the object of the researcher’s attention, so that he may bring out their method clearly, in order to follow their luminous conduct in building a good, civilized life, and in order to adopt life stances resting on the principled character of the radiant history and the comprehensive balance for the life of the individual and the Umma—for this cognitive purpose, by which a person completes his civilizational vision, it is necessary to research the instances in which striking stances of the Ahl al-Bayt (a) toward their reality became manifest. Among those stances are some that are marked by the clarity of their harmony with the teachings of the Qurʾan and the constant values of the religion, whose foundations the Ahl al-Bayt (a) established; and among the stances are some that need research to know their position with respect to those values and the extent of their harmony with them, because of their obscurity or because of what appears, on initial consideration, to be a contradiction of the root of the values. Indeed, we may say that research into those stances can lead to the conviction that they are a product of the historical imagination and have no reality, if their contradiction of the values of the religion and the spirit of the holy sharia is definitively established.
Research into the life of Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a) is full of a number of instances that need elucidation and reconciliation with the constant religious values, in view of the crisis-ridden political reality, and in view of the thorny task that was placed on the Imam’s shoulders, being a divine leadership whose responsibility is leading the Umma, whether it was in the seat of government or far from it. Among those matters is his well-known supplication that appears in al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya, called the Supplication for the People of the Frontiers, which begins with: “O Allah, bless Muhammad and his Family, fortify the frontiers of the Muslims by Your might, support their defenders by Your strength, and make their gifts abundant from Your wealth. O Allah, bless Muhammad and his Family, increase their number, sharpen their weapons, guard their domain, defend their heartland, unite their gathering, and manage their affair.. to the end of the supplication.
The problem in dealing with this supplication can be summarized in the following research question: How can we understand the Imam (a) supplicating for the people of the frontiers when they are subordinate to a tyrannical authority, while he is in disagreement with it politically and religiously? How can we understand supplicating for them in circumstances of deep political and doctrinal disagreement, which reached its peak in the era of Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a)?!
In order to discuss this problem and understand the extent of the harmony of the Supplication for the People of the Frontiers with the strategy that the Imam (a) followed in the Umma, we should shed light on several aspects so as to arrive at an understanding that comprehends the various dimensions.
First: On the Meaning of the Frontiers
Al-thughur is the plural of thaghr. Al-thaghr and al-thaghra: every gap in a mountain, or in the bottom of a valley, or in a traveled road; and al-thaghr: what adjoins the abode of war. And al-thaghr: the place of fear among the openings of the lands; it is the place that is a dividing boundary between the lands of the Muslims and of the unbelievers, and it is the place of fear on the edges of the land” .
States and nations were in a struggle for survival and a struggle for expansion, or for hegemony, or for revenge on other states; so one of the basic political tasks of every authority was to preserve the borders of the state from the ambitions of the enemy. The Muslims had several frontiers at which soldiers were garrisoned in order to protect them from the attack of enemies, and the frontiers differed according to the extent of the state and the extent of its expansion through conquests.
The soldiers stationed at those frontiers are called murabitun. “Ribat” and “murabata” originally mean remaining stationed for the struggle against the enemy in war, and tying up horses and preparing them. And it has been said: the origin of murabata is that the two parties tie up their horses at a frontier, each of them ready for the other; so staying at the frontiers was called ribat. It may also be applied to binding the self to righteous deeds and virtuous morals .
So the basic task of those garrisoned at the frontiers is to preserve the Islamic entity from its enemies; their task is not raiding and taking the initiative in attack. The soldiers may have multiple tasks according to the orders of the ruler; nevertheless, the concept is garrisoning to guard the borders against the attack of enemies.
Second: On the Juristic Dimensions of Garrisoning the Frontiers
Since the protection of the frontiers is the wall of the lands of the Muslims for preserving their borders from any external aggression by the enemies of Islam, it is one of the tasks of the Imam, as a legitimate office belonging to him. It has come in the narration in al-Kafi from Imam al-Rida (a) concerning the tasks of the Imamate: “the carrying out of the prescribed penalties and the rulings, and the defense of the frontiers and the outlying regions. The Imam makes lawful what Allah has made lawful, forbids what Allah has forbidden, establishes the prescribed penalties of Allah, defends the religion of Allah, and invites to the way of his Lord with wisdom and good advice”.
Sayed al-Modarresi says about this task: “It is not permissible to neglect the frontiers through which the enemy penetrates; rather, garrisoning them is obligatory as long as the possibility of attack exists”. And it says in al-Lumʿa and its commentary: “Ribat is emphatically recommended at all times, both when the Imam is present and during his occultation”. And Sayed al-Sabzawari said: “Murabata is recommended, that is, keeping watch to protect the lands of Islam from the attack of the polytheists upon them; its minimum is three days and its maximum forty days, and if it is more, it is like jihad in reward”. He holds it to be recommended because the verse, even though it is apparent in indicating obligation, is in the context of praise, so this apparent meaning falls away; in addition to the apparent consensus on its not being obligatory. It can also be characterized as obligatory because of interests that the guardian of affairs (wali al-amr) sees, just as it can be characterized as forbidden because of harms resulting from it” .
This is when the ruler is the Imam or one acting on behalf of the just Imam. But if the one who governs the land is one of the imams of tyranny, then it is not permissible to join them. Shaykh al-Tusi said in al-Mabsut: “Whenever there is neither the Imam nor one whom the Imam has appointed, the obligation lapses; indeed, doing it is not good at all.. Then he said: Jihad with the imams of tyranny, or without any imam at all, is an ugly error for which its doer deserves blame and punishment; if he is struck down he is not rewarded, and if he strikes he is sinful”. And Sayed al-Sabzawari said: “There is no difference between the time of the Occultation and that of the presence—because of the unrestricted scope of the proofs, which encompass each of them—and it is a condition in murabata that it not be on behalf of a tyrant, and he argued for it by saying: “because he has no authority over such matters”; and from the hadith, it is on this that the following two narrations are to be interpreted:
In al-Wasaʾil, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Sinan, who said: I said to Abu ʿAbd Allah (a): May I be made your ransom, what do you say about these who are killed at these frontiers? He said: Then he said: Woe! They hasten to a killing in this world and a killing in the Hereafter. By Allah, the martyr is none but our Shiʿa, even if they die on their beds” .
And from Muhammad ibn ʿIsa, from al-Rida (a): that Yunus asked him, while he was present, about a man from among these who died and bequeathed that a horse, a thousand dirhams and a sword be given from his property to whoever would garrison on his behalf and fight at one of these frontiers. The executor went and gave all of that to a man from among our companions, who took it from him while not knowing that the time for that had not yet come. So what do you say: is it lawful for him to garrison on the man’s behalf at one of these frontiers or not? He said: He should return to the executor what he took from him and not garrison, for the time for that has not yet come. He said: He should return it to him. Then Yunus said: But he does not know the executor. He said: He should ask about him. Then Yunus ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman said to him: He has asked about him and has not found him; what should he do? He said: If it is like this, then let him garrison but not fight. He said: He is garrisoned, and the enemy comes at him until it is about to come in upon him; what should he do—fight or not? Al-Rida (a) said to him: If that is so, then he does not fight on behalf of these, but he fights on behalf of the core of Islam (baydat al-Islam), for in the loss of the core of Islam is the effacement of the remembrance of Muhammad (s) .
From this narration comes the derivation regarding the extent of the permissibility of participating in garrisoning the frontiers under the government of the imams of tyranny, and under what justification. Defending the Islamic homeland as an entity that preserves Islam, or defending the Muslims as an identity and an existence, from an imminent danger, is among the exceptions in which an individual may join the frontiers, within these limits, which he does not go beyond for other purposes.
Sayed al-Modarresi says: “Similar to it is the Islamic state’s being exposed to a military attack by the enemies, such that there is fear for the core of Islam; then defense is obligatory. Al-ʿAllama al-Naʾini considers the core of Islam that must be defended to be: the Islamic homeland. But it seems that the juristic expression “the core of Islam” is more precise than the Islamic homeland, since it means the root of Islam. And the meaning of its being exposed to danger is the threatening of the Islamic existence and the Islamic entity with danger, which carries within it the meaning of great danger.
— Then Sayed al-Modarresi mentioned the aforementioned narration of Muhammad ibn ʿIsa — and commented on it, saying: “We learn from this hadith that fear for the abode of Islam came as an example of fear for the core of Islam. But in a following passage the core of the Muslims was added to the core of Islam, and the expression with it is more comprehensive than the core of Islam. For the danger may not be to the abode of Islam, but it may be to the Muslims” .
Third: On the Imam’s Strategy in the Work of the Mission
Becoming acquainted with the strategy of the Imam (a) in the work of the Mission, in his undertaking the leadership of the Umma, clarifies for us important dimensions for grasping the place of supplication—especially the Supplication for the People of the Frontiers, the subject of the research—in his plan of work, and the extent of its harmony with his method.
Imam ʿAli ibn al-Husayn (a) lived 35 years after his father, which is the period of his Imamate. The Imam leads the Umma, works to establish the values of the religion and its legislation, and spreads the truth in the Umma, regardless of whether or not he ascends the seat of government, because the office of the Imamate is a divine office tied to the person wherever he settles or travels. Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a) adopted a method of work that suited the new political situation and suited the reality of the Umma after it had emerged from the painful tragedy of Karbala, which showed the extent of the deviation of the general social mood from the spirit of the religion, after many people had taken part in that tragedy and others had kept silent, and none remained with Imam al-Husayn (a) except the very small few who defended and stood with the Imam in his confrontation of the corrupt reality that Yazid ibn Muʿawiya was leading while he was in the seat of power, embodied in the command of the Muslims.
The greatest concern of Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a) was the Umma and returning it to the religion, through intelligent and effective methods, such that the values of pure Islam would take hold of the human mind by penetrating the heart and blending with the spirit. So he relied on several methods:
1 - Keeping alive the heat of the painful tragedy of al-Taff, so that the cause would remain present, so that the extent of the prevailing deviation would be known, and so that responsibility would be grasped.
2 - Disseminating knowledge in forms contemporary with the requirements of the Umma in its reality, through teaching, the Treatise of Rights, sermons, sayings and issuing fatwas.
3 - Embodying the divine example and creating the ideal role model active in reality, through being absorbed in worship that is visible to all eyes.
4- Building scholarly competencies to confront the intellectual and doctrinal challenges that swept the land because of the haphazard conquests.
5 - Shaping the creed of the Umma and its intellectual character through the contents of supplication, which encompassed all aspects; thus there was al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya and his other supplications on various occasions, so that supplication would accompany a person in all his steps and needs.
6- His indirect leadership of the political affairs of the Umma and of the vanguards of the Mission, so that his strategy in the work of the Mission would succeed.
Fourth: On the Political Situation
In order to arrive at an integrated vision, we should survey the political situation and its prevailing circumstances in the time of the Imamate of Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a); in this way the extent of the harmony between his approach in dealing with the political reality and his supplication for the people of the frontiers can be read.
The political reality that accompanied the period of the Imamate of Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a) was crisis-ridden and complicated. In the period from the year 60 AH, the year of the killing of his father Imam al-Husayn (a) and the beginning of the Imamate of al-Sajjad (a), until the year 95 AH, the year of his martyrdom, the Umayyad state was the ruling power, according to the historians’ classification. But the political scene at that time tells us that the internal political crisis was no less than the external challenges that the Islamic lands faced from their enemies, because internal warfare had reached its peak. There were numerous forces and factions fighting internally: the Umayyads proper, that is, the descendants of Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan; the Marwanids; the Zubayrids; the Khawarij; in addition to the groups angry with the authorities, such as the Penitents (al-Tawwabun), al-Mukhtar, the society of Medina, Mutarrif ibn al-Mughira, Ibn al-Ashʿath, and others.. All these forces were fighting internally and drained the blood of the Umma.
Deep corruption was eating away at the body of the sultans who ruled in the name of Islam; therefore “the general situation of the Islamic state was suffering from an acute civilizational crisis on various levels—political, intellectual, social and moral—and this crisis threatened the Islamic Umma not only with a change in its course, but also with its extinction” .
1 - Yazid, the drinker of wine, the killer of the inviolable soul, the one who toyed with the religion: his leadership ended in bringing about the greatest calamity in the history of Islam by his killing of Imam al-Husayn (a) in the tragedy of al-Taff and the captivity that followed it; then he violated Medina the Illuminated and made it lawful for his soldiers, who wreaked unparalleled corruption in it.. then he bombarded the Honored Kaʿba with the catapult in his confrontation with Ibn al-Zubayr..
2 - And Marwan ibn al-Hakam, who remained in power for nine months and was the most hostile of people to Allah, His Messenger and his Family, especially to the Commander of the Faithful (a), as he began his caliphate with the threat of the sword, and “the first of the people to pledge allegiance to him were the people of Jordan; they pledged allegiance to him unwillingly, fearing the edge of the sword, and the people of Syria followed them in that.. then he besieged Egypt and fought them until they entered into obedience to him” ..
3- And ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwan, who remained in power for 13 years; the Muslims suffered woe from him, and rivers of blood flowed in his era. The slogan of ʿAbd al-Malik, which is the prevailing political thought among the Umayyads, was his saying when he led the people in the pilgrimage and addressed them in Medina: “I am not the weakened caliph—meaning ʿUthman—nor the compromising caliph—meaning Muʿawiya—nor the feeble-minded caliph—meaning Yazid. Indeed, I will not treat this nation except with the sword, until your spear-shafts become straight for me..” .
ʿAbd al-Malik gave al-Hajjaj free rein over the Muslims, to the point that he bombarded the pilgrims of the Sacred House of Allah with the catapult while they were circumambulating the Kaʿba. The historical sources say that the number of those whom al-Hajjaj killed in cold blood—apart from those killed in his wars and at the hands of his soldiers—reached one hundred and twenty thousand, and after he perished, fifty thousand men and thirty thousand women were found in his prisons. And what ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz said about him suffices: If every nation brought its vileness and we brought al-Hajjaj, we would outdo them .
4- Then came al-Walid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, a successor following a predecessor. In his first sermon after assuming the office of rule, he said: “O people, whoever shows us what is within himself, we will strike that in which his eyes are; and whoever keeps silent will die of his ailment. Then he descended; and he was an obstinate tyrant ..
Thus kingship was the goal that the Umayyad rulers sought; they spared no effort in committing any act that would bring them closer to it, and they crushed every obstacle that stood against achieving what they desired. And since they knew that Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a) was the descendant of the Imams and the holder of the original right, their eyes never left his movements, and they were waiting for the opportunity to eradicate him. To preserve the line of the Mission and its leadership embodied in the Imam, the Imam had to follow a precise method in achieving his goals; for taqiyya (precautionary concealment) is one of the most important methods of Islamic work and of the work of the Mission, and history has revealed to us that way of dealing in several stances of the Imam (a).
Fifth: On the Reality of the Frontiers
As for foreign policy, it too was in a state of turmoil, as challenges faced the state from several directions; and the conquests expanded because of the rulers’ greed in collecting the land tax (kharaj), hoarding spoils and extending influence.
Militarily, this required defense and full readiness for any expected attack by the enemy; therefore the Islamic borders were surrounded by camps in which soldiers were garrisoned for long periods, such as the frontier of Qazvin on the side of Daylam, Damietta on the side of Egypt, Barqa bordering Ifriqiya, Shuman, which lies in al-Saghaniyan beyond the Jayhun , Kabulistan among the frontiers of Tukharistan—a region bordering India—Antioch among the Syrian frontiers, and others.
Since we are engaged in studying the supplication directed at this group, namely the people of the frontiers, and studying its position in the movement of the Imam (a), we must shed light on the social aspect as well, to see the reality and the extent of its connection with politics and with the rulers—while emphasizing that the authority controlling the administration of these frontiers was the Umayyad authority: it dismissed whichever commanders it wished, ordered garrisoning or moving out to raid, and for it the spoils were collected.
However, the social reality does not necessarily indicate that everyone who took part in garrisoning the frontiers of the Muslims belonged to the ruling authority and was pleased with it; there were several considerations that led ordinary people, and even opponents, to take part, among them:
1- The participation of groups of people who had no knowledge or view of the reality of participating at the frontiers; indeed, they may have been among the ignorant groups, or those absent from knowing the reality of the conflict within the Islamic state, and who represents the truth and who represents tyranny. We discover this through this narration, for example, which tells of the lack of awareness of some of those who participated, or who bequeathed something of their wealth to be spent (in the way of Allah) on the people of the frontiers.
From Yunus ibn Yaʿqub: A man who was in Hamadan mentioned that his father had died, and he did not recognize this matter; he made a bequest at death, and bequeathed that something be given in the way of Allah. Abu ʿAbd Allah (a) was asked about it—how it should be dealt with—and we informed him that he did not recognize this matter. He said: If a man bequeathed to me that I should place it with a Jew or a Christian, I would place it with them. Allah, Almighty, says: “And should anyone alter it after hearing it, its sin shall indeed lie on those who alter it” (Qurʾan 2:181). So look for someone who is going out in this direction—meaning [some of] the frontiers—and send it to him .
2 - Participation at the frontiers may have been to escape the internal political reality and the widespread warfare, and to protect oneself from falling prey to some tyrannical measures or to the raging seditions. The conflict did not stop between the Umayyads and their opponents throughout their rule, whether from the partisans of the Ahl al-Bayt—who were the fewest—or from the Khawarij, the Zubayrids or those who rebelled against their rule; and likewise the measures that befell innocent ordinary people, as in the reports about al-Hajjaj and Ziyad ibn Abih.
For example, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari resorted for a period of time to staying at the frontiers, fleeing from the tyrannical authorities. Al-Waqidi narrated from Malik ibn Abi al-Rijal, from Musa ibn Maysara, that Abu al-Aswad al-Duʾali said: I used to love to meet Abu Dharr so that I could ask him about the reason for his departure to al-Rabadha. So I came to him and said to him: Will you not tell me—did you leave Medina willingly, or were you expelled unwillingly? He said: I was at one of the frontiers of the Muslims, being of service to them, and I was brought out to Medina ..
The author of the book Jihad al-Imam al-Sajjad says: “It is known that those who head to the borders of the Islamic state—the points farthest from places of comfort and ease—are none other than the common mass of people; and their choosing those remote regions may be evidence of their keeping away from the entanglements in which the people of the cities in the interior of the land were immersed” .
3- Participating at the frontiers or supporting them out of taqiyya and fear of denunciation by the opponents, and to ward off accusation, which sometimes entails punishment and killing. We read this meaning in a narration of Imam al-Sadiq (a), in which a questioner asks him about a vow he had made to take part at the frontiers—out of ignorance on his part or otherwise—and the Imam answers him that he should participate if one of the opponents had heard his vow, so that there would be no denunciation of him and he would not be seized on the charge of not participating or of non-acknowledgment.
In al-Wasaʾil: Muhammad ibn al-Hasan, by his chain of transmission from ʿAli ibn Mahziyar, who said: A man from Banu Hashim wrote to Abu Jaʿfar the Second (a): I had made a vow years ago that I would go out to one of the seacoasts, toward our region, among those where volunteers garrison, like their garrisoning at Jidda and other seacoasts. Do you think—may I be made your ransom—that fulfilling it is binding upon me, or not binding upon me, or should I redeem going out to that with some act of righteousness, so that I may come to it, Allah willing? So he wrote to him in his own hand, and I read it: If one of the opponents heard your vow from you, then fulfill it, if you fear his denunciation; otherwise, spend what you intended from that on acts of righteousness. May Allah grant us and you success in what He loves and is pleased with .
4 - Participating at the frontiers of the Muslims out of belief in the importance of garrisoning as a task that undertakes the protection of Islam and the Muslims, regardless of the tyrannical authority of the time; for the frontiers at times preserve the core of Islam and protect the Muslims from existential dangers to the Muslims or dangers to Islam itself—as we mentioned it as a legitimate justification that permits participating in them even if the sultan is tyrannical.
Sayed al-Modarresi describes this historical reality, saying: “The only value on which the Islamic Umma relied, around which it revolved and by which it was united, was the value of faith in Allah and belief in the state as a civilizational necessity. Despite all the internal schisms, injustice and dictatorship that occurred in the Umma, a remnant of faith that this state must remain continued to exist, and this conviction prevailed among all parties. It is true that the will of the Umma was against the corrupt authority, but the need for a system that governs by Islam, and the desire to defend the core of Islam and the dignity of the Muslims, were intertwined; and thousands of people would go to defend the frontiers and conquer lands, proceeding from the sacred creed of jihad, regardless of the corrupt authority.
However, that matter began to fade away—and that was in the time of Imam al-Jawad (a)—because of the dictatorial relationship between the regime and the masses, as people felt that they had nothing to do with this state, and this feeling drove them to distance themselves from it” .
Through presenting this social reality regarding the frontiers, it becomes clear to us that the soldiers taking part at the frontiers were mixed troops: among them was the believer, among them the one who did not agree with the authority, and among them the ignorant one—or other justifications and considerations that called them to join those garrisoned. This in turn removes the astonishment at Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin’s supplication for the people of the frontiers. This is what some scholars have pointed out, as Sayed Muhammad al-Shirazi mentions in his commentary on al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya on the phrase of the supplication: (And support their defenders: that is, those who defend the frontiers and guard them (by Your strength); and taʾyid means strengthening. And it is not hidden that among the defenders there were believers, just as among them was one who was ignorant of the truth, so supplicating for such a one is in its proper place” .
From Permissibility and Justification to Discovering the Aims
In our approach to understanding the Imam’s supplication for the people of the frontiers, we need to go beyond justificatory research, which digs to find what validates the act of the Infallible and moves it from the circle of doubt and casting doubt to the circle of approval, acceptance and palatability. So we move the research beyond that into the space of free discovery, and of interpretation within the methodology of the general strategy of the Imam’s (a) role of the Mission, in order to discover the aims and goals that lie behind the act of the Imam (a); that is, to move from the theological (kalami) approach in answering the question—in order to dispel a misconception or refute an objection—to the scholarly, purpose-oriented (maqasidi), exploratory approach of historical research.
For those who have taken up research on the Supplication for the People of the Frontiers and some similar discussions have focused only on the justificatory approach, to grasp the permissibility. We quote, for example, the answer of Sayed Niʿmat Allah al-Jazaʾiri in his commentary on the supplication, an answer that some commentators have copied in wording or in meaning .
Sayed Niʿmat Allah al-Jazaʾiri answered in two ways:
The first: that among them—the people of the frontiers—there were many of the people of agreement (ahl al-wifaq) and Shiʿa, as is well known and recorded in the reports; and in that case the supplication is in reality only for some of the people of the frontiers.
The second: that supplicating for the opponents for strength and victory in order to protect the core of Islam and defend it is definitely permissible; and he (a) observed this aspect, so he mentioned only asking for strengthening and guidance for them .
Through the research approach that encompasses the study of the historical event within its historical, doctrinal and social contexts, we will discover that the Supplication for the People of the Frontiers is nothing but one of the building blocks of a civilizational project through which the Imam wanted to produce an awareness of the Mission and to build the wounded Umma, to rescue it from the mire of decline and historical backwardness to which it had fallen prey as a result of the policies of a ruling group that distorted the religion and concealed the truths, in satisfaction of its greed for the world and its grudges of Badr and Hunayn and others, so that the Imam (a) might thereby build the character of the Umma and reshape it anew to fit the Islamic measure.
The Supplication for the People of the Frontiers and the Dimensions of the Civilizational Project
As we have said before, supplication in the concept of Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin is nothing but one of the ways of the work of the Mission in building the Umma. As Sayed al-Modarresi says: “The supplications of al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya do not represent only an emotional state that the believing individual lives, and they cannot be confined to being a spiritual bond by which the soul longing to meet Allah is elevated; rather, they are also a grounding of the thought of challenge and the culture of revolution. The Islamic Umma was in need of an integrated revolutionary background, not of speech and poetry that spread hatred or lead to a state of justification, or stir improvised, momentary emotions” .
Therefore we must dig for the aims that the Imam sought in his supplication for the people of the frontiers, and the dimensions he intended by it. Here we point to some of those aims:
1 - Composing the Supplication for the Generations of Mujahidin
The role of the Imam (a) is teaching the Umma and guiding it; he is the one who shows it the right way to what ought to be done. Among those responsibilities and tasks is that the believers supplicate for the mujahidin (as a category) in various ages, so that Allah the Exalted may send down victory upon them and fortify their flanks against the enemies. So the supplication for the people of the frontiers came to teach people through it, for as long as life lasts, that the ideal way for those who are outside the fortresses is, first, to support those garrisoned with supplication, and also to supplicate in this manner that the Imam (a) composed, as a supplication transmitted and reported from him, for he is the most knowledgeable of the etiquette of speaking with the Lord, Almighty. So the Supplication for the People of the Frontiers, in one of its aspects, is a principled act and not merely a momentary stance, so that its light may flow to all people from the mouth of the Imam (a) whenever the Umma, in its fluctuating political circumstances, needs this supplication, for it is preserved with them in the holy al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya.
For there came in the supplication a generalization against all the nations of polytheism, in addition to the polytheists specified in that time; he said: “O Allah, and encompass with that Your enemies in the regions of the lands, among the Indians, the Romans, the Turks, the Khazars, the Abyssinians, the Nubians, the Zanj, the Slavs, the Daylamites and the rest of the nations of polytheism, whose names and attributes are hidden, while You have counted them through Your knowledge and overseen them through Your power”.
2 - The Supplication to Protect the Imam’s Civilizational Project
The Supplication for the People of the Frontiers represents a political stance in order to divert attention from the civilizational project on which the Imam was working in building the Umma, and this goal is achieved by the supplication’s being made public and becoming well known.
From here a question confronts us: Did Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a) actually supplicate with this supplication for the people of the frontiers at that time? Or did he teach it to his close followers and write it down for when the need would arise and the conditions would apply?
In the text of the narration that mentioned the supplications of al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya there came a set of phrases indicating that the supplications contained in al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya, including the Supplication for the People of the Frontiers, were among the special supplications guarded by the Ahl al-Bayt (a). Yahya ibn Zayd said to al-Mutawakkil al-Thaqafi al-Balkhi in his conversation about the Sahifa: “Indeed, I shall bring out to you a scroll of the complete supplication, of what my father preserved from his father; and my father enjoined me to protect it and to withhold it from those not worthy of it” , “Then (Yahya) called for a case and took out of it a locked, sealed scroll”. Also, Mutawakkil regretted it when he handed a supplication he had from the Sahifa to Yahya for him to copy, and he said: “I regretted what I had done, and did not know what to do; and Abu ʿAbd Allah (a) had not instructed me beforehand not to hand it to anyone”. And Yahya showed his care for the Sahifa and expressed his fear that this Sahifa, which he described as knowledge, would fall into the hands of the Umayyads, as an indication of its being reserved for the believers, saying: “By Allah, O Mutawakkil, were it not for what you mentioned of my cousin’s saying that I will be killed and crucified, I would not have handed it to you, and I would have been sparing with it; but I know that his saying is true, which he took from his forefathers, and that it will come true. So I feared that the like of this knowledge would fall to the Umayyads and they would conceal it and store it away in their treasuries for themselves. So take it and relieve me of it, and wait with it; and when Allah has decreed concerning my affair and the affair of these people what He decrees, it is a trust of mine with you until you deliver it to my two cousins Muhammad and Ibrahim, the two sons of ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan ibn ʿAli (a), for they are the two who will rise in this matter after me”.
Imam al-Sadiq (a) reinforced this fear and care when Yahya was killed and al-Mutawakkil came to him and told him of the matter; the Imam (a) said: “He wept, and his grief for him grew intense, and he said: May Allah have mercy on my cousin and join him to his fathers and forefathers. By Allah, O Mutawakkil, nothing prevented me from handing the supplication to him except that which he feared for his scroll”.
However, what appears is that the Imam, in his time, used to supplicate with the supplications of al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya, and they were among what people heard and passed on to one another. What indicates this is the titling of the supplications with the phrase (And among his supplications on such-and-such..). It was his two sons, Imam al-Baqir (a) and Zayd the Martyr (r), who recorded them, so that they would be preserved for the believers in the future. The process of guarding and fearing was only on account of the Umayyads and the authorities that would come after them, lest they fall into their hands and they withhold them from people, so that the light of knowledge would vanish and the divine aims that the Imam wanted to convey to people would vanish. That is why we find that al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya, including the Supplication for the People of the Frontiers, has spread widely. “How truthful are the words of our Shaykh, al-ʿAllama (rh)—the author of al-Dhariʿa—where he said: (It—al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya—is among the mass-transmitted (mutawatir) texts according to our companions, because of its being singled out for licensing (ijaza) and narration in every generation and age). He (rh) counted among its commentaries 64 commentaries, among its glosses 11 glosses, and among its translations six. And Dr. Mahfuz added clarification to that by saying: (That Sajjadiyya has won the attention of the eminent in narration, memorization, transmission with chains, interpretation and supplementation: thousands have narrated it, its commentaries have reached the hundreds, and its translations have exceeded the tens) .
3 - The Imam’s Concern with the Existential Dangers to Islam and the Muslims
The Supplication for the People of the Frontiers shows the concern of Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a) for Islam and his solicitude for the Muslims; preserving the core of Islam and of the Muslims is considered one of the basic tasks of the Imam. Existential dangers take precedence over internal dangers and are given priority; but the meaning of priority is not turning a blind eye to tyranny, nor does that call him to support and assist the oppressors; rather, it means concern for the existential cause of Islam and the Muslims—support to the extent that achieves the purpose of existential protection—and that does not require supporting the tyrants. This was clear in the contents of the supplication, as he distinguished between supplicating for those garrisoned to protect Islam, and the ruling authority or those garrisoned to protect the sultan.
That is why there came in the text of the supplication an emphasis on supplicating against the enemies of Islam, so that they would not be able to achieve their designs: (O Allah, blunt thereby their enemy, clip their claws from them, separate them from their weapons, pull out the fastenings of their hearts, put a distance between them and their provisions, bewilder them in their paths, make them lose their direction, cut them off from reinforcements, reduce their numbers, fill their hearts with terror, withhold their hands from extending, bridle their tongues from speaking, scatter through them those behind them, make of them an example to those beyond them, and by their disgrace cut off the ambitions of those after them. O Allah, make the wombs of their women barren, dry up the loins of their men, cut off the offspring of their riding animals and their cattle; do not permit their sky to give rain, nor their earth to give vegetation).
Then the Imam shows through his supplication that this emphasis has a great aim, which is the object of the Imam’s concern and a great priority in his project of the Mission, namely preserving Islam; he (a) says: “O Allah, and strengthen thereby the might of the people of Islam, fortify thereby their abodes, make their wealth fruitful thereby, and release them from fighting them for Your worship, and from contending with them for solitude with You, so that none other than You is worshipped in the regions of the earth, and no forehead is rubbed in the dust for any one of them instead of You”.
4 - Penetrating the Society of the People of the Frontiers
Part of the Imam’s policy was reaching all members of the Umma in order to establish the proof upon them. The Imam’s residence was in Medina the Illuminated, and he likewise frequently went to the pilgrimage to the Sacred House of Allah—sacred places to which all Muslims travel from everywhere—so the Imam’s influence and his project had the capacity to spread because of that. His supplication for the people of the frontiers is a penetration of the awareness of those remote gatherings, isolated from the movement of the internal Islamic society, in order to influence them. The narration that ʿAli ibn Mahziyar transmits about the man who had vowed years before to take part at the frontiers, and then came to ask Imam Abu Jaʿfar the Second (a) about his legal position, may indicate an influence of the efforts of the Imam (a), since he had vowed while believing in the validity of his vow and of the object of his vow; then a change came over him, and he came to ask the Imam about his new position regarding the old vow.
If we contemplate the contents of the supplication, we find how the Imam shapes the doctrinal and political awareness of the Umma in the mold of a supplication with which he ascends to the precincts of Allah, Almighty, as a seed of influence. Among that:
a- His beginning with the invocation of blessings upon Muhammad and the Family of Muhammad, placing it in the middle of the supplication, and concluding with the blessings that are exalted above the blessings.. is a consolidation of the doctrinal feature in addressing Allah the Exalted through those upon whom He has commanded us to invoke blessings, and an exposition of the standing of the Ahl al-Bayt (a) in Islam and its acts of worship.
b- In addition to supplicating for them for protection and victory, he supplicates for them for knowledge, learning and insight: (and make known to them what they are ignorant of, teach them what they do not know, and make them see what they do not see).
c - Turning their attention away from materialistic thinking and attachment to desires and the debris of this world, through which Satan and the sultan enter upon them, and directing them toward concern for Paradise and making it before their eyes and the goal of their aim: (and make them forget, when they meet the enemy, the remembrance of their deceitful, beguiling world, erase from their hearts the passing thoughts of tempting wealth, and place Paradise before their eyes).
d- Highlighting the true goal of the mujahidin and those garrisoned at the frontiers: it is not protecting the sultan, but protecting Islam and the Muslims. He said: “O Allah, and any Muslim who is concerned about the affair of Islam, and saddened by the people of polytheism banding together against them, and so intends to go on campaign, or resolves upon jihad, but weakness keeps him sitting, or poverty slows him down, or an event delays him from it, or an obstacle presents itself to him, preventing his intention—then write his name among the worshippers, make obligatory for him the reward of the mujahidin, and place him in the ranks of the martyrs and the righteous”.
5 - The Supplication Is a Method of Opposition
The Supplication for the People of the Frontiers is opposition to the oppressors and an exposure of the prevailing reality of tyranny in the mold of supplication—something that bewilders the tyrants and makes them unable to treat him as they treat the other opponents of the regime, with prison or killing; for their objecting to a supplication that carries no names or identifying marks would be shameful and a stand against Islamic acts of worship. So the Imam (a) seized on the supplication to strip bare the ruling authority, through setting out, in the text of the supplication, the attributes of the commander, his aims in jihad and the qualities he needs.
He said in his supplication: “O Allah, and any warrior from the people of Your creed who campaigns against them, or any striver from the followers of Your sunna who strives against them, so that Your religion may be the highest, Your party the strongest and Your share the most complete—then cause him to meet with ease, arrange the affair for him, take charge of him with success, choose companions for him, strengthen his back, be lavish to him in provision, give him the enjoyment of vigor, extinguish from him the heat of longing, protect him from the grief of loneliness, and make him forget the remembrance of family and children. Choose for him good intention, take charge of him with well-being, make safety his companion, release him from cowardice, inspire him with boldness, provide him with firmness, support him with help, teach him the rules of conduct and the sunan, direct him aright in judgment, remove from him showing off, free him from seeking repute, and make his thought and his remembrance, his departing and his staying, in You and for You”.
In conclusion, it becomes clear that the supplication of Imam Zayn al-ʿAbidin (a) for the people of the frontiers has an outward aspect concerning one thing and an inner aspect concerning another, and each of them confirms the other. The outward aspect is that he supplicates for the people of the frontiers of his time—out of taqiyya—and to protect the project of the Mission for building the Umma from within; and this outward aspect proceeds within the Imam’s approach of the Mission in building the Umma, for he conveys to them the true meanings of jihad and of assuming rule, directs their minds to the values of the religion, and indeed alludes critically to the rulers of tyranny by mentioning some of the true attributes of the ruler and the commander.
The inner aspect is so that the supplication may remain a scroll of knowledge for all who strive in the way of Allah and who defend the sanctities of the believers and the sanctity of Islam in all ages; and this aspect is no less important than the first, since it will encompass vast successive generations.
