When we try to sound the depths of the life of the good and pure one, Lady al-Zahraʾ (a), we find that this young woman of eighteen springs possesses, of the keys of the Unseen, what would prove heavy for a band of the saints (awliyāʾ); for Allah singled her out for certain stations and miraculous graces about which it is no exaggeration to say that they are an object of bewilderment and amazement, cause pens to tremble and break, and cause minds to halt and recede.
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Al-Zahraʾ (a), a Window onto the Unseen:
The pure Truthful One (al-Siddiqa) was one of the clearest manifestations of the disclosure of unseen states in the world of the Visible; for what many authentic narrations, mutawātir in wording and meaning, have concurred upon shows that (Fatimah) is not merely an ordinary woman; rather, she has, of the mutual attractions between the world of the Visible and the world of the Unseen, what gives her a special centrality in the lives of the Infallibles (a).
So what do you expect from a woman who did not pass through the journey of loins and wombs, but rather descended directly from the everlasting Garden as an apple that formed in the loins of the Prophet (s) and the breast-bones of Khadija (a), and so became (Fatimah) (a)?!
And what merit do you believe belongs to a woman whose marriage to the Commander of the Faithful (a) was contracted by Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He?
And perhaps, when we see the Messenger of Allah (s)—as the concurring narrations tell us—standing up in reverence and respect for the pure Truthful One, kissing her hand and, in some narrations, kissing her throat whenever he longed for Paradise, these stances carry indications and proofs that al-Zahraʾ (a) is, in heaven and in the world of the Unseen, greater and higher in worth and grandeur than she is on earth.
Al-Zahraʾ (a), the Criterion of the Proofs:
It is well known and accepted that ʿAli (a) is the criterion of faith and hypocrisy; yet the criterion of the depth of faith as against its shallowness in the heart of the believer fell to the share of al-Zahraʾ (a), in addition to her being a criterion of Allah's anger and His pleasure, which is among the clearest of clear matters. Indeed, the meanings of the reports and their explicit wording indicate that al-Zahraʾ (a) has a special supremacy even over the Infallibles (a); for it has been narrated from Imam al-Hasan al-ʿAskari (a): “We are the proofs of Allah over His creation, and Fatimah is the proof of Allah over us”; and in one of the signed letters (tawqīʿāt) of the Holy Quarter (al-Nahiya al-Muqaddasa), there came from Imam al-Hujjah (a) his saying: “And in the daughter of the Messenger of Allah (s) I have a good exemplar..”; in addition to the need for bewildering pauses of contemplation over the referring of the pronouns back to her at the end of the blessed Hadith al-Kisaʾ (They are Fatimah..), which makes her an axis and the pivot of the millstone for identifying the People of the Cloak.
And She Is a Proof over Us:
At the same time, the pure Truthful One (a) is not merely a sacred icon that we hang on our chests and on the walls of our homes; rather, she is a lamp whose ray we place before our eyes so that we may see the path of insight clear and bright. And she is a proof over us: over the scholars and over the common people, over men and women, and over the young and the old.
