The Issue of Quoting Sayyid Sharafid-Din
 

I have been criticized, with regards to this book, when reference was made to Sayyid Sharafid-Dan [Sadr ad-Din al-Masawi] being quoted in the early 1950s as citing an incident involving the assault on the house of al-Zahra’ (A.S.). And when someone was asked about his age at that time, he said that he was 22 or 23 years old. We at that junction stated that since he was born in 1935^[1], he must have been a lot younger. They rumoured that doing so represented accusing the man of being a liar which, in their view, was a very serious crime.

We respond to them with the following:

1) The language of our discussion is one of right and wrong, of hitting or missing the mark. As regarding the catalysts and causes of one falling into error, these are none of our own concern. One who errs is himself responsible for justifying his conduct. We did not apply the language of ethics or of the Shara`a, whether that was among the diction of lying or telling the truth. The intention is that he stated what was not true without having a reason or an excuse for doing so, whether he did or did not intend it to be as such.

2) We were only discussing the nature of the exactness of quoting expressions in an issue that took place forty years ago. Such quoting represents to some people one basis for denying the issue of the assault on the house of al-Zahra’ (A.S.) and the details that followed the incident. He is the one who has said, “When one wishes to remember his childhood through the history which has, to a certain extent, become far-fetched, going back to more than fifty years, it is only natural that such person cannot remember all the details.”^[2] Such a statement is realistically sound.

We have found the truth of such a statement in many issues not only in reference to Sayyid Sharafid-Dan but also in other instances as well. Here we would like to mention the instances wherein error was made with regard to his age, leaving others alone except for one instance, so that they may serve as models telling about others; so, let us state the following:

1. This individual was asked about his age upon graduating from the school and jointing the hawza. “How old were you then?,” he was asked. “I was eleven^[3],” said he. But he, in another instance, talked about himself saying, “... and through that, I sought theological studies at a very early age when, I think, I was nine years old.”^[4]

2. In another instance, he said, “... I can say that I joined the theological hawza in about 1363 A.H. (1944 A.D.) when I was then eleven years old.”^[5]

The difference between both statements is quite obvious. Once he says that he was nine and once that he was eleven; once he thinks and once he is positive! Then we find the difference in the context of the second statement. Had he been born in 1354 A.H.^[6] (1935 A.D.), his age would have then been nine years, not eleven, as he stated in the said text.

3. In the story of the famous incident of the Bi’r al-`Abd explosion, which was a “very serious historical milestone,” according to him, even his “mighty resurgence,”<sup>[7]</sup> according to those who sing his praise, we find him saying, “I was exposed to more than one assassination attempt prior to the failed attempt to which I was exposed in 1984<sup>[8]</sup> in the region of Bi’r al-`Abd.” Yet he also says, “As regarding the explosion of Bi`r al-`Abd of 1984 wherein they tried to assassinate me..., etc.”^[9] The Bi’r al-`Abd explosion took place on March 8, 1985, killing 80 persons,<sup>[10]</sup> and the book titled Tahadda al-Mamnoo` was published in 1992, only seven years after the said massacre. This individual forgot the date of the greatest even that he had to face in his lifetime; so, how can he help forgetting an incident that took place more than forty years ago dealing with a topic which is not one of his concerns, as he himself has said and to which we referred on many occasions?!

4. We also find him saying in another incident, “I started issuing a written magazine titled Al-Adab, and I used to edit it when I was ten or eleven at the time. I used to write an issue whenever a new subscriber was added.”^[11] He also says, “During that time, I published a written magazine titled Al-Adab in which I wrote two articles. I solicited articles from some people, and I tried to write and issue a new edition whenever a new subscriber was added. The late Sayyid Mahdi was a very good writer. I published five issues of this magazine between the years 1949 and 1950.”^[12]

The implication of his latest statement is that he was 13 or 14 years old when he published the said magazine based on his birth year being 1936 A.D. But if he was born in 1935 or in 1934, as is known from what has already been said in the text and in the footnotes, his age would then increase by a year or two to become 14, 15 or 16.