What Shaikh al-Mufid Intended to Say in His Book Titled Al-Irshad

 

Someone says that Shaikh al-Mufid, may Allah sanctify his resting place, has said the following: “There are among the Shi`as those who say that Fatima, peace and blessings of Allah be upon her, miscarried a boy after the demise of the Prophet (A.S.) whom the Messenger of Allah (A.S.) named, when he was in his mother’s womb, as `Muhassan.’ So, according to this sect, the children of the Commander of the Faithful (A.S.) are twenty-eight in number, and Allah knows best.”^[1]

Sayyid al-Aman has cited this statement by Shaikh al-Mufid in his book titled A`yan Al-Shi`ah, and so did al-Majlisi in his book titled Bihar al-Anwar as well as others.

If Shaikh al-Tusi was transmitting the consensus of the Shi`as that `Omer hit Fatima’s stomach till she miscarried Muhassan, and the narrative is famous among them,^[2] Shaikh al-Mufid, then, contradicts al-Tusi, his contemporary and professor, and his statement gives the impression that he basically does not adopt the notion of such a miscarriage.

The answer to the above is as follows:

 

FIRST: The said statement does not indicate that al-Mufid contradicted al-Tusi in this regard because the word “Shi`a” used to be applied during al-Mufid’s time to many sects such as the Zaidis, Isma`alites, Imamites and others, actually even the Mu`tazilites who used to rule Baghdad and who permitted the commemoration of `ashara’ in the well known way since then. The opponents of the Shi`as used to call the latter “Rafidis.”

Al-Nawbakhti, in his book titled Firaq al-Shi`a, al-Ash`ari in his book titled Al-Maqalat wal Firaq, and Shaikh al-Mufid himself in Al-Fusal al-Mukhtara, have all discussed this issue; so, whoever wishes to see the details should refer to them and to other books dealing with schisms and sects. The honorable `allama al-Mazandarani al-Khawajoo’i has rebutted those who claimed that the word “Shi`a” was applied particularly to those who believed in Ali’s Imamate even if he does not believe in other Imams saying, “This is strange and is indicative of the limited knowledge of one’s research. There is an indication in many narratives that the Zaidis, Waqfis and their likes were also called Shi`as.”^[3]

Imam al-Sadiq, peace be upon him, is quoted as having said, “`Omer ibn Yazid talked about the Shi`as in detail,” adding, “`There will be among the Shi`as after us those who are worse than the Nasibis.’ I said, `May I be your sacrifice! Don’t they claim that they love you and dissociate themselves from your enemy?’ He said, `Yes..., etc.’”^[4]

Al-Mufid here does not want to attribute the narrative of al-Muhassan’s miscarriage to all the Shi`as in the general sense but rather to the Imamites in particular. He, may Allah have mercy on him, may have chosen the term “sect” after that to identify a sect from among the Shi`as that narrates the same, not all the sects labelled as “Shi`as.”

What is noteworthy is that he, may Allah have mercy on him, did not say, “Some Shi`as narrate a tradition...,” but he rather said, “Among the Shi`as are those who state that Fatima, peace of Allah be upon her, miscarried after the demise of the Prophet (A.S.)..., etc.” He, may Allah be merciful to him, did not point out to one hadith or more, nor did he point out to the size of the sect that says so from among the Shi`as in as far as their number is concerned. Rather, he pointed out to the fact that it is accurate to call them a “sect” when he said, “According to what this sect says..., etc.”

Shaikh al-Tusi, may Allah have mercy on him, is called the sect’s Mentor, meaning the sect of the Imamites, not of all the Shi`as.

 

SECOND: The time during which al-Mufid, may Allah have mercy on him, lived was very precarious and one of the harshest of all centuries in the history of the Shi`as of Ahl al-Bayt (A.S.). Dissensions broke out anew every year on the anniversary of Al-Ghadir and particularly on the occasion of `ashara’ when the Shi`as commemorated events which their opponents, from among the fanatical Hanbalites of Baghdad, could not tolerate. Those opponents, therefore, used to assault them and many calamities and catastrophes as well as massacres resulted as we explained in the first part of our book titled Sira` al-Hurriyya fa `Asr al-Mufid. In some years, they set fire to the homes of the Shi`as in the Karkh area, killing eighteen thousand or, according to Ibn Khaldan, twenty thousand children, youths and women.

He, may Allah have mercy on him, wanted to deal with the issues wisely and be precise. He aspired to write his book titled Al-Irshad, which he wrote near the close of his life, as a book containing, in addition to precision and scholarly honesty, historical accounts accepted by everyone, so that everyone would benefit from it. He did not want it to be anything but defining an event by its details, away from sectarianism. He even transcends the sectarian limitations and fanaticism in order to make it a book for all people.

It is for this reason that he did not mention in it noteworthy provocative and sensitive issues. He even did not include anything about the details of the incident of the saqifa or anything relevant to swearing the oath of allegiance to Abu Bakr^[5]. It seems that he did not include the said incident in the realm of his balanced policies which contemplated upon the circumstances and environments and dealt with them realistically, with responsibility and awareness.

As regarding Shaikh al-Tusi, he had a book to defend specifically Imamite Shi`as because Al-Shafi contains the rebuttal by Sayyid al-Murtada to what the Mu`tazilite judge `Abd al-Jabbar had stated, so al-Tusi, may Allah have mercy on him, summarized it. Al-Tusi, then, like Sayyid al-Murtada, had written a book as an Imamite defending his sect, proving its validity. He wanted to get to the defining line that separated him from others. But Shaikh al-Mufid wanted his book, Al-Irshad, to transcend such lines to be a book of chronicles for everyone who could take a look at it and benefit from it without feeling any embarrassment or being charged.

If the Imamites are the only ones with such consensus, rather than all others from among Shi`a sects, such as the Isma`alites, Zaidis, etc., it is not then right that al-Mufid should attribute it to non-Imamite sects which have no consensus in its regard.

It is noteworthy that al-Mufid, may Allah have mercy on him, avoided stirring fanaticism on one hand, and on the other he tried to point out to a very sensitive issue in a very indirect and clever way, proving the existence of a stillborn whom the Prophet (A.S.) named “Muhassan,” leaving to the reader the task to research the fate of that boy...

 

THIRD: The claim that al-Mufid contradicts al-Tusi in this regard will be dealt with when we answer the following question and prove that he did not contradict him at all but agreed with him; so, there is no need to rush it now.