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The Scholarly Jihad of the Imams (2) - Al-Shia The Scientific and Cultural Website of Shia belief The Scholarly Jihad of the Imams (2) 2023-04-02 442 Views Jihad In continuation of the discussions titled “The Scholarly Jihad of the Imams”, we shall focus on other relevant issues on the topic in this article. Then came al-Mansur (13S158/754-775) whose only aim in life, it seems, was to kill every descendant of ‘Ali.

The Shi’is in general, and the ‘Alawites in particular, were persecuted more brutally than they were during the reign of the Umayyads. He put even more hindrances in the way of the Imam. “He forbade the people to go to the Imam, and forbade the Imam to sit (outside) to receive the people, and put the utmost pressure on him.

So much so that if a problem appeared in a Shi’ites life concerning, for example, marriage, divorce or some other matter, and he had no knowledge of the rule of the sharia about it, he could not reach the Imam, and, as a result, the man and the wife had to separate. (1) After a long period, al-Mansur allowed the Imam to benefit the people with his divine knowledge, (2)but there were always spies to report his words and answers. Therefore, the Imam had to be cautious in his discourses.

In short, the period of freedom had gone, so far as the Shi’is were concerned. Anyhow, this period coincided with the movement of free thinking which had started in the Muslim world. Arabs came in contact with the older civilizations of Iran, Syria and Egypt, and became acquainted with Zoroastrian and Manichean beliefs and Greek philosophy. Some books had already been translated from Greek and other languages.

Many scholars adopted strange beliefs and foreign ideas and spread them among the common people. One finds a bewildering plethora of new sects mushrooming. Atheism was openly advocated even in the great mosque of the Ka’ba; the Murji’ites, by saying that faith is not affected by deeds, supported the tyrannies of the rulers; the “exaggerators” ( ghulat ) claimed divinity for this or that human being (even the Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq was believed to be God by Abul Khattab).

The Kharijites declared that all Muslims who were opposed to them were infidels; The Sufis adopted some ideas from Christian monks and Hindu ascetics and led people away from Islamic monotheism; the traditionalists flooded the Muslim world with forged traditions. In short, there was a deluge of anti-Islamic ideals and ideas which inundated true Islam.