These 12 Imams will cover till the day of resurrection as Sahih Muslim testifies.

These 12 Imams will cover till the day of resurrection as Sahih Muslim testifies. The last of them is surely Imam al-Mahdi (AS) who will appear in the last days and who is also from Ahlul-Bayt as the above tradition specified. There are other traditions in the Sunni collections in which the Prophet (PBUHH) has even mentioned the name of all these twelve individuals one by one. (see Yanabi’ al-Mawaddah, by al-Qundoozi al-Hanafi).

Referring to the tradition narrated by Aisha where the Messenger of Allah named the members of his house, a Sunni brother commented that Aisha is by no means a trusted source of Hadith for the Shia. Then why do the Shia take her narration in this instance? The first part is true. The Shia believe that all the narrators in the chain of a document should have been just.

If Aisha used to argue with the Prophet, and keep him angry for the whole day, or led the battle of Camel (the first civil war) then we consider these as BIG injustice. If any narrator has done any injustice in history, their narrations are void for us UNLESS the same tradition has been narrated via another chain of authorities who are all trustworthy. Thus, some of the traditions of the six Sunni collections fall in this category, i.e., accepted for us.

Although Aisha is not a trustworthy narrator in the opinion of the Shi’ites, any part of his narrations that has also been transmitted by trustworthy narrators such as Umm Salama (who also, by the way, reported the tradition of Cloak), will be accepted. All those traditions which we quoted from Sunni sources in support of the Shi’ite views, fall in this category, and we believe in them.

Moreover, the reason that we brought up the tradition of Aisha is that this is a tradition which is reported in Sahih Muslim and the Sunnis cannot dispute its authenticity. After reading my article on the necessity of following Ahlul-Bayt, a Sunni brother asked me what exactly following Ahlul-Bayt means, and is there anything which is taught by the Imams and not explained by the Prophet himself?

As we have pointed out, following Ahlul-Bayt means to inquire about the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUHH) only through them. In fact, Ahlul-Bayt are THE MEANS of identifying the true Sunnah of the Prophet from the innovations. No doubt that the Prophet (PBUHH) explained all the fundamentals of the religion. However, people around him did not benefit from his knowledge equally.