He then praised Allah and sent blessings upon the Prophet (pbuh).

He then praised Allah and sent blessings upon the Prophet (pbuh)...then he addressed Amr Ibn Abeed: ‘O Amr, fear Allah, and you all, also fear Allah.

My father told me, and he was the best of the people of the earth and the most knowledgeable of the book of Allah and the Sunna of His Prophet (pbuh), that the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) said: ‘whoever strikes people with his sword and calls them to himself, while there is someone amongst the Muslims more knowledgeable than him, then he is lost and fake” [^2] Therefore, the authentic narration does not indicate the lack of obligation to defend or the impermissibility of rising up in general.

Rather, it indicates that the one leading the uprising may be making false claims, such as the one who falsely claims to be the Mahdi. It does not speak against an uprising where the invitation is to truth, such as in the uprising of Zayd ibn Ali ibn al-Husain. In short, the authentic narration condemns false claims, while endorsing the true claims.

The Second Narration: the (Marfu’) Narration of Hammad ibn Isa Al-Kulayni narrated through his chain from Hammad ibn Isa from Reb’i, who related it (without a chain of intermediaries) to Ali ibn al-Husain (Zainul Abidin as): “by Allah, none of us will rise before the rising of the Qa’im (atfs) except that he would be like a young bird who flies from his nest before his wings have matured. Young boys will take such a young bird and play with him”.

A similar narration is narrated with a weak chain from Imam al-Sadiq (as) at the beginning of al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyah. As you can see, the chain of narration is incomplete, and this narration would not be considered authoritative except based on the principle of the ‘men of consensus’. In addition to this, the narration is not concerned with setting a legislative ruling and is not saying whether rising against falsehood is permissible or not.

If it was saying that rising against tyranny was impermissible, then the Imam (as) would be faulting the uprising of his father Imam al-Husain (as)! Rather, the narration is predicting the future. What may be meant by the Imam’s words ‘from us’- assuming that the narration was in fact narrated from him- is specifically the twelve Imams (as), meaning that whichever of the Imams rises before the Qa’im would not be victorious because the circumstances would not be suitable.