ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Saqifa The Prophet's Stand Toward the Caliphate 1-whether the Prophet was knowing about the affair of the caliphate? Do you see yourself inclined to believe that the Prophet had no knowledge of the affairs that were to betide after his death; the differences and the incidents for the sake of caliphate? Do you reckon him negligent about what should have been done in this respect? If you are so prone, then I have nothing to address you.

My dear reader, you better put aside the book and do not bear with me till the end of discussion. I assume my reader a Muslim who believes in the Prophet and in his mission besides his acquaintance with the proprieties of a prophet, which serves a repudiation of such a maggot. He who embraces Islam with a tilt of belief should have had been proved to him that the Messenger had revealed more than once the events that would overtake the nation after us death.

He said repeatedly: "My nation will be divided into seventy three factions; a faction is safe while the rest in the fire." Moreover he did not make any exemption among his companions. What he said is this; they shall enter the fire for heir disowning and turning back on their heels, or come to him at the pool and shall shiver for what they did after his earth.

In some narration's he is quoted to have said: "They remained pagans upon their own hind disowning the faith ever since I departed them."4 He had disclosed that the traditions that proceeded they allowed inch by inch so arduously as to enter the hole of mastigure. As for caliphate he pointed out that it would turn after thirty years into a property attractive enough to be held under gritted teeth; and the twelve Imams, all of them from Quraish, shall survive in that atmosphere.

Finally, he hinted: "He who does not know the Imam of his time shall die a death of ignorance (i.e. in a state prior to Islam)." Anyway, his conversations and his conduct establish clearly his knowledge of the difference that his nation will fall in. Hence, the caliphate or the IMAMAT was his first concern. 2- Did the Prophet contrive a solution to the difference?

So, the Prophet was cognizant that the time will turn a page upon his nation fraught with divisions, differences, travails and tests; and then the suzerainty shall be their need.