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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Fifty Lessons on Principles of Belief for Youths Lesson 39: The Twelve Imams The Traditions on the Twelve Imams After proving imamate and the caliphate of Imam ‘Ali, peace be upon him, we will mention the Traditions in relation to the other Imams. There are repeated Traditions in the Sunni and Shi’ite books in our hands today which speak about caliphate of the twelve imams and caliphs after the Holy Prophet.

These can be found in many of the famous Traditions of the Sunnis, like Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Tarmadi, Muslim Sahih Abu Dawoud and Musnad Ahmad. In the book Muntakhib al-A thar , there are 271 Traditions in this area which have been recorded and a large part of them are from Sunni scholars.

As an example, the Sahih Bukhari , the most famous book of the Sunnis says, “Jabir ibn Samarah says, ‘I heard the Prophet say, “There will be twelve leaders after me.” Then he said, ‘I heard that my father said he heard Prophet say, “They will be from the Quraysh..” ( Bukhari , part 9, Kitab al-Maqadam , p. 100).

In Sahih Muslim , this same Tradition has been recorded in this way that Jabir says, “I heard the Prophet Say ‘Islam will always be dear until twelve caliphs and successors.” Then he said something which I did not understand. I asked my father and he said, ‘The Prophet said, “They are all from the Quraysh.” ( Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-amanah, bab al-mal tih ‘1-quraysh ).

In Musnad Ahmad it has been recorded from Abdallah ibn Mas’ud, a famous companion, that he asked the Prophet about his vicegerents. He said, “They are twelve people like the Israeli tribes who were twelve people.”( Musnad Ahmad , vol. 1, p. 398).

The Meaning of this Tradition In some books of the Traditions, the power of Islam is referred to as being a pawn in the twelve caliphs and in others, the survival and life of religion are in the hands of a group of them until the Day of Resurrection and all are from the Quraysh. In some, all of them are mentioned as being of the Bani Hashim.

However it be, this Tradition does not conform to any sect except the Shi’ite because its explanation is very clear according to Shi’ism where the ulama of the Sunnis are at an impasse trying to explain it. Does it refer to the first four caliphs and then the Umayyid and Abbasid caliphs? Whereas we know that the number of the first caliphs were twelve, but they did not end with the Umayyids or the Abbasids and the number twelve does not conform to anything.