Still, he wouldn’t abandon precaution, always kept the Imam...
Still, he wouldn’t abandon precaution, always kept the Imam under the surveillance of his secret officers, and would create difficulties for him in various ways. In the end he was still unable to bear the existence of the Imam, since he viewed the method the Imam had adopted as dangerous for his government; for this very reason he martyred him. Harun adopted the same method.
He held Imam Musa al-Kazim (peace be upon him) in prisons and under surveillance for many years, since he knew the Shi‘a consider both positions of spiritual and worldly leadership as belonging to the Imam. As opposed to this, the role and conduct of the Imams (peace be upon them), which was a cause of the protection of Shi‘a thought and Islamic laws, was very important. It is possible to regard it as their miracle, and such action was not possible except through special Divine instruction.
Amir al-Mu’minin (peace be upon him) and Imam Hasan (peace be upon him) adopted their particular policies, while Imam Husayn (peace be upon him) undertook his great uprising. In the same way, the remaining Imams (peace be upon them) each acted in a particular fashion.
If they were not to do so, no path or method opposed to those tyrannous policies would be able to survive under such annihilating strikes; yet we see that the school of Shiaism survived and even until today is known in the world as the symbol of true Islam and the herald of a just world government.
One point worth noting is that all of the Imams (peace be upon him) would promise that spiritual, intellectual, and practical leadership would in the future – in the age of the reappearance of Imam Mahdi (may Allah hasten his return) (peace be upon him) – be united with political leadership, which hitherto was usurped by the oppressive rulers, and under the shadow of that leadership, all of Islam’s goals will be achieved.
[^1]: Surah al-Ma’idah (5), Verse 55 [^2]: Surah an-Nisa’ (4), Verse 59 [^3]: Surah al-Anbiya’ (21), Verse 73 Previous…