ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Shi'ah Are (the Real) Ahl Al-sunnah Chapter 24 :taqlid and Maraji According To Shi as Every Muslim adult, as long as he is not a mujtahid, that is, one capable of deriving religious rulings from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah, is obligated to follow a religious authority who combines in him the requirements of knowledge, justice, piety, asceticism and the fear of Allah in accordance with the verse saying, "So ask the followers of the Reminder if you do not know" (Holy Qur'an, 16:43).

If we research this subject, we will find out that Imamite Shi`as have kept up with the sequence of events, with no interruption in their chain of maraji` (religious authorities), since the demise of the Prophet and till our time. Shi`as continue to follow the Twelve Imams from , peace be upon them. The actual presence of these Imams continued for more than three centuries uninterruptedly without anyone of them contradicting the other in anything he said.

This is due to the fact that the texts related to the Shari`a are always derived from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah. These have always been their reference. They followed neither analogy nor their own views.

Had they done so, the disagreement among them would have become obvious to everyone as is the case with the followers of "Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama`a." We conclude from the above that any sect of "Ahl al-Sunnah wal Jama`a," be it Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i, or Hanbali, is based on the views of one man who was distant from the time when the Message was revealed; he had no direct link with the Prophet at all.

As for the sect of Imamite Shi`as, it is consecutive from the Twelve Imams who descended from the Prophet: the son quotes his father, and so on.

One of them, namely Imam Ja`far al-Sadiq, says, "The hadith I narrate is that of my father and grandfather, and the hadith of my grandfather is the hadith of the Commander of the Faithful Ali ibn Abu Talib who quotes the Messenger of Allah, and the hadith of the Messenger of Messenger of Allah is that of Gabriel, peace be upon him, which is the speech of the Almighty." Had it not been from anyone other than Allah, they would have found in it a great deal of discrepancy.

(Holy Qur'an, 4:82) Then came the post-occultation period of the Infallible Imam. This period has referred people to follow the learned faqih among them who combines in him all the conditions listed above.