ভূমিকা

' As mentioned earlier, 'Mastership and love' is the soul of Islam and the reality of faith. In a tradition, mentioned above, Imam Sadiq (a.s.) has elucidated the meaning of Allah's satisfaction and His anger, war with Him, obeying Him, becoming a cause of regret to Him, distancing oneself from Him, etc. The gist of this tradition was that when any of these actions - obedience, regret, anger, war, is performed against Allah's chosen ones and His friends, Allah ascribes these actions to Himself.

For instance, obeying the وَلي of Allah amounts to Allah's obedience, distancing (برائت) oneself from the ولي of Allah is tantamount to distancing oneself from Allah Himself, and war with the ولي of Allah, is equal to going to war against Allah Himself. In light of the above discussion, we can say that helping Allah actually means helping His friends. By this interpretation, one who helps the Imams (a.s.), has in fact helped Allah Himself.

Then the promise of Allah's help will extend to all those who help his ولي Imam al-Asr (a.t.f.s.). Thus, helping the Imam (a.t.f.s.) is one of the most crucial duties of the Shias accompanied with correct Mastership and recognition of Ahlul Bayt (a.s.). Of course, in the time of occultation, it is not easy to help Imam (a.t.f.s.) as compared to assisting him while he is physically present.

Hence, in the discussion of awaiting, we propounded the idea of the intention to help Imam (a.t.f.s.) and explained that according to traditions, one who sincerely intends to help Imam (a.t.f.s.) while he is in occultation, Allah will reward Him purely on his intention. So one who sincerely intends to help Imam (a.t.f.s.), must do so under any pretext and to whatever extent possible. One way of helping Imam (a.t.f.s.) in occultation, is by supporting him with the tongue.