Nobody ever reported that any Imam was slow in providing the...

Nobody ever reported that any Imam was slow in providing the answer to any question put forth to him, a question which dealt with various branches of knowledge and with different issues, despite the fact that some of them were actually not old enough to provide such answers.

The Amali of Sayyid al-Murtada narrates the following: Abu Hanifa said: "I saw once Musa ibn Ja’far (a.s.) as a young boy in the corridor of his father's house and I asked him: `Where does a stranger among you respond to the call of nature if he has to?' He looked up at me and said: `He goes behind a wall, hides from the view of the neighbor, keeps a distance from running rivers, residential sewers, highways, mosques, without facing the Qibla or leaving it behind him; then he turns, raises, and deposits as he pleases.'" Abu Hanifa continues to say: "Having heard these answers, I saw him to be a nobler person than I first thought, and his status grew greater.

Then I asked him: `May my life be sacrificed for yours; what is the source of renunciation?' He looked up at me and said: `Sit down and I tell you about it.' So I sat down, and he said this to me: `Renunciation comes either from the servant, or his Lord, or from both. If it were from the Almighty God, He is more just and fair than renouncing or wronging His servant or punishing him for what he did not do.

And if it were to come from both of them, He would be his accomplice, and the strong One is more apt to do justice to His weak servant. If it comes from the servant alone, he is to bear its burden, and he should be the one to forbid, and for him is the reward and punishment, and for him were both Paradise and Hell prepared.' I said (citing the Holy Qur'an): `... a progeny, one from another...'"2 .

But some Imams, such as Imam al-Jawad, Imam al-Hadi, and Imam al-Askari (a.s.), were not old enough to be acquainted with various branches of knowledge and fields of arts, had we claimed that their knowledge was the product of the tutoring of tutors or the teaching of teachers, but they were a progeny, one from another, as Abu Hanifa said, that derived knowledge from the substance of the Message and the Fountainhead of Prophethood.

That was a distinction for which the Almighty chose them from among His creation in order to make them light-poles of the path of guidance, and to make the word of faith and righteousness through them the uppermost throughout the world.