Taqīyah is not doing nothing...

Taqīyah is not doing nothing, but it is doing everything needed in secret; and in all its kinds, it is a kind of holy struggle and defense. We read in hadiths, “Taqīyah is a part of my faith and my fathers', and no one is faithful unless he practices taqīyah [if needed]”;9 “Nine tenth of the religion is in taqīyah, and no one follows the religion unless he practices taqīyah”;10 “The faithful should be like descendants of Imam Ali.

The faithful should be a [holy] struggler, but you are recommended to perform the practice of taqīyah under an illegitimate government and to fight full-frontally under a legitimate one.”11 Taqīyah has been the reason for Shi'a's survival against all illegitimate rulers and arrogant powers.

The history of Imams' taqīyah is the key to understand the history of Shi'a, and without it, Imams' movement will not be analyzable while it will also be considered as non-systematic, non-strategic, weak and cowardly. Inevitably, we have to cose this issue with three hadiths from Imam 'Ali (A.S), Imam Hādī (A.S) and Imam 'Askarī (A.S) about the importance of taqīyah.

Referring to the what happened after the demise of the , Imam Ali (A.S) states: “…I sat aside and thought whether I have to fight without hands or I must be patient with the blind unknowingness. This unknowingness which kills the old, ages the child and grinds the faithful down in pain till he meets his Lord. I found patience with this all better and wiser. So I tolerated with wet eyes and aching throat; while I was watching my heritage being robbed.”12 And that is the very Imam 'Ali's taqīyah.

He had to forbear in loneliness. Imam Hādī (A.S) told Dāwūd Sarumī: “O' Dāwūd! I would have been right if I had stated that the one who ignores taqīyah is like the one who leaves daily prayer”.13 In this tradition, giving up taqīyah is compared to giving up the prayer.

Imam 'Askarī (A.S) told one of his Shi'ites who had advised his friend to practice taqīyah: “You are the exemplar of what the Prophet (p.b.w.h) stated that: One who advises another to the good, it is as though he himself has done it.” Then Imam (A.S) continued: God gave him reward for the sake of your friend's taqīyah as to the number of those who practiced it and those who gave it up (rightly) from among our followers and Shi'ites, as if the slightest amount of those rewards would absolve sins committed in a hundred years.