ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Concept of Combat in the Life of Imams Intellectual Decadence Besides this atmosphere of horror, another feature of this era was intellectual decadence of the people throughout the Islamic world. This intellectual depravity stemmed from the neglect of the religious teachings during the preceding two decades.

Since the religious teachings, exegesis of the holy Quran, and traditions of the Prophet (S) had been strictly forbidden between 40 and 60 H., the pillars of the people's faith had been weakened seriously. When we study the conditions of those days among the lines of the books and traditions, this issue becomes quite transparent.

Of course, the clerics, religious scholars, exegetes, transmitters of tradition, and pious people were there, but the public was inflicted with faithlessness, indolence and weakness. The situation had so aggravated that even some staff of the Caliphate system dared to question the issue of Prophethood!

A mean, dirty stooge of the Umayyad, Khalid ibn Abdullah Qasri has been quoted as saying: "Caliphate is superior to the Prophethood." In order to support his argument, he gave the following reason: "When you appoint someone as your representative in your family, is he closer to you, or someone whom you send as a messenger to take a message for you?" "Apparently," he argued, "the one whom you appoint as your representative in your home." "Hence," he would conclude, "the Caliph of God [he would not say the Caliph of the Prophet] is superior to the messenger of God"!

This statement was made by Khalid ibn Qasri; probably others subscribed to his viewpoint. I have noticed that in the poems composed during the Umayyad and Abbasside eras, from Abdul Malik onward, the concept of Khalifatullah (the caliph or representative of God) has been so frequently repeated that one forgets that the Caliph was the Caliph of the Prophet as well. This trend continued until the Abbasside era.

This concept was used in a poem of Bashar ibn Bard who satirized Yaqub ibn Davoud and Mansur: "O people, your caliphate has been destroyed; try to find the Caliph of God between wood and skin."[^1] Even when he wanted to satirize the Caliph, he would say the Caliph of God! The renowned poets of this period, like Jarir, Farazdaq, Nasib and others, used to call the ruler, "the Caliph of God" in the eulogies they composed in the praise of the caliph!