In the third part of the article, Allamah’s 20-minute speech at the Turkish conference is titled: the similarity of the hadiths of the Prophet with the imams of the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them), the transmission of the knowledge of the Prophet to the imams of the Ahl al-Bayt (peace be upon them), the book of Imam Ali and… and in this section, we discuss Allamah Askari’s debate and his objection to the management of the meeting. The debate After finishing the speech, the chairman of the meeting said: In the third session of this meeting, due to Allamah’s illness, we set forward his turn and Allamah announced his opinions. Now it is Dr. Mustafa Oz’s turn. Dr. Ozak: I would like to thank Allamah Askari for his speech. He said: The Prophet taught the Qur’an privately to Imam Ali (AS) and taught him other things besides the Qur’an. This information was written in a book called Al-jami’a by Imam Ali (AS) and passed down from him to Umm Salamah and from him to Imam Hassan and Husayn (AS) and to Imam Sajjad (AS) and from them to Imam Baqir (AS). Imam Baqir (AS) used this book to establish and publish the Ahl al-Bayt school. And Ahl al-Bayt refer their knowledge to this book. This book, which is several cubits long, forms the basis of the knowledge of Ahl al-Bayt (AS). The books Al-Usul al-arba’ami’a originated from this book. After that, “Al-Kafi and Man La Yahduruhu al-Faqih and Al-Tahdhib and Al-Istibsar” originated from this book. Of course, this is a specific Shiite opinion. Here, Allamah has no opinion on the issue of “Sunnah and Hadith from the Shiite point of view”. Shia says: “The words of the infallible imams are hadith and sunnah because they are infallible.” They are like the infallible Prophet, so their actions, words and behavior are completely Sunnah and Hadith, while Master Allameh Askari does not mention these two subjects. Of course, whether or not the Prophet (PBUH) taught Imam Ali (AS) other things besides the Qur’an is a vague issue that deserves discussion. Shia claims that apart from this, some belongings of the Prophet (PBUH), such as his sword and armor, are in the hands of the imams, and there is no consensus on this issue in the foundations of Shia. It must be said that the claim of imams infallibility is one of the issues that Shia really have a hard time proving. Especially the issue of 12 Imams is one of the issues that is very difficult to prove for Shia. Especially documents to someone whose existence is doubtful [1] and not fully confirmed make the issue more ambiguous. Allamah said that there is weak hadiths in Kafi. We know that there are two schools in Shia: one is Usuli and the other is Akhbaris. According to Akhbaris (who are very bigoted), everything that exists in the four books is hadith and sunnah, and there is no room for debate or objection. But the Usulis consider these contents to be criticized, and Allamah accepts this, and his acceptance is a beautiful thing in our opinion. Chairman: Now it is the turn of Mr. Matin Yorda Gora: Matin Yorda Gora: Mr. Chairman, dear audience and dear listeners! Hello to all let’s start with the name of God. First of all, I want to thank Allamah Askari for his speech about the “place of tradition in religion” from the Shiite point of view. The issue of Sunnah in Shia is related to texts, wills, and infallibility. Of course, it will be very useful to explain the differences between Shia and Sunni, and I will try to address some of these points. Allamah said that Shiites refer to the Qur’an, the Sunnah of the Prophet and the four books regarding the principles of religion and rulings. It is fortunate that Shia also accept the Sunnah as the second source after the Qur’an. But in this point, it should be considered that according to Shi’a, the fatwa of the four books is directly connected to the Prophet, and therefore its contents should be considered to be derived from revelation. Therefore, everything that is in the four books should be accepted without questions.
Citing the verses of Tathir (Verse of purification), the Hadith of the thaqalayn and the case of Ghadir Khumm, Shia considers the twelve imams infallible and believes that all divine information reaches the next imam either through direct inspiration or through the will of the previous imam, and therefore whatever comes from them, It is completely proof and cannot be called just a narration. Allama also pointed to this matter and said that: All Shia beliefs are directly considered as the Prophet’s order. Sunnah used to be called hadiths and observed actions of the Prophet, but later the actions and words heard from the Prophet (indirectly) and the things he avoided were also called Sunnah. According to this, it can be said that the Sunnah is the interpretation of God’s Book that has reached us through the actions and words of the Prophet. In this case, the Shia have distanced themselves from the Sunnis, because in the opinion of the Shia, the justice of the Companions, who are the most important transmitters of this tradition, is questioned, and only the hadiths that come through a certain stratum (Ahl al-Bayt and their Shia) are correct. Yes, Imam Ali had a special place among the esteemed Companions with knowledge of the Qur’an, Hadith, and especially in the field of jurisprudence, since Imam Ali spent a lot of time with the Prophet, most of the narrations in the books of the Sunnis were narrated through Imam Ali which is similar to the image and supplications of the Prophet. Sunnis also accept that Imam Ali had learned a special prayer from the Prophet, and always kept it in the scabbard of his sword, but as it has come down to us from Imam Ali himself, this prayer includes commands related to ransom for saving Muslim captives from the The enemy and hurmat (forbidden to do) of killing a Muslim because of an infidel and the Islamic limits of Madinah which are related to the the Two Holy Mosques and such information. But the Shiites are not satisfied with this and attribute other things such as imamate, and righteousness (in the case of the caliphate) to Imam Ali, which is contrary to the texts of the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Unfortunately, we see the continuation of the same practice in the preaching of the respected Allamah. “Al-Jami’a” was dictated by the Prophet to Imam Ali and this book contains secrets related to the future and the solution of all political issues, it has been handed down from one imam to another imam, and the source of the four books is only this book. and the Shia, referring to this source, call all the contents of the four books in one word authentic and absolute hadith, so the contents mentioned at the end of Allamah’s statements are very notable for the Sunni community. Chairman: Now, we request that Allamah give us 5 minutes. The way of answering the debate and the reason: Two scholars had tried to question the most important Shiite beliefs as a debate. I was writing down what I had to answer and I was pleased that he himself caused me to express this aspect of Shia beliefs in this important conference with solid arguments. I had planned to say in his answer: It is not what you say. (Shia do not take the Prophet’s Sunnah from the Companions and take it from the Imams because they consider them infallible, while their infallibility is not proven). The truth is, a group of Muslims take the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) only from the Companions and consider all of them righteous. And some groups take the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) from the righteous and the just companions and from the Imams of Ahl al-Bayt. What we read about the Companions in the Holy Qur’an, they were the ones who in ifk story attributed adultery to the Prophet’s (PBUH) wife and they were also the ones who heard the sound of drums and trumpets for the arrival of the merchandise while the Prophet (PBUH) was delivering the Friday Khutba and except for thirteen men and eight women, they left the Prophet (PBUH) in that state and left the Prophet’s Mosque towards the trade caravan.
I was ready to answer. And since this answer with the reason for it needed more than an hour and after their debate was over and they gave me five minutes to answer, everything became clear to me and I understood that this conference was held by the Wahhabis and kept the Turks unaware, to issue a resolution at the end and argue:
The Sunnah of the Prophet can be taken from the Companions who understood what the Prophet (PBUH) said. And the Shias do not take the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) from the Companions, but they take their religious teachings from the Imams, because they consider them infallible and that they are inspired by God.
And these beliefs are not true, and the existence of one of the imams ( Hujjat Ibn al-Hassan (AS) [Imam mahdi] ) is not true for them to learn something from him, so they do not follow the Sunnah of the Prophet. So they are not from the Muslim Ummah. And a story like this happened to me during a Hajj trip:
They informed us that they planned to raise the issue of Mut’a in the conference they hold after the completion of the Hajj rituals in the (Islamic world relation) to discuss “women’s rights in Islam” and at the end of it they stated a resolution that In the matter of Mut’a Shia , acts against the Sunnah of the Prophet and They follow the consensus of Muslims and are outside the Islamic nation.
But due to a dispute between him and Mohammad Ghazali, the chairman of the meeting, the meeting broke up and the people dispersed and did not reach a conclusion. I considered this conference to be the same as that conference where they want to issue a resolution against Shia at the end of the conference.
And for this reason, they invited only one shia person and also set the time of my speech as 20 minutes, thinking that if i read from the text and in 20 minutes I won’t be able to read more than one third of the papers and I will not reach the conclusion!
When they saw that I was summarizing the discussion, they wanted to interrupt my speech as a translation into Turkish, while there were scientists who were familiar with the Arabic language, and all the speeches were translated on the phone during the speech, so I did not accept my speech to be interrupted to translate into Turkish
And I decided to make the intention of those who want to issue a resolution against the Shia clear to those present so that they will no longer be able to issue a resolution against the Shia. And I stated their intention clearly, but I did not mention the name of Shia and I repeated and said:
You want to pass judgment against me?! And I was planning to make this clear to the attendees, as much as I could so they would let me answer the criticisms for more than five minutes.
With all these things in mind, I said out loud:
Is it fair that debaters debate and I only have five minutes to respond?! Is this fair? What should I do and say at this time? It is very unfortunate.
Chairman of the meeting: The best speech is short and expressive.
I do not have anything to say!! Chairperson: (we don’t have time)
If you don’t give enough time to respond, then why are you objecting? Why did you give me twenty minutes for the main point of my argument, is this fair?!
The Start of answering:
Then, in response to the problems and objections of the two debaters, I said:
First of all, I did not discuss infallibility here (for you to bring up), this is another discussion that is mentioned in the book “Maalem al-Madrasatain” and I will give this book to anyone who wants it;
Also, I did not talk about the Imamate, because talking about the Imamate and the Caliphate is a departure from the topic of discussion, it has no place in this conference, but the fact that I said that there are weak hadiths in the Book of Kafi does not mean that the Book of Kafi is invalid.
God says: But [on one occasion] when they saw a transaction or a diversion, [O Muḥammad], they rushed to it and left you standing. (al-jumu’ah_11)
Also among the Companions was a group that mede the Prophet’s (PBUH) camel get out of control in the dark night in the Mountain Pass with the intention of assassinating the Prophet (PBUH). During the time of the Prophet (PBUH), there were hypocrites among the Companions whose hypocrisy was hidden. And God says about them: And among those around you of the bedouins are hypocrites, and [also] from the people of Madīnah. They have persisted in hypocrisy. You, [O Muḥammad], do not know them, [but] We know them. (At-Tawbah_101)
About some of the Companions, the Prophet said: After my death, do not return to the state (of your ignorance), of being disbelievers and killing each other. And he said: I see a group of my companions at the edge of Hawd al-Kawthar, they are struggling in front of me, I say, my Lord, my companions, my companions, the answer comes, you don’t know what they did after you! They apostatized! And they were among the companions of the Prophet (PBUH) who drew swords on each other.
And among the Companions there was a group of hypocrites whom no one knew except God and they were a group about whom God says: Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allāh; and those with him are forceful against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves. You see them bowing and prostrating. (Al-Fat’h_29)
Therefore, we have to examine the situation of the Companions to distinguish between a believer and a hypocrite, and the Prophet taught us the rule for this identification and said:
“No one loves Ali except a believer, and no one hates him except a hypocrite.”
This is why the Shiites do not take the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) from the Companions who are enemies of Ali.
Like Muawiyah and Amr As, who cursed Ali in the Friday prayer sermon and drew a sword on him, and like Dhu al-Samsa from the Kharijites of Nahrwan, and also from the followers like Imran bin Hattan al-Khari, from whom Sheikh Bukhari narrated a hadith from such companions of the Sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh). ) do not take They take the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) from the Companions or followers who are not enemies of Ali.
But the fact that they take the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) from the twelve Imams from the Ahl al-Bayt is because they were the twelve Wasis of the Prophet, that is, that the Lord of the Worlds had appointed Wasis for all the Prophets, who after them were the custodians of the Sharia and the guardianship of the nations after Adam Shith, after Noah, Sam, after Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac, after Moses, Elisha and others, after Jesus, Joshua (peace be upon them all), and God appointed Ali and his eleven children as the Wasis of the Prophet (PBUH).
And the Prophet (PBUH) from the first day of the announcement of the invitation until the day of Ghadir Khum announced that Ali was his Wasi and He propagated the fact that there were twelve of his Wasis in the valid narrations and the most frequent ones, and those narrations only apply to the twelve Imams from the Ahl al-Bayt. I intended to state all the narrations about this in “Maalem al-Madrasatain”, and then state with the reason: God has made the prophets and their Wasis the Imams of mankind and the infallible.
Therefore, we take the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) from the twelve imams because they are the final Wasis of the Prophet and as we have said, and he himself said that we narrate the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) from the jami’a book of Ali and this is clear in our four books.
In this regard, you should research and study the four books and come to a conclusion, and your denial without referring to those books is not a scientific discussion and is far from the dignity of knowledge and scholars.
Our scholars have identified weak hadiths and do not use them. The late Majlisi, in his commentary on Kafi’s book called “Mira’at al-Oqool”, stated the valid and weak hadiths and the reason for their weakness. We take the correct hadith from Kafi instead, So you should not wonder how we cite this book because we said so.
But the issue of caliphate, you exempt us from the issue of caliphate!
We need unity now!
Debater: Well done!
You have invited me from Iran to condemn me? This is far from justice! I did not speak of infallibility. I said that the “Kafo book” says that I got it from Asl Zurarah, and Zurarah says that I got it from Imam Sadiq (AS), and Imam Sadiq says: I got it from the jami’a book.
And the Jami’a was in the handwriting of Ali and the dictation of the Prophet (PBUH). Ali (AS) was with him from the beginning of the revelation in the cave of Hira until the death of the Messenger of God (pbuh).
Another thing is that we take the authentic hadith of the Messenger of God (PBUH) from wherever it is. Just as we take the hadiths of the Messenger of God from the imams, which are written by Ali and from the Messenger of God and, what is the problem with Imam Sadiq (a.s.) having a writing with the handwriting of Ali and the spelling of the Messenger of God?
What prevents us from citing what Ali heard from the Messenger of God (PBUH) and wrote down and reached our imams? What is wrong with this issue? Why? Here the debater interrupts and says:
What is the reason for the existence of this jami’a? This is what the Companions of the four books say: I am narrating from the usul. Even a copy of these original usul, which contains seventeen hadiths, is kept in the library of Tehran University until today.
You should not take the discussion out of its specialized path, you should refer to our hadith books “the four books” and argue with us about their evidence.
But the fact that they say that we don’t take hadiths from Sunni books is a lie and slander. You should refer to the commentary of Sheikh Tusi, the hadiths that he brought from the Companions are more than the hadiths that he narrated from the Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt (AS). I have brought my book “Aqaed al-Islam” here, take it and read it. As you see, I have narrated from both Shia and Sunni sides, and also if you read “Maalem al-Madrasatain” you will find out that there are more hadiths from Sunni books than Shia hadiths. So this is a lie that they have told about us and this kind of lying is not appropriate for scholars. I consider your position superior to this!
But the matter of Mahdi (AS) and that it is said: Mahdi does not exist for you to take the jami’a from him. There are many discussions about Imam Mahdi in Shia and Sunni books, and I am not looking for such a discussion now, what I said was that:
The Jami’a was with Imam Reza untill his time” and you should argue with me about this, not about Imam Mahdi (AS). I swear to the God of the Kaaba that this is not a scientific way of discussion and debate! You asked for me from Iran to here to condemn me, this is not Justly !
Head of Islamic Studies Foundation: Don’t get angry (unintelligible words) [2]
It was twenty minutes for a scientific discussion and then a non-scientific debate?!
It would be better if you didn’t invite me at all. Why does he (the debater) have the right to say whatever he wants, but I don’t have the right to respond and defend rationally?!
Chairman of the meeting: We gave Allamah 5 minutes to speak and his speech took longer. The chairman of the meeting interrupted his speech in Turkish and Arabic and said: Please! it’s enough!
Our plan was 20 minutes, but the honorable Allamah spoke for 30 minutes, and our attendees answered him for 5-7 minutes each, this is the custom and way of our meetings.
We do not intend to condemn Shia here, so he should not be upset about this.
Now it’s the turn of Mr. Noor al-din’s speech… (who is his relative)
As you have read in this article, the intention of establishing this conference was not the rapprochement between religions, it was to condemn Shia, and a lot of effort was put into it. However, with the brilliant presence and great efforts of scholars in the first conference and Allamah Askari in the Turkish conference, they failed to do anything and their plans were ruined. “And they [i.e., the disbelievers] planned, but Allāh planned. And Allāh is the best of planners. (Āl-‘Imrān_54)”
In the fifth part of this article, we will discuss the Observations and reports of Allamah Askari’s travel companion, Mr. Jamal Ariayi.
[1] the existence of Hujjat Ibn al-Hasan al-Askari, peace be upon him.
[2] Excerpted from tape
