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Home / Books / Kitāb al-Ghayba / Volume 1 / Causes of delay in reappearance of the Master of the Affair / Hadith 492
Hadith 492
Hadith #
492
Book
Kitāb al-Ghayba
Volume
1
Section
38
Part
Content
Chapter
Causes of delay in reappearance of the Master of the Affair
Source
Shaykh Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī
۞
If it is said: Why the Almighty Allah did not prevent his killing with the help of angels and other unseen means? The reply is that the prevention of his killing by the Almighty Allah is of two kinds: One is that this obstacle should either be in negation of religious duties or not opposed to it. And that obstacle, which is not opposed to religious duties, is that opposition to Imam (a.s) should be prohibited; his obedience and following should be ordered and help should be rendered to him and to say that it is obligatory for people to obey him. All these commands and prohibitions are also issued by Almighty Allah, but becoming an obstacle by Allah for one who intends to kill the Imam is opposed to religious duties and logical contradictions appear in it. It is so, because religious duties are aimed at earning divine rewards, but Allah’s being an obstacle is opposed to this and on many occasions, compulsive prevention by the Almighty Allah may have some evil for the people, which in fact cannot be expected from Allah. One of our senior scholars said that the instance of malaise in the reappearance of the Imam and the instance of exigency in his occultation is not impossible and improbable; on the contrary it is very much possible. But this statement is not correct, because from this statement, the obligatoriness of messengership would become invalid [that is if this is accepted, it would be right to say that the
sending of prophets is not right]. In the same way, the result of accepting this statement would be that messengership and prophethood is a divine grace, but it can be changed depending on circumstances. [That it is possible for prophethood to be necessary at a time and unnecessary at another; whereas prophethood and messengership is necessary and obligatory at all times.] However, becoming an obstacle of the Almighty Allah between the Imam and people as we have mentioned [that is through occultation of the Imam] there is no problem in it and it is also not impossible, that it should be said that there is an evil in this occultation, but from this occultation the obligatoriness of appointment of the Imamate does not end and it is also not in contradiction to Imamate.
فإن قيل: هلا منع الله من قتله بما يحول بينه وبين من يريد قتله؟ قلنا: المنع الذي لا ينافي التكليف هو النهي عن خلافه والامر بوجوب اتباعه ونصرته والتزام الانقياد له، وكل ذلك فعله تعالى، وأما الحيلولة بينهم وبينه فإنه ينافي التكليف، وينقض الغرض (به)، لان الغرض بالتكليف استحقاق الثواب، والحيلولة ينافي ذلك، وربما كان في الحيلولة والمنع من قتله بالقهر مفسدة للخلق، فلا يحسن من الله فعلها. وليس هذا كما قال بعض أصحابنا:إنه لا يمتنع أن يكون في ظهوره مفسدة وفي استتاره مصلحة، لأن الذي قاله يفسد طريق وجوب الرسالة في كل حال وتطرق القول بأنها تجري مجرى الالطاف التي تتغير بالازمان والاوقات، والقهر والحيلولة ليس كذلك، ولا يمتنع أن يقال: (إن) في ذلك مفسدة ولا يؤدي إلى إفساد وجوب الرئاسة.
Tags Imam MahdiOccultation

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