WHAT ARE OUR IMAMS?

بسم اللہ الرحمن الرحیم

اللھم صلی علی محمد و الی محمد

Often people misunderstand our concept of imamah and accuse us of disbelieving in the doctrine of khatm-e-nubuwwah. We Shiite Muslims don't believe that our imams were prophets or messengers. We believe that, after the death of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him and his progeny), the revelations (wahi) stopped descending to earth. Shari'ah was completed by the Prophet. Therefore, our imam Muhammad b. Ali al-Baqir was recorded saying in an authentic hadith.

حلال محمد حلال أبدا إلى يوم القيامة، وحرامه حرام أبدا إلى يوم القيامة

The halal of Muhammad will always remain halal until the Day of Resurrection and his haram will always remain haram until the Day of Resurrection.

We believe that God kept sending some inspired beings for the preservation of shari'ah and the guidance of Muslims. We call these inspired beings imams. The concept of inspired beings even exists in Sunni hadith compilations where Prophet Muhammad is recorded predicting the arrival of certain muhaddathun in the future. 

لَقَدْ كَانَ فِيمَا قَبْلَكُمْ مِنَ الأُمَمِ مُحَدَّثُونَ، فَإِنْ يَكُ فِي أُمَّتِي أَحَدٌ فَإِنَّهُ عُمَرُ

Indeed, there used to be muhaddathun in the communities before you. If there is one in my community, it is Umar b. Khattab.

قَدْ كَانَ يَكُونُ فِي الأُمَمِ قَبْلَكُمْ مُحَدَّثُونَ فَإِنْ يَكُنْ فِي أُمَّتِي مِنْهُمْ أَحَدٌ فَإِنَّ عُمَرَ بْنَ الْخَطَّابِ مِنْهُمْ

Indeed, there used to be muhaddathun in the communities before you. If there is one of them in my community, it is Umar b. Khattab.

The first reference is from Bukhari and the second one is from Muslim. A rawi of this hadith, Abdullah b. Wahb, interpreted the meaning of the Arabic word muhaddathun like this:

‏ قَالَ ابْنُ وَهْبٍ تَفْسِيرُ مُحَدَّثُونَ مُلْهَمُونَ

Ibn Wahb said that the exegesis of muhaddathun was inspired ones (mulhamun).

Remember that muhaddath is quite different from muhaddith. The former means an inspired one while the latter means a doctor of hadiths. Let me make it clear as well that Ibn Wahb is a respectable and admirable scholars of Sunni Islam. Dhahabi has this to say about his magnificence:

لقي بعض صغار التابعين ، وكان من أوعية العلم ، ومن كنوز العمل

He met some of the minor taba'in. He was among the containers of knowledge and treasures of (good) deeds.

Because the Prophet is using the conditional word in (ان) which denotes a possibility, it shows that the arrival of a muhaddath in the Muslim ummah was considered by the Prophet to a possible circumstance. We Shiite Muslims have the same concept of imamah. Our imams are not prophets but they do get inspirations from God. This is what Ibn Hajar Asqalani, the interpreter of Sahih Bukhari, has to say about the true tafsir of the word muhaddath:

"...There are different opinion in the meaning of this word. So, some said: Inspired one... A guy who has true assumptions, and he is inspired in his splendor from the higher heaven... angels speak to him but he doesn't have the office of a prophet, and this is what we read from the hadith of Abi Sa'id al-Khudri... 'It was said to Allah's Apostle: How does a muhaddath speak? He said: Angels speak with his tongue.' We have narrated it in our book Fawa'id al-Jauhari... this is rectitude without the office of a prophet... indeed God has put the truth on the tongue and in the heart of Umar..."

We Shiite Muslims also believe that our imams were the muhaddathun of the Muslim ummah. Let me quote a hadith from the book al-Ghaybah by Ibn Abi Zaynab. The author of this book dies in the 4th century AH and this book is one of the earliest compilations by Shiite Muslims on the issue of the Occultation (ghaybah).

Muhammad b. Abdullah b. Jafar al-Himyari narrated from his father who said that Muhammad b. Isa b. Ubayd b. Yaqtin told him who narrated from al-Nadr b. Suwayd who narrated from Yahya al-Halabi who nararatede from Ali b. Abi Hamzah who said:

I was with Abu Basir and a freed slave of Abu Jafar al-Baqir was with us. So, he said: I have heard Abu Jafar saying: "Among us are twelve muhaddaths; the seventh from my progeny is the qa'im (al-Mahdi)." So, Abu Basir stood up and said: "I bear witness that I have heard Abu Jafar saying that forty years ago."

Muhammad b. Ali al-Baqir was our 5th imam and our 12th imam is al-Mahdi. This hadith shows that the concept of imamah exists in Sunni Islam as well and the same title of muhaddath has been used by the members of both sections of Islam. May Allah help us all!