Shia and Ahlulbayt

The Love of Ahlul-Bayt
The Holy Prophet [s] said: "Train your children in three things: the love of your Prophet, the love of his progeny, i.e. Ahlul-Bayt, and recitation of the Qur'an." AI-Jami'-ul-Saghir, vol. 1, p. 14
Imam Sadiq [a] said: "He who is not able to do any good unto us (Ahlul-Bayt) then be may do good to our pious adherents; and he who is not able to visit us, he may visit our righteous followers by which the reward of visiting us (pilgrimage) will be recorded for him." Bihar-ul-Anwar, vol. 74, p. 354
Imam Baqir [a] said: "The best means by which servants can obtain nearness to Allah, Mighty and Glorious, is the obedience to Allah, the obedience to His Messenger, and the obedience to those charged with (spiritual) authority."
Then, he [a] added: "The love of us (Ahlul Bayt) is Faith and the hatred of us is infidelity." Al-Kafi, vol. 1, p. 187
Imam Sadiq [a] said: "Verily, there are various degrees of serving Allah, but affection (and cordial inclination) for us, Ahlul Bayt, is the highest one." Bihar-ul-Anwar, vol. 27, p. 91

Reports of Love for of Ahlul-Bayt
Reports of Love for him, Peace be on him, Being a Sign of Faith (in a Person) and Hatred of him Being a Sign of Hypocrisy (in a Person).
[Abu Bakr Muhammad b. `Umar - known as Ibn al-Ji`ibi al-Hafiz - told us: Muhammad b. Sahl b. al-Hasan told us: Ahmad b. `Umar al-Dihqan told us: Muhammad b. Kathir told us: Isma°il b. Muslim told us: al-A'mash told us on the authority of 'Ad! b. Thabit, on the authority of Zirr b. Hubaysh, who said:] I saw the Commander of the faithful, `Ali b. Abi Talib,on the pulpit and I heard him say: "By Him Who split the seed and brought the soul into being, the Prophet made a promise (ahd) to me: `Only believers will love you and only hypocrites will hate you!"
[Abu `Abd Allah Muhammad b. `Imran al-Marzubani informed me: `Abd Allah b. Muhammad b. `Abd al-`Azlz al-Baghawi told us: `Ubayd Allah b. `Umar al-Qawarlrl told us: JaYar b. Sulayman told us: al-Nadr b. Hamid told us on the authority of Abu al-J3rUd, on the authority of al-Harith al-HamdNnl who said:]
I saw `All, peace be on him. One day he came and went up on the pulpit. He praised and glorified God. Then he said: "A decree which God, the Most High, decreed by the tongue of the Prophet, may God bless him and his family, was that only believers will love me and only hypocrites will hate me. Whoever forges a lie is lost."
[Abu al-Hasan Muhammad b. al-Muzaffar al-Bazzaz informed me: Muhammad b. Yahya told us: Muhammad b. Musa al-Barbarl told us: Khalaf b. Salim told us: WaO` told us: al-A'mash told us on the authority of 'Ad! b. Thabit, on the authority of Zirr b. Hubaysh, on the authority of the Commander of the faithful, peace be on him, who said:]
The Prophet, may God bless him and his family, made a promise (ahd) to me: "Only believers will love you and only hypocrites will hate you."

Ahlul-Bayt and the perverted groups
The opponents of Islam realized that the Ahlul-Bait were the very embodiment of originality and purity and acted as refuge for Muslims in times of distress .and calamities. In their bid to prevent the message of Islam, certain subversive elements pretending love for the Ahlul-Bait, tried to infiltrate the ranks of the followers of the very source of purity. These groups falsely raised the slogan of attachment to the Ahlul-Bait, who in fact had cursed and denied them. This was part of an elaborately designed treachery aimed at distorting belief in Monotheism, which is the essence of Islam.
To carry orit their mischivous plots - they fabricated perversive ideas and deviated philosophies. These elements alleged that Allah the Most Glorified, had transmigrated into the bodies of the Imams of the Ahlul-Bait. They even went to the extent of difying the Imams of the Prophet's household. These movements were backed by the idolatrous Arabs, the Magis, the Manichaeans, the Mazdakis: and the like, who had outwardly embraced Islam to deceive the Muslims. Jewish and Christian thought also participated in this treacherous campaign against Islam, in order to splet the Muslims into new factions. In this way they were able to cause much intellectual confusion by implanting doubts, coining misleading narrations and concepts and allegedly ascribing them to the Ahlul-Bait. To counter the plot a number of learned scholars wrote research-books on `Rijal' (Who-is-who) and managed to expose the imposters, the liars, the fabricaters and the coiners of perversive ideologies, eversince the days of the Prophet. They sifted truth from falsehood on the basis of the authentic traditions, uncovering every mischief monger and scrutinizing each and every narrator, as was done by Najashi in his famous book `Rijal alNajashi', and by Shaikh Tusi in his `al-Fihrist' and `Rijal alTusi' eviated groups who claimed attachment to the AhlulBait, such as `the Exaggerators' were strongly repudiated, cursed and dismissed by the Imams.
Nawbakhti(1), in his book `Firaq al-Shi'a' (Shi'a Sects), classifies such groups and relates the attitude of the Imams of the Ahlul-Bait towards them. Hereunder we refer to some of them: "As to the companions of Abi Khattab Muhammad ibn Abi Zainab Aida' Asadi and those who follow them, they had disputes when they heard that Abu Abdulla Ja'far ibn Muhammad, the Imam al-Sadiq (a. s.) had cursed him (Abi Khattab) and renounced him and his followers: Nawbakhti then says: "A group of them had said that Abu Abdulla Ja'far ibn Muhammad (al-Sadiq) was Allah-the Elevated, the Great, Who is too far above these things - and that Abu Khattab was a prophet.
"Another group said Ja'far ibn Muhammad was Allah the Great, the Mighty, the Elevated too far above all that. He is a light that enters the bodies of the vicegerents. That light was Ja'far ibn Muhammad (al-Sadiq), then it left him and entered into Abu Khattab ...."(2)
Nawbakhti adds, "These perversive groups were the `Exaggerators' who styled themselves as Shi'a. They, may Allah curse them all, (actually) belonged to such groups as the Khurramdins, the Mazdakis(3), the Heretics (4)and the Atheists(5)All of them denied Allah's divinity - Blessed is He and Elevated far above all they ascribe and admitted it in a creature's body, alleging that the body was the dwelling-place of Allah, and Allah was a light, a soul, that moved into those bodies - Elavated is He above all they ascribe. But they differed in respect to their leaders whom they were attached to, each group denouncing the other, and cursing one another.(6)
Continuing his reports about the perversive groups who feigned themselves as lovers of Ahlul-Bait, Nawbakhti narrates, that one of those groups claimed that Muhammad ibn Hanafiya, son of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (a.s.) was al-Mahdi who did not die -nd would never die, had only gone into occultation. Nobody knows where he is. But he would come back and possess the earth, and there would be no Imam after his occultation till his return to his companions, who are the companions of Ibn Karb."(7).
"Among holders of such deviated beliefs, Nawbakhti lists Hamza ibn Amara Barbari of Madina, who in his wild fantasy claimed himself a prophet, and said that Muhammad ibn Hanafiya was Allah - far Elevated is He from what they ascribe - and He himself was his prophet, and that seven means would come down to him from Heaven, by which he would conquer the earth and possess it. A number of people of Madina and of Kufa followed him. Thus, Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Ali ibn al-Husain (Imam al-Baqir), and his Shi'a cursed him and renounced him.(8)
Sa'ed al-Nahdi who belonged to a perverted group, was also cursed by Imam al-Sadiq, who regarded him among those miscreants who fabricated lies and ascribed them to the Ahlu]-Bait (9).
Hereunder we state what had been related by the Shi'a scholars, quoting Imam al-Sadiq about his attitude towards exaggeraters and their deviated beliefs.
Regarding Abu Jarud and his group, Ibn Nadim, in his `al-Fihrist', says: "Imam al-Sadiq cursed him and said: `He is blind in his heart, and blind in his sight'. Kishshi relates identical narrations which prove this. (10)
Al-Sadiq also cursed Abu Mansur Ijli thrice, as stated by Kishshi in his `Rijal'.
`Bazee' ibn Musa Ha'ik was cursed by Imam al-Sadiq (a. s.), as were some others, like Mughira ibn Said, Sirri, Abi Khattab Muhammad ibn Abi Zainab Ajda', Mu'ammar, Bashshar Sha'iri, Hamza Barbari and Sa'ed Nahdi. According to Kishshi's text, the Imam says: "May Allah curse them. We never went without there being some liar to lie against us, or someone with crippled opinion. May Allah rid us of all liars and make them taste burning iron". (11).
Imam al-Sadiq (a.s.) is cited to have renounced the `Exaggeraters' in the following speech: "O Shi'a community - the Shi'a of the family of Muhammad (s.a. w.) be like the cushion in the middle (as between a rider and his saddle). The exaggerator should turn back to you, and the one who lags behind should catch up with you". When a man called Sa'ed inquired about the exaggerator, the Imam replied: "Those who say about us, what we do not say ourselves, are not of us, and we are not of them. "The man further asked as to who are those who lag behind. The Imam answered: "The wanderers who intend good, and they get it and get rewarded for it". (12)
On learning of Abi Khattab's exaggeration, Imam alSadiq wept and invoking Allah as his witness, renounced Abi Khattab.
It is written in `al-Kafi' that once Sadir informed Imam al-Sadiq that some people regard the Imams of Ahlul-Bait as gods, he said: "O Sadir, my hearing, my sight, my skin, my flesh, my blood, and my hair do renounce them, and Allah has renounced them. They are not of my religion, nor of the religion of my ancestors... "(13)
Similar lies were fabricated against the other Imams of the household of the Prophet, by charlatans masqurading as shi'a, but whose real intention was to pollute the cause of the Ahlul-Bait, and to empty the message of Islam, of it true contents.
There was a time, in the history of Islam, when every discontented political aspirant, no matter how ignorant he was of Islam and the Ahlul-Bait, tried to give Shi'a colours to his deviated ambitions in a bid to attract simple people to his cause.
By doing so these rebels, of all shades and colouring, ranging from Iranian infidels to religious interpolaters, did a great disservice to the human society, the scars of which can still be discerned on the body-politic of Islam.
It was a great blessing that the majority of such deviationists who tried in vain to defame the Shi'a, died out, and it was no ordinary task for the Imams of the Ahlul-Bait to pilot the ship of Islam through these troubled waters. The sickly hearts withered away from the history, and only their record of infamy remains in books, which, quite unfortunately certain ignorant modernists have confused with the Shi'a cause.
Regretably, even today some Islamic sects believe in fatalism and incarnation. In their ingnorance they ascribe a body to Allah (far glorious is He from what they say), and weave up all sorts of silly yarns. These retarded minds say that the Almighty sits on a chair, whose widith is seven spans, and that on the Resurrection Day, He puts His leg into Hell to satiate its thirst for more sinners, and that He descends to the lower sky on a white donkey, and many other absurdities. To a rational mind, it is clear this is all heresy and falsehood, and these poor creatures have been unable tocomprehend and have failed in understanding the Greatness of the Power that created them. As discussed earlier, He, the Creator is not bound by time and place and has neither physique nor form. As a matter of fact, such absurd notions, which run contrary to monothism are soundly condemned by Islam.
Notes:
(1) Abu Muhammad Hasan ibn Musa Nawbakhti, one of the most known lmami scholars of the third century A. H.
(2)Nawbakhti, 'Firaq al_Shi`a' , p 59,ed.1388 H
(3) The Mazdakis were the followers of Mazdak, who appeared in the days of the Persian Emperor oubad, Anowshirwan's father. His Book was called `Distaw'. Their belief was similar to the Manichaeans (an old Persian religion) in respect to the two principles of Light and Darkness, (Refer to `al-Fihrist' by Ibn Nadim. The Mazdakis were those who allowed the unlawful advocating the sharing of everything including wealth and women.
(4)'The Zindiks denied all divine religions on the pretext of being free thinkers.
(5)The Dahriyun (Atheists) believed that the world existed from pre-eternity and would remain without end, and has no Creator. They were actually, a group of infidel disbelievers.
(6) Ibid., p. 60
(7) Ibid.,p.44.
(8) Ibid.,p.45.
(9) Ibid.
(10)Ibid.,p.21
(11)Ibid.,p.43
(12) Tabasi,`Mishakat al-Alnwarfi Ghurar al-Akhbar',p.66,2nd ed.
(13) Allama Majlisi, Bihar al-Anwar,v.47,p.378,3rd edition