By: Seyyed Ali Shahbaz
     
“There will pass away in Qom a lady of my descendants known as Fatema bint Musa, by whose intercession believers will enter the heaven.”
These are the words of a grandfather regarding his granddaughter, decades before the girl was born. The grandfather was no ordinary person, neither was the granddaughter.
He was the Prophet’s 6th Infallible Heir, Imam Ja’far Sadeq (AS), the same person who had expressed the famous statement on the holiest sanctuaries of Islam and their location in the following words:  
“Indeed, God has a sanctuary and that is Mecca (the Holy Ka’ba); the Messenger of God (Prophet Muhammad) has a sanctuary and that is Medina; the Commander of the Faithful (Imam Ali) has a sanctuary and that is Kufa (in Iraq) and we (the Ahl al-Bayt) have a sanctuary and that is Qom (in Iran).”   
These truthful words of Imam Sadeq (AS) came true in 202 AH, 54 years after his martyrdom, when his prophesied granddaughter, Fatema (SA), left Medina to visit her brother Imam Reza (AS) in distant Khorasan, where he had forcibly come on the plot hatched by the crafty self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, Mamoun. 
Before reaching her destination, however, circumstances compelled her –following the attack on her caravan near Saveh and the martyrdom of two of her brothers by agents of the regime – to break her journey in the city of Qom, where she passed away 17 days after her arrival.
The 10th of Rabi al-Akher is that fateful day when the soul of this noble lady left the mortal world for the ethereal heavens, thereby materializing the prophecy that on the Day of Resurrection, among the 8 gateways to paradise, one will be from Qom.
Fatema al-Ma’soumah (SA) or the “Innocent”, needs no introduction. She was the consanguineous sister of Imam Reza (AS), sharing the same mother, the noble lady Najma, although 25 years separated the birth of the two siblings.
She was divinely inspired. Her knowledge of the holy Qur’an, the Hadith, and the jurisprudential laws of Islam was proverbial. She is the narrator of several hadith on the virtues of the Ahl al-Bayt including the famous event of Ghadeer-Khom where on Divine Commandment Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) proclaimed his dear cousin and son-in-law Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS) as vicegerent on the 18th of Zilhijja in 10 AH. 
Among the proofs of her God-given knowledge are the perfect answers she provided in the absence of her father, while still a small girl, to a group of pilgrims from Iran who submitted a series of questions at the house of the 7th Imam in Medina. 
Later, when this group of Iranians chanced to meet Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS) on their return journey, they showed him the set of answers his little daughter had provided to their questions. The Imam, on seeing her perfectly correct answers, remarked “fidaha Abuha”, (may her father be her sacrifice).
Ma’soumah was as virtuous as the Mother of Jesus the Virgin Mary (SA), which means no man of her age was worthy of her hand, and this was the reason she did not marry, although girls in Arabia were usually married in their early teens.
Thus at the age of 28, along with some of her brothers, she started on her long journey across Arabia, Iraq and into the Iranian heartland, when (as said earlier) her entourage was attacked west of modern Tehran by brigands affiliated to the usurper Abbasid regime, resulting in the martyrdom of two of her brothers. 
Exhausted by the arduous journey and possibly wounded from the skirmish, she and her entourage turned towards nearby Qom, where the followers of the Ahl al-Bayt accorded them a grand reception.
The Ash’ari clan of Yemeni origin which had shifted to Qom from Kufa because of the tyranny of the Abbasid regime gave her a grand funeral and laid her to eternal rest in a garden outside the city which has since become a sprawling golden-domed mausoleum, thronged throughout the year by pilgrims from all over the world.
On hearing of her departure from the mortal world, Imam Reza (AS), who miraculously came from Marv (presently in Turkmenistan), expressed deep sorrow, saying: “Whoever visits her grave, aware of her status, paradise is the reward.” 
He also remarked: “Whoever visits her in Qom is like the one who has visited me.”
Now we better understand why the bliss of paradise is associated with Our Innocent Lady of Qom, and why Imam Sadeq (AS) had given the tidings of the intercession with God Almighty on Resurrection Day of his granddaughter.  
No wonder, Qom has become the centre of diffusion of the genuine teachings of Islam with students coming from all over the globe to learn the legacy of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt. 
According to a famous hadith, true believers laid to rest in the soil of the holy city of Qom will enter paradise straightaway on the Day of Resurrection without having to stand for the final judgement. This is indeed a Divine Favour for the faithful who repose eternally in the city from which Satan was cast out forever, as per a lengthy narration of the wonders encountered by the Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) during his “me’raj” or ascension to the highest point in the heavens and back to Planet Earth in a part of a single night.
It is proof of the sanctity of Qom  on the edge of the Iranian desert whose fortune was suddenly transformed from obscurity into a centre of learning, worship, and pilgrimage by the appearance of a venerable member of the Prophet’s Household, a millennium and two centuries years ago.
Let us join the pilgrims and the angels at her shrine to salute her in the proper manner with the words: 
“O Fatema! Intercede for me for (the reward of) paradise, for indeed you have an exalted position in the Sight of Almighty Allah.