By: Seyyed Ali Shahbaz
      "Delay in repentance is self-deceit, long procrastination is confusion, and it is self-destruction to resort to excuses before Allah while insisting on sins by feeling safe from divine punishment of Allah ("Do the people of the towns feel secure from Our punishment overtaking them at midday while they are playing around?” – Holy Qur’an 7:99)
      The above words are food for thought. These are not the utterances of any ordinary person. As a matter of fact, these bezels of wisdom were bequeathed to us for our guidance by an Infallible Heir of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA), whose tragic martyrdom we commemorate every year on the last day of the month of Zi’l-Qa’dah.
      He was martyred through a fatal dose of poisoning in the prime of his youth at the young age of 25 years, by a self-styled caliph who thought that the death of the 9th Imam of the Ahl al-Bayt, would ensure longevity to the rule of the usurper Abbasid regime.
      Mu’tasim was utterly wrong and the misdeed he committed in Baghdad in 220 AH, against the person of Imam Muhammad at-Taqi al-Jawad (AS), ensured him a lasting place in the infernal flames of hell, while his the rich legacy of his victim is alive and invigorating to this day.
      The unpardonable crime of Mu’tasim was committed on the threshold of the annual Hajj pilgrimage to holy Mecca, where every year the 9th Imam was present in the garb of the "Exemplary Pilgrim” to teach the tenets of Islam to visitors from far and near.
       Many still vividly remembered the question that a grey-bearded ideologue of the Mu’tazalite sect had posed to Imam Jawad (AS), who was still a beardless boy, having succeeded his father Imam Reza (AS) to divinely-decreed imamate of the Ummah at the age of 8 years – in the manner of the Prophets, John the Baptist (Yahya) and Jesus, regarding whom God says in Surah Mariyam that the former was given the Book and Wisdom when a mere boy, while the latter proclaimed his mission as an infant in the cradle.
       Yahya ibn Aktham, on the instructions of the then caliph, Mamoun, had asked: "What is the atonement for a person who hunts a game while he is dressed in the pilgrimage garb (Ehram).”
      This question appears quite simple, especially during the Hajj season when every potential pilgrim tries to acquaint himself with the rules before setting off to Mecca circumambulate the Holy Ka’ba, the symbolic House of the Unseen but Omnipresent Lord.
     But the questioner had ulterior motives. He intended to ensnare in the intricacies of legal issues what appeared to him a mere boy. However, to the astonishment of the scholar and the whole court, the lad, with composure and wisdom beyond his tender years said:
     "Your question is utterly vague and lacks definition. You should first clarify whether the game killed was outside the sanctified area or inside it; whether the hunter was aware of his sin or did so in ignorance; did he kill the game purposely or by mistake; was the hunter a slave or a free man; was he adult or minor, did he commit the sin for the first time or had he done so before; was the hunted game a bird or something else; was it a small animal or a big one; is the sinner sorry for the misdeed or does he insist on it; did he kill it secretly at night or openly during daylight; was he putting on the pilgrimage garb for Hajj or for the Umrah? Unless you clarify and define these aspects, how can you have a definite answer?”
       Yahya bin Aktham stuttered and couldn’t find any answer to the counter question posed by the boy-Imam. His claim to knowledge shattered before the whole court, he changed his tone and humbly addressed the boy with the words: O’ son of the Prophet, you know better.
      The admission of inability by the learned doctor of law embarrassed Mamoun and evaporated his dreams of humiliating 9th infallible Heir of the Prophet.
      The Imam obliged by saying:   
      "If he had killed the animal outside the sacred ground and it was winged and large, an atonement of sheep would have been necessary for him. If he had struck it down in the sanctuary, the penalty required of him would be doubled. If he killed a young bird outside the sacred ground, then the atonement of a lamb which had been weaned off milk would have been required of him. If he had killed it in the sanctuary, then he would have been required to sacrifice a lamb and the value of the young bird. As for wild animals, if it was a wild ass, he would have been required to sacrifice a cow. If it was an ostrich, the sacrifice of a camel would be necessary. If it had been a deer, then a sheep would have been necessary. If he had killed any of those in the sanctuary, the penalty would have been doubled.”  (Kitab al-Irshad by Mufid)

      Imam Jawad (AS) continued to describe the various penalties for the pilgrim in Ehram to the astonishment of the audience.
       Mu’tasim remembered this vivid debate held over a dozen years ago, yet he was so blind to the truth that he forced Imam Jawad (AS) to leave Medina on the threshold of the Hajj and come to his capital Baghdad, so as to be under the watchful eyes of the regime.
       Once a thief was brought before Mu’tasim, and the jurisprudents in his court gave conflicting verdicts, with some saying that the culprit’s hand be severed from the writs, some that it should be cut off from the elbow, while others wanting that the whole arm to be chopped off.
       When Mu’tasim turned to the 9th Imam and insisted on his opinion in this regard, the Prophet’s rightful successor said that the mode of Islamic punishment for a habitual thief, according to the genuine laws of the shari’a is that only the four fingers (and that too after due warnings) should be severed, leaving the thumb and the palm intact, since the culprit is after all a human being in need of the mercy of the All-Forgiving God and should not be deprived of the correct way to pray, which requires the touching of 7 organs to the ground including the palms.
       After this wise and rational judgement, the malice of the caliph and the court-mullahs increased, and they plotted the murder of Imam Jawad (AS) through poisoning, ignorant of the fact that long after the Abbasids have passed into oblivion, the 9th Imam who reposes in eternal peace beside his grandfather Imam Musa al-Kazem (AS) in the magnificent gold-plated twin-domed mausoleum will continue to rule the hearts and minds of believers all over the world from his sanctuary in Baghdad.