Imam Ja’afar as Sadiq (Part 1 of 3)
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
CA
Imam Ja’afar as Sadiq (700-765 CE) was a giant among Islamic sages. He was the Shaykh of great Shaykhs, the teacher of Imam Abu Haneefa, Imam Malik, Abu Yazid al Bastami and Wasim ibn Atta. His scholarship embraced the esoteric as well as the exoteric, ilm ul ishara as well as ilm ul ibara, the sciences of kalam as well as the sciences of hadith, sunnah, the natural sciences and the historical sciences. He was al-hakim, an integrator, a true man of wisdom in the Qur’anic sense, a complete alim who understood that the Shariah applied not just to the world of man but to the world of nature as well.
He applied his incisive knowledge to create Divine patterns in the world of man through Fiqh but he also saw those patterns in nature and in history and he taught them to his students. He was the inheritor of two secrets, one from Abu Bakr as Siddiq (r), the other from Ali ibn Abi Talib (r). He was a far sighted savant who worked to bridge the gap between the Shia and the Sunni and between Islam and other faiths. No wonder the Shia and the Sunni, the Sufi and the Salafi, the traditionalist and the modernist all claim him to be one of their own.
He lived in exciting times. It was the age of faith. It was the age of reason. It was the age of intellectual consolidation. It was also the age of imperial expansion and political upheavals. It was the age when Islamic civilization came into its own. The seed planted by the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) sprouted, was tended to during this age by men and women of extraordinary vision and certainty of faith. The shape of this tree and the taste of its fruit were largely a legacy of what these great men and women did and did not do.
Just as a tree has many branches, the global Islamic community has many branches, each with its own beauty and its own unique characteristics: Shia, Sunni, Sufi, Salafi, Modernist, Traditionalist, the esoteric and the exoteric, the Arab, the Persian, the Turk, the African, the Pakistani, the Indian, the European, the Indonesian, and the Chinese. All of these branches grew out of the same trunk. The fact that they are different adds to the overall beauty of the tree and its global appeal.
Few scholars through the centuries have bridged the differences between Shia and Sunni, Sufi and Salafi, Modernist and Traditionalist and fewer yet have risen so high in their scholarship that they were claimed, with equal validity by the Shia and the Sunni, the Sufi and the Salafi, the Modernist and the Traditionalist. Imam Ja’afar as Sadiq was one such scholar. The Shias --- Ithna Ashari, Ismailis, Alavis and Agha Khanis alike --- consider him to be the sixth Imam. The Sunnis consider him to be a teacher of the great mujtahideen, Imam Abu Haneefa and Imam Malik bin Anas. The Sufis of all tareeqas locate him in the chain of transmission of spiritual knowledge from the Prophet, the Salafis accept the ahadith transmitted through him, the modernists consider him to be the teacher of some of the best known empirical and rational scientists of the age, and the traditionalists follow his guidance in matters of faith and ritual. While the Sunnah of the Prophet is like the trunk of the tree that is the world of Islam, Imam Ja’afar was one of its main branches.
Yet another way to look at Imam Ja’afar is to consider him as the amalgam of Abu Bakr as Siddiq (r) and Ali Ibn Abi Talib (r). You recall that upon the death of the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) many Companions considered Abu Bakr (r) to represent the consensus of the community while others felt that Ali (r) was the heir to Prophetic wisdom and was the one to be followed. The Islamic community split along these lines. Imam Ja’afar brought these two streams together through family relationships as well as scholarship. In him the esoteric and the exoteric, the consensus of the community and the Prophetic wisdom merged. Very few scholars had that privilege.
Lastly, Imam Ja’afar was a master both of Ilm ul Ibara and Ilm ul Ishara. Classical Islamic scholars divided knowledge into two broad categories, namely, that which was accessible to the mind and that which is accessible only to the heart. In the former category belong reason, logic, mathematics, science, sociology, hadith and the obligations and rituals of religion. This knowledge can be taught and can be learned from an Alim. It is called Ilm ul Ibara from the Arabic root Alif-Bay-Ray (a-ba-ra) which means to wade, like wading from one shore of a river to the other. This is the knowledge imparted to a pupil in a school or a university. The knowledge of the heart, on the other hand, is not accessible to the mind but only to the heart. In this category belong love, compassion, humility, piety, ethics and a consciousness of Divine presence. This knowledge cannot be taught. But a great Shaykh can help a pupil cleanse his heart and open it to the unlimited possibilities of ilm ul Ishara. Sometimes, these two streams of knowledge are referred to as Ilm ul Ghaib (knowledge that is beyond perception) and Ilm uz Zahir (knowledge that is accessible to perception). This terminology is consistent with Qur’anic terminology. However, a discussion of Ilm ul ghaib is beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it to point out here that Imam Sa'adiq inherited and was imparted Ilm ul Ishara from his father and grandfather, while he learned Ilm ul Ibara from the great ulema of the age.
Let me illustrate the difference between ilm ul ibara and ilm ul ishara by a parable that is taught to advanced students of fiqh and tasawwuf. It is said that the Prophet gave one of his robes to Hadrath Omar (r) and Hadrath Ali (r) and instructed them to take it to Hadrath al Uwaisi (r). But Hadrath al Uwaisi, one of the greatest of the Companions, had never met the Prophet or seen him in person. So Hadrath Omar and Hadrath Ali set out in search of this great Companion who had received the honor of a Prophetic robe. They went from town to town, village to village, hamlet to hamlet, enquiring about al Uwaisi. Finally, they came upon a small settlement around a well in the desert. Upon enquiry, the people said to Hadrath Omar and Hadrath Ali: “You see that man near the well with his back to us. That is al Uwaisi. He is always reciting, ‘la ilaha il Allah, Muhammad rasool Allah’, and each time he recites it, he cries.” As the two approached the well, Hadrath al Uwaisi, without turning his head, said aloud, “O Omar! O Ali! Have you brought the robe of the Prophet?” The two answered, “Yes, indeed, we have”. Hadrath al Uwaisi took the robe, kissed it, placed it on his head and his eyes, and wept bitterly for the love of the Prophet. When he came of his own, he turned to Omar (r) and asked: “O Omar! Have you ever seen the Prophet?” The mighty Omar (r) was aghast at the question. “How could al Uwaisi ask me such a question when I have known the Prophet all my life?” “Yes, Indeed, I have” answered the great Omar ibn al Khattab (r), and proceeded to describe the noble physical attributes of the Prophet. When he was finished, al Uwaisi turned to Ali ibn Abi Talib (r) and asked: “O Ali! Have you ever seen the Prophet?” Ali (r) answered: “I saw the Prophet only once, and my vision covered only a portion of his limitless chest. What is beyond it was not shown to me.” (www.historyofislam.com)
