Imam Askari’s martyrdom

The anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Hassan Al Askari was marked by Abrar Islamic Foundation on 21st September. Sayed Alaa Mustafa pre- sented glimpses of the Imam’s life and highlights of his predicaments. He was born in Medina, Western Arabia where he stayed only two years before join- ing his father, Imam Ali Al Hadi in Samarra, Iraq. He is named Askari in relation to the town called Askar in Iraq. The Abbassid ruler, Al Mutawak- kil imposed virtual house arrest on his father to prevent him from communi- cating with his followers. After the demise of the father he took up the duty of Imamate when he was only 22 years. He lived a very stressed life, being endowed with the duty of safe- guarding his son, Mohammed who would become Imam Mahdi. Imam Hassan Al Askari suffered, like his father, of regime’s repression, harass- ment and jail. This was evident from his instructions to his followers: None of you shall shake hands with me, point to me because you will not be safe. Yet he made use of the circum- stances surrounding him in order to execute his role of teaching and edu- cating his followers. He stood up to the challenges of the ideological deviation and the wrong understanding of the Quran. He relied on his agents whom he had sent to other countries. They remained in touch with him, relaying the queries of the people and taking back the Imam’s replies. One of the challenges that he had face was posed by the famous philosopher, Yaqoub ibn Ishaq Al Kindi. He had written a book titled: the contradictions of the Quran” containing what he had per- ceived as illogical arguments. The Imam urged his students to stand up to that challenge but none came forward. He then instructed one of them to pre- sent an argument to Al Kindi: Is it pos- sible that God had different meaning of those verses to what you had thought? Al Kindi said: yes, it is possi- ble. Then he abandoned the book and burnt it.

The second one was the dilemma sur- rounding the unconnected letters at the beginning of some of the chapters. He gave a plausible explanation. He said that it is a diving challenge to the Arabs who challenged his message and the Quran. God says to them: Here are the letters of the language of the Quran, can you arrange them to present a stronger, more eloquent and logical than the holy book? The third was that the doubters were challenging the Muslims: You are asking your God to guide you to the straight path? Aren’t you already on it? Are you doubtful about your religion? He gave a plausible explanation. The believers say to their God: Please con- tinue your guidance to us which enabled us to obey you in the past and help us obey you in the future.

The speaker referred to the power of the Turks in the Abbassid army. The Per- sians had been the powerful group be- fore. But after Al Ma’moon, his brother Al Mu’tasim started to mistrust the sol- diers in Baghdad due to the numerous revolts and his trust in the Persians started to wane as they clung to his nephew, Al Abbas, the son of Al Ma- moon. Also his mother was a Turk named “Mareda”. He had several per- sonal features and habits of the Turks. So he brought many of them until their number reached 70,000. They became so powerful that they were able to re- move and instate the caliphs them- selves. Towards the end of his tenure, Al Mu’tasim started to doubt the wis- dom of his policy of recruiting them. It was too late.

Photos