FRATERNITY AND EQUALITY

Quoting a
witness from "Balkh", in his famous
work entitled "Kafi",
the celebrated scholar "Kulayni" relates
the following:

"On the
way to "Khorasan" I was among the
attendants of His Holiness Imam Reza (A.S.). At dinner the Holy Imam (A.S.)
invited all his men around him and asked them to have dinner with him. There a
few negro servants were among those men. Declaring
that they were all of the same flesh and blood the Holy Imam (A.S.) asked that
the whole company should have had dinner at one table. His Holiness practically
combated against the superiority of race and colour
in connexion with the distinction of the human
beings. The Holy Imam (A.S.) tried to revive the Islamic precepts of fraternity
and equality in the Muslim community.

GENEROSITY

Eleisha ibn Hamza
says: "I was once talking to Imam Reza (A.S.) when a large crowd of people
assembled to ask him about what is permissible in Islam and what is not. A man
as tall as Adam came to him and said:

"Assalamo Alaikom, O Son of the
Messenger of God! I am a man who loves you, your fathers and grandfathers, and
I have just been on my way to perform the pilgrimage when I discovered that I
had lost everything with me and now I do not have anything enough even for a
leg of the trip. If you will, please help me with the expense of going back
home, and I am a recipient of God's blessing (i.e., well to do). As soon as I
reach there, I will give to the poor as much as you will give me, for I do not
qualify to be a recipient of alms."

He said to
him: "Sit, may God be merciful to you," then he kept talking to
people till they dispersed except that man, Sulaiman
al-Ja'feri, Khuthai'ama and
myself. Then he (Imam Reza) said: Do you permit me to enter (the room)?' Sulaiman said to him: May God advance your endeavour.' So he entered the room and stayed for about an
hour after which he came out and closed the door behind him, stretched his hand
above the door and said: Where is the man from Khurasan?'

The man
answered: Here I am!' He said: Take these two hundred dinars,
use them for your preparations for the trip; may God bring you blessings
thereby, and do not spend an equal amount to it on my behalf, and leave the
room in a way that I do not see you and you do not see me,' then he left. Sulaiman then said: May my life be
sacrificed for yours! You have made quite a generous offer, but why did you
hide your face?' He answered: I did so for fear of seeing the humiliation on
the face of the man due to my assistance for him.

Have you not
heard the hadith of the Holy Messenger of Islam
(S.A.W.) in which he said: The one who hides a good deeds receives rewards
equal to performing the pilgrimage seventy times; one who announces his sin is
humiliated, while one who hides it is forgiven'?

Have you heard
the saying of the example of the first case: Whenever I approach him, one day,
with a plea, I return home and my dignity is still with me.

Then he hides
himself from the person who appeals to him when he gives him something so that
he does not see the humiliation on his face, and so that the pleading person
retains his dignity when he does not see the face of the benevolent one who is
giving him?"

He asks him to
leave without seeing him in order to safeguard himself against feeling as
having the upper hand over the pleading person, and in order to relieve the
pleading person from having to show his gratitude to him.

While in Khurasan, Imam Reza(A.S.) once distributed his entire
wealth to the poor on the day of Arafat, so Al-Fadl ibn Sahl, the Prime Minister
during Mamun's reign said to him: "Now you are
bankrupt!" he said: "On the contrary! I am now wealthier than ever.
Do not consider trading my wealth for God's rewards and pleasure as
bankruptcy."

He does not
give others in order to buy their affection or friendship; rather, he considers
giving with generosity as a good trait whereby man gets nearer to his Maker by
including His servants in the wealth with which He blessed him. This is the
difference between his method of giving and the method of others.

Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Nawbakhti is quoted saying:

"A man
passed by Imam Reza (A.S.) and begged him to give him according to the extent
of his kindness. He said: I cannot afford that.' So he said: Then give me
according to mine,' whereupon he ordered his servant to give the man two
hundred dinars."

The reason why
the Imam Reza (A.S.) abstained from giving the man according to the extent of
his own kindness, as the man asked him the first time, is probably due to the
fact that he simply did not have as much money as he liked to give. As regarding his own affection towards the poor and the indigent,
and his way of looking after them.

Mu'ammar ibn Khallad
narrates this anecdote:

"Whenever
Imam Abul-Hassan al-Reza (A.S.) was about to eat his
meal, he would bring a large platter and select the choicest food on the table
and put on it, then he would order it to be given away to the poor. After that
he would recite the following verse: But he hath made no haste on the path
that is steep.' After that he would say: God, the Exalted and the Sublime,
knows that not everyone has the ability to free a slave, nevertheless He found
means for them to achieve Paradise (by feeding
others).'"

RESPECT FOR HUMANITY

Imam Reza's
(A.S.) behavior with the poor, the slaves, the servants, and the destitute, was
humane in the deepest sense of the word. He looked on them as his
co-religionists and brothers in humanity. One of his followers related the
following:

I was with
Imam Reza (A.S.) when he travelled to Khurasan. One day he laid the table-cloth and gathered all
his servants. "May I be your ransom, said I, "would not it be better
if you lay a separate table-cloth for these?' "Do not say that" the
Holy Imam (A.S.) replied, "The Lord, the Blessed and High, is One, and all the human beings are the children of Adam and
Eve, and everyone shall be rewarded or punished according to his deeds.

One of his
servants Nadir, says: Imam Reza (A.S.) would never
assign a task to any of us, the servants, while we were eating, until we had
finished.

Another
servant, Yasir, reported the same about Imam Reza
(A.S.), saying, "Abul Hasan
said to us: "If I request you to do something and you are eating, do not
get up until you have finished". Sometimes he called for some of us, but
when he was told that we were eating, he would say. "Leave them till they
finish their food".

When Imam Reza
(A.S.) had spare time, he would gather all his servants, and talk to them. He
would show his pleasure with them, which he did to please them. And when he sat
at the dining table-cloth, he would invite all those around him, to eat food
with him.

TOTAL DEVOTION TO ALLAH

Imam Reza
(A.S.) was the best worshipper of his time. Even his enemies acknowledged this
fact and could not ignore this prominent trait of his. Mamun,
the Abbasid caliph, for instance praises the virtues of Imam Reza (A.S.) in the
"Covenant of Allegiance", in which he declared His Holiness as his
successor.

Reja bin Zahhak, who forced Imam Reza (A.S.)
into exile from Medina to Marw
on the orders of Mamun, the Abbasid caliph, also
describes the Holy Imam's piety and worship saying "I accompanied him from
Medina to Marw. I swear by
Allah! I have never seen a man who remembered Allah all the time like him, nor
have I seen a man more fearing Allah, the Mighty and High, than he. At day
break he would say his morning-prayers. Finishing his prayer, he would stay in
his place glorifying Allah, and reciting these phrases repeatedly 'Praise is to
Allah', 'Allah is Great', 'There is no god but Allah', "O Lord, Bless
Muhammad (S.A.W.) and his progeny" till sunrise. Then he would go down in
prostration till sunrise. Then he would go down in prostration till forenoon.
Then he would see the people, asking about their concerns and enjoining them to
do good. This would last till noon.

Ibrahim bin Abbas, one of the
high-ranking officials during Mamun's reign, said
about the Holy Imam's worship.

"He slept
little at night, staying awake most of it. Most of the
time, he stayed awake till the morning. He also often fasted. He used to fast
three days of every month. He called this fasting "Fasting of
Lifetime". He was very charitable, giving out alms in secret to the needy,
often at night. Who ever claims that he has seen someone else
who matches him in his virtues, do not believe him."

HUMILITY

A guest once
kept entertaining him part of the night when the lamp started fading and the
guest stretched his hand to fix it, but Imam Abul-Hassan
al-Reza (A.S.) swiftly checked him and fixed it himself, saying, "We are
folks who do not let their guest tend on them."

Al-Manaqib states that Imam Reza (A.S.) once went to the
public bath-house and someone asked him to give him a massage, so he kept
giving the man a massage till someone recognized him and told that person who
that dignitary was. The man felt extremely embarrassed; he apologized to the
Imam (A.S.) and gave him a massage.

GOLDEN
CHAIN HADITH

Once when our
8th Imam, Imam Ali ar-Ridha (A.S.) was travelling through a town called Nishapur,
the people of the town asked Imam (A.S.) to tell them a hadith
from the Prophet (S.A.W.).

Imam Ali ar-Ridha (A.S.) told them the following hadith:
"My father Musa al-Kadhim
(A.S.) told me,
from his father Ja'far as-Sadiq
(A.S.),
from his father Muhammad al-Baqir (A.S.),
from his father Ali Zainul Abideen
(A.S.),
from his father the martyr of Kerbala (Hussain) (A.S.),
from his father Ali ibn Abu Talib
(A.S.),
from the Holy Prophet (S.A.W.).
from Jibrail (A.S.),
from Almighty Allah:

"The Kalima of 'La ilaha illallah' is My fort, and
whosoever says it will enter My fort, and whosoever enters My fort is safe from
My punishment."

This hadith is known as the golden chain hadith.
This is because each member of the chain was a Masoom.
The people of Nishapur began reciting the Kalima. Imam Ali ar-Ridha (A.S.)
continued, that there was one condition to the safety in this fort and that was
that they had to obey and follow the Imams (A.S.).

Moral:

Just to say
something will be of no use. Only when you understand what you are saying and
believe in it enough to follow it then will it be of use to you.

COMMAND OF
ALLAH

The people of
king Mamun were very angry that he had made our 8th
Imam, Imam Ali ar-Ridha (A.S.), his heir.

To show Imam
Ali ar-Ridha (A.S.) that they did not respect him,
the servants of Mamun decided that when Imam (A.S.)
came to the court they would not open the doors, or lift up the curtains for
Imam (A.S.) to pass through.

That day when
Imam Ali ar-Ridha (A.S.) came to the court, the doors
and curtains were opening by themselves for Imam (A.S.) under the command of
Allah.

The servants
became very scared and ashamed and resumed their duty of opening the doors and
curtains for Imam (A.S.).

Moral:

No-one can do
anything to you when Allah is looking after you, as Allah is the most powerful
and in control of everything.