The Messenger of Allah - may Allah bestow peace and benedictions upon him and his Progeny - said: "Verily, I am leaving behind two precious things (thaqalayn) among you: the Book of God and my kindred (itrah), my household (Ahl alBayt), for indeed, the two will never separate until they come back to me by the Pond (of alKawthar on the Judgement's Day)."
Imam Khumayni - ridwan Allah alayh - began his wasiyyah or will with the mention of this tradition of the Prophet (S), known as Hadith alThaqalayn. In the prologue to his wasiyyah he pointed out that whatever tragedies and disasters befell the Muslim world during the last fourteen centuries have been mainly due to its estrangement from the Thaqalayn, the twofold legacy of the Prophet (S) in the form of the Qur'an and the Ahl alBayt (A).
The extent of the estrangement of the Qur'an will be obvious to anyone who closely examines its teachings and contrasts them with the popular religion of the masses and the prevailing religious ethos, even among the scholars and the intelligentsia. There is certainly a wide gulf that lies between the message and spirit of the Glorious Qur'an and the way Islam has come to be practised in Muslim society, a gulf which has never been so wide as it became in recent centuries under the influence of the West and the tyrannical regimes that have been ruling over Muslims.
The extent of the estrangement suffered by the Prophet's Household will be obvious to anyone who studies the history of the Imams of the Ahl alBayt (A), who were isolated from the Muslim masses by despots and left without support in their struggle against the tyrannical regimes of Banu Umayyah and Banu Abbas. The result was that the most authentic exponents and defenders of the Qur'an - whom the tides of time will never separate from the Qur'an until the Day of Judgement, as stated by the Noble Prophet (S) - were put under severe surveillance, exiled, imprisoned, poisoned and martyred, and the masses were deprived of their guidance and leadership.
Having removed the Ahl alBayt (A) from their way, the road was opened by the selfseeking tyrants for making the Holy Qur'an itself an instrument for the justification of their antiQur'anic rule. "They forced," as Imam Khumayni says, "the true exponents of the Qur'an... off the stage with various ploys and systematic plans. In this way, they in fact, eliminated the Qur'an itself, the Qur'an which was the greatest programme for organizing man's material and spiritual life, and rejected its plan of government based on Divine justice, which was and remains one of the ideals of this sacred scripture. Thus they laid the foundations of deviation from the Din and the Book of God, bringing things ultimately to an indescribable extreme."
If today the custodians of American Islam with their petrodollars conspire against the aspirations of the Muslim masses inspired by the genuine Islam, so did once the Umayyad and Abbasid tyrants stand in the way of Islam and seek to isolate and destroy its exponents, the Imams of the Ahl alBayt (A), and promote a counterfeit version of Islam. But no matter how much they tried they could not extirpate the Prophet's exhortations regarding the Ahl alBayt and conceal the unbreakable link between the Book of God and the Prophet's Itrah, in the form of Hadith alThaqalayn and scores of other traditions similar to it.
This hadith has continued to be narrated by each generation of authentic Shii and Sunni traditionists and scholars throughout the last fourteen centuries. Reliable and trustworthy narrators of each generation, from the days of the Prophet's committed Companions - may God be pleased with them - to the present, including many or rather most of the greatest and leading figures in the history of Islamic scholarship have narrated this hadith. It is in view of this undeniable fact that Imam Khumayni declared in his wasiyyah:
It is essential to point out that Hadith alThaqalayn is a mutawatir tradition amongst all Muslims. It has been narrated in Sunni sources - including the Six Sihah as well as other books - from the Holy Prophet (S) in different wordings, and as having been spoken by him on repeated occasions. This tradition is a definite proof (hujjah) for all mankind, in particular for the Muslims, regardless of sect. And all Muslims are answerable (before God) concerning it. For it leaves no room for any excuse for any one. And should there be room for an excuse for the ignorant and the uninformed, there isn't any for the scholars of various schools.
As we know, the tradition or ahadith of the Holy Prophet (S) recorded in the books of Muslim traditionists begin with chains of transmitters on whose authority the traditionist reports the Prophet's acts or statements. Experts of hadith amongst Muslims have developed certain criteria for assessing the reliability of different chains of transmission and ascertaining the authenticity of the contents of traditions. They have developed a terminology with terms denoting various classifications of hadith depending on the character, strength or weakness of narrators and other factors, such as mutawatir, ahad, sahih, hasan, qawi, daif, etc.
By tawatur is meant the multiplicity of the sources of a certain report that leads to certitude in the listener that the report is indeed true. One's knowledge of the existence of distant countries and towns and such historical figures as Cyrus or Napolean may be said to be based on the tawatur of reports that one hears about them. So also is one's knowledge of the contemporary events not witnessed by him.
A mutawatir hadith is one which has been reported by so many different chains of transmission and such a number of narrators in every generation as normally could not agree to fabricate a tradition without the fact of its fabrication becoming known. Although some jurisprudents have specified a particular minimum for the number of narrators, such as five, seven, ten or even hundred, it is generally held that no particular number can be specified and the number capable of producing certitude depends on the experience of the listener.
Islamic jurisprudents have set forth certain conditions for a tradition to be mutawatir. AlGhazali in alMustasfa min ilm al'usul [1] mentions the following conditions.
(1) That the transmitters should report on the basis of knowledge (ilm) and not conjecture (zann).
(2) Their knowledge should have been acquired through the senses.
(3) That the number of narrators should be sufficient to produce certitude.
(4) That all the links in the chains of transmission of a report should fulfil the first two conditions and their number in every stage of transmission must fulfil the third condition.
AlShaykh alHasan ibn Zayn alDin, the Shii author of Maalim al'usul, mentions similar conditions for a report to be mutawatir. As can be seen, the legal condition of adalah (justice) is not required for the narrators nor are they required to be thiqah when the conditions of tawatur are fulfilled. Rather, alGhazali states explicitly that in such cases knowledge is attained even if the narrators should be fasiq. The author of Maalim states two conditions in order for a mutawatir report to produce knowledge in the listener:
(1) The listener should not have previous knowledge of the matter, for it is not possible to know something that one already knows.
(2) The listener should not be inhibited by doubt or imitation (taqlid) in his belief, for then the report will fail to make any impression upon him.